# Scientists and other Scholars who publish work considered "crank" by most peers **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 14, 2016, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174 "2016-04-14T12:13:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/61 "2016-04-15T02:24:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Truly famous names can sometimes get bunk published. Not anymore. Many of the really reputable journals have instituted “blind reviews” where the articles are stripped of any indication of who wrote them before they go out for peer review. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/62 "2016-04-15T02:25:23Z")
> [@bonzer](#): > > You know what, I’m going to stick my neck out and suggest that pretty much every single bloody reply in this entire thread fails the OP’s criteria. Every single last one of you. > > Now I’ll start by emphasising that I’m probably the Dope’s fiercest adovcate that science is an utterly human activity. Just because something is scientific doesn’t make it special. It’s just as human as anything else. > > So let’s go. I’m skipping most of the humanities/biological suggestions and only a couple of the physical science ones. Hmmmm… I believe I provided about half a dozen examples [in #49](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19260765&postcount=49) that fully meet the OP’s three stated criteria. You seem to be trying to make the point, after suitable disclaimers about the human failings of science, that none of the named crackpots has ever published a crackpot paper in a real journal. And you would be wrong. My own disclaimer here is that I’m as strong a believer in the scientific method and the peer review process as anyone, but the process is not foolproof and it works not on the basis of perfect infallibility but on the basis of overall performance and accountability in the aggregate. So again, most of the idiots I named have at least occasionally published crackpot papers with a climate-denialist angle. It’s a very lucrative business so it’s not surprising that those with no moral compass and/or ideological obsessions are attracted to it. A rather spectacular example is a paper on temperature reconstructions by our favorite dynamic duo, the previously mentioned Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas. This thing was approved for publication in _Climate Research_, ostensibly to show that it was way warmer in the recent past, and was so bad that it created a scandal that raged on for months, and by the time it was over, [half of the editorial board had resigned](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soon_and_Baliunas_controversy). The very second post in this thread mentions the venerable climate denialist Bjorn Lomborg. To be fair, I’m not sure if he’s ever published anything in a peer-reviewed journal, and he’s a business prof and not a scientist, but he’s written a book of lies about climate science for which he’s been roundly chastised. But then, his fellow Scandinavian Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist has definitely published papers on global temperature reconstructions. And what is Ljungqvist’s expertise in this matter? Why, the man did his Ph.D. thesis a few years ago on the ideology of kingship in the medieval Scandinavian laws. (He was then employed as Ph.D. Student Ombudsman at the Stockholm University Student Union.) So he developed an interest in climate at the time, and did himself some paleoclimate reconstructions. Too bad he did them so incredibly badly, by using temperature proxies from known anomalous hot spots during the Medieval Warm Period, and by golly he concluded that temperatures were way warmer then than they are now! Then there are journals whose editors and reviewers are not well qualified to referee papers because the subject matter is tangential to their primary subject. And so it was that another one of our previously mentioned heroes, Roy Spencer – oh, excuse me, Roy Spencer, Ph.D., as he always refers to himself – published a climate paper in the journal _Remote Sensing_ that, again, was so irredeemably bad that [the journal editor was forced to resign](http://phys.org/news/2011-09-editor-remote-journal-resigns-citing.html). And then there are second-rate, low-impact journals that just plain have low standards in which morons can get published. One example is _Energy & Environment_ (not be confused with _Energy & Environmental Sciences_, which is a real journal). Here is what Wikipedia says about it – pay attention to the bolded parts: According to a 2011 article in _The Guardian_, Gavin Schmidt and Roger A. Pielke, Jr. said that E&E has had low standards of peer review and little impact. In addition, Ralph Keeling criticized a paper in the journal which claimed that CO2 levels were above 400 ppm in 1825, 1857 and 1942, writing in a letter to the editor, “ **Is it really the intent of E&E to provide a forum for laundering pseudo-science?