User talk:Merlinme/Sandbox

Something concrete to discuss

Ok, I've finished my recategorisation. I'm hoping that having something concrete to discuss will engage people about how to make a better article, and perhaps reduce the amount of sniping. Please see: User:Merlinme/Sandbox

What my version does not do: it is not intended to be the final version of the page. It is intended to stimulate discussion. If we can disagree on minor points but build consensus around it- great. If there are big issues with it- fine, at least we're talking about something specific rather than something abstract.

I have chosen categories based closely on the consensus position defined at the top of the page. I was thinking about changing the lead, but reading it again, it quite specifically states "scientists who have made statements in disagreement with one or more of the principal conclusions of the Third (or Fourth) Assessment Report of the IPCC". I therefore think, if anything, using categories based tightly on the statements of the IPCC position is closer to what the lead implies.

Within each category I've divided it between: 1) those who explicitly disagree with the IPCC position; I really don't see how synthesis can be an issue 2) those who have made a statement which logically disagrees with the IPCC position, even though the IPCC position is not explicitly mentioned; I do not see these as synthesis, as there is no categorisation which is not logically implied by the public statement which the scientist has made 3) Arguably in this category; the implication seems to be that the IPCC position cannot be correct, even though the statement does not logically disagree with the IPCC position.

Outside of the main categories I've also added "Other arguments". This is mainly for people whose statement is sceptical but does not specifically disagree with the summarised consensus position main points.

At the end of some of the more debatable quotes I've put my thoughts in italics as to why they do (or do not) belong in a particular category.

Points for discussion:

• Do we exclude Other Arguments?
• Are the "arguably" quotes allowed?
• If "arguably" quotes are not allowed, is the solution to find better quotes or just to exclude that individual (or to only exclude that individual if no better quote can be found)? Or do all "arguable" quotes end up in "Other Arguments"?
• If a good quote cannot be found, does a person get excluded from the list?
• If explicitly disagreeing quotes for every disagreeing scientist cannot be found, and "Other Arguments" is not allowed, then does the article have to be renamed and/ or the lead changed?
• Does the "Deceased" section serve any purpose, if the intention is to provide a list of scientists who currently disagree with the consensus?
• Should people be listed in multiple categories if multiple quotes can be found? (I would argue yes, not least because in the current article individuals have multiple quotes which do not necessarily fit neatly into the same category.)

Comments and discussion appreciated. --Merlinme (talk) 00:05, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Merlinme, could I suggest we take discussion of the sandbox article to the sandbox article's talk page? Alex Harvey (talk) 03:39, 25 November 2010 (UTC) I have given another example of WP:SYN at that talk page. Alex Harvey (talk) 03:46, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

  Thanks for your work, Merlinme. I think you have some good points for discussion, but they are largely applicable to the existing article, and would more properly be discussed there. (E.g., I think there is a good reason to keep the "deceased" section, but an explanation here won't be found if someone searches the article's talk page.) And I think some of this discussion would be premature, lacking resolution of some of the more fundamental issues. It would be interesting if your work passed on the alleged OR/SYN/BLP violations, but I doubt if we will get a pass there. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 18:46, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

OR/SYN

Merlin, these categories seem to be getting better, but I regret to say that I think this merely means it is better original research than the live article.

Most notably, there is still no solution to the problem of category overlap that I can see. Regarding the category overlap, I believe you should have nearly all listed scientists overlapping completely in categories 3, 4 & 5, and the only reason you don't is that we haven't mined hard enough yet for the quotes. Alex Harvey (talk) 03:39, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

One example of obvious synthesis which I think extends in most cases to the other quotes.

