UPDATE5: (Saturday 10/16/10) It has been a week, and I think this piece has been well distributed, so I’m putting it in regular queue now and it will gradually scroll off the page.
UPDATE4: (Friday 10/15/10) APS member Roger Cohen comments here on Andy Revkin’s Dot Earth op/ed.
UPDATE3: (Friday 10/15/10) Andrew Revkin, after a week (I sent him this story last Friday) of digging around to get just the right rebuttal, responds here at Dot Earth.
UPDATE2: (Wednesday 10/13/10) This just in…click for the story.
APS responds! – Deconstructing the APS response to Dr. Hal Lewis resignation
UPDATE: (Saturday 10/9/10) Since this came in late Friday, many of our weekday WUWT readers might not see this important story, so I’m sticking it to the top for a couple of days. New stories will appear just below this one, please scroll down to see them. – Anthony
(Originally posted on 10/8/10 ) We’ve previously covered the APS here, when I wrote:
While Copenhagen and its excesses rage, a quiet revolution is starting.
Indeed, not so quiet now. It looks like it is getting ugly inside with the public airing of the resignation of a very prominent member who writes:
I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.
…
In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.- Hal Lewis
Below is his resignation letter made public today, via the GWPF.
This is an important moment in science history. I would describe it as a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door. It is worthy of repeating this letter in entirety on every blog that discusses science.
What I would really like to see though, is this public resignation letter given the same editorial space as Michael Mann in today’s Washington Post.
Readers, we can do this. Here’s the place at WaPo to ask for it. For anyone writing to the WaPo, the national@washpost.com, is the national news editorial desk. The Post’s Ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, is the readers’ representative within the newspaper. E-mail him at ombudsman@washpost.com or call 202-334-7582.
Spread the word on other blogs. Let’s see if they have enough integrity to provide a counterpoint. – Anthony
======================================
Sent: Friday, 08 October 2010 17:19 Hal Lewis
From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara
To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society
6 October 2010
Dear Curt:
When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).
Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?
How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.
It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.
So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:
1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate
2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.
3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.
4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.
5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.
6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.
APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?
I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.
I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.
Hal
==========================================================
Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)
What a very sincere and honest letter. I hope that many others who have been apalled by the corruption of science by the climate lobby will follow his lead and make their views known.
Wow.
Wow!
That man deserves respect.
wow – and public too.
Nothing has changed much – you only need to look at the way Newton stacked up a Royal Society committee to refute Leibniz’s claims and support his own. Newton also wrote Hooke out of the history books.
Nothing changes.
Hello Hal Lewis.
Pleased to meet you this way.
Shun mashed potatoes.
========
Thank you.
There is a point beyond which resuscitation or rehabilitation of institutions, journals, individuals … is realistic or useful. Time to consider pulling the plug on several of them and creating new ones. Maybe the APS is one of them.
A man of integrity … unlike a number in climate science.
I wish this would be a wake-up call to the rest of the APS, but suspect the APS leadership will encourage this letter to sink without creating noticeable ripples. Dr. Harold Lewis confirms my own assessment of the scale of this scandal as ‘the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud’ in his or my lifetime, and indeed, without precedent in the history of science, as in the closest analogy, the eugenics movement, there was no political or PC suppression of dissenting opinions.
If our civilization survives, this will eventually represent a black eye for the APS for its refusal to acknowledge either implications of the Climategate scandal or its own mistake in taking a political rather than a scientific stand. This ‘blunder’ (to use a much kinder word than deserved) is one that deserves the same degree of excoriation as the Catholic Church deservedly receives for its treatment of Galileo. In both cases, the truth was evident, but was suppressed for political reasons. Indeed, there are actually more extenuating factors for the Church (given the general Reformation climate of intolerance, and the scanty track-record of science prior to the Scientific Revolution) than there are for the APS. Dr. Harold Lewis is courageous to take such a stand as he has.
WOW!
If a majority of APS members feel the same, they can through several election cycles, remove those who oppose the APS constitution, either by vote, not reappointing to committees, or actual removal. Even a vocal 30% can move the middle- of-the-road 30% to action. It is how democratic organizations work, but it does take you away from a career, research and teaching. It does require time and effort, and a motivated constituency. If APS is a self-sustaining leadership, then the current tyranny will continue, until a disaster overtakes it’s board or it is made irrelevant by a replacement organization. The first step was taken when APS members who disagree with their leadership realized that they were not alone!
What a great man, maybe it is time to found (is that the correct term) a new society with a constitution based on that of the USA with open membership lists and places for actual scientists and laymen who are interested in science, above all it should be open and honest, sort of like a fermal WUWT!
This raises the age old dilemna as to whether one is better to fight battles from within or to stand proud but on the sidelines.
If all sceptics at APS were to resign there would be no prospect of forcing the APS to consider the climate science issues and at some stage issue a pronouncement of the Ssociety’s position on them. Having said that I applaud Hal’s integrity and I am not surprised to see a true and genuine scientist hold such views. Of course, it would be good if he could get his story/letter published in the MSM (but of course there is no real hope of that).
If AGW is eventually discredited (and in the end the pro warmist lobby will be unable to control what is truly hapening to the climate – say temps cool over the next 20 years) there is going to be a lot of discredited scientific bodies/ institutions and it will take a long time for science to regrain mainstream credibility once more.
Seeing the wheels that are beginning to come off the wagon, I am surprised that leading institutions are not beginninng to revise their positions at least to the extent of pointing out that uncertainties exist to some extent and that there are still some unkown mechanisms, variables which could have an impact. To start making a slight retreat now would assist their exit stratergy should sometime in the medium future the AGW be shown beyond doubt to be a scam/false theory.
Perhaps he and Michael Mann should have a public debate?
Would a real scientist stand up and speak . . . oh one just did.
“It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.”
Incontrovertible!
Respect!
Reading this made me very sad – not so much sad for this fine, honest scientist and gentleman who leaves the Society with his integrity firmly intact (although that is of course a very sad fact). I am more sad to have yet another reaffirmation of the politically- and money-driven state of today’s “science.” And sad to be reminded that there are millions of brainwashed sheep out there who will happily label this man a “denier,” and a “lunatic on the fringe,” doubtless accompanied by accusations of being in the pay of Big Oil. There will be more still who simply close their eyes to this, deep in denial (yes, the word is more aptly applied to YOU), and carry on spreading alarm, business-as-usual.
Shame on the APS. Shame on the Believers everywhere.
Hal: those who respect freedom and honesty salute you.
Courage and honesty… I love it.
What a powerful letter. I hope it spreads far and wide.
I don’t know if anybody has noticed but Wegman is being investigated for misconduct.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/10/wegman-plagiarism-investigation-/1
My Web-Fu is weak and I don’t seem to be able to get the link posted properly.
I am unfamiliar with Dr. Lewis, and with his efforts to petition the APS. This scenario indicates, again, how all of science has been adversely impacted by the sloppy work of climate activists (I can no longer call them scientists). I applaud his honesty and hope this is not his last word on this issue.
Just think, the 1010 project and their ignorant lemmings would explode this renowned physicist for his views.
Thanks and continued good health to Dr. Lewis!
EJ
It is a shame to have such an old scientist to close his career in this way.
I read in detail his letter of resignation and I can see that technology has passed him. He said he tried to run an e-mail campaign using the APS member e-mails only to be chastised that he was actually sending unsolicited e-mails.
With this he falls so low that is a shame for him. He presents a grand conspiracy involving trillions(!) of dollars and exotic islands.
Who fed him with all this misinformation?
Absolutely stunned.
Seems a shame that a once austere society is losing someone with such obvious integrity, but I can’t find fault with any of what he says and there comes a point where it becomes apparent that you can’t actually change things from the inside.
Enormous respect is due to Hal, well done sir and my sympathies for the position the unethical approach of others has put you in.
In my long career in academic life I have never read as brave and honest a letter of principle as this by Hal Lewis. Irrespective of the merits of the case, climate science has become prostituted to the most insidious form of corruption – money. On this most crucial of issues we needed the very best of science not the worst – Hal Lewis’s integrity should be a beacon to us all on whichever side of the argument we stand.
This is a powerful statement to all who like to paint climate change sceptics as conspiracy theorists and crackpots. I have saved a copy of this letter to use next time someone tries to label me in such a way. It shows we are in good company.
Desmong,
If I’m reading your comment correctly, are you trying to suggest that carbon trading does not represent a multi-trillion dollar industry?
Not to mention the best cocktail parties.
And what sickens me more is that the APS will lay low, say nothing, and simply hope that all this blows over.
There is something that is very important that goes beyond science. A parent might understand. If we are spending trillions of dollars, then we are spending now the tax money of people who have not yet even been born. We are borrowing money that people yet to be born will be asked to pay back. We have an obligation to them to ensure that we are spending their future earnings wisely and for good purpose. I do not have that confidence. I believe we are doing a grave disservice to future generations and that the notion that we are doing this to SAVE future generations, quite Orwellian. But that is how our politics work these days. If you want to rob future generations of their earnings, you claim to be saving them.
This should not only turn the stomach of the scientists, but it should be found revolting to anyone who has or hope to have children. This is a fraud and a theft on a scale I have not heard of in history.
The APS is not unique. It seems that all major scientific professional societies have trooped uncritically into the warmist lobby. I have decided to resign my membership of the American Chemical Society this year because of dogmatic warmist editorials in its weekly magazaine, C&EN. The editor Rudy Baum is perfectly able to see through the bisphenol A and other chemical scares, but at the same time trots out all the usual warmist scare stuff and has used the temperature reconstructions of Michael Mann uncritically to back up this case.
I do not have the time or interest to tackle the issue from within. I will miss the useful updates to the world of chemical industry in C&EN but hope the ACS will miss my subscription a little more.
Thank you.
An example to us all.
Richard Verney says; If AGW is eventually discredited (and in the end the pro warmist lobby will be unable to control what is truly hapening to the climate – say temps cool over the next 20 years.
Richard don’t you know that the cooling will be the result of everyone turning off their appliance standby lights and throwing out their incandescent light globes and burning food products, rather than oil, in their cars?
What an impressive and principled stand, as an Englishman i am totally ashamed of the pivotal role being played by UK institutions in the corruptions of free scientific thinking so eloquently expounded in yor resignation letter.
Any warmist like to tell us that Hal Lewis is not a real scientist, just because he disagrees with them? Oh come on that’s the usual tactic, that and character smears.
Maybe they are too busy counting their payoffs from the green lobbies (or as other folk would call it, taxes).
richard verney October 8, 2010 at 3:44 pm:
My reading of the letter is that he tried all available means to tackle this from within.
As far as revised positions go, the Royal Society recently produced a precautionary reweaseling of their words:
http://royalsociety.org/News_WF.aspx?pageid=4294972969&terms=climate+science&fragment=&SearchType=&terms=climate%20science
Q: What are the differences between politicians and scientists?
.
A: None … they both lie to make themselves look good and seem important and suck the blood out of taxpayer wallets.
++++++++++++++++
Once upon a time I considered scientists to be one of the last bastions of truth, honor, and integrity. Sadly, this no longer seems to be the case.
Hal Lewis must have been wrestling with his consience for some considerable time before concluding that this was his only option. I have to say that he has confirmed my personal thoughts about the E-mails being incontrovertible evidence of wrong doing.
Science has not had a good day for some considerable time, but this is a good day for science. I propose that henceforth, good science days shall be called “Hal Lewis Days”
May we have many many more Hal Lewis days in the not too distant future, in the interests of science and scientists.
One small step for science, one huge step for a true scientist.
A man of most refreshing probity, what happened to the APS?
The same as in the RS, I guess.
What a great man.
I only have one word to say, ‘wow, unbelievable.’
(sorry, I went to the Joe Biden school of word counting).
Hal Lewis writes:
“I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.”
I agree wholeheartedly with Professor Lewis. To me, the most frustrating aspect of the Grand Climate Gate Fraud is that the proponents have offered nothing that passes muster as serious science. Some computer models and the characteristics of the CO2 molecule are all they offered. Even if perfect, the study behind Mann’s Hockey Stick was profoundly trivial. I am so very pleased to learn that Professor Lewis managed to gather 200 members of the APS who wanted to discuss these matters. I am not surprised that bureaucrats shut them down. And I agree with Professor that money seems to be the only explanation. So let us formulate Lewis’ rule: floods of money to scientists corrupt science and do great harm to science.
Desmong:
There we go, suggesting this brave scientist is old and feeble-minded unable to master the technology and is therefore on the fringe; an “old scientist.”
It’s what we’ve come to expect when a scientist with integrity speaks up against the orthodoxy.
Desmong (October 8, 2010 at 4:01 pm),
You make a very, very weak “cut and paste” attempt at ad hom.
What is the point?
Professor Hal Lewis, I think your integrity and scientific professionalism is on a par with Galileo. As a scientist I can think of no higher compliment.
He expressed it well when he made clear that science is about debate … but the debate is over.
Well, here is my email to the Washpost:
Dear Editor
May I request that as counterpoint to Michael Mann’s recent article, equal space is allowed to publicise the open resignation letter from scientist Hal Lewis to the scientific body the APS? Lewis can probably now count himself amongst the “climate change deniers” referred to by Mann in his piece.
Please see his letter of resignation here, and consider it for publication in your paper or on your site, in the interest of fair, open and balanced reporting to your readership, upon which I am sure you must pride yourself.
Thank you for your kind attention.
http://thegwpf.org/ipcc-news/1670-hal-lewis-my-resignation-from-the-american-physical-society.html
Faithfully
David Cochrane
Layman and lover of science
I know – you can probably do better than that – but it’s my effort for what it is worth.
The American Meteorological Society is another example of a scientific society that has gone down the same trail as the APS.
WOW!
