Bishop Hill The BBC's reeducation programme
Jul 4, 2014 BBC Climate: Sceptics The BBC Trust has issued a new report into progress on adopting the recommendations of the Steve Jones review of science coverage. This was the integrity-free publication that recommended keeping sceptics off air as much as possible.
According to the new paper, the BBC has been holding a series of seminars to bang home the "keep sceptics off air" message and will keep up this re-education programme in the future. There's also this:
The Trust wishes to emphasise the importance of attempting to establish where the weight of scientific agreement may be found and make that clear to audiences. The Trust also would like to reiterate that, as it said in 2011, “This does not mean that critical opinion should be excluded. Nor does it mean that scientific research shouldn’t be properly scrutinised.” The BBC has a duty to reflect the weight of scientific agreement but it should also reflect the existence of critical views appropriately. Audiences should be able to understand from the context and clarity of the BBC’s output what weight to give to critical voices.
Given that we know that BBC editors are telling their staff not to allow scientists to appear opposite anyone who might disagree with them, I would suggest to readers that the paragraph quoted above is entirely mendacious. And the idea that the English literature graduates and environmentalists who infest the BBC are going to "properly scrutinise" scientists is beyond contempt. It is simply a case of putting two fingers up to the general public.
It's time to close the BBC down.
;)
Reader Comments (66)
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
So the BBC Trust have now been good enough to tell us what has been going on about 'Snails' Jones report on the seminar of 28's conclusions about the reporting of science. That's an easy part of their job, I suppose, compared with evaluating public needs and making sure the BBC act accordingly.
So I now doubt that anything written in this blog, or by the GWPF or in WUWT will have any impact on the BBC. It wouldn't were I a BBC bureaucrat. Nor would a complaint by a mere viewer or listener, by a backbench MP like Lilley or Stringer, or a Lord like Ridley or Donnoughue. We can now all spare ourselves the trouble and must thank the Trust for that.
However, if I were to lift my typing finger, I would concentrate on the identities and qualifications of the 28, and on the authority that the BBC has given their opinions, rather than bias in BBC output. By whom (names please) were the 28 chosen? On whose authority? On what grounds? Should the Trust have been consulted? Why is what they concluded important enough to govern a key aspect of the BBC's treatment of its audience? Is the BBC aware of accusations that selection of the 28 was biased? Have they answers? And so on.
At least the Trust does not seem to have reported that these questions are to be treated with the same disdain as are reports of non-consensus science and persistent repetition may, just may, induce a state of confusion in BBC management that might be exploitable.
But who is to put these questions? Best, someone the BBC fears, but courtesy, I suppose, of its charter, there are few such people around. It will be a long search.
But meanwhile, the BBC charter comes up for renewal soon and maybe the newly announced management practices will not be workable under whatever arrangements eventually emerge.
Note to all. I know it is a long and difficult road we are on, but take heart. Sometimes the darkest hour us just before dawn. There will be a "tipping point" in the debate in favor of truth and science, when all of our efforts will bear fruit. Reading the things that are going on here leads me to believe that time will be rather sooner than later
Never give up, never say die
Keep knock knock knocking on that door and it will be opened!
Barry:
Absolutely Barry. But that is the classic climate misdirectioner at work. It reminds me of Tim Yeo's questioning of Richard Lindzen at the Energy and Climate Change select committee on 28th Jaunary, where he kept going on about Lindzen believing in a conspiracy of other climate scientists, despite the great man never remotely saying that. As RL said to me when I asked him afterwards "You can get these effects just by people following their self-interest. Economists have got Nobel Prizes for showing that."
Mind you, the coaching that seems to go on, leading to such predictable misdirection, again and again, is little different in practice from a conspiracy. A little one perhaps. Part of a bigger one even. Who cares. The deception is deliberate and it stinks.
Windy: Agreed. Thanks.
Today's Feedback. Listen to the idiot members of the public making fools of themselves.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04807j6
the BBC was at it again last night in a news report about "fracking" which seems to be the only part of shale oil & gas production they've ever heard of.
It was all there:
the graphic showing the water table equidistant between the surface and the shale, gross distortion.
the "what if?" graphic of fractures extending all the way up to the water table. About as likely as a crack in the Tate Modern extending to BBC Shepherd's Bush.
