Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute/Evidence

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.

When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-conciousness rants are not helpful.

As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey use this form: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Anomalous_phenomenon&diff=0&oldid=5584644] [1].

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.

Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs, a much shorter, concise presentation is more likely to be effective. Please focus on the issues raised in the complaint and answer and on diffs which illustrate behavior which relates to the issues.

If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.

Be aware that the Arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to refactor the page, let the Arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the arbitrators to move.

Contents


[edit] Evidence presented by Cortonin

There has already been an RfC on WMC here: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/William M. Connolley, with a long list of evidence, in which most of the behaviors described remain unresolved. Mediation has been skipped since WMC has indicated here that he is unwilling to undergo mediation.

He engages in defamatory edits regarding prominent individuals and groups he does not like, such as Michael Crichton, Bjorn Lomborg, Nils-Axel Morner [2], the SEPP [3], S. Fred Singer [4], and Frederick Seitz [5]. He engages in similar disrespect toward Wikipedia contributers whose edits have contradicted one of his POVs, often accusing them of ignorance, alternate motivations, or inability to read, with a confrontational war-zone approach of describing editors as "winning" and "losing" [6]. He tells editors he disagrees with that their contributions are simply politics and POV, and that he is the only one who knows anything about the topics, but while doing this he systematically and repeatedly removes published science and the views of prominent individuals which contradict his POV [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18].

WMC has been previously temporarily banned for poor Wikiquette [19].

You can expect him to reply that he is the noble champion of science against the hoards of politically motivated opinionated non-scientists. Please do not be taken in by this argument. I and others he rejects are scientists, and he by no means exclusively represents our views. We are not the uneducated masses, and he is not our intellectual savior [20] [21].

My dispute is with the inability to achieve inclusive NPOV on climate related articles and with the aggressive, confrontational behaviors which prevent the formation of editorial consensus. I bring this up only in the hope of smoothing out the process of contributing to climate related articles. Thank you very much for your time. — Cortonin | Talk 01:36, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(Notification diff: [22])

Addendum: I'm afraid I must also add the repeated edit-warring over the presence of NPOV disputes. Obviously if editors are edit warring over the presence of an NPOV dispute, then there exists an NPOV dispute. Yet numerous times, WMC has engaged in edit wars to remove the presence of {{NPOV}} or {{POV}} tags. [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] I believe this is a clear violation of both the intent and policy of these dispute tags. — Cortonin | Talk 22:58, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In addition, the discussion here and here is a typical example of the flow of conversation when trying to correct something in an article which WMC disagrees with. As you can see, it's extremely unproductive, and not the way Wikipedia should operate. If you won't actively defend Wikipedia against personal and aggressive revert warring and NPOV violations, then no one will, and we might as well not have such policies if they aren't enforced. — Cortonin | Talk 22:58, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Addendum 2: I would say that the NPOV tag is precisely for the purpose of expressing a dispute with the POV present in the article, and according to policy, the NPOV tag should be accompanied by, or shortly followed by, a description of which things are held in dispute. This is the procedure I followed. In addition, I was not the only person who felt the need to place a POV dispute tag (nor was I the only one who placed one), but the very existence of our dispute was removed and dismissed (repeatedly) without addressing or accomodating it. — Cortonin | Talk 08:26, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If you check the history of global warming, you'll find that prior to the arrival of WMC, for example here, the article, while sparser on detail, was doing a much better job of reaching NPOV, rather than the more imbalanced state it is currently in. The number of researchers who support global warming theories was described as subject to dispute, since there are various ways of assessing the state of consensus, and they do not all agree with each other (either two years ago when that point in the history was, or now). Regardless of how much people might feel it is strongly one way or the other, the thing which is most clear is that there exist many prominent individuals who dispute the state of the consensus. It also describes the presence and significance of solar variation to global warming. This is critical, since much of the temperature variation over the last 100 years or so is attributed to solar variations, and about half of current temperature variations are attributed to solar variation. To ignore this in an article on global warming is almost bizarre. The article has essentially been reformulated into an anthropogenic-CO2-is-evil pulpit. I hate smog as much as (or more than) the next guy, but I think we should try to aim for a little more encyclopedic quality and NPOV in our articles than this. The historic version also describes sea rise as 1-2 cm/decade, in accordance with the views and measurements of most oceanic experts on the planet. WMC has been removing those views and measurements from the climate related pages, and attempts by others to restore these values to the pages have been met with claims that they are dishonest, deceptive, or don't exist. [34] [35] [36] [37]. If you'll note, a reoccurring theme here is that WMC systematically classifies researchers as lone gunmen or politically motivated radicals if they propose views counter to his own. Morner, for example, was the well-documented president of the INQUA commission on sea level changes at the time he made the analysis being described. This commission was composed of around 111 of the top sea level experts in the world, and well qualified to speak on this issue. Why is this predominant view of experts being erased? When the articles exclusively represent a singular view which opposes the majority of prominent experts, and the views of those experts are systematically censored from the articles, then you have a serious NPOV problem. — Cortonin | Talk 08:26, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I hope we don't make this RfA about politics, or even about a debate about global warming. This is about giving all prominent views a fair shake, and about halting the aggressive reverting behavior which censors the presence of other prominent views. So I hope we can stay focused on this. — Cortonin | Talk 08:26, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Addendum 3: I've been trying extremely hard to make well-explained and well-documented edits here on Solar greenhouse (technical), and I've labored extensively to explain, justify, and document these edits, as well as to explain the science and mechanism behind these systems on Talk:Solar greenhouse (technical). (If you have any questions about the physics of what's being described on that page, just please read the talk. It has been described several times over.) The response? I get no significant response to the descriptions or discussions of the mechanism on talk from WMC, but everytime I return to the computer WMC has reverted every edit I've made on this page with no explanation beyond "obvious", "as ever", or "as before". He meticulously counts his edits, and I have never seen him violate the 3RR. But what's the point of having a rule like that when someone will just wait patiently for the next revert window and then slap it all back with no attempt to cooperate? This is extremely detrimental to any attempt at making an encyclopedia. — Cortonin | Talk 00:15, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Addendum 4: WMC has been blocked for 24 hours for 3RR violation. [38] — Cortonin | Talk 18:37, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

WMC refers to this as "The Great Revert War" in his recruitment. [39] — Cortonin | Talk 07:22, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Addendum 5: WMC has been blocked, again, for another 24 hours for 3RR violation. [40] He even managed to throw in an extra revert labelled "Rv, as ever" five minutes before his ban. — Cortonin | Talk 19:52, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Addendum 6: WMC has been blocked a third time for 3RR violation. [41] This certainly seems indicative of a larger problem, and those small bans seem to be having no effect. Each time he follows with a short little excuse or apology, and then he goes and does it again. — Cortonin | Talk 04:28, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Addendum 7: After all of our discussions about NPOV, and repeated pastes of the NPOV page, WMC continues to revert statements like "According to the IPCC, the current best answer is" to "The current best answer is". This is a direct violation of the letter of NPOV policy, which he knows, because it has been pointed out repeatedly, both here, and on the talk pages for various articles. Rather than simply describe the reports of the IPCC, he insists that it must be called "correct", "best", objectively true, or any number of similar things which directly violate the NPOV policy. We're not trying to remove the reports, we're just trying to demand that they be properly sourced to the people stating them, and unfortunately the insertions of proper attribution and sourcing as policy requires are being called "POV pushing" and are being reverted. Requests for them to give reasons on the talk page are being ignored. This requires intervention to resolve this pattern, please help. — Cortonin | Talk 20:34, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Addendum 8: Wikipedia:Revert states, "One of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines: Always explain your reverts". Unfortunately, most of WMC's reverts go unexplained, both in the edit summary and on talk, in violation of this policy. This is not only by itself against policy, but it also greatly hinders any attempt at discussion or consensus building, since without explanations, there really can't be any. The last few examples from the past 48 hours follow, and the pattern is essentially identical going back at least months: [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] — Cortonin | Talk 19:15, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Addendum 9: Okay, I'm sorry to add more on to here, but this is just getting insane. So I explain to WMC here that he misread a paper called the Horticern paper, and missed an entire section and 14 references to the convection of air between the inside and outside of the greenhouse sprinkled throughout the paper (he was justifying his edit on the lack of mention of this in the paper), and then I explained to WMC here that his edit was based on incorrect logic, as he was arguing from the inverse, which is logically invalid. So his response? He makes no reply to either of these, and simply reverts with no explanation. What are we supposed to do with behavior like that? If his argument doesn't hold water, he simply ignores discussion and keeps on reverting ad infinitum without explanation. — Cortonin | Talk 23:33, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Addendum 10: WMC has been banned again for a 3RR violation on Global climate model [53]. I will add a small note that they were not my edits that he was reverting. This problem follows WMC around. If my count is correct, that makes four bans for 3RR violations, and one ban for bad wikiquette. — Cortonin | Talk 02:38, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Addendum 11: WMC has had his block extended for block evasion [54]. — Cortonin | Talk 20:26, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Addendum 12: WMC violates the temporary injunction on greenhouse effect. He made the following revert labelled "Rv, as ever", making only this comment on the talk page. The temporary injunction clearly requires that WMC's reverts must "be backed up on the relevant talk page with reliable sources (such as peer reviewed journals/works, where appropriate)." The revert makes 5 major changes, and the only talk comment he makes presents no source justifying a single one of his changes. "As ever" is not a source. This is a violation. — Cortonin | Talk 06:24, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sheldon's reply

With regard to the alleged 3RR violation described above, what has actually been happening is that Cortonin keeps reverting William M. Connolley, and Connolley in turn keeps reverting Cortonin. If Connolley is guilty of a 3RR violation, therefore, Cortonin himself is equally guilty. I haven't bothered to trace the entire history of this, but this particular revert war seems to have been going on since sometime prior to 8 Apr 2005. --Sheldon Rampton 05:18, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by William M. Connolley

Cortonin notes the previous RFC he instigated. What he fails to mention is that I "won" that RFC. I strongly urge the arbitrators to read the numerous compliments I received there for the quality of my contributions to the global warming and related pages. I also think the recent Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/JonGwynne is worth mentioning.

My "ban" for violating wikiquette was essentially an arbitrary decision by Ed Poor: as a one hour ban it was over before I noticed it had occurred; I feel it is deeply regrettable for Cortonin to try to use it in evidence.

William is right on this point: it was arbitrary (and not quite within the rules) for me to do that. Anyway, he's generally rather a courteous fellow, and this RFA is not about courtesy. So I think the wikiquette aspect is irrelevant. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 20:28, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)
(William M. Connolley 19:43, 16 May 2005 (UTC)) I missed that earlier - thanks Ed.

Cortonin makes vague and unspecific allusions to his scientifc credentials; sadly his edits do not display these. In terms of climate science, he is deeply and unapologetically ignorant: he has attempted, for example, to insert references to mesopheric water vapour as though they had some great relevance to climate change. Almost none of his edits survive in the pages, because they aren't any good. Naturally, he finds this frustrating.

Cortonin has, by aggressive pushing of his own skeptic POV, caused damage to the various global warming related articles and prevented progress. For example, he has added a NPOV tag to the global warming page with the edit comment: This page is in NPOV dispute until it contains description of solar variation theories and climate model criticisms - which is to say, he is abusing it: he is insisting on his own content, no matter what other editors may wish. And no other editors have supported him. He always edits from an overly skeptical POV, attempting to minimise the affects of CO2: for example, on Greenhouse gas, he attempted to insert [55]: apparently unaware that asserting a 95% role for water vapour is absurd, and unable to realise that the page he was linking to was nonsense.

Note that I have not formally rejected mediation. I don't think it likely to succeed, however, and I've said that.

Cortonin brings up Michael Crichton, Bjorn Lomborg, Nils-Axel Morner, SEPP and others. He is unable to realise that MC is a writer of potboilers, and not an acceptable scientifc reference; that Morner is essentially a one-man-band whose web pages deceptively imply that he is prez of the INQUA commission when he isn't; and that SEPP is something other than a propaganda site.

Cortonin states that I have been reverting against a great many other editors. A check of the histories will show that this is not true: the "problem child" is him.

Having said all this, I don't specifically ask you to reject arbitration, because I feel there *is* a case to answer, but against Cortonin.

Addendum: oops, I missed Cortonin's The behaviors he has engaged in have resulted in the loss to Wikipedia of a large number of good editors in the climate area.... I know you're unlikely to take this at face value, but let me point out that: AFAIK 2 editors have left: one the unlamented JonGwynne (how Cortonin can describe him as a good editor, given the result of the RFA against him, I don't know); the other User:Benapgar. The latter is an unfortunate case: I don't quite understand what happened, but he did end up disliking me, for what I regarded as invalid reasons: see Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/William_M._Connolley#Additional_responses_by_WMC for my take on him.

