Talk:Naomi Oreskes/Archive 1

Archive 1

Biography assessment rating comment

WikiProject Biography Summer 2007 Assessment Drive

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Yamara 15:39, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Corrected

Cleaned a bit, excessive red and removed a bunch of the controversy stuff - covered elsewhere (linked), and this is about the scientist - she is more than the controversy raised by skeptics. Removed cleanup tag - hopefully not premature on that. Hey, articles always can use more, and that tag was ugly :-) Vsmith 03:11, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Much better. --Sln3412 23:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Just read the article in the National Post.

You guys locked the article!

Shocka! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.198.151 (talk) 23:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Global Warming link paragraph and link

• Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it. [1]

Wouldn't it be better if that were from the essay? I don't see the point of linking to forums, either.--Sln3412 22:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes - I overlooked that link, removed it and reworded a bit - need to check for accuracy now. Vsmith 00:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, the source of her search she mentions in the essay is the "ISI database" This is now all contained at http://scientific.thomson.com/isilinks/ and seems to have become considerably more difficult to correlate. --Sln3412 02:00, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

In the essay,[2], she reported her analyses of 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 that were contained in an ISI database, and then concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view while none directly dissented from it.

This is the original paragraph for reference:

• "The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9)."

Science and Society section

Yes, I'm having a hard time rewriting it. Just saying "global warming skeptics" isn't really correct, they're more skeptical about the consensus part of it from what I've seen. The essay does show that peer-reviewed journal abstracts considered as being about climate change (note 9) agree with the statements of the organizations that use them. Which is perfectly true. I believe they are more challenging the study and the conclusions. It's become part of the controversy on the subject as a whole. And she has responded to criticisms such as these in an editorial in a major paper.

• Her conclusions have been challenged by some, such as Benny Peiser and Richard Lindzen, who are known to be skeptical about the scientific consensus on global warming. The essay has become part of the global warming controversy, and she has responded to criticisms with an editorial in The Washington Post Undeniable Global Warming.

Taking a version of that and inserting it to more accurately describe the role of the essay in the controversy, which is why it's noteworthy about the person herself. Please edit appropriately to correct, or discuss why it's not neutral or factual here please. Sln3412 01:41, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, only global warming skeptics have challenged her study's conclusions. The only two critics cited are vocal GW skeptics. The article needs to reflect this. Also, the way her study is folded into language about the controversy makes it a case of teaching the controversy. Most of the controversy is contrived to further a political, ideological agenda; I don't see any reason we should help them by perpetuating it. FeloniousMonk 02:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, this is a biographical article - the focus should be on the person, the controversy details are well covered elsewhere and needn't be repeated in detail here. Vsmith 02:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree with that last except it seems likely that one of the reasons, if not the reason, that there is a Wikipedia article on Oreskes is because of the AAAS essay. From the standpoint of the general public interest, my guess is this is the most interesting thing in the article. So I think there certainly should be a section on the essay in this article. And once we have that, unfortunately the controversy associated with that essay seeps in. I do agree that there is no need to rehash every detail of the controversy here, as there is similar language on Benny Peiser and Richard Lindzen. Instead of repeating the same text on all three pages (and I'm sure it is also elsewhere), what about moving the details of this particular controversy from all three pages into a section at global warming controversy? -- Deville (Talk) 04:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems notable about the people in the controversy over the essay and the responses. So to me, any bio of people involved should mention it at least in enough detail to know what role they have. I attempted to gather as many scources as possible, and most of what I found on the Internet was mostly from her faculty page and the citations from the Science article and Washington Post op-ed about the responses to it and blog posts on the subject. I was not familiar about her (nor Peiser) until I came here and started researching. I then decided to write a bio so there'd be one that people could come and look her name up, and see the references to what everyone is involved with. The one on Peiser, (which I did not start but later tried to clean up as best I could), is mostly from his faculty page, CCNet, and his letter about his confrontation with an associate editor from Science. The only place I found the correction from the body of the essay as published ('climate change' versus 'global climate change' as the search term) being mentioned is on his letter page (as a reply from Science to the issue it's corrected in, Jan. 14 2005) and on the blogs. I hope I haven't given anyone the impression I agree or disagree with either or both of them. I have no opinion, but what I think is not important anyway.

I have seen the essay by Oreskes quoted in many places here on Wikipedia and elsewhere, and thought it might be insightful to mention it all in the context of the disagreement, just for information. Things might be far better served to mention all this in the controversy page, yes. An opinion essay on science and society published in Science and followed by a Washington Post editorial on criticisms. I'm just trying to accurately, fairly and neutrally discuss what we're talking about. She made statements in her published work, followed by more statements in another published work in response to citicism of the first, both of which were involving the findings and reporting of a lack of disagreement in the abstracts of peer-reviewed published work.

The links to the statements by others that disagree should explain the rest of the story for those so inclined. That's the neutrality (and balance that I think neutrality means, even if the text is dry or controversial) part of the section. None of this is meant to be negative, and should be stated as what is happening as flatly and matter of factly as possible.Sln3412 05:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Odd how the page becomes protected only *after* contentious, unsupported changes are made into an emerging consensus. Wow. Just wow.Grazen (talk) 23:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Editorial in response to criticism

She has publicly stated herself that she is aware of this general dispute on the subject, which she herself reports in the editorial, and also that it is larger than just two people. She has been in contact with at least members of Deltoid, and there and elsewhere have quoted emails from her responding to questions about the issue, in regards to clarifying the research.

But more so, she wrote that very public editorial in the The Washington Post[3] that she is aware of the dispute (including the fact the arguments are "...not to be found in scientific literature..." and says "...a few noisy skeptics..." who are ..."not even scientists..." Which is more than two. The Post editorial isn't specific with names usually, although she does specifially name Lindzen, otherwise the points are generalized. But it uses these terms, and I quote:

"Despite recent allegations to the contrary..." "There have been arguments to the contrary, but they are not to be found in scientific literature..." "...A handful of scientists have raised questions... But this is quibbling about the details." "Because of a few noisy skeptics -- most of whom are not even scientitsts..." "...professor Richard Lindzen dismissed..." "You can always find someone, somewhere to disagree.." "The chatter of skeptics..."

And the editorial is about the consensus, although she does not seem to differentiate in the editorial between "scientific consensus" and "uncertainty of global warming": "There is a scientific consensus on the fact that Earth's climate is heating up and human activities are part of the reason. We need to stop repeating nonsense about the uncertainty of global warming and start talking seriously about the right approach to address it." The editorial in paragraph 4 also restates the research she did for the original essay, so the review of abstracts and the conclusion is given in both the essay as well as the editorial.

On that basis, I believe her writing publicly in response to criticisms makes the conclusions (in the essay and editorial,) the criticisms, and the response to the criticisms all part of her biographical information. Sln3412 19:52, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

"Climate Change" vs. "Global Climate Change"

This article seems to attempt to imply that Benny Peiser was in error when he searched for a different term than Oreskes

"It was subsequently revealed that his search criteria were not the same as Oreskes's, using different search terms and including articles which had not been peer reviewed, which resulted in his finding more abstracts than Oreskes had."

This is a gross mischaracterization. In Beyond the Ivory Tower Dr. Oreskes claimed that her search term was "climate change" here is the excerpt from the paper "listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change"". It was only after Peiser failed to replicate her study that Oreskes clarified that here search term hadn't been "climate change" but "global climate change" which greatly limited the number of abstracts. This is an important fact that needs to be known. We should not discredit someone when the fault was with the other party.GTTofAK (talk) 18:08, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

You give only part of the story. Peiser was aware of that, and aware that he still had the "wrong" number of abstracts. He assumed that he was right and Oreskes had made some mistake; but he was wrong: he had included too general a search field; so the text is correct. He also made a pigs ear of reading the abstracts (see deltoid) but thats another matter William M. Connolley (talk) 21:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

One half one tenth what does it matter? It is till misleading. This is an encyclopedia. Any inaccuracy or misleading information or wording needs to be corrected. Peiser corrected his term after Dr. Oreskes clarified her search term. The error laid with her not him. The field i.e. limiting the search to scientific article is another matter but was not nearly as significant. The term increases the set by thousands. The field only a hundred or so. What I am going to say now I fully expect you to delete as this is a warning to you as a Christmas present. You sir as a Wikipedia admin need to be more careful in what you do here. Being involved in attacks on living individuals is a dangerous thing. Your instance to keep this mis characterization boarders on libel. Wikipedia protects itself from libel in 2 main ways. First and foremost is separability. There is no connection between the authors and Wikipedia. Second is the fact that most libel suits are filed in US courts where libel laws are very week from the point of view of the plaintiff. You sir are a Wikipedia admin. There is no separability between you and Wikipedia what you write or defend reflects on Wikipedia and can drag the entire apparatus into a libel suit that it cannot separate itself from as it could if you were a normal contributor. Second, you are British. A smart man looking to sue you for libel would do so in Briton, where libel laws are among the strictest in the western world. I'm 100% certain that neither yourself nor Wikipedia would want ever want to get dragged into a libel suit filed in an English court of law. My advice to you is to be far more careful what you say here about others.GTTofAK (talk) 19:28, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes I agree, the issue as to whether Oreskes attempted to mislead others by her mischaracterization of her sources is important to the biography of the person. Her report, on the basis of the mischaracterization, received a *lot* of attention, until Peiser called her on it. It's pretty black and white IMHO. Grazen (talk) 19:32, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the Recent Edit War

I should NOT be reading about content disputes on Wikipedia in my Saturday National Post!

• There is a existing process for resolving content. See Wikipedia:Dispute resolution for full details.
  
• I've already seen and dealt with a case regarding content disputes that have made it to national media (see the Pat Binns dispute). Enough is enough especially when the edit war over this page gets on my daily newspaper! If I continue to see a edit war, I will recommend this page be protected, until we sort out what's going on. I've already contacted an admin, and I suggest the two of you cool it off.

ThePointblank (talk) 10:38, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The editor in question doesn't seem to want to discuss his edits. But keeps putting in information that is prohibited by amongst others WP:BLP, WP:NPOV and WP:SPS. The onus of convincing others that their contributions uphold these guidelines lies on the contributer. If you have anything specific that you find questionable about the reverts - then i suggest that you comment on the specifics. And please don't tag the regulars. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 10:55, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I had a look at the following revisions [4] [5].

These are my thoughts on the issue:

• The editor in question is a accredited news reporter on the National Post, who commentates on environmental issues. Therefore, he has expert knowledge on the issue at hand.
• The editor in question also appears to have been in contact with Benny Peiser. This adds accreditation on the issue at hand. However, I suggest we need to see something like a transcript or perhaps the exact e-mail regarding what was said by Benn Peiser on what he clarified upon.
• One of the sources[6] is published on a media source that is reputable (ABC News in Australia). As such, this source stands.
• I've located the source for one of the edits you have undone:

“ The effect of Oreskes error, according to the Majority Fact of the Day from the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (July 24, 2006), was that "her supposedly comprehensive research excluded about 11,000 papers" or "more than 90% of the papers" dealing with climate change. It also cited Peiser's view that “Oreskes entire argument is flawed as the whole ISI data set includes just 13 abstracts (less than 2%) that explicitly endorse what she has called the 'consensus view.’” ”

[7]
As it is official government source, this section therefore STANDS, and a edit has been done to reflect this.

• If there is any need to further clarify the claims of Benny Peiser, Benny Peiser should directly contact Wikipedia himself.

ThePointblank (talk) 11:50, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok - let me try to respond in order.

• The editor might be a journalist - he never identified as such (even if i suspected) - but is still under the same rules and guidelines as everyone else. That means adherence to WP:RS,WP:SPS and WP:BLP. You do not get more credibility or lenience for being a journalist. I significantly contest that the journalist has expert knowledge on this subject. I've read his articles.
• He may have been in contact with Peiser - i really do not know (or care). We need reliable sources! An editors word is worth nothing.
• I agree completely. The ABC source was one I introduced to this article (long time ago). And i have neither removed it or changed it. (in case you didn't notice - the section was moved from another part in the article).
• No this is not an "official government source" - it is a publication from the majority party at a specific committee. Its a political and partisan comment on a scientific work of a specific person. That is specifically ruled out in WP:BLP.
• Peiser would have to go through a reliable source.

Now to comment further - Peisers comment on Naomi Oreskes paper in Nature is a self published source. To be more specific: it hasn't been printed in a reliable source (in fact it was rejected by Nature), but only on Peisers own website. Despite this we include a mention of his critique, because its notable. It is presented in due weight and in accordance with WP:BLP.

The edits of Mr. Solomon changed that - and introduced a significant bias towards an unpublished critique of a scientific paper, and (might i mention) a critique that the author (Peiser), according to the ABC source - doesn't support anymore. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 15:58, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Peiser's paper has been reprinted in an endless variety of sources, including the WSJ, the Senate EPW papers, and many others. It certainly passes muster on those grounds alone; the mere fact that so many here are hotly debating its wording proves its significance.FellGleaming (talk) 21:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Both of which are unreliable sources for this. The first is only reliable to Lindzen's opinion, and the second is reliable only to the opinion of Morano and Inhofe. I have to admit that your last one made me laugh... No, sorry. The amount of debate in the blogosphere or other unreliable sources, does not make something significant. If you really want you can note Lindzen and Inhofe's opinion on their respective articles. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if the link has been posted, but the article referencing this page is Wikipedia's Zealots. Joshdboz (talk) 16:16, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

He didn't even get Kim's gender right. So much for fact checking... Raymond Arritt (talk) 16:49, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

As if this was an indication of anything... It kinda happens. --Childhood's End (talk) 17:59, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm impressed that it does... specifically as he makes a point out of it in the article "She (or he?) is an editor at Wikipedia" - had he done any decent amount of research on my userpage and profile as he says in his article - then its in rather plain sight there. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:45, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

This is an extremely silly point. a) He got nothing "wrong", and simply pointed out the sex and real name of any Wiki editor is indeterminant (which is true, regardless of what our user pages claim). B) Your gender has nothing to do with the point at hand, c) Even had he made a mistake, getting the gender wrong of a random Wikipedian says nothing about the rest of the article.FellGleaming (talk) 21:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Please get back to adressing the article, instead of the editors. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

He got any number of things hopelessly wrong. Perhaps most laughable is no person is better placed to judge informed dissent on climate change than Benny Peiser - Peiser can't even read abstracts correctly William M. Connolley (talk) 22:57, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Another rather interesting detail - he starts by using the name tabletop, which was a user who has made exactly one edit (not related to Solomons at all) here [8], and then he continues on to claim that he is me.

Hmmm - rather sloppy research methinks. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:16, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

You'd think "This user is male" on your userpage would be a hint, but maybe that's too obscure for some people. Raymond Arritt (talk) 19:40, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

"Kim" is a gender-neutral name and userboxes can kind of blur into each other. Especially as many Wikipedians just fill their page with userboxes that may or may not be valid to them. I do agree though that the way it works you do need something proving a claim like "X said Y to me."--T. Anthony (talk) 11:36, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Judging from the news article, it appears to have been wp:or, and theres certainly no need to include opinions from every odd person that happen to have one either. But I think everyone would benefit a lot if whoever is about to revert an edit takes a minute to check sources and discuss things first. Especially with new users who might not understand/know wikipedia policies. And wp:or clearly isn't obvious to a lot of people. If new users are met with some respect and understanding from the pro-"wiki zealots" (to use the newspaper term ;)) then maybe they bother to stay around awhile and be useful instead of writing about how horrible wikipedia is in their national newspapers. Not that I don't understand it must be a pain editing climate change and other politically charged articles. --Apis 16:13, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I understand your sentiment but am not sure the usual considerations apply here. The actions look a bit like a setup, though one can never say for certain. Raymond Arritt (talk) 17:37, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Kim has a gigantic E-peen. Look at how riled up he is getting! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.176.240.179 (talk) 18:46, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Original research? Well, here's the funny thing: if this reporter had written his article about Peiser, and had then become a wikipedia user without revealing his real name and sourced his own article, there would be absolutely no controversy and no allegations of "original research". Am I right? His main fault was that he was too honest. To truly push a particular agenda on Wikipedia, you have to know how to play the game. Fortunately for Wikipedia, most partisan agencies (as far as we know) haven't figured out the bureaucracy here yet and do it clumsily, making obvious POV edits and leaving behind revealing IP addresses. But as time goes on, this will change. The traditional news media was also more trustworthy at one time... Esn (talk) 22:20, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Very ironic that the idea that wikipedia has no rules and is nothing more than the POV pushing of fanatics protects us in the end. Sure makes for some ridiculous disputes though. Wrad (talk) 22:36, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

No, you are in fact not right. Op-Ed's and Editorials are inherently not very reliable sources. In general you can measure the reliability of a source, on how much review it goes through. (editorial or scientific). Thats the reason that peer-reviewed articles are generally considered high on this spectrum, and personal opinions (as op-eds and editorials are), generally very low. Of course there are other factors, such as the publication source etc. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:59, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

which circles back to Oreskes' work and her mischaracterization of the research, both the terms used to generate her results and the types of arguments. It would appear, and hear me out, possible to a so called skeptic, that she reverse engineered the search terms to generate the response that she was looking for, and then mischaracterized her terms. Yuck. She was called out on it and busted, and now people want to ignore or delete the comments of the gentleman that discovered her so-called errors. Sigh. Grazen (talk) 19:38, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

This comes to your own point of view. Was she caught out? Peiser and Solomon thinks so. But Peiser was also caught out, and has admitted so (in numerous places). Has Peiser found anything that really breaks Oreskes paper? Not according to other sources (who are just as unpublished as Peisers)... etc etc.

