Below is the press release (on the web here) from the American Physical Society, responding to the resignation letter of APS fellow Dr. Hal Lewis made public last Friday, October 8th. APS Members Dr. Roger Cohen, Dr. Will Happer, and of course Dr. Hal Lewis have responded in kind, and have asked me to carry their response on WUWT. I’ve gladly obliged, and their inline comments are indented in blue italics in the document below. – Anthony
October 12, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Tawanda W. Johnson
Press Secretary
APS Physics
529 14th St. NW, Suite 1050
Washington, DC 20045-2065
Phone: 202-662-8702
Fax: 202-662-8711
tjohnson@aps.org
APS Comments on Harold Lewis’ Resignation of his Society Membership
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a recent letter to American Physical Society (APS) President Curtis A. Callan, chair of the Princeton University Physics Department, Harold Lewis, emeritus physics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, announced that he was resigning his APS membership.
In response to numerous accusations in the letter, APS issues the following statement:
There is no truth to Dr. Lewis’ assertion that APS policy statements are driven by financial gain. To the contrary, as a membership organization of more than 48,000 physicists, APS adheres to rigorous ethical standards in developing its statements.
We know that the existing 2007 APS Statement on Climate Change was developed literally over lunch by a few people, after the duly constituted Committee had signed off on a more moderate Statement.
The Society is open to review of its statements if members petition the APS Council – the Society’s democratically elected governing body – to do so.
We have yet to receive a response to our Petition:
http://www.openletter-globalwarming.info/Site/Signatures__APS_Council_Study.html
…delivered last spring and signed by 260+ members and former members, including nearly 100 Fellows, 17 members of national academies and 2 Nobels. Driven largely by the ClimateGate revelations, the Petition asks that the Society conduct an independent study and assessment.
As for democratic membership participation in matters of science, consider the reaction to a grass roots outpouring of APS member opinion on the 2007 APS Statement http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200912/apscouncilors.cfm . “[APS Councilor] was uncomfortable with the idea of a membership-wide referendum on statements. He said that he was concerned that having a membership wide vote on controversial issues could lead to the adoption of scientifically unsound statements.” Evidently physicists should be excluded from inputting on a question of physics; only “physics monks” are entitled to do so ex cathedra .
Dr. Lewis’ specific charge that APS as an organization is benefitting financially from climate change funding is equally false. Neither the operating officers nor the elected leaders of the Society have a monetary stake in such funding.
The chair of the Panel on Public Affairs (POPA) that re-endorsed the 2007 APS Statement on Climate Change sits on the science advisory board of a large international bank http://annualreport.deutsche-bank.com/2009/ar/supplementaryinformation/advisoryboards.html The bank has a $60+ billion Green portfolio, which it wishes to assure investors is safe…not to mention their income from carbon trading. Other members of this board include current IPCC chief Pachauri and Lord Oxburgh, of Climategate exoneration fame. The viability of these banks activities depends on continued concern over CO2 emissions . Then there is the member of the Kleppner Committee (that reviewed the APS 2007 Statement prior to POPA) who served on that committee while under consideration for the position of Chief Scientist at BP. The position had been vacated when Steve Koonin left to take a post in the administration at DOE. Soon after the Kleppner Committee report in late 2009, this committee member took the BP job. BP had previously funded the new Energy Laboratory at Berkeley, which was headed by current Energy Secretary Steve Chu.
Moreover, relatively few APS members conduct climate change research, and therefore the vast majority of the Society’s members derive no personal benefit from such research support.
This does not mention the firm expectation by federal government agencies such as the NAS and the Presidential Science Advisor’s office that the APS will continue to support the huge funding machine that diverts billions of taxpayer dollars into research that must support the alarmist credo. APS has been silent on the documented practice by some climate scientists aimed at preventing opposing research from being published.
On the matter of global climate change, APS notes that virtually all reputable scientists agree with the following observations:
- Carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere due to human activity;
- Carbon dioxide is an excellent infrared absorber, and therefore, its increasing presence in the atmosphere contributes to global warming; and
This passes over the fact that carbon dioxide absorption lines are nearly saturated.
- The dwell time of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is hundreds of years.
