Emeritus Hal Lewis Resigns - Are Scientists Really Above Corruption?

[GIGObuster]

@sleestak

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.

Not much time right now for me, but suffice to say, it is not true. On top of that, Lewis was refuted by the APS before and now.

What we have here IMHO is just another Dr. Seitz. Ignorant of the new research and looking forward to a retirement with lots of contributions from outfits like the Marshall Institute.

[Honesty]

@sleestak

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 . Look at Honesty’s first post. Instead of questioning the actions of the APS and Lescientist’ 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.

His last published research paper was in 1951 and it had nothing to do with climate science. He published a non-research article in 1983 (pdf) and it had nothing to do with climate science. Dr. Lewis has contributed to the field of physics but he is not an expert in climate science; therefore, his opinion on whether it exist or doesn’t exist doesn’t matter (or matters as much as yours, mine, or any other laymen). This isn’t an attack on Dr. Lewis, it’s just an observation that he no formal training in the very field he claims to be an expert on.
Scientist jump fields yes. There’s a guy in our department who did his thesis on Plant Genetics and now he’s researching wing development in Drosophila. But it’s rare and usually requires some degree of post-doctoral training.

• Honesty

[godix]

@Punoqllads

You don’t get Nobel prizes for coming up with results that everybody already knew.

You most certainly do get a Nobel prize for touting what ‘everyone knows’. If you’re interested, ask Al Gore how to do it.

[GIGObuster]

@godix

You most certainly do get a Nobel prize for touting what ‘everyone knows’. If you’re interested, ask Al Gore how to do it.

Since Gore did not get a price in science but it was in Peace, your point is really silly.

[hotflungwok]

@Otara

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

If this guy has access to information that shows that Climate Gate really does indicate corruption and bad science, then he should probably allow others to see it. Everything I’ve seen on this has cleared those involved of any wrong doing, and the only place I know that it’s still taken as evidence that global warming is a scam is in the right wing blogosphere. Have I missed something?

[GIGObuster]

@hotflungwok

If this guy has access to information that shows that Climate Gate really does indicate corruption and bad science, then he should probably allow others to see it. Everything I’ve seen on this has cleared those involved of any wrong doing, and the only place I know that it’s still taken as evidence that global warming is a scam is in the right wing blogosphere. Have I missed something?

Nope, you are on the money.

The best place to check for this sorry episode and the “Climategate” one is the “Rabbit” from Rabett Run:

Rabett Run

The American Physical Society Calls Tony Watts a Clown

Anthony Watts got his Hal Lewis is Martin Luther Appeal into the Christian Science Monitor. Some of the bunnies joined the fun in the comments (caerbannog, greenfyre, Eli, Mike Roddy, Scott Mandia), but the major explosion was a post from the press secretary of the American Physical Society, Tawanda Johnson

Mr. Watts,

The American Physical Society (APS), a leading organization of physicists, takes great umbrage to your analogy likening Dr. Harold Lewis’ resignation from APS to that of the plight of Christian theologian Martin Luther. Global climate change concerns science, not religion, and Dr. Lewis’ resignation bears no likeness to the Great Reformation. Furthermore, on the matter of global climate change, APS notes that virtually all reputable scientists agree with the following observations:

• Carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere due to human activity;
• Carbon dioxide is an excellent infrared absorber, and therefore, its increasing presence in the atmosphere contributes to global warming; and
• The dwell time of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is hundreds of years.

Read the official APS response to Dr. Harold Lewis’ resignation: http://www.aps.org/about/pressreleases/haroldlewis.cfm.

they ain’t gonna take this nonsense anymore. Tony and Hal did the denial crowd a great service by stirring up the APS.

[godix]

@GIGObuster

Since Gore did not get a price in science but it was in Peace, your point is really silly.

Silly of me to think that the phrase ‘Nobel prize’, without any qualifiers on category, might actually mean, you know, a Nobel prize. Now that I think about it, it’s rather weird how I assumed a Nobel prize given for the subject the thread is about might possibly be relevant.

