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The American Physical Society alleged that Lord Monckton’s paper Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered was not peer reviewed when Monckton in fact thoroughly revised his paper in response to APS peer review.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 is telling that skeptics are invariably attacked, rather than their theory, or observations. ”
I agree 100%. I have debated these issues for a while on the internet, and inevitably the warmists’ ultimate argument is that I’m going against the consensus of thousands of credentialed scientists and thousands of peer reviewed papers.
Sir Monckton,
While I have been a fan for awhile, it is gratifying to know you are a fellow insomniac.
I don’t think it’s fair to castigate the editor of the P&S Newsletter. Clearly, Jeffrey Marque intended to begin a real debate, but was overruled by his board.
Excertpt from the Editor’s Comments, Physics and Society Newsletter, July 2008:
With this issue of Physics & Society, we kick off a debate concerning one of the main conclusions of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body which, to¬gether with Al Gore, recently won the Nobel Prize for its work concerning climate change research. There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution. Since the correctness or fallacy of that conclusion has immense implications for public policy and for the future of the biosphere, we thought it appropriate to present a debate within the pages of P&S concerning that conclusion. This editor (JJM) invited several people to contribute articles that were either pro or con. Christopher Monckton responded with this issue’s article that argues against the correctness of the IPCC conclusion, and a pair from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, David Hafemeister and Peter Schwartz, responded with this issue’s article in favor of the IPCC conclusion. We, the editors of P&S, invite reasoned rebuttals from the authors as well as further contributions from the physics community. Please contact me (jjmarque@sbcglobal.net) if you wish to jump into this fray with comments or articles that are scientific in nature. However, we will not publish articles that are political or polemical in nature. Stick to the science!
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/upload/july08.pdf
Good ol’ Lord Monckton…… His honour called into question, he challenges them to a duel…. Evidence or theories Sir, choose your weapons. ; )
I am most grateful
I am a big fan of yours. I read with great delight your IPCC sea level discoveries. And, yes, when I occasionally groan over the IPCC Nobel, I salvage contentment in the fact that you, at least, own a piece of that prize.
I am also quite intrigued by your “auditing” of CO2 feedback. If, as the Aqua satellite indicates, there is an opposite, negative feedback (from increase albedo from low-lying clouds), resulting in homeostasis, you are again vindicated.
crosspatch- you say “That never happens in real life. When Science or Nature asks you to submit an article, THEY select who reviews it.”
That is true (at least the last time a colleague submitted a manuscript to Nature back in the late 1990’s). HOWEVER, journals such as Science and Nature request a short list of suggested reviewers to be submitted by the authors, from which the journal may select one or more individuals, as well as additional outside reviewers. There are rules about who may be on that list (no prior collaborative work for x years, joint publications in y years, etc, etc, nudge nudge wink wink).
Also, peer review prior to publication never involves a review by more than a few individuals. Once published, the real-life peer review process goes into high gear as people try to find supporting evidence, replicate or find flaws in the published work.
I have had peer reviews of my own manuscripts that ranged from a twenty page in-depth critique (including sentence and paragraph structure!) to a single word- approved.
This behavior of the APS (of which I am a member) baffles me. Is Hansen on the board of directors? Are there monetary donations at stake?
Lord Monckton, thanks for dropping in with a comment. I continue to enjoy your occasional publications and encourage you to continue illuminating the various shortcomings in the IPCC reports.
Grant Hodges: You say: “Mike Asher and Anthony Watts have changed the game through their blogs and the truth may out yet!”
While I agree, I think that Anthony would insist that you give credit as well to Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick as having done a sterling job in addressing the issues. And there are many others as well, one of the most compelling being Roger Pielke Sr.