Well, it depends on what you mean by “dwell time.” If it is the conventional half life of an impulse loading of carbon dioxide, the statement is wrong – by a lot.. The IPCC’s Bern carbon cycle model http://www.climate.unibe.ch/~joos/model_description/model_description.html gets a 16 year half life. If it is the time for the last molecule to get picked up by a sink, the statement is meaningless. At the very least, the statement is sloppy and hardly befitting a world class scientific society.
On these matters, APS judges the science to be quite clear. However, APS continues to recognize that climate models are far from adequate, and the extent of global warming and climatic disruptions produced by sustained increases in atmospheric carbon loading remain uncertain.
This is much better than the 2007 APS Statement itself. However, the phrase “climate disruptions” is noteworthy because it is the new buzzword recently introduced by Science Advisor John Holdren http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100054012/global-warming-is-dead-long-live-er-global-climate-disruption/ , evidently enabling advocates to assign any unusual weather event to human causes. It is curious that that the APS press release happens to echo this new phrase.
In light of the significant settled aspects of the science, APS totally rejects Dr. Lewis’ claim that global warming is a “scam” and a “pseudoscientific fraud.”
What we have here is a bait and switch. No one is saying that the greenhouse effect itself is a scam. This passage seeks to transfer the ‘scam’ charge from its real target to the trivial. The fraud/scam is to be found in the continual drumbeat that the science is settled; that the effects will be catastrophic; that it requires draconian economic sacrifices to avoid; and that mandates and subsidies for rent-seeking corporations are justified.
Additionally, APS notes that it has taken extraordinary steps to solicit opinions from its membership on climate change. After receiving significant commentary from APS members, the Society’s Panel on Public Affairs finalized an addendum to the APS climate change statement reaffirming the significance of the issue. The APS Council overwhelmingly endorsed the reaffirmation.
Never mind that the Panel on Public Affairs is chaired by an individual whose research funding stream (from BP) depends on continued global warming alarm. And you have to keep your eye on the pea. The dispute was not over the “significance” of the issue; it was over the alarmist nature of the statement. The addendum used more than five times the number of words to try to explain what the original statement meant. Not a good sign that they got it right the first time.
Lastly, in response to widespread interest expressed by its members, the APS is in the process of organizing a Topical Group to feature forefront research and to encourage exchange of information on the physics of climate.
Never mind that the Topical Group was proposed in a petition organized by a group of five members that included Dr. Lewis. Also, the Council has not yet approved a TG; therefore it is not in the process of being “organized.” It is being considered. No formal charter or bylaws have been set down. What we have here is the first attempt to co-opt the TG for PR purposes. This before it has even been approved by the APS Council.
Read the APS Climate Change Statement and Commentary: http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm.
APS should be very reluctant to draw public attention to this Statement, with its infamous phrase, “The evidence is incontrovertible,” despite the fact that nothing in science is ever incontrovertible.
About APS: The American Physical Society (www.aps.org) is the leading physics organization, representing 48,000 members, including physicists in academia, national laboratories, and industry in the United States and internationally. APS has offices in College Park, MD (Headquarters), Ridge, NY, and Washington, DC.
Tawanda W. Johnson
Press Secretary
APS Physics
529 14th St. NW, Suite 1050
Washington, DC 20045-2065
Phone: 202-662-8702
Fax: 202-662-8711
tjohnson@aps.org
=================================================
This page is available as a PDF here: APS Press Release Deconstruction
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Dr. Roger Cohen writes in with an addedum:
I would like to clarify one technical point for your visitors. It relates to: “This passes over the fact that carbon dioxide absorption lines are nearly saturated.”
The statement is fact, but it does not by itself imply that additional amounts of atmospheric CO2 will not cause significant warming. Straightforward radiation transfer calculations have established that the effect of doubling atmospheric CO2 would be to increase global average temperature by only about 1 deg. C. — if there were no other climate effects involved. However, these other effects, generally called “feedbacks,” can amplify or attenuate the primary radiation altering effect of additional CO2. The most prominent feedback is the “cloud-water vapor feedback,” which is very difficult to calculate or determine empirically. The IPCC says these feedback effects are in aggregate large and positive, giving rise to their most recent estimate of 2 to 4.5 deg. C for doubling, with a most likely value of 3 deg. C. However, a substantial body of other research points to a much lower value, much closer to the zero feedback value of 1 deg. C, or even lower. The actual aggregated effect of feedbacks is a critical aspect of the debate.
