Yellow Journalism's Scientific Compass

There is a certain novelty to trying to exorcise climate hype by denying the philosophical existence of climate science.

Citing a speech by a retired TV weatherman who could no more construct a climate model than a television camera , and the philosophical authority of one  "Thomas Eddington " ( the inventor of the supernova light bulb, perhaps --surely not the Sir Arthur who  astronomically confirmed  relativity) James Kerian, scion of the North Dakota potato, fruit and nut-sorting machine dynasty, and mechanical engineering graduate of Gonzaga University, has authored a Wall Street Journal online oped entitled "Yellow Science", equating global warming warnings with  the "Yellow Journalism " the Hearst papers used to spawn the Spanish American War. In it . Kerian baldly ,and bizarrely, asserts that no hard scientific evidence links human activity and climate change. None. Nada. Zip.

Sad as it is to see the venerable Journal  jaundiced by its editors failure to exercise the intellectual courage to expose this dweebery, the op-ed betrays a deeper malaise. The responsible member of the  WSJ editorial board, James Taranto, has made it a point of  anti-elitist honor to declare his disinclination "to delve deeply" into matters presented as scientific in his section, instead  censoring comments critical of the errors of fact it all too often features-- Taranto is  Opinion Journal's electronic gatekeeper  as well as its editor.

I last encountered him at a Harvard science journalism seminar, where he insisted the Opinion Journal section  was open to critical feedback , an assertion his subsequent actions and omissions has betrayed. Hoping to provide him a means of fact checking now that the WSJ has dispensed with its science editor, I went so far as to present him with a  hard copy of  Nature.

He'd never laid eyes on that journal before, and given the appearance of Kerian's piece,it appears he has not seen it since. As Nature's Science And Business section contains much of profound interest to readers of so otherwise astute a financial paper as The Wall Street Journal, it's odd the publishers should spare Taranto the inconvenience of contradiction by providing a link or two to such  scientific journals of record.

Though Taranto is free to ignore them, such links would provide readers with the option of refusing to think about science themselves, instead of having their unthinking done for them at Rupert Murdoch's expense. The WSJ  is after all a business , not a charitable foundation for Junk Science challenged purveyors of  prose from First Things--  the  journal  in which Keran's piecw debuted is long on dogma as it is short on scientific peer review. While Kerian seems never to have  published a science or  engineering paper,  his maiden publication bodes well for his career as a philosopher of science-- few Bob Jones or Maharishi University  graduates aspire to such metaphysical heights. Perhaps he should start a think tank with the other culture hero of the week, Doctor Tom Chalko

Elsewhere  in Never Never land, National Review is ballyhooing a submarine volcano  that erupted in the arctic in 1999,  inviting its readers to believe in  the event's connection to the retreat of polar ice in the years since. Never mind that the Mount Saint Helen's sized blowout failed  to punch a hole in the sea ice directly above it- the  two mile water column evidently providing ample quenching of the heat.

A cubic mile or more of incandescent lava may seem a lot , but there are millions of cubic miles of ice-water in the Arctic seas , and  one part per million of   incandescent rock  can only raise the temperature of the whole of it by -- do the arithmetic , it's not even math--  a  couple of milli-degrees C--  Bloody Freezing plus .002 C  still equals Bloody Freezing.

While the Dittohead blogs coo over the latest  factoid  delivered by  their scientific tooth fairy , the website of the Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institution features a lucid account of the  Gakkel Ridge eruptions' aftermath , as surveyed in 200, that underwater landscape:

"Appear to have been chemically transformed by hydrothermal venting. Sensors on their dredging lines also detected whispers of warmer water, chemicals, and particles that are present in plumes of vent fluids that billow out  ”

Since the murmurs of warmth are muffled by two thousand fathoms of ice water, Kerian and Taranto's  fairy tales might benefit from delving more deeply into The Princess and the Pea

Comments

[Eleri]

FYI - "Thomas Eddington" is WSJ's mistake - Kerian's piece which originally appeared in First Things correctly identifies "Arthur Eddington."

[Eleri]

FYI - "Thomas Eddington" is WSJ's mistake - Kerian's piece which originally appeared in First Things correctly identifies "Arthur Eddington."

[Eleri]

FYI - "Thomas Eddington" is WSJ's mistake - Kerian's piece which originally appeared in First Things correctly identifies "Arthur Eddington."

[John Farrell]

Excellent piece, Russell. Keeping track of conservative journalism's...um, "issues" with science, is a thankless task.

[Paul Rupert]

I don't see any substantial difference between Kerian's call for better science and Mr. Sietz's own paean to uncertainty in his "Climate Wars" post at this website.

Quoting Kieran's piece at
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121433436381900681.html?mod=opinion_journal_federation

However complex the information may be, the standards are quite clear. One need not be a Beltway newshound to know that whatever follows the phrase "unnamed sources in the capital" or "rumors in Hollywood are" is not real journalism. Similarly, one does not need an advanced degree in natural science to understand that whatever follows the phrase "most experts agree" or "no one can measure the exact effect but" is not real science.

RESPONSE

My 1990 piece exhorts journalists to read the science for themselves : Kerian's in The Wall Street Journal is prima facie evidence that he has not-.
He writes of :
" man-made global warming. This is a hypothesis that remains untested, makes no predictions that can be tested in the near future, and cannot offer a numerical explanation for the limited evidence to which it clings. No equations have been shown to explain the relationship between fossil-fuel emission and global temperature. The only predictions that have been made are apocalyptic, so the hypothesis has to be accepted before it can be tested."

Every assertion in this passage is baldly untrue, as any who have troubled to read the science in question can testify- Kerian's piece manifests the ravages of reliance on secondary sources

[Joseph Previtali]

Let's see if I get this right? The "scientific" and "academic" response to Mr. Kerian's article is to engage in ad hominem attacks on his editor and him. I am dizzied by the scholarly heights to which, thanks to this article, I have soared.

RESPONSE

Glad to see you made it this far . Now flap on over to the sidebar and help yourself to the climate science links before you lose altitude.

[Jay Alt]

Paul,
I'm afraid that you got nothing right. Since you're concerned about scientific and academic evidence, note that neither appear in Kerian's article. One can't be surprised when such "complaints" are not specifically addressed.

George Bush was given reports in his first year saying climate change is here, real and requires action. His delay strategy included spending more than anyone, (more than countries which accepted the 2001 findings and initiated action). Such poor judgement will prove costly for us.

The climate budget goes mostly to military contractors building sensor spacecraft and for computer time to run models. Kerian's cheap accusation says more about his own mentality than the motives of scientists. But given that he demonstrates no understanding of their findings, that is not surprising.

[Jay Alt]

Paul,
I'm afraid that you got nothing right. Since you're concerned about scientific and academic evidence, note that neither appear in Kerian's article. One can't be surprised when such "complaints" are not specifically addressed.

George Bush was given reports in his first year saying climate change is here, real and requires action. His delay strategy included spending more than anyone, (more than countries which accepted the 2001 findings and initiated action). Such poor judgement will prove costly for us.

The climate budget goes mostly to military contractors building sensor spacecraft and for computer time to run models. Kerian's cheap accusation says more about his own mentality than the motives of scientists. But given that he demonstrates no understanding of their findings, that is not surprising.

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