After reconsideration of my original story, I find that there is more than enough blame to go around on both sides and that there were warning signs that were ignored.
Last Friday while at work, my Inbox exploded with news about a “climate skeptic journal getting canceled”. It was news to me, because I didn’t even know there was one in existence. This post is an update that post I made on Friday: The ‘planetary tidal influence on climate’ fiasco: strong armed science tactics are overkill, due process would work better. Today’s post is done with the benefit of more detailed information and more time than I had then.
Much of the mail I received Friday centered around this post by Jo Nova: Science paper doubts IPCC, so whole journal gets terminated!
Jo’s post details that a particular phrase in the announcement seemed to be the reason for the termination of the journal. The editor’s announcement (the first version) is reproduced below, bold, Jo’s:
Termination of the journal Pattern Recognition in Physics
Copernicus Publications started publishing the journal Pattern Recognition in Physics (PRP) in March 2013. The journal idea was brought to Copernicus’ attention and was taken rather critically in the beginning, since the designated Editors-in-Chief were mentioned in the context of the debates of climate skeptics. However, the initiators asserted that the aim of the journal was to publish articles about patterns recognized in the full spectrum of physical disciplines rather than to focus on climate-research-related topics.
Recently, a special issue was compiled entitled “Pattern in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts”. Besides papers dealing with the observed patterns in the heliosphere, the special issue editors ultimately submitted their conclusions in which they “doubt the continued, even accelerated, warming as claimed by the IPCC project” (Pattern Recogn. Phys., 1, 205–206, 2013).
Copernicus Publications published the work and other special issue papers to provide the spectrum of the related papers to the scientists for their individual judgment. Following best practice in scholarly publishing, published articles cannot be removed afterwards.
We at Copernicus Publications wish to distance ourselves from the apparent misuse of the originally agreed aims & scope of the journal and decided on 17 January 2014 to cease the publication of PRP. Of course, scientific dispute is controversial and should allow contradictory opinions which can then be discussed within the scientific community. However, the recent developments including the expressed implications (see above) have led us to this drastic decision.
Interested scientists can reach the online library at: www.pattern-recogn-phys.net
Martin Rasmussen
January 2014
Initially, this looked like another case of suppression due to the anti-IPCC message conveyed in the PRP Special Edition, much like we’ve seen in Climategate where an email campaign was used to pressure editors, and if the editors didn’t kowtow, “the team” would work to remove them. The Phil Jones email “Kevin and I will keep them out somehow” immediately sprang to mind.
My view was that the journal editor got “team” pressure, such as we witnessed James Annan crowing about, and they caved.
Kudos to Copernicus for the rapid and decisive way in which they dealt with this problem. The problems at the journal were was first brought to my attention by ThingsBreak just last night, I emailed various people to express my concerns and the journal (which was already under close scrutiny by the publisher) was closed down within 24h.
I pointed out that the best way is to let due process take its course:
While the shutdown of the journal Pattern Recognition in Physics that published a special edition on planetary tidal influence on climate is likely a bit of overkill, rebuttals would have been the right way to handle it rather than the Climategate style strong-arm gang tactics exhibited against journal editors…
But then later, after my piece was published, I learned there was far more to the story, and that Copernicus had changed their statement, adding this paragraph:
“In addition, the editors selected the referees on a nepotistic basis, which we regard as malpractice in scientific publishing and not in accordance with our publication ethics we expect to be followed by the editors.”
That seems like some post facto CYA to me, or, it could also be just sloppiness due to what appears to be the “panic” they were under after getting hit with an email campaign from James Annan’s “various people”.
Jo wondered in her update:
Copernicus is a large publishing group which also publishes many other journals. I wonder if “nepotism” is the word for pal-review which occurs all the time…
It turns out that “pal-review” was indeed a problem, and that both sides should have seen this showdown coming well in advance. Had either made some effort to head it off, you wouldn’t be reading about it now.
First, let me say that it takes a lot of courage and effort to put together a special edition for a journal, and I admire the people involved for doing that, even though I disagree with much of what was presented.
Secondly, it takes a lot of work to do it right. Doing it right means getting it done where any contestable items of special interest, pal-review, and other biases aren’t part of the publication. That’s where it went wrong.
Third, if the climate skeptic community became aware of a pal-review issue like this in climate science, we’d be all over it. We should hold our own community to the same standards.
In his post about the affair, Roger Tattersall, who was both an editor and an author of a paper in the special edition, responded to William Connolley in this comment with a [Reply].
William Connolley says:
“In addition, the editors selected the referees on a nepotistic basis, which we regard as malpractice in scientific publishing…”
Oooh you bad boys. RT: are you in favour of nepotism in review? Come on, don’t be shy.
[Reply] I asked for reviewers from outside our discipline, but with it being a small field, there was crossover. But because the papers are open access, anyone can download, review and comment, so I don’t think it’s a big problem. Let our scientific work stand on its merit, rather than impugning the honesty of the scientists.
