Tag Archives: Censorship

The Copernicus-PRP fiasco: predictable and preventable

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“The Copernicus-PRP fiasco: predictable and preventable” (2014-01-19). Anthony Watts concludes that playing the “censorship!” card in defence of the terminated climate denialist journal Pattern Recognition in Physics is too much of a stretch even for him and that amputation is required.

[Update: I just saw the uncorrected RSS summary for Anthony’s post, a desperate a plea for guidance – what should he believe? “Post on the Copernicus – Tallbloke fiasco please advise” The rats are truly running in all directions.]

Otherwise the dishonest scamming hypocritical denialists who tried to start a fake science journal (see yesterday’s post about the inglorious life and death of Pattern Recognition in Physics) will make dishonest scamming hypocritical denialists like Anthony look like the same kind of dishonest scamming hypocritical denialists as the first group of dishonest scamming hypocritical denialists!

“[Pattern Recognition in Physics’ implosion] has painted all climate skeptics with a broad brush.”

Yes, Anthony, you’ve been tarred by the same brush even though you’re flinching away as fast as you can. Because you’re exactly the same kind of intransigent, politically motivated science denier trying to lie your way to “credibility.” Scrutiny – it’s a bitch.

No doubt their shared conviction that communist conspiracies underlie all climate science will reunite the climate denialists, but for now the denial-sphere is dissolving into factional conflict. Dip into the comments at Anthony’s initial coverage of the journal’s cancelation. When even stalwart followers are complaining about “fighting like ferrets in a sack” you know it’s worth the time.

What hasn’t changed? Non-denialists are still thugs;

the “panic” [Copernicus Publications] were under after getting hit with an [imagined] email campaign from James Annan’s “various people”.

and lust to censor is still the unslaked desire of the ‘mainstream’ scientific community;

 “this looked like another case of suppression due to the anti-IPCC message conveyed in the PRP Special Edition”.

The ‘planetary tidal influence on climate’ fiasco: strong armed science tactics are overkill, due process would work better

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“The ‘planetary tidal influence on climate’ fiasco: strong armed science tactics are overkill, due process would work better” (2014-01-18). Hey Anthony, this is just like that day the football team locked themselves in the school office and replaced morning announcements with fart sounds and declarations that “art class sucks”. Eventually the adults pulled the plug and it slowly dawned on the jocks that they’d made a laughingstock of themselves.

So, in the here and now, a little cabal of denialists managed (with just a smidgen of misrepresentation) to launch a “peer-reviewed” journal they titled  Pattern Recognition In Physics under the legitimate auspices of Copernicus Publications. They even managed to pull off two issues, stacked with their own papers, before the bullshit detectors pegged and their journal was abruptly terminated.

Says Copernicus Publications about the editorial conniving:

the editors selected the referees on a nepotistic basis, which we regard as malpractice in scientific publishing and not in accordance with our publication ethics we expect to be followed by the editors.

and

Therefore, we at Copernicus Publications wish to distance ourselves from the apparent misuse of the originally agreed aims & scope of the journal as well as the malpractice regarding the review process, and decided on 17 January 2014 to cease the publication of PRP.

Anthony Watts can merely sniff about unsubstantiated external pressure from “team climate science”, “strong-arm gang tactics” and how, if they’d only been given a chance to ‘splain, “due process would have been the right way to approach the issue”. This has to be done carefully though, because even Anthony is backing away from the stupid as fast as he can and admits, as meekly as possible, that their claims of a “planetary tidal influence on climate is likely a bit of overkill”.

Anthony sniffs that Astronomy and Astrophysics didn’t collapse after publishing a similarly poor paper by Abreu et al. entitled Is there a planetary influence on solar activity? so why should this journal?

Anthony, there’s a difference between a bad paper getting through review at a reputable journal and a dishonest journal created for the purpose of giving a stream of bad papers the appearance of credibility. Perspective’s a bitch.

Still, celebrated scientist denialist blogger Joanna Nova trumpets that “the new line in the sand is to write a paper so hot they have to terminate the whole journal!” I guess Pattern Recognition in Physics’s science jujitsu is so strong that Jo’s cute idea of flooding the Copernicus Publications inboxes with hate mail is only a polite suggestion. It just looks like editorial and scientific deception!

