The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is producing a report on the effects of CO2 and global climate change. Of course, the study suggests that limits on CO2 production are necessary. There has been a lot of writing and talk about how “the overwhelming number” of scientists support the concept of anthropogenic global warming and endorse the extreme measures necessary to reduce its effect. Somewhere in all this, the credentials of the scientists became a major factor. After all, if “the science is settled,” it matters who settled it.
That resulted in a bit of a flap today. The lead author of the NOAA study was described as “Dr Tom Karl”, although that bio does not include a PhD. I don’t know if the bio has been “corrected” since yesterday but there has been an impression left with many in the climate world that he had a PhD. Like here.
Day 1 / Afternoon (Wednesday, June 11, 2003: NIST Auditorium)
Session 2: Customers Speak to the Government:
Economic Benefits / Customer Satisfaction
Moderator: Dr. Tom Karl
Anyway, the report was printed with his phantom PHD until it was noticed by NRO, after which the first draft disappeared. A new version is now up with ALL degrees omitted for ALL authors.
They can’t fix this, though.
In our further exploration of the social network of authorships in temperature reconstruction, we found that at least 43 authors have direct ties to Dr. Mann by virtue of coauthored papers with him. Our findings from this analysis suggest that authors in the area of paleoclimate studies are closely connected and thus ‘independent studies’ may not be as independent as they might appear on the surface. This committee does not believe that web logs are an appropriate forum for the scientific debate on this issue.
It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done. In this case we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not necessarily independent. Moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that this community can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility.
Hmmmm.
Tags: credentials, global warming, science
So what is he, a Ed.D?
No, he has a Masters only. Some scientist.
The latter part of the post is far, far more important than giving someone a phantom PhD. In my opinion.
[…] A Brief History… » Blog Archive » Of degrees and science and politics. […]
He recently received the Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive Award, presented to senior federal executives committed to excellence in public service.
What’s not to like?
On December 18, 2002, Karl was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters from North Carolina State University, Raleigh, N.C.
There you go.
It is especially the case that authors of policy-related documents like the IPCC
report, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, should not be the same people as
those that constructed the academic papers.
Should this be called nepotism or incest?
Eric, I agree that CV inflation is a matter more of amusement than serious concern but this subject has been dominated by “consensus” politics rather than science. The advocates of AGW publish lists of “scientists” who support their position. When examined, these lists are full of unrelated credentials of the signers. Sociologists attesting to the seriousness of CO2 chemistry, for example. Then the “deniers” are attacked as being in unrelated fields. Now, we have the senior author of the report shown to be not even a PhD. Once exposed, his lack of credentials is covered up by removing the degrees from all the other authors. For a bureaucrat, that’s real power.
Dr. K., this is politics, not science. It’s the same deal as “nuclear winter” back in the 1980s.
Perhaps the climate is genuinely warming (though recent evidence suggests it is complicated). The point is that the “consensus” sold a bill of goods that is not being borne out by current data. So the original goalposts get changed.
And the end result is always the same: more and more regulation and intervention. Which is the point.
Again, if this is all a matter of CO2 concentration, the models being used would be “predictive” backwards, where we have both those concentrations and the temperatures. The models can’t do that.
Climate is hypercomplex. But that doesn’t stop the politicians from trying to throw a saddle on it, and ride it to their own benefit.
I think the whole thing is politics and left wing politics at that. I think we have been in a warming period following the Little Ice Age since 1850 or so. That warming period may have ended without reaching the average temperatures of the Medieval Warm Period. No farms in Iceland, and so on. What comes next is a mystery but could be serious cooling.
Unfortunately, as you know well, science is full of left wing types. A lot has to do with the life of an academic with little experience in managing a business, if any. The political parties are slowing reorganizing around people who run businesses and those who will always be employees and have no desire to start a business. I think the internet may actually be a recruiter for the REpublican Party as it has made a lot of people small scale entrepreneurs. I know people who make a pretty decent living from eBay, for example. That’s why I hope Meg Whitman gets into politics. She should be the GOP party chair.
I saw this at NR, Dr. K., and I thought you would enjoy it:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDE2MzNlNDJmYjlkMzY3NzkzM2NjZGNhOWNlNzU5Y2Y=
Václav Klaus makes a lot of sense.
And still more…
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/dissing_hansen.html
Strap in. The word from the Obama administration is that AGW is very real, and we must do all we can to reduce our impact.