What was the APS thinking on the Monckton affair?

Question

This whole American Physical Society (APS) and Monckton situation is just so bizarre. To sum up what happened:

The APS wanted to have a global warming debate in one of their newsletters. For some reason they had Monckton (political and business consultant) argue the anti-global warming side, rather than a scientist. As you might expect, Monckton made numerous errors, some of which are summarized here:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/07/moncktons_triple_counting.php

The right-wing think tank SPPI (to which Monckton used to be chief policy advisor) then issued a press release saying Monckton had proven the IPCC wrong, and that the APS reversed its position on global warming. The right-wing blogosphere then went nuts, and the APS had to make a corrective statement that they had not reversed their position.

This makes me wonder - why on earth did the APS allow Monckton to present the anti side instead of a scientist like Lindzen?

Answer 1

Dana

Problem here is yes his dissertation had some detail flaws in it, even a lot of us who appreciate his work understand he was not careful enough with checking all of his material in this piece. On the other hand the APS is one of the sloppiest review groups there is and they have the reputation of massive s***w-ups going back to its inception. Jerry Pournelle has some detailed points on this and a couple of other leftist pseudo science review groups in his a Step Further out and Another Step Further Out.

Answer 2

Here is the APS contact page......

http://www.aps.org/about/contact/index.c...

Answer 3

1.  APS = leftist pseudo science group

2.  Jerry Pournelle is qualified to criticize the APS  

This is why I find it hard to take climate skeptics seriously.  

APS is a big organization.  Saperstein and Marque, who started this in the newsletter probably didn't ask the president of APS, or the exec. committee, if they thought it was a good idea.

Edit:  I turned up this article about Jerry Pournelle, written by fellow sci-fi writer Norman Spinrad:

http://mondediplo.com/1999/07/14star

Pournelle criticizes the APS scathing review of ballistic missile defense, but one shouldn't forget Pournelle is not an unbiased observer.  He had an agenda and a personal emotional involvement with BMD from the start.  

APS BMD review:

http://prola.aps.org/pdf/RMP/v76/i3/pS1_...

Sorry, this has nothing to do with climate.

Answer 4

Dana, you may want to check this link before you slap Monckton too hard.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q...

Answer 5

It would appear that there's trouble brewing for the powers that be at the APS.  They're busy scrambling to try so salvage what they can.  To answer your second question, agw scientists won't debate because they know they have no facts to back them up.  So instead of debate, what about a presentation?  Or discussion or seminar with their scientific opponents?  With publicized results afterwards.  No, they wouldn't even do that.  They're arrogant and scared.

Answer 6

I find it almost hilarious that Monckton thinks his paper should have been considered peer-reviewed because one physicist looked over his paper.  Perhaps if he think it is worthy he should submit it to a real journal and then he can know what peer-reviewed is.

Answer 7

I suspect scientists don't debate global warming because they know it's nothing but assumptions and hysteria, just like these guys;

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pa...

Answer 8

This pretty much sums it up.  The writer of the article you posted said this:

"First, I should disclose that I am not a physicist and only did first-year physics and an honours level course in mathematical physics at uni. But that's way more than Monckton ever did, and more than enough to see where he went wrong."

So it is apparently a non physicist debunking a non physicist.

Answer 9

i don't think that it is a conservative or liberal point of view.

There will always be those that refuse to believe in Global Warming, just because to believe in Global Warming would mean a feeling of need to do something about it.

it is always easier to ignore a problem than to do something about it.

Answer 10

Clearly the newsletter editors were naive. The editors are probably used to the kind of intellectual honesty they generally see among real scientists.  They've probably heard the repeated accusations that contrarians never get a chance to voice their view, so they decided to allow some debate articles in the newsletter.  They obviously had no idea of the deceptive tactics and misrepresentation of the APS that would follow.

jim z - 1 year of college physics/math is all it takes to see through the errors in Moncktons paper (I bet you could follow the debunking, if you were willing to read it). Climate scientists needn't bother themselves debunking this kind of fluff. They have better things to do with their time.