Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
As just reported here on WUWT, the National Academies of Science, of Engineering, and of Medicine recently stated that with Google funding, they are going to decide what is scientific “misinformation”. This is a terrifying possibility, because if Google decides your scientific claims are “misinformation”, your entire life’s work could easily disappear from public access and view. In response, I’ve sent the following email to all the NAS/NAE/NAM email addresses I could find … which is not many …
To: National Academies of Science <worldwidewebfeedback@nas.edu>, ksm@nas.edu. cpnas@nas.edu. news@nas.edu.
Subject: Please forward to your Presidents
Dear friends, your organizations recently put out this statement:
Statement by NAS, NAE, and NAM Presidents on Effort to Counter Online Misinformation
We are pleased to announce that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are exploring ways to mobilize our expertise to counter misinformation on the web related to science, engineering, and health. Part of the mission of the National Academies has always been to help ensure that public discourse is informed by the best available evidence. To that end, we are convening Academy members to discuss ways by which we could help verify the integrity and accuracy of content in these fields in a manner that is consistent with our standards for objective, trustworthy, evidence-based information; this exploratory phase will be supported by a grant from Google. We are excited to pursue an effort that aligns with our fundamental principles and that we believe is critically important at a time when misinformation is a threat to sound decision-making and an informed citizenry.
I am shocked and saddened that your organizations would use your authority to try to quash legitimate scientific dissent in this underhanded fashion. Richard Feynman famously said “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts” … and you guys are the ones now claiming to be experts. Why should we trust you in the slightest to make huge scientific decisions when Richard Feynman says you are ignorant? Whatever happened to “Nullius In Verba”?
Next, I have to ask, what does “misinformation” mean on your planet?
Unfortunately, in practice it will most likely mean “Scientific claims that we, the anointed and unquestionable experts, don’t like.”
This is as anti-scientific a stance as I can imagine. You have no authority to decide what is valid science and what is misinformation. That is arrogant hubris of the worst kind. Your three Presidents and their offsiders should be deeply ashamed to be involved with this in any form.
Of course, y’all don’t publish the emails of your officers, or you’ve hidden them so well that my extensive search couldn’t find them … and if I were involved in this kind of scientific malfeasance I wouldn’t want my email address out there either …
So if you could please forward this email to the following people, you would be doing a very big scientific public service. I’m sorry to involve you but when your officials hide out, I’m forced to try to contact them by other means. Here’s who this email is really addressed to:
National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
President: Marcia McNutt
Executive Officer: Bruce B. Darling
Executive Director: Kenneth R. Fulton
National Academy of Engineering (NAE)
President: C. D. Mote Jr.
Executive Officer: Alton D. Romig, Jr.
National Academy of Medicine (NAM)
President: Victor J. Dzau
Executive Officer: J. Michael McGinnis
Claiming that scientific organizations should be able to define “misinformation” is a tragic attempt to illegitimately and prematurely end scientific debate and discussion. It is top-down scientific totalitarianism of the finest Russian variety, where the Commissariat decided what science was good and what science was never to see the light of day.
Science proceeds by transparency and public discussion, not by some anti-scientific Star Chamber declaring someone’s unusual or unpopular scientific ideas to be “misinformation”. You are starting down a politically-driven path which will eventually destroy your scientific reputation. I implore you to abandon this ill-founded idea before your personal and organizational reputations are swirling around the porcelain bowl …
In hopes that you have the scientific integrity to speedily abjure such scientific totalitarianism, I remain,
Sincerely and sadly yours,
w.
So that’s my email, it went out today, and here’s the dystopic future we may face if these heedless scientific autocrats get their way …
We need to fight this. Every honest scientist everywhere on the planet needs to realize that depending on who is defining “misinformation” this week, their life’s work could be disappeared by Google, classed as “misinformation” so it would never appear in a Google search and would be banned from Facebook … is this truly what we want science to sink to, blatant scientific censorship by NAS, NAE, NAM, and Google?
Finally, if you think this is a dangerous move, I ask you to take action. Add an email to mine, pick up the phone and call someone, write a letter to the NAS or to the Editor, do something, anything to try to slow this runaway train.
Because having Google and the NAS in charge of deciding whose scientific opinions should be “disappeared” in the best Soviet fashion is a view of a future I never want to see … and it may very possibly happen unless we actively oppose it.
My best to everyone, take action,
w.
