Lindzen-Choi ‘Special Treatment’: Is Peer Review Biased Against Nonalarmist Climate Science?
by Chip Knappenberger
[Editor’s note: The following material was supplied to us by Dr. Richard Lindzen as an example of how research that counters climate-change alarm receives special treatment in the scientific publication process as compared with results that reinforce the consensus view. In this case, Lindzen’s submission to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences was subjected to unusual procedures and eventually rejected (in a rare move), only to be accepted for publication in the Asian Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences.
I, too, have firsthand knowledge about receiving special treatment. Ross McKitrick has documented similar experiences, as have John Christy and David Douglass and Roy Spencer, and I am sure others. The unfortunate side-effect of this differential treatment is that a self-generating consensus slows the forward progress of scientific knowledge—a situation well-described by Thomas Kuhn is his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. –Chip Knappenberger]
From Dr. Lindzen…
The following is the reproduction of the email exchanges involved in the contribution of our paper (Lindzen and Choi, “On the observational determination of climate sensitivity and its implications”) to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The editor of the PNAS follows the procedure of having his assistant, May Piotrowski, communicate his letters as pdf attachments.
full story here
Similar things happen in other scientific circles! Reads like a carbon copy …. Consensus, groupthink, exclusion.
“Globalink: A Forum for Global Groupthink in Tobacco Control
Today, I am going to put forward the argument that Globalink (the international tobacco control list-serve) would be better called GlobalGroupthink. It is a perfect example of the groupthink phenomenon which has gripped the tobacco control movement and which I believe threatens the integrity and scientific credibility of the movement.”
Prof. Michael Siegel, Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health. in http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/06/globalink-forum-for-global-groupthink.html
“Special treatment.” That phrase has a sinister ring to it.
Anyone surprised by this?
Anthony, check out this article by Scientific Computing. It’s an article about what the scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., have produced. A groundbreaking global map that we taxpayers have spent countless millions of dollars on just to discover that plants grow best in the summer, barley at all in the winter, and that for some reason plants don’t grow as well in the dark. Without admitting it, they are basically saying that their new fluorescence global map proves global warming is actually beneficial to plant life on earth.
Why political repercussions have an influence on the science at hand?
Drs. Susan Solomon, Kevin Trenberth, Gavin Schmidt
Not worthy of reviewing Dr. Lindzen’s anything, let alone climatology work.
Pretty damning. One of the reasons given for rejection was politics!! And Gavin Schmidt “independent”? I wonder of Schimdt would be happy with Svensmark reviewing his papers?
I have a climate-related peer-reviewed “comment” approved by both peers for publication on “Nature”. It didn’t see the light of the day because the Editors overruled the reviewers.
I also have a climate-related letter to the Editors approved by one Editor for publication on “Nature” (paper edition, not just website). It didn’t see the light of the day because a more senior Editor overruled the previous one.
I think that’s enough experience with dishonest editing at that political rag, a waste of space formerly known as a prestigious scientific journal.
That the peer review process is biased towards the consensus is beyond doubt, especially in climate science. However, that a scientist requests specific peers to review his paper is not the solution.
Science without advocacy and propaganda is no longer allowed and if the advocacy and propaganda does not support the agenda, then it is not worthy of publication.
It appears theat the Team is in complete control of NAS publication. Gauging from what they have been publisheing the last few years, this is not a a surprise.
Well, of course disqualify reviewers that have worked with each other in the past. In fact, let’s start retracting all papers that were reviewed by past collaborators. More sandbagging hypocrisy.
Am I correct in reading that Lindzen requested Chou review his paper, and Chou was rejected by Dr. Scheckman because Chou was too closely involved with Lindzen? (Lindzen states he hadn’t worked with Chou in seven years.)
What hypocrisy! As if Hansen and Mann and Briffa and so on are not reviewed by people they are closely associated with! And as if they invite review by anyone who might be even remotely critical!
The double standard Alarmists work by has been obvious for years, but recently it seems to becoming glaring.
I do find it breathtaking that one of the world’s top climate scientists, writing a contribution on perhaps the most important aspect of the science, gets this kind of run around.
But never a week goes past without Anthony reporting the publication of at least a couple of fully “peer reviewed” papers, often on trivial minutiae relating to secondary or tertiary scare stories, which a reasonably bright undergrad could easily debunk.
These ‘editors’ are real pieces of work.
For those who may have missed it, this is an example of the corruption in the climate peer review process:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html
I wonder, do you think Steve Schneider had such a critical review when he published his hit piece in the PNAS shortly before he died? You remember… the one where he rated the qualifications of climate scientists by the number of papers each had written. As I recall, that paper, which was utter rubbush, was full of erroneous information.
Of course, the answer to my rhetorical question is no, he didn’t.
I am not surprised. I recently offered a paper about Arctic warming to Science, Nature, Climatic Change and BAMS. None of them could find any errors. Nature just sent a form letter rejecting it. Science told me they did not want it because it belonged in a more specialized journal. Climatic Change gave totally asinine reasons by a jerk named Oppenheimer. And BAMS told me it was revolutionary and they just published papers that reviewed current science. Publish it elsewhere and then we will quote it was their advice. Fact is that the paper opposed global warming dogma and these editors are all either true believers or under orders to reject anything opposed to global warming. It’s easier to reject an upstart then to reject Lindzen who is well known but they do it whenever their dogma is threatened. How else do you think is it possible that Naomi Oreskes could not find one article opposed to global warming among more than 900 articles she reviewed?
This may be the reason why Warmists keep harping on about “the overwhelming scientific research blah, blah, blah.”
Here is an absolute travesty from the Climategate emails:
I’ve read, I believe, all of the Lindzen/Choi papers, including a pre-print of this one. (I’ll note that I haven’t seen the publication version as of yet.)
Given the reviewers comments (http://www.masterresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Attach3.pdf), I find myself in complete agreement with them. This paper fails to address extra-tropical heat transport (ENSO, anyone?), using a simplistic factor of 2 to extend tropical results to the globe – that was a major point in all of the critiques of earlier versions of this work, and L&C don’t even discuss it. Given that extra-tropic heat transport is an order of magnitude larger than the sensitivity measures they are discussing, that’s a very serious issue.
No explanation of time period selection was presented in that pre-print: it’s been shown in their earlier papers (Lindzen and Choi 2009) that changing time period selections to what might be rather more reasonable periods (such as peak-to-valley) will produce entirely different results (http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Staff/Fasullo/refs/Trenberth2010etalGRL.pdf).
The discussion of lead/lag are really thin (almost non-existent), and the lack of inclusion of volcanic forcings in the model runs they use means that their computations are lacking major forcings. Their method discussion is insufficient to replicate the work, which is a terrible lack.
This paper is a _fail_, and I would agree with the reviewers and the editors that it shouldn’t have been published. Lindzen’s complaints that he couldn’t get the hand-picked sympathetic reviewers he wanted (as opposed to people in the field familiar with the data and the issues) are rather petulant.
It is much, much worse when you think that the same reviewers decide on the allocation of funds for research proposals.
If this happens to Lindzen, imagine the fate of junior researchers that dare to be critical. No wonder there is a consensus, disenters have been exterminated.
Special treatment under the liberal dictionary obviously means censorship, the crippling of science and the support of a political agenda through selective publication of research. Special meaning for two special words.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences impact factor: 9.432
Asian Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences impact factor: 0.355
For comparison:
Energy and Environment impact factor: 0.42, less than one citation every four years.
My impression is that Lindzen and Choi shopped the article out to a journal needy enough to publish it despite it’s flaws.
So, should we listen to KR, who is doing his level best ad hominem attacks against the internationally esteemed head of MIT’s atmospheric sciences department? Or should we accept the fact that Prof Lindzen knows what he’s talking about, and KR is simply cherry-picking hostile sources in order to fling mud? [scroll down Lindzen’s CV]
Somehow, I think KR lacks Lindzen’s credibility.
KR says:
Well duh. It’s really hard to get published when you don’t toe the party line. The behavior of publishers of all kinds has been well documented by none other than Noam Chomsky. He wrote books on the press coverage of the wars in Viet Nam and Cambodia. He conclusively proved that the mainstream American media had no interest whatsoever in the truth unless it supported the aforementioned party line. In fact Chomsky had to shop his work out to an obscure foreign publisher because nobody in the USofA would publish it.
I may be the only person on the face of the globe who admires both Chomsky and Lindzen so I’m at least sort of neutral. Based on what Chomsky showed me, I would guess that, on the balance of probabilities, Lindzen’s work was rejected less on its merits and more on the fact that it supports an unpopular opinion.
Smokey – Well, then, Smokey, read some of the critiques of his earlier papers (I linked to just one above, I believe there were at least three, see also http://news.cisc.gmu.edu/doc/publications/Chung%20et%20al%202010.pdf and http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL042911.shtml among others), read the L&C paper itself, and read the reviewers remarks – all of which I have done. See if you can detect _any_ addressing of the major problems with Lindzen’s earlier works.
I’ll note that an Ad hominem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem) attack involves dismissing an argument based upon insults to the person making it. I have not done so – I’ve stated issues with Lindzen and Choi’s work, and where it got published, not personal attacks whatsoever. You, on the other hand, are presenting an Argument from Authority (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority), a notable logical fallacy.
I think Lindzen and Choi’s work stands on it’s own. And, likewise, fails on it’s own.
Smokey, I suspect that KR has a CV that outshines Dr. Lindzen’s but he (KR) is remaining anonymous to avoid humiliating Dr. Lindzen even further. (Sarc, if needed)
What exactly do you think “peer” means………………..
You want them to approve something that contradicts the peers?,,,,,something they all think is wrong?
Smokey:
You seem to be on the right track re KR.
A followup to my previous post – It could well be said that the “rather petulant” description in my previous post was a personal attack, and as such I apologize.
I will note that writers do not get to choose sympathetic reviewers in the general case, although there’s some traction for objecting to a notable dissenter to your opinions. Editors choose their reviewers from people in the field, folks with a publishing history and some knowledge of the issues – the writer does not get to make that choice. If they did, every piece of junk written would get published, as anyone can find a few people sympathetic to their view. Lindzen’s objections to not being allowed this unexpected privilege are, therefore, curious. And not by themselves a reasonable issue – most papers don’t get published.
