Dr. Harold Lewis sent this today via email with a request to make it public here. I’m happy to oblige. Read the letter to understand the movie poster.- Anthony
Dear Curt:
When on October 6 I sent you my letter of resignation from APS , I of course expected the Empire to strike back in one way or another. It pleased me however, when I read your response, to find a very minimum of ad hominem attacks, confined mostly to apparently irresistible eruptions of “Lewis is a liar.” (“His statements are all false” is the equivalent.) So I thank you for that courtesy.
What took me by surprise was the pusillanimous, almost puerile, tone of the comment, which reads more like an ad for a used-car lot than as a declaration of a great scientific society. All our products have passed a complete inspection by our factory-trained mechanics. We’re making no money on this, take it and be thankful. Etc. Not a single major issue confronted in any substantive way. Yet everyone knows about the sloppy handling of the 2007 statement; everyone knows about the financial investments of many of the major players; there is plenty of dirt in the public domain, yet you continue to pretend it is all in a different universe.
Curt, you cannot have written such a shabby document.
Roger Cohen has written an incisive deconstruction of your response, and I can add little, so let me turn to the repair options. For the record, though my resignation from APS gives me no standing, my objective here is to help slow the APS rush toward the cliff. This is what I think must be done at the proximate meeting of the Council.
1.The 2007 statement should be simply withdrawn. No excuses, no caveats, no unnecessary embarrassment, no statement of principles, no references to future research, simply withdrawn. It was a mistake. This is the sine qua non for restoring the honor of APS.
2. The Council should promulgate a transparent confict-of-interest policy, comparable to those used by the government. Those offended by this might even serve under reasonable constraints. Others should not serve. Many know how to do this. It is insane to have people with millions of dollars at stake determining APS policy on such matters.
3.The APS management has become a conglomerate force in itself. This is largely through neglect, because the Council is drawn too specifically through its major fields, and in all too many cases the policies are drawn by very few members, often with an axe to grind. It is too easy to push them through the Council, the members of which are in the dark. There is a wise observation (not due to Archimedes) that if any organization is left alone, the lightweights will rise to the top.
Cheers,
Hal
Dear Curt:
When on October 6 I sent you my letter of resignation from APS , I of course expected the Empire to strike back in one way or another. It pleased me however, when I read your response, to find a very minimum of ad hominem attacks, confined mostly to apparently irresistible eruptions of “Lewis is a liar.” (“His statements are all false” is the equivalent.) So I thank you for that courtesy.
What took me by surprise was the pusillanimous, almost puerile, tone of the comment, which reads more like an ad for a used-car lot than as a declaration of a great scientific society. All our products have passed a complete inspection by our factory-trained mechanics. We’re making no money on this, take it and be thankful. Etc. Not a single major issue confronted in any substantive way. Yet everyone knows about the sloppy handling of the 2007 statement; everyone knows about the financial investments of many of the major players; there is plenty of dirt in the public domain, yet you continue to pretend it is all in a different universe.
Curt, you cannot have written such a shabby document.
Roger Cohen has written an incisive deconstruction of your response, and I can add little, so let me turn to the repair options. For the record, though my resignation from APS gives me no standing, my objective here is to help slow the APS rush toward the cliff. This is what I think must be done at the proximate meeting of the Council.
1.The 2007 statement should be simply redrawn. No excuses, no caveats, no unnecessary embarrassment, no statement of principles, no references to future research, simply withdrawn. It was a mistake. This is the sine qua non for restoring the honor of APS.
2. The Council should promulgate a transparent confict-of-interest policy, comparable to those used by the government. Those offended by this might even serve under reasonable constraints. Others should not serve. Many know how to do this. It is insane to have people with millions of dollars at stake determining APS policy on such matters.
3.The APS management has become a conglomerate force in itself. This is largely through neglect, because the Council is drawn too specifically though its major fields, and in all too many cases the policies are drawn by very few members, often with an axe to grind. It is too easy to push them through the Council, the members of which are in the dark. There is a wise observation (not due to Archimedes) that if any organization is left alone, the lightweights will rise to the top.