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If you want to take the first step on promoting dissemination of scientific views that are contrary to a supposed consensus view or which may involve “misinformation” according to an opposing authoritative view, I strongly urge you WUWT readers to sign the White House petition for the Internet Bill of Rights. Shades of Galileo!
The National Academies of Science, of Engineering, and of Medicine propose to counter misinformation by partnering with Google. They and other social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook currently already exercise such censorship actions as cutting off followers, stopping advertising revenues, eliminating videos, etc. for such reasons as politically conservative beliefs and practices. Don’t let this happen to science!
Two petitions are currently available. Signing any petition involves submitting your name and email on the websites below AND then clicking on the link in the acknowledgement email the White House sends you in order to confirm receipt. You can sign one or both of them; apparently you don’t have to be a US citizen to sign the petition.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/internet-bill-rights-2
Internet Bill of Rights – Created by A.M. on March 04, 2018 – Needs 71,361 signatures by April 3, 2018 to get a response from the White House
“Internet forums and social networks which provide free access to the public are a digital place of assembly, and individuals using such methods for public communication should not be subjected to censorship due to political beliefs or differing ideas. Conservative voices on many large public website platforms are being censored, based solely on a differing opinion. Some of these platforms further employ tracking mechanisms for monitoring an individual’s digital history, which can be used to censor the individual’s public communication through various censorship practices, sometimes without knowledge or awareness. These actions directly violate personal liberty and stand at contrast with the bill of rights. We the people demand action to bring our digital future into the light.”
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/internet-bill-rights-4
INTERNET BILL OF RIGHTS – Created by B.M. on March 05, 2018 – Needs 99,486 signatures by April 4, 2018 to get a response from the White House
“In an age where many citizens communicate with each other and receive the news from media that did not exist upon our founding; it is necessary to protect the rights of ALL Americans using the Internet (and its platforms) including but not limited to (online):
Freedom of speech, expression, graphics and video
Freedom of association
Freedom of the press
Freedom from unfounded censorship or expulsion from platforms
Freedom of religious expression
Freedom to remain anonymous
The founders made ‘Freedom of Speech’ the 1st amendment for a reason. It’s time we protect our rights online with an Internet Bill of Rights.”
Please promote the marketplace of ideas in science!
“Internet forums and social networks which provide free access to the public are a digital place of assembly”
WUWT is one such. Do you really want to create a government apparatus which would give people unwanted by the proprietor a right of free access?
“Some of these platforms further employ tracking mechanisms for monitoring an individual’s digital history”
Wordpress does that. So does Disqus etc. Does that “directly violate personal liberty”?
Thank you Mr.Eschenbach for all of your great scientific work presented here and elsewhere and for your ardent defense of true scientific principles. Any control over information is mind control. Just as the infamous fictitious entity IT in the book “A Wrinkle In Time” sought total mind control, so too do the overlords of the internet today seek to mold the thoughts of the masses. This is being accomplished in China with censorship of unapproved content just for example and companies like Google are cooperating. It is this threat of absolute concentrated power that freedom loving people despise and it must be opposed.
If I say that the speed of light is an absolute law and not one single atom in the universe can violate that law, who is to say this viewpoint is wrong? But I can’t be proven wrong with any known evidence to date, only suppressed.
The scientific method requires the free and open exchange of ideas. Superheroes with superpowers don’t exist but they sure are used a lot to promote science to make learning fun and to bend minds to challenge what is possible. I can understand the misguided (IMHO) desire to only allow valid scientific concepts into the minds of the masses in an attempt to improve society. But the danger lies in the usurpation of our systems by totalitarian minded elitists. There are certainly bad ideas floating around on the internet which presents a challenge to our society and especially to young people to find truth. The response to this challenge I do not claim to know, but I vote against totalitarianism and instead would encourage the organizations to find a way to shine as beacons of light and truth which can only occur when dissent and discourse are allowed.
I feel the same way about Wikipedia.
After years of Googling WUWT to see if it was a legit website to tell me the truth about global warming and climate change, I would go to Wikipedia to read the result – because I trusted Wikipedia to tell the truth because it was supposedly an encyclopedia with a higher accuracy rating than Encyclopaedia Britannica.
When Wikipedia consistently said that WUWT was a website comprised of amateurish climate deniers, I stayed away. For years. I just trusted what Wikipedia told me.
Finally one day a few years ago, I thought I would take a peak and look at WUWT, and I was pleasantly surprised that there were some very insightful people writing without censorship. (Now that presents other problems, but not for this comment – just referring to some wing nuts who are allowed to comment here)
So now I am a bit pissed with both Wikipedia and Google for forwarding me misinformation all these years. First for Google to present Wikipedia as the top search for my question, and then Wikipedia for slandering WUWT into thinking a completely naive person seeking truth about the WUWT blog, if it was worth pursuing.
