Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Dear Googlefolk;
Recently, you have decided to take sides in a scientific debate. That in itself is very foolish. Why would Google want to take either side when there is a disagreement between scientists? I thought your motto was “Do No Evil.” For the 900-pound gorilla to take sides in any tempestuous politically charged scientific discussion is an extremely stupid thing to do, and in this case definitely verges on the E-word.
In fact, that’s why up until now I trusted Google, because I always felt that I was being given the unvarnished truth. I always felt that Google could be trusted, because you didn’t have a dog in the fight. I believed you weren’t trying to slant your results, that you were neutral, because you had nothing to prove.
So what did you guys do? You’re now providing money to 21 supporters of the CO2 hypothesis, funding them as “Google Fellows” to go and flog their scientific claims in the marketplace of ideas. Is this the new face of Google, advocating for a partisan idea?
You have chosen to fund policy people as Google Fellows. You have a specialist in “strategic communication in policymaking and public affairs” among them. You have a bunch of scientists whose careers depend on the validity of the CO2 hypothesis. And you are paying them all to push your ideas. In other words, Google has put into place a public relations campaign for the CO2 hypothesis … and people in your organization actually consider this a good idea?
I mean people other than Al Gore, who sits on your Board and who stands to make big money if the CO2 hypothesis can be sold to the public. It doesn’t matter if it’s true. If it can be sold to the public, Al makes big money, even if it’s later shown to be false. So sure, he’s in favor of your cockamamie scheme … but the rest of you guys have truly decided to hitch your wagon to Mr. Gore’s dying star? Really?
Man, Google doing PR work shilling for the CO2 hypothesis. I thought I’d never see the day.
It’s not even disguised as a scientific effort. It’s a sales job, a public relations push from start to finish, no substance, just improved communication. I’m surprised that you haven’t brought in one of the big advertising agencies. Those mad men sell cigarettes, surely they could advise you on how to sell an unpalatable product.
The problem is, now Google has a dog in the fight. You’ve clearly declared that you’re not waiting until the null climate hypothesis gets falsified. You’re not waiting for a climate anomaly to appear, something that’s unlike the historical climate. You have made up your mind and picked your side in the discussion. Here’s what that does. Next time I look up something that is climate science related, I will no longer trust that you are impartial. No way.
Let me make it very clear what I object to in this:
GOOGLE IS TAKING SIDES IN A MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR POLITICAL/SCIENTIFIC STRUGGLE
Don’t mistake this for a partisan entreaty. This is not because of the side you’ve chosen, despite the fact that I’m on the other side. I don’t care which side Google takes – it’s wrong and stupid for Google to be in any scientific fight at all, on either side. I’d be screaming just as loudly if you had picked scientists who were on my side of the debate. In fact, I’d scream even louder, because I don’t want Google Follows doing a big PR dog-and-pony-show for skeptical science. Unlike you, I think that’s bad tactics. Your presence, and the desperation that it reeks of, can only damage whichever side you support, so I’m glad it’s not my side.
But sides are not the point. Supporting either side in the debate involves Google in a high-stakes, multi-billion dollar, long-festering, dog-ugly political/scientific battle, with passions running high on both sides, accusations thrown, reputations attacked … and putting your head in this buzz-saw, jumping into this decades-old scientific Balkan war, this is a good idea for Google exactly how?
Truly, are you off your collective meds or something? You don’t want the good name of Google involved in this, there is no upside. All it is going to do is get your name abused in many quarters. I’ve read dozens of people already who said they were switching to Bing or Alta Vista. You’ve lost my trust, it’ll be trust but verify from here on out for me.
And all for what? Guys, you are so far out of touch with the issues that you appear to be truly convinced that it is a communications problem. So you’ve hired all these scientist/communicators to fix that problem. Let me put it in real simple terms.
People don’t believe AGW scientists because they have been lied to by some of the leading lights of the CO2 hypothesis. They’ve seen a number of the best, most noted AGW scientists cheat and game the system to advance their own views, and then lie and deny and destroy emails when the sunlight hit them.
That, dear friends, is not a failure to communicate. Your problem is not the lack of getting your message across. You’ve gotten it across, no problem. The message was obvious – many of the best AGW scientists are willing to lie, cheat, and steal to push their personal AGW agenda … the same agenda that your Google Fellows are now pushing. That was the message, and by gosh, we got it loud and clear.
The only cure for that kind of bad science is good science. It will not be cured by communication. We’ve already gotten the message that your side contains a number of crooks among its most admired and respected members. We’ve gotten the message that most of the decent climate scientists won’t protest against anything. They’ll stay quiet no matter what egregious excesses their leaders commit. They’ll pretend that everything is just fine. Indeed, a number of them even find excuses for the malfeasance of their leaders, that it’s just boys will be boys and the like. No recognition of the gravity of the actions, or how they have destroyed the public’s trust in climate scientists.
