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Persecution of Whistleblowers Taint New, Jeer Review

3/31/2013

16 Comments

 
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 The expression "discrediting tactics" in politics refers to personal attacks against a public figure, intended to discourage people from believing in the figure or supporting their cause.

If there's one thing the public should join hands and reject, it's the injustice of blatant character assassination.

WWU Professor Emeritus, Dr. Don Easterbrook, a qualified and engaged local PhD (a lifelong scientist, not a dotty relic) has come under direct personal attack in the press and academia because his cause is only scientific truth.  He dared to share information and raise questions about the adjustment of original data in testimony to a Washington State legislative panel last week.   He urged legislators to make policy but with eyes wide open, not eyes wide shut.   Now for his sins, it's open "shoot the messenger" season on Dr. Easterbrook.  WE see that the press is loving every minute of it.  You may have heard this saying in the press, "If it bleeds, it leads."   The knives are out, and a truth-seeker is getting bloodied, and the sharks are in on the kill.


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Western Washington University (WWU) has been  reeling, with its Geology Department particularly incensed, that one of its own professors emeritus would dare speak openly to share raw information, answer questions, and earnestly encourage legislators to weigh some widely held beliefs.  In what seems nothing short of retribution, WWU has launched not only an attack, but a series of them.

WWU's first staff quote in the press about Dr. Easterbrook's testimony was cited as coming from a WWU "geology faculty position statement" which the AP had in hand the very same day.  Now folks, that was quicker than a Jack Rabbit on a date, as the old saying goes.  WWU knew and cared enough to be that prepared?  What possible beef would this august temple of science and learning have with anybody sharing data with legislators? This first "geology faculty position statement" wasn't linked to the AP Olympia release, but WE'll try to obtain it.   Here's the AP text that was published nationwide:


Western Washington University's geology faculty said in a position statement that they concur with rigorous, peer-reviewed assessments by the National Academies of Science, the National Research Council and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that global climate has warmed significantly and that human activities — mainly greenhouse-gas emissions — account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s.

"I think it's unfortunate that someone who really isn't an active expert in their field is being chosen to discuss this important topic," said Bernie Housen, chairman of Western Washington University's geology department.

News Flash!   In the wee small hours this morning (Easter, no less), the Bellingham Herald has joined in the feeding frenzy.  Under the cover of "repeater"  not "reporter" mode, it published another WWU Geology Faculty statement that bitterly discredits Dr. Easterbrook personally, under the cautious arms-length byline:

"By WWU GEOLOGY FACULTY — COURTESY TO THE BELLINGHAM HERALD"

This chest-beating "submission" is loaded with ad hominem* attack and politically charged spit, such as a claim that [Sen. Ericksen] “chose instead to, apparently, appeal to a narrow partisan element with his choice of speaker.”  The faculty position rants a steady stream of derogatory characterizations of the scientist's work and integrity, while aggrandizing their own position and insisting their methods are so unimpeachable that the actual source data needn't be discussed.  ("Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" ring any bells?)  Then it ends with incensed guidance to legislators and the public that critics of establishment processes and the status quo harbor “conspiracy-based ideas.”  (You'll find the scathing Herald item in its entirety here.) 

Now - WE ask - who in their right mind would dare raise questions in such a hostile academic environment?  A person with courage and integrity might.  But the message from these academics is clearly, "Don't dare to question ~."   Real peer-review could result in jeer review, of you.*

WE expect that Dr. Easterbrook would reel from the suggestion that he's a modern Galileo Galilei.  He seems like a straightforward man who has simply questioned data and process.  But WE have observed punishing intolerance and attacks of the person, and the fervor does  warrant comparison to prior inquisitions.  (Other highly-qualified experts have been battered in the Whatcom environs; Easterbrook's not entirely alone.)   WE feel their pain.

The lesson and the warning is:  When science is politicized, peer review flounders in a closed-minded loop. Reviewers are fearful of agreeing with “outliers,” or making a career-limiting statement.  Fortunately, Dr. Easterbrook has retired from the crippling restraint of tenure, so he doesn't have to worry about that. (Could he have gone out on a  a limb like this if he was still working at WWU?). There is a certain freedom in not being beholden to any politically motivated patron or employer.

A little tutorial on how critics are bloodied:

Character assassination is a deliberate and sustained process that aims to destroy the credibility and reputation of a person.

Agents of character assassinations employ a mix of open and covert methods to achieve their goals, such as raising false accusations, planting and fostering rumors, and manipulating information.

*An ad hominem attack (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person"), is short for argumentum ad hominem, is an argument made personally against an opponent instead of against their argument.

