The American Physical Society alleged that Lord Monckton‘s paper Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered was not peer reviewed when Monckton in fact thoroughly revised his paper in response to APS peer review. Monckton immediately demanded retraction, accountability and an apology.
The Editor of the American Physical Society‘s Forum on Physics and Society launched a debate on global warming, inviting Lord Monckton to submit a paper for the opposition. After news that a major scientific organization was holding a debate on IPCC’s global warming, someone at the APS posted an indirect front page disclamation plus two very bold red disclamations in the Forum’s contents, and into the paper itself:
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Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered
The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley . . .”
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Alleging that a Peer of the Realm violated scientific peer review – when in fact Lord Monckton had spent substantial effort responding to the APS’s peer review – is just not done! As circulated by Dr. Benny Peiser to CCNet, and as noted by Dennis T. Avery at ICECAP,Lord Monckton responded immediately, emphatically demanding redress and an apology as follows:
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19 July 2008
The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Carie, Rannoch, PH17 2QJ, UK
monckton@mail.com
Arthur Bienenstock, Esq., Ph.D.,
President, American Physical Society,
Wallenberg Hall,
450 Serra Mall, Bldg 160,
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305.
By email to artieb@slac.stanford.edu
Dear Dr. Bienenstock,
Physics and Society
The editors of Physics and Society, a newsletter of the American Physical Society, invited me to submit a paper for their July 2008 edition explaining why I considered that the warming that might be expected from anthropogenic enrichment of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide might be significantly less than the IPCC imagines.
I very much appreciated this courteous offer, and submitted a paper. The commissioning editor referred it to his colleague, who subjected it to a thorough and competent scientific review. I was delighted to accede to all of the reviewer’s requests for revision (see the attached reconciliation sheet). Most revisions were intended to clarify for physicists who were not climatologists the method by which the IPCC evaluates climate sensitivity – a method which the IPCC does not itself clearly or fully explain. The paper was duly published, immediately after a paper by other authors setting out the IPCC’s viewpoint. Some days later, however, without my knowledge or consent, the following appeared, in red, above the text of my paper as published on the website of Physics and Society:
“The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.”
This seems discourteous. I had been invited to submit the paper; I had submitted it; an eminent Professor of Physics had then scientifically reviewed it in meticulous detail; I had revised it at all points requested, and in the manner requested; the editors had accepted and published the reviewed and revised draft (some 3000 words longer than the original) and I had expended considerable labor, without having been offered or having requested any honorarium.
Please either remove the offending red-flag text at once or let me have the name and qualifications of the member of the Council or advisor to it who considered my paper before the Council ordered the offending text to be posted above my paper; a copy of this rapporteur’s findings and ratio decidendi; the date of the Council meeting at which the findings were presented; a copy of the minutes of the discussion; and a copy of the text of the Council’s decision, together with the names of those
present at the meeting. If the Council has not scientifically evaluated or formally considered my paper, may I ask with what credible scientific justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts primo, that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed when it had; secundo, that its conclusions disagree with what is said (on no evidence) to be the “overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community”; and, tertio, that “The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions”? Which of my conclusions does the Council disagree with, and on what scientific grounds (if any)?
Having regard to the circumstances, surely the Council owes me an apology?
Yours truly,
THE VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY
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Monckton’s demand for redress and an apology from the APS is being picked up on the internet.
How will the American Physical Society respond to Lord Monckton’s procedural and scientific gauntlets?
As of noon on Saturday July 20, 2008, the offending paragraph in the table of contents had been removed. However, this offending paragraph was still very much evident in Monckton’s paper Climate Sensitivity Revisited. It was also evident in the Forum’s full PDF of its July, 2008 newsletter Physics and Society Vol 37, No 3, p 6.
The APS’s PeerGate scandal may well prove to provide much greater publicity and serious examination of Monckton’s thesis than if the disclaimations had never been posted. It also exposes the superficiality of statements by executives of the American Physical Society and other scientific organizations supporting the IPCC’s global warming. Those statements were typically not submitted to the rank and file for scientific peer review, nor were they typically voted on by the rank and file. Whatever will come out of this PeerGate Scandal?
{PS DLH corrected Applied Physics Society to American Physical Society}}
The parallels between this and the response to scientific challenges to Darwinism are so obvious. The “scientific” establishment is just as prone to a herd mentality as any other group.
Truly, like the Darwinists, the APS is a “herd of independent thinkers.”
I have a physicist professor brother who is a member of the APS, and (privately) admits as much.
Lord Monckton is a hereditary peer and thus a member of the Upper House by succession (though his father’s automatic right to sit and vote was terminated by the House of Lords Act 1999).
While he has not been elected by fellow hereditary peers to the right to speak or vote in the Chamber, he remains a member of the Upper House by succession in good standing and is entitled to use its facilities. Accordingly I would expect Lord Monckton to abide by the “Code of Conduct” of the House of Lords, ParliamentUK.
Among these is:
The American Physical Society has a policy statement on:
Ethics & Values
02.2 APS GUIDELINES FOR PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT (Adopted by Council on November 10, 2002)
Will the executive of the APS live up to their stated policy on ethics? Will they rise to the higher standard that they “should act always on their personal honour”?