Climate science itself suffers from the small field crossover problem to an extent, but as we saw in Climategate emails, often they turn a blind eye to it.
I have no problem with their work in the PRP Special Edition standing or failing on its own merit, but I do have a problem with the way they went about this. For example, in WUWT comments we have:
People are missing the key point,
http://www.pattern-recognition-in-physics.net/
“…the editors selected the referees on a nepotistic basis, which we regard as malpractice in scientific publishing and not in accordance with our publication ethics we expect to be followed by the editors.”
http://publications.copernicus.org/for_reviewers/obligations_for_referees.html
“4. A referee should be sensitive even to the appearance of a conflict of interest when the manuscript under review is closely related to the referee’s work in progress or published. If in doubt, the referee should return the manuscript promptly without review, advising the editor of the conflict of interest or bias.
5. A referee should not evaluate a manuscript authored or co-authored by a person with whom the referee has a personal or professional connection if the relationship would bias judgment of the manuscript.”
The problem is obvious, the papers list in many cases one of the reviewers as an author in the same edition and in some cases a known skeptic. While this is no different than what alarmists do all the time, skeptics will be held to a much higher standard and should not allow themselves to fall into these traps.
This makes what would be a clear censorship argument irrelevant.
Basically, they asked to play in the peer reviewed sandbox at Copernicus, then didn’t abide by the rules of the sandbox for peer review. That was the recipe for disaster everybody should have seen coming.
Which is confirmed:
Poptech says:January 18, 2014 at 3:56 pm
tallbloke says:
I’m surprised Poptech fell for the Rasmussen ruse. In his first email to the editors he said he was shutting down PRP because it had allowed sceptics to publish heresy about the IPCC dogma. Only later did he realise the own goal and cook up the unsubstantiated smears about “potential” issues with review.
With the original version I agree with you and on these grounds alone I consider this censorship but that is not the whole story.
My problem is with the process of using authors, editors and known skeptics as reviewers. This is not an unsubstantiated smear but verifiable,
Here are two examples:
Discussion on common errors in analyzing sea level accelerations, solar trends and global warming
“Reviewed by: N.-A. Morner and one anonymous referee”
Dr. Morner is qualified to review this paper but he is an editor and a known skeptic with a potential conflict of interest in that he is sympathetic to Dr. Scafetta’s arguments.
The Hum: log-normal distribution and planetary–solar resonance
“Reviewed by: H. Jelbring and one anonymous referee”
Hans Jelbring is again qualified but an author in this edition and a known skeptic with a potential conflict of interest in that he is sympathetic to your arguments.
And the reason I am told they published their names, was because they were concerned with having a conflict of interest! Thus, by the publishers own rules they should not be reviewing these papers. The saving grace is that one of the reviewers was anonymous but this is still going to lead to wild speculation for many reasons, especially since the editors were skeptics.
Why give alarmists the ammunition of Pal-Review? I don’t understand this.
Regardless, unless the papers get retracted I will list them, so people can read them and make up their own minds, but I will not be endorsing them nor defending the review process.
One of the PRP editors, Morner, published his own paper in the edition. The other editor reviewed it. And, Morner reviewed other papers. No clearer example of circular review exists.
And then there’s this:
richardscourtney says: January 18, 2014 at 9:04 am
Friends:
I withdraw the suggestions in my earlier post at January 18, 2014 at 1:58 am.
When I made that post I was not aware that the journal used the same people as authors and reviewers for the papers of each other in a Special Edition on a stated subject. Such a practice is a clear example of pal-review.
The Special Edition should not have been published when its peer review procedures were a clear malpractice. Whether the reasons for withdrawal of the Special Edition also warranted closure of the journal requires additional information but it seems likely.
And so, the perception of the pal-review has trumped any science that was presented, and few people will hear of the reasons behind that problem.
The problem the PRP authors and editors have is existence in a small like-minded universe, yet they don’t see the problem that presents to outsiders looking in. The situation reminded me of a Star Trek TNG episode “Remember Me“ where Dr. Beverly Crusher gets trapped in a “static warp bubble”. The pool of people she interacts with keeps shrinking as the bubble shrinks, and she keeps trying to convince the remaining people of this fact while they look at her like she’s crazy. She finally ends up alone, and doesn’t realize the reality of her isolation until she asks the ship’s computer “What is the nature of the universe?” and it answers:
“…the universe as a spheroid structure 705 meters in diameter.”
That’s about the size of the PRP Special Edition universe, and like the static warp bubble in the TNG episode, it is collapsing in on itself. The big problem with this event is that while that PRP Special Edition universe is collapsing in one place, it has exploded elsewhere, and that explosion has painted all climate skeptics with a broad brush.
Some news coverage of the event:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/01/18/0036252/alleging-malpractice-with-climate-skeptic-papers-publisher-kills-journal
It was easy to predict what kind of coverage we’d see.