Given that L&C haven’t addressed issues raised since Lindzen, Chou, and Hou 2001 (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.88.129&rep=rep1&type=pdf), the current paper is seriously lacking. Again, it’s not surprising it has had difficulty getting published.
A quick comment on KR’s credibility and quantitative skills.
He says: “0.42, less than one citation every four years.” 1/0.42 is actually 2.38 not 4. So KR can’t do division at a first grade level, but he feels competent to comment on Lindzen. Quite amusing.
KR,
You misunderstand the Argument from Authority. It is only a logical fallacy when the authority cited is not an authority on the specific subject. In this case, Prof Lindzen is more of an authority on the subject than his detractors. Thus, there exists no logical fallacy.
Michael Mann, on the other hand, has his papers routinely hand-waved through pal review. And Mann was handed a $1.6 million grant to study “mosquito vectors”, something completely outside of his area of expertise. Of course, it was simply a morale-boosing bribe, coming on the heels of Climategate.
If you want to point out the mote in someone else’s eye, be aware of the beam in your own eye.
Smokey – “Argument from authority (also known as appeal to authority) is a fallacy of defective induction, where it is argued that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative.”
Hmmm – nope, you’re still using Argument from Authority wrt. Lindzen. And this paper sucks on multiple levels, as I pointed out (and as did the four reviewers from NAS).
Smokey,
Not to be pedantic, but Maria T. Zuber is the head of MIT’s atmospheric sciences department: http://eapsweb.mit.edu/about/headquarters.html
To detail my issues with the most recent L&C paper, going from the preprint I have seen:
To make it an excellent paper, it needs:
* Sensitivity analysis of the start/end dates for their temperature transitions – peak to valley (which they don’t use) is reasonable, as are regular fractions thereof (1/2, 1/3, etc.). Why choose offsets of a couple of days? Especially when the results appear to change drastically with small changes in start/end points?
* Explanation of the x2 factor for tropical to global extrapolation. It’s a single line assertion in an appendix, despite multiple published critiques of this assumption.
* Run the same analysis with global ERBS or the follow-up CERES data (an improved platform), and see what results they get.
They did none of this, despite multiple requests for it. Perhaps they are cherry-picking there data to get the results they want (which is quite frankly a natural conclusion from the approach), or perhaps they are wedded to the 2001 approach used again here. I don’t know – but this paper does.not.address.the.problems.
What is this “pre print ” all about? If KR has seen this paper in pre print does this mean the people at the Journals it was submitted to have just handed it out to their mates ( I would have thought there was some sort confidentiality , implied or otherwise, when you sent a paperto a journal) ? Or if this is standard practise why bother about getting it in a Journal in the first place?
I think the days of the “prestigious ” Journal are over. With the ease of finding information on the internet with all the various search engines available one could have a paper published anywhere , it doesn’t matter –people will find it to read, if they want. I believe the prestige will transfer to the paper away from the journal and the standard of review will be what matters NOT the brand name of the Journal. ( It will be a matter of working on more effective , transparent ways of getting proper reviewing done ) . This will not happen quickly but over time it will occur especially as we see more of the activist bias of the journals being exposed.
KR,
Your source misrepresents the fallacy. Find the correct explanation here. Further, your own link explains: “The more relevant the expertise of an authority, the more compelling the argument.”
Zeke, thanks for that correction. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Dynamical Meteorology and Climate at MIT.
Smokey
By definition 2 of your source (The “authority” cited is not an expert on the issue), you are correct. But that’s not the only definition of Argument from Authority.
From your source, definition 3: The authority is an expert, but is not disinterested. That is, the expert is biased towards one side of the issue, and his opinion is thereby untrustworthy.
Definition 4: While the authority is an expert, his opinion is unrepresentative of expert opinion on the subject. The fact is that if one looks hard enough, it is possible to find an expert who supports virtually any position that one wishes to take. “Such is human perversity”, to quote Lewis Carroll. This is a great boon for debaters, who can easily find expert opinion on their side of a question, whatever that side is, but it is confusing for those of us listening to debates and trying to form an opinion.
So, yes, by stating that Lindzen is an “authority”, and hence to be trusted regardless of the virtues of a particular argument or paper, you are indulging in Argument from Authority.
I prefer to analyze each paper on it’s own. Again, this one sucks.
Ross – I got the pre-print from http://www.heliogenic.net/2010/05/03/lindzen-and-chois-new-paper-out-confirms-negative-feedback-unlike-agw-climate-models/, who link to http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/uploads/media/Lindzen_Choi_ERBE_JGR_v4.pdf
I don’t know the provenance of how that website got hold of the paper, but I have been told it’s an accurate copy of the article L&C were trying to publish at that time. Again, I don’t know what changes were made for publication in Asian Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences yet.
cope – Quite right, I was typing fast from the only impact reference I had seen.
E&E -> averages one citation every 2.38 years
Asian Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences -> averages one citation every 2.8 years.
KR- you may have read all the Lindzen-Choi papers but that means nothing by itself and as far as I know you don’t have credibility to attack Lindzen and Choi’s work, painting them in language as basically sloppy and obvious. You say you’re not making persional attacks; what an obvious untruth! Please! Don’t insult the intelligence of all of us here who know a duck when they see one! Who are you and why should anyone accept you as an authority? What have you ever done besides read the papers? It’s quite clear that Lindzen was failed because his ideas threatened the CAGW house of Cards.
Forgot to turn on the “notify me” option…
KR.
You say ….’read some of the critiques of his earlier papers (I linked to just one above, I believe there were at least three, see also http://news.cisc.gmu.edu/doc/publications/Chung%20et%20al%202010.pdf ‘
From Chung 2010….. ‘ Meanwhile, for all-sky conditions, Lindzen and Choi [2009] derived a negative feedback process using net outgoing radiative fluxes over the tropics. However, it is difficult to directly compare our result with Lindzen and Choi’s [2009] due to the differences in dataset and analyzed conditions.
This is the only mention of Lindzen in Chung 2010.
I am suprised that you consider this comment by Chung to be a critique.
Zeke haus
What are you doing here? I thought you said WUWT is full of ‘denier’ idiots with whom engagement was not possible.
@KR
How many citations did Michael Mann get by publishing multiple times in the “prestigious” journal Nature and other and “high profile” journals that ended up being barf mulch? In fact, the worse he got, the more notoriety he received.
Steig?
Santer?
Hansen?
The list is long.
AGW drones never cease to amaze.
DavidG – Who am I? I’m a nobody, a ghost, an annoying voice, a nagging reminder 🙂
Now read Lindzen and Choi 2009 (essentially the same paper), read the critiques of Lindzen and Choi 2009, read the pre-print, read the reviewers comments. And then decide for yourself whether Lindzen and Choi 2011 answered any of the criticisms. Do the work – I did…
L&C stands or fails on it’s own merits, regardless of “authority”. This one fails as science, and Lindzen’s complaints linked above do not change that.
Hmmm. It appears that Lindzen et al is threatening to the alarmists. Otherwise we wouldn’t have the anonymous “KR” here posting critical jabs in very typical ‘team’ style. Usually only the most threatening new stuff gets such prompt attention. I’d also like to point out that the version of the paper pointed to by KR is well over a year old. A lot may have changed.
Also, the fact that some critiques were not adequately dealt with to the team’s satisfaction is rather meaningless. We all know that papers are subject to draconian size constraints and it might be that only the most salient points could be responded to (and those criticisms may have been far from salient).
I can’t wait to read the final published paper. If there are questions to be answered that aren’t addressed in the paper, I’m sure Lindzen will address them outside the paper.
KR says:
June 9, 2011 at 2:12 pm
I will note that writers do not get to choose sympathetic reviewers in the general case
Actually, members of the National Academy of Science are supposed to get quite a lot of deference and do get to recommend who shall review their papers. One is elected to the National Academy of Science for life. Lindzen was elected in 1977.
Rules here –
http://www.pnas.org/site/misc/iforc.shtml
Peer review and whatever standard that follows is no measure of the quality of the science contained within a paper.
I invite all of you to read a few pages of journals dating from the time before peer review became the gold standard – there was a lot of junk, but there was a LOT of great science too.
Today we get lots of junk in prestigious medical and science publications that have high impact numbers and peers with cv’s as long as your arm.
The IPCC has pimped the peer review system to pump its own balloon. I trust nothing that relies on anything peer reviewed by IPCC lead authors. The NAS appears to use only IPCC lead authors to review its papers on climate.
Its sad what Al Gore accomplished by stacking the deck while VP.
Tony Hansen – You’re correct, I should have referred to Lin 2010 (http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/1923/2010/acp-10-1923-2010.pdf); I had seen the mention of Lindzen in Chung 2010, and pulled the wrong paper out of memory. I’ll note that Chung’s estimates are hugely different from Lindzen’s – Chung found that they couldn’t even compare the techniques due to perceived limitations with Lindzen.
Lin more directly assesses climate sensitivity from TOA measures, and strongly disagrees with Lindzen.
Tony Hansen – Also see Roy Spencer at http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/11/some-comments-on-the-lindzen-and-choi-2009-feedback-study/.
Peer review has become the stuff that middle school is all about. And middle schoolers do it better!
KR
No matter the merits [or lack thereof] of the LC paper, NAS proposing Trenberth, Schmidt and Salomon as reviewers on a paper from a confirmed skeptic, is like suggesting three senior Catholic Church cardinals review a paper by a confirmed atheist providing evidence that the immaculate conception is biologically impossible. That is not peer review, but the a good rendition of the Inquisition.
Stupid move, as all it does is further undermine the NAS’ already serious wing-shot reputation as a scientific journal. But then again we knew from the Climategate emails how “climate science” “peer review” is “managed” to produce the desired papers.
I had exactly the same problem – I submitted a paper proving that the use of rare earth magnets in windmills is increasing the magnetic field of earth.
This is then attracting the iron core of the sun towards the earth.
The increase in solar radiation totally explains the increasing temperature.
Would they publish – NO they would not. Such bias is unacceptable!