** ” When asked about the publication in the Spring of 2003 of a revised version of the paper at the center of the Soon and Baliunas controversy, Boehmer-Christiansen said, “I’m following my political agenda – a bit, anyway. But isn’t that the right of the editor?” Part of the journal’s official mission statement reads: "E&E has consistently striven to publish many ‘voices’ and to challenge conventional wisdoms. **Perhaps more so than other European energy journal, the editor has made E&E a forum for more sceptical analyses of ‘climate change’ and the advocated solutions"**. > **[Energy & Environment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_%26_Environment)** > > Energy & Environment is an academic journal "covering the direct and indirect environmental impacts of energy acquisition, transport, production and use". Under its editor-in-chief from 1998 to 2017, Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, it was known for easygoing peer-review and publishing climate change denial papers. Yiu Fai Tsang became its editor-in-chief in May 2017. > The journal is abstracted and indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index, Scopus, EBSCO databases, Current Contents/Social & Beha... ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/63 "2016-04-15T03:00:23Z")
> [@bonzer](#): > > [ul] **Lord Kelvin and the age of the earth** Lord Kelvin was not an idiot. The whole debate is rather more complicated than anybody who has read > on the details will assume.[/ul] I’m sure you merely typoed this and meant to write, “Lord Kelvin was not an idiot. The whole debate is rather more complicated than anybody who _ **hasn’t** _ read on the details will assume.” I agree with that. I disagree with the comment on Hoyle. A simple search on Google Scholar shows any number of papers in serious journals on steady state cosmology and panspermia from the 90s or later. Considering that he and Halton Arp co-authored a paper against the big bang, it’s hard to write him off either. Similarly, I can find articles written by Linus Pauling on megadoses of Vitamin C and cancer from the last decade of his life. [Nutrition Reviews, A Proposition: Megadoses of Vitamin C are Valuable in the Treatment of Cancer](http://nutritionreviews.oxfordjournals.org/content/44/1/28.abstract), 1986. Another with an impossibly long title from the [Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.409.5778) in 1990. Most of the names mentioned shouldn’t be on the list. But your dismissal of them all without cites or research doesn’t do your argument any good. ---
**Author:** ![Lorne\_Armstrong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@Lorne\_Armstrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorne_Armstrong)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/64 "2016-04-15T05:38:01Z")
I know this isn’t exactly what the OP was asking for, but how about Patricia Cornwell, a respected writer, publishing that nonsense that Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAlecCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SmartAlecCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAlecCat)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/65 "2016-04-15T11:42:06Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > There are tons of examples in the ever-popular and lucrative field of climate change denial, literally far too many to list.[…] > It seems to me that the Seitz and the Lindzen types, actual scientists who cynically and dishonestly abused their reputations to promote falsehoods, are the most dangerous of the quacks because they not only mislead the public but put science itself into disrepute. In [Merchants of Doubt](http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org), Oreskes and Conway have a great description of how some scientists perform this. ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/66 "2016-04-15T22:31:45Z")
> [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](#): > > Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, depending on how you define recent. They managed to publish by inertia after nearly everyone had concluded their Cold Fusion was woo. > > Oh, and nobel prize winning physicist Brian Josephson now believes in lots of hardcore woo including parapsychology, but he’s not now publishing in the same peer reviewed areas as his earlier, more respectable, work. Josephson really is a singular example in the modern era. To be totally brilliant, conducting truly seminal work in your 20s, and then just turn around and show your arse to the entire scientific community. It’s sort of awesome in that respect, but at heart it’s sad - an exceptional mind losing sight of the art of the soluble, and basically wasting his time for 40 years. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/67 "2016-04-16T02:08:42Z")
> [@Busy\_Scissors](#): > > Josephson really is a singular example in the modern era. To be totally brilliant, conducting truly seminal work in your 20s, and then just turn around and show your arse to the entire scientific community. It’s sort of awesome in that respect, but at heart it’s sad - an exceptional mind losing sight of the art of the soluble, and basically wasting his time for 40 years. Yeah. I mean if you are older (Linus Pauling was in his 70’s when he went into Vitamin C therapy, but I say that wasnt _quite_ crackpot) things happen. If your work is brilliant until youre 70, _then_ you get kinda crackpotish, you’re forgiven, in my book. ---
