Whether you believe in Global Warming or not, I disagree with the form of editing/bullying that is going on in this case. If Wikipedia is to survive as a reliable source of information, uncluding scientific info, then they need to folow their own rules. Science should be honest or truth-seeking, no matter where it leads you.
Brian P.S. Sorry for the HTML format.
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Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 3:24 PM
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GreenWatchAmericahttp://e2ma.net/userdata/22952/images/e1214872374.jpg
Dear Brian,
Today Lawrence Solomon, author of The Deniers http://e2ma.net/go/1189762965/1080694/39603805/goto:http://e2ma.net/go/ 1189716471/1080616/39601790/goto:http://www.richardvigilantebooks.com , has a great piece on National Review Online exposing how the editors of Wikipedia (supposedly the "people's encyclopedia") have become part of the global warming propaganda machine.
And it's not just on Global Warming that Wikipedia pushes the left-wing line. As Larry says "Wikipedia is the people's encyclopedia only if the people are not conservatives."
We reprint Larry's NRO piece in full below.
Our petition to urge John McCain not to get sucked into the myth of Global Warming continues to gather steam. Next week we will do our biggest mailing yet in our push to get 100,000 names by mid-July and half a million before the GOP convention.
Meanwhile GreenWatchAmerica will continue to update you on what is now clearly the Left's favorite weapon for pushing its agenda: Environmentalism twisted into an excuse for seizing control of more and more of the economy, and forcing Americans to live out the Left's dream of the good life, even if it strikes us as a nightmare.
As some of you know, I got motivated on the global warming issue by the experience of editing and publishing Larry Solomon's book, which demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt, not only that "the science is not settled", but that the most eminent climate scientists also tend to be the most skeptical of Global Warming hysteria.
As book publishers we can only do so much. GreenWatchAmerica gives us a vehicle to pitch into the fight in a much more timely way.
Richard Vigilante
Publisher
Wikipropaganda
By Lawrence Solomon
Ever wonder how Al Gore, the United Nations, and company continue to get away with their claim of a "scientific consensus" confirming their doomsday view of global warming? Look no farther than Wikipedia for a stunning example of how the global-warming propaganda machine works.
As you (or your kids) probably know, Wikipedia is now the most widely used and influential reference source on the Internet and therefore in the world, with more than 50 million unique visitors a month.
In theory Wikipedia is a "people's encyclopedia" written and edited by the people who read it -- anyone with an Internet connection. So on controversial topics, one might expect to see a broad range of opinion.
Not on global warming. On global warming we get consensus, Gore-style: a consensus forged by censorship, intimidation, and deceit.
I first noticed this when I entered a correction to a Wikipedia page on the work of Naomi Oreskes, author of the now-infamous paper, published in the prestigious journal Science, claiming to have exhaustively reviewed the scientific literature and found not one single article dissenting from the alarmist version of global warming.
Of course Oreskes's conclusions were absurd, and have been widely ridiculed. I myself have profiled dozens of truly world-eminent scientists whose work casts doubt on the Gore-U.N. version of global warming. Following the references in my book The Deniers, one can find hundreds of refereed papers that cast doubt on some aspect of the Gore/U.N. case, and that only scratches the surface.
Naturally I was surprised to read on Wikipedia that Oreskes's work had been vindicated and that, for instance, one of her most thorough critics, British scientist and publisher Bennie Peiser, not only had been discredited but had grudgingly conceded Oreskes was right.
I checked with Peiser, who said he had done no such thing. I then corrected the Wikipedia entry, and advised Peiser that I had done so.
Peiser wrote back saying he couldn't see my corrections on the Wikipedia page. I made the changes again, and this time confirmed that the changes had been saved. But then, in a twinkle, they were gone again. I made other changes. And others. They all disappeared shortly after they were made.
Turns out that on Wikipedia some folks are more equal than others. Kim Dabelstein Petersen is a Wikipedia "editor" who seems to devote a large part of his life to editing reams and reams of Wikipedia pages to pump the assertions of global-warming alarmists and deprecate or make disappear the arguments of skeptics.
I soon found others who had the same experience: They would try to squeeze in any dissent, or even correct an obvious slander against a dissenter, and Petersen or some other censor would immediately snuff them out.
Now Petersen is merely a Wikipedia "editor." Holding the far more prestigious and powerful position of "administrator" is William Connolley. Connolley is a software engineer and sometime climatologist (he used to hold a job in the British Antarctic Survey), as well as a serial (but so far unsuccessful) office seeker for England's Green party.
And yet by virtue of his power at Wikipedia, Connolley, a ruthless enforcer of the doomsday consensus, may be the world's most influential person in the global warming debate after Al Gore. Connolley routinely uses his editorial clout to tear down scientists of great accomplishment such as Fred Singer, the first director of the U.S. National Weather Satellite Service and a scientist with dazzling achievements. Under Connolley's supervision, Wikipedia relentlessly smears Singer as a kook who believes in Martians and a hack in the pay of the oil industry.