PS
If you write rubbish why should it get published as a scientific treatise. There has to be a validity check. There of course is always WUWT and your paper will be seen by many more
A simple graphic showing how climate peer review works in the journal world: click
KR
Again, the merits of the LC paper aside or for that matter the implications of e.g. Spencer’s or Svensmark’s work on sensitivity, the inconvenient reality is that that based on a couple of decades of land based and satellite data [ e.g. HadCru and UHA ] climate sensitivity appears to be considerably lower than what the IPCC and its contributors have told us to expect. Why that is the case aside for the moment, those observations are hard to simply brush aside.
harrywr2 – “The Board may choose someone who is or is not on that list or may reject the paper without further review” And this is actually extremely lenient – most publications do not permit this much freedom.
Mark – Nope, I just hate bad science. Lindzen has put out the same crud since his 2001 paper with Chou and Hou; this is a repeat of that.
tetris – Actually, the climate is behaving exactly as expected for a sensitivity of ~3C and a significant thermal lag due to ocean mass. See http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity-intermediate.htm for a list of about a dozen papers and summaries thereof, or for that matter the last IPCC report (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-6.html) – Lindzen’s extremely low estimate is very much an unsupported outlier.
If his revisions had addressed the major criticisms of LC09, the reviewers at PNAS would have noted that (as they specifically criticized those lacks, those missing bits). Apparently LC11 did not include the needed material – it fails, in and of itself.
Who’s KR? The familiarity with the Literature, and the writing and debating style may inspire some speculation. Perhaps the guy knows more about the reviewing process of this particular paper than most of us.
I think the more we read from him, the more hints will unwillingly pop up pointing in the right direction.
Interesting that KR is telling us the “Peer Review” process is working in Lindzen’s case. The paper got lots of scrutiny, good or bad, and after taking a good amount of time, rejected it.
For Mann, Steig, Ahman, Wall, Trenberth, Schmidt, etc.. the process completely missed all the bad statistical stuff and everything sailed right through in short order. Where was KR when all those other papers needed the same rigorous review?
I guess when we talk about “Peer Review”, it mean different things to different people..
Hey, KR: if you feel so strongly that Lindzen & Choi 2010 is flawed why don’t you ask Anthony for a guest post to lay out your criticisms where everyone can read it and the paper and see if they agree?
KR says:
“Actually, the climate is behaving exactly as expected for a sensitivity of ~3C…”
Wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong.The real world is falsifying that preposterous model-based number.
KR says: “I just hate bad science.”
Then KR should repudiate Mr Bad Science himself, Michael Mann. But he won’t, because he’s Mann’s apologist.
“Lindzen’s extremely low estimate is very much an unsupported outlier.”
Wrong again. *Sheesh* The outlier is the UN/IPCC’s ridiculous and unsupportable estimate [see the link above]. Lindzen gives a sensitivity estimate of ≤1°C per 2xCO2. Spencer gives under 0.5‚, and Miskolczi estimates zero.
My advice: stay away from Skeptical Pseudo-Science, it will rot your mind. It’s already happening, don’t let it get any worse.
Folks, how about a little calm here? We claim that people of any side of the fence can come here and present a point of view. KR has done so, and made statements based on reading papers and their reviews. At no time has he attacked Dr Lindzen or Choi personally, but has drawn (and presented) conclusions based on his reading of the material provided. What more could we ask for?
I think all parties (including those suggesting reviewers) have a reasonable idea of who is “peer” and who is “pal”, so I would expect or hope that Dr Lindzen’s suggestion of reviewers contains the genuinely agnostic and/or neutral. Granted, those on our side of the fence have to jump through more hoops to get there, which is a travesty, but at the end of the process they know they have done the right thing.
People can make mistakes. Even the good guys. Maybe, out of frustration (with the Team or a corrupted process or whatever), they rush to the conclusion without bulletproofing the body. KR hasn’t taken exception with the authors, or, indeed, any of us, but has tried to show that sometimes there is merit in the rejection. KR has admitted and apologised for an error in his numbers; that alone should put him on the good guy list.
My point, if you have survived this far and missed it 🙂 , is that we doom ourselves to become the very thing we despise if we keep up the ad hominems against KR. As we Aussies say: give him a fair go.
Randy micro biologist snufs Lindzen on climate. Where does it all end? When does the money stop?
KR,
The problem is, Spencer states clearly in his evaluation of LC2009 that his review could be “worth what you paid for it” yet you want to use it as a template on which we judge the peer review… of his 2011 paper, no less. Would you reject any future paper by Mann based on the final finding that his MBH98 paper was fatally flawed?
Also, you tread a dangerous path when you start throwing around accusations of others using “argument from fallacy” when a staple of the AGW side of the debate is that they MUST be right because they are “climate scientists”.
“Argument from Authority” is the Achilles heal of the AGW side of the debate. SO tied are they to the supremacy of their conclusion that they will claim their superior understanding of statistics over statisticians, better understanding of geology than geologists, and so forth on the grounds that they are “climate scientists”.
Climate Science from the outset has been a Jack-of-all-trades discipline, and master of none. For example, why is Michael Mann, a Geophysicist by training, counting tree rings? Why is he performing complex statistical modeling?
Creating a global body of work to explain the Earth’s Climate using “climate scientists” Like Mann, Aman, Hansen and Jones is akin to building a skyscraper using 2,000 handymen.
KR says:
June 9, 2011 at 12:51 pm
“Given the reviewers comments (http://www.masterresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Attach3.pdf), I find myself in complete agreement with them. This paper fails to address extra-tropical heat transport (ENSO, anyone?), using a simplistic factor of 2 to extend tropical results to the globe – that was a major point in all of the critiques of earlier versions of this work, and L&C don’t even discuss it. Given that extra-tropic heat transport is an order of magnitude larger than the sensitivity measures they are discussing, that’s a very serious issue.”
Are you very confidently asserting that there is no climate scientist who is not a member of the The Team who would disagree with you about the importance of this extra-tropical heat transport? You seem to be. I would really like to know because that would make you the first scientist I have known who is willing to judge another scientist, Lindzen, with such confidence. You are a scientist, right?
You are aware that the charge against the journal is that Lindzen’s paper is pal-reviewed where all the pals belong to The Team who we know would do anything to keep Lindzen out of print. Given the charged political atmosphere and corruption in which journals now operate, how do you justify the claim that there is something suspicious about Lindzen’s request for a reviewer that he knows to be practicing science rather than members of The Team who are known to be practicing politics.
KR says:
June 9, 2011 at 1:25 pm
“My impression is that Lindzen and Choi shopped the article out to a journal needy enough to publish it despite it’s flaws.”
Your claim is irrelevant. We are not discussing whether the article should be published; we are discussing whether it received a fair review from members of The Team. Stay on point.
KR says:
June 9, 2011 at 1:56 pm
“Smokey – Well, then, Smokey, read some of the critiques of his earlier papers (I linked to just one above, I believe there were at least three, see also http://news.cisc.gmu.edu/doc/publications/Chung%20et%20al%202010.pdf and http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL042911.shtml among others), read the L&C paper itself, and read the reviewers remarks – all of which I have done. See if you can detect _any_ addressing of the major problems with Lindzen’s earlier works.”
Again, you are irrelevant. Address the question of whether Lindzen could recieve a fair hearing from The Team. What The Team read and what they said about it is all that matters, not older versions of the article. Stay on point. Well, try to get back to point.
KR says:
June 9, 2011 at 2:12 pm
“A followup to my previous post – It could well be said that the “rather petulant” description in my previous post was a personal attack, and as such I apologize.
I will note that writers do not get to choose sympathetic reviewers in the general case, although there’s some traction for objecting to a notable dissenter to your opinions.”
All of the reviewers were dissenters from Lindzen’s views and all of them hold to the same old, boring pro-AGW metaphysics. Address the point at issue.
KR says:
June 9, 2011 at 2:33 pm
“To detail my issues with the most recent L&C paper, going from the preprint I have seen:
To make it an excellent paper, it needs:
* Sensitivity analysis of the start/end dates for their temperature transitions – peak to valley (which they don’t use) is reasonable, as are regular fractions thereof (1/2, 1/3, etc.). Why choose offsets of a couple of days? Especially when the results appear to change drastically with small changes in start/end points?
* Explanation of the x2 factor for tropical to global extrapolation. It’s a single line assertion in an appendix, despite multiple published critiques of this assumption.
* Run the same analysis with global ERBS or the follow-up CERES data (an improved platform), and see what results they get.
They did none of this, despite multiple requests for it. Perhaps they are cherry-picking there data to get the results they want (which is quite frankly a natural conclusion from the approach), or perhaps they are wedded to the 2001 approach used again here. I don’t know – but this paper does.not.address.the.problems.”
So, what are you saying about the reviewers and the editor who accepted it? Are you saying that they made errors that should be recognized as errors by everyone in the field? Do you really want to make such a strong claim? If you are not asserting they made such errors, what are you asserting?
KR says:
June 9, 2011 at 2:48 pm
“Ross – I got the pre-print from http://www.heliogenic.net/2010/05/03/lindzen-and-chois-new-paper-out-confirms-negative-feedback-unlike-agw-climate-models/, who link to http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/uploads/media/Lindzen_Choi_ERBE_JGR_v4.pdf
I don’t know the provenance of how that website got hold of the paper, but I have been told it’s an accurate copy of the article L&C were trying to publish at that time. Again, I don’t know what changes were made for publication in Asian Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences yet.”
You have been giving us third hand information? How darned insulting to you intend to be? Go back and make your points with regard to the rejected paper in a side-by-side comparison with the accepted paper. Otherwise, you are just jerking our chains.
KR says:
June 9, 2011 at 3:32 pm
“Now read Lindzen and Choi 2009 (essentially the same paper), read the critiques of Lindzen and Choi 2009, read the pre-print, read the reviewers comments. And then decide for yourself whether Lindzen and Choi 2011 answered any of the criticisms. Do the work – I did…”
Stop changing the subject. The topic is Lindzen’s complaint that he was shafted by The Team. Are you going to address that point or do you concede it?
