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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.
The Physical Evidence of Earth's Unstoppable 1,500-Year Climate Cycle
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
Why ask readers to submit evidence of bias? Why would they be more likely to find such evidence than scientists making counter-claims? This will probably result in nothing more than readers submitting every article on climate change that they disagree with.
Some attitudes replaced or by cgi optimizes
As I argued here, you don't know if there's bias until you see scientists making valid predictions and still being shut out. What counts as a valid prediction in climate sciences? No one is going to say that "next year, global temp. readings will increase by 1 degree". No one will even predict the *sign* of the change next year. What they will predict is trends over e.g., the next five years. But then, you have to gather a statistically significant number of these to rule out luck. So, you'd need to get those right several times to validate your model. Accounting for varing CO2 emissions, of course, complicates it. I doubt there's enough evidence time-history (following a previous prediction) to falsify anyone's theory. That's the problem.
Btw, the summary implies Lomborg denies that climate change is real. That's not true. In The Skeptical Environmentalist, his claim is that the media misrepresent the various probabilities of the different scenarios, and that the costs of significant changes (like Kyoto, and by extension, anything more stringent than Kyoto) are not justified by the benefits they would yield. That's not the same as denying the existence of climate change.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
I work in a related field, and don't think that any counter-claims are being stifled. Although it is entirely possible they are escaping my notice, I've not heard of cover-ups or censorship happening. I think the truth simply is that there is a general consensus that the IPCC reports are a good summation of our global knowledge--attempting to give equal space for climate change skepticism is unrepresentative of the scientific community, and in my opinion it creates an illusion of controversy when there really isn't controversy.
He never really did, just that the evidence was inconclusive. Now he believe global warming to be real (the evidence has become stronger), Lomborg just claim that adapting to a changing climate makes more economic sense than trying to control the climate.
Comparing the cost of trying to adapt to a changing climate with the cost of trying to prevent climate change is certainly a worthwhile, especially as global warming based on past actions is already inevitable.
Of course, evidence will be provided. Bias will be shown. And then the Office of Officious Stifling of Problematic Counter-Claims will whip into action, after tea, and promptly stifle the case. Unless, of course, no evidence of bias is presented.
Should no evidence be provided, the Bureau of Studious Demogoguery will fly into the thick of it, again, after tea, and immediately claim that lack of evidence is proof that the OOSPCC pre-stifled the evidence. At which point, the Ministry of Moderated Judgementalism will, uncharacteristically before tea, issue a statement that they will review, ponder, and further investigate the possiblity of a need to issue a further statement at some future date, as yet unspecified, as to whether or not to take the BSD's statement at face value, or have tea.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Many who suggest that western nations are not the primary cause of climate change are described as if they deny there is any climate change. Thay is unfair and inaccurate, and often what happens when Bjørn Lomborg is mentioned. You may want to look at the call by (un)Scientific American magazine for articles that "debunked" Bjørn Lomborg conclusions in his book "The Skeptical Environmentalist". If they were interested in science the call would have been for articles about the research involved, for or against.
No brain, no pain.
Look, I happen to lean more towards believing in human/industry induced global warming than not, but I really want to see more of this type of open-minded thinking which presumably (hopefully) will permeate the BBC studies. It's the only way we're ever going to get a handle on this issue. Despite what Al Gore would have you think it is not a black-and-white issue.
why? forty-two.
"Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/570 2/1686/
Saying that there's only one serious opposition researcher is almost implying "so everybody else thinks he's wrong." That's hardly the way to give isolated researchers the courage to stand up and say "and I agree with him."
John
LOL, you are new at this internet thing, right? Exactly how far do you think you have to go to find claims that global warming is a hoax?
Pointing out that the overwhelming majority of such articles in the popular press have zero scientific credibility is merely a public service, and it has NOTHING to do with what the BBC is looking for. The BCC are looking for real, scientific arguments against global warming that have been suppressed by the scientific establishment. You won't find it on some internet tabloid, if it exists at all. It is more likely to be on the homepage of some fringe university researcher in danger of getting fired.
