Dr. Harold Lewis sent this today via email with a request to make it public here. I’m happy to oblige. Read the letter to understand the movie poster.- Anthony
Dear Curt:
When on October 6 I sent you my letter of resignation from APS , I of course expected the Empire to strike back in one way or another. It pleased me however, when I read your response, to find a very minimum of ad hominem attacks, confined mostly to apparently irresistible eruptions of “Lewis is a liar.” (“His statements are all false” is the equivalent.) So I thank you for that courtesy.
What took me by surprise was the pusillanimous, almost puerile, tone of the comment, which reads more like an ad for a used-car lot than as a declaration of a great scientific society. All our products have passed a complete inspection by our factory-trained mechanics. We’re making no money on this, take it and be thankful. Etc. Not a single major issue confronted in any substantive way. Yet everyone knows about the sloppy handling of the 2007 statement; everyone knows about the financial investments of many of the major players; there is plenty of dirt in the public domain, yet you continue to pretend it is all in a different universe.
Curt, you cannot have written such a shabby document.
Roger Cohen has written an incisive deconstruction of your response, and I can add little, so let me turn to the repair options. For the record, though my resignation from APS gives me no standing, my objective here is to help slow the APS rush toward the cliff. This is what I think must be done at the proximate meeting of the Council.
1.The 2007 statement should be simply withdrawn. No excuses, no caveats, no unnecessary embarrassment, no statement of principles, no references to future research, simply withdrawn. It was a mistake. This is the sine qua non for restoring the honor of APS.
2. The Council should promulgate a transparent confict-of-interest policy, comparable to those used by the government. Those offended by this might even serve under reasonable constraints. Others should not serve. Many know how to do this. It is insane to have people with millions of dollars at stake determining APS policy on such matters.
3.The APS management has become a conglomerate force in itself. This is largely through neglect, because the Council is drawn too specifically through its major fields, and in all too many cases the policies are drawn by very few members, often with an axe to grind. It is too easy to push them through the Council, the members of which are in the dark. There is a wise observation (not due to Archimedes) that if any organization is left alone, the lightweights will rise to the top.
Cheers,
Hal
Dear Curt:
When on October 6 I sent you my letter of resignation from APS , I of course expected the Empire to strike back in one way or another. It pleased me however, when I read your response, to find a very minimum of ad hominem attacks, confined mostly to apparently irresistible eruptions of “Lewis is a liar.” (“His statements are all false” is the equivalent.) So I thank you for that courtesy.
What took me by surprise was the pusillanimous, almost puerile, tone of the comment, which reads more like an ad for a used-car lot than as a declaration of a great scientific society. All our products have passed a complete inspection by our factory-trained mechanics. We’re making no money on this, take it and be thankful. Etc. Not a single major issue confronted in any substantive way. Yet everyone knows about the sloppy handling of the 2007 statement; everyone knows about the financial investments of many of the major players; there is plenty of dirt in the public domain, yet you continue to pretend it is all in a different universe.
Curt, you cannot have written such a shabby document.
Roger Cohen has written an incisive deconstruction of your response, and I can add little, so let me turn to the repair options. For the record, though my resignation from APS gives me no standing, my objective here is to help slow the APS rush toward the cliff. This is what I think must be done at the proximate meeting of the Council.
1.The 2007 statement should be simply redrawn. No excuses, no caveats, no unnecessary embarrassment, no statement of principles, no references to future research, simply withdrawn. It was a mistake. This is the sine qua non for restoring the honor of APS.
2. The Council should promulgate a transparent confict-of-interest policy, comparable to those used by the government. Those offended by this might even serve under reasonable constraints. Others should not serve. Many know how to do this. It is insane to have people with millions of dollars at stake determining APS policy on such matters.
3.The APS management has become a conglomerate force in itself. This is largely through neglect, because the Council is drawn too specifically though its major fields, and in all too many cases the policies are drawn by very few members, often with an axe to grind. It is too easy to push them through the Council, the members of which are in the dark. There is a wise observation (not due to Archimedes) that if any organization is left alone, the lightweights will rise to the top.
Cheers,
Hal
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So true, the lightweights will rise to the top. Time for a little light on many of the previously unattended organisations.
A gentleman scientist helping his once-esteemed organization, the American Physical Society, to regain credibility. To return to excellence will take years of integrity and following the scientific method. Thanks, Hal Lewis
If Lewis now feels that the APS is reformable, perhaps he should have stayed in. But now that he’s started a “Protestant reformation” he may as well complete it by starting a replacement organization. Right?
pu·sil·lan·i·mous
Definition of PUSILLANIMOUS
: lacking courage and resolution : marked by contemptible timidity
Nice word choice Hal! I will have to remember that one.
Like an undisturbed column of air perhaps, slow down and cool ( I was going to say become less dense, but I won’t), call it the APS lapse rate.
Hal Lewis is clearly confident about what he is writing and comfortable with his decision to leave APS. It is such a contrast in tone and demeanor to the other side that comes off stilted, unsure, off balance.
