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This article has been mentioned by a media organization: Lawrence Solomon (April 12, 2008). "Misplaced Pages's Zealots: Solomon". Financial Post.

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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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages article, even though it's of questionable notability. (I find only one very brief press notice 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.". 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 anymore. You simply go back to treating it as a matter of religious belief."

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 Misplaced Pages 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.". 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 Misplaced Pages 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?

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).

Permanent Controversy?

I think any more complete Misplaced Pages 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.

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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages

This was posted by an IP 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 Misplaced Pages. --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 Misplaced Pages (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 Misplaced Pages 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)

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)

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