Note there’s no distinction here of a “subset” of climate skeptics, or even “a few climate skeptics”, no, ALL climate skeptics are being painted with this fiasco. That means people like Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, the Pielkes, Curry, Singer, Happer, and many others are being lumped into this even though they had nothing to do with it. I doubt any of them even knew about it, and I daresay that if they did, they’d have similar objections to what has already been voiced on WUWT about the process.
And that, makes me upset. What makes me even more upset is that this mess was wholly preventable if either Copernicus or the PRP Special Edition group had realized what was at stake and done something about it before it became the next target of “the team” looking to pressure an editor like we saw in Climategate. Had I known about it before it exploded. I certainly would have voiced objections about the use of a small and specialized universe of editors and reviewers. Almost any reasonable person looking at this from the outside can see this pal-review issue would eventually blow up, because no matter how careful they might have been internally to prevent such issues, the appearance from the outside of bias is what gets written about, as we’ve seen.
And, there were clear warnings.
Steve Mosher writes to me with this
A while back I happened upon the Tallbloke journal (comments from Tallbloke’s Talkshop)
Steven Mosher says:
cool. not only did you review each other papers ( where the reviewer had the ethical courage to identify himself) but you referenced your own papers that were simultaneously submitted but un published.
wow, way better than the CRU scams.
Of course Ian wilson chimed in
when he knew what I said was true
more
Steven Mosher says: (bold mine)
“Ian:Three years ago at Lisbon, Mosh told me I needed to provide some numbers to back up our solar-planetary hypothesis. Now we are able to do that, he’s falling back on insult by comparing us to people who bent data and stats methods, intimidated journal editors, removed adverse data, hid sample sizes etc.
It’s standard fare from the people who have lost the plot on what the scientific method is. They play the man rather than the ball, because their threadbare theory has failed.”
No Rog, I’m hold [sic] you to the same standard that we hold mann [sic] and others to.
1. Your [sic] the editor of a journal and you publish your own papers. In the climategatemails we found similar problems; we found authors who selected journals because they had a guy on the inside.
Second, we complained because IPCC chapter authors were referring to their own work. Self interest. I can hardly complain about this practice WRT the IPCC and Mann and then let you slide simply because you are a friend. Further, when I was asked for a list of journals to submit to I eliminated all journals where our authors served as editors or as emeritus editors.
2. We complained about climate scientists citing papers that had not yet been published. Look through your references you’ll find the examples. Again, integrity. And yes, you’ll note for example that our AMO paper ( that confirms some of scaffettas work) was held back from publication until all the other papers it cites were published. To do otherwise is to build a house on quicksand.
3. I missed your policy on archiving data and code. I did note some people giving links as references. Sad. bare minimum would be link with the date accessed.
Finally, I looked for your numbers. they are still missing. At a minimum I should be able to go to the SI, get the data and run the code to make sure that the charts presented actually come from the method described.
Since you’re the editor perhaps you tell us how you plan to practice the things we agreed on long ago. Don’t feel bad, folks who think its not the sun get pissed when I tell them to share data and code.. to basically show their work. But you should not be surprised that I would argue that everybody, not just Mann and Jones, should aim for reproducable research. I’ve been advocating it since 2007. Why would I listen to any special pleading from friends. For example, see my comments in july of 2012 on steve mcintyre’s blog where he and Anthony get an earful from me.
It’s a principle for me.
Did Tattersall or Wilson then do anything about this? It doesn’t seem so, but then again I’m, not privy to what went on behind the scenes, like everybody else, all I can do is look at their universe from the outside and note the clearly evident problems they seem unable or unwilling to see.
And the warnings went back even further, from RetractionWatch:
But scholarly librarian Jeffrey Beall noticed some…patterns in the journal back in
SeptemberJuly:The journal’s editor-in-chief, Sid-Ali Ouadfeul, who works for the Algerian Petroleum Institute, started publishing his research in journal articles around 2010, but he’s only been cited a couple times, not counting his many self-citations.
Co-editor-in-chief Nils-Axel Morner is a noted climate “skeptic” who believes in dowsing (water divining) and believes he has found the “Hong Kong of the [ancient] Greeks” in Sweden, among other things. These beliefs are documented in Wikipedia and The Guardian. Morner has over 125 publications, but pattern recognition does not appear to be among his specialties.
Moreover, speaking of “pattern recognition,” my analysis revealed some self-plagiarism by editor Ouadfeul in the very first paper the journal published, an article he himself co-authored.
Did he ask Copernicus to do something about it? Unknown, but it seems likely they would have been made aware of it. Again Copernicus is a seasoned publisher, they should have solved the problem well before it detonated into the science landscape.
So, in summary:
- While the idea of a special edition is fine, and certainly what science was presented in it should stand or fail on its own and have the opportunity for due process, but now that has been made next to impossible.
