Gavin must be having a bad hair day, because this headline is most certainly over the top:
Now compare the headline to the letter that was sent, bold emphasis mine:
From: Bill Hughes
Cc: Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen
Subject:: E&E libel
Date: 02/18/11 10:48:01
Gavin, your comment about Energy & Environment which you made on RealClimate has been brought to my attention:
“The evidence for this is in precisely what happens in venues like E&E that have effectively dispensed with substantive peer review for any papers that follow the editor’s political line. ”
To assert, without knowing, as you cannot possibly know, not being connected with the journal yourself, that an academic journal does not bother with peer review, is a terribly damaging charge, and one I’m really quite surprised that you’re prepared to make. And to further assert that peer review is abandoned precisely in order to let the editor publish papers which support her political position, is even more damaging, not to mention being completely ridiculous.
At the moment, I’m prepared to settle merely for a retraction posted on RealClimate. I’m quite happy to work with you to find a mutually satisfactory form of words: I appreciate you might find it difficult.
I look forward to hearing from you.
With best wishes
Bill Hughes
Director
Multi-Science Publsihing [sic] Co Ltd
Notice the missing key word “lawsuit”. It does not appear in that letter anywhere.
Note the tone of the last paragraph. In essence it says: “hey, I’m upset, but happy to work it out with you”. No mention of legal threats whatsoever.
What follows the letter on RealClimate’s post is a whole bunch of bluster and posturing about how E&E conducts its reviews. I wonder though, did Gavin even bother to ask how they conduct their affairs of review, or did he simply (as Joe Romm loves to say) “make stuff up”?
And then there’s this paragraph:
As a final note, if you think that threatening unjustifiable UK libel suits against valid criticism is an appalling abuse, feel free to let Bill Hughes know (but please be polite), and add your support to the Campaign for libel reform in the UK which looks to be making great headway. In the comments, feel free to list your examples of the worst papers ever published in E&E.
Appalling abuse? Again, there was no legal threat. Using the word “libel” in the subject line states an issue of concern, and doesn’t automatically assume that lawsuits are attached, especially when the sender says: I’m prepared to settle merely for a retraction posted on RealClimate. I’m quite happy to work with you to find a mutually satisfactory form of words.
When that word libel is used in conjunction with the word lawsuit, then by all means, assume that to be a threat. When the word libel is used to point out an issue, absent the word ‘lawsuit” or phrase “legal action” or “our attorney will be contacting you”, it doesn’t automatically follow then that “…threatening unjustifiable UK libel suits against valid criticism is an appalling abuse” is a valid description of what was communicated in the letter. That’s an important distinction, don’t you think?
Here’s a few thoughts.
What is disappointing about all that is that Dr. Gavin Schmidt could just as easily have said all that posturing bluster in a private email to Bill Hughes. Given what RC did with a request for a change in wording, it really underscores the deliberate defiant chutzpah that The Team is famous for, which really offends taxpayers like myself that fund this NASA GISS Team.
Gavin, remember, thou art mortal (and a public servant).
And of course this post today is all a front: in reality they could not give a rodent’s posterior about anyone’s peer review standards.
Look at their own problems with “pal review”, look at the famous ‘lets re-define what the literature is’ from Climategate emails. The reason E&E has been, and is being attacked, is that its very existence contradicts the slogans like ‘all peer reviewed science agrees’, so it has to be derided at every opportunity.
And if some papers out of the couple of thousand or so it has published over 20+ years are poor quality, then they’re wheeled out again and again as being typical of the journal, which is not the case and plenty of journals publish papers that have all sorts of problems.
Peer review isn’t perfect no matter who’s doing it. One has to wonder if the Steig et al Antarctica paper might have gotten a more thorough review in E&E than it did in Nature, because the likelihood of such a paper being reviewed by someone who might question The Team PCA style math.
So I’d suggest that
1) Gavin, when somebody actually threatens you with a lawsuit, you’ll most certainly be able to know it by the inclusion of the key word “lawsuit” and
2) I think you owe Multi-Science an apology
For those that would like to judge for themselves, you can view issues of E&E here.
http://www.multi-science.co.uk/ee.htm
Consider supporting the journal by purchasing a subscription.
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“REPLY: If there was no offer of working out new wording together and no offer to simply ask for a retraction, you might have a point – Anthony”
That was just pro-forma. If you want to increase your chances of winning a libel suit it looks good to a judge or jury if the aggrieved party first politely informs the offending party that they wrote something untrue, state how the writing is damaging, and request a formal retraction/apology to reduce or eliminate the damage. Bluntly stating they would settle for a retraction looks really good.
This is generally true in most tort cases – you greatly increase your chance of winning in court if you first make a reasonable attempt to limit your damages. Otherwise it looks like gold digging.
Are RealClimate hypocrites about libel suits?