Its a can of worms if we allow self published sources and other less reliable sources to state what their opinion on subjects.... Its going to raise havock on 9/11, evolution, big bang, articles. And its not going to be for the benefit of those articles - which is exactly the reason that WP has rules and guidelines on this. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:54, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

This argument right here is exactly why Wikipedia is the leading source of automatic zeros given in high school and college classes. Is there no better way to discuss such matters that to go off of an arbitrary set of "guidelines" that only make sense to you trolls? Wikipedia; the 1940s Germany of the Internet. Morte42 (talk) 17:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

There is a Wikipedia guideline that befits the situation: If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. It is at WP:IGNORE. It seems certain people like to be Wikilawyers regarding certain policies in an attempt to squash what might be very legitimate debate. Remember that Wikipedia is a open encyclopedia; anyone can edit and contribute to it, but the actions of a few can very easily ruin the Wikipedia experience for others, and cause a black-eye for Wikipedia and the Wiki-community in general. ThePointblank (talk) 17:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your insight ThePointblank, I'm not sure I agree that it's beneficial for Wikipedia to encourage new users to ignore discussion, or not to try achieve consensus? And I'd prefer if you didn't acuse me of 'wikilawering' or 'squashing legitimate debate'. (And yes I agree that the actions of a few can very easily ruin the Wikipedia experience for others). Thank you. --Apis (talk) 19:21, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't directly referring to you, but the entire process of ignoring rules when needed is described here: WP:WIARM. There is a time and a place to ignore rules to improve Wikipedia or to correct grievous errors contain in articles. ThePointblank (talk) 19:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I honestly think you are doing both the new users and Wikipeida a great disservice by telling them that, If you feel there is any 'grievous errors' here then why haven't you taken part in the debate, you've been around after all, and how about you yourself ignore all rules and make some improvements? I really don't think the infobox would have caused any dispute... --Apis (talk) 19:39, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I am arguing, ignore rules when necessary, but not necessarily ignore the rules. In short, exercise caution and judgement when you ignore the rules in improving Wikipedia. ThePointblank (talk) 11:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Which is a pretty bad idea on biographies, where many cases where you'd ignore rules would clash immediately with the WP:BLP rules. Its a good advice for regular articles though. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:07, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

It might be worth noting that the page got locked for edit waring a few hours later. I don't disagree with the rule in general, but perhaps the timing was a bit off? --Apis (talk) 13:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Page protected

I've fully protected this article for a period of 14 days. During this time I encourage all users involved to discuss disputes on this talk page. In the last day or so, there have been 7 reverts to the page, and reverts make up much of the recent page history. That id disruptive. - Rjd0060 (talk) 14:59, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I suggest that you remove the section with the partisan (and political) comment from the former majority seat of the US Senate Committee Environment and Public Works. That particular item is ruled out per WP:BLP (its self-published btw. in this case - and not as someone stated above "an official government" document):

Editors should remove any contentious material about living persons that is unsourced, relies upon sources that do not meet standards specified in Wikipedia:Verifiability, or is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see Wikipedia:No original research).

In this case the interpretation is a partisan political one of a scientific paper - that has not been contested in a scientific venue.

I could also go further and state that the source is in breach of no less than 4 of 6 items in the WP:SELFPUB section of WP:BLP. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:09, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Let us get this right... Having somewhat negative but verifiable comments from the US Senate Majority on Oreskes' page would violate WP:BLP, but having sutff about Martians dating back to 1960 on Fred Singer's page would not? WP:SELFPUB is not relevant. Perhaps it's not an "official governement" document, but it's the view of the Senate Majority then. It's verifiable and notable and could be added as such. --Childhood's End (talk) 18:11, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

CE WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Please focus on this article. You should take whatever problems there is with Singers article up on Singers talk page. The majority comment could be used as a source in a generic article - but not here. Yep WP:SELFPUB is relevant - as this doesn't represent neither the republican view - nor the governments - its not even an official comment from the committee, its merely a "fact of the day" published by the senators spin-team. Just as the current majority probably does. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:19, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

True that other stuff exists, but policies have to be applied with consistency. --Childhood's End (talk) 20:50, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

As has been pointed out, PB's revert is based on blatantly incorrect grounds, so I've taken it out, along with Peisers self-published junk William M. Connolley (talk) 21:37, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Why has this page been protected on the say-so of PB, who appears to have made precisely one partisan edit? The so-called edit war is just POV-pushing by L William M. Connolley (talk) 21:40, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I gave the recommendation to protect the page as it is (it does not mean that Wikipedia as a whole endorses the article as it is) as this situation has happened in the past; there was a content dispute at the Pat Binns article where the page was hijacked for political purposes by a political activist, and the situation became public on national media. Therefore, I had the page protected to cool everyone off until we can figure out a neutral point of view, as it appears that there are 3 users who have clear identifiable biases, and I can't figure out who's right.

Furthermore, I've also posted a notice on Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard about the issue, to draw more attention and more senior editors to comment on the dispute.

ThePointblank (talk) 23:45, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Well no-one asked you to. Reverting a page, and then running off and saying "help! there's a revert war..." isn't very helpful. Offering a pile of obviously incorrect reasons for reverting doesn't give me any great confidence in your judgement, either. Anyway, I've unprotected it William M. Connolley (talk) 15:25, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Given the heated level of debate on the issue at hand, does that not in and of itself indicate that Benny Peiser's POV and work should at the very least be referenced on Oreskes' page? Whether one agrees with his findings or not, they are relevant to the discussion at hand and necessary for one looking for a thorough analysis of Oreskes' work, particularly her climate change essay. To remove it completely as being irrelevant is not "neutral" - it exists, it has been discussed at length, and any search on Oreskes' essay on Google (search term Oreskes +Peiser) will highlight nearly 14,000 articles on Oreskes' work with the findings of Peiser. Let's stop the silliness and maintain some adult level of conversation on this topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grazen (talk • contribs) 13:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Where was Peiser's work published? Raymond Arritt (talk) 14:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

To me, it doesn't make sense to include stuff based on who makes the most noise. Just because someone involved in an edit war is a journalist shouldn't mean they get special treatment. --Apis 15:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, this would set an extremely dangerous precedent. Journalist with a POV to promote makes dodgy edits to article; edits are correctly reverted; journalist writes article about how bad Wikipedia is for daring to disagree with him; people restore journalist's dodgy edits to avoid bad publicity, thereby degrading the article. Wikipedia needs to nip this one in the bud. Raymond Arritt (talk) 16:14, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

As I mentioned, this is a bio page on Oreskes, not just a debate on the validity of her work. The fact that Peiser's work was self-published is irrelevant, it has become a major part of the public debate on her conclusions and bears at the very least a mention. Should Oreskes' work be attacked by CNN or Fox News, that would also bear consideration and a mention, even if the basis is not in a "scientific" journal, because it would be public, widely dessiminated and it would be relevant to Oreskes as a person. And please, stop undoing changes to the discussion thread, that is pointless. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grazen (talk • contribs) 20:10, 17 April 2008

This argument is political in nature, as was Oreskes' work. In any case, I would argue that some ontibutors on both sides have their own agenda -including those that support Oreskes' work as being of "untarnished quality" and that are looking to eliminate edits that conflict with their status quo. If the argument is valid, then it will sustain the challeners, bring them on for public consumption and stand on the facts. Grazen (talk • contribs)

-

In this case, I would recommend we delete everything under that section and just leave a listing of works published, plus a brief description (maybe) of what that research was, like the Stephen Hawking or the Bernard Williams article. This article is anyways listed as being a 'Start-Class' article, and if we plan on improving the article to something better than that, this is one way to do so. ThePointblank (talk) 18:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm not sure I agree with that. If you want to improve on the article please go ahead and come up with a new proposal, but simply removing content isn't very helpful. I remember hearing about that particular work by Oreskes in the national news where i live (not US that is), and it is already well referenced. (And, no, I've never heard of Preiser until now). So I don't think there is any reason to remove that information. That doesn't mean the article can be improved upon and her other works should be mentioned as well of course! --Apis 20:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the styles of other higher classed articles, it seems this is the trend on biography articles. However, some biography articles do link to a sub article containing a more detailed list of works and a more detailed description of the work. ThePointblank (talk) 20:45, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure what you are suggesting then, do you mean we should try and integrate this information in more detail into the main part of the article, and then add a section with selected publications to the end of the article? --Apis 21:00, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

What I am suggesting is moving the listing of works and description (plus controversy) to a new article where it is more appropriate to describe the works, and leave the biography page as a simple description of the person, what the person does, and notability. ThePointblank (talk) 21:15, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that might be a good idea: make a brief description of this 'famed' work here, and then provide links to a separate page about it. Then this page could give a more balanced view of Naomis work, etc. Although, as have been pointed out below, Preisers criticism is still self-published and thus wouldn't be included in the new page?

   I don't know what others opinions are on this? I haven't been involved in writing the original article.

   It might be wise to make a new sub-page or something showing the new version before making any final edits, considering how sensitive this have become (apparently). --Apis 21:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, I would warn not to remove talk page comments, as that is against WP:TALK. Furthermore, there is no Wikipedia guidelines as to the removal of uncivil or personal attacks, as stated by Arbitration Committee, as it can be very easily misused. ThePointblank (talk) 19:18, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I find it helpful to leave uncivil comments and personal attacks in place, so we can more readily justify blocks of the person who makes them. Raymond Arritt (talk) 20:15, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

You are probably right. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Lets try again

If we are going to mention Peiser's unpublished critique, then we need to mention the critique as well. We also need to describe that critique that Peiser's critique has received. And we need a description of what parts of the critique that Peiser has retracted.

We're in a bit of a fix here - Peiser's main critique was that he got a different result than Oreskes - but he has later admitted that his own counting of abstracts was wrong.[9]

So can we get a discussion going on what the mention should look like, or at the very least find a common ground (that is in correspondence with WP:BLP) on what kind of sources are allowed, since most of the information is from less than reliable sources. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

We had a consensus established before you and William decided to inject a random web page as evidence for a statement indicating that Peiser was "wrong". It was laughable and biased - a single citation on a web page as proof that Peiser is wrong? The web page doesn't even attempt to pretend that it is neutral. We had a consensus and it was hijacked. Interesting how Kim seems to lock the page only after her positions are reflected. Zealots indeed. But this is good, the evidence to support Solomon's position continues to climb with each post that Kim and William add. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grazen (talk • contribs) 00:31, 22 April 2008

Can you please at least try to be WP:CIVIL? And please stick to facts - i did not (in fact i can't) lock any pages. Address the article not the editors.

That out of the way, from even a cursory look at the above discussions, there was not consensus on removing critique about Peiser.

Now can we get back on point? I btw. agree with you on the low level of reliability of the blog posts, but as said above, if you allow one self published source, you open for more. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:57, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

As an addition - while looking on Google for reliable sources for this, i can't help but notice that there hardly is any. Most sources are blogs, op-eds, editorials and various other less than reliable sources. Can we even support that Peiser's critique has received enough mention to reach a state where it should be mentioned (per WP:DUE)? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:57, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Newspaper article on this article

The history of tendentious, POV edits to this and other climate change articles documented in Saturday's National Post is shocking. The fact the article has now been locked to prevent tampering with Tabletop's pro-warming orthodoxy compounds the offense. At a minimum, there should be an 'objectivity disputed' notice at the top of the page. I happen to agree with Tabletop on the issue of global warming, but I am dismayed that Wikipedia would enforce our viewpoint to the exclusion of dissenting views and inconvenient facts. This approach is an affront to what Wkikpedia stands for. Someone in a senior position at Wikipedia needs to step in and put a stop to this. Kempt Head (talk) 14:56, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

One more reason why Wikipedia is NOT considered a valid resource of citation by many educators. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.220.31.30 (talk) 22:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

You might want to check your facts before making accusations, to begin with Tabletop only made a spelling correction and isn't the same person as KDP. Solomon have made an apology to tabletop here [10] on coppertwigs talkpage. Nor was Solomon right about the editing, he was reverted because he referred to original research and didn't have any reliable sources. --Apis (talk) 15:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

New Article In National Post (Saturday April 19, 2008), page FP17 by Lawrence Solomon. The article is titled "Hide your name on Wicked Pedia".

... and much is dark. Apparently, there is a very good and practical reason to maintain anonymity in Wikipedia. It can be Wicked Pedia....

We need the link once it is available (likely on April 20th or 21st) - please add here.Grazen (talk) 12:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Please sign your comments. The link is here: [11]. Keep in mind that ANY page in Wikipedia is subject to public scrutiny, so while sometimes it feels cozy and intimate everyone here should remember that this is totally in the public domain and is archived forever. Solomon's article is heated, of course, but honestly with the number of college students dropping Wikipedia pages into their works cited, it's very good that the public has a sense of how the sausage gets made. Wellspring (talk) 11:31, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy to see that Lawrence is staying on top of this issue and keeping an eye on this page. I myself, as a new user have been helped by a few (and thanks to those) but attacked by many others who decided to delete my comments on the comment page, undo statements that they disagreed with or just undid statements without offering any comments! That is and was absolutely insane. I honestly believe that the people that are editing this page have crossed the line into being "evil", which is what Lawrence suggests in his latest article. You should be ashamed of yourselves, and you know who you are. The lights are being turned on for the rest of the world to see through your garbage. Knowledge is our power, not threats and attacks. Regards Grazen (talk) 18:29, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

See: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/04/12/wikipedia-s-zealots-solomon.aspx

Financial Post is the business section of a major Canadian newspaper. Samw (talk) 18:21, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

The article is titled: Wikipedia's zealots: The thought police at the supposedly independent site are fervently enforcing the climate orthodoxy. KimDabelsteinPetersen is mentioned prominently. (cut personal attacks pr. WP:NPA) So it is regrettable but understandable that this situation has now been escalated up to the level of a national newspaper. Perhaps this will result in the ending of the group ownership of climate change and a return to a balanced policy where all views are given due weight and no one view is "the truth". To quote WP:NPOV:

“ None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being judged as "the truth", in order that the various significant published viewpoints are made accessible to the reader, not just the most popular one. It should also not be asserted that the most popular view, or some sort of intermediate view among the different views, is the correct one to the extent that other views are mentioned only pejoratively. Readers should be allowed to form their own opinions. ”

This policy has been routinely violated on the climate change pages. kevinp2 (talk) 16:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately you seem to have failed to understand both WP:NPOV and WP:V. (as well as both WP:CIV and WP:NPOV) Once you can come up with a reliable source to put on this page - then be our guest. But the trouble is that you can't. Peiser's critique is self published and since Peiser is neither an expert, nor has been previously published in this particular area - his personal account of Oreskes "errors" is not acceptable to wikipedia. And thats also lucky - since all the critiques of Peiser's "study" are invalidated for the exactly same reasons. (they are also self published)

But again. Find a reliable source for a critique and we may talk business. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:47, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. If we admit Peiser's self-published study, we will need to admit the utterly devastating critiques thereof. Raymond Arritt (talk) 16:52, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

If you think about it for a second, it makes sense: anyone can set up a web page and publish criticism of something. I could do it in less than a minute. Then I could go to the relevant wikipedia article and say "hey look, this fellow here [[reference to my own web page]] have criticized this and that, that should be mentioned in the wikipedia article!". It is easy to see how this would quickly undermine the credibility of wikipedia. --Apis 20:03, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

So why does Beyond the Ivory Tower have no page for itself, if critique of it does not belong on Oreskes' bio page? Surely Peiser's critique, and critiques of Peiser's paper, should be discussed there. Link added. Somercet (talk) 20:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Preislers critique is still self-published, it wouldn't really change anything in this case. Take a look at Wikipedia:Verifiability it discusses these issues in more detail. We can't include every bit of text that is written about this on the internet, theres already the internet for that. --Apis 21:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this is quite embarrassing. Perhaps a more mature approach to this page's maintenance is in order. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.107.0.72 (talk) 19:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

After reading the Post article, I figured this page might be butchered soon after. Some issues:

In 2007 she elaborated on this work, saying that approximately 20% of abstracts explicitly endorsed the consensus on climate change that: "Earth's climate is being affected by human activities". In addition, 55% of abstracts "implicitly" endorsed the consensus by engaging in research to characterize the ongoing and/or future impact of climate change (50% of abstracts) or to mitigate against predicted changes (5%). The remaining 25% of abstracts either focused on paleoclimate (10%) or developing measurement techniques (15%) and Oreskes considered these to be agnostic on the reality of climate change.[2]

I don't think the source at the end of the paragraph really backs this. A direct link: [[12]] All I see here is a presentation that includes the original essay (p. 19) but nothing to back the paragraph's full contentions. In particular, the phrase in this paragraph 'consensus on climate change that: "Earth's climate is being affected by human activities"' is incomplete, since the consensus is defined in the essay as 'In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" [p. 21 in (4)].'

Other comments seem to be laid on pretty thick, exaggerating the errors:

Contrary to her published description, however, the keywords Oreskes actually used in the ISI database search were 'global climate change'. This error on her part was not caught by the peer review process and led to much subsequent confusion when others attempted to replicate her findings. To add to the confusion, her study did not specify that she had limited her search to "articles" rather than "all document types."

"...not caught by the peer-review process" - that would be implied but this seems an attempt to give an extra POV nudge to it

"...much subsequent confusion...to add to the confusion..." - seems like both of these phrases could be removed.

Gmb92 (talk) 06:38, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Just before i run off for a weekend out of town, the source for the various abstract percentages is a book - not just the slideshow and speech that she also does with the same title. Can't say i disagree with the rest. Have a nice weekend. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 11:18, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

OK the incivility in this edit war has to stop. First, someone above said that because Peiser is a social anthropologist he doesn't have the credibility to make claims about the environment. This is correct but misleading-- he is perfectly qualified to conduct a review of literature and make claims about the consensus of a social group, in this case climate scientists. Second, peer-reviewed is certainly preferable but it is not required. Self-published material is NOT usually considered reliable. While it sounds like Peiser's material is in fact self-published, it's not being sourced to establish the validity of his claims, it's being cited to discuss the fact that he's made those claims. Using WP policies is great; using them as a bludgeon to suppress debate and dissent is totally improper.

The journalist in the newspaper article has no particular standing as far as being a Wikipedia editor is concerned. Anything the journalist publishes in his day job that meets the WP:RS criteria would be fine as a source because it has editorial oversight behind it. If he wants to add factual information to Wikipedia himself, he can cite reliable sources like the rest of us. One would hope that a professional journalist would have no problem doing so. However, "I've spoken to Peiser" does NOT pass muster here; published sources are required because we can't verify any conversations that he may or may not have had with Peiser.

As for the subject under debate itself. I really know little to nothing about the details of the controversy. From what I can glean from what I've read, it appears that Oreskes's peer-reviewed paper can be cited to make a direct factual claim, as well in its context as the beginning of a public controversy. Peiser's responses can only be cited in the limited context of reporting that in this already notable controversy, Peiser has made counterclaims. As far as I can tell, attempts to stretch Peiser's statements to claim that he has retracted his critique or admits that his methods were "bunk" are misleading and a possible violation of WP:BLP. Wellspring (talk) 13:09, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

he is perfectly qualified to conduct a review of literature - disagree. He has in fact demonstrated himself quite incompetent to read the literature, sources available upon request William M. Connolley (talk) 20:43, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

As a social anthropologist, reviews of literature to measure consensus on a subject are his field. Whether or not his review of the scholarly work on the subject is accurate is not our job, in this context, to determine. The larger questions surrounding climate change aren't any of this article's business, either. We're on the narrow question of whether or not Peiser's critique of Oreskes's literature review is appropriate to include. Peiser is not qualified to be cited as an authority on climatology, any more than a climatologist would be qualified to write an ethnography. A literature review like this is a gray area where either discipline is appropriate.