**Author:** ![lynne-42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lynne-42/32/3138_2.png) [@lynne-42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lynne-42)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/68 "2016-04-16T03:23:23Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I am trying to advocate for an idea a lot of people think is woo but which there _are_ a handful of relevant serious respected scholars who say the idea should at least be taken seriously. So I’m trying to show this idea is in a better position than other “crank” ideas in at least that regard. I hope I’m right. 😉 I am following this thread with great interest. I am also trying to advocate for an idea which places me in the woo category for anyone who has not read it or heard my talks. But of those who have heard it over the last 8 years, I have not a single detractor. I stumbled over a new theory for the purpose of Stonehenge and other monuments in the process of writing a book on indigenous knowledge of animals. Yes, there is a link! Unfortunately, it takes a bit of explaining which is a pain because I can’t do nice groovy sound bites. I was doing a PhD as a science writer in the English program at LaTrobe University, Australia. This idea was a major distraction from my nice comfortable topic, and publishing offer on the table. I tried academic journals who would not touch it. None of the rejections could identify any fault, which I would have happily accepted and got back onto the book I was supposed to be writing. The archaeologists at my own university would not talk to me, despite requests from my supervisor and their review of a paper sent to them in which they could not fault the theory. In the end, I converted to an academic PhD and the university had internationally renown archaeologists and an anthropologist examine it - my background includes neither of those fields. It passed well. I then submitted a proposal to Cambridge University Press who accepted it immediately and published it last year. No reviews yet. It is very interdisciplinary which makes reviews hard to get. I rewrote it all again for my original mainstream publisher, Allen & Unwin, and it comes out in a couple of months here in Australia. Rights have already sold to the US and UK. The manuscript has been endorsed by archaeologists here, the US and by a leading Stonehenge expert. Those comments are all offered for the public endorsement of the book. Soon, it will go out into the big world. So like you, **Frylock** , I am advocating for a ‘woo’ idea, but the academic process of review, slow and tedious as it has been, has served me well. Lots of tears on the way, but on reflection, I would not do it any other way. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/69 "2016-04-16T14:44:45Z")
The US Amazon site has three five-star reviews of it, Lynne. When will your mainstream book be published in the US? ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/70 "2016-04-16T15:29:20Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Hmmmm… I believe I provided about half a dozen examples [in #49](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19260765&postcount=49) that fully meet the OP’s three stated criteria. You seem to be trying to make the point, after suitable disclaimers about the human failings of science, that none of the named crackpots has ever published a crackpot paper in a real journal. And you would be wrong. I probably should have included climate science in with the “humanities/biological” exclusions; it’s an area where I’ve little feel for what’s a reasonable journal and what are essentially fronts for garbage. But there are obvious problems even with your examples there. > [@](#): > > Another interesting one is Richard Lindzen, among the more prestigious of the quacks because he was actually a reputable atmospheric physicist at MIT until his retirement a few years ago. His _modus operandi_ was simple, and was basically modeled on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In the scientific domain he would publish (usually) reputable research, but his public persona was that of a staunch denialist. He would say things in public speeches and op-eds in papers like the _Wall Street Journal_ that were scientifically laughable, but because he had a long string of legitimate publications and was a well-known academic – at MIT, no less – his words were perceived by many to carry a credibility that had absolutely no justification. In pursuing a twin-track strategy of publishing sensible stuff in mainstream journals and then pushing crap elsewhere, Lindzen very explicitly fails to meet the OP’s third criterion. Freeman Dyson’s an even worse example, since he’s never published anything that could be considered actual climate science. Nor has he, as far as I know, ever tried to. That doesn’t prevent him expressing doubts in interviews or his _NYRB_ reviews, but again he’s very, very clearly not an example who qualifies for the OP’s third criterion. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I disagree with the comment on Hoyle. A simple search on Google Scholar shows any number of papers in serious journals on steady state cosmology and panspermia from the 90s or later. Considering that he and Halton Arp co-authored a paper against the big bang, it’s hard to write him off either. Hoyle was immensely prolific in his retirement, but there are patterns in what he was and was not getting published in mainstream journals. His biographer Jane Gregory notes that it was far easier for him to publish on interstellar dust in this period than on cosmology (_Fred Hoyle’s Universe_, OUP, 2005, p331). The former papers were largely couched in terms that avoided the “diseases from space” and panspermia conclusions that he drew from them in his popular books. And goodness knows he spent a lot of time complaining about being shut out of journals. His other biographer, Simon Mitton, who was also the commissioning editor on his last technical book, has a first-hand account of the nervousness within the CUP about publishing that. Then there’s the whole issue of him publishing his papers on _Archaeopteryx_ in the _British Journal of Photography_. Now I’m sure that’s a fine publication, but I’ll hazard that that’s the only time they’ve carried a series of research articles on palaeontology. (Ironically, Hoyle blamed the ensuing media firestorm on the magazine having drummed up the publicity.) Even the paper co-authored with Arp is a revealing exception. Arp, Burbidge, Hoyle, Narlikar and Wickramasinghe, ‘‘The Extragalatic Universe: An Alternate View’’, _Nature_, 1990, **358** , 807 was not published as a remotely normal paper. In publishing it, _Nature_ was acting in much the same tradition that had seen them publish Targ and Puthoff on remote viewing in 1974 and Benveniste on the structure of water in 1988: papers that the journal thought were unpublishable on normal grounds, but where the editors relished the newsworthy fuss they would make. Arp _et al_ was accompanied by a disclaimer signed by John Maddox, the editor, noting that the referees had rejected it, but that two of them had found it interesting, so he was creating a new category of papers to be called “Hypothesis”, separate from peer-reviewed letters or reviews. It was also surely a factor that Maddox himself had been a steady state believer who was never reconciled to the Big Bang. I’m not sure there ever were any other “Hypothesis” papers carried by _Nature_. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/71 "2016-04-16T15:46:24Z")
In 1923 J. Harlen Bretz theorized that the [Channeled Scablands](http://hugefloods.com/Mystery.html) of eastern Washington were caused by flooding. He was ridiculed as a ‘catastrophist’ by most geologists and was not vindicated until 1942 when James Pardee published his findings on Ice Age Lakes. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/72 "2016-04-16T23:24:52Z")
> [@lynne-42](#): > > I stumbled over a new theory for the purpose of Stonehenge and other monuments in the process of writing a book on indigenous knowledge of animals. Yes, there is a link! Did you mean to provide a link here? ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/73 "2016-04-16T23:26:03Z")
BTW I guess there’s no real reason to be coy here–the purported woo I think is plausible is the idea that Jesus was not an actual, historical figure. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/74 "2016-04-17T01:12:57Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The US Amazon site has three five-star reviews of it, Lynne. > > When will your mainstream book be published in the US? what is the title? ---
**Author:** ![Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Call_Me.Tim)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/75 "2016-04-17T02:50:27Z")
> [@bonzer](#): > > … > **Pons and Fleischmann** Plus Jones, of course. Cold fusion was almost correctly universally regarded as absolute nonsense from the start. From memory, Jones got published in _Nature_, almost entirely as a curiosity. And, again from memory, was instantly dismissed as such. Pons and Fleischmann did get published in a specialist electrochemical journal. Regarded by physicists as chemists circling the wagons unconvincingly. > … Good point about Jones, though it turned out they were talking about somewhat different things when they talked about cold fusion. To me, in that instance Jones was more just arguing for a hypothesis that turned out to be incorrect, whereas Pons and Fleischmann crossed the line into woo and hype. Your mileage may vary on that judgement, of course. On the other hand, Jones went entirely off the rails after 9/11… However, I must disagree with your characterization of the response. I saw a talk by Nate Lewis about a year after the whole thing hit, and he and his group had started first simply intending to replicate, then nailing down how the incorrect results were made (and at least one plot obviously faked.) His entire group stopped everything else and spent a couple of months on this, as did many other groups across the country. This was not done casually as a curiosity. Pons and Fleischmann were well respected before this hit, after all. Heck, they testified before the US congress… this does not match your characterization as being universally regarded as nonsense from the start. Heck, Pons got a standing ovation from an [audience of 7000](http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/13/us/7000-scientists-cheer-fusion-in-jar-experimenter.html?pagewanted=all) at that spring’s ACS meeting. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/76 "2016-04-17T03:29:02Z")