“In particular, you should mention that the publisher of a libel is also liable for damages – that might make Sonja B-C be a little wary. Of course, if it does get published, maybe the resulting settlement would shut down E&E and Benny and Sonja all together! We can only hope, anyway. So maybe in an odd way its actually
win-win for us, not them. Lets see how this plays out…
RealClimate is of course always available to you as an outlet, ” – Michael E. Mann
REPLY: Thanks, good catch – Anthony
Anthony,
re: ‘Consider supporting the journal by purchasing a subscription.’
With the yearly subscription going for 416 British Pounds (or US $ 617.50) for the ‘on-line only’ version, it’s a bit steep for me — given I can’t even leave them laying around on the coffee table to make myself look educated and well-read.
I’ll have to stick with the abstracts and the coverage on WUWT.
Kip
Anthony “REPLY [to JD]: I think it’s a matter of professional background. As an attorney, you see the word libel and automatically connect it to lawsuits.”
You make a number of good points based on your experience. However, a big part of the issue is whether Gavin has reasonable fears of being sued based on the letter. I think he does. In particular, the reference to “settle” indicates to me that a lawsuit is being threatened. Personally, if I was advising Gavin in my legal turf, I would suggest that going public might be a valid way to gain the initiative. Lots of times public information is more effective than legal responses. I would also add that Gavin’s experience with retractions as a scientist might be different than your experience as a broadcaster.
JD
JD
REPLY: All good points, see the comment upstream from Poptech on the Climategate emails. I don’t think Gavin and the team have any fear at all, which is essence, the whole problem – Anthony
The note sent is a non-threatening threat. It’s perfect bluster, really well done.
I was just discussing the libel protection in the US with a law student. It gives one the option, if one is sued by a foreign entity, to basically retry the case under U.S. federal statutes. It’s a great advance, in my opinion, for American justice. Obviously, if you defame a business by claiming that it is incompetent or delivers a shoddy product, American law will find you liable as well.
However, Gavin’s statement was qualified as “substantive” peer review. That makes it a matter of opinion as to what is substantive. So, he is protected in the U.S. because he is expressing an opinion but probably not in the U.K. Also “effectively” is another way of saying ‘not actually’. The problem I see is that Gavin implies unfairness by the journal, a thing that is damaging to its core business. If you print that a journal is giving a free pass to people that have an ‘in’ with the editor, people may not want to publish there. So, for that, I think Gavin might be in trouble.
Poptech says:
February 22, 2011 at 5:42 pm
None of my comments went through on RealClimate, ……….
========================================================
Now that’s a real shocker. BTW, good work Pop!!!
The worst of rc is that they are untouchable. One cannot post there and expect it will be accepted.
Judith Curry has this up at her website, and Gavin took the bait. Her readers responded well.
Steve says:
February 22, 2011 at 6:59 pm
“With weasel words like “effectively” and “substantive”, Gavin’s got all kinds of room to prove that his meaning of what he said is correct.”
Ah, that was the phrase I was looking for – “weasel words”. I agree. I don’t think E&E really has a case either and if I were Gavin I’d have told them the same thing – go pound sand. Of course if I were Gavin I’d have also realized I was projecting and not accused someone else of effectively abandoning substantive peer review when I’d working towards subverting the peer review process myself. I loathe the hypocrite.
yawn … more interesting doing research on the activities of Maurice Strong … double yawn.
Need more ‘space climate’ and interesting controversies like alternative gravity theories and maybe we haven’t found dark matter because it doesn’t exist. You know where there is REAL Science on both sides of a question. Climate science is going to be dull, dull, dull until this Solar Grand Minimum beats them into the dirt for a few years. In the mean time the warmist assertions are even losing their laughable quotient.
Wow, between this post and Judith Curry’s repudiation of Gavin’s interpretation of ‘hide the decline’ over on Climate Etc. (http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/22/hiding-the-decline/), I’m wishing I had fewer crowns – the popcorn just keeps getting stuck between my teeth. Still, time to pop some more!
All very interesting but what particular paper(s) brought this on? From the fact that no one has commented on this suggests I should know (M and M? O’Donell?)
Readers of WUWT may wish to have a look at Dr Curry’s blog:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/22/hiding-the-decline/
Pope Gavin has been forced from the castle of RC to attend the court of Judith “the heretic” Luther. We are seeing history in the making.
Just on the first reading I think there was a veiled threat of a lawsuit.
The reference to damaging charges. The call for a retraction.
For more fun and games with Gavin, see my latest post at Climate Etc “Hiding the Decline” http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/22/hiding-the-decline/
just read it. holy cow! I mean…really… holy cow!
“Gavin, remember, thou art mortal (and a public servant).”
In the UK, Australia and New Zealand, these people are called civil servants. I met two of these “civil servants” once in New Zealand. One said to me, while discussing aspects of the sale of public, taxpayer funded assets, to private companies, in a sort of derogatory tone, and then chuckling a little afterwards said…
“Anyway. I don’t have to be civil nor do I have to serve anyone.”
I believe Gavin may share the same attitude (Taxpayer funded).
It’s really simple folks. Gavin and the TEAM have never forgiven E&E for publishing McIntyre and McKitrick’s devastating deconstruction of the hokey schtick.