Addendum: Cortonin added the GW NPOV dispute, so I suppose I need to answer. C added the tag, with the message: This page is in NPOV dispute until it contains description of solar variation theories and climate model criticisms. Which I interpreted as, "give me my text or I keep the tag on which you won't like". This isn't what the NPOV tag is for. There is some discussion at Talk:Global_warming#POV_tag.

Addendum #3: (William M. Connolley 21:33, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)): Cortonin asserts, bizarrely, that the old GW page [56] was better than the new. The old page contains flaws:

  • In January 2002, scientists released data showing that the Antarctic ice cap had grown about 25% - this is wrong. I removed it.
  • Weather balloons and satellites measuring the temperature of the atmosphere above the earth's surface show no warming trend. This is wrong. We now have the satellite temperature record page, largely but not entirely due to me, which documents the range of warming (0.08 oC - 0.22 oC/decade) that the various satellite records show.
  • with near-stable temperature since 1940. - this is indefensible; the current version 0.6 +/- 0.2 oC over the century is much better.

and lacks information that the current page has. I don't see anyone (even Cortonin) desiring a revert to the old version.

He censures me for The historic version also describes sea rise as 1-2 cm/decade, in accordance with the views and measurements of most oceanic experts on the planet. WMC has been removing those views. But... the current version makes exactly the same description: 1-2 mm/y. What Cortonin is really complaining about is not facts, but me removing stuff like All handling by IPCC of the Sea Level questions have been done in a way that cannot be accepted and that certainly not concur with modern knowledge of the mode and mechanism of sea level changes - as is shown by the diff he cites himself [57]. I removed that, commenting Re-rm Morner, whose deceptive website is not a suitable resource for wiki. See sea level rise. And I'll stand by that: Morner represents no-one but himself, and his personal views don't deserve prominence on a main page like this. They could go on a Morner page, but... oddly... for such an important figure, the Morner pages doesn't exist. And Cortonin is so uninterested in him that he can't be bothered to create it. Meanwhile, on sea level rise the same old POV-pushing by Cortonin goes on [58]. He tries to insert These values are completely misleading and false. Our INQUA Commission on “Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution” (which hosts the leading world experts on just the topic) has a totally different view (expressed in my previous reviews). The key here is *my* previous reviews - they are the work of Morner, not INQUA. And the INQUA commission *isn't* the world leading experts on the topic - the leading institute for this is the permanent service for mean sea level. The best summary of the research available is the IPCC chapter on SRL: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/408.htm, not one maveric (not all maverics are good :-) like Morner.

[edit] Morner (William M. Connolley 21:08, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC))

SEW has piled in, on the Morner issue. SEW is a skeptic, of course, and so is in favour of Morner, another skeptic. Morner is indeed a scientist; he was indeed prez of the INQUA commission; and he misused that position to push his own POV (POV-pushing not being limited to wiki...). This link [59] is rather relevant: from which I quote Dr. Mörner currently has no formal position in INQUA, and I am distressed that he continues to represent himself in his former capacity. Further, INQUA, which is an umbrella organization for hundreds of researchers knowledgeable about past climate, does not subscribe to Mörner’s position on climate change. Nearly all of these researchers agree that humans are modifying Earth’s climate, a position diametrically opposed to Dr. Mörner’s point of view.. This makes it clear that Morner is indeed speaking for himself, not INQUA.

Morner has (pers. comm.) been told to take down "his" commission pages at http://www.pog.su.se/sea/, but has failed to do so. The reason was that he continues to try to use the INQUA name to push his personal skeptical POV. This commission no longer exists: try navigating that site and try to find a clear statement of that fact. To the casual, or even diligent, reader the commission appears to still exist: indeed http://www.pog.su.se/sea/01_welcome_text.htm says Our commission will primarily work via... (my emphasis on will); it goes on If you want to join our commission... We welcome new members of our commission... - in other words, the (false) impression is given that this is an ongoing project.

Also (this affects my view of his reliability, it may do yours) Morner believes in dowsing: http://www.phact.org/e/z/randi-dowsing.txt.

[edit] Cortonin addendum 3: Solar greenhouse (technical) (William M. Connolley 11:56, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC))

Cortonin complains of my not talking there. But this isn't so: you'll find endless discussion there, and much prior discussion back where this started, at greenhouse effect. Cortonin seems to have endless patience for recycling the same old words again and again: as far as I'm concerned, we've said everything: of which my summary is: I've provided refs to the met literature which state, unequivocally, that the greenhouse effect is a misnomer; Cortonin has essentially provided personal research.

Vsmith told us to stop edit warring while he attempted a compromise. I agreed with this, and have stuck to it. I have not reverted to my version, but to Vsmiths version - a fact that Cortonin conveniently omits.

(re-reading the above, I am obliged to admit that after writing it, and following a failure of Cortonin to attempt to compromise, and with due warming to him, I have reverted to my version on occasion William M. Connolley 20:10, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)).

[edit] Response to Silverback (William M. Connolley 20:33, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC))

I am disappointed by Silverbacks evidence, which I consider unbalanced and unfair.

Once a body of skeptical evidence has built up on the Global warming page, which has been able to survive WMCs scrutiny because it is documentable

This appears to assume that there is something wrong with demanding that the content be documentable, a view with which I strongly disagree. Here is an example of non-sourced stuff that Silverback restored: [60].

WMC starts trying to spill it to less prominent pages, citing the article's increasing length

This is the core of Silverbacks complaint, and again I disagree strongly. The GW page is currently 43k long. Before the removal of the solar section it was 50+k long. There is a constant thread of skeptics overloading the page with their pet info that they consider oh-so-important that it cannot be left onto subpages. Left unchecked, this tendency would bloat the page to unreadable size. Note, BTW, that the Solar variation theory sub-page was not created by me but by AtlastAwake, though he forgot to remove the text from the main page - I just completed the job for him. Other examples of stuff being moved out: [61], [62] - how bloated would the article be now if all of historical temperature record was still in it?

[edit] Response to Silverbacks response (William M. Connolley 09:39, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC))

Sorry: this is getting too extended. I'll respond now but not again, I hope. I am indeed unapologetic about documentation. As I understand the "rules", you put material in (with or without doc) and if anyone complains "this is undocumented" you have to provide doc or suffer it being removed. Skeptics are rather likely to stuff in undocumented weaselly stuff (some skeptics say...) and then complain when it gets removved as weaselly.

Now Silverback attempts to contrast my 4-step SEPP thingy [63] (scroll down to line 21/32) with the GW page. But my SEPP thingy is very clearly referenced, every statement of it. I do not agree that Silverbacks undocumented bit on the GW page can be easily documented (or even that its true, though its certainly true that skeptics love the vague and shifting solar-climate "connections"). Certainly, he hasn't subsequently documented it.

And finally... Silverbacks bit starts Skeptics also argue that if... - how are we to read this? Who are these skeptics? Are they scientists? Are they the likes of Michael Crichton? The text never explains, which is why its weaselly.

[edit] Response to SEW's response to... (William M. Connolley 20:44, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC))

SEW wrote [64]: WMC has no difficulty insisting on retaining a Grist quote on SEPP even after he couldn't find the source [65]. This is not true: as the very diffs provided by SEW show, as soon as I realised that there was no source for the quote, I stopped defending it. I even suggested it should be removed! Good grief, have these septics no shame? SEW continued: Several of those edits also show WMC insisting on changing references to the SEPP web site to refer to Dr. Singer - yes indeed. SEPP is a one-man-band for Singer, we all know that.

[edit] Response to Ed Poor (William M. Connolley 08:05, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC))

EP says:

"science" vs. skepticism. This in itself is, of course, absurd, because science is the systematic application of skepticism

This is a mistake in terminology. In the context of GW, "skeptic" is a label for those opposed to the std theory, not a description of how to do research (analogy: the "Democratic" party in the US). Yes of course all scientists are skeptics in the "true sense". My opinion on this is: http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2004/12/septics-and-skeptics-denialists-and.html.

EP insists:

that Dr. Connolley make a definitive statement supporting NPOV policy for all his edits

and yes, I do subscribe to the NPOV policy, and always have. What I don't subscribe to is Eds interpretation of it, which is that all sorts of contradictory opinions should be thrown together and the reader left to muddle through, whilst Ed hopes that the facts about GW get forgotten in the muddle.

EP asserts:

Nearly everything about global warming is controversial and hotly disputed

this is *not true* - from a scientific POV. EP doesn't (as far as I can tell) read the science, and relies on essentially popular expostions for his opinions. Which is why he can end up saying stuff like that. Its true, GW is disputed in right-wing talk shows; in the popular media; etc. But to simply leave the reader with the impression that nothing is known for sure is to infect wikipedia with the septic POV under the guise of NPOV. Lots of things are well known: that the temperature has risen 0.6 +/- 0.2 oC (even prez Bush agrees with that); that humans are increasing CO2; that this is probably the cause of the recent T rise. And all this is reported fairly in the GW article. There *is* a scientific consensus on all this, and its essentially the IPCC consensus, and thats reported at Scientific opinion on climate change. Eds strategy is the skeptic stragetgy of last resort: when you've lost on all the science issues, emphasise uncertainty.

EP asserts:

William, however, has apparently adopted the POV of the environmental lobby

This too is false. Again, I have a blog entry on it: http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2004/12/which-side-are-you-on.html. I place myself on the science "side" in the middle. We don't have, at the moment, anyone editing the GW articles from the enviro-end at the moment to counterbalance the skeptics.

EP says:

Some people think the United Nations is utterly impartial and unbiased

this appears to be an ad-hom against the IPCC, which is a sub-agency (though sme way removed) from the UN. Its just black-helicopters stuff.

[edit] Response to Audiovideo (William M. Connolley 14:01, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC))

AV said:

In the blogwar between realclimate and climateaudit, Dr Connollery is on the side of realclimate

There is no such blogwar. We at RealClimate ignore CA as beneath notice :-). Of course I'm on the side of RC: I'm a member of RC. I thought that was obvious. I could make it clearer, if its not.

On the science is settled: well, this has a history. It was created [66], by Ed Poor, specifically to advance Eds POV: to that extent AV is correct. I just don't understand why he is criticising me for it (and apart from that, I've only edited it once, in august 2004!). Eds version featured Official in the Clinton Administration, including Vice-President Al Gore repeated the slogan endlessly, in an effort to get the American public to support the Kyoto Protocol. This was nonsense, of course, as the current version of the page shows: there is not a single documented example of AG using the phrase. The current version is, AFAIK, accurate, following a lot of NPOV work by Sheldon Rampton amongst others. AV has suggested the page be deleted as "non-encyclopedic" but I disagree: a lot of effort went into correcting the original version, which itself reflected a common misperception, and so is valuable.

[edit] Response to Ed's response to... (William M. Connolley 08:29, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC))

Ed Poor said: Even if 67% or 80% or 90% of researchers in a particular field agree on something, that doesn't mean Wikipedia should endorse it. The article should simply report what percentage of researchers agree.. I agree with this, at least partially: and this is what the current GW type pages do. But also, my reading of the NPOV policy is that if 90% of the scientists agree on something (however one might determine that I'm unsure) then the article should give, very roughly, space in the article proportional to this balance of views. On this kind of balance I argue that the GW articles currently overweight the skeptics opinion. This is a bit regrettable but inevitable, because if their views were fairly weighted they would be small-to-invisible, and our skeptic editors wouldn't accept that.

This is an important point, so I think it would be good if the Arbitrators could explicitly address this ascpect of the NPOV policy. And perhaps Ed/Cortonin/etc could indicate their reading of it.


[edit] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (William M. Connolley 09:24, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC))

The current nonsense over the IPCC pages deserves some comment. Cortonin accuses me of removing the NPOV tag: true, I did (initially by accident, but I would have anyway, since it wasn't supported by talk explaining its presence). Things have since got somewhat messy: SEW put the NPOV tag in first, but now it seems that Cortonin has taken up the dispute for him. But as to the dispute, of which there are two: "respect" for the IPCC; and the criticism section.

[edit] Crit section

Skeptics are always desperate to find things to bash the IPCC with. On 12 March, SEW added [67] to the crit section. I didn't notice it for quite a while, but when I did I objected: this isn't criticism of the IPCC at all. At best its commentary, and eventually (after a phase of removing it) I moved it to a "comments" section instead, which SEW didn't object to. However, if you look at the pdf from which those bits are taken, its clearly been cherry picked: my view is that it is really too unbalanced to stay in. SEW (probably in a fit of pique) has added more stuff to the crit section [68] from Inhofe, Christy and Schneider. The Inhofe stuff is laughable: I had thought SEW was more reasonable than this, but no. I've moved it to a "non-science" section now, but the text is so bad it really ought to be removed. Inhofe quotes old reports, makes a variety of simply wrong assertions and does his best to mislead. This stuff has no place in a science page. If we neeed to know that Inhofe doesn't like the IPCC, then that one sentence would suffice. More: in his desperation to stuff in anti-GW text, SEW has copied in sections of Inhofes speech that aren't even criticisms of IPCC! For example: Remember, the IPCC provides the scientific basis for the alarmists' conclusions about global warming. But even the IPCC is saying that their own science cannot be considered compelling evidence..

