Posted on 10/16/2010 6:09:01 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
***********************************************
In perhaps the biggest critique delivered against the current state of global warming research "consensus", since "climategate" at the University of East Anglia, a renowned physics professor has written a lengthy letter resigning from the American Physical Society and condemning the state of warming research.
The letter was penned by Harold Lewis, an Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is addressed to Curtis G. Callan Jr, Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society.
Professor Lewis enjoyed a decorated career. A World War II veteran, entering the world of academia upon his return home, Professor Lewis wrote multiple books and made valuable contributions to the fields of missile defense and nuclear
power. Recently, Professor Lewis took an interest to the topic of global warming research, as many of his physicist colleagues were becoming actively engaged in it.
What he found was alarming to him and in his resignation letter, he voices outrage and what he feels is a financially-motivated fraud that is corrupting his fellow scientists. His following resignation letter was published, in its entirety, by the Academic Advisory Council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), which he became a member of late this year. The GWPF is a UK think tank that takes a critical stance on proposed global warming legislation.
Professor Lewis writes:
Dear Curt:
When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?
How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.
It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.
So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:
1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate
2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.
3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.
4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.<
5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.
6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.
APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?
I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.
I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.
Hal
California meteorologist turned blogger Anthony Watts describes it as "a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door". Whether you agree or disagree with the current state of global warming research, it's hard to argue with that assertion.
Here we have a prominent researcher in one of the primary fields of global warming research -- physics -- putting his reputation on the line to challenge what he feels is clear and present wrongdoing.
Even if you believe that mankind is causing warming, the fact that vast sums of money are being poured into research to prove and examine mankind's supposed contribution to warming is certainly troublesome.
After, all, as seen with politics and religion, the dollar is the almighty corrupter. While many researchers that would be loathe to publish biased materials and potentially fraudulent materials for a grant, there's likely many that wouldn't be.
The APS is the world's second largest organization of physicists, behind the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.
If a scientist wants grant money, he will follow the party line. This puts all scientific research in question, because the government is paying for it.
Powerful words. Many of us here at FR have said that the money breeds corruption. These so-called "scientists" are nothing but elitist frauds bilking the public largess. Those involved should be jailed.
If they are Libs/Progressives they have no morals to begin with. Liberalism & morality are mutually exclusive.
Far more lucrative to follow the mob than to take a principled stand aginst this sort of enviro-quackery.
Physics is not a primary field of global warming research, though it should be, and that is the problem. 99% of physicists who pursue research are doing so in main line areas of physical phenomena that have absolutely nothing to do with global warming whatsoever. It is their "c" students in freshmen physics for everyone who went into environmental research.
Most physicists watch this nonsense and are appalled at the shody research being done. Mind you - most physicists would also agree that climate research is worth doing, but worth doing well. Whether or not it is an issue that man can or should do anything about is far from a settled issue. It is an open question that can only be answered with better data and better theory.
Hal Lewis is well known and respected within the physics community. In no sense is he putting his reputation on the line.
Furthermore, he did not resign his post. He resigned from the American Physical society, which is supposed to be a professional body where physicists exchage research findings, and discuss issues common to the physics community. Unfortunately, the governing body of the APS had become somewhat cowardly and banal in the face of the Goreons, and that is what Hal is taking a stand against.
For instance when a number of prominent physicists took a stand on the issue, previously, as Hal mentions, the then President of the APS, Cherry Murray, instead of using the membership to engage the scientific debate that should have happened, launched an investigation into who "leaked" the APS email list to those physicists who used it to send around a communal letter. She was soundly denounced for this Stalanistic tactic and completed her term under a cloud of resentment. Hal mentions this.
Physicists don't take public stands as often as they should. But they do know when they seen nonsense, and don't believe that intellectual skullduggery should be allowed to continue just because they are being paid off.
Is the Western Climate Establishment Corrupt? Part I
Six parts to the series....
Yep, thanks. I’ve already bookmarked parts 1 & 2.
At the end of the day, all that will matter is who can perform real science. Certainly not the AGW crowd. Those who possess good science actually possess something more valuable then money. They possess truth and knowledge.
Excellent.
In the 70s, department chairs were issuing queries like Who here can contribute to a program in Developmental? Later in the decade it was more like We all know something about Special Education.
By the 80s scientific integrity in my field was eroding, with much publicized revelations of corruption, accompanied by semi-justifications such as Newton fudged his data. It seemed to me the problems with integrity were directly tied to the crucial importance of obtaining government grants relevant to projects like Head Start.
By the 90s the field had attracted a number of people whose primary interest was political and social action. As one admitted to me, as far as psychological research goes, its integrity was less important to him than its power to support his political view. Amazing that anyone would feel comfortable with such an admission, but that was the nineties.
So I have no trouble believing that in this decade Physics is as Hal describes: the corruption has moved up the hierarchy to infect the purported guardians of integrity.
UPDATE4: APS member Roger Cohen comments here on Andy Revkin’s Dot Earth op/ed.
UPDATE3: Andrew Revkin, after a week (I sent him this story last Friday) of digging around to get just the right rebuttal, responds here at Dot Earth.
UPDATE2: This just in…click for the story.
APS responds! – Deconstructing the APS response to Dr. Hal Lewis resignation
UPDATE: Since this came in late Friday, many of our weekday WUWT readers might not see this important story, so I’m sticking it to the top for a couple of days. New stories will appear just below this one, please scroll down to see them. – Anthony
Hal Lewis
We’ve previously covered the APS here, when I wrote:
While Copenhagen and its excesses rage, a quiet revolution is starting.
Indeed, not so quiet now. It looks like it is getting ugly inside with the public airing of the resignation of a very prominent member who writes:
I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.
…
In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.- Hal Lewis
Below is his resignation letter made public today, via the GWPF.
This is an important moment in science history. I would describe it as a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door. It is worthy of repeating this letter in entirety on every blog that discusses science.
HOORAY Harold Lewis! Great thread. Thanks to every poster.
bookmark
Thanks for the ping.
About a year ago, I read a fascinating article on Florida environment and I learned from the lady who wrote it in West Palm Beach, that from the White House down to the mayor offices of our Florida cities, we are directly under the control and direction of the UN IPCC. Pres. George Bush put us under their control in 2004.
Thus, we came close to being placed under the UN at Copenhagen last Dec.2009 with the new president holding is Nobel Peace Prize in hand, asking “Where do I sign?”
Thus, the EPA can safely say science is settled and man causes global warming. That allows them to breach dams, stop coal burning power plants; and set us up for disasters in the severe winters ahead.
Thanks to George Bush, we are closer to sub-coming to the desires of China that holds our billions of dollars in IOUs that staying an independent nation.
They want us to sign the agreements set out in Copenhagen. We would become one of the most subdued people in the world.
I watched with horror that the highest paid lawyers for our government want that. The people hired to protect our freedom are working to place us under UN control.
So, America is to be the land of the next peasants???
Oops.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
