More on the climate

[Shadowfury333]

I don't think people are suggesting we ban gasoline.

He was using that as an analogy for economics influencing ethics, not a recommendation for our own predicament.

[Kilarin]

Kilarin, I think you are mistaken.

The only way to say that there is no debate on the issue, is to completely ignore the scientist speaking for the other side. Which is exactly the problem I'm talking about.

I don't think people are suggesting we ban gasoline.

He was using that as an analogy for economics influencing ethics, not a recommendation for our own predicament.

Yes. Although there certainly ARE people who would like to ban gasoline.

[Ferno]

I'll agree with Kil.. I have noticed a real shift in Scientific American...

[Kilarin]

I have noticed a real shift in Scientific American...

I dropped my subscription a few years ago when I got sick of them publishing purely political articles with little or no actual science content. I AGREED with some of the articles, but thats not the point. It used to be, and is supposed to be, a science magazine, not a partisan political tool.

[Suncho]

The only way to say that there is no debate on the issue, is to completely ignore the scientist speaking for the other side. Which is exactly the problem I'm talking about.

Kilarin, if there were some perceived economic benefit to convincing everyone that the earth is flat, the politicians who stood to benefit from it would pick it up, hire some "scientists," and run with it. Then you'd be here telling me that, although you agree with me that the earth probably isn't flat, there are scientists on both sides and there's a real debate going on. To say that there isn't would be to ignore the scientist speakin for the other side. Right?

Back in the days of Galileo, scientists would challenge the accepted truths based on new data that couldn't be explained using the old truths. These days it seems that politicians and businessmen are challenging the accepted truths for their own personal gain and paying "scientists" to back them up.

Who is this guy? Who is the so-called scientist speaking for the other so-called side of this so-called debate over global warming? Can we trust him? Is he legit? Where are his data and where are his reports?

If you have a guy who calls himself a scientist and he says something is true or something is false, do you believe him because he's supposedly a scientist or do you look at what he has to say to see if it has anything behind it?

Regarding what you said before about the leaded gas fade out, I agree with you that we have several different choices here. I also think option B was the best option because, if you go with option to remove all the leaded gas instantly, you may have fewer retarded children, but you'll also have more dead children because the economy crashed and the children are starving.

As we've seen in countries such as Japan, higher emissions standards on automobiles do not preclude a strong economy. Even China has stricter emissions standards on automobiles than the US. If we decided to increase our emissions standards, we'd be able to sell more American-made cars internationally. Don't you think that would help the economy?

[Kilarin]

Then you'd be here telling me that, although you agree with me that the earth probably isn't flat, there are scientists on both sides and there's a real debate going on. To say that there isn't would be to ignore the scientist speakin for the other side. Right?

By what standard did you judge that the scientist in the opposition were "flat earth" style crackpots? Because they are in the minority? So was Galileo once. If they are to be dismissed, it must be because their science is bad, and while yes, I feel they are losing the debate, their points are not generally being addressed. They are being dismissed as "crackpots" because they don't line up with the majority viewpoint. Thats not science, thats politics.

Legitimate Scientists on the "other" side of the Global Warming debate:

Dr. Richard_Lindzen
Dr Benny Peiser
Patrick_J._Michaels
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_skeptic:
Robert C. Balling, Jr.
Fred Singer

Now then, please note, as I said at the beginning of this, I believe that the preponderance of the evidence points towards the fact that the earth is warming up, AND I believe that there is significant evidence that humans are affecting that change. I question whether we really understand the global climate well enough to pin point exactly where the dividing line is between human influence and natural cycles. Humans haven't been STUDYING weather at this level very long, to claim that we now fully understand 10,000 year cycles seems premature to me.

So, that puts me more or less on the "global warming is real" side of this debate. BUT, to simply dismiss the minority of scientists who are on the other side of this issue as crackpots and nuts is to break the spirit of scientific inquiry. BOTH sides of this debate are politicized. You can't read the "global warming is fake" web sites without them screaming "propaganda" at you. BUT, when you hear the scientific community dismissing the opposition to it's majority point of view as "crackpots", you know that they are ALSO highly politicized and not entirely reliable. There is just as much popagand coming from the left as from the right.

Once any Scientific issue becomes political, BOTH sides become unreliable sources of information and you have to do MUCH more work to dig out the truth. Work that now becomes very difficult if you don't happen to be an expert in the area in question.

[Will Robinson]

Just read the piece on Dr. Benny Peiser and you'll see why so many of us have doubts about the arguments selectively gathered by someone like Al Gore who has never made any move without calculating the political benefits of any movement...

You'll have to read it to really understand how the group-think among the scientific community seems to be taking on polarizing political characteristics (go on, it's short) but here's the last paragraph which sums it up pretty well:

Dr Peiser said the stifling of dissent and preoccupation with doomsday scenarios is bringing climate research into disrepute. \"There is a fear that any doubt will be used by politicians to avoid action,\" he said. \"But if political considerations dictate what gets published, it's all over for science.\"

Basically the debate is being poisoned by the tactics employed by the fringe leftwingers who have co-opted the cause because it works well for their anti-capitalist agenda. So the rightwing can kill the debate politically without ever having to address all the valid points raised.

The whole argument is being thrown out as the rantings of a bunch of Chicken Little's claiming the sky is falling and we may in fact find out it was more like The Boy who Cried Wolf where the wolf ended up arriving after the people quit listening!

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a really objective and informed press who wouldn't be afraid to ridicule anyone who made a bad argument so these hacks wouldn't get away with poisoning our national discourse? I think more people would pay attention to the issues we face if they didn't know they were going to have to sift through a ton of bull★■◆● to find a pound of knowledge!

