"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."

So said Albert Einstein about something else altogether. (I wish I knew what. This line is all over the place as an "Einstein quote," but without context.) An article in The Register, Painting by numbers: NASA's peculiar thermometer, says that that seems to be what NASA, under the supervision of James Hansen, has been doing with their "adjusted" temperature records. Never mind that the data are inaccurate anyway, applying adjustments, otherwise known as massaging the data, can make it all come out to suit any preconceptions one might happen to have.

Kind of like scientific beer goggles.

From Jerry Pournelle's mail.