A measure of the relative threat to CAGW of any post here is the number of reactive comments from Trolldom. This post obviously reveals something that CAGW proponents would rather keep hidden: Climatologists have been gaming the system for years. The system is corrupt, rotten to the core, beyond saving.
Theo Goodwin
Lots of comments, I’ll try to address what I see as the major points.
I read Lindzen, Chou, Hou 2001 (the ‘iris’ theory, in a very similar paper) – very interesting work, although later papers (and Lindzen himself) indicate that the ‘iris’ effect is not present. That paper used the same x2 scaling of tropical only measures to estimate global climate sensitivity, and the critiques then indicated that didn’t give consistent results. So no, I’m certainly not the first person to note this.
I’ve also read Lindzen and Choi 2009, where many of the same claims are put forth – ERBE data of the tropics only, extrapolated geometrically to the globe with no acknowledgement of extra-tropical heat exchanges such as weather, Hadley Cells, the ENSO, etc. Critiques of that include that lack of extra-tropical exchange, extreme sensitivity to the exact date for their temperature changes (a day or two in any direction appears to change the results!), the availability of global rather than just tropical data, and the fact that running the same analysis with global data gave results conflicting with LC09.
And then I read the pre-print of LC11. I noted the same x2 from 2001 called out in a supplement, not discussed, not justified, no consideration of heat transport, polar ice effects, different responses of wet tropical versus drier subtropical air responses, etc. Based on that reading, and what the four reviewers picked out as issues, none of these items has been properly addressed in any revision of LC11. Multiple critiques over 10 years of major points of this work, and the majority are not only not addressed, but not even acknowledged?! Add to that the fact that the methods section is vague enough that I don’t think it’s possible to recreate the work independently – if it cannot be replicated, it’s not science.
I’ll note that the suggestions I made to turn this from a bad paper to an excellent one (in my opinion) are called out by the reviewers as well.
Perhaps a “cabal” of establishment reviewers exists, sitting in back rooms and shooting down dissent – I consider that a very improbable scenario, quite frankly. But this paper just does not address issues that have been pointed out repeatedly. It’s a bad paper, and should not have been published in the form I last saw.
“Cabal” or not, there’s plenty of reason for this paper to have been rejected. Enemy action is not required if you shoot yourself in the foot.
A few points.
1. Yes, pal review is bad, we know that. However pal review is a NAS etc problem and is not something that KR can be blamed for. Openly hostile review is also bad and the suggested reviewers from NAS were unacceptable.
2. I think there is a communication problem. Reviewer 3 especially notes that L&C and Trenberth come to opposite conclusions from much the same data. Both can’t be right and he/she notes that both could in fact be wrong. To resolve the issue one could produce more papers showing why a particular side is right but a better way is to also show why the opposition is wrong. The paper under discussion is an example of the first kind but what reviewer 3 (and I suspect KR) would prefer is something from the second group.
Otherwise you simply end up with two collections of mutually exclusive papers. The basis of science is argument, not affirmation.
3. Whether Mann et al get easy rides and miss details in their papers is beside the point. It is hypocritical to decry these faults in papers from the other side and to then complain that inadequate definitions are used against papers from our side. The important thing is good science. Inadequate definitions are bad regardless of which side they come from. Enough detail to understand the processes involved and to allow replicability is the standard and both sides must adhere to this. We know the other side won’t adhere to this principle and if we do then it only serves to highlight the difference between good and bad science.
4. Papers must stand or fall on their merits and arguments. The writer is immaterial. A paper by Dr. Lindzen is not automatically “right” and nor is a paper by DR. Schmidt automatically “wrong”. Smokey, KR is correct in this, you are using Argument from authority. In the case of the paper under discussion I suggest that all who comment actually RTFP and the reviewer comments before commenting further.
The paper is okay and it might be right, however if changed in line with suggestions from reviewer 3 I think it would be an extremely good paper that would leave Dr. Trenberh looking amazingly like the “Titanic”.
Nature, PNAS and Science, ever since their founding of “forming” editors – individuals who shaped the journals on the basis of respect for the fundamentals of scientific inquiry and discourse- passed on the “keys” a couple of decades ago to the present generation, all have become mouthpieces for various cliques and factions in a number of key disciplines.
What we have been seeing in the context of “climate science”, played out just as viciously in the life sciences 15-20 years ago. I know because I was in the middle of it. Nature and Science both even refused to consider papers by members of our scientific team whose work was putting conventional molecular genetic wisdom on its it head, and presented a serious threat to the academic and venture capital funding of those on the “inside” of those journals’ community. Even after we published our results in another high quality journal, providing incontrovertible evidence that our competition’s results were fatally flawed and not replicable, there was neither retraction nor response.
Don’t expect anything else when it comes to the core issue of actual sensitivity in the climate equation.
John B ignores the evidence, and so responds appropriately under the circumstances.
“Smokey, KR is correct in this, you are using Argument from authority.”
Wrong. Prof Richard Lindzen is an internationally acknowledged climate authority, whereas Michael Mann is a highly questionable authority who has been repeatedly debunked. It is, in fact, Mann who gets special treatment, as the Climategate emails made crystal clear.
John B completely misunderstands the Argument from Authority fallacy, as does KR. It is only a logical fallacy when the authority cited is not an authority on the specific subject. In this case, Prof Lindzen is certainly much more of an authority on the subject than his detractors. Thus, there exists no logical fallacy. Prof Lindzen’s papers go back to 1965 – well before the “carbon” scare, therefore Lindzen is a legitimate authority. If John B has a problem with that, he should fill out this form and submit it.
Michael Mann, on the other hand, has had his papers routinely hand-waved through pal review. Mann was also handed a $1.6 million grant to study “mosquito vectors”, something completely outside of his area of expertise. That was simply a morale-boosing bribe following the Climategate exposé. If it were not for the hypocrisy and projection by the alarmist crowd, they wouldn’t have much to write about.
KR asserts that LC2011 does not address criticisms of LC09. This is incorrect, it does not do so to his satisfaction. Whether that means they did not adequately deal with the matter is a completely different question.
He also appears to be reading a different version of the paper (which he found on a random blog) instead of the one which was shown accepted at APJAS:
http://www.masterresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Lindzen_Choi_APJAS_final.pdf
All his criticisms are actually mentioned. Whether the answers are adequate or not, they give them. But to say they ignored the criticisms is just incorrect.
Smokey – Actually, Argument from Authority also occurs any time you assert that a statement is true because it came from an authority, without judging the actual merits of that statement. The fallacy there is in failing to actually evaluate the argument on it’s strengths.
Einstein stated “Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the “old one.” I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.” No greater authority in physics existed at the time. Yet he was incorrect; quantum mechanics is a provably better description of the world around us than anything Einstein could formulate.
Trust, but verify.
timetochooseagain – Thank you for the link to the published paper; I’ll take a close look at it.
Now that we have the actual paper to review (thanks TimeToChooseAgain), this can perhaps be a more productive discussion. In my mind, there will be two interesting things to watch. First of course is discussion of the paper’s content. The second is the level of certitude, proof and evidence that warmists will demand of this paper, which they do not demand of papers that support their viewpoint.
It will be enlightening to go back and dig up all the defensive responses to skeptical criticism of past ‘team’ papers. I seem to recall vast indignation at the apparent “extreme” degree of certitude and supporting data being demanded by skeptics. Many claimed that skeptics were simply being unreasonable by holding warmist papers to a ludicrous standard of unattainable perfection before accepting any of the warmist conclusions as valid or even directionally informative.
I suspect we are about to see the same situation unfold in reverse with the warmists attempting to hold Lindzen to a ludicrous standard that they themselves strenuously objected to. The interesting thing about all this is that Lindzen has shown exemplary scientific conduct by accepting criticism, plainly admitting error and openly working to advance scientific understanding. Compare this to the team’s tortuous gyrations to avoid actually admitting even the most blatantly egregious, obvious errors in their papers, much less actually correcting them to advance the interests of science.
That fundamental difference in behavior is one of the things that triggered the questions in my mind that eventually led me to change from an ardent CAGW believer into a skeptic. Even if a substantial error is found in Lindzen’s latest, I have no doubt he will graciously admit it, openly correct it and republish. The Team? Not so much (in fact, not at all – ever). The fact that skeptics like Spencer will openly criticize skeptical papers like Lindzen 2009 is another reason why the skeptics grow more credible than the alarmists every day.
I do not see a problem with two people coming to disagreeing conclusions: “Lin more directly assesses climate sensitivity from TOA measures, and strongly disagrees with Lindzen.” I do see a problem saying that Lindzen is wrong because Lin is a better person. Perhaps we should look at the methods of both, reproduce and compare.
KR, your argument about starting times and cherry picking applies to both sides of the argument. Are you saying that we have experienced terrible cherry picking and pal review issues with the warmist papers, and by gum there will not be any more of that, starting with the skeptical papers? I did not detect anything so far in what you wrote that applies your standards to the works of the warmists. Replying that we are not talking about warmist papers is not acceptable to me. You write as if Lindzen has failed to meet some standard that applies to warmist papers appearing in high profile journals. Perhaps you can comment on why MBH98 has not been withdrawn because it is, I believe, the most discredited scientific paper in recent history. And that includes the recent measles-autism mess. I want to know whether or not you are applying a double standard.
Your second comment I accept and it raised in me an interesting thought which I will share. You are quite clear about how the work should contain enough to reproduce the results. Quite so. Surely you are aware of the extreme lengths some skeptical writers have gone to to obtain the underlying works which were not provided but which generated some of the most well known alarmist papers? Are you an equally loud advocate of rejection of warmist papers that do not provide the methods or codes used to generate these amazing and so far incorrect projections, conclusions, warnings and generally catastrophist writings? Do you agree with the contention that Michael Mann should ‘show his work’?
To me, it seems you are trying to hold some authors to a standard much higher than that applied throughout climate science heretofore, particularly by Nature and Science. Some of the junk they print is embarassing to read it is so flawed. Some articles are reminiscent of New Scientist editorial ruminations, not real science.
The argument about appeals to authority is a waste of our time on this blog. It is well known that the immediate response to nearly every single skeptical statement is that “there are thousands of scientists who disagree with that notion…” said without a hint of addressing the issues raised by the skeptic nor awareness that it is no more than an appeal to authority. It is standard amateur warmist fare. It is all most people know, actually, about the climate: they believe that lots of other people believe that CO2 dominates the global temperature control.
