Watts Up With That?

The "Hockey Stick" Fallacy which propelled global warming hysterics back when it denied the entire MIddle Age Warming Period and a subsequent "Little Ice Age" which may both have been caused by sunspot variations has a new relative.

Check the link to see the number of "retractions" as the so-called peer-review process is becoming the latest variation of a hockey-stick graph.

[T]here were just 22 retraction notices that appeared in journals 10 years ago, but 139 were published in 2006 and by last year, the number reached 339. Through July of this year, there were a total 210 retractions, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science, which maintains an index of 11,600 peer-reviewed journals.

Meanwhile, retractions related to fraud rose more than sevenfold between 2004 and 2009, exceeding a twofold rise traced to mistakes, according to an analysis published in the Journal of Medical Ethics. After studying 742 papers that were withdrawn from 2000 to 2010, the analysis found that 73.5 percent were retracted simply for error, but 26.6 percent were retracted for fraud. Ominously, 31.8 percent of retracted papers were not noted as retracted

For more info on retractions, go to http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/08/surging-retractions-in-scientific.html and see how the great God Science has feet of soft clay while the rains pour down upon it. Like Ozymandias or Obamandias, perhaps.