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TGGWS

I reject the notion that this is a BLP violation. Sir John Houghton is a recognized authority on global warming, and his opinion is notable. If editors what to discuss that this may give undue weight to this topic, that is another issue. I will again disagree. In my opinion, knowingly being in a disinformation film masquerading as a documentary is extremely notable. I strenuously object to using BLP as a sledgehammer to remove reliably sourced statements that cast the subject in a negative light. -Atmoz (talk) 20:45, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

So, it's non-notable. It's not about Lindzen being a poor scientist, it's him appearing in a piece that other people have criticized/don't like. There's also synthesis going on by suggesting, without a citation, that appearing in such a film reflects upon him. Unless it's widely viewed as saying something larger about Lindzen himself, there is no reason for it to be there. (And by the way BLP is used quite frequently (and likely wrongly) by some folks as a reason to remove material about other people in the climate field.) HarmonicSeries (talk) 21:41, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Well said! WVBluefield (talk) 21:44, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Can I add here, this whole "media appearances" section is way too long. Anyone would think that Lindzen was a talkshow host! Yes, Lindzen is an activist for his cause. Yes, Lindzen passionately believes that humanity is headed, with climate change confusion, to disaster. Yes, therefore, he has appeared in the media a lot. Yes, a lot of scientists disagree with him. This is not, however, deserving of a section so long. I think this article needs seriously trimming. It is enough for us to state, accurately, that Lindzen holds a minority view. I don't see why we need to know the specifics of what each and every scientist rebutting him has said. It's just not interesting, and not encyclopaedic. Alex Harvey (talk) 17:15, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Health Risks of Smoking Section

I note that this page is protected, a lot of edit warring has occurred, and someone has restored the libelous, unsourced health risks of smoking nonsense, despite prior agreement, and much Wikidrama, that it should go. We finally had agreement from a number of admins, and Atmoz, in the past that it failed utterly weight, and shouldn't be here.

Can someone fill me in on what has happened here? Alex Harvey (talk) 04:10, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I note that the source given for the smoking nonsense now, is, wait for it, an old Misplaced Pages diff! How creative! Alex Harvey (talk) 04:23, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The source is a Newsweek article based on an interview with Lindzen. It can be assumed that he read it, and didn't find it to be libellous. In any case, what is it with the sensitivity of GW sceptics about the fact that most of their leading sources are also passive smoking sceptics (and that the same is true on the other side - bodies like the UN, EPA and scientific academices have done a lot to promote the consensus view in both cases). The sceptics on passive smoking like FORCES have no problem acknowledging that the cases are linked. The arguments are pretty much identical in both cases. Lindzen is consistent here, but his own supporters apparently want to muzzle him.JQ (talk) 04:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks JQ, and sorry for my lack of patience as evidenced above. Can I assume you're the editor who put it back in? (Sorry, I'm fairly busy in "real life" at the moment, and haven't the time to check these things). I don't want to start the same dispute again; I'll simply ask, have you checked the archives for the protracted arguments on this point? To cut a long story short, we have policies in Misplaced Pages referenced here: WP:UNDUE, WP:BLP; and this section on smoking was found to violate these. The Newsweek reference to L & smoking contains but a single, ambiguous sentence on L & smoking. Further, it doesn't mention "passive smoking" at all. The rest of the stuff on the internet about L & smoking is largely folklore (apparently originating in this Newsweek piece, perpetuated by its long history of being included in this Misplaced Pages bio, and probably as with all folklore, containing some kernel of truth). As such, it is found to be given undue weight by inclusion in this short bio. L has no real connection with tobacco, thus for this BLP, WP:UNDUE insists that it can't be included. I ask you, respectfully, to acknowledge the pre-existing consensus and remove it again, as soon as full protection of the article is removed. Is that okay? Alex Harvey (talk) 06:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I've been away and missed the discussion. I'm happy to go with the consensus.JQ (talk) 06:35, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I'm uncomfortable with it as written. In the article the claims are sourced to smoking is basically an aside, only taking two sentences of one paragraph, and most of that is descriptive. However, presuming that it is a view that is more important that the source suggests, there are a couple of problems. The source doesn't mention passive smoking at all, although the text we're using seems to attribute that claim to the source; he never says that the risks are overstated as such, but instead the article says that he will "expound on how weakly lung cancer is linked to cigarette smoking" - from this it may be inferred that he downplays the risks, but that's just an inference; and the second sentence being quoted, "He speaks in full, impeccably logical paragraphs, and he punctuates his measured cadences with thoughtful drags on a cigarette" merely tells us that Lindzen smokes, and adds some colour to what is a well-written Newsweek article - it doesn't really relate to his views on smoking. From the source, the most we can say is that he is a smoker, and that he believes that the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer is weak. Are there better sources for his views on smoking? - Bilby (talk) 08:00, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Alex, Find the previous discussion in the archive and if it was a consensus I will remove it through the article protection. --BozMo talk 08:05, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, proving a Misplaced Pages consensus could be harder than proving or disproving AGW itself... Anyhow, the discussion that resulted in the removal of this recently-restored section and led finally to resolution of a long-standing argument is here: Talk:Richard_Lindzen/Archive_5#ref_29.... Atmoz & admin Oren0 gave the same view that I have summarised above, and Bilby seems to have independently given a similar perspective. Previously an admin Rd232 had almost agreed that BLP policy was contradicted by its inclusion but finally suggested an RfC instead. Atmoz is the editor who actually removed it, and at that point Kim D. Petersen gave up. An era of Wiki-peacce has almost reigned since. Alex Harvey (talk) 12:00, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there was actually consensus to remove it. I just think everyone got tired of yakin' and warin' about it. -Atmoz (talk) 19:08, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Well I have taken it back out. I waited until the end of protection although largely that was down to good weather and the orchard needing mulching. It looks pretty weak to me in terms of notability and relevance. --BozMo talk 20:00, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. One more vote for the consensus against. Good grief. Pete Tillman (talk) 20:47, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Rereading the discussion, I've concluded there isn't a consensus, and that the secondary sources clearly make the point that this is part of a general pattern in which critics of the mainstram scientific consensus on climate change have a track record of similar criticism in other areas, and particularly of involvement in the tobacco debate, either as general contrarians (Lindzen) or as paid advocates (Singer, Seitz, Milloy, Bate, CEI, Cato, IPA etc). The eagerness of some editors with a similar POV to remove this only strengthens the case for inclusion in some form. It may well be that this article is the wrong place, but the general point is clearly notable, and correct, and should be referred to.JQ (talk) 02:14, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

One more opinion that it should be left out per the previous discussion. --GoRight (talk) 03:05, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