Cheers,
Hal
LazyTeenager [November 6, 2010 at 9:54 pm] says:
Your comment is as astute as your handle.
John Andrews
“As any competent scientist knows”. Who needs years of scientific training when a few seconds practical experience tells you all you need to know about pissing into the wind.
Actually the term “lightweights” isn’t used much in the UK. We prefer to use a more aptly descriptive, metaphorical waste product that floats…
Mike Haseler says:
November 7, 2010 at 1:45 am
It’s as if science has stood still for the last 30 years! At least at the fundamental conceptual areas taught to undergraduates.
Why?
*Because as I said the technological base needed for scientific progress has been undermined and left the UK and US where much of the “science” is being done?
*Because we’ve “discovered” virtually every important thing?
*Because science has become so inward looking and run by people whose only interest is in self-promotion, petty political pushing of ideas and “hiding the decline” in “science” generally?
*Because after the “big” discoveries of the early 2oth century, the effort has gone downstream to smaller but equally important practical applications which whilst important, don’t have the same effect on undergraduate physics.
I’d welcome anyone’s thoughts – but I still can’t get away from the hunch that climategate shows something very rotten at the heart of modern science which could be a fundamental block to innovation.
Mike, in addition to the points you raise above, there has been a noticable stagnation in the theoretical sciences due to institutional inertia and security of tenure, croneyism, the exclusion of competing ideas due to the need for a single narrative to cement science as the purveyor of ultimate truth in the public mind, and other sundry reasons.
It’s a ripe time for a scientific revolution.
Reading the comments from the establishment climate scientists on Judith Curry’s blog, their minds are so closed that a new climatology will have to be built without them. They are interested in preserving their own prestige and position more than they are interested in the progress of scientific understanding.
R John says:
November 6, 2010 at 7:23 pm
pu·sil·lan·i·mous
Definition of PUSILLANIMOUS
: lacking courage and resolution : marked by contemptible timidity
Nice word choice Hal! I will have to remember that one.
The noun equivalent (one who lacks courage and resolution : one marked by contemptible timidity) is pu.si
Doddgy Geezer quoted Dr. Lewis as saying, “There is a wise observation (not due to Archimedes) that if any organization is left alone, the lightweights will rise to the top…” Then wrote, “I am unaware of the source for this observation – could someone please enlighten me?”
I think Dr. Lewis was making a joking reference to Archimeds’ principle, which states “Any floating object displaces its own weight in fluid.”
The Lewis Principle (quoted above) is much superior to the Peter Principle because it suggest an easy solution to the posited problem … shake vigorously!
Furthermore, as everyone knows, in any organization sewage generally flows downhill. But it took a brilliant mind like Dr. Lewis to recognize the more important principle that, in the quite waters of academia, excrement soon floats to the top again.
dT
“For the record, though my resignation from APS gives me no standing,
Au contraire, mon ami. It would seem that absent your resignation you had little or no standing. Now perhaps you can make a difference. Kudos, Sir, after 67 years of working within the system, this was no small endeavour.
As Darrell C. Phillips quoted of Yoda, very aptly, “No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try.”
Peter Plail said on November 7, 2010 at 3:09 am:
Aim low with your legs and feet spread apart.
That’s the practical knowledge. The years of scientific training are needed to computer model it. If it’s for climate science purposes, using a fixed wind speed from an unchanging direction is acceptable and expected. ☺
We desperately need a Hal Lewis to come forward from the “Royal Society” in the UK.
They have reinterpreted their motto “Nullius in Verba” which originally meant, on the word of no one, to mean respect the facts.
That just says it all.
I have the feeling that we have not heard the last of (from) Hal Lewis. I sincerely hope not.
“pusillanimous” … shouldn’t that be “pussyllanimous”?
John Game says November 6, 2010 at 10:36 pm: “This comment illustrates what the warmist vocabulary is doing to our science… They themselves use the term “carbon” loosely as a substitute for carbon dioxide.”
The do this for propaganda reasons, and they have done so very effectively.
