This is a guest post about the execrable Greg Laden, and his calls for firing Dr. Willie Soon without having one iota of proof of his assertions. I’ve had run ins with this fool before, where I point out he’s lied about me, and even considered taking him to court for libel. In this episode, once again, Greg Laden is wronger than wrong, as is the paid political shill Brad Johnson, campaign manager of Forecast the Facts, who put together the smear campaign seen in the photo below. As Instapundit says, “hit back twice as hard”. Its the only thing a bully truly understands. – Anthony Watts
Guest essay, reposted with permission, by William H. Briggs, statistician, who blogs here
Government Funding Is A Conflict Of Interest: Cowardly Calls For Climate Scientist’s Firing
The Beast
What entity pours by far the most money into scientific research? I’ll give you a hint. It’s the same entity that has been growing without bound, mercilessly muscling aside all competitors who would encroach into its space. It’s an entity which has a keen and abiding interest in the research it funds. An entity with desires. This entity cares results from its funded research turns out this way and not that.
No, not an oil company. Nay, not Apple corporation. Not even a pharmaceutical. It’s Uncle Sam!
Did you not know the scientists who receive Uncle’s lusciously large lasting grants are the same scientists who sit on the committees which award the grants? Conflict? It’s true the various wealthy agencies have a permanent and ever-burgeoning staff (see Parkinson’s Law and this) which shuffles the booty to and fro, but they’re advised by transient academics who today are at their home institutions standing erect with their hands out, and tomorrow are on the Metro to the NIH to sit (erect) in judgment of their peers.
Yes, the same people who award the grants are those that receive them.
Didn’t you know this? It’s true a man can’t award himself a grant, but he can give one to his pal and neighbor, and when its his pal and neighbor’s turn to sit on the review committee, he can and does return the favor.
But aren’t grants anonymous? Sure, some of them are. In the same way you think your online presence is anonymous. It takes almost a full minute of scrutiny in most cases to discover the name of the pleader. And many times there is no pretense of anonymity. This makes it easy to punish your enemies and boost your buddies.
What about the nature of the grants?
If the EPA solicits applications for the grant “Find something wrong with this power plant” do you think their pleadings will go in vain? No, sir, they will not. Dozens upon dozens of imploring missives will arrive at headquarters, all promising to finger the culprit. And do you think the investigations of the winner (and now richer researcher) will disappoint? No, sir, these investigations will not. Besides the ordinary willingness to please found in cooperative well-fed persons, there is also the promise of future monies for a job well done.
Not only will the researcher gladly suck at the government teat, strengthening his own bank account, but the researcher’s boss will benefit, too. For in each government gift is attached the miracle of overhead. This amounts to an additional 50% (more or less) of the grant’s value, a sum which goes to the researcher’s boss to spend as he pleases.
As he pleases, I say.
Overhead can be, and has been, spent on all nature of things. New offices and furnishings. Wintertime junkets to sunny uplands. Hiring of nephews and nieces. This overhead is very pleasing to the researcher’s Dean and the Dean’s guard of deanlettes. The Dean encourages grants for this reason, making sure to hire just those folks who are likely to bring in more government overhead.
The system feeds on itself.
For these and for many more similar reasons, the biggest conflict of interest in scientific research is government grants. It is an open scandal of monstrous proportions that scientists who receive government money do not declare that they might have been influenced, that they never admit their interest (beyond saying, “This grant was funded by grant xxx-yyy”).
Climate chaos
And so we come to one of the most cowardly unethical asinine foolhardy pig-ignorant acts we have witnessed in the thing we used to call Science.
You can see the picture above. It’s being passed around by the juvenile simpleton—this is an provable accusation, not meaningless abuse—named Greg Laden. He would like to see Willie Soon fired from his job, because why? Because, and I quote the ass,
Apparently, his research is paid by the fossil fuel industry.
The research in question is the paper “Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model” written by Lord Monckton, Wille Soon, David Legates, and Yours Truly. See Climate Paper Causes Chaos, Angst, Anger, Apoplexy! (Hacking?) for more details.