- The papers are still available at this link. I urge readers to examine them and draw their own conclusions not only about the science, but about the review and publishing process.
- The public perception problem of pal-review could have been prevented had either the journal itself or the people in the PRP Special Edition universe recognized and corrected the pal-review appearance that their small PRP universe presented to outsiders.
- At multiple blogs, including WUWT and Tallbloke’s Talkshop, some people are now defending the process of pal-review as a “more productive form of collaboration to produce a better result”. I’m sorry, that’s just not only wronger than wrong, it’s FUBAR.
- Copernicus and Rasmussen appeared to be indifferent to the appearance of a pal-review issue until they started to get pressure from “the team” spurred on by James Annan. They panicked, and in their panic, presented a sloppy argument for closure, which had to be revised.
- Knowing of the increasing sea of science journals and choices, Copernicus did what they thought they had to do to protect their brand, but they did it ham-handedly, and invited the Streisand effect.
- Copernicus and Rasmussen aren’t newcomers to this arena, they are considered professionals by the science community. They should have recognized this problem and acted on it long ago. Had they done so, we’d not be reading about it today.
- That said, with warning signs present that we’ve seen before in Climategate, and with the people in the PRP universe aware of those things, they should have been able to see the problem and make corrections themselves. Ideally, they never should have fallen into the trap in the first place.
- When warned about the problem, Tattersall and Wilson should have done something to head it off. They may have, I don’t know, but I see no evidence of it. Likewise it seems almost certain Copernicus/Rasmussen would have been made aware of the problem in July 2013 by Beall, and should have done something if they were aware. If Beall did nothing, he’s culpable.
- The coverage of the affair paints all climate skeptics unfairly, since only a small group of climate skeptics operated within the PRP universe, mostly unknown to the larger body of climate skeptics.
- Skepticism is about asking skillful questions to examine if a claim is true or not. In this affair we have a small group of people who think they have the answer, and they browbeat people who think their answer isn’t accurate or representative. A good skeptic (and scientist) practices doubt, and should embrace criticisms, looking to see where they may have gone wrong.
- This fiasco pretty much dashes any chance of any sort of climate skeptic or citizen science based journal coming into existence, because should such a journal be started, no matter how careful, no matter how exacting, no matter how independent, this fiasco is going to be held up as an example as to why nobody from the larger science community should participate.
It’s a real mess, and instead of apologizing for creating it, what we are seeing from the PRP Special Edition universe is indignant rhetoric because nobody is paying attention to their ideas.
All around, a tragedy, and a wholly preventable one.
Richard, thank you, I forgot to site a reference. The actual text of the withdrawal statement came from [the person in question]’s website.
Couple of points; “a known skeptic” is an interesting epithet and stranger still as a disqualifier for peer-review. How can a non-skeptical person further the interests of science. (Yes, I do understand that in the context of climate science ‘skeptic’ denotes someone who disagrees with the orthodox view of AGW.)
Second; interesting to note how differently the ‘skeptical’ side of the climate science debate treats pal-review than the alarmist side. (One of these things appears to be science, the other appears to be a frat house. You can decide for yourself if science is a heated debate over genuine issues or a wild and raucous affair where one triumphs by having the least coherent argument and hurling epithets at one’s opponent.)
When they were found out (church of AGW) they rallied around one another, casting aspersions far and wide and pretending a crime had been committed. When someone on the skeptical side pretends to do peer-reviewed research but yet isn’t up to par, they get called out.
The Pro-AGW side threatens to shut down a peer-reviewed journal for publishing something they disagree with, the skeptical side shuts down a journal for publishing things which are not properly peer reviewed, whether they agree with them or not.
I’m sure Jones, Mann, Hansen and the usual suspects think this is hilarious, but in reality, it could be a death knell for un-skeptical science. I see where people are calling for the prosecution of a researcher at ISU over forged data on an HIV vaccine. Several million dollars were allocated to the research based on his preliminary (faked) results. Climate ‘science’ makes that guy look like a piker.
Poptech,
You are forgetting that ‘tallbloke’ has years of experience editing his award winning website.
And is very knowledgeable and well read on the subjects he writes about. Experience is just as important or in some cases more important than a certificate.
negrum says:
January 20, 2014 at 11:48 am
Guam says:
January 20, 2014 at 11:19 am
—-l
I think they succeeded in their aim to rile poptech. As you are a self-confessed non-poster and someone who is concerned with how posters express themselves, I suggest that you couch your (well meaning) advice a bit more politely and humbly, no matter how outraged you are, especially since poptech is the one who has been taking the flak.
I cannot see how reading your post in its current form is going to make him change his mind.
Firstly, just because I tend to lurk does not make me a non poster, (research is everything)
Second I have been on here many years, so my opinion whether you like it or not is as valid as anyone else’s.
Your attitude there is indicative of what I am referring to, inaccurate statements and failure to accept someones view.
What has evolved on this thread has done no one here credit imho.