And actually, properly sourced, charges of incompetence are quite appropriate for the Peiser article. Wellspring (talk) 03:17, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

And, let's be honest and not imply that Oreskes had any more serious qualification to perform the work that ended up in Nature... Her work's cited here merely because it's been published there, not because of her qualification. --Childhood's End (talk) 04:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually Oreskes has all the qualifications for such a work. 1. A degree in geology 2. work in Earth sciences and 3. a degree in scientific history. That pretty much covers for the basic qualifications. But yes - that the publication was in Nature, has quite a bit to do with its reliability as a source. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:29, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I now see a little bit more clearly the level of "resume" that is considered adequate to be able to claim that there is a consensus about climate change on Earth. Thanks. --Childhood's End (talk) 01:51, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Please discuss other articles on their respective talkpage, it will be very hard to follow the discussions otherwise. The question here is whether Peisers criticism belongs on this page or not, and as far as I can see it doesn't. It's not published anywhere except on his own webpage as far as I know. If I were to write a critical article about George W. Bush, North Korea or USA, and put it on the web, is that enough to warrant a mention on their respective pages? No it's clearly not, even if my critique is valid, or even if I'm mr Peiser. Perhaps if Oreskes paper also was self published, but then it probably shouldn't be in wikipedia to begin with. Thus any debate about Peisers competence is irrelevant. --Apis 05:56, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I was addressing the objection from William M. Connolley and Kim D. Petersen that Peiser isn't credentialed to critique the article. I do agree that the fact that the critique is self-published would normally suggest that we eliminate the whole section, except if the debate over the article itself was notable. I'm not trying to argue that Peiser is right, I was saying his objection was notable. A quick google search includes (once you wade through all the blogs) a couple major media sources reporting on the controversy. Here's a few links: [13] [14] [15] and one link from the Senate EPW committee [16].

After wading through my search, I agree that the MSM coverage has been thin. The controversy certainly deserves a mention, but a large section would, I agree, give the subject undue weight (WP:DUE). Wellspring (talk) 13:33, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Small inserted comment here. I don't believe that i've questioned Peisers qualifications in doing such a study. What i pointed out was that the exceptions to WP:SPS couldn't be fullfilled. (ie. expert in the subject with previous publication record on the subject). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:29, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

As for it being a notable critique, then we have to bring in the whole she-bang, because the critiques of Peiser are even more numerous (and also covered by reliables sources). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:29, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, then we agree for most part, =) I'm still not convinced that Peisers objections are notable enough to be mentioned here though. Of the sources you mentioned at least two can be considered notable in my opinion. I don't know about cnsnews, and I don't know enough about the US senate to be able to judge that contents. Compared to Oreskes paper that is still very thin coverage, her work was published in Science and mentioned in numerous reliable sources. If we were to mention Peiser in a sentence or so (which I still don't think we should) how would it look? "Benny Peiser, a British social anthropologist, criticized Oreskes paper, but his criticism were never published in any peer reviewed scientific journal"? Which raises the question: if it was never published, why do we even mention it, and then we get into conspiracy theories which are entirely out of scope here. I really can't come up with a way of mentioning it without it sounding utterly ridiculous or giving it undue weight. --Apis 18:49, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Capsule Description: The US Senate page's context is this: the Senate has a series of committees which do most of the work. Each committee is selected and stacked by the leader of the majority party to ensure that his/her party controls every committee (seniority is very important here but this is just a way simplified version of it). Basically the result is that each committee has a majority and a minority (ie, if the Democrats have an overall majority in the Senate, then the Republicans are the minority on each committee). A majority committee is about 30-40 staffers working mostly for the chairman. The minority staff are usually about 5-10 people working mostly for the highest-ranking minority member. They are political entities in their own right. So a routine press release like this should be taken similarly to a press release from a politician or lobbying organization. I don't know anything about CNS News either.

You raise a good question about what that sentence should actually say. The current language at this particular moment is ok except that blogs are not reliable sources for critiquing Peiser's content (and they don't seem to be notable in and of themselves). Some of William Connolley's references would be useful here. Perhaps, "Oreskes's study has been criticized by climate change skeptics, including climate expert Richard Lindzen and social anthropologist Benny Peiser. Neither critique was published in a peer-reviewed journal. Peiser's paper in particular has been controversial, and he has acknowledged that his own study was methodologically flawed." Then we include links to Lindzen's editorial (WSJ, I think, I found it yesterday) and clean up the sources. If William can find a reliable source to say that Peiser's paper is methodologically flawed, we can make it say, "Oreskes's study has been criticized by climate change skeptics, including climate expert Richard Lindzen and social anthropologist Benny Peiser. Neither critique was published in a peer-reviewed journal. Peiser's self-published paper was later discovered to be methodologically flawed." The link to peiser's article can provide any details if someone wants to dig deeper.

Wellspring (talk) 12:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the info on us senate committees. =)

If pesier work were to be considered notable enough then I think your suggestions are reasonable. Although climate expert should probably be changed to atmospheric physicist. Replacing the section: "Contrary to her [...] American Association of Petroleum Geologists" with what you suggested might be the best solution. The information in that section could then be moved to peisers page if necessary, which I assume describes his critique in more detail. Still, I do think it's a bit silly to include it here (because of tiny notability), though it wouldn't be worse than whats already in the article.

I'm guessing that it's hard to find much more than blogs as a critical references to preisers work since his critique is only self-published and have recieved so little media attention. If a blog (etc) is written by someone knowledgeable in the field then I think that would be a valid reference. --Apis (talk) 01:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm starting to see the bind that Peiser's detractors are in. If they publish something against him, they increase his visibility; if they don't, they leave his critique unanswered. Anyway, yeah I agree with your phrasing. Happy earth day everyone. :) (ducks) Wellspring (talk) 03:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

So maybe we should remove the part about Peiser then? My only worry about that is that someone will come and add it again in a week, but I guess we can refer them to this discussion then. =) Apis (talk) 07:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I have changed to this version: [17], is that acceptable? I haven't been able to figure out what Richard Lindzens critique was so I don't want to add that unless there's at least a source of some sort. I've also tried to clear up the Peiser page to reflect the sources as well as possible. I hope this satisfies everyone, it would be good if we could reach some agreement here, then we can refer new editors to this discussion before they make any major changes, or else it will probably have changed again by tomorrow. Apis (talk) 10:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

This version looks good. It addresses the notable critique without giving it undue weight. I think the Peiser stuff needs to be there, but this way it doesn't take over the section and doesn't go unchallenged. If we can wrap some consensus around this, then I think we're in business. Wellspring (talk) 12:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Great, I think that qualifies. :) The other main opinion would be to remove everything about Peiser if I interpret it correctly so I think this is settled then until someone has something new to add. Apis (talk) 13:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Well said and agreed. This is a political back and forth that should *not* influence the factual information related to the biography of a living person! The issue, and you have deposited it very clearly so I apologize for repeating, but Peiser's work on Oreskes' results is important and I would add *critical* to a full and wholesome understanding of Oreskes, her work and the impact that it has had. Agree or disagree with Peiser, his findings and the implications therein have had an impact - to properly understand Oreskes, we need to include the work done by Peiser and the implcations therein. Deleting and subverting or deleting them is not an option.Grazen (talk • contribs)

I disagree. Peisers work is unimportant and helps not at all in understanding Oreskes work. Peiser has demonstrated that he is unable to read the literature he is attempting to review, which is why his work is worthless. Peisers work is a useful illustration of how global warming septics will seize on anything, no matter how badly done, to push their POV. Which may rate a mention over at global warming controversy but not here William M. Connolley (talk) 14:20, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Global warming skeptics should not be allowed to question the prevailing narrative and should be kept out. Fortunately, Wikipedia is still good at this.kevinp2 (talk) 15:34, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

If you can demonstrate that the criticism is not notable, then it wouldn't belong here. However, it does meet the criteria for notability in my opinion. A line about it would be sufficient without going overboard and giving the subject undue weight.

I am not a global warming skeptic. I'm not a climate scientist at all, but my layman's reading on the subject indicates that the consensus in the scientific community is that global warming is occurring and is caused by human activity. However, there are skeptics out there, including climate experts, and their views are notable and therefore merit inclusion. I'm getting the sense that for some people this is a proxy battle for the global warming debate, but this should NOT be about POV pushing, in either direction. Wellspring (talk) 16:24, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Please remember that this is a biography page - not a general article. If anywhere, it belongs on Peiser's page and possibly in the more generic Global warming controversy page. Otherwise we'll end up with a general discussion of global warming and how this article has been used by various people in various discussions. (i'd argue that Gore's usage is more notable - and that that doesn't merit mention here either). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Imho, we're already going way to far in covering this particular paper. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:39, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

My remarks were ambiguous, and I apologise to Wellspring for what may have looked like a personal attack. To clarify: Peisers work is a useful illustration of how global warming septics will seize on anything, no matter how badly done, to push their POV was intended to refer to the way that Peisers work has been seized in the real world, not within wiki. I believe that Peisers work is not a valuable crit of O's work: rather, it is a not very notable part of the septic spin machine (which is why Peiser produceed it). Note that this is covered in the Benny Peiser article - indeed it seems to be his one claim to notability, as far as wiki is concerned William M. Connolley (talk) 19:50, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

NP, William, it's easy in Wikipedia to misconstrue other people's intentions. Let's everyone cool down and assume lots and lots of good faith. We're all trying to make the article better. Wellspring (talk) 11:20, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Correct or not, can you give the fellow his due? At the bare minimum he runs a fairly influential publication over the past 11 years and has had a asteroid/minor planet named after him. Both facts are in his wikipedia page as is his 2003 book on climate change (Adapt or Die: The science, politics and economics of climate change). This sort of personal denigration ("seems to be his one claim to notability, as far as wiki is concerned") should have no place here. TMLutas (talk) 04:52, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I know little of him outside GW. Within GW, he has demonstrated that he can't read abstracts accurately. If you think there are things about hi worth adding to his wiki page, then the correct thing to do is to add them William M. Connolley (talk) 08:30, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

That's just the point, those items were taken from his wikipedia page at the time of writing. There's nothing to add. The facts were already there. You just either didn't bother to look before your 08:30, 20 April 2008 response, and didn't bother to look before either (I reviewed all the edits dating back to the 19th just to make sure). Those who disagree with your POV and your professional advocacy are not the cardboard cutouts you like to believe. TMLutas (talk) 02:12, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

You apologize and then proceed to call skeptics, "septics" several times, on purpose I beleive, in order to belittle their point of view. It is extremely arrogant and uncivil of you to assume, or to presume, that you are the foundation of all knowledge on the issue, and that others, Peiser ("septic spin machine"), "septics", etcetera, etcetera, are out to *get you*. COnsider which side is pushing for freedom, and which side is not, that provides the answer as to one's political motivations. As for Oreseks, as mentioned repeatedly, she reverse engineered the answer that she was looking for, published it, got busted, and now the person that provided the valuable insight into her techniques (Peiser) is being attacked, while the producer, Oreskes is defended. Wows. Grazen (talk) 19:58, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry but this is just about the most blatant example of WP:POT i've seen so far ;) - your own comment is so extremely biased and based on POV that its almost uncanny. "consider which side is pushing for freedom" indeed (lol). Try to tone it down will ya? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

We finally agree Kim, William is out of control and really needs to tone it back. Either that or he should double check his spelling, though I suspect that the error was intentional. In any case, scientests *are* skeptical by nature (pardon the pun). Oreskes' work attempted and failed to show that their was a universal agreement on a subject - and to be blunt, the fact that she didn't do a "double take" when she saw a near universal agreement on an issue this suspicious is, well, suspicious. Peiser and others should be welcomed for bringing some additional insight into her work, the closer we get to the truth, the more useful this and other pages become. In any case, even if there was universal agreement on something (... like evolution...?) it doesn't make it correct. I'm pretty sure that at one point there was universal agreement that the earth was flat. The people that disagreed with that view were also treated pretty roughly - perhaps we haven't come as far as we believe in all of these years. And as an aside, yes, this is my POV. That's why it's on the discussion page, so that we might discuss our POV's in terms of what should be included in the "official" Wikipedia page on Oreskes', which unfortunately is locked in a rather unfortunate state right now.Grazen (talk) 22:34, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Not wanting to speak for William but I suspect there's a deliberate distinction between "sceptics" and "septics" in his usage. When you say "this is my POV" it's not clear what your antecedent is -- surely you don't believe the earth is flat, but I can't tell what you're referring to. Raymond Arritt (talk) 01:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I would find it fascinating what sort of world would have the word septic as a modifier to describe a scientific, economic, or political position that was not pejorative, insulting, and distinctly unuseful to wikipedia. Some kulture kiddies in the pacific northwest apparently think that septic means "cool" but I don't think that's what WMC had in mind. TMLutas (talk) 04:38, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Unless someone has something new to add, how about everyone move along and try to do something useful instead of speculating over what was most likely a spelling mistake. --Apis (talk) 05:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Ohh, come~'on! Consensus is not science, and this article is a biography not about earth's climate, get it? Stop playing the political correct consensus card and stop debating the relevance of climate change in any other aspect than mentioning what Oreskes has worked on. How hard can this be? Lord Metroid (talk) 11:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

It's more a practical question, if we can agree on some base version, we don't have to have an edit war every time someone wants to add an essay about Peisers critique here. It would be nice to be able to refer people to the talk page instead. --Apis (talk) 11:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

And although I agree about the biography part and I suspect it's not her most important work it is very famous. --Apis (talk) 11:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous! - no doubt there are opinions on both sides. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wejamire (talk • contribs) 21:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Solomon has added some more fuel to the fire, and good for him. Great article on April 26th about some more of the shenanigans going on on this topic. Link is here:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/04/26/the-real-climate-martians-solomon.aspx —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grazen (talk • contribs) 21:50, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Protected again

Changed protection level to full for 1 week due to ongoing edit warring. Perhaps in a week the situation will calm down. Discuss civilly please - focus on article improvement, not other editors. Vsmith (talk) 23:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to use the wording that Apis and I have been working on as the basis for discussion. Any thoughts? Wellspring (talk) 00:39, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with Wellspring obviously. If anyone wants to discuss this it would be great if they first read the discussion above, since a lot of things have been covered in great detail already. :) It would be great if someone had some new insight into the discussion. --Apis (talk) 06:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure which version you mean. How about people giving a link to their favoured versions here? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

• [18] William M. Connolley (talk)

I'm surprised you missed it, it's not all that hard to find. I was hoping it would lead people to discuss changes on the talk page instead of writing over each others edits, unfortunately it seems the page got locked due to edit waring instead. I guess I should have been more careful, although the page being locked seems to have led to some discussion in the end. --Apis (talk) 01:39, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

IMHO we had a good consensus before it was locked on April 22nd. The version prior to Kim's changes had some broad support - Kim stirred the pot with some irrational changes, and then it was "suddenly" and conveniently locked. Go back to that version Grazen (talk) 21:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Warming skeptics/ Consensus opposers

Two different things. Lindzen is a scientist and Peiser is also, he writes science books, is on the faculty of science, and is an anthropologist; on the subject of anthropogenic climate change, that sounds like qualifying as a scientist. Regardless, their opposition is to the idea of a consensus as well as to her not proving that in the essay. And her essay is quoted upon numerous pages here in encyclopedia articles and on the Internet and in major newspaper editorials as proof of a scientific consensus. Peiser even agrees the bulk do show a consensus, just not all, which is the disagreement with the analysis itself; "Despite this manifest skepticism, I do not wish to deny that a majority of publications goes along with the notion of anthropogenic global warming by applying models based on its basic assumptions."

Global warming skeptic is rather negative sounding and not really correct. According to what I see the problem is the consensus itself. It for sure doesn't fit with 'scientific opinion on climate change', because that's not what it's really been challenged on. So why not call him one of the 'scientists opposing the consensus' for purpose of explaining the response (by her) to criticisms on the consensus? Seems the most neutral and factual choice to give an overview of it all. Is that an acceptable viewpoint? Sln3412 21:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry - social anthropology does not qualify Peiser to write on climate science, just as it doesn't qualify him to write on quantum physics or neuroscience. His criticisms of Oreskes have been entirely demolished to the point where he has admitted his original criticisms were bunk - the only one of his 35 extracts to contradict the consensus position appeared in the journal of American Association of Petroleum Geologists - an oil industry publication which is not peer reviewed - hence failed to meet Oreskes's criteria.(unknown critic)

Unknown critic, you are still falling into the same trap laid by your colleagues. As a scientist, Peiser is perfectly qualified to discuss science and scientific methods. He has never said that his criticisms are "bunk". As an anonymous critic, your comment carries very little weight. If anyone agrees with me, please feel free to delete unknown critic's unsigned remarks as well as my grumpy retort. Bushcutter (talk) 01:09, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

This has come up about thirty times now. A study of consensus in a social group is perfectly appropriate for anthropologists. The reason we wouldn't be able to cite Peiser as fact is that it's self-published and therefore not a reliable source. However, we're not discussing whether to cite Peiser as fact, we're discussing whether his critique has generated enough attention that the fact that he made it is notable in and of itself.

