Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A few days ago Dr. Willie Soon pointed out on the social media site Parler that it is impossible to remove the term “Denier” from the Wikipedia entry for Sallie Baliunas.
I should have stated more clearly the big problem in Wiki related to William Connolley; the tyrant at Wiki
Source: Parler / Willie Soon
None of us can correct for the entries calling us climate change deniers: start with Robert Carter and Sallie Baliunas.
Baliunas’ Wikipedia description contains the line “Baliunas is a denier in regard to there being a connection between CO2 rise and climate change, saying in a 2001 essay with Willie Soon …”
So I decided to perform an experiment. As a long standing if infrequent Wikipedia editor, I updated Sallie’s Wikipedia entry to read “Baliunas disputes there being a connection between CO2 rise and climate change, saying in a 2001 essay with Willie Soon …”, and added an explanation to Sallie’s talk page (a secondary page associated with all Wikipedia pages, where people can leave comments).
Removed the word “denier”
People who dispute the connection between climate change and CO2 find the word “denier” offensive, many climate skeptics believe “climate denier” is an attempt to link the concept of disputing the consensus to “holocaust denial”. Is it really necessary to use the term “denier”? By all means describe the views of other scientists of this position, but surely it does no harm to avoid using a term which the subject of the article might take to be a deliberate antagonism.
Wikipedia editor Hob Galding (Hob admits this is a pseudonym) changed the entry back the next day, and offered the following explanation.
They find it offensive? So what? I find their existence offensive, but I don’t expect them to do anything about it. They exist, I am offended, end of story. And they? People call them deniers, they are offended, end of story? No, they keep whining that people recognize them for what they are. They are still deniers. It is the correct term used for such people. It is the term used in reliable sources. —Hob Gadling (talk) 11:49, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
I responded with some examples demonstrating attempts to link disagreeing with the alleged climate consensus to holocaust denial.
Disappointed Hob. Is it the goal of Wikipedia to be deliberately provocative and offensive towards the subjects of Wikipedia posts, for the crime of holding an unfashionable scientific view? Is the penalty for having the wrong scientific theory to be smeared as being comparable to those who deny that NAZIs murdered millions of Jewish people? There are a number of examples of academics or prominent journalists comparing or linking the idea of “climate denial” to “Holocaust denial”:
“The deniers of climate change are cut from the same cloth as Holocaust deniers. They’ve never been to the death camps, Auschwitz and Birkenau, so what they haven’t seen does not exist. The global warming deniers—the Koch brothers, for example—see only what they want to see.”[1]
“Instead of dishonouring the deaths of six million in the past, climate deniers risk the lives of hundreds of millions in the future. Holocaust deniers are not responsible for the Holocaust, but climate deniers, if they were to succeed, would share responsibility for the enormous suffering caused by global warming.”[2]
“Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaust denial.”[3]
Regardless of the original intent or meaning, the term “denier” in the context of “climate denial” has become inextricably associated with the NAZI holocaust, thanks to its use by prominent journalists and academics. Its use in Wikipedia, against victims who are powerless to remove this label, whose crime is to hold an unfashionable scientific viewpoint, is just a form of bullying. Eric Worrall (talk) 14:09, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
1. Charles R. Larson, Professor Emeritus, Washington University
2. Clive Hamilton / Hamilton: Denying the coming climate holocaust
3. George Monbiot / Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaust denial.
I obtained these quotes from a longer list published on WUWT in 2014.
