APS responds! – Deconstructing the APS response to Dr. Hal Lewis resignation

sharper00 says:
October 13, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Hey, thanks for your considerable reply. Here is my semi-considerable response.
I think we both agree that there isn’t an issue with the public process that Dr. Lewis is following; nor the public process that the APS is following; nor the public process that other members of the APS are following; nor the public process that WUWT (and other blogs) are following. We disagree on the substance of what is being said by all the above parties in the process, but the process is OK. Do you agree?
I think we both agree that there are significant issues of data / methodology / code availability; in published papers (paid for by the public) upon which the IPCC was/is basing assessments. Do you agree?
I think we disagree on the most fundamental of levels on the assessment the current overall situation in climate science. That is not surprising. It is really a discussion of different views of the world. It will continue to be interesting to discuss . . . I look forward to it.
One of your statements in your latest comment to me was very interesting. You said, “ Is it possible there exists any organisation anywhere both relevant and expert enough to render an opinion while not having the perception of corruption? Based on the comments here (in which the APS is simultaneously accused of both) I guess not.”
In answer to that interesting statement; I know that in public life or in business or in academe, the merest perception of an integrity issue is just as serious as an actual one. That is the reality of our culture. Therefore, bodies like the IPCC ( and APS, CRU, UoV, APS, RS , etc ) need to maintain the highest conceivable standards to prevent even the slightest perception of a lack of integrity. Their recent track record wrt climate science has given the global public the perception of integrity issues. I suggest they must open up voluntarily to public inquiry, indeed to embrace public inquiry, or they will suffer escalating integrity concerns. Appearance of covering up integrity issues is worse, in my opinion, than just the perception of having an integrity issue.
Finally, we clearly still disagree on the Cuccinelli legal actions. Time will tell on that one . . . the clock is ticking and the likely results of the USA elections in early Nov will probably embolden Cuccinelli. Therefore, the timing of the Mann WaPo editorial piece. : )
John

Re Tom Carter and the Dogma of 1610
The Catholic and other Churches were almost certainly ignorant of, and not in agreement with, the arguments for heliocentric theory in 1610, probably because they wished the idea would go away, and also because they felt threatened financially if a major part of their dogma was found to be wrong. Not exactly greed though, just trying to stay in the business of soliciting money from people to help communicate with the creator of heaven and earth. The evidence for that creator is also said by them to be incontrovertible. They are still in business 400 years later and in the face of some major advances in our understanding of the way the universe works, so they must be pretty good and arguing their case to the believers.

Richard S Courtney, thanks for agreeing with the point I was attempting to make in my own peculiar and unscientific way; the ethics of the APS require discussion on the thread, not the science.

Richard Courtney,
You are such a spoilsport as I think Lucy and I were having such a nice discussion.
And you are absolutely wrong,
in the very APS response to Dr Hal Lewis we find
“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;”
It is in the APS response and thus it is germane to the thread at hand.
We are burning fossil fuels and sending the resulting CO2 out the many stacks and exhaust pipe and some expect that the atmospheric increase of CO2 is due to some other cause.
Frankly you have some hill to climb to provide evidence for that.
Got any?

I don’t think that this is very good at all. You climate change deniers are always misrepresenting things. It’s just a lot of noise. You come across as being very silly, you know.
John

John Terry says:
October 14, 2010 at 9:36 am
I don’t think that this is very good at all. You climate change deniers are always misrepresenting things. It’s just a lot of noise. You come across as being very silly, you know.

——————
John Terry,
An argumentative venue is a good thing, n’est pas? We certainly are argumentative here. Your comment doesn’t look very argumentative; sort of more like a morally patronizing statement. Please try again soon, we can help you with the argument thing . . . .
Well, apparently we did our good deed today, helping you out with your need for comic relief problem. Was it good for you? Hey, if we have entertained you so successfully . . . . then please hit the tip jar . . . . you know, like you would to a ragged pitiable street comedian who has his hat upside down on the sidewalk.
Have a great day there John Terry.
John

Richard,
If that is your paper, maybe you could provide a direct link.
I cut and pasted the whole thing into google and got bumkis.
I did go the first hit and got a blog where someone was using percentages on top of percentages to show no direct link between carbon emmisions and carbon dioxide levels, which I find very dodgy at least if not downright non-scientific, wrong, misleading, erroneous and superficial.
If Dr. Hal Lewis charges that the science behind AGW is fraudulent and the APS is deriving benefit from it, I think he should put up some evidence.
And mail it to Cuccinelli, cause he so needs and wants it.
If you want to discuss trillions of dollars over lunch, well I’m game.
Well, what trillions of dollars?

John Terry,
I believe most posters here are not “climate change deniers”. I do concede that many of us deny that the “science is settled” or that the “evidence is incontrovertible”. In fact, for me, the concept of a” settled science” or an “incontrovertible” piece of evidence is quite disturbing. Even the idea that there is no man made global climate change (as a denier might assert) is questionable. But is the evidence of man caused, catastrophic, climate change strong enough to justify the actions suggested by many? This more subtle issue is at the heart of the debate.