That is what one of my neighbours believes. He has it on good authority. Climate science is in urgent need of a moral reboot.
Smokey says:
June 9, 2011 at 8:18 pm
… It is only a logical fallacy when the authority cited is not an authority on the specific subject. In this case, Prof Lindzen is certainly much more of an authority on the subject than his detractors. Thus, there exists no logical fallacy. Prof Lindzen’s papers go back to 1965 – well before the “carbon” scare, therefore Lindzen is a legitimate authority. If John B has a problem with that, he should fill out this form and submit it. …
Smokey,
I have to point out that the grounds for classifying an argument as an “authority” fallacy really have nothing to do with the legitimacy of an authority. The fallacy lies in assuming the authority’s statement has additional value because of the reputation of the of the individual. Even though an individual may be an acknowledged “authority” in a field, that does not in fact offer any grounds for assuming any additional credibility to anything that person says, even if it is in regard to his field of expertise. Any authority can be wrong, so the test of a statement is never who uttered it, but rather is always it’s substantive content.
Unhappily, when you look at climate science, the situation is confounded by the fact that no current theories appear to be adequate to the task of explaining climate. In any case battling authorities are about as informative as a couple drunks arguing in an alley: a lot of incoherent yelling, staggering rushes at each other, and an occasional lucky jab. Nature is the test of theory as Bacon said.
Interesting. Find for KR on this page gives 62 matches.
Be nice if everyone could be nice to each other and just assess each other’s work on scientific merit’s but then the grants might stop.
I think people that have a paper that goes against the orthodoxy must realise they are saying that the Politicians, climate scientist’s and UN are wrong and I don’t think this group of people will ever admit that, there’s far to much power they would be giving up.
L&C stands or fails on it’s own merits, regardless of “authority”. This one fails as science, and Lindzen’s complaints linked above do not change that.
KR, I would agree with you on this.
However, have you taken into account space limitation imposed by PNAS when you say the paper has weaknesses?
@KR
Your “argument from authority” position doesn’t apply here. From the observer’s viewpoint he must make a judgement on the debate thus:
Lindzen vs KR
Lindzen a known expert in his field who therefore can be relied upon to be reasonably honest in his public statements, otherwise he risks being exposed as a charlatan and ending his career.
KR is an anonymous contributor to a blog with unknown bias and motives and his comment that he has read all Lindzen’s papers may be a complete falsehood.
From this perspective the observer is perfectly entitled to conclude that he should put his faith in the named expert rather than an anonymous contributor. Thus the protest that this is an “argument from authority” doesn’t really apply here, since there is no reasonable challenge to this authority given by KR.
KR
Is an authority with special powers.
He can walk on water – if it’s ice.
However he astounded a gobsmacked audience at JONOVA recently when he said he had a device that could make heat travel spontaneously from a colder to a hotter surface.
Now that’s the kind of article that would be welcomed by any IPCC inclined journal.
Duster,
The ‘argument from authority’ discussion is a red herring intended to re-frame the argument. The fact is that Mann and his clique have gamed the climate peer review system. Since Climategate there is no disputing that fact.
Who first brought up the misdirection of the ‘authority’ argument? Everyone refers to authorities, that’s what peer review is all about: authority. That’s what professional degrees are all about: authority. KR has attempted to undercut an internationally esteemed Climatologist simply because KR is a climate alarmist, and he has made the issue political rather than scientific. KR never responded to my deconstruction of the IPCC’s debunked claim of 3°C per 2xCO2, which I falsified with observational evidence. Best to ignore pesky reality and MoveOn, eh?
That empirical observation blows the whole alarmist conjecture out of the water, so naturally it went unanswered by KR, in the hope that it will be forgotten. The planet is falsifying the alarmist position, because the alarmist conjecture is based entirely upon computer models, not on real world observations. Since the GCMs have been debunked, the alarmist crowd is reduced to nitpicking logical fallacies. They’re not making any headway there, either, but their misdirection takes the heat off of the inconvenient fact that the planet itself is falsifying their failed CO2=CAGW conjecture.
John B says: “Whether Mann et al get easy rides and miss details in their papers is beside the point. ”
Not really. Read what Crispin in Waterloo says above, it is on point. When/if MBH98 is withdrawn, the climate alarmist crowd can start to repair their lost credibility.
KR:”Multiple critiques over 10 years of major points of this work, and the majority are not only not addressed, but not even acknowledged?! ”
So what? It’s very possible Lindzen finds those “critiques” to be nonsense. If that is the case why would he address them? Just because YOU bow to the AGW altar does not make it fact.
Almost all of KR’s comments are of this form … the people I BELIEVE IN disagree with Lindzen so he must be wrong. Nothing but a disguised argument from (his own) authority.
In addition, we see KR is a believer of the “heat in the pipline”. He throws out “ocean lag” as a heat storage mechanism with nothing to support it. Pure nonsense.
KR says:
June 9, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences impact factor: 9.432
Asian Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences impact factor: 0.355
For comparison:
Energy and Environment impact factor: 0.42, less than one citation every four years.
My impression is that Lindzen and Choi shopped the article out to a journal needy enough to publish it despite it’s flaws.
====================
Isn’t this an “argument from authority”?
It’s pretty obvious why the team did not want this paper published. It makes it difficult to keep the high sensitivity numbers they have always accepted. Once the high sensitivity goes away, so does the alarm. Big problem for the team.
The “peers” have written thousands of papers proving the moon is made out of cheese…
….thousands of other people have based their science on the moon/cheese
They believe their science is settled, and any other science is just wrong
Someone else writes a paper that the moon is made out of rock…..
Right off the bat, that paper is wrong…..
and anyone that expects it to be peer/pal reviewed is a moron
“Isn’t this an “argument from authority”?”
Yes it is. That is the point. Using an argument from authority to claim someone else has no right to argue from authority is specious, to say the least. Like sarcasm, it is the refuge of the desperate. Appeals to authority are one step above sarcasm. You will note in the exchanges above that both are used to defend the blocking of Lindzen’s paper. The review process has become a gate-keeping exercise, instead of a review to see that all the necessary data and methods are provided, and that the math is correct. “Review” has become a new animal: sort of elevating each reviewer to the status of an opinionated editor. A good, professional scientist reviewer does not have to agree with a paper’s content. This is not news, just pointing it out,
It is important to note that KR’s argument against appeals to authority hinges on an appeal to a different authority. It is not a rebuttal in the sense of proving an alternative case. When reading warmist responses, keep your eye on the ball. Distraction is a major ingredient of AGW argumentation. Always analyse the argument structure as was done above by several contributors. It was a productive and instructive exercise for those who have not studied Argument and Reason. Nothing wrong with a little daily learning at WUWT! It is such a refreshing site at which to hang. Note my predeliction to avoid the use of redundant direction (‘out’) with my closing verb.
And yet the sun shines….
KR says:
June 9, 2011 at 7:40 pm
Son, you are really full of yourself. No one, including you, should give a darn what you think about the quality of Lindzen’s paper, the one under discussion here. The quality of the paper is not the topic. The topic is whether the journal that rejected the paper showed bias in their choice of reviewers, gave evidence for the reality of Pal Review (review by The Team), and showed bias in turning down Lindzen’s request for a different reviewer. You have not addressed any one of these points. You keep changing the subject to your remarkably poorly stated and weak opinions on the quality of the paper. In proof of this point, you note just above in this forum that only today have you received a copy of the paper. Son, you do not criticize or analyze another’s arguments without referring to his exact words. That is an inviolable rule of scholarship. You should learn it. Now, will you address the topic of bias? If not, you have resigned from this debate.
KR says:
June 9, 2011 at 7:40 pm
“Perhaps a “cabal” of establishment reviewers exists, sitting in back rooms and shooting down dissent – I consider that a very improbable scenario, quite frankly. But this paper just does not address issues that have been pointed out repeatedly. It’s a bad paper, and should not have been published in the form I last saw.”
Perhaps? The Climategate emails established the fact beyond the shadow of a doubt. You should read them.
‘“Cabal” or not, there’s plenty of reason for this paper to have been rejected. Enemy action is not required if you shoot yourself in the foot.’
Your opinions about the quality of the paper are irrelevant to this debate. Let me use an analogy. When we investigate to determine whether a painting is a forgery, the quality of the painting is irrelevant. When we are investigating to determine whether the journal’s review process involves collusion, the quality of the paper that was reviewed is irrelevant. The factors that are relevant are the selection process for reviewers, the appeal process for authors, and similar matters. Please pay attention. So far, you have not. So far, you have performed as an excellent troll but you have accomplished nothing to further understanding of the issues at hand.
Theo Goodwin – I’m reading through the APJAS version of the paper now, and will I comment when I’ve finished. My initial comments were (as I stated) based upon the early version and the reviewers comments, which to the best of my reading reflected the content presented in that pre-print.
The quality of LC11 is absolutely of primary importance here. Lindzen insists he was rejected due to bias, but the initial paper has (in my opinion, but far more importantly in the opinions of the reviewers) severe faults as science. I can see why it was rejected on those reasons alone – as I stated earlier, enemy action is not required if you shoot yourself in the foot.
Again, if the paper failed as objective science (as per the reviews), bias complaints are not only irrelevant, but come across as sour grapes.
The APJAS version has a lot more detail, and there are elements there that apparently were not present in the PNAS version (does anyone have a link to a copy of that?), judging from the PNAS reviewers comments. Perhaps this was due to space limitations or other issues?
—
There’s been a lot of discussion of “Argument by Authority”, which I mentioned earlier. This was based on the statements by multiple people along the lines of “Lindzen is a highly respected guy – who are you, and why should we think you’re right or even listen?” In other words, you’ll take Lindzen’s arguments based upon his authority (rather than the content of his arguments), but not mine, because I lack such authority? Well, then, that’s an “Argument by Authority”.
It doesn’t matter who says “But, the Emperor has no clothes!” if indeed the Emperor is lacking in that regard.
