In an emotional commentary written for the WorldNetDaily (aka WND) Christopher Monckton has said that he’ll take over the journal and publish a first issue in March 2014. He displays what he calls a “mockup cover” (shown below) that consists of his coat of arms along with various cyclic, spirographic, and colorful psychedelic style images of natural and mathematical patterns.
Monckton writes (he calls the editor Rasmussen “the Rabbit” for some reason):
However, The Borg do not allow publishing houses to act as publishing houses. When I recently co-authored a paper with professor Fred Singer on the consequences of chaos theory for the predictability of global warming, the editor of Energy & Environment, one of the few journals to allow skeptical science an airing, ordered my name to be taken off the paper on the ground that it would annoy The Borg. Besides, she said, she did not like my politics (of which there was nothing whatsoever in the paper).
These are the points the Rabbit made in rejecting professor Mörner’s special issue and shutting down the journal:
- “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.” And why should taking part in scientific debate debar an editor?
- “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 skeptics.” It should be a platform for science, wherever the evidence leads.
- “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).” The Rabbit stated no reason for daring to dispute their scientific conclusion?
- “While processing the press release for the special issue, ‘Patterns in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts,’ we read through the general conclusions paper published on 16 December 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.’” And why was the Rabbit “alarmed”? Because he was told to be.
There is only one reasonable conclusion to be drawn from the above passages. The Age of Reason and Enlightenment is over. The Dark Ages are back.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/the-thermageddon-cult-strikes-again/#uptbtelyETT0rmR6.99
Of course, the true measure of a journal’s success will be how much it is read, how often its articles are cited, and whether it gets that all important listing as certified journal in the ISI Web of Knowledge. See: http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/mjl/
Of course that last bit isn’t a requirement, but it does help a journal become accepted. I would urge them to apply as soon as their first issue is completed.
All I can say is that I hope the people that tried to publish in the first PRP journal (now closed) find a friendly home there. It will be interesting to watch it evolve and I wish them all the success they deserve.
Judging from the comments in the WND article, it looks like Joseph A Olson (aka FauxScienceSlayer of the Slayers/PSI fame) is queuing up to submit some of his writings. I’m sure other like minded individuals will follow in seeking to publish there.
We live in interesting times.
when someone says “I will bet”, is it not expected to see an amount, as in “I’ll bet $x that”. Otherwise the wager in effect says “I’ll bet nothing that”, which really means that the offer to bet has no value. However, if someone says “I’ll bet $x that”, then someone else can say “I accept your wager”, and that would constitute a contract, except where such a contract is proscribed.
M Simon says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
January 24, 2014 at 3:01 am
Well either I said something bad or the comment is in the bit bucket.
Janice Moore says: January 23, 2014 at 5:07 pm
Hi Janice, I love your herding cats analogy for the skeptic crowd. Very apt. Reminds me of some funny cat videos on Youtube, where the cats stand on their back feet and “talk” to each other in low-toned growls and hisses…. like some commenters do here at WUWT some days… We have Cleo the Climate Kitty at our house – a very self-satisfied skeptical cat with a mind of her own, who has a tendency to go over the same territory repeatedly. Sound familiar?
As for solar flares – I hope the point was taken about the many ways earth-directed solar flare events are very influential to our biosphere. The human response aspect is but one area of interest – a very subjective area compared to the hard sciences, because a person’s feelings are unmeasurable. My efforts are focused primarily on learning the full spectrum of measurable cause-effect relationships regarding solar activity, the weather, and climate.
Like a court of law, the court of science has its ways, and advocates are well-advised to learn the ways and language of the court before attempting to defend a case convincingly. Recent turmoil over the Pattern Recognition in Physics journal has reinforced the importance of knowing your way around the court of science. Let’s hope the PRP rides again without the political correctness.
Cleo the Climate Kitty wants to go outside and get some fresh air, but she forgets in five minutes that its cold and snowy. In many ways she’s like the warmists – the real climate deniers. They forget that night follows day, that summer follows winter, that there are cycles within cycles in nature at all levels, and like Cleo, they don’t know or care that what goes up must also come down. Too bad so many warmists will never know what causes cycles or their interrelationships thanks to scientific blindness, censorship, and misinformation.
M Simon:
re your post at January 24, 2014 at 3:54 am.
Many understand your frustration. Please see my post addressed to markstoval at January 24, 2014 at 3:40 am.
