Talk:Richard Lindzen/Archive 9

Need better sources in lede
I came across mention of Richard Lindzen in this news story, and since I'd never heard of him I looked him up here. A few statements in this article's lede need to be sourced better. The first is this one:


 * Describing himself as a global warming "denier" rather than a skeptic

The source for that is an audio clip that doesn't seem to include any such claim by Lindzen (although I'm using the audio search and transcription tools rather than listen to the entire 38+ minute audio, so those tools may be flawed &mdash; if somebody wants to indicate the time at which the statement is made, that would help.) I've tried to find other sources for this (particularly text sources) and came across this instead:


 * (From "End the chill" by Lawrence Solomon)
 * "Most of the 10 especially object to being called "deniers" because they do not at all deny the existence of global warming, only what they see as erroneous and even outlandish claims from climate change alarmists."

The "10" being referred to here are the ten subjects of Lawrence Solomon's book The Deniers, among which Lindzen was included. It's possible that Lindzen wasn't included among the "most" that Solomon refers to, or that his views on the term "denier" have changed, but if so then there should be a better source for the claim that he is self-described as a denier.

The second claim that should be sourced is this one:


 * He hypothesized that the Earth may act like an infrared iris; [...] This hypothesis, generally rejected

I don't doubt that the hypothesis is generally rejected, but there should be some actual cases of scientists rejecting it, which could be cited here. I'll look for such rejections myself, but I'm not a climate researcher and don't know where to look.

I haven't made any changes to the lede because I suspect they would be immediately reverted, given the contentious nature of articles on climate change. --Oski Jr (talk) 17:27, 15 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I found some sources in the article on Iris hypothesis, but they don't all seem to be rejections (the last two support the hypothesis.) Maybe a better phrasing in this article would be "This hypothesis, not generally accepted..." and the citations from the Iris hypothesis article that reject the hypothesis could be used here?  Otherwise the two articles should be brought more in line (either this one dropping the "generally rejected" entirely, or the Iris hypothesis article dropping the references to support or listing more rejection sources to indicate the proper weight) and that's a can of worms I'd rather not open.  --Oski Jr (talk) 18:28, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Oski Jr, whilst I agree, may I suggest until we have resolved the above point, it's not really the right time to be worrying about this level of detail. Please note the thread above. Alex Harvey (talk) 23:02, 15 December 2009 (UTC)


 * You mean the section immediately preceding this one, with the 3477 words of people talking past each other, throwing around accusations of "bad faith" and countless alphabet soup policy violation references?  Let me see ... (eyes glaze over) ... how about no?  I was just suggesting a few minor fixes to the lede because I would've found them useful when I was reading this article about somebody I'd never heard of before.  If that's going to get me caught up in an ongoing POV battle, then I'd rather bow out now.  Maybe I'll stop back in a few days to see which side won the war (though I suspect it'll simply have changed focus, or perhaps venues) and try to make my proposed changes myself, unless somebody else does first (or explains why they're a bad idea.)  Cheers, --Oski Jr (talk) 23:30, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
 * You appear to be a new user to Wikipedia, just joined in the last day. It may be an idea to try to get a feel for how Wikipedia works before wading into the middle of a heated dispute. Before you shoot me down, note that I support you on this point, but it's not the right time to be proposing it. Alex Harvey (talk) 00:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I removed the "denier" claim, which needs better documentation than is apparently available, and changed "generally rejected" to "not generally accepted", which is clearly correct.JQ (talk) 01:05, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Alex Harvey (talk) 04:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * How about moving this sentence from the lede to the Career section: "This hypothesis, not generally accepted as part of the scientific opinion on climate change, suggests a negative feedback which would counter the effects of  warming by lowering the climate sensitivity."  We could just add it to what's already there on the Iris issue. Brian A Schmidt (talk) 23:53, 16 December 2009 (UTC)\
 * I moved it to the global warming section. It's significant mainly as a point of overlap between his research and his public advocacy on the AGW issue, not as a major feature of his research career.JQ (talk) 00:09, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Iris Theory
Where, exactly does this link say that Lindzen's Iris theory is "not generally accepted as part of the scientific opinion on climate change"? Looks like OR/SYNTH to me. WVBluefield (talk) 15:19, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * "The Iris effect is a very interesting but controversial idea" --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 15:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Controversial ≠ "not generally accepted as part of the scientific opinion on climate change". The material in the article must match the source, drawing a conclusion not stated in the source constitutes OR. WVBluefield (talk) 15:33, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually controversial does mean generally not accepted... if it had been generally accepted, then it wouldn't be controversial. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:03, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * You interpretaion that controversial = generally not accepted = "not generally accepted as part of the scientific opinion on climate change" is quite a stretch to put it mildly. WVBluefield (talk) 16:46, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The question is whether Iris theory is part of scientific opinion on climate change. I disagree that we need to recreate and duplicate the entire scientific opinion article here in order to establish it's not part of that article.  The outside citation is superfluous in my opinion.  I think the sentence works as a simple reference to the scientific opinion article where people can go for more information if they desire. Brian A Schmidt (talk) 20:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a hypothesis, not a theory. Carry on. -Atmoz (talk) 20:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, carry on indeed, now that the momentum for the previous thread is derailed a second time... ;-) I oppose any change to this article until the dispute above resolved. Alex Harvey (talk) 21:13, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Balance
In the interests of achieving more balance to the article, I'm starting to add some publications. I've only added a few and will probably hold off until I can find a way to determine which (among the hundreds!) are most notable, probably by checking to see how many citations each paper has. I also want to ease into making any changes to the page. I don't think there needs to be as much argument over the balance issue as there is on this talk page.. it should be a lot less work to simply add more content to the "Career" section (now including "Publications") and that will improve the article as well as add more balance. --Oski Jr (talk) 00:59, 19 December 2009 (UTC)