“Moreover, relatively few APS members conduct climate change research, and therefore the vast majority of the Society’s members derive no personal benefit from such research support.”
Curious then that they feel qualified to lend their weight to the theory. The classic warmist argument is that if someone is not a climatologist their opinion has no weight, however this argument does not apply so long as they agree with the popular theory of man made climate disruption.
Is there some magic about CO2 that it causes additional warming by “feedbacks”? It seems to me that if such significant feedbacks existed they would respond to any warming however caused. Any minor warming would be amplified by feedbacks, causing even more warming and even more feedback, etc., etc., runaway warming, death of the planet, etc.
This doesn’t seem to happen in reality, although we are continuously told that it is the mechanism by which CO2 will overheat the planet. So what is the magic with CO2 if this effect isn’t observed for other causes of warming?
‘Moreover, relatively few APS members conduct climate change research, and therefore the vast majority of the Society’s members”
… are in no place to endorse, by vote or committee, any result of said research.
They damn themselves quite transparently.
The adoption, so quickly, by the APS of the phrase “climate disruptions” show that this reply by the APS to Hal Lewis’s resignation letter is no more than a PR damage-limitation exercise and not a rebut of the scientific criticisms of man-made global warming.
That speedy adoption of words directly attributable to President Obama’s Science Czar John Holdren highlights how much trouble the APS now feel they are in over its global warming advocacy.
“Climate disruption” now translates to a fear of recriminations and finger-pointing within the APS.
Anyone round here a bookie? I’d like to place a bet on the first institute/society to come out and admit that they had to toe the AGW line or there funding would be cut.
I’m not sure who will be the first though as all the scientific institutes/society’s seemed to have no bollox, seems to me money > integrity.
“James Sexton says:
October 13, 2010 at 6:18 pm
cementafriend says:
October 13, 2010 at 5:58 pm
I am surprised you offer criticism without offering a basis for such criticism. If you have knowledge, share it. For instance, show where Dr. Cohen is wrong, or better yet, answer my question above.”
I would like to apologize to Dr Cohen, I wrongly put his name instead of Dr (Curtis) Callan. I have no problem with Dr Cohen’s comment. I, now, see on LUbos Motl’s site that the person who wrote the reply was actually Tawanda Johnson the press secretary who certainly has no knowledge about climate or the engineering subjects of thermodynamics, heat and mass transfer (which includes evaporation and condensation).
With regard to CO2 being an Infra-red absorber, it only absorbs in three very narrow wavelengths (2.7, 4.3 and 14.9 micron). Water vapor absorbs over a much larger range including at 2.7 and 14.9 micron, it also absorbs in the microwave range. Around the 14.9 micron area water vapor will absorb more radiant energy because there is an order of magnitude more present
Eric Anderson
—-Can you clarify what you mean by a “closed system where the energy budget is balanced?” What would you consider the system to be: the surface and atmosphere of the earth; the entire earth (including hydrocarbons extracted from below the surface and burned at the surface); the entire Sun/earth system?—
Dr. Cohen said ” However, a substantial body of other research points to a much lower value, much closer to the zero feedback value of 1 deg. C, or even lower. ” I had seen a few studies that list this sensitivity number but they were not using data from the complete globe. While those sensitivity numbers may be useful, ie estimating cloud feedbacks in the tropics, it can be inadvertently confusing to those who don’t understand the importance of ocean oscillation and the transport of energy over the entire globe when estimating the climate’s sensitivity to certain forcings.
—-And how is the particular definition of the “closed system” relevant to the question of whether or not there are amplifying feedbacks that would drive the temperature higher than CO2 alone?—-
It’s a question of using data that gives a complete picture of climate sensitivity.
bob says: October 13, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Thanks Bob for replying so nicely, and at such length. I was tired, so noisier and less exact than I usually try to be. However, I still disagree with you, and for the same reasons.
* Ca++ has the power to replenish itself constantly, drawing on CaCO3 worldwide rocks, and to be leached constantly by supplying material for shells – thus the balance continues, naturally.