You have this said about Paltridge:

Garth Paltridge, Visiting Fellow ANU and retired Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research and retired Director of the Institute of the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre."There are good and straightforward scientific reasons to believe that the burning of fossil fuel and consequent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will lead to an increase in the average temperature of the world above that which would otherwise be the case. Whether the increase will be large enough to be noticeable is still an unanswered question."[42]

This is used to fit Paltridge to the following category: "Do not agree: continued greenhouse gas emissions will cause temperatures to increase by 1.4 °C to 5.8 °C between 1990 and 2100"

Problem is, Paltridge's quote really doesn't say what the category heading says. Paltridge's statement implies that he believes it is quite possible that temps will increase in the range 1.4 - 5.8. It also implies that he believes it is quite possible that it will not. Thus, we have SYN. Alex Harvey (talk) 03:45, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, possibly. In which case that particular scientist is miscategorised. I don't mind discussing other specific issues as they are raised. I also don't mind using other quotes if someone is prepared to do the research. But I want to stick to concrete examples rather than discussing everything in the abstract. If after discussing all the concrete examples we have consensus that the article doesn't work in this form, then I'm happy to discuss alternatives, but I wish to avoid unspecific general statements along the lines of "this won't work". Give me specific examples, and let's see if we can improve the article. I think there are large numbers of scientists here whose quotes can be attributed to one of the specific categories without suggestions of Synthesis. It may be possible to find more appropriate quotes for some or all of the others. I think several of the other issues can be dealt with by a disclaimer at the top along the lines of "these scientists are listed with a recent quote which is representative of their views on climate change. The quote does not necessarily give details of all the nuances of their views on climate change. More detail can usually be found in the main article for that scientist." --Merlinme (talk) 11:15, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Well I have given you a specific example, and you seem to be waving it off. Well, possibly. you say. In which case that particular scientist is miscategorised. I don't mind discussing other specific issues as they are raised. ... But let's suppose that Paltridge is merely miscategorised, as you suggest. How do we fix it then? The quote attributed to Paltridge is easily consistent with all of your categories 3, 3.1 & 4. And I know of other Paltridge quotes that are easily consistent with your 5 & 6 too. If it's as simple as you've miscategorised him, you should be able to move him. I say this, of course, because I don't believe the problem is fixable at all. I'd like to show firstly that Paltridge, in reality, overlaps with all of your categories. But you're free to prove me wrong. Alex Harvey (talk) 13:06, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I haven't waved it off. I've moved him to "Arguably in this category" and added a disclaimer at the top of the article. Do you have the page on your watchlist? Moving that quote still leaves a majority of quotes which I don't think have synthesis issues. The remaining quotes could be put into "Other Arguments" if we wanted to, or we could simply search for better quotes. If we don't want to do either of those things, let's talk about why not, or whether there are other approaches which would work better. --Merlinme (talk) 13:15, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

OK, no, I didn't notice you made a change to Paltridge, but it really hasn't answered the objection. I guess now is as good a time as any to point out that 'arguably' and 'possibly' is editorialising. Whilst it concedes to the reader that our categorisation is a bit loose and arbitrary, it is no way to get around the fact that the categorisation must not be loose or arbitrary. Alex Harvey (talk) 14:11, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. My editorializing is not supposed to be in the final version of the article! It's merely supposed to help discussion. If, after discussion, consensus is that a person's quote does not belong in a particular category, then they will moved to a different category, or perhaps we'll look for a different quote. I'm not suggesting that the final encyclopedia version of the article will have "probably in this category"! They'll either be in it or they won't. I'll update now to make this clearer. --Merlinme (talk) 14:28, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I personally think that the "Merlin notes for discussion" are the biggest single improvement to the article (along with the increased precision of the section headers). Of course, for the final version, the notes need to be de-personalised, but I say they should not be removed (so that the lists run together without any distinctions again), just formalised. Then comes the next problem: It would be much better if we could say, "Almost certainly in this category according to [reliable source]". In the absence of that, we have the potential OR/SYN/BLP problem that has always dogged this article. The solution is not to remove these sub-headings or dividers, but to try to source them. In the absence of sourcing, one solution could be to delete all the quotes with only dubious connections to their section; that would leave a much shorter but a 100% sourced article. --Nigelj (talk) 17:01, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Although synthesis is a real issue, I think people can go with too far with it as an objection. The policy does not say that every single part of the encyclopedia needs to be copied from someone else's work. Inevitably when reporting multiple sources and making a coherent article (and considering copyright issues), there will need to be paraphrasing (which can be verified against references), and there will need to be editorial decisions about how information is presented. When done properly this is not original research. What the synthesis policy says is that we should not put two sources together to draw a conclusion which is not in either. Where a position is clearly sourced, and where someone's quote clearly disagrees with that position... personally I don't see any synthesis, especially with the disclaimer at the top that this is not supposed to be everything that person has ever said on the matter.