I missed some of the best years of WUWT because of a coordinated misinformation campaign by both Google and Wikipedia. I agree the same setup is going on here now, in 2018. Very Orwellian. Very concerning.
It is not Wiki but a small number of activists who try to ensure that their views are the ones shown on certain entries. As with so many activists, they think their opinions are far more valid than anybody eles’s and know no doubt, I read last year about a single guy who corrected 47,000 entries on Wikipedia because he doesn’t like the phrase “comprised of”.
It seems to pass him by that grarmmar is just how we use language, so if we use that phrase, it can only be correct.
It is Wiki who allows a small number of activists to control content that Wiki is satisfied with. Obviously, it is Wiki who makes the decision on larger issues to label who is a Denier, as they have done with WUWT.
Watts Up With That? (or WUWT) is a blog[1] promoting climate change denial[2][3][4][5][6] that was created by Anthony Watts in 2006.[2][3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Up_With_That%3F
With Google funding the NAS, NAE, and NAM “… are pleased to announce that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are exploring ways to mobilize our expertise to counter misinformation on the web related to science, engineering, and health.”
To the extent that these agencies of the US Government collude with Google to limit constitutionally protected speech, continued funding by Government of these agencies would violate the First Amendment.
“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”
These agencies can choose to be funded by government or by Google, but if they collude with Google in censoring free speech then they cannot be funded by government.
Thank you Willis for your efforts. I agree with your position.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/03/01/british-snow-chaos-running-out-of-gas/comment-page-1/#comment-2755747
]excerpt]
My bottom line is:
Educated and experienced professionals like me have known since about 1985 that global warming alarmism was a false crisis, and that the warmists’ green energy schemes would not replace fossil fuels. We spoke out and wrote articles stating these facts, sometimes at great personal cost, and we were ignored and vilified.
Leading skeptics including Dr Sallie Baliunas (Harvard-Smithsonian) and Dr Pat Michaels (U of Virginia) and many others were forced from their universities by people too vile to be named. Other leading skeptics including Dr Richard Lindzen (MIT) and Dr Willie Soon (Harvard-Smithsonian) were persecuted but were able to hang on to their positions.
Tens of trillions of dollars of scarce global resources have been squandered on this obvious scam, enough money to bribe countless corrupt politicians, government officials and academics. The result has been an avoidable huge increase in electrical costs, the destabilizing of electrical grids due to intermittent wind and solar power, and the premature deaths of millions due to dysfunctional energy policies and the misallocation of tens of trillions of dollars that could have been used to improve lives and alleviate human suffering.
These corrupt warmist scoundrels have committed unforgivable crimes against humanity and they belong in jail.
Regards, Allan
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/27/a-big-goose-step-backwards/#comment-1800850
Here is a list of those forced from their institutions by global warming thugs:
George Taylor – Oregon State Climatologist
Sallie Baliunas – Harvard Smithsonian
Pat Michaels – University of Virginia
Murry Salby – Macquarie University, Australia
Caleb Rossiter – Institute for Policy Studies
Nickolas Drapela, PhD – Oregon State University
Henrik Møller – Aalborg University, Denmark
Bob Carter, James Cook University, Australia
Regards, Allan
Looks like my post is in moderation again.
I wonder what would happen if I wrote how I really felt. 🙂
Seriously moderators, thank you for the excellent and dedicated work that you do
Best, Allan
The S word will put you into moderation every time.
Almost certainly this sort of thing would have prevented two recent Nobel Prize winners getting recognition.
Dan Shechtman (quasi-crystals) says:” I was a subject of ridicule and lectures about the basics of crystallography. The leader of the opposition to my findings was the two-time Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling, the idol of the American Chemical Society and one of the most famous scientists in the world. For years, ’til his last day, he fought against quasi-periodicity in crystals.”
Pauling wrote: “There is no such thing as quasi-crystals, only quasi-scientists”.
So which view would count as “disinformation” n this instance do we think? Would National academies side against Pauling?
Barry Marshall suffered as badly. His paper in 1983 got turned down, reviewers ranked in the bottom 10% of those they received that year. Marshall later said: “(e)veryone was against me, but I knew I was right.” He struggled to get papers published, and even the it was usually one paper against hundreds claiming ulcers were caused by stress.