WattsUpWithThat has picked this up at:
American Physical Society and Monckton at odds over paper
Following is an email sent 20 Jul 2008 21:46, by Prof. Arthur Bienenstock, President of the American Physical Society, responding to the issues raised by Lord Monckton’s letter to him.
Bienenstock describes the peer review issue as “editorial review for a newsletter” rather than “substantive scientific peer review”. The degree of review can be seen from the comments of reviewer Professor Alvin Saperstein on the page Monckton attached to his letter.
(One blog technically critical of Monckton’s paper is The APS and global warming – what were they thinking? at DUAE Quartunciae)
Prof. Bienenstock does not appear to have addressed Monckton’s second and third requests:
Following is Lord Monckton’s 21st July 2008 email responding to Dr. Bienenstock’ 20th July 2008 reply:
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Arthur Bienenstock, Esq., Ph.D.,
President, American Physical Society,
Wallenberg Hall, 450 Serra Mall, Bldg 160,
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305.
21 July, 2008 By email to artieb@slac.stanford.edu
Dear Dr. Bienenstock,
Physics and Society
I have had your notice of refusal to remove your regrettable disclaimer from my paper Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered. Since you have not had the courtesy to remove and apologize for the unacceptable red-flag text that, on your orders, in effect invites readers of Physics and Society to disregard the paper that one of your editors had invited me to submit, and which I had submitted in good faith, and which I had revised in good faith after it had been meticulously reviewed by a Professor of Physics who was more than competent to review it, I must now require you to answer the questions that I had asked in my previous letter, videlicet –
1. Please provide the name and qualifications of the member of the Council or advisor to it (if any) who considered my paper (if anyone considered it) before the Council ordered the offending text to be posted above my paper;
2. Please provide a copy of this rapporteur’s findings (if any) and ratio decidendi (if any);
3. Please provide the date of the Council meeting (if there was one) at which the report (if any) was presented;
4. Please provide a copy of the minutes (if any) of the discussion (if there was one);
5. Please provide a copy of the text (if any) of the Council’s decision (if there was one);
6. Please provide a list of the names of those present (if any) at that Council meeting (if there was one);
7. If, as your silence on these points implies, the Council has not scientifically evaluated or formally considered my paper, please explain with what credible scientific justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts
primo, that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed, when it had (let us have no more semantic quibbles about the meaning of “scientific review”);
secundo, that its conclusions disagree with what is said (on no evidence) to be the “overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community”; and,
tertio, that “The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions”? Which of my conclusions does the Council disagree with, and on what scientific grounds (if any)? And, if the Council has not in fact met to consider my paper as your red-flag text above my paper implies, how dare you state (on no evidence) that the Council disagrees with my conclusions?
8. Please provide the requested apology without any further mendacity, prevarication, evasion, excuse, or delay.
Finally, was the Council’s own policy statement on “global warming” peer-reviewed? Or is it a mere regurgitation of some of the opinions of the UN’s climate panel? If the latter, why was the mere repetition thought necessary?
Yours truly,
THE VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY
Extracts of cc emails responding to Prof. Bienenstock’s reply above:
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{stare decisis (From Latin, to stand by decided matters)
: a doctrine or policy of following rules or principles laid down in previous judicial decisions unless they contravene the ordinary principles of justice. Merriam-Webster}
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Another email reply to Bienenstock:
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On “Scientific Peer Review”
Per numerous web comments regarding Monckton’s paper, it would help to recognize the numerous gradations in “scientific peer review”.
1) Newsletters
The Forum for Physics and Society is apparently an APS quarterly Newsletter which has at least editorial feedback from the co-editor. e.g.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy......er_pys.pdf“> comments by Editor Prof. Alvin Saperstein. Here the Editor has general knowledge of the field but may not be expert in that specialty.
By the way, the editors appear to have been generous to the “minority” position in accepting Lord Monckton’s 8000 word article when the normal criteria is: “Contributed articles (up to 2500 words, technicalities are encouraged) . . .are welcome”.
2) Conference Papers
Speaking from experience with another professional society, professional society conference papers, peer review from at least three reviewers within the specialty field are typically required.
3) Journals
Then a small portion of refined and presented papers are judged of sufficient quality and originality to be submitted for the organizations Transactions or Journals.
4) Critical examination
The next level is critical evaluation by the likes of Steven McIntyre of Climate Audit. e.g., McIntyre & McKitrick’s 2003 evaluation of
Mann et al. 1998. i.e., by those who have the time and passion to analyze the equations, verify the results and logic etc.
5) National review
From there one “graduates” to a full court national level review such as the Wedgman Report which systematically critiques the report in detail by the experts in the field.
Each of these can be said to have had some level of “scientific peer review”. Yet there is often an order of magnitude difference in effort between each of these levels.
APS Amendment
As of Monday July 21, 2008 at 1:20 pm, theAmerican Physical Society has amended is red letter disclamation on Christopher Monckton’s article Climate Sensitivity Revisited
FROM:
The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.
