I had been avoiding this photo issue, because well, the whole thing is stupid no matter how you look at it and it’s been been heavily covered elsewhere. But when Tim Blair coined the clever headline “Ursus Bogus“, in the Daily Telegraph, I knew I had to pass it on to American readers. WUWT readers may also recall NOAA/NCDC using photoshopped pictures of a flooded house in their big whoop-de-doo climate impacts report last year. They had to pull the report. Heh.
Blair writes:
Science magazine is deeply disturbed:
We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts.
To illustrate its item about scientific facts, Science chose this image of a doomed poley bear:
One small problem.
As James Delingpole reveals, that poley bear image is fake. It’s been photoshopped. Science subsequently admitted:
The image associated with this article was selected by the editors. We did not realize that it was not an original photograph but a collage, and it was a mistake to have used it.
As Science says: “There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions.”
=======================================
I wonder how they missed the description here at the source of the photo?
It reads:
Stock photo description
A polar bear managed to get on one of the last ice floes floating in the Arctic sea. Due to global warming the natural environment of the polar bear in the Arctic has changed a lot. The Arctic sea has much less ice than it had some years ago. (This images is a photoshop design. Polarbear, ice floe, ocean and sky are real, they were just not together in the way they are now)
So much for peer reviewed editing. Maybe next time they’ll use the penguin version.
Science uses cold hard facts. Politics uses emotive imagery. Was this photo in a scientific magazine, or a political magazine, you be the judge.
So is the problem that Antartic ice floes have drifted to the Arctic or is it the poor poley bear that migrated all the way south due to AGW induced range change or perhaps he was a strong swimmer despite the drowning hype? It really is worse than we thought!
Joel Shore: May 12, 2010 at 6:08 pm
Well, if we are going to get so upset about this sort of thing (which I personally don’t really think we should), then Roy Spencer should get the same sort of flack from WUWT for the picture on the front cover of his latest book: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/roy_spencers_great_photoshop_b.php
Nup. Dr. Spencer used a pic that has been well-established as Photoshop™ped, that the artist admitted was Photoshop™ped, and has been held up as an example of the great results you can get with Photoshop™ for at least a decade.
In other words, it’s an iconic picture, readily identifiable as such by anyone whose first day on the net wasn’t yesterday…
If a penguin steals a polar bear’s last gold piece, can the surviving manatee sue for species infringement?
Taxonomically, damnit, it should be Ursus bogus.
Italicize, and do not capitalize the species, as in Ursus maritimus and Homo sapiens and Pan troglodytes.
Sorry to pick nits (Pediculus humanus, subspecies capitis), but considering the price I paid for an undergraduate degree in Biology all those decades ago, I am – goddamn it – going to insist on getting some use.
Yes. We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on competent climate scientists in particular who dare to refute the AGW hoax with scientific evidence you choose to ignore, deny, and decry. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts, including the scientific impossibilities and improbabilities associated with the AGW frauds and scaremongering. The publishers of Science can make a positive contribution to the de-escalation of the political assaults on scientists by prominently acknowledging and condemning the misrepresentation and fraudulent usage of the polar bear image to convey a false impression.
Joel Shore says:
May 12, 2010 at 6:08 pm
Well, if we are going to get so upset about this sort of thing (which I personally don’t really think we should), then Roy Spencer should get the same sort of flack from WUWT for the picture on the front cover of his latest book:
Actually his picture is referred to as “Cover Art – copyright – Ralph A. Clevenger/Corbis”.
Art isn’t science or is it? BTW Roy’s book is very good.
Taxonomically, it should be Ursus dolus.
When I was young and walked to school in North Norway, we had to fight ice bears the whole time.
Glenn says:
May 12, 2010 at 4:13 pm
The picture has been replaced by one taken in the Hudson Strait, a passage to Hudson Bay which is ice free every summer, the ice being from a glacier. Science neglects to reveal this however, despite the embarrassment of the first picture.
They can’t get one right, can they? Science indeed.
