This Thesis Has Been Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for a Postgraduate Degree (E.G
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This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. The Making of Dendroclimatological Knowledge A Symmetrical Account of Trust and Scepticism in Science Meritxell Ramírez-i-Ollé PhD in Science and Technology Studies The University of Edinburgh 2015 Declaration Date: 11 September 2015. I certify that the work contained within has been composed by me and is entirely my own work. No part of this thesis has been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. Small parts of Chapters 1 and 3 have been published in Ramírez-i-Ollé, Meritxell “The Social Life of Climate Science”, Method Quarterly, Issue 2, accessed 20 July 2015. <http://www.methodquarterly.com/2015/02/the-social-life-of-climate-science/ This thesis has been proofread by a professional editor who has made no contribution to the intellectual content of the thesis or been involved in rewriting text. 2 For Ivan and my family. 3 Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... 9 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... 10 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 11 1.1. My Motivation ................................................................................................................... 11 1.2. My Aim .............................................................................................................................. 15 1.3. My Argument ..................................................................................................................... 23 1.4. My Methodology ................................................................................................................ 29 1.5. The Structure of the Thesis ................................................................................................ 44 Dendroclimatological Knowledge .............................................................................................. 48 The Making of Dendroclimatological Knowledge 2 Fieldwork .......................................................................................................................... 52 2.1 The Production of Samples ................................................................................................ 52 2. 2 The Scottish Pine Project Fieldwork Expedition ............................................................... 62 2. 2.1. The Social Division of Fieldwork ............................................................................. 62 2.2.2 The Moral Economy of Fieldwork ............................................................................ 66 2.2.3 The Ethos of the Heroic Fieldworker......................................................................... 69 2.2.4 The Calibrated Body of the Fieldworker ................................................................... 77 2.2.5 The Rituals of Domestic Intimacy ............................................................................. 81 2. 3 Discussion .......................................................................................................................... 84 3 Tree-Ring Dating ............................................................................................................. 88 3.1 The Creation of Tree-Ring Chronologies........................................................................... 88 3. 2 Counting Tree-Rings ......................................................................................................... 96 3.2.1 Interpreting Tree-Rings .............................................................................................. 96 3.2.2 Representing Tree-Rings ......................................................................................... 102 3.2.3 Comparing Tree-Rings ............................................................................................ 106 3.3 Discussion ........................................................................................................................ 120 4 4 Tree-Ring Parameters ................................................................................................... 124 4. 1. The Generation of Estimates of Climate ...................................................................... 124 4. 2 The Development of Blue Intensity.............................................................................. 130 4. 2. 1 Experiments ............................................................................................................. 130 4.2.2 Workshop ................................................................................................................. 132 4.2.3 Conferences ............................................................................................................. 136 4.2.4. Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles ............................................................................... 138 4.3 Discussion ........................................................................................................................ 144 5 Standardisation .............................................................................................................. 149 5.1. The Extraction of the Climate Signal from Noisy Data ................................................... 149 5. 2 Cleaning the Scottish Data ............................................................................................... 155 5.2.1. Identifying Noise ..................................................................................................... 155 2.2.2 Confirming Noise .................................................................................................... 158 5.2.3. Eliminating Noise .................................................................................................... 160 5. 3. Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 167 6 Reconstruction................................................................................................................ 171 6.1 The Establishment of Extrapolations Back in Time......................................................... 171 6. 2. Finitist Climate Reconstructions .................................................................................. 176 6. 2.1 Trained Variation and Natural Selection ................................................................. 176 6. 2. 2. Complementarity ................................................................................................... 191 6. 3. Discussion .................................................................................................................... 198 7 Controversy .................................................................................................................... 202 7.1 The Sceptical Challenge to Dendroclimatology............................................................... 202 7. 2 The “Community Response” ............................................................................................ 209 7. 3 The Amplification of the Controversy in the Online World ............................................ 214 7. 4. The (Temporary) Closure of the Controversy .................................................................. 217 7.5 Discussion ........................................................................................................................ 226 5 8 Conclusions ..................................................................................................................... 236 8.1. The “Externalisation” of Dendroclimatological Knowledge and Trust ........................... 238 8.2. (Un) Civil Scepticism as a Function of “Embeddedness”................................................ 251 CODA Back to the Field .................................................................................................... 259 Appendix 1 The “Core-Set” of Dendroclimatology .......................................................... 261 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 267 Sources of data …………………………………………………………………………….......278 6 Illustrations Image 1. My two research subjects and me. ..................................................................................... 30 Image 2. Jane Goodall and me observing our research subjects....................................................... 33 Image 3. Jane Goodall and the analogy of friendship as my methodology.