Again, Marshall’s claims were dismissed as the equivalent of disinformation.
Yes, you also get the MMR rubbish, but the process shows that it works if you let it.
Phoenix44 March 22, 2018 at 4:37 am
Almost certainly this sort of thing would have prevented two recent Nobel Prize winners getting recognition.
Dan Shechtman (quasi-crystals) says:” I was a subject of ridicule and lectures about the basics of crystallography. The leader of the opposition to my findings was the two-time Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling, the idol of the American Chemical Society and one of the most famous scientists in the world. For years, ’til his last day, he fought against quasi-periodicity in crystals.”
Linus, who was himself prevented from having a passport to visit the UK by the State Department on the grounds that he might be a communist.
Schechtman was able to publish his paper on quasi-crystals within two years of his discovery. His results were quickly replicated by other groups and it was soon Linus who was unable to get his papers on the subject published.
So NAS is going to become the nascent ‘Ministry of Truth’? Even better they will be the tribunal that will judge future/present Galileos.
“HA”, I really don’t think there is very many lawmakers that are interested in “things” that make the most sense, ….. but on the contrary, ……. most lawmakers are only interested in “things” that makes them the most cents.
Isn’t that what they call a “blocking bet”?
Who pays for an ad… then what if that’s just a shell company? They will follow with who funds it?
Where does the transparency initiative stop?
“About 85 percent of funding comes from the federal government through contracts and grants from agencies and 15 percent from state governments, private foundations, industrial organizations, and funds provided by the Academies member organizations.”
As I had suspected, funded by the taxpayers. Cut their funding.
“Nick Stokes March 21, 2018 at 7:12 pm
“Googles business is advertising.”
Google’s business is getting people to look at the advertisements. And to do that, they have to provide search results that people want. If Duckduckgogo can do that better, they will be the next Google. But for the moment, Google is providing what their users want.”
No.
Google is providing what their users THINK they want. Many (most?) Google users may not be aware that the results they are provided are not unbiased, unfiltered, or accurately representing information and, may even be advertiser slanted.
Now, Google wants to pay these scientific organization so Google can say, “it is not us who is filtering the information, it is these esteemed scientific organizations”.
End result will be to stifle legitimate scientific discourse.
I see the only people who would be supportive of Google’s proposal to NAS, NAE, and NAM would be those who aren’t involved in legitimate scientific discourse.
This is the first step on the way to control thinking. I grew up in communist Czechoslovakia. It was a state where the state was the only employer; vegetable stands, alterations, shoe repair shops, farms – that was all nationalized. Then the Party wanted everybody including me to denounce a horrible counter-revolutionary pamphlet “Charter 77”, written by a sneaky dissident Vaclav Havel (later a President). I asked to read it before signing the petition. No way, comrade, don’t you trust us? are you really a comrade? And now I live at the other side of Atlantic Ocean.
The idea of National Academies probably was not a bad one, but the clowns running them did discredit it totally. They have to be abolished. They could be founded again, but only under a new name, in a new place, and with a new staff. The swamp is both deep and wide.
It’s frightening that intelligent people like Mr. Stokes think the proposed form of censorship is a good idea.
Willy,
http://www.nasonline.org/about-nas/leadership/nas-council.html
If you click further down on the Leadership and Governance page and then open the pages for the individual persons there is an option “Web Page” .
ie:
https://www.jhsph.edu/faculty/directory/profile/281/diane-e-griffin
There you mostly find e-mailaddresses of these individuals.
So there are a lot of e-mailaddresses to be found
Harry
Time to ungoogle the web?
Enhancing regulation of large information service providers to the level of utilities maybe not such a bad idea. Deliverables and transparency regarding what is to be censored a must. Some censorship is inevitable to keep it civil. Much more in the political domain than scientific though… clearly detrimental to the latter. But then climate science in its current incarnation is but a shell, warmly wrapped in politics. Justification to censor away.
Water utilities provide water. ISP provide IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity and DNS recursive servers. These are well understood services.
A Web search engine website provides… links?
“A Web search engine website provides… links?”
no, as per the very true saying “if it is free, you are not the client, you are the product”, a web search engine provides customers to its real clients, those who pay it to have them exposed to their commercial offer/propaganda.
Let me correct yor last sentence
A Google Web search engine website provides… CENSORED links?
Thank you very much for your efforts, Willis. Will it make any difference? Prb’ly not, but now you/we see again the wall (or a moat) protecting such people, and that the wall has been in place a long time. The wall, as we know, surrounds politicians, the media, academia, the deep-state, NGOs, Google, etc.
