Saturday
Sep202014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill The credibility of the Royal
Sep 20, 2014 Climate: WG2 Royal Society The Royal Society seems to have got itself into a bit of a pickle over an article it published back in 2007, which claimed that a rare snail in the Seychelles had been forced into extinction, a later paper claiming that this was due to climate change.
After the original claim was made, a rebuttal was issued, which the Royal Society refused to publish.
Now, it seems the snail in question has been rediscovered.
But the Royal Society is still refusing to publish the rebuttal because it is now seven years old.
Correcting the record is for wimps, it seems.
Reader Comments (51)
I must say, judging by the photo posted by the GWPF, it is quite a pretty snail. Elegant, almost.
Oops, I forgot to switch my cynicism on. If there is a beautiful snail in the world, then global-warming proponents will find it and claim it is going extinct.
But the Royal Society is still refusing to publish the rebuttal because it is now seven years old.
Of course.
The statute of limitations for extinctions is five years. After that, it would be contrary to natural justice to challenge their validity.
It's like your bank sending you a 'sorry you've died' letter and shutting your account. No amount of pleading can reinstate your previous accounts because officially you're dead.
Does this mean that any paper over 7 years old should be considrered suspect because there's no method to retract it? How irrelevant does peer review plan to be?
Nullius in verba
And to think that as a young, naive student I believe that the RS was an august body, populated by the country's top scientists.
The Royal Society is a learned and august body that cannot under any circumstances be wrong.
Having pronounced that the snail became extinct in 2007 it must indeed be extinct and cannot have been "re-discoverd"
The snail now under consideration must therefore be considered a newly discovered species.
Give all the fellows a Nobel !
"After the original claim was made, a rebuttal was issued, which the Royal Society refused to publish......
.........the snail in question has been rediscovered."
This becomes a fact. As a fact, rather than 'evidence', surely the RS has no choice but to issue a correction?
In my capacity as a concerned citizen, I nominate one of those snails to be the next President of the Royal Society of London.
Any one of them would do, and indeed perhaps a little group of them could share the duties while keeping each other company in a suitably adapted chamber in Carlton House Terrace.
For the duration of their office, and I might yet recommend the position become a hereditary one if they thrive, all public pronouncements taking positions on policy matters will come exclusively through them. Their silence will make them heroic defenders of the original ideals of the Society.
And less harm will result to that Society, and to our society, and to science itself.
"...If there is a beautiful snail in the world, then global-warming proponents will find it and claim it is going extinct." --michael hart
Or a nice fuzzy one.
"Does this mean that any paper over 7 years old should be considrered suspect because there's no method to retract it?" --TinyCO2
No. After 7 years, it is to be considered Holy Writ, infallible dogma handed down from above in the Gospel of St. Trofim.
"And to think that as a young, naive student I believe that the RS was an august body, populated by the country's top scientists." --Phillip Bratby
I'm not sure about august. It's certain they're headed for a fall, however.
The paper will have to be retracted. Shame this happened after my new book went to the publisher. The No Bodies essay has the 1999 golden toad of Costa Rice (extinct, from fungal disease not climate change) and the white lemuroid ringtail possum of 2007 (not extinct, and not even a species). This would have made a lovely additional example. Main point of the essay was to deconstruct how faulty the AR4 WG2 extinctions logic was ( not to mention misrepresented in the final text), and how in essence AR5 knew but did not do a walk back. That is as corrupted as the RS process is now shown to have been.
"In my capacity as a concerned citizen, I nominate one of those snails to be the next President of the Royal Society of London. "
That would be an improvement over the last 3 RS presidenta!
Kind of like RS: the 'Rediscovered Snail'. But will it have enough slime...?
If the snails are transported, would they be RS cargo?
Seems like they're in a bit of an RS stew!
I'll get my coat..........
PS I'm glad it's snail and hearty.......
OK, OK, I'm LEAVING.......
Snail that lost its shell - "I'm feeling sluggish."
Look, I didn't start this nonsense!
If the RS are indeed correct, these must be a new strain of sceptical CAGW-resistant snails.
If we can harvest the DNA, and inject a bit into Al Gore, he will never again have to take ridicule for having a beach front house,
He can carry it around on his back
Presumably extinct forms showing up again is actually a fairly common phenomenon. There is even a word for it in palaeontology. They are called 'Lazarus taxa'.
You would have thought Steve Jones might have pointed out their error....
The Royal Society was once a scientific body respected world-wide. It is therefore a shame that the antics of Paul Nurse and his immediate predecessors have turned it into some sort of sick joke. The words of Shakespeare come to mind
"The sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds"
"still refusing to publish the rebuttal because it is now seven years old."
Or because it is now irrefutable.
Now be fair!
The RS are probably just making sure that the rediscovered snail is fighting fit.
It wouldn't do at all if it proved to be 'resting'.
If I was the snail I'd be worried. Not about Climate Change, of course.
More about the likelihood of our chum Paul Nurse stomping on it, to prove his point.
"The credibility of the Royal Society"
.. hmm when you are locked into a religion/cult as strongly as these dramagreens then they don't really care about trashing the credibilty of the RS as "the cause of saving the planet" is bigger
..Nor do they feel guilty about trashing the economy, working with the renewables mafia or raising the price of everything we all buy (via the inefficiences of green rules and subsidies pushing up the price of electricity/energy)
Yeah but... ah but.. if it was extinct it would of been due to climate change.
