He refers to my 2006 op ed chastising the RS for polemics denying the existence of uncertainty in the climate wars as ” his now discredited screed.”

How very odd . Last Thursday the BBC thundered that

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10178124.stm

“The UK’s Royal Society is reviewing its public statements on climate change after 43 Fellows complained that it had oversimplified its messages.”

I rest my case.

One must think the gentleman protests too much. Nevertheless, one must agree with the point he makes in his WSJ article, to wit, “there is no place in a free society for a self-appointed Central Committee of Scientific Truth.”

http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2008/05/nullius-in-verb.html

as part of the canon of denial.

The soundest measure of eminence in any discipline is how often experts are cited by other experts. Some thousands of professionals currently conduct climate science research, with a median of 56 peer reviewed publications each. All their work is indexed and available online, and the genuine expertise behind the IPCC reports is evident in the productivity of its coauthors -they average 93 papers each, and scientists in other disciplines have cited and rechecked their work tens of thousands of times.

This is in stark contrast to the 32,000 ‘scientists’ that signed the Oregon Petition, 99% of whom haven’t published a thing on climate science. Of the relative handful that have, the median publication count is not 93, or 56, but two, so less than 1 in a thousand qualifies as an average, let alone an ‘eminent ‘ climate scientist.

Fox TV’s contrarian talking heads hail largely from the bottom of the scientific minor leagues. Far from being scientific opinion leaders, such No Spin Zone stalwarts as Fred Singer, and Patrick Michaels rank 592nd and 359th in climatology’s bibliometric who’s who. Despite MIT and Harvard connections, Richard Lindzen and Willie Soon are no better, placing 399th & 547th, while the much touted ‘Wegman report’s author brings up the rear in 1,921st place

Heartland’s PR flacks are simply talking through their hats when they boast of hosting “hundreds of eminent scientists, when their K-Street pickup squad is more of an embarrassment than a resource for those raising serious objections to the use of climate hype as a political tool by advocates of carbon taxation.

The fault Dr. Schnare points out is one of the informal fallacies of logic: argumentum ad vericundiam, the citation of authority replacing logical form. It is one of the mainstays of politics, one regrets to say. (See Copi’s excellent text on Logic.)

In his reply, Dr Schnare remarks particularly on ,

“thinking about science issues for which you have no first hand knowledge or into which you choose not to inquire deeply. ”

What is a scientist, anyway? Is it enough to get a PhD in, say physics, and then proclaim one’s self a scientist? Definitely not. A scientist must have the necessary training to begin to understand a field of study, and then he/she must practice in that field – first under supervision – sufficiently to gain a depth of understanding, and finally must conduct independent study of the field, all the while submitting his/her work to the scrutiny of others for review, comment, and possible correction. If one does not do this, the result is Lysenko-non-science – possibly supported by some political authority: in Lysenko’s case, Stalin, who found Lamarckian “acquired characteristics” a convenient prop for generalized Marxian theory and forced collectivization.

This is the deplorable situation with the White house Science Adviser, J. P. Holdren. According to his own C. V. Dr. H. has never conducted independent research in physics; on his few papers in his field of study, he appears as a junior co-author. And then, around 1974, he wrote a chapter for Ehrlich’s book, to explain how thermodynamics supports the Ehrlich view of population dynamics. That chapter, if presented in an academic seminar at a reputable University Department of science or engineering, would leave the audience rolling in the isles. It is irredemiably filled with elementary mistakes, even in the expression of the laws of thermodynamics, themselves.

following that, Holdren became the darling of the popularized scientific press, and departed into “Policy Science” what ever that is.

The shame in the situation is that anyone listens to him – especially our national administration – as he preaches an ideology – not a science – and casts aspersions on the serious scientific work of others.

Peter:
Comment by Dr. Schnare, referred to above, follows:

You make the same mistake many make when thinking about science issues for which you have no first hand knowledge or into which you choose not to inquire deeply. You rely on “authorities” rather than look directly at the science.David W. Schnare, Esq. Ph.D.
Director
Center for Environmental Stewardship
Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy

Keep up the great work!

[Ed: Thank you. Jim's email is jvanne@ameritech.net]

There are some very fine scientists at Penn that shouldn’t be confused with one not so fine responsible for Mann-made warming.

[Corrected--thanks, ed.]