[Suncho]

Legitimate Scientists on the "other" side of the Global Warming debate:

Dr. Richard_Lindzen
Dr Benny Peiser
Patrick_J._Michaels
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_skeptic:
Robert C. Balling, Jr.
Fred Singer

Thanks. I'll take a look at those links.

Humans haven't been STUDYING weather at this level very long, to claim that we now fully understand 10,000 year cycles seems premature to me.

Who's claiming that?

BUT, to simply dismiss the minority of scientists who are on the other side of this issue as crackpots and nuts is to break the spirit of scientific inquiry.

I agree. But to accept their arguments as legitimate simply because they're there also breaks the spirit of scientific inquiry. I'll take a look at those links you posted. =)

Once any Scientific issue becomes political, BOTH sides become unreliable sources of information and you have to do MUCH more work to dig out the truth. Work that now becomes very difficult if you don't happen to be an expert in the area in question.

I guess it's unfortunate that every important scientific issue eventually becomes political. =/

[Suncho]

Ok. I've done a lot of reading, and so far all the guys you've linked don't look much

better than crackpots. I don't see any data analysis to back up their claims. All I see is

words.

Richard Linzen says this:

Picking holes in the IPCC is crucial. The notion that if you’re

ignorant of something and somebody comes up with a wrong answer, and you have to accept that

because you don’t have another wrong answer to offer is like faith healing, it’s like

quackery in medicine – if somebody says you should take jelly beans for cancer and you say

that’s stupid, and he says, well can you suggest something else and you say, no, does that

mean you have to go with jelly beans?

His argument is valid, but it's not sound. His implied premise is that the IPCC's report is

a "wrong answer" and that it's like a prescription of jelly beans for cancer. Where does he

back up this premise?

The summary began with a zinger -- that greenhouse gases are

accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air

temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise, etc., before following with the

necessary qualifications. For example, the full text noted that 20 years was too short a

period for estimating long-term trends, but the summary forgot to mention this.

However, while the full text does warn that 20 years

is too short to estimate long term trends, this does not qualify their statement about

greenhouse gases causing warming as Lindzen implies. In fact, it is a warning about the

satellite data, which at the time the report was written did not show much warming.

The November 10, 2004 online version of Reason

magazine reported that Lindzen is "willing to take bets that global average temperatures in

20 years will in fact be lower than they are now."[17] Climatologist James Annan,[18] who

has offered multiple bets that global temperatures will increase,[19] contacted Lindzen to

arrange a bet.[20] Annan offered to pay 2:1 odds in Lindzen's favor if temperatures

declined, but said that Lindzen would only accept a bet if the payout was 50:1 or better in

his favor and that no bet occurred.[21]

In response, Lindzen denied telling Reason that he would bet at 1:1 odds that temperatures

would be lower in 20 years than they are now, and stated that he would only bet if offered

"much higher odds." According to Lindzen, he and Annan exchanged proposals for bets, but

were unable to agree.[22]. (Annan subsequently responded to Lindzen's

response.[23]).

I also read the page about Dr. Benny Peiser, and I did a little research. Found another

page here:

http://timlambert.org/2005/05/peiser/

Here's an excerpt from one of the comments at the bottom:

Missing the point we are. The point of Peiser’s article is to get

mentioned in the newspapers and on TV. That gets the meme into circulation after which it

can be amplified in opinion pieces and blogs, etc. The fact that a bunch of folk with half a

clue can figure out what he did, how it differed from what Oreskes did and that his claims

are, to be extremely polite, stretched, is immaterial unless this information gets into the

main stream media.

I read the abstracts and I have to say Peiser's argument looks pretty thin.

I also took a look at the Patrick Michaels Wikipedia page, and found this:

He has received substantial financial support from

the energy industry.

Interesting. I'll read further.

Michaels is one of a group of global warming

skeptics and continues to dispute some aspects of global warming, including evidence of

rising global temperatures. Recent statements suggest, however, that he is accepting the

conclusion of the IPCC that there is a human influence on the climate, though he continues

to maintain that current and future warming will occur at the low end of the range IPCC

assessments.

Really? So this guy from your list is starting to accept the conclusion of the IPCC even

though he has received substantial financial support from the energy industry? Weird.

It goes on to quote him.

Once human beings start to warm the climate, they do so at a

constant rate.

But wait... apparently even that's not right?

This "linear" view is not accepted by most climate

scientists, nor is it supported by either modeling data or observation. Michaels is also

known for his reliance on satellite temperature measurements that seemed to contradict other

evidence of global warming. Recent corrections to those measurements now show global warming

at rates almost identical to that seen in other measurements.

I see. Is there anywhere where I can find some strong arguments against human influence in

global warming?

Let's check out Robert C. Balling, Jr.

Here's his Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_C._Balling,_Jr.

...and here's what it says:

"[H]as received more than $400,000 from the coal

and oil industries, according to the Center for Media and Democracy.

Ok. But that doesn't necessarily invalidate his arguments, right?

Here's his bio page.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?ti ... C._Balling

Here's his review of Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth":

http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/new ... 696686.htm

Apparently there are a lot of holes in Al Gore's arguments. Maybe read the article and keep

in in mind when you go see the movie.

I'm not an expert on this and I really don't want to make this post too long. Some of his

criticisms sound valid, and some do not. I'll just point out one hole that I happened to

notice in Mr. Balling's movie review:

Gore claims that sea level rise could drown major cities the

world over and the 9/11 memorial in New York City. No mention is made of the fact that sea

level has been rising at a rate of 1.8 mm per year for 8,000 years. The U.N. panel notes

that "No significant acceleration in the rate of sea level rise during the 20th century has

been detected."

Now it's just a plain and simple fact that if all the ice in Greenland and Antarctica were

to fall into the Ocean and melt, the sea level would rise. Nobody's disputing that.