And one more that is should be included. As previously stated, there was no consensus for removal. Brian A Schmidt (talk) 22:27, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, at this point, the question is "where is the consensus to reinstate it?" --GoRight (talk) 02:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Going back to the start, it seems clear that everyone who supports Lindzen's views on climate change also wants to suppress any mention of his views on tobacco smoking. This seems to indicate, pretty clearly, that his views on this point, if established by a WP:RS would have a significant effect on hsi credibility in general, and that WP:WEIGHT would therefore support thier inclusion. In my view, the existence of multiple reliable sources is clear, so the material should stay. But I'd be very interested if any "sceptic" would be willing to say what they see as the difference between the two cases - I can't see much of one, and clearly neither can most of the sceptical experts.JQ (talk) 04:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Another source on this, from the ABC (Australian national broadcaster) science reporter Robyn Williams, based on a personal interview and linking Lindzen's views on climate science to his general contrarianism, as indicated by his attitude to tobacco smoking .JQ (talk) 04:48, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I've added a new section on contrarianism, with a string of sources linking Lindzen's contrarianism on climate change to his tobacco contrarianism. The relevance doesn't need to be inferred, it's spelt out by the sources. JQ (talk) 05:08, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I have reverted as a BLP violation. You have found an op-ed by a comedian, now, who reports on the anecdote. He probably read it on Misplaced Pages, a while ago. You refer to Lindzen as "notorious" for his "contrarianism". This is terribly biased writing; please leave this out, or at least make some go at building a consensus for a new section here. It is not the job of Misplaced Pages to be doing psychological assessments of the personalities of living scientists. To do that, you need extremely high quality, reliable sources. Robyn Williams is indeed a very smart, and funny man. His opinions on Richard Lindzen, however, don't belong here. Your new section is WP:OR practically from end to end. Alex Harvey (talk) 07:53, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Robyn Williams (science reporter) not Robin Williams (comedian). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 08:26, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

@A: Please read the edit before reverting, which you clearly didn't do based on your post above. -Atmoz (talk) 08:36, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see how you can say I "clearly" didn't read it. Is it your highly attuned Wiki-telepathy? Or just a cheap assumption of bad faith? I not only read it; I downloaded the Williams piece and read that too. I'm surprised it's not Williams the comedian, because the essay is actually quite funny. "I like Bob Carter. Even in a kilt. He has that baritone warmth that men share when they assume they’re united against the Philistines." Now Atmoz, I have correctly reverted your revert, taking me to 2RR, although your side is only a 1RR each. What fun. This material is clearly original research from beginning to end, and it doesn't belong here. Please do the right thing, and enforce policies, not personalities. Alex Harvey (talk) 08:43, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

You clearly didn't read it because the edit stated that Williams was a science reporter, not the comedian. Yet on the talk page you only talk about the comedian as if it mattered.

For future use: -Atmoz (talk) 09:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

"a science reporter, not the comedian" - Are these two mutually exclusive? --GoRight (talk) 02:09, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Atmoz, I missed that; you're right. One point to you. On the other hand, I correctly found the text to be violating enough policies to suggest that the correct thing to do next was REVERT, and then DISCUSS.

So tell me, where are we going with this? Have you found evidence that Lindzen's views on smoking are connected with his notability sufficient for inclusion in a bio that doesn't mention that he solved the mystery of the quasi-biennial oscillation in his 20s? The Williams the Science Reporter piece is almost a replica of the Guterl piece. Two unreliable sources for a section don't add up to an RS. Yes, Lindzen is a smoker; yes he apparently has a view that maybe it's not going to kill him. Given he's survived till he's 69, maybe he's right, who knows? Where are we going with this? The same WP:UNDUE problem exists, and it'll still exist if you find another 10 pieces that are almost identical with Guterl. Alex Harvey (talk) 09:48, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

It looks like you've reverted me, anyhow, so I'll be back in a few days. If the WP:BLP violating material is still there, I'll be taking the appropriate actions, in the appropriate forums (plural, unfortunately, since a number of different policies are violated...). Alex Harvey (talk) 09:59, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I had the impression you were an Australian, Alex. Do you really not know who Robyn Williams is, or what the Griffith Review is? As for your suggestion that this is derived from Misplaced Pages, Williams is giving a first-hand report, independently confirming Guterl. But at least you've outed yourself as a sceptic wrt the dangers of tobacco smoking. Given that you agree with Lindzen on this, why are you so keen to suppress his views? JQ (talk) 18:59, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I live in Sydney, Australia, as it says on my user page. Meanwhile, I didn't have the impression that you were an academic, actually working for a university. I had the impression that you were some random climate change blogger. Well, there you go. Alex Harvey (talk) 06:11, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The new section really isn't convincing, and I find I have to agree with Alex that it looks like undue weight - as it stands, the implication is that he opposed climate change because he simply likes to oppose things. But the evidence is that he doesn't see that the link between smoking and lung cancer has been strongly established. That's not much of a case to build a section on. I'm not completely opposed to it, so long as it remains factual, but it really doesn't come across well, and probably makes those opposing him look worse than he does. It just feels like an awful argument on which to base a very strong claim, and the sources are themselves far from excellent, as they provide only three brief, throwaway mentions of this view. - Bilby (talk) 13:09, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

"as it stands, the implication is that he opposed climate change because he simply likes to oppose things." Absolutely right. This suggestion has been made by numerous WP:RS sources and should be included in the article.JQ (talk) 19:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

The point is, strong claims need strong sources. it is getting better, but the smoking side of things doesn't help establish this as a worthwhile view. - 21:27, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, I read the articles cited in the second paragraph of the contrarian section, i.e.:

"This characterization has been linked to Lindzen's view that lung cancer has only been weakly linked to smoking. Writing in Newsweek, Fred Guterl stated "Lindzen clearly relishes the role of naysayer. He'll even expound on how weakly lung cancer is linked to cigarette smoking. He speaks in full, impeccably logical paragraphs, and he punctuates his measured cadences with thoughtful drags on a cigarette." Writing in the Griffith Review, Australian Broadcasting Corporation science reporter Robyn Williams stated "I interviewed Lindzen in Boston and was impressed by his assurance as well as his cheerful chain‐smoking and delight in being contrary. He is known to dispute links between cigarettes and lung cancer". "

While these quotes do, in fact, appear in the cited sources they are wholly unrepresentative of the much larger articles whose topics were completely unrelated to the quotes being set forth. This looks to me to be significantly WP:UNDUE based on the sources actually cited and as a result the entire topic appears to be WP:OR in order to purpetuate an ad hominem attack on Lindzen. I think that the second paragraph should be removed as WP:UNDUE. --GoRight (talk) 03:43, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no OR here. A string of reliable secondary sources make the link between Lindzen's contrarianism on smoking and GW, some favorably and some not. If you think it's an unfair characterization of his position, find a statement by Lindzen repudiating the views imputed to him by people who have interviewed him first-hand.JQ (talk) 06:22, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't claim he didn't say these things, or that he even holds these views. I am claiming that you are giving them WP:UNDUE weight since you are basically having to cherry pick references to make the connection. It is this sifting through sources to find quotes to cherry-pick that looks like WP:OR. Find an article where this connection is the primary focus of the article and you might have a case. --GoRight (talk) 00:55, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

so-called Lindzen Industry links in the wake of CRUgate emails

I invite editors to consider email 0962818260.txt of the CRUgate files.

