Over the last several years, Andrew Montford (Bishop Hill) and I have taken a great deal of interest in the BBC’s coverage of the climate debate, and this has involved a good deal of behind-the-scenes research. So we were obviously interested when the BBC Trust announced in early January this year that they were to conduct a review of the impartiality of their science coverage.
Our first reaction was to write to Professor Richard Tait, the Trustee who was fronting this project, requesting that we should make a submission to the review and pointing out that the main critics of the BBC coverage of AGW were in the blogoshpere. Not only were we unable to get a reply form Professor Tait, but we were unable even to get confirmation from the secretary of the Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee that he had been given the letter. This will be the subject of another post.
Fortunately, in April, Andrew’s remarkably well-developed antenna picked up a request for comments from the general public on an obscure BBC web page. He contacted Professor Steve Jones, the person commissioned by the BBC Trust to conduct the review, who proved to be rather more approachable than Professor Tait. It was quickly arranged that we should make a submission before the end of October. His report is due to be published in the Spring of 2011.
The document that we finally sent to Professor Jones can be found here and it will be interesting to see whether anyone takes notice of what we have said.
See the thread about this at Bishop Hill too.
__________________________________________________
Read James Delingpole’s typically enthusiastic take on this post at the Daily Telegraph
And JoNova’s perspective from down under here
John A is sensibly cautious about the BBC listening at WUWT
The document link doesn’t work, nor do the ones on Bishop Hill’s site.
[TonyN: Thanks Neal. Fixed here and I’ve emailed the Bishop]
Harrabin and Richard Black have been MIA for weeks, and for the second day in a row the BBC’s SciEnv home page shows nothing about climate. What’s happening?
Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference which is an elegant name for ignorance.”
— G.K. Chesterton
Congratulations. Excellent, but 2 bad typos:
22) last para: “converge” instead of “coverage”
24) first para: “lack of bias” should be “bias” or “lack of balance”
I’ve written this up for an article to WUWT.
Many thanks John
Delingpole is headlining this story, and just below the words “Tony Newbery” is a photo of a delicious naked brunette. If that doesn’t bring in some traffic…
TonyN
Another excellent post.
tonyb
I admire your tenacity! Thanks for stepping up.
Richard North recently reported on the result of his complaint to the Press Complaints Commission about the Sunday Times’ withdrawal of its “Amazongate” article at
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/11/end-of-popular-science.html
North complained that the Times misled its readers by stating that the Amazon claims in the IPCC report were supported by peer reviewed science. The PCC rejected the complaint, on the grounds that the Times was using “supported” in a layman’s sense, and not in the scientific sense, adding that, though the IPCC hadn’t actually cited scientific papers, “peer reviewed studies existed which, arguably, could be said to ‘support’ the thrust of the IPCC’s statement in a more general sense”.
There are parallels with your submission to the BBC Review. Let’s hope the Review doesn’t decide that the BBC was using the term “the best scientific experts” in “the layman’s sense”.
TonyN – again sterling work (kudos to the Bishop too), and we shall see what emerges in the forthcoming report. You are spoiling us – do you have more surprises up your sleeve for this year? :o)
Maurizio – Richard Black posted another Earthwatch blog today, so it looks like he’s finally back from Nagoya. Roger Harrabin? Still missing…
Geoff – why am I not surprised by the PCC’s verdict.. Once again I’m reminded of Humpty Dumpty’s line: “When I choose a word… it means just what I choose it to mean”. What a very curious, looking-glass sort of world these quangocrats inhabit.
TonyN,
You need to make at least some sort of case as to why the BBC need to be ‘impartial’ on science coverage.
You don’t exactly say so, but I presume you mean on the question of climate change. But maybe I shouldn’t? Maybe you’d like to have impartiality on all forms of science coverage?
What about Einstein’s theory of Relativity?
http://conservapedia.com/Theory_of_relativity
According to these American conservative wackos
“The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world.”