Someone spoke up in support of my point;
On 20 January 2020 Wiki5537821 changed “skeptic” to “denier” without explanation in the edit summary. It would be nice to see one. The reference later in the paragraph to a 2002 article, which should be linked to here rather than the current dead link, says things like “that exceedingly small positive trend is probably not the result of human activities”, i.e. Ms Baliunas believed there is warming and “probably” is a skeptical remark not a denial. Hob Gadling has re-inserted “denier” without seeking consensus first, and so far doesn’t have it — although I’m not interested in the WP:LABEL aspect that Eric Worrall seems to be alluding to, I agree that the earlier wording was better. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:02, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
“Hob” provided the following response;
I don’t think “capitalismmagazine” is a reliable source for scientific subjects. —Hob Gadling (talk)
15:30, 12 July 2020 (UTC) Boo hoo, poor anti-science loons, being compared with anti-history loons. See here: the section “no neutral POV” is pretty much the same as sections in Talk pages about climate change deniers. Like identical twins!As I said, we say what reliable sources say, and they call it “denial”. Denialism is a thing, and climate change denial is a big part of it. Don’t blame Wikipedia for common usage. Wikipedia does not pander to fringe groups: we do not call evolution “just a theory” because creationists are offended if we don’t, and we do not claim acupuncture is science because quacks are offended if we don’t. Read WP:LUNATIC.Climate change denial is not just “unfashionable”. That is not how science works. It is indefensible. If you want to be treated like real scientists, behave like real scientists. Do not just steal e-mails, cherry-pick quotes, cherry-pick data, cherry-pick studies, cherry-pick scientists, accuse innocent scientists of fraud, harrass them with legal shenanigans, bribe politicians, and so on. All the despicable methods deniers use have earned them the word “denier”. Instead, do real research, without any dirty tricks, and publish it in bona-fide scientific journals. (Of course, this will not work, since you are wrong and the data are against you, but it would be the honest way to do it, the way that does not get you called “denier”.) —Hob Gadling (talk) 15:30, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
Maybe this story will have a happy ending. The Wikipedia community might ultimately decide that “denier” (aka “holocaust denier”) is too loaded a term to use to describe a scientist who disagrees with their colleagues.
But as Hob explained, Wikipedia community guidelines have a backdoor clause which provides cover for those who enjoy using loaded language and revel in repeating academic insults. Under the rules, “Hob”, hiding behind the anonymity of a pseudonym, is allowed to use nasty pejorative terms in Wikipedia, providing a “reliable source” (as defined by the Wikipedia community) has already used such terms in public to attack the target of their slur;
BLPs [biographies of Living Persons] should be written responsibly, cautiously, and in a dispassionate tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement. Articles should document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subjects, and in some circumstances what the subjects have published about themselves. Summarize how actions and achievements are characterized by reliable sources without giving undue weight to recent events. Do not label people with contentious labels, loaded language, or terms that lack precision, unless a person is commonly described that way in reliable sources. Instead use clear, direct language and let facts alone do the talking. BLPs should not have trivia sections.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia’s parent organisation) states “Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.”.
However as Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger points out, one of the core policies designed to support this ideal, the policy of Neutral Point of View, died out a long time ago, and was replaced by “the utterly bankrupt canard” of avoiding “false balance” (h/t Charles).
Wikipedia Is Badly Biased
MAY 14, 2020|IN WIKI, KNOWLEDGE, INTERNET|BY LARRY SANGER
Wikipedia’s “NPOV” is dead.1 The original policy long since forgotten, Wikipedia no longer has an effective neutrality policy. There is a rewritten policy, but it endorses the utterly bankrupt canard that journalists should avoid what they call “false balance.”2 The notion that we should avoid “false balance” is directly contradictory to the original neutrality policy. As a result, even as journalists turn to opinion and activism, Wikipedia now touts controversial points of view on politics, religion, and science. Here are some examples from each of these subjects, which were easy to find, no hunting around. Many, many more could be given.
…
Read more: https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/
Wikipedia’s apparent betrayal of their founding ideal will likely be their downfall. As editors become bolder in venting their personal prejudices, under the guise of avoiding “false balance”, a growing number of Wikipedia’s target audience will become alienated by Wikipedia community’s intolerance.
“Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.” – without the bullying and hate speech.
Update (EW) h/t Willie Soon – William Connolly has mentioned Sallie Baliunas in a post. His take appears to be that the use of the word “denier” to describe Baliunas was appropriate, once the reference was updated.
When climate scientists can explain, to the 2nd decimal place, just how many SUVs it took to melt the icecaps on Mars at the same time and rate as those on Planet Earth, I’ll start to pay attention. Until that day comes (I’m not holding my breath) I’ll continue to mock their college degree-granted gravitas as much as “Basketweaving 101”, which, so far as I can see, actually teaches one a useful skill, unlike the climate sciences. The practice of “science” should be observation, theory, and proof. The AGW CO2 hypothesis fails in at least two of those three categories.