Lewis sure got his pride and honour intact. Ive worked with “company values” for decades now and when your most loyal members acts like this there it`s a very reliable signal that the organisation has lost its purpose and identity.
Brave! Mr Lewis Brave! Thank you for sharing your frustration and hopelesness!
Hal Lewis was one of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s last students. He studied at Berkeley and the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. He worked at Bell Labs. He chaired the JASON Defense Advisory Panel which was an exotic semi-hush-hush group which consulted with US government, before becoming a professor at UC Santa Barbara.
All of which is to say that Hal Lewis was a serious scientist with high credentials.
His resignation from APS should not be ignored.
As you can all tell, changing this from the inside is impossible..its the old story that smart investors tell you: never invest extra money into the company you work for, it puts all your eggs in the same basket..all of these scientists involved have put their life’s integrity, work and money into this charade and they can not allow it to go down without facing a reality that involves scrubbing toilets.
On the other hand, do not think I am claiming a conspiracy at all. I believe that these people are simply motivated by the simplest of motivations…money and power. Without this scare, their money and power evaporates in the blink of an eye. Just watch as this does come crashing down … the larger something gets, the bigger it falls. The only crimes (other then incompetence) that will come out of this will be after the fact, so just watch the show. Climategate is still working its rounds, and further coups are going to pop up as the smarter investors bail out quickly at some point leaving the scientists the ones that will become broke and poor.
Desmong!
Your the obviously the opposit character of Mr Lewis.But thanks for exposing the lack of honour within the AGW camp once again.I really mean it thank you!
desmong says:
October 8, 2010 at 4:01 pm
“With this he falls so low that is a shame for him. He presents a grand conspiracy involving trillions(!) of dollars and exotic islands.
Who fed him with all this misinformation?”
====================
Where is Eisenhower when you need him, he saw this coming.
Wisdom:
The quality of being wise; knowledge, and the capacity to make due use of it; knowledge of the best ends and the best means; discernment and judgment; discretion; sagacity; skill; dexterity. [1913 Webster]
When was the last time a politician, uttered any of these words?
Excellent letter Mr. Lewis. Taking a stand takes guts and has the power of commitment to action in it.
Inspired by the above I posted the following to the Washington Post comments. It includes a Pro Alarmist Challenge to Michael Mann.
pwvl wrote:
Investigating the Climate of Doom
1) Actual Science Data Correlations:
0.44 CO2 levels v.s. Temperature.
0.85 Pacific PDO + Atlantic AMO Ocean v.s. Temperature.
0.88 Linear+Cyclic Null Hypothesis v.s. Temperature.
0.96 Pacific PDO + Atlantic AMO Ocean + Solar Activity v.s. Temperature.
2) While CO2 has increased in the last 50 years the 130 yr temp linear+cyclic tiny upward tend remains unchanged based upon observational data.
2b) Put another way, for seventy or so years the temperature was rising slightly with a linear and cyclic trend, then as we pumped CO2 into the atmosphere in increasing amounts since after WWII that same slight linear and cyclic trend continued unchanged.
2c) As a result of this, Nature falsifies the alarmists claims, including their IPCC climate model predictions.
2d) Predictions Of Global Mean Temperatures & IPCC Projections, by Girma Orssengo, B. Tech, MASc, PhD, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/25/predictions-of-global-mean-temperatures-ipcc-projections
2e) A primer for disproving IPCC’s theory of man made global warming using observed temperature data, by Girma Orssengo, B. Tech, MASc, PhD, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/01/a-primer-for-disproving-ipcc%E2%80%99s-theory-of-man-made-global-warming-using-observed-temperature-data
3) If CO2 increased temperature as the alarmists claim with their doomsday predictions it would have shown up in the temperature data diverting the tiny linear+cyclic upward trend that started 130 years ago after the little ice age ended. It hasn’t diverted the temperature.
4) This is likely because CO2’s specific heat contribution is logarithmic and already has contributed it’s bulk of heat retention (the first ~20ppm of CO2 is half of it’s specific heat / green house effect capacity).
4b) The Logarithmic Effect of Carbon Dioxide, by David Archibald, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/08/the-logarithmic-effect-of-carbon-dioxide/
4c) Of particular interest: “Lo and behold, the first 20 ppm accounts for over half of the heating effect to the pre-industrial level of 280 ppm, by which time carbon dioxide is tuckered out as a greenhouse gas.” http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/heating_effect_of_co2.png
5) Natural causes of PDO+AMO+Solar clearly shown to a very high probability.
6) Based upon observed temperature and CO2 data Nature falsifies alarmist AGW hypothesis.
7) Thus alarmism over 0.44 not rational.
8) CO2 is an essential plant nutrient.
9) From 1980 to 1999 satellites measured a 6% increase in green plant life on the planet during a period of increasing CO2.
10) This is consistent with knowledge from biology and commercial greenhouse operations where CO2 levels of 900ppm to 1,200ppm are commonly used to grow plants faster and bigger.
11) Current atmospheric CO2 is at ~390ppm today. This indicates the potential expanded growth of many plants in the environment with more CO2 present.
12) More plants = more food for humans and for anyone who is pro human that is a good thing for we have an expanding population to feed.
13) CO2 will provide one of the key nutrients for the next green farming revolution.
14) Evidence of CO2 is life: http://youtu.be/P2qVNK6zFgE?hd=1.
N) …
The above is a good summary of some of the factual reasons to conclude that there is no problem with CO2 other than hysteria due to the soothsaying of alarmist doomsday scenarios by irresponsible agenda driven worrywarts such as Michael Mann.
If there is any evidence to actually support the alleged correlation of CO2 to temperature rise as the alarmists allege please provide it. Thanks. I’ve asked many hundreds of supporters of the alarmist AGW hypotheses for their evidence and so far no hard evidence at all and certainly nothing that does any better than their 0.44 correlation of CO2 to temperature.
I challenge Michael Mann to take The Pro AGW Hypothesis Challenge (which he has so far not met the full requirements of): Present a clearly written statement of your alleged alarmist AGW hypotheses along with all the alleged scientific claims made and any hard evidence that supports those claims, provide all data to support your claims (all raw data and all mannipulated data including the reasons for the mannipulations), plus mention all means to verify preferably by experiment the claims, and all means by which they would be refuted. Show your work or the work of others in full detail.
10/8/2010 7:58:49 PM
(Note if I’ve made any mistakes or if you have any links for me that would provide good references please let me know. Thanks, pwl).
Wow .
The truth in plain english.
Thank you Hal Lewis. Extremely kind of you to make it public.
“The Giants no longer walk the earth”, but one is walking out the door.
Checkmate!
Karl: It is like someone driving down a four-lane road, listening to the radio that some driver is driving the wrong way. And this driver says, ‘- Oh, the fool. They are all driving the wrong way!’.
Hal’s resignation is badly written. It shows that he follows a biased view on things related to climate. The worst part is that he hints towards conspiracies. Well, it is more than hinting; he accuses even the president of the APS as part of the conspiracy. And this, because the president did not take him seriously.
This sounds like a sincere and well accomplished old gentleman expressing his concerns (though I disagree with his assessment).
But this statement is absolutely ridiculous: “I would describe it as a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door.”
It is gratuitous hyperbole. Please stop the hype.
vigilantfish says:
October 8, 2010 at 3:36 pm
I wish this would be a wake-up call to the rest of the APS, but suspect the APS leadership will encourage this letter to sink without creating noticeable ripples.
Exactly.
How long before the warmist smear campaign begins… counting down… 3…2…1…
Most of the people who post here are in love with real, evidence based, data driven science. We are excitied by it. The corruption that has gained prominence disgusts us.
So what must happen. We must continue to push, those who have succumbed to corruption are unlikely to voluntarily step aside and relinquish their ill gotten gains. (Some will redeem themselves – but they will be few). The corrupt must be demonstrated for what they are and removed from their positions. Keep shining the light.
This is not new. I resigned from the APS over 10 years ago, after ~30 years of membership starting in my student days, mainly because I saw their influence turn a large project into incompetent hands for political reasons. Their newsletter Physics Today has taken a strong political slant and is no longer interesting. A similar political slant has crept into the American Association for the Advancement of Science. I shall shortly stop paying my dues to that organization and read from the numerous smaller journals that have come into being, likely for similar reasons that bother me.
Other once-grand communicators including Scientific American have been dumbed down into popular science and political correctness. American science is still a grand thing to work at but its voices have come under the influence of political hacks whose influence is detrimental to the world and their profession. The quest for money is behind this as many of your correspondents have noted.
Stupid and ill considered splatter movies go viral in an instant but I fear this letter, so studied and thoughtful, will just sink into oblivion.
I think that says something about the times we live in.
Why isn’t this all over the media? Why haven’t professional societies picked up his lead? Dr. Lewis deserves a great deal more time for this fabulous letter as opposed the regular celebrity circus.
desmog,
Apologies if my sarcometer missed your subtle sense of irony. I’ll remind you that
Tahiti and Bali are indeed tropical islands.
This pretty much confirms my intuition on the internal politics. Power and prestige seeking fools tend to rise to the top of organizations (i.e. the shit rises to the top) and they will do everything for the short-term gain.
Reading these two letters side-by-side shows, through contrast, how incredibly pathetic Mann is.
Posted on the NTTimes and about 10 California sites related to the Prop 23 issue.
Breaking News:
Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara Resigns from The American Physical Society on October 6th.
source: http://thegwpf.org/ipcc-news/1670-hal-lewis-my-resignation-from-the-american-physical-society.html
The reason:
“It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.”
Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)
Outstanding, excellent, and in all ways commendable. Bravo.
Rarely has the difference between intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals been made so clear.
Unlike desmog, Hal Lewis clearly does not like the taste of Kool-Aid.
Sir, you have my respect, as a physics graduate. The instruments today certainly cost a bit, but politics is not supposed to be what drives the field. Let alone suppressing discussion. That practice could hardly be more wrong.
A tribute to Professor Hal Lewis. Thank you for your courage. Many of us see similar corruption in our own fields and I think we all should follow the money. Much of it is not coming from the debt of tax payers, but from outside the country — like in the last fraudulent U.S. election. As a non-scientist who has followed many of the sciences with awe, enthusiasm, and gratitude for truth-seeking much of my life, I hope all the decliners and resigners will form new organizations and develop new peer-reviewed, non-pay-wall, publications. I think there is a large audience out there. I am ready to join and subscribe. As I have mentioned before, I “suscribe” (make a quarterly “donation”) to WUWT and other blogs that I believe are magnificently filling the huge gap. The problem for these soldiers (warriors, it seems) for the cause of science is that the “pay-offs” or the funding will not be large,…but it will be honorable. Will it be enough?
(One of my great sadnesses is how many geologists whose work I admire tow the AGW line. They, of all scientists, should be ashamed. They all know better if they are scientists of the Earth and its natural cycles.)
Desmong, it will take more than your small effort to discredit Hal, he has done more in his years than most would ever dream of.
I do not think he is quite the bumbling fool you would have us believe. Many a good tune played on an old fiddle etc.
I would like to see this resignation letter making headlines in the news, I’m going to do my bit by posting the link to this post and the letter wherever I can.
The interesting question to ask is who else/how many among the APS members/fellows will follow Dr. Lewis’ lead?
If the APS has not followed the normal procedures regarding petitions then that needs to be rectified. As for the rest; I’m not sure I understand why all the high-fiving is merited. So this Harold Lewis, an APS member, thinks much of climate science is psuedo-science. Many other APS members do not.
Any particular reason I should weight this guys opinion more then the society’s council that adopted the aforementioned statement?
Here is an article that should interest many of the readers, especially the Canadian ones and those of you in the northern US. New study says Global Warming will be a benefit to us … http://www.globalissues.org/news/2010/10/08/7204
Course there is the infamous Mr Weaver and Mark Serreze commenting on the soon to disappear Arctic ice.
Good for Mr Lewis, standing up for open debate. Here in Alberta, Canada, our professional engineering and geophysical association allows fully open debate. Why other societies would want to shut out debate defies my understanding.
Earle Williams says:
October 8, 2010 at 5:16 pm
“Tahiti and Bali are indeed tropical islands.”
Cancun may not be an island, but it is a vacation paradise . And nothing else.
Where next ? St. Maarten ?
“Any particular reason I should weight this guys opinion more then the society’s council that adopted the aforementioned statement?
”
Because he comes from the generation that practiced ( as mentioned in his letter) some pretty potentially deadly science and did not just fall back on computer models to verify their feelings about dangerous matters, but actually did the work,.
And the work they did had to be accurate , and the stuff had to work. Or else.
Starwatcher,
Institutional leaders, like babies nappies, should be periodically changed – and for the same reason.
I have not heard of Dr. Lewis before this blog, but he has my undying admiration. Thank you Dr. Lewis.
Starwatcher October 8, 2010 at 5:27 pm:
“Any particular reason I should weight this guys opinion more then the society’s council that adopted the aforementioned statement?”
If they rectify their processes you might find out.
Starwatcher says on October 8, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Perhaps you could name some, and then point out those with the stature of Hal Lewis or Freeman Dyson (who holds similar views to Lewis)?
This is a war for the hearts, minds and votes of the general public. Again, the scientific community are speaking to each other, and using language that media would not release and Joe sixpack would not take the time to read after the sports section.
Important information like this needs to be condensed into easily-digested media releases for general distribution. Like a 300 word release titled: “Top scientist resigns over Global Warming Scam’, or similar.
A truly Jeffersonian document! My heart leaps up and salutes Professor Lewis.
I hope those in the community of scientists still have it within themselves to be stirred out of complacency by this firm assertion of integrity in the face of cravenness.
Respect twice. First, for trying hard to work within the institution (that he helped to build), to preserve its integrity and that of its members, and second, for washing his hands of it when he found that the structure had been replaced by rot.