Richard
“I don’t have much time for errant cyclo-pursuits, my concern is mostly over your and Nicola’s boorish behavior and labeling.”
Ahem. Labelling. ‘Cyclomaniacs’ ‘Barycentrists’ ‘Astrologers’. There are so many beams in the eye here it’s unsurprising some are blind to their own prejudice.
Having put up with a week of cyber-bullying from people who haven’t read the papers and don’t know anything more about our peer review process than Martin Rasmussen’s as yet unsubstantiated vague smears, complaining of ‘boorish behaviour’ is a bit rich.
As Niklas Morner ( a scientist with nearly 600 peer reviewed papers to his name) pointed out, in a special edition, it is common practice for authors to peer review other authors work, especially in small fields such as ours. The only reason this got attacked in our case was because we were honest enough to put the fact out in the open. If the papers had been published months apart and the names kept anonymous like in the warmo-journals, no-one would have been any the wiser.
The journal that will be quite literally Peer reviewed.
Peter C says:
January 24, 2014 at 3:15 am
I don’t know, but I am certain it is more than, for example, Michael Faraday, William Herschel, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Mary Anning, Gregor Mendel and Albert Einstein among many others, all of whom were scientifically uneducated yet fathered (or mothered, I suppose) much of modern science.
Not to forget
– My hero Oliver Heaviside ( mathematical analysis of transients in distributed electric circuits, loading of transmission lines for distortionless transmission; postulated the Heaviside layer, put Maxwells equations into the form used today, methods of transient analysis for linear circuits, later shown to be equivalent to Laplace transform analysis)
– William Beaumont (physiology of digestion)
– Humphry Davy (discoverer of sodium and potassium)
– The Wright brothers (controlled heavier than air flight from systematic use of experimental aerodynamic data)
– Michael Faraday (principles of electromagnetic induction)
Tallbloke,
Your enterprising enthusiasm is infectious, to me at least. It is good to see a person such as you set on trying to achieve an acceptance of their research work.
It is integrity that will prevail; it will guide throughout any errors and subsequent corrections. People from the peanut gallery may cheer at mistakes, but so what . . . it is normal science to correct and move on.
It is a very good signal from the ‘open and free marketplace of ideas’ that there are some very severe critics here at WUWT of you and your associates. Use it to your advantage, it is a wonderful opportunity.
Unsolicited Advice => perhaps an outside / independent review (audit) of any new review process of a reborn PRP would serve the idea of PRP openness if it was done openly.
Anyway, as we used to fondly say during my professional working days, “Get to work!” : )
John
tallbloke says:
January 23, 2014 at 11:14 pm
And despite that solid theoretical foundation, when it came to the practical application of your extensive knowledge, you and your friends got fired from a journal for, what was it … oh, yeah, inter alia it was because “the editors selected the referees on a nepotistic basis” …
I gotta say, Roger, with that as the most recent thing on your CV, lecturing people regarding your extensive knowledge of peer review theory and procedures seems … well … out of place.
I didn’t notice Mosh saying he was the first one, so what on earth are you objecting to? You’d look a lot more credible, Rog, if you were to bust him for something he actually said …
Yes, it’s an old idea. Not only that, it was a requirement for Copernicus journals, that enough data and code be published to be able to replicate the author’s work.
And despite it being an old idea, and despite it being a requirement, you guys were too foolish to follow it. Instead, you as an Editor allowed the publication of a number of papers with zero data and zero code, papers that are not replicable in any manner, papers that were pal-reviewed … you totally ignored the requirement for transparency as the Editor … you sure you want to lecture Mosh now because he is pushing for scientific transparency?
My goodness, now we get to something almost scientific. However, only almost … Rog, I’ve asked many times that if you disagree with something I say, quote my words. This is a perfect example of why I insist on that. I don’t have a clue what you think I “can’t even read”. I don’t know in what manner I “attacked him for something he didn’t do”. I definitely said he didn’t do the math to determine the r2 and the p-value … is that what has you upset? If so … point out the math. If not … what is your beef?
You see the problem, Roger? When you get all excited, nobody can tell what has your blood in a boil, heck, it gets hard to even read your words because you’re spraying spittle all over the screen.
SO … if you want to quote whatever it is I said regarding the Solheim paper, Roger, and let us know what it is you think I didn’t do that has you so exercised, I’m more than happy to answer.