In my view, what SEW has done to the IPCC pages with these edits are a taste of what will happen to the science of GW pages if the skeptics are not reined in.

[edit] Respect

The other area of dispute which has raged was over JonGwynnes removal of "respect" for the IPCC [69]. JG was convicted of POV-pushing by the arbcomm a while ago; the GW pages were quieter and better without him; sadly he has returned (though we are due a brief period of peace, as he has been 3RR banned). The fact that the IPCC *are* well known, well respected, and set the baseline for the discussion is well known to all of us (Cortonins call for refs was just excuse-making). Removing that was just stirring up trouble. Sadly, Cortonin jumped on JGs chance, and even now is still reverting it [70] even though I have now provided good citations for what we all know anyway. It seems to me that an endorsement from the scientific academies of a large number of nations is good evidence of respect, but it doesn't seem to be enough for Cortonin. This is the problem with him: he is simply POV pushing, and the discussion is, for him, just a smokescreen.

[edit] Philip Stott and Peter Stott (William M. Connolley 19:41, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC))

There is a nice example over on the IPCC pages about the usefulness of knowing the literature. Cortonin has been reverting a bit recently, e.g. [71], with summaries like RV. Don't promote blatant lies about Stott, and don't remove the NPOV tag. and [72] Partial RV to SEWilco. Lies lies lies lies lies. Why do you promote lies about Stott? Read the talk. (including national inventory section). What is it that Cortonin objects to? He doesn't like:

In general the expertise of Stott is dubious: "Stott does not appear to have had a single paper published in a scientific journal in the fields in which he most frequently applies this 'expertise', e.g. climate change or tropical ecology." [73]

This assertion is true; Cortonin attempts to disprove it by quoting papers by Peter A Stott, an entirely different person: he has confused the septic with a well-respected and highlt cited climatologist. This appears to be a perfeect example of why it is rather useful to have people around familiar with the literature, and the dangers of allowing skeptics to stuff in info based on uncritical googling.

Note also that Cortonins edits also alter the following para:

With regard to the temperature cuve Stott remarks that "in 1200AD Europe was 2 degrees centigrade [Celsius] warmer that it is today", a statement which is not supported by any version of the temperature record of the past 1000 years.

to remove the piece I have bolded. Why should he wish to do this? The statement in bold is clearly true, as is shown by Image:2000 Year Temperature Comparison.png by DragonsFlight. Clearly, Cortonin wishes to remove it because it reveals clearly how Stott distorts/misrepresents/lies about the evidence.

[edit] Global warming (William M. Connolley 21:30, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC))

Sadly, we have yet another example of skeptic silliness now on the GW page. User:Thejackhmr decided to replace the useful intro graph, wnhich shows the last 100+ years of global temperature history with an out-of-place picture showing the last 400kyr [74]. This despite the fact that the article is mostly about the recent changes, and the intro entirely about the recent changes, and that there is a section lower down which already contains a nice pic of the last 2000y. And... yes you guessed it, Cortonin couldn't resist jumping on this pointless bandwagon (his edit at 21:06).

There is no good reason to include the 400kyr pic at all in this place. It says nothing about the current change. It is nothing but skeptic POV pushing (the POV, in case its not obvious, is the subliminal its-all-happened-before; which ignores the issue of timescales).

Note also this [75] from User:Thejackhmr. Subsequently removed, but indicative of his attitudes.

[edit] Personal insult from Cortonin (William M. Connolley 11:44, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC))

You can kindly store your condescending misplaced arrogance where the sun doesn't shine [76]

Also calling my edits fabricated bullshit [77] then rather than apologising (both for the insult, and for the fact that he was wrong about the entire issue) Cortonin weasls around trying to justify his language: [78] You called the line "fabricated bullshit" uncivil language, but...

Its clear to all that FB *is* uncivil language. Cortonin has offered no apology for that, or the even more blatant insult above, and should William M. Connolley 11:14, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC).

Note also JonGwynnes attempt to reduce the issue to all-sides-are-wrong (which is silly, given that even Cortonin now admits that he got the wrong Stott), which is exactly the same issue with stuffing the articles with skeptic stuff in the name of NPOV/balance that is at issue in the arbitration.

Leaving in some comments that really shouldn't be here but are now:

You mean his insult which was immediately preceeded by your own? What he did wasn't right, but it was provoked. This section should read "Personal insult from Cortonin following personal insult fom William M. Connolley" --JonGwynne 22:13, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Actually, the exchange which WMC references above is rather amusingly different than what JonGwynne suggests. The exchange began with Cortonin taking exception to a statement that WMC inserted into the IPCC article about Philip Stott, a retired professor of biogeography who has become a commentator and media pundit on the subject of environmentalism, claiming that environmentalism is a "hegemonic myth." Stott is also a global warming skeptic, but since his scholarly field is not climate research, WMC described his expertise as "dubious," quoting an article from the LobbyWatch website which states that Stott "does not appear to have had a single paper published in a scientific journal in the fields in which he most frequently applies this 'expertise', e.g. climate change or tropical ecology." Cortonin responded by accusing WMC of spreading "fabricated bullshit ... if you check the literature, he's been publishing on climate change since the 90's. The only thing dubious here is that you're using a lie to call him 'dubious.'" To cement his point that WMC was "using a lie," Cortonin listed 19 peer-reviewed studies on climate research in which "PA Stott" appears as one of the authors. Unfortunately for Cortonin, however, these studies were all written by Peter Stott, who is a completely different individual from Philip Stott. When WMC pointed this out, Cortonin commented, "Who would have thought that there would be two prominent P.A. Stott's in climate change?" to which WMC replied: "Someone who knew what they were talking about, perhaps?"
JonGwynne wants us to think WMC's remark was an unprovoked personal insult, but in fact the original insult in this exchange came from Cortonin, when he falsely claimed that WMC was "using a lie" and spreading "fabricated bullshit." Was it really "uncivil" for WMC to point out Cortonin's inability to distinguish between Peter and Philip Stott as a "a perfect example of it being useful to be familiar with the literature"? This comment by WMC was certainly more civil than Cortonin's use of language such as "fabricated bullshit" or his statement (upon having his error pointed out to him) that WMC should "store your condescending misplaced arrogance where the sun doesn't shine." --Sheldon Rampton 04:02, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
You called the line "fabricated bullshit" uncivil language, but the term is intended in the manner of H.G. Frankfurt's essay titled On Bullshit. This term has recently entered the vernacular following the publication of this essay. — Cortonin | Talk 07:01, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The comment is uncivil and insulting. Most, I daresay, have not read Frankfurt's essay. Furthermore, considering this quote from that reference "...bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are"[79], it would seem to be worse than calling someone a liar. Vsmith 11:45, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This is all very well, but the fact remains that both parties insulted the other. If you want to advance the opinion that gratuitous insults are wrong, that's fine but you have to be consistent. The first thing that needs to happen here is that the double-standard should be dropped. If a given behavior is wrong for one person, then it is wrong for everyone. If not, then declare open-season and be done with it. Until that is decided, everything else is secondary.--JonGwynne 21:12, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Response to Cortonins addenda 8 & 9 (William M. Connolley 20:16, 7 May 2005 (UTC))

If you check the edit history of the greenhouse effect page, you'll see we've been reverting back and forth for a long time. Cortonin always puts in some psuedo science, like RV. Published literature not "simplistic", "other" more neutral, and opening a window tells no more about greenhouse operation than opening an oven door. (Maybe try to think of reasons for your rv?) whereas I use Rv, as ever mostly. But since the reverts are the same, C is only adding a long revert summary to deceive the unwary into thinking he is reasonable. I'm being plain honest.

As for his other examples of reverts-without-explanation: these were all revert-agains: there is no great point re-explaining the same revert again, thought Cortonins patience for doing this is extraordinary, and pointless. Note, BTW, that JonGwynne, Cortonins "brother" in editing, regularly uses deliberately misleading edit summaries - oddly, Cortonin found no time to complain about this during the JG RFA.

As for So I explain to WMC here that he misread a paper called the Horticern paper... no. Cortonin continues to push his personal research: the paper contains nothing to explicitly support his POV (unlike the references I've provided, which do absolutely and completely explicitly support mine): he is relying on his interpretation, and since its an unfamiliar field to him, his interpretation is unreliable, and indeed wrong. Which is why wiki has the no-personal-research policy - and this page is a truly classical case of why it chould be applied. I've read (not misread) the Horticern paper. It doesn't support his case... for reasons that are carefully explained on the GHE talk page. In summary: in gardening and the literature, convection is suppressed by the barrier of the roof, thus the effects of this being missing are not considered. The effects of air infiltration which C pushes so hard are large, given how little air infiltrates, precisely because I'm right: its the suppression-of-convection that is responsible for most of the warming. Sadly, pointing this out to C has no effect: he just writes another pile of words.

Note that other contributors are finding in my favour over this: [80] and [81].

[edit] Evidence against SEWilco (and JonGwynne) (William M. Connolley 19:43, 16 May 2005 (UTC))

We seem to be at an interesting stage. Mav has mentioned possible sanctions against other people, so I'd like to present evidence against SEW, of his POV-pushing repeatedly at Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period. If you're not familiar with the issue under dispute, its whether these cold/warm periods should be considered global, or not. This is not a settled point, and in fact we haven't been warring over that: what we've been warring over is, to whom should the non-global views be attributed to? In my opinion (err, based on reading various papers) its clear that there are many authors who question this; and that the IPCC admirably summarises this evidence. SEW would like to attribute this view purely *to* the IPCC, hence edits like [82]. Notice how the important issue of non-globality is moved down, and attributed purely to the IPCC. SEW has also removed "Bradley and Jones, 1993; Hughes and Diaz, 1994; Crowley and Lowery, 2000" - these are the scientists whose work IPCC are summarising - in order that he can pretend its "IPCC POV" (his phrase). Notice also that he revises the description of the ice core, by removing the text in bold:

An ice core from the eastern Bransfield Basin, Antarctic Peninsula clearly identifies events of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period [83]. These events cover approximately the last 300 years, ie 1700 onwards, and show non-cold conditions applying during much of the period conventionally labelled "little ice age", including the time of the "frost fair" type pictures shown above. This illustrates the non-globality of the LIA.

He provides no justification for removing this material, other (presumably) than that it contradicts what he wants to see. There is a similar pattern at MWP; its the same dispute; and there JG has been playing his usual unhelpful role.

I can see how you would think so, but the fact remains that resisting your extreme POV is critical to maintaining some sort of balance and credibility in these articles. Without some objective input, they'd long ago have degenerated into simple propaganda. You attempts to silence your opposition only serves to suggest that you feel a great deal of insecurity about the theories you espouse. If a person really believed in what they posted, they'd be able to defend it factually without having to resort to censorship and deception, wouldn't you agree? --JonGwynne 05:41, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 11:08, 17 May 2005 (UTC)) Addendum: response to SEWs response: SEW produces a large pile of words, mostly smoke-and-mirrors to try to evade the main point: which is that he is trying to ascribe to the IPCC views which are merely summarised there, and are the views of various scientists. this is an important matter. He says, of his removal of Bradley etc:

Listing those scientists is redundant when they are the featured IPCC sources...

No. He is missing the entire point: the views on non-globality are sourced *to them*, not to the IPCC. SEW's POV-pushing consists of his repeated attempts to pretend that these views are sourced to the IPCC, when they are not. If SEW isn't capable of understanding this very basic point over the use and value of original referneces, he should not be editing the articles.

(William M. Connolley 16:49, 18 May 2005 (UTC)) Response to... etc. It looks like SEW is finally coming to accept the it-wasn't-the-IPCC, which is welcome (although not entirely, because he is still editing on top of JG deletions, which is pointless). He then goes on And I thank WMC, as I hadn't noticed how small a number of scientists have questioned aspects of the LIA and MWP, so obviously they should get the minority coverage of the topics. I presume this is just spite, because, of course, its wrong. There are a large number of such papers. What does he expect, the entire article filled up with all such names?


[edit] Evidence against JonGwynne (William M. Connolley 22:05, 27 May 2005 (UTC))

I presume that the arbitrators have read, or at least reviewed, the evidence from JGs previous arbcomm case. Much of that remains valid.

JG is little more than a POV pusher (well, he's already been convicted of that, presumably there is no need to re-prove it). His valuable edits are negligible, his disruption to wiki is considerable. Just recently, he has been trying to add s(k)eptic POV to the kyoto protocol article. This [84] is typical: Stott is of no particular significance, but *even is he was* it would be quite inappropriate and unbalanced to add a comment of this nature into the intro of the article. Since that edit, he has restored the inappropriate quote [85], [86], etc.

