The ScAm Gets Worse—An Open Letter To Bora Zivkovic

I’d phrase it “To these questions and more…”
And I certainly would like to see answers!
(Not some Mannish defense of Al Gore
Nor more faux-angel pinhead dancers.)
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle

Having the stones? Old Borat (Did I say that?) is a fine example of the craft. I just finished reading NatGeo’s recent article on Fracking, and boy, that should outta get a 10 at SkS, and ScAm as well. I can hear Mann’s cervical vertebrae crunching in approval from here. There was even a picture of hapless roughnecks handling pipe as “oil and natural gas SPEWED from the well”…funny, I’ve never seen that, ever. Usually, they are running away when that happens…handling pipe becomes a pesky sideshow when your life is endangered.
I’m actually surprised it took Borat and his ilk this long to apply a trolling filter. They must have gotten bored hurling insults.

Well done, Willis. Will Bora know it’s here? Does he junk his emails as well as his blog comments (if you sent an email)?
It should make him think about his decisions. It’s no bad thing to have awkward comments or difficult questions. A scientist should be able to answer and respect all contributors. Perhaps he wasn’t thinking straight. Perhaps what he thought of as an easy solution will sit uncomfortably with him. I hope so.
I’ve learned something extra with this whole climate debate, I’ve learned where the adults are and where the kids are. You can tell the adults from the kids by their behaviour. Fascinating.

Bora Zivkovic is the Blog Editor at Scientific American, chronobiologist, biology teacher, organizer of ScienceOnline conferences and editor of Open Laboratory anthologies of best science writing on the Web.
———————–
Or, in other words, a spectacularly failed scientist.
Well done Bora. I hope your Mom’s proud of you.

Well in Bora’s defence, WUWT can afford to leave critical comments up because they are easy to rebut and don’t make the site look foolish. Having the truth on your side makes it an unlevelled playing field.

Orwell was an optimist.
I too am shocked at what the Scientific American of my youth has degenerated into, I wouldn’t line my bird cage with it, that would constitute animal abuse.

Well said Willis. The last issue, of ScAm that I purchased was the issue that did a hatchet job on Bjorn Lomborg. Having read Lomborg’s book, I was so mad I never bought another issue, though I will admit thumbing it in the supermarket to see if they changed their strips, but alas they have only gotten worse. Like you, I grew up with Scientific American, it was one of my first stops in the Library.

“send to spam any and every comment that contains the words “warmist”, “alarmist”, “Al Gore” ”
Tee hee. Poor old Al is probably wondering why none of his comments ever get published on ScAm.
🙂

His motivation is simple…it’s fear…. If you spend much time on blogs like his, especially as a bystander/reader that doesn’t comment, you start to recognize the insults. Then the ad hom and the vitriol become clear while the science seems foggy. So you click on the links people provide. Eventually you’ll end up on WUWT. On this site you see you don’t have to be disagreeable to disagree. He fears those that will end up here will stay here and if you stay here very long he will lose you. I even sensed Nick Stokes was having a change of heart yesterday. Thanks Anthony for your hard work, kindness, and belief in science.

My brief tenure as writer of “The Amateur Scientist” for Scientific American when it was still a great magazine led directly to a Rolex Award and my 23-years of using homemade instruments to monitor the ozone layer, solar UV-B, aerosol optical depth and total column water vapor (the main greenhouse gas). Details and data are at http://www.forrestmims.org.

BTW: Did you spot my comments at #50 and #51?
Blew his boat out of the water regarding “free speech” concepts, etc.
Comments survived … one without any contra-argument.

trafamadore says:
March 5, 2013 at 9:31 pm
Hmmm, I really wonder if you “got it”. That means he’s a talented teacher; the ones that teach the advanced courses are usually the new guys, not so good at saying things in an interesting manner, etc. But you meant to complement him, right?

Wow… just amazingly WOW… you know, this kind of thought process explains a lot. So, when one does their thesis, they just go back to Biology 101 to get mentored by Bora… cool, thanks for letting us know that is where the talent is kept.

Forrest Mims! I remember your work!
Long ago, when the mag didn’t smirk
You had helped make them great
Sadly, not true of late
To encounter you live is a perk!
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle

So this blogger is blocking any reference to WUWT?
Cross-reference; http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/05/lucia-drops-some-reality-on-the-gorebots/, where every comment with a link to Reality Drop is filtered from this blog.
Hmm.
REPLY: Tsk-tsk Mr. Ryan, you left out the all important distinction I wrote in Update 3 here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/05/lucia-drops-some-reality-on-the-gorebots/:
These aren’t comments from real people, they are bot-generated, so there’s no moral issue with automatically sending them to the bit bucket IMHO.
Note that the link in the bot generated comments is encoded with “clmtr.lt”. Some comment with realitydrop.org would not get filtered because it came from a real person.
Your comment is FAIL on so many levels, but mostly because you self censored the relevant information to try to score a point. Sorry, you lose. – Anthony

Amazing to think that I became a sceptic having been very much an initial believer in AGW because I came to realise that the Climatecsience “team” was guilty of behind the scenes manipulation.
Now in seems that those on the team have been forced into defending their position by overt manipulation.
I see that as progress!
It it is akin to a child putting fingers in ears and going “la la la la la……………..”
How long before more people notice?

Watts appears to censor geoengineering topics. Sauce. Goose. Gander.
REPLY: Untrue, we have several posts on geoengineering here, in fact we even have a whole category for it http://wattsupwiththat.com/category/geoengineering/
Sorry, FAIL on your part. NEXT!
– Anthony

Good job Willis!
I sincerely appreciate your hard work!
I’ve been asking if AGW is expected to keep this inter-glacial going forever and have heard from the uninformed that, Yes for at least the next 10,000 years:)
When we’re able to measure all EMF and the interactions with molecular & particle matter within a cubed meter of free space, we will no longer have any questions about C02’s influence within our troposphere.
All The Best!