Freddy says:
October 13, 2010 at 5:48 pm
I just visited Lubos’ blog. He is such an idiot, attacking the press secretary, posting a photograph, and talking about her race.
Lubos should never be invited again to post here!
_____________________________________________________________
I completely disagree, although I can certainly understand your initial reaction.
Lubos’ comments reflect the present, hyper-sensitive state of political correctness and race baiting in American society. Lubos recognizes that by having a black woman deliver the APS response, negative counter-arguments can be more easily brushed aside and deflected; motivated by the respondent’s veiled racial and/or gender bias, rather than addressing the strength of the counter argument itself. Your initial reaction is a perfect example of how this odious tactic works.
Lubos is European; I don’t think he has the average American’s hypersensitivity to race and gender issues. His “janitor” comment has to do with the level of apparent academic and scientific competence (or the lack thereof) as demonstrated by the dodgy quality of the APS response. I have no reason to think any of Lubos’ comments have anything to do with gender or race.
Lubos fires multiple salvos at the real target of his disgust, Dr. Callan, for hiding behind the skirts (if you will) of his press secretary, rather than issuing a line item response and refutation to Dr. Lewis himself. While I can understand Lubos’ ire at Dr. Callan for the apparent use of Ms. Johnson as a pawn, I would agree that the language regarding the press secretary could have been more diplomatically phrased.

It appears my suppositions in my previous post were correct on Lubos and the APS using race/gender centered political correctness being used as a shield. – B. Smith
___________________________________________________________
Lubos responds to Reference Frame reader, Ray:
Dear ray, thanks for your comment. Concerning the point you (and others) find controversial, I have made sure that the word “black” only appears once in the article.
But I won’t erase the last occurrence because I do think it is a part of the mechanisms and indeed, it was a part of the reason why I wrote about this topic in the first place. So it was no typo that this comment has appeared in the blog entry.
Women, blacks, and other minorities are being systematically hired to do similar dirty job – to stifle the discussion about important topics because given the non-free atmosphere of political correctness in the U.S., almost no one would dare to disagree with them, being afraid of possible charges of racism.
It is not quite a coincidence that this is what’s going on – and these non-coincidences play a huge role in the suppression of the debate about important matters. And in some sense, the dirty work that the “minorities” are pushed to do – by folks such as Callan – is dirtier than what many of their ancestors did on the Southern slaveowners’ fields.
At least I think that working hard to suppress any debate about the climate in the APS or to insult a veteran physicist with a hostile, intimidating, political-styled reply to his important letter is a dirtier job than to collect potatoes or whatever one could do in the past. In this sense, the racism has become worse with the expansion of the political correctness.
After a decade in the U.S., be sure that I have noticed that political correctness is not restricted to the far-left “progressives”. But the fact that many Republicans worship it as well doesn’t mean that it is automatically legitimized. At least for me, it’s surely not.
Please try to understand that I, my ancestors, or my nation, for that matter, have never held any slaves or anything of the kind. We’ve been mostly suppressed. Although it wasn’t that bad, the suppression wasn’t too different from that of other (often colored) nations from colonies and similar places, so if some people with English or other “imperial” ancestors play their games to regulate their feeling of guilt, could they please kindly notice that despite my or my countrymates’ skin color, I/we have no feeling of guilt and no reason to participate in such a dumb game?
Thank you very much. 😉
Oct 14, 2010 3:07:00 PM …
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/10/aps-thinks-that-tawanda-may-teach.html

Thanks for the responses, and thanks for the brainless insults like troll, they say so much about the sender, and so little about anything else.
None of the intemperate responses, though, made much sense.
If a bank or an oil company makes the great majority of its income from non-“Green” sources, as this particular bank and oil company do (check their accounts sometime), it is perverse to suggest that its in their interests to scheme to undermine the source of their wealth.
The fact that some on this site maintain this is evidence only of their ability to fit anything into the absolute certainties of their world-view. To repeat; an oil company wants to ban oil. From this line of objective engagement, one could conclude literally anything.
Its like believing a sugar producer is trying to ban adding sugar to food because it has a small line in diet chocolates.
I know the considered response to this will be insults, and no doubt these will be seen by the writers as proof of their fair-minded , rational decency, so I’ll go and beat my head against a rock. That will make them happy, and I’ll get the same level of open-minded debate.

Dr. Lewis writes in annotations to the OP
We have yet to receive a response to our Petition …delivered last spring and signed by 260+ members and former members, including nearly 100 Fellows, 17 members of national academies and 2 Nobels.

Is that supposed to impress me? Two Nobels means diddly squat these days. By comparison IIP sports 10 living (+ 1 dead) Nobel international scholars + The Lucasian Prof. of Mathematics.
You have been hopelessly out-Nobeled. Next petition, spend more time trophy hunting for prominent signatories. You *might* be taken more seriously.
Credibility has become meaningless.
As with the ornate engraving on penny stock certificates, stacking the deck makes the item look important and genuine.
We live in an age where science, insurance policies, and politicians are all sold with the same hype. Maybe you should go prime time with a spot at the super bowl?