Many American membership organizations have been similarly captured by the disciples of power politics, who have pushed aside integrity, reason, and member participation. Most of the national three and four-letter organizations you have heard of are prime examples.
Congratulations to Prof Lewis. But is also time all scientists of integrity to resigne from the National Academy of Science unles they can persuade it to withdraw two recent papers in the “Proceedings”, Welch et al (8 August 2010) claiming rice yields are declining in SE Asia because of alleged warming (there is no decline and not much if any warming), and Nathan Pelletier et al, Forecasting potential global environmental
costs of livestock production 2000–2050, 4th October 2010. The latter claims livestock emissions of CO2 and CH4 come from nowhere and bear no relation to their ingestion of grass and cereals. When the NAS publishes “science” like that it is no longer fit for purpose and should be wound up.
Graeme says: October 8, 2010 at 5:08 pm
How long before the warmist smear campaign begins… counting down… 3…2…1…
Desmong is already on it (though in a disappointingly clichéd style)
Everyone needs to read the Michael Mann letter in the Washington Post. I don’t think that I’ve ever read anything so pathetic. It is a blatant cry for the voters in the upcoming U.S. elections to protect him and his fellow climate “scientists” from the evil Republicans who will investigate the CAGW fraud.
Any true scientist should have no fear because the data will protect him. Truth is always the best evidence no matter what the court.
‘Lest we forget:
President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address To The Nation (full)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1520506247286790466#
Wonderful counterpoint to Mann’s op-ed.
If you ‘d read his letter you’d see he represented 200+ signatories of protest – his opinion is not unique in the society.
The scientific societies (Am Soc Biochemistry & Molec Biol & Am Inst Nutrition) I belonged to before retirement provided their members with a book containing the mail address, email address, and phone numbers. I guess the APS doesn’t do that simple courtesy for it’s members. Suggests that they have something to hide.
The only way you’ll ever get the truth out of Mann is to pay him for it.
He, as with the rest of his cadre of insiders, sold their souls a long time ago.
DonB says:
October 8, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Everyone needs to read the Michael Mann letter in the Washington Post.
———
I wasn’t going to but you convinced me.
What a craven piece of non-apologism and excuse making.
If the Congress can investigate doggone Roger Clemens, then this Mann
is not beyond the reach of public recriminations for his deceit and recalcitrance.
It reads like a note from his mother.
“Mann’s op-ed.”
Op-ed ?
I thought it was a note from his mother .
Sometimes you gotta make a stand.
Good for Mr. Lewis.
I can only hope that there is a large number of members of the America Physical Society who now have the conviction to follow his lead. Only by force of numbers can this become significant.
Dr. Hal Lewis,
Words cannot fully describe how much your letter effected me. I don’t believe I have ever read such an eloquent and earnest letter. I hope that the burden of having wrote this great work does not harm you. In my mind you now stand with the likes of Nicolaus Copernicus, Galeleo Galilei, Martin Luther, and Thomas Jefferson. You are the first scientific giant of the 21st century.
It is science that is being co-opted, the scientific method abandoned and redefined. The words “fact” and “theory” formerly were used very carefully by scientists. “Incontrivertable” has never even been part of the lexicon. Decisions by you and other scientists with integrity may come at a heavy price. But science can still persist even though we may now be filled with shame in identifying ourselves as scientists.
I will leave you with the first sentence and two other excerpts from another great document:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
Thank you very much Dr. Lewis.
Daniel Kozub.
Chemist, Scientist, Skeptic.
desmong writes:
“Hal’s resignation is badly written. It shows that he follows a biased view on things related to climate. The worst part is that he hints towards conspiracies. Well, it is more than hinting; he accuses even the president of the APS as part of the conspiracy. And this, because the president did not take him seriously.”
desmong, your problem is easy to spot. You cannot see that the emperor is wearing no clothes. desmong, the pro-AGW crowd has not produced one single item that passes muster as genuine science. The core of AGW science is a bunch of computer nerds who know no science, have produced none, yet have managed to convince government agencies that they should be funded. How did they convince them? The same way Al Gore did, and he is truly a snake oil salesman. Your so-called scientists in the APS are no better than Gore and, in fact, worse because he has his stupidity as an excuse. If it is not conspiracy, at least a conspiracy of silence while the bucks flow, then how do these people overlook the fact that everything produced by pro-AGW people fails to pass muster as science? If it is not conspiracy, then why do not the pro-AGW scientists condemn Al Gore’s so-called work? Will you condemn it? If so, then why won’t the head of the APS condemn it? If you won’t condemn it, then I will not waste my time writing another comment to you.
Done and done. Although almost everyone who reads my tiny blog reads you anyway.
http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/harold-lewis-scathing-resignation-letter-from-the-aps/
REPLY: Reddy Kilowatt (my uncle) thanks you. – Anthony
Excellent letter! In a nutshell – “It’s all about the CLIMATE CA$H” – Crappy climate research at taxpayers expense…
Bob Ryan’s comment hits a point I hadn’t thought about before….
“On this most crucial of issues we needed the very best of science not the worst”
This is actually backwards!
We’ve grown accustomed to thinking of AGW as a crucial issue, but the plain fact, the most deeply scientific fact, is that climate is NOT a crucial issue. If science had remained honest since 1975, we wouldn’t even be discussing the whole matter.
If we had the best science instead of the worst, Climate would still be the same trivial and cheerful subject as it was before 1975: “Think the rain will hurt the rhubarbs?” It would still be serious for farmers and others who need to predict next season, but we haven’t advanced our predictive ability since then anyway. (The sunspot dependency, and the 33-year cycle of storminess, were well known in 1940. We’re just now re-discovering them because real science has been buried since 1975.)
The only reason we even have to talk about Climate is because Margaret Mead and her leftist proteges like John Holdren decided to create a scientific-looking Big Problem that could be used by governments to scare people into submission.
Starwatcher says:
October 8, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Surely, you jest. Show me one hypothesis that comes from climate science. There is not one. The scientific description of the CO2 molecule comes from 1860. Aside from that, they have no hypotheses at all. None. Nada. Zip.
As is now the choice of most professionals to openly kick agin the dogma of AGW.
Congratulations to Dr. Lewis for having the integrity, pride, and guts to stand on principle against the Goliaths of a formerly respected but now corrupted institution.
Starwatcher writes:
“Any particular reason I should weight this guys opinion more then the society’s council that adopted the aforementioned statement?”
Yes, because he can see that the emperor has no clothes. There is no AGW science.
Link to Michael Mann op-ed mentioned earlier: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/07/AR2010100705484_pf.html
Challenges to policy proposals for how to deal with this problem should be welcome — indeed, a good-faith debate is essential for wise public policymaking.
But the attacks against the science must stop. They are not good-faith questioning of scientific research. They are anti-science.
Debate is welcome, except towards Mann’s work and that of his colleagues. Those are anti-science.
I regret that Mr. Lewis resigned. The APS needs people on the inside shaking the organization up. He was clearly not alone. There are at least 199 other members who feel the same.
Trev says: October 8, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Oh it has changed Trev. Newton got angry with folk for plagiarism – and there is every likelihood Hooke was trying that one on, which is a shame because Hooke did make other contributions to Science. Newton simply wrote Hooke out of his own account, not “the history books” AFAICT. Newton worked damn hard and with the highest level of integrity w.r.t. evidence and good scientific method, damn it, he just about brought it into being. He was thoroughly respected and known by all. What has also changed is that while Newton’s motivating factor was his experience of God – and he can explain his whole scientific endeavour in those terms – few can do so today, or even appreciate Newton in this way.
But I can.
It is sad to see such a corruption of our scientific establishment and publications. Not only has the APS been corrupted, but so too have Scientific American, National Geographic, Nature, and many other science based periodicals. The enviro-political types have infiltrated all of these organizations and hijacked them for their own purposes, debasing these once great publications.
Suzanne says:
October 8, 2010 at 6:03 pm
‘Lest we forget:
President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address To The Nation (full)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1520506247286790466#
=============
WOW
Talk about Deja Vu, the address seems to be an outline of our current situation.
The link seems to lose audio after 10-11 minutes, but it exactly describes our current situation. He was warning us,… now others seem to be trying to take advantage.
Live and learn.
Or just vote.
Thanks for the link.
Gentlemen
Having sadly watched the great master craftsmen of the WWII generation retire or die out, I have been left to observe men with limited integrity take their places.
I am not a man of great intelligence; but, by that generation’s example I knew that honorable men with unyielding devotion to duty , persistence, patience, and honesty are great men and are destined to do great things. I have never meet Professor Lewis; but, by his words, I know him to be a great man.
A much humbled and heartened,
Kforestcat
Wow. Not much to add to the comments already posted. Only questions.
Who are the young, upcoming scientists with integrity? (who’s going to replace guys like Lewis? or at least pick up the mantle)
Is it still possible to do (real, honest) science with integrity (and without fear) in the USA today?
What happened to Scientific American? (was shocked at what it has become after buying an issue recently after missing many years). Calling it “popular science” gives the periodical “Popular Science” a bad name.
Bell Labs. Is real, honest, basic research a thing of the past in the USA? (I’m reminded of the FU’s at Lucent, Corning Optics, Loral, different kinds of FUs, some deliberate, but none good for USA).
Makes a father worry for his childrens’ futures.
Thank you for your integrity and honesty Dr. Lewis. These seem to be two qualities that are missing in much of what is called “science” today. After following this fraud for the last twenty years I no longer accept any scientific proclamations as truthful.
I think the Wall Street Journal or Investors Business Daily would publish Dr. Lewis’s resignation.
The smears against Dr. Lewis has already begun with Desmong and bgood2creation. I suggest everyone ignore these trolls.
Hal
I’ve never met you but thank you for speaking out and joining the ranks of those I respect. You represent the same impulse that drove me to teach myself the science I saw was being corrupted in high places, where I feel I’m battling not with flesh and blood but with powers and principalities.
Newton led the whole of Cambridge University to oppose King James II trying to foist his henchmen on them in the form of giving some Catholic a degree he hadn’t earned. I’ve nothing against Catholics, the issue was the same as here, authority trampling on freedom. Newton could have been tried for sedition.
Hal Lewis misused the APS address list when he sent unsolicited e-mail to thousands of APS members, including me. I asked him to remove me from his list. I then wrote to the APS President and thanked her for handling the issue in a professional manner. Councilors received a “barrage of e-mail”, with a significant majority opposing changes to the APS statement on climate change. When the APS Council voted on the motion to change the statement, no one favored it. Even the councilor who submitted the motion opposed it. Read the report here . Hal clearly feels strongly about this issue, but the majority of APS members disagree.
It’s a great letter.
Many thanks for writing it.
@richard Sharp
To start; The members of the council
@Janama
“If you ‘d read his letter you’d see he represented 200+ signatories of protest – his opinion is not unique in the society.”
Which is what, half a percent of the membership? Like I said, if a 200 person petition is the standard to call a membership wide vote, then I have no problems with that happening. So this one guy resigned, but before resigning managed to get a sliver of the membership to sign this petition. It’s a data point, but means little on it’s own.
Anthony, I appreciate your words re Martin Luther.
However, Luther’s action entailed consequences, namely that from then on, he had a following, which he took responsibility for, and as a result, gradually bult up a new Church from first principles again..
So are we ready to think about forming the new group that is needed? Or is it still rhetoric? Together with memberships, journals, our own peer-review, can we write up our own truly-hammered-out consensus and/or own-wiki statements on Climate Science, to answer all the points of the Royal Society (or John Cook’s 119 skeptics issues, or whatever)?
Yes, we damn well are capable of answering the Royal Society’s climate statement, sentence for sentence, statement for statement, hypothesis for hypothesis, evidence for evidence. But can we organize ourselves to do it?
REPLY: This topic has been on my mind of late. -Anthony
What next for Dr. Lewis, house arrest, trial by burning at the stake?
The Red Button?
He’s a brave man. Good for him…
Starwatcher says:
October 8, 2010 at 5:27 pm
“Any particular reason I should weight this guys opinion more then the society’s council that adopted the aforementioned statement?”
No. Absolutely not!
This is about science. A scientist that tells you to trust their opinion is propagating the logical fallacy “appeal to authority/argumentum ad verecundiam”.
If you wish to know whether his words have merit or not, learn the definition of the scientific method. I will post you no links, you should discover it for yourself.
Once that is accomplished, you should learn the difference between a hypothesis, a theory, and an “incontrovertable fact”.
Understanding the concepts of repeatability, reproducibility, uncertainty, validation, verification, error analysis, and calibration should give you enough knowledge to make your own decision.
I am an APS member who agrees with Hal Lewis. I signed the petition–that was largely ignored–for a revision of the statement on climate science. The position that the APS has taken is an embarrassment.
For anyone writing to the WaPo, the ‘feedback’ link bounced. I sent a note instead to national@washpost.com, the national news editorial desk.
Go Gauchos!
Lucy Skywalker says:
October 8, 2010 at 7:21 pm
“Anthony, I appreciate your words re Martin Luther.
However, Luther’s action entailed consequences, namely that from then on, he had a following, which he took responsibility for, and as a result, gradually bult up a new Church from first principles again..
So are we ready to think about forming the new group that is needed? Or is it still rhetoric? Together with memberships, journals, our own peer-review, can we write up our own truly-hammered-out consensus and/or own-wiki statements on Climate Science, to answer all the points of the Royal Society (or John Cook’s 119 skeptics issues, or whatever)?
Yes, we damn well are capable of answering the Royal Society’s climate statement, sentence for sentence, statement for statement, hypothesis for hypothesis, evidence for evidence. But can we organize ourselves to do it?
REPLY: This topic has been on my mind of late. -Anthony”
Lucy, we only need to make ONE point:
A non-falsifiable hypothesis is not science.
