The value of that cranked eyebrow

Been a bit quiet here of late.

More than I'd like.

It's just that, on top of the day job, I have been trying to stay on top of some rather hairy bits and bobs swirling around the blogosphere regarding the science of climate change.

And it's still swirling, at least in some quarters.

Which makes a little episode I was involved in today all the more pertinent.

From this blog:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ethicalman/2009/11/a_guide_to_making_your_fortune.html#comments

It's all up there (for now... excuse me if I have some concerns about stealth editing from on high in certain quarters) so I'll just past the last one:

Further to my last post, I have now heard again from the BBC, and as it is not fully referred to in the note above, feel the explanation is worth sharing:

We owe you an apology.

The post as originally published did indeed contain a mistake, which was
corrected on Sunday morning.

We have now published an update to the blog, which makes this clear.

The reason we confidently informed you that no amendments had been made
to the blog was that we believed only one person on duty on Sunday had
the privileges required to make changes to Justin Rowlatt's blog - and
that person made no changes the copy. We have since discovered that
there was another person on duty with the ability to change the blog,
and this person made the change referred to in the blog comments.

Apologies again for getting it wrong in our first reply to your
complaint.

To which I have replied:

But I think you may owe the guy who spotted it more of one, and thanks for catching it. Which kind makes the general point I was making about a policy of flagging changes even more pertinent.

Order, for now, one trusts, is restored. But it does show the value of checking, and persistence. On top of not being above a cranked eyebrow when things do not seem to be adding up.

Indeed.