Too bad for Roger Tattersall, aka “Tallbloke”, a truculent denialist blogger engineer/historian and regular commenter at Watts Up With That. He’s wearing two conflicting hats here; appointed to the journal’s rigged editorial board on the basis of no qualification whatsoever (denialist blogging?)  and also tagging along as a delighted junior author of one of the papers that broke the camel’s back. Now he wails about the harsh fist of censorship while his readers sagely drop the Hitler bomb.

This new comedy is just another instance of resentful, impotent, denialists clustering together like cockroaches in a little backwater hoping to boil forth and startle a small child into dropping their ice-cream. Remember the Climate Research misfire? Energy & Environment also has a long history of slipping denialist boners into the mix.

Follow the new bouncing ball at Open Mind and Rabett Run.

There’s also a good perspective at And The There’s Physics

A bit more on this juicy incident;

  • Greg Laden’s blog: Science Denialists Make Fake Journal, Get Shut Down.
    Greg coverage brought this statement by Copernicus Publications, from Roger Tattersall’s own bitter post, which kind of puts the whole matter in perspective:

    We were alarmed by the authors’ second implication stating “This sheds serious doubts on the issue of a continued, even accelerated, warming as claimed by the IPCC project”. Before the journal was launched, we had a long discussion regarding its topics. The aim of the journal was to publish articles about patterns recognized in the full spectrum of physical disciplines. PRP was never meant to be a platform for climate sceptics. In addition to our doubts about the scientific content of PRP, we also received information about potential misconduct during the review process.

  • Science magazine: Alleging ‘Malpractice’ With Climate Skeptic Papers, Publisher Kills Journal

Members quitting the American Meteorological Society over stance on climate

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“Members quitting the American Meteorological Society over stance on climate“ (2013-06-21). “This can’t be good” says Anthony Watts. Everyone’s quitting the American Meteorological Society because it’s an oppressive, dogma driven, anti-science organization! Global Warming is over!

Anthony knows this because renowned climate scientist Steve Milloy brought it to his attention. Steve Milloy is a Fox News commentator who runs junkscience.com (no, he’s not self-aware enough to know that his URL describes what he does) along with a variety of related political front organizations.

So, how many gullible meteorologists are left in that decrepit society? Three down, 13,997 to go. This is what Anthony wants us to think is denialist momentum?

What outrageous lies are the henchmen at the AMS trying to pass off as science? Here’s a taste:

There is unequivocal evidence that Earth’s lower atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; sea level is rising; and snow cover, mountain glaciers, and Arctic sea ice are shrinking. The dominant cause of the warming since the 1950s is human activities. This scientific finding is based on a large and persuasive body of research. – Climate Change: An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society

Oh, that’s the same thing that literally every international scientific organization says. They’re all in on it! Watts & Co. demand to see every single member’s signature or the S.O.s are all lying, natch.

Remember when Anthony claimed that elderly Hal Lewis quitting the American Physical Society was “on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door“? That turd sank pretty quickly too.

The only dissenting voice in the comments, “jai mitchell” found himself under “moderation” (meaning blocked) after a torrent of hostility and attempted intimidation.

ERL rejects Richard Tol’s comment on Cook et al 2013, but won’t say who rejected it

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“ERL rejects Richard Tol’s comment on Cook et al 2013, but won’t say who rejected it” (2013-06-16). A little while ago Anthony Watts was greatly irritated by an Environmental Research Letters paper by John Cook, et al. which quantified the widely stated consensus that 98% of qualified climatologists agree that human industrial activity is having an undeniable warming influence on our climate. Much unsuccessful wailing and nit-picking by Anthony and Co. ensued.

Now we have word that Dr. Richard Tol, a denialist economist, submitted a killer Comment on the resented article. Sadly, declaring that he’s angry and doesn’t like Cook fails meet the threshold for scientific publication. For that he has to actually find something significantly wrong with the original paper.

Sez the ERL reviewer, “It reads more like a blog post than a scientific comment.” Swing! And a miss. But cue Anthony and his blog of disgruntlement, the natural home for things that don’t offer “a real contribution to the development of the subject, raising important issues about errors, controversial points or misleading results”.

Anthony Watts says that the editorial board of ERL contains thieves and suggests that right-thinking people “query” the journal’s editor-in-chief, offering a helpful link to their e-mail address. “Citizen science” becomes thug science in one easy step.

2013-06-18 Update: Richard Tol is flailing about trying the “he said, she said” defense over at Wotts Up With That Blog, a new website that shares my disgust with Anthony Watts’ antics.

