“Mark- Well, if if you overcome your remorse and want to write a review, good or bad, we’ll run it here . . .”

Thank you, that’s very kind. Right now, I’m juggling a few things (including trying to figure out what California’s water situation will be like in 2100, and how houses can be prevented from burning in wildfires in the U.S. and Australia). But if I get some free time, that would be very interesting. (I’d probably want to focus on Steve Rayner’s chapter…that was the main reason I bought the book.)

Best wishes, and thanks again for the offer,
Mark

“Oh? But there were some who provided the politicians with information they preferred to believe. Do you think those advising in the Iraq affair weren’t considered experts?”

First off, let me admit that I didn’t follow the whole Iraq lead-in very carefully.

I thought G.W. Bush should have just said, “I’m going into Iraq because Saddam Hussein tried to kill my dad. That’s my main motivation. Anything else is just icing on the cake.” (Seriously. I think the main reason the U.S. invaded Iraq was that G.W. Bush was the president, and Saddam Hussein tried to kill G.H.W. Bush.)

Let’s take the yellowcake from Niger example. Again, I don’t know the details, so I could easily be wrong, but my impression was that the experts realized that there wasn’t any merit to that, but that they were ignored by political players (possibly even G.W. Bush himself).

“Or that those who provided the information that was accepted by the politicians weren’t pretending to be impartial?”

Again, we’d need to discuss specific examples, and I’m not very up on details, but my impression of Iraq is that experts were generally ignored if they said things or presented evidence that didn’t fit what the adminstration (specifically, G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney) wanted to do, which was to invade Iraq.

“2) So how is The Skeptical Environmentalists not an example? Roger hasn’t said the examples only come from one side. The fact that you see the behavior on both sides of “The Sekptical Environmentalist” debate might appear to be a double-whammy example.”

Yes, when you put it that way, and I think about it more carefully, I’d say that is indeed a good example of scientists (on both sides) posing as impartial, but not really being impartial. If either side had been truly impartial, they would have freely admitted if the other side had a good point.

The Lomborg case was appalling attempt to throttle free speech. Many times peer review papers are later found faulty. Nobody drags them in front of government bodies as was the case in Denmark.

2) So how is The Skeptical Environmentalists not an example? Roger hasn’t said the examples only come from one side. The fact that you see the behavior on both sides of “The Sekptical Environmentalist” debate might appear to be a double-whammy example. It’s not a non-example.

Those two examples don’t seem to be good examples what John Tierney described, because:

1) I don’t think of Iraq as experts pretending to be impartial; I think of it more as politicians ignoring experts or misrepresenting experts.

2) On The Skeptical Environmentalist, certainly Lomborg was denigrated as “unqualified” and “unscientific.” I thought both sides behaved pretty badly in that episode. Neither side admitted when the other had valid points.

“Probably best to read the book;-)”

Perhaps, but I’m still trying to deal with my buyer’s remorse about purchasing “Prediction.”

(Seriously, Steve Raymer’s chapter on climate change was particularly disappointing.)

Probably best to read the book;-)

Hmmm…neither of those two examples seems to match very well with:

“…they pose as impartial experts pointing politicians to the only option that makes scientific sense. To bolster their case, they’re prone to exaggerate their expertise…”

Thanks,
Mark