However, even by my reckoning, nearly half the current quotes can not be easily placed without being open to at least some suggestion of synthesis. I suppose we could keep the current editorial note sub-headings, but that probably is original research, unless you can find a good source (and I'd be surprised if you could for most examples). I would prefer someone's quote to either be clearly agreed by editorial consensus to be in a category, or not in that category at all. Then the question with those who don't fit neatly is whether we either: lump all of them into "Other arguments"; remove them entirely (which would be a different article); or look for different quotes which fit better. Is looking for "better quotes" original research, synthesis, or a BLP violation? Personally I think that as long as we make it clear that the quote is not intended to give every subtlety of their views, just to provide evidence that they do disagree with the IPCC position, then there isn't a problem. --Merlinme (talk) 17:20, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

The SYN argument is fairly clear: the two sources are X and IPCC, IPCC said "0.6 ± 0.2 °C since the late 19th century", X said "barely noticeable" (or something as vague as that). If X didn't mention the IPCC, and no Y can be found that says "X disagrees with IPCC", then us saying so on that basis is SYN, drawing a conclusion which is not in either source (IPCC certainly won't mention X, I'm sure). It was far worse before where we didn't note whether X mentioned IPCC, but here where we express our doubts when they exist, it's much clearer when we are synthesising. The safe thing to do is remove the cases where X doesn't mention IPCC and no suitable Y can be found. Much shorter, but SYN and BLP safe. Isn't there a bot project going on somewhere where thousands of BLP article are being blanked rather than leave dubious material up? Or am I muddling that with the copyvio case? I'm sure BLP says nothing is better than dubious assertions. --Nigelj (talk) 19:50, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

  An interesting point. But I think this gets back to criticism of the existing article, and would be best discussed there. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 18:19, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Emeritus vs Retired

Sometimes the article calls retired faculty 'emeritus', and sometimes 'retired.' Why the inconsistency? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:53, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I have absolutely no idea, I'm afraid, that's not something I've changed. Is there any distinction in the academic world? If I had to guess I might say that emeritus means you made it to full professor, retired means you didn't. But that is just a guess. --Merlinme (talk) 16:19, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

More or less as I guessed, according to Professor: At some institutions faculty who have retired after achieving the rank of professor are given the title "professor emeritus (male)" or "professor emerita" (female). That is, faculty who became full professors, as opposed to just lecturers. Also not all retired professors are necessarily called emeritus, it may depend on where they were a professor. Whether it's being used correctly in the article, I wouldn't know without researching each example. --Merlinme (talk) 16:31, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

In the vast majority of cases "emeritus" simply means retired in good standing. For consistency we should use "retired" for all retired faculty; otherwise, the reader will be left wondering about the distinction. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:57, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Fine by me. --Merlinme (talk) 17:21, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Now deceased

I agree with the comment in that section - we should not include it. (a) the list has to be about the present day (not '...who have opposed at some point in the past...') (b) deceased people are no longer capable of changing their mind and updating their stated position in the light of newer evidence or arguments. --Nigelj (talk) 16:41, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree entirely. I'm not sure what purpose this section serves as it currently stands. Apart from just removing all the quotes from dead people, another way of handling it would be to integrate them into the main section but time limit all quotes, e.g. the quote should be within the last 3 years/ 5 years/ since the Fourth Assessment Report. I don't mind including a quote from someone who died recently, but a fair number of scientists who were sceptical in the 90s have since changed their views. Living scientists can make statements or release publications which revise their views; dead ones can't. --Merlinme (talk) 17:02, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

