Lindzen-Choi ‘Special Treatment’: Is Peer Review Biased Against Nonalarmist Climate Science?
by Chip Knappenberger
[Editor’s note: The following material was supplied to us by Dr. Richard Lindzen as an example of how research that counters climate-change alarm receives special treatment in the scientific publication process as compared with results that reinforce the consensus view. In this case, Lindzen’s submission to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences was subjected to unusual procedures and eventually rejected (in a rare move), only to be accepted for publication in the Asian Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences.
I, too, have firsthand knowledge about receiving special treatment. Ross McKitrick has documented similar experiences, as have John Christy and David Douglass and Roy Spencer, and I am sure others. The unfortunate side-effect of this differential treatment is that a self-generating consensus slows the forward progress of scientific knowledge—a situation well-described by Thomas Kuhn is his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. –Chip Knappenberger]
From Dr. Lindzen…
The following is the reproduction of the email exchanges involved in the contribution of our paper (Lindzen and Choi, “On the observational determination of climate sensitivity and its implications”) to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The editor of the PNAS follows the procedure of having his assistant, May Piotrowski, communicate his letters as pdf attachments.
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Professor’s Lindzen’s report on the rough treatment that he was given by the NAS serves as a clarion call for me. I will be meeting personally with my local congressman to discuss Lindzen’s report. In a couple of weeks, I will be in Richmond and meeting personally with my ex-congressman, Eric Cantor, to discuss Professor Lindzen’s report. I will be meeting with my US Senators to discuss the matter. It is time for congress to begin congressional hearings on Pal Review. I implore all other readers of this forum to take similar actions.
I disagree with KR’s assertion that if a paper has flaws it doesn’t matter if it was run through an overwhelmingly biased panel of reviewers. I’m not at all saying that Lindzen is flawed but hypothetically speaking, even if it is, that’s beside the point. Biased review panels are simply wrong and anti-science. Does anyone disagree with that basic point?
We all know that MBH98 had horrible flaws but because it was run through a biased panel (biased in favor in that case), it was waved through with, apparently, only cursory examination. Biased in favor or biased against doesn’t matter. Both are bad.
In my mind, a journal editor’s job is not to make every paper as correct as it can be (that would be impossible anyway). It’s to ensure that each paper is run through the same set of filters, applied in the same way such that the bar is never higher or lower for any particular paper. They are the gatekeeper and their job is to make sure the gate is always the same height. In the long run, the interests of science are better served not by review processes that increase accuracy (however you define that) but by review processes that increase the consistency of evaluation. We can never stop errors from being published. The danger is not publishing something that is timely, insightful and thought provoking (regardless whether some errors slip by). Don’t make me go dig up all the anti-eugenics papers that were, for years, suppressed by most journals. Whether a particular anti-eugenics paper had some error or not, science would have been better served by having that point of view exposed and considered (and corrected if need be) by the community sooner.
Since I heard someone ask, here’s the PNAS version:
http://www.masterresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Lindzen-Choi-PNASSubmission.pdf
KR has his On/Off switch wired around, and he can’t see the issue. He wants to make himself the arbiter of whether a paper is good or bad.
There is no doubt that Prof Lindzen knows exactly what is required to have a paper published. He has done it hundreds of times. The shenanigans on display in this case are just more behind the scenes efforts by the “Team” to sabotage skeptics’ papers – as they specifically stated they were doing in the Climategate emails.
And now the formerly respected journal Nature has turned into an agitprop propaganda rag. It’s really sad to see how badly science is being corrupted and perverted by the alarmist pal review crowd.
KR says:
June 10, 2011 at 11:33 am
The quality of the paper is absolutely part of the discussion. Lindzen claims it was shot down because of bias, not quality, but if it was indeed shot down because of basic quality, his claim is unfounded. Bad papers should be rejected, and I find it curious that they didn’t follow the recommendations of (for example) Reviewer #4, who gave several suggestions as to what it should contain to be an excellent paper.”
The paper has been published in a scientific journal. That ends the discussion of its quality. If you want to deny this claim then your argument is not with Lindzen but the Reviewers and Editors who published the article. Are you going to take them on? Will you please respond to this question?
“How can you possibly call the quality off topic, Theo, when that quality is an essential part of Lindzen’s claims regarding bias? Your statements seen quite disingenuous to me.”
I explained it with an analogy. Do you not understand the analogy? If you do not then say so. But if you are debating in good faith then you must address the analogy.
The quality of the article is logically independent of the morality of the actions taken by the editor and the Reviewers. This is easily demonstrated. Lindzen asked for another reviewer. An editor who is upright, who values his own reputation for integrity, would have leaped at this suggestion as a way out of a very embarrassing situation. This editor did not. It is just such qualities of character that are in question. You adamantly refuse to address them.