 * hi Oski, as a new Wikipedian it might be an idea if you have a look at our editing policy referenced here: Bold, revert, discuss. There is in fact no need to make discussion here if you intend to make uncontroversial edits. Adding some publications is probably a good idea, but it isn't going to help resolve the above discussion, which has actually been ongoing, frankly, since the page was created about seven or eight years ago. I now want to fix the article so that it becomes stable and maintainable, and so that it is no longer a target of trolls & vandals, so that we don't need to keep coming back here, every couple of months, to engage in the same disputes. Welcome to Wikipedia, and think about creating a user page! :) Alex Harvey (talk) 04:55, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Balance argument, summary
Kim & I seem to have become bogged down in too much detail about search engines etc, so I'm going to summarise our dispute again.

I thank Kim for his message at my talk page, and I'd like to say that what I really want is for Kim to actually agree with my proposal, and to see that I am proposing a win-win solution that will save WP server space, that will save our time so that we can focus more on writing articles, and less on increasingly heated arguments about controversial content, and so that we can set a new standard for climate change BLP coverage that will actually more effectively communicate with the public, post-Climategate.

As far as I can see, there has not been a consistent or satisfactory answer to my fundamental question, how can we have a balance of 625 for a great man's scientific achievements and contributions to mankind's knowledge of the atmosphere -- knowledge that is now used by scientists to understand how to respond to global warming, e.g. in GCM models, see the ECHAM5 GCM cumulus parameterisations derived from the work of Lindzen & his students -- and 1472 words devoted to discrediting his stance on global warming, and not violate WP:UNDUE?

The responses have not been consistent, because on the one hand, KDP & BAS have argued at times that the career section should be expanded (implying that the balance is presently wrong) and at other times has argued that the balance 1:2.5 is just about right (well, only KDP actually said that).

Those who have argued that the career section should be expanded (which it should) have not provided any plausible explanation of how we're going to get it expanded, since I don't think any of us are up to the task for writing about Lindzen's work on gravity waves, cumulus parameterisation, theory of the ice ages, and so on.

So, it follows that the only solution will be to cut back the controversy section, to something shorter, and quieter, and that remains purely factual.