I understand that Clive Hambler, a lecturer in biology at the University of Oxford and a leading authority on Aldabra, has written to the RS asking for his original comment on their error to be accepted. He doesn't seem to understand how current science works.
I foresee a vacancy in the biology department at Oxford shortly.
..But the Royal Society is still refusing to publish the rebuttal because it is now seven years old...
Rewrite and re-submit...
John Cleese humour is the best tactic... I'm thinking reverse Parot sketch or perhaps "Bring out your dead" :)
Or perhaps this is a case of "hide the deslime".. :)
"----------if it was extinct it would of been due to climate change.--------"
Would of been ??? Good grief.
It is extinct but climate change also induces mass delusion in which visions of snails rising from the dead are quite normal. (;>)
It is jealousy !
Mr. Hambler predicted that the snail would be rediscovered alive, and so it was.
How many of the predictions of the RS in the last 10 years have been correct?
But they will have a get out by naming the snail Rhachistia addanotherone.
I bet any new rebuttal will go through Peer Review at a .... snails pace.
The RS make a mistake? "oh no - not us sonny!"
'Tis a miracle surely! A creature died out and now thanks to accelerated superfragilistic-animated evolution. Eh Gadzooks and Lo and behold! Something very much like previous [said] gastropod is back in its niche - how neat is that, the climate changed, I suppose......
Cynical, moi?
Read daily but don't comment often, and have never had the temerity to suggest a Josh cartoon, but I think this has Josh written all over it. I also agree with the Monty Python comment:
" I found a snail."
"no, you didn't."
"Yes, I did."
"It went extinct seven years ago."
"No, it didn't.'
Bish,
Only marginally on topic, but very important. You may want to draw the attention of your readers to the recent WSJ op-ed by Steven Koonin, which can be found here:-
http://online.wsj.com/articles/climate-science-is-not-settled-1411143565
The APS is, I believe, the largest body of physical scientists in the world. About a year ago, the APS set up a Subcommittee to review its statement on climate change, chaired by Dr Koonin. The Subcommittee invited a number of scientists - both mainstream and lukewarmers - to present their views on the status of the science. A complete transcript of the evidence presented and the ensuing deliberations can be found here:-
http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/climate-review.cfm
To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that a large science body has actually carried out a (published) review of the science. The RS could certainly learn a lot from this process - or even by just reading the transcript of the evidence presented.
I hope that I am wrong, but I fear that Dr Koonin is going to be surprised by the barrage of insults which will inevitably be launched in his direction.
I agree, Koonin is a must read, and I don't say that often. It's the most compact critique of the state of climate science that I've read.
This guy was in Obama's administration, and worked for BP renewables. He's escaped the belly of the beast.
====================
"More about the likelihood of our chum Paul Nurse stomping on it, to prove his point." --Martin Brumby
Well, Sir Paul Nurse IS an anagram of snail pursuer, so...
"would have been"
Good Grief ??? I guess some people are more perfect than others.
You would expect the members and officers of a society founded in 1660 to have a sense of history. Seven years indeed!
Nothing will happen faster than a snail’s pace.
I enjoy the humour but if the facts of the case are as stated this seems to me a genuine scandal which ought to be taken further.
@ mike fowle
How about no government money to be given to the Royal Society until it is prepared to admit and correct its mistakes?
Oh come on. If it's extinct and it reappears someone must have put it there....
Perhaps the RS is comprised of little boys suddenly growing up thereby returning the slugs and snails? Look for lots of puppies with newly regenerated tails.....:o)
I once shared Phillip Bratby's former opinion of the RS. Now I sometimes wonder if there is anyone amongst the decision makers of the RS who knows his RS from his elbow.
Delingpole has an interesting article about the snail over at Breitbart with a lot more detail. He claims that back in 2007 other ecologists wrote a rebuttal to article about the "extinction" of the snail saying that it was too early to claim it was extinct and they actually predicted that the snail would be rediscovered eventually. Biology Letters had the rebuttal reviewed - by exactly the same people who reviewed the article claiming that the snail was extinct. They rejected it and therefore the journal refused to publish the rebuttal on the grounds that it had failed to pass peer review!
SNAILGATE: THE SLIME TRAIL LEFT BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY'S VANISHING CREDIBILITY
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/09/21/Snailgate-the-slime-trail-left-by-the-Royal-Society-s-vanishing-credibility
Perhaps they are making aRS of themselves...
I hear that the restaurant at 6-9 Carlton House Terrace is to be renamed the Gastropod......
Richard Feynman warned of this in 1974 when he talked of 'Escargot Cult Science'....:o)
I'll get my coat........
An article at Forbes has links to the papers concerned, Gerlach (2007) and Cahill et al (2013).
I have done a blog post with a bit more detail on the relevant papers and how they were cited by the IPCC, and Gerlach's response.
Wow, the Koonin article in the WSJ is excellent!
Paul_K has already linked to the transcript of the APS review that Koonin chaired. Can I also highly recommend reading the framing document:
http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/upload/climate-review-framing.pdf