They want to associate their cause with the evil, dirty, and messy black soot of Dickensian London (“carbon”), and not with the innocuous gas that escapes when you open a bottle of root beer or Coke – carbon dioxide.
So there are very intentional (and not just sloppy) reasons for calling it “carbon” rather than “carbon dioxide.”
How ridiculous would the warmists sound if it was known around the world and to all peoples that the demon they fear (carbon dioxide) is in fact the gas used to make everyday beverages fizzy, a process which was invented in 1772 by the famous English chemist Joseph Priestley and described in his paper “Directions for Impregnating Water with Fixed Air in order to communicate to it the peculiar Spirit and Virtues of Pyrmont Water, And other Mineral Waters of a similar nature.”
Maybe the real culprit in anthropogenic global warming and “climate disruption” is the Coca Cola Company.
Not the eeevvill “fossil fuel” and “carbon” companies.
“the lightweights will rise to the top”
Isn’t this exactly what happened in climate science, weak scientists have risen to the top. Alarmist and catastrophist groupthink has brought the weak together.
One is reminded of the lines in the Star-Spangled Banner “the land of the brave and the home of the free”.
Had it been written by a climate scientist, the Star_Spangled Banner probably would have sang “the land of the weak and the home of the restrained?
Not the same ring to it.
“Lewis is a liar.” (“His statements are all false” is the equivalent.)
What an absurd thing for a supposed “scientist” to say. He clearly doesn’t understand the scientific process at all. He must have a ridiculously high opinion of himself if he thinks that the only possible way his statements could be false is if he actually consciously made them so.
It is said that that there are two kinds of people in a large organization: those who work toward the mission of the organization, and those who work for the organization. Lazy teen demonstrates (s)he hasn’t had the experience of actually committing to the mission of anything substantial.
Often, when the organization is firmly in the grip of the latter group, the only way to restore the mission to step outside, out of reach, and begin the process to turn the ship. You can’t do that when your integrity demands that you support the organization as well as the mission.
This is the conundrum of integrity. Those that would believe in the mission sincerely, would also be drawn to respect the organization itself. If the need is great, you sometimes have to sacrifice one to save the other. Hail and godspeed to Hal Lewis.
Hal Lewis,
Thank you for sharing this recent letter to the APS.
Do we know if the membership in the APS is falling? Any APS members here who can comment on this?
John
Robert Morris says:
November 6, 2010 at 10:07 pm
My guess is this may be the parting shot. He wrote his resignation letter making claims that the APS could not ignore. So the APS responded, and Lewis interpreted the reply and defended his claims which the APS attacked.
His three recommendations are a bit odd. He includes phrases like “restoring the honor of APS,” “it is insane,” and “lightweights will rise to the top.” While these are challenges to the leadership, I think they are harshest statements he can make that the APS will not respond to. The points he listed in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/16/hal-lewis-my-resignation-from-the-american-physical-society/ were directed at the APS community, these new points may be more for the membership to take up in future efforts to reform the leadership.
To continue the Star Wars analogy, just before Obi-Wan Kenobi “resigns” to Darth Vader, Kenobi warns “Strike me down, and I shall become more powerful than you could ever imagine…”.
Ross Brisbane says:
November 7, 2010 at 12:35 am
Tawanda W. Johnson
APS Press Secretary
202-662-8702
tjohnson@aps.org
In response to numerous accusations in the letter, APS issues the following statement:
“There is no truth to Dr. Lewis’ assertion that APS policy statements are driven by financial gain.”
Dr. Lewis did not say that statements are driven by financial gain; rather, he pointed to conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest should be eliminated without regard for actual financial gain.
Graham G at 1.23 am notes that 30 years ago ‘…the policy of having an official dissenter who would not be punished….’
In the Roman Church an official called the Devil’s Advocate is appointed to do just that in the case of a person being nominated for sainthood; his function is to ensure that both sides are properly examined and he is not subject to vilification if the opposing view is accepted. I can think of a number of people, familiar to visitors to this site, who would qualify for the title even if they might not see themselves in that light!
“The noun equivalent (one who lacks courage and resolution : one marked by contemptible timidity) is pu.si”
I think this must be the correct etymology. Very astute.