Dr. Lewis
If you or any of the other 200 members of the APS that signed your petition are reading this, I believe that there is one more, and perhaps THE most important contribution that any of you can make, not only for the APS, but for international society at large.
You mention that the action of the president of the society in refusing your petition was unconstitutional.
If that is correct, then surely there is a remedy available to you in the courts.
It has just been reported that a NZ court has found that the NZ “value added” temperature record is faulty.
Surely a US court would also find that the APS president’s refusal was invalid.
Please DO NOT just walk away now.
Please ACT, one more time.
THe sooner this nonsence is crushed, the less the damage that will be done to global economies.
Damage to economies means damage to the welfare of all.
Please ACT now.
What a sad mess “climate science” has made of so many fine institutions. I look back at my childhood, and the respect I have had for science, and almost weep in despair at the current state of things. Maybe some good can come of this whole sordid mess yet. I surely hope so
TGSG
Not to worry.
The money flow is getting ready to stop.
After January.
Thanks Anthony, I have put this up on Peace Legacy also:
http://peacelegacy.org/articles/hal-lewis-my-resignation-american-physical-society
Just a note to the pooh pooers who write off anyone making any comment remotely reminding us of a conspiracy: Firstly Hal Lewis said nothing of the sort, but also, human beings do organise conspiracies! All sorts of people from political parties to bank robbers to religious groups; and not all conspiracies are malevolent (though many are). So why, why on Earth shouldn’t the wealthy and powerful organise conspiracies? And why shouldn’t they, being financed so well, be successful? The mental compulsion almost everyone has to reject without investigation any allegation containing “conspiracy” is the outcome of one of the most successful propaganda coups ever. It inoculates the powerful from ever having any malfeasance brought to book, because they always get others to do their dirty work, which will always be portrayable as a conspiracy. Absolutely brilliant – but by no means admirable.
Hal Lewis has shown HIS morals and values for pure science is still in tact.
The current system is creating a like minded “Peer Reviewed” system corrupted science for money in manufacturing an outcome being passed down generations.
Many theories are easily provable in being correct or not by looking at what was missed! Most are incorrect for not including planetary pressure or rotation.
A coil spring is AN IMPOSSIBLITY in current science. But it exists and makes a dam fine proxy to mass compression changes in motion.
Anthony,
I meant to thank you for introducing me to the wonderful world of proxies!
It really has advanced my research.
Newtons’ Law of motion 300 years ago never seen a coil spring invented about 60 years ago. So he never seen motion that can compress mass, change density, store energy and slowly release it.
Jeff T says:
October 8, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Hal Lewis misused the APS address list when he sent unsolicited e-mail to thousands of APS members, including me. I asked him to remove me from his list. I then wrote to the APS President and thanked her for handling the issue in a professional manner. Councilors received a “barrage of e-mail”, with a significant majority opposing changes to the APS statement on climate change. When the APS Council voted on the motion to change the statement, no one favored it. Even the councilor who submitted the motion opposed it. Read the report here . Hal clearly feels strongly about this issue, but the majority of APS members disagree.
Jeff T, Science is clearly on the side of the skeptics. (That is, we don’t know anything definite, so quit pretending that we do!) This is basically agnosticism to a “T.” You, however, have joined a religious “consensus” CONVINCED that the God is among us. (The God being Power of the Consensus, “X% agree, therefore it shall be. [esp if $ is involved]”)
Listen to that, Jeff…does that sound like science to you? Sure, there exists an intoxicating allure to power of numbers, power of money, power of recognition.
Just quit calling it Science, OK?
When someone of Lewis’ stature speaks, us young guys are compelled to listen.
@Daniel Kozub
Appeal to authority is vastly underrated. I’m an EE (Specifically DSP) who happened to double major in general physics. I guess this gives me a better background then most to get at this stuff. My conclusions; Atmospheric Physics is Fing hard! It makes my head spin.
Did you ever read “The real holes in Climate Science” in Nature awhile back? If not, go read it, no subscription required. I remember thinking when reading through said article “Wow! This is an intimidating field”. Of course I have to basically just take the word of the experts, I don’t know enough to make an informed decision. What’s the alternative, pretend I know? Unsatisfactory.
I dunno, maybe the emperor really doesn’t have any clothes, but I doubt you, me, or any of the other commentators here, or over at Realclimate, know one way or the other. Regardless of the certainty espoused in the comments.
As for the rest; This is just a rehash of the initial value vs. boundary value problem. I do agree with you “incontrovertible fact” should be a phrase not mentioned.
@Daniel Kozub
“A non-falsifiable hypothesis is not science.”
It’s been a long time since problems complex to interest the PhD guys have simple analytic solutions.
why would you throw away a connection to an organization you have been a member or for over 67 years? what would be so serious that you find you need to cut ties? this wasn’t a decision he took lightly… the ethical hurdles this man went through to make this decision.
WOW, just wow…..
Starwatcher says on October 8, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Do you actually understand science at all? An analytic solution is not the same as a falsifiable hypothesis.
For example, finding a fossilized human skeleton in strata that can be reliably dated to the Triassic would be a pretty good falsification of much of the current theory of evolution. However, that is not an analytic solution (and you can bet that creationists have been trying to find such things, like human footprints among dino prints).
Truly, a man of SCIENCE has spoken.
I just zipped off a short request to the Post.
This is right out of the pages of Atlas Shrugged. Once a “scientist” (or club) accepts tax funds and the strings that come with them, we know what they are; after that, we’re just arguing over the price.
Having graduated from Hal’s physics department (before global warming was fashionable) It is appropriate that I voted with Hal against the warmist railroad at APS. They don’t represent me either.
Galileo was right – sunspots rule.
It’s often been said that science advances one funeral at a time, but in this instance, we have the exact opposite: a distinguished elder of the scientific community, willing to put his reputation on the line and speak out against the suppression of debate. Wherever we find our pioneers and standard bearers, men like Professor Lewis, Steve McIntyre, or Anthony Watts, we have a duty to support them in every way we can.
I have watched in dismay as my country succumbed to foetid diseases born of misgovernment, many of which crossed the Atlantic in greater or lesser force and corrupted our ex-Colonies. The worst of these pestilences was the perversion of science in pursuit of fame and funding. At one time, I feared greatly that through subterfuge a great change would be wrought at immense cost without a whimper of protest, for whilst the strength of the English is their acceptance of different views without question, it has been, in this instance, their weakness.
The division that came about some years back and set our nations on different courses can now be seen to have strengthened both, for whilst the United States may at times be criticised for insularity, it is in the same place that great stores of independence and liberty have been found hidden that may enable us to survive this siege, regroup, and eventually sally forth to reconsecrate the scientific method on the altar from which is has been dragged and so foully defiled.
This scientific plague is but one example of the prevalence of men (and women, of course) who place personal gain ahead of personal integrity. They may be seen throughout our society, in science – and no field is entirely exempt – and particularly in politics. Much that is wrong can be laid at the feet of the inadequate choices offered our electorate, and it is in this way, perhaps that the great climate scandal, which has been so exploitative of this situation, can eventually perhaps offer us a way out. Let those who have led us in this battle stand for election, and we will elect them. Let them promise us only that they will govern to the best of their ability, evaluate every matter rationally, and protect our liberty. Honour and personal integrity will be their badge of office, and they cannot fail to serve better than the moral cowardice and feather-bedding that are the badge of our current malodorous governors.
David, UK says:
October 8, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Reading this made me very sad – not so much sad for this fine, honest scientist and gentleman who leaves the Society with his integrity firmly intact (although that is of course a very sad fact). I am more sad to have yet another reaffirmation of the politically- and money-driven state of today’s “science.” And sad to be reminded that there are millions of brainwashed sheep out there who will happily label this man a “denier,” and a “lunatic on the fringe,” doubtless accompanied by accusations of being in the pay of Big Oil. There will be more still who simply close their eyes to this, deep in denial (yes, the word is more aptly applied to YOU), and carry on spreading alarm, business-as-usual.
——————————————
This was my reaction as well. I was actually sickened to have so firmly confirmed what I suspected all along. Even Hal and 200 petitioners could do nothing to raise the debate in APS circles for over a year. But it also made me even more impressed for what Anthony and WUWT are doing to expose the lie of CAGW!
Whilst my previous post might perhaps have suggested otherwise, I am, in fact, hip to you kids’ modern jive.
“Yes, we damn well are capable of answering the Royal Society’s climate statement, sentence for sentence, statement for statement, hypothesis for hypothesis, evidence for evidence. But can we organize ourselves to do it?”
“REPLY: This topic has been on my mind of late. -Anthony”
There exists a unique opportunity to crowd-source support and funding for a new political movement of independent political candidates dedicated to rational government.
I couldn’t help but contrast Lewis’ eloquent words with the following example: “The task of climate change agencies is not to persuade by rational argument… Instead we need to work in a more shrewd and contemporary way, using subtle techniques of engagement…. The ‘facts’ need to be treated as being so taken-for-granted that they need not be spoken.” (Ereaut, G. & Segnit, N., 2006. “Warm Words: How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it better?”. Institute for Public Policy, London.) It’s part of a quote at the head of Chapter 8 from Bob Carter’s book, “Climate : the counter consensus”, 2010.
Wow, I just googled Hal Lewis resignation and the count was 198,000!
It is with great sadness that I read this letter of resignation. It as others have said, only confirms that many of our once highly respected scientific organizations are rotten to the core.
Having made the same sort of decision years ago when I walked away from a career because I realized the organization was so broken and politicized that I could no longer in good conscious stand by silently as they manipulated and twisted every fact to serve a political agenda, I know how agonizing it is to finally pull the plug.
Sir you have my greatest respect and my most sincere best wishes.
You may have fired a shot that will be heard around the world (we can only hope).
If not the silence will be a confirmation in its own way of how corrupt the media has also become due to the same self serving behaviors that have destroyed science and turned it into a gun for hire to produce what ever the highest bidder is requesting.
As others have commented, I once saw science and engineering as fields relatively uncontaminated by politics and assumed that political intrigue in science was something that belonged to histories and biographies of long dead individuals.
Sadly as in all human enterprises, political corruption and greed for money and power, eventually push the scum to the top of most organizations, and only by lancing the boil, can we eliminate the infection.
I truly hope that the general public takes notice of your courageous stand and gives it the respect it is due.
I also salute your action!
Larry
“Wow, I just googled Hal Lewis resignation and the count was 198,000!”
A little optimistic – that gets hits for ‘Hal’, ‘Lewis’, and ‘resignation’ in various combinations, or even just the same page.
Dr. Mann is concerned with unwarranted political interference with science? His real concern is laid out in the second paragraph:
As a scientist, I shouldn’t have a stake in the upcoming midterm elections, but unfortunately, it seems that I — and indeed all my fellow climate scientists — do.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has threatened that, if he becomes chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he will launch what would be a hostile investigation of climate science. The focus would be on e-mails stolen from scientists at the University of East Anglia in Britain last fall that climate-change deniers have falsely claimed demonstrate wrongdoing by scientists, including me. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) may do the same if he takes over a committee on climate change and energy security.
Mikey knows that a Republican victory on November means he will be testifying before a Congressional inquiry. He also knows that perjury is a felony. Rock, meet hard place.
I wonder how many members of the APS read WUWT on a regular basis, perhaps space could be made available for members to air their concerns and opinions to a larger audience if the APS tries to stifle and suppress dissent.
I am sure that WUWT reaches a wider audience than the APS can hope to match so perhaps a third party platform will encourage APS members to speak out. My own guess is that the APS will try to freeze out and silence dissenters and sceptics and critics so if they try to steal the ‘microphone of vocal dissent’ then maybe the placing of another that they cannot silence will help to open up the APS to serious debate.
Seems like there’s an omission here. What exactly is the APS statement on climate change that Lewis objects too so strongly?
If anyone wishes to read the commentary, it’s here with the above statement: National Policy: 07.1 Climate Change
Part of the commentary says: “Even with the uncertainties in the models, it is increasingly difficult to rule out that non-negligible increases in global temperature are a consequence of rising anthropogenic CO2. Thus given the significant risks associated with global climate change, prudent steps should be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions now while continuing to improve the observational data and the model predictions.”
Isn’t just about everyone calling for better science in this field?
I am in particular heartened that in their Energy Policy for the 21st Century statement, the APS says:
“Since 1996, demand for oil and natural gas has continued to grow with the expansion and globalization of the world’s economy. In addition, our nation’s dependence on imported energy has increased, and the effects of burning fossil fuels on the global environment are becoming a major concern. The Council of the American Physical Society believes that the use of renewable energy sources, the adoption of new ways of producing and using fossil fuels, increased consideration of safe and cost effective uses of nuclear power, and the introduction of energy-efficient technologies can, over time, promote the United States’ energy security and reduce stress on the world’s environment.”
I think that’s an entirely reasonable position to take. Even if you discount the effects of CO2 on global temperatures, such things as ocean acidification and the influence of black soot aerosols ought to be reasons to move toward cleaner fossil-fuel technologies and reliable, high-yield alternative energy sources.
u.k.(us) says:
October 8, 2010 at 6:49 pm
WOW
Talk about Deja Vu, the address seems to be an outline of our current situation.
The link seems to lose audio after 10-11 minutes, but it exactly describes our current situation. He was warning us,… now others seem to be trying to take advantage.
Live and learn.
Or just vote.
Thanks for the link.
u.k.(us) You’re most welcome. Here’s a better link with audio and transcript in its entirety:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dwightdeisenhowerfarewell.html
Excerpt: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.” (Dwight Eisenhower’s Farewell Address) http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dwightdeisenhowerfarewell.html
I won’t trust a group of people who insist that they are smarter than me, and yet don’t know the meaning of the word incontrovertible.
