Emeritus Hal Lewis Resigns - Are Scientists Really Above Corruption?

Great Debates
1

http://my.telegraph.co.uk/reasonmclucus/reasonmclucus/15835660/professor-emiritus-hal-lewis-resigns-from-american-physical-society/

So is it all about money? This seems to be the common argument among man-made global warming skeptics. When the entirety of an institution stands to profit greatly from exaggerated claims, why wouldn’t the majority be ‘in-on-it?’

Of course it stands to reason that if this is the case, and corrupted scientists are fudging data and twisting truths then there would be some evidence or leaks. Or that several respected scientists who were willing to put their reputations on the line to debate the issue would at least make attempts to break the perceived zeitgeist around climate change.

So what happens in these scenarios. Scientists accuse the popular group of being corrupt, they are in turn called corrupt or misinformed themselves. It becomes a completely political debate with no one paying attention to either side’s evidence. However, who has the most to gain? Isn’t that what we should be really asking?

Are the rogue scientists who are losing their jobs and being marginalized really the ones who have the most to gain from denying that current climate science is valid?

If they were truly corrupt… if they truly wanted to keep their job and potentially increase their income through the numerous grants being awarded to climate scientists investigating man-made global warming; and they KNEW beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was all a scam, wouldn’t they just embrace it like so many other scientists?

Try playing devil’s advocate, since I know most people won’t even enter the debate with an open mind regarding this issue.

Just to be clear, I do believe in Global Warming, but I find it very curious that solar activity increases have directly correlated with our climate increase. I mean unless you expect me to believe that is a coincidence or that our activity on Earth is actually affecting the Sun.

watch 4:05 - 5:05
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1325805851224851246#

2

Of course not, nor does much of anyone claim they are.

That’s ridiculous; it’s the people who back the skeptics who stand to profit by it. Scientifically speaking the question is largely settled; it’s the “skeptics” who are overwhelmingly driven by corruption.

Of course; and the answer is the corporations who want to pollute without limit and that have zero concern for the future; and the Christian fanatics driven by apocalyptic theology who want as large a disaster as possible, whether it’s nuclear war or environmental disaster. The same corporations that have always lied shamelessly in order to keep polluting. The same ones that have always kept paid stables of “scientists” who say what they are told to say.

3

Why is it so ridiculous? Are these climate scientists not making money? Are they not receiving grants? Seems like plenty of motivation to keep a ‘myth’ alive if it is indeed a myth.

Even as an atheist I don’t feel like Christian fanatics are trying to bring upon the apocalypse in this manner. Maybe a very stupid minority, but I would imagine there are many Christians and non-Christians who just think this is a scam. Why does every liberal agenda have to be put at odds with Christians. There are many Christians who are pro-universal healthcare.

Yeah corporations lie and they pollute and do all sort of horrible things without thinking of the consequences, but all of us lie and scheme to get our way. Why should I believe these climate scientists are any different?

I feel like I am expected to ignore evidence that someone committed a crime, just to frame an even bigger criminal for said crime. Is that what you are trying to say? We should let someone get away with murder as long as we can put a serial murderer away in his place? Is that how justice works?

4

They don’t get grants to present a particular point of view. They get grants to do good science. Heck, there’s an incentive to coming up with results that go against the conventional wisdom. You don’t get Nobel prizes for coming up with results that everybody already knew. But you’d better have solid evidence behind your conclusions.

5

Well, in that case why should I believe that Hal Lewis is any different?

6

I don’t know, maybe because he is resigning from his job and taking an unpopular stance on an issue. Wouldn’t most scientists want to keep their jobs and more importantly their reputations?

7

Are Scientists Really Above Corruption?

This is something like asking Do all schoolteachers really like all of their students equally? or Are all rabbis really completely faithful to their wives? or Are all academics really free of racism?. It’s a question that doesn’t need to be asked because I don’t think anybody would dispute that the answer is, always has, and always will be “Nope” and no reasonable person would answer otherwise.

8

Well, no, that simply isn’t true.

While there are a tiny number of grants available to do whatever the hell you wish, the days when they were common is long gone. The typical research grant today is very tightly focused on highly specific research priorities and demands a clear set for objective outcomes. What that means is that almost any grant today in most fields has to invoke the spectre of global warming. It’s not about presenting a particular point of vew per se. It’s about the ability to tick boxes in funding application.

As an example, here’s the current webpage for a funding application source we apply for each year. The check box includes factors such as “merit of the proposed product (including the breadth of the likely client user group)” and “Relevance of the project to the specific objectives of the [funders] Research Priorities”. Major priorities include such things as “Conservation, Vulnerable and Endangered Species” and “Public, Plant and Animal Health”. So if a researcher wants to get her share of that money she has to make sure here research applies to a lot of people, and it has to invoke threatened species/ecosystems and threats to the health of people or wildlife.