““There is no truth to Dr. Lewis’ assertion that APS policy statements are driven by financial gain.”
If you work for an institution for higher learning that gets climate related grants even outside of your immediate department, you stand to gain in the sense that a rising tide floats all boats.
Robert Morris suggests that “when you resign you resign.” To me, this betrays a tin ear, lacking in style. One of the best parts of any good journal is the letters to the editor, and especially the argumentative ones. I love the disagreements and the “cancel my subscription” blasts, setting out their reasons for consideration. Whether it is Wall Street Journal and Forbes, or whether it is Scientific American and society journals, this is where the pros and cons are disclosed. This is where clarifications are made. This is the live, beating heart of the publication.
Unless “the science is settled”, and there is nothing to discuss, nothing to clarify, and nothing to consider. Yeah, right.
pusillanimous: ORIGIN late Middle English : from ecclesiastical Latin pusillanimis (translating Greek olugopsukhos), from pusillus ‘very small’ + animus ‘mind,’ + -ous .
Which, is how that ilk float if left alone. The remainder of the cranium, not filled with a small mind, is … buoyant.
I am reminded of the early disputes of the Royal Society when it was founded. The dispute between Hooke and Huygens over watches and patents and Oldenburg’s involvement on Huygens side. It spilled over into dispute with Newton which Oldenburg stirred up.
Scientists and their desire for priority and fame and fortune have not changed much.
BTW
I am not saying Oldenburg did not do good work for the Royal Society.
Gentlemen
One can certainly say Dr. Lewis is not “one who lacks courage and resolution” or is “marked by contemptible timidity”. Bravo Dr. Lewis.
Kforestcat
Ross Brisbane says:
November 7, 2010 at 12:35 am
“Tawanda W. Johnson
APS Press Secretary
202-662-8702
tjohnson@aps.org
APS Comments on Harold Lewis’ Resignation of his Society Membership
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a recent letter to the American Physical Society (APS) President Curtis A. Callan, chair of the Princeton University Physics Department, Harold Lewis, emeritus physics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, announced that he was resigning his APS membership.
In response to numerous accusations in the letter, APS issues the following statement:
There is no truth to Dr. Lewis’ assertion that APS policy statements are driven by financial gain. To the contrary, as a membership organization of more than 48,000 physicists, APS adheres to rigorous ethical standards in developing its statements. The Society is open to review of its statements if members petition the APS Council – the Society’s democratically elected governing body – to do so.
Dr. Lewis’ specific charge that APS as an organization is benefitting financially from climate change funding is equally false. Neither the operating officers nor the elected leaders of the Society have a monetary stake in such funding. Moreover, relatively few APS members conduct climate change research, and therefore the vast majority of the Society’s members derive no personal benefit from such research support.
On the matter of global climate change, APS notes that virtually all reputable scientists agree with the following observations:
Carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere due to human activity;
Carbon dioxide is an excellent infrared absorber, and therefore, its increasing presence in the atmosphere contributes to global warming; and
The dwell time of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is hundreds of years.
On these matters, APS judges the science to be quite clear. However, APS continues to recognize that climate models are far from adequate, and the extent of global warming and climatic disruptions produced by sustained increases in atmospheric carbon loading remain uncertain. In light of the significant settled aspects of the science, APS totally rejects Dr. Lewis’ claim that global warming is a “scam” and a “pseudoscientific fraud.”
Additionally, APS notes that it has taken extraordinary steps to solicit opinions from its membership on climate change. After receiving significant commentary from APS members, the Society’s Panel on Public Affairs finalized an addendum to the APS climate change statement reaffirming the significance of the issue. The APS Council overwhelmingly endorsed the reaffirmation.
Lastly, in response to widespread interest expressed by its members, the APS is in the process of organizing a Topical Group to feature forefront research and to encourage exchange of information on the physics of climate.”
Ron,
Thanks for posting this. It shows how unfounded Lewis’s statements impugning the integrity of the officers and members of the APS.
Lewis seems the type of person who gets off on puffing up his own importance, and has apparently found a receptive and uncritical audience here.