This Is An Important Moment In Science History.

[Scott Sando]

Sent: Friday, 08 October 2010 17:19 Hal Lewis

From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara

To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society

6 October 2010

Dear Curt:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).

Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.

Hal

==========================================================

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)

'This is an important moment in science history. I would describe it as a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door. It is worthy of repeating this letter in entirety on every blog that discusses science.

What I would really like to see though, is this public resignation letter given the same editorial space as Michael Mann in today’s Washington Post.'

[Confounded]

'This is an important moment in science history. I would describe it as a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door. It is worthy of repeating this letter in entirety on every blog that discusses science.

What I would really like to see though, is this public resignation letter given the same editorial space as Michael Mann in today’s Washington Post.'

I sent this to my brother who is a physicist (not in the climate industry) and he had read this but warned;

"Apparently there is some back story to this - he tried to organise a coup of the APS some years ago, and lost out."

[Scott Sando]

I sent this to my brother who is a physicist (not in the climate industry) and he had read this but warned;

"Apparently there is some back story to this - he tried to organise a coup of the APS some years ago, and lost out."

[

Sounds like a coup is needed there. If any of his claims aren't true they can sue him.

[Scott Sando]

I sent this to my brother who is a physicist (not in the climate industry) and he had read this but warned;

"Apparently there is some back story to this - he tried to organise a coup of the APS some years ago, and lost out."

Is this the coup your talking about .

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.

[GBdamo]

5.....4......3......2.....1..... to OT you go with the other thread.

Still a huge bombshell for the environazis though

[Scott Sando]

If what Hal says is incorrect then he's drag there scientific name through the mud by acusing them of being unscientific, and worst of all corrupt. I suppose he should be expecting a law suit, but for some reason, I doubt it.

[Executive Sadman]

Not commenting on the AGW science or anything, but its peoples blind trust of the state that scares me.

When some govt hack says the 'denier' scientists are all employed by oil companies so cant be trusted.

I mean WTF FFS. Im to trust proponents of AGW because they are employed by the GOVERNMENT??!!!

Governments would never lie. Iraq, Iran Contra, Nicuragua, Good day to bury bad news etc so on and so on.

That makes me trust them LESS!

People seem to be under this illusion that only private companies can commit evil, That governments are somehow only there to be nice.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON????

[Scott Sando]

Not commenting on the AGW science or anything, but its peoples blind trust of the state that scares me.

When some govt hack says the 'denier' scientists are all employed by oil companies so cant be trusted.

I mean WTF FFS. Im to trust proponents of AGW because they are employed by the GOVERNMENT??!!!

Governments would never lie. Iraq, Iran Contra, Nicuragua, Good day to bury bad news etc so on and so on.

That makes me trust them LESS!

People seem to be under this illusion that only private companies can commit evil, That governments are somehow only there to be nice.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON????

Good point! As to what the hell is going on, search and yeah shall find, but you've got to do your homework.

[GBdamo]

Not commenting on the AGW science or anything, but its peoples blind trust of the state that scares me.

When some govt hack says the 'denier' scientists are all employed by oil companies so cant be trusted.

I mean WTF FFS. Im to trust proponents of AGW because they are employed by the GOVERNMENT??!!!

Governments would never lie. Iraq, Iran Contra, Nicuragua, Good day to bury bad news etc so on and so on.

That makes me trust them LESS!

People seem to be under this illusion that only private companies can commit evil, That governments are somehow only there to be nice.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON????

He also highlights the fact that, as a result of government funding, science is now morally bankrupt. With funding so reliant on results, the 'correct' results that is, a whole generation of scientists have been developed that will defend the current status quo as the norm.

The future is not bright.

[Fishman]

I've been telling people for years that Anthropogenic Global Warming exists only in the minds and egos of scientists that propogate

this incredible theory.

[Scott Sando]

He also highlights the fact that, as a result of government funding, science is now morally bankrupt. With funding so reliant on results, the 'correct' results that is, a whole generation of scientists have been developed that will defend the current status quo as the norm.

The future is not bright.

Scary, isn't it, that some scientist are starting to act like priests, but lucky for us the majority still have morals you just don't hear there opinions through mainstream news.

