Bishop Hill May on Bob Ward
Feb 12, 2012 Climate: Ward Royal Society When the embargoed copies of the Nullius report went out, there was a bit of a kerfuffle on Twitter, with Bob Ward claiming I was trying to smear him by mentioning his departure from the Royal Society and the rumours that he had been sacked. I thought this was a bit unfair, as I had gone on to point out that Rees had praised Ward's work after he had left, and observed that this suggested official approval of his campaign against Exxon.
I'm grateful to Alex Cull for this excerpt of an interview with Lord May which confirms this impression.
That was an example of aggressive engagement to be useful to government that not everybody had a clear conscience about, but I think was useful, and not everybody was happy with the sometimes quite in-your-face comments that the Royal Society or its president made, particularly helped by the head of the press office Bob Ward, whom I found immensely valuable. He had the knack of being able to capture my voice so he could write things that I got the credit for and didn't have to do the work, and I think the kinds of things we did were entirely appropriate.
This does seem to confirm what I said in the report and it therefore appears unlikely that Ward was sacked.
What can we say about the Royal Society - a body that is mainly tax-funded - engaging in a campaign against a private company. Is this a proper use of taxpayer's money?
Reader Comments (53)
Ward's Twitter rant against you denotes the man and his lack of objectivity, sadly.
Ward doesn't answer my questions on Twitter, I guess because he realises a truthful response to them will undermine his carefully constructed narrative. So I'm still not clear if he has completed his doctorate or not. I have seen a number of people refer to Bob as 'Dr Ward' and have not seen him correct this description.
Can anyone shed any light on his current professional standing and status?
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/whosWho/Staff/BobWard.aspx
The more that is uncovered the worse it seems to be. The Royal Society seems too far gone to be saved.
How Bob Ward the Grantham Institute's spin doctor, has the cheek to complain about anything
The attacks of such a person merely means that you have had an impact on their sordid little world. Congraduations, Bishop, you are doing the right things, keep it up.
The government spends public money not in the interests of the public, but in the interests of select members of the "club" who have the ear of government ministers. It bears more than a passing resemblance to a mediaeval court.
I wonder if we will ever again see government for the many, rather than government for the the few. I doubt it.
I wouldn't say the Royal Society has gone too far to be saved, MaxwellsDemon. We all know how easy it is for a small clique to capture any organisation, be it an institution, a business or even a government. I have no doubt the consensus among the members of any of these bodies, RS, AGU, APS, etc. were they to take the trouble to examine the evidence themselves would be that CAGW is possible but extremely doubtful.
The problem is that 99.9% of any population is composed of followers, not leaders and professionals more than any other group are more likely to accept the voice of authority, provided it is not directed at them personally or is from the political class.
The next decade is likely to completely demolish the remaining foundations of this theory and one of the results is likely to be a violent backlash against those seen as bringing humiliation by association down on them. That backlash may destroy those societies, like it probably will certain publications, it may make them change for the better or it may simply trigger a reset to original constitutions.
'It's the Bishop!' (Monty Python).
Stay on them, never let them rest...
Alex does it again.
Peter C.
I hope you are right, however I have difficulty seeing how it is going to be saved
Unless the Fellows oust the ruling clique and replace it with something that is substantially less politicised, then I think it might be a slow death.
We can live in hope
After Bob Ward's letter to Exxon was made public he debated its morality on the Today program with David Whitehouse, who by common consent demolished Ward. I wonder if Bob May was pleased that morning?
Dictionary.com
No results found for palaeopiezometry
One thing is certain if the next head of the Royal Society come from UEA we are all doomed.
@peter whale
'One thing is certain if the next head of the Royal Society come from UEA we are all doomed'
Correction
One thing is certain if the next head of the Royal Society come from UEA it is doomed'.
I can imagine nothing worse than the oleaginous and mendacious Trevor Davies in that position.......
Apparently Tom Chivers also has an unfinished PhD in something climate science-related.
What is it with failed doctoral students and AGW PR/journalism?
Buck
A wheel turns. We will get government for the many again but there are some essential conditions to be fulfilled first.'We The People' (which means all of us who value honest debate and honest dealing) must confront and destroy the idiocies of Political Correctness. It is an Orwellian creed which seeks to close down debate and independent thought by demonising those who refuse to obey the diktats of the pseudo-intellectual, bien-pensant left.
'We The People' must learn again that democracy and honest government depends on our involvement in the political process. If we leave political action to others we will get what we deserve — rule by the professional political class, the true heirs of the hard left union activists of the 70s who were prepared to sit through branch meetings till midnight if necessary to see off those with a life and homes to go to (and also who needed to be at work on time the following morning!).
