Nicolas Lewis and Matt Ridley have written a scathing article in the Spectator (UK) regarding the treatment of O’Donnell et al during the peer review and post peer review process.
I’ve been privileged with receiving an advance copy. Since this is a subscription only magazine, I can’t show you the entire article, but I can say, I think they got it right. There is however, an op-ed by Fraser Nelson, the editor of the Spectator, which you can read in full here.
I expect there will be some damage control in Real Climate tomorrow, or perhaps a letter of rebuttal to the Spectator, or both.
The Team, and climate science in general, comes off looking badly. Here’s an excerpt:
“Nature’s original peer-review process had let through an obviously flawed paper, and no professional climate scientist then disputed it – perhaps because of fear that doing so might harm their careers. As the title of Richard Bean’s new play – The Heretic – at the Royal Court hints, young scientists going into climate studies these days are a bit like young theologians in Elizabethan England. They quickly learn that funding and promotion dries up if you express heterodox views, or doubt the scripture. The scripture, in this case, being the assembled reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
…
“Papers that come to lukewarm or sceptical conclusions are published, if at all, only after the insertion of catechistic sentences to assert their adherence to orthodoxy. Last year, a paper in Nature Geosciences concluded heretically that `it is at present impossible to accurately determine climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide’ (high sensitivity underpins the entire IPCC argument), yet presaged this with the (absurd) remark: `Earth’s climate can only be stabilized by bringing carbon dioxide emissions under control in the twenty-first century.’Likewise, a paper In Science last month linking periods of migration in European history with cooler weather stated: `Such historical data may provide a basis for counteracting the recent political and fiscal reluctance to mitigate projected climate change.’ Sceptical climatologist Pat Michaels pointed out that the sentence would make more sense with `counteracting’ removed.Science as a philosophy is a powerful, but fragile thing. In the case of climate, it is now in conflict with science as an institution.”
Note from Anthony: I highly recommend purchasing a copy to support the magazine’s efforts at making this issue known, you can purchase the most recent copy here:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/buy-this-issue/5324661/buy-the-current-issue.thtml
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What can RC say about climate-gate now that they’re being caught red-handed doing the very things that the climate-gate e-mails hinted they were doing?
How can this debacle (love that word, so rarely use it online) not make them all look like total fools bent on lying to the world?
To re-cap:
1) Alarmists say skeptics don’t have anything peer-reviewed to point to, so ignore them
2) Climate-gate exposes gaming of peer-review by alarmists
3) Alarmists say climate-gate taken out of context, all is well.
4) Alarmists caught doing what climate-gate had previously illustrated
…? The reaction posts at RC in the next few weeks should be as interesting as the initial reaction to climate-gate… that is to say, they’ll probably clam up for a while.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the inclusion of those same “catechistic” disclaimers exactly what happened in the paper on cosmic rays and clouds just covered here??
“…The climatic forcings resulting from such solar – terrestrial links may have had a significant impact on climate prior to the onset of anthropogenic warming, ..”
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/10941/2010/acp-10-10941-2010.pdf
I would have bought a copy had a google account not been required.
Hey Anthony,
Great article, but…
…I went straight to the Spectator site to buy the magazine to show my support (and because I want to read it). Having gone through Google’s payment procedure I get this message:
Request Entity Too Large
Your client issued a request that was too large.
Whatever that means. Anyway, the end result is, I can’t order the magazine online.
Anyone else having this problem?
Already ordered my copy. I wouldn’t want to seem to be in favour of paywalls, but for £1.99 it seems reasonable (and it is presumably not something which is going to be quoted by other work, so need not be public)
That is the kind of paragraph that makes you sit up and think. Very well said.
The analogy with theology students in a theocratic context is also very well judged. When you include the mainfold policies of ‘mitigation’ this has all the makings of another modern political religion – as both Bolshevism and Naziism were, according to historians like Michael Burleigh. And they didn’t turn out well for the ordinary person, to put it mildly. I’ll be buying and reading with great interest.
Live in UK. In no way would I entrust Google with my private information. I will buy the Spectator in my local W H Smith.
