The following is a letter to the American Physical Society released to the public by Professor Emiritus of physics Hal Lewis of the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Sent: Friday, 08 October 2010 17:19 Hal Lewis
From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara
To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society
[…]
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.
Read the rest for his reasons. And then there’s this reply of sorts. On the other hand.
In my younger years, I was an extreme proponent of man made global warming. Age, and perhaps a lost innocence where science, money, and politics converged, allowed me to review what I though was an absolute and realize that my bias was coloring my judgment. Wisdom that came with that age, and exposure to a variety of scientific fields through the work of my colleagues. Colleagues who do not work in the same field as I. (As a third career I work for an environmental agency and have had many conversations with people in a variety of fields.) That exposure to those fields allows for a greater understanding of the whole. Again I would not dispute the overall aspect of global warming. Its just not convincing that humans are have the significant impact that is portrayed as human advanced global warming. This becomes even more prevalent when you begin to see a swing back to the “global cooling” concept. Is either camp correct? Only time will tell. Would I argue that we shouldn’t care in either case? No, my final statement should have made that clear.
Bobbo sorry i missed your previous statement. If you truly believe that “Science is science.” That’s your prerogative. The underlying “science” is impacted by the money. If you don’t agree with that that’s fine to. I want you to write my grant funding proposals.
Clancy–so old but still think you can break a tautology huh? I also have talked to many various people in different fields and they told me that talking to many various people in different fields is ((fill in your own funny quip, or deeply penetrating insight here)).
Ha, ha.
Ahh. then I guess you didn’t learn anything. So either your open about your closed mind, or simply didn’t ask a good question when you had the chance(does that count as a quip?). I still have that position for a grant writer. Pay depend on results obtained. As far as breaking a tautology nope. I would hope that you would know this a a section for comments. I supplied my comment. I had neither the intention nor the belief that I would change anyone’s mind. Its just fun to post on occasion. Yes I do expect responses, some are comical, some are belligerent, some are even intelligent, even insightful (very few of those). Nor do I usually intend to tweak anyone’s nose (except alfreds on occasion). If my comments caused some one to think great. If not meh (damn internet giving me bad habits. I would never had said meh in the past). Perhaps when youthful absolutes catch up to age and reality there can be some mutual meeting of the minds. Of course after thirty years in the science “business” some folks (usually younger) say I’m cynical (usually like its a bad thing, I prefer to think of it as extremely skeptical). Peace, out.
bobbo- I generally enjoy your diatribes, but you are getting a little shrill on this one.
It’s all about the data. And their data has continuously been found wanting. That is actually good because eventually the doubters will make the believers stop being lazy and get the input data they need, both spatially and temporally. However, by the AGW believers shrilly denying any problems with their data, they give the deniers the pry bar to attack the conclusions.
I am agnostic on this one. You may not believe that oil is finite on this planet and that we are closer to the end of oil than the beginning, but even the military is now on board with peak oil.
And you really need to watch the following:
http://today.caltech.edu/theater/item?story_id=24502
Clancy–for an old guy you are pretty wrapped up in yourself. I guess that is more a habit than a character, so you can evaluate how you know what you know and how/when you change your mind.
Removing the self referential from your post, we are left with your question as to whether or not my fill in the blank word play would be satisfied by saying I failed to ask a good question.
Hmmm. No. Thats a fail. Not a quip. In fact, you wind up denying the very premise of the question. Ha. Ha.
So I’ll ask this puzzler, hopefully for your amusement: if money corrupts and invalidates everything it touches, and money touches everything, how do you take a position for or against something based on the presence of money?
Screaming about some disaster or other real or imagined has turned out to be a great way to make money. This sort of thing, making the facts fit the theory, in order to keep the funding coming has long be a problem in the medical field and it now looks to be a problem in all fields of research.
Anyone who knows the basics on what science is and how research ought to be done and looks at what is publicly available is going to know that we don’t have the data to justify putting any confidence in the modals nor are the measures proposed going to accomplish much other than making some individuals wealthy and others poor. The benefit if any to global climate is going to be limited at best.
civengine==shrill? Let’s see, what DID I say? ////// “I casually count 7 errors in your recital.”===you call that shrill?
This is also interesting: “bobbo- I generally enjoy your diatribes…..” /// What, you got one standard of enjoyment for other people, and a different one for yourself? Explain your new found discomfort==for yourself if no one else.
I would have “expected” at least a challenge to: “name one.” Maybe that is too shrill also?