The solution is to write a bot to scan wikipedia. If the words climate and denier appear on the same entry, change all occurances of denier to skeptic.
It is clear given the speed at which edits are undone the there is already an army of bots at work flagging changes. Global edit and replace on wikipedia is the only solution.
OK, well so much for supporting Wikipedia – they can get funding from somewhere else.
A global edit and replace of climate denier to AGW skeptic on wikipedia could be based on an open source site grabber, that filters for climate and denier, with added code to write back changes. Do it all behind a public VPN and change wikipedia logins as required.
A selection of different boiler plate edit reasons could be randomly applied to each change.
“Wikipedia’s apparent betrayal of their founding ideal will likely be their downfall.”
Not uncommonly, a person or an organization will be their own worst enemy. It has been my experience that Wikipedia is a convenient source of reliable information on non-controversial topics, such as physics or mathematics. However, it is almost always biased to the left on topics that intersect with politics. I have a friend who refuses to accept Wikipedia citations from his students on any topic. They are already reaping the ‘rewards’ of their progressive ideology; however, their political blinders prevent them from seeing the damage they are doing.
I have been told by someone I once worked with that there is an old Russian saying that “Everyone soon knows when a man defecates in his hat.”
“”…Wikipedia editor Hob Galding (Hob admits this is a pseudonym) changed the entry back the next day, and offered the following explanation.
They find it offensive? So what? I find their existence offensive, but I don’t expect them to do anything about it. They exist, I am offended, end of story…”
Guess what Galdling? There’s this guy from 20th century history named Hitler. Heard of him? He found Jews to be offensive. Do you know what he and his fellow Nazis did about it?
Gadling, your statement reflects a profound and frightening lack of both maturity and intelligence. Whenever Wikipedia launches a fund-raising drive at its website, people like you and Connolley
at Wiki make it a very easy decision for me to not give you one red cent.
Gadling, it’s tragic when a supposedly grown adult demonstrates that he still has something in common with the very young customers at a day care center — they all need to learn what respect is. I would like to believe that there is hope for individuals like yourself, but I am not optimistic.
Hob Galding sounds a lot like William Connolly.
It appears there is already a bot to do global edit and replace on wikipedia: AutoWikiBrowser.
You give AutoWikiBrowser a list of pages and a script, and it will automatically make changes and present these to you for approval. The source is available for download, so it would not be a stretch of the imagination to marry this to a site grabber to build a list of pages to be monitored and edited.
This would explain my experience with wikipedia. You make a change and literally within a matter of minutes if not seconds the change has been undone. An automated browser with an editing script cold easily monitor hundreds if not thousands of pages every hour.
I have contributed to wickipedia for years but have become increasingly disalusioned over the last couple of years – bit like th BBC. They can do without my money from now.
Surely, “Hob Galding” is the wrong word to use to name this person. I, thus, propose that we change “Hob Galding” to “Dumb Ass”.
Boo hoo, poor little closed minded, short sighted zealot getting upset about people calling him what he is. That’s what he is, and so the name is the proper name.
“If you want to be treated like real scientists, behave like real scientists. Do not just steal e-mails, cherry-pick quotes, cherry-pick data, cherry-pick studies, cherry-pick scientists, accuse innocent scientists of fraud, harrass them with legal shenanigans, bribe politicians, and so on.”
Isn’t he describing alarmist here????
Anthropogenic Global Climate change is a religion.
The AGW/CC priests, like Humpty Dumpty, are free to define the terms they use in any way they see fit.
Denier is just a poor choice of word.
Heretic would a more appropriate choice.
Climate Change does not mean the same thing to a “Climate Scientist” as it does to an ‘Orthodox Scientist.
On the contrary, rather than denying that Climate Change is taking place, orthodox scientists recognize that the Earth’s climate is in a constant state of change.
So this guy “Hob” (is it Galding or Gadling?), has he heard of the denier of Newtonian Mechanics? Einstein. No? Einstein wasn’t a denier? Or was he skeptical of the well-established scientific consensus? And what about all those Relativity deniers? Or were they skeptical, too???