It was the only respected climate related journal that the TEAM did not either directly or indirectly control. They have tried very hard to destroy E&E for the last 6 or so years and have lead a fairly effective boycott that was succeeding until climatgate broke.
I would like very much to see RC and TEAM sued for libel by E&E. With the climategate emails referring specifically to E&E or to its editor (Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen) as evidence of past bad behavior, E&E’s lawyers would have difficulty establishing a solid record of past bad actions to support their new claims.
From Dr. Curry’s article:
I would think it would seem quite obvious what the difference is. The IPCC report was to be what amounts to an executive summary for decision makers around the world. That is, the people with their hands on the public purse. Any uncertainty in the IPCC report might be reflected in uncertainty on the part of policy makers to allocate funds or assign priorities to “climate” related expenditures. It would seem that the purpose of this report was to create a sense of urgency of required action and certainty that it was actually happening. Any mud in the water might put hundreds of billions of dollars at risk, from their perspective.
They knew full well that the policy makers would not dig through the literature. They would rely on the IPCC to do that for them and would have assumed that is what happened and that they (the policy makers) were getting the correct picture from the IPCC report. I think the authors of that report realized this. It wasn’t designed to mislead scientists, it was designed to mislead politicians.
Brian Rookard says:
“Just on the first reading I think there was a veiled threat of a lawsuit.”
Actually, it simply gave the Schmidthead the option to back off a little from his unsupported statement. So the ball is now back in Gavin’s court.
Hughes is being reasonable, no?
Theo… you completely missed my point.
A good guess: Hughes contacted a lawyer before sending his letter.
A curiosity: isn’t Gavin a UK citizen?
Mark
Peter says:
February 22, 2011 at 4:45 pm, “Another thing: I think you are confusing “defiant chutzpah” with what most people would call “cajones”.”
“COjones” is what people oughtta call ’em.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cojones
¿Entiende usted?
All my comments at RealClimate go into the spam filter or never show up, so I will have to respond to them here,
Clippo (UK) says: 22 Feb 2011 at 2:42 PM, “Back on E & E topic, I’m surprised the well-known blogger Poptech, hasn’t popped up to defend E & E – a good proportion of his ? 750 ? scientific papers debunking AGW are listed there and he has argued E & E’s case, (usuccessfully), all over the blogosphere.”
I showed up almost immediately (only 10 comments were there) but all of my comments have been censored.
The list is 850 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming (AGW) Alarm not “750” and Energy & Environment only represent 14% of the list. There are over 700 papers from 236 other journals on the list.
The only way you could consider that I have argued their case unsuccessfully is if you are willing reject the truth.
Pete Dunkelberg says: 22 Feb 2011 at 4:33 PM, “Greenfyre is amusing on E&E’s publishing methods: 450 more lies from the climate change Deniers and Poptart’s 450 climate change Denier lies. By the way Poptech popped up at Skeptical Science recently and his list of 450 peer reviewed deiner papers has almost doubled to 850 in just two years. The rest of us must be missing a lot of great papers!”
Too bad Greenfyre did not get anything right,
Rebuttal to “450 more lies from the climate change Deniers”
Rebuttal to “Poptart’s 450 climate change Denier lies”
It is correct that I recently showed up at Skeptical Science but it was to utterly embarrass them,
Google Scholar Illiteracy at Skeptical Science
And the list did not almost double in 2 years but rather a little over 1 year.
Hank Roberts says: 22 Feb 2011 at 6:53 PM, “Poptart has been toasted: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/…”
I didn’t get toasted, Lambert banned me when I started embarrassing his followers.
I have to agree that the letter is a demand for a retraction. If he doesn’t get the retraction, he seems prepared to file suit – but the threat is not explicit.
I think the demand for a retraction, even if an explicit threat of a lawsuit was present, is reasonable. The claim E&E does not practice peer review is demonstrably false and made seemingly without any regard to the facts. While I am not attorney and live in the US, the letter by Hughes is far less demanding than it could have been. Gavin and the PR folks at RealClimate should issue the retraction and call it a day.
Well, if it was just pro-forma then it wasn’t a threat.
Maybe Bill Hughes should have been a bit more conciliatory, something like:
“Look Gavin, you know as well as I do that E&E is barely proofread, let alone peer reviewed, but please, can you keep it to yourself?”
I appreciate your input JD, but it seems obvious that you’ve never litigated a libel case.
Gavin sets an objective standard for what he considered “substantive” peer review in the quoted sentence. His standard for “substantive” is the peer review given to papers that don’t follow the editor’s political line.
I suppose, Gavin could try claiming that, in his opinion, papers that do follow the editor’s political line should receive higher scrutiny than papers that don’t follow the editor’s political line, but any judge in this country would simply chuckle as he denied Gavin’s motion to dismiss. Therefore, the burden of proof would shift to Gavin to demonstrate that E&E’s peer review process is less substantive for papers that fit the editor’s political line.