* Here and here are papers challenging your “CO2 isotopes levels shows human interference” thesis. I’ve seen others too.
* Re us being responsible for CO2 increase, I respectfully disagree with both you and Ferdinand Engelbeen, because I think you both wrongfully dismiss the power of the vast natural flux to more than absorb comparatively tiny human inputs of plant food. The flux itself is an order of magnitude bigger. I’ve seen even the similarities disappear under the microscope. Your thesis depends on a mechanistic interpretation where a human surplus can accumulate; but in reality we have a huge turnover in the ocean / atmosphere, and the living biomass is highly responsive to any extra CO2. Therefore, despite apparent similarities in patterns of increase, I hold that this is fortuitous, accidental, of minimal significance re causality.
* Since I’ve been persuaded by evidence for the maintenance of a natural equilibrium, I’m really not worried about microscopic changes in oxygen levels. What I abhor is the squandering of oil as nonrecyclable plastic containers, bottles, wrappers, etc that mess up our landscape all too visibly.
I object to the alarmist ideas which assert that (a) warming is bad for us (b) CO2’s increasing GHG effect is serious (c) we, rather than the natural flux, are the cause of increase, and thus conversely can decrease the CO2 levels. I say, due diligence has not been done. I say, the understanding of the most basic Science held by the experts is being eroded, not maintained, and certainly not improved. To talk about CO2 as “pollution” shows this. I think the research that suggests natural homeostasis has been systematically downplayed, because it’s not alarmist, and therefore not a money-attractor.
Anthony, I have as with the first letter, linked this piece. This is huge. I’m a lot of traffic from search engine queries on Harold Lewis. So people “out there” are picking it up, even if the major media (heh) doesn’t.
http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/aps-rsponse-nothing-to-see-here-harold-lewis-re-response-only-if-youre-blind/
gryposaurus says:
October 13, 2010 at 4:25 pm
“…And I mean a closed system, where the energy budget is balanced.”
Good points. Of course the Earth is not a closed system and the ‘energy budget’ is never in balance. It is an open system driven by the turbulence of deterministic chaos and energy balance varies at all time scales. No wonder that the laws of ‘ideal’ physics break down when applied to our messy ball of rock.
Dennis NIkols, P. Geol. says:
October 13, 2010 at 11:34 am
“From my point of view the APS’s attempt at face saving is just that and little more. They are of course just as entitled to their opinions as is Dr. Lewis his. ”
Actually, no. No academic society is entitled to have any such opinion, or it ceases to be an academic society and becomes a pressure group. All the individual members are entitled to their differing opinions, and to have them treated on an equal footing, none being given any official preference over any others.
It’s difficult to see why they’re endorsing a theory of global warming when, as they admit in the statement, its provenance is based on climate models which “are far from adequate”. If they were just plain adequate, would it endorse the theory any more?
Pointman
coldfinger says:
October 14, 2010 at 2:19 am
Is there some magic about CO2 that it causes additional warming by “feedbacks”? It seems to me that if such significant feedbacks existed they would respond to any warming however caused. Any minor warming would be amplified by feedbacks, causing even more warming and even more feedback, etc., etc., runaway warming, death of the planet, etc.
Depends how much positive feedback is given. If the total loop of cause + feedback increases with less than 1 times (100%), then there is an extra increase but no runaway of the process. The climate models result in runaway, but feedbacks like clouds are implied as positive feedback in all models, while in reality these are a negative feedback…
Dear Freddy,
Luboš Motl is absolutely right about all the Tawandas of this world.
Your misunderstanding doesn’t make him an idiot.
Quite the other way around.
Lucy Skywalker says:
October 14, 2010 at 3:33 am
Here and here are papers challenging your “CO2 isotopes levels shows human interference” thesis. I’ve seen others too.
The first paper is by Tom Quirk. He alleges that the change in d13C is mainly from the Southern hemisphere / El Niño, because the NH lags some 5 months the changes in the SH. That paper was challenged by Jack Barret and me in E&E, as the method that Tom Quirk used doesn’t make a difference for changes occuring now or by any multiple of 12 months. In reality, the SH lags the NH with 3-5 years and his conclusion is completely wrong.
