Delingpole on shale

James Delingpole has a perceptive piece on shale gas and the parallels with Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged:

One of the things she foresaw was the current nonsensical, dishonest, canting campaign against shale gas. In Atlas Shrugged it takes the form of Rearden Metal, the miracle technology which is going to transform the US economy if only the progressives will let it. But of course, Rand’s fictional progressives don’t want Reardon Metal to succeed any more than their modern, real-life equivalents want shale gas to succeed. Why not? For the same rag-bag of made-up, disingenuous reasons which progressives have used to justify their war on progress since time immemorial: it’s unfair, it uses up scarce resources, it might be dangerous. Rand doesn’t actually use the phrase “the precautionary principle.” But this is exactly what she is describing in the book when various vested interests – the corporatists in bed with big government, the politicised junk-scientists at the Institute of Science (aka, in our world, the National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society), the unions – try to close down the nascent technology using the flimsiest of excuses.

Although it has been pointed out that the Royal Society have been broadly supportive of shale developments, the parallels that James points out are rather striking.

Read the whole thing.

The mind of the Royal

Canada's Financial Post has taken a look at the Royal Society, and in particular some of the strange epistles written by Paul Nurse to Nigel Lawson and the even stranger award of a research fellowship to Stephan Lewandowsky. Writing on the opinion pages, Peter Foster seems barely able to believe what is going on:

The Royal Society, the U.K.’s once-venerable academy of science, has arguably lost its collective mind over the theory of projected catastrophic man-made global warming. Recently, its president, Paul Nurse, in seeking to avoid a meeting with skeptical experts from the Global Warming Policy Foundation, GWPF — the think tank set up by former Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Nigel Lawson — linked skeptics with those who reject evolution and believe that the weather might be changed by prayer. Whatever kind of argument that is, it isn’t scientific, but it certainly invites analysis of the mindset that made it.

Click to read more ...

Political science

On Radio 4 last night, Ehsan Masood, the editor of Research Fortnight, looked at the politicisation of science in a show entitled Science, Left or Right.

The first twenty minutes or so was fairly bog-standard BBC fare, with Chris Mooney telling us that Republicans are waging a war on science and various talking heads agreeing with him. After that it picked up somewhat, with Tamsin Edwards interviewed and sounding very polished and very reasonable, while neatly avoiding naming the scientists who are "doing a PR job" on science. There was also Peter Lilley pointing out the scientific establishment's cutting off of funding for those with dissenting views. This point was put to Paul Nurse, whose answer was, in essence, that "if their arguments are good, their views will prevail". This didn't seem to address the point in my view, and Lilley's case therefore stands unchallenged. It was a pity that Masood didn't press Nurse.

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Nurse's pants

Steve McIntyre has written a splendid take down of Paul Nurse, and in particular the criticisms he made of yours truly in his correspondence with Nigel Lawson.

In respect to the vituperativeness of Nurse’s response both to the sentence in paragraph 121 (page 36) of Nullius in Verba and to Lawson’s letter, one is also reminded of another Lucia suggestion:

put on your big boy pants.

And before anyone asks, no I didn't put Steve up to doing this. Indeed I knew nothing of it until I read the article at Climate Audit just now.

You really have to read the whole thing though.

Lawson lays down law

The GWPF has issued a press release about the putative meeting with some climatologists nominated by Paul Nurse.

Lord Lawson, the chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), has invited five Fellows of the Royal Society to meet him and his team in the House of Lords to discuss issues surrounding climate science and policy.

The five climate scientists, nominated by Sir Paul Nurse, the President of the Royal Society, refused an earlier invitation to meet with the Director of the GWPF, Dr Peiser, and a small group of experts nominated by the GWPF. Although they gave no reason for their unwillingness to engage, the Fellows stated they would be happy to ‘advise’ Lord Lawson personally.

Lord Lawson said he was willing to give the Royal Society a last chance to engage in a genuine dialogue, at which he would be personally present. “If this [invitation] is not acceptable, I can only conclude that, regrettably, you and your colleagues are unwilling to engage in genuine discussion and debate about this important issue.”

At the same time, the Foundation has published the correspondence between the two men, which is well worth a read. My report on the Royal Society is discussed.

See it all here.

The amazing meeting

The Global Warming Policy Foundation has taken Paul Nurse up on his suggestion that they get together with some top climatologists to discuss climate science, and has issued formal invititations (press release and further details here). The proposed agenda looks interesting too:

1. The science of global warming, with special reference to (a) the climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide and (b) the extent of natural variability;

2. The conduct and professional standards of those involved in the relevant scientific inquiry and official advisory process.

Pass the popcorn.

Royal Society hits the big time

The Royal Society's election of Prince Andrew to the fellowship has hit prime time TV, with a prominent mention on Have I Got News For You.

It's voting, Jim, but not as we know it - Josh 220

An interesting way of voting - see here and here.

