Bishop Hill Yes, McCarthyism
Jun 30, 2014 Climate: Sceptics Every time I mention climate McCarthyism I am crticised for overstating my case. But the evidence continues to flow thick and fast.
Exhibit A comes from Roger Pielke Jr, who reports that one of his former students is being harassed by a senior climate scientist simply for being Pielke's student.
Exhibit B meanwhile is from Steven Goddard, who reports that German climate scientist Victor Venema has been "checking out" his [Goddard's] family members so that he can introduce their names in his online debates.
It's interesting that Roger seems to want to keep the name of the culprit under wraps. There could be any number of reasons for this - perhaps he is pursuing an official complaint or perhaps he simply recognises that nothing will be done about it. There is, after all, no offence so heinous that a university will not ignore it.
Bishop Hill
In the comments, Jack Cowper notes that Victor Venema has apologised for his behaviour.
Reader Comments (61)
shub (2:41 AM): Thanks. Not saying I'm convinced, not saying I'm going to look into it right away. But it's why you think I didn't do justice to the history and I'll bear it in mind. Which brings us to the old Joes, McCarthy and Stalin. Isn't it strange nobody has mentioned Ben Santer's other loving phrase from the Climategate emails: "Stephen McIntyre is the self-appointed Joe McCarthy of climate science." Presumably kuhnkat and Mark T think he should have taken that as a compliment. But it wasn't intended as one and I think I know enough not to hang my hopes on the rehabilitation of the Senator from Wisconsin. There are two books to read on that too. All good.
Santer's intent and the reality of who McCarthy was are two independent concepts. Santer, in his socialist paradise, would never accept the truth, or any other facts this disagreed with the reality he has made for himself, anyway. How you would come to the conclusion you did reveals something similar.
Mark
Oh, and for the record, VV's "apology" basically blamed Goddard, and he quoted Goddard's real name in the process. Hardly sincere, and certainly done in a way that continued his original malicious intent.. VV is exactly what he appeared to be when he first tweeted... He wants the lives of those he disagrees with to be threatened, he wants them to live in fear. A more reprehensible display of depravity I cannot imagine coming from a "scientist." Oh, yeah, all the other "scientists" we have been discussing.
Mark
Hi Mark
Sure, good point.
On this thread I've mentioned two influences that make me suspect McCarthyism. The attitude of Thomas Sowell, such as this in passing in 2001:
I presume you're saying that there was no character assassination, no reputations destroyed that shouldn't have been, throughout the McCarthy era? Indeed, that the senator himself has been the victim of such a thing? (I don't doubt that this will have been true, to an extent. But it doesn't excuse the initial injustice, if Sowell's correct that there was one.)
But the bigger influence on me, as I made clear at the beginning, was the tragic ending of Charles Higham's 1983 book Trading with the Enemy. The anti-communist movement happened to include, conveniently for those who had got far too close commercially to America's enemies in the Second World War, the destruction of those who had been the most resolute in seeking to expose that scandal at the time. That makes me deeply distrustful of the movement called McCarthyism. There's surely evidence here of dark PR playing all sides of an issue against each other to cover its tracks. I assume it's the same today and that there are lessons to learn.
[snip- venting.]
[snip-response to venting]
My cat leaves dead rats on my doorstep now and then.
Thanks for the speedy cleanup Bish.
Mark T:
Victor Venema began:
What I'd call taking responsibility, key sign of a genuine apology. No negative mention of Goddard. Job done.
Mark T:
But that's in the public domain, by choice of Goddard himself, which makes this a non-point.
Of course after the first paragraph Venema gives his side of the story as far as Goddard's own intemperate language is concerned, for which there has been no apology.
Although it would be stretching the point to assume that Lennart Bengtsson intended this back in May, Joe McCarthy, and the current attempts to rehabilitate him, may be a good analogy as we consider Goddard. Is any bastard good enough as long as he's our bastard? Or do such excesses rebound on a just cause and thus help 'The Cause', with all its egregious injustices?
Paul in Sweden, the Santer rat episode is a real funny one. If the story is followed back, as best as I can tell, the incident took place a long time back, well possibly before Santer's emails about beating the crap out of Michaels. Per report Santer saw a Yellow Hummer driving away with someone yelling curses, if I recall correctly, as he discovered the rat. Taken at his word it is clearly a reprehensible act and not just a cat-related coincidence.
That said, it has been milked dry over the years. No one can be blamed for being cynical about the incident
Did anyone realise that Victor Venema' s real name is Ictor Enema ?
@ GummerMustGo Jul 1, 2014 at 3:04 PM
"Ictor Enema"
^That is a keeper. :)