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)
*****
George E. Smith says:
October 15, 2010 at 4:41 pm
What a wonderfully unassailable position you speak from eadler. Your entire essay rests on these simple words :- “”In my opinion “”
*****
Gee, George. Take a look at the way alarmist scientists couch their “predictions.” Global warming “may,” “might,” “could,” “should,” have this or that bad effect. As far as I’m concerned, those sorts of statements are nothing more that opinion – maybe less than, in fact.
eadler says:
October 15, 2010 at 4:45 pm
“Lewis is not a climate scientist….”
=============
What eadler and the other warmists trolling here don’t want people to know is that “climate scientists” aren’t scientists. A scientists is someone who follows the Scientific Method. The POLICY of “climate scientists” is to deliberately violate the Scientific Method. Their data and workings are secret. They REFUSE to allow independent verifications of their “studies”. For good reasons – when their data and methods are exposed – either by accident (McIntyre finding the poorly hidden “Censored” ftp directory of Mann), or by being forced (the Royal Society requiring Briffa, after years of refusal, to publish his Yamal data) – it is found that those methods and data are wrong. And not to mention the criminal refusal to respond to FOIA requests, the corruption of peer review, etc. etc.
What eadler, Revkin, and the other catastrophe-mongers are doing is following in the footsteps of Trofim Lysenko. That’s why they refuse to engage in honest debate based on real science. That Hal Lewis knows the difference between Science and “climate science” is greatly to his credit. Which is why the slander campaign against him is now in full swing.
And water isn’t wet, and the Sun isn’t hot, and so on, and so on.
At WUWT, reality is as the choir sings it.
If your brother were to commit some terrible crime, you might want to say that he wasn’t your brother any more, but it really wouldn’t be true.
While other scientists might often wish that climate scientists were not scientists, it unfortunately isn’t so. We cannot limit the damage these people are doing to the reputation of science in this way.
Any chance of a preview button? Especially when using HTML tags it would be nice to see what it looks like before committing the post.
—————
Adam R.,
The majesty of your omniscience underwhelms me.
Have a great all-knowing day there Adam. : )
I appreciate your humorous comment, so I would like to offer some of my questionable humor to you as a gift in return;
John
Adam R. says:
October 16, 2010 at 11:56 am
@Andrew Russell :
…“climate scientists” aren’t scientists.
And water isn’t wet, and the Sun isn’t hot, and so on, and so on.
At WUWT, reality is as the choir sings it.
That is hilarious, coming from an obvious member of the Warmen Tabernacle.
Truly, though, the high priests (and priestesses) of the Church of Warmenology can not be considered scientists, since they don’t actually practice science. Instead, they have their precious models they consult with prior to making their various pontifications, which the Believers dutifully take as the Truth, and woe betide any sinners and heretics who dare question them.
Ian H says:
October 16, 2010 at 12:21 pm
“While other scientists might often wish that climate scientists were not scientists, it unfortunately isn’t so. ”
It is irrelevant what one wishes about the so-called “climate scientists”; the objective truth is that they are not scientists, because they refuse to follow the scientific method. They are ideological propagandists paid to pretend to be scientists. Some of them may even have been genuine scientists at one time, but are no longer. The damage that is done to the reputation of science and scientists will not – in the short term – be undone by truthfully insisting that they are not scientists, but it is nevertheless a truth that needs to be repeated for the long term, if the real science of climatology (not “climate science”) is ever to be recreated.
John, I love that film I put it on when I feel low as the humor and disdain for corrupt authority never fail to cheer me up. However it still is not as funny as eadler types and makes more sense!!
For Adam R. and his fellow catastrophe-mongers:
“Climate science” – “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”. (apologies to Inigo Montoya…)
Andrew Russell says:
October 16, 2010 at 11:06 am
eadler says:
October 15, 2010 at 4:45 pm
“Lewis is not a climate scientist….”
=============
What eadler and the other warmists trolling here don’t want people to know is that “climate scientists” aren’t scientists. A scientists is someone who follows the Scientific Method. The POLICY of “climate scientists” is to deliberately violate the Scientific Method. Their data and workings are secret. They REFUSE to allow independent verifications of their “studies”. For good reasons – when their data and methods are exposed – either by accident (McIntyre finding the poorly hidden “Censored” ftp directory of Mann), or by being forced (the Royal Society requiring Briffa, after years of refusal, to publish his Yamal data) – it is found that those methods and data are wrong. And not to mention the criminal refusal to respond to FOIA requests, the corruption of peer review, etc. etc.”
That is all nonsense. The handling of scientific data by climate scientists is really more open than ever. Climate data is in an open repository on the internet. A lot of the FOIA requests amount to petty harrassment. This claim is just a smoke screen to compensate for the lack of scientific validity to the numerous dumb arguments against the overwhelming evidence of AGW.
“What eadler, Revkin, and the other catastrophe-mongers are doing is following in the footsteps of Trofim Lysenko. That’s why they refuse to engage in honest debate based on real science. That Hal Lewis knows the difference between Science and “climate science” is greatly to his credit. Which is why the slander campaign against him is now in full swing.”
Hal Lewis is an old fossil who never did any significant scientific work in his life. Twenty years ago, when he still had his marbles, he warmly embraced the science behind AGW. Are you accusing him of dishonesty at that time?
His attempt to become self important, after not having published any scientific papers on any topic, including climate science, and giving no cogent reasons for the reversal of his opinion on AGW, merits the scorn that he is getting from those who know which end is up.
jks says:
October 16, 2010 at 7:45 am
“Regarding Andrew Revkin’s rebuttal, Yes, 20 years can and often does make a huge difference in how people see the world and it’s various issues. Some might even say that’s called maturity and wisdom. You know the old saying “If I only knew then what I know now.””