KR says:
June 10, 2011 at 11:33 am
“The quality of the paper is absolutely part of the discussion. Lindzen claims it was shot down because of bias, not quality, but if it was indeed shot down because of basic quality, his claim is unfounded.”
Son, the paper was peer reviewed and published in a scientific journal. That settles the question of quality. You cannot assert that the standards of the NAS over-ride those of the publishing journal. If you make such an assertion, your argument is with the reviewers and editor of the publishing journal not with Lindzen or his article.
The NAS reviewers and editor did not display the usual attitude found in academia, an attitude of collegiality. They displayed antagonism. Many a time I have told an author how to correct a mistake that makes his paper unpublishable. In not giving Lindzen an additional reviewer, the NAS folks demonstrated their hostility to him.
Steve McIntyre has something to say on this matter.
http://climateaudit.org/2011/06/10/lindzens-pnas-reviews/
DCA says:
June 10, 2011 at 2:01 pm
“Steve McIntyre has something to say on this matter.”
Thanks so much. McIntyre’s discussion demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that Lindzen received treatment that can only be described as exceptional and antagonistic. The editor who chose only reviewers from The Team, especially that Pit Bull Schmidt, can wear this albatross around his neck for the remainder of his life. This is Pal Reviewing beyond a doubt.
I have a post on this over at Climate Etc.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/06/10/lindzen-and-choi-part-ii/
KR says:
June 9, 2011 at 3:32 pm
DavidG – Who am I? I’m a nobody, a ghost, an annoying voice, a nagging reminder 🙂
Krypton is a chemical element with the symbol Kr and atomic number 36. It is a member of Group 18 and Period 4 elements. A colorless, odorless, tasteless noble gas…
My bet is on Wille C.
Over at her blog,
curryja says:
June 10, 2011 at 2:54 pm
“Second, PNAS violated its own guidelines in the treatment of the LC paper. PNAS needs to decide whether it wants to be a vanity press for members of the NAS, or a rigorous peer reviewed journal. Either- or, with no special treatment for papers by skeptics. Looks like potentially important papers by skeptics get “special treatment”, whereas unimportant and often dubious papers by consensus scientists slide right through.”
I do not need to say a thing. Professor Curry has stated a very clear position on the critical issue.
Thank You, Professor Curry, for sharing your wisdom on this matter.
DCA says:
June 10, 2011 at 3:03 pm
KR says:
June 9, 2011 at 3:32 pm
“DavidG – Who am I? I’m a nobody, a ghost, an annoying voice, a nagging reminder :)”
He is a very talented, or maybe just very lucky, troll. He hijacked this very important forum on Lindzen and ruined it. I really wish that WUWT would realize that its work is more important than the posts of trolls who can hijack and ruin a thread. Such trolls should be banned.
Oh, this is just hoo-hah. Lindzen himself says that one was from his favored reviewer, Minnis, and another one was from one of the reviewers suggested by PNAS, V. Ramanathan (probably). All four had the basically the same criticisms. His first two reviewers (Happer? Really?) were suspect, one because of his expertise and one because of his connection with Lindzen publishing on the same subject.
I see nothing wrong with asking an author who is basically reiterating a previous and highly criticized paper should be asked to answer those criticisms As has been pointed out above, science is an ongoing debate and if you are trying to publish a paper extending and reiterating results which have been criticized in the literature, you have a duty to answer those criticisms. All four reviewers raised this point and all four reviewers felt that the paper did not meet the quality standards of PNAS. You guys did read the reviews, didn’t you?
Judith Curry’s analysis:
Hm-m-m, whom to believe, Dr Curry? Or the ankle biters?
@KR – I don’t understand your earlier comment about regression fit of time lag.
How can it possibly be “thin”? Theirs is a simple model where one of the parameters being sought under a best fit by R^2 condition is the time lag between temperature change and both short wave and long wave radiation fluxes.
That is their model, they’ve fitted it, finding maximum correlation at 1 month and 3 months lag, respectively. Given that this is an statistical model, why is that not a good technique? It is a good correlation, FAR, FAR better than the unlagged correlation of about 0.2.
Theo Goodwin says:
June 10, 2011 at 11:36 am
Professor’s Lindzen’s report on the rough treatment that he was given by the NAS serves as a clarion call for me. I will be meeting personally with my local congressman to discuss Lindzen’s report. In a couple of weeks, I will be in Richmond and meeting personally with my ex-congressman, Eric Cantor, to discuss Professor Lindzen’s report. I will be meeting with my US Senators to discuss the matter. It is time for congress to begin congressional hearings on Pal Review. I implore all other readers of this forum to take similar actions.
Just be clear Theo when you discuss the matter with them exactly what Lindzen is complaining about, he expected to get ‘Pal Review’ from Happer and Chou, PNAS didn’t give to him but allowed him to pick from a list instead.
Lindzen didn’t get the special treatment he expected rather he got the same treatment that most of us get.