Socratease says:
May 12, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Maybe somebody can PhotoShop a picture of Professor Jones standing on an ice flow, looking forlorn as his funding melts away.
Oh, cool! I’d like that. With a polar bear and a penguin. maybe the Photoshop guy, whatsisname … Jan Will, wouldn’t mind doing that. I’d chip in.
J.Hansford says:
May 12, 2010 at 5:31 pm
The Icon of CAGW “science” …. The photoshopped polar bear on a photoshopped ice flow, drifting upon a photoshopped sea.
It’s sorta like poetry really:-)
Yeap, CAGW – it’s all done with computers.
Speaking of the devil, there’s a new black bear subspecies evolving in California’s Yosemite National Park. Ursus garbagiensis is totally incapable of surviving in the wild. UG gets all of its food from upending garbage cans, from breaking into cars that have junk food inside, and from Japanese tourists who can’t read the Do-not-feed-the-bears signs. 🙂
Phil,
The data’s available on their website:
Area: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/timeseries.anom.1979-2008
How did you find that!? I searched all over their website. That’s a doubly useful txt data file, cos I think it has area and extent. Thanks!
Extent: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/SEAICE/timeseries.1870-2008
This is just 5 data points per years so not what I’m looking for. No prob, since I got everything I need from the 1st link.
thanks again.
Anyone do the same for nansen-norsec?
Pamela Gray says:
May 12, 2010 at 8:33 pm
The stock photo’s owner is wonderfully honest. He created it because “it sells”. Out of the mouths of innocence.
Precisely. And he keeps creating them for the same reason, although I suppose that he’s also having lots of fun doing them 🙂 Well, I would.
It’s not wrong to make photoshop designs like that provided you don’t attempt to sell them as truth. The artist states clearly that it’s made-up.
Science mag doesn’t say so, and that is the dishonesty (or sloppiness). Using “artists impressions” is not wrong either , but they must be labeled as such.
so surprising to see how much time is wasted with a photograph. Why not spend time discussing the science? I’m sure there is a new science paper out there someplace that is worth discussing and not some silly picture…
More evidence for Global Warming for interesting articles in Science, frightening, i tell you:
Flooding: (the usual, skyscrapers in the water)
http://fxb.worth1000.com/entries/534966/global-warming
Dried up ocean with some nice flames on the horizon:
http://fxb.worth1000.com/entries/509131/global-warming
City on the ground of the sea, now that’s some serious sea level rise:
http://www.worth1000.com/entries/449961/acqua
All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts.
Like, conjectures that fail almost all their previsions belong in the wastepaper basket. (The “almost” is there just out of kindness).
Re it’s a bit like poetry…it’s very much like poetry:
“As idle as a painted ship: Upon a painted ocean…”
is a line from The Rime of The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Ursus Fraudilus
Ursus Mannus
Ursus Hockeyschtickus
Ursus Photoshoppus
Ursus Trickus
Is Science inhabited by Homo sapiens bogus?
The hoaxers are acting upon the belief that a picture is worth a thousand words and perhaps ten thousand scientific articles when it comes to marketing the hoax to gain public support and denying media access to peer reviewed publications and legislators.
Penguin in the prairies:
http://fxb.worth1000.com/entries/491171/global-warming
nednead: May 13, 2010 at 2:24 am
so surprising to see how much time is wasted with a photograph. Why not spend time discussing the science?
Too late. The involved in Photoshop™ping is already settled, and it’s very robust, too…
“The science involved…”
snip-snippetty-snipping touchy touchpad…
Slightly off topic,
Polar Bear , Ursus Maritimus
population plus minus 25,000
life expectancy (male ) up to 40 years
size (male) up to 2,60 meters tall, up to 800kg,
evolved 200,000 – 500,000 years ago from grizzle bears
speed on ice plus minus 20 mph
can remain submerged for over a minute
can swim without rest for over 100km
for more on this killing machine ( not at all cuddly ):
http://pbsg.npdar.no/en/faq.html