REPLY: McIntyre and McKitrick are the pioneers, and they deserve more credit than I on many fronts – Anthony
The venue where Christopher Monckton published that article, Forum on Physics and Society is a Newsletter, not a journal. The manuscript has gone through some type of review, as he said, for improving clarity, etc. But I think there is some difference between the common peer review and this type of review. Since he was invited to submit a manuscript and since this is not a journal, the chances of a rejection was almost nonexistent (just like the chances of rejection for the article by David Hafemeister & Peter Schwartz was very small) since the Newsletter wanted an article critical of AGW and one supportive of AGW. In a typical peer review for a journal at least two reviewers will review the manuscript ( Science and Nature needs 6, I understand), and there is a real chance of rejection if the conclusion is not justified. I doubt such a critical review was applied in this case, since a conclusion critical of AGW was probably what they were looking for. So, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle – there was a peer review, but not the same type of peer review we use with journals.
Whatever the review is, I liked Monckon’s paper (although I do not agree with AGW critics). But it is unfortunate that instead of a spirited discussion on this topic, we have managed to divert attention from the main topic and dragged it into another political issue. Too bad. I doubt Jeffrey Marque will last even for a few months to have an opportunity to edit the next issue.
Yup.
Another interesting article published by APS:
“We present an article by Gerald Marsh in which he argues, among other things, that all of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide that has been poured into atmosphere during the past few centuries is not nearly enough to stave off massive glaciation from the next Ice Age, a greater danger to civilization (in his view) than global warming.”
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200804/editor.cfm
**********************
“Climate Stability and Policy” by Gerald Marsh
“The sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of carbon dioxide concentration could be in error.”
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200804/marsh.cfm
Another strike against alarmism?
The APS has been doing this same dance for 30 years now.
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2008/Q3/view527.html#Saturday
I’ve spent my spare time the last few days reading blog discussions about controversial issues–mostly about questions of AWG. I must say that, having read through all the posts thus far on this page, I am impressed by the temperance and overall levelheadedness of the contributors. Thank you all for keeping the discussion out of the gutters, a characteristic all too prevalent on so many other discussion pages.
Mr. Villan [perfect name, no?] typifies the real problem today: there is no genuine, refereed debate allowed regarding the AGW hypothesis in a neutral venue, such as at a major university [“Not interested.” –James Hansen]. Rather, numerous chattering AGW voices conduct their red herring, ad hominem and appeal to authority attacks [all of which would be disallowed in a genuine debate] on the internet and in the media non-stop.
The general public is led to misunderstand “peer review” because the term is constantly misused by AGW believers. Peer review does not prove anything. It only provides a valid method to disprove [falsify] a new hypothesis such as AGW. It is up to those putting forth a new hypothesis such as AGW to withstand falsification — something that they can not do, as evidenced by the AMS’ denial of Monckton’s paper deconstructing AGW.
What good is peer review, if it denies any possibility of falsification? The arbitrary and unexplained denial of Monckton’s falsification of AGW, as the AMS is now doing, becomes 100% agenda-driven propaganda, not science.
Keep in mind that the sole purpose of peer review is to falsify a given hypothesis. That is the purpose of peer review. If a hypothesis can withstand peer review, it is then on its way to becoming an accepted theory. That is how the Scientific Method operates.
But the AMS is so frightened of Monckton’s paper that they are denying him the forum to which they had previously invited him. It is that public forum that gravely threatens the AGW hypothesis. The AMS hierarchy can not allow the truth of AGW to be determined though the Scientific Method. The AMS clearly fears the outcome of allowing Monckton’s voice to be heard.
Concerning qualifications, remember that Albert Einstein’s revolutionary 1905 relativity manuscript was not peer reviewed. Einstein was a patent clerk; today the AGW believers, including the AMS, would certainly hold that against him. Watson and Crick’s 1951 paper explaining the structure of DNA was not peer reviewed, either. Yet their description of the DNA molecule is accepted as fact today.
