Skeptical Environmentalist Saga Continues

belmolis writes "In the latest episode of the The Skeptical Environmentalist affair, The New York Times reports (December 23, p. F2) that the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation has issued a critique (five-page English summary [warning: MSWord document]) of the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty's condemnation of Bjorn Lomborg's book The Skeptical Environmentalist, which argued that many of the concerns of environmentalists, particularly global warming, were based on poor science. The Committee had called for Dr. Lomborg's dismissal from the Danish government agency that examines environmental regulations." (Read on below.)

"The Ministry critique holds that the Committee's procedure was unfair. It does not address the scientific issues. Lomborg's book caused outrage among many environmentalists and scientists, while right-wing organizations such as the Cato Institute have defended Lomborg. Scientific American devoted eleven pages of its January 2002 issue to a critique of Lomborg. Lomborg was only allowed to publish a one-page rebuttal, to which Scientific American replied here. When Lomborg defended himself by posting the Scientific American critique on his web site and that of Greenspirit with his commentary [PDF file] interspersed, Scientific American threatened to sue and both sites took it down. It is, however, still available at the iGreens web site."

(Slashdot ran a review of Lomborg's book early last year.)

Article:

[Anonymous Coward]

8 Summary of the assessment of the Ministry
8.1 Regarding statutory authority

Point 5.1.1. Legal basis for the work of DCSD:

The opinion enclosed with the complaint of 13 February 2003 states the view that the legal basis for the DCSD making rulings regarding whether specific researchers have acted with scientific dishonesty is doubtful.

The Ministry considers that the establishment of the DCSD was clearly provided for in the remarks on section 4e(4) of the Danish Act on Research Advice, and that the duties of the DCSD can be included under the advisory function, which was located in the Board of the Danish Research Councils and its sub-committees.

With this background, the Ministry considers that the DCSD did have the necessary statutory authority for its general work.

Point 5.1.2. Basis for statutory authority in Order no. 933 of 15 December 1998 and use of the term 'good scientific practice'

The opinion enclosed with the complaint of 13 February 2003 argues that the authority of the DCSD is exclusively laid down in the Order concerning the DCSD. This means that the DCSD cannot take a position on whether the respondent has neglected standards for good scientific practice. The special aspect of this case is that the DCSD has included its position on breach of good scientific practice in the conclusion to their ruling.

Irrespective of whether or not the Ministry finds that the DCSD has grounds to take a position on the issue of good scientific practice, there is an independent point of criticism if, in its assessment, the DCSD has applied a standard for good scientific practice in the individual specialist area that is not true and fair.

The Ministry considers that the DCSD has not applied a completely true and fair standard for good scientific practice within social sciences in its examination, and that on the current basis it cannot be ruled out that this delusion could have led to an incorrect assessment of the work of the respondent. The seriousness of this situation is emphasised by the DCSD itself in that it makes this issue the pivot for the ruling in its conclusion.

Errors such as these, that can influence the result of a ruling, must lead to the case being remitted so that the situation can be rectified.

Point 5.1.3. The concept of 'objective scientific dishonesty'

The DCSD divides scientific dishonesty into objective and subjective parts. Thus, the Ministry understands that, as part of its working methodology, the DCSD use the concept 'objective dishonesty'. The Ministry considers this the usual legal working methodology.

However, the Ministry does not consider that the methodological division can be repeated in the conclusion, as this could present a misleading picture of the actual conclusion; namely that in the opinion of the DCSD there is no scientific dishonesty in terms of the Order.

In the opinion of the Ministry, it is a mistake that the DCSD allows the methodological division to appear in the conclusion, but not to the extent that the mistake results in the case being remitted.

Point 5.1.4. The ruling has not been made by one of the three committees under the DCSD

With the basis that the complaints were aimed at the specialist areas of all three committees, in the opinion of the Ministry the three committees are jointly competent to address the complaint on the grounds stated. At the same time the Ministry must emphasise that this is a scientific issue, outside the authority of the Ministry. However, the Ministry points out that the procedures chosen to decide whether or not a case should be addressed by the committees jointly was, in the opinion of the Ministry, not correct. According to the information in the DCSD statement of 5 May 2003, the ruling was made by the committees jointly following recommendations from the chairman.