[Only a very few of us in the professional 'non-political' class kept up with them and mightily pissed-off they were with us, believe me.]
'We The People' have to restore local government and ultimately national government to the people from the hands of the party hacks. And remind our elected representatives that, though they may not be 'delegates', they are supposed to represent those who elected them. People first; party a poor second; personal ambition not at all.
And the Civil Service will have to be reminded who it is beholden to, who pays its wages, and who makes the rules.
Only after that might we be in a position to say that government for the people is again a possibility.
Just let's not despair because that way leads to autocracy, poverty, and ultimately civil war.
What's the betting that the actual paleophrenology results demonstrated that cAGW is bunk?
palaeopiezometry is the study of rocks isn't it?
Which makes Wards claims even more astonishing since most geologists know the rock record shows climate does change, although Automine may have a different take of rock records
http://www.last.fm/music/Automine
Dear Sir
I have just finished reading your "Nullius in Verba" paper. And loved it. I hope it gets published in Kindle edition, so as to be able to buy it, and read it again, and again. ( I am an old woman, and my eyes get very tired reading on my mac, no matter how much I dull the backlight, and make the writing bigger.)
Being Spanish, where the term "señor", or "caballero" is quite out of fashion, I am in awe of "The English", with their belief in the ethics, the independence of criteria, and the pursuit of the truth on the part of gentlemen. That belief in gentlemen seems to me, after reading your paper, to form the nucleus of what the Royal Society, was until quite recently.
I do hope the Royal Society returns to its tradition of not taking part in political activism, and I also hope we in Spain, and the rest of the world, learn with the example.
María Maestre
Bob 'fast fingers ' Ward is a spinner and BS artist and he clearly some one that May admires .
What does not tell us about May.
Not Bob,
Do you know if there is any video of that demolition anywhere?
Regards
Mailman
I think it's safe to say that the public pronouncements of the likes of May and Nurse on AGW are nothing more than 'briefings' provided by some simpering underling. These great men of science are far too important to dirty their hands or minds on subjects that are outside their own professional bounds, but politics (with a small 'p') means they have to express an authoritative opinion.
“... rule by the professional political class, the true heirs of the hard left union activists of the 70s”
(Feb 12, 2012 at 5:15 PM | Mike Jackson)
It seems a bit hard on Arthur Scargill and co to blame them for engendering Cameron and Miliband, but let it pass.
More important:- once “you the people” have wrested power from the professional political class, decisions will stil be made by those who stay till the end of the meeting (unless you vote first and discuss afterwards, of course).
Salopian
'I think it's safe to say that the public pronouncements of the likes of May and Nurse on AGW are nothing more than 'briefings' provided by some simpering underling.'
Beg to disagree. Lord May of Oxford sits on the Climate Change Committee. His last statement in the HoL was on 12 Jan where he interjected specifically on climate change in the debate on Protection of Freedoms, including this
'I am all for making things available but, at the same time, I shall mention something which is perhaps tactless-if not even politically incorrect-which is that the Freedom of Information Act has, as many of your Lordships will know, been used as a weapon of harassment in some circumstances. The climate change community in general, and the community at the University of East Anglia in particular, have not only been subject to criminal invasion of their databases, carefully timed for particular events, but are continually bombarded with very elaborate requests for information that go well beyond the sharing of basic data, so we have to be careful in how we draft this.'
His opinions are very much his own.
Salopian
Nurse is certainly not simply repeating the words of some simpering underling. Watch the Horizon programme, or listen to his interviews. He clearly believes every bumbling ooh and aah he utters. He really thinks he’s defending Science against its Enemies. It’s his sheer political and personal naivety which is frightening, I think. The fact that he can’t even be bothered to study the subject in order to be able to marshall an argument can’t possibly be stupidity or intellectual laziness, can it? He just doesn’t think that those who disagree with “The Science” are worth arguing with. He may be a thoroughly likeable chap, but his point of view is intellectual totalitarianism.
geoffchambers
Haven't you heard of the "Group Meeting" or "pre-meeting"? I once watched a (Labour) committee chairman get through a 31-item agenda in just under 5 minutes. It would have been quicker if they could gave raised their arms faster but this was immediately after lunch.
So I'm afraid "having the voting first" already has a long and (dis)honourable tradition in local government (in Scotland at any rate).