I’m sorry guys. I’m sorry that my posts are just so misleading. But its not my fault, it’s Einsteins! If only I’d not gone to those lectures on General Relativity I’d be a good little conservative like the rest of you :-)
Are you expecting the BBC to broadcast this sort of nonsense too? But, how can they ignore it and still be impartial?
Sorry forgot to include this link in the above:
http://conservapedia.com/Counterexamples_to_Relativity#cite_note-0
Just to show that I’m not making it up!
tempterrain (12) – there has to be a way to tell between the science of the now from the “science” of the future. The former can be verified any time, the latter is a projection in the case of climate, not even a forecast.
Therefore presenting alternative viewpoints, something that could be seen as madness regarding relativity, might as well be the wise thing to do in the case of climate change.
PeterM
I see that you are trying to obfuscate things by sliding down the slippery slope of comparing IPCC’s view on “climate science” with Einstein’s theory of Relativity.
Don’t you see how totally absurd this is?
Here is one major difference as Maurizio Morabito suggests):
There are many climate scientists who do not buy into the IPCC “consensus” view on our planet’s climate, with its myopic fixation on human CO2 and total ignorance of any natural climate forcing factors. Many of these have published papers refuting one or another aspect of the IPCC view.
Show me the scientific publications refuting Einstein’s theory (not a rehash by some crackpot site like Wiki or Conservapedia).
Otherwise admit that your comparison is ludicrous.
Max
TonyN
Your joint submission (along with Andrew Montford) to the BBC review on impartiality of its coverage of climate science summarizes the situation concisely. Congratulations to both of you for a very important piece of work.
It also points out the high level of BBC bias against scientific views, which are skeptical of those as expressed in the IPCC reports.
I would agree wholeheartedly with you that “impartiality” in coverage is important for the reputation and credibility of the BBC, particularly in politically hypersensitive areas with a myriad of unresolved scientific questions, such as climate science and policy. BBC should bend over backwards to not be seen as biased or one-sided in such an important debate.
Let’s hope the BBC takes your message to heart and sees it that way, as well.
In addition to the policy issues, to which you refer, there is the key “scientific” question: does the IPCC view on our planet’s climate represent “reliable scientific knowledge” (which can be shown on BBC as such) or is it just one of several scientifically uncorroborated views (which should all be shown on BBC without any bias to one or the other)?
The record shows that there is no single demonstrated “reliable scientific knowledge” concerning the degree of warming to be expected from a doubling of atmospheric CO2, (i.e. is this less than 1°C or as much as 2 to 4.5°C?), yet this latter assumption is the basis for the entire IPCC premise that AGW has been a principal cause of past warming and that it represents a serious potential threat (the “dangerous AGW” hypothesis).
As we know, “consensus” has no place in science, so should not be used as justification for showing only one view, in spite of the conclusion of the “high-level seminar” BBC held with “some of the best scientific experts” (who, incidentally, represented this “consensus”).
As we also know, the “appeal to authority” is a logical fallacy (i.e. “it must be ‘reliable scientific knowledge’ because several scientific bodies plus IPCC have supported it”).
There are too many examples (Wegener, Galileo, etc.) that demonstrate the fallacy of “consensus” or “appeal to authority” in science.
“Reliable scientific knowledge” can only be determined by the “appeal to evidence” (i.e. by the application of the scientific method).
As I pointed out to PeterM earlier:
The scientific method involves four steps geared towards finding truth (with the role of models an important part of steps 2 and 3 below):
1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of a hypothesis to explain the phenomena – usually in the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
3. Use of the hypothesis to quantitatively predict the results of new observations (or the existence of other related phenomena).
4. Gathering of empirical evidence and/or performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments, in order to validate the hypothesis, including seeking out data to falsify the hypothesis and scientifically refuting all falsification attempts.
How has this process been followed for AGW?
? Step 1 – Warming and other symptoms have been observed.
? Step 2 – CO2 has been hypothesized to explain this warming.