As researchers we could have stated in our proposal that global warming was real, that the frequency of drought would increase as a result, that the effects on plant physiology were unknown but because the potential effects on food production were dire information and a solution were urgently required. We said all that because it very, very easily allowed us to tick the appropriate boxes. Food production affects everybody, and it affects health. Climate change has a potentially massive effect on ecosystem viability. Climate change is a godsend for funding applications… provided you concede that it exists and

Now we *could *have put forward a proposal based on a proposition that climate change *wasn’t *real, and was thus no threat whatsoever to the the health of anything. We would then have been forced to say that the results our plant physiology/irrigation research project would only be applicable to a small number of farmers, most of them in the third world, and has no application to wildlife at all.

So guess which tack we took with our application? I’ll give you a hint, it was approved with feedback saying that it addressed well all the major requirements of the funder. And of course, because we want to get approved for the current round of funding, our latest application will say the same thing.

So, no. We aren’t funded to do good science. Few scientists are these days. We are unfortunately funded to do research in certain popular areas.

The same has applied to past projects with more direct bearing on climate change research. I found out the hard way that there is simply no way to get continued funding if the results you produce don’t support the orthodoxy on climate change. We had one major project scrapped after 7 years because it wasn’t finding any of the effects of climate change. The data was all excellent, the methodology, while low tech, was sound. The major results were published in the Global Change Biology. But because the research wasn’t finding evidence of climate change the funding body concluded that it was, to paraphrase, “either inaccurate or too long term to detect evidence of climate change”, and they canned it in favour of remote sensing and modelling projects that were finding the expected evidence

And that is really the point I;d like to make in this thread. There isn’t some vast, shadowy conspiracy manufacturing evidence of climate change and supressing counter evidence. Rather, it’s an organic product of the funding system, engenders through two factors:

  1. Researchers, and especially junior researchers, have a vested interest in promoting the perils of climate change in all fields. That’s because climate change is a very convenient way to fill out the triple bottom line on project proposals and funding applications. Almost any project in the life or Earth sciences can meet its triple bottom line requirements by invoking the spectre of global warming.

  2. Within the specific field of climate science itself, the funding process produces a serious and unquantifiable bottom drawer effect. Because there is a belief in the reality of climate change, funding is often given to look at the effects of climate change, whether that be the effect on wildlife or the effect on ice sheets. So when a sound methodology fails to detect evidence of climate change it is discarded because of the very fact that it did fail to detect evidence of climate change. It’s a kind of circular logic. We know that global warming exists because we have overwhelming evidence, and when we fail to find evidence we discard the methodology because it didn’t find the evidence that we know exists.

Once again, this isn’t because of some vast conspiracy. It’s an inevitable result of the funding process that rewards results and that rewards research that is applicable to solving the problem of climate change, and thus encourages support fore the existence of said problem.
But to suggest that scientists get grants to do good science, regardless of their point of view, betrays a serious misunderstanding of the way their research funding competition is run.

Even more flawed is the idea that scientists gain nothing by pretending that global warming is real. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the Life and Earth Science fields, I doubt if a researcher could even keep his job if he didn’t heavily invoke the spectre of global warming on all funding applications. We scientists may not be specifically paid to say that global warming is real, but I can tell you right now, we wouldn’t get paid if we pretended that it wasn’t real. There is simply no way that I or any researcher I know could have competed in a our funding applications if we hadn’t invoked global warming. Not even possible.

Scientists may not get paid to say that global warming is real, and they may not get funding to produce evidence that it is real. However we wouldn’t get paid if we said it wasn’t real and we often (usually) can’t get funding if we don’t find evidence that it is real. The practical distinction between “she gets paid to say it is real and gets paid to find evidence it is real” and “she won’t get paid if she doesn’t say it;s real and she won’t get paid if she doesn’t find evidence that it’s real” is pretty damn fine.

Once again, no conspiracy behind this. Just an inherent flaw in the finding system, and unfortunately one with no easy solution.

9

He isn’t resigning from his job. He is an Emeritus professor, meaning he resigned from his job many moons ago. He is resigning from a club, nothing more. That club is the American Physical Society, so it has some bearing on the debate, but he loses very little by his resignation, probably less than if he resigned form his bridge club.

As for his reputation, based on the actions he admits to in that letter, I doubt if his reputation will take much of a blow from resigning. He obviously made his views on the matter well known before this, and he is resigning because those views were ignored.

10

Thanks for the clarification.

11

It’s ridiculous because the side waving all the money around is the side that is pushing for denial of global warming.

Well, you are wrong. Pro-apocalypse Christians number in the millions; if they are a minority, they are anything but small. They have pushed for nuclear war against the Soviet Union, for deforestation, for the war against Iraq, and now for global warming.

Because Christianity is fundamentally malignant, irrational and destructive. Any attempt to do good in the world is ultimately in opposition to Christianity (and religion in general).

12

Entirely apart from the merits of climate science, this argument does not work. There are large, high profile groups who think AGW is real, and there are large, high profile groups who think it’s not real. I’m sure you can make plenty of money on the lecture circuit speaking to either side if that’s what you want to do. I have no idea if any such thought has entered Hal Lewis’ mind, but his motivation in speaking against climate change does not have to be pure as the driven snow.

