Bishop Hill David Adam pursues the IoP
Mar 5, 2010 Climate: CRU Climate: Parliament FOI David Adam, the Guardian's green guru, is on the warpath, in hot pursuit of the Institute of Physics, or at least the identities of those senior members who drafted its statement on climate change.
Evidence from a respected scientific body to a parliamentary inquiry examining the behaviour of climate-change scientists, was drawn from an energy industry consultant who argues that global warming is a religion, the Guardian can reveal.
But with Mr Adam and his comrades in the green movement ready to try to vilify anyone who steps out of line on the global warming front, the other scientists involved in drafting the paper are being understandably reticent about coming forward.
The institute says its evidence was based on suggestions from the energy subcommittee of its science board. It would not reveal who sat on this sub-commitee, but confirmed that Gill was a member.
A spokeswoman for the institute said Gill was not the main source of information nor did the evidence primarily reflect his views; other members of the sub-commitee were also critical of CRU. However the IOP would not reveal names because they would get "dragged into a very public and highly politicised debate".
Perhaps this kind of thing might help Leo Hickman and the doubters on the previous thread understand why anonymity is so important.
Of course, statements from expert groups are rarely anything other than the statement of a few influential insiders. The impression that the Insitute of Physics has spoken with one voice is therefore a false one. But the same thing applies to all the other group statements to the CRU inquiry or indeed any those on other aspect of the global warming controversy. Regular readers here may remember my articles on the Royal Society's position paper on climate change for example. I've heard of Royal Society fellows who disagree with it.
This brings us to another interesting parallel between the IoP statement and the Royal Society paper. Because of course, we don't know who wrote the Royal Society piece, although reading between the lines it seems likely that it was written by Sir John Houghton working alone.
I wonder if David Adam will try to find this out too?
Reader Comments (23)
So this Guardian journalist must by definition call for the resignation of many of the CRU inquiry members most notably Boulton. I look forward to the front page piece...
If the IoP statement followed procedure then the statement is valid. Even the political parties have policy writers from the left and right, what is issued is authorised by the leadership.
Climate 'science' is corrupt. Science is in danger here of schism similar to the Catholic Church/Protestant split that came about because mainly of the corruption of the orthodoxy.
Rich North's latest piece (Five times the cost of the Manhattan Project) highlights just a basic figure of 80 billion dollars in the USA alone. That sort of money corrupts. Simple.
Knowing history the signs of a scientific schism developing are here. "It can only be CO2" is turning in a mantra of the orthodoxy.
in a Monty Pythonesque voice....
"Nobody expects the Guardian's Inquisition!"
(be better with Josh visuals)
You wrote:
quote I wonder if David Adam will try to find this out too? unquote
It would be easy to find fault with the particular thrust of Mr Adam's investigation, but that very word, 'investigation', is a hopeful sign. If journalists who cover climate science can get into the habit of checking and investigatng, rather than simply regurgitating press releases and seeking approval before publishing, then there is some hope for their profession.
Some hope.
Julian Flood
One thing is certain. The Royal Society piece was not written, nor endorsed, by one of its most eminent current fellows: Freeman Dyson.
Everybody expects a spinnish disquisition.
Yeeeeees, but are they wrong? I don't care about the personality I care about whether what they are saying is rigorous, understandable, coherent, grown up. Given how every weather event can be tied to AGW except when it isn't, no weather event can disprove AGW, and that all this was predicted but the projections didn't predict anything, AGW is demonstrably not quite science as I was taught it.
From my own reading of the IoP submission, as a bog standard member of the public, there was nothing contentious about it. In this climate of hostility towards scepticism that makes it contentious on it's own!
In other news, Comrad Lysenko has demanded an inquiry into how it came about that the Collective Farming Institute had referred to his views on the inheritance of acquired characteristics as 'a religion'. Comrade Lysenko explained that the individual who wrote this particular remark had ties to Western Bourgeois interests, was a known Trotskyite, had associated in the past with Capitalist Roaders, had been suspected of being a member of the Anti Party Clique, and was in addition a thoroughly bad parent with dubious personal hygiene.
We are happy to announce that when this was brought to their attention, the Institute immediately repudiated their erroneous statement, and affirmed their complete confidence in the inheritability of acquired characteristics. And of course, in Comrade Lysenko.
I am not going to labour the point, but the same mindset as the Guardian article...
Climate scientists plot to fight back at skeptics
This is how schisms develop... as was pointed out, perhaps they should concentrate on improving their lazy 'science' rather than attack the messengers.
What is the modern equivalent of the Wittenberg church door?
"What is the modern equivalent of the Wittenberg church door?"
I'd assume that would be The Air Vent.
"...drawn from an energy industry consultant"
Well if he doesn't earn his living from ideologically pure state funding, or soft left "journalism", then his thoughts are bound to be totally corrupted and therefore worthless, or even dangerous for the planet and our children, aren't they?
Yep, we need to encourage Houghton vs Dyson, the TV debate!
I always like the story of Freeman Dyson chatting to Michael Atiyah just before the latter returned to England from Princeton in 1973. Dyson was saying how he admired Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawkings on black holes but couldn't figure out Penrose's work on Twistors. "Perhaps you can figure it out."
I loved the honesty of that and even more the fact that when Atiyah got to Oxford he spent a good deal of time trying to figure out twistors, ending up helping Penrose's team greatly by introducing them to sheaf comohology. (Nah, I don't really understand either.) But this step turned out to be mighty important in the development of modern physics and the remarkable 'high energy mathematics' that has grown out of it since young Simon Donaldson's completely unexpected findings in 1982 about four manifolds - using tricks learned from the beautiful formulas underlying quantum theory.