The overlaid map of groundwater and shale reserves.
The worry about the surface part of the drilling releasing methane "which is a greenhouse gas" - you mean at the depths where water wells, foundations and rail tunnels go, none of which use casing and pressure control technology remotely as good as hydrocarbon drilling? Well I never!
the running for comment to an "expert" - not on drilling, fracking, geology, shale production - no, some effin greenie obstructionist.
the US experience - only info shown was from some anti-shale zealot from Texas."It's an industrial process!" No kidding mate. Fancy that.
The Question: are the benefits worth THE RISK? No explanation that THE RISK of water contamination is near to zero, although they did discount the earthquake RISK after first giving it a long exposure c/w scary graphics.
Of course he is - he's a Green Party councillor and candidate as well as proprietor of an insulation business seeking green handouts.
I wonder if the BBC is going to tailor all its new output to the requirements of would-be politicians and small businessmen - that should keep them fairly busy.
Perhaps they could charge a small commission.
Slight OT but more nonsense from Liberal Democrat MPs..
From the Office of Julian Huppert
Member of Parliament for Cambridge
House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA
Telephone 01223 304421 Email julianhuppertmp@gmail.com
Dear Don,
The Energy Secretary’s speech on 10 June outlined the Government’s strategy to protect energy security in the UK. It is very re-assuring that the UK is one of the most energy secure countries in the world – more than Germany, France, Italy, and even the US. However, this does not mean we should be complacent; energy security in the future is likely to be a big challenge, both in the UK and the rest of the world. I therefore commend Ed Davey’s pro-active approach in ensuring that the lights don’t go out if we face high risks.
It is expected that in 2014/15 risks to energy security will be small. But the picture is looking riskier for 2015/16. Ed Davey has outlined measures to deal with potential risks that year. The measures referred to in the article you sent me are those which might be employed in a worst case scenario. It is worth bearing in mind that no businesses or households will be forced to switch off or reduce their electricity – all energy reduction will be entirely voluntary.
I hope this is helpful.
Julian Huppert
Member of Parliament for Cambridge
An example of the BBC "Trust" at work
Thank you for your email.
I note your further comments. I am afraid there is little I can add to my previous response other than assuring you that ensuring the impartiality of the BBC is a key priority for the Trust; it is essential to its independence that the BBC retains the public’s trust as an impartial purveyor of news and programming. The BBC is required to deliver duly impartial news by the Royal Charter and Agreement and to treat controversial subjects with due impartiality. The Trust is committed to making sure that the BBC fulfils this obligation.
Certainly it would be wrong for the BBC to suppress sceptical theories and ideas and that is not what the BBC's Editorial Guidelines support. In the 2011 impartiality review into the BBC’s coverage of science, the accompanying report encouraged the BBC's programme makers to look deeper into the scientific literature in sourcing stories. We hope this will improve the BBC's programme makers’ access to the best and widest evidence as it arises and changes - an inevitable aspect of science, as you rightly point out - allowing them to report important stories as accurately as possible.
With regard to your specific concern about the 5 Live interview, I should explain that the Trust’s role in the complaints process is at the final stage, hearing complaints on appeal. The process requires that the BBC’s management have an opportunity to respond to complaints in the first instance. Therefore, if you would like to make a complaint about this specific instance you can do so online at www.bbc.co.uk/complaints or by writing to BBC Complaints, PO Box 1922, Darlington, DL3 0UR or calling 03700 100 222.
Yours sincerely
John Hamer
BBC Trust Unit
Dear Mr. Hamer.
I am in receipt of your reply, on behalf of the BBC Trust, to my letter detailing my concerns about the BBC’s lack of impartiality with regards climate change.
You appear to place great confidence in the Bridcut Report, commissioned by the BBC Governors and the BBC Executive. You state that this was “independent”, whilst carefully omitting to mention that Mr. Bridcut had previously worked for the BBC for a period of 12 years, in a variety of roles. Such an omission does not inspire confidence.