Wikipedia is full of rules that editors are supposed to follow, and it has a code of civility. Those rules and codes don't apply to Connolley, or to those he favors.
"Peisers crap shouldn't be in here," Connolley wrote several weeks ago, in berating a Wikipedian colleague during an "edit war," as they're called. Trumping Wikipedia's stated rules, Connelly used his authority to ensure Wikipedia readers saw only what he wanted them to see. Any reference, anywhere among Wikipedia's 2.5 million English-language pages, that casts doubt on the consequences of climate change will be bent to Connolley's bidding.
Nor are Wikipedia's ideological biases limited to global warming. As an environmentalist I find myself with allies and adversaries on both sides of the aisle, Left and Right. But there is no doubt where Wikipedia stands: firmly on the Left. Try out Wikipedia's entries on say, Roe v. Wade or Intelligent Design, and you will see that Wikipedia is the people's encyclopedia only if those people are not conservatives.
-- Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and author of The Deniers.
If you are interested in Larry's book, The Deniers is available at RichardVigilanteBooks.com http://e2ma.net/go/1189762965/1080694/39603806/goto:http://e2ma.net/go/ 1189716471/1080616/39601791/goto:http://www.richardvigilantebooks.com , or at Amaz http://e2ma.net/go/1189762965/1080694/39603807/goto:http://e2ma.net/go/ 1189716471/1080616/39601792/goto:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0980076315/richardvcom-20/ on http://e2ma.net/go/1189762965/1080694/39603808/goto:http://e2ma.net/go/ 1189716471/1080616/39601793/goto:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0980076315/richardvcom-20/ or Barnes and Noble http://e2ma.net/go/1189762965/1080694/39603809/goto:http://e2ma.net/go/ 1189716471/1080616/39601794/goto:http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Denier s/Lawrence-Solomon/e/9780980076318/?itm=1&afsrc=1&lkid=J24537183&pubid=K 158729&byo=1/ online. Eventually we will have it up on the Green Watch America site too.
GreenWatchAmerica 3033 Executive Boulevard | Suite G10 | Minneapolis, MN 55416
From: kclug-bounces@kclug.org [mailto:kclug-bounces@kclug.org] On Behalf Of Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO If Wikipedia is to survive as a reliable source of information, uncluding scientific info,
ROTFLMAO with tears in my eyes.
[SlimVirgin is Linda Mack]
Thanks,
Ron Geoffrion 913.488.7664
Is your only source for this accusation this email?
Their byline, "pro-environment conservatives exposing the lies of the radical eco-movement", shows an obvious bias. It supposes "lies", calls them "radical", and states an obvious political position - "conservative". They cite an article by the National Review, which is a partisan publication. Hardly seems to be an objective source.
Reading the article, I find it to be a partisan political piece. Given the sources, and the content, I'm inclined to dismiss all of it as bullshit. I'm not saying that what's written is true or false, I'm saying that given its source and given the sensationalistic way in which it's presented I'm inclined to believe it's untrustworthy. There's lots of crap like this floating around on the Internet after all, and any savvy person needs to be able to quickly filter the crap out. After all, didn't you know that Barack Obama was a _hidden Muslim_??!?!?! It's true, someone sent me an email that claims it's from a reliable source~
Don't believe everything you read online, do your own investigation, and especially don't believe partisan ranting that's emailed to you - from either the left or the right. 99 times out of a 100 it's bullshit.
It amazes me what people consider to be "journalism" these days.
Jeffrey.
On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 10:24 AM, Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO brian.kelsay@kcc.usda.gov wrote:
Whether you believe in Global Warming or not, I disagree with the form of editing/bullying that is going on in this case. If Wikipedia is to survive as a reliable source of information, uncluding scientific info, then they need to folow their own rules. Science should be honest or truth-seeking, no matter where it leads you.
Brian P.S. Sorry for the HTML format.
On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 10:24 AM, Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO brian.kelsay@kcc.usda.gov wrote:
line. As Larry says "Wikipedia is the people's encyclopedia only if the people are not conservatives."
is "the people are not conservatives" news or something?
I think they were looking for "ConservaPedia".
Jeffrey.
On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 2:51 PM, David Nicol davidnicol@gmail.com wrote:
is "the people are not conservatives" news or something?
--- On Fri, 7/11/08, Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO brian.kelsay@kcc.usda.gov wrote:
Whether you believe in Global Warming or not, I disagree with the form of editing/bullying that is going on in this case. If Wikipedia is to survive as a reliable source of information, uncluding scientific info, then they need to folow their own rules.
I've always considered Wikipedia to be more of a jumping-off point than a 100% reliable source of information. It's where you find all the Google, and library catalog, keywords for a subject you may not know a great deal about. I know that no college instructor I've ever had in the past several years has considered a citation from Wikipedia to be as reliable as that from a published book or peer-reviewed journal.