Balling doesn't dispute that. His argument is simply that it hasn't happened yet. It

hasn't. But when it does, stuff will be under water. I guess I don't understand his point.

Here's Fred Singer's Wikipedia Page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Singer

Although he considers the observed increase in CO2 and

CFCs to be anthropogenic, he disagrees with IPCC conclusions about how much warming is to be

expected.

Awhaa??? For those of you who don't speak English, "anthropogenic" means "caused by

humans." So this guy who questions the link between ultra violet light and skin cancer

despite all the data to the contrary, this guy who questions the link between CFCs and ozone

depletion despite the fact that the ozone hole healed after we started regulating CFCs, this

guy who is seen as one of the foremost global warming critics... even he admits that global

warming is caused by humans? Wow.

No offense Kilarin, but these people really do seem like crackpots.

I'll leave you with this.

Skeptics and proponents of global warming

both accept that due to natural variability, average temperatures in any given year in the

future could be either warmer or colder than at the present. [5] [6] Global warming

proponents generally accept that after ten years, temperatures are much more likely to have

increased than decreased, with odds of an increase being significantly greater than 1:1.

Skeptics who expect no trend in temperatures would give 1:1 odds of an increase, while

skeptics anticipating cooling temperatures would give less than 1:1 odds.

With the exception of two Russian physicists betting $10,000 that temperatures would drop

instead of increase in ten years, [7] all other skeptics have either refused to bet on terms

that pay out before the year 2100,[8] have refused all bets, or, like Richard Lindzen, have

only accepted odds that indicate temperatures are much more likely to increase rather than

decrease. [9]

Aright. In the interest of keeping this short, I'm done for now.

[Suncho]

Just read the piece on Dr. Benny Peiser and you'll see why so many of us have doubts about the arguments selectively gathered by someone like Al Gore who has never made any move without calculating the political benefits of any movement...

Thanks. I read the whole article. I also read more about this guy. See my post above.

How do you presume to know Al Gore so well? Have you even seen the movie?

You'll have to read it to really understand how the group-think among the scientific community seems to be taking on polarizing political characteristics (go on, it's short) but here's the last paragraph which sums it up pretty well:

Dr Peiser said the stifling of dissent and preoccupation with doomsday scenarios is bringing climate research into disrepute. "There is a fear that any doubt will be used by politicians to avoid action," he said. "But if political considerations dictate what gets published, it's all over for science."

According to what I've read, this article is part of a propaganda campaign by Dr. Peiser. By submitting a scientifically unsound article to a reputable magazine, and complaining when it got rejected, he created a media buzz. Am I wrong?

Basically the debate is being poisoned by the tactics employed by the fringe leftwingers who have co-opted the cause because it works well for their anti-capitalist agenda. So the rightwing can kill the debate politically without ever having to address all the valid points raised.

I agree with the second part, but not with the first. It's not the left wingers sabotaging the cause. It's the fringe right wingers who are attempting to characterize climate experts as fringe left wingers to discredit them. Also, how is global warming awareness anti-capitalist?

The whole argument is being thrown out as the rantings of a bunch of Chicken Little's claiming the sky is falling and we may in fact find out it was more like The Boy who Cried Wolf where the wolf ended up arriving after the people quit listening!

Nobody's crying wolf here, Will. The whole argument is being thrown out as the rantings of a bunch of Chicken Little's claiming the sky is falling because people like Dr. Benny Peiser are strategically undermining it in the mainstream media. The sky *IS* falling, my friend.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a really objective and informed press who wouldn't be afraid to ridicule anyone who made a bad argument so these hacks wouldn't get away with poisoning our national discourse? I think more people would pay attention to the issues we face if they didn't know they were going to have to sift through a ton of ***** to find a pound of knowledge!

We did have a really objective and informed press until Fox News came along. Now even BBC has to lean to the right for fear of persecution. =/

[Will Robinson]

Suncho, I know Gore is a complete calculating political machine. He was raised from birth to fill that role and I studied his every move from the minute he was named to the ticket in '92. It doesn't mean he can't ever do the right thing but it means we should question his every word closely. Like watching a pedophile in a nursery!
****************

As to Dr. Peisers claim that challenged Dr. Oreskes often sited statistic that \"75 per cent of the scientific community either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.\"

Peisers position that that study was wrong wasn't challenged based on the facts they explored, instead they said they turned it down because his findings were already posted on the internet and weren't novel enough for their publication.....hmmm....

See here:

The controversy follows the publication by Science in December of a paper which claimed to have demonstrated complete agreement among climate experts, not only that global warming is a genuine phenomenon, but also that mankind is to blame.

The author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.

Dr Oreskes's study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser.

However, her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.

They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents - and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.

Dr Peiser submitted his findings to Science in January, and was asked to edit his paper for publication - but has now been told that his results have been rejected on the grounds that the points he make had been \"widely dispersed on the internet\".

So I find it kind of odd that the magazine didn't disagree with Dr. Peiser's assesment that the reporting that the scientific community is in consensus is grossly exagerated but they just didn't think revealing that fallacious report newsworthy since Dr. Peiser's findings are already widely covered on the internet!!

If the report is being quoted by all the media and it is in fact a gross misrepresentation of the scientific communities position it certainly is news! At the very least you would think they would want to correct the statement for the sake of accuracy!
So show me that Dr. Peiser is in fact wrong on the numbers and that the scientific community really is in such agreement or understand that misreporting the status of that consensus is very much a problem, and is newsworthy and very much appears to be more like a political tactic than the product of scientific journalism!
Peer review is the backbone of reporting in the world of science. If in fact this magazine has decided to not report some pretty aggregious fraud of the peer review process then it does indeed hurt the argument they tried to protect!

[Kilarin]

No offense Kilarin, but these people really do seem like crackpots.