Over at Ross McKitrick, we have much the same pattern of POV pushing. McK is a skeptic, therefore JG doesn't like anything negative about him. So he keeps removing the fact that his paper was rejected by nature [87], (note decpetive edit comment - JGs old habit of deceptive edit comments remains as bad as ever), much the same again: [88]. Note that this last is simply wrong: it *was* rejected, there is no hint (not even from McK) that it was resubmitted. Oh, and again [89].

[Addendum] Today, the sheer pointless POV-pushing of JG becomes even more blatant: with this [90] he inserts though there was no indication as to why the paper was rejected. But this is wrong: [91].

JGs habit of personal insults continues, too. This [92] is his response (and he liked it so much, he copied it to Jncs page: [93]) when Jnc points out that JG messed up the 3RR page (it goes on and gets worse). Vsmith has commented on JGs behaviour here [94] and I endorse that. More evidence of his inability to communicate politely: [95].

In short, JGs presence is disruptive to the main goal, which is to create an encycopedia of valuable, well written articles. His disruptive edits get in the way of everyone else and contribute nothing of value.

[edit] Evidence presented by Scot E. Wilcoxon

William M. Connolley above has referred to Cortonin editing material from Nils-Axel Mörner (aka NA Morner, Moerner) which I added to Wikipedia.

  1. "Cortonin brings up Michael Crichton, Bjorn Lomborg, Nils-Axel Morner, SEPP and others. He is unable to realise that MC is a writer of potboilers, and not an acceptable scientifc reference; that Morner is essentially a one-man-band whose web pages deceptively imply that he is prez of the INQUA commission when he isn't; and that SEPP is something other than a propaganda site."
    • It has been pointed out to Connolley that those "Morner" web pages are an archive of the former INQUA commission, which do state the end date of the commission (although the end date is not stamped across every page). Talk:Sea_level_rise#Morner Talk:Global_warming#INQUA I am not aware of Mörner having a personal web site.
  2. "What Cortonin is really complaining about is not facts, but me removing stuff like All handling by IPCC of the Sea Level questions have been done in a way that cannot be accepted and that certainly not concur with modern knowledge of the mode and mechanism of sea level changes - as is shown by the diff he cites himself [96]. I removed that, commenting Re-rm Morner, whose deceptive website is not a suitable resource for wiki. See sea level rise. And I'll stand by that: Morner represents no-one but himself, and his personal views don't deserve prominence on a main page like this. They could go on a Morner page, but... oddly... for such an important figure, the Morner pages doesn't exist. And Cortonin is so uninterested in him that he can't be bothered to create it."
    • That is an ad hominem attack rather than dealing with the subject matter. Actually, two attacks: one on Mörner and another on Cortonin's biographical interests.
    • It is not expected that everyone will have a biographical page in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a biographical dictionary, where everyone has their existence summarized and a picture.
    • As to Mörner's scientific expertise: Since 1969 he has least dozens of scientific publications. Google Scholar: NA Mörner
      • Nils-Axel Mörner (2003). Paleoseismicity of Sweden, a novel paradigm. Nils-Axel Mörner. ISBN 91-631-4072-1. 
      • N. A. Morner; W. Karlen (1984). Climatic Changes on a Yearly to Millennial Basis. Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 9027717796. 
      • Morner, N.A., editor (1980). Earth Rheology Isostasy and Eustasy : Proceedings of Earth Rheology and Late Cenozoic Isostatic Movements an Interdisciplinary Symposium Held in Stockholm Sweden July 31- August 8 1977. John Wiley. 
      • The "prominence on a main page" is due to Mörner's statemements about the accuracy and quality of the work in Connolley's favorite textbook, the IPCC TAR, on Mörner's field of sea levels. This expert has comments on specific issues, which Connolley reduces to vague phrases with ad hominem attacks such as labeling the individual a "lone skeptic". [97] [98] [99] [100] [101]
  3. "Meanwhile, on sea level rise the same old POV-pushing by Cortonin goes on [102]. He tries to insert These values are completely misleading and false. Our INQUA Commission on “Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution” (which hosts the leading world experts on just the topic) has a totally different view (expressed in my previous reviews). The key here is *my* previous reviews - they are the work of Morner, not INQUA. And the INQUA commission *isn't* the world leading experts on the topic - the leading institute for this is the permanent service for mean sea level. The best summary of the research available is the IPCC chapter on SRL: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/408.htm, not one maveric (not all maverics are good :-) like Morner."
    • The "by Cortonin goes on" diff-link above is to a recent edit by Connolley to my material, not Cortonin's. The document being quoted [103] begins "IPCC again: Our commission (via its president who act as "expert reviewer")" which makes it quite clear that Morner is speaking on behalf of the commission.
    • It has been pointed out to Connolley that there are indications that others were working with Morner on the INQUA commission. Talk:Sea_level_rise#Morner "There were studies with co-authors from the commission, notably the Maldives Project paper in 2003 which suggests their constant participation. "New perspectives for the future of the Maldives" was "Received 4 December 2001", so its authors were coworkers at least in 2001."
    • Mörner has some experience producing an organization's publications:
    "The INQUA Neotectonics Bulletin, Nos 1-19, 1978-1996. In 1978, Mörner started the issuing of an annual Bulletin of the INQUA Neotectonics Commission. Up to its ending in 1996, 19 numbers have been published covering a total of 1650 pages. In this series, much of the novellities in general neotectonics, coastal stability, geoid deformation, paleoseismicity, nuclear waste handling, etc. have been presented." [104]

(SEWilco 20:31, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC))

[edit] Mörner reply (SEWilco 05:58, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC))

Connolley attacked Mörner more. I'm not sure if he attacked me too. As I mentioned above, he used such attacks as reasons to delete Mörner's reviews of IPCC's work on sea levels.

  1. "SEW has piled in, on the Morner issue. SEW is a skeptic, of course, and so is in favour of Morner, another skeptic."
    • My Wikipedia material was piled in, as well as one of my edits.
    • I defend my information, not someone else.
      • I didn't "pile in" on previously mentioned issues because none were relevant to me, or others had presented relevant facts. Facts don't need piles of supporters.
    • Connolley thinks Mörner and I support each other because we're on some sort of team? I haven't gotten my team shirt.
  2. "Morner is indeed a scientist; he was indeed prez of the INQUA commission; and he misused that position to push his own POV (POV-pushing not being limited to wiki...). This link [105] is rather relevant: from which I quote Dr. Mörner currently has no formal position in INQUA, and I am distressed that he continues to represent himself in his former capacity. Further, INQUA, which is an umbrella organization for hundreds of researchers knowledgeable about past climate, does not subscribe to Mörner’s position on climate change. Nearly all of these researchers agree that humans are modifying Earth’s climate, a position diametrically opposed to Dr. Mörner’s point of view.. This makes it clear that Morner is indeed speaking for himself, not INQUA."
    • As has been pointed out to Connolley [106] [107], Mörner was not speaking for INQUA. He was sometimes speaking on behalf of the commission. Somehow this seems important to Connolley.
    • Connolley says Mörner misused his position to push his own POV, but does not indicate how it was misused nor how that may be relevant here.
  3. "Morner has (pers. comm.) been told to take down "his" commission pages at http://www.pog.su.se/sea/, but has failed to do so. The reason was that he continues to try to use the INQUA name to push his personal skeptical POV."
    • Connolley has personal communication about that web site being available is because Mörner is using it to push "skeptical POV"?
    • Is "skeptical POV" somehow relevant here?
    • Is that more than an ad hominem attack? Mörner doesn't have a personal web site and does not seem to be promoting the former Commission's site. The information can be published elsewhere, so does it make sense for that specific site to be intentionally kept running?
  4. "This commission no longer exists: try navigating that site and try to find a clear statement of that fact. To the casual, or even diligent, reader the commission appears to still exist: indeed http://www.pog.su.se/sea/01_welcome_text.htm says Our commission will primarily work via... (my emphasis on will); it goes on If you want to join our commission... We welcome new members of our commission... - in other words, the (false) impression is given that this is an ongoing project."
    • Try sending email or contacting the Commission. You'll quickly find it is not ongoing. The casual reader also quickly finds the site is out of date, such as references to a future which is now long past. Some sort of pointless deception?
    • It has also been pointed out to Connolley that INQUA requires that commissions and members pass their material on to any successor. Talk:Sea_level_rise#Morner That seems like a good reason to not delete the information before the scheduled end of the commission. I don't know what happened after the conference, nor what INQUA's commissions which are now studying in those fields need.
  5. "Also (this affects my view of his reliability, it may do yours) Morner believes in dowsing: http://www.phact.org/e/z/randi-dowsing.txt."
    • I think that piece of Connolley evidence stands by itself.

[edit] Comment on WMC Response to Silverbacks response (SEWilco 19:02, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC))

  1. "Now Silverback attempts to contrast my 4-step SEPP thingy [108](scroll down to line 21/32) with the GW page. But my SEPP thingy is very clearly referenced, every statement of it."
    • The discussion of WMC's SEPP thingy is about several problems with his thingy,[109] and I finally had to fix his thingy in public.[110]
  2. "I am indeed unapologetic about documentation. As I understand the "rules", you put material in (with or without doc) and if anyone complains "this is undocumented" you have to provide doc or suffer it being removed. Skeptics are rather likely to stuff in undocumented weaselly stuff (some skeptics say...) and then complain when it gets removved as weaselly."
    • WMC has no difficulty insisting on retaining a Grist quote on SEPP [111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121][122][123][124] even after he couldn't find the source.[125] Several of those edits also show WMC insisting on changing references to the SEPP web site to refer to Dr. Singer, although the references are to material on the SEPP site and SEPP owns the domain name, pushing WMC's POV of SEPP as being one person even as WMC was insisting that Grist showed an SEPP organization which connected it to another organization.

[edit] Response to WMC's response to SEW's response to...

  1. "SEW wrote [126]: WMC has no difficulty insisting on retaining a Grist quote on SEPP even after he couldn't find the source [127]. This is not true: as the very diffs provided by SEW show, as soon as I realised that there was no source for the quote, I stopped defending it. I even suggested it should be removed! Good grief, have these septics no shame?"
    • WMC referred only to his final Grist edit in the "very diffs provided" above. And he merely suggested that it be removed rather than doing so, although I had shown its information was so bad that retaining only the relevant and true information drastically changes the meaning.[128]
      • "According to Grist magazine, SEPP's board of directors and advisers is, "made up primarily of retired scientists no longer active in the field, and many of whom are also on the board of the closely linked George C. Marshall Institute.". (Three are also on the Marshall Inst board)."
      • "According to Grist magazine, SEPP's board of directors and advisers is made up primarily of scientists, three of whom are also on the board of the George C. Marshall Institute."
        • "Retired" is a financial status not relevant to science, being active in scientific publications and meetings is being "active in the field", having only three on the GCMI board is not "many of whom", and "closely linked" is not defined.
    • WMC's justification after the above was "Rv: Its better left as a quote" on his last diff described as based upon retaining the Grist information merely because it was a quote rather than whether it was factually correct: "Rv: The quote is clearly attributed to Grist, rather than asserted as a statement of fact."[129]

[edit] Observation on Evidence presented by Audiovideo

Of course WMC tends to agree with http://www.realclimate.org/. As WMC says, he is a member. Indeed, WMC created the Wikipedia article on RealClimate. (SEWilco 16:14, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC))

[edit] Re: WMC's evidence on IPCC

WMC refers to me above and recognizes NPOV issues exist in the IPCC article: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/William_M._Connolley_vs_Cortonin/Evidence#Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change_.28William_M._Connolley_09:24.2C_21_Apr_2005_.28UTC.29.29

(SEWilco 06:14, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC))

[edit] Re: WMC on Crit section

  • WMC refers to "On 12 March, SEW added [133]", which I call the "Hansen" topic after the author of the source material.
    • He says after "a phase of removing it" (I couldn't find that), on 19 April WMC moved it from "Criticism" to a new "Comments" section.[134] I was curious to see what he was going to do and how it was not criticism.
    • Seven hours later WMC deleted Hansen: "Someone has cherry picked Hansens text to try to make it sound like he is criticising IPCC." . [135]
      • I created the list of IPCC issues from Hansen's articles, just as one may extract information about polar aurora from articles about the magnetosphere. I did not claim that the main subject of the articles was the IPCC, so I did not "cherry pick" to distort the subject of the articles. Hansen and those articles merely happened to be the source material for the lists.
      • WMC's edit comments merely said something was implied, without saying what implication in WMC's head was the basis of his actions.[136]
      • Talk is here: Talk:Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change#Implied_criticism
  • WMC says in above evidence: "my view is that it is really too unbalanced to stay in."
    • Criticism has to be balanced?
  • WMC has filed evidence as a psychological analyst: "SEW (probably in a fit of pique) has added more stuff to the crit section [137] from Inhofe, Christy and Schneider."
    • The motivation was routine processing of accumulated research which was not related to WMC's activities.
      • The world does not revolve around WMC.
  • WMC says: "The Inhofe stuff is laughable… This stuff has no place in a science page."
    • But the IPCC page is not a science page. It is about an organization.
    • WMC says "In my view, what SEW has done to the IPCC pages with these edits are a taste of what will happen to the science of GW pages if the skeptics are not reined in."
      • These are evaluations of the IPCC as an organization, its politics, and its work. I intentionally placed the information in the appropriate place, in the IPCC article, and not "GW pages".
        • Reality is not dependent upon the examination of the publisher of a popular textbook.