> Best according to what criteria?
Duh! Best according to it is GoodFact or BadFact. Remember, debate on the issue is now closed so any fact that doesn't support the Official State Truth is sedition against the State and blasphemy against Mother Gaia's wishes as She has revealed them to Al Gore. Any DoublePlus Ungood traitors trying to undermine the State must be hunted down, marked on a list to be shunned and defunded and if that doesn't solve the problem we will put em in reeducation camps after we decide it is Hatespeech.
Democrat delenda est
This is mostly a copy and paste from another of my earlier posts with a few edits
The overwhelming majority of scientists (who would describe themselves as working scientists versus simple degree holders in the field) are academics working in academic university environments, or even in the case of goverment or corporate research labs, are in the academic revolving door. It is no secret that major universities are basically immersed in left-wing culture both at the official level (such as having ethnic or women's studies departments, speech codes, etc) and at the unofficial level (such as student protest groups). So, these guys are working and living in what amounts to a left-wing echo chamber and anti-industrial environmentalism is a core tenet of modern leftist orthodoxy. People working in that enviornment can not help but have a certain amount of cultural bias. As in most social environments, there is great pressure to conform. I do not doubt that in some cases, non-conforming academics have been ostracized as cretins or kooks, denied tenure, and passed up for promotion. So it is not surprising that a "majority of scientists" would land of the left-wing side of any particular debate, given the implications of being on the "wrong" side.
Also, without accusing anybody of consciously cooking the data, its easy to see what you want to see in data when you have pre-conceived notions. I would say that even the questions researchers ask or don't ask (i.e. what they choose to subject to a study or ignore) is influenced by their preconceived cultural notions.
When somebody says "science is on our side", I basically evaluate it the same as if they said "the statistics are on our side" (especially if its based on statistical or computer models instead of "hard science" that is reproducable in the lab). When somebody says, "the majority of scientists" are on our side, they are just using a logical fallacy - appeal to authority.
As much as we would all like to believe that scientists are selflessly searching for the "truth", they have motivations similar to everybody else (greed, fame, power, money, personel vendettas, etc). They also are capable of political bias. These motivations and bias can color the "truth".Throw in grant money and the prestige of getting published in well-respected journals and the results can be toxic to "truth".
I personally believe that the warming trend itself is undeniable. The extent of it that can be blamed on man versus natural climatic cycles is debatable. There probably is an anti-industrial environmental bias built into most climatic studies conducted at any university or government institutions. All claims should be filtered and evaluated with that in mind.
BTW, this is one of the funniest links around that pokes fun at politicized Science They are from some radio ads that a lobbyist group ran in the Washington, DC market. Obviously biased themselves, but very funny.
There are two main problems I see with climate change science, one is that there is a belief that scientific consensus is the same as scientific proof (if this were true the world would have been flat in the 1400's) and the other problem is that the conclusions are not supported by the evidence.
." In many cases you could replace "Increase in Man made greenhouse gasses" with "Reduction in Pirates" and conclude that the world is warming because we lack pirates.
The fact is that even the evidence that shows we are undergoing a warming trend fails to demonstrate that this is a long term warming trend, that the warming trend is man-made, or that green-house gasses have had an impact on the temperature change. The argument is usually along the lines "We have demonstrated that the Earth's temperature has risen 1 degree in the past 100 years, and at the same time man-made green house gasses have increased 10 times so the impact from man made greenhouse gasses is
What really bothers me is that whenever anyone attacks a study that makes questionable claims people automatically question their motives; all good science can withstand attacks from anyone regardless of their motives. The fact that these studies are treated like they're glass really makes me doubt how valid they are.
Born Lomborg, the author of the Skeptical Environmentalist, that Hemos mentioned certainly does NOT deny that global warming is real. The best I can sum up his points are:
* The level of anthropogenic heating is unclear.