I don't know whether you were ever involved in militant trade unionism in the 70s but the Trots were masters of the art of hi-jacking a meeting and keeping it going by discussing endless points of order and other delaying tactics until the moderates gave up and went home. Those of us who took them on were mighty unpopular especially when our carefully noted version of events didn't agree with theirs. Needles to say we learnt very quickly to be scrupulously accurate!
That battle may need to be fought again and we will need to prepared to sit it out.
As for your other point, I suggest you read Anthony Browne's The Retreat of Reason which makes the argument a lot clearer than I can.
Feb 12, 2012 at 6:48 PM | Unregistered Commenter geoffchambers
Worstall's law of organisations:
"All and any organizations will in the end be run by those who stay awake in committee."
Bob:
No results found for palaeopiezometry
-----
So it's nothing to do with finding old pizzas, perhaps down the back of the sofa?
Dreadnought, correct but incomplete.
A more accurate (if long-winded) "law" is:
"All and any organizations tend to be taken over by aggressive, 'progressive' left-leaning partisans who have the motivation and ideological bent to exclude dissenting views and demand 'position' statements. Self-styled 'progressives' will exclude, wear down, and outlast people for whom all of life is not political."
Mailman
It was on the Radio 4 today program. Here is a transcript.
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com/2006/09/is-free-speech-under-threat-from.html
Totally trounced I would say....
BBC: Is it the job of Britain's foremost scientific academy, The Royal Society, to hector private companies about how they spend their money? There has been criticism of the Royal Society for asking the oil company Exxon Mobile to stop giving money to groups it argues misrepresent the science of climate change.
Dr David Whitehouse is a scientist and an author. Bob Ward is from the Royal Society. He wrote the letter to Exxon Mobile. Both join me now.
Dr Whitehouse. Why do you object to the Royal Society, to Bob Ward writing to Exxon Mobile?
David Whitehouse: My problem is not with the science, my problem is not with human-induced global warming. My problem is with the nature of science and the scientific debate, about different views. Different views, contrary positions, are essential to the progress of science. They are what keep arguments strong, the defence of arguments is what keeps them robust and healthy. And if somebody comes out with bad science, somebody comes out with misrepresentation, you tackle bad science with good science. It does not matter, it is irrelevant, whether these people are right or wrong, whether it's god science or bad science. What troubles me is that the Royal Society is demanding another organisation to stop funding groups that have views different from the scientific consensus. Their views, the value of their views, will be determined by argument and not by doing a tussle around their funding, to get their money turned off because you disagree with what they're saying.
BBC: Bob Ward. Can you respond to that.
Bob Ward: I can. Let me first correct the impression that being given. I did not demand that Exxon stops funding these groups. I made an observation in a meeting I had in July that they were making statements that misrepresented the science and that they were funding groups that were similarly misrepresenting the science. They then offered themselves to stop funding these groups. But let me make a distinction here.
BBC: Can we just follow this through. You then wrote to them saying...
Bob Ward: What happened is, after I'd explained why the Royal Society felt that the statements Exxon Mobile had made in a report in February, when I explained to them that they were wrong in our opinion, they then send me a report in the summer, a new report, which repeated all of the statements which I complained about in the first place.
BBC: And the letter which the Guardian got hold of yesterday was you saying to them: 'I would be grateful if you could let me know when Exxon Mobile plans to carry out this pledge.' Which is why I used the word 'hectoring,' it's a form of hectoring.
Bob Ward: Well, I like the idea that the Royal Society should be accused of bullying the world's largest multinational oil company. All we're doing is saying to them: it is very clear what the scientific community says about climate change. Anybody can find out by going to the website of the IPCC (www.ippc.ch) . And they can see what the scientific community thinks about climate change. And then they can compare for themselves the stsatements that are being made by Exxon Mobile and by these lobby groups - who are not groups of scientists. These are lobby groups, they are not scientists. Exxon Mobile are not offering scientific evidence.
BBC: Let me bring in Dr Whitehouse. Isn't that what the Royal Society should be doing, ensuring that the right information is out there?
David Whitehouse: The Royal Society should be arguing about science, it shouldn't be delving in such politics. It is clear from this letter that the Royal Society did have concerns about the support that Exxon was giving to groups which they disagree with. They can have concerns about that but their argument should not be with the funding, or the background. It's a question of free speech. Scientists in America won the right to criticise the Bush Government when they did not agree with them about global warming. The contrary should apply here.
BBC: Bob Ward. Have you stepped over a line here?
Bob Ward: We haven't. Let me be clear. We're not trying to shut scientists up. What we're trying to do is say to the lobby groups and to the companies that they should present properly what the scientific community is saying. Now, let me just tell you. One of the organisations that is getting funding from Exxon Mobile is the so-called Centre for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. This is a statement on their website: "There is no compelling reason to believe that the rise in temperature was caused by the rise in carbon dioxide." Now, can David Whitehouse tell me which peer-reviewed scientific papers that statement is based on?