(SEWilco 06:14, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC))

[edit] Re: Evidence against SEWilco (and JonGwynne) (WMC, 16 May 2005 (UTC))

I've been involved here since WMC used my material as examples in his Addendum#3 Evidence against Cortonin, and as invited: "Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page." As I previously indicated, my Evidence would be significantly different if I were a party rather than responding to the few issues which involve some of my contributions. I continue to reply as a third party.

WMC's references (which I replied to above [138]) to my material were:

  • as is shown by the diff he cites himself [139].
    • Follow the Older edit links back a few, past a vandal, to Cortonin's simple formatting adjustments to my insertion.[140]
  • the same old POV-pushing by Cortonin goes on [141].
    • That diff has my name on it, not Cortonin.

Back to WMC's latest Evidence:

  1. "We seem to be at an interesting stage. Mav has mentioned possible sanctions against other people, so"
    • For those who missed it, over in Proposed decision User:Maveric149 proposed expanding the case to third parties, including me.[142] WMC presented this Evidence before any other Arbitrators commented over yonder.
  2. "I'd like to present evidence against SEW, of his POV-pushing repeatedly at Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period. If you're not familiar with the issue under dispute, its whether these cold/warm periods should be considered global, or not. This is not a settled point, and in fact we haven't been warring over that: what we've been warring over is, to whom should the non-global views be attributed to?"
    • Actually WMC's been fighting himself to some extent. I've been saying the LIA/MWP are global in effect, although detected changes in various regions has varied in time and type of change. Some regions (warmed/cooled, got dry/wet, irradiated more/less) at various times, sometimes in known patterns. WMC has been trying to prove that the old European view of a single global burst of warmth/cold did not take place, even though he knows climate effects are not that simple.
  3. "In my opinion (err, based on reading various papers) its clear that there are many authors who question this; and that the IPCC admirably summarises this evidence. SEW would like to attribute this view purely *to* the IPCC, hence edits like [143]. Notice how the important issue of non-globality is moved down, and attributed purely to the IPCC."
    • The non-globality is still in the same place: "The LIA was first studied in Europe, and was initially believed to be a global phenomenon." The rest of the paragraph introduces the events which were originally named the LIA/MWP as being regional, and introduces the various other events in an intentionally vague fashion so the various sections will fit despite various editors.[144]
    • Moving the cat o' nine tails of IPCC claims down from the introduction has been attempted for some time, without globality mentioned until the IPCC section.[145]
    • There also are many authors still referring to LIA/MWP events, so having the "many authors who question this" in its own section makes sense. WMC's "many authors" phrasing makes it sound as if the IPCC sources are a minority, although I don't know if that was his intended meaning.
    • As to the attribution of claims to the IPCC, look at WMC's current 2nd paragraph in the article:
      "It was initially believed that the LIA was a global phenomenon. It is now less clear that this is true based on evidence about past temperature trends from IPCC-TAR. For example, some versions of the reconstruction of the temperature record of the past 1000 years in the northern hemisphere [146] do not show a pronounced period of cooling. See Medieval climate optimum for more on this. The IPCC, based on Bradley and Jones, 1993; Hughes and Diaz, 1994; Crowley and Lowery, 2000 describes the LIA as a modest cooling of the Northern Hemisphere during this period of less than 1°C, and says current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this timeframe, and the conventional terms of "Little Ice Age" and "Medieval Warm Period" appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries."
      • IPCC-TAR is invoked as source of evidence.
      • reconstruction of the temperature record of the past 1000 years in the northern hemisphere is the "hockey stick" graph which the IPCC adopted recently.
      • See Medieval climate optimum where this is repeated.
      • The IPCC, based on…describes the LIA again invokes the IPCC.
  4. "SEW has also removed "Bradley and Jones, 1993; Hughes and Diaz, 1994; Crowley and Lowery, 2000" - these are the scientists whose work IPCC are summarising - in order that he can pretend its "IPCC POV" (his phrase)."
    • Listing those scientists is redundant when they are the featured IPCC sources, and if IPCC details are needed they should be in the IPCC section rather than cluttering up the article introduction.
  5. "Notice also that he revises the description of the ice core, by removing the text in bold:
    An ice core from the eastern Bransfield Basin, Antarctic Peninsula clearly identifies events of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period [147]. These events cover approximately the last 300 years, ie 1700 onwards, and show non-cold conditions applying during much of the period conventionally labelled "little ice age", including the time of the "frost fair" type pictures shown above. This illustrates the non-globality of the LIA.
  6. He provides no justification for removing this material, other (presumably) than that it contradicts what he wants to see. There is a similar pattern at MWP; its the same dispute; and there JG has been playing his usual unhelpful role."
    • I actually didn't see that among the reversions in that edit. However, WMC's "non-cold conditions" phrasing is odd as the above reference does show a cluster of "cold" events during the LIA and a corresponding cluster of warm events around the time of the MWP. Even odder is using a climate pattern from Antarctica to prove what is/isn't happening in Europe and claiming this illustrates non-globality. Particularly because WMC is also well aware that some global events show simultaneously across the globe, while others have a pattern flowing from south to north, and others have opposing effects between the North Atlantic and Antarctica. (SEWilco 10:06, 17 May 2005 (UTC))

[edit] Reply to WMC's SEWilco Addendum

  1. "…No. He is missing the entire point: the views on non-globality are sourced *to them*, not to the IPCC. SEW's POV-pushing consists of his repeated attempts to pretend that these views are sourced to the IPCC, when they are not."

Ah, so despite WMC's repeated mention of the IPCC he actually was trying to quote the sourced scientists. Well, all he had to do was reinsert them and change the headline from "IPCC" to something more appropriate. And I thank WMC, as I hadn't noticed how small a number of scientists have questioned aspects of the LIA and MWP, so obviously they should get the minority coverage of the topics. (SEWilco 06:46, 18 May 2005 (UTC))

[edit] Evidence presented by Axon

I'm not sure if it is appropriate to put this here, but I'd like to make some remarks in support of Connolley. Connolley is a highly productive and knowledgeable member of the community who has been contributing to the discussion on Global Warming for a while now. He has a POV, but he edits fairly, and he's not a rule breaker.

There is a considerable lobby on Wikipedia whom make it incredibly hard to write neutrally on the subject of Global Warming. Despite daunting opposition, Connolley continues to edit patiently and with excellent command of science. I know personally that I gave up editing on the global warming pages because of the constant edit warring and tiresome tactics. In the short time I did edit on this subject, gaming tactics I experienced included creating "alternative" pages[148][149], hiding POV in sub-topics[150], and even deletion of well cited, factual content[151]. It is admirable that Connelley continues to edit here and his work is invaluable to maintaining NPOV. He certainly should not be punished from bringing a pro-GW, scientific perspective to Wikipedia --Axon 11:13, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Response to Ed Poor

I would like to concur with User:Silverback that Ed's recommendations for how to deal with WMC are extreme. I disagree with his assertion that WMC is attempting to dismiss the scientific arguments against global warming but is instead bringing a much needed scientific footing to articles that would otherwise be dominated less scientific, more emotional arguments against the global warming. All Ed's points are only valid if one maintains that a balance of opinion as he demonstrates exists across all areas when this is not necesarily true. In the case of consensus within the scientific community, WMC certainly provides strong evidence of this to such a point that the argument has shifted to question the concept of consensus itself. All this could be avoided is editors (both anti- and pro-) toned down their own obsvious and strong bias and properly categorised global warming arguments in the proper articles, sections and contexts.

[edit] Evidence presented by Guettarda

I would like to make some comments in support of [[User:William M. Connelley|William Connelley, and some observations about this debate. In essence, WMC is being criticised for failing to give equal weighting to minority figures like Crichton and Lomborg, and for being "disrespectful" of these people when he fails to give them equal weight with bodies like the IPCC (and the scientists who make up those panels). I would counter that WMC deserves praise to sticking to the truth in the face of massive attack and harrassment, and for being incredibly patient with people who insist on pushing a minority POV (which in some cases they don't understand).

I have been lurking on the GW Talk page for a long time, following the debate as it has run across numerous pages and subpages. Quite frankly, up until now I have been unwilling to say too much simply because I don't want to get into a mess like that, and I don't want to be followed around Wikipedia and harrassed the way WMC is. But this RfA is an outrage. It amounts to an attempt to silence an excellent editor simply for sticking to the facts. It's disturbing, and I think it bodes poorly for the future of Wikipedia.

  • Cortonin and Scot E. Wilcoxon seem to take issue particularly with WMC's dismissal of people like Michael Crichton, Bjorn Lomborg, Nils-Axel Morner, the SEPP, S. Fred Singer and Frederick Seitz. More importantly, the words defamatory and disrespect. His criticism of Mörner in particular was called ad hominem.
What needs to be understood is that the standards of criticism that are appropriate for scientific discourse are different from those appropriate between Wikipedia editors. The standards of Wikiquette require that you assume good faith on the part of other users, and since original research is not allowed, what they put into articles should be taken as their good faith to present the views of others, as they understand them. Scientific discourse is another matter. Wikipedia is supposed to present the existing POVs, hopefully in a balanced manner. If you are dealing with scientific publications, you are supposed to present your findings and interpretations, and then your colleagues are supposed to poke holes in them. You then need to either modify your findings in light on new evidence, or demonstrate why your interpretations are correct. If you keep presenting things that are obviously wrong, or if you ask questions that have been answered to everyone's satisfaction except your own, people stop taking you seriously. (A nice analogy is the story of the head of department who fell asleep at the start of a seminar, woke up at the end, and started by asking the question which the presenter had just spent 30 minutes answering). Dismissing people on the fringe, like Lomborg, or non-scientists, like Crichton, is par for the course. (For me there is the analogy of being asked, for the hundredth time, "what about gaps in the fossil record", when, in fact, gaps in the fossil record are to be expected, or "what about punctuated equilibrium", as if the debates of the 80s had not taken place).
Not all POVs are equal, not even all majority and minority POVs. In some cases the majority POV is nothing more than that, the fact that more people drink Coke than Pepsi. But majority scientific "POVs" are generally based on the consideration of data and analyses thereof. To be skeptical, to poke holes in arguments, and to be unwilling to accept unwarranted extrapolations from data is to be a scientist. But that isn't what we are dealing with here. GW is accepted because there is overwhelming evidence in support of it. Crichton isn't a scientist, and his books are full of fantasy veiled in the verneer of science. They sound reasonable, they are supported by "evidence", so they sound true. He is good at his art, but not at science. If Lomborg was serious about science he would have put his ideas up in peer-reviewed places. To file an RfA against someone because he is disrespectful to people like this is abuse of process.

-- Guettarda 16:48, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ed Poor's response to me

majority scientific "POVs" are generally based on the consideration of data and analyses thereof. - that's your opinion, and should not be the official point of view of Wikipedia. Rather, Wikipedia should describe fairly the dispute between (a) those who assert that pro-GW scientists in general (or those contributing papers to the IPCC) are objectively considering the data and analyses and (b) those who assert that ideological or other considerations have affected that conisderation. You and William apparently assume United Nations initiatives carry such moral weight that they are beyond question. (That's a POV which the Wikipedia should neither endorse nor condemn.) -- Uncle Ed (talk) 17:47, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] My response to Ed's response to me

No, it's not my opinion. It's how science works. There is no question about morality in here. The IPCC is one element of the whole body of work. If it differed with the opinions of most specialists it would be roundly and readily condemned. This not not about advocacy groups, although the Right Wing is bent on using its powers of doublespeak and deception to paint science as an advocacy group. You are pushing a rightwing POV. Lay off of the talking points for a minute.