Rattus is sspreading disinformation. Steve McIntyre’s post at Cimat Audit documents the review comments well. Rattus spread disinformation at Judith Curry’s Blog about Chou being a pal reviewer and biased. When it was pointed out that Chou last published in 2001 with Lindzen and NAS policy is no publication in 4 years with a reviewer, he went silent, And PNAS theselves confirmed that the reviewers chosen by Lindzen were formally acceptable as per their criteria
” Both scientists are formally eligible for refereeing according to the PNAS rules, but one of them (WH) is certainly not an expert for the topic in question and the other one (MDC) has published extensively on the very subject together with Lindzen. So, in a sense, he is reviewing his own work…”
They seem to have conflated Chou with Choi as there was no way Chou was ” reviewing his own work “.
And their choice of reviewers were Susan Solomon, Trenberth, Schmidt and Ramanathan. The first 3 are pals and antagonistic biased reviewers wfrom whom it is impossible for any skeptic to get a fair review.
Venter,
I pointed out that Chou might be considered a biased reviewer. He had published with Lindzen on basically the same subject. Even if you do consider Chou a reasonable reviewers, having Happer as the other reviewer is sketchy. PNAS requires two reviewers who are, well, peers. Happer doesn’t fit this one., and it is problematic whether Chou fits the bill. Obviously the editor of PNAS did not think that either fit the bill. I think that I made clear that I thought that disallowing Chou was problematic, but that Happer did not make the grade as a reviewer for the paper, so that even if you considered Chou as a reasonable reviewer Happer was not and the PNAS requirement for TWO reviewers was not met.
Linden did not provide two reviewers who met the requirements of the NAS. Once he got real reviews, two from hostile reviewers and two from friendly reviewers he decided to withdraw the paper and get the revised paper published in another journal. A sketchy paper is a sketchy paper and this one seems to have been one…. That is why it ended up being published in a little known journal…
You did not point our any such bias and neither did PNAS when the team were reviewing each other with puff ball pal reviews. yet you jumped in with criticism accusing Chou of pal reviewer when there was no such issue involved by the journal’s own standards. And I have no doubt that NAS confused Chou with Choi and so did many others as their comment was
” Both scientists are formally eligible for refereeing according to the PNAS rules, but one of them (WH) is certainly not an expert for the topic in question and the other one (MDC) has published extensively on the very subject together with Lindzen. So, in a sense, he is reviewing his own work…”
See the last setntence? PNAS said Chou was reviewing his own work whicch is patently untrue.
WRT Happer, as I pointed out to you in Judy Curry’s blog, he has enough qualification and expertise in physics and done lot of work in climate related areas. He has papers with thousands of citations. I repeat Lubos Motl’s Post from CA which adquately sums it up
” I find the description of Prof Happer as an unqualified person amazing.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=william-happer
Happer has done lots of things that use qualitatively similar – but more advanced – physics as the greenhouse effect. In particular, his optical pumping paper has 1100+ citations. There are many other highly influential papers he has co-authored and he has investigated the climate topics in some detail for years.
What’s really special about the specialized, “qualified” climate scientists whom you would prefer as referees is that they have never contributed anything genuine to the real science – and they form a clique. I don’t think that any of these two features should be presented as an advantage. ”
So I ask the same question, what’s so special about these ” qualified ” climate scientists you talk about? What are their quaifications, considering there is n oacademic discpline as climate science? They have a lousy grasp of statistics and mathematics as has been seen by their works. They have no concept of how to organise, store or share data and archive data based on which they publish studies. This inspite of most off the work in ” climate science ” being data collection and number crunching.with dubious mathematics and statistics. And their models have proven to be hopeless in predicting anything. Ad lastly their integrity as scientists as a whole is in tatters with their shenanighans as seen so far. So what makes them experts and in which field? None of them have the knowledge or capability to wipe Happer’s boots when it comes to hard sciences like physics, which is what climate science should be fundamentally based upon. We’ve heard the term ” It’s basic physics ” employed ad nauseum by climate scientists while talkng about GHG and AGW.
And lastly, with respect to ” high quality ” journal, that’s pure BS. Here’s a comment by a commentor “j ” from Bishop Hill which ideally describes PNAS
” PNAS serves almost as a vanity press for members of the Academy (Lindzen is one). Previously, they were able to publish papers there with no formal review. A few years ago, this was changed, to a policy whereby the author him or herself was required to provide two reports from independent scientists, picked by him or herself. A much lower hurdle than normal anonymous review, because the referee knows that the author knows who they are, so this usually cannot lead to rejection – Lindzen quotes only 2% of papers that do not get accepted. I know one member of the academy, who has told me that he was most happy about being elected member precisely because this meant he could get controversial – but in his view important – papers published where normal refereeing might lead to a protracted cycle of negative reports etc. …”
So that’s your ” high quality ” journal.
