The War on Science
Category archives for The War on Science
The Australian’s War on Science 81: Matt Ridley’s 20 year old wrong prediction
Posted by Tim Lambert on January 13, 2013 Matt Ridley, in The Globe and Mail, 31 Dec 1993. Global warming, too, has shot its bolt, now that the scientific consensus has settled down on about a degree of temperature increase over a century-that is, little more than has taken place in the past century. Actually, the scientific consensus at the time, as summarised…
The Australian’s War on Science 79: Maurice Newman versus your lying eyes
Posted by Tim Lambert on November 6, 2012 Maurice Newman, former chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, has the necessary lack of scientific qualifications to write about climate science in The Australian (Google “Losing their religion as evidence cools off”): So when in 1969 Paul Ehrlich claimed because of global cooling it was an even-money bet whether England would survive until the year…
The Australian’s War on Science 78
Posted by Tim Lambert on November 4, 2012 Graham Lloyd is back with a story headlined “Climate link to Sandy invalid” (Google the title if you want to read it). As we’ve come to expect from The Australian the headline is contradicted by the story, with both scientists quoted agreeing that sea level rise caused by global warming had worsened the flooding from…
The Australian’s war on technology
Posted by Tim Lambert on July 7, 2012 Nick Ross writes: The Australian’s technology coverage (in print) is a mixed bag in that it has some of the very best technology writers in the country but their section’s reputation gets tainted by almost-incessant, poisonous beat-ups of the National Broadband Network coming from elsewhere on the masthead. These have done it few favours in…
The Australian’s War on Science 77
Posted by Tim Lambert on May 10, 2012 Michael Asten continues The Australian‘s war on science. In his latest piece (Google “Science hijacked at school level”) Asten complains that secondary science education is not paying attention to the views of Ian Plimer on climate change. Perusal of the resources for secondary school physics students provided by the Australian Institute of Physics (Vic) Education…
The Australian’s War on Science 76: Dad Jokes
Posted by Tim Lambert on January 13, 2012 Whenever we had bean salad, my Dad would always ask “What’s that?” When told what it was, he would say “Don’t tell me what it’s been, tell me what it is now!” That’s a Dad joke. The defining properties of a Dad joke are that it is not funny and that Dad keeps repeating it.…
The Australian’s War on Science 75: Plimer vs Plimer
Posted by Tim Lambert on December 21, 2011 The Australian has continued its war on science by printing an extract from Ian Plimer’s new book, How to Get Expelled from School. The extract is largely plagiarised from this press release on a recent paper in Science by Funder et al finding large fluctuations in Arctic sea ice over the last 10,000 years. Plimer…
The Australian’s War on Science 74: Spinning the IPCC Extreme Weather report
Posted by Tim Lambert on November 24, 2011 The IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) found: Regarding the future, the assessment concludes that it is virtually certain that on a global scale hot days become even hotter and occur more often. “For the high emissions scenario, it is likely that the…
The Australian’s War on Science 73: Blainey’s false history
Posted by Tim Lambert on November 9, 2011 In an interview in The Australian (behind The Australian‘s paywall, search for “Gadfly Geoffrey Blainey”) historian Geoffrey Blainey gets his history wrong: In 1970 the overwhelming majority of scientists believed that there was not going to be global warming over the next 40 years. That’s not true, as Ian Musgrave explains.
The Australian’s War on Science 72: George Pell learns nothing
Posted by Tim Lambert on November 7, 2011 In a piece ironically titled “Be prudent with climate claims” (behind The Australian‘s paywall, search for the title if you want to read it) George Pell declares that, unlike him, “many politicians have never investigated the primary evidence.” However, if you look at the sources he cites, you’ll find that by “primary evidence” he means…