Comments 1 to 15:

1. jgnfld at 01:22 AM on 24 February, 2015

   Going after Willie for funding is a mistake that I wish this site would not commit. It plays right into the hands of deniers who claim that ALL scientists are just saying what the funders want to hear.

   I have no problem with journals withdrawing his articles because he broke the contracts which require disclosure.

   Most important though, is to use the scientific method, that is to stick to his science as published and show how it is wrong and to make sure the peer review process is clean. Both can be done and that really is the way to go.

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   Moderator Response:

   [JH] If you insert "Willie Soon" into the SkS search box, you will find that the SkS author team has already thoroughly debunked Soon's published pseudo-science.

2. One Planet Only Forever at 01:31 AM on 24 February, 2015

   The comments on the NY Times article include some hints of how the people who create and try to prolong any success of deception or misrepresentation of what is going on (including "Climategate"), will respond to this.

   There are posts indicating that the focus should be on the impressions of scientific merit of the creations of the likes of Soon, not the actual validity of it just the public perceptions of it, and there should be no consideration of the potential motivations of the likes of Soon or awareness of the connections between the participants in the creation and dissmination of information like Soon's.

   And that type of irrational defense will work in the minds of people who have personal interests that motivate them to uniquely filter each piece of information to maintain their preferred beliefs by establishing perceptions of validity. And such a person would make no connections between contradictory beliefs they hold or the irrationality of such beliefs if better understanding things would challenge their preferred beliefs and interests.

   I have my doubts that Willie Soon (and the people who fund his creation of reports, and the powerful people who refer to and rely on his creations), have duped themselves about what they are doing. I believe it is likely they are well aware of the unacceptability of what they are doing. And I believe that all parts of the chain from the "funding fathers of the creations like the Kochs" through to the "Loudspeakers like Inhofe and Fox News pontificating and disemminating the creations " are connected and aware of the full chain of unacceptable pursuers they are a part of.

   Hopefully the exposure of this case of attempted cover-up and deception will lead some of those who were easily impressed by past actions of the participants in this group to question the validity of what they had previously allowed themselves to believe about this group. However, anyone who still holds perceptions of validity related to "Climategate" cannot be expected to change their mind.

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3. michael sweet at 05:13 AM on 24 February, 2015

   It is concerning that the supporters of Willie Soon have recently chosen to pay him off through Donors Choose.  That is an organization that is designed to make it impossible for people to determine who is influencing the people they finance.  If all of Soon's money had come from Donor's Choose it would be difficult to show that they were in charge.

   Hopefully as these issues get more vetting in the press rules will be passed to make Donor's Choose and their like release who is financing them.  I for one am not holding my breath waiting for that change.

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4. michael sweet at 06:32 AM on 24 February, 2015

   I am sorry, the organization that funds hidden donations is called Donors Trust, not Donors choose.

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5. John Hartz at 06:54 AM on 24 February, 2015

   From today's edition of the Climate Nexus broadcast email Hot News:

   Big Money for Denier Research: Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon, a scientist favored by climate deniers, received over $1.2 million from energy industry companies, lobby groups, and billionaires for his research 'deliverables,' new documents show. Soon pushes the widely-discredited theory that the sun is responsible for climate change, not greenhouse gas emissions. He appears to have violated the ethical guidelines of at least eight journals by his failure to disclose this conflict of interest. Soon, often described as a 'Harvard astrophysicist,' has a doctoral degree in aerospace engineering and is employed by the Smithsonian Institution at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. (News: New York Times $, Guardian, InsideClimate News, Science Magazine, Tech Times, Mic, ThinkProgress, The Verge, Boston Globe $. Commentary: Mother Jones, Kevin Drum column, Discover Magazine, Tom Yulsman column)

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6. jgnfld at 07:47 AM on 24 February, 2015

   Re. Moderator's Comment. I thoroughly agree. Do address his pseudoscience here and in the literature.
   
   What I disagree with is going after him for his funding sources. All this does is validate denier claims about how science works. Scientific publishing and communication must stay above that level as much as possible even though we all know corporate monies at the very least nibble around the edges of many big money fields all the time (can you say "big Pharma"?). I have worked at Memorial University for 3.5 decades which had a bit of a problem with a big money researcher publishing in the BMJ a while back as many may know. But the money was not the point, the science was.

   It simply is a mistake in my opinion to go after him for funding sources as pretty much every other comment has done. Go after the science.

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   Moderator Response:

   [JH] Do you blieve it was a mistake for SkS to address "Climategate"?

7. Tom Curtis at 10:27 AM on 24 February, 2015

   jgnfld @1 and @6, providing a link to a story that is in the news in the weekly digest hardly constitutes "going after" Willie Soon.  It is in the news, and it is relevant to the public debate on climate change.  Further, as it is going to be in the news, it is worthwhile discussing the issue to make sure we know which claims are justified, and which are not.  That includes defending Willie Soon from claims that are unjustified, but which have been made by some people.  For example, there is no evidence that Willie Soon stated opinions he did not hold in order to gain funding.  Rather, he sort and gained funding from people who liked the opinions he was known to hold.  In another example, a clause in the contract relating to his funding from Southern Company Services has been interpreted as allowing Southern to review and request ammendments to his research, wheras interpreted in context it allows Southern that right only with respect to publicity for Soon's research (ie, press releases and the like).