And incidences like this show how NAS is controlled by a clique of dishonest climate scientists, the same ones who are involved in every questionable and unethical act so far in this field.
And by the way Lindzen put forward the name of Albert Arking of John Hopkins also as a possible second reviewer.. He met all the criteria. Till date every author submitting to PNAS put forard their own reviewers. In Lindzen’s case, NAS put Susan Solomon, Gavin Schmidt, Trenberth and Ramanathan as the reviewers. From this review panel there was no way any skeptic article would ever be published challlenging the orthodoxy.
So as usual Rattus, you keep spinning but facts remain seen to everyone in broad dayligt
Phil, just read through NAS policy in reviewers before making ignorant comments.
Phil. says:
June 10, 2011 at 9:41 pm
“Just be clear Theo when you discuss the matter with them exactly what Lindzen is complaining about, he expected to get ‘Pal Review’ from Happer and Chou, PNAS didn’t give to him but allowed him to pick from a list instead.
Lindzen didn’t get the special treatment he expected rather he got the same treatment that most of us get.”
Phil, you really need to do some homework. PNAS review is Vanity Review for NAS members. Read Judith Curry at her blog if you do not believe me. See that word: vanity? It is not PAL Review but Vanity Review.
PAL Review is when a group of insiders (yes, some call “insiders” conspirators) give favorable reviews to themselves and unfavorable reviews to all outside the group. For whatever reason, maybe a UberWeiner moment in springtime, the editor of PNAS decided to assemble a group of hardcore Warmista to review Lindzen. With total predictability (the only predictable thing in climate science) they Violated PNAS rules, savaged Lindzen’s work, and then went anti-collegial when Lindzen complained. The real story that must be investigated is who initiated this little WeinerGate in Climate Science. Was it the editor who assembled the lynch mob? Or is the lynch mob just always there and begging to take a shot at somebody? Or both? The very fact that “they” would do this in PNAS Vanity Review speaks volume about their desperation, their lack of judgment, their uncontrolled anger, and their pure, unadulterated arrogance. That little lynch mob is going to be broken apart. If the only means for doing it is through their funding, so be it.
Rattus Norvegicus says:
June 10, 2011 at 5:32 pm
“I see nothing wrong with asking an author who is basically reiterating a previous and highly criticized paper should be asked to answer those criticisms.”
WUWT is not a forum for blowing off steam, having a UberWeiner moment, or stating your unsupported opinions. It is a place for presentation, explication, and debate. If you find yourself stating your unsupported opinions, especially stating them as a response, go look in the mirror and say these words: “Dude, you are full of yourself, everyone can see it, and no one will take you seriously until you get over it.”
Venter says:
June 11, 2011 at 12:16 am
Very well said, Venter. By “climate scientists,” The Team means “someone who shares the views and attitudes of the Pit Bull Schmidt and who, like Schmidt, uses most of his taxpayer income doing something that is prima facie not related to his job such as publishing a pro-AGW propaganda blog.” Or maybe NASA is now just a propaganda agency?
By the way, Venter, your screen name belies your intelligent and helpful posts. Just a coincidence?
“This paper fails to address extra-tropical heat transport (ENSO, anyone?), using a simplistic factor of 2 to extend tropical results to the globe – that was a major point in all of the critiques of earlier versions of this work, and L&C don’t even discuss it”
Results optained by studying the tropics are not invalidated by a lack of studying the extratropics. The tropics are where evaporation, humidity and its effects on temperature are strongest. The logic of this objection to the lack of inclusion of an alternative study could be made to any research every submitted. We are bombarded with thousands of published climate studies which focus on a particular regions, most of which do not even bother to note the actual temperature history of the region in question. If climate sensitivity in the tropics is 1 degree, that is an important conclusion. How it can be higher where there is less water vapor in the atmosphere is something for Trenberth and others to try to explain.
Well, I’ve now read through both the PNAS and APJAS versions (many thanks to timetochooseagain for the links).
As I expected, there are a few differences, but no significant changes in the approach. LC11 claims to address four major complaints, missing several of the more critical (such as extreme sensitivity to start/end dates). In addressing the extratropical heat exchange (which they do mention, which is good) they then wave their hands and assert that it’s not a factor. No numbers, no data, just an assertion. The critiques of LC09 include a great deal of data and analysis on this factor – LC11 does not.
So – an author essentially reiterates a paper he’s presented before, to great criticism. It’s only reasonable to ask that he addresses those criticisms – he did not. The reviewers (including at least one suggested by Lindzen) all agreed that the paper did not meet PNAS standards.
Lindzen and Choi got their paper published elsewhere – good for them. But claiming that the paper was rejected at PNAS due to bias, when even one of the reviewers Lindzen suggested indicate it was rejected due to poor quality – that’s just sour grapes.