Why the tangent to peak oil? We can’t reach it soon enough in my book. We need to get off carbon for the future of our Western Society. Darn–besides AGW, ocean acidification/pollution, interruption of the ocean conveyor belt, climate moving north into significant poorer soils for growing food, there was some new twist revealed a few weeks ago. Can’t recall it now.
I agree it is all about the data. The best data we can get==not perfect data. Do you require perfect data civengine??? Data from many sources==averaged out, over time. So Russia data was stuck in summer for a few years, and one temp guage was put over a air conditioner exhaust. Was that the only data available for the climate models?
Was it?
#63 Bobbo: “There is not and cannot be ‘proof’ of global warming. There is no control group.”
So if there is no proof, then it must be religion. Oh, wait — what you mean is that the theory isn’t falsifiable.
Bobbo, you have convinced me that you have absolutely no understanding of science. You just like trolling this blog, trying to impress with your wit. But your ignorance runs bone deep.
smith==you are starting to scare me. What part of “best science/idea/theory we have broad consensus on right now and we will continue to work on it” do you wish to ignore?
#60–fred==the teaser at your link is conflicted. The left side makes Judith Curry sound like a critic of the AGW position while the In Brief on the right sounds like her criticism is that we aren’t reacting enough. I assume there is a longer article but you have to pay to see it? If not, is there another link?
Should an organization of people who are convinced of a long evaluated position really spend their time on an issue if one percent or less of who knows who wants to continue to disagree with arguments already considered?
Really? What human being ever does that?
New theories? “Why don’t we invest in Cold Fusion?”==Haw Haw.
Silly to think a minority position should be honored as if it was anything other. Accept the consensus or found the revolution.
Silly Americans.
China has basically settled the issue. No action is needed with regards to any global warming fears, because due to China and the rest of the developing world, any action taken by the US and Europe will have no significant impact on temperatures, even if the science and models are assumed correct.
US+Canada+Europe+Japan+South Korea+Australia is <50% of carbon emissions and dropping.
China is at 25% and rising.
Scientists claim at least an 80% cut is needed in global emissions.
If you believe the science, then you should be pushing for development of alternative energy that is cheaper than existing versions, without subsidies. Trying to restrict what the US does or raising its energy prices is pointless. If you believe the science, that global warming is a threat, then the only way to stop it is to get China to stop using coal,and the rest of the developing world as well. To this point China and India are adopting a bunch of PR stunt windmills and solar plants, but the coal plants are still being opened.
Just one question Professor Lewis, how’s that missile defense thingy coming along?
#77 bobbo
“I assume there is a longer article”
I already told you that only the first part was on line.
If you can tear yourself away from your keyboard for a few minutes, you could always walk (!) to your local library and look it up. Alternatively, you might consider buying (gasp!) the magazine to read the full article. This way you might be able to improve your understanding of science in general.
“Should an organization of people who are convinced of a long evaluated position really spend their time on an issue if one percent or less of who knows who wants to continue to disagree with arguments already considered?”
The short answer to that question is yes. Dr. Curry is an experienced climate scientist who broadly agrees with the known data but not necessarily all of the interpretations. Her point is that, although most of the opposition comes from cranks, there are some critiques that are valid and that deserve to be taken seriously. These include arguments that have NOT already been considered and dismissed.
I find your attitude in this matter to be somewhat binary, whereas the world is full of shades of gray. Taking your position, The ‘ultraviolet catastrophe’ at the beginning of the 20th century would never have been resolved (if you don’t know what that was, look it up) because Einstein would never have been allowed to suggest using Plank’s idea of quantization to go against the then prevailing wisdom.
Hey Fred: who think in a binary way? I love that geek talk, such an air of self involvement. Yes, the world is only the way I see it: I reference a linked article as “it” being only the first part and that absolutely, obviously, and only can mean that whats at the first link is all that is available. Can you be more binary?
Is repeatedly saying: “AGW is the best science we have now but we are still working on it” binary in your view?
And organizations “should” consider minority opinions. Is it binary to recognize that most don’t? Its resource allocation. Is that binary? Is risk management binary?
I reject your characterization of my posting as binary. I’m all about the continuum. You can disagree about my position on a continuum, but that does’t make it a binary position.
Words have meaning. We should too.
#82 bobbo
Some recent quotes from you:
“Should an organization of people who are convinced of a long evaluated position really spend their time on an issue if one percent or less of who knows who wants to continue to disagree with arguments already considered?”
and
“Silly to think a minority position should be honored as if it was anything other.”
