On Mon, 18 Jul 2005, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
We must take into account the possibilty of POLITICAL
bias on the part
of journal editors...
The system of publishing results in referreed journals is by and large
an excellent one, but we would do the entire world a dis-service if we
were to ENDORSE the process as incapable of error or bias.
The principle cause of publishing bad/wrong papers is not political bias but
simple mistakes, bad reviewing, etc etc.
OTOH, I *do* agree that wiki should not endorse scientific publishing as free of
error or bias - but that has never been in question. This is a strawman.
"If I say this, the policymakers will choose
that." Who can resist such
a temptation?
Most scientists, who know full well that politicians pick and chose what they
want to hear.
I think we should stick to our original commitment.
Just say that
"certain scientists" say X about Y. And don't try to endorse any
particular view on current scientific controversies as "representing a
consensus" which Wikipedia then is committing to endorsing.
All, this so far is pretty irrelevant to the real controversy, which (for the
climate change wars) has two components:
1) how do we balance "mainstream" and skeptic views
2) how do we describe things (like the degree of scientific consensus) that are
intrinsically not in jounals.
Note that for all of this I'm talking about the *scientific* viewpoint, which
(by and large) the climate wars have been about. We've started an article called
"politics of GW" and that, of course, will not have the same balance.
The questions are related, because it comes down to complying with the NPOV
policy, which is that the mainstream view gets stated first and most
prominently, and dissenting views get stated roughly according to their weight
and importance. Of course, that means you need to know what weight they should
have. This is difficult.
For both of these, its no good waving any individual paper and saying "scientist
X says Y". Nor is it aceptable to stuff an article full of a whole pile of one
sided quotes and references, and defend them by saying "but they are all from
published papers". What you need is an idea of what the weight of the published
literature says. This is very close to impossible for anyone not in the field,
or who doesn't keep up *with the actual journals*. Its no good trying to get
such balance from the popular press or the web.
At the moment, the bulk of literature on climate change simply takes GW as a
given and is trying to work out the details. The number of skeptics challenging
this (in the sci press) is teensy tiny, and their scientific importance is even
less. If anything, the wiki GW articles overweights the skeptics contribution.
This is usually the cue for the more off-base skeptics to cry "conspiracy"...
but that misses the point. Firstly, of course, I don't think there is any such
conspiracy. Secondly, in the unlikely event of all the worlds scientists
conspiring to say X is true, then thats what wiki is supposed to report. Not the
"truth" known by revelation to only a few.
Finally... how do we describe things like the scientific consensus on GW? I
think that Ed is objecting to "there is a scientific consensus that GW is
occurring", or somesuch. The trouble is, that "there is dispute about whether
there is a consensus or not" is also pushing a POV (that there is a dispute) and
is basically wrong. Look at "Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change" which backs
up the first view from quoted sources, just as Ed wanted.
-W.
William M Connolley | wmc(a)bas.ac.uk |
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/
Climate Modeller, British Antarctic Survey | (01223) 221479
If I haven't seen further, it's because giants were standing on my shoulders