* Climate predictions routinely exaggerate changes or use worst case scenarios
* Cost calculations of warming frequently omit: benefits of warming (fewer people dying of cold weather, better crop yields), technological improvements, and behavior adaptation
* Given that the mechanisms driving warming (and there for the effectiveness of proposed solutions) is unclear, and the cost usually exagerated, it would be unwise to devote huge sums to this problem. Instead look for problems where the benefit is clear and a solution is available (such as providing clean water to the worlds poor) to spend this money on.
Anyone who is interested in this and other environmental issues must read his book. He set out years ago to debunk the claims of Julian Simon, and found himself changing his mind the more statistics he researched.
He does claim that everything is hunky dorry, or that there are no problems. What he advocates is a rational examination of problems and their costs so that we can evaluate the best course of action.
Spencer Ogden
I think the key problem with climate change reporting is that it's portrayed as a "you're with us or with them" point of view and if you don't believe the popular dogma, you're one of "them". The problem is, there isn't only one question. Besides the "is it real?" and "are we responsible?" questions, there's also:
* If it is real, is it permanent and not just an earth/solar cycle?
* If it is real (whether or not it is caused by us), is it due to greenhouse gases? (i.e. not deforestation, urban heat islands, the hole in the ozone, or other causes or even a combination of these causes)
* If it is real (whether or not it is caused by us), what is the real impact if nothing is done? (Even if the cause is greenhouse gases, it may make more sense to grow the necessary number of forests to absorb the gas as our gas output increases or find some other way to solidify/trap greenhouse gases.)
* If it is real (whether or not it is caused by us), can anything be done to reverse it? (If not, then while it's common sense to try to reduce the impact, it makes a lot of sense to either invest in technologies to either live with it or leave earth).
Unfortunately, the issue has become so politicized that these other more important questions are being drowned out or viewed as "avoiding the real issue" by the dogmatists.
That's the entire point of an investigation like this. If no serious dissenting opinions exist, then the noise about counter-claims will be exposed as overblown hearsay.
Ah, but academia is more subtle than that. First, there's the word "serious" you use. How does one determine if it's serious? Tenure-track professors? Well, what if it's rather difficult to get a tenure-track job as a climatologist if you don't advocate the consensus view? One would need a rather good publication record as a grad student/postdoc to do that. What happens, then, if it's difficult to get a contrarian article into a peer-reviewed journal? That's often the case, as it happens. For someone with results that cut against the grain, it can take years to break through the peer review wall, assuming you're able to keep going that long.
This isn't unique to climatology - I've seen other situations in which a highly charged issue that has many believers on one side can squeeze out any last dissent. At best, the standard for publishing a contrarian view is much higher - at worst, reviewers can reject these articles out of hand. This makes it extremely difficult for a budding researcher to get established in a tenure-track position, and then to get tenure.
This is bad enough in purely academic fields - but in something like this that's as much politics as anything, forget it. Right or wrong, there's a serious problem when no one is even taking a serious Devil's Advocate position on things, and I've not seen that.
> That's the entire point of an investigation like this. If no serious dissenting opinions exist, then the noise about counter-claims will be exposed as overblown hearsay. Or the investigation could go all X-Files on us and find that "the truth is really out there". We'll see when the reporters get back with their findings. :)
Nah, the scientists will kidnap the reporters and brainwash them to report that they didn't find a conspiracy.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If the BBC is looking for evidence that the world isn't getting warmer, they won't find it. It is. No one is arguing that.
If the BBC is looking for legitimate scientific arguments that there are more explanations to the warming than "omg it's all our fault", then I think they'll dig up some good researh, even if they don't find the smoking gun they're looking for.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Dr. William Gray, hurricane researcher out of Colorado State University, has suggested that his funding may have been cut due to his unwillingness to accept the common view of anthropogenic global warming, which he calls "grossly exaggerated." He suggests in the same interview that many of his colleagues who have been around for a long time have similar feelings and experiences.
/ discover-dialogue/
http://www.discover.com/issues/sep-05/departments
Just another contrarian viewpoint because he's too stuck to see it? Or someone whose experience provides the nuances required to see that global warming is a house of cards?
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Lomborg doesn't dispute the current scientific position. He supports it. All he's arguing about is the effectiveness of mitigation strategies. He uses IPCC figures.