Either they’re engaging in the hyperbole that comes from political garbage , or they’re a bunch of morons.
Political hacks and clueless blowhards tend to be the people that rise to the top of an organization, so neither one is surprising.
Starwatcher,
You are advancing the case of accepting an authority who has already been shown to be corrupt? Hilariously stupid argument. A lot of us with science backgrounds have been digging into the science and politics of climatology ever since ClimateGate. We’ve found found that the climate science is corrupt but not settled.
Starting in January, an open, honest, and thorough investigation of Climategate and the IPCC will start.
BTW, Kevin Trenbirth has already announced that the climate models confidence intervals will have to be widened quite a bit for the next IPCC report. The wider the CI, the less faith you have in your model. Kevin also mentioned that maybe they shouldn’t be doing predictions at all (i.e. the science is not settled).
Hal Lewis is a great man. The classy thing to do is to either pay respect to the man for his courage and honesty (so rare in science nowadays) or just be quiet. You are not helping your cause.
[SNIP – Brendan, I will not have you call Dr. Lewis names, either rephrase your words or get the heck off the blog. – Anthony]
Anthony – you should extend an invitation to Dr. Lewis to write a guest article about his experience.
What’s up with the photo labeled “Hal Lewis”? His letter says he joined APS 67 years ago, but the person in the photo looks to be in his 30s.
REPLY: The only photo available that could be found, if you can find a more recent one leave a note.
AGW always was and always will be the product of 2 of the most corrupt Western Governments in world history. The US & the UK.
Now. Watch the human flotsam at the APS came out and, with massive Govt media support, take out the lamb who is trying to protect the sheeple.
regards
Richard Feynman also resigned from honors. Hal Lewis is in good company:
@Daniel Kozub
“Appeal to authority is vastly underrated. I’m an EE (Specifically DSP) who happened to double major in general physics. I guess this gives me a better background then most to get at this stuff. My conclusions; Atmospheric Physics is Fing hard! It makes my head spin.
Did you ever read “The real holes in Climate Science” in Nature awhile back? If not, go read it, no subscription required. I remember thinking when reading through said article “Wow! This is an intimidating field”. Of course I have to basically just take the word of the experts, I don’t know enough to make an informed decision. What’s the alternative, pretend I know? Unsatisfactory.
I dunno, maybe the emperor really doesn’t have any clothes, but I doubt you, me, or any of the other commentators here, or over at Realclimate, know one way or the other. Regardless of the certainty espoused in the comments.
As for the rest; This is just a rehash of the initial value vs. boundary value problem. I do agree with you “incontrovertible fact” should be a phrase not mentioned.”
Okay Starchaser, since you are an electrical engineer with a degree in physics, I will attempt to put my argument into terms that you can understand.
When you have results of a test that are unexpected and unexplained, do you:
A. Determine whether your equipment is working properly.
B. Convince yourself or others that the results are normal and within specifications.
C. Adjust the data so that it fits within your expectations and specifications.
Assuming that we do not have any computers or software that are self-aware and that a random number generator is never random, is it ever possible for a computer model to output a result that isn’t exactly what was programmed in to it? (Assuming no mechanical, electronic, or other errors.)
How will we know if any or all of the climate models are accurate at predicting the future?
Please ask yourself how you would know if the emperor had any clothes. Tell me if you’d like.
I have not read the Nature article that you referenced. But I have bookmarked it and will read it as soon as I am done with this post. Thank you.
It took me years to wrap my head around atmospheric physics. I’ve only recently considered myself to be knowledgeable enough to discuss hydrology. I’m currently researching entropy, which I find myself lacking-in at the professional level. If you care enough to read and comment on science blogs, you have the ability to edjucate yourself enough to make a decision with which you are satisfied.
“Standing on the shoulders of geniuses” is what has allowed the scientific community to get where we are today. But that would no longer be possible if we are not sure of their footing. That is not an appeal to authority. The dark ages broke that chain, and science had to start from scratch.
“@Daniel Kozub
“A non-falsifiable hypothesis is not science.”
It’s been a long time since problems complex to interest the PhD guys have simple analytic solutions.”
My post is getting long, so I’ll answer this breifly and without comment:
Astronomy, agricultural science, drug discovery, chemistry, physiology, particle physics, metrology, etc…
Thanks to Prof Lewis.
Yes, we can defund climate nonsense perhaps in January. But it may be 2012 before the CAGW Medusa will be slain.
A personnell change at NOAA and GISS could do it, and this puss filled boil can finally be lanced. I hope that Issa and others know and plan this.
Jeff T says:
October 8, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Hal Lewis misused the APS address list when he sent unsolicited e-mail to thousands of APS members, including me. I asked him to remove me from his list. I then wrote to the APS President and thanked her for handling the issue in a professional manner. Councilors received a “barrage of e-mail”, with a significant majority opposing changes to the APS statement on climate change. When the APS Council voted on the motion to change the statement, no one favored it. Even the councilor who submitted the motion opposed it. Read the report here . Hal clearly feels strongly about this issue, but the majority of APS members disagree.
**************************************
Jeff – that is the whole point. Scientific truth is not decided by majority vote.
All the best.
Simply having one person resign, however important they may be, will have little effect, it will simply be hushed up and sink into deliberate obscurity. Instead, here is what SHOULD be done:
Fists, contact all those people on the 200 meber list who wanted the petition, have them contact all their physician friends, who contact all theirs, etc. In short, either get the APS mailing list or make your own. Then they all write a lettet telling the APS to shape up or they will ALL resign, en mass. They will not shape up, of course, so you all resign en mass and then form the American Physicians Society or some such, with a logo as similar as possible to the old APS. They won’t like that, they may even want to take legal action, you want this, it brings in publicity to how they broke the old APU’s constitution and allows you to pull out even more members away from the old APS, and may allow legal action of your own. Your new society can even copy the old ones constitution (and should, deliberatly and with publicity), with a new provision, “we mean it this time”, and penalties for breaking it.
Meanwhile, if they broke the APU’s constitution, see if that can be used to throw them out of office, or dissolve the APU, or is grounds for a legal suit (against the APS or individuals in it) since you sent them membership dues and that means they have certain legal obligations. If you want tactics, see how the liberals have been doing it for years, repeat their tactics back at them. For instance, have they or do they resort to name calling when all this goes down, sue them for slander, do they lie about you, libel, etc. Meanwhile, if the old APS wants to do ANYTHING, find some reason you can bring before a friendly judge to bring an injunction to stop it, thats the way the envoronmentalists do it. Are there obvious, or even not so obvious conflicts of interest with some members recieving money to express certain views or to make it look like the old APS supports certain views, see if that is grounds for leagal action, harrassing legal action (the environmentalist tactic), removal from APS office, publicise it, organize boycotts of any company involved, protests, etc. Picket in front of any APS meeting, the picketers including former members (publicise this, put it on the picket sdigns) and as many like minded people can join as you can get (contact the Tea Party folks, mention the “cap and trade” tax), get students involved, they love this sort of thing.
In short, it’s time to do to them what they have been doing to us for years, and it’s past time expecting them to listen to reason or fight fair. It’s time to turn opposition to AGW into a movement. If we do not, we will first lose freedoms, then our economies, then in the collpase that follows, possibly our lives. Or do you really think the world can support 6+ billion people today with a tech base similar to 1850?
Michael Mann in today’s Washington Post.
How does the Hockey Stick hold up to science?
Just as an aside on the broader side of this – I think this Mann piece does seem to expose a weakness in Western judicial systems that allow accused persons and their defense lawyers to go to the papers and plead their case. If the prosecution were to do the same thing it would be considered prejudicial to prospects of a fair trial, as the newspaper reports may (so it is claimed by defense lawyers) influence potential jurors. I just don’t see why, when the defense does it, it isn’t considered equally prejudicial to the prospects of a fair trial too. Isn’t that what Mann is trying to do here, influence public opinion in his favor prior to the Virginian court action?
I’ve done my bit already.
Google for “American Physical Society” scam
and click on anything about Hal Lewis. Most of the first few pages of results are about him. The APS and other “science” organsations need to be taught a lesson.
Jeff T says:
October 8, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Hal Lewis misused the APS address list when he sent unsolicited e-mail to thousands of APS members, including me. I asked him to remove me from his list. I then wrote to the APS President and thanked her for handling the issue in a professional manner. Councilors received a “barrage of e-mail”, with a significant majority opposing changes to the APS statement on climate change. When the APS Council voted on the motion to change the statement, no one favored it. Even the councilor who submitted the motion opposed it. Read the report here . Hal clearly feels strongly about this issue, but the majority of APS members disagree.
Thanks for the link. I found in there that the people agreeing with the present APS statement were running two to one for it. This of course means that there are a lot more than 200 people against the statement.
Let us suppose that this was a genuine blind poll with all the checks of impartiality. In a genuine poll of physicist members an extra question should have been imperative:
Are you in any direct way getting funding from supporting AGW theory and practice?
I would suspect that the yes to this question would be running two to one too, i.e. the people supporting the statement were the people whose livelihood hung on the statement.
I met Prof Hal Lewis at a conference in, I think it was 1976. I will never forget the talk he gave after dinner one evening. He spoke for an hour without any notes and was truly inspiring; the room was packed and all there were enthralled. A scientist of honour and integrity. He is one of the last survivors of the great physicists of the second half of the 20th century.
His words of wisdom should be widely disseminated.
How true that is. I was going to study physics 40 years ago. Many of the TOWERING giants of the Manhattan Project and before were still alive. Who does physics have now? And what have they accomplished? Nothing of importance. I am over 60, and we were told in the 1950s that fusion was going to provide us with limitless power, made from hydrogen. We are still waiting.
I would only recommend that the leaders of the 200 should have – still can – go talk to lawyers and try to get a court order that the leadership abide by the society’s constitution. Their constitution is a legal document, after all. It’s purpose should be written so as to lay out responsibilities and rights, plus limitations on abuses of powers. The leadership can only abuse its powers if the lay members let themselves get pushed around.
Hal Lewis: (on the global warming scam) “It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.”
Thank you, Hal Lewis. Shame on those who continue to promote it; although I can certainly appreciate the fear of many in letting go of the tiger’s tail.
The IPCC’s predicted high CO2-AGW is meaningless because it seems to depends on a cooling ‘cloud albedo effect’ correction derived via a semi-empirical relationship between cloud optical depth and albedo dating from 1980. It makes a false assumption about what happens in thick clouds: ‘reflection’ from the surfaced of water droplets, e.g.: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Aerosols/
There’s no such physics yet no-one has apparently picked up this serious error. The reality is that if you pollute thick clouds, the albedo may decrease substantially, another form of AGW meaning you have to rein back on the CO2 effect.
I have still to make up my mind whether this, the biggest scientific mistake in History, is a scam dating from about 2003 when the ‘cloud albedo effect’, the last ditch hope of the high feedback models, could not be proved experimentally but to be kept in AR4.
People here are arguing that the APS Council took a poll.
That is not the same thing as having a Topic Group, where things get presented and hashed out.
I watched the video of a debate on AGW with Michael Crichton and Richard Linzen on the anti-AGW side. A vote was taken beforehand. A vote was taken after the debate. I can’t recall the exact numbers, but the anti-AGW side won over an additional 20% or so to their side.
I’ve heard – but cannot confirm – that such debates always come out with the anti- side winning over people.
A Topic Group would possibly have people change their minds. A poll does not present anything except answers to pre-packaged questions – questions which can be stacked.
Those who point out that many of the physicists’ careers are wrapped around – that sounds correct, but we may never know.
The Manhattan Project saved a lot of lives in WWII, but since then Big Science (driven by money) has distorted science. Especially physics, IMHO. Physicists since then haven’t done squat compared to the 65 years before that.
Oakden Wolf says:
October 8, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Even if you discount the effects of CO2 on global temperatures, such things as ocean acidification and the influence of black soot aerosols ought to be reasons to move toward cleaner fossil-fuel technologies and reliable, high-yield alternative energy sources.
You seem to be one step before the Hodja principle. Hodja is a wise judge/fool, as the case required, in stories told in the Anatolian tradition of Asia minor.
This is the pertinent story:
Early one morning Hodja started beating his wife.
A concerned villager tried to intervene: “Hodja effendi, why are you beating her, what has she done to deserve a beating”?
Hodja replied: “I do not know, but for sure, she does.”
It is a step before ” Kill them all, God will sort out the guilty and innocent”.
In other words what you are advocating is not the scientific method: trial, error, remeasurement etc, but politics: all means are useful to achieve the ends.
“Having first determined the question according to his will, man then resorts to experience, and bending her to conformity with his placets, leads her about like a captive in a procession.” Francis Bacon.
Mr. Lewis is in very good company on this one.
Dr Lewis is due a lot of respect. Michael Mann, on the other hand…
“My fellow scientists and I must be ready to stand up to blatant abuse from politicians who seek to mislead and distract the public.”
And the public must stand up to blatant abuse from scientists who mislead and distract from the truth.
“They are hurting American science.”
No, Michael Mann, you and your ilk are hurting American science.
“And their failure to accept the reality of climate change will hurt our children and grandchildren, too.”
And when warmist arguments fail you begin to wail – think of the cheeeeeeldren.
Pathetic!
This is your beef? Well I can see how this would be troubling. That incorrigible young tyke, how devious!
You tattled? The lady teacher came to your rescue? Did she bring in grief counselors and tell you everything will be ok! 😉 Naturally the appearance of an email arriving at your (Taxpayer funded?) computer which contains contrarian heresy was simply too painful to ignore. It couldn’t be discarded like Viagra or Nigerian spam? Or perhaps your institution filters the spam ahead of time which made the arrival of this email even more unsettling, arriving in your inbox all by its lonesome, beckoning you to ‘click me’.