  I beg to differ. In regards of Nigelj's first point, I think we must also consider the historical import of past opinions. E.g., perhaps no one currently contests that there is global warming, but it has been contested, and anyone seeing older material might see a discrepancy, and wonder why only part of the story is presented. Or suppose that Fred Singer "saw the light" and fell in line: that would be a fact, but it would not "unfact" his history of a contrarian. Current position is important, but I think we also need the historical context, including changes of position.

  Which takes us to Nigelj's second point, and there I do agree: once someone dies they can no longer update their position, and it becomes historical. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:09, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

This is currently a "List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming" not a list of scientists who once opposed or whatever. If someone's position is significant then it should be covered in other places, I don't personally think this is a place to start covering historic positions. I would like to do away with the deceased section, I think it arose because of disputes from those who wanted to keep people forever however I was never that convinced. Worst case scenario, as I've remarked before since this is currently AR3 and AR4, we should exclude anyone who's comments clearly weren't considering either (e.g. most people who's comments predated AR3). Sometime in the future, perhaps around AR5 if note before, it makes sense we should remove AR3 completely. Nil Einne (talk) 16:00, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Do people think this approach is an improvement on the current article?

And would people be happy to see this replace the current article (minus my notes)?
Personally I think it is an improvement, and I think we could make progress if we adopted this approach. In the short-term, I'd suggest moving all the "arguable" quotes into the "Other arguments" category, with a view to finding better quotes in the medium-term.
I'm not suggesting that this version is by any stretch of the imagination perfect, but if we accept the general approach and make it the current article, then it's much easier to make progress by incremental improvements (scientist X should not be in Y category; here's a better quote for scientist Z). At the moment there's a bit of a log-jam with the article where people fundamentally disagree on the approach to take. So far the feedback on this page seems to be that this approach is at least better than the current article, and even if you would prefer a different approach, I think people need to be careful not to make the best the enemy of the good; i.e. we don't seem to have consensus for radical changes, but it should still be possible to improve the article. --Merlinme (talk) 09:13, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I concur that we do not have consensus for radical changes, and that improvements are possible. But I think we have not yet gotten to the root of the problem. Sorry I don't have time for more detailed comments. :-( - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:36, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I can't see that any of the problems have been even addressed, much less resolved. Alex Harvey (talk) 11:04, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Given the BLP problems the article should be deleted. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:11, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Although we don't agree as to what the problems are, it is kind of amazing: Alex and I agree (!!) that they aren't resolved. Additional comments above. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:15, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

True. Anyhow, I agree with Boris that the problems are intractable. Whilst I can't really comprehend the objections to removing the classification scheme, the truth is I have never believed the page should have been created, and if it'll speed things up I would support AfD. Alex Harvey (talk) 13:02, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I argued a year ago that the article should be deleted because it was impossible to source (as would an article on engineers who oppose the scientific consensus on 9-11 or biologists who oppose the modern synthesis or medical doctors who oppose homeopathy or ballet dancers who oppose parkour). Just what constitutes a "scientist" who "opposes" a particular "idea" is something that I don't think can possibly be reliably sourced. Thus, we have a situation where the sources on this subject are all primary-sourced statements which are subject to editorial interpretation in order for us to weight the "truth-value" of the proposition "this scientist is opposed to the scientific consensus on climate change" (or whatever flavor of the month the article is trying to describe). Trying to decide if some particular individual who, like all of us, has good days and bad days is "opposed" to some "idea" is a Sisyphean task that seems, to me, to be counter to a huge number of long-standing policies at Wikipedia (WP:NOR being the most obvious). But the article seemed to be a perfect storm where two different ulterior motives seemed to be at play: 1) an ulterior motive of shaming or at least isolating a certain set of individuals and 2) an ulterior motive of showing how many prophets were willing to buck the status-quo. That's what it seemed like to me anyway. The rhetorical violence that was exacted upon myself and the heads of other editors who just thought it smart to delete the whole thing once and for all was nothing short of amazing to me. The last time I'd encountered anything similar was when I objected to the Level of support for evolution article (which, I still maintain, should be something like a single sentence explaining that the support of the people who really matter is nearly universal). jps (talk) 20:21, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