[edit] Ed's response to my response to Ed's response to me

That's how science works when it does work. When politics, etc. interfere and researchers fail to consider the data and analyses with analytic detachment, then there is a breakdown. The process is not (as you suggest) automatic or foolproof. It is not impervious to "gaming the system". Wikipedia should not and must not assume (or assert) that simply because the matter is being examined by scientists whatever most of them agree upon must be true. Even if 67% or 80% or 90% of researchers in a particular field agree on something, that doesn't mean Wikipedia should endorse it. The article should simply report what percentage of researchers agree. (And it could also indicate what percentage of those in related fields agree or disagree, as we've done with the theory of evolution - which 99.8% of biologists agree with but only 95% of all scientists generally. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 22:34, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] My response to Ed's response to my response to Ed's response to me

  • Ed's responds to comments on how science works by saying: When politics, etc. interfere and researchers fail to consider the data and analyses with analytic detachment, then there is a breakdown. This is not a response. This is unsourced speculation. Is there any credible evidence that this is the case in the GW debate? He is alleging major misconduct by a large body of scientists. If that is the case I would expect to see the authors of the IPCC report, and people who have supported it strongly censured by their respective universities and professional societies. That is the way misconduct is dealt with.
  • He says The process is not (as you suggest) automatic or foolproof. Obviously the process is not automatic. A report or publication is considered by the user community. People point out hte flaws in it, and get some quick, highly noticed publications. To critically debunk something like the IPCC report is a high-yielding activity. Not only do you get noticed, but you would also get a highly cited paper. Good for tenure, good for grants, good for your professional reputation. So, the lack of widespread refutation of what Ed considers flawed science can only be seen as evidence of a conspiracy. Political interference is an interesting myth - especially when the biggest funder of research (the US government) has taken a political position opposed to the IPCC position. Is Ed alleging that there is a conspiracy among climate scientists, that the vast majority of them are guilty of scientific misconduct, all for some paltry political gain? More to the point - is he saying that Wikipedia should endorse this conspiracy theory? If not, his arguments are specious. Guettarda 17:32, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comment on Cortonin's Addendum 5

WMC reverted 4 times in 23hrs, 43mins. Cortonin reverted 4 times in 25hr, 50 mins. The difference in trivial, but one breaks the sacred 3RR while the other one doesn't. Cortonin then goes on to add: He even managed to throw in an extra revert...five minutes before his ban. WMC's "fifth" revert was 11 hours after his fourth, and so was not in violation of the 3RR. Since the revert was made only minutes after Cortonin reported the 3RR violation, and before WMC admitted that he has made a mistake on the 3RR page, there is no way for any of us to determine whether WMC was aware that he had violated the 3RR (11 hours previously). There is no reason to assume that WMC was aware of the 3RR violation when he reverted the page.

Cortonin is gaming the system, and is presenting slanted evidence here. It looks to me like his addendum 5 is meant to mislead. Guettarda 20:41, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Silverback

On the SEPP page, WMC and Cortonin have been involved in a prolonged revert war, on text proposed by WMC which appears to be in violation of the no original research policy. It is a step by step attempt at refutation of a Singer text. The part of the NOR policy which appears relevant is prohibition of something that "purports to refute another idea, theory, argument, or position described in the article". This particular diff has the text that is the subject of the dispute [152]. Frankly, while WMCs text makes some prooftext types of points, I don't think it is based on a good faith reading of Singers points, and so should not be allowed in the article without some countering defenses of Singer's position, such as the points I make on the talk page in the section entitled "claim seen to be false". While I don't think WMCs refutation is successful in this case, it would be helpful if the arbitration committee would give some guidance on argumentive refutations such as this, because I have a few in mind. As long as the facts can be documented a little deductive and inferential argumentation is normal to science.

Secondly, I think it is wrong for WMC to be so combative about citations of prominent "non-scientists" such as Crichton. Crichton is a medically educated, scientifically literate author whose opinions are respected and notable, much as those of A.C. Clarke and Asimov in the past. He has undertaken a defense of Global warming skepticism both in the latest work of fiction, and in his predominately non-fiction speaking tour in the wake of the book, in a manner perhaps comparable to Thomas Huxley's stumping for Darwin. Crichton's voice, is one of many critical of the politicization of science and Global warming. WMC has allowed some references to Crichton in the past, but I don't know what his current position is.

I don't see any need for sanctions for either side in this arbitration case, but perhaps some guidance would be helpful.

--Silverback 14:31, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Once a body of skeptical evidence has built up on the Global warming page, which has been able to survive WMCs scrutiny because it is documentable WMC starts trying to spill it to less prominent pages, citing the article's increasing length, which is of course frustrating to those who worked so hard to get it in there. Perhaps I am more tolerant of lengthy articles but I get the distinct impression that this behavior is a strategem to alter the balance that has been achieved in the article rather than good faith editing. Frankly, I not willing to document this, because this type of behavior is a cumulative impression, so any documentation would be voluminous, but possibly the evidence already raised by others falls into this category. Perhaps the arbcom's antenna can be raised for this when reviewing the evidence. Certainly, after some hard work by the skeptics, any summary left behind in the more prominent global warming article should at least fairly reflect the skeptical evidence, without having to revisit the documentation already gathered. The frustrating effect of this behavior is perhaps part of the reason this case was brought.--Silverback 14:59, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reponse to WMC's response to Silverback

WMC is unapologetic about his insistence on documentation, yet wants to include the original step by step refutation on the SEPP page. The "weasel worded" paragraph that WMC used as an undocumented example, had been on the page for some time, and "weasel" wording should call for improvement not deletion. The first part of that paragraph mentions limitations that even the IPCC publications pretty much acknowledge, and wMC knows that. The latter part quoted here:

  • Skeptics also argue that if larger solar coupling exists than can be accounted for by direct insolation, models that don't account for this effect's role in past warming will attribute too much of that warming to greenhouse gases and will inevitably be biased to predict greater warming from future greenhouse gas increases.

Is a basic explanation of how models parameterized to fit data behave when relevant variables are excluded, in a way to misattribute and mispredict, in this case overpredict. It is general mathmatical/scientific knowledge, every bit as obvious as the refutation he puts on the SEPP page. Strongly suggestive solar variation correlation data and multiple indirect solar variation applification theories (because the correlation is stronger than can be explained by variation in direct insolation) give credence to the larger solar coupling as an important element missing from the models.

My reason for opposing WMCs SEPP refution is not because it is a refutation, but because I think it is based on an incorrect and unfair reading of Singer's text. But if WMC is to be consistent, he is going to have to allow for other basic scientific reasoning on the pages, rather than being a severe deletionist.

As to page length, many people edit the page, not because of interest in the scientific errata of global warming, because because they are concerned about the politicization of the issue and that known problems with the predictions and data are not represented on the page. It is naturally frustrating to them, to have the information they have finally gotten past the documentation required deletionist screen, to then have it shoved off to a page on the arcania of the science. In most cases WMCs requirements for documentation were disengenuous. He knew very well (unless his POV resulted in self deception) the points were documentable based on his expertise in the field and his familiarity with the literature, and just forced them to jump through the hoops of documenting it to prevent or delay the inclusion of evidence.

If WMC behaved at the whiteboard as he does on these pages, I'm sure his fellow scientists would think him bullheaded for failing to concede obvious points.--Silverback 22:23, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reponse to WMC's response to Silverback's Response

WMC, you state that you've documented the statements in your refutation in SEPP, but you have only documented which Singer statements you are referring to, your logic is your own undocumented creation. Similarly you have acknowledged that the climate models don't model the indirect solar effects because the chain of physics causality isn't developed enough to model. If you acknowledge that and the more recently published "climate commitment" effect, how can you deny that models that don't incorporate these effects and are tuned to 20th century data, must misattribute the 20th century warming to something they do incorporate. Of course this includes all the models the 2001 IPCC and earlier predictions are based on. Yes, maybe the weasally "skeptics say" should be left out, but the basic model reasoning is as well established as your logic steps. In fact the only reason the 2001 IPCC predictions stay in is because they are essentially a quote. If they tried to stand on their own, they would have to be taken out as invalidated by subsequent work documenting important variables they didn't incorporate.--Silverback 13:34, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Response to Ed Poor's Evidence

Yes, WMC leaves his skepticism at the door when it comes to Global warming, and engages in revert wars against poorly documented, or poorly explained argument or evidence. This definitely makes a bad impression on newcomers, so a little more patient referral to talk pages would be in order. (I am guilty of impatience with newcomers who bring up already hashed over arguments too). However, he does yield to argument and peer reviewed evidence, which are the standards in science, and he even allows questionable material in eventually, with his counterpoints included. But Ed Poor's proposed measures are way harsh. I suspect WMC would respect admonishment to avoid getting too personal in his campaign against SEPP, Singer and Crichton, and to be more accomodating in allowing opposing views to stay in the Global Warming article, despite its growing length. I think the end result of all of all of this, would be less WMC insistance on an overkill of criticism on GW opponent articles, and a slightly longer Global warming page (well maybe 25% longer).--Silverback 21:38, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Response to WMC's response to Ed Poor's Evidence

WMC argued that NPOV requires that:

  • "if 90% of the scientists agree on something (however one might determine that I'm unsure) then the article should give, very roughly, space in the article proportional to this balance of views."

There is more than just the difficulty of how one could determine what percentage of scientists agree, there is the question of what subgroup of scientists is to participate in the consensus assessment. Do just climate modelers count on climate modeling issues? Recall the physicists were very instrumental in questioning electrochemists on the Cold Fusion, even on issues outside physicists experimental expertise, such as calorimetry. Do just creation scientists count on creation science issues? In science legitimate objections or problems with scientific results should get space in accordance with possibility and plausibility of the threat they represent. It new issues arise that were not controlled for in the study that produced the results, they should receive mention only slightly less prominent than the report of the original results. If contradictory results are published, they should receive equally prominent space, especially if they are more recent and the original results were discussed in the review of the literature of the new peer reviewed paper. If the article is basically on a particular scientific result or finding, the evidence supporting that result should get to go first, but a notation of the response should not have to lag too much further down. This appears to be what does currently happen, generally based on the quality of arguments, and papers, on collegial scientific pages today, and I see no reason to change it here. --Silverback 14:44, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Vsmith

I have been editing both with and against William Connelley for the past several months and have grown to respect his knowledge and dedication to explaining and protecting the science of the various climate articles on his watchlist. WMC is at times a bit, perhaps, over-quick on hitting the revert button. But, considering the POV pushing tactics of the skeptic view I can't fault him for that. The climate articles do contain significant balance with respect to the skeptic view, but the skeptics, too often, insist on equal space to their minority views or on pushing their views to the front. An example is the following major reorg [153] by a political blogger which occured without discussion in the middle of the aforementioned User:JonGwynne war. This POV attack was repulsed only after considerable effort by WMC and numerous other eds. and involved possible sockpuppets and page locking by an admin. who appeared to be operating in collusion with said political blogger. These edits [154] and [155] show that Cortonin sided with the attacker in the dispute. He was about the only editor that did. The case was complex as the page history [156] around Feb 25 shows.

On Mar 5 User:Atlastawake joined the frey with significant undiscussed and controversial edits [157] which were also rejected by WMC and most other working editors with the exception of Cortonin who supported the, again I use the word, attack. The following is a note on the talk page posted by WMC [158] which indicates the intent of Atlastawake's edits. This [159] is an interesting note regarding the kind of arrogant behavior behind the problems with the climate pages and the balance problems WMC and other eds try to maintain there.

Vsmith 16:57, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Now with regard to Cortonin. Cortonin requested this arbitration, based upon, with other things, edit warring. In this Cortonin fails to see that an edit war requires at least two participants and that Cortonin is an active edit warrier. As one example, on the Solar greenhouse (technical) page, as I have noted on this [160] talk page, WMC and Cortonin have been involved in a protracted edit war which spilled over from the Greenhouse effect page. The edit history [161] shows the extent of the war. On Mar 22 I called for a truce and asked both to stop [162] - I volunteered to try to construct a more neutral compromise version in hopes of ending the war. WMC accepted [163], Cortonin gave a conditional OK [164]. I wrote a first draft and asked for comment "and ask both of you two warriers to leave it be for a period of time. Comments here would of course be acceptable," [165]. Cortonin immediately did a 10 edit revision which ammounted to a revert to his POV [166]. Since that time he has refused to stand back and let me and other eds. come up with a compromise article, even though I have included many of his edits in later versions. His refusal to accept that his warring is a part of the problem, his impatience and refusal to step back for a short time and see how the compromise develops, plus his insistance on pushing his POV even while a compromise was being worked on, are most baffling to me. I was not neutral in the original edit conflict and perhaps he sees this as invalidating any attempts I make to a compromise? His edit and comment of 20:49, 22 Mar 2005 [167] after I had called for a stop had the appearance of trolling as it completely reversed the sense of WMCs edits on the misnomer problem.

Vsmith 18:57, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Charles Matthews

First I should declare that I have known William since long before Wikipedia was hatched.

I would like to support WMC's comment on the Ed Poor ban: this was nothing official at all, just Ed's usual impression of a loose cannon.