The second paper is a comment that has several true remarks, however, the oceans can’t be the cause of the declining d13C, simply because (especially the upper level) ocean CO2 is too high in d13C: any huge release of oceanic CO2 would increase the d13C levels of the atmosphere, even without increasing the total amount of CO2 as is the case for the huge turnover of in/out CO2 from/to the (deep) oceans. That is the reason that the decrease of d13C in the atmosphere is less (about 1/3rd) than what can be calculated from fossil fuel use.
And vegetation is definitely not the cause of the decrease, as there is a slight deficit in oxygen use, thus vegetation is a net producer of O2, thus a net absorber for CO2 (the “greening” earth) and preferentially 12CO2, thus leaving more 13CO2 in the atmosphere, thus increasing the d13C ratio. But we measure a decrease (compassing the noise caused by e.g. an El Niño after 3-5 years).
we have a huge turnover in the ocean / atmosphere, and the living biomass is highly responsive to any extra CO2.
A huge turnover has nothing to do with gain or loss of CO2: Even if the turnover of CO2 increased a 10-fold, that wouldn’t remove one gram of CO2. Only the difference between inputs and outputs removes or adds CO2. As humans add 8 GtC/year and we measure an increase of 4 GtC/year, that means that nature as a whole is a net sink for CO2. Not 100%, only around 50%. If you double CO2 levels in greenhouses and around open air trees and other vegetation, the extra growth is 20-80%, not 100%. Thus extra CO2 (from any source) is partly removed, but not immediately every bit of it.
The APS response demonstrates this is all politics and has nothing to do with science. We already knew that but now it is so obvious a cave man could see it.
This is not a direct comment of Dr Lewis’ resignation, which I heartily applaud as an
outstanding example of a scientist who believes in the full application of scientific principles and ethics in their work (and comments).
However, as the question has been raised that the heat absorbtive power of CO2 may be influenced by atmospheric water vapour (which I believe is a grossly over-rated attribute), I pose the following question for some knowledgeable physicist(s) to
clarify :-
If the atmospheric level of CO2 was reduced to zero ppm, what difference would it make to (i) global temperature and the “greenhouse effect”, and (ii) the “greenhouse” effect of atmospheric water vapour – i.e. does CO2 have much to do with it at all?
I suggest that the whole question of AGW appears to rest on the vastly over-rated properties properties of CO2 and that this should be banished from the debate so that some genuine scientific research could be done to answer important questions about our environment.
I’m not sure what altitude has to do with it. There is a “fixed” (if you will) incoming radiation parcel that the earth gets every day on the absorption lines of CO2. Whether those lines are absorbed at a high altitude or a low altitude, their energy is still absorbed by the earths atmosphere and are not doubly-absorbed by both high and low altitude. This seems akin to arguing whether you put your home insulation up against the inside wall or the outside wall, it should make no difference to the overall energy flow.
The fact that it has been warmer during the mediaval warming & considerably warmer during the Climate Optimum of 9-5,000 BC (the name predates the current scare) shows that, at temperatures well above those CO2 increase might predict the feedbacks simply must be miniscule, zero or more likely negative. Anthing else would have produced the threatened runaway effects then.
@Ammonite
I fully understand the difference between CO2 residence time and “effective residence time” of lifetime or adjustment time to a step change in CO2 concentration.
However, can you or any CO2 expert explain the evidence for claiming this CO2 lifetime is a 100 years (or up to 500 years as some claim- Doug Mackie at skepticalscience.com ). What experimental evidence for this critical element of the climate models?
The only support I can find is from modeling ‘experiments’ – a totally circular argument.
For example, in AR4, I found in Sect 2.10.2 only a table for greenhouse gasses with CO2 being an exceptions under footnote a:
Footnote a: “The CO2 response function used in this report is based on the revised version of the Bern Carbon cycle model used in Chapter 10 of this report” – a model study, no observation.
Reading the names of some of the advisors to the investment banks, such as Rajendra Pachauri and Lord Oxborough, reminded me of the advice I was given by a friendly lecturer immediately after graduating as a teacher;
“Always remember that the education system is the same as any large organisation, they all function in the same manner as a sceptic tank; the big chunks will always float to the top!”