Ad hominem circumstantial points out that someone is in circumstances such that they are disposed to take a particular position. Ad hominem circumstantial constitutes an attack on the bias of a source. This is fallacious because a disposition to make a certain argument does not make the argument false.

The circumstantial fallacy applies only where the source taking a position is only making a logical argument from premises that are generally accepted. Where the source seeks to convince an audience of the truth of a premise by a claim of authority or by personal observation, observation of their circumstances may reduce the evidentiary weight of the claims, sometimes to zero.

In contrast, the wise know:
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 ~End of lesson~   (Except WE'd add that those who resort to personal attacks like this reveal fear and closed-mindedness.  Mean-spirited bullying is patently cruel and unfair, too.)

If this bashing bothers you, what can you do?   Let the attackers (WWU, its Geology Faculty and the press) know exactly what you think of it.  It's low, and what's really disturbing is the thought that the world will miss critically important truths when messengers get hammered to a bloody pulp.

Write to:
    President WWU:  Bruce Shepard
    WWU:  Stephanie Bowers
    WWU:  Jeff Wright
    Editor:  Bellingham Herald   (Q - What's fair & balanced?) 
16 Comments
Stargazer
3/30/2013 11:34:38 pm

Serious scientists the world over agree that dogmatists have totally corrupted the peer review system and replaced it with what is known as the pal-review system, where editorial papers get a consensus nod before publication. They say real peer review now comes after publication, rather than before, when real scientists shred their contentions.

Sincere scientists within major research centers write that the National Academies of Science (the NAS board)have also become dogmatic. They allow in only those who sign on to the National Research Council. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was clearly discredited by Climategate and the exposure by Laframboise's book that documents the very low level of expertise by the panel (most are only graduate students or recently graduated), and by admission of the IPCC chairman (Pachauri) 80% of the IPCC members are not scientists at all.

Scientists with degrees in a scientific field (9,000 with PhDs) have signed a statement raising questions like Easterbrook’s – questions about facts, the peer-review process, and politics. What will become of things when the real scientists are gone?

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Miss Odie
3/31/2013 01:16:03 am

Follow the money $$$$$$$$$

There's no money for universities that don't carry the water of like minded consensus from the "well documented" flaws in the IPCC report of Prof. Mann and his colleagues at East Anglia's:

http://climateaudit.org/2011/03/02/ipcc-and-the-east-anglia-refusal/

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Greg Brown
3/31/2013 01:17:11 am

Great Article. It is sad when the citizens start to disbelieve in their government, their learning institutions and much of the once respected scientific establishment. Even the saddest excuse for a "public" newspaper has no problem supporting the process of "character assassination" and furtherance of distorted information. I am a graduate of our local college and am not very proud of that fact. I have recently attend various lectures and presentations sponsored by Huxley and have yet to have heard a "conservative" argument. When equal discourse for both sides of an issue are no longer allowed for, then you have lost all hope for true understanding and knowledge. God help us...

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Karl Uppiano link
3/31/2013 03:30:11 am

Back in the '60s and a little bit in the '70s, colleges and universities were hotbeds of anti-establishment thought and fervor. Question and challenge the status-quo, they said. It appears that was all a ruse. Now that the hippies are in charge of the institutions, it's all about "consensus" -- a euphemism for "status-quo".

It wasn't intellectual honesty they wanted, it was 'progressivism'. Challenging the status-quo was merely a tactic, which has been replaced with consensus, now that they're the establishment.

Here's a suggestion: Question authority! Think outside the box! Reject consensus! Seek the truth, wherever it may lead you. The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.

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Freedom is for me, but not for thee
3/31/2013 07:56:39 am

In my opinion, the character assassination of the past few days is morally corrupt. Bullying someone because you disagree with his or her ideas cannot be tolerated. It’s neither right nor fair.

The scientific content of Dr. Easterbrook’s invited State Senate testimony is not the issue. The issue is a WWU geology professor defaming Dr. Easterbrook, the person, instead of the content.

As a Washington State taxpayer, and as a scientist, I was pleased to see the State Legislature providing an opportunity to consider alternate views on a topic where some would unilaterally have us taking actions at great expense, actions that may be based on faulty premises.

I find the actions of the WWU geology department faculty reprehensible, unprofessional, and untenable. Actions that are bereft of the ethical and honorable standards that once were the hallmark of scientific and intellectual pursuit. Actions that exemplify fear of the truth, not a seeking of it. Rather than an eager acceptance of alternate views and a free exchange of ideas we now see close-mindedness and intolerant adherence to ideology.