Freeman Dyson freely admitted he didn't understand - one of the marks of greatness for me - but perhaps had a hunch about where it was to go and a man who might help. And when he turned out to be right many extremely fruitful things emerged.
Now there's a great deal of mystery involved in these areas but can anyone tell the difference between this kind of open interaction and the dead propaganda releases and forced lock-step in 'climate science', even from the Royal Society? Not that earth sciences should be looked down upon. Everything in its place, everything of great worth. But there should be something of the same excitement and sense of wonder ... just as there is for me contemplating how plate tectonics came to be accepted as easily the most viable and fruitful explanation of how continents work, how Big Bang was strongly confirmed by the discovery of the background radiation in the early 60s ... and just maybe, how the early faint sun paradox of 2.5 billions years ago has just been resolved by the simple matter of 95% cirrus clouds over the equator, as long of course as clouds provide significant negative feedback to any forcing (in that case a 20-30% negative forcing due to a much weaker sun that could otherwise be expected to take the earth into 100% coverage by ice from which it might well never emerge):
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2009JD012050.shtml
It's all up for grabs and we should do Dyson vs Houghton, with others of standing like Atiyah, Penrose, Hawking and Donaldson looking on closely and beginning to take a stand. Just my humble view :)
Interesting that the prior post is about anonymity. Apparently the Guardian, or at least Adam, does not believe in free speech--or is that a foreign concept in the UK? Jean S, I agree with your method of commenting on blogs.
@Richard I posted this on another thread: "I married an Hungarian, and I sometimes think what the great Hungarian physicists Neumann, Szilard, Wigner and Teller would have thought about it. They were passionate in everything they did." They argued amongst themselves in Hungarian with a passion that few understood, not the physics, but the passion.
The Guardian just posted a blog by a scientist (with a link under this main story)...
Climate scientists must be ruthlessly honest about data
That is why I was deeply shocked when Jones told the Commons science and technology committee that practices like keeping original data, and analysis programs, secret were "standard practice" among climate scientists. "Maybe it [openness] should be, but it's not." The Institute of Physics submission to the parliamentary inquiry which spoke of "worrying implications ... for the integrity of scientific research in this field" was damning but spot on, and a credit to science.
Nice article, but he is a pharmocologist and in their culture this rigour is standard.
@Jiminy Cricket
"Climate scientists plot to fight back at skeptics". . .
"What is the modern equivalent of the Wittenberg church door?"
I've just a quick look at the Washington Times item that you highlighted. I'd guess that an answer to your question could well be "The comments section of the Washington Times"! Only one, very weak, posting of support from a "believer", all the rest, sceptical and absolutely contra.
I'm a physicist (Ph.D) and I applauded the day I read the comments from my esteemed institute. We were recently treated to a blizzard of articles in the in-house magazine, written mostly by the cabal, that were akin to a hybrid corporate brochure/party manifesto. In the submission, the IOP defended a single subject: scientific integrity, period as our friends over the pond say. This is the only issue that can ever unerpin the 'evidence' and in truth the performance on monday at SW1A demonstrates in bucket fulls that it's not currently present in the CRU at least, and probably not in the UEA in general, the Met office etc.
I think it's a regrettable, but not surprising that they (the IOP) issued a clarification, many of their current and former senior hierachy have their finger in the Warm pie. I could go on about this at length but the IOP/TSB/Carbon trust etc are interlinked on a number of levels.
All I can say is that there are some good guys in physics, and the beachhead has been established!
SDCS
I didn't really see the point of the "clarification" given that the original submission was about scientific integrity - which rather tends to exclude that which passes for "climate science" - But then I realised that that is the point - talking about scientific integrity is effectively taking a contrarian view to the "consensus" and that must have startled the faithful - hence the need for clarification.
What makes me ill is the idiot alarmists complain that one of the people at the IOP might be a consultant for energy industry. Yet they have no problems with a former UEA man and professional climate fearmonger being appointed to the UEA 'independent' inquiry.
The Washington Times article about the alarmists who are going to start fighting back (seriously!) now with an ad in the NY Times reminds me of the scene in Woody Allen's "Manhattan" in which a friend of Woody is outraged by something and says that she is going to write a stinging letter to the Times. Woody says, "I think we should beat the crap out of them!" but his friend insists that, no, the really effective thing to do is to write a letter to the Times. There is enough irony here to satisfy a regiment. Who gives a rat's ass about ads in the New York Times anymore? The blogs are eating their lunch.
Looks the the IOP has clarified its clarification. Whoopsie!
Bish - Adam didn't seem to make much headway in smearing the IoP given that:
"The institute supplied a statement from an anonymous member of its science board, which said: "The institute should feel relaxed about the process by which it generated what is, anyway, a statement of the obvious.""
If their submission was flawed, or against the wishes of the senior hierarchy, ie someone like Gill hijacked the process, that statement would not have been issued.
David Adams fails the Turing Test for me.
DA is a program that recycles the phrases "big oil", "consensus", and "think of the children". It prints them in a different order each time with some Mad-Libs to pad it up to the desired length.
david adam got some of his info from the Stoat blog (http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2010/03/the_iop_fiasco.php). The stoat blog is well worth a look. Connolley calls the IOP people a bit dopey.
Some people seem to think that insulting others is a way of winning arguments. David Colquhoun, in the comments, thinks otherwise.
Folks,
Take a squizz at RC:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/03/a-mistaken-message-from-iop/
Seem to be taking the lead from the Garudian and overall I don't think the IOP submission went down too well!
I'm just sitting back waiting for my big oil cheque.
SDCS