Here, Mick Kelly to Mike Hulme talks about the funding they're trying to obtain from Big Oil, namely Shell, but also BP and -- shock horror -- Exxon. This whole mythology that "Climate Skeptics are funded by Big Bad Oil" is becoming, rather, laughable now. Within weeks, there will be doubt be reliable sources establishing that UEA is funded by Big Oil. I think this is, therefore, a good time for us all to reconsider -- do we want Lindzen's respected name connected with Big Oil in this article, on the basis that he received a measly $10,000 from "fossil fuel" types once, for doing some consulting work, 20 years ago? It is not fair, and it inexorably heading towards the ridiculous, and embarrassing. Please all serious editors read 0962818260.txt and consider my argument here. Alex Harvey (talk) 17:23, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

It may be a myth (and i kinda agree in Lindzen's case), but the trouble is that the literature actually does focus on this particular link, so we cannot ignore it. Its not a choice for us to make, we have to follow due weight in respect to the literature. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

But we can ignore it. There is no policy that states "Thou shalt report on all reliable sources." We are not automata. There are not a lot of reliable sources discussing L & Industry, and as far as I can see, we have included every single one of them. WP:WEIGHT applies. Does Gelbspan, 15 years later, even stand by his original assessment of Lindzen in 1995? We can take the high road, and rise above this. All that is required is some cooperation amongst the senior editors. Alex Harvey (talk) 18:06, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually there are quite a lot of references that talk about Lindzen and industry connections, see previous discussions, these include books, TV documentaries and regular journalistic articles (see earlier discussions). As for your assertion that it all comes down to Gelbspan, that is simply your original research. We are not at liberty as editors to "ignore" if its counters due weight in the literature, since that is a circumvention of a neutral point of view (as defined by one of the pillars of Misplaced Pages). Sorry. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:26, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a link to the CRU hacking thing (bit pathetic as an argument) but looking beyond that I do think the question on this is legitimate. And yes I think we do have some latitude in writing an encyclopaedia to ignore things which are beneath our diginity to discuss even if some news sources like them. I took the ridiculous paternity section out of the article on Prince Harry (which was a popular item for the press) on a similar kind of grounds a few years ago and am glad to say it stayed out. --BozMo talk 13:40, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. But in this case its rather more than a few simple news articles. Something like the paternity case is being pushed beyond its prominence by a short newsburst, thats not what we are talking about here. My question (to myself) was: Would a balanced documentary, book or bio in a newspaper on Lindzen mention this? And the answer was yes it would, even if just to dismiss it. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:47, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Credibility of Lindzen's scientific views ...

This sentence:

"Critics have used Lindzen's contrarian views on tobacco smoking to argue that his similarly contrarian position on climate change should not be accorded credibility. ."

Is unacceptable given its current sources. This is inherently making a statement about the credibility of Lindzen's scientific opinion. As we are all aware, to comment on the scientific opinion of an acknowledged expert requires someone of comparable scientific stature. Are either of the authors of these sources scientists with applicable publications in peer-reviewed literature? If not then they are not qualified to make statement regarding Lindzen's credibility on scientific issues.

Please either find a qualified source to argue that Lindzen's views on smoking and/or climatology are not credible and cite that, or remove this sentence per the prevailing rules regarding criticisms of scientific opinion. --GoRight (talk) 01:06, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

No particular qualifications are required to make this criticism. The fact that smoking has been shown to cause lung cancer is known to everyone who has ever seen a cigarette packet or had any contact with the media. The inference that someone (not an expert in the field) who is willing to deny this is a person whose judgement is not to be trusted is clear. Anyone who understands the concept of a trustworthy authorit can draw this inference, and many people have done so. Some have stated it in WP:RS publications. I note the implication that you are unconvinced by the evidence on the health risks of smoking. Maybe you should read the Wiki article on this topic.JQ (talk) 04:10, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

All of this hand waving doesn't change the fact that the statement is fundamentally questioning Lindzen's scientific opinion (regardless of how you, I, or anyone else feels about it), and as is the norm on science related pages only people with appropriate credentials and/or peer-reviewed sources are considered WP:RS for that purpose. These sources fail that test and the sentence should be either properly sourced or removed. --GoRight (talk) 04:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

In relation to this, I've removed the statement "the implication that his statements on climate change reflect a preference for dissent from consensus viewpoints". To explain: my concern is that it is OR, as there isn't a source stating that this is the implication. That's not necessarily a problem, as if it is blatantly the case then it isn't OR, but when I looked at the sources they seemed to be implying a number of different things, not all in keeping with this description. For example, the Outside ref quotes Wallace as saying that he "revels in his contrary ways", but Wallace also states there that Lindzen's "main motive is conviction", and that his contrariness means that he won't back down, not that he took it up because of a wish to take a different stance. Some do seem to make the implication, but some don't, and some seem to make quite different implications. Leaving it out seems safer to me, unless we can source that statement better. - Bilby (talk) 23:21, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Contrarianism section

In order to include an entire section devoted to discrediting a living person -- this time on the basis of gossip and rumour about his personality -- you need to find extraordinarily good sources, and a lot of them. There are 137,000 hits for lindzen on google, so it shouldn't be hard to find plenty of gossip reported in reliable sources. That doesn't mean we include it in Misplaced Pages. Indeed, WP:BLP explicitly states that we don't. A number of editors have expressed the same view, so there is clearly no consensus for inclusion of this material. I have reverted it, again. Alex Harvey (talk) 12:52, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Please note, it is a BLP violation for anyone to restore this material again. There are some voices supporting its inclusion, but there are clearly more voices supporting its exclusion. Thanks. Alex Harvey (talk) 12:56, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it should stay. It's a lot more essential to Lindzen's career than the Exxon money. Obviously not a BLP violation. Brian A Schmidt (talk) 15:28, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

To add a little more - Lindzen's either a contrarian genius who's swimming against the mainstream scientific tide and will ultimately be vindicated, or a scientist who let his contrarian tendencies overcome his judgment. Either way, he's a contrarian and the section should be included. Brian A Schmidt (talk) 15:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Brian, every good scientist is a "contrarian"... If you were not "contrarian", and not passionate about finding alternative explanations, the scientific method would not work. How did you become qualified to diagnose someone with this psychological condition, "contrarianism". Are you a practising psychiatrist? Alex Harvey (talk) 22:51, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you are confusing contrarian with sceptic. Every scientist is a sceptic. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:53, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, Kim, tell us all what a "contrarian" is then, and explain the relationship between a "skeptic" and a "contrarian". Alex Harvey (talk) 03:15, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

See Contrarian. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:17, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Good, so "contrarian" is a sort of bad faith version of a "skeptic." So having defined a "contrarian", how exactly do we distinguish, without appeal to our own opinions or blinded prejudices, between a "contrarian" and a "skeptic"? Do they have a different colour? Do they smell different? Alex Harvey (talk) 04:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