? Step 3 – Models have been created based on the hypothesis and model simulations have estimated strongly positive feedbacks leading to forecasts of major future warming
X Step 4 – The validation step has not yet been performed; in fact, the empirical data that have been recently observed have demonstrated (1) that the net overall feedbacks are likely to be neutral to negative, and (2) that our planet has not warmed recently despite increasing levels of atmospheric CO2, thereby falsifying the hypothesis that AGW is a major driver of our climate and, thus, represents a serious future threat; furthermore, these falsifications have not yet been refuted scientifically.
Until the validation step is successfully concluded, the “dangerous AGW” premise as promoted by IPCC remains an “uncorroborated hypothesis” in the scientific sense. If the above-mentioned recently observed falsifications cannot be scientifically refuted, it may even become a “falsified hypothesis”.
So the flaw of the “dangerous AGW” hypothesis is not that several scientific organizations have rejected it, it is simply that it has not yet been confirmed by empirical evidence from actual physical observation or experimentation, nor has it successfully withstood falsification attempts, i.e. it has not been validated following the “scientific method” (and has thus not yet become “reliable scientific knowledge”).
And this is a “fatal flaw” (and there certainly is no sound scientific basis for wrecking the global economy with draconian carbon taxes and caps as long as this “fatal flaw” has not been resolved using the scientific method).
And this is also why (from a purely scientific standpoint) the IPPC view on AGW should not be the only view broadcast by BBC, if it wants to be a credible and unbiased source of information.
Max
Max,(Reur 16)to TonyN
You mention Wegener as an example of a rebel against the then and still popular voting method in “science“.
Whilst Wegener is an excellent example, because all current sane geologists can no longer dispute his observations, I have a more recent example that rings the same bells:
Helicobacter pylori bacteria as a cause of stomach ulcers etc.
Extracts from an article:
But Dr. Likoudis couldn’t convince the medical establishment of the day [from 1958] that his [antibiotics] treatment was sound. In fact, he was fined for using an unconventional therapy. However, he did publish a book in which he wrote, “There is no doubt that gastritis and duodenitis which have gastric and duodenal ulcer as their complications, are inflammation due to an infectious agent.” He died, unrecognised except by his [~30,000] patients.
Two Perth [Oz] medicos brought the Bacteria-Cause-Stomach-Ulcers Theory into current medical thinking. But along the way, Drs. Warren and Marshall also suffered rejection. Their early papers were refused publication by both the American Medical Society and the Australian Society of Gastroenterology.
It took many years before the medical profession was convinced. Dr. Warren had to hang onto his dogged belief that this new bacteria was important. Dr. Marshall needed enthusiasm and energy. He also made the bold move (and sacrifice) of drinking a glass full of this bacteria. After a week, he began suffering stomach pain, headache, nausea and vomiting, and hunger pangs even when full.
It took until 1994 for the American National Institute of Health to become convinced. Even so, in 1995, in the USA, 90% of patients still blamed stress and spicy foods for causing stomach ulcers, and only 5% of medicos prescribed antibiotics to treat them.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/08/25/1443249.htm
Ho hum, so much for the value of consensus!
Bob_FJ
Thanks for good recent example of flawed “consensus” opinion (ulcers and “stress and diet” versus “helicobacter pylori” bacteria).
Max
Max, You may think that the comparison between Relativity Scepticism and Climate Change scepticism is ludricrous. Others may say the same about scepticism on Evolution, or on AIDs and HIV, or about the adverse affects on health from cigarette smoke, radiation from nuclear power stations, or asbestos.
Who should decide? I’d say not untrained TV station personnel. Either from the BBC or Fox TV or any other channel. There needs to be a scientific arbiter in every country to make sure that the broadcasters get it right.
tempterrain – is comment #14 failing to appear on your screen?
I think we should be told…
Maurizio #20
You have suddenly solved a mystery that has been perplexing us throughout the lifetime of the long ‘New Stastesman thread’ whereby tempterrain inexplicably fails to respond to information provided to him.