Conversely, the work of Jan Hendrik Schön was peer reviewed — and it was later found to be a monumental fraud abetted by Science.. [If it were not for the internet, the AAAS journal Science would probably have succeeded in covering up its incompetence. I subscribed to Science for almost twenty years, and finally canceled my subscription when it became clear that Science was gaming the system regarding the peer review/falsification process. Today it is not much more science than Scientific American.]
Schön, a former Bell Labs scientist, had authored [or co-authored] one research paper every 8 days in 2001 alone. An astonishing 15 of Schön’s papers were accepted for publication by Nature and by Science — two of the most influential journals in the scientific community. But after unrefuted questioning [i.e., falsification] by both physicists and lay readers, Schön was proved to have fabricated his results. Science uses Referees to presumably weed out fraud. But it appears that the status of Schön’s name was enough to convince them to look the other way, and to hope that nobody would notice. Apparently the same process is now occurring at the AMS. [Furthermore, note that Michael Mann, the inventor of the now discredited “hockey stick” chart, still adamantly refuses to disclose the taxpayer funded computer algorithm he used to construct the chart. What is he hiding? Fraud?]
Geneticist Hwang Woo-suk was another scientist who was refereed and peer-reviewed by the editors of Science after he submitted a paper claiming to have derived lines of stem cells from cloned human embryos. [Hwang also had 25 co-authors!].
After being internally refereed, Science accepted Hwang’s paper and published it. Later, it was noticed by a reader that Hwang had used a photograph that was the property of someone else, and his hypothesis began to unravel [eventually, Hwang was forced to resign after admitting to fraud]. His paper had been falsified by a photograph — something any knowledgeable amateur could accomplish.
Summary: the Scientific Method necessitates “peer review” for one central purpose — the opportunity to falsify, if possible, a given hypothesis. Remember that, and the agenda of the AMS in denying Monckton’s paper without explanation will become apparent: they have read the paper, and they know that the AGW hypothesis will be falsified.
I assume the membership list of the APS is public? Why doesn’t one of the members do an anonymous survey of opinion on AGW? The same could be done with other learned societies. If the elected committees won’t do it, there’s nothing stopping a member with expertise in mail or internet surveys doing the same thing.
Scientific guidelines for such surveys can be found in Dillman, Don (2000) “Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailored Design Method 2nd Edition” Wiley.
Sam @16.34, who cannot even spell Monbiot, quotes a political journalist (UK Guardian) of no scientific credentials in support of his personal attack. Irony by any other name is still irony.
Deary, deary me. Is Fenton Communications going to start issuing health warnings on literature they don’t like?
AMS = APS. Sorry.
Sam Villain,
You said:
But look, in addition to the rebuttal from NASA climate modeler Gavin Schmidt above,
So, are you suggesting because Gavin Schmidt works for the O-ring organization, he is the word?
I’m sorry for the sarcasm, but deference to authority is not an argument, not even a five minute one.
While APS might not be a “Journal” it does represent at least on vestage of the entire APS. Their action was rude and crude. I often wonder how those that can be so crude can expect to convince any of the poor uneducated such as I to cone to expect that a gas such as CO2 is a polutant when every living animal on the plante exhales this gas and every living plant on the planet much have it for photosynthesis.
The debate is not over and will continue for some time.
I am also afraid that while Jeffrey Marque is a brave soul he will probably not survive the political correctness of his superiors at APS. It will be a shame it is time for the debate to come into the public eye.
Bill Derryberry
Jeez @ur momisugly 17.25
There is no way to know outside of unproven computer models if the positive feedbacks postulated really exist, or may in fact be negative.
Not quite correct, Jeez. The fact that, for 4.5 billions years, dispite large excursions in planetary conditions, the climate has not gone to the positive or negative limit strongly suggests that there are no positive feedback elements in the climate system.
Smokey:
I believe most of Roger Pielke’s publications were rigourously peer reviewed and in most cases put together, also falsify most of AGW. Most of his work I believe deals with land use effects of temperatures which may or may not have more localized effects. Also R Spencer, Douglass ect have falsified IPCC projections AGW based on Atmospheric temp behaviour and data. So there you are…. there are plenty of other “Skeptic” publications, if you like, peer reviewed papers which have been published.