None taken, especially since I also feel that their arguments are weak. I'm NOT defending them. I think they are biased, and many of them have been bought.

My point is that they are being dismissed, not based on their arguments, but because the left doesn't like their conclusions. Back to Dr. Peiser for a moment here. As Will Robinson pointed out, what disturbs me here are the stated reasons for rejecting his work for publication. The official reason given, "The work is available on the internet". Huh? That is transparently weak.

The reason given in the quote you found, "He's just trying to get his paper published so people will give his idea legitimacy!" Uhm, DUH! They don't say that we should reject the paper because it is wrong, they say that we should reject it because it might lead people to believe something they disagree with. BAD science. BAD science. No cookie.

Thank YOU for bothering to look at what these guys had to say. It seperates you out from many of the crowd.

[Suncho]

My point is that they are being dismissed, not based on their arguments, but because the left doesn't like their conclusions.

Are you sure about this? I think anybody would be relieved to find out that global warming isn't really a problem... even the left.

Back to Dr. Peiser for a moment here. As Will Robinson pointed out, what disturbs me here are the stated reasons for rejecting his work for publication. The official reason given, "The work is available on the internet". Huh? That is transparently weak.

For reference, here's the rejection from Science Magazine.

From: Etta Kavanagh [mailto:ekavanag@aaas.org]
Sent: 13 April 2005 22:39
To: Peiser, Benny
Subject: Your letter to SCIENCE

Dear Dr. Peiser,
After realizing that the basic points of your letter have already been widely dispersed over the internet, we have reluctantly decided that we cannot publish your letter. We appreciate your taking the time to revise it.

Best regards,
Etta Kavanagh
Associate Letters Editor
SCIENCE

Yep. It's a very weak reason. There are plenty of better reasons to reject his letter. I did some research to find out what the real story behind the rejection was. Oddly enough, I couldn't find any evidence of any discussion or explanation of the rejection by Etta Kavanagh or Science Magazine. Did you find anything?

The reason given in the quote you found, "He's just trying to get his paper published so people will give his idea legitimacy!" Uhm, DUH! They don't say that we should reject the paper because it is wrong, they say that we should reject it because it might lead people to believe something they disagree with. BAD science. BAD science. No cookie.

Why do you say they rejected it because it might lead people to believe something they disagree with? Are you just assuming that, or do you have a source?

Thank YOU for bothering to look at what these guys had to say. It seperates you out from many of the crowd.

I had to bother to look because I think these skeptics are relying on the fact that most of their audience won't bother to look.

[Kilarin]

I couldn't find any evidence of any discussion or explanation of the rejection by Etta Kavanagh or Science Magazine. Did you find anything?

Nope. WHICH, answers most of your other questions. The rejection is obviously trivial, and implies that they were simply making something up because they didn't like his results.

Why do you say they rejected it because it might lead people to believe something they disagree with? Are you just assuming that, or do you have a source?

I was speaking about the Eli Rabett comment that you quoted:

The point of Peiser’s article is to get mentioned in the newspapers and on TV. That gets the meme into circulation after which it can be amplified in opinion pieces and blogs, etc.

In other words, the "danger" Prof. Rabett seems to be worried about is that people might BELIEVE Peiser if he were published. And the rejection from Science Magazine, worded as it was, implies they had exactly the same reason in mind.

If the research is bad, reject the article because of that. But when science magazines start making up excuses to reject articles that have a divergent point of view, the most obvious conclusion is bias.

[Suncho]

Nope. WHICH, answers most of your other questions. The rejection is obviously trivial, and implies that they were simply making something up because they didn't like his results.

His letter emphasizes that he used the same search terms as Dr. Oreskes and how he found abstracts which contradicted her conclusion. In fact, while he used the same search terms, he used different search criteria. Not only that, but even the abstracts he did find can hardly be argued to reject the consensus.

I fail to see how Science Magazine providing a flimsy reason for rejecting his letter implies any specific actual reason for rejection. While Peiser may be right to criticize the Oreskes study for being too selective, the way he goes about it is clearly unscientific and incomplete.

In other words, the "danger" Prof. Rabett seems to be worried about is that people might BELIEVE Peiser if he were published. And the rejection from Science Magazine, worded as it was, implies they had exactly the same reason in mind.

I think you misinterpreted what Rabett was saying. He was making the point that Peiser's goal was never to get published, but to raise publicity from the rejection. I'm not sure I agree with Rabett. I think Peiser genuinely wanted to be published. But Rabett's point is that Peiser, unable to convince scientists, is attempting to trick the general public via the mainstream media instead because they don't do the kind of thinking and research that scientists would do to evaluate his claims.

If the research is bad, reject the article because of that. But when science magazines start making up excuses to reject articles that have a divergent point of view, the most obvious conclusion is bias.

Your argument here is circular, Kilarin. You imply that Science Magazine is pro-Oreskes simply because they rejected Dr. Peiser's letter. Then you say they rejected Peiser's letter just because they are pro-Oreskes.

In fact, after originally publishing the Oreskes report, they later published a correction to it that pointed out her biased search terms. This does not suggest to me that the magazine favors one scientist over another.

Granted, I agree that the Internet excuse is flimsy, and perhaps they were lazy in their explanation, but any guessing at the real reason for the rejection is just conjecture.

[Dedman]

I don't know about global warming, but it's like eleventeen billion degrees outside right now. /off topic

[TIGERassault]

I don't know about global warming, but it's like eleventeen billion degrees outside right now. /off topic

Yes, but we are discussing if it's because of human activity.

Or at least that's what we're supposed to be discussing, but now it's about how scientists may be biased.

[Kilarin]

I fail to see how Science Magazine providing a flimsy reason for rejecting his letter implies any specific actual reason for rejection.