Not one penny, not one iota of consideration of any kind, was received from any source for the writing of this paper. It was a labor of love, done on personal time (of which, for my heresies, I have mountains). We wrote and re-wrote, and re-wrote some more, then decided which journal might enjoy seeing the paper. We knew (see Climategate) our names alone would cause its rejection from the usual “Consensus” sources. So we went where we were not known, figuring the work would be judged on its merits and not its politics. It was.
We submitted. Then we endured a grueling peer-review process (your proctologist was not as thorough). Our paper was accepted. And that’s it.
That makes Laden’s insinuation a lie. No fossil fuel industry funding was received. And even if it was, the details I gave you about the true source of tainting money in research also proves that there is nothing special about oil money. Indeed, oil money is less influential because (1) there’s much, much less of it, and (2) there is not the habit of the same people who receive the grants also awarding them.
The believers in science-is-politics who have organized the petition have attracted “21,263 signers so far“. This is a crowd that wouldn’t be able to define convection. This is a crowd that knows nothing about global warming, but they sure as heck believe in its solution.
Idiots.
UPDATE: (By Anthony)
I wonder if Greg Laden and Brad Johnson, campaign manager of Forecast the Facts, will be putting together a smear campaign to get every member of the American Geophysical Union fired? After all, in 2013, they funded their annual meeting heavily with fossil fuel interest$, and again in 2014.
http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2013/general-information/thank-you-to-our-sponsors/
http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2014/general-information/thank-you-to-our-sponsors/
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Anyway to start a petition for “Fire Greg Laden!”?
Rather than a petition to fire Greg Laden, I’m kinda thinkin’, given the picture of the guy, topside in the the post, that it might be a better use of everyone’s time to take a survey about ol’ Greg. You know, like:
-Considering Greg Laden’s sour-puss photo–I mean just look at that sucker!–would you estimate there’s a finite possibility that Greg is a tragic victim of “NLP (Nasty Little Prick) Syndrome? Y/N
-Considering Greg Laden’s beady-eyed menacing-dork photo, above, does he come across, to you, through no fault of his own, as the sort of person you’d want to thoroughly investigate if you were doing a study on the impact of “climate disruption” on dumb-ass creep-outs? Y/N
-Considering Greg Laden’s kick-butt stare-booger photo, above, do you think Greg practiced his scary-dude look in his bathroom mirror, before he posed for his selfie? Y/N
-Considering Greg Laden’s alpha-hombre hive-challenger photo, above, do you just want to exclaim, as a matter of mere, idiomatic-English, interjection-reflex, with no belligerent intent, whatsoever, of course, “Hey Greg!–“YO MOMMA!!!” Y/N
I mean, like, I’d say it’s ’bout time us lovers of freedom and ethical-science started competin’ with the hive-tools in the “survey” department. Petitions, on the other hand, are for little-phony, eco-weenie, tough-guy wannabes, I’d say.
“That makes Laden’s insinuation a lie”
Don’t you think it is about time you consulted an attorney about a lawsuit?
Obviously, you’ve never experienced the expense of consulting an attorney. Unless there is a campaign to raise funds for the litigant, most of us in the real world can’t afford such.
Don, you don’t think that many who read here would donate to a legal fund for Mr. Watts to go after this low life person?
That is why you seek punitive damages as well as the cost of your own lawsuit. There are also lots of lawyers who would take it on contingency.
It was once considered on WUWT but the consensus advised Watts not to for many reasons such as wasting his time – which they would love as it would keep him busy in court and away from blogging.
Joey
If you truly believe that, please go out and find one (or pony up the money yourself)…
As much as I hope you’re right, few lawyers are willing to invest hundreds of thousands (millions?) of dollars in a long-term less-than-sure-thing. Most contingency cases are true publicity stunts or vanilla slam dunks,
The article was written by William Briggs, not Anthony Watts.
[Please note this. Also, Mr. Laden is welcom to submit a rebuttal if he wishes. ~mod.]
It certainly sounds libelous. It’s an attempt to discredit him, professionally. That needs to be defended.
Eamon.
The Law does not deliver justice. It was never designed or intended that it would. The purpose of the Law is to resolve disputes so that people do not take matters into their own hands.
