Two days ago I posted on this story in this blog related to APS opening up debate on climate change. It appears Lord Monckton did in fact have his paper, Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered, reviewed by APS, and he drafted revisions per that review, after which the paper was accepted by APS for publication. Yesterday, APS put this disclaimer in red over the paper on their website:
The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.
Monckton writes:
This seems discourteous. I had been invited to submit the paper; I had submitted it; an eminent Professor of Physics had then scientifically reviewed it in meticulous detail; I had revised it at all points requested, and in the manner requested; the editors had accepted and published the reviewed and revised draft (some 3000 words longer than the original) and I had expended considerable labor, without having been offered or having requested any honorarium.
(h/t: David L. Hagen)
More excerpts from the blog Uncommon Descent are below:
PeerGate review scandal at American Physical Society
The American Physical Society alleged that Lord Monckton’s paper Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered was not peer reviewed when Monckton in fact thoroughly revised his paper in response to APS peer review. Monckton immediately demanded retraction, accountability and an apology.
The Editor of the American Physical Society’s Forum on Physics and Society launched a debate on global warming, inviting Lord Monckton to submit a paper for the opposition. After news that a major scientific organization was holding a debate on IPCC’s global warming, someone at the APS posted an indirect front page disclamation plus two very bold red disclamations in the Forum’s contents, and into the paper itself:
————————-
Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered
The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley . . .”
————————-
Alleging that a Peer of the Realm violated scientific peer review – when in fact Lord Monckton had spent substantial effort responding to the APS’s peer review – is just not done! As circulated by Dr. Benny Peiser to CCNet, and as noted by Dennis T. Avery at ICECAP,Lord Monckton responded immediately, emphatically demanding redress and an apology as follows:
—————————
Lord Monckton’s letter in response to APS web page statement:
19 July 2008
The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Carie, Rannoch, PH17 2QJ, UK
Arthur Bienenstock, Esq., Ph.D.,
President, American Physical Society,
Wallenberg Hall,
450 Serra Mall, Bldg 160,
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305.
By email to artieb@slac.stanford.edu
Dear Dr. Bienenstock,
Physics and Society
The editors of Physics and Society, a newsletter of the American Physical Society, invited me to submit a paper for their July 2008 edition explaining why I considered that the warming that might be expected from anthropogenic enrichment of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide might be significantly less than the IPCC imagines.
I very much appreciated this courteous offer, and submitted a paper. The commissioning editor referred it to his colleague, who subjected it to a thorough and competent scientific review. I was delighted to accede to all of the reviewer’s requests for revision (see the attached reconciliation sheet). Most revisions were intended to clarify for physicists who were not climatologists the method by which the IPCC evaluates climate sensitivity – a method which the IPCC does not itself clearly or fully explain. The paper was duly published, immediately after a paper by other authors setting out the IPCC’s viewpoint. Some days later, however, without my knowledge or consent, the following appeared, in red, above the text of my paper as published on the website of Physics and Society:
“The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.”
This seems discourteous. I had been invited to submit the paper; I had submitted it; an eminent Professor of Physics had then scientifically reviewed it in meticulous detail; I had revised it at all points requested, and in the manner requested; the editors had accepted and published the reviewed and revised draft (some 3000 words longer than the original) and I had expended considerable labor, without having been offered or having requested any honorarium.
Please either remove the offending red-flag text at once or let me have the name and qualifications of the member of the Council or advisor to it who considered my paper before the Council ordered the offending text to be posted above my paper; a copy of this rapporteur’s findings and ratio decidendi; the date of the Council meeting at which the findings were presented; a copy of the minutes of the discussion; and a copy of the text of the Council’s decision, together with the names of those
present at the meeting. If the Council has not scientifically evaluated or formally considered my paper, may I ask with what credible scientific justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts primo, that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed when it had; secundo, that its conclusions disagree with what is said (on no evidence) to be the “overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community”; and, tertio, that “The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions”? Which of my conclusions does the Council disagree with, and on what scientific grounds (if any)?
Having regard to the circumstances, surely the Council owes me an apology?
Yours truly,
THE VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY
———————————–
Monckton’s demand for redress and an apology from the APS is being picked up on the internet.