Some big changes coming to WUWT in the near future

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“Some big changes coming to WUWT in the near future“ (2013-04-10). “You may have already noticed that commenting is faster. That’s because whitelisting is now enabled.” So says Anthony Watts. Of course, if he doesn’t like you then chances are you haven’t noticed any improvement in service at Watts Up With That.

As many of my visitors can attest, blacklisting has been in place at Anthony’s blog for a looooooooong time.

If Anthony doesn’t like you you’ll discover that your comments are even further out of sync, if they ever appear, dropping into the backwaters of the “debate” unread. But Anthony’s passive-aggressive interference is NOT CENSORSHIP.

The early syrupy praise in the comments by richardscourtney is quite illuminating, in spite of the fact that he’s trying to support Anthony’s practices. He zeros in on exactly how Anthony rigs the game:

WUWT has the success it so rightly deserves because of your blog policy, your moderation policy, your selection of the excellent moderators, and your oversight of the moderators’ actions.

University of Graz Responds to Parncutt’s calls for death penalty for “deniers”

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University of Graz Responds to Parncutt’s calls for death penalty for “deniers” ()2012-12-27). Yeah! Denialist outrage has led the University of Graz to censor their music professor’s ill-advised ramblings about climate change! Freedom from speech is victorious! Nothing more satisfying than a bit of successful bullying, is there Anthony? Monckton, of course, also got his stick in there.

Also, Skeptical Science and DeSmogBlog haven’t explicitly disavowed Professor Parncutt’s essay suggesting the execution of denialists, so that clearly means they support it.

UPDATE2: 2:55:PM PST In an email received today from Skeptical Science contributor Dana Nuccitelli, he has flat out refused to distance himself or the SkS website publicly from the Parncutt essay. Readers may recall that Parncutt used SkS as a reference in his essay calling for the death penalty. No word yet on whether John Cook (owner of the website) agrees and no word yet from DeSmog blog. – Anthony

Funny, I happen to have Mr. Nuccitelli’s actual response here, which was also posted as a comment that was blocked by Anthony’s censors, which seems a bit more nuanced than Anthony’s “reporting”:

From: Dana Nuccitelli
To: Anthony <xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2012 2:47 PM
Subject: Re: still waiting…
We of course don’t agree with giving denialists the death penalty, but we’re also not going to waste our time commenting on what some German musicologist said just because he happens to (correctly) cite SkS as a factually accurate source on climate science.

Given than you frequently allow WUWT guest posts from people like Christopher Monckton, who aside from being a total nutjob (to put it as kindly as I can), says some pretty horrible things on a regular basis, I really don’t think you’re in a position to expect more than that.

-Dana

Climate skeptic instructor fired from Oregon State University

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“Climate skeptic instructor fired from Oregon State University“ (2012-06-10). Much like The White Queen, Anthony Watts can swallow any contradiction without a hiccup. Here he does his bit to fan the flames outrage over the persecution “firing” of climate skeptic Nickolas Drapela, an exalted Senior Instructor in chemistry at Oregon State University. It’s dang witch hunt!

First of all, setting aside any question of Nick’s scientific “persecution” (it’s farcical, but we’ll get there), those of us with functioning brains will recall Anthony’s resentful fantasies about how James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies should be fired for their views on climate change (i.e. they describe how it’s happening). He’s even run dumbass polls on the topic, and ‘fire ’em/throw them in jail’ is a steady somnambulistic undercurrent in the comments.

But that’s… different.

OK, let’s turn to the persecution. If we are to believe Nick’s champion Gordon Fulks, OSU is a place where:

“Transgressors who dare to be different are eventually weeded out so that the campus maintains its ideological purity.”

Stalin, Lysenko, politically correct, “Anthropogenic Global Warming, the official religion of the State of Oregon”, hot button, hot button. The on-going reductions in OSU’s funding has nothing to do with it. Nor does the fact that Nick’s basically wandered from university to university for the last fifteen years. It’s definitely malicious persecution.

Next checkmark: Is Nick a fiercely insightful scientist whose careful analysis has disproven AGW and who must be silenced at any cost? Just look at his publication record! Case closed. Well honestly the case never opened because his entire published scientific output is third author on this metabolic chemistry paper from 2000. Gee, I wonder if that contributed to his termination?

Still, there are plenty of laughs in “Global Warming Cracked Open”, a paranoid cut-and-paste “sociopolitical” slide show rant about AGW. Slide 78 of 80 introduces the only science, a pathetic cherry-picked and debunked chart of solar activity from that bastion of scientific integrity, the deceptive “documentary” The Great Global Warming Swindle. He also assures us that “they regularly read all my email communications.”