Please note, I will be offline from Dec 23 until Jan 12, and I will raise an RfC before I go, requesting outside input on this matter. Merry Christmas to all. Alex Harvey (talk) 05:19, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Alex Harvey. I think the simplest solution is to reduce the negative. Certainly a section headed "Contrarianism" is undue weight without sections headed "Admired","Reputation for brilliance" etc. NPOV is very clear ""Segregation of text or other content into different regions or subsections, based solely on the apparent POV of the content itself, may result in an unencyclopedic structure, ". Likewise "The media appearances" section contains this "According to Stevens, scientists who worked on computer climate models did not accept Lindzen's nullification hypothesis" but not this "For instance, he (Lindzen) points out, the computer models do not reflect the climate's natural variability very well -- a key shortcoming in trying to gauge the human effect on climate, one that is readily conceded by the modelers." Not only are individual articles given excessive importance, they are summarized from a critical POV. Having already been targeted in this discussion by JQ, I'm not going to make the changes necessary but the first one would be to remove the "Contrarianism" heading and make "Lindzen has been characterized as a contrarian.   " the last sentence of the previous paragraph. In short this article is biased in sourcing, summarizing and structure. Hopefully the RfC will bring some help.Momento (talk) 07:19, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * As for the sourcing of the contrarian part, there are a significant weight of sources that do describe Lindzen this way (see previous sections), therefore we can't ignore it. NPOV is not "equal time", it means that when we describe Lindzen's view on global warming, we have to describe what the majority opinion is, and where it differentiates with Lindzen's views. When Lindzen asserts something about what models do or do not, then we also have to describe that this is a minority viewpoint, and what the majority viewpoint on that aspect is. That is what NPOV demands. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:39, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * He may have been called "Contrarian" in a blog and two articles but in the same article he was also described as having "the most credibility among mainstream scientists, who acknowledge that he's doing serious research" and the person (Held) who describes Lindzen as "contrarian" also said he's "a smart scientist". Where's the section headed "Smart Scientist". The "Outside" article as says Lindzen has been hailed "for presenting a clear and coherent scientific counter to unfounded climate alarmism". Where's the section that says "A clear and coherent scientific counter to unfounded climate alarmism". Picking out one description and ignoring the rest is undue weight. Creating a heading and a special section is even worse.Momento (talk) 21:59, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * "a blog and two articles" try again (here's what i was referring to as being in the earlier discussions (did you look?) - note these were all found within a couple of minutes of checking):
 * Extra references on "contrarian":
 * - note here talking in context of German media.
 * --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * - note here talking in context of German media.
 * --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * - note here talking in context of German media.
 * --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