My opinion if you don’t like it move on!
Albert Einstein’s revolutionary “Annus Mirabilis” papers in the 1905 issue of Annalen der Physik were peer-reviewed by the journal’s editor-in-chief, Max Planck, and its co-editor, Wilhelm Wien, both future Nobel prize winners and together experts on the topics of these papers. An external panel of reviewers was not sought, as is done for many scientific journals today.
IMO; The science stands or falls on it’s own.
Copernicus Publications has been described as the largest open access publisher in the Geo- and Earth system sciences,[3] and it is known as one of the first publishers to embrace public peer review.[4]
“Louis Hooffstetter says:
January 20, 2014 at 9:33 am
Kudos to the editors & owners for nipping incestuous pal review at the bud!
We’re all glad to see this problem exposed and eliminated whenever & wherever”
Louis, yes, good luck on that one.
I am absolutely FOR all pal, friend, mother reviewed submissions, whatever, just state the dogs you have in the fight, up front. This is exactly why all “reviewers” should be made public. If you don’t have the balls to put your name on it, shut up.
But in this particular case, I don’t really read it as Tallbloke and company violating rules and getting their journal sacked, it involved their message, and was actually sacked by guys like James Annan, who emails his pals and CAUSES the actual event to take place, regardless of the review process. The real reason this journal is cancelled is because Tallbloke submitted the paper. I would hope in the future this is a big lesson for us bad, bad, skeptics, we are held to a higher standard whether you like it or believe it or not. Perception is reality, please plan and protect yourself accordingly.
I must say that this almost seems like a setup by “The Team”. How is it that PRP could exist for almost a year without a hint of it being known by informed people like Anthony etc. This almost seems like a sham magazine specifically designed to result in a disgrace of skeptics. And the special edition is almost too “out there” to even beleve that it was done in good faith. Really, the planets effecting earths climate? It just all seems too crazy.
“In addition, the editors selected the referees on a nepotistic basis, which we regard as malpractice in scientific publishing and not in accordance with our publication ethics we expect to be followed by the editors.”
If this would have been the reason, then it would not be much to say. Copernicus should have had a record of checking, approaching and warning that this (closure) will happen if the proper process is not followed. Do they have such? I bet not.
the above text was added only later when they realised the mess they are in
The reason is clear, they closed the journal because it did not play the religious tones – as they clearly said in the initial mails and post.
Does anybody believe the journal would have been closed would it have stuck to the party line and sung hosannas for the climate-apocalypse religion?
Can anybody give any such example of a warmist paper ever retracted for “nepotistic” selection of reviewers, or worse, I would say even incestuous chosen referees? There have been enough examples reviewed here at WUWT that should not have passed any peer-review.
So yes, it could maybe have been avoided to give the warmist this argument. Maybe. If then, it is a pity they allowed themselves to work almost in a “warmista” kind of way.
Actually the pal-peer review is broken and mostly irrelevant. It only helps to reduce the garbage but does not eliminate it. A next generation of direct-net-journals is already here where a fast internet review is the correct review – and they are slowly getting out there, but maybe too slow – I guess too much money is involved in all the journals yet.
LamontT says:
January 20, 2014 at 9:40 am
No I would think not. It is very clear that Anthony is not attempting to engage in a mask of peer review. Instead he is running an open review process where anyone can come along and provide input before the final paper is published. It is an alternate and very probably better approach to review than the typically incestuous peer review favored by most journals.
my underlying above – I find that is the only review that really makes sense, and I understand this was actually also the intention of the PRP editors to let it stand by its own merit.
The peer-pal review can function only as the first stage, the internet review is the true check. Unfortunately there are no sites which do really count the many times much more pertinent internet reviews, this is something that the reader has to do on itself in most cases.
Why did the NASA not link to the RRResearch post here on their arsenic claim paper?
http://rrresearch.fieldofscience.com/2010/12/arsenic-associated-bacteria-nasas.html
This just an example of a pal-review corrected very fast by an internet review. This is how science can progress faster.
Sorry, never heard of the PRP journal before and I did not read the publication yet.
I trust some skeptics sites will properly analyse and review the papers if they find these interesting, so I would say the skeptics internet paper review works, and we will learn soon if there is value in these and how much.
Re: Poptech in one of his references:
Poptech, you have no foggy of what you are talking about.
If you would have read the context of you complaint and that reference you would have realized that reference to “pal-review” had nothing to do with journals and the real peer-review process and was actually a case when pal-review is a proper, innocent and cute way to say “I might want to pass this under your nose before I write my next blog top-post” in a series of posts on the influence of GHGs near the top of atmosphere compared to the lower troposphere where opacity nears or equals total if I remember correctly. Notice the happy face?
Furthermore, that reference was not uttered by any of the party in question here and was said by another scientist, to my limited knowledge a bona-fide one who I will not name here to keep this from going any further. Also, that was a dead end, he didn’t even follow through with his possible request for my review though I wish he would have on that topic.