   Of course, the same process does find ethical issues with Soon's funding arrangements.  Directly, and most obviously is Soon's failure to disclose the source of his funding, even where explicitly required to do so by conditions of publication in journals.  Also of concern is his failure to deliver on the explicit research contracted for, but substituting general anti-AGW research and conference appearances as adequate substitutes - a substitution accepted as adequate by Southern.  While this does not suggest Soon was expressing opinions he did not hold, it does suggest that he and Southern understood the funding to be for opposition to AGW rather than for some specific piece of research.

   I entirely agree with you that these points should not be the main focus, or even a major focus in discussion of Willie Soon's work.  As purportedly scientific research, it stands and falls on the science - something more than adequately addressed at SkS as pointed out by the moderator.  That they are not a major focus, and not relevant to the validity of the research, however, in no way implies that it should not be discussed.

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8. Tom Curtis at 10:37 AM on 24 February, 2015

   jgnfld, a small addendum to my prior post.  You say:

   "It simply is a mistake in my opinion to go after him for funding sources as pretty much every other comment has done. Go after the science."

   The fact is that Soon has not published a paper recently (SFAIK), but that his funding is in the news.  Ergo it is no surprise, and no problem that comments discuss what was in the news.  If the comments had equally focussed on his funding after a post criticizing one of his papers, you would have had a valid point.

   Unfortunately, there is no such post on SkS (contrary to my prior impression and claim in the preceding post), although there are posts directly assessing the general thrust of his arguments that do not mention him by name.

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9. Mal Adapted at 11:39 AM on 24 February, 2015

   jgnfld @1:

   Going after Willie for funding is a mistake that I wish this site would not commit. It plays right into the hands of deniers who claim that ALL scientists are just saying what the funders want to hear.

   When science-deniers claim that ALL all scientists are just saying what the funders want to hear, they are implying that all funders want to hear something in particular.  It gives reality-based people the chance to expose the obvious flaw in the denier's logic: while it's no secret that a funding sources like Southern Company Services is protecting its investments, why would, say, the National Science Foundation be biased one way or another?  At all times, the difference between the obvious profit motive of fossil-fuel investors, and the clear public interest behind sources like NSF, can to be highlighted.  I recommend this piece by John Timmer of arstechnica as an example of how it should be done.

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   Moderator Response:

   The use of "all-caps" is akin to shouting and is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.

10. jgnfld at 20:27 PM on 24 February, 2015

    My comment seems highly unpopular(!), but I think the main point was partially missed except perhaps by Mal. My point is that going after funding simply VALIDATES validates what deniers assert all the time. I simply think that is a serious strategic error, personally.

    
    WRT Mal's point, as you know it is an article of faith among deniers that what you know to be true, that funding agencies are arms-length, is not at all the case. Funding agencies are controlled by various agendas to produce specific results. That means the message to the broader public from science is that Soon is biased because of funding and the message to the public from deniers is that science is biased by the funding. It is this (seeming) parallel logic that the broader public hears that worries me. Especially when going after his (supposed) scientific statements is so easy and direct.
    
    Is this a totally senseless worry?  It's not that I am not appalled by certain behaviors on his part.

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    Moderator Response:

    The use of "all-caps" is akin to shouting and is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.

11. jgnfld at 20:41 PM on 24 February, 2015

    Added (or can a mod merge?): Going after appalling overt personal actions and behaviors is totally fair game as well. That would include (apparent) dishonesty in declarations of conflicts of interest and possibly the use of the word "deliverables" depending on surrounding context. I hope journals, in particlar, would look very carefully into this matter.

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12. Tom Curtis at 20:58 PM on 24 February, 2015

    jgnfld @10 & 11, perhaps you should read my comments again.  Particularly the sentence where I say:

    "For example, there is no evidence that Willie Soon stated opinions he did not hold in order to gain funding."

    There is evidence, however, that he gained funding because he held (or at least, was prepared to propogate) certain opinions.  If the deniers want to turn that around and say that there is no evidence that the 97% of climate scientists state opinions they do not hold, but that they gain funding because of the opinions they hold, they are still left grasping at straws to explain why 97% of climate scientists disagree with them.  As in so many areas, we can have a reasonable discussion of the problems in certain funding methods, whereas the deniers cannot, for the deniers require a reason to believe that 97%  of climate scientists are not guided by the evidence, and such a reason does not exist.

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13. Daniel Bailey at 22:40 PM on 24 February, 2015

    "My point is that going after funding simply VALIDATES what deniers assert all the time"

    Deniers bewail many things, some of which are true and some are untrue.  There is evidence that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, there is evidence that human activities are driving the warming of our world...and there is evidence that Soon's funding was predicated upon "deliverables"; then the specific nature of the deliverables is fair game.  And the failure by Soon to divulge his remunerations and links to industry is also fair game.

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14. John Hartz at 02:17 AM on 25 February, 2015

    Re SkS rebuttals of Willie Soon, we sometimes fail to see the forest for the trees...

    This “it’s the sun” claim is an extremely popular argument with climate change doubters — according to the website Skeptical Science, it is the second most popular anti-global warming argument of them all, second only to “climate’s changed before.” So is there any truth to it? After all, regardless of who supports his research, if Soon is actually right on the substance then we may be getting all worked up about global warming for nothing.

    No, the sun isn’t driving global warming by Chris Mooney, Energy & Environment, Washington Post, Feb 23, 2015

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15. CBDunkerson at 03:47 AM on 26 February, 2015

    Inside Climate News has the best writeup on the Soon debacle that I have seen thus far.

    Quoting Soon: "For polar bears... you do want to watch out for ice. Too much ice is really bad for polar bears."

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