I should also like to say that WMC is a serious and solid WP editor, working in an area that has become increasingly contentious as it has risen up the political agenda in the USA. I have known him overstep the mark in content disputes, under provocation; but it seems to me unlikely that he will be found far from NPOV on peer-reviewed science. Charles Matthews 16:36, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Ed Poor

Dr. Connolley is certainly a bona fide, credentalled scientist. And that is the problem, ironically. He has displayed no inclination whatever to follow the NPOV policy of Wikipedia.

He has chosen, instead, to mount a defense of "science" vs. skepticism. This in itself is, of course, absurd, because science is the systematic application of skepticism to all theories, recent and old. Moreover, Wikipedia is not the proper arena for the defense of any institution or idea.

Our job here is simply to present every major side of a dispute fairly.

Nearly everything about global warming is controversial and hotly disputed (no pun intended, even though I'm smiling as I write this!):

  • the extent to which there exists a scientific consensus about the recent warming period and / or what's causing it
  • whether global warming would cause more intense or more frequent hurricanes

Many other points are relevant, and ALL of them are disputed. William, however, has apparently adopted the POV of the environmental lobby which asserts that all of these questions have been definitively answered by "science", and that only financial considerations, sheer incompetence or ideological concerns could possibly motivate any other POVs. And these POVs are therefore not worthy of consideration in any of the articles William touches.

In effect, he has taken "ownership" of the entire climate series. And I've given up battling with him. (Lose the battle, win the war is my motto.)

But he really needs to be stopped. The Wikipedia should present the scientific, economic, ideological and political aspects of the global warming controversy neutrally. It should not assume as a given that there exists a consensus of scientists on the topic (or any part of it). Rather, it should describe the dispute fairly.

Some people think the United Nations is utterly impartial and unbiased. (Why they think this way is beyond me.) But unless Wikipedia amends its policy and endorses the UN's objectivity, our articles better regard the UN's climate panel as just another source. Well-regarded by Europeans, or Greens, or socialists, or U.S. Democrats, perhaps, but that's no reason for the Wikipedia to assume that they are incapable of fraud.

The remedy I would seek is that Dr. Connolley be placed on a revert parole: no reversions without first discussing on the talk page and either (a) getting a response or (b) at least one day goes by.

I would also insist that Dr. Connolley make a definitive statement supporting NPOV policy for all his edits, or be blocked from editing entirely. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 20:50, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

I know I didn't cite specific edits above; it does seem to me that Ed, in talking just in broad-brush terms and failing to cite any edits at all is basically just providing a rant which is no basis at all for insisting anything. Charles Matthews 15:30, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Audiovideo

I sometimes wander into the Global Warming pages, and I have some of the concerns already expressed. Dr Connolley clearly has a POV, though he regards its as a simple expression of the scintific consensus. In the blogwar between realclimate and climateaudit, Dr Connollery is on the side of realclimate and he is encouraging cross-fertilization between there and Wikipedia, such as Image:1000 Year Temperature Comparison.png. The problem is that this cross working is importing POV into Wikipedia.

Some of this verges on using Wikipedia to make a point. I think the articles such as "the science is settled" have become part of a trivial point-scoring debate, rather than giving real information. It seems that some GW skeptics attributed a phrase to the Clinton administration which does not seems to have been used in so many words, but equivalent phrases were used. I see nothing encyclopedic about this - the issue seems to be related to accusations of bad faith or incompetence rather than science - but Dr Connolley seems to think that it and issues like it are an important part of the issue and need to be expanded at length.

That being said, Dr Connolley has treated my few attempts at NPOV edits civilly. --Audiovideo 01:13, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Sheldon Rampton

With regard to the article on "the science is settled," people might want to study its history in assessing the value of Ed Poor's rant against William Connolley. Before I started correcting it, the article was a bizarre fantasy written by Ed, in which he alleged that the Clinton administration had coined "the science is settled" as a "slogan" which it repeated "endlessly" as part of a propaganda campaign to rally public support for the Kyoto treaty. In fact, it is impossible to find even a single documented example of anyone in the Clinton administration using this so-called "slogan" even ONCE. Audiovideo sees the "science is settled" article as "part of a trivial point-scoring debate." That's probably a fair assessment, but it's better that it be "trivial" than that it should be an outright canard. (My first instinct was to simply delete the article, but Ed wouldn't accept that.) It's also worth pointing out that although Ed advocates placing Connolley on a special "parole" status of "no reversions without first discussing on the talk page," the edit history on the science is settled shows Ed himself repeatedly reverting without first discussing on the talk page. (See the edit history on 8 and 9 January 2004, and the related talk page comments.)

re: the comment "In fact, it is impossible to find even a single documented example of anyone in the Clinton administration using this so-called "slogan" even ONCE." - it wasn't impossible for me to find it. A quick Google search turned up multiple references to the US Undersecretary of State and lead delegate in environmental issues Stuart Eizenstat using exactly that phrase. Given the man's position and role, it is inconcievable that this was his own phrase or that he used it without the expressed wishes of his superiors. I can't find any references to Al Gore specifically having uttered that exact phrase but he has, on many occasions, overstated the certainty with regard to theories about global warming causes and effects.--JonGwynne 16:24, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
JonGwynne's comments seem carefully calibrated to create a misleading impression. It's true that a Google search turns up "multiple" (a total of three) references to Eizenstat and this phrase, but as the Wikipedia article itself explains, none of those references document that Eizenstat actually said it, and all three references appear on websites that are strongly partisan global warming skeptics. One of the references is from the Global Climate Coalition, an organization created by the fossil fuel industry to oppose action on global warming. It alleges that Eizenstat said something to this effect, but the GCC page is a paraphrase rather than a direct quote. The only other allegation of Eizenstat saying this phrase appears in a news release issued by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, another corporate-funded think tank that opposes action on global warming. (The third reference to Eizenstat and "the science is settled" appears on Steven Milloy's Junk Science Home Page, where Milloy merely parrots the CEI news release.) So what we have at most is shaky evidence from partisan sources that Eizenstat might have once uttered this phrase or something that sounds similar to it. That's a far cry from what Ed Poor wrote in the original article, which initially was named Slogan 'The science is settled'. Note the word "slogan" and the quote marks around the phrase. Although Ed is now pretending that he never claimed that the Clinton administration actually coined this precise phrase, we all know what a slogan is, and the quote marks clearly signify that Ed was pretending to refer to an exact phrase. The original article claims that this phrase was repeated "endlessly" by Clinton officials in "American political campaigns." Ed states specifically that Al Gore used the phrase (for which, again, there is no evidence). He also states that people who disagreed were "shouted down." All of this is nonsense and fabrication. What we're left with, after the nonsense is removed, is the fact that some Clinton administration officials thought the scientific evidence was conclusive regarding certain aspects of global warming (an opinion held also by the vast majority of climate scientists). But merely expressing an opinion with which Ed Poor or JonGwynne disagree is not the same thing as coining a "slogan," repeating it "endlessly" as part of a "political campaign," and "shouting down" people who disagree. --Sheldon Rampton 18:09, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Facts are stubborn things, and the Wikipedia must be grounded in facts if it is to have any value. In the case of the "science is settled" article, either the Clinton administration created the slogan that Ed claimed it created, or it did not. It is possible for any reasonable individual to examine the evidence and reach a clear conclusion about this. Wikipedia should not be obliged to ignore facts when one of its opinionated members insists on pushing forward a fantasy. If I were to claim that earth is ruled by a secret master race of shape-shifting lizards, the article on "earth" should not have to include a section which states, "Some people believe that earth is ruled by shape-shifting lizards. Others believe that humans are the dominant species." Similarly, articles which discuss global warming should not be expected to include provably false statements, and articles discussing the current state of scientific knowledge on global warming should not give undue weight to the POV of individual skeptic Wikipedians whose views are not supported by scientific evidence.

Ed's comments above state that "the problem" with William Connolley is that he is "a bona fide, credentialled scientist." This statement tells us much more about William Connolley's critics than it tells us about Connelley himself. Actually, the problem is that non-scientists like Ed are demanding that their ignorance be put on an equal footing with actual scientific knowledge and that actual knowledge be treated as a vice rather than as a virtue. Even Ed's definition of science is a manifestation of ignorance about the very nature of science and a demand for preferential treatment for his skeptic POV. He states that "science is the systematic application of skepticism to all theories, recent and old." This isn't true. Science is the systematic use of evidence to test the validity of theories. It doesn't privilege "skepticism" any more than it privileges "belief."

William Connolley has brought a level of scientific detail and understanding to the global climate articles which they did not have before he began editing. It would be a real shame if the skeptics were to succeed in their efforts to ban or suppress his participation. --Sheldon Rampton 18:15, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As usual, Sheldon has misrepresented my position. I'm not offended, he does it for a living. (And he only pops up at Wikipedia to defend William when he gets in over his head.)
Sheldon knows that I never meant that the p-word phrase the science is settled was composed or authored by anyone in the Clinton Administration. To assert that would be silly, because they don't use those exact words - as I have tried to make clean in the article of the same name. Rather, the idea that the science is settled is what they kept pushing, i.e., that there is a scientific consensus about global warming and that there is no controversy (except among non-scientists or in the minds of the corrupt and/or foolish.)
What I oppose is any endorsement by Wikipedia of Sheldon & William's POV: i.e., their claim that the science of global warming is (for lack of a better word) settled. The burden of proof is on the POV pushers, and if William wants Wikipedia to assert anything about this controversy as fact, he must follow the rules of NPOV. This particularly includes his assertions that the UN's climate panel (IPCC) is "objective" or "unbiased"; that the hypotheses of global warming isn't controversial in the scientific communit; that the science of the question is (or ought to be) determined by the preponderance of claims made in refereed journals.
Sheldon's tricky prose makes so many false points, that I'll just address one final one (leaving detection of the rest as a fascinating exercise for the reader): he personally opposes the idea that "science is the systematic application of skepticism to all theories, recent and old", pretending not to understand tha by skepticism I meant precisely what he said as if in rebuttal: that no theory is accepted until its validity has been "systematically tested against the evidence.
I just want the article to fairly describe the controversy between those who promate the GW hypothesis and those who oppose it. William should not be allowed to use Wikipedia to endorse his pet POV. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 22:25, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence Presented by Jon Gwynne

I think there should be some discussion of WMC's blatantly incivil conduct. I will start out with a few examples and add more as they occur. I'll start with the examples from this article...

"Cortonin makes vague and unspecific allusions to his scientifc credentials; sadly his edits do not display these. In terms of climate science, he is deeply and unapologetically ignorant" - William M. Connelly

I think that one is pretty self-evident. I doubt anyone would consider it "civil" to refer to another wiki contributor in that matter and to insinuate that he is lying with regard to their background.--JonGwynne 05:13, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Almost none of his [Cortonin's] edits survive in the pages, because they aren't any good." - William M. Connelly

Again, another pretty blatant example of incivility.--JonGwynne 05:13, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"unable to realise that the page he [Cortonin] was linking to was nonsense." - William M. Connelly

No explanation, no discription of what is wrong with the page in question, just the simple dismissal of it as "nonsense". Not exactly what one would describe as civil conduct.--JonGwynne 05:13, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Cortonin brings up Michael Crichton, Bjorn Lomborg, Nils-Axel Morner, SEPP and others. He is unable to realise that MC is a writer of potboilers, and not an acceptable scientifc reference; that Morner is essentially a one-man-band whose web pages deceptively imply that he is prez of the INQUA commission when he isn't; and that SEPP is something other than a propaganda site" - William M. Connelly

Not only does WMC impugn the Cortonin's intelligence but he refers to Michael Crichton as a writer of "potboilers" - an extremely derogatory and offensive term used to refer to books of poor quality and little merit. WMC may not be a fan, but Crichton is, in addition to being a respected physician and filmmaker, a respected author as well. Shakespeare he isn't but he is equally not a writer of "potboilers". As to his insinuations with regard to Morner and SEPP, even if they were true, they're still very rude and incivil. --JonGwynne 05:13, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Cortonin states that I have been reverting against a great many other editors. A check of the histories will show that this is not true: the "problem child" is him." - William M. Connelly

Calling someone a "problem child" isn't really what one would call "civil". Also, even WMC's staunchest supporter here, VSmith, admits that "WMC is at times a bit, perhaps, over-quick on hitting the revert button". Clearly that is an understatement but it serves to underline how serious the problem is.

(I'll add more as I find them)



While I'm not advocating that WMC be banned or in any way stifled when it comes to adding his viewpoints, the problem here is clearly to do with his (and some others) tendency to "knee-jerk" reversion as well as his persistent and unapologetically incivil conduct.