The oddity about your claim is that I not only read “the paragraph following the figure in Prof. Jan-Erik Solheim’s” paper … I started off my post by quoting that exact paragraph in its entirety, and I discussed it at some length. So your objection at this point is totally unclear. What is the mystery content of the paragraph that you think I failed to read?
And if you want to lecture people on peer review after you guys all got the sack for, inter alia, nepotistic peer review, which by all appearances consisted in looking each other’s papers over, not requiring code or data, and giving each other a big pat on the back … well I’m more than happy to laugh at a man who wants to bust people regarding their ideas about something he just got canned for not understanding …
w.
John Whitman says: “get to work”
Thanks John. And don’t worry, we are busy in the background. And we will make our journal policy as rigorous as we can. We’ll never be able to please those determined to do us down, but that isn’t so important. It’s the science that matters, and we await properly formed criticism of that. All else is a sideshow.
Tomorrow I return to the coal face with a bundle of calculations on orbital resonance my co-researcher and I are working on. Working out how the energy is stored and released in resonant interactions is key. We’ll carry on making waves.
REPLY: I think you incorrectly conflate “those determined to do us down” with “those determined to help you do it right”. Examine the dichotomy of your own comment:
1. It’s the science that matters, and we await properly formed criticism of that. All else is a sideshow.
2. We’ll carry on making waves.
Making waves with auguring in your own unique opportunity with PRP special edition by ignoring the stated rules sure seems like a sideshow to me. – Anthony
No Willis. As Bernd Felsche pointed out, it was the paragraph after the one you quoted that contained the information which showed your criticism to be a straw man.
Peter C … what Einstein had no scientific education? Do you research!
tallbloke says:
January 23, 2014 at 11:54 pm
Let’s see. Michael Mann didn’t post his code and data until there was a public outcry after the publication of his paper.
Roger Tattersall still hasn’t posted his code and data, despite the public outcry after the publication of his paper. However, he says he will do it, and I believe him.
Michael Mann thinks requiring people to observe normal scientific transparency by providing code and data is wrong.
Roger Tattersall, as Editor, agreed with Michael Mann and Nicola Scafetta, that requiring Scafetta to provide code and data would be wrong.
What am I missing here?
As to checking the data and code, my problem with your work is not lack of data and code.
My problem is that when you point out something like that the ratio of the orbital period of Mercury to Venus (2.583…) is sort of near to the repeating fraction 23:9 (2.555555…), and then you point out that if we add one to the 24 we get the repeating fraction 24:9, which reduces to 8:3 (2.666…), which in your mind proves that the orbital periods of the planets are related by simple mathematical ratios, I just have to shake my head and say a) say what?, and b) SO FREAKIN’ WHAT?
What does it mean that if we add one to the numerator of a ratio that’s kinda sorta like the ratio between the orbits of two planets? Heck, you don’t even require that you add the one to the numerator, sometimes you add it to the denominator. It’s a mystery why you are doing this at all, and it’s not helped by being accompanied by this explanation:
Like the song said, “Well it was clear as mud but it covered the ground, and the con-fu-sion made the brain go round …”
I didn’t review your paper, Rog, because I couldn’t find any science in it to review. To quote Gertrude Stein, “there is no there there”. When I got to Kepler and his insight that the sun and the earth emitted magnetism that move the moon and the earth and planets, I started to worry about my mental stability. And as I feared, you had to bring in Bode-Titius, viz:
The Bode-Titius so-called “law” simply doesn’t work for the planets. It was discredited by the discovery of Neptune, which didn’t fit the “law” at all. Nor is it borne out by modern computer simulations, which reveal that there are many other long-period stable possible orbits for the planets. In 2013, the Bode-Titius “law” is right up there with astrology, and when a paper brings it up, and starts going on about Kepler, and about Copernicus and the music of the spheres, sorry—for my own mental health, I had to jump overboard at that point and swim for shore. I never did finish your paper, my apologies, but I just couldn’t take it.
w.
PS—Are there resonant effects in planetary systems? Of course, that’s what makes e.g. the gaps in the rings of Saturn. However, by and large these are tidal effects, the same forces that keep the same face of the moon always turned towards the earth. And because they are tidal effects, they only work near to a planet or the sun, because tidal forces fall off very, very rapidly, by the cube of the distance.