I know many posters here enjoy the cut and thrust of discussing the concepts associated with climate, but it seems to me that those discussions are a distraction; the problem with APS is not a lack of science but a lack of ethics.
First I want to contradict Dr. Roger Cohen on carbon dioxide infrared absorption spectrum. It so happens that Ferenc Miskolczi* has shown, using NOAA weather balloon database that goes back to 1948, that the optical thickness of the atmosphere in the infrared band has not changed for 61 years and has a value of 1.87. This means that constant addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere for 61 years straight has not had any effect on the transparency of the atmosphere in the infrared where carbon dioxide absorbs or the optical thickness would have increased, and this did not happen. This is an empirical observation, not some theory, and must take precedence over predictions by Arrhenius et al. If you want to go against it you will have to disprove both his theory and his observations and I have not seen this done. Roy Spencer tried, unconvincingly, to explain it away with poor quality of older observations. In the meantime, validity of carbon dioxide greenhouse effect right now stands empirically nullified. Respond to it or live with it. Furthermore, I have proven, using satellite temperature measurements, that the so-called “anthropogenic global warming” has never been observed. It starts with Hansen’s testimony in 1988 that global warming has arrived. That was false – satellite observations prove that there was no warming in the eighties and nineties. Real warming started in 1988, ten years after Hansen’s pronouncement. In four years global temperature rose by a third of a degree and then stopped. Its origin was oceanic, not carboniferous. And if you want to bring out arctic warming you can. It is very real, has been going on for more than a hundred years, and is caused by warm water brought north by currents, not some magical arctic amplification of the greenhouse effect. It looks like Miskolczi was right – anthropogenic global warming simply does not exist.
*Ferenc Miscolczi, E&E 21(4):243-262 (2010)
Lucy Skywalker, Bob and Ferdinand Engelbeen, :
I write to request that you discontinue your debate in this thread on the possible cause(s) of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
The subject of this thread is the APS response to Dr Hal Lewis’ letter of resignation.
In my opinion, that subject is sufficiently important for it to not be distracted by – or deflected onto – consideration of any other issue.
In WUWT Ferdinand has recently had his chance (four times) to put his flawed case on why he mistakenly thinks the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 certainly has an anthropogenic cause. The increase may or may not have an anthropogenic cause or a natural cause in whole or in part, but the available evidence cannot prove the matter. And I would welcome another opportunity to show the many errors in Ferdinand’s arguments.
But this thread is not about that. And the subject of this thread is very, very important in its own right.
Hence, I respectfully request that in this thread you desist from discussion of the possible cause(s) of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Richard
James Sexton says:
October 13, 2010 at 7:56 pm
“In other words, can someone, without the vehement rhetoric, explain if a CO2 molecule absorbs and emits uniformly, and if extraterrestrial IR is the primary source of heat,”
It isn’t. The primary source of heat is sunlight, which is twenty times hotter (shorter wavelength) than the thermal radiation trying to get out. Your question is like asking how a bullet can get through a glass window when rain cannot.
Luboš Motl says:
October 13, 2010 at 12:42 pm
It’s just totally disgusting. The first thing is that Callan, instead of answering himself, gave the task to his bodyguard who has no idea about science and who just wrote a meaningless and dishonest stream of intimidation. More comments of mine:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/10/aps-thinks-that-tawanda-may-teach.html
I am ashamed of Mr Callan.
REPLY:Thanks Luboš. Reading your post, for the record, I didn’t analyse anything in the APS statement, see the foreword. Also, I think your response is a bit over the top regarding the APS executive secretary. She’s probably just caught in the middle. – Anthony
With respect to Lubos remarks on the observation that on purpose they let a woman of a minority take the chestnuts out of the fire, it probably is correct and it probably is used as a tool in managerial courses :; . I remember when once we had with a colleague to go through a lot of bureaucracy in the ministry, he and I would go together and have a look at the office to be visited. If a man was sitting there, I went and presented the case, if a woman, he did. It worked like a charm in facilitating our request. And that was in the 70s before one upmanship etc became well known in our corner of the world.
As for Anthony’s comment, she probably participates enthusiastically. The most fanatical followers are the ones with little understanding of the dogma.It seems she is a reporter who has specialized on the issue, not a physicist.