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BBC Wants Evidence of Climate Science Bias

Amtiskaw writes "Discussion of climate change is rife with claims and counter-claims of partisanship and bias. Some of the most serious of which being that the scientific community is smothering more skeptical research in the field. Now the BBC is asking for evidence of this self-censorship. From the article: 'Journals are meant to publish the best research irrespective of whether it accepts that the sky is blue, or finds it could really be green ... So the accusations that all is not well at the heart of climate science, and that censorship is rife in organisations which award research grants, the editorial boards of journals and the committees of the IPCC, should be examined seriously. Readers are asked to submit evidence of bias, which the the BBC will then investigate.'" Actually, the phrase "rife with claims and counter-claims" is making more of the counter-claims then they are; the vast body of the evidence indicates climate change is real; Lomborg is the only serious counter-claimaint that I am aware of.

4 of 678 comments (clear)

  1. Lack of controversy? by porkchop_d_clown · · Score: 0, Troll

    So, Hemos, how did you survive this year's record breaking hurricane season?

    I mean, that's what the global warming experts predicted, and they're right about global warming, so their predictions about the effects of global warming mush also be right, right?

    Except, of course, they weren't.

  2. Re:Institutional Bias by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Exactly.

    Moreover, scientists being human after all, institutional bias is balanced by a very powerful force indeed: "being right, before everybody else".

    It is hard to imagine that no climatologist would try to find alternative explanations to global warming, and if he did find a vaguely convincing one and submitted a paper, that no reviewer would drop his pet hypothesis and try to make his name in a less crowded field than orthodoxy.

    Remember that even if it took plate tectonics 40 years to be commonly accepted, the subject was hotly debated for 35, and that part of the reason it took so long is because Wegener shot himself in the foot by, in addition to saying that continent were moving - for which he had convincing evidence -, arguing that they did so by plowing through the ocean shelf - for which he hadn't and turned out to be wrong -.

  3. Re:Hemos and "the vast body of the evidence". by Scudsucker · · Score: 0, Troll

    The treatment Bjorn Lomborg received reminds me of Galileo before the inquisition.

    Galileo wasn't a poser. Lomberg's degrees are science...political science. He also skipped the peer review process, which further disqualifies him as a "serious" skeptic.

  4. Re:Only Experts in the field then? by Decaff · · Score: 0, Troll

    Whoever in this list is not a "climate scientist" is also not allowed to advocate.

    Why?

    Puleeze...Chemistry? What do they know about Global Warming....BUUUZZZZ

    yes of course, because global warming does not involve any chemistry.

    Er. Actually it does.

    Hold on. So you are deciding personally that chemists aren't allowed to validate the chemistry in climate science? That physicists aren't allowed to validate the physics? That biologists can't validate the biology?

    Have you ever heard of the most famous scientific journal in the world? It is called Nature. The idea behind Nature is that science is a general study. That scientific ideas can be at least understood at a basic level by all reputable scientists.

    So who do we believe - you, or Nature?