Ok, I'll conceed that I am assuming I understand their motive from looking at their behavior. I could be wrong, but if I were placing a bet, I'd put the odds on bias.

[Pandora]

If the research is bad, reject the article because of that. But when science magazines start making up excuses to reject articles that have a divergent point of view, the most obvious conclusion is bias.

Oh my, didn't realize that this thread is still going on. Anyways, here's some context on the rejection letter from Science.

From: Etta Kavanagh [mailto:ekavanag@aaas.org]
Sent: 13 April 2005 22:39
To: Peiser, Benny
Subject: Your letter to SCIENCE

Dear Dr. Peiser,
After realizing that the basic points of your letter have already been widely dispersed over the internet, we have reluctantly decided that we cannot publish your letter. We appreciate your taking the time to revise it.

Best regards,
Etta Kavanagh
Associate Letters Editor
SCIENCE

First of all, whining about being rejected by Science is like whining about not winning the lottery. Science (along with Nature and PNAS) are THE jackpots to crack as a scientist. They only take the newest, best and most important research. If you manage to publish there, you have reporters from regular newspapers phoning in, get joboffers, etc. As a consequence, the editors wade through submissions, and about 90% is not even looked at in any detail. So not getting in there is ... the rule, it's not an exception for which you have to find an explanation. It's not a right to publish in Science, it's a priviledge.

Second, for the Science-mag it's not a weak reason at all to reject a paper when it's findings are already in the public domain, at least if you know how those high impact scientific journals operate. They don't publish something that is not completely new or amazing or that is already in the public domain, it's simply not what they do and where they gain their popularity from. Of course, there are plenty of other journals that don't have this standard --- so by no means is this guy blocked from publication (and it is interesting that this guy hasn't published there instead of whining about being rejected by Science).

Third, and this is really important, note that in the letter it says 'We appreciate your taking the time to revise it.'. This means that Science offered Peiser to publish his work if he manages to address their concerns in a revised version of his article (in which he maybe has to clarify some points, or put in some data that is not already in the public domain). So, by no means can you read BIAS out of this rejection letter. After all, this Peiser guy has already come further than 95% of the people that ever submit to this journal. What you can read out of this is that they seriously considered publishing his work, but that he fell short of their really high standard. Moreover, what you should be really suspicious of is why this guy does not post the original letter in which the Science editors ask for a revision and state their reasons for this.

[Pandora]

You can't trust the research coming out from the other side. They are biased, they have an agenda. They might be right, mind you, but you can't TRUST them.

I really take exception to this claim. Where does it come from? I am sure that you cannot fully trust the scientists, but only in the sense that you can't really trust anybody. But you think there is more to it? What is this scientific 'agenda', what would this 'bias' be? At the moment, this sounds like all conspiracy theories ... half baked ideas, not completely thought through, but with a nice common sense ring to it and a some surface plausibility. Please back it up and be a bit more specific. At the moment this part of your post is also nothing but propaganda and exteremely empty words.

edit: sorry, Kilarin, I just realized that I might have misread your post. I understood your use of 'research' to imply that science itself was following an agenda. However, you probably meant that the reporting of the research by the interest groups was biased and agenda driven, right? If yes, then I completely agree and sorry for my angry response.

[Kilarin]

First of all, whining about being rejected by Science is like whining about not winning the lottery. Science (along with Nature and PNAS) are THE jackpots to crack as a scientist.

I'll have to admit that this is a VERY valid point.

I understood your use of 'research' to imply that science itself was following an agenda. However, you probably meant that the reporting of the research by the interest groups was biased and agenda driven, right? If yes, then I completely agree and sorry for my angry response.

No, actually, the criticism is legitimate. While I don't believe in some grand conspiracy, I do feel that once a scientific issue becomes a political hot point, the science becomes much more difficult to trust than usual.

Take research on Homosexuality for an example. You have scientists on all sides of the issue who feel that it is VERY important that certain viewpoints be proven true. Right wingers want to deny any evidence that comes along for a genetic predisposition, no matter how strong that evidence is. And Left wingers REALLY want to find and prove that evidence to be true in order to support THEIR beliefs. Both sides have external reasons for wanting to prove their viewpoint right. So you have to take a VERY close look at the research from either side before deciding if the science was actually done well or not.

I feel that environmental science is in much the same boat. The reporting is biased, but also the research itself has a lot of bias in it. On BOTH sides.

No, I do NOT mean that all of the research is bad, and, as I've said before, I feel that the research is BETTER on the environmentalists side right now. But due to the political agenda, I don't take EITHER sides word at face value. I won't trust a study from either group until I've seen enough details to convince me they REALLY did the research well.

You are correct, of course, that you really must check research done by anyone, but on most issues, I find peer review to be adequate for my trust level. If a study says, "We have discovered metamaterials with a negative index of refraction", I figure that if it got past peer review its probably solid. There isn't any "agenda" that would encourage anyone to twist their review of the materials. But if the topic is political, I'm going to have to look much closer before I really trust them.

[Pandora]

Just to get some closure on the Peiser study. Seems it was rejected not because Science is biased but because his study was crap. Basically, he counted studies as arguing against global warming that are (a) not peer-reviewed, (b) did not appear in a scientific journal, and even (c) when they did not argue against global warming at all. Oreske, in contrast, only counted proper scientific work --- as is appropriate when the topic is the scientific consensus about global warming.

With regard to Oreske's correction to her Science article about the consensus: AFAIK, the correction just stated that her search terms were 'global climate change' instead of 'climate change' as described in the original study. Her results have not been challenged. There IS a consensus among scientists that global warming is happening and that it is manmade.

[Pandora]

Just read the piece on Dr. Benny Peiser and you'll see why so many of us have doubts about the arguments selectively gathered by someone like Al Gore who has never made any move without calculating the political benefits of any movement...