Nobody reads sciam blogs anymore. They are totally irrelevant.
Just sayin’

Trofim Lysenko lives.

Just because someone mentions X does not mean that they support or agree with X. Since computers do not understand natural language “naughty word” filters can easily end up matching considerably more than expected. Even in ways which initially baffle humans.

[snip. PNG. — mod.]

I thought Borat was the name of the bizarre, but funny guy.

That’s one pissed off rant.

Like many of the readers of WUWT, I grew up with SciAm and my favorite sections were The Amateur Scientist and Mathematical Games. My first exposure to SciAm was in 1964 and I have most of the issues from 1965 to the early 1990’s. Conway’s game of Life was responsible for boxes of computer output in 1970 when video display terminals were simply not available to me.
I remember issues in the 1970’s being packed with true science and I used to look forward to every issue of the magazine. Then, there seemed to be a gradual shift away from science to anti-science. The magazine seemed to be increasingly dumbed down and followed a statist ideologic path instead of dealing with science. I found myself buying fewer and fewer issues and, when the magazine jumped on the CAGW bandwagon, I totally stopped reading it.
It was SciAm and Analog magazine that first introduced me to the theory of CO2 induced global warming and, considering these magazines had been reliable sources of information in the past I assumed the theory was correct initially. Of course, I don’t just accept theories blindly and began to educate myself about climate and atmospheric science. As I did so, it seemed what I was finding was increasingly at odds with what was published in SciAm. The articles seemed to be more religious than scientific in nature and I went with what the evidence was showing, not with what the religion of CAGW was proposing.
Analog SF/Science Fact was an excellent magazine when JW Campbell was editor but under Stanley Schmidt has become a propaganda arm for CAGW – I let my subscription lapse 3 years ago after having read Analog since 1966. I was quite disturbed by the statist perspective of one of Schmidt’s novels serialized in Analog in either the late 1970’s or early 1980’s and this seems to be his personal view that societies priorities must trump those of individuals. Campbell’s Analog magazine was when the individual was still supreme and it was individual effort that got things done, not bureaucracies. The transition from the SF of the heroic multi-talented individual to the era of the wimpy metrosexual in two generations is scary to behold.
The early SciAm Amateur Scientist articles were quite impressive in terms of what one could do with relatively simple equipment and I continue to tinker to this day. The current perspective is that many of the experiments and pieces of equipment described in the Amateur Scientist are far too “dangerous” for individuals to be tinkering with, somewhat like the idiotic modern “Chemistry sets” one can buy today which essentially allow one to perform no interesting chemistry. I wonder what the current response of the safety obsessed would be to the home xray machine that was in one of the pre-1960 Amateur Scientist columns. This was a very simple device using a high voltage source and old vacuum tube which I built and fogged some film with.
Fully agree with Willis’s new acronym of ScAm for a once great publication.

Yip the trend toward dogma in science is a little worrying.
I could have accepted the house rules if they hadn’t been biased; if they’d refused to accept citations to skepticalsceince and filter comments with the term “denier”. It would be very strict but at least balanced.

I don’t see a problem with banning trolls from denying facts.

“… send to spam any and every comment that contains the words “warmist”, “alarmist”, “Al Gore” or a link to Watts…”
Hey that could be great. Any reference to alleged energy imbalance where W/m2 is spelled (rather than abbreviated) would be trashed automatically. The whole movement could end up disappearing up their own fundamentals.

‘As a high school biologist I base my conclusions on global warming on flowers blooming this year earlier than they did years ago. That surely proves conclusively that those experts who say that global warming over the past 15 years has not happened are completely wrong and I won’t listen to them’

Bora responds… kind of.
https://twitter.com/BoraZ/status/309190950658375683

Censoring “Warmists” “denialists” “alarmists” would definetly up the level of discussion. But censoring links to specific sites(with the exception of nsfw stuff), now thats just asking for trouble.

Willis,
Note that the hot earthers will complain about the very things they do.
This seems to be simple projection. ie massive funding, censorship, blah blah, and so on.
It is my considered opinion that they approach things from a 100% political stance.
Example: the term astroturfing and the admission that I believe the skeptical science blog had a bot all set up to do their voting for them, or set up to seed all the skeptical blogs with comments. I don’t remember which. Nevertheless, they engage in the very unethical practices that they accuse others of.
IMHO your rant was indeed too kind.

Of course, the meanest trick of all is that while they’d censor us for mentioning alarmism or Watts, his casual references to early blooming flowers passes without difficulty. He’s just an objective observer! He can’t help it if he notices such things! It’s what makes him all sciency! However, unbelievers noticing the severe cold in Alaska, or the lack of forecasted sea-level rise is just a form of cherry-picking and should be ignored as such.

Reblogged this on The GOLDEN RULE and commented:
No comment required. Just suggest you read the article.

Fellow Group Thinkies
Have you got invasive thoughtcrimes entering your inbox ? ? ? Well….the editor of ScAm has an app for that ! ! ! Why be a bore with the other group thinkers singing “Kum-ba-ya” and you asking embarassing questions involving REAL science. Don’t be that buzz kill BORE….get BORA.app…and finally be a Thinkie FREE Science Twinkie ! ! !