The standard means by which the Law resolves disputes is to exhaust the opponents. Wear them down so they have no strength left to fight each other.
As years of your life go by, along with hundreds of thousands of dollars of your hard earned money; year of stress, where your family suffers along with you, you will come to the realization that there are things much, much worse than having someone tarnish your good name.
Yes, some do prevail in the courts. Some people also win the lottery. It is more the luck of the draw that skill or being right. Judges are human. They make mistakes. They can be misled by skillful lies. Perhaps lawyer and liar should similar for a reason; a lawyer’s job is to skillfully lie on the clients behalf. This applies equally to saint and sinner.
Thus, there is no guarantee you will win, simply because you are in the right. The only guarantee is that the court process is not something you will wish to repeat.
@ferb I ditto that and then some. I filed for a wrongful dismissal case ( with drs proof) for medical reasons, to make a long story short we ( family etc) got buried. never again. The way AW is writing about these hacks is enough for me . Thanks AW and all of you on this site for speaking truth.
Reminds me of a lesson about drinking and driving I got from the San Diego (America’s finest city) police. I am not doing that anymore. It was very unpleasant.
“The standard means by which the Law resolves disputes is to exhaust the opponents. Wear them down so they have no strength left to fight each other.”
One of the MANY injustices in this country (which just continue to multiply) and learning about the many is a case where ignorance is truly bliss, especially when the political structure is a major part of the problem as there is then no method of correction.
ferdberple
Strongly agree
On an almost daily basis we see more and more the spiteful nature of the warmists. These delusional simpletons consider themselves ‘touchy-feely’ left-of-centre ‘progressives’. They all drink the same toxic Kool-Aid, and it seems to be making them increasingly shrill, dangerously bullying.
I’ve been reading Dr Tim Ball’s excellent book ‘The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science’. It’s all in there: how the UN and the EU fund the ravenous, loutish beast that is the unaccountable ‘pal-reveiwed’ IPCC and its phoney ‘science’ and all of its hundreds of useful idiots – all on the public purse, thanks very much.
I hope the contributing writers of this paper go all-guns-blazing against this latest wretched attack by warmists on the very core tenets of science and scientific freedoms.
Phil Ford, I wonder if its the “. . . spiteful nature of the warmists.” or if its simply that the warmists have found the key to the money pit and are keenly aware of the bounty it provides.
Greg Laden is an angry arrogant ignorant man.
“agnorant”
Roger, perhaps we could call uniformed tirades from this haughty individual ‘agnoranting’?
Is he related to Bin?
ROTFL
Greg Laden said this on his blog.
Might Laden and Mann be vampires who can’t see themselves in the mirror? 😎
“Coin termed”?
“Coin termed”?
He was thinking of Michael Mann when he got it the wrong way round.
A dialect commonly known as “Upside down Tylander”.
Fraudian slip revealing Laden’s actual priorities, maybe?
No, Mann was documenting the strategy he and his ilk use…after all, Laden claims that it’s used in an attempt to discredit VALID scientific research and we haven’t yet seen any of that out of Mann.
That Mann coined the term Serengeti Strategy is highly apron. Carnivore seek out the weakest and the sick, thus strengthen the gene pool. Dene people of the Arctic would praise the wolf for making the caribou strong. Likewise it skeptics that cull the weak and sick arguments used to support a hypothesis, and either make it stronger or kill it if it fails to stand on its own. If Mann calls that “anti-science” then he is the only one promoting anti-science.
Jim Steele “That Mann coined the term Serengeti Strategy is highly apron.”.
ROTFL Highly apron indeed! If the Mann can’t take the warming he should stay out of the kitchen.
Throughout most of science since the 1950s, and in some segments from before WWII, there has been a increasing tendency to consider that any degreed idiot is entitled to be considered seriously, and worse, that any idiot deserves to get a degree. The sad truth is that the west is following the Roman pattern of importing talent rather than doing the work ourselves.
