I was reading his wiki the other day fondly remembering his popular articles in Scientific American and elsewhere I read as a high school student and was kinda shocked that he was both an ID creationist and climate change denialist.
I was a correspondent of Mims and a somewhat junior colleague back in his heyday. I still recall the phone conversation that went from technical discussion to tips on dealing with Radio Shack as an in house author to how he never worried about anything because Jesus directed his life.
This was before such things came out of the woodwork. I found it… bemusing.
Took me a few seconds to figure out what an ID creationist is. Intelligent design.
I mean, creationism by itself is no big deal, as long as it’s Old Earth. I don’t really think you can believe in the Biblical God without believing He created everything. Fortunately, whether God caused the Big Bang and set everything in motion, or there is something else–it doesn’t matter for most of the science we do. It’s merely a religious belief that doesn’t get in the way.
However, Intelligent Design pretends to be science, and Creationism is not science. Though I’m more concerned with him denying climate change. Christians shouldn’t even have a problem with climate change: the Bible says we are stewards of the environment, and that, when we work together we can do great things. The idea that we can’t affect things is contrary to the Bible and history and science.
This is the hazard of False Authority Syndrome.
He’s a very skilled electronics engineer, and one of the prototypical electronics hackers. Beyond this, why would anything he says matter? Just because he’s an authority in one area, that’s absolutely no reason to consider his perspective in any other matter.
He has opinions. So do you. Why are you worried about his irrelevant opinions? At the worst, you’re just feeding a troll.
If his work was entirely in electronics I might be as sanguine but according to Wikipedia, “Much of his research deals with ecology and environmental science.” This work may be perfectly good but the fact that he denies foundational knowledge in those fields certainly raises questions.
I wouldn’t make the mistake of taking any of his work outside electronics seriously at all. Because false authority.
Do any of scientific works display irrationality? Simply believing in Intelligent Design and denying climate change in some ways doesn’t mean he isn’t a good scientist. That is depending on what those actual beliefs are of course. Don’t we all recall those stories about that Isaac Newton guy?
On what authority was his electronic work founded? His degree is in Government with minors in English and History. He was self taught in all other fields.
For me, his informal authority in electronics is that his designs work. As to any other field, I don’t give a damn.
That’s all it takes. Decide for yourself who you believe or don’t.
Can you define ‘climate change denialist’ for me? Does it mean that he denies the climate changes? That he denies that CO2 affects the climate? That he thinks the climate models predicting doom are wrong? What exactly is he denying?
I see that term flying around but do not understand what it actually means, other than ‘this person disagrees with me and I have no valid response other than an ad hominem attack’.
Looking into Mims career it seems that he actually has done research and been published in atmospheric sciences. For example:
MEASURING TOTAL COLUMN WATER VAPOR BY POINTING AN INFRARED THERMOMETER AT THE SKY. Link
That was published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
Also:
F. M. Mims III, Aerosol Optical Thickness, Total Ozone, UV-B, Diffuse/Total Solar Irradiance and Sky Polarization Through Forest Fire Smoke and Stratospheric Aerosols During TOMS Overpasses, final report for NASA purchase order No. S-78417-Z, 1996.
F. M. Mims III, and D. J. Travis, Aircraft Contrails Reduce Solar Irradiance, EOS78, 448-449, 1997.
F. M. Mims III, J. Ladd and R. Blaha, Increased Solar Ultraviolet-B Associated with Record Low Ozone Over Texas, Geophysical Research Letters 22, 227-230, 1995.
F. M. Mims III, The Sun Photometer Atmospheric Network (SPAN): Observations of Record Low Ozone and Other Results of a 4-Year Pilot Study, Proceedings of the UV Index Meeting, Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, November 1993. (Invited paper.)
F. M. Mims III, An International Haze-Monitoring Network for Students, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 80, 1421-1431, 1999 (cover article).
Marian Morys, Forrest M. Mims III, Scott Hagerup, Stanley Anderson, Aaron Baker, Jesse Kia and Travis Walkup, Design, calibration and performance of MICROTOPS II handheld ozone monitor and Sun photometer, J. of Geophysical Research 106, 14,573-14,582, 2001.
F.M. Mims III and Brooks, David R.: A 2-Year Comparison of Aerosol Optical Thickness Measurements by the GLOBE Sun Photometer and the Terra and Aqua Satellites. 8th Annual Meeting, Boulder Colorado, July 25-30, 2004.
Looking at that list, one suspects he knows a bit about the atmosphere.
He has published papers in reputable journals on atmospheric science. He has been a paid reviewer of papers by NASA, the NSF and some major publishers.
I am willing to bet he knows quite a bit more about the atmosphere and climate than you.
Slee
I still have his “Lab Notes” books that he published through Radio Shack (back when Radio Shack was good.) They’re an excellent introduction to a lot of basic electronics (most of the analog stuff is still way over my head, tho. I’m still convinced that op-amps are basically magic.)
But yeah, he’s a little bit loony. I can’t say I really care. He’s done a lot of greet work as an educator and he isn’t hurting anyone.
He’s not a denialist. The article you quoted immediately below your statement very clearly said that:
Skepticism <> denial
Is “skeptic” the same as “denialist” now?
Oops - ninja’d by Clothahump!
We who have paid attention knew Mims doesn’t really believe in science since he was turned down as editor of SA for his beliefs. When was that, 20 years ago? He does believe in electricity, though, so I enjoy his books.
Edited to remove offensive pun.
Since you’ve shown no evidence that his designs “outside electricity” do not work, I’m left with the remainder of your statement which is, paraphrased - true authority is based on whether you care about the field or not. Got it.
Aaaargh! Chemtrails! 
You seem to read more into it than I. Mims has a skill gnoitall respects, but he’s not interested in his opinions about anything else. Seems reasonable. I may admire a musician for his music, but don’t give a shit about his political beliefs if they don’t affect me.
Electricity is clearly fabricated by The Man.
Post snipped.
On a sorta related note:
I am still waiting for Astro to define ‘climate change denialist’.
Slee
I have them, too, and recall being confused about operational amplifiers in college. It’s feedback. 