An arcane paper on physics might not be notable enough to be mentioned as a paper, but still be a Reliable Source to reference the underlying facts it asserts. An Oscar acceptance speech might make all kinds of zany claims-- these claims could not be included in Wikipedia using the speech as a source, but the speech itself would be notable enough to mention. Wellspring (talk) 13:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Galileo and Darwin etc. were self published, so self published per se does not invalidate the issue.DLH (talk) 02:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Blog post

FYI, the shenanigans occurring recently in this article have been documented on Lawrence Solomon's blog [19]. Any validity to his complaints? Cla68 (talk) 23:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course not. Various explanations are possible: Solomon wasn't aware of Wikipedia's standards on neutrality and sourcing; he was aware of the standards but tossed them aside in order to promote his POV; and on and on. Only Solomon himself knows for certain. Kim's actions have been strictly in accordance with WP:V, WP:NOR, and other essential policies. Raymond Arritt (talk) 00:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course there's validity to the claims, as the edit log clearly shows. Every time the article achieves some semblance of neutrality, someone comes in and once again with slanted claims like Peiser "retracted his criticism" or "he was proven wrong". As for Solomon, his only relevance is to refute the POV-pushers who are continually trying to put words in Peiser's mouth. Their claims were demonstrably false even before Solomon's article, now they're doubly so. There should no longer be any debate about what Peiser said or did; the record is very clear.FellGleaming (talk) 01:36, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I've read his articles, but rather than try to argue with/against I'll just say that there's a high degree of emotion going around right now, especially since it's become kind of a proxy fight for the global warming debate. The compromise Apis and I have been engineering has been to mention Peiser's critique (since it's notable) and also flaws in his critique (which are referenceable for content). The page was protected with a version by one of the partisans, but hopefully we can get everyone on board with a consensus version. Wellspring (talk) 00:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I have no serious objection with the version that you and Apis compromised on.[20] In fact it is rather more watered down, and possibly neutral, than the version that Solomon objected that I reverted back to [21]. The only thing that i would comment on, is that the claim that Peiser main objection was unanimous consensus, that seems to be an after-rationalization. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

O dear, yes I think you are right about that, that should have been pointed out somehow. That is probably the cause of some of the confusion (i.e. "he didn't claim that!"). I think it is important to point out that is what he says afterwards though, so no one gets the impression that Peiser still claim there isn't a consensus (like Solomon is trying to give the impression of). "Peiser later after-rationalized [...]" or something might have been better.. Maybe saying after-rationalized could be perceived as a OR though: "Peiser later claimed [...]" and so on would probably have been best. Sorry! --Apis (talk) 07:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I've made corrections on the Benny Peiser page now at least. --Apis (talk) 08:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I think if we go into analyzing the content of Peiser's critique then we open up the door to a whole paragraph again, which is undue weight. He made a critique, that's what was notable, and Oreskes responded. The content of the critique and the critique of the critique, etc. can be on the Peiser page if people want to dig in. I think that language like "after-rationalized" would constitute OR. Wellspring (talk) 09:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed utterly. In a bio, major works and critiques of those works are valid. Critiques of those critiques (particularly when performed by Wikipedians themselves) are out of place. If a user wants more information on Peiser's paper, they can read his own entry. FellGleaming (talk) 14:25, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

So we mention Peiser's critique, but we can't mention that others have pointed out the incompetence of his critique. Clever move. Raymond Arritt (talk) 15:36, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

The mere fact you refer to it as "incompetent" reveals your own POV problems with this entry. The point still stands: a critique of Peiser belongs on his page, not Oreskes. If we open the door to critiques of critiques of critiques, where does it stop? Do we also load up Oreskes' page with links to people who supported his analysis also? The whole discussion is out of place in a bio of Oreskes. She had a major work; someone criticized it. Stop the POV pushing. FellGleaming (talk) 15:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

There's no question that Peiser's critique was incompetent, as attested in multiple sources. It's disingenuous to wall off the discussion so that the critique must be presented at face value. Since neither Peiser's critique nor the analyses of it were published in peer-reviewed sources, the obvious solution is to omit both the critique and analyses. Raymond Arritt (talk) 16:58, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

There's no question in your mind, but forcing your belief onto readers diverges from NPOV. As for the notability of Peiser's critique, it has appeared in several established sources, such as the Wall Street Journal and others. You yourself have written extensively on Peiser's essay in his own entry, so claiming here it's not notable reveals hypocrisy. Again, stop trying to whitewash this entry and work towards a neutral, well-balance article. FellGleaming (talk) 17:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't think there is much doubt that we can disregard his critique from an academic/scientific point of view, Peiser himself have basically admitted as much. It's not even published anywhere except on his own web page! So in that regard his criticism isn't notable at all and don't belong on this page. (And I wouldn't object to removing it either). However, those skeptical to global warming like to use him to try and dismiss Naomis essay, and he has been mentioned a couple of times in the popular media. So because of this "fame", maybe you could say it was notable in some sense. Since that would be the only reason to include Peiser in this article, it would be misleading to indicate that his critique had any weight and we need to clarify that peisler himself admits that "undoubtedly, sceptical scientists are a small minority". --Apis (talk) 19:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

And as Wellspring said: if we do mention it, it should be brief. --Apis (talk) 19:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I want to contest that Peiser's critique is notable. I started collecting various sources to this "controversy", in particular sources that are considered reliable and non-partisan by wikipedia.[22] I have to say that its extremely little data, that i could find. Googling "+Peiser +Oreskes" finds 5190 pages, not much - but hopefully with some quality sources..... But No. I get to page 5 before the first mainstream news-article pops up (about Science censoring Peiser).

So please help me find sources for this (feel free to add sources - or copy the list here) - if you want to claim that we have to raise a self published critique to the level where it is so notable that it merits mention. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

The "not notable" objection isn't floating, especially as you yourself have seen fit to write extensively on the Peiser essay within his own bio entry. This wasn't "a blog post" -- it was a letter by a noted authority, which Science Magazine itself said was "widely disseminated". And so it has been. It's been published in many major soures since. Every editor here was familiar with it (and the hundreds of critiques and analyses of it) long before they ever saw this entry. Trying to sweep it under the rug and pretend it doesn't exist is wrong, plain and simple. Evernyone with *any* knowledge of Oreskes also knows about the Peiser rebuttal; right or wrong, the two are inextricably linked. Our job here isn't to influence the reader's opinion one way or another, but simply to inform them in a neutral manner as to the basis of the controversy. FellGleaming (talk) 21:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

We are editing a biography of a living person, i suggest that you read carefully what it says about self published sources and undue weight. If you can document that its been published in "major sources" since - then feel free to do so. As for your "anyone" argument - well "anyone" would also know that Peiser admitted (in at least 2 seperate places) that his critique was flawed. And the wide dissemination that was done on blog pages of his critique. And frankly i doubt that the "anyone" argument holds.

Our job here is not to present everything equally on a Smörgasbord, so that people can pick and chose. Thats is not what WP:NPOV is about (or for that matter any encyclopedia) - Sorry. We present what is notable in accordance (and proportion) with due weight. Now my question is: Where is the weight? So please do get out and find those reliable sources that makes your argument hold - Ok? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

To summarize: Establish that its a notable controversy - and not just a storm in partisan media and the bloggosphere. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

That contains so many mistakes, its hard to know where to begin. Peisers letter has never been published by a reliable source. Peiser himself admits that it contains mistakes. The central claim oft repeated - that he found 34 abstracts to dispute the consensus - is trash. If we mention his unpublished letter, we should mention his errors too William M. Connolley (talk) 21:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I *did* document that Peiser's results had appeared in a reliable source. That source (the WSJ) was removed by another editor. As for this silliness about "Peiser admitting his mistake", that is a deeply dishonest portrayal and you know it. In the very same letter, he *affirmed* that his conclusions were entirely correct; the 'error' in no way affected either his results or his beliefs about them. FellGleaming (talk) 02:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Finally, I have to point out that Oreskes admitted to a much larger error, in misdescribing both her search terms and result set; an error that affected her results far more severely. Yet-- in a bio on Oreskes herself, no less-- you feel her error isn't worth mention, but someone else's far smaller one is? FellGleaming (talk) 02:23, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry to point it out, but I hadn't heard about Peiser until I read this article and the column by Solomon, but I certainly had heard about Naomi. Since his critique (even if it was right) is still not notable and in the end it's not our job to determine that, we can only go on what the very few sources say, and they indicate that Peiser was wrong. Partly by his own accord even, and If you think his error didn't affect his result then I suggest you read again:

"Only [a] few abstracts explicitly reject or doubt the AGW (anthropogenic global warming) consensus which is why I have publicly withdrawn this point of my critique. [snip] I do not think anyone is questioning that we are in a period of global warming. Neither do I doubt that the overwhelming majority of climatologists is agreed that the current warming period is mostly due to human impact." [23]

The only mistake Naomi appears to have made is to say 'climate change' and not 'global climate change' although that didn't affect the results significantly (or at all?) I'm no expert, but that is what even Peiser himself says. Naomi said she had used 'global climate change' when asked, and to me that is a minor mistake when writing the article and not something that affected the research she did. Naomis essay has been mentioned often and is published in Science, a peer-reviewed journal, as well as in numerous newspapers and other media. I've seen one or three newspaper articles that even mention Peiser. If we should mention it here, only because one or two journalists that haven't checked their facts (or just don't care) have mentioned it, then we have to point out that it holds no weight. --Apis (talk) 04:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I am not a normal editor here, obviously. But I do have to say that there is a strong resonance of cognitive disonance in the statements by Apis. I'll try to break this down simply:

1. The search terms of a metadata study are fundamental to the data. Portraying the results of one metadata study as the results of another is either evidence of extreme negligence or extreme malfeasance; both of which are grossly incompetent.
2. The citation for "Peiser was proven wrong" in the current incarnation is extremely POV, and the citation is horribly inadequate to the point. If you are going to cite something that merely quotes Peiser himself, then cite Peiser himself, as is done in the Global Warming Controversy article. The letter quoted by the blog cited in citation #8 here is in fact linked to directly in the GWC article. That letter makes it explicitly clear that Peiser remains convinced that his metadata study in fact contradicts Oreskes's claim.
3. Oreskes's claim itself was that the anthropogenic global warming consensus is unanimous. Peiser found instances -- however few -- of disagreement. In other words, Oreskes made a falsifiable statement and Peiser falsified it. This is noteworthy.

Perhaps, as a way of satisfying all parties, something along the following wording ought to be included? "While controversial (cite his letter admitting his technical errors here), refutations of Oreskes's most notable work have been issued, such as the self-published replication effort of her study conducted by Peiser (cite the study itself here)" -- Ian. (4.22.2008 @ 11:14 PM AZT) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.109.186.147 (talk) 06:18, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, first of all, I'd like to sugest you read the above discussions unless you have already done so. You might also want to take a look at the page history to see diffrent versions of the page. There was a lot of editing back and forth wich led to the page being locked in it's current state, and as the message states: that is not an endorsement of the current version. Since you direct this to me I'll try and clarify what I meant:

1. I didn't say it isn't important, I said it didn't have much impact on the result, Naomi published a correction to this also, and as far as I know that was published in Science.
2. I don't think it's extremely POV if it's true? And I also think the source should be considered relative to the 'horribly inadequate' source of Peisers critique, wich is self-published on his personal webpage. (and I didn't add that statement either btw).
3. Im not sure what you mean here. As have been pointed out, she didn't claim there was an unanimous consensus, she was much more specific than that. She did claim there was a consensus though, and Peisler later have agreed to that, and also that "undoubtedly, sceptical scientists are a small minority". So no, it's not noteworthy. But what is also important, and probably the cause of some confusion, is the wikipedia concept of notability. That is discussed in lengt above, with links to pages explaining relevant wikipedia policies so it's not necessary to repeat that here.

I think your sugestion would be misleading, and I'm starting to think that it's probably best to simply not include any mention of peiser at all since that only causes a lot of confusion and it would agree with wikipedia policies in my opinion. --Apis (talk) 09:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

section break

(moved unindent here (for redability)) --Apis (talk) 15:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that would be a mistake. Look, we've fought this notability battle above already. I hadn't heard much about either person until the controversy over this article erupted in the news, and based on what I've read since then I'd say there's no question that there's notability here. KDP et al, please go back and read our conversation above for references to the notability of the critique. The critique was made and is notable-- that's not an endorsement of his critique, and in fact caveats about its reliability are quite appropriate if well sourced and if the whole thing can be reduced to a sentence or two to avoid undue weight.

People need to get their personal opinions out of this and get back to the facts. Most of the arguments I've seen against including this boil down to either notability-- which Apis and I have already discussed above-- or "we can't print this because it's wrong/he's an idiot/he works for an oil company". In other words, POV-pushing. You're going to be exposed to opinions you disagree with in life. The fact that they're presented isn't an endorsement of them. Wellspring (talk) 11:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Wellspring, i have read the previous arguments for notability of the critique, and to be frank, i thought i agreed - until i actually tried to find more information, which is the reason that i'm restarting that discussion. I have trouble finding more than 2-3 reliable sources that even cover this. Please remember that this is a biography, and that the rules are extra strict for material such as this. (ref: WP:BLP). We cannot use the argument that its covered in the bloggosphere and other self-published sources for much. You can add to my list if you have better sources. User:KimDabelsteinPetersen/Temporary#Oreskes_notes.. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

How about:

Oreskes' study has been criticized by social anthropologist Benny Peiser in an unpublished manuscript.[x] Peisers analysis was shown to be wrong[y] and he has later admitted that "undoubtedly, sceptical scientists are a small minority".[z]

I'd also support removing Peiser altogether. (From this page, I presume he's mentioned on some climate change skeptics pages already). --Apis (talk) 15:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

The trouble is notability - i haven't found anything even remotely close to notable. And considering that this (Oreskes) study is being quoted in >100 scientific papers - i rather think that we need to establish notability. And even more so, because of the SPS section in WP:BLP. If we can't establish notability - no go. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:48, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Notability was established above in the references I listed. If you can provide a WP:RS that said he was wrong, then I'd be willing to accept Apis's new suggestion, with a few purely stylistic wording tweaks that don't affect the content. So far all I've seen are blog posts, lobbyist groups, and talk page comments refuting him. I don't doubt they're out there, but let's get some links going. William Connolley mentioned that he was going to produce them. Based on the articles I read, it sounds like it's a bit hyperbolic to say he was "wrong", "incompetent", etc. etc. Instead, it sounds like a semantics argument that Peiser got careless in: "unanimity" vs "consensus". Anyway, my opinion isn't important: let's get some sources going. Wellspring (talk) 01:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Wellspring, the sources that you've mentioned so far, are the only ones that have been found. That documents that it has been mentioned in reliable sources - but it does not document notability. If we only have a handfull of WP:RS sources (and we have <5 in regular media) - then its most certainly not a notable critique. Please address this, as it is precisely the discussion above that is being questioned. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 05:34, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

We have a problem of parity of sources. There are a few references that have mentioned Peiser's critique but the critique itself never passed muster in an appropriate venue such as a scientific journal. Thus, we can't expect that criticisms of that work be published in journals. And as for the criticisms being hyperbolic, they aren't. Most of the abstracts he cited have nothing at all to do with climate change, much less refuting the consensus. "Incompetent" isn't hyperbolic and doesn't mean Peiser is dumb; rather, he was operating far outside his field of expertise (he's an anthropologist and not a physical scientist) and thus was "lacking qualification or ability."[24] And as a result he made a hash of the critique. Raymond Arritt (talk) 01:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

All these points have been discussed above. First, the content of Peiser's critique is not reliable for wikipedia purposes, but it can be referenced purely as the fact that a critique is made if that critique is notable (which we established above). In other words, if someone wrote, "Oreskes's study was refuted in later literature" and then referenced Peiser's critique, it would be rightly removed for violating WP:RS. In fact, this is what happened IIRC.

You need to establish that the critique is notable. We have 3 independent WP:RS (Telegraph,BBC,Aust ABC) sources that mention this, thats all. Quite a bit lower on the WP:RS scale we have the Lindzen op-ed, and finally a couple of Marc Moreno editorials (one of which may be RS). That is definitively not notable enough to go against the rules of WP:SPS and WP:BLP, it wouldn't even be enough to merit inclusion (per WP:WEIGHT) in a regular article. Try addressing this point first please. And try contrasting this with more than 100 peer-reviewed papers that reference Oreskes. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 05:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Re: incompetence, as a social anthropologist, Peiser is at least theoretically equipped to conduct a review of scientific literature. He isn't qualified to draw conclusions about global warming, but he is credentialed to draw conclusions about the consensus or lack thereof in a community. Not that this matters; if he can get published in a reliable source he could be cited. Note that his critique has not been published in a reliable source; so just to reiterate we can't use his article as evidence of anything other than the fact that the article itself exists. Which in this case is what we're doing. Wellspring (talk) 04:07, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

And, of course, Peiser is more than just a social anthropologist. He's one whose recent research has focused primarily on the social aspects of climate change and is thus at least as qualified to comment on the state of consensus as a historian. Regarding his study, it hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but the results have appeared in many reliable sources. In effect, it should be treated no differently than as if Peiser himself (or any other scientist) had verbally relayed the conclusions directly to a reporter. Literally tens of thousands of Wiki articles contain such references-- direct quotes from scientists, which appear in no other source but through the medium of a reputable reporter. FellGleaming (talk) 05:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I've littered your comment with some requests for documentation. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 05:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

While you may have found that humorous, it's hardly helpful to the discussion. Please make your own remarks; don't edit other people's comments. My original point stands. One cannot treat Peiser's essay as a peer-reviewed paper; it is, however, no different than remarks made directly to a media representative or other well-verified source. Claiming it's "unimportant" is dancing around the truth. The reality of the situation is that Peiser and Oreskes both owe their visibility on the societial scene to this controversy.FellGleaming (talk) 06:18, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

You still miss the point here. Has the media really reported on this, sufficient enough to merit that the critique is notable? Statements in the media, are not considered reliable on science. And please address those citation needed tags if you are going to persist the claims. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 06:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, your position is clearly untenable. If the only thing admissible from a scientist is a peer-reviewed study, then we'll have to clear out from Wikipedia a few hundred thousand references to books, magazine articles, and newspaper stories that all contain statements or positions from scientists. They are continually and consistently used throughout Wikipedia, and indeed all encyclopedias in general. FellGleaming (talk) 06:42, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Please read and understand WP:BLP, WP:SPS, WP:V and WP:DUE. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 06:47, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Please don't bludgeon us with your WP:abbreviations. WP:BLP is not relevant here, WP:SPS and WP:V have been addressed. FellGleaming makes a good point here. However, WP:DUE is still at issue, and is addressed below. Wellspring (talk) 17:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

No, i'm sorry the issue with self-published sources and verifiability have not been addressed. The requirements for biographies is (for good reasons) extremely more strict than for regular articles. I'm glad that we agree on weight though. I'm sorry to raise the policies - but it seems that people here are forgetting them. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:34, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

To be honest all those policies have been mentioned and discussed above and below a fair amount of times. --Apis (talk) 01:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

As have been pointed out numerous times now: from an academic point of view it's certainly not notable (only self-published among other things). From a general media perspective, it has been mentioned in reliable sources a couple of times, although, that is tiny compared to how often Oreskes have been mentioned in similar media. Maybe you could argue it's notable enough to be included in an article that tries to cover climate change denial? (I'm not all that familiar with that subject though). This BLP page doesn't and shouldn't try to cover that though. So I tend to agree with Kim, it's not notable enough, and any mention of it tends to be undue weight even if we were to mention it. --Apis (talk) 10:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

For the record, here are some other references: James V. Zidek (2006) Editorial: (Post-normal) statistical science Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society) 169 (1) , 1–4. Taylor, Jerry (2005) Hot Enough For You? National Review; 7/18/2005, Vol. 57 Issue 13, p20-22. Climate Leadership Initiative (2006) Q & A For Climate Skeptics: Answers to the Most Frequently Stated Concerns Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon: Sustainable Governance and Organizational Change Publications. Shaw, Jane S. (2005) Vision Through a Narrow Lens Energy & Environment Vol 16 No 3&4, p543. Schmidt, Brian. Warmed-over climate attack National Post's Financial Post & FP Investing (Canada), May 30, 2005 Monday, FINANCIAL POST; Pg. FP15, 537 words, Financial Post.

However, after looking through all these sources, I think you're right that this is rather thin for a bio page. I'm withdrawing my objection to removing the reference entirely.

Finally, just as a side note, I'd like to ask KDP again to please refrain from editing other people's talk page entries. Incivility doesn't add anything and it delays us coming to a consensus. Wellspring (talk) 17:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Where are we now?

Just a reminder, the current text is essentially mine and says:

Oreskes's study has been criticized by social anthropologist Benny Peiser in an unpublished manuscript. Peiser's main objection was to the claim of an unanimous consensus, as opposed to a majority consensus.. Peisers analysis was shown to be wrong .