Wow… Not that I disagree but I do not think I could quote some of the article above without being stuck into WP auto moderation. Looking forward towards the comments of this post. Think I am going to get a roll of duct tape, a roll of paper towels and a few of my cargo straps for reading of this thread. O_o -Paul
Idiots, like the Republicans (in fact, they could only be RINO’s) who responded to the NYT survey that “they back ‘climate action’–http://t.co/eNz7kSU9A9
Take a page from their playbook:
Anyone who disparages Willie Soon simply must be an anti-Asian racist; probably a KKK member and not worth listening to for one nanosecond.
Asian isnt a race
But it’s a lot easier to spell than oriental.
Neither is muslim but that doesn’t seem to make any difference to the MSM.
i can be a racist & dislike all things Asian…. I can do both at the same time.
DonM
February 1, 2015 at 12:08 am
“i can be a racist & dislike all things Asian…. I can do both at the same time.”
Taking a page from their playbook means NOT thinking logically but delivering the broadest smear you can.
Mick
as luck would have it, the US Government’s OMB thinks “asian” is a race:
“Race/ethnicity (new definition)
Categories developed in 1997 by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that are used to describe groups to which individuals belong, identify with, or belong in the eyes of the community. The categories do not denote scientific definitions of anthropological origins. The designations are used to categorize U.S. citizens, resident aliens, and other eligible non-citizens. Individuals are asked to first designate ethnicity as:
Hispanic or Latino or
Not Hispanic or Latino
Second, individuals are asked to indicate one or more races that apply among the following:
American Indian or Alaska Native
Asian
Black or African American
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
White”
sorry – forgot the cite for the quote in my previous race comment…
http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/reic/definitions.asp
>Asian isnt a race
Who died and made you Bruce Springsteen?
Oriental is an antiquated term, simply meaning east of Europe.
Asian is fine.
You need to watch this to the end to get it.
I tried to share this post in a Greens Facebook post in the comment section, but apparently WUWT are “all a bunch of shills for ‘Big Oil'”!
Is Greg related to Bin? 🙂
I think generally speaking, we should leave the lawsuits to the thin skinned, Captain Queeg type bullies like Michael Mann. But if ever there were a clear case of libel, this seems to be it. I say go for it. Demand an apology and a clear retraction. If not forthcoming, sue the creep.
“I think generally speaking, we should leave the lawsuits to the thin skinned, Captain Queeg type bullies like Michael Mann.”
Sorry, that’s train’s already left the station long ago…Before Mann sued anyone, Tim Ball did (2006 – http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/06/23/dear-tim-ball-sue-me/ )
Funny that an academic like jdshore would be ok with this. Dan Johnson said my father didn’t have a Phd. This is shown to be false; http://drtimball.com/about/tim-ball/
We learned how much money it takes to sue someone. It is hilarious to me that we were being called shills for the oil industry, yet we didn’t have the money to fight the accusations from foundations that WERE being funded by industry. You just can’t make this shit up.
As an academic, I am sure it would be ok with jdshore if someone (especially someone with an agenda) claimed Shore’s credentials were false.
I urge everyone to look at jdshore claims and where they come from.
Never address the science, eh, Shore?
You do not even see your own self defeating actions, do you, Shore?
The crumbling edifice of academia, aided by those who dwell in it’s halls. 8^D
“Dan Johnson said my father didn’t have a Phd. ”
This statement of what Johnson said is simply false as can easily be seen by reading exactly what Johnson did say at the link I gave, which quotes Johnson’s letter in full. Why don’t you try telling us exactly what Johnson said that is false, but this time using what he actually said?
By the way, I am not sure I would characterize myself simply as “an academic”. I spent 13 years working in industry and only 5 thus far working in academia (or 9 if you really want to count postdocs).
Just to help you out, here is what Dan Johnson actually said about your father’s academic credentials:
” Ball received a PhD in Geography in the UK in 1982, on a topic in historical climatology. Canada already had PhDs in climatology, and it is important to recognize them and their research…”
Nothing that I can see at your father’s website contradicts anything that Dan Johnson said.
Again, I urge everyone to look closely at Shore’s claims and where they come from.
“I urge everyone to look closely at Shore’s claims and where they come from.”
Indeed…They come from direct quotes from that letter to the editor, rather than just making things up about it!
Then post the letter in it’s original form from the Calgary Herald.