You'll have to read it to really understand how the group-think among the scientific community seems to be taking on polarizing political characteristics...

Sorry, Will, this article you are so impressed with is nothing but FUD (alternatively you can see it as a whinefest of bad scientists that don't get into the top journals). Honestly, have you doublechecked any information in there or did it just fit a bit too well with your preconceptions?

For instance, it starts out by presenting Peiser as a "British authority on natural catastrophes", when his homepage clearly shows that he is not. If anything, he is interested in "the effects of environmental change and catastrophic events on contemporary thought and societal evolution." I hope that at this point I also don't have to go anymore into why the rejection of his article by Science was entirely justified and did NOT reflect any bias on the side of the journal.

The article also gives Dr. Roy Spencer a voice who said that "after his own team produced research casting doubt on man-made global warming, they were no longer sent papers by Nature and Science for review - despite being acknowledged as world leaders in the field." --- hmmm.. or could it be that he simply hasn't published anything substantial since the 90ies? Or that that his satellite research has been shown to be erroneous? But oh well, i guess, a biased and unfair scientific community is the better explanation...

Dr. Dennis Bray who whines that his letter to Science was also rejected? He has no publication list, his "research institute" operates a nuclear power plant, and his rejected letter(.pdf) is simply a joke --- he doesn't even get the format of the references right. Also, in contrast to his claims, his data have nothing to do with the consensus on the recent global warming --- after all, his questionnaire seems to ask experts wether they thought tha climate change in general was driven by manmade causes. No wonder that Science did not publish this...

This just leaves Chris Landsea (the only other scientist the article refers to). I am too lazy now to also track him down and his reasons for leaving the IPCC. But, after all I have read in this article so far, I am not terribly optimistic that his criticism will be valid.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a really objective and informed press who wouldn't be afraid to ridicule anyone who made a bad argument so these hacks wouldn't get away with poisoning our national discourse? I think more people would pay attention to the issues we face if they didn't know they were going to have to sift through a ton of ***** to find a pound of knowledge!

Sure it would be nice. A really "objective and informed press" would not have published this sad excuse for an article. It would have made fun of those pretend-to-be-victimized scientists that now have such an easy time of winning over your heart and that of so many other people. Seriously, it's a shame.

[Pandora]

Take research on Homosexuality for an example. You have scientists on all sides of the issue who feel that it is VERY important that certain viewpoints be proven true. Right wingers want to deny any evidence that comes along for a genetic predisposition, no matter how strong that evidence is. And Left wingers REALLY want to find and prove that evidence to be true in order to support THEIR beliefs. Both sides have external reasons for wanting to prove their viewpoint right.

On the one hand you are surely right. Scientists are only human, and nobody wants to be proven wrong. But on the other hand, I am pretty sure that you overestimate how far this bias can go.

First of all, scientists simply don't have the time to cling to a wrong theory. They have a very narrow time window after their graduation in which they can make a name for themselves and pave the way for a later professorship. In this time, they have to publish, publish, publish. So, especially if you are in one of the 'hot' research areas, it is pretty inconceivable that you spend energy and time in proving an elusive personal belief system that might not be right after all. You need good results. This pressure teaches you very quickly to choose a theory that fits the facts rather than your personal beliefs.

Also, typically scientists are very unlikely to end up in a research area about which they have strong personal beliefs in the first place. There are simply not this many jobs that you could be this picky. So, although you might work in the general field of your choosing (say genetics) you usually don't work in the specific topic.. For instance, I am willing to bet that most scientists working on the genetics of homosexuality did not have very strong beliefs about homosexuality when they started working in this field. They were hired because they have already proven in another field that they are good geneticists and it looked to their employer that if there was a genetic influence that they will find it. With the climate scientists it is similar. Most of the big names in the field did NOT start as climate scientists but as physicists and mathematicians.

I won't trust a study from either group until I've seen enough details to convince me they REALLY did the research well. [...] I find peer review to be adequate for my trust level. If a study says, "We have discovered metamaterials with a negative index of refraction", I figure that if it got past peer review its probably solid. There isn't any "agenda" that would encourage anyone to twist their review of the materials. But if the topic is political, I'm going to have to look much closer before I really trust them.

I agree of course. But (and this is a big but): you still seem to think that the major claims of the global warming side were only supported by one study. This is absolutely not the case. The major claims have been replicated tenfolds over by independent labs, using different methodologies and different datasets. The other point is that you want the scientist to listen to the sceptics and adress their concerns. On the surface this sounds reasonable - fair is fair, etc - but I completely disagree. The reason is that - as Suncho has already said - these sceptics are really crackpots (or worse: propagandists). Their concerns HAVE already been adressed multiple times. It's time to go beyond this alleged uncertainty and start acting , because - really - we know enough.

[Kilarin]

this article you are so impressed with is nothing but FUD

Which SHOULD have been the reason the rejected it. Instead of this cockamamie "available on the internet" story. BUT, I admit that I'm assuming motives here for which I have no evidence. It may simply be their habit to reject articles in the most polite manner possible by coming up with the least insulting reason instead of just saying "The science is bad". I find that a bit difficult to believe, but it's certainly not impossible. Anyway, point being, I rejected to the way they rejected it, I did NOT say they should have accepted the article.

scientists simply don't have the time to cling to a wrong theory.

But you just told us that the anti-global warming scientist are clinging to a wrong theory!

you still seem to think that the major claims of the global warming side were only supported by one study.

Ah, here you HAVE misunderstood me.
I think the preponderance of the evidence supports a global warming trend. And I believe that the research is pretty solid that man is affecting that trend. AND I think we need to be acting on this evidence.

The point I was trying to make was simply that we must watch out for propaganda from BOTH sides on any issue as politically hot as this. Even the side that I agree with.