I haven’t read the piece yet. But, consider this. They may have gotten things right, but, unless Andy Revkin at the Times also produces something similar, this will simply be dismissed as just another right wing political attack.
The Spectator’s paywall is not insurmountable. Just wait a week and the website will have this week’s mag articles online.
Ordered
I would have bought a copy too if a Google account had not been required.
I’ll try and remember to look for it in the shops.
I would say the anti – Earth bunch are the anti- CO2 group. Plants need CO2 to survice and plants are green, just like Greenland used to be. Increased CO2 levels should increase overall green activity on Mother Earth.
A remarkable consequence of successfully defeating a foolish but orthodox (“consensus”) opinion is continued social disapproval. The “whistleblower” does not receive applause but ostracism – social silencing, a reversal of the ability to speak publicly when the crowd awaiting the public humiliation to be heaped upon the heretic. Any of us who contradict – with data – a warmist at a gathering well recall the chill that descends upon the room and the turning of backs.
When the CAGW alarm goes away, Morano, Watts, McIntyre will be persona non grata more than they are now. The “cranks” will become the boring, annoying fist-shakers proclaiming on soapboxes in Hyde Park. The powerful and social leaders – the Gores, the Romms – may back off on their pronouncements, but they will not be replaced with their detractors. Think of how Paul Erhlich, for all his bizarre pronouncements, still is an honorary director of The David Zuzuki Foundation! Will the researchers who prevail when they demonstrate that polar bears are not facing extinction end up advising environmental movements? I think not.
The social phenomena of the climate change debacle will be an interesting chapter in a future update on the Madness of Crowds and Other Popular Delusions.
Great front cover to counter Nature’s! Could the image of it way down be moved to the top of the post?
Who needs science when you have surety of fact and purity of motive?
http://www.viciousbabushka.com/2011/02/chabad-tackles-climate-change.html
The speaker was Mark Dreyfus QC MP, who is the Federal Minister for Issacs and also a cabinet secretary as well as Parliamentary secretary for climate change and energy efficiency.
Mr. Dreyfus stressed that taking action today on climate change would leave the world a better place for our children.
“Climate change is a huge problem,” he said. “The more people there are the more green gas being released into the air and the carbon emissions lead to climate change.”
———
Yep. The many-too-many people and their green gas are to blame. Now what would be a quick and simple solution to that? Do it for the chirrun!
Oh, wait…
Nature comes off looking badly too.
Ordered!
I think it is important to remember that Real Climate is a Public Relations blog specifically set up to shape public opinion in one way and to provide talking points to the media. PR firms have been retained to more effectively get their “message” out – Environmental Media Services. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/11/warming_blog_realclimate_run_b.html
Hard to put this together with a reviewer making statements just being debating the science.
My order went through easy as pie with Google.
In the interest of fairness/setting readers expectations you should disclose that one of the authors of the Spectator piece is a co-author of the paper with O’Donnell. If one is expecting a balanced piece of reporting you will not find it there.
I ordered it but they only charged the 1.99, nothing extra for the overseas postage. The 1.99 was only supposed to cover local mailings. I’m not expecting to actually get it.
“Science as a philosophy is a powerful, but fragile thing. In the case of climate, it is now in conflict with science as an institution.”
Let’s see just who RealClimate.org is, shall we?
http://www.whois.net/whois/realclimate.org
Admin Organization:Environmental Media Services
Oh look, someone has done the research for me!
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/07/truth-about-realclimateorg.html
Why anyone is surprised by a political / philosophical link, surprises me.
[snip . . . isn’t this all just ad hom?]
Thanks for the link–ordered it via Google account in about 2 steps lasting 30 seconds.
“and no professional climate scientist then disputed it – perhaps because of fear that doing so might harm their careers.”
========================================================
That’s charitable. How about ‘no professional climate scientist then disputed it — perhaps because they don’t understand statistics.’?
It has become clear to me over the last year, after reading the blogs, Montford,s book and now this debacle, that Paleoclimatology is more art than science.