Now I get it! Anthony Watts and other denialists look at this delusional no-hope nutter and see… themselves. Is this really the donkey you want to hitch your persecution wagon to, Anthony?

Thanks to Tamino’s post The Light of Day for doing the heavy lifting on this one,

The Heartland Institute Sends Legal Notices to Publishers of Faked and Stolen Documents

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The Heartland Institute Sends Legal Notices to Publishers of Faked and Stolen Documents (2012-02-19). Anthony Watts thinks the Heartland Institute is kickin’ butt and takin’ names. They’re absolutely insisting that Desmogblog.com take down those embarrassing Heartland documents, some of which might be fake, and delete everything they said about them. Of course being staunch defenders of every individual’s right to exploit others, the Heartland Institute has to preface this with a hypocritical bit of spin:

“We realize this will be portrayed by some as a heavy-handed threat to free speech.”

Desmogblog.com (apparently “already in legal trouble over the Tallbloke libel”) seems strangely unconcerned about Heartland’s bluster. As does a certain 71 year-old veteran.

“Stop talking about this!” seems like a weak position when the Heartland Institute was so quick to disseminate and interpret the actually stolen Climategate e-mails.

Here’s a comment at WUWT that calls a spade a spade:

Hunt says:

Heartland still has a link to the illegally obtained “climategate” docs:
http://heartland.org/policy-documents/death-blow-climate-science
Although if you click the megaupload link, it’s been closed down by the feds for racketeering. Kind of says it all.

It’s funny how the Heartland Institute can consider things done by opponents despicable but perfectly understandable when done by themselves.

Anthony of course doesn’t even blink.

2012-02-20 update: Peter Gleick, at the Huffington Post, is the source of the Heartland Institute leak and asserts their authenticity.

2012-05-22 update: After much caterwauling by the Heartland Institute about forgeries and the shameful behavior of nasty warmists, the true conclusion can be drawn: “Peter Gleick cleared of forging documents in Heartland expose”

Regulatory Czar wants to use copyright protection mechanisms to shut down rumors and conspiracy theories

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“Regulatory Czar wants to use copyright protection mechanisms to shut down rumors and conspiracy theories“ (2012-01-20). Anthony Watts loves to give a platform to libertarian crackpots. Wild incendiary ideas get promoted, people Anthony doesn’t like get slandered, but he can stand back with his hands clean.

Here we have Alex Rawls, a climate change denier who’s also obsessed with, for example, the Flight 93 memorial (it is, of course, a “terrorist memorial mosque”), how the Beijing Olympics Closing Ceremony depicted an orgasm, and of course “Republicanism’. He tells us that Obama wants to suppress rumors and conspiracy theories such as claims that global warming is a deliberate fraud or that Barack Obama “pals around with terrorists.”

Strangely, these are precisely the wild claims that Alex, a “simple public-spirited blogger”, likes to shout from the rooftop.

Sorry Anthony, who you pass the megaphone to says a lot about you.

SOPA: Watts Up With That?

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Most netizens will be aware that today is a day to protest SOPA, the controversial “Stop Online Piracy Act” bill introduced in the United States House of Representatives in October 2011 but not yet passed.

In essence, SOPA would give content creators a tool to enforce copyright by, among other things, blocking access to “infringing” websites. The driving force behind this are wealthy corporate interests in the music, television and film industries. The concern is that this will be used as a tool for suppressing free speech by simply alleging copyright infringement.

In the context of climate denialism you’d think that Anthony Watts, who often rails against imagined suppression and censorship of “climate skepticism” would be particularly concerned. But no. Crickets over there on an issue that Anthony would have us believe is fundamental to his activities.

Perhaps Anthony sees an easy way to harass people expressing views he doesn’t like and tool for impeding his critics. He’s tried, comically, to use copyright infringement as a weapon in the past.

2012-01-19 Update: I track Anthony’s blog by RSS feed, which apparently didn’t include his post about the horrors of SOPA. It ends with a press release from conspiracy enthusiast Senator Jim Inhofe, who has in the past seemed eager to use the power of his office to intimidate. Anthony’s late-in-the-day take on the issue turns out to be predictable, as are many of his reader comments are about how SOPA is intended to help the Obama communists crush individualism. Progressive resistance is more nuanced; SOPA is a gift from beholden politicians to media conglomerates intent on protecting their profits that, through ill-design, places free speech at risk. Isn’t that the same thing?