Well I’m not sure what the heck is going on here with these comments from joeldshore and David Bell, but I’m dying to read the “…letter in it’s original form from the Calgary Herald…” as requested by David Bell.
I assume joeldshore is looking it up as you read this…
Boy, David…You’re really grasping at straws! Are you claiming that Tim Lambert falsified the contents of the letter in a convenient way just to make your statements here 8 years later appear to be false? Look, even your father’s own Statement of Claim quotes the letter as saying that he got a PhD in geography: http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/TBall%20statement%20of%20claim.pdf
“Ball received a PhD in geography in 1982 on a topic in historical climatology.” Are you now going to claim that your father’s own statement of claim is not a good source?
Of course, his extensive quote from the letter looks to be exactly in line with what Tim Lambert posted. If you can find the letter on the Calgary Herald website, then post it. I couldn’t. But your father’s own statement of claim shows the untruthfulness of your statement that “Dan Johnson said my father didn’t have a Phd”.
Actually, I just realized that the full copy of the letter appears as “Schedule B” in your father’s Statement of Claim that I linked to above.
By the way, Johnson’s evisceration of Tim Ball’s amusingly-silly Statement of Claim can be found here: http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Johnson%20statement%20of%20defence.pdf
If there was an award given for frivolous lawsuits, Tim Ball’s would definitely be in the running!
So that is gonna be a “no”,…… 8^D
[snip – rephrase that without casting aspersions on the integrity of the person’s family. – Anthony]
David,
No…It is a YES: As I have noted, I have linked to your father’s Statement of Claim ( http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/TBall%20statement%20of%20claim.pdf ) in which your father has quoted the letter to the editor in full. (And, it looks remarkably identical to what Tim Lambert posted, by the way.)
Now is the time when you can come clean and just admit that you misspoke when you claimed “Dan Johnson said my father didn’t have a Phd.” Or not…Your choice!
Keep referencing Desmogblog, it’s helping. 8^D
I’ve always said that if you take the government funding out of this charade they call climate science that the so-called problem would disappear overnight.
If I had the power it would be done immediately across all fields that are even remotely related.
I sometimes wonder if people like laden and mann WANT ‘bald’ to be associated with ‘evil.’
…Lex Luthor notwithstanding.
Or Dr. Evil.
Does anyone have a graph up to 2014?
WAit, I see it ! It is Man – Made – Global – Warming ! Just look at the graph; the more that is spent by the government, the warmer it gets …
Too much funding is getting in the way of honest to goodness science.
This is why climate scientists are so vicious and attack anyone who questions their Climastrology science.
And it’s even worse than that. The DoE numbers include hundreds of millions in payola like Solyndra, Ener1, A123, Tesla and dozens of other boondoggles that somehow always seem to directly support “businessmen” that give scads of cash to Progressive and Democrat causes and candidates.
Jimbo,
I seen various reports but the total US expenditure is circa 20 Billion for climate change when it is all included. Check this government website.
I raise the question What have we got for all this taxpayer spending? I would love to see an honest audit.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/fcce-report-to-congress.pdf
Keep Willie Soon!!!
“fREE wIRRY!” (He very nice man. 🙂 )
Never realized Sweeds wrote in a hairlip lisp.
Greg Laden is a sleazeball. I’ve known that since the first time I ran across his blog. Anybody who finds it necessary to put “HARVARD” in neon is somebody who is fundamentally insecure.
The people I know who have connections to Harvard barely mention the fact. They are embarrassed by jerks who find it necessary to broadcast the name.
With Naomi Oreskes prominently touted as current Harvard faculty member, who would want to be associated with that?
(Rud’s dander probably gets a lift every time someone mentions Oreskes in same breath as Harvard.)
Yup. It just did.
ditto
And one of the schools as a major source of corrupt politicians.
Oil funding for me but not for thee. LOL. These people are just toooooo easy to expose. The hypocrisy has hit a new tipping point.
don’t leave out Rockefeller Brothers Fund for 350dotorg!