So if you are an honest and humble man I expect you to public post here an apology and retraction of your inaccurate reference about two innocent parties. Immediately pease to clear your “record”.
We routinely admonish “the team” for their exploits in pal-review. We should apply the same standard to our own people who play in the peer-review sandbox. – Anthony
I believe the only thing that has been proven here is that the idea of peer review is wrong wrt. saying anything useful about the quality or correctness of the science presented. The main function of peer review is an authoritarian one, that is how it has been used by alarmists. I don’t think it is useful to copy such practices. I believe scientific work should be posted directly on the web for all to see, complete with underlying data, without any filtering. If people want to review then, there is no stopping them.
REPLY: epic dodge – A
That may be correct (“ludicrous and easily disproven”). If you are right, there is no reason to fight against its publication because – in your own words – it is ludicrous and easily disproven, and people will see it as such.
If Nepotism and Pal Review is such a problem I expect that we will see many journals closed in the following days and weeks — it should be a deluge actually.
Poptech, thank you for the courtesy of reply (bar the shouting). Regrettably I did indeed miss something.
Most of my comments on WUWT are satirical in that they ridicule the CAGW establishment. This is because I believe they invite the derision. If one is arguing against ‘the establishment’ and they are arguing from ‘authority’ yet they are also using propaganda and underhand techniques then ridicule and derision is probably the best way, at least for me, of pointing out the ridiculous.
When it comes to the subject in question, peer/pal review, yes I have derided it, but what I am deriding is scientists knowingly using the peer review process to censor other scientists, get editors sacked, knowingly deceive and delete / hide / cherry pick data. Yes, if this has indeed been a peer / pal review exercise and the editors have not followed the rules then I do agree it deserves criticism. But a reviewer who is personally antagonistic, contrarian, demonstrates unwarranted bias – for or against or may benefit financially from publication is really what we mean by conflict of interest, a skeptic or indeed a friend honestly reviewing another skeptic’s work is not in itself a conflict of interest.
This is not in the same league as censoring and corruption. Yes I understand that skeptics have to demonstrate higher ethical standards than some of the CAGW crowd (not difficult).
The level the criticism has reached is not deserved.
As regard ‘tit for tat’ arguments, I will just say ‘childish’ and beneath both of you.
For me, censorship is the argument. Pal review, in this context is, in my opinion, a side issue.
I am sorry you feel my comments are ‘spin’ and ‘strawman’.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 20, 2014 at 10:44 am
My friend, you had an unparalleled chance, one it’s possible I’ll never have, and you pissed it down the drain. You get no sympathy from me, not one bit. All you had to do was choose independent reviewers and your ideas would have gained prominence.
—————————————————————————–
Hi Willis,
I think you are overoptimistic here.
It is absolutely right to discuss the malpractise of pal review, but it is wrong to totally neglect the first reason for the termination.
The message from Copernicus clearly says, they terminated the journal, because “PRP was never meant to be a platform for climate sceptics” (see full quote below).
I think Lubos Motl got it right, as he was educated by personal experience with communism. This was THE reason. The peer review issue (of 4 out of 12 papers) was just an “in addition”.
It may be surprising that they admitted this reason so openly, but remember this comes form Germany, a country totally brainwashed by the most extreme AGW agenda on the planet, where open dissent is almost non existent, where the ministry of environment published a list of skeptical scientists and journalists to smear them and warns the public of believing them
The Copernicus team is certainly thinking, their statement must be acceptable or even convincing to everyone else they ever talked to.
The peer review issue may have certainly be used as a tool by those trying to terminate the articles from the outside (because they did not like the articles), but Copernicus terminated, because they think opposing views of the IPCC is just an untolerable.sin.
I also don’t see anything good coming from this episode and particularly the reaction in this thread.
1. This sets a standard. But not a positive standard for climate science, as some have claimed here. Only for skeptical science.
2. The first lesson learned will be that you can terminate a skeptical article or even journal because it opposes views of the IPCC.
3. The second lesson will be to keep referees’ names surpressed to cover the common practise or often necessity of pal review.
3. The third lesson will be that skeptical articles may be treated differently and hostile in general wihich includes hostile referees, if #1 has not already been pulled. Take Michael Mann for a paper from McIntyre, for example.
5. The forth lesson will be, that you can really do all of that, because many skeptics are just too naive to see what has been going on here. and prefer to focus on their own errors in the first place.
Dear Sid-Ali, dear Nils-Axel, We regret to inform you that we decided to terminate the journal Pattern Recognition in Physics (PRP).