The article exists, I believe, because people are always asking "how many scientists disagree with the consensus?" and some people say "almost none", and some people say "lots", and this article is an attempt to quantify the number. As such I think it performs a useful function, although it does have issues, as we have been discussing. If we can find a better way to present the information, great. In regard to your comment about the level of support for evolution, you are assuming that Wikipedia readers know that the level of support for evolution is very strong. If, however, you were e.g. raised as a Jehovah's Witness, this might be much less self-evident. If someone contradicted what you believed about the level of support for evolution, you would ask to see the proof; a statement that support is "nearly universal among the people who matter" would not be very helpful. The level of support for anthropomorphic global warming is probably less strong than that for evolution, and certainly there are plenty of people who are going to come to the subject from Martin Durkin or Fox News or the Wall Street Journal who will not be aware of the level of support (or lack of) for dissenting views. A bald statement of the existence of consensus will not be helpful, especially when there clearly are some dissenters; they will ask to see the evidence that the number of dissenters is so small that the predominant position could be described as consensus. This article is an attempt to provide that evidence. There may well be a better way, but at least with the current article you get some sense of where disagreements exist (and where they do not), and and you can make your own mind up about the strength of the disagreements and how large the minority is. --Merlinme (talk) 17:39, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I understand the argument, Merlinme. I just really don't think Wikipedia is the place to be collecting this information. It strikes me as entirely too open to interpretation and better suited for a different environment. Wikipedia is non-innovative and since there aren't any reliable sources that I know of which succinctly and seriously summarize or even make vague attempt to study this subject, I object to making Wikipedia the stopping place for such information — as valuable as it is to have available somewhere. The argument was made, "we have the opportunity to do the list RIGHT, so that's a good rationale for including such an article in this encyclopedia." I just don't think that's a good argument. jps (talk) 19:12, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I think this discussion is a very positive sign. Welcome back jps. I just watched this lecture on how television and the other media should base its factual reporting on the peer-reviewed consensus in matters like climate change, MMR, evolution, etc. When the media reports a scientific controversy it should be a controversy in the peer-reviewed literature, not one between that literature and individuals who have not published their contribution under peer-review. Prof Brian Cox's point was that random people with political, religious, or just kooky motivations, claiming that they disagree, without getting their disagreements published in the journals, do not need to be considered as causing valid scientific controversy (political or religious controversy maybe, but not part of the scientific process). Taking that view would simplify this article considerably, as we could ignore all those who have published something, but it wasn't this argument about climate science. Then we would have more time and space to focus on those with genuine, published, peer-reviewed disagreements and their place in the science itself. That is a BBC iPlayer link, and I don't know if they work outside Europe or the UK --Nigelj (talk) 19:43, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

The subtitles here form a kind of transcript, if the link to the lecture above doesn't work. --Nigelj (talk) 19:50, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

"Therefore, I contend that controversial in science broadcasting should be defined in the same way as it is in science - that is a controversial view is not one that runs counter to public opinion but one that runs counter to the current scientific peer-reviewed consensus. [...] And the way to deal with this is not to be "fair and balanced," To borrow a phrase from a famous news outlet, but to report and explain the peer-reviewed scientific consensus accurately. So for me the challenge for the science reporter in television news is easily met - report the peer-reviewed consensus and avoid the maverick eccentric at all costs." Prof Brian Cox. --Nigelj (talk) 19:58, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

A List of scientists who have published papers that contradict the IPCC consensus would be short indeed, though much more informative and verifiable. jps (talk) 17:37, 4 December 2010 (UTC)