Great letter. What a shame the National Academy of Sciences lacks a single member with Hal Lewis’ integrity, with its dedication in each isue of PNAS to Lysenkoism and other anti-science. Only last month it published this by Lysenko’s descendants:
Forecasting potential global environmental
costs of livestock production 2000–2050
Nathan Pelletier1 and Peter Tyedmers
Abstract:
“Food systems—in particular, livestock production—are key drivers
of environmental change. Here, we compare the contributions of
the global livestock sector in 2000 with estimated contributions of
this sector in 2050 to three important environmental concerns:
climate change, reactive nitrogen mobilization, and appropriation
of plant biomass at planetary scales. Because environmental
sustainability ultimately requires that human activities as a whole
respect critical thresholds in each of these domains, we quantify
the extent to which current and future livestock production contributes
to published estimates of sustainability thresholds at projected
production levels and under several alternative endpoint
scenarios intended to illustrate the potential range of impacts associated
with dietary choice.Wesuggest that, by 2050, the livestock
sector alone may either occupy the majority of, or significantly overshoot,
recently published estimates of humanity’s “safe operating
space” in each of these domains. In light of the magnitude of estimated
impacts relative to these proposed (albeit uncertain) sustainability
boundary conditions, we suggest that reining in growth of
this sector should be prioritized in environmental governance”.
One needs to read the full paper to appreciate its Stalinist nuances. Its main failure is colossal ignorance of the FACTS (1) that ALL non-plant life forms are CARBON NEUTRAL over their lifetimes, and (2) that all growing populations of any given species including us are a net CO2 “sink”.
The evident total inability of the membership of NAS to show any interest in the rubbish published in their name suggests NAS has become a branch of the Moscow Academy of Science as it was in the 1930s. If any readers here know of any intelligent life at NAS please let me know their names (tcurtin at bigblue.net.au).
And congrats to Lewis for showing that there was some intelligent life at APS, if no longer.
The question facing the APS is, does the APS want to be the “Poster Child” for exampling how the “conspiracy” which constitutes the unscientific CO2CAGW claims and “consensus” came into being, or does it instead want to opt out right now to further the best interests of both itself and real Science?
“So true ,the lightweights will rise to the top…”
This is an insult to “those at the top,” but is so deserved…
I can imagine the response: “I’m not a lightweight!”
Us Poms have a phrase for what Hal’s doing. We call it ‘pissing in the wind’.
The use of ‘pusillanimous’ is laden with symbolism. The Wizard of OZ (1939) lectures the Scarecrow on the the lack of need for a brain but the importance of having a degree. Along the way he delivers an early indictment of academic elitism, which is what we have going on here and throughout the climate scam, and everywhere academia tries its hand at telling the rest of us what to think and how to live:
“Why, anybody can have a brain. That’s a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven’t got: a diploma.”
The war is on. The warmists are limited to fighting with words and feelings and have to justify erroneous data and science.
Possible TESB Yoda quotes that perhaps support Hal’s latest letter:
“Help you I can. Yes, mmmm.”
“You must unlearn what you have learned.”
“No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try.”
“For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi.”
Coincidentally the reported lag of temperature to CO2. Hmm, I wonder who Yoda was really training? “Jedeniers”?
I’ll add my thanks and respect to Hal for his stand on the issue.
You know, this doesn’t sound like a guy who’s past it or out of it…
Curt, you cannot have written such a shabby document.
I think a gauntlet has just been tossed down, and the venue is significant.
@Jeef
In Australia we refer to it as “pushing s*#t up the hill with a stick”. However I have to say more strength to Hal’s right arm (unless he is left handed 🙂 – he is a courageous scientist and should be applauded. Keep up the good work Anthony!
So he resigned throwing out insults freely on the way. So now he is offering gratuitous advice and additional slime to the people he slimed in the first place.
The whole: “I am your good buddy and I am going to slime you again” speaks of someone very, very confused.
Don’t mean to be rude, but when you resign.. you resign. If he loves the APS that much he was silly to leave it, otherwise he should move on with his life – this just looks weak and detracts from the force of his resignation.
In fact, its a bit embarrassing like reading a dumped teenager’s letter to their erstwhile love interest.
Apt metaphor! I had to laugh at that, though I’m sure Dr. Lewis wasn’t trying to be funny.
Someone should nominate Dr. Lewis for the Noble Peace Prize.
Yes R John, like you I had to look it up! HAHAHA I keep a giant dictionary by my keyboard just for dealing with the Watts Up With That crowd! Thanks once again Anthony.
Tim Curtin writes that ” ALL non-plant life forms are CARBON NEUTRAL over their lifetimes..” This comment illustrates what the warmist vocabulary is doing to our science. Its true of course in the strict sense that animals are carbon neutral – but they are not carbon dioxide neutral. They take in fixed carbon and release carbon dioxide. What the warmists are actually bothered about, of course, is carbon dioxide. They themselves use the term “carbon” loosely as a substitute for carbon dioxide. So, Tim Curtin is right in the technical sense, but not in the sense the warmists use the term carbon (a mis-use, I will grant you). Another example of the way the vocabulary distorts science in the public mind is the use of “pollutant” for carbon dioxide. It does not help people who are uneducated in these things to understand that carbon dioxide is a natural and essential component of our atmosphere – I have encountered people who are educated in other ways who had no idea (until I told them) that carbon dioxide was essential for plant life. The simplistic “negative press” carbon dioxide gets these days contributes to such ignorance.
The venue has broad reach, the APS may live in a very high ivory tower but here in the real world Hal Lewis speaks loud and clear. The APS has forgotten their base and that is science.
The courage of Dr. Lewis is really inspiring, thanks for sharing this, Anthony!
Robert E. Phelan says:
November 6, 2010 at 9:15 pm
yes – that was my reaction to that line.
@ur momisuglyTim Curtin:
“If any readers here know of any intelligent life at NAS please let me know their names…”
Yes, I know of at least one person who meets your criteria: Professor Richard S. Lindzen. From his home page:
“He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society. He is a corresponding member of the NAS Committee on Human Rights, and has been a member of the NRC Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate and the Council of the AMS. He has also been a consultant to the Global Modeling and Simulation Group at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.”