But going from there to a system where you approximate some non-integral, non-repeating ratio of planetary orbital periods by a fraction, then add one to either the top or the bottom of the fraction to get a simpler fraction, and then draw some conclusions from the fractions, is not science.
That’s numerology.
Stephan Rasey
” But not all papers are written from government grants and Mosher’s demand that all data be released is unrealistic, undeserved and unwarranted in the majority of scientific fields financed by private capital.”
Think about what you are saying.
Imagine George Soros funded mann to do a proxy study.
Mann publishes a paper demonstrating that the MWP never happened.
You ask for data and he says No, its private .
Now, when we were fighting for Jones data and Manns’s data ALL THE ARGUMENTS THAT YOU GUYS ARE MAKING NOW WERE MADE BY THE DEFENDERS OF MANN AND JONES.
1. The data is IP
2. The data is confidential
3. the data is too big
4. you have the links, go get it.
And my response is the same now as it was then.
If you dont supply your data, then I am under NO RATIONAL OBLIGATION to believe you, and Im under no obligation to find your mistake. You havent made a case, you’re advertising and I’m not buying it.
There is one and only one practical problem that relates to very large datasets.
What suprises me is that some very smart people here cant see the solution that they themselves used to do the science in the first place.
Where the dataset is too large, you simply supply the code to fetch it from whereever it is stored. Use REST, SOAP, wget, whatever. I regularly work with datasets that are terabytes.
If I cannot include that whole dataset in an SI, I include the code that i wrote to access it and subset it. In short, you dont merely point to the link, you share the code that used the link to get the data. Its easy, and you know its easy because you had to do it to create the science in the first place.
people pretend that this is impossible. In short they pretend thatthe science they did Cant be replicated. If you cant include all the data then dont be an idiot and oppose open data. be a smart guy and include the code you need to access the big data. Its not rocket science, its not solar
science, its dirt simple programming.
Now of course this is the internet so people work very hard to raise objections rather than finding solutions.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 24, 2014 at 10:00 am
That’s numerology.
Indeed it is. To pass it on a science is shameful.
Just a quick clarification made necessary by Bob Weber’s 4:16am post:
I only post as “Janice Moore” and never as “Janice.” That is another person. She (and its originator, GAIL COMBS) should get the credit for the clever cat herding analogy.
***************************************************
Soooo, Mr. Weber (heh, heh, heh)…. we meet again — bwah, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaa! Meh, don’t worry — I FINALLY got it that you really believe in that stuff — no more mocking and sneering from me, just description. I hope today is a solar-safe day for you (and for your cat).
The other oddity in your work, Roger (Tallbloke), is that you seem surprised and impressed that if you modify the approximate fractional representation of the ratios of the planetary orbital periods, by either adding or subtracting 1 to/from either the numerator or the denominator or both, the fraction simplifies to a fraction with smaller numbers on top and bottom.
However, it turns out that this is the case far more often than not for numbers picked at random. In fact, it’s difficult to find a pair of numbers forming the fraction x / y where one of the following will not reduce to a simpler fraction:
(x+1) / y
(x-1) / y
x / (y+1)
x / (y-1)
(x+1) / (y+1)
(x+1) / (y-1)
(x-1) / (y+1)
(x-1) / (y-1)
Given that large number of possibilities, eight variations on the theme, there are very few number pairs where x / y will NOT simplify using one of those eight modifications. Even ratios of prime numbers like 31/17 are not immune, since 32/16 reduces to 1/2 …
Additionally, you don’t seem to have noticed that the decomposition is not unique, e.g. 31/17 also could reduce to 32/18 = 16/9, or reduce to 30/16 = 15/8, or reduce to 30/18 = 5/3 …
Like I said, that’s not science, that’s numerology.
w.
tallbloke says:
January 24, 2014 at 9:16 am
If you have an objection, Roger, spell it out. Last time you airily waved your hand at one exact paragraph, the one following the graph. I went there, looked at it, and found nothing. You sent me on a fool’s errand looking for something that wasn’t there.
Now you say no, not that pararaph, the next one … and you still haven’t said what my egregious error is supposed to have been.
Fool me once, your fault. I’m not going to get fooled twice by trying to guess what you are talking about. Sorry, I’m not going on another snipe hunt, the first one was enough. Detail your objection or go home.
w.
tallbloke says:
Anthony, I was was discussing peer review procedure at university when Mosher was wow-ing over the early 3D computer games and Willis was becalmed on a beach by something psychedelic he saw on a sea shell.
