Journal Editor Resigns Over Flawed Global Warming Paper 396
Layzej writes "Remote Sensing Editor-in-Chief Wolfgang Wagner resigned earlier today (PDF) over a global warming study published in his journal that was said to cast doubt on global warming models but was later found to be flawed. Wagner stated that the paper most likely contained fundamental methodological errors and false claims. He further expressed dismay over how 'the authors and like-minded climate skeptics have much exaggerated the paper's conclusions in public statements.' The author of the paper, Dr. Roy Spencer, has responded to the resignation."
Re:Uggggggh! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, more to the point, read his critics, who he seems determined to ban. They are making cogent points, calling him on his methodological failings, and he's basically sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting "Neener neener neener!" and basically claiming that the IPCC is screwing with him.
As I said, Spencer is a shill, and his peers know this. He's the Michael Behe of climatology, except even Behe is smarter than to try to get any of his ID bullshit published in any biology or molecular biology journals. Of course, Behe's benefactors don't have the vast sums of wealth that the oil companies do.
Re:How is this different? (Score:4, Interesting)
Lemme guess, we're going to hear more about Al Gore, the pseudo-skeptics' favorite whipping boy.
No, just that the consensus in 2000 to 2003 was that we'd continue warming and have ever-increasing amounts of hurricanes. And neither has happened. Now that reality has deviated from what the models said should happen, we should suspect the models are wrong and go back and look at the conclusions from those models...
Re:Bad Summary (Score:5, Interesting)
If the Spencer paper has problems isn't that just an opportunity for someone else to publish? Why would the editor resign other than for politics?
The journal promises to release only peer reviewed papers. The editor's job is to ensure that happens. Normally the reason bad papers are published is because the peer review failed to work properly, but in this case it's because the proper peer review failed to take place. If he didn't clearly own up to his mistake it would be impossible to trust this editor to ensure peer review in future. His continuing to edit this journal would not only damage the journal (which could not claim to have an appropriate editor) but could also damage his future chance of editing journals since there would be no clear way to show he learned from his mistake.
Resigning is not just good for the journal, it's good for the guy himself who can now apply for future editing positions and be clear that he got there on merit and with the people knowing fully what he had done before.