[Will Robinson]

this article you are so impressed with is nothing but FUD

Which SHOULD have been the reason the rejected it. Instead of this cockamamie "available on the internet" story....

Exactly the point!
I never heard of any of this or any of these people before Pandora, this isn't me looking for something to fit my preconcieved notions. I believe we can and do affect the conditions that contribute to global warming and I do believe we should take steps to lessen that affect. I merely read the report and saw how the one scientist had reported that the whole scientific community was practically unanimous in sharing his view, something I've heard the majority of the mainstream media repeat adnasuem. Anytime some scientist tries to challenge any of the points raised the talking heads whip out that statistic to discredit the dissenting viewpoint without ever having to address it based on the facts. Then here we see a scientist actually go back and take the claim on head first, he discovers that the scientific community isn't so unanimous and the publication doesn't want anything to do with him....

They don't prove him wrong, and thereby continue supporting the assertion that they have previously published that "all scintists agree...", the talking heads therefore continue to repeat the mantra that any scientist with any brains agrees with us... and the whole debate is poisoned.
They are just as guilty of politicizing the process as the rightwing is.

And there is where the truly informed, objective diligent press would have come in. As soon as some pointy headed scintist claimed there was no legitimate dissent on the subject among his peers a truly decent reporter would have jumped all over that claim like they did when Clinton said he didn't have sex with that woman..
But reporting controversy in this debate isn't as profitable as maintaining the status quo that the right wants to poison the water and the left wants to save the world! When actually Al Gore, the godfather of the enviroment, is the only politician to ever profit from selling off government oilfields to a private oil company which he happened to own millions of shares in!

'No, not going to report that are we!?' says the press. 'Nope, stick to the Haliburton template for any politician-rapes-enviroment stories because it's the prefered red meat, the consumers don't want to hear about lefties poisoning the water and sky, it confuses them since we've been telling them for years it's the righties that do that...'

Lazy bastards in charge of one of the the most important jobs in the whole world. They are the Nero fiddling while our Rome burns!

'Sell headlines and soundbites, sure throw a few facts out there, give them film at eleven of the latest celebrity spouse murder, let 'em know when a hurricane is coming or something but for gods sake don't let journalism get in the way of the product. Don't let journalism get in the way of pleasing the sponsors!!'
/rant

[Suncho]

Has anyone considered the thousands of letters that Science Magazine have to reject and the time they really have to spend on each one? Nobody's perfect, and if you have a letter that quite clearly shouldn't be printed, how much time are you going to spend explaining why?

When an author submits a manuscript to a publisher, he will generally receive a boilerplate rejection letter in return. He'd be lucky even to have a signature on there by an actual person.

Are you sure folks aren't projecting too much meaning onto something that should be trivial?

[Kilarin]

Has anyone considered the thousands of letters that Science Magazine have to reject and the time they really have to spend on each one?

I acknowledged that possibility in my last message.

[Pandora]

Which SHOULD have been the reason the rejected it. Instead of this cockamamie "available on the internet" story....

Exactly the point!

Will, that is NOT the point. First, as I said above, there is no right to be published in Science. Second, as Suncho has pointed out, editors do usually NOT go into the details why a work was rejected but are always polite about it (they don't want to discourage you to submit your future work, it could be the nex breakthrough). And finally, this is Science, for gods sake! It's the most picky journal of all. They ONLY publish absolutely original research. Look, for instance, at their embargo policy page that bans authors from talking about their research prior to publication. Or look at their General Policies page where it specifically reads (emphasis mine):

Authors retain copyright on most content, but agree to grant to AAAS an exclusive license to publish the content in print and online. [...] We will not consider any paper or component of a paper that has been published or is under consideration for publication elsewhere. Distribution on the Internet may be considered prior publication and may compromise the originality of the paper or submission.

So can we please lay this farce to rest? Science WAS justified in rejecting the letter. They DON'T owe the researcher a better explanation than what they have already given. But Benny Peiser has no right to whine about the rejection --- he must have been aware about Science's policies, every author reads this stuff before submitting something (if you want to publish in one of the big three in particular). And finally: his study was crap anyways ... It did NOT challenge Oreseke's prior study that there is a scientific consensus that global warming is happening and that it is manmade. This result is as accurate as it was at the time of publication of her study.

[Suncho]

To be fair, Pandora, I think the point was that Peiser's research was *NOT* available online at the time he submitted it.

[Pandora]

Not sure that I get you, Suncho. Do you mean it was not available before submission or before the decision of the editor? If the former, then it doesn't matter (it's the date of publication, not submission that counts). If the latter, then it might... do you have a source for this?

edit: don't worry, I found it. Peiser himself says he has not published it on the internet prior to publication. Too bad this cannot be verified further with the internet being as it is --- but honestly, I find it hard to believe that the editor of Science would be lying in his rejection letter, given that he does not need to give an explanation for an rejection in the first place.

[Will Robinson]

It sounds like they claimed it was available as an excuse to dismiss him on a technicality...makes me think they couldn't dismiss him on the merits...

I don't really care about the magazines decision, I care that both sides of this debate take political doublespeak positions and the press doesn't take them to task for it!
I'm pissed off at the big picture, not that this pointy headed geek dissed this other pointy headed geek.
It's not Science magazine I'm really pissed at, it's the totality of the loss of journalistic integrity in the media at large that allows issues like these to be swallowed up by the one-party-disguised-as-two.

Sorry, I realize this doesn't really stick to the specific topic at hand which you are more intuned to than I am.

[Suncho]

Pandora:

http://www.cfact-europe.org/index1.html

I would be grateful if you could send me evidence for your claim hat "the basic points of [my] letter have already been widely dispersed over the Internet." As far as I am aware, neither the details nor the results of my analysis have been cited anywhere.