David Whitehouse: My point is not an argument about the science. The science is irrelevant in this context. You can go to your own website and read scientists talk about the uncertainties of global warming. The question is not whether these people are right or wrong. It's a question about their right to speak. When scientists and scientific organisations like yourself want to serve the cause of public policy, they do so best by following the ethics of science and not public relations and spin.
BBC: Let me just come in here. Dr Whitehouse. Isn't it the case that on this argument people would say the price is too high. And you don't have a level playing field if you have millions being pumped into bad science.
David Whitehouse: First of all. Does is matter that it is bad science? The science, whether it is bad or god, comes out in scientific argument. My problem is with distorting the playing field. Science is about free speech, science is about the exchange of information and argument. It's not about trying to find out who get money paid to somebody else because you disagree with him. We tell young scientists, the most important thing, we tell them, is to question authority. Why should I believe this because you say so?
BBC: We have very little time left. I want a final thought from you, Bob Ward. Is the Royal Society going to continue that sort of approach to prevent funding of organisations that they don't like what they're saying?
Bob Ward: The Royal Society's motto is "Nullis in Verba" - which means "where is your evidence?" (sic) If organisations make statements that are clearly at odds with what the scientific community says the evidence shows, yes, then we will challenge it. Because it does not serve the public for them to be mislead about what the scientific evidence says.
I suspect that informative parallels may be drawn between the panic in the UK government in 2001 about Foot and Mouth Disease, a panic partly fueled by givng undue emphasis to computer models, and by the panic in many governments in recent years about CO2. Lord May has had some association with each of these panics.
Mr Bliss
Ancient pressure-induced structural stress/strain/shear forces suffered by deeply buried rocks can be deduced for instance from various clues indicating deformation such as veining and recrystallization or rotation of the sedimentary grains and/or its fossilised skeletal remains, or igneous/metamorphic crystals and the matrix/cement of the rock fabric.
He was doing PhD research in a solid scientific field. He didn't finish it. No shame. I didn't either. In my case I had no grant, a pregnant wife and a good industry job offer. But I've still got my samples in a box in the attic.
Pharos.
wasn't there a Monty Python sketch when there was a sign on a desk with someone's name on it alongside which was M.A Cantab (failed)
No shame in not completing a PhD but Bob Ward uses it as some sort of qualification, which it isn't.
Not Bob
Is the MA Cantab the same as the Oxon used to be, a BA auto to follow? At least I can still boast a real MSc, and indeed a DIC, and to have a DIC is to be cherished.
Feb 12, 2012 at 7:49 PM | Not Bob
"Bob Ward... If organisations make statements that are clearly at odds with what the scientific community says the evidence shows"
Clever. He doesn't say contrary to what the evidence shows but rather what "the scientific community says" it shows.
And we do know which "community" he meant.
Mike Jackson
Honest heartfelt congratulations for your efforts in facing down the
trots. No, I never did any of that. I was a simple pinko Guardian reader at the time - Old Labour, like Sir Paul Nurse and Sir Martin Rees. (Funny, I associate Old Labour with coal fires and steam locomotives. Where did it go wrong for them?)
For those who need to know:
In Dr DR Faulkner’s Rock Deformation course, ENVS367, at the University of Liverpool, the subject of Lecture 17 is “Palaeopiezometry. Grain size as an indicator of stress.”
For an example of its application try:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191814197000746
Slightly off topic, but on the same tangent of 'reaction to criticism':
http://notrickszone.com/2012/02/12/leftist-german-taz-daily-article-on-vahrenholt-climate-skeptics-are-like-viruses/
Time for a study of the 'sensitivity' of climate alarmists to this new 'forcing.' Seems rather extreme.
Not Bob,
Thanks for the link. Gee, for someone who worked at the RS to NOT know its motto is blasphemous! Hell, even I still remember my old school Latin motto and that's from decades ago!
Never the less, it's interesting how Wards only real defence was to ignore what was being said about the RS tactics and instead concentrate on the irrelevant and as for a paper on Co2. You know, I'd get crucified at work for this kind of ignorance yet in the creationists world of Mann Made Global Warming (tm) it seems to be a ore-requisit!