If you think the cure for that widespread scientific rot is a clearer explanation of how thunderstorms form or how the greenhouse effect works, I fear you are in for a rude shock. Communications will not fix it, no matter how smart your Google Fellows are … and they are wicked smart, I looked at the bios of every single one, very impressive, but that doesn’t matter. That’s not the issue.
The issue is that the side you’ve picked conned the public, and afterwards refused to admit it. Until they and climate science face up to that, your side will not be believed. There’s no reason to concern yourself with hiring scientists to analyze why your message isn’t getting across. It’s because people hate to be conned. They’d rather be wrong than be conned. And once you’ve conned them, and the Climategate emails show beyond question that your side conned the public, that’s it. After that, all the honeyed words and the communications specialists and the Google Fellows with expertise in “strategic communication in policymaking and public affairs” are useless. Clearer scientific explanations won’t cure broken trust.
And yes, perhaps I’m being paranoid about whether you will skew your search results against skeptics … but then I look at what happened in 2009/10 with “Climategate” as a search term, when for a couple weeks Google wouldn’t suggest it in the Auto Suggest feature. People claimed back then that it was deliberate, you did it on purpose, and I accused them of being paranoid, I didn’t believe it. Looks like instead of them being paranoid, I may have been being naïve.
Anyhow, you can be sure that I won’t defend you again.
So I entreat you and implore you, for your own sake and ours, stop taking sides in political/scientific debates. That is a guaranteed way to lose people’s trust. I’m using Bing for climate searches now, and I’m wondering just if and where you’ve got your thumb on the information scales.
Perhaps nowhere … but I’m a long-time Google user and Google advocate and Google defender. For me to be even wondering about that is an indication of just how badly you screwed up on this one.
Since you seem to have forgotten about your “Do No Evil” motto, I have a new one for you:
You are not wanted there. You are not needed there. You have no business there. Get out, and get out now, before the damage worsens.
Because the core issue is this – you can either be gatekeeper of the world’s knowledge, storing gigabytes of private information about me and my interests and likes and dislikes and my secret after-midnight searches for okapi porn and whale-squashing videos … or you can be a political/scientific advocate.
BUT YOU CAN’T BE BOTH.
You can’t both be in politics and be hiring scientific experts to push a trillion-dollar political/scientific agenda, and at the same time be the holder of everyone’s secret searches. That’s so creepy and underhanded and unfair and wrong in so many ways I can’t even start to list them. I can’t even think of a word strong enough to describe how far off the reservation you are except to say that it is truly Gore-worthy.
Your pimping for the CO2 hypothesis is unseemly and unpleasant. Your clumsy attempt to influence the politics of climate science, on the other hand, is very frightening and way out of line. You hold my secrets, and you held my trust. If you want it again, go back to your core business. Your actions in this matter are scary and reprehensible and truly bizarre. It’s as bizarre as if J. Edgar Hoover was hiring shills to flack for the Tea Party … you are the holder of the secrets. As such, you have absolutely no business involving yourself in anything partisan. It is a serious breach of our trust, and you knew it when you started Google. That’s why your motto is Do No Evil. Get back to that, because with this venture into advocacy you have seriously lost the plot.
My best to you all, and seriously, what you are doing is really scary, I implore and beg you to stop it. Your business is information and secrets, and ethically you can’t be anything else. You hold too much dangerous knowledge to be a player in any political/scientific dogfight, or any other fight. You not only need to be neutral. You need to seem to be neutral.
w.
Francisco says:
March 19, 2011 at 5:09 am
WUWT is a science blog – not exclusively a climate blog?
REPLY: read the masthead graphic – Anthony
I’m a bit shocked at how many people didn’t know Google had already hitched their wagon the CAGW. I still use it sometimes when I’m looking for something obscure, but Bing is my default. There are many others out there. Livemail replaces gmail. Bing maps works just fine. I MS is making strives toward the cloud productivity suite. But remember, MS too, is a politically charged company.
Let us take a lesson from this and promote the free market at every turn. We must have as much choice as possible. I just changed my home page to Bing.
I am surprised you did not mention Exxon, Shell and BP who fund global warming scientists.
By the way the Koch Bros. is not a search engine that claims its results are democratically driven.
Amen, Willis!
Google has a perfect right to fund an organization that is going to educate the public about the science of global warming.
Objecting to that, Anthony Watts proposed a boycott of Google as payback. He is hitting them in the pocketbook. I don’t see why Google shouldn’t be allowed to retaliate. Prior to yesterday’s WUWT post proposing a boycott of Google, WUWT appeared at or near the top of many of my searches on climate change topics.
sHx says:
“Carbon/Energy Tax is a purely political issue. Although I am a climate skeptic, I fully support carbon tax because it’ll help reduce the government deficit and fund social programs.”