[Pandora]

It sounds like they claimed it was available as an excuse to dismiss him on a technicality...makes me think they couldn't dismiss him on the merits...

I am much more inclined to think that the editor was right or simply polite. The reason is that it would have been very easy to dismiss Peisoer on (his utter lack of) merits, as I already posted above (you seem to have missed that, please read it, it's short).

I don't really care about the magazines decision, I care that both sides of this debate take political doublespeak positions and the press doesn't take them to task for it!

I think you know that I fully agree with your general judgment of the press (and also of the one-party-disguised-as-two). However, the debate about climate change is a poor reflection of these observations, or if it is, then in the opposite way that you assume. The press (particularly in America) give way too much credit to the climate change sceptics. The scientists working in the field agree that is happening and that we are to blame. The arguments of the sceptics have been addressed many times over and ruled out. And even though you don't like him and even though he may have many faults, Al Gore's movie is an accurate reflection of the scientific consensus on global warming (give or take one crackpot or two).

[Suncho]

I don't really care about the magazines decision, I care that both sides of this debate take political doublespeak positions and the press doesn't take them to task for it!

You should be more pissed off that some political operatives with business interests have convinced so many people that there actually is a debate and you should be pissed off that the press hasn't taken those political operatives to task for it.

The popular media said there was a debate over whether smoking was harmful long after it was determined to be so. This is a similar situation.

It's not Science magazine I'm really pissed at, it's the totality of the loss of journalistic integrity in the media at large that allows issues like these to be swallowed up by the one-party-disguised-as-two.

I don't think journalistic integrity has necessarily been lost. In fact, I don't think much has changed. Note my previous example about the great smoking "debate." Journalists are not scientists, and they're not (if you stay away from Fox News anyway) usually political operatives. They're just trying to report what they see and if someone pays big money to trick them into believing something that's incorrect, they can't be held responsible for that.

[Suncho]

And even though you don't like him and even though he may have many faults, Al Gore's movie is an accurate reflection of the scientific consensus on global warming (give or take one crackpot or two).

Did you see it?

[Pandora]

Thanks, Suncho (but see the edit to my post above). I also find the exact wording of his sentence quite supicious:

As far as I am aware, neither the details nor the results of my analysis have been cited anywhere.

But that's water under the bridge of course ... nobody will find out how it really happened. I am reluctant to talk about this study of Peiser's anymore because it is a bunch of lies and misdirections without scientific merit (see the link in my previous post) and it has received too much attention already.

[Pandora]

And even though you don't like him and even though he may have many faults, Al Gore's movie is an accurate reflection of the scientific consensus on global warming (give or take one crackpot or two).

Did you see it?

Not yet (still isn't showing here), I just read a few scientific reviews of it. And they were all pretty positive. So to be fair, I should have written "seems like an accurate reflection" rather than "is"

[Will Robinson]

The scientists working in the field agree that is happening and that we are to blame.

Are they all in agreement that we are to blame for global warming?!? I thought they were all in agreement that we are contributing to global warming.
If you wonder why thatt distinction means so much to me it's because if we are to blame for it then we probably should listen to the radical enviromentalists. If, on the other hand, we are just contributing to something that we couldn't stop even if we did follow the radical enviromentalists then perhaps it's a good thing we are not jumping through every hoop they hold up *cough*Kyoto*cough*....

You see, it's obvious that many of the radicals in the enviromental movement are more motivated to hamstring american corporate interests than save the planet from pollution. So I'd really like to know the truth without having to sift through something like Al Gores movie, which you yourself say he's thrown in a few crackpots, in order to find the truth!!!

[Genghis]

Suncho, since you're so keen to hear from people who have seen the movie, I'll post the observations of a friend of mine who saw it (I still haven't):

I saw An Inconvenient Truth last night. It’s Al Gore’s movie about global warming (aka climate change). It was a bit disappointing. 45 minutes was dedicated to convincing non-believers that global warming exists by scaring the bejesus out of them with visuals of disappearing glaciers and parched earth. Another 30 minutes was dedicated to telling you why Al Gore is so darned nifty (can you say nifty?). The remaining 10 minutes explained why the rest of the industrialized world is doing something about global warming and we’re not. The last 10 minutes was the most important part of the film and it pretty much got glossed over. There were lots of ironic shots of Al traveling all over the world in JP-4 guzzling jumbo jets and swanky limos. I also learned that Al uses a mac laptop and used to have a pony. Even though it was pretty lame I recommend that you check it out. It’s worth the price of a matinee ticket. The graphics that Al uses in his presentation are excellent - I mean really friggin good. If any of us had those graphics capabilities we’d have a PhD by now and a Danish supermodel in each hip pocket.

[...]

The movie was mostly filled with allegory and empirical stuff like, “there’s a drought in Africa, so that means there’s global warming” or “the glaciers are melting so that means there’s global warming.” The most convincing argument came from ice core data correlating temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentrations for the last 250,000 years. The data showed a direct correlation with CO2 leading temperature by maybe 50 years. It also showed that until the last 100 years or so temperature and CO2 concentration have been stable with fluctuations for ice ages and what not. The mean world temp is 58F. The mean CO2 concentration was historically about 315 ppm. Since 1960 there’s been a steady increase in the mean annual concentration, from 315 to 380 ppm in 2004. So the concentration is now higher than it’s been in last 250,000 years and it’s increasing at a faster rate. And as you probably know, something like 8 of the last 15 years have been the hottest in recorded history. It’s crazy, dude. Crazy. Al didn’t go into measuring how much CO2 is from human endeavors. I think it’s an important point to consider. The most f’ed up thing is that global warming, regardless of the cause, is a serious problem that gets brushed under the carpet by the politicians.