How will the American Physical Society respond to Lord Monckton’s procedural and scientific gauntlets?
As of noon on Saturday July 20, 2008, the offending paragraph in the table of contents had been removed. However, this offending paragraph was still very much evident in Monckton’s paper Climate Sensitivity Revisited. It was also evident in the Forum’s full PDF of its July, 2008 newsletter Physics and Society Vol 37, No 3, p 6.
The APS’s PeerGate scandal may well prove to provide much greater publicity and serious examination of Monckton’s thesis than if the disclaimers had never been posted. It also exposes the superficiality of statements by executives of the American Physical Society and other scientific organizations supporting the IPCC’s global warming. Those statements were typically not submitted to the rank and file for scientific peer review, nor were they typically voted on by the rank and file. Whatever will come out of this PeerGate Scandal?
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It’s too bad that Mann, Schmidt, Hansen, Briffa, Jones, Amman, Wahl, Schneider, etc, ad nauseum can’t be as graceful and humble as Spencer and Christy when it comes to data and other errors pointed out by others. Instead they attack those who discover the errors.
I came to this site to read the discussion on the recent paper by The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, someone you and many of the responders here refer to with approval. I found this post on this site with a lot of responses talking about the paper, including some apparently from the author, and then suddenly… nothing! No followup on the analysis of his paper at Deltoid, and realclimate, that effectively gutted the paper, although I see the responses by Duae Quartuncia that essentially did the same thing.
But most importantly, nothing on the Viscount’s aberrant behavior as evidenced from his own postings on SPPI site. Viscount Monckton was sent a private copy of a rebuttal by Arthur Smith as a courtesy, at the same time Smith submitted the rebuttal for publication. The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley then added additional text to the paper, then PUBLISHED it on the SPPI site, with his own rebuttal of the rebuttal. This was before the author could possibly respond to any comments from the organization where he submitted the paper, and was done entirely without the permission of the author!
Meanwhile the editor indicated that the paper they published by The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley was NOT peer reviewed. Normally this would involve three peers reviewing the methods and calculations in the paper, for those not familiar with peer review. The paper had received editing and the scientist who suggested some editing changes said he didn’t conduct a peer review. The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley then accused both the editor who published his paper, and the scientist who suggested some edit changes (who actually tried to constructively help him get the paper published), of being LIARS.
These kind of public attacks and behavior by The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, is without precedent in the scientific world, as far as I know. Any reputable scientist knows that you can’t publish the work of your colleagues without their permission, especially private courtesy copies. This is essentially stealing the fruits of another person’s work. I would think that those on this site, who believe in free enterprise systems, can appreciate and condemn these actions.
But alas, nothing posted here. If you want to read the followup story to the post here.
For some reason the links didn’t get inserted in my comment:
Here is the link to the discussion of TVMOB’s behavior regarding Arthur Smith’s rebuttal:
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2008/07/biter-bit-arthur-smith-has-had-quite.html
“all bound in a tome entitled “How to fool your pets into thinking their planet is 4.5 billion years old instead of 6000 years old”, and all the techniques work and then the temple carbon dates to 6,000 years old, well, at that point I may even be forced to consider evolution to have been be falsified . . .” Evan Jones
Evan,
If jeez hadn’t put a muzzle on religious discussion on this site, I would straighten some of your thinking out. I doubt you’ll end up in the hot place because you are a rather nice heathen. But if you do, I ‘ll try to bring you some ice water (assuming it doesn’t boil away first).
Arthur Smith has also gone through Monckton’s manuscript in detail. Details here
The central fact concerning all the red-faced, pro-AGW arm waving above is this: the climate has been cooling for years, and the climate continues to cool.
That fact trumps all the pointless ad hominem attacks directed at Specncer, Monckton, etc., by the folks on the wrong side of the debate.
The impartial Sun and the Earth themselves are falsifying the AGW/CO2 hypothesis.
If/when the planet starts to agree with the AGW crowd, I’ll listen. But as of now, the AGW/CO2 hypothesis has been discredited.
I saw this on the web
Eco Worrier: “CO2 is a pollutant!”
Gaia: “Tell that to the biosphere.”
Biosphere: “More….yum-yum!” (Burp!)
Gore: “Eeeeeeek!”