A Black Day For Science – PNAS publishes a paper based on a skeptic blacklist
It doesn’t get much uglier than this. A stasi-esque master list of skeptical scientists and bloggers, with ratings put together by a “scientist” that rants against the very people he rates on his blog. Meet the author, Jim Prall here. And he uses this for a peer reviewed paper. What next? Will we have to wear yellow badges to climate science conferences?
We don’t need no stinking badges. Here’s a sample of coverage:
Scientists who believe in man-made climate change are more esteemed than those who actively oppose the concept, according to a new paper. But experts said the paper divides scientists into artificial groups, does not consider a balanced spectrum of scientists, and is inherently biased due to the nature of the peer review process.
…
Judith Curry, a climate expert at the Georgia Institute of Technology – who was not part of the analysis – called the study “completely unconvincing” while John Christy of University of Alabama claimed he and other climate sceptics included in the survey were simply “being blacklisted” by colleagues.
–Nick Collins, The Daily Telegraph
So what does this new paper measure exactly? Hell if I know. But it is clear that in the climate debate there are good guys and there are bad guys, and to tell them apart, it is important to have a list. A black list. — Roger Pielke Jr at his blog
It is a blacklist. It’s also hilariously wrong. It is a black day for science and shows that there are people more stupid than Ken Cuccinelli. — Thomas Fuller, Environmental Policy Examiner
The Norwegian “Klimarealistene” (Climate Realists) is using the this symbol.
There is also a small pin (same symbol, no text) to wear on a jacket.
Button concepts have been uploaded to the following link. Let me know if I missed any or if you’d like one of them refined.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1241/4728363118_e89d7247a2_b.jpg
Very nice symbol Carsten Arnholm.
PFWAG says:
June 22, 2010 at 6:52 am
Be careful on comparisons. As the papers released after the fall of the Soviet Union proved, McCarthy was actually right.
It is not whether you are right, or whether you are wrong. It is how you conduct yourself.
The Inquisitors may well have been right that those they suspected were losing a little faith in God, especially during the torture stages, but that does not excuse their behavior.
As for the list itself. Oh. My. Word. The journal has destroyed itself. This is not something that you can apologise your way out of. When the tide turns – and the natural variation of the climate will ensure it does – the NAS will be stranded, and no one will let them forget their actions.
I added the raised eyebrow idea (included a globe for the iris) and the request from 899 on a different blog.
Button concepts version 2
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1313/4728913330_006b1f42bd_b.jpg
John for CA:
I write to thank you for your designs and to thank all others for their suggestions.
Personally, I prefer the smiley Stevenson Screen but I look forward to learning the preference of others. Perhaps we can find a consensus (if that is not a dirty word).
Richard
You’re welcome Richard — the ideas are a lot of fun and I tried to execute a mock-up of most suggestions. They are just mock-ups so feel free to be critical and suggest changes and some additional versions.
I could do a version with the word Blacklist instead of Skeptic for the eye version. Then again, the blacklist is so absurdly juvenile, it may not be worth the effort to further publicize it.
I’ll leave the decision up to you.
Best Regards,
John
Wow, this is a giant list of sceptical scientists. We no longer have to go along with the idea of a concensus! Whose side is this guy on? Clearly with dire forecasts falling into the ice and snow their is nothing else to publish on the agw side. Indeed, it would be interesting to tally the papers published by alarmists by year. It would show that even they are changing their tune. Any gems from Mann, Jones, and the rest of the hockey team lately? Remember fellows, it’s publish or perish! This list as a peer rev’d paper shows they are getting to the stage of pulling the wool over their own eyes.
ah, I’ve found RealClimate’s own list and here is the list from the infamous Wikipedia).
I suggest a revision to my initial slashed-hockey-stick button: a horizontal hockey stick, with an upward-pointing blade on the right, slashed through with a standard red “NO” line.
But a much more powerful and aggressive idea has occurred to me: a pair of upraised hands decisively snapping a hockey stick (with its blade upturned at the right) in half. It is based on the well-known (to warmists) logo of the War Resisters League, in which the hands are snapping a rifle. It would be a witty conversation-starter — and annoying to warmists who caught the allusion.