I'm happy with it :-). KDP would prefer no mention of Peiser. If I read him aright, WS has stopped objecting to removing P. FG seems to have stopped contributing. Shall we try unprotecting? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:01, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Your wording is ok, though I don't think it would give the subject undue weight. The last reference should be changed to something corresponding to WP:RS because you're making a statement of fact. Basically, the argument is that WP:DUE shouldn't permit a mention. There's only about a dozen mentions total -- of which about half are more parenthetical than anything. If the text is included, it should include something along the lines of Apis's one-liner. The limited references make that debatable -- it should be one sentence (my preference) or none (I wouldn't object).

I wouldn't unprotect until we hear from other editors, especially FellGleaming. Wellspring (talk) 21:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

To be honest I think the current wording would need some tweaking. Since Wellspring wouldn't object to removing it, that would be my preferred solution at least. As it is now it implies that Oreskes said there was unanimous consensus which she clearly didn't. And indeed, the last sentence could be improved upon if nothing else. This is BLP material after all. My feeling is that trying to elaborate on this would only give it more (undue) space.

    And what has this Richard Lindzen said, anything relevant? is that last sentence about him necessary? Googling for 'Richard Lindzen' and 'Oreskes' gives even less hits than 'Benny Peiser' do.

    Maybe it would also be worth pointing out that she tried to address that many (policy-makers, the media, etc) said there wasn't a consensus among scientist. I guess it's mentioned indirectly in the first paragraph (the hypothesis) although it could be made clearer to give the study some context. The reference to her editorial in the Washington Post could be used for that as well if someone would object against it disappearing.

    As an example of the essay being mentioned in the media could be An Inconvenient Truth, that is pretty famous isn't it? Or is that not necessary? Apis (talk) 01:07, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I made the decision to remove Peiser for now. I plan on implementing the other suggestions as well since no one have opposed, Kim reverted my insertion of an inconvenient truth, I agree it's not particularly notable from a scientific pov etc but it is a very famous movie that a lot of people have seen (that is something everyone can agree on isn't it?). Anyway the idea is to explain why this essay is famous (aiv is one reason i believe?) so I'm planing on updating that part anyway. If anyone have information of other reasons why this is notable (famous citations etc) that would be welcome of course. And if anyone have objection that would also be nice to hear before I spend time on trying to make changes. Apis (talk) 18:14, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the movie is IMO quite notable in and of itself and so I would say goes towards the notability of the Oreskes article. It's certainly worth a mention-- it's probably the only way most people would have heard about Oreskes. There appeared to be a consensus about Lindzen being notable, but I wasn't here when that was being discussed so I don't know whether he applies or not. Wellspring (talk) 13:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

One thing that struck me about this whole talk page is that among all of the many Wikipedia guidelines cited so far, WP:EW didn't get a mention, the section headed "Regarding the recent edit war" notwithstanding. WP:EW is the perfect guideline to address the edit war whose flames Lawrence Solomon has been fanning. In his National Post article "Wikipedia's zealots" Solomon writes "I am ... editing a page on Wikipedia" pursuant to the "right to edit Wikipedia that we all have" and then complains that his edits are quickly reverted. WP:EW is quite clear that those who foment edit wars will lose this supposedly inalienable right. Wikipedia's zeal here is commendable. Long before the disagreements escalated to this level Solomon should have backed off from trying to brute-force his edits to the article and taken his concerns to the article's talk page. The idea that an issue that cannot be resolved in an article's talk page can somehow be resolved by fighting an edit war in the article itself is very much at odds with Wikipedia's processes for maintaining a coherent product. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 04:09, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

It would seem that the page is locked only when William Connolly and Kim Dablestein comments are added and their edits incorporated. Just an observation on an inconvenient truth. ~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grazen (talk • contribs) 15:25, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Try to actually follow the guidelines in WP:TALK and WP:NPA, Ok? (as an addition: it would be nice if you could spell our names correctly at least).--Kim D. Petersen (talk) 15:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Criticism and Controversy

Added section on Criticism and Controversy with reference to the US Senate Minority report listing 400 skeptical scientists, Benny Peiser's article, and the the controversy over Lawrence Solomon's efforts to cite Peiser being deleted. see links at the top to Solomon's articles. Added POV to the article to raise attention to this apparent POV edit war. Science must always remain skeptical and continue testing models to test their validity. To delete all reference to skeptics and evidence controversial to the subject violates the foundations of science.DLH (talk) 02:05, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I see the entire section on Criticism and Controversy, I added was reverted. Is ANY scientific critique of Oreskes allowed or only POV support?

Here is a proposed section referring to published reports by science policy advisor to PM Margaret Thatcher and a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, critiquing Oreskes' 2004 paper.

---

In 2007, Christopher Walter, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley reviewed critiques of Oreskes’ 2004 paper, also citing scientists who disagree with Oreskes. Klaus-Martin Schulte reviewed 539 papers on "global climate change" from the Web of Science from January 2004 to mid-February 2007, updating research by Oreskes.

”In the present review, 31 papers (6% of the sample) explicitly or implicitly reject the consensus. Though Oreskes said that 75% of the papers in her former sample endorsed the consensus, fewer than half now endorse it. Only 7% do so explicitly.”

Oreskes had criticized Klaus-Martin Schulte over an authorized draft. Schulte demanded an apology publicly rebutting her charges.

---

DLH (talk) 02:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Since the ref aren't showing up, here are the direct links:

• 1 “Consensus”? What “Consensus”? Among Climate Scientists, The Debate Is Not Over”, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, Thursday, 19 July 2007, Science and Public Policy Institute, 21 pp
• 2 Scientific Consensus on Climate Change? Schulte, Klaus-Martin, Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 2, March 2008 , pp. 281-286(6)
• 3 Open Letter in Response to Namoi Oreskes’ Criticisms, Klaus-Martin Schulte, Science and Public Policy Institute September 3, 2007 DLH (talk) 03:29, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

---

That's a tiny minority view, and a highly biased one at that. We need to be circumspect about using such sources and giving undue weight to small minority views. In fact, NPOV, our core content policy, says tiny minority views need not be covered at all and I'm not convinced this one merits inclusion. FeloniousMonk (talk) 03:17, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

In science it only takes one fact to overturn the reigning paradigm. Thus, on principle, it is important to air data and models that critics claim are not supported by the reigning dogma. This is particularly important when we are being asked to spend trillions of dollars for policy decisions that may be based on flawed science. This is particularly important in the present case because Oreskes claims unanimous consensus, while the two published reports cited here cite a number of scientists disputing the supposed "consensus". To impose a particular POV and shut out this scientific evidence is both contrary to the foundation of science and a disservice to the public that needs such data to make informed decisions.DLH (talk) 00:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Please see Galileo gambit. And please familiarize yourself with WP:WEIGHT and WP:RS. You may also want to read Scientific consensus to determine what a consensus is (hint: unanimous is not a requirement) and why Schulte's paper actually establishes that there is one. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:28, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The scientific authority of Schulte is equal if not greater the Oreskes. Both are based on the statistics from a search of public data bases. Both are in recognized journals. (I.e., it (Energy and Environment) is a well established scientific journal with clear peer review policies. Neither claims credentials of a climatologist. If anything, Schulte has the better credentials, by providing a more careful survey. (This has nothing to do with the Galileo gambit.) In particular, he explicitly avoids the errors or weaknesses over which Oreskes has been criticized. Thus Schulte should have greater scientific weight, having done the more careful research. Furthermore, Schulte demonstrates that the scientific community represented by all papers in that clearly defined search, are not explicitly or implicitly supportive, as Oreskes states. That is the heart of Oreskes' paper, and more careful scientific data to the contrary should be acknowledged. This is not a "tiny minority" position, but a scientific study of equal if not better validity to Oreskes'. To reject it is outright censorship in favor of a particular political viewpoint.DLH (talk) 01:43, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, and here has been extensive discussion about this already (see below) which is why your edit was reverted. If you feel you have something new to add to the discussion feel free to do so. Apis (talk) 03:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

NEITHER the journal published report by Shulte NOR that of Viscount Monckton is mentioned in either the article or on this talk page. Schulte provide explicit review extending Oreskes data to present. This shows a substantial shift in the "consensus" with a marked portion (6%) of the published reports by the 539 reviewed "explicitly or implicitly reject the consensus". This is marked variance from Oreskes results who claims there were no scientists doing such. Viscount Monckton provides review of similar reports and data from other sources. DLH (talk) 00:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and thats because neither is published in a reliable source. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:23, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Check it out: Scientific Consensus on Climate Change? Schulte, Klaus-Martin, Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 2, March 2008 , pp. 281-286(6). Since when is Energy & Environment, now in its 19th volume, on the Inquisitor's list? On what basis and by what authority do you ban this journal?DLH (talk) 00:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Check our article on Energy and Environment. Its a social science journal, where the editor Bøhmer-Christiansen at times publishes things like this, because (in her words) "I'm following my political agenda -- a bit, anyway. But isn't that the right of the editor?". Suffice to say that this is not a WP:RS on climate change. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The only thing I have been able to find about this "journal" is this: [25]. Who is this Schulte anyway, a surgeon? As for SPPI they are clearly a biased lobbying group funded by the oil industry. And no, we don't have to include every dissenting opinion, this is an encyclopedia not a forum for scientific debate. Apis (talk) 02:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Schulte is FRCS - a Fellow - responsible for research. i.e., a highly credentialed scientist.DLH (talk) 03:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Viscount Mockton provides a 21 page review of statistics and cites papers - far more evidence than Oreskes' short letter. Funding does not bias others' statistics. David Evans speaks from experience that the Global Warming gravy train can strongly bias as well.DLH (talk) 03:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

An endocrine surgeon and a viscount then... Apis (talk) 03:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like Wikipedia is not a soapbox hasn't been mentioned yet though. Apis (talk) 02:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Schulte's paper has at least equal and probably better scientific validity to Oreskes paper. Schulte found:

Though Oreskes said that 75% of the papers in her former sample endorsed the consensus, fewer than half now endorse it. Only 7% do so explicitly.”

That is not a tiny minority "soapbox" but a major change in results.DLH (talk) 03:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a tiny-minority view that is trying to be "soapboxed" as far as I can see. You might want to read up on the discussions about Benny Peiser below since they deal with exactly the same issue. Apis (talk) 03:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually some of the discussions have been archived as well. Apis (talk) 04:16, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Neither proposed citation author is mentioned in that Archive 1.DLH (talk) 02:25, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I've responded under the new section below.
— Apis (talk) 15:20, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Schulte Extension of Oreskes' study

In summary: The Schulte paper has the same scientific basis of Oreskes' paper - objective statistics about all scientific papers in a given time period citing a prescribed phrase relating to global warming. Schulte extends Oreskes' study through to 2007. There are substantial differences in the resultant statistics which go to the heart of Oreskes' argument. (from 75% to 50% of implicit endorsement, where only 7% give explicit support.) It is in a peer reviewed recognized scientific journal by a reputable author, published in the latest edition. It deserves citing no matter the rest of the archives or discussion.DLH (talk) 02:25, 8 May 2008 (UTC) Oreskes' letter was one page long. Schulte's paper at 6 pages long is much more detailed. [http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mscp/ene/2008/00000019/00000002/art00006 Scientific Consensus on Climate Change? Schulte, Klaus-Martin, Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 2, March 2008 , pp. 281-286(6). Schulte found 6% explicitly support anthropogenic global climate change while 7% explicitly disagree. Both are significant.DLH (talk) 02:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

And as stated before Energy and Environment is not a reliable source. And Schulte has gotten even less coverage than Peiser. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 06:53, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mean that Schulte (nor the viscount) had been mentioned before. As have been pointed out, the references you have proposed can hardly be considered reliable sources in this context. As for the rest of your argument, if you substitute Peiser with Schulte I think that much of what is said in those discussions are relevant in this case as well.
— Apis (talk) 15:20, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you could explain a "reliable source". Its Biological Society of Washington a reliable source? Is the Alexa ranking is 11,046,876 with 24 links in. Energy & Environment has an Alexa ranking of 1,373,807 with 125 links in. It only has 8 times the ranking and 6 times the links in. Both sites have a Google ranking of 5/10. Schulte's study is a clearly defined methodology of a search of a prescribed phrase on Web of Science for a prescribed period. Anyone can rerun that study and verify its results. That is foundational to science. Are you now redefining the basis of science?DLH (talk) 01:51, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, what's meant by reliable sources in Wikipedia is explained here: WP:SOURCE, and here are some guidelines for particular types of sources: WP:RS.
— Apis (talk) 02:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Editor Dr Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen is Research Associate in Political Ethics at the

Institute for Applied Ethics. She has written International environmental policy: Interests and the Failure of the Kyoto 2002 ISBN:184064818X. Energy & Environment’s editorial board includes 11 professors and 5 PhDs. While it not may advocate majority opinions, PhDs in ethics and Professors would be expected to support the scientific method over anonymous critics. I find it hard to believe that a journal running for 19 years, which a Political Ethics specialist editor and professional editorial board would be considered an "unreliable" source.DLH (talk) 02:29, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Schulte's paper is now referenced by Google Scholar: [26]

Posted this to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard for resolution

Schulte's 2008 extension of Oreskes' 2004 study of Global Climate Change articles DLH (talk) 04:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Ext link to Solomon?

I cut this:

• Wikipedia's zealots, a story about this wikipedia page in National Post by Lawrence Solomon

from the ext links. Is it appropriate? I would have thought not, on avoid-self-reference grounds William M. Connolley (talk) 10:13, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I would say it's not appropriate for this article. It's a critique of wikipedia and if it belongs anywhere it would be on that page. Wellspring (talk) 13:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I added the link to get the article more balanced, the publication of Naomi Oreskes is wery widly (and in depth) critizized. This is hardly metioned at all in the article. Perhaps it belongs in "critics of wikipedia" but it ceartenly also belongs here. Is the wikipedia about dogmatic and propagandistic telling "the one truth" about subjects or is it about giving a balanced view? The freedom of individuals to make up their own mind about different issues is one of the basic fundaments of the western democrasy. If then only one side get its view out, that basic freedom does not exist any more. The article critizizes wikipedia but it also critizize the work of Naomi Oreskes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.147.33.68 (talk) 20:02, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, despite quite a lot of editors looking for material, we can't find any support for your sentence: "the publication of Naomi Oreskes is wery widly (and in depth) critizized", feel free to cite reliable sources to back this statement up. Because it would settle a content dispute. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:08, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I did a Lexis/Nexis search, then checked some academic databases. I came up with several of articles in National Post, a couple in other newspapers, and about five other miscellaneous sources. About 10 total, which is far fewer than is normally considered enough to merit inclusion in a situation like this. There have been about a metric ton of blog posts, but these don't normally count.

The article you link to is an editorial -- if you can find a news article, peer-reviewed research article or other source, by all means link it here so we can take a look. You're absolutely free to edit, others are free to edit as well. What keeps things working is a friendly attitude and adherence to policies. Wellspring (talk) 23:56, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I very much agree with Wellspring here, the column isn't about Naomi Oreskes, it's more about Wikipeida itself. There is a link to the column at the top of this talk page though, so it's not like anyone is trying to hide it.
— Apis (talk) 15:29, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Even as an editorial, the article certainly carries a lot more credibility than the rag-tag band that keeps commandeering this topic! I would think that some of you should have the good grace to quietly slip into the shadows after all you've been up to here. Any credibility you may have once had, has been shredded by the Financial Post commentary. You may have mastered the back-stage ropes of Wikipedia, but we're not being fooled. Bushcutter (talk) 06:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually the "article" blog post carries zero weight or credibility. No foolin', R. Baley (talk) 07:01, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

KimDabelstein said "we can't find any support for your sentence: "the publication of Naomi Oreskes is wery widly (and in depth) critizized". The Benny Peiser page discusses his criticism of the article, including a link to his discourse with the LTTE segment of Science Magazine. The editors responded that "the basic points of [Benny Peiser's] letter have already been widely dispersed over the internet." Further, Naomi Oreskes wrote a column in 2004 to the LA times entitled "Global warming -- signed, sealed and delivered" in defense of her article. There are only three possible conclusions to be reached from this set of circumstances:

1. The Wikipedia editors are lax in their research ability.

2. Science Magazine is suppressing dissent of climate change.

3. The wiki editors are suppressing dissent of climate change.

Take your pick. Biccat (talk) 19:58, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

What is written on Peiser's biography is based on Peiser's own self published critique, and while that certainly is valid on Peiser's biography (his opinions after-all are important there), they are invalid here. What i was pointing out with the statement, is that there is very little information and support to be found in reliable sources on this subject. And reliable sources, are what wikipedia requires. That is especially the case on biographies, where speculation and similar critique is banned.

Every man and his dog has opinions, but to elevate these opinions to the level that wikipedia requires is another thing... Had Peiser been published in a reliable source - then we would be talking about something else. Now for your 3 items (strawmen each)

1. Actually we have researched it. We've also seen the retractions from Peiser, and we've seen the critique of Peiser - but none of it can be used since its based on self published sources.

2. A nice opinion, and a good conspiracy theory.

3. Scientific dissent is presented in peer-reviewed journals. Not in the blogosphere, via political think-tanks or in the opinion columns in the mainstream media. Sorry.

None of your picks are usable. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The facts are: (1) there has been critiques of Oreskes' work, sufficient to merit a response (and correction) by the author; and (2) Science Magazine has found sufficient critiques of her work online to make publication of Peiser's letter duplicative. Wikipedia is presenting the study as completely unblemished because it refuses to look at the evidence. Biccat (talk) 21:59, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry but your facts ... aren't. 1) The critique has by Peiser has stated "In addition, some of the abstracts that I included in the 34 "reject or doubt" category are very ambiguous and should not have been included" [27], 2) Nothing is hindering Peiser in getting it printed in another scientific journal ... Science is not the only peer-reviewed journal our there.

We are presenting the study, as the parity of reliable sources describe it. Nothing more - nothing less. If you want something about the controversy, then refer to Global warming controversy or Benny Peiser, this is mentioned in both articles. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I was going to post a response including links to reliable sources (Science and Public Policy Institute, Skeptical Science, inter alia), but I see they have already been presented. And you have criticized them under fringe or undue weight. So it seems that even if valid sources are found which dispute Oreskes' findings, you won't let them be included in this article. You're proving a prime example of bias in Wikipedia.