We do not distinguish anything, that is entirely outside of what we as editors may do (read: original research). You can ask the people who describe Lindzen that way though. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 05:11, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Kim, since you deleted my comment I have restored it at my talk page. Alex Harvey (talk) 13:33, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

shocking

I am pretty busy at the moment, but this text is truly shocking; it is damaging to the credibility of Misplaced Pages (the biggest problem; yes, Lindzen is probably laughing, whereas Jimmy Wales is probably crying); and of a disappointing slur against Lindzen. It'll take me some time to figure out exactly how to fight this, given it is violating so many basic Misplaced Pages principles, but fight it I will. Alex Harvey (talk) 03:13, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Fringe

It seems that a number of editors are approaching this article from a WP:FRINGE POV rejecting the mainstream consensus on global warming. The fact that the subject of this article is critical of that consensus does not change WP:WEIGHT which should give credibility to scientific viewpoints according to their representation in the scientific literature. JQ (talk) 11:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

John Quiggin, let me see, you observe (A) A group of editors about whom you know next to nothing want to remove cheap slurs & gutter press gossip from a distinguished scientist's wikipedia biography; (B) you note them raving on about policies like WP:BLP, and WP:SYN and WP:OR and so on; this is all a bit too hard to understand so you conclude (C) these editors are fringe theorists advancing a POV on that global warming is caused by gremlins (cosmic rays, asteroids, etc). Tell me, John Quiggin, is this how the University of Queensland is teaching Australians to think nowadays? Alex Harvey (talk) 13:32, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Note BLP/N

I have alerted the BLP/N here: WP:BLPN#Richard_Lindzen_2. Alex Harvey (talk) 14:33, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the section on contrarianism, which was mostly sourced to magazines like Grist and Seed. On RealClimate, criticism from the Guardian, a major UK newspaper, is being suppressed, so I can't see how Grist, Seed, and Griffith Review should be acceptable here. We need to apply consistent editorial standards across articles on the same topic, especially if that topic is contentious. ATren (talk) 14:51, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to reveal reality to you - the Guardian is not being "suppressed" on RC. Try reading those discussions again, no one has at any point in time argued against "the Guardian" (hint: either you have misunderstood the discussion completely or you are misrepresenting things). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:31, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Extra references on "contrarian":

• Sampson, Patsy (2000). "The Science and Politics of Global Warming: The Climate of Political Change at MIT" (PDF). MIT Undergraduate Research Journal. 3. MIT. Who would know better than Professor Lindzen,who has been assigned by the media the title of "climate contrarian."
• Stevens, William K. (Feb 29, 2000). "Global Warming: The Contrarian View". New York Times.
• Lindzen, Richard S. (Mar 16, 2007). "On Global Warming Heresy". I am frequently asked to describe my experiences as a contrarian about global warming.
• Eilperin, Juliet (Oct 2007). "An Inconvenient Expert". Outside. That is Dick's natural personality—to be somewhat of a contrarian," Wallace says. "He feels he can work the argument and win. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
• Yang, Hu; Tung, Ka Kit (1998). "Water Vapor, Surface Temperature, and the Greenhouse Effect—A Statistical Analysis of Tropical-Mean Data". Journal of Climate. 11 (10). doi:10.1175/1520-0442(1998)011<2686:WVSTAT>2.0.CO;2. A contrarian view (Lindzen 1990) holds that the increased convection associated with the CO2-induced warming should act instead to dry the upper troposphere:

--Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:33, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

A couple more:

• Grundmann, Reiner. "Climate Change and Knowledge Politics" (PDF). Environmental Politics. 16 (3): 414–432. Apart from the US contrarians (such as Richard Lindzen or Fred Singer, who are given very little attention) - note here talking in context of German media.
• Boykoff, Maxwell T. "Media and scientific communication: a case of climate change". In Liverman, D. G. E.; Pereira, C. P. G.; Marker, B. (eds.). Communicating environmental geoscience. Geological Society Special Publication. Vol. 305. Geological Society of London. ISBN 1862392609. "Climate contrarians include scientists S. Fred Singer, Robert Balling, Sallie Baliunas, David Legates, Sherwood Idso, Frederick Seitz, Richard Lindzen and Patrick Michaels
• Broecker, Wallace S. (2006). "Global warming: Take action or wait?" (PDF). Chinese Science Bulletin. 51 (9): 1018–1029. doi:10.1007/s11434-006-1017-4. Further, as his detractors point out, Lindzen is well known for his contrarian views. For example, with equal vigor, he denies that cigarette smoking has been proven to cause lung cancer.

--Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

(e.c.) ::I've restored the smoking-only version. Kim, you seem to have a much different approach on this page than you do on RealClimate. Here, any criticism is fair game, even if it's sourced to shaky sources like Grist. But on RealClimate, you reject criticism sourced to the Guardian, home of the oft-quoted (on Misplaced Pages) skeptic critic George Monbiot. You try to justify this inconsistency with weight arguments, but that's weak. These are not fringe views we're dealing with, they're significant minority views, and weight cannot be used to justify total omission for one side of the debate coupled with piling-on for the other. ATren (talk) 17:23, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah - more misrepresentation. The only argument given on RC was one of weight (ie. the lack of it), perhaps you may take a look at the references that i've provided above? They show that there is rather a lot of weight behind the description of Lindzen as a "contrarian". That's what makes the difference. Or are you going to argue that the sources above are from minority positions? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

→ This article just came off protection four days ago, and I would really rather not lock it again as there is plenty of room for improvement outside that one section. The currently active editors here are perfectly well aware of WP:Edit warring and WP:3RR. Please abide by them so I do not have to protect The Wrong Version. When the above discussion resolves, we should get a nice stable article that everyone can live with. In the meantime, there is no pressing need to clog up the edit history and waste server space and editor time that could be more productively invested in discussion. Thank you. - 2/0 (cont.) 17:17, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I've added a link to the Contrarian article to indicate that it's a neutral term, like contrarian investing. While I don't think additional explanation is required, I have no objection to it if that makes this section more palatable to other editors. We could even add a reference to Freeman Dyson and James Lovelock as suceessful contrarian scientists who were sometimes right and sometimes wrong.Brian A Schmidt (talk) 01:17, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Brian, I am not going to assume good faith here. The term "contrarian" is absolutely not a "neutral" term here, in this context, and you know full well that it isn't. It is used pejoratively, to imply that his views are not reliable. Stop playing silly word games. Alex Harvey (talk) 13:41, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way, Alex. As someone who's placed a substantial amount of money with a contrarian investment firm, I disagree with your statement that contrarian is a negative term, and I don't see a contextual difference. Now I personally think Lindzen is an unsuccessful and wrong contrarian, and maybe you've guessed that, but the negative aspects have to do with unsuccessful and wrong. This section should just be about Lindzen being a contrarian, and I'd oppose anything in it that implies contrarians are necessarily wrong.Brian A Schmidt (talk) 19:29, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you should take a break if you are incapable of seeing other editors as peers instead of opponents. I do not agree with your interpretation of the word "contrarian" and Brian apparently doesn't either... but as always it really doesn't matter what we think. I've demonstrated that rather a lot of reliable sources (including peer-reviewed ones) describe Lindzen as a contrarian, that establishes that it at least has some weight when we are talking about Lindzen. Can you explain to me why/how we can ignore these sources? (and please do not give me a i don't like it argument. The only way that i see for us to be able not to mention it, would be by removing Lindzen's personal views on climate change (ie. opinion columns, interviews, public appearences) completely...Just describe him as a scientist and ignore the public debate 100%. But i don't think this is doable since Lindzen is (has made himself) an important part of the public debate. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:11, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Kim, do you agree or disagree that a number of advocate scientists (e.g. skepticalscience.com, "Eli Rabbit", Gavin Schmidt) have argued that Lindzen's "contrarianism" makes him an unreliable witness, and discredits him? Thanks. Alex Harvey (talk) 02:55, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Equally, lots of Lindzen's supporters have made arguments that treat consensus as a pejorative, compared Lindzen to Galileo and so on. There's no serious dispute that Lindzen is a contrarian - the dispute is whether his contrarianism makes him an unreliable witness. Critics typically say yes, and that criticism is presented here with reliable sources. Supporters say no. You could do better in balancing the article by citing some of them than by trying to remove the criticism.JQ (talk) 04:19, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

