[WikiEN-l] Re: William Connelley no longer neutral contributor

Mark / Delirium wrote: Although, it should be noted, the Soon and Baliunus paper suffered from such "severe methodological flaws," according to the editor in chief of Climate Research, that he resigned to protest its publication, as did four other CR editors. See, for example, the following URL: http://w3g.gkss.de/G/Mitarbeiter/storch/CR-problem/cr.2003.htm In any case, there are two issues here. The first is what constitutes a "scientific consensus." Some people point to the existence of people like Soon and Baliunus as evidence that there isn't yet a "consensus" on global warming, which is true if you define consensus to mean that "absolutely no one anywhere disagrees." By that standard, though, you'd also have to say that there is no consensus that tobacco smoking causes lung cancer or that the Nazis exterminated Jews. The question in a case like this has to be, "How much unanimity must exist before you should call it a 'consensus'?" Personally I would favor resolving the issue with some language formulation that avoids the word "consensus" and instead says something such as "overwhelming majority of scientists active in the field of climate research." The problem is, Ed in the past has blocked those sorts of formulations as well. Allan Cross wrote: The problem here is that the stuff about Singer and SEPP _doesn't_ just appear on the SEPP and Singer article pages. Ed keeps pushing it prominently into the global warming article and the ozone hole article, accompanied by declarations that "environmentalists" are "attempting to discredit" Singer while refusing to "answer his scientific arguments." To judge from his edits, you'd think that Singer (who hasn't published any original research since 1971) was one of the leading scientists in the field. Finally, Gareth Owen wrote: As someone who has clashed with Ed on this stuff in the past, I understand Gareth's frustration. However, I don't think it's correct to say that Ed is "dishonest." I think that with regard to the topic of global warming, Ed is (1) strongly opinionated, and (2) lacks competency, which robs him of the ability to recognize the absurdity of some of his statements. I don't mean to disrespect Ed by saying he "lacks competency." None of us is competent in all areas of knowledge, and lacking competency in a specific field is not a sign of poor character or low intelligence. I've posted comments here previously giving examples of fairly gross errors that Ed has made with regard to the topic of global warming. I could summarize those and give other examples to illustrate my point about his lack of competency, but that would probably spark another flame war. My main point here is that I think we should avoid the charge of "dishonesty." When someone makes an error due to lack of competence, they're not really being "dishonest." -- -------------------------------- | Sheldon Rampton | Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org) | Author of books including: | Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities | Toxic Sludge Is Good For You | Mad Cow USA | Trust Us, We're Experts | Weapons of Mass Deception --------------------------------