BTW, Al Gore's movie needs to be capitalized - "An Inconvenient Truth" not "an inconvenient truth." Biccat (talk) 13:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes that would be my fault, I'll try to remember to fix it once the page is unprotected again. Thanks for pointing it out. As for the rest, you might want to read the previous discussion about Peisers critique and especially the part about undue weight.
— Apis (talk) 15:24, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

The bias here is that determined by the wikipedia WP:NPOV and WP:BLP guidelines. If a position is poorly covered in reliable sources, then it falls under the weight issue. We explicitly discouraged from having a viewpoint. We must rely on what secondary sources are telling us, and weight these. Btw. i personally believe that AIT has no place in this article (per weight as well), since its merely a trivia item with no relevance. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 15:39, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

You're deliberately wearing blinders. An article (hypothetical) from David Duke stating he surveyed 1000 articles on race relations and found none disagreeing with his position on white supremacy would never pass the smell test on Wikipedia. His claim is outrageous. The rational conclusion from Oreskes finding that "none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position" is that there was no scientific debate on the merits of the consensus position. The fact that other research has found sources disagreeing with the "consensus position" (using Oreskes' method) should invalidate such a conclusion. Ignoring these facts because they weren't published in a traditional source is outrageous. Using that logic, Rathergate never happened (originating from the blogs), Monica Lewinsky was never involved with William Jefferson Clinton (originating at Drudge Report), and there is no controversy over the September 11, 2001 attacks. Biccat (talk) 20:10, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

This is supposed to be an encyclopedia not a publication of investigative journalism. If you think there is a conspiracy going on thats fine, maybe you're right! If you feel strongly about it then start a blog, try to get your own research published, etc, but don't try to use Wikipedia as a soapbox. Imagine what the George W. Bush article would look like if we where to include every piece of criticism we can find of him on the internet! (even if I'm sure some of it is true). That is why we must follow wp:v and wp:npov.
— Apis (talk) 21:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Yawn. This may be exciting to you, but the rest of us have been round these circles before. Say something new or go elsewhere and be productive William M. Connolley (talk) 21:39, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

We are following the guidelines for an encyclopedia. Which isn't to show a point of view - or even truth (however you define it). But rather present knowledge, such as it is seen by the parity of reliable sources.

Your hypothetic example would merit inclusion on Wikipedia, when and if it got significant coverage in secondary reliable sources, and we would present it in such a way, that our description of it, would mirror/reflect the relative weight that these descriptions give. Which would probably be generally negative. (i hope).

Your examples are all bad, because we are not ignoring such stories because of where they originate (in self published sources), but rather what reliable sources (ie. non self-published) are saying. And the notability of all of these issues aren't in question - any one with 10 seconds free, can find numerous reliable sources for these. So there would be neither undue weight nor any reliance on self published sources. That is not the case with the critiques of Oreskes - Sorry. The amount of coverage outside of the blogosphere (ie. in reliable sources) is extremely low. Apis already covered that we aren't doing investigative journalism here - in fact that is strictly disallowed (see: WP:OR). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:42, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Interview

Would this interview from youtube qualify for the external links section? I think it's interesting if nothing else, but not sure what the policy is on such videos.

How to Boil A Frog presents Naomi Oreskes: part 1, part 2, part 3.

— Apis (talk) 08:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Afaik, Youtube video's are generally discouraged, the chance of copyright violation is too high. Might make an addition to the external links, if you can find an official release of the videos. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I looked into this briefly. How to Boil A Frog presents Naomi Oreskes on Youtube was posted by a user howtoboilafrog. This user has also posted a great many (if not all) of the videos featured at howtoboilafrog.com, and that site's catalog of free online videos includes this multi-part Naomi Oreskes interview. This youtube user has been posting these videos for quite a while. Does this user represent whoever's running howtoboilafrog.com? Good question. Suffice it to say that you can watch these Naomi Oreske interviews on howtoboilafrog.com and on youtube as submitted by a user howtoboilafrog, and it's been that way for a while. That's no absolute guarantee that there's been no copyright infringement. However, I think it's safe to assume in this case that if there's any infringement, it's the fault of whoever's running howtoboilafrog.com and/or whoever submitted the video to them. I don't see how Wikipedia itself would be liable. (Then again, IANAL.) I'd suggest linking directly to the howtoboilafrog.com page for the interviews, but their ridiculous approach to organizing the site makes it impossible to guarantee landing at the right point. The YouTube links are more accurate. Yakushima (talk) 08:17, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

As it turns out, How to Boil a Frog has an article on wikipedia! :D Maybe (since, as Yakushima point out, it appears to be their own videos put onto youtube by themselves) it could be added like this: "Interview by How to Boil a Frog with Naomi Oreskes: part 1, part 2, part 3." or something like that?
– Apis (talk) 14:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, How to Boil a Frog is a Wikipedia article, even though it's of questionable notability. (I find only one very brief press notice [28] when I search Google News Archive. But let somebody else take that up.) The thing that bothers me is that copyright (and freedom to link to the videos) can only be argued for circumstantially, with a lot of plausibility but no explicit statements that I can see. It's annoying, but look how sloppy the site itself is, maybe it's just sloppiness that they don't make the obvious utterly explicit. The videos end with one credit: www.howtoboilafrog.com. The interview subjects are identified initially by name and title. The videos start with "How to Boil a Frog Presents:" That's IT. Yakushima (talk) 08:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Mention of Richard Lindzen

We have "Oreskes responded to some criticisms, including those from Richard Lindzen, with an editorial in The Washington Post.[5]". However, when I go to the WaPo op-ed cited, Richard Lindzen is (fragmentarily) quoted to the effect that the consensus is a "religious belief" (only that phrase is in quotes). Moreover, it's not clear in the op-ed where Oreskes might have been responding directly to anything Lindzen said about Oreskes. When I tried to find where Lindzen had said "religious belief", every mention seems to trace back to a speech made at the National Press Club in 2004. I haven't found a complete transcript of this speech. However, here's where he does say "religious belief" in the speech quotes I can find:

"Essentially if whatever you are told is alleged to be supported by 'all scientists,' you don't have to understand [the issue] anymore. You simply go back to treating it as a matter of religious belief."[29]

From this and other comments quoted, I don't think Lindzen meant that the scientific consensus (in the sense where unanimity is not required) is "religious belief". Rather, I think the "you" he invokes is anyone outside the relevant investigations who accepts the theory of anthropogenic global warming on the statement that all scientists support it. This "you" is someone accepting one statement ("all scientists") on faith, then a line of questionable reasoning (that if there's no scientific dissent, it's got to be true) as if it were iron-clad.

I'm no fan of Lindzen - far from it. However (especially considering he's from MIT tech culture) I'd venture that he said "treating it as a matter of religious belief" where a more careful mainstream commentator might have said "taking it on faith". (One can, after all, be a climate change denier but also an agnostic or atheist.) "Religious" in this likely sense is evident in debate over the relative merits of a programmer's text editor that originated at MIT, EMACS, and has become notable enough for at least one Wikipedia mention.

In view of the ambiguities, why not just omit mention of Lindzen in that sentence? It leaves you with an admittedly rather abrupt and opaque "Oreskes responded to some criticisms with an editorial in The Washington Post.[5]". And it's still a one-sentence paragraph (shudder). But I don't know what else to suggest. Yakushima (talk) 07:28, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I wouldn't mind removing it. Lindzen does not seem to criticize the study Naomi made, rather the value of such a study and the value of a consensus among scientists (if I understand him correctly). Also, if the dates are correct, it would seem Lindzens speech was made before Naomis essay was published? (possibly he was aware of it going to be published and made a speech to address the subject before the essay went into print?) So given the information I have seen, it appears as though Naomi is the one criticizing Lindzen?
– Apis (talk) 13:53, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

It's gone now, but I think I see what happened here. Maybe somebody linked her 2004-12-26 "Undeniable Global Warming" WaPo op-ed thinking it was identical (virtually or word-for-word) to her LA Times piece (reproduced here at CommonDreams.org). In the LAT piece, she goes a little more head-to-head with Richard Lindzen's WSJ op-ed mentioning Oreskes Science essay and Benny Peiser's analysis and comments on it. I'd consider putting this mention back into the article, but ... I'd prefer to see this sort of thing in other articles covering anthropogenic global warning controversies, or perhaps in the Wikipedia bio for Benny Peiser, or (as I believe someone here has already suggested) in an article specifically about the Peiser-Oreskes controversy. The Peiser-Oreskes controversy is fascinating, a case study in how words get twisted. For example, I've seen it claimed that Oreskes erred in searching on "global climate change" instead of "climate change". But did she? Not all climate change is global. Far from it. I believe Roger A. Pielke (Sr., not Jr.) has argued that local and regional climate change is currently a much bigger human catastrophe and probably always will be. And for all I know, most papers that turn up on searches of "climate change" address local changes. So maybe Oreskes was not only making her survey of abstracts more manageable, but was also making it more precisely targeted. I seen where somebody claims Science published a related erratum, but all that says for sure is that "global" was left out of the article's description of the search, not that Oreskes' methodology was in error. (To be fair, the distortions aren't all on one side. In the LAT piece, Oreskes says that Lindzen said that Lindzen's op-ed "claimed that a published study affirming the existence of a scientific consensus on the reality of global warming had been refuted." A close look at Lindzen's op-ed reveals that he said only that "A British social scientist, Benny Peiser, checked her procedure ....", not that he had published in any formal way.) This controversy is a little more notable than simple Google News Archive searches might make it appear, because where Oreskes writes public opinion pieces, she doesn't always mention Peiser by name. The LAT piece is one (OK, maybe the only) case in point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakushima (talk • contribs) 07:03, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Naomi Oreskes as Notable Science Historian, Anyone?

[I just now noticed the warning to limit discussion to improvement of the article. The following is partly an expression of frustration about the article being locked down even for comments not directly related to the Oreskes-Peiser controversy. However, I think what I say here is within scope as "discussion of the article", since it covers material that's an obvious candidate for inclusion in the article, and also discusses where inclusion might lead in future controversies. Correct me if I'm wrong.] Yakushima (talk) 12:37, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

It's unfortunate that this page has gotten locked down over climate change controversies, because I think there is much of note about Oreskes as a science historian. At the same time, however, I don't think we can entirely avoid brushes with climate change controversy even in discussing her career as an historian of geology.

I've unprotected it. It can re-prot if there are problems again William M. Connolley (talk) 18:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Continental Drift Rejected, Not Just Neglected?

One of Oreskes' books, Rejection of Continental Drift, tells the story of that older controversy and its resolution. This book (I read about 20 pages of it on Amazon) and a paper that I think roughly summarizes the book's case came as a surprise to me. Invoking continental drift as one of (supposedly) many vindicated theories too long consigned to the outer darkness by irrationally hostile mainstream scientists -- this was one of my favorite variations on the Galileo gambit. I'd long since signed up for the narrative that continental drift had just taken a long time to get the causal mechanism right, a long time to get validation through measurements.

Well, it turns out Alfred Wegener's continental drift wasn't just neglected by almost all American geologists for lack of mechanism and slam-dunk data, but rather (Oreskes argues) sternly rejected by all but a tiny minority, if not actually beaten savagely and left for dead. It gained more of a footing in European geology, but still held only a minority position there.

... and for Partly Political Reasons?

Oreskes' thesis in Rejection of Continental Drift is quite startling: if I read her right, she basically says that even if you could have taken late-60s data and causal-mechanism theory (plate tectonics) back in time to the original continental drift controversy, American geologists, at least, would still have rejected it. Standards for scientific validity have changed that much, she claims. She even says that part of the reason for rejecting continental drift was ideological: among other things, it was almost an overarching Theory of Everything Geological, therefore it was "autocratic"; it didn't fit the more American style pluralism in geography, of entertaining multiple hypotheses. Acceptance of it would have ruled out most other hypotheses, including the favored one of the time. I'm not sure I agree. Then again, I'm still in shock, and I'm not a geologist, nor an historian of science, and I haven't gotten a chance to take a close look at her primary sources.

How that Qualifies Her to Comment on Global Warming Dissidence

From even a cursory review of one of Oreskes' research preoccupations, I'd say it's hard to ignore the relevance of her background to the climate change debate. Among science historians, Oreskes seems to be an authority on theories of how the fringe can "come in from the cold," after a long period in deep freeze -- at least, in the very rare cases where that happens. And that certainly qualifies her to comment on whether climate change dissidents have much chance of eventual vindication. (Not saying it makes her absolutely right, mind you, just that it establishes her bona fides.)

Her Own Politics Could Make Her a Perpetual Target

That Oreskes invokes American ideological concepts in her theories of continental drift's rejection makes her recent involvement in climate change debate doubly interesting but also doubly problematic. Her own leanings on government policy don't seem to have entered into any debates so far, but could come up in the future.

It's not hard to see political polarization in the climate change debate. With the exception of a few figures pretty far to the left on the U.S. political spectrum, such as Andrew Cockburn, rejection of anthropogenic climate change correlates strongly with conservative tendencies. From a brief viewing of the Oreskes videos linked elsewhere on this talk page, I'd say Oreskes isn't shy about her politics. She attributes much of the resistance to certain post-Cold War environmental and public health measures to the personal need of some scientists who "fought" the Cold War to find a new enemy, an enemy with an arguably statist character, to replace the more obviously statist enemy that fell with the Berlin Wall. And in that, there's a dim echo of continental drift rejection on the grounds of its supposed "autocracy" (though the shoe is decidedly on the other foot in balance-of-consensus terms).

---

Woah- speaking of bias... one would think we'd care about scientific fact, not about the source, unless that source is horrifically biased. So, look at the facts which the 'conservatives' bring up. Look at those facts on their own, and then see if they have merit. Don't merely discredit them because they're 'all from conservative sources'. - Pop6 (talk) 22:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Permanent Controversy?

I think any more complete Wikipedia biography of Oreskes as a researcher will not be entirely free of political controversy, or at least the potential for it. Climate change obviously has far greater policy consequences than whether or not continents are creeping towards or away from each other in barely measurable increments. I'm still boggling that American geologists could ever have rejected continental drift in part because there was something "un-American" in the way it would end theoretical pluralism in their field; that's practically metaphysical reasoning. Can Oreskes actually be right about that? Very noteworthy even if her case is merely plausible, but not proven. I believe many Americans want to reject anthropogenic climate change until it's absolutely proven beyond any possible doubt, because they don't want to be taxed or in any way hindered for externalizing environmental costs that might still prove to be non-existent. Well, that's ultimately an ideological way of looking at it, isn't it? And from viewing video comments from Oreskes, she seems quite aware of that.

---

Notable mention of Ms. Oreskes in this article: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/04/12/wikipedia-s-zealots-solomon.aspx - Pop6 (talk) 22:47, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Galileo Gambit Yields to "Wegener Wedge"?

The irony here (yes, I know we're not supposed to say "ironically") is that something like Oreskes' style of argumentation about rejection of continental drift could eventually be turned against the theory of anthropogenic climate change. One could argue -- and many have -- that the theory is accepted because standards of what is acceptable science have changed - too much. I.e., that standards have swung past the reasonable point where a theory like continental drift could enter, to a point where science now admits of much looser, less substantiated, propositions with far more significant public policy implications. One could argue -- and maybe some already have, in this connection -- that American ideology also carries strains of unifying populist alarmism, not just live-and-let-live pluralism, and that this overarching proposition about climate is being pushed as populist alarmism.

In short, with continental drift being an exception to the Galileo Gambit rule, and with Oreskes being the authority on that exception, she might actually have handed climate change skeptics a framework from within which new and much more nuanced attacks could be launched, from unexpected angles and with compelling irony as a rhetorical support. They could say they are highlighting Oreskes as indulging in favoritism and hypocrisy, and that she has, in a way, made the argument for keeping global warming skepticism respectable, in case it's an example of what Oreskes herself observed about Wegener's theories of continental drift. All the more reason, I think, to enforce existing Wikipedia policy about POV and BLP here, and to keep a close eye on this article as it -- and news about the subject -- develops. Yakushima (talk) 12:08, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I haven't read through this. But if there are other major works by Oreskes, then it would be good to mention them William M. Connolley (talk) 07:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Reference to Al Gore's documentary

The name of the movie should be capitalized in this article. Sln3412 (talk) 23:44, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. Raul654 (talk) 23:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Separate out GW article from biography?

I've been reading this discussion page with some interest after having heard about Solomon's article. His article is obviously very biased, but the discussion certainly gave me some pause. There are some potentially concerning questions about how some of the edits are being made - revisions seem to come quickly and with only cursory explanations. Regardless, I wonder whether there is sufficient discussion and interest in separating out the article Oreskes wrote for Science from her actual biography. Yes, she is the author of several books and papers, but the Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change article may warrant a separate article on WP. That way we can discuss the various merits/flaws of the Science article, research methodology, and its conclusions independently of the BLP here. I don't know if there is sufficient information about the publication to warrant a separate WP article.

Just a thought. Bdevoe (talk) 17:42, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Bad PR for Wikipedia

This was posted by an IP[30] over at Commons, but seems to belong here:

• Lawrence Solomon: Wikipropaganda, National Review Online, July 08, 2008.
  

If it's true, no good PR for Wikipedia. --Túrelio (talk) 13:49, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, what we're witnessing is someone with a pretty big soapbox making an issue of not being able to provide original research. One of the things I mentioned in my post above was that some of the edits that were reverted were not communicated well. I think we need to be careful about what counts as a 'reliable source', something that comes up constantly and the definition of which is still more of a black art than a science. That, plus a misunderstanding about how Wiki works oftentimes leads to a lot of negativity. Solomon has a big soapbox, though, and that does give his words more weight than, say, mine.

That being said, when I came to this article (having read Solomon's article) I expected to be outraged. Instead, I saw Wiki working the way it should be, albeit with some boilerplate revert descriptions. Solomon's inability to grok how editing Wiki works is not the fault of the people here. We can (and should) certainly be better about being more understanding of new editors. But, if he has concerns about the point of view of a particular article, there are tags to that effect that can draw attention to those articles. I agree that the general tendency of Wiki is to lean left. In general, the concept that ideas are free is not a conservative view.

I don't see this as necessarily 'bad PR' overall - I think it's just reinforcing the perception of Solomon's readers about the left-leaning liberal bastion that is Wikipedia (note sarcasm). Writers compose for their audience; Solomon is no different. Bdevoe (talk) 14:52, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

It's pretty bad, actually. I just examined the edit history behind this. Petersen is using Twinkle, marking all reverts as minor edits, which is abusive, see WP:Minor edit. Solomon is obviously an inexperienced editor, and doesn't have a clear concept of sourcing requirements, but Petersen was maintaining unsourced and poorly sourced original research in the article. I would also take a look at WP:Requests for comment/GoRight, at my comment there and at the evidence page cited. Petersen has, as Solomon reports, been doing this in most of the global warming articles I examined. Always stopping short of 3RR violations. Solomon apparently didn't know to discuss this in Talk, though what I've seen of attempts to do so with the other articles was pretty fruitless with Petersen, but Petersen is not an inexperienced editor, and is simply edit warring to keep out content with no discussion other than potshots in reverting edit summaries. No discussion, no attempt to find consensus, to negotiate NPOV language, just reverts.