There's a great new BBC radio show called "On The Blog" which makes fun of the institutions of the Internet while telling the ongoing life story of a nerdy wargames enthusiast, Andrew Glasgow, with his own blog (and a cast of very entertaining chracters). Names are changed to protect the writers, but the writers really enjoy taking potshots at Wikipedia with their own version (the name of which I can't recall at the moment) which is referred to as "the Internet encyclopedia which anyone can edit". If anyone can edit an information source, and do so quickly and easily, then opinions become more relevant than actual data.
Wikipedia really demonstrates why I'm glad we don't have a direct democracy.
Science should be honest or truth-seeking, no matter where it leads you.
To be entirely fair, conservatives haven't had a very good record presenting good science to back up viewpoints. Whether or not you believe in climate change, the evidence appears to be mostly in favor of climate change. The fact that the piece presented used the words "global warming" instead of "climate change" speaks of a biased work.
Personally I think that the reason why conservatives continue to use the words "global warming" when the consensus is now "climate change", is that when we eventually see snow in July, they can say "See? Snow! Snow is cold! We told you global warming is false!"
On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 7:48 AM, Leo Mauler webgiant@yahoo.com wrote:
Whether or not you believe in climate change, the evidence appears to be mostly in favor of climate change. The fact that the piece presented used the words "global warming" instead of "climate change" speaks of a biased work.
Of course climate changes. We have solid evidence of ice ages, separated by warmer periods such as the current one. But the theory that CO2 causes the warm periods is completely bogus; the record shows that increases and decreases in CO2 -=FOLLOW=- global temperature changes by ~800 years. It's bad enough when people commit the logical fallacy "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc", but this is "Pre hoc, ergo propter hoc"!
Al Gore had the cajones to put graphs of CO2 and temperature up on the wall, vertically separated so as to make the eight century lag difficult to see, and won a damn Nobel prize for his trouble. It's rank dishonesty, and we can't make intelligent decisions based on misinformation. (ObOnTopicRef: Garbage In, Garbage Out)
On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 8:36 AM, Monty J. Harder mjharder@gmail.com wrote:
Of course climate changes. We have solid evidence of ice ages, separated by warmer periods such as the current one. But the theory that CO2 causes the warm periods is completely bogus
The ice age / interglacial oscillation is perfectly explained by the interaction of our planet wobbling on its axis going in and out of phase with the elliptical orbit, or something like that. Anyway we're at the end of the current interglacial, in another few thousand years the Lakotah Nation will be under a thick ice sheet and people will be farming the bottom of the English Channel.
Al Gore had the cajones to put graphs of CO2 and temperature up on the wall, vertically separated so as to make the eight century lag difficult to see, and won a damn Nobel prize for his trouble. It's rank dishonesty, and we can't make intelligent decisions based on misinformation. (ObOnTopicRef: Garbage In, Garbage Out)
The point of the CO2 measurement chart was not to make this false straw man claim which you have mispercieved, but to point out that current levels are abnormally high.
I like to think that the Rand corporation (or some such) engineered global warming sixty years ago as a way to (1) extend the current interglacial and (2) allow more of the available land (siberia, northern canada) to have a longer growing season.
I avoid getting drawn into debates on the topic since it seems that anyone debating the topic with any vigor is doing so to avoid examining their own problems, whatever they might be, but I could not help but respond to Monty's attempt to impugn Mr. Gore's cojones.
--- On Mon, 7/14/08, David Nicol davidnicol@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 8:36 AM, Monty J. Harder mjharder@gmail.com wrote:
Of course climate changes. We have solid evidence of ice ages, separated by warmer periods such as the current one. But the theory that CO2 causes the warm periods is completely bogus
The ice age / interglacial oscillation is perfectly explained by the interaction of our planet wobbling on its axis going in and out of phase with the elliptical orbit, or something like that. Anyway we're at the end of the current interglacial, in another few thousand years the Lakotah Nation will be under a thick ice sheet and people will be farming the bottom of the English Channel.
Al Gore had the cajones to put graphs of CO2 and temperature up on the wall, vertically separated so as to make the eight century lag difficult to see, and won a damn Nobel prize for his trouble. It's rank dishonesty, and we can't make intelligent decisions based on misinformation. (ObOnTopicRef: Garbage In, Garbage Out)
The point of the CO2 measurement chart was not to make this false straw man claim which you have mispercieved, but to point out that current levels are abnormally high.
I'm surprised there's any more debate on whether or not global warming is caused by humans after host Jeremy Clarkson recently stated on his BBC supercar show "Top Gear" that it might be a good idea for supercar owners to adjust their driving habits to slower speeds, to save gas and lower emissions.
Granted, he did so by matching speeds between a BMW M3 and a hybrid Toyota Prius for five laps of the "Top Gear" track, and got to brag about the BMW M3 getting 19.2 MPG going at the Toyota Prius' top speed, while the Prius only got 17.3 MPG at its top speed, but it was still a big change from past years of firm Jeremy Clarkson "humans aren't doing it" opinions about climate change.
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David Nicol -
Geoffrion, Ron P [IT] -
Jeffrey Watts -
Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO -
Leo Mauler -
Monty J. Harder