In his case the reaction to his work was unfavourable and he was censured initially by FUD and personal attacks. IPCC are responsible but he was vilified for pointing out WWF errors and inaccuracy.
How can you make correct policy decisions if the information you are getting has been deliberately distorted? It's the same problem whether it's environmentalists or Big Energy.
If they're both allowed to fire lies at each other then the debate is stifled and confusing as people can't trust either side. By separating what he calls the Litany which is pseudoscience apart from credible peer reviewed science he's done a service to the global warming debate.
Lomborg set out an economic case based on the costs of mitigation that showed that flaws in the way Kyoto work will make it very ineffective and excessively expensive.
Kyoto has damaged the environment by diverting resources and mindshare away from efforts which would have been more effective at reducing global warming.
Even the Stern report contains such admissions. Certain mitigation strategies (carbon sequestration in biomass) will not be discussed for years because they are not covered within the scope of Kyoto and the barriers against implementing them were primarily political and not technical.
By that I mean that more effort to save rainforests wasn't made despite interest in the method because participants in the treaty couldn't agree on how to count the reduction and who should get credit for it.
the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
The point is that in reporting the facts, you don't "pick a side".
"Reporting" hasn't been about "facts" in a long time. No one cares about "facts" any more. You're out of step with the times.
Your perception of "bias" is the same that the BBC is looking for proof of... that of some giant "left-wing/environmentalist consipiracy" against global warming. They will of course uncover no such proof as there obviously isn't any large scale overt censorship going on. However, let me offer my own (biased) right-wing view of what may be happening.
I believe that there is indeed a form of censorship going on - but that it is much more subtle - almost at the unconscious level. On the contrary I believe the bias is almost one of (for lack of a better word) inaction/agnostic. Let me give a hypothetical example [I am not claiming that any of the following is true...simply trying to demonstrate my belief in the type of bias that may be occurring]:
Let's say Al Gore goes out and make the claim that the if sea ice is melting then global warming may be occurring. He then states that melting sea ice would endgandger polar bears and then gives an example of a study that indeed shows polar bear populations decreasing. Now aside from the fact that even if all true - we still have the ever-persistent correlation vs. causality issue, we are left with a very wide interdisciplinary problem. It is highly unlikely that experts in climatology are also experts in polar bear populations.
And this is where my (completely unsubstantiated) suspicion of bias comes in. I can visualize polar bear experts all over the world watching this research unfold and thinking to themselves "odd, the population of polar bears that I am studying is not dwindling." However - and this is my key point - I also can envision them simply shrugging this off because I highly doubt that there are any neo-conservative global warming denier polar bear researchers in the field. They aren't actively supressing this hypothetical contrary data - they simply don't think their piece of the puzzle is relevant, since they probably agree with the global warming concensus.
Without getting too off-topic and in keeping within my right-wing paranoia paradigm, I see this bias functioning via exactly the same mechanism that I believe the media is biased. Neither the media, nor the global warming researchers are unethical or part of any conspiracy... they are simply sympathetic to "their" side of the argument and evidence to the contrary (however small) simply doesn't set off alarm bells like it would to someone with an axe to grind.
That said, I feel compelled to point out something very disturbing I found while researching this reply. While I only skimmed it, this petition for adding polar bears to the endangered species list contains a few egregious examples of very biased presentation of scientific results. The introduction states
I am by no means a climatologist, but I have been following the debate and I am pretty sure that this value (14 deg F) is at the extreme side of the end of century prediction. They use the word "likely" which to me as a scientist/engineer would interpret to be at least a 1-sigma case.Later, on page 20, 1st paragraph they note that of 20 polar bear populations, 7 were given as "declining or unknown". What the heck is this? How many are "declining" (answer == 2 but have to actually look at the table bleow) and how many are unknown (5)? By grouping the unknowns with the delcining the author is (deliberately?) attempting to make the situation look worse for the polar bears. In the next paragraph they do the same thing again, this time grouping "poor certainty" with "unknown certainty".