JQ, good stuff; thanks. And Kim, will you also agree that "contrarianism" is used here to discredit a great living scientist? Alex Harvey (talk) 04:21, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

No, i do not agree with that. As far as i can remember climate contrarian is/was commonly used term for what today is called climate sceptic. Iirc Pielke Jr. wrote something on this. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 05:24, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

That's very amusing. At 22:53, 8th Dec, after I had argued that the designation "contrarian" is purely arbitrary, and that every good scientist can be called a "contrarian", you contradicted me, saying, "I think you are confusing contrarian with sceptic. Every scientist is a sceptic." Now, at 4:21, 11th Dec, you say, "As far as i can remember climate contrarian is/was commonly used term for what today is called climate sceptic". So you seem to be getting a little tied up in knots here, Kim. Tell me again: what's the difference between a "skeptic", which every scientist is, and a "contrarian", which apparently, only Lindzen is. Alex Harvey (talk) 08:42, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

(sigh) What is your problem with my 2 comments? Here is a more formal description: Scientists are all sceptics. Some sceptics are scientists. Some sceptics are contrarians. Some contrarians are scientists. (Some X are Y - means that there is an intersection between X and Y, and that X is not entirely contained in Y. X are all Y means that X is a subset of Y.) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:04, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I said, tell me, Kim, what is the difference between a "skeptic" and a "contrarian"? I put it to you, Kim, that the difference is that, one is neutral, and the other pejorative, in the context of climate change debate. Thanks for your kind attention. Alex Harvey (talk) 04:04, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

So where is this going?

We've seen

• BozMo remove the section that started it all, apparently agreeing that further controversy and drama on the matter is not constructive.
• Bilby expressed grave reservations, whilst suggesting that perhaps an encyclopaedic treatment of the "contrarian" character of Lindzen might in principle be possible (I agree), but that what we have here is nowhere near it. He made the most crucial observation of all, that this section is making Misplaced Pages's editors look worse than Lindzen himself. This is quite correct, and it is the observation that ATren, not an AGW skeptic, has also made.
• ATren removed the section but it was quickly restored.
• GoRight has opposed the section.
• I obviously oppose the section as a slur against a great living scientist, and tantamount to using Misplaced Pages as an echo of rumour & gossip.

Meanwhile,

• John Quiggin has admitted that he is advancing a point of view by synthesis that Lindzen is unreliable, and sees no particular problem with this, arguing that he's doing so through use of reliable sources.
• Brian A. Schmidt & Kim D. Petersen, knowing the policies better, have united behind a storyline that "contrarian" is a perfectly neutral term, and claim that they have no idea what I'm talking about when I say this is discrediting to Lindzen.....
• William M. Connolley has tacitly supported the section by adding further contrarian references to the text from Gavin Schmidt.
• Atmoz provided some reliable sources, but appears from his comments largely to support the section (now...) because I had claimed it was a BLP issue before I properly read JQ's section.

The BLP policy states that contentious material, whether positive, negative or just questionable, should be removed immediately.

We have a deadlock here; so why do we continue to argue, rather an admin stepping in to remove the contentious material, end the arguing, and stop wasting further Misplaced Pages bandwidth?

The status quo here needs to change on BLPs. Alex Harvey (talk) 15:31, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Wiki BLP doesn't say contentious materials should be removed immediately, it says poorly sourced material should be removed. That's not a problem here. I also disagree that whether Lindzen is contrarian could be remotely considered contentious. Brian A Schmidt (talk) 17:32, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

That's right, and as ATren has pointed out above, the material is not based high-quality sources. Alex Harvey (talk) 01:43, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Which of the extra sources that i've given in the above section (as well as on BLP/N) are not high-quality sources? Lindzen's editorial? Or is it the peer-reviewed ones? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:52, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I have made no original synthesis. The link between Lindzen's well-established and reliably sourced contrarianism on climate science and his well established and reliably sourced contrarianism on smoking has been made by numerous reliable sources. There is no way you can exclude this, and there is no BLP issue, as you were told when you went there.JQ (talk) 21:44, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Of course you have made an original synthesis. This is the only document in existence deeming a subject "contrarianism" fit for its own subheading. It is the only document in existence attempting to explicitly give Lindzen's smoking habit as evidence for a psychological condition now known as "contrarianism." (We'll get to the subheading problem, don't worry...). There is every way I can exclude this, but if necessary I'll pretend it's not a BLP issue and treat it as a mere POV & SYN issue instead, if that's what the community wants. The material will be removed, and history is not going to be greenwashed at this particular page. Thanks. Alex Harvey (talk) 01:43, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you have selective blindness? When you say "This is the only document in existence deeming a subject "contrarianism" fit for its own subheading" - then you apparently haven't read neither the section you started on BLP/N or the section just above. Since i do believe that this:

Stevens, William K. (Feb 29, 2000). "Global Warming: The Contrarian View". New York Times.

is exactly such a document. Oh - well. Have you missed all the other extra references given as well? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 02:36, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I have lost interest in this thread, and responded below. Alex Harvey (talk) 04:06, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Full list of problems sorted by policy violation (just applies to contrarianism section)

• WP:NPOV, subsection WP:UNDUE - Lindzen is notable as a great living meteorologist, a pioneer of ozone photochemical modelling, who solved a long standing mystery in atmospheric tidal theory after showing an error in classical tidal theory; who resolved the paradox of the quasi-biennial oscillation; who proposed a theory that might have solved the paradox of the superrotation of the atmosphere of Venus above the cloud base; who improved our understanding of cloud physics & parameterisation; who contributed to the development of A/OGCM models; who mentored many famous climate scientists; who was a lead author chapter 7 of IPCC TAR; who became a global warming skeptic in the 80s; who proposed the Iris hypothesis; and who became politically active in opposing Kyoto & Copenhagen, an action which won him many enemies amongst IPCC advocates. His enemies have since then characterised him as a "contrarian". A few of his friends have also noted this. This "contrarianism" section is based on odd references here and there. The term "contrarian" is being used in a number of distinct senses, but all of this is garbled & confused in the present treatment. Until the biography shows first Lindzen's proper placement and significance in the history of science, there are irreducibly problems of balance by including any wishy-washy section about so-called "contrarianism". As such, I am not going to support any compromise position that does not fully remove the section. That is the end of the story from my side. I am not going to give up. I realise, Kim will probably never give up either; so that's fine. We'll keep this up, ad nauseum, until some amused journalist writes a piece about the dispute here, or until Lindzen himself points it out, and the end result will be the further erosion of credibility of those opposing me (this is, after all, a public debate).