He seems to suffer from ‘intermittent reading failure’ which appears to be a common ailment of left wingers whereby their ideology temporaily renders someone elses post invisible! This explains at last why he never seems to read any information or links, and ploughs blindly on with continually asking questions we have already answered.
As you have just discovered he just hasn’t seen them. Brilliant!
You deserve a Nobel prize for your discovery although obviously they are a much devalued curency judging by recent winners such as Al Gore and the IPCC.
tonyb
Muarizio #14
there has to be a way to tell between the science of the now from the “science” of the future. The former can be verified any time, the latter is a projection in the case of climate, not even a forecast.
At risk of taking Tempt’s side, this statement is “not even wrong”, most unlike you. Science is the way to tell how current views are better (have more information and closer predictions to what we (can) observe/measure) than previous explanations. Even this is pushing it. Science of now changes. When you get to the cutting edge there is no way that your average punter can separate out rival experts.
Manacker, your 4 steps are so idealised that they do not fit any real science, except post-hoc with a shoe-horn. Current phil, soc. and even history of science is weak on being explain to explain the real dynamics of science. The majority of scientists work in normal science, what Rutherford(?) called stamp collecting and so never really experience the troubling revolutionary times and the very messy fights which take place.
Bob FJ – PUD/ H.Pylori is an interesting example but tends towards pseudohistory. There’s a Paul Thagard book which is good as well as some articles by Kimball Atwood, MD. It’s critical to recognise the role of Bismuth (the metal) and also the intervening variable of the drug companies. Just because Likoudis’ actions were right doesn’t mean his science was (seriously).
On that note, having insulted 3 fellow skeptics, I better leave, meetings to attend, back in the morning. Fire away.
Luke Warmer #22 says: “…having insulted 3 fellow skeptics…” I feel insulted myself at having been left out. So make it four.
I’ll get my own back by taking exception to Tonyb’s #21 “…common ailment of left wingers…”
As an eagle-eyed leftwinger, I am surprised no-one has taken PeterM up on his very first sentence at #12:
It’s an interesting point, because it echoes comments frequently found on warmist threads. Why should deniers have the right to obfuscate?” etc. It’s not so far from what Phil Jones said in the Telegraph yesterday
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8136088/Climategate-scientist-insists-sceptics-will-accept-global-warming-when-Arctic-ice-melts.html
when he complained about google searching for “original research papers that support climate change” being made difficult by the presence of sceptical material.
I think what PeterM is demanding is that the present media bias in the treatment of global warming should be codified in some way. I fear he’s not the only one.
Geoff Chambers, #10:
You’ve found a neat point as usual, and I’d missed Richard North’s complaint.
The real problem would seem to be that, at the moment, regulators can afford to paint with a very broad brush where AGW is concerned in the near certainty that the powers that be will not only ignore any shortcomings in reaching decisions, but probably back them up too.
Max, #16:
I take no pleasure in BBC-bashing; all I want them to do is comply with the recommendations in the Trustee’s report on impartiality published in 2007.
In the past, they have been one of the most respected of UK institutions, and their contribution to public life should never be underestimated. On the other hand, that is a position that can only be maintained by constant renewal of the principles that have made those achievements possible. Part of that process has to be listening to the awkward squad, rather than writing off critics and dissenters in the way that the Climategate scientists did. Although they have embraced the internet age wholeheartedly as a means of communication, I can see no sign that the top-floor executives have adjusted to the blogoshere’s ability to make news sooner than they can, report stories that they cannot, and hold seemingly inviolable institutions to account.
Bob_FJ, #17:
When my wife was reading Geography at university in the early 70s, students were still being taught that plate tectonics was a new, interesting, and possibly useful hypothesis. Once an orthodoxy is in place, it can take a while to dislodge it whatever the evidence, as you suggest.
Geoff #23 commenting on my #21
Obviously that post could not refer to you or other reasonable left wingers as your ideolgogy never seems to hamper your ability to read and debate and your very presence completely defeats Peters tiresome refrain that only rght wingers can be climate sceptics :)
tonyb