> [@bonzer](#): > > I probably should have included climate science in with the “humanities/biological” exclusions; it’s an area where I’ve little feel for what’s a reasonable journal and what are essentially fronts for garbage. > But there are obvious problems even with your examples there. > > In pursuing a twin-track strategy of publishing sensible stuff in mainstream journals and then pushing crap elsewhere, Lindzen very explicitly fails to meet the OP’s third criterion. > Freeman Dyson’s an even worse example, since he’s never published anything that could be considered actual climate science. Nor has he, as far as I know, ever tried to. That doesn’t prevent him expressing doubts in interviews or his _NYRB_ reviews, but again he’s very, very clearly not an example who qualifies for the OP’s third criterion. Well, one thing one can say is that indeed it is hard to pass crack work in important science journals. But **wolfpup** also mentioned others like Soon and Bailunas, that are seen by many of their peers as having published crank papers. > **[Researcher helps sow climate-change doubt - The Boston Globe](https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/11/05/harvard-smithsonian-global-warming-skeptic-helps-feed-strategy-doubt-gridlock-congress/uHssYO1anoWSiLw0v1YcUJ/story.html)** > > WASHINGTON — The setting was not unusual for a scholarly conference: bland ballroom in a Houston hotel, an audience of doctors and academics. But Willie Soon’s presentation certainly was. As PowerPoint slides flashed on a screen, his remarks... > [@](#): > > Working in close coordination with conservative groups in Washington, he passionately seeks to debunk the growing consensus on global warming before audiences of policymakers, at academic seminars and conferences, and in the media. > > Polar bears? Not threatened. Sea level? Exaggerated danger. Carbon dioxide? Great for trees. Warming planet? Caused by natural fluctuation in the sun’s energy. > > Soon’s views are considered way outside the scientific mainstream, which makes him a prophet or a pariah, depending on which side you ask. Some say his work simply doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, that his data are cherry-picked to fit his thesis. In the case of Lindzen many of his papers were actually plausible, but new research has put, for example, his ideas about the iris effect into the unlikely area, that Lindzen still pushes papers like that as being still valid is where the crank happens. > **[Body of research undermines infrared iris hypothesis](https://skepticalscience.com/infrared-iris-effect-negative-feedback.htm)** > > Examines the science and arguments of global warming skepticism. Common objections like 'global warming is caused by the sun', 'temperature has changed naturally in the past' or 'other planets are warming too' are examined to see what the science... You are correct about Dyson not having peer reviewed papers about climate change. But that does not mean that he is not a crank. **wolfpup** also pointed at Dr Seitz, who did manage to publish a paper critical of computer models, but he was shown wrong nowadays about the satellite data and was grossly wrong about not seeing the arctic amplification. [http://www.desmogblog.com/frederick-seitz](http://www.desmogblog.com/frederick-seitz) So, I have to say here that you can have Dyson as a non expert that did not publish, but not much else. ---
**Author:** ![lynne-42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lynne-42/32/3138_2.png) [@lynne-42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lynne-42)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/77 "2016-04-17T04:13:06Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The US Amazon site has three five-star reviews of it, Lynne. > > When will your mainstream book be published in the US? Oooops. Thank you! The academic mind-set is too ingrained. I was only thinking of formal reviews in journals. Much appreciated! The mainstream book, _The Memory Code_, will be published in the US by Pegasus Books early next year. Atlantic Books are publishing in the UK about the same time. Audible have bought the audio rights, and I imagine that will be early next year as well. I am not in touch with the others yet - it all goes through my publisher here in Australia, Allen & Unwin. It goes to press here on Monday and hits the book shops June 22. Only a few more months after 8 years obsessive work! Thank you for the interest. Lynne ---
**Author:** ![lynne-42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lynne-42/32/3138_2.png) [@lynne-42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lynne-42)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/78 "2016-04-17T04:14:11Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Did you mean to provide a link here? I am not sure if that is OK in terms of protocol. It would be advertising, wouldn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![lynne-42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lynne-42/32/3138_2.png) [@lynne-42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lynne-42)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/79 "2016-04-17T04:16:23Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > what is the title? The academic book is _Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies_ (Cambridge University Press) and the mainstream book is _The Memory Code_ (Allen & Unwin, AUS, Pegasus Books, US and Atlantic Books, UK) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174/80 "2016-04-17T06:44:29Z")
> [@lynne-42](#): > > The academic book is _Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies_ (Cambridge University Press) and the mainstream book is _The Memory Code_ (Allen & Unwin, AUS, Pegasus Books, US and Atlantic Books, UK) The first one is added to my Wish list. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-and-other-scholars-who-publish-work-considered-crank-by-most-peers/752174.md?page=5)