Robert Wood.
I made that point last week to John McLondon, but it is only evidence, not a way of “knowing”.
I have been a strong believer in negative feedback in the climate system since before Hansen started his campaign. In fact I was taught this in high school in the 70’s, where we were taught that it was water which stabilized the Earth’s climate, with clouds regulating albedo and holding the planet at a temperature suitable for life. Why this was somehow forgotten I have no idea.
Have they gone mad? How can scientists so routinely
subvert the “marketplace of ideas?” How can they turn a
blind eye to the scientific method and still be scientists?
It’s difficult for me to muster much confidence in proposals
“guaranteed” to fix global warming/cooling/flooding/parching/
etc. Generally speaking, those who demonstrate an ability
to predict changes and outcomes are popularly believed to
better understand the phenomenon called climate change than
those who fail in their prognostications. Thus, if global cooling
should continue for a few years, I suspect that we will
witness one group of climate “experts” being replaced by
another. This doesn’t assure improvement.
As I see it (and I could be just as wrong as anyone else),
there is a very seductive false assumption at work here:
Specifically, it is the unstated belief that a trend lasting a few
months or years is bound to continue endlessly unless we do
something to stop it.
It seems obvious that (either now or eventually) something may
have to be done. Common sense suggests that before any
action is taken, a better understanding of the problem should
be required. Fooling around on a global scale with hideously
complex and poorly understood phenomena seems lacking
in wisdom. Unanticipated consequences are usually unpleasant.
Robert Wood — (The fact that, for 4.5 billions years, dispite large excursions in planetary conditions, the climate has not gone to the positive or negative limit strongly suggests that there are no positive feedback elements in the climate system.)
It could also suggest that there are positive and negative feedbacks that are relatively balanced out. The AGW hypothesis (as put forth by the catastophic sect) maintains that the ‘A’ bit is unbalancing the feedback dynamic. This is the meat and potatoes of their argument.
How/why this is believed by almost all is pretty simple and isn’t evidence of mass hysteria or brainwashing: in all aspects of life there is a balance and counterbalance, a yin and yang, and so on. All of popular culture and our collective aphorisms (what goes up must come down) throughout history relies on the certainty of this premise. You can’t turn on a TV set and not be bombarded with cereal adverts etc vowing to restore balance. The very notion of balance is so embedded that you couldn’t successfully mount an argument that said otherwise.
And in truth, the collective human experience since time immemorial suggests that positive/negative feedbacks probably DO exist and DO in fact balance each other out. The real question then is whether or not the ‘A’ can unbalance the equation. Note that many sceptic arguments work from this angle — e.g. “the ‘A’ contribution in CO2 is measured at 3% or so, which suggests that this is not enough to upset the cart” — and so on. Note that the standard AGW poster image is a “runaway greenhouse effect” pointing to Venus; i.e. a system that went out of balance.
Were I you I’d be wary of advancing the argument that positive feedback doesn’t exist.
Let’s not forget that there once was a “consensus” that influenza was a bacteria. Using this “consensus” serums were developed that even seemed to work. Then along came stubborn chaps like Avery … and our bacteria became a virus. One “consensus” died and another arose.
I mention Avery because he was ruthlessly honest and tenacious. He set the example.
Congratulations Anthony on the superb quality of your commenters. And Lord Monckton, deepest gratitude for your efforts and forbearance.
The AGW crowd is on the run. Their theories have been demolished, and the empirical evidence refutes them as well. It is time to restore NASA, once a great institution, by purging its ranks of political operatives and replacing them with qualified scientists and engineers.
NASA is a public agency and so subject to public control. I fund it and I want it fixed. The American Physical Society is private and so subject to the control of its members. I am not one, but I do recommend that they undertake some self-review and determine if they wish to remain relevant or sink into the political mire.