While it is correct that the "original research" involved in consulting with the horse's mouth is problematic, as a source for the article, it is very much relevant in a Talk discussion, and should have thrown up a big red flag that there was something amiss. "We have a reliable source," was Petersen's comment. No, this was not Wikipedia working the way it should work. The goal is an article that reflects consensus, not mere persistence in reversion! --Abd (talk) 03:38, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I have examined the edit history of what Solomon refers to, providing diffs, at User:Abd/Solomon on Oreskes He's basically correct in the account, though there is something missing. His account has more reverts than the record shows. I would ordinarily dismiss that as him not checking the earliest record, but there is, I must say, another possibility. When I was starting to look at this article, I started reading Talk first. I looked up at the tabs and the article link was red. Sure enough, there was no article. It appears it had been deleted. But a few minutes later it was back. No log record that I could see. It's highly unlikely, but someone with direct database access could manage this, and remove revisions. I think any admin could do it but it would leave log records. It may remain a mystery, but .... I have never seen that happen except with an article that had been deleted while the Talk page remained.--Abd (talk) 03:48, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

There are no deletions recorded for either the article or the talk page. It is possible to delete a page and restore only some of its revisions, as in cases where personal information is revealed and an admin wishes to undo that damage as much as possible, or, of course, some other nefarious purpose as described above. However, in the normal course of doing this, the remaining deleted edits would still be visible to administrators, and this is not the case here. It is possible, however, that navigating to the archive of the talk page would bring up some unusual-looking situations. The archive page is not connected to the article page in the same way as the "regular" talk page, because its name doesn't match. If you look at the archive page now, you'll see the article page's link is red, as is normal on archive pages. (None of this precludes any particular activity at the direct database level, of course, however unlikely that may be. I am not rendering an opinion on that here; merely providing information.)  Frank  |  talk  17:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Frank. Looking at the Archive page is the probable certain explanation, once I thought about it some more. A developer could bypass the normal records, but ... given what I now realize, no need at all to go there now! --Abd (talk) 18:44, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Please take a look at the source which was cited in the version Petersen was reverting to, and see if it justifies the claim Petersen made about it. It doesn't, that was misrepresentation of source. Solomon was right. And, in fact, the way to show it would have been to refer to the source, Solomon didn't realize that, apparently. One problem may have been that the link was broken, something was wrong about how the reference was set up, I think. I found it by editing the file and extracting the link from the reference template.--Abd (talk) 04:03, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I have looked at the source and it does justify what Petersen wrote. --TimLambert (talk) 04:27, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

This is what was in the article:

---

Her conclusions were directly challenged by Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist who enumerated the figure of backing the consensus view at closer to only 30% [1]. However, Peiser’s letters to Science[2] on the subject were rejected by the editors, who stood by the integrity of the original paper. Peiser claimed that he had repeated Oreskes' search and had found 35 articles that supported the position that global warming was not caused by human action. It was subsequently revealed that his search criteria were not the same as Oreskes's, using different search terms and including articles which had not been peer reviewed, which resulted in his finding more abstracts than Oreskes had. Most readers of Peiser's list have claimed that most of the papers he cites do not in fact contest the IPCC's position on anthropogenic climate change. Indeed, the only article which clearly contests the consensus position was published in the journal of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, an oil industry publication which has no peer review system. Dr. Peiser has recently conceded in a letter to the Australian Media Watch that he no longer maintains parts of his criticisms.[2]

As such, the original article and its author appear to have been vindicated. Indeed, the now withdrawn criticisms serve as an example of what she refers to in her article as the media debate over climate change, which stands in contrast to the scientific consensus.

---

I have bolded what appears, on its face, to have been unsourced or inadequately sourced original research. Here we are focusing on the sentence in bold italic, which does have a reference, a primary source, a mail allegedly from Peiser. (To my knowledge, the authorship has neither been confirmed nor denied, and I really only mention this problem here because very strict sourcing requirements have been insisted upon by Petersen and others, but, here, reliability of source hasn't been established. The rest of my comment assumes that Peiser did write the letter.)

The implication in the sentence would be that the criticisms have been substantially withdrawn. That is not at all the overall thrust of the email. If the mail is accurate, Oreskes didn't publish details of her exact search criteria, and Peiser apparently used what he inferred from Oreskes' publication, this is speculation on this on my part, but it's consistent with the evidence, and my point here is that information about the search criteria has been selectively presented, synthesized from the source, by an editor. But to narrow this down. "Conceded" implies that he made some retreat, when the latter appears to me to be in the nature of a clarification. Here is what I would speculate is the source for the sentence, from the email, with Peiser in italics:

---

It implies that, given this methodology, the 34 articles you found that "reject or doubt the view that human activities are the main drivers of the observed warming over the last 50 years" may not have been included in the 928 articles randomly selected by Prof Oreskes. Is this possible?

Yes, that is indeed the case. I only found out after Oreskes confirmed that she had used a different search strategy (see above). Which is why I no longer maintain this particular criticism. In addition, some of the abstracts that I included in the 34 "reject or doubt" category are very ambiguous and should not have been included.

If so, her findings and your (different) findings can be compatible.

Please note that the whole ISI data set includes just 13 abstracts (less than 2%) that *explicitly* endorse what she has called the 'consensus view.' The vast majority of abstracts do not deal with or mention anthropogenic global warming whatsoever. I also maintain that she ignored a few abstracts that explicitly reject what she calls the consensus view. You can check for yourself at http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Oreskes-abstracts.htm

---

Petersen's edit summary said, "Note that Peiser has retracted this critique and admits that he was wrong!." And then, "we have a reliable source to this. What Peiser has said to *you* is irrelevant." So, my question, where is the reliable source for the claim that Petersen has "retracted this critique and admits that he was wrong." Please, no synthesis. That comment of Petersen's was not exactly what was in the article. But it is indeed what was implied by what was in the article. In other words, I'm anticipating the argument that what is in the article is a true and verifiable fact, parts of the criticism are "no longer being maintained" by Peiser, though the article went on in the next paragraph to equate this with "withdrawn," and to imply, from that, "vindication," and using Petersen's reaction and the conclusion drawn in the article text as evidence that the effect of the text was biased. Look, this was blatant POV text, and Solomon was right to challenge it. I'm not coming to any conclusion yet on the substance, i.e., should there be reference to all this in the article, though if the article is going to note Oreskes' publication and its significance, I'd say that notable criticism should likewise be shown, otherwise it would be imbalanced. It appears to me that the Peiser letter vigorously maintains the substance of the criticism; see, especially, the page that he references.

Petersen was maintaining, with three reverts (two in one day), POV text. I have not examined Solomon's replacement text in detail, so my comment should not be taken as an approval of it; but on the narrow point of Peiser's alleged retraction, Solomon was correct, and the alleged reliable source doesn't show that; it shows text that, by being selectively quoted, can be made to imply that. And this is misrepresentation of source, and I've seen this result in a topic ban by ArbComm when it was less clearly connected with a POV. Further, Solomon's edits addressed other POV aspects of the text in that section, and Petersen reverted it all. Three times. (By the way, Petersen was apparently unaware that Twinkle, which was being used for these reverts, marks edits as minor. That's because it's intended for use for vandalism, not for reverting good faith edits.)

On the other hand, perhaps I've missed something. TimLambert is certainly welcome to point it out, but, remember, distortion of source is considered a serious matter.--Abd (talk) 02:34, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The substance of Peiser's criticism of Oreskes was that 34 of her articles doubted the consensus, not zero as she wrote. Peiser told Media Watch that he had revised the number down to just one and withdrawn that part of the criticism. I think that "vindicated" is a reasonable description of what happened. And certainly Solomon's POV pushing was less acceptable than the version that Petersen reverted to. --TimLambert (talk) 17:34, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Core issue: that's an interpretation of the source, not what the source says. Quote the source and see if it supports that interpretation. I'd say it does not, but even if it did, unless the interpretation were so clear that it shouldn't be controversial, it couldn't be used, it would be synthesis, much less be the legitimate basis for an edit war. In fact, Tim's reply, above, can be torn to pieces by simple application of standard guidelines. Besides, it's wrong, not that this matters. Details matter. Further, I see both versions as POV pushing. And if either of those two editors had listened to the other side, we would have seen, not reverts, but attempts at compromise language. Tim has incorrectly identified the "substance" of the criticism. And a claim of "zero" is a remarkable claim, and would be refuted by a single counterexample. Was there only a single counterexample? That's not what Peiser says in that mail, I suspect that this was also synthesis, from other sources. Peiser's letter, quite clearly, doesn't retract the substance of his criticism; instead it maintains it, in spite of attempts to pull out isolated quotes that make it seem otherwise. Maybe we should go for an RfC on this, eh? --Abd (talk) 17:51, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

(EC) "Vindicated" is hardly a reasonable description for:

"Oreskes claims to have analysed 928 abstracts she found listed on the ISI Web of Knowledge database (1993 - 2003) using the keywords "global climate change." However, this claim is incorrect: while the ISI database includes a total of 929 documents for the period in question, it lists only 905 abstracts. It is thus impossible that Oreskes analysed 928 abstracts."

If we actually want to assert that this is a WP:RS then perhaps we should include this in the article as well? --GoRight (talk) 17:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Vindicated is likewise not a reasonable description for these:

"Please note that the whole ISI data set includes just 13 abstracts (less than 2%) that *explicitly* endorse what she has called the 'consensus view.' The vast majority of abstracts do not deal with or mention anthropogenic global warming whatsoever. I also maintain that she ignored a few abstracts that explicitly reject what she calls the consensus view."

These are substantive claims regarding the accuracy of Oreskes' results. --GoRight (talk) 18:08, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Sure. However, "consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," GoRight. POV editors will argue vigorously for something being RS when it favors their position, and then they will turn on a dime if one points out that it favors an opposing position. And that's irrelevant. If the material belongs in the article on Oreskes, then we collectively so decide, and should work out how it is to be done, how it is to be represented. And what some may have argued in the past isn't relevant to that. I know that some see this as a battle for the future of the planet. But this is more like a court where decorum is required, even if the future of the planet hangs on its decisions. Being "right" can get you tossed out on your ear, and properly so, if you don't follow the rules of the court, which are designed to set aside prejudicial opinions. Don't be a POV editor. Be an editor with a POV which you use to inform you as to what may be important. You will, better than those with a different POV, detect imbalance with regard to that different POV as it clashes with your own. You are part of our bias detector, as they are as well. NPOV is a dialectical synthesis in the Hegelian sense, it isn't some particular point of view. The other "side" has more experience with Wikipedia than you, and includes some administrators, but some of them have been, actually, shockingly naive, even to the point of a foolish arrogance. I assure you, long-term Wikipedians will mostly not support what has been done here, nor would ArbComm. Given the possible damage to Wikipedia's reputation from this affir, it may indeed be appropriate to take this to the Committee, perhaps I'll raise the issue with Wiki-En-L, but one step at a time. An ArbComm proceeding might be necessary, but it is a royal pain for all involved.--Abd (talk) 18:23, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Its very very simple. Peiser's critique of Oreskes is a WP:SPS, it makes some very contentious claims about a person (Oreskes, science fraud), that has been published in a very notable and prestigious scientific journal, and has been very widely cited ([31]). And as has been established, it hasn't been mentioned sufficiently by 3rd party sources (see), to raise it to the notability level, where mentioning it in Oreskes biography is warrented. In fact the very fact that it was rejected by a very notable publisher, raises the bar for inclusion signifcantly. Peiser makes some rather astounding claims - that have been shot down in other WP:SPS's - but thats also irrelevant - since those also do not pass the bar.

I do not have time to answer the claims made here (i'm on vacation) - but i will point out that Abd's comment about previous discussions being irrelevant, is incorrect - there was discussions here already, and these set the basis for further discussion. (see previous discussions here and in the archives). While consensus can change (and must in some cases), it is not created in a void. Most of the points here have already been pointed out and discussed. As a sidenote - we have 1 (2) source(s) that say that Peiser retracted his critique this (and this where Peiser is quoted as saying that he's glad he wasn't published - since his study was flawed).

And frankly i find that the argumentation "I know that some see this as a battle for the future of the planet" is both uncivil, and presumptious about what other editors may or may not think. (in fact i doubt if anyone has that particular view). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:59, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I've never argued that the Peiser material should be in this article, I have not even addressed that. Kim, your position was not, however, in the hree repeated reverts you made, edit warring, that the material didn't belong there, rather it was that there was reliable source for what was said, in what you restored, about Peiser's criticism. The self-published material mentioned above is cited in the alleged RS. Before I examine the two alleged sources for Peiser's "retraction," I'd like to know: are those two sources you mention (media watch, BBC) reliable sources or not? If they aren't, then they can't be used. If they are, then all of what is in them can potentially be used. Which is it? Why waste time arguing about what isn't reliably sourced? Were you correct to re-insert this claim about Peiser, based on reliable source, or was it an error? I don't see how you can have it both ways. --Abd (talk) 02:27, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The position that i took, was that of the consensus version at the time. As you can see in the discussions above - i did change my mind significantly. Originally i was of the opinion that Peiser had received sufficient 3rd party coverage for it to be mentioned in the biography here. The MediaWatch mail is a reliable source on Peiser's opinion, although MW itself may not be - i haven't looked into that. The BBC article is an opinion column, and as such may be dubious as a reliable source (same restrictions as usual for Op-Eds/Editorials), it would depend on the journalists reputation and expertise. Since we are on a WP:BLP page, it is extremely important to consider what is and what is not a reliable source, just as it it extremely important to consider the relative weight of the sources/opinions.

As for my reversions - i have explained them in detail both here on the talk page (and the archives) as well as in comments on Solomons blogs ([32],[33]). Yes, i believed at the time that the articles representation was correct. In retrospect i think the "vindicated" paragraph should have been removed. Quick rationales:

1. Science has not published a correction or retraction - and did not accept Peisers response => stood by the integrity. (its part of the journals policy to do so, if they do not)
2. Oreskes paper has never claimed unanimous support (read it) so Peisers unanimous argument is irrelevant.
3. Peiser's search criteria was wrong (objectively) and thus he didn't reproduce Oreskes result.
4. The AAAP article isn't peer-reviewed, and it is the only paper that Peiser could produce for MW.
5. Peiser did say that he doesn't uphold part of his critique anymore.

Since i'm travelling for a week - i wont be able to respond to any queries after this before next Sat/Sun/Monday. (not sure which). I suggest that you read up on the issue. And that you try to understand why Solomon was reverted - his insistence on knowing the truth, rather than explaining or referencing reliable sources for it. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:41, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Adding Peiser criticism - to make an edit break

OK, so let's see what happens if we pursue this. We are on the talk page, arguably the first place to discuss such topics, so as a GW skeptic I think that Peiser's criticisms of Oreskes' work are significantly under-represented here. We have an acknowledged WP:RS being used to justify the assertion that Peiser has retracted his criticism ... at least his narrow criticism of the "34 arbstracts". But as I have shown above he likewise makes other substantive claims which he has not retracted. Given the notoriety of the Oreskes piece it seems appropriate from a NPOV perspective to present it within the broader context for the reader. Peiser's criticisms provide just such a broader context.

So, how should we go about incorporating some of Peiser's other points from the source cited above? --GoRight (talk) 19:25, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

See above. First question is, what sources do we have meeting WP:V? Let's list them and see if we can agree on what is reliable. By the way, Solomon's report of Peiser's comment, in his published editorial, is reliable source for that. Solomon's report in an edit summary was one thing, but in a published opinion piece, it's different. (Generally, I prefer to see "according to," when reporting notable opinion, but this could be in a footnote, particularly if there is no reason to doubt it. (I have no reason to doubt that Solomon contacted Peiser and that Peiser responded as described by Solomon.) Note that just because a source is reliable, technically, doesn't mean that everything from it is usable, but these are distinctions that we decide, typically, by editorial consensus. Accepting a source doesn't mean that anything from that source will be used, necessarily. It's simply a first step, even though usually we approach it the opposite way. Somebody inserts something, say it is sourced. Then the source is challenged or not. But there is already a kind of bias there, for an editor, seeing what is drawn from the source, may dislike the implications. So let's talk about sources, and what they might be used for. --Abd (talk) 02:35, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Your assertion that Solomon's opinion is notable is wrong - or at least lacks any significant backing. It is an Op-Ed and as such it is not a reliable source to anything other than Solomons opinion, and very much suspect on a WP:BLP page. As for Solomon's general reliability - he is not exactly known for his reliability on this subject, in his deniers series - at least 3 of those he profiled have had significant objections (Solanki, Weiss, Shaviv). And anyone with just a tad of insight into the climate change debate will object to several of his "deniers" (Von Storch, Tol, Wunch, Landsea). Thats a very large percentage of errors/misinterpretations in that series. Combine this with the red flags raised by his claims that WMC is the 2nd most important person ... And the errors with regards to User:tabletop (which persisted after he appologized - and have never gotten a retraction). You end up with a very suspect source.

On other sources - i suggest that people take a look at User:KimDabelsteinPetersen/Temporary#Oreskes_notes where a lot of that work has already been done. Feel free to expand and discuss.

(unindent) I'm asserting that Lawrence Solomon is notable. If not, try AfDing the article, see how far you get!And the opinion of a notable person is generally notable. Petersen is confusing "reliable source" with "reliable person," and is also trying to establish or refute a source being "reliable source" by resorting to detailed argument on content. Further, as I noted, Petersen was relying on a source for this BLP which was nothing other than the opinion of Peiser, in an email. This is why I've suggested focusing on reliable source first, separately from the question of what is usable from those sources in this particular article. But, please, don't assert nonsense like Solomon isn't notable. But even if he were not notable, if an article or opinion piece (by a regular columnist, different from a letter to the editor) were published by a reliable source, i.e., a major edited newspaper, it's usable in general. Usable in this article is a separate question. As to the user page cited by Petersen, I'll take a look at it.--Abd (talk) 13:45, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm notable. Does that make all my opinions notable? For example, I think LS is a non-notable blogger who writes nonsense about wiki and about climate in general. I look forward to you adding it to his article. No? OK, then try re-writing the opinion of a notable person is generally notable in a way that makes sense William M. Connolley (talk) 17:36, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I'll rewrite it. "The opinion of a notable person is generally notable when it relates to the person's notability. 'Notable' in this context means that, if WP:V can be satisfied, and, as an example, the person is notable as an expert in a field, there is a prima facie relevance of the opinion in that field. Here, though, Solomon isn't, I'll assume, an expert on, say, Oreskes. However, he is notable as a commentator (editorialist and author) in the global warming field. Thus, from this, his opinion might be usable. And, to be sure, there are additional, more stringent requirements, in the case of a biography of a living person. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. What I'm claiming here is that editorial opinions of Solomon, published by a responsible publisher (legally responsible, presumption that there is some editing involved), are possibly usable, that we may included them in a list of possible sources. Determining their actual usage is properly a separate matter; I'm simply arguing against a premature and categorical exclusion, which is quite odd, coming from Petersen, because Petersen insisted that Peiser's mail was reliable source, though there was no editing, it was similar to a letter to the editor. In fact, now, Solomon's publication of reference to his conversation with Peiser is usable if it's relevant. That is, the comment that Solomon's experience with Pesier wasn't relevant to anything is gone. Peiser, we have RS for, now, denied that he had retracted his criticism and, in fact, the source itself confirmed that, amply, and it was only selective quotation and interpretation that made the reverse seem to be true.--Abd (talk) 20:29, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Get that opinion published as an Op/Ed (not a letter to the Editor) in a major/national newspaper or a respected science journal and then, yes, we can consider including it. A WP:SPS and group blog like RealClimate is explicitly rejected per WP:BLP, however. --GoRight (talk) 19:44, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. Its not the notability of the person, or at least not the rather low bar that wiki puts as defined by surviving AFD. Its where your opinions are published. I'm glad to see you agreeing with me and disagreeing with Abd William M. Connolley (talk) 19:53, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

More accurately, I agree with GoRight. Connolley has seized on an accidental meaning of what I wrote, a meaning I didn't intend. I'm not asserting that any opinion by a notable person is therefore notable, the matter is far more complex than that. Great news! We all agree! The publication is the issue. Opinion expressed by Solomon in the National Post, or distributed from there, is notable because of how it was published, and, if you will reread what I wrote, I stated that the same condition would make it usable if it weren't Solomon, if it were someone we'd never heard of before. However, it's another step, a far more complex one, to claiming that it's usable in the article. Being published in the NP makes it satisfy WP:V, which is the fundamental issue.

