From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Fri Jan 17 2003 - 20:42:44 MST
On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
[snip Eliezer's detailed analysis]
Include a post from another list with an extensive copy of a Nature
commentary that seems to agree for the most part (though in somewhat
less depth IMO) with Eliezer's perspective:
> From ljk4@msn.com Fri Jan 17 19:35:53 2003
> Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 21:32:05 -0500
> Subject: Fw: CCNet: 'NATURE' REBUKES DANISH COMITTEES ON SCIENTIFIC DISHONESTY
>
> From: Peiser Benny
> Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 3:58 PM
> To: cambridge-conference
> Subject: CCNet: 'NATURE' REBUKES DANISH COMITTEES ON SCIENTIFIC DISHONESTY
>
> 'NATURE' REBUKES DANISH COMITTEES ON SCIENTIFIC DISHONESTY
>
> From Nature, 16 January, 2003, page 195
>
> "More heat, less light on Lomborg"
>
> A Danish committee has picked an appropriate target and misfired.
>
> Not surprisingly, last week's ruling by the Danish Committees on
> Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD) that Bjørn Lomborg, in his controversial
> book The Skeptical Environmentalist, selected data in a "severely
> biased" manner and exhibited poor scientific practice (see page 201)
> received widespread international media coverage. But whether the DCSD
> emerged with credit also deserves reflection.
>
> Lomborg's hypothesis that warnings issued by environmentalists and
> scientists are unwarranted, presented in the book rather than in the
> peer-reviewed literature, has been widely criticized by researchers. But
> what is the DCSD's authority to tackle what many consider a polemical
> rather than scientific book?
>
> The DCSD was the first European body to be set up - by the Danish
> Research Agency - to examine issues of scientific misconduct, and it is
> still unusual in being mandated to consider any complaint about any
> scientist, or any scientific work, emerging from both the private and
> public sectors. A look at its guiding principles (see
> http://www.forsk.dk/eng/index.htm) and its judgement (see
> http://www.forsk.dk/uvvu/nyt/udtaldebat/bl_decision.htm) confirms that
> the DCSD has the freedom to assess the case because, arguably, Lomborg
> presented himself as an academic and his book as a scientific argument.
> Appropriately enough, the DCSD emphasizes that it is assessing Lomborg's
> scientific standards, not his conclusions.
>
> The national context of this independent assessment is relevant here.
> Lomborg was made director of the politically influential Danish
> Environmental Assessment Institute, founded by the new right-wing
> government after the 2001 elections, solely on the strength of it.
> According to its own statutes, the institute must be headed by a
> scientist of appropriate research experience, whereas Lomborg has little
> additional experience.
>
> Lomborg's claims in his book are certainly significant and potentially
> influential. The Danish public, at least, has the right to know whether
> he is arguing on scientifically rigorous grounds, not least given the
> influence of his position.
>
> Unfortunately, the DCSD has left itself in a weak position. It did not
> conduct an independent analysis of the book but relied on published
> criticisms, especially a controversial selection published by Scientific
> American. Even to call this judgement's basis a 'meta-analysis' would be
> too generous: there is, for example, no justification given for the
> particular selection of published critiques. Furthermore, through a
> tangled combination of translation and legalese, the committee's
> judgement characterizes Lomborg as "objectively dishonest" while at the
> same time stating that they have no evidence for what most people would
> call dishonesty: deliberate misrepresentation. That subtle, not to say
> tortuous, distinction has been lost in the media coverage.
>
> There remains a need for rigorous scrutiny of Lomborg's methods, given
> his prominence, his claims to serious analysis, and the polarized debate
> surrounding his book. But this episode leaves everyone little wiser, and
> the waters surrounding Lomborg even muddier.
>
> © 2003 Nature Publishing Group
>
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