The Ministry finds that the ruling must be made by the individual committee within whose area the respondent works, in that there is otherwise a r

Science vs Politics

[Tauklon]

This article shows the problem of seperating facts from politics.

http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_mull er 121703.asp

It talks about a Medieval warm period and the problems of estimating temperatures from just a few hundred years ago. The hard part is to agree on the factual data.

Re:Sceintific American.

[skintigh2]

That was a very harsh critique, possibly even unfair. What was certainly unfair is (If I remember correctly) that SA refused to let him respond for about a year, and even then only let him use one page, when a rebuttle to his rebuttle was many pages and in the same issue. Supposedly SA also got lawyers involved to refuse him his fair use rights in his website rebuttle here:

http://reactor-core.org/skeptical-environmentali st -defended/

Personally, I think it's good to call BS on pseudo science and fusged stats (i.e. ALL mainstream science reporting), but when someone with only a highschool education in science starts rewriting the science books, we're in trouble.

The Book Doesn't Dispute Global Warming

[rbrander]

There seems to be a misapprehension in many posts that the book is skeptical of global warming itself. It isn't.

There are a *few* comments to the effect that the conclusions of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are not certain, or at any rate the *magnitude* of the warming is much disputed, but Lomborg's comments just mirror the ongoing debate in the meteorlogical community itself.

Then he gets on with it and says, basically, "but let's just take the final conclusions of the panel as the best estimate we have" - the rest of the chapter is about the 1.5C-5.8C (most likely number : 2.2C) of warming we will see by 2100, according to the IPCC.

What the global warming, ah, community(?) hates about Lomborg is that he takes a position against Kyoto, based on the models and figures in the IPCC report.

In brief: that Kyoto is unlikely to delay that 2.2C warming by more than a miserable six years, at a cost of hundreds of billions that could be better spent preparing the hardest-hit nations for the *effects* of the warming, not to mention on R&D for wind turbines, solar power, safer nuke plants, fuel cells, etc.

This, I found pretty convincing.

i don't get it...

[the_greywolf]

brief look at the critique:
12 pages long, a bit long-winded, and i'm too lazy to read it.

brief look at Lomborg's Response:
2 pages, including the editor's response, fairly to-the-point.

brief look at the response to Lomborg's Response:
15 pages long, even MORE long-winded, picking apart every work in Lomborg's brief response.

i don't get it. why was Lomborg only ALLOWED 1 page in the magazine, while the critique to his book and to his response are so damned long?

it doesn't seem like the magazine itself is being fair to me. even if Lomborg is wrong (which i personally doubt), shouldn't he be given a chance in the publication to defend himself, instead of giving him one page in an obscure part of the magazine (which most people would probably skip because it's so short)? even if i disagreed with both sides, i'd give them equal chance to make their cases. in fact, i'd let it go on for months if it has to - hell, more money for the mag!

Greenhouse effect denialists my shiny metal ass

[Tau Zero]

There are no greenhouse-effect denialists who are less crazy than platygeans or Velikovskians. Without the greenhouse effect, the temperature of the Earth would average about 255 Kelvin[1], or about -1 Fahrenheit. The question is not whether or not there is a greenhouse effect, it is whether we are affecting it or not.

[1] Albedo of the Earth is about 0.3 [wisc.edu]. Earth receives about 1360 W/m^2 of disc, or 340 W/m^2 of surface; roughly 30% is reflected, the rest is absorbed. The radiation from a blackbody is 5.67 * 10^(-8) W/m^2/K^4, so:
340 W/m^2 * 0.7 = 5.67e-8 W/m^2/K^4 T^4
T^4 = (340 * 0.7 / 5.67e-8) K^4
T^4 = 4.1975e+09 K^4 --> T ~= 255 K.

Re:Shhhh!

[Mr_Matt]

Lomborg's book has 2 930 footnotes which allows you to fact check every single assertion that he makes. I've never seen that level of detail from the environmentalist movement and I speak as someone who has read more than just their pamphlets.