KR says:
June 10, 2011 at 9:47 am
“Theo Goodwin – I’m reading through the APJAS version of the paper now, and will I comment when I’ve finished. My initial comments were (as I stated) based upon the early version and the reviewers comments, which to the best of my reading reflected the content presented in that pre-print.”
“The quality of LC11 is absolutely of primary importance here. Lindzen insists he was rejected due to bias, but the initial paper has (in my opinion, but far more importantly in the opinions of the reviewers) severe faults as science. I can see why it was rejected on those reasons alone – as I stated earlier, enemy action is not required if you shoot yourself in the foot.”
Stop Begging the Question. The Reviewers judgment is in question. You cannot logically appeal to the Reviewers’ judgment in your arguments. But a practical point is more important. If we discuss the quality of the paper here, are we supposed to take your opinions as worthy of merit? I think you are assuming that. I have seen nothing from you except the art of an accomplished troll. You have not stated on thing about the content of the amorphous material that you have falsely called “the paper” that is worthy of rebuttal.
“Again, if the paper failed as objective science (as per the reviews), bias complaints are not only irrelevant, but come across as sour grapes.”
You are assuming that the Review and Editorial processes are beyond question. How many times do I have to tell you that they have been called into question? Our topic is journal process, not the content of Lindzen’s paper. You are assuming that the journal that published the paper cannot be taken seriously. You are assuming that those
Reviewers and Editors are not competent at their tasks. How offensive do you want to be?
“The APJAS version has a lot more detail, and there are elements there that apparently were not present in the PNAS version (does anyone have a link to a copy of that?), judging from the PNAS reviewers comments. Perhaps this was due to space limitations or other issues?”
So, I guess you want a Hillary Clinton Reset Button?
KR,
You are coming across as completely blinkered partisan. All your peripheral issues are simply a devious attempt to nitpick what is happening: the “Team” is working behind the scenes to scuttle Lindzen’s submission.
Prof Richard Lindzen has had literally hundreds of papers published over the past 45 years [scroll down]. He knows exactly what is required to get a paper published in journals. And he knows when he is being ambushed.
Your armchair cirtique means absolutely nothing. That is the job of other scientists, who will read the paper and comment following publication.
Lindzen’s paper is being denied publication – while Michael Mann always gets his obviously faulty papers hand-waved through pal review with no problem. MBH98, MBH99 and Mann08 should have been retracted by now, but Mann’s pet journals wouldn’t dare. If they did the right thing, the entire CAGW story would implode. Instead, they play games with Lindzen, who has forgotten more climatology than Michael Mann ever learned.
Run along now to RealClimatePropaganda or Skeptical Pseudo-Science where you belong, they welcome naive true believers with open arms, and no scientific method is ever required.
KR says:
June 10, 2011 at 9:47 am
“The quality of LC11 is absolutely of primary importance here. Lindzen insists he was rejected due to bias, but the initial paper has (in my opinion, but far more importantly in the opinions of the reviewers) severe faults as science. I can see why it was rejected on those reasons alone – as I stated earlier, enemy action is not required if you shoot yourself in the foot.”
Son, this remark embodies the problems with your comments. All you do is express your opinion. You give no reason for holding the opinion you express. I repeat: you are full of yourself. I gave you an analogical argument to the effect that the quality of the paper is not our topic. You simply ignored it. Among polite scholars, that is not acceptable. Will you address my analogy or not? If not, why not?
KR says:
June 10, 2011 at 9:47 am
“There’s been a lot of discussion of “Argument by Authority”, which I mentioned earlier. ”
So KR, are you going to admit your earlier comment about “impact factor” is a “Argument by Authority”, or is there a difference between “argument from authority” and “Argument by Authority”?
I don’t see how using capital letters makes any difference.
Theo Goodwin, Smokey – “You give no reason for holding the opinion you express”, “Your armchair cirtique means absolutely nothing.”
Actually, I have given my reasons for holding these opinions. Many of my reasons, based upon my reading, match those in critiques of earlier versions of this work, which have been referred to earlier in the thread, as well as very clearly listed by the PNAS reviewers. The reviewers comments are quite consistent in noting that LC11 as submitted to PNAS did not address the criticisms of the earlier work.
Science is an ongoing discussion. LC09 was roundly criticized by multiple authors, who presented clear descriptions of what their issues were (extreme sensitivity to starting dates, no accounting for extratropical heat transport, extrapolating tropical data when global data was available and gave different results, etc.). LC11 appears to be a repeat of the arguments made in LC09 – but if it doesn’t address (adequately or even at all in some cases) the criticisms, it’s just not saying anything new.
The quality of the paper is absolutely part of the discussion. Lindzen claims it was shot down because of bias, not quality, but if it was indeed shot down because of basic quality, his claim is unfounded. Bad papers should be rejected, and I find it curious that they didn’t follow the recommendations of (for example) Reviewer #4, who gave several suggestions as to what it should contain to be an excellent paper.
Was it bias? Or was it quality? Lindzen claims bias. The pre-print demonstrates quality issues, as the major objections to earlier work were not even addressed, and all the PNAS reviewers comments indicated that lack as well.
How can you possibly call the quality off topic, Theo, when that quality is an essential part of Lindzen’s claims regarding bias? Your statements seen quite disingenuous to me.
Professor’s Lindzen’s report on the rough treatment that he was given by the NAS serves as a clarion call for me. I will be meeting personally with my local congressman to discuss Lindzen’s report. In a couple of weeks, I will be in Richmond and meeting personally with my ex-congressman, Eric Cantor, to discuss Professor Lindzen’s report. I will be meeting with my US Senators to discuss the matter. It is time for congress to begin congressional hearings on Pal Review. I implore all other readers of this forum to take similar actions.
I disagree with KR’s assertion that if a paper has flaws it doesn’t matter if it was run through an overwhelmingly biased panel of reviewers. I’m not at all saying that Lindzen is flawed but hypothetically speaking, even if it is, that’s beside the point. Biased review panels are simply wrong and anti-science. Does anyone disagree with that basic point?
We all know that MBH98 had horrible flaws but because it was run through a biased panel (biased in favor in that case), it was waved through with, apparently, only cursory examination. Biased in favor or biased against doesn’t matter. Both are bad.
In my mind, a journal editor’s job is not to make every paper as correct as it can be (that would be impossible anyway). It’s to ensure that each paper is run through the same set of filters, applied in the same way such that the bar is never higher or lower for any particular paper. They are the gatekeeper and their job is to make sure the gate is always the same height. In the long run, the interests of science are better served not by review processes that increase accuracy (however you define that) but by review processes that increase the consistency of evaluation. We can never stop errors from being published. The danger is not publishing something that is timely, insightful and thought provoking (regardless whether some errors slip by). Don’t make me go dig up all the anti-eugenics papers that were, for years, suppressed by most journals. Whether a particular anti-eugenics paper had some error or not, science would have been better served by having that point of view exposed and considered (and corrected if need be) by the community sooner.
Since I heard someone ask, here’s the PNAS version:
http://www.masterresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Lindzen-Choi-PNASSubmission.pdf
KR has his On/Off switch wired around, and he can’t see the issue. He wants to make himself the arbiter of whether a paper is good or bad.
There is no doubt that Prof Lindzen knows exactly what is required to have a paper published. He has done it hundreds of times. The shenanigans on display in this case are just more behind the scenes efforts by the “Team” to sabotage skeptics’ papers – as they specifically stated they were doing in the Climategate emails.
And now the formerly respected journal Nature has turned into an agitprop propaganda rag. It’s really sad to see how badly science is being corrupted and perverted by the alarmist pal review crowd.
KR says:
June 10, 2011 at 11:33 am
The quality of the paper is absolutely part of the discussion. Lindzen claims it was shot down because of bias, not quality, but if it was indeed shot down because of basic quality, his claim is unfounded. Bad papers should be rejected, and I find it curious that they didn’t follow the recommendations of (for example) Reviewer #4, who gave several suggestions as to what it should contain to be an excellent paper.”
The paper has been published in a scientific journal. That ends the discussion of its quality. If you want to deny this claim then your argument is not with Lindzen but the Reviewers and Editors who published the article. Are you going to take them on? Will you please respond to this question?
“How can you possibly call the quality off topic, Theo, when that quality is an essential part of Lindzen’s claims regarding bias? Your statements seen quite disingenuous to me.”
I explained it with an analogy. Do you not understand the analogy? If you do not then say so. But if you are debating in good faith then you must address the analogy.
The quality of the article is logically independent of the morality of the actions taken by the editor and the Reviewers. This is easily demonstrated. Lindzen asked for another reviewer. An editor who is upright, who values his own reputation for integrity, would have leaped at this suggestion as a way out of a very embarrassing situation. This editor did not. It is just such qualities of character that are in question. You adamantly refuse to address them.
KR says:
June 10, 2011 at 11:33 am
“The quality of the paper is absolutely part of the discussion. Lindzen claims it was shot down because of bias, not quality, but if it was indeed shot down because of basic quality, his claim is unfounded.”
Son, the paper was peer reviewed and published in a scientific journal. That settles the question of quality. You cannot assert that the standards of the NAS over-ride those of the publishing journal. If you make such an assertion, your argument is with the reviewers and editor of the publishing journal not with Lindzen or his article.
The NAS reviewers and editor did not display the usual attitude found in academia, an attitude of collegiality. They displayed antagonism. Many a time I have told an author how to correct a mistake that makes his paper unpublishable. In not giving Lindzen an additional reviewer, the NAS folks demonstrated their hostility to him.
Steve McIntyre has something to say on this matter.
http://climateaudit.org/2011/06/10/lindzens-pnas-reviews/
DCA says:
June 10, 2011 at 2:01 pm
“Steve McIntyre has something to say on this matter.”
Thanks so much. McIntyre’s discussion demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that Lindzen received treatment that can only be described as exceptional and antagonistic. The editor who chose only reviewers from The Team, especially that Pit Bull Schmidt, can wear this albatross around his neck for the remainder of his life. This is Pal Reviewing beyond a doubt.