Another step on the path towards proving that this is now a purely religious fight (on their part) and no longer a scientific one. A person who goes to Borat’s blog and casts doubt on AGW is treated in the same way as one who might attempt to cast aspersions on L. Ron Hubbard at a Jon Travolta fan blog.
Maybe what’s happened is this – journals such as ScAm and New Scientist are no longer run by any actual “scientists” but instead by high school teachers like Borat who crave the status that comes from being thought of as a Real! Scientist! And somehow they have manipulated their way into control of a few old names because they desperately craved the Status that gave them, a status they could never get from their own (very limited) abilities.
And so OF COURSE they go all in on political agitprop! Getting attention from their emotionally needy friends is all their involvement in this arena was ever about.

I was a kid when I discovered SciAm in a vast collection at the home of my eldest brother. A science lecturer himself, he dismissed it as trash. Maybe the fact it had been amassed by his wifes previous husband influenced that. But anyway, that was 1960s ScAm.
I became an avid reader over the following years founded in articles on such topics as how to DIY a laser, that my brother was happy for me to “abstract” by ripping up his marital rivals huge collection.
It wasnt until my thirties that I happenned to read a SciAm article on a topic that by then I was an expert in. It was such appalling trash I was dumbfounded. the scales fell at that point. I wrote a letter. No reply and not published. Never again for me to glance at such dross.
Now this. SciAm trying to expand its Dross Footprint across debate, even among those who electively have avoided the rubbish. Well my reaction is to say, accept it and figure out how to exploit it. Try to lure their commenters into using the censor words. Devise circumlocutions. And Mr Watts, set up a few hundred free-to-host (ten minutes to build) proxy sites with names like “mannenvironment” etc, that merely carry a link directly to here. Better still, link them to a page set aside for that purpose.
That Bore thinks he’s clever clearly illustrates there’s no fool like an old fool. As in JuJitsu, use his move against him.

Willis: you know he will never read this letter to him, you 1) posted it on this site, 2) included all the keywords he is filtering, and 3) most certainly doesn’t give a rat’s-hoot what any of us on this site think about him or Scientific American because he is filtering us out to start with. But it is kinda funny to what lengths he and his cohorts will go to ignore us. I wonder if they also sit around all day long, sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming, “LALALALALALALALA – I CAN’T HEAR YOU – LALALALALA!!”

My long running subscription to ScAm (not as good as an old time fantasy magazine, but often still hilarious /sarc) is about to run out this spring. I’ve tried because of the great article every so often but will just let it go and remember the good. Others have mentioned a few of their favorite authors and columns.

ho ho. I just had a quick look at that blog
you can mention Hitler, Mussolini, and Saddam Hussein, but not Al Gore
it’s a funny old world

Here is what I tweeted to Bora
@Nitetrain_1
The ScAm Gets Worse—An Open Letter To Bora Zivkovic http://wp.me/p7y4l-lbz via @wordpressdotcom @MichaelEMann Will you respond @BoraZ?
And here is his quick response.
Bora Zivkovic ‏@BoraZ
@Nitetrain_1 @MichaelEMann I responded last night….with laughter. No need to drag myself through that mud. Will not feed that troll.
He has completely missed the point. He is an example of the problem with their side of climate science.

“That is interesting. In years gone by such comments would be disallowed.”
In a discussion concerning how excessive comment editing and deletions destroy any chance of real debate, Steve appears to wish that there was MORE editing and deletions here than there are.
Someone’s Internal Irony Detector is broken. (shades of Sheldon Cooper)

Read SciAm from my father’s stack from ~1950-68, and subscribed myself into the late 90s. They like NatGeo, quit that ~’92, editorialized science, made it not-science, and not worth reading. This past year I gave their Science Mind, I think that’s what they call it, a try. Even for the more subjective subject of perception, or whatever one wants to call what the mind does, it is vacuous.

Not that I am old enough to remember, but didn’t SciAm trash the work of the Wright Brothers while supporting the work of Samuel Langley.
REPLY: Indeed they did, the article is here: http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/inventors/i/Wrights/library/WrightSiAm1.html

Scientific American
Vol. XCIV
No. 2
January 13, 1905
Page 40
[Article verbatim and in full]
The Wright Aeroplane and its Fabled Performance
A Parisian automobile paper recently published a letter from the Wright brothers to Capt. Ferber of the French army, in which statements are made that certainly need some public substantiation from the Wright brothers. In the letter in question it is alleged that on September 26, the Wright motor-driven aeroplane covered a distance of 17.961 kilometers in 18 minutes and 9 seconds, and that its further progress was stopped by lack of gasoline. On September 29 a distance of 19.57 kilometers was covered in 19 minutes and 55 seconds, the gasoline supply again having been exhausted. On September 30 the machine traveled 16 kilometers in 17 minutes and 15 seconds; this time a hot bearing prevented further remarkable progress. Then came some eye-opening records. Here they are:
October 3: 24.535 kilometers in 25 minutes and 5 seconds. (Cause of Stoppage, hot bearing.)
October 4: 33.456 kilometers in 33 minutes and 17 seconds. (Cause of stoppage, hot bearing.)
October 5: 38.956 kilometers in 33 minutes and 3 seconds. (Cause of stoppage, exhaustion of gasoline supply.)
It seems that these alleged experiments were made at Dayton, Ohio, a fairly large town, and that the newspapers of the United States, alert as they are, allowed these sensational performances to escape their notice. When it is considered that Langley never even successfully launched his man-carrying machine, that Langley’s experimental model never flew more than a mile, and that Wright’s mysterious aeroplane covered a reputed distance of 38 kilometers at the rate of one kilometer a minute, we have the right to exact further information before we place reliance on these French reports. Unfortunately, the Wright brothers are hardly disposed to publish any substantiation or to make public experiments, for reasons best known to themselves.[emphasis added] If such sensational and tremendously important experiments are being conducted in a not very remote part of the country, on a subject in which almost everybody feels the most profound interest, is it possible to believe that the enterprising American reporter, who, it is well known, comes down the chimney when the door is locked in his face–even if he has to scale a fifteen-story sky-scraper to do so– would not have ascertained all about them and published them broadcast long ago? Why particularly, as it is further alleged, should the Wrights desire to sell their invention to the French government for a “million” francs. Surely their own is the first to which they would be likely to apply.
We certainly want more light on the subject.