He doesn’t really say anything about what specifically caused him to change his mind. The guy is 87. Some people become potty in their old age. The guy has done nothing memorable as a scientist, and is probably trying to make a reputation on the cheap in his final years.
eadler says:
October 16, 2010 at 5:37 pm
He doesn’t really say anything about what specifically caused him to change his mind. The guy is 87. Some people become potty in their old age. The guy has done nothing memorable as a scientist, and is probably trying to make a reputation on the cheap in his final years.
==========================
With ad hominem laced venom like that, I can’t imagine just how “potty” you will be in your old age.
Anthony is a gentleman to let you post your continued utter crap on here.
The good thing is, the more you spew out your words, the less you win any converts to your religion [the International Church of the Great CAGW]
Keep talking….by all means….keep talking.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
eadler, give it up. The best you can do is attack a mans age. The same was done against every retired sceptic. It’s a tired ad-hom.
DaveE.
eadler,
Andrew Russell made some specific accusations, which you blow off with: “That is all nonsense.” That is the kind of mindless response we see on realclimate, climate progress and the other censoring alarmist echo chamber blogs.
Why not try to explain — if you are able — why Mann hid his “censored” file? Of course if he had used it, there would never have been an MBH98/99 Hokey Stick — and with it your whole belief system would come crashing down around your ears. Cognitive dissonance can be nasty when the flying saucers don’t arrive on schedule.
Those of us who have followed the anti-science shenanigans of Mann, Briffa, Hughes, Jones, Wigley, Hughes, Schmidt, Schneider, and the rest of that gang with both front feet in the public trough, know the reason they hide their raw data, methods and metadata: if they publicly archived it as you falsely claim they do, their increasingly ridiculous CO2=CAGW hypothesis would be immediately debunked.
You point out that “The handling of scientific data by climate scientists is really more open than ever.” And why would that be? Can you say “CLIMATEGATE”? It is true that there is more openness now than before Climategate, but the same climate clique charlatans are still far from following the scientific method. It’s been twelve [12] years since MBH98 — and your Hokey Team is still stonewalling all requests for their methodology and metadata.
And who made you the arbiter of which FOI requests should be granted? Did someone make you the FOI judge and jury? Or are you only another useful fool who passes on ridiculous alarmist talking points?
Finally, your lowlife attack on Dr Lewis follows the Saul Alinksy script to the letter: attack the individual. Take the spotlight off of the actual issues. Make the person the issue. So you do as you’re told, and go into full ad hominem attack mode:
“Hal Lewis is an old fossil who never did any significant scientific work in his life… When he had his marbles… His attempt to become self important, after not having published any scientific papers on any topic… giving no cogent reasons… the scorn that he is getting from those who know which end is up… The guy is 87. Some people become potty in their old age. The guy has done nothing memorable as a scientist, and is probably trying to make a reputation on the cheap in his final years.”
Your attempted smear of Dr Lewis was written for one reason: because Dr Lewis has a different opinion than you do. Could you be any more despicable? Most folks, when they are unable to counter skeptics’ arguments, have the class to move on. Not you, eh?
An “an important moment in science history”? More like “old codger who’s irrelevant has a leak in his Depends”.
Lewis went emeritus. BFD.
Smokey, elegantly put, I would ask has eadler always been an asshole or did he study?
Derecho64 loves him his Saul Alinsky.
The absolute best summary of Lewis’ tantrum:
http://theclimatescum.blogspot.com/2010/10/im-really-angry-with-aps.html
Really captures the essence of the matter!
REPLY: Since it seems likely you are the person who wrote that satire, please remove the title of Dr. from my name. Thanks, – Anthony
Luke 15 v7
I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.
Derech;
No, stupidly wrong. He resigned as a member and Fellow of the APS. “Emeritus” refers to university positions. None involved.
Chris Edwards says:
October 16, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Smokey, elegantly put, I would ask has eadler always been an asshole or did he study?
=============================
LMAO.
Of course, you won’t get your response because eadler has slithered back to his trollhole, coward that he is. [“mechanically forced” ad hom intended here, I must confess.].
At this point, it boils down to calling it like it is.
Hey…the truth sometimes hurts.
-Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
OK, it’s been a week, and this latest mighty sword in the hands of the [word I dare not use because it makes Anthony sad—rhymes with “criers”] turns out to be yet another bent spoon. No science has been slain and the APS stubbornly refuses to relinquish its grip on reality.
What will the next one be, I wonder? Al Gore had a big power bill? Heck: done that. How about shape-shifting alien reptiles in charge of the National Academy of Sciences? Now THAT would be a good one. Dare you to prove it’s not true, Warmistas!
Whoosh!
Not really — it deals essentially with the APS’s refusal to follow its procedures and desire thereby to suppress intramural debate and discussion in a Topical Group. The story is not about the global warming controversy, but about the meta-controversy of how it is being suppressed.
There’sa difference: By now people should know better.
I see his resignation as a challenge to the underhand tactics of the manufacturers of a consensus. The authority of these scientific societies that have endorsed CAWGism has been a powerful propaganda tool, as people assume that these bodies have issued a well-considered and thoughtful opinion, when in they haven’t come close. They’ve “gone along” with what the activists inside and outside told them, and haven’t really given ear to the dissenters’ case.
Nothing posters here say is needed to add authority to his charge of unconstitutional behvior, which is prima facie believable.
Lewis’s position (that there is a strong case against CAWGism) is backed the 200+ co-signers of his petition, so any wobbliness in his own personal grasp of the subject is not crucial. Presumably his co-signers aren’t all ignorant.