• WP:RS: As noted by ATren, we are using less than schmickness in our sources (e.g. screeds from "Seed Mag"), to make strong claims about a living person. The Seed piece is obviously flawed, and Dr. Kirk-Davidoff is almost certainly out of context.

• WP:SYN: The combining of the Guterl/Newsweek aside about Lindzen's hypothetical views on the relationship between smoking & cancer is used here to advance "contrarianism", whereas Guterl seems to be using it to show that Lindzen is opinionated & articulate.

• WP:NPOV, subsection WP:STRUCTURE: 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, such as a back-and-forth dialogue between proponents and opponents. It may also create an apparent hierarchy of fact: details in the main passage appear "true" and "undisputed", whereas other, segregated material is deemed "controversial", and therefore more likely to be false — an implication that may not be appropriate. A more neutral approach can result from folding debates into the narrative, rather than distilling them into separate sections that ignore each other. Be alert for arrangements of formatting, headers, footnotes, or other elements that may unduly favor one particular point of view, and for structural or stylistic aspects that make it difficult for a neutral reader to fairly and equally assess the credibility of all relevant and related viewpoints.

• WP:BLP, the sum of the above adds up to a WP:BLP, big time. Alex Harvey (talk) 04:00, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

responses

I'd encourage Alex and anyone else to add properly referenced, notable information about Lindzen's scientific work that's unrelated to climate change. I don't really agree with Alex's other three arguments, all of them discussed previously, and the last bullet point is just a conclusion. Brian A Schmidt (talk) 07:24, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

None of these arguments have been answered previously. If I may remind you, what we have really been discussing is your view that "contrarian" is a perfectly neutral term, rather than the pejorative slur that everyone else (including its author JQ) knows that it is. You have argued, since "contrarian investing" is perfectly neutral (which it, um, is), therefore it is also neutral to have a section on Lindzen's "contrarianism". (At my user page is a go at a proper encyclopaedic treatment of Lindzen's career, but the problem is that much of his work is too difficult for me to understand, and it remains unfinished. I don't think telling the truth about Richard Lindzen and his career is very high on anyone else's priority list.) Alex Harvey (talk) 12:32, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Bullet 1. There are two aspects of Lindzen (for good or bad): the first one is his scientific career and accomplishments, the second is the public Lindzen that writes Opinion articles, appears in media, speaks to the CEI (and other think-tanks) and involves himself in the debate on global warming outside of the scientific arena. Both of these are important aspects, you can't selectively ignore either of them - which is what you argue that we should.

Bullet 2: I have cited rather a lot of reliable sources, you've ignored this (last one you "lost interest" in - but started exactly the same thing here). Reliable sources are not discarded with "i don't like it" arguments - but they may be discarded for reasons of undue weight - but as i've shown there is plenty of weight.

Bullet 3: Being a contrarian on global warming (which is what most sources say he is), and being a contrarian on cancer risks of passive smoking is seperate issues - but are connected by reliable sources (and thus not synthesis). I'm not married to the smoking part - but the C on GW is well-documented.

Bullet 4: I agree on structure - but not on conclusion. Lindzen's biography should be roughly divided up into the 2 aspects that i mention in bullet 1 - since the aspects are rather separete.

Bullet 5: Nope. The sum of your arguments so far, can be summarized in WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Not a very good argument.

--Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:39, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

re: WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE. There are two aspects, the good and the bad (note, you seem to have let slip here that, yes, we really are talking about a bad and not a neutral, good stuff, thanks.). Correct. And so, we need to get the balance right, do we agree? So I cut & pasted the article into a text file (including refs & so on) and I counted 3181 words total (using wc -w). Then, I count 654 words devoted to L's career, and 1513 are devoted to discrediting Lindzen. Tell me, is that the correct balance? If not, it is a BLP violation. Pare that 1513 back to about 100, and we have fixed the balance problem. Do you agree?

re: WP:RS, why are we talking about sources that are in the talk page but not in the article? I don't care about sources that are not currently in the article, and I don't have time to read them. If you are serious about this, you would have proposed a rewrite based on these new sources.

re: WP:SYN, you write, "they are connected by reliable sources". Correct, and connecting reliable sources together in order to advance a POV that none of the individuals sources themselve advance is the very definition of WP:SYN. #QED.

re: WP:NPOV, WP:STRUCTURE, we're in agreement. Y

re: WP:BLP, it is not that I don't like it, but rather that you don't seem to be able to HEAR the above. Alex Harvey (talk) 05:32, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I have made a bold edit, removing all controversy from the article. If I can have support from an uninvolved admin to full protect this WP:WRONG version, I will, in return, in the meantime, write a fair, neutral and encyclopaedic 100 words or so explaining that Lindzen's position on climate change is a minority and extreme position, and generally rejected by other mainstream scientists. Alex Harvey (talk) 09:09, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

diff of changes. I am not comfortable preemptively protecting an article, but I will express a distinct preference against edit warring. The article as it stands is missing some major points - AH, I wish that you had prepared the alternate version before stripping this one. On the other hand, if it solves this article, that would be great. - 2/0 (cont.) 09:34, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

And I wish that my free time was infinite, or that the Misplaced Pages Foundation was paying me. I think most editors would know that I am good to my word, and that if an uninvolved admin will protect my proposal, I will write a fair 100 or so word summary as promised above. It would probably need to mention that Lindzen is a controversial figure, and that his view is a minority and extreme view, and generally rejected. Misplaced Pages is not supposed to be NEWS so e.g. the insinuations from the mid 90s that he is a fossil fuel industry shill (which is universally known to be false) doesn't need to appear. Of course, those trying to discredit Lindzen will not be happy, but then, they will never be happy. Alex Harvey (talk) 09:42, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I've reverted this piece of edit warring. I must say I fail to see the difference between "minority and extreme view" and "contrarian". JQ (talk) 09:49, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

John Quiggin, I can understand your confusion as the point is subtle. Let me make it simple for you: "minority and extreme" is purely factual, whereas "contrarian" contains editorial judgement (see WP:NPOV, WP:BLP). Or, if you like, one is the raw data, and the other is the "value-added" data. Does this make sense? Alex Harvey (talk) 10:31, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

To William M. Connolley & Atmoz, I remind them of WP:BRD, i.e. that after making reverts that are challenged, it is appropriate to either join the talk discussion, or leave the page alone. Alex Harvey (talk) 00:05, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

