Guest post by Thomas Fuller
The paper ‘Expert Credibility in Climate Change,’ published in PNAS by Anderegg, the late Stephen Schneider, James Prall and Jacob Harold attempts to measure the credibility of climate scientists by counting how many papers they have published and how often their work has been cited by others.
This led to the creation of a blacklist that will be used to injure the careers of those who have signed letters or petitions that do not agree with the Al Gore/James Hansen position on climate change, and to intimidate future scientists, effectively silencing dissent.
The paper is poorly done, as I’ve explained elsewhere. They used Google Scholar instead of an academic database. They searched only in English, despite the global nature of climate science. They got names wrong. They got job titles wrong. They got incorrect numbers of publications and citations.
As I’ve mentioned, the highly respected Spencer Weart dismissed the paper as rubbish, saying it should not have been published.
But the worst part of this is the violation of the rights of those they studied. Because Prall keeps lists of skeptical scientists on his weblog, obsessively trawling through online petitions and published lists of letters, and because those lists were used as part of the research, anyone now or in the future can have at their fingertips the names of those who now or in the past dared to disagree.
The Joe Romm’s of this world have already called for this list to be used to deny funding, tenure and grants to scientists. And it will be. It doesn’t matter that the nature of the letters and petitions they signed varied widely, from outright skepticism to really innocuous questioning of the state of the science.
The paper is tagged ‘Climate Deniers.’ Now, so are they.
This is an outright violation of every ethical code of conduct for research that has ever been published.
They violate several sections of the American Sociological Association Ethical Guidelines:
“Sociologists conduct research, teach, practice, and provide service only within the boundaries of their competence, based on their education, training, supervised experience, or appropriate professional experience.”
The members of the research team were operating outside their areas of professional competence.
“Sociologists refrain from undertaking an activity when their personal circumstances may interfere with their professional work or lead to harm for a student, supervisee, human subject, client, colleague, or other person to whom they have a scientific, teaching, consulting, or other professional obligation.” The subjects of their research–the scientists on the list–risk grave harm as a result of this paper.
“11. Confidentiality
Sociologists have an obligation to ensure that confidential information is protected. They do so to ensure the integrity of research and the open communication with research participants and to protect sensitive information obtained in research, teaching, practice, and service. When gathering confidential information, sociologists should take into account the long-term uses of the information, including its potential placement in public archives or the examination of the information by other researchers or
practitioners.
11.01 Maintaining Confidentiality
(a) Sociologists take reasonable precautions to protect the confidentiality rights of research participants, students, employees, clients, or others.
(b) Confidential information provided by research participants, students, employees, clients, or others is treated as such by sociologists even if there is no legal protection or privilege to do so. Sociologists have an obligation to protect confidential information and not allow information gained in confidence from
being used in ways that would unfairly compromise research participants, students, employees, clients, or others.
(c) Information provided under an understanding of confidentiality is treated as such even after the death of those providing that information.
(d) Sociologists maintain the integrity of confidential deliberations, activities, or
roles, including, where applicable, that of professional committees, review panels,
or advisory groups (e.g., the ASA Committee on Professional Ethics).
(e) Sociologists, to the extent possible, protect the confidentiality of student records,
performance data, and personal information, whether verbal or written, given in the context of academic consultation, supervision, or advising.
(f) The obligation to maintain confidentiality extends to members of research or training teams and collaborating organizations who have access to the information. To ensure that access to confidential information is restricted, it is the responsibility of researchers, administrators, and principal investigators to instruct staff to take the steps necessary to protect confidentiality.
(g) When using private information about individuals collected by other persons or institutions, sociologists protect the confidentiality of individually identifiable information. Information is private when an individual can reasonably expect that the information will not be made public with personal identifiers (e.g., medical or employment records).”
I think it is clear that the paper, wrong on the facts, is unethical in its intent and outcome. I call for the pape to be withdrawn and for Prall’s website to take down the Blacklist.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
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Thanks Tom. This is well put.
However, I think it unlikely that your wishes will be granted, especially with respect to Prall’s website. I think the operative mentality is that “the ends justify the means.”
As for Romm’s predictable desire to use the list as a blacklist, we can only hope that enough department heads and funding agencies are made of sterner stuff. I’m not all certain which way the chips will fall. Organizations have a natural tendency to avoid risk, and I can well imagine a hirer deciding that hiring “skeptic” X might jeopardize funding. Hiring consensus scientist Y may seem a safer choice.