################################
tallbloke no you were not discussing peer review while I was working on 3D
You were at University of Leeds between 1985 and 1988
Since we are mates on Linked in, you should have CHECKED THE DATA. Its all there, in the open. but you didnt check you shot your mouth off based on your memory. bad move.
from 1985 to 1988 I was at Northrop Aircraft. Of course, during my time at Northrop we did not discuss the peer review system, we actually had to USE IT. That meant any and all work I did had to be fully documented and reproduceable. My work was turned over to my adversaries who would tear it to shreds. I did not study the ‘peer review’ system, I sat on murder boards and was subjected to murder boards. some people talk about sh*t at university, other people do it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_board
But even people who talk about sh*t at university know enough to check their facts.
3D games? you are off by a decade as I didnt work on games until 1995 when I brought the first 3D graphics technology to the PC.
And I didnt really “wow” over 3D games. having built flight simulators I actually spent more time helping game programers solve problems or explaining TLMM to them. And yes even back then I spent my time promoting openness, who do you think was there when opengl was created? Who do you think invested in companies promoting open APIs?
So, your resume is blank from 1988 to 2000. during that time I was practicing openness. Those values and principles havent changed. And as you know from 2007 and after I continued to practice openness by working on the first mobile phone to adopt GPL and get richard Stallman’s endorsement. In 2009 I founded a copy-left hardware company, providing all the design files so folks could build the hardware or modify it as they saw fit. So, I dont adopt openness as a weapon to use in this fight. Its a principle
But enough of making this personal. its not personal. its principle. You supported me when I asked for data from mann and jones. you supported me when i demanded code from Hansen.
let me know if you continue to share the principles of openess and transparency.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 24, 2014 at 10:34 am
The other oddity in your work, Roger (Tallbloke), is that you seem surprised and impressed that if you modify the approximate fractional representation of the ratios of the planetary orbital periods, by either adding or subtracting 1 to/from either the numerator or the denominator or both, the fraction simplifies to a fraction with smaller numbers on top and bottom.
############
yes willis, table 1 and table 2 from that paper were a hoot.
You finally got some wood on the ball. Bravo. GK
‘Having put up with a week of cyber-bullying from people who haven’t read the papers and don’t know anything more about our peer review process than Martin Rasmussen’s as yet unsubstantiated vague smears, complaining of ‘boorish behaviour’ is a bit rich.”
tallbloke.
I saw your journal around december 18th. Your hum paper was the first I read. I was quite amused by table 1 and table 2 and noted the same problems that Willis does.
namely: you have no clear method for adding, or substracting “unitary” to the ratios to come up with your desired ratio. No method whatsoever. And further you didnt consider the probabilities of this happening by chance. After finishing your paper, i started to check the references.
and that led me to another paper in the collection which I read. finding more mistakes in that one I went to its references.. here I found a reference to another paper in the journal, this one
was described as ‘submitted’. Do you not see the house of cards? Looking at the submission dates and accepted dates it was clear that even this was not correct. And so I thought who reviewed this shit? That’s when it become clear.
there is that old saying about seeing better because you stand on the shoulders of giants.
Well, I read all papers the same way. I read them and then I go to the sources. what data did they use, who did they reference. Is it a house of cards OR is this paper a foundation that I can build on? The lack of data, the shoddy referencing, the “suspect” review system are signs to me. Dont build your science on this foundation. Further, recall that all the hockey stick work
relies on a few Suspect series of proxy’s. Like bristlecones.
Go through your papers. find the bristlecones. Its there, plain as day
philjourdan says:
January 24, 2014 at 10:45 am:
—-l
The trick is in the dose 🙂 I wonder what the correct dose for sceptics would be?
Well done MC! Plz open up the reviewers’ names and the mathematical codes utilized by the authors. Continue with the rebuttal approach. This will put the new PRP in a top-notch position among scientific journals in terms of transparency, democracy, and thus QUALITY. The vast majority of climate journals on this account is still back in the Middle Ages, not to mention the AR5 paleolythical spaghettis, obviously neither peer-reviewed nor code-amended All the best, GT.
Feathers, Quartz, Centipede, Hurricane, Mollusc, Plant cell cross section, rose blossom, mandelbulb, smoke swirl, staircase, some sort of moire pattern, spiral galaxy in the background.