Sheldon Rampton is annoying me. I wish he would be more affable.

In previous posts, he's wished aloud for the ability to murder me by electrocution. I laughed that off, but...

I don't appreciate personal remarks like * "I don't think Ed is a total jerk" -- Is he calling me "a jerk", or what? * "he's just hot-headed" -- this feels like an insult * "irrational about ... global warming" -- this _is_ an insult

On several occasions he has tried to discredit me with unfair tactics. Ironically, a central theme of his books and websites are that SKEPTICS try to discredit environmentalists with unfair tactics. Well, it seems to me that he is targeting me with the same tactics he complains of in others. To do this would be rank hypocrisy.

I do not accuse him of hypocrisy, however; I say only, "If the shoe fits, wear it." I beg Sheldon to ask himself sincerely if he's giving me a fair shake or not; whether he's treating me the way he wants to be treated himself, the way he wants environmentalists and scientists who agree with his POV to be treated.

I wish he would stop taking one minor counter-example to a trend and calling it representative of a supposed counter-trend. He's free to do that in his books and on his website, of course. He has a POV and like all other advocates he has a right to assert it. If he wants to call Singer, Lindzen and Lomborg names, that's fine: they are public figures and parties to the debate.

But I wish he would not treat me the same way as his ideological opponents, in discussions with Wikipedians about how to write neutral articles. I am not his opponent, nor am I a public figure. I'm just a writer of encyclopedia articles. I'm trying to cover one of the top controversial issues in the world - and do it neutrally.

I think my cooperation has been adequate, if not superlative. Rampton hasn't given a single example of my having insisted on an unsupportable point. In his previous letter, rather, he gave an example of just the opposite.

So why is he criticizing me? And on what basis? What am I doing that's anti-Wikipedian?

I have no objection to Rampton's POV. What annoys me is his tactic of maligning my reputation, and his insults and threats. After a point, it gets beyond being a joke.

I can safely say that am at least AVERAGE at maintaining Jimbo's NPOV style of contribution at Wikipedia. I daresay I would be right to claim that I'm ABOVE AVERAGE at this skill. If the number and quality of comments I've gotten on my talk page and this mailing list are any measure, I may possibly be ONE OF THE BEST at maintaining neutrality in my contributions at Wikipedia.

Mr. Rampton's edits to Wikipedia -- after our first clash -- have been utterly neutral. He can apply the NPOV when he wants, much to his credit.

Yet the way Sheldon Rampton characterized me is unfair. If I were a litigious person, I'd... - but I'm not. I seek no damages, no apology. I just wish he would stop his unfair criticisms and take care to avoid anything which would (in his opinion) constitute an unfair discrediting attack, if it were aimed by a "skeptic" at an "environmentalist".

Unabashedly,

Ed Poor

-----Original Message----- From: Sheldon Rampton [mailto:sheldon.rampton@verizon.net] Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 12:04 AM To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Anti-scientific bias has me hopping mad!

Jimbo wrote:

And of course, as I've said, it would be inappropriate to ban people without due process, and I tend to suspect that this case if studied carefully would reveal the healthy debate that gives rise to NPOV rather than any actual bannable offenses.

I agree completely. I would not have bothered criticizing Ed as strongly as I have if Ed had not announced his intention to ban people unilaterally. To Ed's credit, he announced his intention publicly before carrying through with it, thereby enabling people such as myself and Jimbo to cry foul before harm was done. For the record, I don't think Ed is a total jerk; he's just hot-headed and irrational about this particular topic (global warming).

Ed wrote:

Sorry about my "false claim", Sheldon. Perhaps I was wrong to believe Lowell Ponte, who attributed the "ice age" prediction to the NAS:

[Ponte quote snipped]

Or maybe I was wrong to believe that S. Fred Singer was quoting Ponte correctly.

Singer correctly quoted Ponte, but it was deceptive for him to suggest that Ponte's book represented the "then-prevailing mood" of scientists and environmentalists in the 1970s. Actually, Ponte is not and never was an environmentalist or a scientist. To the contrary, he's a former Reader's Digest editor and Hollywood publicist who writes nowadays for conservative websites such as GOPUSA.com and the David Horowitz website FrontPageMagazine.com. (Do a Google search on his name, and you'll see what I mean.) Like Ed, Ponte is a global warming skeptic. In other words, the guy who was hawking an alarmist book titled "The Cooling" in the 1970s is actually a member of Ed Poor's own clan. It's really laughably absurd that Ed (parroting Fred Singer) would quote Ponte now as an example of what "environmentalist fearmongers" were supposedly saying in the 1970s.

Or maybe I just misunderstood the quote. You're an expert on disinformation, and you probably have Ponte's book on your shelf.

Actually, I don't have Ponte's book, but William Connolley has read it and critiqued it in some detail. Those who are interested can read his critique at the following URLs:

http://www.wmc.care4free.net/sci/iceage/ponte.html http://www.wmc.care4free.net/sci/iceage/nas-1975.html

As Connolley demonstrates, Ponte misrepresented the conclusions of the 1975 report published by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), titled "Understanding Climatic Change." The NAS report merely said there was a "finite" (and small) chance that an Ice Age could begin "within 100 years" -- hardly a "shocking" statement (as Ponte hyped it at the time), certainly not "hysterical" (as Singer claims now), and not at all a prediction (which is how Ed characterized the NAS report that he obviously never read).

Here I should remind people that Connolley, a climate modeler for the The British Antarctic Survey, is the very same climate scientist whom Ed mentioned by name as an example of someone he wanted to ban from the Wikipedia. The irony here is that unlike Ed, Connolley has actually taken the time to read both the 1975 NAS study AND Ponte's book. Connolley went back to original sources, whereas Ed carelessly relied for his conclusions on a quote of a quote of a quote. This is only one example of how Connelley's scholarship is superior to Ed's. Any serious scholar knows the importance of looking at primary sources whenever possible. If you want to know what someone ACTUALLY said, you should go back and read the original rather than play Chinese Whispers. If anyone here is unfamiliar with the game of "Chinese Whispers," (sometimes called "Telephone"), here's a web page that explains it: http://www.indiaparenting.com/funtime/partygames/cp001.shtml

For an example of how this sort of thing can get out of hand regarding serious issues, here's another URL: http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa011701a.htm

Ed continued:

On the other hand, if Singer correctly quoted Ponte, and if he in turn correctly characterized the views of the NAS, then maybe my mistake lay

in knuckling under to pressure from a biased, axe-grinding environmentalist.

I assume that Ed had me in mind with his reference to a "biased, axe-grinding environmentalist." This is a fairly typical example of what he calls his "cordial" and "affable" approach to discussing this topic.

For those who think I'm wasting too much bandwidth on this or who don't like to see me bashing Ed, I apologize. Normally this level of detail belongs on a Wikipedia talk page rather than on wikien-l. If Ed will promise to comply with Jimbo's pronouncement against banning people without due process, I'll happily drop the topic so we can all move on.