It seems they changed their tune later though:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-wright-perspective
– Anthony

”Who opened the nut job copboard [sic]? My god Mosher, you have become the epitomy [sic] of a complete screwball AGW and in only 3 years.” — Stephen Richards
“That is interesting. In years gone by such comments would be disallowed.” — Steven Mosher
Maybe in years gone by you weren’t an “epitomy.” But keep on trying to guide us on the path to scientific righteousness, anyway.

Stephen Richards says:
March 6, 2013 at 2:03 am
Who opened the nut job copboard.? My god Mosher, you have become the epitomy of a complete screwball AGW and in only 3years.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
I have seen Mosh rail against those in the other camp just as often as those in this one. Albeit, here he is usually railing against AGW skeptics.
While I don't always agree with Mosh (or with anyone!) I never have felt that he is insincere or in the tank for anyone or any side. Although, he may be faster to comment than to think sometimes! A problem I fall into as well…

As a lad (I’m about Willis’ age), on rare trips to “the city” I was allowed perhaps 50 cents to spend on back issues of Scientific American, and I think they were 10 cents in the used magazine store. These were the magnificent days of the columns of Martin Gardner and C.L. Stong, and of real informational articles. These articles were review articles, and a student could learn a lot and be enthralled by science. And a particle physicists could get up to date on biology, for example, and vice versa. Something like 10 years ago, someone destroyed Scientific American. I don’t know the details. I myself affirmatively cancelled, and cringe every time I see the issues on a newsstand. It is heartbreaking.

I held a continuous subscription 1972 through nov 1, 2002. That was when SciAm introduced their SciAm50 Award and gave one to Fran Pavely the California legislator who has done so much to this state and thus the world as her anti science positions have promulgated. Perhaps WUWT could start their own “Whatsies” award. Warmist Theology Founders, WTFs can be recognized for their efforts. Needless to say a few lifetime achievement nominees will need to be intelligible in order to give others a chance.

In Soviet Sc-Am Russia, Bora edits you.

Willis Eschenbach says:
March 5, 2013 at 10:15 pm
“Damn, you’re that Forrest Mims? Well done, my friend, and to your predecessor as well, that’s where I learned to build a Hilsh Vortex Tube and a Wilson cloud chamber. That was my favorite column, even including “Mathematical Recreations”. Must be sad for you to see how the mighty have fallen.”
Amen. That column was remarkably popular. You could walk into the philosophy faculty lounge and some of them were reading it. I recall that on one occasion they asked me to help them build a device that Gardner had described in a column published on April 1. They were so excited.

Jim says:
March 6, 2013 at 8:53 am
I’ve got a question/observation … how is it *some* comments at YouTube are getting ‘filtered’.so’s only the original poster can see his posted comment, YET, when logging in via another PC (same IP addy BUT not logged into YouTube) the *comment* doesn’t display, but rather shows up tagged as spam!

It is all done with cookies (see my post above). Clear cookies. Revisit without signing in. You will now see what everyone else sees (bastards). GK

James Allison says:
March 6, 2013 at 12:49 am
“That’s one pissed off rant.”
You have got to be kidding. Willis pulled every punch. We have learned that Wesleyan employs a professor of biology who is so emotionally committed to what he sees as the truth or the cause that he refuses to read any remark that might conflict with it That professor believes that only his own views are worthy of rational consideration. If the course that he teaches involves only rote learning then he is fine as a teacher. If the course includes rational criticism then he has published the fact that he is emotionally incapable of doing the job.

For me Discover magazine goes into the same category as ScAm and the others. Walking by the magazine rack I am sadly reduced to scanning the car crap (full of anti carbon BS as well), the cycling and running rags and then buying nothing but the occasional paper to start the fireplace with. Oh well….

@ Anthony per http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/inventors/i/Wrights/library/WrightSiAm1.html
The Wright Brothers developed four irrevolkable patents that the banking elite needed to steal. Yesterday the Google ‘this day in history’ mentioned George Westinghouse patent of railroad air brakes in 1872. Westinghouse was 22 year old son of a machinist and not part of the protected ruling class. The Rockefeller-Morgan-Carnige-Melon crime syndicate ordered massive quantities of brakes, requiring massive coal and steel to be provided by the banking cartel members, who then defaulted, forcing Westinghouse bankruptacy. This same pump and dump cycle was used to steal all one thousand of the Edison patents and the hundreds of Westinghouse and Tesla patents. See “I’ll Take Some Epluribus….but HOLD the Unum” at Canada Free Press archive.

As a long time manufacturer of water powered water pumps, I was appalled to see an article in Mother Earth describing how to make one out of string and baling wire, in their usual manner. What SciAm has become is a Mother Earth News with a similarly focussed market – urban cliff-dwellers who fantasize that they could make out like a pioneer in the forests of Appalachia. SciAm was about science and the endless path of discovery. That it scoffs at this wonderful site and its collection of opinions and supporting reference pages is testimony to how things can and do change.
It was from magazines like New Scientist and Scientific American that I first learned that things can and do change. What was unexpected is that both of them would, to such a extent, eschew the very principles of enquiry and evidence they used to hold dear.
Willis, Bora’s tweet in reply says it all: he read your letter and he has literally nothing of substance to say in reply. Another one bites the dust.

