Pigs have been flying at AGU, apparently. All hope is lost for this organization. Get out while you can.
Grab an air sickness bag, then see this press release:
AGU Board adds new members with expertise in science policy and communication
AGU Release No. 10–39
15 November 2010
For Immediate Release
WASHINGTON—The American Geophysical Union’s board of directors has approved two new members who will bring expertise in science policy and communication: policy advisor Floyd DesChamps and author Chris Mooney. Their selection reflects AGU’s commitment to applying the results of scientific research to challenges faced by the global community, many of which are based in the geosciences.
Floyd DesChamps served as senior advisor on climate change to the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee from 1997 to 2009, and was a co-author of the landmark climate bill, the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act (also called the McCain-Lieberman Climate Change Bill). He is currently a senior vice-president for the Alliance to Save Energy, where he develops the Alliance’s policy initiatives.
DesChamps has degrees in mechanical engineering and engineering management, and previously worked for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Chris Mooney is a journalist and author of Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future (co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum) and “Do Scientists Understand the Public?” a report of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He co-writes a blog with Kirshenbaum called “The Intersection” at Discover magazine which covers science’s interactions with politics and other realms.
Mooney was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2009-2010 and a Templeton-Cambridge Fellow in Science and Religion in 2010.
AGU bylaws authorize appointment of up to two members of the Board in addition to those elected by the membership. President Michael J. McPhaden exercised that option in bringing DesChamps and Mooney to the Board for approval.
“Floyd and Chris will provide expert advice on how to effectively communicate the importance and relevance of Earth and space science to the public and policy makers,” said McPhaden. “We’re really excited about their involvement and what it means for new opportunities to advance AGU’s outreach efforts.”
AGU is a not-for-profit, professional, scientific organization with more than 58,000 members in over 135 countries. The organization advances the Earth and space sciences through its scholarly publications, conferences, and outreach programs. AGU is accessible on the Web.
===============================================================
Ok well here’s a few tidbits. Mr. Mooney is neither a scientist nor engineer, but an English major. He’s also just a kid who doesn’t seem to fit in well with this photo line up. In fact, they had to decolorize this photo to make it fit in even slightly.
He’s also an angry activist kid, with a mouthpiece, several actually.
Roger Pielke Jr. says this:
Last week my friend and colleague Dan Sarewitz tossed some red meat out on the table in the form of an essay in Slate on the apparent paucity of Republicans among the US scientific establishment. Sarewitz suggests that it is in the interests f the scientific community both to understand this situation and to seek greater diversity in its ranks, explaining that “the issue here is legitimacy, not literacy.”
Sarewitz’s essay has been followed by predictable responses (1,243 of them at Slate alone). Writing at MIT’s science journalism tracker Paul Raeburn offers this suggestively sinister critique:
And what is Sarewitz’s political affiliation, I wonder?
Since everyone else knows the answer to this, you’d think a journalist might have ways of figuring it out. Similarly sophomoric, Chris Mooney, in his characteristic us vs. them fashion, asks if Sarewitz will be joining the forces of evil:
Would Sarewitz himself like to become a Republican?
…
AGU recently appointed Chris Mooney to its Board. I am sure that Chris is a fine fellow, but appointing an English major who has written divisively about the “Republican War on Science” to help AGU oversee “science communication” is more than a little ironic, and unlikely to attract many Republican scientists to the institution, perhaps even having the opposite effect.
Yah, ya think?
This comment over on Phil Plait’s blog pretty well sums it up
semi Says:
Phil,
There is the Ophelia Benson case:
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2009/waist-deep-in-the-moral-slime/
The lockdown and moderation of comments on Mooney’s blog (which had the effect of preventing comments critical of Mooney’s handling of the “Tom Johnson” affair from being posted.)
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/07/08/housecleaning-note/
The sordid “Tom Johnson” affair in which Mooney ran with a sock puppet’s post as evidence for discrimination and general nastiness of scientists toward the religious (all fabricated) Mooney claimed he had “checked” the source out and was legitimate :
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/tom_johnson_fini.php
(You can wade through the comments if you want evidence of post moderation)
My feelings about Mooney is that based on the evidence I have seen, the negatives outweigh the positives in the “helping science” category. I have no ill-feelings about Mooney personally, and he might be a great guy. But as far as supporting science? Not so much. Ditto with the journalistic ethics.
Here’s the AGU fall meeting, maybe some people that run the outfit will come to their senses there. One can hope. I stopped getting Discover Magazine also as it has gone the way of NatGeo and SciAm. There’s just nothing in these magazines anymore that seems to be free of science politicization.
In fact, my family doesn’t get any magazines anymore, the recycling issue becomes much simpler when you have less glossy waste.
Gotta love AGU’s commitment to warmist science though, they have a rooftop weather station:
Only one problem:
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Wow, so if AGU now make any type of obnoxious non-geophysical-scientist leap frog ahead of actual scientists directly to the honorably end station of a real scientist’s career, [/snip], but then there hope for me yet.