Therefore, I propose the following:

1. WMC be restricted from reverting any page having to do with global warming or the political issues related to it except in cases of clear-cut vandalism. That even a single reversion over content dispute be treated as a violation of the 3RR with a corresponding 24-hour ban. However, he would still be free to add as much material as he likes to any page he likes - provided that material is original and his own (and not copied/pasted from previous versions of the article in question).

2. Any instance of incivil conduct be punished by a 7 day ban.

[edit] Response to Jon Gwynne's evidence

When it comes to incivility, Jon Gwynne's own behavior is clearly far worse than anything he alleges above against William Connolley. See, for example, the RfC on William Connolley, where he refers to Connolley as "revert boy" and then expresses an inability to understand why anyone might find this insulting. Elsewhere on the same page, Gwynne calls Connolley a "liar," a "propagandist" and "pathetic," and in yet another demonstration of how little he himself values civility, Gwynne advises User:Cortonin that he is being "more polite and reasonable than WMC deserves," calls Connolley a "zealot," and compares him to a pig. This behavior was why Gwynne himself was judged last month to have engaged in personal attacks that resulted in disiplinary action as the result of a request for arbitration. --Sheldon Rampton 18:43, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Whether or not I have engaged in incivility in the past is irrelevant to the fact that WMC also engages in it. This argument of yours is not only irrelevant but a textbook example of Ad hominem tu quoque.
I would also like to correct a number of misstatements you made above and I'd appreciate it if you would be more careful in your characterization in future. First, I didn't compare WMC to a pig. Any attempt to claim otherwise is pointless because it simply isn't true. Second, I did not call WMC "pathetic" anywhere in the reference you listed. Third, I didn't refer to WMC as "revert boy" until after I had asked him if he would mind and got no reply. Only long after he had tacitly agree to the use of what was, in my view, a jocular nickname intended to draw attention to his unreasonable reversion activities did he eventually object. Finally, I would dispute the characterization that my behavior is "worse" than WMCs. I freely admit that I was brusque with him but only after he was incredibly rude to me. I don't claim that excuses my actions, but I was provoked... positive, constructive discource is my default position. WMC cannot make the same claim.--JonGwynne 21:46, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I would in turn like to correct Jon Gwynne's falsehoods about my "misstatements." For the place where Jon Gwynne calls WMC "pathetic," look at the section titled "William M. Connolley is a liar," in which Jon Gwynne refers to "Your pathetic attemts [sic] to silence those who are critical of your blikered [sic] views..." As for his comparison of WMC to a pig, see the section where Gwynne says, "Maybe I should be more diplomatic or tolerant or whatever... every time I think so, I remember the old saying 'Never try to teach a pig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig'." It's quite clear that in this passage, Gwynne is doing two things: (1) expressing his belief that WMC is a person of such odious character that there is no need to be "diplomatic or tolerant or whatever" in dealing with him, and (2) characterizing WMC using the metaphor of a pig that cannot be taught to sing.
Well, since WMC objected to my calling him a liar, why shouldn't I object when you call me one Sheldon? Or weren't you aware that describing someone's statements as "falsehoods" is calling them a liar? As to the "pathetic" remark, if you'd read the section carefully, you'd have seen that I wasn't calling WMC pathetic, but rather describing his attempts to silence his critics. There is a significant difference. And the idea that my recollection of an old barnyard proverb can somehow be twisted into calling someone a pig - or even likening them to one is... well, entirely without credibility. Come on, you'll have to do better than this.--JonGwynne 00:37, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
As for Gwynne's allegations of incivility by WMC, none of the instances he mentions rise to the level of the rudeness that Gwynne himself has engaged in repeatedly, and some of Gwynne's examples are really far-fetched, such as the complaint that WMC described Michael Crichton's novels as "potboilers." If calling someone's novel a potboiler on a talk page is the sort of action that can get people brought up for disciplinary action on Wikipedia, we'll need to issue so many bans that there won't be many people left to contribute. --Sheldon Rampton 21:58, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Such may be your opinion, but the fact remains that WMC's remarks are indisputably incivil and, as such, are a violation of wikipedia policy and since he does persist in this behavior, I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that he be formally censured for them. Oh and, yes, calling a book a "potboiler" is the same as calling it "cheap crap" or "garbage" and the implication that the author is a "hack". --JonGwynne 00:37, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
(William M. Connolley 19:28, 16 May 2005 (UTC)) Incivility to wikipedians: no. But as for Crichton, yes indeed, that was the implication of my calling the book a potboiler - thats exactly what it is. JG is failing to distinguish between no-personal-attacks on wikipedians, and fair comment on public figures.
Some questions: 1. Who told you that Crichton wasn't a wikipedian? 2. Why do you engage in so many double-standards? 3. Wouldn't you be considered a public figure? I mean you write and post for the benefit of the public... doesn't that mean you are subject to the same "fair comment"? Would you object if someone referred to your posts as potboilers? 4. Why do you object to personal attacks against you when you so freely engage in personal attacks against others? --JonGwynne 05:46, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
(William M. Connolley 16:44, 18 May 2005 (UTC)) SIgh. Yet more pointless words... If MC is a secreet wikipedian he can't complain. Let him become a pubblic one if he wants to. I don't write potboilers, MC clearly does, you won't see the obvious if it violates your POV.
Sigh, more irrelevant incivility from WMC. Your double-standards are remarkable even for someone who holds such extreme views - as is your persistent refusal to answer questions put to you or to try to dodge them. I ask again, why do you object to personal attacks against you when you so willingly engage in this behavior towards others? Your refusal to give a straight answer to this question speaks volumes... Also, wouldn't you be considered a "public figure"? I mean, you have an article here in wikipedia. Since it wasn't deleted for being a vanity page, the only reasonable conclusion is that you're sufficiently noteworthy to warrant such an article. By your own arguments, that entitles people to say rude things about your publications... have you in fact published anything? A search of Amazon.com doesn't turn anything up. Perhaps you've been published in scientific journals. If so, why not add this information to the wiki article? That might provide some insight for the rest of us into how a mathematician might deem himself an expert on matters related to real-world phenomena like actual climate change (as opposed to the computer-based speculation in which climate modellers traditionally engage). --JonGwynne 23:42, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 18:11, 19 May 2005 (UTC)) I've answered your questions. I'll try to do so again. You appear to be unable to distinguish different degrees of "insult". You very clearly stepped over the edge, which is why you have your personal attack parole. I haven't, which is why I don't. Your characterisations of my various comments as insults just won't wash. You also appear to be unable to distinguish different degrees of public-ness, and appearences in different fora. Calling Crichtons books "potboilers" is entirely appropriate (since they are), and even a Crichton defender (which you are, although you pretend not to be) would have to agree that the term is aguable, even if they didn't agree it actually applied. If you think you're capaable of reasonned comment on any of my papers, you are welcome to try. Saying rude things about them, no. Since your words above make it clear that you've failed to follow the easy chain of links to my work website, I find it hard to believe you can make any such comment. You are however right that some recent publications listed there would do not harm.


A couple of points... first, the reason I'm on parole and you're not is simply due to the disgraceful selective prosecution policies of certain admins here. Your insults are insults and any attempt by you to deny it is pointless because it isn't true. But then you've always had an arm's length relationship with the truth here so I suppose that shouldn't suprise me. I'm curious about your claim that people aren't entitled to say rude/insulting things about your publications when you so clearly feel entitled to make these sorts of statements about other people's publications. How would you describe someone who believes that one standard applies to them while a different one applies to everyone else? Would you describe that person as a hypocrite? I'm also curious why it is so important to you that I be labelled as a "Crichton defender" when clearly I'm not. I'm not defending Crichton - in fact, if you'll bother to think back, you'll remember that I was the one who added the criticism section to the article about him. Is that the act of a defender? I am defending him in this case against your insulting dismissal of him as an author of "potboilers". I'm the first one to say that he isn't a creator of great literature but some of his books are entertaining (Airframe, Disclosure) and some are pretty awful (e.g. Sphere & Prey). Even though "State of Fear" was pretty cringeworthy in terms of storyline, I'm glad he wrote it precisely because it pisses off people like you - people who are arrogant enough to think they have all the answers and, therefore, the responsibility to tell the rest of us what to do. --JonGwynne 06:42, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Thincat

ISI Web of Science [168] lists 20 papers by WMC, generally in the field of Antarctic climate, one or two on atmospheric modelling, so far as I can see. Thincat 09:54, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

... and looking for citations, 27 papers (some in press) cited 288 times. He also has a couple of publications with the single initial "W". There seems to be no other scientific author with the same name. Thincat 10:13, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

... and a Google Scholar search that everyone will have access to [169] Thincat 12:53, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] More evidence presented by Sheldon Rampton

In William M. Connolley's comments about Cortonin, he stated, "I've provided any number of refs to the meteorological literature (all of which C dismisses, with comments like Let's compare this to the opposing quote, "heating in the usual greenhouse is due to the reduction of convection" from Jose Peixoto. No well-educated physicist would write this, so I can only assume his background is something else. I cannot find much reference to him on the web outside of that book. I do see a Jose Peixoto whose background is literature who is considered to be a good writer, but I cannot tell if this is the same one.)"

However, WMC did not himself respond to the substance of Cortonin's specific claim that Jose Peixoto could not possibly be a "well-educated physicist," so I thought this would be worth checking. I did a Google search for the phrases "Jose Peixoto" and "greenhouse" and discovered that Jose Pinto Peixoto is a "Professor of Physics, Thermodynamics and Theoretical Meteorology at the University of Lisbon, is director of the Geophysical Institute de Luis. He is also President of the National Academy of Sciences of Lisbon, member of the Executive Committee of the European Science Foundation, and consultant to the Secretary of State for Science and Technology in Portugal." This information comes from the back cover of a book he co-authored with Abraham H. Oort, a professor at Princeton with credentials comparable to Peixoto's. The book that they co-authored is titled Physics of Climate. It was published by the American Institute of Physics and is listed on Amazon.com, along with a number of laudatory reviews. For example, Physics Today calls it "a superb reference" and Physics World says it "will become a classic text in climate research."

A comparison of Cortonin's comments against the actual facts about Dr. Peixoto therefore seems to support WMC's claim that Cortonin (1) has a habit of cavalierly dismissing the meteorological literature when it fails to support his POV, and (2) claims to possess substantial knowledge of physics but in fact doesn't know enough to either recognize the name of a scientist of Peixoto's stature, or to realize that a "well-educated physicist" would indeed write what Peixoto has written about the role of convection suppression in greenhouses.

With regard to this specific question of the role of convection suppression, I recently posted a couple of references regarding this topic on the Greenhouse effect talk page. One was a layman's explanation written by a physics professor; the other was a paper titled "Physics of the Greenhouse Environment" published by the American Society for Plasticulture (whose members make the plastic sheeting used in many greenhouses) and also in the newsletter of the Center for Controlled Environment Agriculture at Rutgers University (an agricultural extension program engaged in practical research on greenhouses). Cortonin had nothing to say about the physics professor's explanation and dismissed the paper I cited, claiming that it contains methodological flaws.

In any case, there are numerous other comparable references showing that many "well-educated physicists" share WMC's (and Peixoto's) position that "heating in the usual greenhouse is [primarily] due to the reduction of convection." Some of them can be found in Talk:Greenhouse effect, and others can be found via a Google search.

Cortonin seems to have taken the position that none of this matters because it is all trumped by a peer-reviewed paper titled Horticern - An Improved Static Model for Predicting the Energy-Consumption of a Greenhouse. As the title suggests, however, the Horticern paper describes a mathematical model that has been developed to serve as a "useful tool for production planning and optimisation of greenhouse components." [170] In actual agricultural production, of course, the goal is not simply to determine how solar radiation is trapped inside a greenhouse. Rather, the goal is to create optimum conditions of both temperature and humidity that will achieve optimal plant growth at minimal cost. Toward that end, real-world greenhouses sometimes use non-solar inputs (such as electric heat). Sometimes they also need to limit the amount of heating in a greenhouse, through controlled ventilation or even air conditioning. I'm sure the Horticern model is a useful tool for greenhouse designers who want to control costs by minimizing energy consumption, but a paper written for this purpose is not the natural place where you would expect to find a general theoretical explanation of the basic physics of how greenhouses trap solar energy. Indeed, no one other than Cortonin seems to have ever cited it as a source for this sort of claim. (A Google scholar search turns up only three references to the Horticern paper, all of which are about practical greenhouse design and not about this general theoretical question.)

What Cortonin is doing, in short, is offering his personal and idiosyncratic interpretation of the Horticern paper as a basis for rejecting a claim that is commonplace among physicists: namely, that the main way real greenhouses trap solar energy is by suppressing convection. If the arbitrators in this case wish to put an end to this particular edit war, I think they can reach a consensus by consulting a couple of university physics professors or by seeking an opinion from the authors of the Horticern paper, whom I doubt would support Cortonin's interpretation. --Sheldon Rampton 06:10, 31 May 2005 (UTC)