We’re always told that tenure is needed to protect academic freedom, to protect a faculty member from retribution for having alternate viewpoints. Isn’t it ironic that these same tenured and tenure-seeking faulty fail to accord a distinguished professor emeritus the same privilege? “Freedom is for me, but not for thee” is their apparent mantra.

In my opinion, bullying and character assassination are never acceptable behaviors. The geology department has egregiously discredited itself, Western Washington University, the community, and the taxpayers of Washington State. A sincere apology and statement retraction are now insufficient; I think a resignation is needed. Anything less is unacceptable.

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Douglas
3/31/2013 08:30:28 am

So let me get this right, an actual expert in the field of climate science, with empirical factual data dares to testify at the senate hearings for telling what he has learned.

'They' feel so threatened politically that they come out with a bullying hit piece against this professor because he dared question the consensus in a reasoned and respectful manner?

Wow. That kind of smash-back is ugly and smells of politically motivated bullying.

Time to follow the money all right.

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Kathy
3/31/2013 08:37:42 am

In my opinion, this course of action is folly, shows ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and smacks of political motivation where none should exist. The whole idea that a faction of the WWU faculty staff would come after Dr. Easterbrook, or any other colleague, is shameful and reflects poorly on the staff, on the foundation, and on the institution of learning as a whole.

The precedent this type of action sets is truly alarming and must be stopped right now.

Who will be up for censorship and randomly chosen for a political scapegoat next?

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Joley
4/1/2013 03:04:40 am

WWU as well as the B'Ham Herald have always been liberal to the core and oppose other views. You really can't expect then to be "fair and balanced". I praise Dr. Easterbrook for his courage to speak up - there are many scientist's in climate technology who do agree with him.

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Joan Dow
3/31/2013 10:14:02 am

You no playa da game, you no gedda da grant.

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Karl Uppiano link
3/31/2013 01:46:13 pm

If you dislike this kind of bullying and faux-consensus (forced unanimity of thought), you should download the book, "Ho to Counter Group Manipulation Tactics", by B. K. Eakman. It is available for the Kindle on Amazon for $3.00, a bargain at twice the price.

Paste this link into your browser address bar: http://www.amazon.com/Counter-Group-Manipulation-Tactics-ebook/dp/B005J7LELS

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Vince Henley
4/1/2013 09:43:23 am

I have been following from afar the blatant personal attack on Professor Don Easterbrook by the so-called “active faculty” at his former university. Of course, in the process of this personal attack, the attackers presented no data to refute any point made by Professor Easterbrook or any argument stronger than “consensus” of the unnamed to suggest that his statements might be in error. The entire attack struck me as having the depth of an oil film on the waters of the brain. The attackers suggested that the only way Professor Easterbrook could be correct was if there existed a “broad, decades-long conspiracy amongst literally thousands of scientists to falsify climate data and to prevent publication of opposing research.”
Let’s explore this last quotation from the attackers. I seem to remember that various rather spectacular instances of exactly that phenomenon have been detected in the halls of certain prominent institutions. I don’t think it matters whether we are talking about Penn State, East Anglia, NASA/Columbia, the U.N’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or any of a number of such institutions. All have been detected in doing what the attackers suggest, and this has been very well documented and not quite as well defended or more than obviously covered-up as the wagons were circled to protect the guilty. The defenders rushed to the walls to defend the already tottering ivory towers of academia against the hordes of we, the great unwashed, who refused to see the manipulation for anything other than what it was; a great lie. The fact that a dozen nobodies from an obscure university have decided to add to the hopeless defense of this great lie is in the end, of no consequence. We should grant these attackers no more than their due, a figurative swat to silence an annoying swarm of insects.

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WE Editors - SEEN AT THE HERALD
4/1/2013 02:09:26 pm

Former Thatcher Science Advisor & UN IPCC Reviewer Lord Christopher Monckton weighs in on warmists smear of Geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook: ‘Dr. Easterbrook has been libeled. It is the rent-seeking global-warming profiteers of the WWU faculty, not Dr. Easterbrook, who are guilty of misrepresentation’
Monckton: 'The racketeers of the WWU faculty either know they are wrong or are ignorant and pretending to know they are right. Either way, they are guilty of deliberate misrepresentation of the objective scientific truth...[WWU's warmists professors] ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves but are too politicized on the far Left to have the grace to blush. And the Bellingham Herald should have known better than to publish their poisonously pietistic libel of Dr. Easterbrook, who deserves a handsome apology both from these grasping leeches and from the Herald. Shame on the lot of you'