Yes, I am not a climatologist nor an expert in polar bear populations. But I am a scientist and engineer and I can still read research and know when someone is using shody methodology - even when I know nothing of the subject.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
If he's out of his area of expertise, what about the "vast majority of scientists" that supposedly are on board the global warming train? These geneticists, herpetologists, ichtheologists, nuclear physicists, petroleum engineers, etc. If they've actually weighed in at all, they're certainly out of their areas of expertise.
And yet the GP posted logged in, and gave a concrete example to support his views. Yet you're posting AC (as am I, but hey), and give no more example than "stories of good ideas being suppressed are not hard to come by". Stories aren't hard to come by? Golly gee, neither are stories of UFOs. Shall we start taking all urban legends seriously, or just the ones you want us to?
Really, why should we take you seriously, when you neither provide compelling evidence, nor your username?
Thanks for the great link.
Multiply this experience with that of his like-minded colleagues and you clear evidence that the politicization of global warming is a self-sustaining and corrupt.
an ill wind that blows no good
As someone who went to grad school in climatology, I have to say, in a word: No. Most of us have personally read the actual scientific studies and not the media "report", and our findings are that climate change really is happening. We also don't disagree with the finding that this is due to humans more than doubling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in the past 150 years. This work has been supported by studies in climate science and geology, so it's not just one field of science. These are settled matters within the climate science community, and any efforts to stir up that there's a "debate" is sensationalist media misrepresenting science. What is up for debate is the outcome of climate change and what should (and can) be done. Clearly things are changing, but the picture of how things will change is just beginning to become clear, and so most scientists choose to voice caution: we don't know for certain what is going to happen, but we might want to think about what we're doing because rapid change is likely to be bad (and expensive).
I'll give you the sensationalism on the part of the media, as far as the rest I'm going to kindly ask you to stop talking out of your ass. Calling the character of climate scientists into question is the most common hack for people who can't produce any valid scientific counter-arguments. A great deal of scientific "reporting" in this area does little justice to the actual science they're reporting on. I'm going to call FUD on the "push by global warming scientists". We go through the same peer review process as any other branch of science, we don't publish our most "outlandish" theories, we publish what we find. Actually, a great deal of restraint is exercised by most scientists due to the political nature of the field. There are of course a couple of people who will do something sensational (i.e. the man who claimed a link between hurricanes and global warming), but this happens in other fields too. When it does, the community usually self-polices: i.e. this man took a lot of flak for inside the community precisely because his work was a little too speculative and did some hard to his credibility with the rest of the community.
I'll submit to you that he is less out of his area of expertise (hurricane meteorology vs. climate scientist) than many of the climate scientists who are using polar bear population data to make their case for global warming. To be clear, I am not trying to discredit anyone - simply point out that this debate is (or should be) very interdisciplinary and that no one group will be experts in everything.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
The only thing I find unsubstantiated is your assertion that the facts were fabricated. Accusing Prof Rowland and Molina of using fabricated evidence is a serious charge that must be backed up by solid evidence.
Otherwise, I will assume that you are engaged in politically motivated slander.
Afraid of a 6 billon year old world? Creationists. Afraid of space miliarization/the future? Moon landing deniers. Afraid of the free market? Communists. Afraid of disease? Homeopathy. Afraid of secular education? Home Schoolers.
This is just a pet peeve of mine, but fear of secular education isn't the only reason anybody home schools. That is, not all home schoolers are religious nuts trying to indoctrinate their children and keep them from some kind of "bad thoughts" out there. I was home taught for entirely different reasons (social troubles in big, lowest-common-denominator, shut-up-sit-still-and-memorize-this public schools, and the inability to pay for smaller, more progressive private schools that could cater to gifted students) and I'm about the most anti-dogmatic person I know. And I'm now almost through with university, with very good grades, so I can't complain about the quality of the education either.
That's all, just wanted to harp on that. Home school != religious indoctrination.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
So if only bonafide experts in the climate science can dispute global warming, the do you accept that only bonafide experts in climate science can *advocate* global warming, etc.?
From the Global Warming Petition:
"During the past 2 years, more than 17,100 basic and applied American scientists, two-thirds with advanced degrees, have signed the Global Warming Petition."