Just what the heck is unsolicited e-mail anyway? [anything that deviates from
ChurchAGW dogma group-think?]. I mean, any email sent to a list is by definition unsolicited! Any email not sent as a reply is unsolicited! How exactly does one solicit email? You can certainly solicit an email reply. (Yeah, I know you said misused the APS address list, but that still does not explain the use of the term unsolicited if you really think about it).Seriously, I think Hal Lewis did exactly the right thing here. He made some squishy little APS members face their true demons: unsolicited emails containing world-view shattering thoughts. For this alone he should get a Nobel.
The reformation begins!
“Even if you discount the effects of CO2 on global temperatures, such things as ocean acidification and the influence of black soot aerosols ought to be reasons to move toward cleaner fossil-fuel technologies and reliable, high-yield alternative energy sources.”
Yes, but CARBON-Mongering will do absolutelly nothing to us move toward that. In fact it will muddy the waters and move us away from that goal. Science is stalled and thrown back for years by dogma and suppression.
Following my last comment – after multiple attempts at emailing the Washington Post I give up. Each attempt (using various email links on the WP site) either results in a “delivery failure” or the latest attempt resulted in “I am out of the office until 10/18/2010.”
Anyone else had any success?
T. Goodwin: The core of AGW science is a bunch of computer nerds who know no science, have produced none, yet have managed to convince government agencies that they should be funded.
Who are you to claim that the climate researchers know no science? You spew your conspiracy theories on climate science, when 97% of climate scientists support the research on climate change. Are 97% of climate scientists on an elaborate conspiracy?
Of course, I will never find out because I am not worthy for your reply.
As always there are lots of comments phrased to imply or embrace the concepts of “conspiracy”, “fraud” and “tax-payers cash” being paid to Mann and others. I think Mann is a Charalatan but his actions are not about conspiracy or fraud per se, they are about patronage. All of the researchers involved such as Mann, Jones etc rely on patronage from the state and others (remember they have created consortia which also provide funding). By over-selling their research and theories they can continue to enjoy patronage. Anyone who challenges the competence of their hypothesis is endangering their patronage. It also endangers the patronage that supports their institutions hence CRU and Mann’s university exonerate them in superficial investigations. This is all human nature and would be relatively benign (lots of mediocre scientists work in superficial or irrelevent research areas) if it weren’t for the actions taken by governments and large organisations. It is in the latter category that the potential for fraud is created, rather like Enron. When governments create a financial framework (subsidies) that artificially favours certain actions then the opportunity for fraud becomes significant. Like shining arc lights on solar panels because the subsidies make it pay!
Hal Lewis is a formidable man. He has this rare and somewhat outdated quality called integrity. Just read the Oral History Transcript of an interview prepared by Dr. Finn Aaserud in Santa Barbara, CA 6 July 1986 at the Niels Bohr Library & Archives site to see what I mean. His character reminds me of the late Richard Feynman. Honest, curious, matter-of-fact like, enjoying his life tremendously. A physicist.
I watched the video of a debate on AGW with Michael Crichton and Richard Linzen on the anti-AGW side. A vote was taken beforehand. A vote was taken after the debate. I can’t recall the exact numbers, but the anti-AGW side won over an additional 20% or so to their side.
— feet2thefire @ October 9, 2010 at 12:37 am
Yes, that was a humdinger! Before the debate the audience polled 57% to 30% for Global Warming; after: 42% to 46%. (Undecideds made up the rest.) See http://intelligencesquaredus.org/index.php/past-debates/global-warming-is-not-a-crisis/ .
Gavin Schmidt was on the losing side. There was some real heartburn over at RealClimate afterward.
Of course, when you’ve got big guns like Lindzen and Crichton it’s understandable, but Schmidt & Co. hurt themselves with their arrogant attitudes.
Amusingly, they cited the poor reception Continental Drift Theory received initially as though that story — one in which the underdog triumphs against consensus — favored the Global Warming side.
The Global Warming side would have been better off had the debate not taken place.
Recently I googled for public debates on AGW. It’s true — usually the AGW side loses, then makes excuses. Their strategy these days is to pretend it’s like scientists debating anti-evolutionists, and that the proper defense is to refuse to debate, even back out of debates as James Cameron did a few weeks ago.
The problem, though, is that they need votes from ordinary citizens in order to pursue the mega-expensive global warming agenda. Like it or not (and they definitely don’t) they must convince voters to get on board, so bills like cap-and-trade can pass.
But after ten years of flat temperatures plus the recent climate scandals and worldwide economic meltdown, ordinary people have turned against global warming.
There is no getting them back without some effort, but if the AGW people won’t debate openly and can’t twist arms politically, there’s not much they can do except PR campaigns (“No Pressure”) and fake debate on their blogs, and hope that the weather turns hot and nasty for the next several years.
“Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst.”
IF?????????????
A number of people here have said that Dr Hal Lewis, Emeritus Professor at U Cal, Santa Barbara, should do this, or that, or take things through the Courts etc. etc.
Might I respectfully suggest that Professor Lewis had been a member of the APS for 67 years! Assuming he joined as a student at 18 (rather unlikely) he must be 85 years old. If he joined after completing his undergraduate course this will raise him to, say, 88/89 years. Again, if he joined after getting his PhD he would be 90+ years.
I am not going to ask him or anyone else to give his exact age but I would ask whether it is reasonable to expect a man of his age to take the kind of actions some have suggested. He has done his part (at cost to himself) in resigning from a Society he has obviously loved and has been a significant part of his life.
I cannot know whether or not it will have any effect. But he has played a large role and deserves our respect. Maybe it should be the role of younger members to think where things should go from here.
Professor Lewis, you have my admiration and my respect for your principled stance and your carefully reasoned and superbly written letter of resignation.
Desmong (and others of similar ilk); I don’t have the words to express the disgust your peurile attempt to smear Professor Lewis induces in me.
I read the WaPo/Mann letter. Yuk!!
Oakden Wolf says:
October 8, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Seems like there’s an omission here. What exactly is the APS statement on climate change that Lewis objects too so strongly?
========
No, I don’t believe there was any omission. In fact, that to which Prof. Lewis was objecting was contained in the very text you quoted:
From Prof. Lewis’ letter:
From http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/incontrovertible
Some of the synonyms listed on the same page are: certain, inarguable, irrefutable, unchallengable, etc.
I will readily admit that I’m not a scientist; however, in the past eleven months I have learned that in the field of “climate science” the word “trick” apparently carries no connotation whatsover similar to “deceit”, which is inherent in the common understanding of the word “trick”.
In light of the above, and since you had determined that there was an “omission”, perhaps you would be kind enough to explain what exactly one should infer from the phrase “incontrovertible evidence” as it pertains to “climate science”.
I noticed that the text you quoted included the following:
That sounds very, very alarming – and, to be honest, very authoritative (in more ways than one!) But it certainly doesn’t sound like science to my ear.
P.S. Anthony, I’ve just posted the following comment in response to the Mann piece:
hro001 says:
October 9, 2010 at 4:35 am
“whose stature and respect was earned the hard way,”
aaack! “were earned”
Memo to self: compose important comments outside the little box, then proof ‘n paste!
@desmong says:
October 9, 2010 at 3:00 am
“Who are you to claim that the climate researchers know no science? You spew your conspiracy theories on climate science, when 97% of climate scientists support the research on climate change. Are 97% of climate scientists on an elaborate conspiracy?”
————————————————————————————–
You are missing the point, making a living out of science is not an conspiracy and not all scientists are in it for the money, actually I think this is what Harold Lewis resignation is all about, did you read it ???
from Edmund Burke
“For evil to triumph
all that is necessary is
that good men
do nothing.”
A few good men and women cannot save the World.
I fear that all is lost.
When the book, “The Rise and Fall of the Western World” is writen,
let it be noted that we decayed from within and were then enslaved
by our betters.
I don’t know if an organized resignation campaign would do much good. It might just look like “pressure politics” and sour grapes. The way to minimize that impression would be to deliberately NOT solicit resignations, but OTOH to have a website where members who choose to spontaneously resign can post their names and their endorsement of a statement charging the APS with shoddy behavior for failing to form a Topic Group, for commissioning a kangaroo court, etc. (Individuals could also post their own additional comments if they desired.)
If a few prominent physicists resigned on this matter and made a stink about the APS’s outrageous behavior, it would give the APS a black eye and might well force the formation of a TG and an impartial review of AGW.
This in turn would encourage other scientific Societies to do likewise — especially if a few of their prominent members also resigned and started petition/protest websites calling for impartial reviews of the evidence.
Good luck with this:
*************
“What I would really like to see though, is this public resignation letter given the same editorial space as Michael Mann in today’s Washington Post.
Let’s see if they have enough integrity to provide a counterpoint. – Anthony”
*************
WaPo just sold NewsWeek. For $1 (Not a typo! One only dollar.)
And WaPo agreed to pay off some $10 million in NewsWeek debt.
There is a reason why NewsWeek is worthless. (Actually worth less than worthless!) But I doubt that the WaPo gets “why”. And they aren’t going to change.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
PS: Lewis isn’t just a member of APS, but a “Fellow.” (I.e., a Grand Poobah.) If several additional “Fellows” resign, that’ll have an impact.
desmong says:
October 9, 2010 at 3:00 am
“Who are you to claim that the climate researchers know no science? You spew your conspiracy theories on climate science, when 97% of climate scientists support the research on climate change. Are 97% of climate scientists on an elaborate conspiracy?”
Of course they know their science, they know how flaky the models are, they know a gradual reduction in grid dimensions doesn’t make them more accurate, what they need to achieve any increase in precision is such a big increase in computing power that it’s not in sight for the next 2 decades; they know it gets harder and harder to finance the giant investments for computing power, it gets harder and harder to justify… they’re running scared. They’re running from debate.
I just don’t see how climategate establishes that AGW is a scam as this guy claims. Past climate reconstructions are a small part of AGW. Believing that climategate alone proves AGW is a scam is not scientific That reflects a rather poor understanding if the science. I’m not surprised his organization has therefore found him unpersuasive
Seriously, there is too much blaming the other side here when climate change skeptics should be blaming themselves for not being persuasive. In the democracy of ideas, the best ideas win. If an idea is winning, eg AGW, that’s because mire scientists find it persuasive. The skeptical scientists may be right, but they should stop whining and do more science to prove they are right. I don’t see this guy doing anything to prove AGW is wrong. He’s just whining
“The true physicists will lead the way.” (I think it’s in the Bible or something!) Michael Mann should be in jail.
desmong writes:
“Who are you to claim that the climate researchers know no science?”
Sir, I have a standing challenge to you and all pro-AGW scientists: produce one reasonably well-confirmed physical hypothesis about climate that cannot be deduced from the description of the CO2 molecule and that is not simply taken from a computer model. You cannot do it. No climate scientist can do it. There are no such hypotheses. There is no AGW science.
You are very talented at fallacious reasoning. Your earlier response, quoted above, manages to be an “appeal to authority,” “question begging,” and an “ad hominem” all in just one brief sentence.
Jeff T says: October 8, 2010 at 7:07 pm
The fault lies further back, with APS. What right do they have to issue a statement about climate science without consulting their members and allowing their members to speak freely?
Memo to UK Govt, I think Professor Lewis has identified some cost saving opportunities for you.
Cliff says:
October 9, 2010 at 6:13 am
I don’t see this guy doing anything to prove AGW is wrong. He’s just whining
The proof is already in peer reviewed literature. The warmers are ignoring it.
Any physicist who reads seriously the “physics justification” chapters of IPCC’s AR4 knows that most of it is nonsense. When I read it I would stop and walk around in my office literally pulling my hair, some statements, claims and plots were so preposterous and self evidently nonsense. Hal Lewis has just put it down in words.
It is the AGW community that has to come up with papers whose physics would support CO2 produced catastrophic warming. Not playstation models, physics models. And let me tell you that modeling is decades away of the precision necessary to remotely reproduce the complexity of weather and climate. And if you want wrong, consider, even weather predicted for a few days is wrong very often, and it is the same type of computer models used to justify AGW for the next century!!!.
Yeah, Cliff, he also sounds depressed and perhaps suicidal, don’t ya think. (wink wink)
desmong says:
October 9, 2010 at 3:00 am
T. Goodwin: The core of AGW science is a bunch of computer nerds who know no science, have produced none, yet have managed to convince government agencies that they should be funded.
Who are you to claim that the climate researchers know no science? You spew your conspiracy theories on climate science, when 97% of climate scientists support the research on climate change. Are 97% of climate scientists on an elaborate conspiracy?
Of course, I will never find out because I am not worthy for your reply.
————————
97% of climate scientists agree with their position on climate science (climate change) which brings in billions of dollars of funding. Well that’s a consensus and the science must be correct. By the way, have you ever been an academic researcher like me? Have you ever had to “grub for funding”? Interesting research gets funding. “hot topics” get funding. Boring climate research that shows the climate has been naturally variable for millennia does not get funding. Follow the money!
Your logic is like saying 97% of Republicans believe in Republican dogma, (ergo their dogma must be correct).
In matters like this, every physicist must ask himself “What would Richard Feynman do?” I believe that this gentleman has done exactly what Richard Feynman would do, and I applaud him.
I dropped my APS membership many years ago. It’s a political organization, not a scientific one. I am strongly considering canceling my IEEE membership for exactly the same reason.
APS, AAAS, ACS, even the National Academy of Sciences… they were all corrupted by the siren song of funding associated with AGW alarmism. Don’t believe me? Take a look at their full statements on AGW. Invariably their statements about “incontrovertible evidence” are followed by a laundry list of urgent funding priorities related to our ability to predict, prevent, and/or mitigate the effects of AGW. It may not be good science, but it’s good business for the professional societies.