Sorry, when you said And the opinion of a notable person is generally notable I naturally assumed you meant And the opinion of a notable person is generally notable rather than the publication is the issue. How would it be if you struck out the bits that you no longer mean, for the sake of clarity? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:35, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, if what I'd written were harmfully wrong, I'd strike it. I often let harmless errors of mine lie where they fell. However, what I wrote wasn't wrong, it was only incompletely specified. If you'll notice, the amended version is the same as the original, except when it relates to the person's notability has been added. I could add that in, but why not just leave it? Who is going to be confused by it? Okay, I'm deciding to leave it there so that people who are looking for reasons to reject what I say can find a place where it can easily be argued I made a mistake. Fair enough? --Abd (talk) 23:29, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

(EC) I think I am actually agreeing with you both. To be acceptable the source has to meet multiple criteria, as you know, and these criteria are not mutually exclusive. So, notability is one factor and WP:RS is another. Having one's opinion published in any of the aforementioned ways, however, is good evidence that both criteria have been met. WP:RS are not just going to print the opinions of anybody, you have to be somewhat notable to begin with. --GoRight (talk) 20:16, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, notable to the publication, presumably because of the interest they see in what you've written, and the fact that they considered it worthwhile enough to edit it and print it. You might be otherwise totally unknown. However, The National Post calls the opinion section "blogs," if I'm correct. If that means that they are raw opinion, unedited, it gets dicey. That means to me that, at least, the opinion must be attributed, i.e., "According to Lawrence Solomon, ...." and not just stated purely as a fact. But we should be looking at specific examples; one of the errors that's made in content disputes is treating sources as if notifiability and verifiability are fixed qualities, when, in fact, it's all interpretable by editorial consensus. If our goal is to have the most informative, interesting ("notable" is related to "interesting"), and reliable article possible, then we will look at each piece to see how it fits in that. --Abd (talk) 20:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't disagree with this view, and it seems generally in line with this section of WP:BLP: "Some newspapers host interactive columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control. Where a news organization publishes the opinions of a professional but claims no responsibility for the opinions, the writer of the cited piece should be attributed (e.g., "Jane Smith has suggested..."). Posts left by readers may never be used as sources."

So the question is, how do Solomon and the "FP Comment" section stack up against this standard? As far as I can tell, this section of WP:BLP was included for exactly the case of something like Solomon and the "FP Comment" blog:

1. The FP comment blog is an interactive column that the newspaper calls a blog.
2. Lawrence Solomon is undeniably a professional writer.
3. The FP Comment blog has an editor. From the description of the FP Comment blog on the NP Network Blogs page: "Editor Terence Corcoran and contributors Peter Foster, Lawrence Solomon and William Watson have taken the most talked-about page in Canadian business journalism and put it online," and there is a link at the top of the main FP Comment blog page to contact the editor.

So why, exactly, should I not be able to claim that WP:BLP explicitly includes a source such as this being usable in a BLP? As far as I can see it is a perfect match for the criteria cited. --GoRight (talk) 23:01, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

GoRight, you can claim that, it's reasonable. However, what would be incorrect is to assume that therefore you can put anything from a Solomon piece in the article. That's a separate judgment. For now, if there is something from Solomon that you think belongs in the article, or could belong in the article, put it in the Sources page referenced below. Cite it, with URL if possible, and quote what seems relevant to you. This page should be neutral, so don't draw conclusions from the source. Just report what is there. Grist for the mill. I've invited Petersen to put the material from her temp notes page there. Descriptions of sources should be accurate. For example, that editorial page is called a blog, but is it? It has editors, which blogs don't normally have, authors run them. I don't find it obvious how to consider those pages; but, fortunately, we do not have to match sources with guidelines, because guidelines are just that, they are not rules. At least not exactly. The ultimate test will be whether or not using the material improves the encyclopedia, not whether or not this or that technical rule applies. Those guidelines are there to describe what the community of editors will ordinarily consider okay, and not okay. So we can point out a guideline with respect to some source or piece of text, simply to note that it seems that this would be acceptable, but that's not binding, in fact. On the other hand, as with all "ignore all rules" exceptions, "It better be good!" Let's try not to push against the guidelines unless it will clearly improve the article.--Abd (talk) 23:22, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Where do you see that the Financial Post Comment section is called a "blog"? I've unearthed several editions and don't see the term "blog" anywhere. It's an editorial comment page; that is, what used to be called an editorial page. Occasionally it contains "Letters to the Editor", but mostly it's editorial comment, definitely respected and notable. Bushcutter (talk) 07:12, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Look at the URI, instead of just the headline. Its blog posts masquerading as Op-Ed's/Editorials (or the reverse). On the other hand its rather irrelevant, since all the argumentation (which is now mostly in the archives), does rely on this - but rather on the opinion and editorial review part of this. As for the respected/notable part - i'll consider that your personal opinion. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 11:22, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

What's with the nasty reply? It's not a website, it's a respected business paper. There's no blog and no URL, it's just 50 pages of newsprint like any other financial news rag. Please get a hold of yourself and read the post slowly. And further, who are you to pose as a judge of notability? Bushcutter (talk) 08:31, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Naomi Oreskes/Sources

I'm creating this page as a compilation of sources for this article. It should be NPOV in its description of sources, but all reasonably relevant sources should be listed. Reference to any consensus developed here, or to arguments made here, may be made. I.e., for the purpose of this page, Wikipedia history is also a "reliable source" (not for the article!) The idea of this page is to avoid repetitive, useless controversy and repetition of arguments, but to examine debate over sources in one place in summary fashion, mostly with reference, in addition to outside sources, to discussion here. We should be able to agree, all good-faith editors of this article, on what is on that page. (Not necessarily as to what we use for the article!) Kim, would you copy your source notes to that page? If anything in those notes isn't proper for that page, it can be removed, but your notes will be a good start. Thanks. --Abd (talk) 15:47, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

1. I have a suggestion based on the ABC Media Watch reference at [34]. --GoRight (talk) 23:52, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The Cabal rides again

• Murphy's blog complaining that The Cabal is maintaining a bad page. He also claims that Oreskes's article has been "widely ridiculed".
• This looks to me like Peiser actually admitting to being rather off the mark.

--Slashme (talk) 09:45, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Times Op-Ed

In September, Oreskes wrote the following op-ed in the Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4690900.ece which was severely criticized in the following blog: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/lies-posing-as-history-4709 and has been corrected by the Times because it reported inaccurately on the source of the report in question. I don't have time at the moment to investigate the matter fully, though. --Slashme (talk) 20:11, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree [35]. Not sure how notable all this is though William M. Connolley (talk) 20:16, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Pardon - it is notable in that it represents a pattern or trend in Oreskes writtings. Why not have comment in the article about her "misrepresentations" as Wiki does so well in other anti-AGW bios ? 68.56.76.30 (talk) 21:20, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Once a "pattern or trend" is established in reliable sources, then there is something to talk about. So far its opinion. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:52, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Dissenting views

It seems that there have been critics of her views and writings and I think those would be good to include in order to comply with the neutral point of view guideline. Positive critical reception should also be included. ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:45, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

This was discussed at great length above and the consensus is that, since her critics cannot find a reputable journal to publish in and thus self-publish in the internet, their commentary does not meet the standards in Wikipedia:reliable sources. Raul654 (talk) 14:29, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggest adding Category:Sustainability advocates ... Category:Sustainability advocates

Suggest adding [:Category:Sustainability advocates] ... Category:Sustainability advocates (do to her speeches) 99.35.9.129 (talk) 03:52, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Spelling error

page is locked,

first line "Naomi Oreskes is Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California San Diego and an author. She has worked on studies of geophysics, environmantal issues such as global warming, and the history of science."

environmantal.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.85.24.5 (talk • contribs) 02:51, 14 January 2010

Thanks, fixed. Vsmith (talk) 03:18, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Thought Police

Just doing my job, ma'am. I took it out: badly unbalanced, weight, fails to tell the correct story, etc etc. Haven't we been through all this elsewhere? William M. Connolley (talk) 16:34, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

says who? You remove well sourced statements and this is not the way we work. I restored it. Please give very well founded arguments before removing WP:RS sources. Maybe just a rephrasing is enough iff I've misquoted the WP:RS sources? Nsaa (talk) 19:14, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Removed again:

Says a grand lot of earlier discussions. (see archives)

Now you claim that there are RS sources in it. But i have yet to find a source in there that is reliable for BLP material. Peisers "analysis" is an SPS - you can't use Lindzen's opinion article to grant it weight. (op-eds are reliable to the opinions of the writer - not for fact). The "majority fact of the day" is not a reliable source, and Saleem Ali's unpublished views aren't either. Solomons "The Deniers" is not about "more than 16 scientists skeptical of global warming." but about people who Solomon consider critical of some aspects of the science - notable examples: Richard Tol, Nordhaus, von Storch etc. Aside from that Solomon's book is only reliable to Solomons opinion. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:43, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Instead of Removing this highly relevant information. what about rephrase it so it fits your claims? Now it just looks like you're removing unpleasant information for the AGW case. Although I agree with you on this per policy (Wikipedia:SELFREF#Articles_are_about_their_subjects). Nsaa (talk) 20:08, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

If there are no reliable sources for it - then it certainly isn't usable for BLP information. And if there aren't any serious references outside opinion articles or SPS's - then you certainly can't argue WP:WEIGHT for the information either. So there is really nothing to rewrite. The information on Peiser and his critique and the Mediawatch thing belongs on Benny Peiser (where it is already located). A self-published source used to refute a peer-reviewed paper in Nature? Hmmm. Do please see the archives for previous loong discussions. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:34, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

POV Tag, Why

I have tagged this section [36] as it does not contain the rebuttals to the paper such as [37] this one in which Dr Benny Peiser and Dennis Bray have said their rebuttals were refused, i think they should be in the section to balance it out mark nutley (talk) 15:59, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

So: discuss *first* don't just tag. The answer is: look in the archive, where you'll find this very point discussed William M. Connolley (talk) 16:09, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Reverted your removal of the tag, please read them, do not remove until a consensus is reached on the article talk page, thanks. I looked in the archive but see no reference to the source i presented above, could you please give me a link to it, thanks mark nutley (talk) 16:20, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Guess why they were refused! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:49, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

You should read the archives. Simple: highly regarded peer-reviewed paper vs. random sceptics who had papers fail peer-review. Guess where the weight is? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:17, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

As stated i looked in the archive, please provide a link as you guys seem to know were this is? mark nutley (talk) 17:36, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

You mean you went to /Archive_1, searched for "Peiser", and failed to find it? William M. Connolley (talk) 17:56, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

No i looked for this link I do not see a search function by the archive above so did in manually. Now this link is a reliable source and should be used to balance the section mark nutley (talk) 18:04, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

So: have you actually looked in the archives for the previous discussions of Benny Peiser? Please try. You'll probably discover that this issue os covered on Peisers page, because it is about him; it says nothing about Oreskes, though. BTW, it is nice to know that you read my blog; I hope you find it instructive William M. Connolley (talk) 18:10, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I find your blog tedious and predictable, much like your jibe`s at me. Now have you actually looked at the source i have presented? Do try to remember, consensus can change mark nutley (talk) 18:13, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Well you should stop reading it then. As for your source: I read it when it first came out. Now, be good: check through the archives and read Benny Peiser William M. Connolley (talk) 19:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Your tone leave`s a lot to be desired WMC try to remember your civility parole. I see nothing in the archives which even remotely resembles a consensus with regards to the above link. So please provide a reason for this to be excluded from the article? mark nutley (talk) 20:05, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Resource: Naomi Oreskes: fierce defender of climate change science – and scientists

Resource: Naomi Oreskes: fierce defender of climate change science – and scientists in the Christian Science Monitor July 18, 2011 by Randy Dotinga 99.181.134.246 (talk) 21:14, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

SciAm resource

Historian Hunts for Motives Behind Climate Change Doubt-Mongering: A Q&A with Naomi Oreskes "Historians search for those behind climate change contrarianism has documented the evolution of those raising doubts" by Rae Tyson and The Daily Climate Scientific American November 21, 2011 99.181.142.144 (talk) 06:34, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Naomi

Naomi seems to have been born in about 1960. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.179.202.87 (talk) 15:07, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

External links

USCD homepage link has died. Peaceandlonglife (talk) 09:08, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Third party sources

1. The article lacks third party sources in general
2. Background section uses lists of essays instead of describing her work and carrer
3. The Science and society essay section lacks any third party sourcing
4. The Merchants of Doubt section relies on a Grauniad article, and so far contains no review of scientific value

Serten 15:03, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Tags

User:Prokaryotes erased the only scientific reviews contained in the article so far. I don't see wether any contentious AfD has to do with third party reviews being erased. One was published in BioSocieties, the other one in Nature. The lack of third party quality sources is evident. Grauniad is not science btw. I will insofar restore the tagging first and wait for comments here second. I have however the impression, that dual and partisan standards are being used on related articles, see neutrality tag and the user trying to do away with scientific sources of the highest quality has a conflict of interest (COI). Serten 13:01, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I suggest you take a step back, think about your recent edits and arguments, and wait until the AfD discussion of Reiner Grundmann is complete. prokaryotes (talk) 13:07, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

You last edit comment was somewhat emotional. I would prefer you started to improve the article instead of deleting valid content and or appropriate tags. The use of real life scientific studies relevant for this subject is not impaired by any outcome of any AfD I am aware of. Serten 13:50, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused about your tags. Taking them one at a time, what's your WP:COI claim? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:58, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

See above. Serten 14:43, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Is that in response to me? If so: I cannot find anything that supports a COI claim either in your comments nor anywhere on this talk page. Please be clear. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:03, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

To be clear, User:Prokaryotes' role with an outlet like climatestate is not adding credibility. He deleted two reviews in scientific journals, one of them in Nature, with a rather offensive comment. His talk page contains a statement asking to stop the AfD for Grundmann, here he asks to wait for the end. That sounds either incoherent or just weird, it could be explained by a sort of mission or agenda. Therefore COI. Wether the Grundmann AfD goes through is of NO interest at all for this article. Serten 18:19, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

So your major evidence for COI is a difference of opinion on content? Sorry, that does not fly. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:55, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Goodness, he's working for a propaganda outlet (climatestate is blacklisted in deWP, he got a block for trying to put spam links from them in articles) and behaves like. Next point. Serten 19:05, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

You may have noticed that this article is about Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science, not about a website. Moreover, "working for" seem to be rather stronger relationship than the one he freely acknowledges. I don't "work for" Slashdot or Wikipedia, or even CADE, although I contribute content to all of them. Your COI claim is still spurious. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:13, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I stated my position and said next one ;) Serten 22:44, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Serten, that may well be so, but your dismissive tone will not make people want to agree with you. I find Stephan Schulz argument convincing. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 02:03, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Youre welcome. That COI is gone. The third party sourcing and neutrality is the weak point of this article, mostly press releases, awards and Oreskes own work. This is not the good thing to do in enWP, as I have learned recently. Serten 02:44, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Potentially notable relatives

I heard "Michael Oreskes" on the radio today and wondered whether he was Naomi's husband, but it turns out that he's her brother; right now he's the NPR editorial director, and earlier he was the AP's senior managing editor: http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/we-remember/2013/03/04/irwin-oreskes-professor-emeritus-at-nycs-hunter-college-who-taught-lab-science-dies-at-86/

Their father is the late CUNY biochemistry professor Irwin Oreskes, and their other siblings are science historian Daniel and writer Rebecca; in case any of these people turns out to be notable enough for their own articles, be sure to link theirs with this article. Julyo (talk) 23:43, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

place of birth?

98.110.40.14 (talk) 10:00, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Recent revert

Procaryotes reverted again two scientific [typo -- GcT] reviews. Edit comment: Merchants of Doubt: No, this is not a book review critic. Goodness [typo -- sorry -- Gct], WP:Duck applies. A book review in Nature is too much of sociology for Wikipedia, we want the Grauniad, nothing else. . Oh Tempora oh Mores. Sorry, are you serious? Serten Talk 02:54, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Why don't you make an article on sociology and climate change, instead of putting it into everything which is only marginal related. prokaryotes (talk) 04:37, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Why do you try to censor scientific reviews? No valid reason for a revert. Serten Talk 23:06, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

A review of a book would belong in the book article. Undue weight in a biography. Vsmith (talk) 23:47, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

OK Serten Talk 16:03, 30 May 2015 (UTC).

Serten: please don't say OK. It's not OK. It's nonsense, maybe bullshit (see "On Bullshit"). I myself really embrace the Wikipedia principle of Assuming Good Faith, but after a year, I'm a little fed up. It seems to me that there is no question that it is completely pertinent, in an article about a person (to wit, Nomi Oreskes), to discuss a prominent book she wrote, and the opinions that she expressed in it. So to assert, as VSmith does, that discussing, in a Wikipedia article, what a book --a book that the subject of the Wikipedia article, Dr Orestes, wrote -- says, does not belong in that article about her, holds no water. The essence of the article is what she has to say: What she has to say is expressed in the book she wrote: so what she says in the book that she wrote is what she is about; and that's what the article in Wikipedia is about, because, risking being tedious, what Wikipedia articles are about is what the subjects of the articles are about: so what the Naomi Oreskes article is about is what Naomi Oreskes has to say. GcT (talk) 12:39, 22 August 2016 (UTC)