By Harold Ambler
A new editorial in Nature is startling for what it reveals, especially the fact Paul Ehrlich is a go-to figure about how hard scientists have it when it comes to media access.
Ehrlich is an individual who became an international celebrity by spinning one frightening story after another (about the death of the oceans, for one thing) who maintains, with a straight face, that he and his fellow scientists have an unfair disadvantage in communicating their side of the climate debate.
He is quoted by Nature as saying, regarding the aftermath of Climategate and the fact that skeptic scientists are finally getting a hearing,:
“Everyone is scared shitless, but they don’t know what to do.”
People often forget: Goliath, right before the end, sensed that something was amiss.
For, ironically, among the most pervasive myths attending global warming is the one pitching David against Goliath, in which those touting the risks of damaging climate change are cast as David and Big Oil is Goliath.
The story requires observers to ignore the facts: Media, most scientists, and governments the world over have spent and received so much money on their version of events that they have collectively become Goliath. Observers must ignore, too, the reality that skeptic scientists maintain their intellectual freedom at significant risk. Funding routinely dries up; tenure is denied them; ad hominem attacks of the most vicious variety are launched against them from the Ivory Tower of academia, from the studios of multi-billion dollar news organizations, and from the bully pulpit of government.
read the rest at Talking About the Weather
The poor David is being put-PR’d by the oil industry Goliath.
That’s why USA Today put together a piece, featuring none other than Mann as the poor, threatened by nasty e-mails, scientist who is just NOT being heard.
“Climate change efforts are being slowed”.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2010-03-10-warming_N.htm
What a load of crap, the Gore PR machine at work.
so your saying Mann and his hockey stick are like Goliath and his sword, with the MSM as his shield, and Jones, Briffa and their supports his army.
which I suppose would cast Anthony as David, the blogosphere as his sling and the rest of us as… pebbles?
Omigosh, I am a pebble. Not a great big Eschenbach pebble, just a grain of sand pebble. In the end however, David only stunned Goliath with his sling and pebbles. He slew him with his own science. I mean sword.
typo
The poor David is being OUT-PR’d by the oil industry Goliath.
Herman L (09:25:13) :
Have you actually read the emails in Climategate?
If so how can you spout that
“We are in the 21st century with an open, modern scientific process that accepts only the good science that first gets published and then survives the test of time as other research builds on what has been learned.”
and then
“What you are really referring to here are those few scientists (and many amateurs) whose writings are just plain wrong and cannot get the audience they want”
What world have you been living in since November?
We are in the 21st century with an open, modern scientific process that accepts only the good science that first gets published and then survives the test of time as other research builds on what has been learned.
You are saying that with a straight face? So much of it has been debunked so that what you are saying/implying about climate science has to be based on pure faith.
As a practicing (life) scientist who has published several papers in Nature, I continue to be gobsmacked by their defense climate science. It’s disgusting, their lack of adherence to basic principles of scientific inquiry. This editorial is only the latest. The December one was horrendous. Ehrlich would be a joke if he didn’t have the ear of John Holdren and the POTUS.
Now AAAS has its open letter as well: http://www.openletterfromscientists.com/
Goliath is going wobbly…Keep up the good fight!
Herman L (09:25:13) :
I like the way you guys use a biblical metaphor here. Of course, it means absolutely nothing. We are in the 21st century with an open, modern scientific process that accepts only the good science that first gets published and then survives the test of time as other research builds on what has been learned.
Observers must ignore, too, the reality that skeptic scientists maintain their intellectual freedom at significant risk.
“intellectual freedom?” Risk? Please — you guys are free to write and publish whatever you want. What you are really referring to here are those few scientists (and many amateurs) whose writings are just plain wrong and cannot get the audience they want, because of the process I describe in the first paragraph.
Those who are just plain wrong don’t get censored here though, it seems. Nor those with their heads in the sand.
Faked their data ?
Distorted their data ?
Sorry, not proven.
Don’t we demand absolute, nitpicked-to-death by 10,000 Web commenters proof these days? Otherwise, it’s just Alarmism.
Like so many of the bogus AGW talking points, the claims of shadowy but well-funded forces marshaled against science are designed to distract the feeble-minded (particularly politicians and journalists) and silence critics.
Pascvaks (09:36:06) :
It’s worse than anyone at AGW thought
http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/Americans-Global-Warming-Concerns-Continue-Drop.aspx
—————
That’s probably true.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1842179,00.html
More than half of all Americans believe they have been helped by a guardian angel in the course of their lives, according to a new poll by the Baylor University Institute for Studies of Religion.
… 55% answered affirmatively to the statement, “I was protected from harm by a guardian angel.”
With friends like that, who needs scientists ?
I can’t tell if you are being sarcastic, but your last paragraph leads to the belief you are serious.
lichanos (08:59:10) :
People often forget: Goliath, right before the end, sensed that something was amiss.
I just went and read again I Samuel 17, and I don’t see how Goliath knew at all what was coming.
From Samuel:
“David ran quickly to engage him. He put his hand into his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell flat on his face on the ground…. Then [David] ran to the Philistine and stood over him, and grasping his sword, he drew it out of the scabbard, dispatched him and cut off his head.”
