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)
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 @ur momisugly 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.