Acceptance Sampling in Quality Control

Book Reviews 1185

various studies reported by Idso et al. (2011).Montford uses the failure of the hockey stick toquestion the efficacy of peer review, to highlight theabsence of statistical expertise within the IPCC andto draw attention to other instances of

‘important scientific papers underpinning gov-ernment policy positions’

being found to be questionable. He also has manyworthwhile observations to make about the pro-motion and testing of scientific hypotheses, espe-cially with regard to global warming. He notes abroad agreement that the hockey stick chart is notan essential, nor even an important, part of the casefor man-made global warming but points out that,despite this, the ‘IPCC promoted it as if it were’. Hereports other machinations within the IPCC andconcludes that it is ‘corrupt, biased, and beset byconflicts of interest’. This is powerful stuff, whichin my view subsequent revelations about the IPCCin 2010 and 2011 have only served to confirm.

Chapters 16 and 17 were added shortly beforepublication in an attempt to reflect some dramaticdevelopments. The first came when an editor ofa Royal Society journal chose to stick to its pub-lished rules regarding the disclosure of data by au-thors, and who responded favourably to a request byMcIntyre for the data that were relevant to a paperon tree ring measurements. It was late in 2009 beforehe received them and, with some detective work onhis part, he could further demolish another case ofthe selective use of tree rings for temperature recon-struction. The second new development was ‘Cli-mategate’, the publishing in November 2009 of a setof e-mails hacked, stolen or otherwise leaked fromthe Climatic Research Unit at the University of EastAnglia. These e-mails are by now much more widelyknown and studied, but Montford’s selection, sum-mary and comments stand that test of time. In brief,the e-mails revealed an unedifying culture of a smallgroup of scientists who were intent on defendingtheir views by intimidation, corruption of peerreview and the suppression of opposing positions, aswell as the now notorious description of ‘Mike’s Na-ture trick’ to ‘hide the decline’ in tree ring proxy tem-peratures in the 20th century, a decline which oughtproperly to have been made more prominent as itraised questions about the general reliability of treering proxies. Insider comments on computer codeat the Climatic Research Unit released at the sametime also reveal poor data quality management andsoftware. All of this confirmed what McIntyre andMcKitrick and others had previously only guessedat.

This book is an impressive and important work,one that could be an eye-opener for students ofstatistics, but also an inspiration for them as they see

the power of careful and conscientious attention todetail in pursuing complex data analyses (analyseswhich the student could replicate by using data pro-vided at http://climateaudit.org/proxy-data/ and http://climateaudit.org/station-data/). But more importantly, in the nearfuture, the book should be an eye-opener for politi-cians, and an encouragement for them to insist onthorough and independent investigation of claimspublished in scientific journals when these are usedto underpin extremely important policy decisions.That the book is written in a lucid style, supportedby 270 references, and captures attention like a gooddetective novel, should provide further encourage-ment for many types of reader. In my view it isessential reading for those who seek insight into theastonishing political success of the global warmingmovement.

ReferencesGraybill, D. A. and Idso, S. B. (1993) Detecting the

aerial fertilization effect of atmospheric CO2 enrich-ment in tree-ring chronologies. Glob. Biogeochem.Cycles, 7, 81–95.

Idso, K. E., Idso, C. D. and Idso, S. B. (2011) Centerfor the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.(Available from http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php.)

Mann, M. E., Bradley, R. S. and Hughes, M. K. (1998)Global-scale temperature patterns and climateforcing over the past six centuries. Nature, 392, 779–787.

John ShadeDunfermline

Acceptance Sampling in Quality ControlE. G. Schilling and D. V. Neubauer, 2009BocaRaton, CRC Pressxxxviii + 684 pp., £72.99ISBN 978-1-584-88952-6

This is a very well presented book, covering theclassic topics of inspection sampling in a thorough,lucid and insightful way. These topics, such as thevarious military standard plans for ‘attributes’ and‘variables’, rectification schemes, continuous sam-pling plans and compliance and reliability sampling,were a major part of industrial quality control pro-cedures from the 1920s right through to the 1980s,by which time they were beginning to be eclipsedby drives for process improvement in which oneslogan was ‘zero defects’, and in which the spiritwas very much about preventing defects from hap-pening rather than detecting and/or removing themonce they had. Textbooks from the 1940s onwardson industrial statistics typically had large sections

1186 Book Reviews

on sampling inspection, whereas in those from the1980s onwards such sections will typically be smallor even absent. Yet the tasks that this bookaddresses remain important. For example, what isthe buyer or user to do when presented with a batchor a stream of items that are scheduled to bedeployed into a manufacturing or other process? Ifthe items are very cheap, and defects easily spottedor fixed before use, then there may be little concern,but otherwise there is some worrying to do aboutwhether the items will all be sufficiently good. Itemsfrom a process that is known to be of very highquality may call for very modest levels of inspec-tion—the occasional audit perhaps, whereas itemsfrom an unknown or an untrusted process may callfor considerable checks and corrections dependingon the level of quality assurance that is required. Ibelieve that it is very worthwhile to have this up-to-date work, one which does include a contemporary

discussion of limitations and pitfalls of sampling,as well as of benefits.

The book’s focus is firmly in the manufacturingsector, the sector which inspired the great bulk ofthe statistical work covered. But non-manufactur-ing applications are there to be explored by anal-ogy, such as the sampling of sets of invoices formistakes, or data streams for bit errors or travel-lers for contraband. This book is an elegant andcomprehensive resource for the knowledgeable user,and so well written that the beginner will also find itcongenial and rewarding albeit necessarily terse attimes. There are exercises at the end of each chapterto help students to test their grasp, with answersprovided at the end of the book. An appendixcontains 200 or so pages of tables.

John ShadeDunfermline