Clicky-clicky:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/techrep.htm [www.ipcc.ch]

If you haven't read these, then you're just whacking off. Of course, if you had read these, you wouldn't be accusing 'the environmentalist movement' of not being detailed.

I'm curious - who exactly are you trying to impress with your post? DCSD have declared that Lomborg's book isn't scientifically honest (and with chapters titled 'Pollution, Does it Undercut Human Prosperity?' I'm tempted to agree) and you wish for...what? That a book primarily about cost-benefit analyses and socioeconomic impacts of environmental regulation parading as science be declared scientifically honest? Look, it's a fine book for policy wonks, but it ain't science, and it shouldn't be presented as such. So what do you want?

Re:Cato Institute is libertarian, NOT "right wing"

[DavidinAla]

You either can't listen well or else your're mistaking Cato for someone else, because the organization is radically pro-individual and anti-state control. Or maybe you're just very confused about the meaning of the word, "fascists."

Re:Shhhh!

[Tau Zero]

I recall criticisms by authors cited by Lomborg, who say that their work fails to support (or even contradicts) Lomborg's conclusions. To the extent that Lomborg claims their support, they say it is from sections taken out of context. This is hardly the work of an honest academic.

A quick Google search for "Lomborg citations" came up with a piece on Lomborg's clever use of misdirection [gristmagazine.com] and this review with citations of critiques [earthlink.net]. Lomborg's complete failure to acknowledge disasters like the vanishing Aral sea, falling Ogalalla aquifer and other known problems with anything like the seriousness they deserve (how are you going to continue irrigated agriculture in Texas and Oklahoma if the Ogalalla is pumped dry?) proves that his "don't worry, be happy" conclusion is bunk.

Perhaps the most colorful accusation against Lomborg is from that second link:

It is as though he is affected with a form of academic autism; able to do the math better than most mere mortals, but unable to comprehend the connections ordinary people understand as part of daily life.

I can't add much to that. Lomborg is no better than the left-wing moonbats whose attitudes and claims form a mirror-image parody of his own.

(Damn, I've been spending a lot of time on Google for this discussion!)

Re:what the cause of Global warming is

[xtronics]

" Well the upper atmosphere is warming

Which planet are you talking about?

http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/MSU/msusci.html

Re:FOLLOW THE MONEY

[DavidinAla]

I'm very familiar with Cato and its history. If you'll check the record, the organization has been extremely consistent with the underlying philosophy that it was created to espouse. I don't have a clue whether members of the John Hazen White family are truly libertarian or they just see it as a good business decision to help an organization which they see as helpful to a position they take. That's not relevant. The only thing that would be relevant -- or would make your implied smear reasonable -- would be if the organization flip-flopped on issues depending on who was funding it from year to year. That has not been the case. Cato has been very consistent with its state philosophy.

By your logic, no organization can be credible if anyone has ever given money to it who would be benefited by the organization's agenda succeeding. Cato's agenda is consistent and principled. I doubt the people running the place care whether the money they need to do their work comes from dedicated libertarians or self-interested businesspeople. The effect of the work is the same, and Cato's consistent record speaks for itself.

Enviromental Bias?

[argoff]

I think part of the problem is that most of us enjoy nature, the outdoors and the environment and most of us dislike some of the unethcial practices persued by industrialists in the previous century or so.

The knee-jerk reaction is to cry out that we need the government micro-regulate every aspect of industry to "save" the environment. However, this is just plain wrong and has hurt society greatly.

1) It has led to an entrenched system of government funded and institutional research that has little measurable accountability.

2) The regulations that have resulted from this have often made the problem worse.

#1) is the reason why Lomborg had such an easy time nailing them, and their response has been so hostile.

#2) is the reason that so many people instantly embraced his book (even without reading it in many cases.)

Consider the example of companies like Ford that promoted enviromental regulations to force used cars out of the marketplace, or other industries that when met with new and innovative competition cried out for environmental regulations that significantly increased the cost of starting a business in their industry. One of the worst examples of all is DOW chemichal - where Freon was outlawed the month after their patent expired, but DOW still held a new patent on the only known replacement that is scientifically speaking more harmfull than Freon was which scientifically speaking wasn't nearly as harmfull as it was portrayed to be when outlawed.