But then again who are surprised when bylaws are seen as mere guidelines.
[Lets keep the language on the clean side. Thanks… bl57~mod]
But why quit and leave ?
Isn’t there a general meeting coming up ? (Dec 13-17)
Might it not have been more productive to -challenge- these people there to identify their motives and policy, and if -that- fails, take action as drastic as leaving ?
It may just be my European sensibilities, but in my very humble (and quite certainly, probably irrelevant) opinion, quitting is giving “those people” the very public stage they want, without any form of opposition or counter argument.
If it were me, I’d go there, and start asking questions. And get the answers on record. And if I still don’t like the way things are turning out, THEN I might be persuaded to leave my membership at the door.
I have come to understand, over the years, that education in much of the Western world was first infiltrated then taken over by a form of Socialism; in the interests of the mad notions of ‘fairness’ kids in Primary or Grade schools had any form of sporting competition removed from their school lives, then academic competition was removed on the silly rationale that ‘competition is so damaging’. The way was then clear for the considerable lowering of the standards attributed to the notion of a ‘passing mark’, to the point where kids now learn very little that is not politically correct in schools as any content classified as ‘hard’ is ‘unfair’ for the less able. Along with such political correctness goes the notion that ‘speaking correctly’ is outdated. The old rules for grammar have not been eroded so much as thrown away, to the point where contentless ‘communication’ becomes the common language and aspirations for truth and enlightenment are diminished to the point of being barely discernable.
Not long before I retired from teaching in high schools, I was told by a young teacher that most of the content in my teaching repetoire was ‘too hard’ for my students to attempt. I told the young lady that constantly presenting kids with unchallenging material was pointless – if they could easily do everything set out for them without having to learn new content or skills, the point of them being in education was utterly lost. Sadly, she had no idea of the notion that excellence was something one had to strive for.
To see this trend toward political correctness infiltrate bodies originally set up to advance the professional standing of graduates in a particular discipline is way beyond sad.
Gareth Phillips said on December 14, 2010 at 12:54 am
It’s a good thing we understand the importance of keeping clear blue water between Science and politics and don’t show any political bias on this site!
The science has been politicised, a la Lysenko. This politicisation can be traced back to the Bruntland Report in 1987 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brundtland_Commission and other locations.
This report came at a time when the left was in disarray and looking for purpose. This was when they discovered enviromentalism as the cause celebre, as an excuse for state control of the populace.
Do they have a public Annual General Meeting or similar? If so, it would be well worth while for members to go along and ask some polite, but very persistent, questions. Make sure the media are alerted. Record it anyway.
Yes they do, it’s part of the left’s long march through the institutions. They are achieving their aim of ‘post-normal science’ where concensus, i.e. marxism, replaces truth. The entire basis of science, verifiability, falsifiability, freedom of thesis is thus scrapped and we enter a new dark age of politically correct obscurantism.
hunter says:
December 13, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Mooney is getting a good gig and I hope he enjoys it while it lasts.
The AGW is in effect putting lipstick on a pig and I think will find out what it is like to try and housebreak the same.
Do all ‘professional organizations’ end being highjacked by leftist activisits?
According to some folks the science was settled , now the scientists are getting settled as well . Is there one american burocratic scientific institution without obama -nominees in the board ? What does Obama demand in return for their appointments ?
At least this gentleman has been honest about what he expected from scientist , to obey and nothing more .
Did the gentleman in question take a creative writing course? This phenomena is well understood north of your border. For example take the director of CAPE – Canadian Assoc. of Physicians for the Environment…
http://www.themarknews.com/authors/117-gideon-forman
Mr. Forman holds a Master’s degree in philosophy from McGill University. He interned at The Nation – America’s oldest weekly journal – and studied creative writing at the Banff Centre for the Arts. From 1997-2004, he was Vice President of Strategic Communications Inc., a firm that provides political consulting and fundraising advice to the non-profit sector. In 1999, Strategic Communications was named to The Profit 100 as one of Canada’s fastest growing firms.
The Banff Centre is an excellent institution btw…
He is routinely referred to as doctor when he publishes articles in newspapers and a retraction or correction is never ran. When I read his articles — most aimed at proving the writings of the good Dr. McKitrick — I try to remind myself that he is indeed simply indulging in what appears to be his favorite activity — creative writing…
You can google some of the writings of Gideon Foreman in the Toronto Star. They are creative indeed. Then compare them to studies by Dr. McKitrick on health, coal power stations and air pollution. Perhaps the AGU is simply taking a lesson from its northern brethren in all things environmental.
The AGU wanted to hire someone with “expertise in science policy and communication.” The press release describes Mooney as a “journalist and author” who “co-writes a blog… which covers science’s interactions with politics.”
I don’t know the first thing about Mooney or his work, but it sounds like his qualifications exactly match the job description. To get so upset that he “is neither a scientist nor engineer, but an English major” seems to miss the point entirely.