Or, alternatively, it’s just barely in the realm of possibility that someone winning a Nobel prize for putting forward a mainstream commonly accepted theory disproves the claim that no one can win a Nobel prize for putting forward a mainstream commonly accepted theory.

[GIGObuster]

@godix

Silly of me to think that the phrase ‘Nobel prize’, without any qualifiers on category, might actually mean, you know, a Nobel prize. Now that I think about it, it’s rather weird how I assumed a Nobel prize given for the subject the thread is about might possibly be relevant.

Or, alternatively, it’s just barely in the realm of possibility that someone winning a Nobel prize for putting forward a mainstream commonly accepted theory disproves the claim that no one can win a Nobel prize for putting forward a mainstream commonly accepted theory.

In other words “My cat’s breath smells like cat food”

Or it is still a silly attempt at making something sound deep in that post.

What Punoqllads posted still stands. You can only sound deep by ignoring history.

[godix]

@GIGObuster

In other words “My cat’s breath smells like cat food”

Or it is still a silly attempt at making something sound deep in that post.

What Punoqllads posted still stands. You can only sound deep by ignoring history.

Ignoring history? Like, for example, claiming it’s impossible to win a Nobel prize for advancing a commonly accepted idea, despite the history of someone winning a Nobel prize for doing exactly that? That sort of ignoring history?

Face it, the claim was factually wrong. Insult me by calling me silly or saying I’m ignoring history all you want, the statement will remain factually wrong. The original statement claimed something didn’t happen. That thing has happened. The original statement is factually wrong. Engaging in ad hominem because you can’t accept that is, to use your favorite word, rather silly.

[Aji_de_Gallina]

@Der_Trihs

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).

Dude, you’re slipping! You waited till post 12 to say your usual anti-christian stuff!!

[Aji_de_Gallina]

@Der_Trihs

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.

You mean like IPCC’s top guy Rajendra Pachauri who is a Mechanical Engineer, an Industrial Engineer and taught Economy?

@Blake

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.

I was going to say something like that, but I wasn’t going to say it that well.
Thanks

[GIGObuster]

@sleestak

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.

Oh, and I have time now to deal with this silliness also.

Because action will have to be taken regarding this issue eventually politics does enter into the picture.

What it can not be put aside is the ugly fact that one side is **denying **the science when discussing what to do about the issue. And worse, they use repeatedly discredited fellows in an attempt to continue to fool other politicians that have not fallen into the denial trap:

http://climateprogress.org/2010/09/21/lord-monckton-debunked-climate-scientists/

Climate scientists eviscerate Lord Monckton’s attempt to disinform the U.S. Congress

“Here, a number of top climate scientists have thoroughly refuted all of Mr. Monckton’s major assertions, clearly demonstrating a number of obvious and elementary errors.”
September 21, 2010

A group of five scientists solicited responses from more than twenty world-class climate scientists to the May 6th testimony by Christopher Monckton to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. These climate scientists “… have thoroughly refuted all of Mr. Monckton’s major assertions, clearly demonstrating a number of obvious and elementary errors,” the report says. “We encourage the U.S. Congress to give careful consideration to the implications this document has for the care that should be exercised in choosing expert witnesses to inform the legislative process.”

Climate Scientists respond to MoncktonThe Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (TVMOB) has now become the most scientifically debunked of all the professional disinformers. A team of 21 top climate scientists have eviscerated his Congressional testimony — news release here, full report here. See also the Guardian piece, “‘Chemical nonsense’: Leading scientists refute Lord Monckton’s attack on climate science.”

Lord Monckton should no longer be viewed as a credible source by the media or Congressional committees, given that he has been thoroughly discredited scientifically

Of course, as none of the Republicans that invited the [del]count chocula[/del] viscount to testify in congress has distanced himself or herself from the viscount, we have to assume that they do not care that they are using bad science to fool the American people.

[GIGObuster]

@godix

Ignoring history? Like, for example, claiming it’s impossible to win a Nobel prize for advancing a commonly accepted idea, despite the history of someone winning a Nobel prize for doing exactly that? That sort of ignoring history?

