Climate scientist admits biasing paper to get published
A climate scientist has admitted exaggerating the impact of global warming on Californian wildfires to get his research published
Patrick T Brown claims studies about ‘climate change‘ are rejected by scientific journals if they do not ‘support certain narratives’ and they favour ‘distorted’ research which overstates dangers.
He says his research article, which was published last week in Nature and titled ‘Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California‘, focused exclusively on ‘climate change’ and intentionally ignored other key factors.
The US state has suffered extreme wildfires in recent years which have led to loss of life and property. Writing in The Free Press, Dr Brown said:
‘I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature… want to tell.’
Explaining why he did this, Dr Brown, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University in the US, said:
‘… it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals…
And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives – even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.’
Dr Brown claimed the journals approach climate research in the way ‘the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause’ of wildfires, including the devastating fires in Hawaii last month, which killed 115 people.
However, he pointed out research that showed 80 per cent of wildfires were started by humans.
He said:
‘To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change.’
Dr Magdalena Skipper, editor in chief at Nature, which is based in London, said the journal did not have a ‘preferred narrative’ when it comes to science.
She said it had an ‘expectation’ that researchers had used the most appropriate data, methods and results, adding that ‘to deliberately not to do so is, at best, highly irresponsible’.
Dr Skipper claimed when reviewers asked Dr Brown to include other factors which cause wildfires, he argued against it.
She said:
‘We are now carefully considering the implications of his stated actions. They reflect poor research practices and are not in line with the standards we set for our journal.’
See more here dailymail.co.uk
Header image: MSN
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Thanks to Richard Thompson
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Herb Rose
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There are no climate “scientists”. Only people who spent a lt of time snd money going to school learning to be experts in complete nonsense. (Just like physicist do.) They try to make everything complicated in order to make people think they know something, but it’s all nonsense. By using averages and faulty data they completely disconnect with reality.
They claim the Earth heats the atmosphere but after it snows they will wait until the snow covered Earth heats the atmosphere to well above freezing before they go out and shovel the snow. When out sailing, when the water heats the atmosphere so that it is uncomfortably hot, they will jump into the water to cool off. It takes a lot of schooling and time to become that stupid.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
I read: “Dr Skipper claimed when reviewers asked Dr Brown to include other factors which cause wildfires, he argued against it.”
If this is the case, why did she, as editor of NATURE, publish the article without the inclusion of these other factors???
Have a good day
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