One major difference is that Einstein’s predictions were PROVABLE, and within a dozen years or so light from a star was proven to bend around the Sun, during a total eclipse, according to Einstein’s theory, by gravity.
Ask Hob, with all of the resources of Wiki to show us the proof of his global warming predictions.
I think if Einstein and Feynman were still alive these twits like Hob and Connolly would be nowhere.
Hey, Hob, how about Barry Marshall?
“Marshall and Robin Warren showed that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) plays a major role in causing many peptic ulcers, CHALLENGING DECADES Of MEDICAL DOCTRINE holding that ulcers were caused primarily by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid.” – reference Wikipedia, emphasis mine..
“I don’t think”
Got that bit right.
Wikipedia lost credibility a very long time ago. There are instances where Wikipedia is fine for use. If I want to find out when someone was born or died, it’s great. If you’re looking for weights and measures, you’re pretty safe. If you’re looking for anything that might have any political value in any way, you will always find Wikipedia to be heavily biased to the left. It’s just not worth patronizing Wikipedia anymore.
And as more and more things «might have any political value in any way», this leads to rather predictable results.
Interesting how today’s snowflakes are all about not being offended. Almost every objection they make at the heart of it is being offended. Yet they willingly and openly offend other people all the time and think nothing of it. It only matters if their delicate sensitivities are offended.
I think if Gob Holding wants to avoid being called a first-class d-bag, that he should stop behaving like one. Until then though, yeah, he’s a d-bag.
The word “denier” doesn’t appear on Sallie Baliunas Wikipedia’s page!
“Baliunas is a denier in regard to there being a connection between CO2 rise and climate change, saying in a 2001 essay with Willie Soon: ”
https://web.archive.org/web/20200206002458/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas
Right! So it did get removed! Let’s see if it reappears…
Back again.
With a vengeance (emphasis added):
“Baliunas and Soon became well known for climate change denial, and in 1997 she won the Petr Beckmann Award for her ‘devastating critique of the global warming hoax.'[15]”
The bolded section, where Wiki now claims Baliunas and Soon deny that the climate changes (a stupidly buffoonerous, contradictory claim given subject of the article itself) is hyperlinked to this page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial
Welcome to (anti)intellectual discourse at Wikipedia.
Thanks for the tip.
Time stamped in the Wayback Machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20200714160229/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas
This “Hob Gobblin” stands out from the rest of wikieditors only in that he (?) forgot to put a pseudo-intellectual mask on. And even then, only because it’s a gimmick of wikipedia.
Also, if you are curious how would this vile speech sound offline and without pseudonyms, the answer is: as long as there’s a whole mob of them, it’s much the same, but with more clapping.
Dr. Willie Soon, may I suggest that instead of saying we are offended by the descriptive “denier” why not simply say that it’s a wrong description since neither climate nor AGW is denied. The only thing “deniers” are is being skeptic about alarmist projections, often based on disputable data.
Perhaps someone should tell them their habit of letting activists alter information and then protecting it from Truth has ALREADY alienated the world. Wikipedia is now and authority as much as fact checkers are about actual facts.
“Yeah… I bet you got that from wikipedia” is already a put down of anyone’s opinion or statrement.
The word denier does 2 things,
It assumes the information being discussed is an absolute truth and leads to the belief that any one who doesn’t agree is simply wrong and should not be listened to.
It’s a clever way to discredit information, stifles honest debate and even opposing scientific evidence.
I believe in climate change but not in AGW.
The people who believe the climate is only changing because of human activity and prior to that was consistently stable and predictable are the real climate deniers. They believe the ice doesn’t melt in the summer, that there has never been wild fires before now, that the earth has not been as warm as now. That’s denial. Denial of evidence, denial of science.
Evidence is not a computer prediction.
Then Wikipedia has the audacity to come along every year begging for money. Until Wikipedia becomes more nonpartisan they will never see a dime from me.
Wiki-fecalia, needs a comment section for each article. Otherwise, those who have no life decide the truth. As a workaround, I was wondering about citing contradictory studies, but state they reinforce the narrative in articles for fun.