Rudy Baum’s reprehensible posturing as editor of the ACS’ membership magazine, Chemical and Engineering News, may not be a direct result of this, but it is certainly tolerated since it fits into the self-serving party line. ACS has a small splinter group, loosely organized by Peter Bonk, that proposed a rather mildly alternative statement on AGW. I don’t know where that ended up. ACS mostly ignored them, I think. Peter also had the temerity to propose a symposium attempting to really expose the state of the science (18-24 months ago), and he invited all the other ACS Divisions to cosponsor it. It was astonishing to see how quickly the bicoastal professorial class trashed his proposal.
As for Hal Lewis, bravo for his letter. But I expect APS will ignore it. There will always be thousands more physicists standing in line to be dubbed APS Fellow. Few may be so digtinguished as Dr. Lewis, but there are so many scientists who hunger for the approbation of their peers. APS will simply continue as before.
Cliff, you say whining. Nearly everyone else here says standing up for his principles.
Dr Lewis resigned because the voices of himself and two hundred colleagues were effectively silenced and the true science ignored. Whining is what Michael Mann has done in the Washing Post op-ed.
Cliff says on October 9, 2010 at 6:13 am
Fail. Science is not a democracy, not a popularity contest and not a contest to see which ideas are pleasing or persuasive. The word consensus is also not a mechanism of science.
Do the concepts of testing hypotheses, and falsifiability mean anything to you?
desmong says:
October 9, 2010 at 3:00 am
… 97% of climate scientists support the research on climate change. Are 97% of climate scientists on an elaborate conspiracy?
Anyone who quotes the 97% number only prove how little they understand. As has been well documented, most skeptics would have answered that particular question exactly the same. We all know that CO2 by itself has a warming effect.
So, by quoting this idiotic number you have now shown everyone how little you know about the debate. Not surprising given your previous posts above.
Cliff says:
October 9, 2010 at 6:13 am
“persuasive. The skeptical scientists may be right, but they should stop whining and do more science to prove they are right. ”
So you say reconstructions of the past are not the only battlefield, fine, so what do we have besides that? Guys like Hansen who say that in the year 2000 Manhattan will be underwater (which didn’t happen), models that projected a warming that didn’t happen over the last 10 years, more models that project more warming in the future that may or may not happen, ….
What should the skeptics do in your opinion? Create equally power-hungry models that project a cooling?
What you call the “science” that is so “persuasive” about AGW are mere model projections, and the AGW scientists know full well that there are many physical processes like cloud formation and convection that cannot be realistically modelled for the time being, – the emperor has no clothes, it’s only politicians, prechers like Al Gore and scientifically illiterate journalists who believe or are led to believe there is any certainty. If there is any serious consensus at all, it must be the consensus that all the AGW climate projections come with huge error bars and huge assumptions.
There is nothing to be done for the skeptics to dismantle this edifice; it is self-dismantling.
Cliff says:
October 9, 2010 at 6:13 am
Cliff, the concept of falsifiability is that measured data which contradicts the original hypothesis nullifies it, i.e. when the earth’s climate failed to behave as the hypothesis predicted – (think cooler despite a continuing increase in CO2) – the AGW hypothesis was blown.
Changing the data, inventing data, inverting data in an attempt to maintain that the hypothesis was still valid – that’s not science. Tweeking computer programs to torture data until it confesses, that’s not science. Computer programs don’t generate data, they generate numbers. Real scientists try to see if the little numbers correspond to the real world.
So the upshot of this is, Chris, you need to associate a little more with real scientists, and a little less with programming dilettantes pretending that IT is real science.
Thanks to Berenyi Peter for the link to Professor Hal Lewis Oral History Transcript. Compelling story of a remarkable career and now this latest act of integrity.
Jerry says:
October 9, 2010 at 7:21 am
“In matters like this, every physicist must ask himself “What would Richard Feynman do?” I believe that this gentleman has done exactly what Richard Feynman would do, and I applaud him.”
Actually, Feynman would have challenged them to debate. There would have been no takers. Then Feynman would have ridiculed their reasoning in some public forum. I do not mean to hold Professor Lewis to Feynman’s standards. Feynman was exceptional.
I have come to realise there is one constant in life, no matter which organisation one looks at, public or private, the in-group makes the decisions and holds the power. We see it in government and the world’s most powerful companies all the way down to our local volunteer boards. We need more people like Hal Lewis to tell it like it really is. This is the only way to diminish the in-group’s power.
Lord Acton (1887): “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”
With all due respect to Dr. Lewis, this attempt to cast disparagement the APS’ way is nothing new. This is simply the latest chapter in a lengthy campaign by himself and a handful of others to portray an illusory suppressed dissent within the ranks of the APS, a campaign filled with letters to the APS governance, scientific journals, and Congress along with mass media coverage of a decidedly non-story.
It is interesting to note that Dr. Lewis considered this nefarious “secret committee” to be “a high level subcommittee of respected senior scientists” when he and others wrote to Nature in July of last year. Only when that committee advised the APS Council to reject the petition of Lewis and others to revise the Society’s policy stance did the members of that committee become the equivalent of Hitler’s brown shirts.
It’s also interesting to note that the APS POPA committee tasked with composing a policy addendum engaged Dr. Lindzen among others in the development of that addendum and solicited feedback from the Society’s entire membership on its content. Dissatisfied with the results, the solicitation was disparaged by the original petitioners with Dr. Robert Austin, a petition co-signer with Dr. Lewis, wanting to put science within the APS up to popular vote.
I respect Dr. Lewis and his contributions throughout his career to the scientific endeavor, but his efforts over the past couple of years to disparage those with whom he disagrees is simple grandstanding and nothing more.
desmong says:
October 8, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Karl: It is like someone driving down a four-lane road, listening to the radio that some driver is driving the wrong way. And this driver says, ‘- Oh, the fool. They are all driving the wrong way!’.
=============
The analogy doesn’t work. The side of the road you drive on is merely a matter of practical convention. No side holds more inherent truth than the other.
The story of the child who points out the obvious and says: “The Emperor is naked!” would make a better analogy.
Here’s a June 2010 picture of Hal Lewis with his heroic wife Mary.
Mary Lewis Awarded Congressional Gold Medal in Santa Barbara on Memorial Day
@Daniel Kozub
“How will we know if any or all of the climate models are accurate at predicting the future?”
This is actually a pretty interesting question. In short: It’s doubtful the models will ever be robust enough to make meaningful predictions about the transient response. The models do a little better in predicting trends, but that’s not unexpected since the trend averages out alot of the error.
Now turns out, making a model that takes into account known forcings and that produces an earthlike earth over a backcast of a couple tens of thousands of years (Without arbitrary fluxes of heat; Not done in today’s GCM’s) is tough. No one has been able to do so that ignores CO2 as a significant driver of climate.
Higher res (same picture)
http://assets.mediaspanonline.com/prod/4552112/Lewis-4_w500.jpg
From article:
http://www.thedailysound.com/060110waspmedal
These are the kind of representatives of my parents’ generation that make me truly proud to be an American. They have my deepest admiration and my profound apology that my generation has failed to follow in their extraordinary footsteps.
Re: Oakden Wolf @ October 8, 2010 at 10:00 pm
You’ve missed the point.
Hal Lewis’s fundamental disagreement with the APS is with the following “incontravertible” parts of the APS statement. He, along with a group of his colleagues, don’t believe the statements are supported by physical science and therefore are not worthy of support by the APS. I will identfy them for your benefit but it’s not why he resigned.
1. “Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate. ”
Not incontravertible.
2. “If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.”
Not incontravertible.
3. “…and to provide the technological options for meeting the climate challenge in the near and longer terms. The APS also urges governments, universities, national laboratories and its membership to support policies and actions that will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.”
Not incontravertible.
4. ““Even with the uncertainties in the models, it is increasingly difficult to rule out that non-negligible increases in global temperature are a consequence of rising anthropogenic CO2. Thus given the significant risks associated with global climate change, prudent steps should be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions now while continuing to improve the observational data and the model predictions.”
Not incontravertible.
The APS Energy policy is not why he resigned either. You have brought out a red herring by asking what is wrong with the APS Energy policy, highlighting the bit on nuclear power. Hal didn’t say, but yeah, he probably doesn’t have an issue with that – as probably the majority of WUWT readers.
Hal’s resignation stemmed from the lack of recognition by the APS of the shenanigans of the climate science community as evidenced by “ClimateGate”. He says it several ways throughout the numbered “theses” in his letter.
He resigned in the end, however, over the complete dismissal, in fact deliberate undermining, of due process under the Constitution of the APS to talk about these concerns.
Anthony’s comparison to the 95 theses is about that – Martin Luther really just wanted to talk….
Now I’m struggling with whether or not I will also be resigning from the APS and the ACS. It’s a tough call.
REPLY: Deeds speak even louder. – Anthony
“Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics” is the line that jumped out at me. The key word is Emerotus, i.e. Retired. It is us old guys with retirement income and no allusions of future granduer that are in a safe position to break from the bad science of man-made climate armaddegon. There are a few, very few, young scientists who have spoken out and have suffered the professional consequences. They are my heros and I suspect Harold Lewis would agree they, most of all deserve our support as we battle to bring climate science back to middle ground.
T. Goodwin: “The core of AGW science is a bunch of computer nerds who know no science, have produced none, yet have managed to convince government agencies that they should be funded.”
You’re being a bit unfair to computer nerds.
At least they typically know how to write proper documented design-patterns-based tested code.
The code used to make these climate claims was hacked together by absolute amateurs.
Who also made up their own so-called statistical analysis as they went along.
I allowed my membership in the APS to lapse a number of years ago as frankly few would care if I had resigned. 😉
Unfortunately, even the resignation of someone of the stature of Prof. Lewis will be buried in the dead of night by the APS powers that be [the old man’s lost it, etc.]. Far too much govt funding is at stake.
My own reasons were several: the IEEE is now far more relevant to my work, the APS jumping on the global warming bandwagon, the disdain for applied – industrial physics, and esp the constant barrage of newsletters about politically correct social engineering that had absolutely nothing to do with physics.
There are 48,000 members of APS. The flood of responses from members who received Hal Lewis’ letter to them regarding the AGW official position statement of the society was 2:1 in favor of the position statement.
http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201001/letters.cfm
Worth reading a few of the letters in the link above.
At any rate, if the 2:1 estimate was honest and is representative of the whole body then approximately 16,000 members of the American Physical Society object to the society’s CAGW position.
I’m hesistant to bring numbers of people into this. In science it only takes one investigator who happens to be right. When consensus enters discussions of science one may then rest assured that science, like Elvis, left the building prior to that point.
wsbriggs says:
October 9, 2010 at 8:02 am
“Cliff, the concept of falsifiability is that measured data which contradicts the original hypothesis nullifies it, i.e. when the earth’s climate failed to behave as the hypothesis predicted – (think cooler despite a continuing increase in CO2) – the AGW hypothesis was blown. ”
wsbriggs,
You described falsifying, not falsifiability. The concept of falsifiability is that a hypothesis is not valid unless it can be tested. An untestable hypothesis (idea) is called a “concept”. A theory is a hypothesis that has been rigorously tested to falsify it.
What will prevail in the end, and after how much sorrow?
Here’s more background for Hal Lewis’s resignation [my boldface]:
The scientist who will head the American Physical Society’s review of its 2007 statement calling for immediate reductions of carbon dioxide is Princeton’s Robert Socolow, a prominent supporter of the link between CO2 and global warming who has warned of possible “catastrophic consequences” of climate change.
Socolow’s research institute at Princeton has received well over $20 million in grants dealing with climate change and carbon reduction, plus an additional $2 million a year from BP and still more from the federal government. In an interview published by Princeton’s public relations office, Socolow called CO2 a “climate problem” that governments need to address.
[ snip ]
Hal Lewis, a professor emeritus of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara who has been an APS member for 65 years, says that he asked both the current and incoming APS presidents to require that Socolow recuse himself from a review of this subject, and both refused.
That means the review will be “chaired by a guy who is hip deep in conflicts of interest, running a million-dollar program that is utterly dependent on global warming funding,” Lewis says. In addition, he points out that the group charged with taking a second look at the 2007 statement, the Panel on Public Affairs, is the same body that drafted it in the first place. That, “too has a smell of people investigating themselves,” Lewis says.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504383_162-5964504-504383.html
An example that speaks volumes. No wonder Hal Lewis felt compelled to resign.
Daniel Kozub says:
October 9, 2010 at 9:37 am
Sorry, Daniel, I should have typed “e.g” – my bad. But hey, with that change the statement is exactly what you described, and totally true. Now, back to the subject of climate, just what hypotheses do you believe vis-a-vis CAGW are still remotely valid?
“wsbriggs says:
Sorry, Daniel, I should have typed “e.g” – my bad. But hey, with that change the statement is exactly what you described, and totally true. Now, back to the subject of climate, just what hypotheses do you believe vis-a-vis CAGW are still remotely valid?”
No worries. And thank you.
Here we go:
The sun emits broad-spectrum radiation that heats the surface of the earth.
A large portion of that energy can be reflected away from earth based on the reflectivity of the surface of the earth at specific wavelengths or accross a broad spectrum.
The earth emits radiation in a more-narrow spectrum, and that energy escapes the planet unless it is absorbed by other matter.
Water (gas, liquid, or solid), carbon dioxide, and other trace gasses can absorb a portion of the energy that the earth emits.
Water is the most abundant and variable “greenhouse” gas, and it has the largest range of absorbance wavelengths.
Humans have the capability to alter the earth’s climate and weather.
Humans have altered the earth’s climate and weather.
Human activity can change the reflectivity of the earth’s surface.
Human activity produces water, carbon dioxide, and other trace gasses.
All of the above are testable and falsifiable.
Someone reading the above could call me a True Believer.
Someone reading the above could call me a Denier.
I’m just a scientist.