[Number79]

I've been telling people for years that Anthropogenic Global Warming exists only in the minds and egos of scientists that propogate

this incredible theory.

Yep. They did not start with a fresh slate, gather evidence and draw conclusions. They started with an answer and looked for supporting evidence.

[fluffy666]

I've been telling people for years that Anthropogenic Global Warming exists only in the minds and egos of scientists that propogate

this incredible theory.

Interesting.

Can you give, in your own words, an accurate description of what this theory actually is? I'm not asking you to believe it, or tell me why it's wrong, just explain what it is.

[Scott Sando]

He also highlights the fact that, as a result of government funding, science is now morally bankrupt. With funding so reliant on results, the 'correct' results that is, a whole generation of scientists have been developed that will defend the current status quo as the norm.

The future is not bright.

Environmental Magazine Advocates War Crimes Trials For Global Warming Skeptics

By Noel Sheppard | October 11, 2006 | 14:37

This is pretty extraordinary stuff, folks. The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works has just issued a majority statement about an environmental magazine advocating Nuremberg-like war crimes trials for folks that question the existence of man-made global warming:

A U.S. based environmental magazine that both former Vice President Al Gore and PBS newsman Bill Moyers, for his October 11th global warming edition of “Moyers on America” titled “Is God Green?” have deemed respectable enough to grant one-on-one interviews to promote their projects, is now advocating Nuremberg-style war crimes trials for skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming. Grist Magazine’s staff writer David Roberts called for the Nuremberg-style trials for the “bastards” who were members of what he termed the global warming “denial industry.”

Amazing. The statement continued:

Roberts wrote in the online publication on September 19, 2006, "When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg.”

Gore and Moyers have not yet commented on Grist's advocacy of prosecuting skeptics of global warming with a Nuremberg-style war crimes trial. Gore has used the phrase "global warming deniers" to describe scientists and others who don't share his view of the Earth's climate. It remains to be seen what Gore and Moyers will have to say about proposals to make skepticism a crime comparable to Holocaust atrocities.

This invective has drawn criticism even from folks that support global warming theories:

The use of Holocaust terminology has drawn the ire of Roger Pielke, Jr. of the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. “The phrase ‘climate change denier’ is meant to be evocative of the phrase ‘holocaust denier,’” Pielke, Jr. wrote on October 9, 2006. “Let's be blunt. This allusion is an affront to those who suffered and died in the Holocaust. This allusion has no place in the discourse on climate change. I say this as someone fully convinced of a significant human role in the behavior of the climate system,” Pielke, Jr. explained.

Apparently, this is not a new affectation:

The article Global Warming: The Chilling Effect On Free Speech last week in Spiked Online addresses this new found penchant by environmentalists and some media members to charge skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming with “crimes against humanity” and urge Nuremberg-style prosecution of them.

Yikes. So, folks that disagree with junk science should now be tried for voicing their opinions? Truly unbelievable.

[GBdamo]

Interesting.

Can you give, in your own words, an accurate description of what this theory actually is? I'm not asking you to believe it, or tell me why it's wrong, just explain what it is.

Can you? The damn thing changes on a daily basis, try commenting on the OP rather than throwing up your normal straw men.

[Number79]

In the late 60's and 70's they were sure that we were heading into a new global ice age.

Recently things warmed up a bit and global warming meant higher taxes and much money making.

The last couple of years have seen cooling again and much more talk of harsh winters, cooling periods and ice ages again.

The earth has always warmed and cooled the only difference now is that people are making money from the warming theory although that will get blown out of the water eventually me thinks.

What I never understood is how man made glowball warming came about only recently yet after we stopped using coal to heat every single house.

[GBdamo]

Environmental Magazine Advocates War Crimes Trials For Global Warming Skeptics

By Noel Sheppard | October 11, 2006 | 14:37

This is pretty extraordinary stuff, folks. The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works has just issued a majority statement about an environmental magazine advocating Nuremberg-like war crimes trials for folks that question the existence of man-made global warming:

A U.S. based environmental magazine that both former Vice President Al Gore and PBS newsman Bill Moyers, for his October 11th global warming edition of "Moyers on America" titled "Is God Green?" have deemed respectable enough to grant one-on-one interviews to promote their projects, is now advocating Nuremberg-style war crimes trials for skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming. Grist Magazine's staff writer David Roberts called for the Nuremberg-style trials for the "bastards" who were members of what he termed the global warming "denial industry."