, , . Alex Harvey (talk) 00:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Bullet 1: I agree with AH that this contrarian/smoking angle is clearly WP:UNDUE when stacked up against all of the man's accomplishments. It is mere noise and petty ad hominem. KDP argues above that we can't ignore this. I disagree, we most certainly can, and for all of the same reasons that he so frequently argues himself. --GoRight (talk) 01:51, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm flattered that you actually find some of my reasons good. Now can you argue with these arguments instead of with vague statements like "that he so frequently argues himself". Try generally addressing issues instead of editors. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 02:57, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Don't sell yourself short, Kim. All of your arguments are excellent. The problem is that you try to use them in all the wrong places.  :)

And for the record, "and for all of the same reasons that he so frequently argues himself" IS addressing the issue and not the editor. I am merely stating that I we should substitute your own arguments from other articles where you argue from the opposite side of the fence into this one (with the appropriate adjustments, of course). Those arguments wouldn't be attacking any fellow editors would they? If so, please stop doing that. --GoRight (talk) 06:29, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Kim, GoRight has quite clearly seconded my reasoning on bullet point 1, and I agree with his decision to put all focus onto that single bullet point. Since I have already responded to your last response, it is, in fact, your turn to respond, not GoRight's. Thanks. Alex Harvey (talk) 03:19, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I think i have made my 2 cents of comments. But on bullet 1. No one is stopping you from adding more to the scientific aspects of Lindzen, you seem to have researched it a fair bit. I just went through section 3, and i have trouble seeing the problem, it is balanced rather well. This is what we have most material (secondary sources) on generally, so it is no wonder that it fills a lot. (note that much of it is about science work as well, such as the NAS committee and so on). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:26, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Given that you are part of a minority insisting on continuing with this dispute, it is incumbent on you to offer a little more than 2 cents here. Otherwise, I am going to run out of patience shortly, and revert to the WP:BOLD version. To save you scrolling up, you need to explain why you think 614 words for career + accomplishments, 1513 words to discrediting him is the proper balance. Thanks. Alex Harvey (talk) 03:33, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

And what makes you think that i'm part of a "minority"? Are you counting in all the scibaby socks that have reverted this stuff? I count 6 editors that have reinstated the content, and only you as removing it for the last 4 days. (everyone else was socks - think about that a bit). I've commented on the 614:1513 part - the 1513 part contains quite a bit about career as well, and is definitively not as you state above "bad stuff". Since there is significantly more material on the 1513 part, and since this is the part that most people interface with Lindzen on, it makes sense to have more material here. But as said - if you want to add to the 614 - then it would be great. You seem to have made most of the work already. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:44, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

To be clear, you are saying that you think 614 words in favour of a great man's career and accomplishments, and 1513 words devoted to discrediting his stance on global warming is the appropriate balance? My draft is unfinished, and I am unlikely to be able to finish it without help, as I've stated before. Alex Harvey (talk) 04:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

To be clear, i don't think the 1513 words discredit the man (far from it). It describes various of Lindzen's public stances, scientific opinions and some responses to it. I'm sorry - but while Lindzen may be a great scientist, he has also made himself a public figure, and it is the public figure that most people know, and the public figure that people interface with. Lindzen's notability primarily comes from this part (even though he obviously would merit inclusion as a scientist as well). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 05:14, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

We can get to your latest amusing black-is-white slide in a moment (i.e. i don't think the 1513 words discredit the man - far from it!), but I want you to firstly confirm that, yes, you do believe that the present balance is right (or, you can say that it's wrong, and advise on what you think it should be). After you have confirmed that, we can move to the next stage of WP:DR. Be clear, Kim. No evading. You are clearly not good at politics. Alex Harvey (talk) 05:38, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm impressed that you still can't seem to address issues and not editors. I believe the balance between the two major sections are fairly well balanced, it reasonably reflects the published literature on Lindzen. The section purely on science could be expended (but there is little literature), and the later section shouldn't (even though there is plenty of literature). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 05:46, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

You have said, the balance between the two sections is balanced. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean anything, because you can't reuse the word "balance" like that, and still end up with an intelligible sentence. Can you have another go at being even more clear: Are you saying, the ratio 614:1513 is just about right? Alex Harvey (talk) 05:58, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Alex, if we look at the material available on Lindzen, then the balance is significantly weighted towards the political/public part - i would say with several magnitudes more material on the politic/public part. So the ratio 1:2.5 is not undue. Lindzen is also significantly more known for the political/public stuff - so again its not undue. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 06:10, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

@AH: Nope, arguing column inches won't cut it even though your point is on track and accurate (not that I have checked the word counts). I am trying to think of how KDP would argue this one. He would definitely have WP:WEIGHT in there. I recommend using WP:V to put the burden on them to demonstrate that this issue has a justifiably large WP:WEIGHT to warrant inclusion. How can they show that this minor issue which is being cherry picked from sources to justify WP:OR attacks? What makes this issue so visible and important relative to the weight of the rest? I mean off hand comments about smoking are not even on the radar of this man's accomplishments. What percentage of media coverage, for example, actually includes discussion of this topic versus other topics? Make them put some hard data on the table because right now he is still at the hand waving level.  :) --GoRight (talk) 06:44, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

GR, I don't frankly care what has gone before; balance is balance; it exists outside of Misplaced Pages, and it is about to exist here. We are not writing a free version of The Sunday Telegraph; or a free version of the The Daily Green either; we are writing a free version of an encyclopaedia, and this page is about to become historically balanced. There is WP:WEIGHT, and there is WP:NOT#NEWS, and these add up to ~ 1000 words need to be chopped. Thank you, Kim, for finally answering the question; it took a while, but we got there. Alex Harvey (talk) 07:02, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

GR's somewhat justified cynicism aside, does anyone have anything else to add, or do we proceed with whatever the next step of WP:DR? Alex Harvey (talk) 07:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

You can feel free to strike the diff above of me reverting a serial sockpuppeteer. -Atmoz (talk) 19:09, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Alex should explain how he got the 1513 words figure: much/most of the global warming section is explaining Lindzen's position and prominence, which is hardly negative. As I said earlier, I've got no objection to expanding the non-climate section, which would help address Alex's concern about ratio. I'm not sure where Kim stands on that, but maybe no one has a problem with it. Brian A Schmidt (talk) 21:17, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Sure Brian. If you take the section beginning, "Global warming", but remember to also include the sentence William M. Connolley just added to the career section that promotes RealClimate's labelling of Lindzen as a "contrarian", you will find that 1513 words are devoted to discrediting Lindzen's stance on global warming. To spell it out further, the text begins with a 1996 letter that Lindzen wrote to The New York Times, which is followed by a longer paragraph showing that other "experts" disagree. In order, those experts are; Jerry Mahlman, who plays the highly credible witness, and is quoted as stating that Lindzen, "sacrificed his luminosity", I guess meaning, "sold his soul to the Devil"?; followed by William Gray, who is in there to show that even wacko skeptics disagree with Lindzen; followed by John M. Wallace, who shows that Lindzen's friends and close colleagues disagree with him; and finally, the advocate Stephen H. Schneider is allowed to deliver the death-blow. The article continues in this rambling, slipshod fashion, argumentum ad nauseum, to the end, whilst of course we pass the disputed "contrarianism" & "Lindzen is a shill" sections along the way. That makes up 1513 words. Alex Harvey (talk) 23:05, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