Annie says: “I rather think, in the context, you meant ‘complIment’, not ‘complement’. Willis: They are running scared, aren’t they?!”
I dont know about scared, but the running part is correct…traveling day and Chicago didnt help.

The scienctific method is to Scientific American’s method as professional scientific integrity is to Mann’s and Gleick’s integrity.
John

Gave up reading ScAm a couple decades ago and NatGeo about the same time. Founders of both magazines would be horrified at what they have become.

Just to be clear, I liked your letter Willis.

Thomas O. McGill says:
March 6, 2013 at 8:49 am
@Forrest M. Mims III As much as any other human, you influenced my early life for the better. Poor, in Georgia, I didn’t have a lot of educated influences. I spent a lot of time reproducing your circuits. I graduated from Ga Tech and went on to retire from a large National Laboratory, In my early career as a circuit designer, and later, as the rich adventure that has been my life developed, I credit my discovery of my enduring love of science and technology to your little books. Thank you.
———-
I’ve been fighting my impulse to post something like this as well, but since Thomas mentions it:
Thanks from me as well Mr. Mims – your circuit books were my bibles as a teenager, and were instrumental in getting me to view digital electronics as something to play with and enjoy instead of an impenetrable mystery to be avoided.

Climate is not my speciality, thus I seldom get in on the higher debates of such, but I’m truly interested in the topic. However, just because I don’t specialize in climate does not mean I do not specialize in other topics and love good ol’ hard debate. I’ve personally been snipped by Anthony, and it burned me for a time, but eventually I had to accept the fact that the snipped portion of my comment was indeed off topic and was meant to incite off topic memes. My bad. I guess what I really want to say in response to this open letter is this: if I considered myself an expert on the science of climate I WOULD CLAMOR TO DEBATE ALL COMERS! Period.
This is exactly what I see in throngs at WUWT. It is what has formed my opinions on climate and what’s truly going on with climate. Not Anthony Watts. Not Willis Eschenbach or any of the other big names at this blog. It’s been the ongoing debates within the comment sections, more so than the articles themselves. If you got a nugget you believe in – prove it! Or as they say in my Mama’s home state: “Show Me.” Argue your point to the point of nausea. Then argue some more. Debate. Spend hours presenting your position, then spend a few more days honing it and perfecting, changing where necessary, then present it again. Equate, relate, debate. It is the only way. Informed and formal debate is not trolling. It is part of the scientific method. Question everything, surely, but also one must question one’s self. Perhaps that is the most important of the human/science equation.
Is WUWT perfect? Heck no. Does it inspire honest debate? Don’t take my word for it. See for yourself. And let the panties alone in their own drawer. Stop throwing pearls before swine. Throw the pearls where they’ll be picked over, discussed and valued. Or maybe thrown at at the last, found unworthy of the name of pearl. Bottom line: One side is absolutely funded by special interests, and that side discourages debate. The other side is not funded… and they want debate. Say no more. Say no more.

His whole “auto censorship” concept is based on a clearly-defined, but spectacularly miconceived, premise: i.e.
“A comment that contains any of those is, by definition, not posted in good faith. By definition, it does not provide additional information relevant to the post. By definition, it is off-topic. By definition, it contains erroneous information. By definition, it is ideologically motivated, thus not scientific. ”
It is perfectly obvious that none of these things could possibly be the case “by definition”. If you cannot refer to an issue, you can neither support nor rebut it. It is tempting to suggest that anyone who makes such a statement is “by definition” just a little bit stupid.

Like several on this list, I grew up on ScAm (like that shortening), my father was a professor at a local university and was interested in science. However, even in the 60s I could see the weeds in the garden that would eventually destroy the mag.
By the 90s I had long stopped reading the mag because I had found I could get more science information from other sources with less effort. Further the mag was morphing from a science magazine to a religio-political rant rag with a certain religious orthodoxy, albeit an atheistic religion, it espoused and promulgated. As such, it couldn’t have a member of the “enemy”, G. Forrest Mims III a practicing Christian, as a columnist.
That religious orthodoxy is not only anti-Christian, as mentioned by others here, but thereby also anti-science. The two are connected. It’s a historical fact that science, as a process with a community of people to support it, developed after the Reformation, in Reformation influenced societies, and there’s an article at http://www.wikinfo.org/Multilingual/index.php/Biblical_roots_of_science that gives factors within Reformation theology and practice that led to that development. Cut off the root (Christianity as defined in the Bible), and the branches (among them science) will eventually wither. Is not the whole CAGW scam an example of that withering?
Unless the magazine has a complete change in its editorial staff and outlook, I think it’s too far gone to resurrect. But sometimes I think wistfully back to the days when I learned real science in the pages of Scientific American.

MangoTree says:
March 6, 2013 at 3:42 am
I don’t see a problem with banning trolls from denying facts.

The problem is enormous. The short of it is that one reader’s “troll denying facts” may very well be another reader’s “rational skeptic reasonably questioning a conclusion.”
You need to consider the distinction between “facts,” and data or evidence. Facts are synthetic, data and evidence (ideally) are not. In a jury trial, the jury is [supposedly] presented with evidence, and then uses that evidence, as presented by both the prosecution and the defense, to arrive a consensus regarding the “facts” of the case. “Reasonable doubt” in a trial hinges on whether it is possible to construe evidence in more than one array of “facts.” If the evidence is in fact ammenable to multiple explanations, then there is reasonable doubt about the actual facts of the case.
The entire climate debate is strongly colored by convictions rather than by rational argumentation and strong evidence. The criticisms directed at most skeptics and “denialists” are founded on the assumption that those convictions are really true. Thus anyone questioning that conviction is denying the truth. It remains perfectly possible that the defenders may be right. What is lacking is strong evidence to support what is being asserted as fact.
Worse, “evidence” as it is being collected or post-processed can be tainted by prior assumptions concering what the “facts” are. “Adjustments” to data are made because the adjustors have already made assumptions regarding the “facts.” The reason for the Surface Stations project was because the “facts” about the local encironmental effects on data from weather stations were in question.