Climategate was the stone to the forehead. If you said that the AGW crew aren’t flat on their face, I would agree with you, although they are weakened. The parallel may still work because the crucial interval between David’s initial attack and the dispatching of the Big G is arguably right now.
There is something happening in your pants, but you don’t know what to do, do you, Mr. Ehrlich.
=================
Herman L (09:25:13) :
…”intellectual freedom?” Risk? Please — you guys are free to write and publish whatever you want. What you are really referring to here are those few scientists (and many amateurs) whose writings are just plain wrong”
lol, Then, it’s a level playing field. What with the assertions of melting glaciers, rain forest shrinkage, more frequent and severe hurricanes, ect.,….. Apparently, regardless of the scientific basis, any can assert anything, call themselves a scientist and believe for some reason, they are not subject to scrutiny. You know, I, for many years ignored the alarmist fringe of scientific work. Mainly because it didn’t effect me. You people could wail about population booms, AI taking over, cooling, warming, asteroids, blah blah ad naseum….
but now, decision makers are passing laws and regulations in response to this end is near hysteria. These laws and regs run directly counter to my well-being, way of life and quality of life. Further, not just mine, everybody in the entire world has been effected in one way or another because of this literal giant power grab. From increase in power bills to thwarting of development in less fortunate parts of the world, to a direct decrease in world productivity capacity. In my view, intended or not, these so called scientists should have known their assertions would necessarily cause these things to happen. They are responsible and culpable. Prison is too good for these people, Herman.
James Sexton
Herman,
“We are in the 21st century with an open, modern scientific process that accepts only the good science that first gets published and then survives the test of time as other research builds on what has been learned.”
Partly right. However, we can’t say what is “good” science at the time it is published. I do agree though, that with time, as research builds it is the test of time that is the final arbiter. We can see exactly that – now that time has run out, how the AGW alarmists “science” is starting to crumble under the glare of scrutiny.
“You come fully armored in institutional and academic scientific hegemony,
but I say, ‘The lamp of science must burn. Alere flammam!**”’
**Michael Faraday
Herman L:
In climatology, we have an example of a pseudo-scientific process. The causal link between carbon dioxide concentration and average surface temperature is the IPCC-referenced climate models. These models are not falsifiable, thus lying outside science. The IPCC represents them to be scientific. Thus, the proper adjective is “pseudo-scientific.”
That Nature would consider Paul Ehrlich a scientist, much less a source for what scientists face is truely sad.
From the Nature editorial: “Yes, scientists’ reputations have taken a hit thanks to headlines about the leaked climate e-mails at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK. . .”
Ummm, no. It wasn’t the *headlines* that caused the damage to the scientists’ reputations, it was the *content* of those emails.
I think Mann is the author of the editorial. It has that familiar reek of paranoia seen elsewhere, as recently the interview with him published online yesterday at Discover Magazine.com here: http://discovermagazine.com/2010/apr/10-it.s-gettin-hot-in-here-big-battle-over-climate-science/?searchterm=michael%20mann
“Ecologist Paul Ehrlich at Stanford University in California says that his climate colleagues are at a loss about how to counter the attacks. “Everyone is scared shirtless, but they don’t know what to do,” he says.”
But why??
Scared of what? Well obviously they can disagree with the skeptics and thus find it wrong that skeptics are winning the public.
But why so scared??
If these “scitentists” has done no fraud, no dishonesty, no bullying of other peoble, what do they have to fear – personnally?
This “scared sxxxless” points to bad behavier, the scare of being revealed.
“”” tarpon (08:43:15) :
Sen Boxer: We use the gold standard CRU data.
Reporter: Sen Boxer you know that CRU said they faked their data?
Sen Boxer: Oh we don’t use the faulty CRU data, we only use the NASA data.
NASA: We know our data is faulty — We only use the CRU data.
Sen Boxer: …… “””
Sir Tarpon, that is Madam Senator Mrs Boxer to use all her titles that she worked so hard to get; so please adress her, as you would your own Mother-in-law.
Thank you.
Lucy Skywalker (09:20:13) :
David hit Goliath between the eyes. The seat of knowledge, the true meaning of Scientia. What are the first five stones, the pieces of evidence? Here’s my take:
(1) faulty surface stations records
(2) unacknowledged UHI c**p
(3) faulty selection of faulty proxies
(4) faulty CO2 ice core measurements
(5) Goliath gaming the system – Climategate
————–
What about McIntyre and McKitrick’s exposure of faulty use of statistics and hockey-stick-generating computer programs? For me the broken hockey stick will always be one of the first rocks. You’ve encompassed this in both “Goliath gaming the system” and ‘faulty proxies” but the statistical tricks need to be mentioned.
SCHOOLS in three US states – Louisiana, Texas and South Dakota – have been told to teach alternatives to the scientific consensus on global warming.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527514.100-battle-over-climate-science-spreads-to-us-schoolrooms.html
As I’ve said on other treads…in a few year’s time, either the AGW skeptics will be seen as heroes, or as 21st century flat-earthers. Right or wrong, they’ve provided a valuable service in making climate science far more accountable for its claims…
“…Louisiana, Texas and South Dakota…”
Hotbeds of progressive (little p) thought!