Amazing. The statement continued:

Roberts wrote in the online publication on September 19, 2006, "When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg."

Gore and Moyers have not yet commented on Grist's advocacy of prosecuting skeptics of global warming with a Nuremberg-style war crimes trial. Gore has used the phrase "global warming deniers" to describe scientists and others who don't share his view of the Earth's climate. It remains to be seen what Gore and Moyers will have to say about proposals to make skepticism a crime comparable to Holocaust atrocities.

This invective has drawn criticism even from folks that support global warming theories:

The use of Holocaust terminology has drawn the ire of Roger Pielke, Jr. of the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. "The phrase 'climate change denier' is meant to be evocative of the phrase 'holocaust denier,'" Pielke, Jr. wrote on October 9, 2006. "Let's be blunt. This allusion is an affront to those who suffered and died in the Holocaust. This allusion has no place in the discourse on climate change. I say this as someone fully convinced of a significant human role in the behavior of the climate system," Pielke, Jr. explained.

Apparently, this is not a new affectation:

The article Global Warming: The Chilling Effect On Free Speech last week in Spiked Online addresses this new found penchant by environmentalists and some media members to charge skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming with "crimes against humanity" and urge Nuremberg-style prosecution of them.

Yikes. So, folks that disagree with junk science should now be tried for voicing their opinions? Truly unbelievable.

I hope most of this falls in to the 'Only in America' catagory of lunacy. You'll soon have them killing people in the name of saving mankind. Like the anti abortion lobbly

[Scott Sando]

weathermen can't even predict the weather for the next week, what makes people think they can predict 20, 30, 40, 100 years hence

[Scott Sando]

I hope most of this falls in to the 'Only in Ameriac' catagory of lunacy. You'll soon have them killing people in the name of saving mankind. Like the anti abortion lobbly

ITs not just in america, check out this 10/10 advert on global warming,My link

[Scunnered]

weathermen can't even predict the weather for the next week, what makes people think they can predict 20, 30, 40, 100 years hence

It's refreshing to see a bit of originality entering the debate.

[GBdamo]

ITs not just in america, check out this 10/10 advert on global warming,My link

Seen it, smacks of desperation though. As the world starts to ignore them they shout louder and louder as they disappear off into the distance.

[Scott Sando]

Seen it, smacks of desperation though. As the world starts to ignore them they shout louder and louder as they disappear off into the distance.

Bye, Bye.

[Number79]

It's refreshing to see a bit of originality entering the debate.

you only have to look at the met and their defense for getting forecasts of bbq summers and light winters wrong. Apparently predicting seasonal weather in advance is a new science in its infancy and still very difficult.

FFS if they cant tell you in spring what sort of summer or autumn you will have then how can they guess any further out than that?

All this guess work seems to be based on computer models and questionable readings. There is a poster here that studied this and when she asked if the models ran in reverse would they ever get back to a recognisable climate like today. The answer was always a no so she concluded that the computer models are fundamentally flawed and I would have to agree.

[GBdamo]

you only have to look at the met and their defense for getting forecasts of bbq summers and light winters wrong. Apparently predicting seasonal weather in advance is a new science in its infancy and still very difficult.

FFS if they cant tell you in spring what sort of summer or autumn you will have then how can they guess any further out than that?

All this guess work seems to be based on computer models and questionable readings. There is a poster here that studied this and when she asked if the models ran in reverse would they ever get back to a recognisable climate like today. The answer was always a no so she concluded that the computer models are fundamentally flawed and I would have to agree.

No offence, but all this distracts from the OP, a letter that is monumantal and in being so should be discussed by both sides of the debate.

You can argue this kind of detail round in circles all day, and that's exactly what they want you to do.

[Scott Sando]

Seen it, smacks of desperation though. As the world starts to ignore them they shout louder and louder as they disappear off into the distance.

This is one of my personal favourite threats from the global warmin cult My link