Noble cause corruption? Et tu Willis? All the signs are there, aren’t they?.
Science is not a teleological philosophy, nor should it be.
As a long time subscriber (since 1950’s) of Scientific American, the disappointment due to their editorial proselytizing has finally done it for me.
I am letting my subscription expire. Skeptic Michael Shermer is also a major disappointment with his silence in the face of what seems obvious.
“The reader is not asked to accept a theory without question. Rather, he is invited to consider for himself whether he is reading a book of fiction or non-fiction” –Immanuuel Velikovsky

I come here more for the comments/discussion than just the articles. Censorship is an issue that hits home to me, and one version of comment moderation that I like to see is an option for the reader to view the pre-moderated comment.
Though I am sure Anthony et. al. is aware of this option, and he may very well have good reasons for not doing it this way, written somewhere on this site (that I don’t know where to find). Just pointing it out.
Direct and categorical censorship, like what Bora has chosen, is the purest form of the poor logic of attacking the source, not the argument. It is an easy mistake to fall into this trap of ignorance, we all know the story of the boy who cried “wolf”. Now we have boys who cry “warming”. Of course much of it is garbage, but I really appreciate and respect that this site will sometimes post things that are rather dubious, and let the readership take it to pieces and show why it is wrong.
I know of no place else where such a collection of Dr’s, experts, and decades-of-experience types congregate to discuss the issues that get attention on this website. The fact that anyone who is found in disagreement is welcome to post here, while other websites on the other side of the argument continue to increase their blatant censorship, absolutely and automatically gives WUWT the moral and integrity high ground.
There is a very high level of, if not complete, transparency here. It seems to me that 99 times out of 100, anyone who gets moderated is respected with the reason why, and mods will go out of their way to discuss their choice of moderation and offer a way for the poster to deliver their message while observing site policy and general good manners.

Re R.Ortiz….ScAm may have become anti-Christian, its a common trait nowadays (over 100,000 people a year murdered for being Christian) but the vast bulk of creationist, anti-evolution, anti-science opinion is in Islam and I dont think you will ever see anyone publishing anything opposing that.

… and note I saw some flowers blooming earlier than they used to bloom years ago …
Spring flowers in England a month behind this year:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1254473/Lonely-cloud-Coldest-winter-30-years-puts-daffodil-crop-month-schedule.html

_Jim says:
March 6, 2013 at 8:53 am
Jim, a word for you:
cookies

In regards to ScAm and NatGeo losing their (scientific) way….
Anyone remember when Time and Newsweek were about news?
Or when Rolling Stone was about music?
As we all know, I could go on. It seems that most large publications get bored with simply informing their readers and eventually succumb to their own greedy thirst for power and influence. It’s a bummer dude….

I always get a chuckle at the machinations that alarmists go through to avoid anything having to do with Al Gore, the ManBearPig, whose name must never be spoken. They just get completely apoplectic about it. How dare we say his name???? Heathens!!! LOL.

Within 10 years, maybe less, ScAm is going to go the way of Newsweek – print edition axed, and what’s left will just be a special interest blog that no except partisans and ideologues bother to look at… a lot like the Skeptical Science site is today.

Have to add my comment here too. As a scientist, I find that sort of behaviour reprehensible. Not so long ago we scientists were being reminded that public consultation meant we had to take on board every opinion and validate it, simply because it was an expressed opinion. I personally believe that all opinions on AGW are valid. Expressly because it is our tax dollars that are paying for the response.

Forrest Mims III – I remember the incident. SciAm was good when I was in highschool and college and science always interested me but that was before it went all witch-hunty.
Open minds allow open discussions. They don’t allow noise, rants, or vulgarity, that is neither freedom or discussion. Somehow those who claim to be most sensitive to pollution wish to use acrid smoke to pollute the places of others just because they disagree instead of discussing the issues point by point. Tolerance and openness admits no burning of heretics and where there is smoke – from either the post or comments – there is fire.
As much as I hate the irony, most people who have found the right side, the truth of the matter, are the ones that do things in the open, encourage debate, allow discussion – even when things are not so clear that they will win, and I will include climate science here. Fearmongering is not an argument. Nor is an adhominem attack, insult, or appeal to authority “He’s a professor at a nice university”.
I would hope and am starting to believe there are growing numbers of people like me each day that read unwillingness to debate as weakness itself in the position, and intolerance and insults as direct evidence of the position as error.

Bora finally gave up, and booted me from his twitter list. My postings below. Its interesting to read his. He does not know what an ad hom is, and thinks its ok as long as its true. For true intellectual tolerance and support of freedom of expression, one needs to follow the threads to Pharyngula.
https://twitter.com/LesJohnsonHrvat

BTW, Bora Zivkovic better watch out – there’s one scientist wandering loose that has created his own “parody” site called vvatts up with that (using a double “V”, not a “W”). So we should all help Bora’s spam filter out by using that variation, and knock out discussion of an alarmist site with it.
Sorry, Russell Seitz, you picked the name out. If Bora decides that that version is ok, then expect it to lead here, not to your site.

Forrest Mimms is also writing for MAKE Magazine, once described as a sort of McGyver’s Practical Mechanics. I’ve been a subscriber since the first edition. It’s a magazine you can (generally) read without gagging over political correctness or lefty orthodoxies.