Neither do the qualifications of Mr. Bridcut, who concluded that the Seminar included “some of the best scientific experts”. Please explain to me how Mr. Bridcut’s specialist knowledge of English 20th Century composers, in any way qualify him to pronounce on matters of science, or scientific expertise?
Then you make the dully predictable “consensus” argument and “appeal to authority”. In this case, the Royal Society.
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels. It is a way to avoid meaningful debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator, who happens to be right, which means that he, or she, has results that are verifiable by real world data and experiments. In science consensus is irrelevant. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
The historical track record of scientific consensus is nothing but dismal. Many examples can be cited, here are a few:
Nicholas Copernicus experienced the effects of the prevailing consensus when he advanced theories that planet Earth was not the centre of the Universe.
Lord Kelvin (the first UK scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords and President of the Royal Society) uttered these immortal words, just 5 years before Einstein upset the Newtonian apple cart. “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement"
Finally, probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had, indeed, drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology, until 1961. It took the “consensus” fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=MC2. This is a theory that has been repeatedly tested in real world experiments. Unfortunately the same rigour has not been applied to Climate Change theory, much of which is “supported” by unverifiable computer models, rather than real World, observational, science.
Finally with regards to the BBC’s pro-environmental bias. Only today BBC 5 Live interviewed committed AGW alarmist Bob Ward (Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change) for several minutes unopposed. Naturally Mr. Ward was less than enthusiastic at the recent developments with regard to fracking.
The presenter then said she'd read out a 'few of your texts that have come in'.....before stringing off 4 anti-fracking messages in a row, with not a single pro-fracking text to compare to.
Accordingly you need to reconsider your misleading and shallow reply to me.
Hupert said:
"I hope this is helpful.
Julian Huppert"
Is he trying euphemistically..... to extracting the urine?
If the current Private Eye is to be believed, the Tele has just hired a new clutch of SEO professionals, partly at the expense of journalist positions. (The Eye also has an article by 'Old McSparky' on Scottish renewables: nothing very new but it seems the organ is no longer (as reported by others) ignoring the issue.)
http://news-watch.co.uk/?q=articles/2014/06/27/bbc-complaints-ruling-major-threat-free-speech
Someone else thinks the BBC report is a threat to free speech..
KnR asks "I wonder if the BBC would ever consider that no one that does not believe in god should be given air time , after all the 'experts' such as priest are in no doubt he does exist therefore who those 'none-experts' to cast doubt on this claim ?"
Well it happens. All sorts of religions are allowed to state their case on "Thought for the Day" regardless of the fact that they consistently contradict each other and have no proof for any of their claims. However, despite many requests, the BBC refuses to allow the atheist view to be aired.
Rbravery: Note BH does allow atheist views to be aired, including the stupid view that there's only one atheist view. With that in mind:
If 'all sorts of religions' contradict each other, this means that one or more of them must be untrue, it doesn't mean that all of them are untrue. Karl Popper might perhaps loosely agree with you that there is 'no proof for any of their claims' - at least at the same level that proper scientific truth claims can be falsified (not proved). But is there more evidence for one set of worldview claims than another? Lack of self-contradiction is one big thing to look at. And the noted atheist philosopher Antony Flew made a study of the evidence towards the end of his life, leading to his abandoning atheism for agnosticism at the very least. As far as historical evidence for miracles is concerned I heard Flew say in 2008 that 'the resurrection of Jesus is the only game in town', in other words that this was the claimed miracle with by far the best historical evidence backing it up. (He was sharing a platform with NT Wright, whose book on the subject he commended.) I stress again that you cannot evaluate this kind of evidence as Popper would evaluate a scientific theory. But note that Popper was open to the possibility that metaphysical truth claims, though different from scientific ones, might still be valid.
Thus like you I would welcome hard-hitting critique of the truth claims of any and all religions on Thought for the Day, including from atheists, though preferably ones that understand what I've written here.
“This does not mean that critical opinion should be excluded. Nor does it mean that scientific research shouldn’t be properly scrutinised.” The BBC has a duty to reflect the weight of scientific agreement but it should also reflect the existence of critical views appropriately.
as it should be. Finally, coal&oil lobby destroy this world enough already.
learned a lot following the discusions in the comment section. Useful and informative