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Author | Topic: Harold Lewis Resigns - Calls Global Warming a Scam | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Here is his letter of resignation to Curtis G. Callan Jr, Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society.
Anthony Watts describes it thus: This is an important moment in science history. I would describe it as a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door. It is worthy of repeating this letter in entirety on every blog that discusses science. It’s so utterly damning that I’m going to run it in full without further comment. (H/T GWPF, Richard Brearley). Dear Curt:When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinenceit was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be? How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’tre of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society. It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist. So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example: 1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate 2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer explanatory screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake. 3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work. 4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mindsimply to bring the subject into the open.< 5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council. 6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition. APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization? I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question. I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.Hal Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor SafetyChairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making) Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Change "GW" to "Global Warming" in topic title.
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
Just for the record, here is reply from the APS.
You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists. -- Abbie Hoffman |
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nwr Member Posts: 6411 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
It’s so utterly damning that I’m going to run it in full without further comment.
Damning, only in the sense that it shows that the author (Lewis) is a damn fool.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1493 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
It's emerged as a standard technique among denialists to merely utter "ClimateGate!" as a name to conjure with, as though the invocation settles the argument with no need of any explanation of what the issue actually was.
For the most part, of course, most of the denialists can't tell you what the issue was, because when you actually go to the emails they "prove" nothing at all. The supposedly "fudged models" were used to test algorithms, not process data. That, of course, is the technique Harold Lewis is using above. He's dead certain, somehow, that "ClimateGate" proves something but I doubt he could even begin to explain what or how. And I doubt that any of our resident denialists could, either.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
crashfrog writes: It's emerged as a standard technique among denialists to merely utter "ClimateGate!" as a name to conjure with, as though the invocation settles the argument with no need of any explanation of what the issue actually was. Personally I don't have enough knowledge of the subject to argue one way or the other. It seems to me though, that in using the term "denialist" you are doing exactly the same thing that you are accusing Lewis of doing.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
Another one to add to the Good Scientists Gone Bad file.
*sigh*
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Rrhain Member Posts: 6351 From: San Diego, CA, USA Joined: |
GDR writes:
quote: Logical error: False equivalency. When a fool proclaims a competent person to be a fool, it is not improper to point out the foolishness of the fool. Some answers are wrong and it is a disservice to all concerned to pretend that everybody's opinion is equally valid. Rrhain Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time. Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
Personally I don't have enough knowledge of the subject to argue one way or the other. Given that Emeritus Professor Lewis has never published a single paper on climate science, what makes you think he has?
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Percy Member Posts: 22492 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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Rrhain writes: When a fool proclaims a competent person to be a fool, it is not improper to point out the foolishness of the fool. The big problem is that uninformed onlookers can't tell which one is the fool. Better to avoid geting into pissing contests with fools, which appears to be what APS had in mind in their response at APS Comments on Harold Lewis’ Resignation of his Society Membership. I do think there's a general rule of thumb one can apply in this case to decide who is the fool:
--Percy
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Panda Member (Idle past 3739 days) Posts: 2688 From: UK Joined: |
Have I missed something or are there actually no details/critisisms about the global warming research?
The nearest he gets to commenting on the science is mentioning a book (which was not written by a scientist). All he seems to be saying is that crappy management means corruption and conspiracy. Or maybe he is being paid to say these things by the petrochemical industry - since he has now joined the Global Warming Policy Foundation. (Wow, this conspiracy stuff is really easy to make up!)
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Coragyps Member (Idle past 761 days) Posts: 5553 From: Snyder, Texas, USA Joined:
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Dr Lewis just celebrated his 87th birthday. Just sayin'.
I'm 24 years younger that that, and I feel my mind fading...... Shut up, you young whippersnappers!
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jar Member (Idle past 420 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined:
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What did you find damning in that letter?
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3988 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
Professor Lewis writes:
Trillions of dollars? Not for scientists; for petrochemical industries, trillions may be at stake. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Everyone knows scientists sell out cheap--a junket to a tropical resort, a plateful of shrimp, and it's bye-bye all commitment to honest science. Prof. Lewis is far from the first aging academic exploited in this manner. I think he felt left behind and left out of the club. His tone is that of an aggrieved child. See better, Prof. Lewis. Dost thou prate, rogue? -Cassio Real things always push back.-William James
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ringo Member (Idle past 438 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Panda writes:
That's the trouble with conspiracy theories. You never know who's in on it. It could be you.... Or maybe he is being paid to say these things by the petrochemical industry - since he has now joined the Global Warming Policy Foundation. (Wow, this conspiracy stuff is really easy to make up!) "It appears that many of you turn to Hebrew to escape the English...." -- Joseppi
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
As I have said I am not in any way knowledgable enough to comment on whether man's contribution to global warming is a problem or not. One of the things that does make me suspicious of the science is exactly what we see in this post.
A highly qualified and respected scientist makes the point that there is an agenda in play, and a lack of scientific objectivity in the institution that is charged with researching the issue. What do we see on this forum. This highly respected scientist is called a fool, a denialist. a good scientist gone bad, an aggrieved child and that his is not knowledgeable and is going senile.It seems to me that something like this should be something that calls for some reflection by those in the scientific field but the only reaction it seems to bring is one of shooting the messenger. There doesn't seem to be any thought given that just maybe the charges he has made should at least be investigated.
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