I have a post on this over at Climate Etc.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/06/10/lindzen-and-choi-part-ii/
KR says:
June 9, 2011 at 3:32 pm
DavidG – Who am I? I’m a nobody, a ghost, an annoying voice, a nagging reminder 🙂
Krypton is a chemical element with the symbol Kr and atomic number 36. It is a member of Group 18 and Period 4 elements. A colorless, odorless, tasteless noble gas…
My bet is on Wille C.
Over at her blog,
curryja says:
June 10, 2011 at 2:54 pm
“Second, PNAS violated its own guidelines in the treatment of the LC paper. PNAS needs to decide whether it wants to be a vanity press for members of the NAS, or a rigorous peer reviewed journal. Either- or, with no special treatment for papers by skeptics. Looks like potentially important papers by skeptics get “special treatment”, whereas unimportant and often dubious papers by consensus scientists slide right through.”
I do not need to say a thing. Professor Curry has stated a very clear position on the critical issue.
Thank You, Professor Curry, for sharing your wisdom on this matter.
DCA says:
June 10, 2011 at 3:03 pm
KR says:
June 9, 2011 at 3:32 pm
“DavidG – Who am I? I’m a nobody, a ghost, an annoying voice, a nagging reminder :)”
He is a very talented, or maybe just very lucky, troll. He hijacked this very important forum on Lindzen and ruined it. I really wish that WUWT would realize that its work is more important than the posts of trolls who can hijack and ruin a thread. Such trolls should be banned.
Oh, this is just hoo-hah. Lindzen himself says that one was from his favored reviewer, Minnis, and another one was from one of the reviewers suggested by PNAS, V. Ramanathan (probably). All four had the basically the same criticisms. His first two reviewers (Happer? Really?) were suspect, one because of his expertise and one because of his connection with Lindzen publishing on the same subject.
I see nothing wrong with asking an author who is basically reiterating a previous and highly criticized paper should be asked to answer those criticisms As has been pointed out above, science is an ongoing debate and if you are trying to publish a paper extending and reiterating results which have been criticized in the literature, you have a duty to answer those criticisms. All four reviewers raised this point and all four reviewers felt that the paper did not meet the quality standards of PNAS. You guys did read the reviews, didn’t you?
Judith Curry’s analysis:
Hm-m-m, whom to believe, Dr Curry? Or the ankle biters?
@KR – I don’t understand your earlier comment about regression fit of time lag.
How can it possibly be “thin”? Theirs is a simple model where one of the parameters being sought under a best fit by R^2 condition is the time lag between temperature change and both short wave and long wave radiation fluxes.
That is their model, they’ve fitted it, finding maximum correlation at 1 month and 3 months lag, respectively. Given that this is an statistical model, why is that not a good technique? It is a good correlation, FAR, FAR better than the unlagged correlation of about 0.2.
Theo Goodwin says:
June 10, 2011 at 11:36 am
Professor’s Lindzen’s report on the rough treatment that he was given by the NAS serves as a clarion call for me. I will be meeting personally with my local congressman to discuss Lindzen’s report. In a couple of weeks, I will be in Richmond and meeting personally with my ex-congressman, Eric Cantor, to discuss Professor Lindzen’s report. I will be meeting with my US Senators to discuss the matter. It is time for congress to begin congressional hearings on Pal Review. I implore all other readers of this forum to take similar actions.
Just be clear Theo when you discuss the matter with them exactly what Lindzen is complaining about, he expected to get ‘Pal Review’ from Happer and Chou, PNAS didn’t give to him but allowed him to pick from a list instead.
Lindzen didn’t get the special treatment he expected rather he got the same treatment that most of us get.
Rattus is sspreading disinformation. Steve McIntyre’s post at Cimat Audit documents the review comments well. Rattus spread disinformation at Judith Curry’s Blog about Chou being a pal reviewer and biased. When it was pointed out that Chou last published in 2001 with Lindzen and NAS policy is no publication in 4 years with a reviewer, he went silent, And PNAS theselves confirmed that the reviewers chosen by Lindzen were formally acceptable as per their criteria
” Both scientists are formally eligible for refereeing according to the PNAS rules, but one of them (WH) is certainly not an expert for the topic in question and the other one (MDC) has published extensively on the very subject together with Lindzen. So, in a sense, he is reviewing his own work…”
They seem to have conflated Chou with Choi as there was no way Chou was ” reviewing his own work “.
And their choice of reviewers were Susan Solomon, Trenberth, Schmidt and Ramanathan. The first 3 are pals and antagonistic biased reviewers wfrom whom it is impossible for any skeptic to get a fair review.
Venter,
I pointed out that Chou might be considered a biased reviewer. He had published with Lindzen on basically the same subject. Even if you do consider Chou a reasonable reviewers, having Happer as the other reviewer is sketchy. PNAS requires two reviewers who are, well, peers. Happer doesn’t fit this one., and it is problematic whether Chou fits the bill. Obviously the editor of PNAS did not think that either fit the bill. I think that I made clear that I thought that disallowing Chou was problematic, but that Happer did not make the grade as a reviewer for the paper, so that even if you considered Chou as a reasonable reviewer Happer was not and the PNAS requirement for TWO reviewers was not met.
Linden did not provide two reviewers who met the requirements of the NAS. Once he got real reviews, two from hostile reviewers and two from friendly reviewers he decided to withdraw the paper and get the revised paper published in another journal. A sketchy paper is a sketchy paper and this one seems to have been one…. That is why it ended up being published in a little known journal…
You did not point our any such bias and neither did PNAS when the team were reviewing each other with puff ball pal reviews. yet you jumped in with criticism accusing Chou of pal reviewer when there was no such issue involved by the journal’s own standards. And I have no doubt that NAS confused Chou with Choi and so did many others as their comment was
” Both scientists are formally eligible for refereeing according to the PNAS rules, but one of them (WH) is certainly not an expert for the topic in question and the other one (MDC) has published extensively on the very subject together with Lindzen. So, in a sense, he is reviewing his own work…”
See the last setntence? PNAS said Chou was reviewing his own work whicch is patently untrue.
WRT Happer, as I pointed out to you in Judy Curry’s blog, he has enough qualification and expertise in physics and done lot of work in climate related areas. He has papers with thousands of citations. I repeat Lubos Motl’s Post from CA which adquately sums it up
” I find the description of Prof Happer as an unqualified person amazing.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=william-happer
Happer has done lots of things that use qualitatively similar – but more advanced – physics as the greenhouse effect. In particular, his optical pumping paper has 1100+ citations. There are many other highly influential papers he has co-authored and he has investigated the climate topics in some detail for years.
What’s really special about the specialized, “qualified” climate scientists whom you would prefer as referees is that they have never contributed anything genuine to the real science – and they form a clique. I don’t think that any of these two features should be presented as an advantage. ”
So I ask the same question, what’s so special about these ” qualified ” climate scientists you talk about? What are their quaifications, considering there is n oacademic discpline as climate science? They have a lousy grasp of statistics and mathematics as has been seen by their works. They have no concept of how to organise, store or share data and archive data based on which they publish studies. This inspite of most off the work in ” climate science ” being data collection and number crunching.with dubious mathematics and statistics. And their models have proven to be hopeless in predicting anything. Ad lastly their integrity as scientists as a whole is in tatters with their shenanighans as seen so far. So what makes them experts and in which field? None of them have the knowledge or capability to wipe Happer’s boots when it comes to hard sciences like physics, which is what climate science should be fundamentally based upon. We’ve heard the term ” It’s basic physics ” employed ad nauseum by climate scientists while talkng about GHG and AGW.
And lastly, with respect to ” high quality ” journal, that’s pure BS. Here’s a comment by a commentor “j ” from Bishop Hill which ideally describes PNAS
” PNAS serves almost as a vanity press for members of the Academy (Lindzen is one). Previously, they were able to publish papers there with no formal review. A few years ago, this was changed, to a policy whereby the author him or herself was required to provide two reports from independent scientists, picked by him or herself. A much lower hurdle than normal anonymous review, because the referee knows that the author knows who they are, so this usually cannot lead to rejection – Lindzen quotes only 2% of papers that do not get accepted. I know one member of the academy, who has told me that he was most happy about being elected member precisely because this meant he could get controversial – but in his view important – papers published where normal refereeing might lead to a protracted cycle of negative reports etc. …”
So that’s your ” high quality ” journal.
And incidences like this show how NAS is controlled by a clique of dishonest climate scientists, the same ones who are involved in every questionable and unethical act so far in this field.
And by the way Lindzen put forward the name of Albert Arking of John Hopkins also as a possible second reviewer.. He met all the criteria. Till date every author submitting to PNAS put forard their own reviewers. In Lindzen’s case, NAS put Susan Solomon, Gavin Schmidt, Trenberth and Ramanathan as the reviewers. From this review panel there was no way any skeptic article would ever be published challlenging the orthodoxy.
So as usual Rattus, you keep spinning but facts remain seen to everyone in broad dayligt
Phil, just read through NAS policy in reviewers before making ignorant comments.
Phil. says:
June 10, 2011 at 9:41 pm
“Just be clear Theo when you discuss the matter with them exactly what Lindzen is complaining about, he expected to get ‘Pal Review’ from Happer and Chou, PNAS didn’t give to him but allowed him to pick from a list instead.
Lindzen didn’t get the special treatment he expected rather he got the same treatment that most of us get.”
Phil, you really need to do some homework. PNAS review is Vanity Review for NAS members. Read Judith Curry at her blog if you do not believe me. See that word: vanity? It is not PAL Review but Vanity Review.
PAL Review is when a group of insiders (yes, some call “insiders” conspirators) give favorable reviews to themselves and unfavorable reviews to all outside the group. For whatever reason, maybe a UberWeiner moment in springtime, the editor of PNAS decided to assemble a group of hardcore Warmista to review Lindzen. With total predictability (the only predictable thing in climate science) they Violated PNAS rules, savaged Lindzen’s work, and then went anti-collegial when Lindzen complained. The real story that must be investigated is who initiated this little WeinerGate in Climate Science. Was it the editor who assembled the lynch mob? Or is the lynch mob just always there and begging to take a shot at somebody? Or both? The very fact that “they” would do this in PNAS Vanity Review speaks volume about their desperation, their lack of judgment, their uncontrolled anger, and their pure, unadulterated arrogance. That little lynch mob is going to be broken apart. If the only means for doing it is through their funding, so be it.