This paper and the shameful attempts of the team at Realclimate, Climate Progress and other rabid pro-AGW websites to justify this paper show us the nature of the beast we are dealing with. These are people without any shame, ethics or morals. They will stoop to any low levels for their agenda, which has nothing to do with science. To call any of these people as ” scientists ” any further is an insult to science.
How is information that is available if you trawl the web in any way confidential? How is releasing it in different forms a breach of confidentiality? (It might be a breach of copyright, depending on how it was passed on, but that is a different issue.)
Of course these morons are maddened. Angry that their pet theory is scientifically absurd. Delusional as shown by the propensity only to listen to the echo chamber. Ignorant in that many are speculating well outside their field or intelligence. These people remind me of government economists.
Now can we get to the point where we can clean up the Chesapeake, restore the Grand Banks, reintroduce sturgeon into American rivers, , cure introduced avian diseases, regrow Chestnut forests, restore the Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Florida marshes and make wild life corridors that work throughout the country, etc.? I mean real action as opposed to this silly crap that is designed to be a UN permanent tax on the world?
What is the direct reference to Romm (or any of his minions) actually stating an intention to use such a list to deny funding (if such a thing exists)?
No matter what the pressures of the current socio-political climate may be, I hope that this article will inspire many to reconsider the high calling of their professions as physicians, scientists, researchers, and sociologists, and remember at this time the great Western guiding principle:
Primum non nocere
‘Watts up with that’ published it’s own ‘blacklist’.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/25/seven-eminent-physicists-that-are-skeptical-of-agw/
[REPLY – Oh, come off it. (Or maybe you were being ironic?) ~ Evan]
Ironically, this ____ will hide behind free-speech rights.
Perhaps the PNAS authors of the list should study a management/recruiting problem called the “Comfortable Clone Syndrome”, viz;
Managers who dislike conflict or who value only their own approach often fall victim to the comfortable clone syndrome, surrounding themselves with people who think alike and who share similar interests and training.
This is a common problem in businesses and, no doubt, universities, study groups, research institutions, etc.
Scientific fascism is as alive today as it was in Nazi Germany. If that offends some, then sorry, but it is patently so.
[while this post may be offensive to some it does not target any individuals. so it is allowed ~mod]
It’s worse than I thought.. Really.
That is just a list of suggested ethics, guidelines, and really rules. The people disparaging the people on the list regard ethics as a subjective consideration. To those people, lying is ok if the objective is valued as more than the indiscretion. Cheating is less of an evil if the end result brings one to a high platitude. Life? Well, that is subjective also. Choice? Everyone has a choice!! If the proper laws are passed, you can choose to do what you’re told.———–Modern day relative morality.
I don’t know much about the science of GW or AGW or Physics, etc. But when I took algebra my instructor told me to “show my work”. She didn’t care if I accidentally had the right answer – if I didn’t show my work I got a ZERO for the day. If I had told her that my data base was proprietary, or that I am a bad housekeeper and can’t find my original data maybe threw it out accidentally, etc., I earned a Zero for that day. Since reading about AGW I have never before in my life seen such a catalog of lame excuses. And for me to come back later, term after term to “adjust” my old numbers up or down in the hope of approaching a more believable answer was completely out of the question because I had already Earned my ZERO.
The leftists that are at the rotten core of the AGW pseudo-science have been blacklisting skeptics for a long time.
The PNAS paper simply places it in the open and places the Academy of Sciences seal of approval on it.
Publishing this article was shameful act on the part of the Academy , but its corruption is now open for all to see. In time this will be seen as a watershed event.
So far, this paper doesn’t bring luck to its authors…
The publishers of the blacklist may suceed in getting a lot of science shut down, institutions and all, when Congress tires of defending the reasons for their existence, when $$$ is tight.
Failure to clean house may mean no house period.
No NOAA, GISS, NSIDC, etc.
Such would be an unintended consequence, but possible nonetheless.
Bad apples in barrel, toss barrel.
‘Watts up with that’ published it’s own ‘blacklist’.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/25/seven-eminent-physicists-that-are-skeptical-of-agw/
[REPLY – Oh, come off it. (Or maybe you were being ironic?) ~ Evan]
No irony, it is a list identifying people who are skeptical of Climate change, as the PNAS paper is being called a ‘blacklist’ for listing people who are skeptical AGW, how is it any diferent?
