Guest Essay by Kip Hansen — October 7, 2024 — 1300 words/7 minutes
If you haven’t read Roger Pielke Jr.’s substack, The Honest Broker, you should. I and I subscribe to pay – not because I always agree with him on the topic of climate change (which I sometimes but because he is an honest hard-working scientist on the policy front and one of the most effective public voices for climate skepticism and climate realism (although I doubt he would consider himself that.)
This is an excerpt from his latest effort “Weaponizing Peer Review“:
“The idealization of peer review as the arbiter of good science is problematic for many reasons, but one is that it reduces the likelihood that bad science will appear in the peer-reviewed literature and good science outside of that outlet.
(most of the following quotes from Pielke Jr. are)
He came below Doubtful Traders by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway, quote them on the definition of Bad Science: (this quote is not Pielke Jr.)
“It is science that is obviously fraudulent – when the data is invented, fudged, or manipulated. Bad science is when data is selected – when some data is intentionally left out – or it is impossible for the reader to understand the steps taken to generate or analyze the data. These are claims that cannot be tested, claims that are based on very small samples, and claims that do not follow from the evidence provided. And science is bad—or at least weak—when proponents of positions jump to conclusions based on insufficient or inconsistent data. ….. “But while the scientific criteria may be clear in principle, knowing when they are applied in practice is a judgment call. For this, scientists rely on peer review. Peer review is an impossible topic to witness, but it is important to understand, because it is what creates science science—and not just as a form opinions.” (note again: that’s Oreskes and Conway, not Pielke Jr.)
This “idealization of peer review as the arbiter of good science is problematic for many reasons, but one is that it reduces the likelihood that bad science will appear in the peer-reviewed literature and good science outside of that outlet.” said Pielke Jr.
And, of course he was right.
In the Featured substack piece, Pielke Jr.’s focus
“…using and abusing the literature they see to produce tactical science which I define as:
“Publications – often targeted for peer-reviewed literature – are designed and constructed for more scientific purposes, usually attempts to shape public opinion, influence politics, or legal action.”
Have we ever seen anything that fits that description in the field of climate science? Yes, we have, many. Remember that ALL Tactical Science is Bad science – pretend science, scientific papers with pre-determined findings, propaganda masquerading as science, political maneuvers and not science – papers that look like science but are actually intended to accomplish other goals than true science:
“Science as a collective institution aims to produce a more accurate natural explanation of how nature works, what its components are, and how the world came to be as it is today.” (source)
I could give a very long list of papers that I consider to be bad science (not done, cherry picking, flawed statistical methods, wrong data set selection, conclusions without presented evidence, etc.) in another field list. But Dr. Pielke offers the following as an example Tactical Science in the field that our readers are most interested in here – Climate Science:
(Money quote from the Abstract: “Even considered in the time frame of 100 years after emissions (GWP)100), which reduces methane climate damage, LNG’s footprint equals or exceeds that of coal. -kh)
( Money quote from the Abstract: “Although the probability of 8.5 watts per square meter scenario is low, our results support the continuous utility of calibrating the damage function, reflecting the climate in 22n.d century (the probability of exceeding 8.5 watts per square meter increases to about 7% in 2150), and evaluates a low-probability/high-impact future. -kh)
- Schwalm et al. 2020. From the McKinsey-funded Woodwell Climate Research Center – a heavy user of RCP8.5, the paper also justifies the continued priority of RCP8.5. The paper relies on assumptions about increased carbon dioxide emissions by land use that are inconsistent with observations and the IPCC.
(Money’s quote from the Abstract: “Not only are emissions consistent with RCP8.5 consistent with historical cumulative CO totals.2 emissions (within 1%), but RCP8.5 is also the best mid-century match under current and realistic policies with CO levels that are still credible.2 emission in 2100. -kh)
Pielke Jr. suggests that Tactical Science marks include, but are not limited to:
1. Failure to disclose the interests of direct funders
2. Findings are outliers in the field but offer a plausible counter to why they are true despite findings from a broader field.
The paper allows others to create political statement based on these outlier findings – using language such as “The latest science in a peer-reviewed paper by Slinger and Smuts shows we need to ….“.
Regarding the three examples above, Pielke Jr.
“The three climate papers above are bad science not just because they are tactical science, but because they are bad science – a demonstration that good science is needed.”
In the substack section, Pielke Jr. offers some advice on what to do about Tactical Science.
The first thing is to know”peer-review provides a minimum standard of review. It certainly does not provide a boundary between good and bad science.”
My view, as many readers here know, is that peer-review is frequent criminals who support Evil Science and no cure. Scientific fields, all of them, tend to form biases that are in (or antagonistic to) various scientific views through the offices publication bias (see paragraph 8.5), scientific fads, pal review, bandwagon peer-reviewers support popular ideas and social pressure.
Often, a paper is approved for publication in a peer-reviewed journal because it has an interesting title, “seems to agree” with the general field, will generate many “clicks” and will attract the attention of authors, institutions (universities, colleges, companies, research groups, etc. ) and self-publishing journals.
Not only is there a Tactical Science journal article, there is an entire Tactical Climate Crisis Research Group that produces nothing but Tactical Science to support the so-called Climate Crisis.
Readers are encouraged list them in the comments.
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Author’s Comment:
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking Bad Science and Tactical Science producer, scientist himselfhe’s a bad guy. They are just people: moms and dads, Dads and Moms, neighbors, bowling league members, baseball and soccer coaches and volunteers at the local food bank. What distinguishes them is that they are involved in the production of Tactical Science or produce poor, incomplete and/or incorrect work.
Why? You’d have to ask them personally, but my guess is that it’s Nobel justification: the mistaken belief that some usually bad behavior is justified by the Nobel Cause they’re pursuing. Others caught on professionally a requirement to believe or face loss of position or reputation.
Many are just empty must-go-together-to-get-together, like when teenagers stay in In Crowd.
Bad Science makes me what (necessary…) try to correct. Tactical Science makes me sick to my stomach.
Thank you for reading.
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