Rattus Norvegicus says:
June 10, 2011 at 5:32 pm
“I see nothing wrong with asking an author who is basically reiterating a previous and highly criticized paper should be asked to answer those criticisms.”
WUWT is not a forum for blowing off steam, having a UberWeiner moment, or stating your unsupported opinions. It is a place for presentation, explication, and debate. If you find yourself stating your unsupported opinions, especially stating them as a response, go look in the mirror and say these words: “Dude, you are full of yourself, everyone can see it, and no one will take you seriously until you get over it.”
Venter says:
June 11, 2011 at 12:16 am
Very well said, Venter. By “climate scientists,” The Team means “someone who shares the views and attitudes of the Pit Bull Schmidt and who, like Schmidt, uses most of his taxpayer income doing something that is prima facie not related to his job such as publishing a pro-AGW propaganda blog.” Or maybe NASA is now just a propaganda agency?
By the way, Venter, your screen name belies your intelligent and helpful posts. Just a coincidence?
“This paper fails to address extra-tropical heat transport (ENSO, anyone?), using a simplistic factor of 2 to extend tropical results to the globe – that was a major point in all of the critiques of earlier versions of this work, and L&C don’t even discuss it”
Results optained by studying the tropics are not invalidated by a lack of studying the extratropics. The tropics are where evaporation, humidity and its effects on temperature are strongest. The logic of this objection to the lack of inclusion of an alternative study could be made to any research every submitted. We are bombarded with thousands of published climate studies which focus on a particular regions, most of which do not even bother to note the actual temperature history of the region in question. If climate sensitivity in the tropics is 1 degree, that is an important conclusion. How it can be higher where there is less water vapor in the atmosphere is something for Trenberth and others to try to explain.
Well, I’ve now read through both the PNAS and APJAS versions (many thanks to timetochooseagain for the links).
As I expected, there are a few differences, but no significant changes in the approach. LC11 claims to address four major complaints, missing several of the more critical (such as extreme sensitivity to start/end dates). In addressing the extratropical heat exchange (which they do mention, which is good) they then wave their hands and assert that it’s not a factor. No numbers, no data, just an assertion. The critiques of LC09 include a great deal of data and analysis on this factor – LC11 does not.
So – an author essentially reiterates a paper he’s presented before, to great criticism. It’s only reasonable to ask that he addresses those criticisms – he did not. The reviewers (including at least one suggested by Lindzen) all agreed that the paper did not meet PNAS standards.
Lindzen and Choi got their paper published elsewhere – good for them. But claiming that the paper was rejected at PNAS due to bias, when even one of the reviewers Lindzen suggested indicate it was rejected due to poor quality – that’s just sour grapes.
IMPOSTERS
KR, Rattus Norvegicus and Phil would like to give the impression that they are fearless fair minded people.
They give the impression of weighing up the pros and cons and are forced by the evidence to agree with the not to publish position.
In fact they are “ideological hacks” so their position is predictable.
If some e-mail correspondence between the referees was leaked, showing organised biased collusion not to publish, what would they say?
The same three would return posting to defend the usual corrupt practices.
KR says:
June 11, 2011 at 6:57 am
“Lindzen and Choi got their paper published elsewhere – good for them. But claiming that the paper was rejected at PNAS due to bias, when even one of the reviewers Lindzen suggested indicate it was rejected due to poor quality – that’s just sour grapes.”
Either you have not read Professor Curry’s analysis of the matter on her blog or else you have not understood a word of it. Professor Curry’s comments on the matter are clear, concise, and To The Point. Lindzen was treated differently and treated badly. The editor’s treatment of Lindzen and participation by The Team supports criticisms that PAL Review rules. Professor Curry has spoken clearly and authoritatively. She calls for policy changes at PNAS. If you do not address her points then you will have taken yourself out of the debate, once again.
In addition, you continue to focus on issues of content. As I have explained earlier, the quality of the content was never a legitimate issue and has been exploited by those trying to cover wrong doing by editors and reviewers. Professor Curry explains the same thing. If anyone doubts that you are a troll, these points should convince them that you are.
Theo Goodwin – “…the quality of the content was never a legitimate issue…”
Au contraire, Theo – the content is the issue itself. This paper was rejected once by GRL, twice by PNAS, with reviewers including Lindzen’s hand-picked people concluding that it lacked quality.
Statements such as your make it very difficult to take some skeptics seriously. Science is all about the content, and upon those grounds this paper fails. To claim otherwise is, well, rhetoric. Not science.
One of the biggest problems in this area, is matching up the ERBE and the CERES datasets (they are in anomalies relative to different baseline/measuring periods).
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/6278/erbeceres.png
To be consistent with all other climate indices, I would moves the CERES LW radiation up about 2 Watts/m2 and the CERES reflected SW radiation down about 2 Watts/m2. This would put them back on the same baseline.
The LW radiation is mostly as an ENSO signal. It should be higher in the 2000 to 2007 period since this was dominated by El Ninos.
The SW reflected radiation varies mostly due to the Pinatuba eruption which initially reflected more radiation and then less as the sulfate aerosols destroyed Ozone which resulted in less absorption/reflection of UV radiation. It should look much like the stratosphere temperature signal which would result in CERES reflected SW radiation being moved down.
But I would also use a different dataset than reflected SW at the top-of-the-atmosphere as CERES measures. The SW solar heating of the Earth’s surface is affected by cloud cover, volcanic aerosols, ozone levels, cloud thickness, human aerosols, human aerosols impact on clouds etc. Taking all these impacts together, the data indicates there has been almost no net change in the total SW radiation getting to the Earth surface over the period. Zero or a +/- 1 W/m2 (A short downturn during Pinatubo but little change after this effect dissapated).
Putting those adjustments into the numbers, we would find that Lindzen propositions in the paper are actually correct. Temps are up a bit, LW went up as if the sensitivity value was very low, and the ENSO is the big player in these changes.
As the La Nina impact has been fully incorporated now, outgoing LW is back down to near Zero anomalies as is the temperature. Not much GHG induced reduction in LW as proposed in the theory.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/teleconnections/olr-5b-pg.gif
KR says:
June 11, 2011 at 8:02 am
“Au contraire, Theo – the content is the issue itself. This paper was rejected once by GRL, twice by PNAS, with reviewers including Lindzen’s hand-picked people concluding that it lacked quality.”
It is a rare occasion that I get to quote myself.
‘KR, if you find yourself stating your unsupported opinions, especially stating them as a response, go look in the mirror and say these words: “Dude, you are full of yourself, everyone can see it, and no one will take you seriously until you get over it.”’
You are not going to address Dr. Curry’s points, are you? You might a well tattoo “Warmista” on your forehead. Doing so would help you focus as you look into the mirror.
KR is spreading disinformation by talking about Lindzen’s handpicked people. NAS policy is authors can choose two referees of their own choice as long as it complies with the stated policies. That is applicable to every author. So firstly by refusing to accept Lindzen’s choice of referees, which complied with their own requirements, they violated their own principles.
Secondly, Lindzen put forward Abert Arkins as a possible second reviewer also.
Lindzen did not choose any of the 4 selected by PNAS as referees. These were chosen by PNAS themselves. Lindzen had no choice here.
So KR is as usual putting a deliberate false spin not supported by facts. And as far as evaluation of content is concerned, it is utter BS to expect that any skeptical article would be allowed to be published by a reviewer panel consisting of Gavin Schmidt, Kevin Trenberth and Susan Solomon who are demonstrated dishonest AGW proponents of the first order with no scruples or morals. They are part of the Climategate clique and will do anything possible without any regards to truth, scientific method or ethics to stop any skeptic paper from being published anywhere. They are scientifically, and ethically untrustworthy.
Dr Curry states: “PNAS violated its own guidelines in the treatment of the LC paper.”
The apologists for the unethical behavior by PNAS are getting a well-deserved b!tch slapping here because of their failed attempts to justify disparate treatment of skeptics, while turning a blind eye to the same pal review that hand-waves through fatally flawed papers by Michael Mann.
The same journals refuse to retract Mann’s debunked papers, particularly MBH98 and Mann08. Those papers have been so thoroughly discredited that there is no legitimate excuse for not retracting them. Yet they remain as part of the ‘litrachur’ because the self-serving Mann and his pet journals are all on the same alarmist team, peddling their debunked globaloney conjecture for personal gain and aggrandizement at taxpayer expense.
Dr Lindzen has never been a complainer. He is simply pointing out the different treatment he recieved compared to the alarmist goons, who have discarded their professional ethics in order to keep their snouts in the taxpayer trough. Dr Lindzen knows how the peer review system works, he’s been through it hundreds of times, and when he says he is being treated differently, rational folks accept his accusation because it is based on long experience.
The enablers of the PNAS shenanigans ignore the fact that the Climategate emails specifically document this kind of unethical behavior. They will do anything to keep skeptical views out of the journals in order to keep the taxpayer loot flowing into their pockets, and the comments by the PNAS apologists demonstrate their lack of ethics.
“PNAS violated its own guidelines in the treatment of the LC paper.” Playing favorites is truly despicable in a professional journal, especially when it is used to extort taxpayer funds. But it’s what they do. And the desperate attempts by the few PNAS apologists here can not cover up that wrongdoing.
Theo, thanks for your comments. It’s just a coincidence, the name.
Its welcome that KR posts on such a one sided issue.
In doing so he exposes himself as an unthinking propagandist.
If he posts again on an issue where there is perhaps a more evenly balanced case to be made, don’t give him the benefit of the doubt.
If science is working like it is supposed to each side would peer review the other sides paper. But science is broken now special interests fund each side and it is almost impossible to have unbiased research. I hope science will eventually be fixed. I am 18 and plan on going to college to become a atmospheric scientist and I am sick of politics intruding into science already. I can’t imagine dealing with it the rest of my life.
And still no one can explain why GHG ‘forcing’ will be amplified by over 400% when solar forcing is only amplified by about 60%.
Yet they vehemently object to a negative feedback of about 40% from Lindzen and Choi. I think the peer review process is seriously broken.