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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Extra Pale who wrote (2316)	1/9/2003 12:44:48 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

LOMBORG FLAP reported in Copenhagen Post: cphpost.periskop.dk Lomborg censured by research committees -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. januar 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The three joint committees issued their verdict on Lomborg on Tuesday, characterizing the best-selling book as being 'in conflict with normal scientific procedure' and blatantly one-sided, as well as short on source material. Brydensholt said that Lomborg's book should not have been called a research work -despite its 1800 footnotes- but rather a work of debate, which would have been acceptable under current research norms and standards. "Lomborg discusses a series of disciplines without having any expertise in these areas… We call this poor quality science, but we have no proof that Lomborg deliberately tried to mislead the public, politicians, or others," Brydensholt said yesterday. The committees considered only the scientific aspects of Lomborg's book, not the environmental issues it raised, after receiving formal complaints about the work.

To: Extra Pale who wrote (2316)	1/9/2003 1:20:16 PM
From: Thomas M.	Respond to of 36917

I don't think Lomborg ever expected to convince anyone with a brain. He was aiming more at the ignorati. Tom

To: Extra Pale who wrote (2316)	1/10/2003 3:47:26 PM
From: Elmer Flugum	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

Thought Control economist.com Jan 9th 2003 The scourge of the greens is accused of dishonesty THE Bjorn Lomborg saga took a decidedly Orwellian turn this week. Readers will recall that Mr Lomborg, a statistician and director of Denmark's Environmental Assessment Institute, is the author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist”, which attacks the environmental lobby for systematically exaggerated pessimism. Environmentalists have risen as one in furious condemnation of Mr Lomborg's presumption in challenging their claims, partly no doubt because he did it so tellingly. This week, to the delight of greens everywhere, Denmark's Committees on Scientific Dishonesty ruled on the book as follows: “Objectively speaking, the publication of the work under consideration is deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty.” How odd. Why, in the first place, is a panel with a name such as this investigating complaints against a book which makes no claim to be a scientific treatise? “The Skeptical Environmentalist” is explicitly not concerned with conducting scientific research. Rather, it measures the “litany” of environmental alarm that is constantly fed to the public against a range of largely uncontested data about the state of the planet. The litany comes off very badly from the comparison. The environmental movement was right to find the book a severe embarrassment. But since the book was not conducting scientific research, what business is it of a panel concerned with scientific dishonesty? One might expect to find the answer to this question in the arguments and data supporting the ruling—but there aren't any. The material assembled by the panel consists almost entirely of a synopsis of four articles published by Scientific American last year. (We criticised those articles and the editorial that ran with them in our issue of February 2nd 2002.) The panel seems to regard these pieces as disinterested science, rather than counter-advocacy from committed environmentalists. Incredibly, the complaints of these self-interested parties are blandly accepted at face value. Mr Lomborg's line-by-line replies to the criticisms (see www.lomborg.com) are not reported. On its own behalf, the panel offers not one instance of inaccuracy or distortion in Mr Lomborg's book: not its job, it says. On this basis it finds Mr Lomborg guilty of dishonesty. The panel's ruling—objectively speaking—is incompetent and shameful. [in consideration of the enemy's position]