As a completely independent editor who has never heard of Lindzen until this minute (I came from Jimbo Wales talk page) this article a grotesquely distorted by WP:UNDUEWEIGHT. The "Media appearances" paragraph should be reduced to "Lindzen has contributed to several articles on climate change in the mainstream media" in the "Global Warming" section. And the "Contrarian" section removed entirely. And a great deal more space given to what makes him notable - his scientific awards and honors and a fair and neutral synopsis of his scientific views.Momento (talk) 00:07, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Worth a look at talk and ] to form a view on the weight that should be accorded to this opinion.JQ (talk) 09:51, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Please Assume Good Faith JQ. It's a fundamental principle on Misplaced Pages.Momento (talk) 10:43, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

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 — 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 Misplaced Pages, just joined in the last day. It may be an idea to try to get a feel for how Misplaced Pages 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 CO₂ 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)

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#NEWS). Biographies are written by historians, correct? I ask editors, calmly, to consider this position. I realise, it goes against the grain, but for Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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. The panel's report, entitled Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, 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" although he criticized the Summary for Policymakers. Lindzen stated in May 2001 that it did not truly summarize the IPCC report but had been amended to state more definite conclusions. 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. 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)

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 Misplaced Pages, 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":

• Sampson, Patsy (2000). "The Science and Politics of Global Warming: The Climate of Political Change at MIT" (PDF). MIT Undergraduate Research Journal. 3. MIT. Who would know better than Professor Lindzen,who has been assigned by the media the title of "climate contrarian."
• Stevens, William K. (Feb 29, 2000). "Global Warming: The Contrarian View". New York Times.
• Lindzen, Richard S. (Mar 16, 2007). "On Global Warming Heresy". I am frequently asked to describe my experiences as a contrarian about global warming.
• Eilperin, Juliet (Oct 2007). "An Inconvenient Expert". Outside. That is Dick's natural personality—to be somewhat of a contrarian," Wallace says. "He feels he can work the argument and win. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
• Yang, Hu; Tung, Ka Kit (1998). "Water Vapor, Surface Temperature, and the Greenhouse Effect—A Statistical Analysis of Tropical-Mean Data". Journal of Climate. 11 (10). doi:10.1175/1520-0442(1998)011<2686:WVSTAT>2.0.CO;2. A contrarian view (Lindzen 1990) holds that the increased convection associated with the CO2-induced warming should act instead to dry the upper troposphere:
• Grundmann, Reiner. "Climate Change and Knowledge Politics" (PDF). Environmental Politics. 16 (3): 414–432. Apart from the US contrarians (such as Richard Lindzen or Fred Singer, who are given very little attention) - note here talking in context of German media.
• Boykoff, Maxwell T. "Media and scientific communication: a case of climate change". In Liverman, D. G. E.; Pereira, C. P. G.; Marker, B. (eds.). Communicating environmental geoscience. Geological Society Special Publication. Vol. 305. Geological Society of London. ISBN 1862392609. "Climate contrarians include scientists S. Fred Singer, Robert Balling, Sallie Baliunas, David Legates, Sherwood Idso, Frederick Seitz, Richard Lindzen and Patrick Michaels
• Broecker, Wallace S. (2006). "Global warming: Take action or wait?" (PDF). Chinese Science Bulletin. 51 (9): 1018–1029. doi:10.1007/s11434-006-1017-4. Further, as his detractors point out, Lindzen is well known for his contrarian views. For example, with equal vigor, he denies that cigarette smoking has been proven to cause lung cancer.

--Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

"Former student"

The "former student" is Daniel Kirk-Davidoff, who got his PhD under Lindzen, has co-published several papers with him, and is now a climatologist teaching at the University of Maryland. He is well-qualified to have an opinion on Lindzen, both personal and scientific, and is being cited by Seed (magazine), a reliable source. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:50, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Lindzen's former PhD student and co-author Daniel Kirk-Davidoff, now teaching at the University of Maryland....

Just an idea. --TS 01:16, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

We have much more reliably sourced statements being removed from pro-GW articles. This needs to be rectified per NPOV. On RealClimate, established scientists are suppressed on weight arguments, while here, former students and environmental weeklies are used as sources for criticism. This double standard needs to be addressed. ATren (talk) 05:28, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

• You seem confused about what NPOV is about. All content policies (NPOV,...) are about single articles - the reason for this is that subjects while seemingly similar (though these aren't) have a completely different background in how they are covered in reliable sources and how the balance of these describe the subjects. As an example within the context of BLP's: Lindzen can't be compared to Pielke Sr. because L is significantly more a "public" person (lots of RS's cover his personal views), while PSr isn't - this goes for all articles. They must all be edited and judged on the individual coverage in reliable sources. Sticking to a false dichtomy like yours (pro vs. contra articles) is a flawed argumentation. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 08:18, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

  Is this your personal view or is this actually stated somewhere? If so, where? --GoRight (talk) 04:08, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

• Seed is not an environmental weekly, but a pop-sci bimonthly. And while Kirk-Davidoff is a former student - as are, more or less without fail, all academics - he also is an established researcher who worked for years with Lindzen and apparently got along well enough to co-publish a paper with him in 2000 - 2 years after his PhD was awarded, 3 years after he went from MIT to Harvard. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:58, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Stephan, that is correct, and it is the reason that KD is almost certainly being quoted out of context by the journalist. It is the reason that the source is unreliable, for how it is used, and why it should be removed. Alex Harvey (talk) 04:50, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but that is your personal interpretation - I'd say OR, but there is not even any R in it, as far as I can tell. You can have a good working condition with someone, you can even be a friend, and still have and state an honest opinion, and you can still disagree with them professionally. Being called a "contrarian" is not automatically an insult. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:56, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I have pulled a different quote about Lindzen's purported contrarianism from the Seed article. The quote I added summarizes the views of more than one person and doesn't place undue focus on the one former student.

I still disagree strongly with the last paragraph of that section, which links Lindzen's smoking views with his GW views. Those sources are weak, and the link is tenuous at best. It seems to be little more than opponents saying "see how he opposes GW consensus, he did the same thing with smoking", a kind of guilt-by-association. If this appeared in a stronger source it might be OK, but the weakness of both the claim and the sourcing makes it unacceptable. ATren (talk) 14:18, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

1. "NASA satellite instrument warms up global cooling theory" (Press release). NASA. Jan 16, 2002.
2. Eilperin, Juliet (October, 2009). "Richard Lindzen: An Inconvenient Expert". Outside. Retrieved December 8, 2009. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
3. Achenbach, Joel (June 5, 2006). "Global-warming skeptics continue to punch away". The Seattle Times. Retrieved December 8, 2009.
4. Stolz, Kit (April 13, 2007). "For shame!". Grist. Retrieved December 8, 2009.

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