This was followed, later, by:
“And organizations “should” consider minority opinions.”
You are not even internally consistent.
“Words have meaning. We should too.”
yes – exactly!
Sometimes, your postings remind me of the remark that Benjamin Disraeli made about William Gladstone. viz.
“A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself.” 🙂
Once you come to understand we live in highly crafted illusion by way of a scientific dictatorship, you will then easily understand why almost none of our so called “science” makes sense under *any* sort of scrutiny. -climate included.
On our planet, the ones that control the science, have controlled everything from our politics, the way we think, the food we eat and even our evolution as species.
One glance at the background of our new “science czar” hints at this loudly enough. (never mind the rest of them)
Our “Matter Based” science is perfect for creating an finite, resource based infrastructure where resource crises and wars rule the day and the body politic.
The compartmentalization and specialization of our sciences has guaranteed even those with most genuine of intentions never get even a glimpse of the big picture and thus, they themselves remain ignorant of the true facts.
We deal only in physical “hammer” or brute force science. Since “brute force” physical sciences often deal with large numbers (of well, anything) it is the perfect vehicle to build, maintain and manipulate a wasteful “consumer” society, which simple observation shows, it is not only extremely profitable, but also, is the complete opposite of how everything else in Nature and the Universe operates. Why go with the “flow of energy” when you can expend huge amounts swimming against it, right? [sic]
When “modern” science banished the Aether or subtle energies to the land of myth and quackery, it was from that day forward our sciences became a fraud in the first degree. -if not a crime against Humanity and the Earth it lives on outright.
This current energy fraud concerning the weather is just another tiny chapter in the “Scientific Dictators Handbook”
As for our history, well, how can we call ourselves “advanced” when still cannot the figure out how our ancient ancestors built simple stone structures and mapped the cosmos with greater accuracy than we can today with all our “technology”
Since our science *must be* the true science, we simply relegated the ancient sciences to fantasy, myth and the ramblings of some mystical prophets high on volcanic gases or some such.
Until we research and share all the sciences as one body of work, one mind, it is meaningless and serves only to divide and mislead us.
If you continue to believe, to be a slave to, the history and science which was written by “the victors” of the last era as gospel, then you are doomed to never know the truth about anything.
Do your own research. There is no excuse in this day and age to be scientifically ignorant, at any age.
Learn the Truth. -where ever it may take you.
-s
________________
Turn Off Your TV
oh…and for those wanting a more “rational” post…
How about Burt Rutan’s -the guy who engineered SpaceShip One and many other very slick and efficient designs
“Burt Rutan calls Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) a Fraud”
– An engineering approach to the AGW debate
-s
bobbo… AGW evangelist unleashed!
I have sent a dozen links from all sorts of places debunking Johns insistence that global warming is a hoax. Here is an ancestral story which again points the other way. http://io9.com/5637946/ the notion that mans enviormental impact on the Earth is alarming, the number of dead zones in the Oceans is growing, and a host of other studies on a lot of other levels in a lot of other scientific disciplines, spell major trouble not in Johns lifetime but a couple of centuries out.What really bothers me is that eternal optimism that human beings tend to muster is going to be replaced with a really evil nihilism when the major belief is the problems are too big to overcome and the sad thing is they may be right.I think it was Shel Silverstein who said “TS Elliot was wrong the world doesn’t end with a bang it ends with a whimp….” Lets say Johns right and I am wrong and we get rid of fossil fuels and clean the air and environment more, ultimately, even if it was a hassle and expensive and had been not absolutely necessary could you really characterize it as a bad thing? Then it begs the question, which is a better gamble? Greed and inconvenience over an epic disaster? Whats the conservative approach here really? Its not what the Republicans are selling.Then they redefined war to suit their pocketbook too.War a perpetual State of terror where there is no one to surrender.With the huge benefits of streaming large amounts of cash into the DOD to develop systems that can intimidate or destroy most of the worlds populations so why worry about the environment ,we got da bomb.
If only two fools can have an argument, who argues with an egotist?
I am no scientist. Some college classes in experiment design with control groups and statistical evaluation, but nothing major.
No, my interest in AGW is purely as posted: How do you know what you know and how do you change your mind.
A much better thing to study: your own mind. Unlike the details of AGW, it should be available to you.
Deciding the truth/what to do can be somewhat like playing roulette in Vegas. I’ll be the house, and you be the player. In every game, the “odds” are on my side. I will often be wrong, but over time, I will win.
