Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
of global change skepticism with blinders
that seem to prevent a balanced view of the
science.
The peer-review process is a time-honored
practice integral to the scientific method.
Articles submitted to journals are anony-
mously reviewed by a group of peer experts
in the field to insure that the articles are
of high quality, based on sound scholar-
ship and accurate research. A peer-review
system that keeps out the publications of
Patrick Michaels, who acts more like a lob-
byist than a scientist, must be a good one!
Michaels and others like him are not hav-
ing difficulty publishing articles because
of their minority views. Rather, the peer-
review process reasonably prevents the
publication of papers that are more propa-
ganda than good science.
The problem with Michaels and others
like him is akin to the problem that Earth
scientists have with creationists. The Geo-
logical Society of America, for instance,
receives requests each year from creation-
ists asking to present technical papers at
national meetings. Whenever creationists
have been allowed to present their views
at geological conferences, their very pres-
ence at a conference was later ballyhooed
by their supporters as evidence that cre-
ationism was being accepted by a geologi-
cal society. But when a geological society
refuses to allow creationists to participate
in its activities, the refusal is cited as evi-
dence that the scientific mainstream has
something to fear.
One of the most damaging leaked e-mails
from Climategate reportedly came from
Phil Jones, head of the climate change unit
at East Anglia, who wrote, “I can't see either
of these papers being in the next ipcc re-
port. Kevin and I will keep them out some-
how—even if we have to redefine what
the peer reviewed literature is!” As Jones's
statement shows, he was frustrated with
the publication of even weak papers help-
ing to legitimize climate change deniers,
but his promise to redefine the peer-review
process was certainly hyperbolic: no one
person could hope to achieve that. George
Monbiot of the
Guardian
noted that one of
the papers in question was eventually pub-
lished in the journal
Climate Research
, but
it was so flawed that the resulting scandal
led to the resignation of the editor in chief.
Although no real evidence of a grand con-
spiracy to distort or manipulate data was
revealed by Climategate, the incident was
nonetheless labeled as “an arrow through
the heart of climate science,” “the final nail
in the coffin of anthropogenic warming,”
and much more by global warming deniers.
Patrick Michaels pronounced that the “ref-
ereed literature has been inestimably dam-
aged.” The
Wall Street Journal
carried the
hysteria even further by proclaiming, in
an incredible statement, that Climategate
had “harsh implications for the credibil-
ity of science generally.” But a society that
tramples on science does so at a huge risk
to its own well-being, and if all American
science is suspect, as the
Journal
claims,
we are indeed in trouble. The one-time
governor turned Fox News commentator