By Marc Morano - Climate Depot April 1, 2013 10:59 AM
Take a look at Dr. Easterbrook’s impressive credentials here: Geologist Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, Emeritus Professor at Western Washington University, has authored ten books and 150 journal publications. Presented 31 research papers at international meetings in 13 countries outside the U.S.
Meet the Western Washington University (WWU) warmist professors who smeared skeptical Dr. Easterbrook with ‘consensus’ claims: Bernard A. Housen bernieh@wwu.edu — Susan Debari debari@geol.wwu.edu — Colin B. Amos Colin.Amos@wwu.edu – Robert Mitchell – robert.mitchell@wwu.edu

Lord Monckton: (March 31, 2013)

Dr. Easterbrook, to whose excellent book of scientific papers on global warming I had the honour to contribute a couple of years ago, has been libeled. It is the rent-seeking global-warming profiteers of the WWU faculty, not Dr. Easterbrook, who are guilty of misrepresentation.

To take one of many examples of misrepresentation on their part, they attempt to challenge his statement to the effect that the GISP2 ice-core temperature record from Greenland shows that the temperature of air trapped in ice that formed on the summit plateau 8000 years ago was 2.5 Celsius degrees warmer than in the mid-19th century and, therefore, 1.8 Celsius degrees warmer than the present.

They attempt to tamper with the truth by suggesting that the air temperature in Greenland is not global; that the record stops in 1850, not the somewhat warmer present; and that, therefore, we cannot say the Holocene climate optimum from 10,000-6000 years ago was globally warmer than the present.
The racketeers of the WWU faculty either know they are wrong or are ignorant and pretending to know they are right. Either way, they are guilty of deliberate misrepresentation of the objective scientific truth. For it is well understood that temperatures in Greenland and Antarctica change by approximately twice the global average, by what is called “polar amplification”.

This phenomenon occurs because the tropics cannot warm significantly. Advection takes any additional heat poleward. Therefore, if Greenland was 1.8 degrees warmer than the present 8000 years ago, the world was almost a degree warmer than the present at that time.

In fact, there has been no global warming for 17 years. This is one of many facts the WWU faculty chose not to mention. For the past eight years, according to the ENVISAT sea-level monitoring satellite, sea level has been rising at a rate equivalent to just 1.3 inches per century.

As an expert reviewer for the IPCC’s forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report, I can also report that the IPCC itself plans to publish a graph showing that the predictions of global warming in all four of its previous multi-thousand-page quinquennial Assessment Reports have proven to be enormous exaggerations. The computer models it uses have failed.

Dr. Easterbrook, therefore, is a great deal closer to the current state of climate science than the money-grubbing gangsters of WWU, who ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves but are too politicized on the far Left to have the grace to blush.

And the Bellingham Herald should have known better than to publish their poisonously pietistic libel of Dr. Easterbrook, who deserves a handsome apology both from these grasping leeches and from the Herald. Shame on the lot of you.

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Charles
4/1/2013 04:23:25 pm

Bravo Lord Monckton & Marc Morano!

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WE Editors
4/1/2013 04:18:36 pm

Received this through "Contact Us"

Dr E. is scheduled to speak for the Anacortes Kiwanis this Wed morning at 7:30 AM at the Methodist Church - 2201 H. Ave

..."This Wednesday" is April 3rd

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Legal Eagle
4/3/2013 02:02:11 am

It's interesting that the WWU Geology Department should insist that the CO2 issue is settled when the EPA refused to undergo peer-review when it adopted its 2009 "endangerment finding." On March 20, the Pacific Legal Foundation filed a Writ of Certiorari in the US Supreme Court that points out:

"Because carbon dioxide is virtually everywhere and in everything, the Endangerment Finding confers upon EPA unprecedented authority to direct and control the Nation’s physical, economic, and social infrastructure. Congress requires that a wide variety of regulations promulgated by EPA be made available for peer review by a panel of independent scientists known as the Science Advisory Board (SAB), whose function is to ensure the scientific credibility of EPA’s regulatory proposals. 42 U.S.C. § 4365(c)(1).

EPA promulgated the Endangerment Finding without providing the SAB with the opportunity for scientific peer review.

The question presented is: Must the Endangerment Finding be set aside because EPA violated the congressional mandate to submit the proposed Finding to the Science Advisory Board for peer review, as required by 42 U.S.C. § 4365(c)(1)? "

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Skagit Razzberry
4/4/2013 06:15:06 am

Anyone who tells us that the "science is settled" is not a scientist. I admire Dr. Easterbrook's willingness to stand up to this fallacy. I do not admire WWU staff for its religious fervor in hastily tying him to a stake. Salem, anyone? This knee-jerk rejection of additional research-based information calls into question the objectivity of those who are "teaching" our youth. Debating both sides of an issue used to be encouraged. Now it is my way or the highway. This does not encourage critical thinking. It does generate grants.

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