Anti-green author dishonest, says scientific panel
Scott Campbell
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,871130,00.html
>
>excerpt:
>
>Bjorn Lomborg - the director of Denmark's Environmental Assessment
>Institute and a leading would-be debunker of mainstream scientific
>opinion on issues like global warming and overuse of natural resources -
has
>been found guilty by a Danish government committee of "scientific
>dishonesty".
>
>Professor Lomborg, whose work has been championed in the international
>press, was subject to a year-long investigation by the Danish Committees
>on Scientific Dishonesty.
>
>The committee, made up of eminent scientists, concluded: "Based on
>customary scientific standards and in light of his systematic
>one-sidedness in the choice of data and line of argument, [he] has
clearly
>acted at
>variance with good scientific practice."
>
>On his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, published in 2001, it said:
>
>"Subject to the proviso that the book is to be evaluated as science,
>there has been such perversion of the scientific message in the form of
>systematically biased representation that the objective criteria for
>upholding scientific dishonesty have been met."
>
>Prof Lomborg's contrarian views made him a favourite of the rightwing
>establishment after the book's publication.
>
>--
>Tim
Now this e-mail is one-sided!
You left out Lomberg's reply:
--------------------
Yesterday Prof Lomborg said: "Naturally, I have been looking forward to
being cleared of the charges of scientific dishonesty. My initial response
when I read the conclusion of the DCSD was one of surprise and
discomfort."
"The DCSD does not give a single example to demonstrate their claim of a
biased choice of data and arguments," he said. "Consequently, I don't
understand this ruling. It equals an accusation without defining the
crime.
I maintain that the complaints of the plaintiffs are unfounded."
--------------------
From The Houston Chronicle:
--------------------
The report did not cite specific examples, but asserted that the book --
although presented in the style of a scientific treatise, with copious
footnotes and diagrams -- was actually "a provocative debate-generating
paper."
It extensively cited a long critique of Lomborg's book that was published
in Scientific American last year. Lomborg and his supporters said that
critique was itself biased and written by scientists who have long
portrayed the environment as dangerously degraded.
Lomborg, 38, defended the book and challenged the committees to come up
with specific examples of errors or bias.
"You can't say I'm scientifically dishonest or in breach of good
scientific
conduct unless you point the finger and say this is the smoking gun," he
said. "It's like saying you committed murder but we won't tell you who you
killed. It's impossible for me to defend myself."
--------------------
How nebulous was the report?
--------------------
"Objectively speaking," the committees found, "the publication of the work
under consideration is deemed to fall within the concept of scientific
dishonesty," as defined by Danish rules for scientific integrity.
But, because Lomborg was not found grossly negligent, he could not be
found
formally to have been scientifically dishonest, the report said.
The committee said it found no evidence that Lomborg deliberately tried to
mislead readers, which would have been a graver issue, and settled on a
relatively mild rebuke, concluding: "The publication is deemed clearly
contrary to the standards of good scientific practice."
--------------------
Gee, that's real specific.
This is exactly what I expected to happen - a lot of quasi-official mud
thrown at Lomberg, but nothing of substance. (Now that environmentalism
has
become the establishment, environmentalists act in all the pompous and
authoritarian ways they used to criticize the establishment for - this is
a
trait common in radicals who gain power.)
More from The Economist:
--------------------
Bjorn Lomborg, head of Denmark's independent environmental institute, said
a verdict this week by the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty
(DCSD)
was undocumented and biased.
.. . .
Lomborg dismissed the verdict. "The committee entirely takes as its basis
the four reviews in Scientific American, which is fine if they also
listened to what I have to say," he told Reuters. The reviews appeared
last
year.
--------------------
I want to know what the truth is on these mattersH I don't just want to
see
mud thrown. Sokal had so much mud thrown at him that he ended up making
timid pronouncements and scuttling back to physics. Lomborg is facing the
same treatment. I fear he's not as robust as Julian Simon.
Scott Campbell.
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Tim Stevens
excerpt:
--
Tim
***** We have met the enemy and he is us - Pogo *****
James J. Lippard
was far more selective and dishonest in its presentation than
Lomborg's piece itself. In fact, it seemed to repeat some of the same
errors Lomborg's piece was itself complaining about (and its author
was a specific target of Lomborg).
Not that Lomborg's piece itself was without error... I think the readers'
letters in the subsequent issue made some excellent criticisms of both.
On Fri, Jan 10, 2003 at 01:11:30PM -0800, Ricardo Newbery wrote:
>
> The actual report from the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty...
>
> http://www.forsk.dk/uvvu/nyt/udtaldebat/bl_decision.htm
>
> More Lomborg criticism...
>
> http://info-pollution.com/lomborg.htm
>
>
--
Jim Lippard lip...@discord.org http://www.discord.org/
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