No, the part that in the past it was not common to say that climate disruption will become a threat to world peace, that is still a matter of some controversy but overall most are agreeing that indeed peace will be affected.

@godix

Face it, the claim was factually wrong. Insult me by calling me silly or saying I’m ignoring history all you want, the statement will remain factually wrong. The original statement claimed something didn’t happen. That thing has happened. The original statement is factually wrong. Engaging in ad hominem because you can’t accept that is, to use your favorite word, rather silly.

Nope, his point was dealing with science, now if you can demonstrate that world peace is a brand new idea you may had a point. What the IPCC and Gore did was to show that AGW is very likely to cause wars in the future, an item that was not taking much into consideration until recently.

[GIGObuster]

@Aji_de_Gallina

You mean like IPCC’s top guy Rajendra Pachauri who is a Mechanical Engineer, an Industrial Engineer and taught Economy?

Well, as the point of the OP deals with corruption I’m glad you mention him.

Rajendra Pachauri innocent of financial misdealings but smears will continue...

Has anyone been as badly maligned as Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)?

In December, the Sunday Telegraph carried a long and prominent feature written by Christopher Booker and Richard North, titled: Questions over business deals of UN climate change guru Dr Rajendra Pachauri.

The subtitle alleged that Pachauri has been “making a fortune from his links with ‘carbon trading’ companies”. The article maintained that the money made by Pachauri while working for other organisations “must run into millions of dollars”.

It described his outside interests as “highly lucrative commercial jobs”. It proposed that these payments caused a “conflict of interest” with his IPCC role. It also complained that we don’t know “how much we all pay him” as chairman of the IPCC.

The story (which has subsequently been removed from the Sunday Telegraph’s website) immediately travelled around the world. It was reproduced on hundreds of blogs. The allegations it contained were widely aired in the media and generally believed. For a while, no discussion of climate change or the IPCC appeared complete without reference to Pachauri’s “dodgy” business dealings and alleged conflicts of interest.

There was just one problem: the story was untrue.

@Aji_de_Gallina

I was going to say something like that, but I wasn’t going to say it that well.
Thanks

And I do think that he has good points, but not much evidence that it took place in the cases mentioned by the OP

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

@Blake

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.

Your post has rekindled my skepticism concerning much of what I hear wrt AGW.

Any bias in funding just has to compromise the science.

I’m suprised no one wants to take you on wrt your assertions.

[GIGObuster]

@The_Flying_Dutchman

Your post has rekindled my skepticism concerning much of what I hear wrt AGW.

Any bias in funding just has to compromise the science.

I’m suprised no one wants to take you on wrt your assertions.

Nah, he still could not produce a good example regarding this issue. The point is that it may be so, but it is more naive to assume that all science is compromised by such an opinion. As there were recent papers on alternative theories regarding the current warming (like cosmic rays, but they failed to impress when it was found that the correlations are not much there) published even the idea that it is happening in the case of global warming is doubtful.

[GIGObuster]

However, lets see if there is something there then, can you point at support for this “squik”?

“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.”

What sound methodology and when it was discarded?

[Aji_de_Gallina]

@GIGObuster

Well, as the point of the OP deals with corruption I’m glad you mention him.

I wasn’t responding to that but rather the old “he isn’t a climate scientist so he’s wrong” stuff.

[GIGObuster]

@Aji_de_Gallina

I wasn’t responding to that but rather the old “he isn’t a climate scientist so he’s wrong” stuff.

And even there I think the point is not so clear, the head of the IPCC is more like an organizer, what counts is the published science that was put together by the report, and that is why it is the researchers who are considered the experts, the opinion of the head of the IPCC is not really relevant.

And even less the ones from deniers that claim that they are experts when they are not:

potholer54

[godix]

@GIGObuster

However, lets see if there is something there then, can you point at support for this “squik”?

God dam you for that link. Now I’m gonna be on tvtropes for hours.