Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2009-12-01/Realclimate

Where is the dispute?
RealClimate

Who is involved?
Include criticism


 * User:LVAustrian
 * User:HarmonicSeries
 * User:Meltwaternerd

Exclude criticsm and the praise
 * User:Arthur Rubin

Exclude criticism but keep the praise
 * User:Vsmith
 * User:KimDabelsteinPetersen
 * User:HaeB
 * User:Stephan Schulz
 * User:Atmoz
 * User:Apis O-tang
 * User:William M. Connolley (former contributor to RealClimate)

What is the dispute?
RealClimate is a climate science blog holding the mainstream view of anthropogenic climate change. According to some, it tends to be on the more alarmist side of the debate claiming devastating and dangerous effects. While the article includes praise for the organization there have been consistent attempts to eliminate any and all criticism.

Criticism includes:


 * The Heartland Institute has described RealClimate as a partisan website designed " specifically to attack global warming skeptics."[1] Dr. Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute considers RealClimate.org the "the most prominent place to see how climatologists mix their science with their opinions."[2]


 * Climatologist Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. publicly rebuked the website in a June 30, 2009 article for "erroneously communicating the reality of the how the climate system is actually behaving." Pielke, the former Colorado State Climatologist and currently a senior scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, countered Real Climate's claim that warming was "progressing faster than expected" with the latest data on sea level rise, ocean heat content and Arctic ice. http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1742/Climatologist-slams-RealClimateorg-for-erroneously-communicating-the-reality-of-the-how-climate-system-is-actually-behaving--Rebuts-Myths-On-Sea-Level-Oceans-and-Arctic-Ice see also, http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001446real_climate_on_mean.html


 * However, Dr. Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, former climatologist at the University of Virginia and one of the authors of the 2007 IPCC report considers RealClimate.org the "the most prominent place to see how climatologists mix their science with their opinions."


 * And at least two attempts I saw to post the Dr. Michael Mann email (from the CRU Hack) where he informs others that they block skeptical comments on the RC

My complaint is on the deletion, specifically, of the Dr. Patrick Michaels quote, which should be the strongest candidate for inclusion (although he Dr. Pielke quote is in a very similar boat and could be included on similar grounds).

Those wishing to keep the criticism out have claimed A) the quotes are unreliable, B) non notable and c) give undue weight.

I will show these arguments are fallacious.

In order for an article to be unreliable it has to be unverifiable or from an untrustworthy source. Dr. Patrick Michaels is a former research professor at the University of Virginia (where Dr. Mann once taught). He is an author of the 2007 IPCC report and has had his research published in notable peer reviewed scientific journals including Climate Research, Nature and Science. A copy of an old cv can be found here: http://www.sej.org/initiatives/climate-change/patrick-michaels-cv-plain-text-file-climate-change-guideskeptics-and-cont

The main criticism of Dr. Michaels is that he is currently retired from UVA and is now working as a senior fellow at the libertarian political research organization called the Cato Institute. While the Cato Institute is merely his platform to host his opinions and research it too is notable as Cato scholars regularly publish books and reports that are well received by the public including on national television, print newspaper, and radio. Additionally Cato scholars have been called, at times, to testify before government officials in the United States. At least one scholar, I believe, has even argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Whether or not their research is true is currently a matter of partisan opinion, Cato is a reliable source of information as are other political think tanks whose research is cited on Wikipedia like the liberal Brookings Intuition or the Pew Center. This takes care of the unreliable and non notable complaints.

Inclusion of Dr. Michaels quote does not give undue weight to the criticism either. This charge rests on the assumption that Dr. Michaels holds not just a minority view point but a view point that is so small that it cannot even receive attention on Wikipedia – flat earth theory, for example. Such accusations would put Dr. Michaels in the pseudoscience camp.

This is a red herring. The quote does not talk about the science of global warming but of the actions of RealClimate. Additionally, Dr. Michaels does not conduct pseudoscience as his publication history demonstrates. Finally, Dr. Michaels does not hold a minority view point but is, all things considered, fairly mainstream. A) He believes the climate changes B) the earth will experience warming over the next 100 years C) humans are causing some of the global warming. Attempts to paint him as a fringe scientist come from the fact that he A) assumes the lower IPCC projections for earth temperatures are more likely correct…i.e he does not give much weight to the alarmist worst-case-scenario predications and B) suggests that climate modeling is not precise and not very good at accurately predicting climate at this time.  Many scientists today admit that climate modeling is not precise.

Neither of those are all that controversial. Because science has taken a back seat to politics, scientists with mild cautionary objections, like Dr. Michaels, are thrown under the bus by partisans. He simply uses the same scientific method and reaches a less alarmist conclusion.

The Dr. Pielke quote, which has (to my knowledge) not been included yet in the article) follows the same line of reasoning. Dr. Pielke is the state climatologist of Colorado and is currently a climate scientist at the University of Colorado. He too has been published in major academic journals.

What would you like to change about this?
At the very least the Dr. Michaels quote should be included. The Dr. Pielke quote (or part) can also be included on similar grounds.

How do you think we can help?
Wikipedia rules have been stretched beyond logical recognition in order to keep these opinions out, as I demonstrated above. I ask that several fair minded editors contribute to the article to help ensure that these notable, reliable, verifiable opinions are included in this article. Wiki rules should not be stretched to suit ones political objectives.

I should note that several of the objectors above are either "cabal approved" or are administrators themselves.

Discussion
This has been a debate since 2007 that has not been resolved. Apparently an Rfc voted 7-4 to include the following criticism: Both Roger Pielke, Jr. and Stephen McIntyre have criticized RealClimate for removing comments, even those from other scientists, with which the site's contributors do not agree.[1][2][3]

However, by December 2009, this criticism is not present. Both WMC and KDP were present on this article and had opposed the inclusion. Another RFC was done in 2008. (Meltwaternord (talk) 19:32, 5 December 2009 (UTC))

24 hours and no movement on the realclimate article. An edit war had broken out from December 4-5 when Dr. William Connelley attempted to reinsert the opinion article praising Real Climate sparking editors to reinsert a single sentence from the several critics. From December 6-7 the article included the praise and a one sentence criticism from Dr. Patrick Michaels. Exclusionists still appear unwilling to compromise.(LVAustrian (talk) 03:24, 8 December 2009 (UTC))


 * Apis O-Tang broke the 39 hours of article stability by reverting edits and removing the criticism. (LVAustrian (talk) 15:42, 8 December 2009 (UTC))


 * How long does it take to get someone to look at this? The debate continues heated and edit warring continues unabated. New criticism was added, from a new scientist at a new source and this has been deleted as well. (Meltwaternord (talk) 06:57, 9 December 2009 (UTC))
 * Is this more a problem coming from WP or from RealClimate? Xavexgoem (talk) 19:09, 17 December 2009 (UTC)