While processing the press release for the special issue “Pattern in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts”, we read through the general conclusions paper published on 16 Dec 2013. We were alarmed by the authors’ second implication stating “This sheds serious doubts on the issue of a continued, even accelerated, warming as claimed by the IPCC project”. Before the journal was launched, we had a long discussion regarding its topics. The aim of the journal was to publish articles about patterns recognized in the full spectrum of physical disciplines. PRP was never meant to be a platform for climate sceptics. In addition to our doubts about the scientific content of PRP, we also received information about potential misconduct during the review process. Copernicus Publications cannot risk losing its excellent reputation in the scientific community. We therefore wish to distance ourselves from the apparent misuse of the originally agreed aims & scope of PRP and decided today to cease the publication. This decision must come as a surprise for you, but under the given circumstances we were forced to react.
We hope that you understand our reasons for this decision. We thank you very much for your cooperation and wish you all the best for your future career. Best regards, Martin and Xenia
Each paper should be published in turn on WUWT so that the people may review and come to their own conclusions. I think people get too hung up on peer review, who cares if a bunch of anonymous or named peers have reviewed a paper before it gets published, all it really is is a form of proof reading. To my mind peer review is just a pointless waste of time and merely delays publication. If an author is nervous that he may have made some mistakes and wants the comfort of a proof reader (peer review), then fine, but if an author is confident of their paper, why bother with peer review. This whole thing is a storm in a teacup. Publish.
If anything peer review is a mechanism for preserving the status quo and for preventing outsiders from advancing new ideas. Hopefully the internet will break the stranglehold that publications like nature etc have. I want to see ideas put forward, new, controversial, peer reviewed or not, its the content that counts and I will be the judge of it, not some peer reviewer.
The papers should stand or fall on the merit of its contents, not the merit of its peer reviewers.
lsvalgaard says:
January 20, 2014 at 11:54 am
Blah.
Disagree with my conclusions then, not with the absolute facts. The polar regions of the Sun do revolve 9 days more slowly that the Sun’s equator. Tell me why. You can’t just gainsay everything.
Particles of dust in the solar system have mass and in agregate their own gravitational field.
That’s not a statement you can answer with an “Oh no they don’t.”
Ions have mass and are being deflected from their natural tragectory by the spinning solar magnetosphere.
That’s not something you can answer with, “you just don’t understand.”
Make me understand it. Explain or get off the pot. You’re blocking traffic.
A good explanation is here http://www.ncra.tifr.res.in:8081/~basi/ASICS_2/071-Kitchatinov.pdf
To summarize: it is the result of interacxtion between convection and rotation. The solar plasma moving along a radius [convection] is deflected by the Coriolis force [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect ].
Particles of dust in the solar system have mass and in agregate their own gravitational field.
The amount of dust is so small that their gravitational field is negligible compared to that of the Sun. The dust from comets are pushed away by the pressure of sunlight, but the dust tail is really formed because the head of the comet is running away from the dust left behind [as the comet gains speed by getting closer to the sun].
Ions have mass and are being deflected from their natural trajectory by the spinning solar magnetosphere.
They are so hot that they simply escape radially away from the Sun, like steam evaporating from a pan. And are not significantly deflected away from the radial direction. The magnetic field embedded in the escaping ions prevents other charged particles [except high-energy cosmic rays] from moving towards the sun and thus influence anything on the Sun.
You’re blocking traffic.
It seems to me that your inability [or unwillingness] to accept the facts is the real blocker. Now, you can tell me which of the above you do not understand, then I can explain further.
It is because papers have become the recognised unit of academic output. Academics are ranked, promoted and paid, essentially on measures of the number of papers they produce. This means there is an incentive to cheat. Peer review makes it more difficult to publish garbage and claim credit for it.
The politicians, bean counters and accountants who run our academic institutions are deeply convinced right down to their bones that most of the academics they pay must be slackers. But it is difficult for them to determine which ones because they don’t understand what the academics are doing. Hence the invention of the “paper” – something a bean counter can — well — count — to rank academic output.
Bean counters have seized on this idea of the paper and refuse to let it go. Without the “paper” they would be lost – they wouldn’t know who to hire or fire. With it — “Fred has produced 6 papers this year. Well done Fred – here is your raise.” “Jones has only produced one. He is letting the side down. Sack the bugger!” “The output target for 2014 has been raised to 4 papers per academic as part of our plan to make the university one of the top 100 by 2020.”
Academics know that paper count is a lousy measure of quality, and that “publish or perish” the pressure to churn out papers, is destructive to science. But academics are trapped in the system and have little power to change it. The name of the game is producing lots of papers in peer reviewed journals. And if you don’t play the game your career will come to a halt and you may even lose your job.
Many posters have referred to “Rule #4” as proof that PRP did something wrong. Their reference to “Rule #4” is often accompanied by sarcastic comments such as “What part of the rule don’t you understand” and/or “Copernicus’s rules…”. However, I believe those posters have misinterpreted the rule and have inferred from it something it does not say. I have read the rule a number of times…
4. A referee should be sensitive even to the appearance of a conflict of interest when the manuscript under review is closely related to the referee’s work in progress or published. If in doubt, the referee should return the manuscript promptly without review, advising the editor of the conflict of interest or bias.