But the vast increases in energy costs (and therefore the cost of pretty much everything) will disproportionally hit the poor. It won’t be Al Gore who dies from hypothermia and it won’t be Bill Gates who wonders if he can afford his next meal.
sHx says:
“The photo accompanying that piece showed money changing hands under the table, as though there is something secret, illegal or immoral about taxation.”
For me, there isn’t when, after given the honest facts, the majority of people agree that a tax is generally fair, generally beneficial and generally well used – there is ” something secret, illegal or immoral” when it is based on falsehoods and/or wasted on pointless, damaging and inefficient projects.
Me I throw me arm, I take em down.
To be quite honest, ISPs do churn. None own a search engine, me corn cob virgin, they sell travel. Media tryouts.
There briny works as it works that search stuff is old hat.
That tech can be start up any day. Me I can find a thing.
THey said it search engines would be market dominators but they are not. Gate keepers, they all say.
Yer give me a star a friendly smile and me and Lady Grey in her paddock, we all be safe a while.
They say gate keepers, we run it like neighborhoods.
We run it clean as we can. We seen ogres on bridges, we chuck em off the bridges and we don’t ask questions.
Been doing it 11 years I know of. No gate keepers we heard of. Hit and kill reported, beagle brothers don’t kill us. We keep the gates clear fer safe travel pretty much.
We use clean flags.
Just searched “hide the decline” on Google and it come up with the youtube videos and lots of science blogs such CA, Steve Goddards,etc strangely WUWT is on the second page!? so at the moment they are still doing what there supposed to do.
Lets see what happens over the coming months with regard to climate sceptic sites when being searched for.If it changes i for one will not use Google or you tube again.
stupidboy says: March 19, 2011 at 4:24 am
“The mighty are often humbled. Marconi went from … It could happen to Google. Hungry competitors will seize the opportunity.”
The one thing that history teaches us is that it happens to everyone! From the Romans to the West India company they all fall eventually. What however is not beyond their control is how quickly they fall.
And unlike big companies in the past which secured vast manufacturing plants which were so costly that few competitors could afford to take them on, these days in the virtual world the cost of competition is dirt cheap … and all that keeps them ahead of their competitions is their reputation. A reputation they don’t seem to value at all.
Which really doesn’t bode well if you are an investor in google climate scares inc.
We kill we call. Always mark the patch.
Well put Willis. I gave up on Google with their finagling of the climategate search results. But truly, have we not been hearing for a couple of years that it is the ‘message’ that just needs adjusting, that we mentally-impoverished-masses might be enlightened, on health care, climate, et al, ad nauseum? Seems like the new framing for interfacing with the proles.
fredb says:
March 19, 2011 at 3:57 am
You can speak for yourself, fredb.
However, despite your claim to be their spokesmodel, you are not entitled, authorized, or smart enough to speak “on behalf of everyone else”.
w.
Google is just another mainstream media propaganda machine. It’s the internet version of the Soviet Union’s mouthpiece Pravda. Google doesn’t care for truth, fairness or honesty; they believe in brainwashing, misinformation, lying and distortion. They want to stifle any group of people that doesn’t conform to their agenda. Big brother is Google.
I mourn for democracy, freedom of speech and unbiased science. They’re all dead. We’re reverting back to the dark ages.
Google has me trapped. Time to disentangle. Canceling AdWords account. Never click a google banner ad. Cancel Gmail account. Move away from blogspot account. Need to find an alternative to Google Earth…………….
Local news gets the local news.
Ads in yer letterbox, we are not postie police. Sheila offered a penile implant we dont care
sHx says:
March 19, 2011 at 5:03 am
Nope. I’m going to respond that if you believe that, you have your head up your fundamental orifice so far that if you pull it out quickly you’ll go snowblind.
Plus, Google’s spending millions on their vision of “ideological advocacy”, where I spend … well, nothing. So we can’t be guilty of the same thoughtcrime, I’m too poor to commit theirs.
w.
I’m really pissed at Google. A search engine should provide BOTH sides of any issue without the political filtering. IF that’s what Google wants to do, then I don’t have to use them.
I encourage others to switch search engines. BLEEEEP Google!!!!
R. Gates says:
March 19, 2011 at 5:17 am
You miss the point. If the Koch Bros knew about my midnight secret searches for okapi porn and whale squash videos, I wouldn’t want them in the public arena either.
But then, they’re not claiming to be neutral purveyors of information like Google is.
w.
What about Google’s potential conflict of interest with their investment into the East Coast offshore wind farm energy initiative?
What if King George III had Google?
As Lincoln observed; “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character give him power.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/03/what_if_king_george_iii_had_ha.html
to Willis; note, Google is a creation of and wholly owned subsidiary of the US National Security establishment. Same as Micro Soft Corp. That is all.
Just waiting for Google to now support ‘the one true God’.
Google propaganda machinery at odds with mother nature.
Interesting SST forecasts with summer implications… and beyond
http://www.weatherbell.com/jb/?category_name=blog_home_page