REPLY: I agree with Evan, but since you can’t figure out the differences yourself, I’ll lay it out for you.
1. We didn’t compile the list, Popular Technology did. We reposted it here by request.
2. There were only seven people on the list, easily identifiable to everyone from the context of their prior discussions. It was obvious and “matter of fact”.
3. Poptech did not make any judgments, scoring, or qualitative analysis of the scientists.
4. Poptech did not publish the list in a journal with scores assigned to the names of the scientists.
5. Poptech did not draw any conclusion on reliability of the scientists work or quality of their publications like the PNAS paper did.
6. WUWT made no contribution beyond #1.
Your comparison is a ridiculous reach. Sorry, but it won’t wash here. – Anthony
Portugal is a skeptic country! 50% of the scientists here are skeptics. OK, Schneider et al. only counted two scientists here, and one was skeptic… Even these two are not commonly known, so it tells how good this BS paper really is.
Ecotretas
These people aren’t scientists, they are nothing more than playground bullies. At the moment they appear to be playing a game called how low can you go, the answer apparently being, abyssal.
About the only merit I can find in the AGW theory, is its a noble lie, whose unintended consequences would be the death of millions, or maybe that is the intended consequence.
Shouldn’t talk ill of the departed, I know.
Saw the AGW theory lying forlorn in a field the other day, I rushed over, as you do, to see if maybe a vet could help, but it was too late.
I knelt down and patted the poor old thing, thinking, at the least it would know it wasn’t alone.
However it was cold to the touch, and I figured it must of expired during the night. On closer inspection, I could see that it had been terribly diseased for some time. I think, but i’m no vet, it had Galloping Hubris. Thats the old name of course, country vet lingo, these days they call it Post-Modern-Sarcoma. Along with that most horrid of conditions, I could see something like gang-green had probably finished it off.
The rot had set in some time ago, goodness only knows how it had managed to last this long, I think it must of received some kind of pallative care. Probably those hippy kids down the road, bringing it little nuggets to nibble on, that was ultimately a misplaced kindness. It suffered unnecessarily, had the initial disease run its course, it would of passed away years ago.
Thats the thing about propping up a dead horse, you just prolong the misery, a bit like that War-On-Terrier across the road. Barks like mad but doesn’t get anywhere with it,
left a hell of a mess last time it got out, puking up all over the place, probably been chewing on some dead old theory floating face down in a creek somewhere.
How about that: The New Inquisition.
It’s a weak mind and a terrible constitution which sees itself threatened by serious and considered questions, all of them valid and logical.
To what will they next resort? ‘Hunter-killer’ teams to ‘neutralize’ us?
Shall we all be rounded up and tortured into false confessions?
Well, as my dear Mother once reminded me: What comes around, eventually goes around …
Everything equals out in the end.
Fitzy says: (August 5, 2010 at 11:32 pm) …left a hell of a mess last time it got out, puking up all over the place, probably been chewing on some dead old theory floating face down in a creek somewhere.
Sweet, Fitzy!
A welcome relief to the day.
JCrabbe. I don’t get your point. AW did not create these lists of skeptics and lemmings. They were published as sort of an IQ test of Who’s Who.
Ecotretas says:
August 5, 2010 at 11:21 pm
“Portugal is a skeptic country! 50% of the scientists here are skeptics.”
According to the papers in my country, 100% of the scientists are warmistas. The rest don’t count.
It is a horrible paradox. Real scientists are emotionally detached from the issues, or, rather, that is a attribute they ascribe to. Yet, there are some people that call themselves “scientists” based on the field of study and level of education.
In my view, a scientist is someone engaged in the study of a science. In the world view, a scientist is someone who has a degree and calls themselves a scientist.
Wouldn’t it be a nice world if a scientist engaged in science and a
politician, sorry a policy maker engaged in policy instead of the other way around?This is a normal outcome in Socialism :
In this society you thrive for 100% equality and 100% safety for everyone. Now, if everyone shall be equal, you need everyone to behave according to the same standards. You need 100% control of those who wants to step out of line. You will need control of information.
If you dont have control of information, people will read “damaging” texts.
So, cencurship is of the outmost importance in a socialistic society. According to “them”, this is in order to protect us all against the “contra revolutionaries”.
Are there no laws in the US to stop these forces from evolving?