… and no place can I find where it says a person with “even the appearance of a conflict of interest” cannot be a referee. All it says is, if a referee thinks he may have a conflict of interest, he must disclose it to the editor. It is then up to the editor to decide whether or not to use the person as a referee. However, just as Rule #4 says it is incumbent upon the referee to disclose a potential conflict to the editor, should the editor decide to continue to use the person as a referee, it then becomes incumbent upon the editor to disclose this to the publication’s readers. The PRP editor did this by revealing the otherwise confidential names of those referees with a possible conflict.
Having a conflict of interest does not automatically disqualify a person. It is only if the conflict is not disclosed that it becomes unethical and may, as the Copernicus publisher declares, be “malpractice”. For example, if I hire an attorney and that attorney has a conflict and fails to disclose it to me, that is unethical. I can sue the attorney for malpractice and the attorney can be disbarred (the journal shut down). However, if knowing of the conflict, I decide to hire the attorney anyways, the attorney can continue representing me without fear of adverse repercussions.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 20, 2014 at 10:44 am
“Let me repeat for you Poptech’s imaginary scenario from above:
Michael Mann starts a journal called “Pattern Recognition in Physics”, brings in Gavin Schmidt and John Cook as co-editors. Mann then invites Phil Jones. All publish and review each other’s papers in a special edition called “Hockey Stick patterns in proxy records and their terrestrial impacts”. Cook says Mann gave him an honest 12-page review, starting with “I’m sorry, this is really going to piss you off, but…”.
Skeptics believe everything and embrace this new era of peer-review science integrity! All Hockey Stick arguments triumph from this point forward. The end.
Nicola, you are many things, but you are no fool. Think about Poptech’s scenario, and consider your own actions. Because from the perspective of the outside world, you’ve just played out Poptech’s scenario, and now you want sympathy …”
Means nothing. CO2AGW science stands and falls with predictive skill of models. Not with a thousand papers that all describe some wiggles that the model output makes. All these papers are worthless no matter who reviews them as long as the predictive skill of the models has not been shown. For obvious logical reasons.
And that’s the papers they churn out. Peer reviewed. Predictive skill has never been shown.
Obviously the same criterion holds for the paper by Tallbloke et al. Will show its value only after time has passed as it makes a prediction.
The Göttingen ecofascii changed their reasons. They’re just liars, is that so hard to fathom.
WillieB:
re your post at January 20, 2014 at 2:16 pm.
It is ‘pal review’ for a group of people to publish papers in a Special Edition on a specific subject who act as reviewers of the papers of each other. If they did not know that or did not understand that then they should have known and understood it.
Ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking the law.
And your attempt to reinterpret the rules is not relevant because everybody knows that ‘pal review’ is not acceptable.
Richard
It seems that quite a few people don’t understand why there is a rule against the “appearance” of a conflict of interest.
Not only should you not have a conflict of interest (rule 5), but it should not even look like you might have a conflict (rule 4).
Mainly because it leaves people wondering about the impartial nature of a decision that is being made. If there is an appearance of a conflict of interest then the potential for a conflict is there automatically. The evidence that something may be wrong is in the appearance of a conflict of interest. That means whatever was done must be scrutinized to make sure the decision was not improperly influenced.
To those that say that the other side does it too… they are wrong to do it, it is still wrong if we do it.
To those that say it is ok because the whole peer review system is broken… then why bother with a journal to begin with? It doesn’t make sense to further misuse an already broken system.
To those that say the conflict of interest was only a side matter and that the “real” reason is that skeptics dared to publish in a journal… then it was extremely stupid to not follow all the rules and to hand the alarmists the ammunition needed to easily discredit your work. If you misrepresent why you want to start a journal and at the same time ignore the rules for running the journal, don’t be surprised when the publisher takes it away.
If you want to be mad at the publisher for taking the journal away under pressure from alarmists, then you must also be angry at the people who ran the journal and gave the publisher and alarmists all the justification that was needed to take it away.
WillieB says:
“… and no place can I find where it says a person with “even the appearance of a conflict of interest” cannot be a referee.”
I found it in the next sentence:
“If in doubt, the referee should return the manuscript promptly without review,”
MattK says:
January 20, 2014 at 2:53 pm
“If you want to be mad at the publisher for taking the journal away under pressure from alarmists, then you must also be angry at the people who ran the journal and gave the publisher and alarmists all the justification that was needed to take it away.”
You don’t have to pressure a modern day Göttinger to act politically correct. That would be like trying to convince a Polar Bear to eat meat.
January 20, 2014 at 6:41 am | Poptech says:
————-
You weren’t censored, mate … you just have an over inflated opinion of your station in debate requiring the immediate attention of all. You might have noticed that your commentary at Jo’s is not exactly going down very well.
Oh, I do have ‘science’ degree and a ‘management’ masters from a university 😉