Cartoons by Josh

Soviet-style democracy in Carlton House Terrace

Updated on May 6, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Updated on May 6, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Updated on May 6, 2013 by Bishop Hill

I have been doing some digging into the Royal Society's election procedures. This was prompted a tweet from James Wilsdon that not all of the elections to posts at the society were held under such an absurd system as that used for Royal fellows.

The society's standing orders are here and these indeed show that there are different procedures for electing fellows, foreign members and royal fellows. However, as far as I can tell the procedures for other elections to the fellowship are actually worse than those used for royals. (The standing orders are somewhat unclear, so it is possible that my interpretation is wrong - second opinions are welcome).

Click to read more ...

Geek slapped

James Wilsdon has set down his views on the Royal Society elections at the Guardian. This has provoked Bob Ward into one of his inimitable responses. Wilsdon, however, seems more than up to the task of fending off the slings and arrows of outrageous Bobisms. I particularly enjoyed this bit:

I'm also pleased to note that my time as director of science policy was less controversial than Bob's own; years later, we were still clearing up problems caused by Bob's ham-fisted approach to the communication of climate science and climate policy; a service which he now provides with his unique brand of terrier-like tenacity for the LSE's Grantham Institute.

Ouch.

Royal pickle

Updated on May 5, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Last week, the Royal Society announced the list of new appointments to the fellowship for 2013. For climate geeks the only familiar name that of Imperial's Joanna Haigh, who specialises in the solar influence on climate and who, to the best of my knowledge, has not been associated with any kind of activism. I've spotted one other climate scientist, but not one I've come across before.

Unfortunately, the society seems to have got itself into a bit of a pickle over its decision to elevate Prince Andrew to the fellowship too.

As James Wilsdon bluntly puts it this morning:

Click to read more ...

Royal Society responds to Lawson?

Readers may remember that Nigel Lawson had responded positively to Paul Nurse's offer to put forward some scientists who wanted to engage on the great global warming questions. Today, Hannah Devlin, the science editor at the Times, has tweeted that the Royal Society has now sent GWPF a list of scientists who are willing to take part:

I hear @royalsociety has sent @TheGWPF list of top scientists who'd be happy to provide sound advice on evidence for climate change 1/2

I do hope @TheGWPF takes @royalsociety up on this offer to engage with mainstream scientific community 2/2

Nothing from GWPF itself yet.

Update on May 2, 2013 by Bishop Hill

GWPF tweet that they have had nothing from Sir Paul:

@hannahdev @royalsociety sorry, but we have received no such letter

Somebody at the Royal Society press office may be in trouble, I reckon.

The Royal Society: the UK's independent voice on science

Updated on May 1, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Readers may remember the mysterious Murphy et al paper on climate sensitivity, which used the same data as Forster and Gregory but came up with a much higher estimate of sensitivity. The paper did not attempts to explain the difference and Murphy subsequently failed to respond to requests for information.

Chris Horner has been doing sterling work trying to obtain any data and code and correspondence relating to the paper from NOAA, where Murphy works and one of his co-authors Susan Solomon worked at the time. This recently led to the release of a whole batch of Solomon correspondence, although little of it appeared to have any relevance to the paper. However, there were a few bits and pieces of interest.

One of these was a series of drafts of a Royal Society statement on the COP15 negotiations in Copenhagen around the time of of Climategate. I have compiled these into a single PDF which you can see at the link at the bottom of the post. What is interesting about them is that the drafts are annotated with what I assume must be Solomon's thoughts.

Click to read more ...

An encounter with a nobellist

In the comments, The Leopard in the Basement posts an excerpt from Nicholas Nassim Taleb's Antifragile in which the author encounters a Nobel prizewinner:

As I was writing this book, I overheard on a British Air flight a gentleman explain to the flight attendant less than two seconds into the conversation (meant to be about whether he liked cream and sugar in his coffee) that he won the Nobel Prize in Medicine “and Physiology” in addition to being the president of a famous monarchal academy. The flight attendant did not know what the Nobel was, but was polite, so he kept repeating “the Nobel Prize” hoping that she would wake up from her ignorance. I turned around and recognized him, and the character suddenly deflated. As the saying goes, it is hardest to be a great man to one’s chambermaid. And marketing beyond conveying information is insecurity.

We accept that people who boast are boastful and turn people off.

Paul and the pug dog

Under Paul Nurse's stewardship, the Royal Society has taken some, ahem, interesting decisions. Its latest though is quite extraordinary. The society has hilariously decided to award the lucrative Wolfson Research Merit award to Stephan Lewandowsky! Jo Nova has the story.

He’s the psychologist who is expert in an imaginary group of humans called “Climate deniers”. Neither he, nor anyone else has ever met one but he discovered their imaginary motivations by surveying the confused groups who hate them. As you would, right?

It's hard to imagine anything funnier. If Manchester United signed up a three-legged pug dog to play centre forward you wouldn't laugh any less.

First Erlich, now Lewandowsky. What next? Homeopaths? A fellowship for Kim Jong Il? A cabbage patch doll?

I wonder what the fellows make of it?

Update on Apr 29, 2013 by Bishop Hill

The story was actually broken by Geoff Chambers here.