Jimbo, I’ll take this opportunity to say thanks for all the illuminating references over the years. It’s a sure bet that the CAGW Industrial Complex has, and does, receive vastly superior funds from energy companies than those engaged in exposing the deception and deceit…
I’m simply doing some of the work that the lame stream media should be doing. They do like to expose things and get at the truth. Maybe the truth hurts.
That’s why it’s refreshing to see crude oil drop in the $43-$48/bbl range–they’ll have to be more careful about frivolous expenditures now.
I assume that Greg Laden will shortly be calling for the firing of Phil Jones, on the basis that the CRU has received funding from British Petroleum and Shell, as is freely acknowledged here :
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/about-cru/history
Or will we be forced to add hypocrisy to the already long list of Greg Laden’s personality flaws?
Yes, the same people who award the grants are those that receive them.
Who would know better who deserves the money?
On a serious note
it is very hard to open the minds of people who have been fed the warming propoganda as the most successful part of their propaganda is that anything posted in a site like this or written by a scientist going against “consensus” is paid off with oil money. I didn’t put a “sarc” tag on my first comment because a) it should be obvious that I was being sarcastic and b) because that is the actual response I get!!
I’ll bookmark this for the next time one of the true believers tries to claim that nobody ever tried to get anyone fired for their skeptical views. David Appell?
The bullying will not stop until the bullies pay a price for such.
Crowdsource funding and take them to court!
Oh the horror of $1 million funding over 10 YEARS!!!
Greg Laden’s source for PAST oil ‘funding’ comes from desmogblog. Desmogblog then goes on to use David Suzuki as a source for the oil ‘funding’ claim. David Suzuki then goes on to reference Greenpeace. Is this a circle jerk?
GREG LADEN
which leads to………
The link for the Suzuki quote now says “page not found”. I found it in the archives of the Wayback Machine.
http://web.archive.org/web/20110715225328/http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Environment/Suzuki/2011/07
Always love your posts, Jimbo. I really appreciate all the hard work you do. Thank you.
Hardball politics Chicago style, suggesting mostly that the paper is having an impact.
As posted in the comments to the paper’s thread, I think it would have been even stronger if there had been less zeal to show negative net feedback from grey earth SB.
(1) the 1/(1-f) net feedback equation is stable and valid to the inflection at about 0.75, as shown in figure 5. Even the IPCC’s overstated WV and cloud feedbacks are only f~0.65. Lindzen uses the Bode model Lindzen and Choi 2011 and it is not ‘bolted onto’ GCMs.
(2) Reestimating transience r from the TCR/ECS ratio gives 0.76 not 0.82. Reestimating Bode f 0.25 by halving WV from 0.5 to 0.25 (for which there is empirical evidence in the missing tropical troposphere hotspot and CMIP5 underestimate of precipitation by half) and cutting cloud feedback from 0.15 to 0 (for which again there is much empirical evidence, laid out in essay Cloudy Clouds). That gives feedback sum ft ~ 1.5. Plugging those quick restimates into the equation using the other parameters deduced in the paper (lamda~0.31, k=5.35, q~0.83 gives an ECS ~1.75. That is remarkbly close to Lewis and Curry 2014, Loehle 2014, even Callendar 1938. In other words, foots. That is powerful. Even if a lukewarm conclusion, still near half of the IPCC alarm, at the low end of their plausible range, and suggesting no need to do much by their own criteria.
Oh, forgot to mention that either Laden is too stupid to run the equation, or more likely he did as just posted again, and realizes how this unravels the whole CAGW thing on a pocket calculator. Another falsification of provably bad GCM models. CMIP5 ECS ~3.2, energy budget ECS ~1.7, simple model ECS ~1.7 using IPCC estimates for all but ft. IPCC main can be shown empirically wrong (humidity and clouds). See several essays in Blowing Smoke.
The greatest weakness of a free society is that there is little control over lies.
That’s not to say I have an answer for that problem, or that non-free societies have less weaknesses, they have more, and worse ones. But this one is bad enough to make a real mess.
There is no universally trusted source, because when you think you might have one (academia, science community, journalism) they get froggy and lie their tushes off.
Vigilance is the price of liberty. See many examples in The Arts of Truth.
Having little control over lies is not a weakness, but rather a strength, of a free society because it means there is even less control of truth.