Regards
Mailman
You are absolutely spot on there Mike, most of us just don't have the time. I spent Saturday morning in casualty with my nine year old. She broke her arm ice skating and bang goes a quarter of the weekend!
geoffchambers
Entryism. Red Robbo. Liverpool. Militant Tendency and loony left councils and the refusal to confront them. Foot and Benn trying to convince the electorate that the reason we elected the most right-wing government in history in 1983 was because the Left hadn't been left enough. (You what?). The basic misunderstanding that Thatcher was actually right-wing — she was neither left nor right; she was a Thatcherite!Old Labour was never a "left wing" party. On many issues, especially social and moral ones, it tended to be to the right of many so-called conservatives. Which is why the Coalition's plans for welfare are getting such overwhelming support — except from Lib-Dem peers and bishops. The working man knows fairness when he sees it and seeing his next door neighbour out of work and better off than he is is not his idea of fairness.
Totally O/T but while we're on the subject: Skinner (who I disagree with almost totally on all politics) has more political integrity in his little finger than almost the whole of the rest of the House of Commons put together!
And back on topic (just): it's not Old Labour that is pro-AGW and Old Tory that is sceptical. I come back to The Retreat of Reason; AGW is another manifestation of political correctness which tends to be an obsession of the new left and which drags the rest of us along in its wake because being politically incorrect makes you not just wrong but evil and it takes courage to stand up to it.
Buck
Sorry to hear about the lass. They mend quickly at that age though.
But you prove the point. That is a commitment that has to take priority and we do have to rely on those with more time to spare — or a different sort of dedication — to run things for us. But we also need to keep a very wary eye on them because even those with the holiest of intentions can wander off the road.
My first boss used to say, "I trust all my staff, I just keep checking on them because that way I know I can trust them."
When less than 30% of voters turn out for local elections, we've stopped "checking on them"!
As an outsider looking in, it seems to me that there remain huge uncertainties in our comprehension of the climate and the causes of change. These are noted in the science and technical sections of AR4. The question "Where is the evidence?" is one that I, as a long suffering taxpayer, continually ask myself and my MP. In the past, others commenting on this blog have noted that the PR stance is to act and speak as though the case for CAGW is settled - even though it is not. I believe that is why spokesmen like Mr Ward seek to shut down the debate.
I continue to draw the attention of my MP to the uncertainties and the unknowns and to point out that these invalidate the extreme measures which Parliament has enacted. I find the post by our host, and the comments, very helpful indeed when making my points to him.
"No results found for palaeopiezometry"
Perhaps tapping rocks for electrical responses is a proxy for ancient temperatures, and he gave up when they revealed how much warmer it had been...
Is it simply all in Bob Ward's mind?
What do you expect of the Grantham Institute? To give accurate & inadequate information about B. Ward? There is such a thing as palaeopiezometric modelling, to which aspiration, B. Ward has Ph-izzle-D out.
http://www.mendeley.com/research/stress-gradients-around-porphyroclasts-palaeopiezometric-estimates-numerical-modelling/
Feb 13, 2012 at 9:56 AM | Unregistered CommenterMike Jackson
Well said sir. I was only young at the time, but I remember Trots trying to get jobs at engineering firms with CVs written to hide political qualifications. As a young apprentice I was not political (though my father was shop steward so I got to listen in on meetings at our house) The Trots came across as would a recently converted "born again Christian" today.
I seem to remember some of them being charged with something or other that amounted to "inciting strikes" they were all sacked once their political degrees came to light as they had neglected to include them in their CV of qualification when they applied for the job.
The whole affair started me on the apolitical road. These days Parliament is more akin to a Punch and Judy show, with banksters hands up the puppets arse.
Feb 12, 2012 at 7:09 PM geoffchambers wrote
quote
[] (Nurse) clearly believes every bumbling ooh and aah he utters. He really thinks he’s defending Science against its Enemies. It’s his sheer political and personal naivety which is frightening, I think.
unquote
Yes, my impression exactly. To see the President of the RS gazing in wide-eyed wonder at a screen displaying a computer-generated pretty picture of the weather was enough to make my heart sink. Sir Paul is a great man with impressive achievements to his name, but as a President of the RS he's about as much use as the one in the 18th century whose qualification for the post was that he was a numismatist.
ExSir Fred Goodwin lost his knighthood for monetary deception. Lord May, Sir Paul and Sir Martin take note.
JF
With tongue in cheek, maybe the honest Fellows of the RS should storn the citadel and erect a guillotine for the necessary cleansing of the stable. Remember that Dr Guillotine was the very epitomy of the rationalism of the Revolution who invented this scientific and supposedly humane method of execution.
with regards to paleopiezomentry...
maybe a mispelling of paleop*ssometry?
OK, past my bedtime...