(Also: “just a kid”? Did he trample your lawn?)
There are plenty of scientists that are Republicans, but they aren’t hanging around the faculty club, they are running businesses, working in private labs, developing drugs and technologies that will move humanity forward. The liberal scientists tend to be drawn to pedagogy (aka demagogy) and tenure and 8 month work schedules.
Go figure.
Just out of curiosity, I looked for more info on the “rooftop weather station” you ridiculed. According to pages at MADIS and ARL, UrbaNet was created for “forecasting the dispersion of hazardous materials in urban areas” “within the complex topology of the urban environment.”
Doesn’t sound like a “weather station” to me, and I could find no mention about UrbaNet on the NWS section of NOAA. Any evidence that data from this station is being used incorrectly?
Two pieces of wit – ‘the darkest hour is just before dawn’ and ‘ revolutions don’t start at the top’. The agu today is not the AGU of tomorrow; long live the revolution! (Watch the bottom rungs of the ladder;-)
John O’Sullivan first law states that any institution that is not explicitly conservative will become liberal over time. This happens also with professional societies. They are headquartered in Washington and by mingling or trying to mingle with the insider elite, they get co-opted. Pretty soon the society gets mission creep and starts to do other things beside represent the interests of its members and the scientific field.
Rudy Baum, editor of the house magazine of my own American Chemical Society (and, like Mooney, another scientific Remora with no real qualifications) wrote an editorial last year claiming that AGW was beyond scientific doubt. Unfortunately, he discovered very quickly many of the scientists reading his piece disagreed.
I myself have refused to renew my membership in ACS; I’m sick of this sort of thing.
Oh, by the way, I think the comments about Chris’s race are irrelevant and will hurt your point. Chris is a political partisan with no scientific background. Enough said.
I assume Mr. Mooney was appointed to tha AGU Board because Bill McKibben was not available.
You evidently completely missed the point that this position was a member of the board of ddirectors of a scientific organiation. If your logic were to be used, every position on the board of directors is more properly filled by a receptionist, caterer, political copywriter, janitor, and similar job descriptions, while geophysicists would lack the qualifications necessary to serve on the board of directors of their own organization. Perhaps you failed to notice that a geophysical scientist can serve on the board of directors with similar additional skills and/or hire staff to supplement with such skills. Perhaps you feel political copywriters and political lobbyists are insufficiently compensated for their labor and scientists must share the wealth.
@ur momisugly Jeroen B
You would not be given the opportunity to ask questions. And, if you started asking them anyway, you would be shown the door, if not jailed.
Since the science is “settled”, why is NOAA, NASA, AGU, etc., getting ANY borrowed Chinese money that we taxpayers are on the hook for?
I just asked this question of my newly-elected congress-lady, Mrs. Roby. Hopefully, she’ll have a good answer for me.
She wasn’t the tea party candidate (AL is too dependent on pork to have elected a tea partier); but, she does say all the right things. If she puts Hansen in the unemployment line, I’ll overlook her lack of tea party credentials come 2012.
[Lets keep the language on the clean side. Thanks… bl57~mod]
You’re welcome. However I do not fathom to understand why, essentially, an exclamation point, that refers to no one, would be considered bad language when the use hippies as a derogatory term of reference is not.
But like I said you’re welcome.
Speaking of rooftop sites, back in 1962 when I got started in Meteorology as an observer USAF, our glass-walled tower was built atop a hangar at the edge of the tarmac, the control tower being in the middle of the field between runways.
All the instruments and sensors were on the roof about 30 feet off the ground,
We did have a ceilometer mounted on the ground but we used the “beer bottle” for measuring the angles of incidence from roof level.
By the time I left, all was automated and the observer only had to read dials.
D. Patterson says: (December 14, 2010 at 11:40 am)
I did miss that point, and it’s a very good one. I misread that he was hired by the board of directors. Thanks.
“You evidently completely missed the point that this position was a member of the board of directors of a scientific organization”
I was at the members meeting last Sunday. I don’t think they want to be a scientific organization any more.
-Joe
But the 58,000 members of AGU, or the 19,000 at San Francisco this week, are not in revolt. They’re not stupid, they’re not being propaganda-ized or bribed or fooled. They’re doing what scientists do which is collecting and analyzing and thinking and talking about a huge range of data from their studies of Earth and space. Many, many of their datasets have some bearing on modern global change, which the scientists see (in their colleagues’ data if not in their own) more clearly than anyone. That is why the AGU membership, like that of most science organizations, views anthropogenic change as a major challenge of our time.
The Climate of Science is a lot like Global Climate, it goes up and down, runs hot and cold, and the pressure can be high or low. It’s productivity also varies on a rather periodic basis over long timeframes. The density of Bozos, NitWits, Idiots, and SnakeOilers, varies as well and seems to have a connection to the economic health, moral fiber, and drive of respective civilizations (and/or Superpowers). Today, Climate of Science is cooling, and interestingly enough so is the Global Climate. Think there’s a connection? Must be!