Ironically, the best solution is a free market solution. For example, in Communist Russia - they had a horrible toxic waste problem (compaired to the US) because industries had no motivation reprocess industrial waste into other products. Where in the US a large amount of waste was being resold to other industries for other specialized uses.

Re:That reminds me

[evenprime]

Macro-evolution, on the other hand, is that which has no reliable undisputed evidence...

Here are 29 different pieces of evidence for macroevolution [talkorigins.org]

....such as primordial goop turning into puddles of proteins

Yup, the origin of life is still a sticky question. However, "evolution" != "abiotic genesis of life". Evolution is a change in genetic compostion of a population, nothing more, nothing less.

Re:That reminds me

[Wateshay]

Almost everyone has faith to one degree or another (even if it's just faith in your own existence). Faith and science are not mutually exclusive. A person of faith believes in certain truths he doesn't (and sometimes can't) know the answer to. A person of science seeks a further understanding of truth through logic and experimentation. Personally, I believe in God. I have no supporting evidence, but neither do I have evidence that disproves. However, assuming He exists, it is impossible to prove or disprove said existence because he is outside the domain in which we can experiment. So therefore, believing either way requires faith. I could choose to draw no conclusion, but my instinct leads me towards a certain conclusion and as such I choose to have faith that my instinct is correct. That said, I am a rational, scientifically minded person. In the domain of things I can test, I allow my beliefs to follow what the evidence tells me. For instance, the evidence tells me the evolution is a sound theory, so I believe it--and mold my faith to encompass the evidence, not the other way around. If I were to be given solid proof that there was no God, then I would be disappointed, but I would alter my view of the world accordingly. There are those people who wouldn't. In a way, I admire those people's ability to hold a faith that makes them content in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. You are right, though, the people who blindly hold their faith and refuse to believe in science are not going to be the people who make the next great breakthrough in human knowledge.

Re:Shhhh!

[Python]

The Ogallala aquifer is not falling because of global warming or any other doomsdays environmental hogwash, its falling because the rain fall is not keeping up with demand caused not by communities, but by farming irrigation. The models clearly show that as well levels drop, and pump lift costs rise that total costs to irrigate, not supply water to towns and cities, will rise to shut down irrigation demand. In short, the system will correct itself because the cost of irrigation will rise to the point where it is no longer viable (read: profitable) to engage in farming activites that require large amounts of water. There will still be plenty of water in the aquifer for communities, and the rate of rain fall will, and HAS provided adequate renewal sources for the aquifer.

He doesn't have to explain the fact that demand is temporarily exceeding supply, and that as the supply costs increase eventually demand will drop off as well - its well known and its common sense.

Re:Shhhh!

[mesocyclone]

Evolution is one of the best tested theories in science. It's predictive power is used every day by research scientist in a number of disciplines, including medicine.

In other words, one can use the theory of evolution to make predictions (for example, in microbiology or epidemiology) and then one can test those predictions, which is science at its best.

For example, when a new disease pops up, evolutionary reasoning (host-parasite coevolution, for example) gives researchers direction in where to look for the host of the disease (if there is one, which there usually is).

Simple examples in that area: diseases which kill the host too quickly normally will not survive, unless they have a novel means of spread. Thus Anthrax, which kills very rapidly, needs to form spores so that it will survive until another animal ingests it. Furthermore, it is a disease of ruminants, because they go around eating from the ground, where the spores reside.

Malaria, on the other hand, causes extended periods of sickness during which the victim is stationary (laying down sick) and thus an optimal target for the mosquitos which spread that diseas.

But anti-evolutionists are normally not driven by science, but rather faith, so no amount of argumentation (as shown by the ancient Usenet group talk.origins, in which the same arguments have been rehashed for decades) will persuade them.

Re:That reminds me

[PurpleBob]

Y2K is junk science, you say?

Programmers worked their asses off to fix Y2K bugs before the rollover occurred. When it happened, nothing went wrong because everyone generally did their job right, and then suddenly Y2K is denounced as a hoax.