Admad says:
March 6, 2013 at 3:44 am
“… send to spam any and every comment that contains the words “warmist”, “alarmist”, “Al Gore” or a link to Watts…”
Hey that could be great. Any reference to alleged energy imbalance where W/m2 is spelled (rather than abbreviated) would be trashed automatically. The whole movement could end up disappearing up their own fundamentals.

Dude, it says a link to Watts, not a mention of the word “watts”.
Reading is fundamental.

March 6, 2013 at 8:14 am
While I don’t always agree with Mosh (or with anyone!) I never have felt that he is insincere or in the tank for anyone or any side. Although, he may be faster to comment than to think sometimes! A problem I fall into as well…

I just wonder how sore his buttocks must be after sitting on the fence for so long.

Wamron. . . .
I remember exactly what happened. . . . which you summarized quite nicely.
I thought I was being fairly obvious at my attempt at a “tongue-in-cheek” observation — which was to assume that the Scientific American articles on SDI were completely and 100% accurate — (which I don’t believe now and didn’t believe then) —
But if they had been accurate, than all the USSR would have had to do to save billions of dollars. . . was read Scientific American.
Somehow, I suspect they did read it — and rejected it’s conclusions too.

Jeff Alberts says:
March 6, 2013 at 8:25 pm
I just wonder how sore his buttocks must be after sitting on the fence for so long.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
LOL! I actually have no idea where he stands in This debate as I have seen him argue with many different people.
But, it is an important distinction between those with whom we disagree and those that are parroting.

O Olsen wrote, “How the heck did religion get into this?? Good science does NOT rely on or require religion. Period. Atheism is NOT a religion, it is a belief.”
“Religion” is not generally mentioned here to avoid proselytism and the flame wars that that will engender. This is a science site.
However, two points:
1) “a belief” is ipso facto a religion, especially when it deals with subjects outside the realm of science, such as the existence or non-existence of a deity or deities. There’s no more to be said on this on a science blog, as it’s not dealing with science. The only reason to mention it is to say “Don’t go there.”
2) The article at http://www.wikinfo.org/Multilingual/index.php/Biblical_roots_of_science refers to the factors in Reformation theology that historically led to the development of modern science. Among those factors are found honesty, open communication, question experts—they could be mistaken, make experiments to test theories, that there are absolute laws of science (e.g. “laws of physics”, “laws of chemistry” etc.) and so forth, some of these factors have repeatedly been mentioned on this site as fails among the CAGW crowd. It was upon these beliefs that the scientific method (described at http://www.wikinfo.org/Multilingual/index.php/Scientific_Method_from_science_textbooks ) was developed to describe a subset of present day reality. While nowhere do I see the claim that one must follow Biblical theology in order to practice science, I certainly don’t make that claim, one must follow the methodology derived from that theology in order to practice science. That includes recognizing that there are limits to what science can study.
My disappointments with ScAm is that it descended from being a science magazine to a political-correctness/religion proselytism rag with a little science mixed in. When I want science information, it’s quicker and easier to find it from other sources.

Re: Wavefunction, Zimcorp, and fellow-travelers
First, I would like to point out, to the unacquainted, that engineering is based on physics, as well as on chemistry and other sciences. It is also the profession of solving problems, which is different from science, which is the profession of discovering knowledge. They interact, but they are not identical. As far as I know now, and knew then, Bethe, Garwin, et al., had no reputation as weapons engineers. To think they could claim such credibility is logically equivalent to insisting that all Nobel Prize chemists are qualified to be the world’s best cooks (cooking is only chemistry, right?).
Yes, they showed that THEIR solutions would not work. They did not show that credible engineering solutions would not work. I had a rather lengthy rebuttal paper prepared against one piece of nonsense analysis involving space-based lasers, but my boss told me to put it in my desk drawer. Not politic to show our hand.
As to the notion of decoys, I have to point out that boost-phase intercept precludes any problem with RV decoys. (The concept of booster decoys is laughable, but you would have to go through the physics to understand why.) Intercepting the post-boost-vehicle (PBV) was also an option, before any decoys or re-entry vehicles (RVs) could be dispensed. As for RV decoys, there is a method (recently patent applied-for) to generate gas clouds in the path of space objects in order to “filter” them kinematically. It is a 30-year-old concept…. (http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120241562)
So, as is true with all questions on this site, it is best if the participants know what they are talking about, or pay attention to those who do.

Zimcorp…decoy blather…WRONG. Evidence:
First up, if the counter-measures to SDI were so cheap-n-easy why the hell did the USSR bankrupt itself with projects like the ones I cited…not hypothetical projects, but hardware built and flown at immense expense as an attempt to ounter SDI and maintain an offensive capability.
Secondly…Chevaline. No you aint heard of it and you’ll have to Google it. But I’ll tell you. The UK strategic deterrent is posited upon the ability to obliterate Moscow. When the Moscow ABM shield (SDI in other words) became operational the UK lost this capability. The result was they had to invest heavily in the development of maneuvreable RVs, priject Chevaline. They could afford this but once. They could not have afforded to keep pace were such changes of circumstance repeatedly forced on them.
The mantra that missile defence doesnt work is an article of faith of the left. But ABM systems have proven themselves effective for decades.
Returning to the original point, SDI worked because it, not by itself but as part of a along with a raft of programmes, bankrupted the USSR and brought about its collapse.

From O Olson on March 7, 2013 at 1:22 pm:

What I should have said is atheism is technically a Lack of belief.