614:1513 words = "balance" argument continued
Since the previous discussion was interrupted, and we've all had a chance to calm down, I respectfully request those opposing my position above to recosider, and concede that ratio 1:2.5 for a career section to a section on discrediting his stance on global warming is highly inappropriate. I remind KDP, BAS & JQ that Lindzen's notability derives from his position as a great scientist. He is never an average, "science soldier". He is one of the pioneers, who'll be remembered for his contributions to the history of science and most certainly not for his contributions to the mainstream media (see WP:NOT). Biographies are written by historians, correct? I ask editors, calmly, to consider this position. I realise, it goes against the grain, but for Wikipedia to move to a higher level of quality, and really rival Britannica, we need to start seeing in this way. Alex Harvey (talk) 15:11, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I welcome new responses. Alex Harvey (talk) 15:11, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree that content like "When asked about Lindzen, Schellnhuber said "People like him are very useful in finding the weak links in our thinking" constitutes a discrediting statement. Alex has failed to address the issue that much/most of the warming section is neutral or presents Lindzen's thinking, and therefore can't be considered discrediting.  As for Lindzen being a "great" scientist, I don't know how one would measure that.  I understand he once did some good work on atmospheric tides.  Anyway, Alex is free to introduce reliable, notable information indicating exactly that.Brian A Schmidt (talk) 16:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Alright, so you've found a single sentence that admittedly doesn't seem to go anywhere else other than to present a positive take on Lindzen (which means that some troll will soon try to remove or "balance" it), so let's grant your point and say the ratio is now 614:1472 instead. Does that make a difference? No. As for Lindzen being a great scientist, he did a great deal more than what you allude to, i.e. that he resolved a several hundred year old dispute about the cause of the semi-diurnal tide. See above, again, for an incomplete list of many more of his great contributions to mankind's knowledge of the atmosphere. Finally, you suggest again and again that, "Alex could balance the article by adding to the career section!". This is a ridiculous position. In order for the article to have balance, I would need to expand the career section to about 5 or 6,000 words. And, as I have conceded, the work Lindzen did from the 1970s through to the 1990s is far too difficult for me to write up. I have given up, unless I can get help from someone who understands it. You know that's not going to happen, so what are you really proposing here? Alex Harvey (talk) 08:09, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the disagreement comes from perception. We can try to cut it down with questions: Would L as a scientist alone merit an article. The answer is Yes (per WP:PROF). Would L as an advocate of his position on global warming merit alone merit an article? And again the answer is Yes (significant coverage in secondary sources). So both aspects are important. Now the second thing to do is to ask, can we determine which section should have more weight? (ie. have more/most content) My answer would be that L as an advocate is the more notable aspect (and i suspect that B does as well), but i guess that you have a different view on that. But i'd then ask the question: What aspect of L is the average reader of this article going to be interested in? And i think we will all answer that its the gw aspect. To be short the statement that "Lindzen's notability derives from his position as a great scientist" is not as clearcut as you think. (i personally find that it is the reverse, its the advocate aspect that where the notability derives, with the scientist part backing it up)
 * Now you raise an interesting viewpoint in your description of a particular sentence (in the previous discussion), i have to say that i while i can follow the "story", it is not the "story" that i read - my reading was quite a bit more nuanced. My guess is that you can read good or bad intentions into almost everything if you are actively looking for it. (the play the recording backwards and you get the devils voice problem). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 11:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Kim, I appreciate this effort at constructive dialogue. I think, on does L merit an article based on WP:PROF, the answer is obviously, yes, and we can agree on that point. On whether he would merit an article simply based on his contribution to the global warming controversy & media appearances, I would also agree, yes, but here is an important point for you to consider, that you may have genuinely overlooked, viz. that during the AfD discussions for Anthony Watts (blogger), I have !voted "keep" there and then proposed that we stubify the article, whereas you !voted "delete". You can see I am being consistent here, and I am not sure that you are. We should maintain the same editing principles at all articles, and we should both agree that the controversy section here that is based on MSM news appearance is given way, way too much coverage.
 * Your next question is also interesting, viz. what does the "average" reader want to know about? This is indeed an interesting question, and I will propose a different question: Is Wikipedia just a Wiki or is it a free encyclopaedia? If it was just a Wiki, then what you're saying would be right, for any article other than a BLP. We would generally give the average reader what he wants to know, whilst still remaining sensitive to the rights of living people. But if Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, we must aim to cover the issues that need to be presented in a reference work. There are far more references to Lindzen in the peer reviewed literature than there even are in the mainstream media (i.e. there are only 183 news hits compared with 360 scholar hits + he is an ISI highly cited researcher).
 * Basically, it doesn't matter how you choose to argue this, you end up with the same result: We need to cut the controversy section back to about 100 words, per WP:NPOV, WP:WEIGHT. Alex Harvey (talk) 21:13, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Alex, please. When using Google searches, try to determine whether the hits are correct or not. Your 183 news-hits isn't correct.... Try searching for "Lindzen" and limit the search to "Past Month" and you get 185 hits (the same amount as a full search). Thats just within the last month. There is a good reason for WP:GOOGLE and this is one of them. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 07:34, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Alright, you're correct, my mistake, and the correct number is 1,630, apparently since 1988. It makes no difference, though, because it doesn't change the fact that he is mentioned far more in the peer reviewed literature than he is in the news. He is indeed, an ISI highly cited researcher, see his ISI page, here. For what this means, see here. Alex Harvey (talk) 11:07, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but even the 1630 figure is also wrong - you are assuming that the Google news search engine can accurately cite old news (not to mention of course that you only count public media mentions, and not all of the books that mention him, the think-tank reports, the speeches, ...) . And as for comparison with the # of citations in scholarly papers - that would be an apples/oranges comparison. I do not doubt that Lindzen is an accomplished and highly cited scientist (and i doubt if anyone else does), but that doesn't change the fact that Lindzen also is a very prolific advocate in the public/political arena, and that it is this part of his persona that has made him a house-hold name (notability). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 11:30, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Let's not get into a fantastic argument about Google News, but explain again why Anthony Watts' biography should be deleted, per your AfD arguments. Please repeat those arguments, as they have become relevant to the present discussion. Apples are for Lindzen per WP:PROF, and you have there assigned a weight of 1. Oranges are for the, shall I say, Lindzen per 'household name factor' (which is usually called 'fame'), and you say here this establishes Lindzen's 'notability', but you cite no guideline for that one. Somehow, though, you're trying to convince that it is correct to assign a weight there of 2.5. Please restate your arguments for the deletion of Anthony Watts. Alex Harvey (talk) 13:07, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Lets try another metric, since you seem so fond of them. Goto google books and check Lindzen as a search-parameter, now count the books into political/public policy vs. science. Again we see that the majority of sources aren't science ones. (i'll note that this is an apple/oranges argument again, since there is less scientific material vs. regular material within any given category). What i'm saying with regards to notability, is that Lindzen as the "household" name is significantly more notable than Lindzen as a scientist - but again its apples/oranges. Comparing the 1 vs. 2.5 is also apples and oranges - either section could be expanded. Personally i think the public part has reached a reasonable level, whereas the scientist part could be expanded. (and please stick to Lindzen since there is a world of difference between Lindzen and Watts, both in public notability as well as in scientific notability - and magnitudes of difference in the amount of reliable sources available). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:36, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I see, so I went to Google books as you suggest, and in books, another form of print media inappropriate for measuring the notability of an WP:PROF, I find coverage significantly weighted to his scientific work. The first book #1, is his own book, The atmosphere, a challenge: the science of Jule Gregory Charney. The second book #2, is his classic 1970 work with Sidney Chapman, Atmospheric tides: Thermal and gravitational. A third work #3 merely mentions him (Singer's book). He is of course mentioned in unreliable Gelbspan work (#4). Then we have a scientific work on mesospheric modeling (#5). Then, we have more Green literature by McKibben, also unreliable. #7 & #8 are scientific works. At #9, we have the first & only serious, academic treatment of his political stance. #10 & #11 are serious science. #12-16 are Green literature. #17, #18 science, #19 Green, #20 science. So if I pretended that anti-Lindzen hate speeches were reliable sources, we'd end up with a ratio of about 50:50. But, none of these Green works turning up are about Lindzen, per se. He is merely mentioned in them (in a similar way to how the Devil is mentioned in the Bible). As such, after filtering out the crud, we're left with about the same ratio I proposed: 10:1 or so, science:public policy. This argument also fails completely. (And please tell me, who is going to expand the science section?). Alex Harvey (talk) 14:23, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
 * First of all, Lindzen is not only notable per WP:PROF - so that argument is rather futile, secondly i notice that you mark alot of books as unreliable - how come? Because they are "Green literature"? How do you define that? (Your comment on #9 amused me rather alot - its written by Boehmer-Christensen, who is rather infamous as a editor of science) - Methinks though art letting thy personal POV shine a bit too much through here. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 15:01, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
 * You're correct on ref #9; I didn't read the subtitle, or the authors, so that means in the top 20 google book hits, 3 of them are his own books, about 50% discusses scientifically his work, there is nothing there that's specifically about his polical views, and no balanced treatments of it. I don't see how this helps establish support for the weighting of the Wiki bio. Alex Harvey (talk) 12:47, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I believe i asked a question which you didn't answer. Why are policy books unreliable? (note that i'm not discounting #9) We are discussing the balance of policy vs. science with regards to Lindzen, so blindly removing the non-science books seems rather strange. (or is it that you simply won't accept that particular aspect of Lindzen?) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:32, 19 December 2009 (UTC)--Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:32, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I only followed this is passing - Alex, after running the page through wc, it seems like you count all of the text on Lindzen's position on global warming as "discrediting his stance on global warming". Sorry, but that's nonsense. What's discrediting about "Lindzen hypothesized that the Earth may act like an infrared iris; increased sea surface temperature in the tropics would result in reduced cirrus clouds and thus more infrared radiation leakage from Earth's atmosphere." or "In 2001 Lindzen served on an 11-member panel organized by the National Academy of Sciences.[10] The panel's report, entitled Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions,[11] has been widely cited." or "Lindzen worked on Chapter 7 of 2001 IPCC Working Group 1, which considers the physical processes that are active in real world climate. He had previously been a contributor to Chapter 4 of the 1995 "IPCC Second Assessment." He described the full 2001 IPCC report as "an admirable description of research activities in climate science"[14] although he criticized the Summary for Policymakers. Lindzen stated in May 2001 that it did not truly summarize the IPCC report[15] but had been amended to state more definite conclusions.[16] He also emphasized the fact that the summary had not been written by scientists alone." or "Lindzen has contributed to several articles on climate change in the mainstream media. In 1996, Lindzen was interviewed by William Stevens for an article in the New York Times.[19] In this article, Lindzen expressed his concern over the validity of computer models used to predict future climate change. Lindzen said that computer models may have overpredicted future warming because of inadequate handling of the climate system's water vapor feedback. The feedback due to water vapor is a major factor in determining how much warming would be expected to occur with increased atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. Lindzen said that the water vapor feedback could act to nullify future warming."? Indeed, it looks like about 80% or so of those sections present Lindzen's position, with only minimal replies to them. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:23, 21 December 2009 (UTC)