Here’s a link to an image the rifle-breaking WRL logo:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.pritsky.net/WRL.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.pritsky.net/bio.html&usg=__yRVFM37HwNKtIptZsFNfyhQFlFY=&h=130&w=200&sz=3&hl=en&start=2&sig2=-fNpo9NZTh2l8GrFUfuEmg&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=RixDTj5-rc6X0M:&tbnh=68&tbnw=104&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwar%2Bresisters%2Bleague%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=NlkiTJP5AsqHkAXIz6T8BA
Richard S Courtney
Also, please do not let your explanation assert the lie that climate data are only assessed over 30 year periods: if that lie were true then we would only have 4 data points for mean global temperature from each of the HadCRUT, GISS, etc. data sets (they cover the period from ~1880 to 2010; i.e. 4 periods of 30 years and a bit of such a period).
You can get statistically significant trends with shorter timescales but 30 years has been the generally accepted period so I’ll stick with that purely for argument’s sake. That doesn’t mean you only get one data point every thirty years – you can have as many datapoints as you like, it just means that when looking at trends you have to look at datapoints thirty years apart. But 1998 until present is not sufficient to give a statistically significant trend and, of course, 1998 was an outlier for reasons not connected to AGW so starting from that year is always going to give a false impression, especially over shorter periods (which is why people do it).
@John from CA:
I’ve looked at your button list #2 ( http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1313/4728913330_006b1f42bd_b.jpg ) and like the one that shows a slashed hockey stick.
The one that shows a slashed hockey stick temperature chart is unfortunately ambiguous: It could be interpreted as expressing a desire to suppress the rising temperature trend that it illustrates.
Here’s a suggestion for a better Stevenson screen graphic: The eyes should be the sort of X’s that are conventionally used to indicate befuddlement or drunkenness, and the mouth should be down-turned to indicate an unhappy face. The message conveyed would be that the temperature stations are in an unhappy, messed-up state.
I hope you can create a button showing the graphic I suggested a few posts just above: a pair of upraised hands snapping a hockey stick or the hockey-stick temperature chart. (In this case I think it’s unambiguous that the anger is directed at the chart, not the rising temperature.)
Hi Roger,
I’ll add both of the suggestions and post a new version for review tomorrow.
John
Here’s the Polar Bear Version for Gail. Eating pages of data didn’t seem to work. Hope you get a kick out of it.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1056/4730469443_fb28421327_b.jpg
Hello! It’s Stoaty from sweasel, sometime reader and professional artard. I’ve been asked to pinch your ideas and graphicalize them, with a view to…I dunno…putting the best on stuff, probably. If you want to drop by and claim your idea (this is a long old thread and I didn’t take names) or point out that I missed yours or throw popcorn or whatever, feel free.
I’ve redrawn some, I’ve just reposted your graphics some (nice work, John from CA) and I’m sure I’ve totally missed others. Remember, if you want to create artwork that will hold up for print, it needs to be about 900×900 pixels for a 3″ button.
At one time leaders of the CAGW movement (excuse me, the CACC movement) claimed: “the overwhelming majority of the people believe in CAGW (damn, CACC).” As the general public became increasingly aware of the despicable tactics employed by the leaders of the CACC movement, the phrase “overwhelming majority of the people” had to be abandoned. The current claim is: “the overwhelming majority of knowledgeable climate scientists believe in CACC.” My reading of the tea leaves is that it’s just a matter of time before the phrase “overwhelming majority of knowledgeable climate scientists” will also have to be dropped. What’s next? Maybe their new claim will be “the overshelming majority of scientists who believe in CACC believe in CACC.” At least that claim can’t be refuted.
I don’t think that Stephen Schneider could have done more to damage his image than use his postition at NAS to push through this non peer reviewed “paper”.
“overbearing majority of knowledgeable climate scientists”
I like websites where you find a little “html valid” logo. With a link giving you this kind of result : http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eecg.utoronto.ca%2F~prall%2Fclimate%2Fskeptic_authors_table.html;accept=text%2Fhtml%2Capplication%2Fxhtml%2Bxml%2Capplication%2Fxml%3Bq%3D0.9%2C*%2F*%3Bq%3D0.8;accept-language=fr%2Cen-us%3Bq%3D0.5;accept-charset=ISO-8859-1%2Cutf-8%3Bq%3D0.7%2C*%3Bq%3D0.7
1560 Errors, 27 warning(s) at the time of this commenting.
Gotta love these kind of clowns.
If yellow badges are required to be worn by skeptics, I will wear mine with pride.
Surely this is a good thing. When Anyone cites a concensus, we now have a list of emminent scientists, conveniently brought together from many sources, who break that concensus.
Some a’hole sells you a lemon, sell him lemonade.