JeffT says “Hal Lewis misused the APS address list when he sent unsolicited e-mail to thousands of APS members, including me”
——————————————-
Imagine the nerve of a member of an organization trying to talk to another member! What kind of heresy is this!? What can be done about this outrage!? sarc/off
Makes me glad sometimes that I work in the forest away from self-important and petty tyrants.
well done Hal Lewis!
I did not read through the 200+ previous posts, but hope I’m not the first to note that Hal’s resignation says more about those who will stay on, skeptics included, in an organization with no purpose other than wielding ever stronger influence, power, and financial gain at ANY cost. I always go back to the statement of our founders who swore an oath based upon, “our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor”. In that day the oath was unanimous and all stood firm.
Hal has clearly been betrayed by those who failed to stand with him; we have all been betrayed.
Starwatcher says:
October 9, 2010 at 8:54 am
“@Daniel Kozub
“How will we know if any or all of the climate models are accurate at predicting the future?”
This is actually a pretty interesting question. In short: It’s doubtful the models will ever be robust enough to make meaningful predictions about the transient response. The models do a little better in predicting trends, but that’s not unexpected since the trend averages out alot of the error.
Now turns out, making a model that takes into account known forcings and that produces an earthlike earth over a backcast of a couple tens of thousands of years (Without arbitrary fluxes of heat; Not done in today’s GCM’s) is tough. No one has been able to do so that ignores CO2 as a significant driver of climate.”
I agree. But what about in the short-term? How much time is needed to evaluate them? Let’s say that a model appears inaccurate after 10 years when it is attempting to predict 100 years in the future. It is replaced by a new model that can’t be evaluated for another 10 years, etc…
It’s just curve-fitting.
I read some of the Climategate releases with horror, as the level of fraud and deception became clear. The horror changed to amusement as I realized the jig was up, and the fraud would now be public and undeniable. The amusement devolved to horror again, as I observed news organizations, pseudoscientists, and politicians the wold over ignore the truth of Climategate, and absolve the participants of any wrongdoing.
We live in dark times. The corruption of science, the rise of pseudoscience, and the rapid growth of intolerant, warrior religions threatens to plunge us from dark times into another Dark Age.
In such times, an occasional bright light shows through. Dr. Lewis has my undying respect.
Very disturbing, I’ve repeatedly placed comments to various articles on the LA Times site presenting opposing yet informative views and all have been rejected by their moderators. Is the LA Times so slanted its afraid to print an opposing view?
NY Times picked up the comments what’s up with “journalism” at the LA Times?
Folks, why not CC the petition mail to WaPo’s Ombudsman?
Ombudsman
The Post’s Ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, is the readers’ representative within the newspaper. E-mail him at ombudsman@washpost.com or call 202-334-7582.
Sorry couldn’t face the Mann Op-Ed.
The interview I saw in the BBC propaganda piece, Climate wars was enough of that Mann for me.
He came across like a wheedling whining little schoolboy crying to mummy.
He was effectively saying, “I’m a scientist, why does everyone want to check what I’m saying? I mean, all my pals had a look and they agree with me.”
Sorry Michael, everything I’ve done I’ve tried to get someone who doesn’t agree with me to check, someone who’s had nothing to do with the work. If there’s something wrong and they find it, I thank them, take it away & try again.
I have this little conscience thing that tells me I don’t want to kill people with my mistakes. If I never get it right then the World’s a better place without it.
DaveE.
Colonel Sun says:
October 9, 2010 at 9:17 am
“You’re being a bit unfair to computer nerds.
At least they typically know how to write proper documented design-patterns-based tested code.”
The code used to make these climate claims was hacked together by absolute amateurs.
I knew it wouldn’t be long before someone brought up NASA GISS Model E! LOL!!
Former_Forecaster October 9, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Thats says it all, really. Hal Lewis’s API resignation letter must reflect hundreds of other unpublicised and unsung resignations from numerous scientific societies for the same reason.
to dbleader61:
The only statement that is prefaced by “incontrovertible” is that global warming is occurring. Everything else is not addressed by that word, even though the opening paragraph has a strong tone of certainty.
If you run an advanced google search for the past 24 hours you’ll find pages of links including the Canada Free Press and some in France. I haven’t seen any from major broadcast news but keep in mind its the weekend crew.
Has anyone sent the story to CNN yet?
I’m a lay person; Professor Lewis’ letter seems to me to be written by a brave and principled man and we could do with a lot more of those attributes in all professions and our daily lives; I’ve circulated the letter as widely as I can in Australia and hopefully he will get a lot of support from down under; I notice that Jo Nova’s blog and the Climate Conversation Group have featured this
John Coleman is quoted as stating:
” “Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics” is the line that jumped out at me. The key word is Emerotus, i.e. Retired. It is us old guys with retirement income and no allusions of future granduer that are in a safe position to break from the bad science of man-made climate armaddegon.”
The quotes below are relevant to the statement above. The first is attributed to “RW Harvey”.
“…I would recommend a (re)reading of Thomas Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” Kuhn coined the phrase “paradigm shift” and this work gives an excellent exposure of just how difficult it is to embrace new theories; the standard approach is to toss anomalies and go full-speed ahead. According to Kuhn, it either takes the old scientists dying off, or the pile up of enough anomalies for new theories to even get a look. There is plenty of psychology in his exposure — egos, fear, material well-being, etc. — so the point is this is not only about scientists in the laboratory, but it is about anyone/group that is applying a theory to some part of reality… in the same phenomenon in the case of revolutionaries.”
And this is from “Bryan Feir” in a different discussion:
“Do you have any idea how many years it took for ideas like Continental Drift to be accepted by mainstream science? How many decades ‘standard’ ideas like Clovis First (the idea that all the American Indians crossed the Bering Strait 11 000 years ago) lasted despite evidence that they were wrong simply because too many people were emotionally attached to the idea to give it up? (Parts of South America were inhabited more than a thousand years before Clovis First says they could have been.) How much damage was done to effective research in Quantum Mechanics because Einstein himself couldn’t abide by the random factors in the theory he helped lay the foundations for?
It’s often said that any real progress in science takes at least a generation; long enough for all the old scientists who are attached to the old ideas to get replaced. Trust me, we’ve seen lots of evidence for that in this century alone. ”
“Emeritus” doesn’t necessarily imply an absence of fear.
a link to this article and the Professor’s letter has now been placed on Quadrant Online’s Doomed Planet http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/10/scientist-says-no
Daniel Kozub says:
October 9, 2010 at 10:50 am
Actually the width of the spectrums are the same. They’re both continuous gray body spectrums with the sun’s peak at about 5000K and the earth at 288K.
It also absorbs a portion of incoming solar energy. The key difference is that most of the sun’s energy is in the visible spectrum whereas that of the earth is in the infrared spectrum. GHGs are largely transparent to visible light but are opaque in the infrared. Water (liquid) absorbs visible light very well and given the surface is 70% covered with it and a good fraction of the sky is obscured at any one time by clouds (composed of liquid water droplets) it is important to know that.
Water vapor.
Yes, but so do butterflies. See Butterfly Effect. The central question is whether the effect is quantifiable, predictable, and significant.
Locally, almost without a doubt. Globally is a different proposition with far less confidence.
In principle, perhaps. In practice, not.
That is a problem. I’m an engineer. Scientists are experts at figuring out what we don’t know. Engineers are experts at figuring out what we do know. You got a lot of stuff that we do know wrong.
Daniel Kozub says:
October 9, 2010 at 10:50 am
The earth emits radiation in a more-narrow spectrum, and that energy escapes the planet unless it is absorbed by other matter.
I forgot to correct one glaring mistake. All the energy escapes the planet. If it didn’t the planet would vaporize from the accumulated energy and violate all kinds of thermodynamic laws in the process. Outgoing energy equals incoming energy. Write that down.
Anthony, rather that trying to get the editors of the Washington Post to print the Lewis letter, why don’t we just take up a collection to buy a full-page ad in the Post and print the letter that way? I, for one, would be willing to contribute. Find out how much it would cost, let us know, and then take pledges until we have enough to cover it.
Toby; great idea but rather than take pledges why not donations specifically for that?
Daniel Kozub says:
October 9, 2010 at 9:37 am
More apt is to call them narratives or a “just-so stories”. These abound in forensic sciences. When just-so stories become widely accepted they take on the patina of fact. When that happens in the halls of science, where narrative becomes widely accepted as fact, then science has left the building and dogma has taken its place. Dogma dies hard. There’s some truth in the saying that science progresses one funeral at a time. But just because something is dogma that doesn’t make it false. So in the case of dogma that happens to be true we can also say that science sometimes regresses one funeral at a time. The latter seems to be the case here.
@desmong
‘when 97% of climate scientists support the research on climate change. Are 97% of climate scientists on an elaborate conspiracy?’
Are you so naive that you can’t read the statistics for what they were?
Only 1/3 of the populace asked answered one or two of the two questions asked. That in and of itself spells terrible statistics.
Only 82% answered that they believed that man was somewhat responsible for the global warming problem, which means no more an 82% of the total 1/3 of slightly above 10 000 can be accounted for. Of those 82% there was an amount of active climatologists that amounted to one hundred percent and of those 97% agreed, if not in details so at least in the abstract the only two questions asked for the toll. Now, how many active climatologist were there amongst those 82% of one third of the slightly more an 10 000 asked, I ask? Do you how many of the “simpleton” earth scientists that also qualified as full blown active climatologists? Understand that if it only was 100, then only 97 people agreed, right? How many active climate scientist existed in the world at the time of the poll? Did you even know the poll only was for US and Canada? Does US and Canada represent the whole world? If so since when I would ask?
Now what does 97% mean for your crap ass authority figure. <–Get it?
'Of course, I will never find out because'
You're too indoctrinated to fully grasp reality better?
Send in tips on the resignation to The Drudge Report.
http://drudgereport.com/
The form to submit news tips is in the bottom right corner. Everyone in the mainstream media (MSM) reads the Drudge Report along with many millions of individuals. Some cynics even say the MSM has become so lazy they’ve taken to getting their news from the Drudge Report and abandoned any semblance of real investigative reporting.
Dave Springer says:
October 9, 2010 at 3:11 pm
” Outgoing energy equals incoming energy. ”
That’s only approximately so, and even then only over a considerable period of time. On average outgoing energy is appreciably greater than incoming energy (the Earth is gradually cooling, and there is additional heat from radioactive decay, nuclear fission, tidal friction, etc.).
Daniel Kozub says:
October 9, 2010 at 10:50 am
“[…]The earth emits radiation in a more-narrow spectrum, and that energy escapes the planet unless it is absorbed by other matter.[…]”
Please see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchhoff%27s_law_of_thermal_radiation
which states that emission and absorption in heated objects are equal in local thermal equilibrium. So the matter that absorbs the radiation must also re-emit it.
This well-credentialed scientist is obviously sincere and genuinely outraged by what he perceives as a scientific ‘scam’. His resignation is from the APS is honourable in this light. However, none of these virtues, by themselves or together, automatically mean that his probity is keen on the matter of the science. Indeed, he focuses on the politics. I agree with him on the former APS statement, but not much else.
@Paul Birch
“” Outgoing energy equals incoming energy. ”
That’s only approximately so”
Yes but over longer periods of time it is an approximation accurate to at least four decimal points. Outoing heat from the earth’s formation and radioactive decay are a few milliwatts per square meter whereas total outgoing energy is in the hundreds of watts – several orders of magnitude difference there. For climate analysis purposes heat of formation and radioactive decay are rightly ignored in primary effect. In the secondary effect (volcanic activity) however they can have some dramatic short term climate effects that are essentially ignored because predicting volcanic eruptions is (in the kindest possible terms) not an exact science.
The APS has as of 2010 almost 50,000 members.
Hal Lewis has together with some others constantly tried to influence the APS stance on global warming. He managed 160 signatures that demanded a watering down of the APS stance on Global Warming. So I would think that is about 3.2 per-mill of the APS membership. Storm in a tea cup I would say and the APS will do well without Hal. The PR of this is well overblown.
For those who would like to know what the APS is about I recommend their website, not what bloggers like micro-watts have to say about them. http://www.aps.org
I have been member of many clubs. You always find cranks and the noise that one crank in the middle of thousand others can make is always disproportionate.
Enough said.
Samoth says:
October 9, 2010 at 8:16 pm
The APS has as of 2010 almost 50,000 members.
……
I have been member of many clubs. You always find cranks and the noise that one crank in the middle of thousand others can make is always disproportionate.
Enough said.
Well, the responses were running two to one, according to the APS link some posts above yours, and 1/3 of 50.000 is a lot of cranks for one society.
In societies you find some cranks, and a lot of honest people, and a good number pushing their self interest, in this case jobs in the global warming band wagon. I wonder to what sub sample you belong. Can you swear, cross your heart and hope to die, you are not feeding from the AGW trough?
dbleader61;
Good post. But I twitched every time I had to read “incontravertible”. Since the actual word is “incontrovertible”.
Indeed. They are jackasses of all trades, masters of none. They rigidly exclude input from those who know better. Self-promotion has carried them to the heights, but is now about to fail in confrontation with actual scientists, programmers, statisticians, modelers, forecasters, and physicists.
The above implies that the mainstream membership has well-considered opinions on the subject. Only that would justify dismissal of Lewis as a crank.
But what if they have ill-considered opinions, and their consent has been manufactured?
How about a test? Pick a convenient location and have a dozen random nearby members attend a dozen weekend presentations and debates between members of Lewis’s dissenting contingent and the CAWG-consensus authors of the APS position statement. Then poll those jurors on their opinions on that position statement.
And how about a bet on what those poll numbers would look like? (I bet that strong support for the APS statement would drop in half, and strong support for the Lewis position would double, compared to pre-debate sentiment.)