TO:
The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review, since that is not normal procedure for American Physical Society newsletters. The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007: “Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.
The editors have backed down on Lord Monckton’s 2nd and 3rd requests regarding the Council’s decision by passively restating the Council’s policy.
Retaining the comment “The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review,” still appears unfortunate considering the degrees of peer review noted above.
(PS The combined July 2008 newsletter has not yet been modified. Nor have any comments been added to the “pro” climate change paper:
A Tutorial on the Basic Physics of Climate Change)
Further cc email comments:
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The APS decides to play fair
The American Physical Society has decided to play fair and post the identical disclaimer to BOTH Hafemeister & Schwartz’s Pro article and Monckton’s Con article in its current global warming debate, namely:
PS. These corrections have not yet been propagated to the entire July 2008 Forum on Physics and Society Newsletter pdf.
The APS has posted the following disclaimer on its Forum for Physics and Society July 2008 Newsletter
(h/t to Michael S. Talcott)
PS. These corrections have now been propagated to the entire July 2008 Forum on Physics and Society Newsletter pdf.
(H/t to Leon Brozyna.)
Lord Monckton responds via email to Michael Kellman’s email above:
The APS’s Forum on Physics and Society Newsletter already has an extraordinary disclaimer on its July 2008 newsletter cover (See DLH #13 above). It would make eminent sense to remove the extremely unusual dislamations from the top of each of the articles submitted in this greenhouse debate.
Now will politics or common sense win in this debate over the “science”?
It was a major coup for Mr. Monckton to get his monograph printed by the APS. His upset that they chose to print their stated policy on global climate change seems a tad ungrateful on his part. They could have shut him out altogether, but didn’t.
soplo caseosa, do you mean that they could have avoided a pro-con debate in the first place or that if they did go ahead Mr. Monckton should have not debated in earnest, but instead offered a token debate while ultimately toeing the party line?
Or are you simply pointing out that if you don’t agree with the AGW hysteria then you shouldn’t expect to get published?
Following are cc of two further emails.
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Mon 21 July 2008 12:24 pm
Dear Dr. Bienenstock:
A wise man once said, “When you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, stop digging.” I note that the front page of the Forum on Physics and Society
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/ now carries the disclaimer:
So other than the remarkable appearance of such a disclaimer in your newsletter for the first time, its detailed statment of the rather obvious fact that the views expressed are not necessarily those of the Forum Executive Committee, and its restatement of an advocacy position that a clearinghouse scientific body should at no time have made, we find that in the view of the Executive Committee a “considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion…” simply does not exist! To whom do you then attribute these views and the hundreds of papers that have appeared in many different major academic refereed journals? Leprechauns?
But please, keep digging, sir. The artifacts you are exhuming are extremely instructive.
Michael S. Talcott
Boston, MA
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21 July 2008 7:46 pm EST. from Lord Monckton:
Eric, the answer is neither. I am taking no position one way or the other in the dust up between the APS and Mr. Monckton. Let me explain it this way:
It is taken as a given that the views of global warming skeptics are suppressed. Here is a case where a GW skeptic was not suppressed, but was given the column inches to lay out his case. Rather than accepting the groundbreaking role he is playing, Mr. Monckton is basically throwing a hissy fit because the APS didn’t stamp his article with their imprimatur. Who is he to dictate how they chose to run their publications? If he wishes to dictate editorial decisions, he would be well served to run his own journal.
soplo
Please review the history above.
Was not Lord Monckton entirely within his right to point out strongly unscientific and unfair disclamation singling out one side and not the other side when both sides were invited to post articles in an open debate?
There appears to have been major exaggerations about the case in blogs and a reaction against those by the APS.
By the way, he has posted nine of his other papers at the Science and Public Policy Institute
To the extent that the stated position of APS is consonant with one side and not the other, what else would you expect? Frankly, Mr. Monckton has (IMO) squandered any gains he made by trying to appear like he was published and expelled by the same organization.
In The shaming of American Physics” Professor Emeritus John Brignell writes:
American physicists warned not to debate global warming, Andrew Orlowski, The Register Cross posted at WattsUpWithThat
He summarizes developments with extracts of some of Monckton’s surprising conclusions.
soplo caseosa (19),
You made a telling misstatement. You said,
Viscount Monckton (I believe that this is the correct title) did not object because the APS didn’t stamp his article with their imprimatur. He objected because they, or someone, put in red letters that it was essentially trash. An appropriate disclaimer for both articles stating that both articles have been edited but that neither has been peer-reviewed in the usual sense, followed by a statement that such and such is the official position of the APS but that we believe in open dialogue and that these papers are offered in this spirit would have been appropriate. Instead some unknown person chose to imply that one paper had not been peer-reviewed, and by implication the other one was, and that the Viscount’s paper was against both the official position of the APS and “the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community”, clearly implying that it was junk science.
The problem was not that an imprimatur was not stamped. The problem was that the paper was essentially stamped WRONG!!! That was not called for, and was probably counterproductive, as it should be. Behavior like this leans me away from the official APS position. And comments like yours lean me further away.