Same with AGW: the house is the consensus of qualified scientists and the sucker is everyone with a system.
Silly Hoomans: THINK!!!!
#85–soundwash==would you go to Burt Rutan for medical advice because he is a good aero engineer? Ha, ha. FAIL!
Amusing how many/often well known logic errors still get relied on. THE EXPERT, in a totally unrelated field, IS VERY COMMON. Reaching its APEX with movie stars, and its NADIR with Glenn Beck?
Soundwash==would you go to Miley Cyrus or Glenn Beck for medical advice???? aaaahhhhh. I crack myself up. EXCELLENT opportunity soundwash to check your electrolytes and figure out how you know what you know and how you change your mind?
As I am no scientist, just a rhetorical egotist, and like Animbus, just too busy to back up anything when challenged, let me provide this first link in opposition that I found. Don’t know who has the better argument on the facts, or on the logic, but both are worth a read:
http://dlcinci.blogspot.com/2009/10/burt-rutan-is-full-of-hot-air.html
People always talk about Eisenhower’s warning of a military industrial complex, but in the same section he also warned of a scientific-technological elite that would use the budget to their ends.
>Same with AGW: the house is the consensus of qualified scientists and the sucker is everyone with a system.
That’s funny, because people with a system can beat the house. The casinos will watch card counters and if they decide you are doing it well, they will ask you to leave. If they conclude you are doing it poorly, they will give you incentives to stay.
By the way, it was thinking like this that led nearly everyone to declare Iraq had WMD. People who said otherwise were ridiculed. A careful analysis reveals that part of Colin Powell’s presentation was based ona paper by a grad student.
There’s a system for roulette?
#89 – bobbo.. you too funny.. howya doing mate?
anyway.. the point is you do not need a so called expert to figure something as simple as the weather trends on this planet when you have access to the *raw* data (well, whats left of it)
The deal with Burt, is that he is an engineer. Like most engineers, he deals with hard raw data to prove and improve the viability of whatever it is said engineer is tasked with designing and/or building.
They’re “end final product” very rarely engages in pie in the sky theoreticals that can only be proven on a chalkboard. -in Burt’s case, his planes simply “wouldn’t fly” if built this way. (mind you, flying also requires one to have a decent understanding of how weather, thermals, air pressure, and/or storm fronts “work” as well)
For engineers, manipulating raw data to something it is not, so it has a “desired” outcome, is easily exposed during an engineering review. -if any protests still result, they could easily “build” and test the object using the manipulated data and compare it the same object using the real/raw data for clarity…
If you hold the IPCC’s “climate science” data (and all other scientists who claim it’s legit”) to an engineering review of all the *raw data available, the manipulations stick out like a sore thumb..
Being a lover of science, i already knew this was all BS a long ways back as i have come to understand that the bulk of what we are taught is all pretty much “theoretical crockery” to begin with.
OF COURSE..I would be remiss if i did not post once again, the link to “Electric Weather” from 2004. -which so happens to have a relevant opening statement, as far as engineers are concerned:
as for your medical comment, i have been heavily involved in the (patient side) of medical industry since 1980 and have experienced first hand, it’s many, many failings. I will always go outside the industry and ask (or research foreign data) those with personal experience in whatever issue i may be questioning, -that which i cannot educate myself to my satisfaction. The problem with “experts” is that they are an island. To them, -only the “island” exists and it has little or no effect on whatever lies beyond their island (of knowledge)
This is also why our science (which i still love) -is ignorant (and somewhat pointless) on the whole. it is compartmentalized. you will never see the “big picture” unless you take it upon yourself to expand your vision and knowledge to encompass everything.
Everything is connected. -and “everything” is much simpler than we are lead to believe. A well orchestrated “illusion of complexity,” if you will.
take care mate..
-s
“People always talk about Eisenhower’s warning of a military industrial complex, but in the same section he also warned of a scientific-technological elite that would use the budget to their ends.”
I prefer a theocracy. It can’t fail.
Illusion of Complexity. Nice phrase. Sadly, being a rhetorical egotist, I know what that means === FUD.
No. Some things are complex. In fairness, I think climate prediction is complex, even weather prediction is complex.
I do agree that what works proves itself but that is not available in the climate debate. We have to go with the best science we have even though every honest person involved knows the margin for error is there.
I bet with the House, even on the Island.
So we have one scientist (or even 50!) on the Denier side …
… and hundreds of thousands on the other side.
Hm.
For the life of me, I can’t figure out which is the logical choice!