13

Let’s see a cite that millions of Christians have come out in favor of nuclear war against the USSR, in favor of deforestation, and in favor of global man-made warming.

You keep making this obviously false statements. Either back them up, or stop making them.

14

I really liked the recent piece in the NYTimes - In Kansas, Climate Skeptics Embrace Cleaner Energy

I guess the thesis of the piece is that much of “middle-America” is vehemently against the climate change narrative. But presented as energy independence, conservationism and stewardship renewable energy programs can work.

I’m quite left, and I completely believe in (and panic about) global warming. This piece was kind of bittersweet to me - on the one hand, a lot of these people reject global warming. And I’ll be honest, I find this completely irrational. Stupid. Ignorant. But at the same time the story shows people with whom I strongly disagree taking a good (IMO) position based on other good things - a desire to be independent, a desire to take care of the earth, etc.

Not exactly a world-changing piece, but it’s the first one I’ve read in a while that gives me a bit of hope about climate science.

15

Hal Lewis sure knows a lot about nuclear physics but has no formal training in climate science which makes him an intellectual layman on the matter. I dunno, I don’t understand why his opinion matters anyway.

16

For the same reason that actors and religious leaders and such have their opinions on scientific matters taken seriously; in our culture if you have high status, the respect gained by that status tends to extend to everything you say and do regardless to how little connection the achievement that earned you that status it has to the matter at hand.

But yes; knowledge of nuclear physics doesn’t qualify him as a climatology expert any more than being, say, a graduate of a law school would.

17

Did you bother to read what the guy worked on?

Guess what a study on nuclear winter* would involve? Lots of physics and climate science. Nuclear winter research is going to involve all the same stuff that global warming research will. To call him a layman is highly questionable.

I don’t know how good of a scientist this guy is but dismissing him out of hand because he isn’t a ‘climate scientist’ is just stupid. He has done climate science. (Not to mention that many scientists jump fields**)

Climate science relies on physics and math, the models everyone keeps going on about are *physical *models. If the physics or math the climate scientist are using is incorrect, then whatever they say doesn’t mean shit.

Another interesting point is that every time a scientist comes out in disagreement with Global Warming, the very first response is to attack the scientist instead of the reasoning the scientist is using. Look at Honesty’s first post. Instead of questioning the actions of the APS and Lewis in this situation, he instantly attacks Lewis.

Regardless of the subject, the behavior Lewis describes should be unacceptable if it is true. If the APS is ignoring its own by-laws then there is a problem.

If this guy was arguing the other way, claiming that an oil company did this to him, he’d be hailed as a hero. Instead, since he is questioning the new religion of global warming, he gets slammed. It is getting quite silly. Hell I remember when Climate Gate hit. One researcher (and I will try to dig up the cite for this, I already posted it on the board once) put out a statement that climate scientists needed to be more open. She got nailed. The really silly thing about the whole damned situation was that she *believed *in global warming. She got slammed for daring to state that the scientists were not being open enough.

When science gets politicized the way global warming has, there are all kinds of indirect problems that arise which aren’t really corruption but do cause real issues. If this guy is telling the truth and the APS is ignoring its own rules regarding Topical Groups, that is a problem.

Slee

*I know a few guys who did nuclear winter research in the 80’s. They knew lots of climate info, they had to.

** One of the guys who did nuclear winter research also worked with Richard Feynman on quantum physics, nuclear reactor safety research and weapons research at a national lab and at one point worked on fluid movement through rock for an oil company. All the nuclear safety researchers I knew (and I knew a lot of them) were math guys. Mostly statisticians.

18

His charge is that AGW is a ‘scam’ - thats not really a scientific argument anyway, but rather a corruption or conspiracy claim.

“It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.”

And the evidence he cites for this is the ‘climate gate’ documents.

So his qualifications are really a bit of a side issue, and in my view its more the credibility of the evidence he offers for size of the claim he makes that I have concerns about. Going by that Im wondering if the 87 years old aspect might be the real issue.

Otara

19

How many scientists argued that cigarettes did not cause cancer or other health problems? They were on the staff of the cigarette companies and were well trained and schooled scientists. Yet, they continually said their tests proved smoking was safe. When a scientist working for them turned against them, it became a book and a movie.
The university scientist in the gulf area were bought up by BP. They had to sign agreements that they would not release any info saying the spill would have long term bad effects. They came pretty cheap too.
lawyers know they can buy a scientist to dispute any and all evidence ,if they pay enough. Some doctors specialize in trials.
Scientists are just people . Some are for sale.

20

True. And anyone who does not acknowledge that there are some pretty deep pockets out there who are funding many organizations that are “sowing doubt” about Climate Change are simply naive.

Here is a quite well researched book that talks about it.

ETA: It’s a classic case of “the best defense is a good offense” There is a ton of money being poured into climate change denial. Part of the denier’s strategy is to accuse the Climate Change scientists of just doing the science because of the money they get in grants. This “offense” takes the initiative away from anyone who points out that the denier organizations are funded by fossil fuel dependent companies.