#spiritofmawson fiasco leader gets award for 'excellence'

The Australian Academy of Science has announced their 2014 HONORIFIC AWARDS FOR SCIENTIFIC EXCELLENCE

The description reads:

Academy Medal: for contributions to science by means other than the conduct of scientific research. Hmmm, that actually seems appropriate, since his tourist affair hardly seemed like “scientific research” Here’s the bio on Turney in the awards section: 

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Professor Chris Turneyprofessor-christian-s-turneySchool of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences

University of New South Wales

Professor Turney is an internationally recognised earth scientist and research leader in both climate and environmental change, from the tropics to the poles. By pioneering new ways of combining climate models with records of past climate change (spanning from hundreds to thousands of years), he has discovered new links between variability mechanisms in the Australian region and global climate change.

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Source: http://www.science.org.au/awards/awardees/2014awards.html

I wonder if the award was decided before his Antarctic fiasco or if AAS simply has glossed over the recent incompetence?

h/t to Jo Nova

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lurker, passing through laughing
January 21, 2014 8:26 am

Academics are circling the wagons. It is not a pretty sight.

ConfusedPhoton
January 21, 2014 8:28 am

Professor Turney is an internationally recognised earth scientist and research leader -he certainly is well recognised but not for the things he would wish.
Shouldn’t that be Antarctic and not Arctic?

January 21, 2014 8:31 am

Nobel next?

joel
January 21, 2014 8:32 am

He’s following in the steps of giants, like The Algoreitm and Obamalama. Big award winners both.

Sweet Old Bob
January 21, 2014 8:33 am

Pal review at work again….Awards are double in Pal wok zones…

Pathway
January 21, 2014 8:34 am

This is typical for the left. Awards to those most incompetent.

caseyanderson2112
January 21, 2014 8:34 am

Challenging the Nobel committee for dominance as the most ridiculous committee in modern and ancient history.

Sweet Old Bob
January 21, 2014 8:36 am

Ugh..wok=work..

martinbrumby
January 21, 2014 8:36 am

Plenty of precedents for this.
Think Gleick, Mann, Ehrlich and many more besides. Make a complete foul up and wait for the ‘honours’ to be awarded.
Prince Chuckles even squeezed a visit to CRU at UEA into his schedule, just after Climategate broke, specifically to offer his support to Phil Jones & Briffa,
Anyway, he is indeed ‘internationally recognised’.
As a complete d*ckhead.

Rud Istvan
January 21, 2014 8:38 am

He needs the award money (all $3K) to help pay for the rescue. Just the AAS doing their bit to help out with this honorific for discovering a new link between variability and global climate change–increasing sea ice.

Peter Miller
January 21, 2014 8:41 am

Turney won the Frederick White Prize of $3,000. So not chance of that money being put to good use towards paying off some of the costs of the Antarctic fiasco.
The last line below suggests playing Clown of the Antarctic is not taken into account, when the prize is being awarded.
“The Frederick White Prize recognises the achievements of scientists in Australia who are engaged in research of intrinsic scientific merit that has made an actual or potential contribution to community interests, to rural or industrial progress, or to the understanding of natural phenomena. Relevant areas of research are mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry, and the terrestrial and planetary sciences. The prize of up to $3000 (GST exempt) is awarded biennially to researchers up to 15 years post-PhD in the calendar year of nomination, except in the case of significant interruptions to a research career. The award is restricted to research conducted mainly in Australia. “

Caz Jones
January 21, 2014 8:42 am

What a travesty.

darrylb
January 21, 2014 8:47 am

An unfortunate outcome is that the wrongdoings of a rather small group of inner circle (the team) scientists are going to stain the image of others who are very objective and diligent.
What we are seeing is a manifestation of what former U.S. President Eisenhower predicted, and it runs through other sciences also. (like medicine)
Esteemed Colleges and Universities are more worried about the number of Scientific papers produced than the quality of education given to the bulk of students. A few select students may do exceedingly well, the rest are the domain of Grad Assistants and often given short change.
I have seen good researchers who are remarkably poor instructors at various locations.

TomRude
January 21, 2014 8:49 am

Indeed he is internationnally recognized now… 😉

Gary
January 21, 2014 8:57 am

These awards are basically pal review. And so common they don’t really mean much. When your critics acknowledge your work in a positive way, then you’ve really accomplished something.

January 21, 2014 8:57 am

Had he met with mishap in Antarctica, he definitely would have been a shoo-in for a Darwin Award.
http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/

Henry Galt
January 21, 2014 8:57 am

martinbrumby says:
January 21, 2014 at 8:36 am “”””
Yes.The penny dropped for me when, nearly a year ago now, I read somewhere “… brave climate scientist Gleick …” How many oxymorons can these people place into one sentence? Is there a secret competiton going on?
My gob can no longer be smacked (that hard anyway) again. My eyes still hurt when forced to read about such as this though.

pat
January 21, 2014 8:59 am

He is a crackpot and a conman.

January 21, 2014 9:16 am

The bigger the fiasco, the more medals are handed out. Eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded for Rorke’s Drift.

jbird
January 21, 2014 9:16 am

Yep. This is like awarding someone the Nobel Peace Prize for something they are thought likely to do. Don’t these clowns realize that they dilute the importance of their awards through this kind of purely political behavior.

Bugs Man
January 21, 2014 9:17 am

I note that the last mention of Prof Turkey (oops – Turney) on the Uni of Exeter web site is dated 2009. Uber-enviro-CO2-hater Julia Gillard became Australia’s Labor Party Leader in 2010. Commodore Turkey (oops again! – Turney) accepted a Prof-ship in Gillard’s fleet exactly when? Was it 2010 perchance?

Mike M
January 21, 2014 9:25 am
flyingtigercomics
January 21, 2014 9:33 am

Homeric. In the Simpsons sense.

mpainter
January 21, 2014 9:37 am

This is the political corruption of science. Steve McIntyre, in a comment on his most recent posting flatly states that Turney was mendacious in his Nature article. For those who miss the point, mendacious means liar.
Now this. It seems that the climatologists have turned desperado in their attempts to recapture public esteem and get their climate scam out of the ditch and back on the highway. Let’s see who comes to the defense of Turney. So far, no one has at Climate Audit, where Steve’s comment was posted two days ago.

View from the Solent
January 21, 2014 9:43 am

The h/t link to Jo Nova at the end of the post points back to this post recursively. Should be
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/01/guess-who-won-an-award-for-understanding-natural-phenomenon/

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