When the “experts” declare that polar bears are doomed, will we be censored for pointing out their populations are at a 40 yr peak? Same with sea ice, sea level rise, you name it. If you think this would never happen, please check out all the people who have been banned from Twitter or facebook. Just for example, Jihad Watch, which tracks terrorist attacks around the world, has been banned. Yes it is true they have not nice things to say about Islam, but there are plenty of places people call for whites or men to be killed or christians banned and nothing happens to them. There have been attempts to ban Jordan Peterson of all people.
Obama had a ‘secret’ meeting – I think it was MIT – a couple weeks ago. Basically, it was all about conspiring to control the message.
Thanks Willis. Although I live in Oz I will be letting everyone dear and near to me hear about this cos it affects us all. For these presidents of science, engineering and medical bodies to go public with the announcement I suspect a lot of planning and agreement has already gone on in the background, some of it involving government agencies. 64 years have convinced me that governments (left, right and centre) hate informed voters so they will like what these guys are saying. Once governments get behind this and pass laws or impose regulations then the game is over for the rest of us – we become pawns in their “game” (as they often call politics). I think I’ve reached grumpy old man status.
Google ‘climate change site’ supposedly the most viewed should appear first, That should put WUWT on the first page, however it is nowhere to be seen.
It’s worse than that, Stuart. Google “climate skeptic site” and the first 2 links are to “skepticalscience”, an ALARMIST site … not one, but two links.
Then after a host of other alarmist sites, at number 18 we get to “RealClimate”, where they actively censor skeptical points of view.
And WUWT? Number 39 on the list …
w.
Well, just remember that searching for “climate skeptic site” is searching for site which have large occurrence of those three words, especially (but not necessarily) when associated. You can expect an alarmist propaganda tool specializing in smearing the skeptic point of view to make a larger use of such words, than an actual climate skeptic site. So google result makes sense…
paqyfelyc March 23, 2018 at 2:44 am
Thanks, paqyfelyc. I think you underestimate the power of the google natural language AI. Watch what it does when you speak and it translates it into text. It will start by misunderstanding, but when you add a couple words it knows what you said.
But who knows what goes on in the bowels of the Google algorithms? You may be right.
Let me add that Google owns facebook, and a quick look at the people and subjects that they have censored and shut down reveals that they have a huge anti-conservative bias … I doubt that Facebook is censored but Google results are not.
w.
How should Google determine which website gets most “views”?
s-t March 22, 2018 at 5:12 pm
Well, if they are counting views for “climate skeptic site”, they could start by, you know, actually limiting their search to climate skeptic sites …
w.
Nick Stokes, I held you in high regard for years. Your obvious agenda has destroyed that from this post’s comments. So sad really!
Censorship is created from prior click desire in a search engine digital world, and then a choice from the overlords.
Try shopping for a gun on google as an example? Just sayin…….. type in “9 mm gun” and hit the shopping tab and see for yourself.
The attitude on major scientific controversies is an important differentiating factor between political parties, at least in the few democracies that still have political parties with different ideologies and platforms (as opposed to those where all parties defend nuances of the same socialism and the same stupid protectionism and the same openness to predatory China).
So, the US Academy of Sciences is willing to shape the science discourse on the Internet… Wouldn’t that be considered an interference by the US in foreign elections, and as such, the equivalent of a declaration of war according to John McCain?
Or does the “declaration of war” only occurs when Russia actors post memes on Facebook?
Just delete google (and Facebook, and alike). I don’t use it any more, nor use the “to google” verb .
Media, Google, Facebook and the like won’t lie outright, but they won’t tell the whole truth and turn the whole thing into a fake news nonetheless.
“Is there any opposition from within the membership of the NAS, NAE or NAM?”
Unfortunately, as we’ve seen here time and time again, most members who disagree simply take the coward’s way out, and quit.
Censorship creeps in to every society and has been pushing into ours for many years. After the Black Swan, AKA Donald Trump event took place, lots of “deciders” are worried this could be the norm.
Forrest Gardener: “Nick, I sincerely hope you are paid to write this propaganda. Utterly shameful!”
Both Willis and Nick seem to write to blogs 24/7. We know Willis does it on his own dime. I assume Nick does it on a Big Bucks salary. Willis manages to do great research too. Does Nick? Or is he just a character in CSI:CAGW?
Regarding censorship, there are many examples to emulate. China? North Korea? At the rate this is going, we will get there, one step at a time.