So...that's 2/3, or, 5610 of them we can cross off. No advanced degree, not a scientist, so not a climate scientist.
"Signers of this petition so far include 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists..."
Whoever in this list is not a "climate scientist" is also not allowed to advocate. Too bad they don't break it out. Wait...did I see there were meteorologists in that list? They CERTIANLY, can't advocate for global warming.
"Signers of this petition also include 5,017 scientists whose fields of specialization in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and other life sciences..."
Puleeze...Chemistry? What do they know about Global Warming....BUUUZZZZ another 5K advocates gone.
"approximately 2,400 individuals have signed the petition who are trained in fields other than science..."
Must be the polititicians, "activists" and Slashdotterts....cross them off.
So we start with 17k, less 5000, less 2400, less another 5k. So that leaves us with about 4000. And in reality, I bet quite a few of them are not "climate scientists".
So be careful when you start discounting someone's opinions and/or work just because they don't have the title that you want to see after their name.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
And I think you have an extremely naive view of how science works. I have spent my entire career working with scientists, including a couple of Nobel prize winners. Bias, ego and simple ass covering do play a huge part in science. I am simply amazed that so many so-called scientists aren't aware of this. Every major scientific endeavor I have been involved with has been full of such stuff and it has a major affect on what gets explored and what gets reported and communicated. Every academic department I have been in that was involved in anything even close to controversial or in question was full of ego battles and just really, really nasty politics. Maybe my experience is unusual but I don't think so. And in fact it is much, much worse in fields, like global climatology, where you can't do experiments to physically prove your point. So if you think that some scientist who has made a career of a certain position or even just published a few papers with a certain stance is going to stand up and say "sorry I was wrong" you are way off base. That would be a career killer and very few have the courage to do that. Especially if the evidence that they were "wrong" is unclear, impossible to prove or based on a computer model. My basic tenant is if they can't predict the weather next week (which they still can't do very accurately) why should I believe they can predict the weather 20 years from now?
Then Al Gore forced us to buy low flow toilettes to save fresh water, but opened a Damn so he could take a canoe trip.
I don't know about the rest of your post but this is definitely a lie, Mr. Pot.
What happens, then, if it's difficult to get a contrarian article into a peer-reviewed journal? That's often the case, as it happens. For someone with results that cut against the grain, it can take years to break through the peer review wall, assuming you're able to keep going that long
That is not why people don't get into peer reviewed journals. Good peer reviewed journals publish 'against the grain' papers all the time. What prevents publications getting into good journals is if their analyses are questionable or their results aren't repeatable. In most areas of science, journals are hungry for interesting papers. Research that simply repeats existing findings gets boring and of no interest.
This isn't unique to climatology - I've seen other situations in which a highly charged issue that has many believers on one side can squeeze out any last dissent.
Again, that is not why people get squeezed out. It is not a matter of 'believers', it is about the quality of research.
At best, the standard for publishing a contrarian view is much higher
And that is as things should be. As Carl Sagan said, extraordinary views require extraordinary evidence. Contrary views should require out-of-the-ordinary evidence.
at worst, reviewers can reject these articles out of hand. This makes it extremely difficult for a budding researcher to get established in a tenure-track position, and then to get tenure.
In quality journals, editors don't accept such out-of-hand rejections. There are much-used appeal processes, and the opinion of a reviewer who simply rejected an article 'out-of-hand' would not last long. Reviewers have to justify their rejections in the same way as the authors of papers have to justify their findings.
I know this because I have worked to get controversial papers through review processes, and I have also acted as a peer reviewer.
Right or wrong, there's a serious problem when no one is even taking a serious Devil's Advocate position on things, and I've not seen that.
This is just not true. The entire peer review process is a Devil's Advocate process. The phrase 'peer review' explains it - papers aren't being reviewed by friends of the author, but almost always the reviewing panel includes those who are competitors of the author, often competing in the same country for the same funding!
The peer review process works because it is so much a Devil's Advocate process, and publications have to pass through that.