Incorrect. As revealed by the roots of the word, it is the rejecting of the existence of God, aka “a higher power”. As the evidence does not exist to conclusively reject the possibility of such, this cannot be a scientific position, therefore the affirming of the non-existence of said deity is a belief by definition.
A lack of belief is technically known as agnosticism, where one neither confirms or denies said existence. As the evidence is lacking for proof either way, this is the proper viewpoint for scientific endeavors.

This I strongly take exception to as it implies that these qualities can not spring from within us but must come from somewhere else. Many of my best friends prove this to be patently false.

In a time of great scarcity, when you have just enough food to feed your family that day and the next, a stranger approaches and asks if you have some food to spare, just enough so that their family may have something to eat today as well. Do you:
A. Truthfully tell them yes and get it for them,
B. Truthfully tell them yes but they can’t have it (and you’re sorry about their family starving),
C. Say you’re sorry, but you barely have enough for your own family for today, and wish them luck.
Humanity didn’t get this far as a species by being inherently honest. We are predators, hunters, who have advanced by becoming more cleverer deceivers.
How many people do you know who are perfectly honest with their taxes because of noble qualities that naturally spring forth from themselves? The desire to avoid prosecution and punishment is not a noble quality BTW.
When left to our own instincts and natural impulses, we humans will lie, cheat, steal, and kill. We do whatever we can to enhance our own survival, and spread our genetic material. In case you haven’t noticed, humans are not monogamous by nature.
Those qualities you admire still come from the same place they always have, the fear of punishment (pain), whether we believe a holy person telling us of punishment to come, the more immediate punishments of government/community for violating laws/customs… Or your momma punishing you for fibbing to her face.
Being open and honest cannot possibly spring from within, because it is anti-survival, thus nature wouldn’t allow it.

As you said, this is a science site. And I love it.

Me too. So let’s stick to the science, and admit what humans really are, as evolution has naturally brought about, and stop trying to pretty us up into something you find more comforting. Which you are mainly doing because then your fellow humans appear to be less of a threat to you, whether you’re consciously aware of it or not.
And following the dictates of nature, being as we are omnivorous predators, the correct answer following our inherent instincts was:
D. Kill the stranger, strip the corpse of anything usable, then work the meat into your food stores (the usual concerns about possible preservation of perishable stuff, eating fresh when possible, etc). Should keep your family surviving another three or maybe four days, at least.

O Olson:
Since you want to continue to inject religion into this discussion, while I’m avoiding proselytism, you are wrong on definitions: atheism is not a lack of belief, rather it is a positive statement of belief that there’s no deity or deities. A lack of belief is agnosticism where the person truly just doesn’t know.
Concerning honesty, let me give you a true story: a KGB defector told how he was recruited; he was arrested on a trumped up charge, then in prison forced to sign a false statement of guilt. The KGB desperately wanted one fellow prisoner to sign a false statement, but that man refused to lie. Finally the torture was so bad that the man died. The defector and his fellow prisoners had all broken and they mourned the death of a man better than they. You claim your friends are honest? What is their breaking point? At what point can they be bought? How many of your friends are honest because they’ve never faced an existential challenge where honesty would cost and cost big?
This is what we’re facing in the warmist camp—many of the warmists livelihoods depend on continuing the fiction of anthropogenic global warming. Even when they admit among themselves that the story is falling apart, they present a brave face to the world, because to admit that they are wrong would mean the loss of their jobs, the loss of the honors and access to power that their fiction presently gives them, the loss of their friends or actually worse that their then former friends would turn on them, big costs. “He who is trustworthy in the smallest things is trustworthy in much, and he who is unjust in the smallest things is unjust in much” Luke 16:10. The warmist lies started out small, but now they’ve snowballed so that the cost of coming clean is high, maybe too high? Given the present political climate, they can continue to get grants, but only if they continue their lies.
What science needs is honesty even where honesty will cost and cost big, and we’re not getting that honesty. Given the rate of scientific fraud where it’s evident that many people aren’t even trying to be honest, and that rate is going up, bodes ill for the future of science. It’s said that everyone has his price; what we need are people who can’t be bought, no matter what the price. Where does that sort of honesty come from? And don’t come up with a glib, quick answer.
It’s not only science that needs this sort of honesty, I’m finding other fields need it too.
This is dealing with only one of the factors needed for science, what about the other twelve listed in that article?

Sorry I’m late to this party, er, funeral. To all those former and about-to-become former subscribers to Sci-Am, I have a suggestion: keep a copy of the issue that boils your blood the hardest, for posterity. Imagine having something as quaint as an actual printed magazine from the early part of the century when eco-alarmism was at its height. In time, it will be as novel as a bottle of radium water! Personally, I’ve saved a Nat Geo (June 2007) with the cover article on The BIG THAW [Ice on the Run, Seas on the Rise] and a Sci-Am (December 2007) promoting the article on Carbon Markets [Making Them Work to Save the Climate], but my favorite is the Delta ‘Sky’ (in-flight) magazine with the cover graphic of a shining, curly-Q CFL bulb in front of the Earth, with the text “If every American household turns off the lights during Earth Hour on March 29, it will prevent more than 16,500 tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.” followed by the inevitable “… it’s so easy… what else can we do?” (with ‘easy’ and ‘else’ in italics, of course). This stuff is comic gold! So turn that frown upside-down and invest in your future: consider what it would mean to your grandkids to be able to actually touch such amazing artifacts while becoming the envy of all their friends (who will only be able to read about it in poorly written Wikipedia articles)…

R. Ortiz says:
March 7, 2013 at 4:09 pm

…
atheism is not a lack of belief, rather it is a positive statement of belief that there’s no deity or deities.

Just my 2 cents regarding atheism: I want to see some proof that there’s no deity or deities. That’s all.
Can’t? Hmmmm…..