Bjorn Lomborg Vindicated!
Dec. 17th, 2003 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsAbout a year ago, Bjorn Lomborg published a book called The Skeptical Environmentalist. The story goes that Lomborg set out to write a book about the way science and industry were destroying the planet, only to discover that the numbers didn't add up. Science and industry, he ended up writing, are saving the planet. As the population grows, the more techonologically advanced a country, the less it pollutes, the fewer resouces it consumes, the more it recycles, the more efficient its systems become.
Lomborg cares more about poeple than he does about plants, and he points out that the problem of getting sufficient food to the people who need it is not environmental, it's political. Food can't get to Sudan because people are shooting at each other there, not because the soil isn't fertile.
When the Skeptical Environmentalist came out, the smear campaign was incredible. Magazines like Science and Nature hired environmentalists whose whole careers depended on Lomborg being wrong to excoriate him, even thought they themselves offered little substance to back their claims.
Lomborg is a Dane, and is subject to review by the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty. The DCSD released a 16-page report claiming that The Skeptical Environmentalist was "scientifically dishonest."
The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology, and Industry, which oversees the DSCD, today said the DSCD was itself dishonest in its attack on Lomborg. Reviewers at DMSTI called the DSCD report itself "competely void of argumentation," "emotional," "biased," "deserving of criticism," "completely dissatisfactory," and finally remitted the paper, saying its conclusions were not acceptable.
"The DSCD did not apply a fair standard for 'good scientific progress' in its evalution of [Lomborg's work]," invited outside commentators to review Lomborg's work in violation of normal, professional channels, the DSCD "should reconsider its competence in this case," "Failed to give [Lomborg] an opportunity to refute the claims before going public," and finally: "The DCSD has not documented where Lomborg was biased in his choice of data or argumentation."
Man, someone was pissed. The last is damning.
When the DCSD paper came out, there were a lot of articles touting it as evidence that Lomborg's arguments lacked merit. I bet the silence today will otherwise be deafening.
Lomborg cares more about poeple than he does about plants, and he points out that the problem of getting sufficient food to the people who need it is not environmental, it's political. Food can't get to Sudan because people are shooting at each other there, not because the soil isn't fertile.
When the Skeptical Environmentalist came out, the smear campaign was incredible. Magazines like Science and Nature hired environmentalists whose whole careers depended on Lomborg being wrong to excoriate him, even thought they themselves offered little substance to back their claims.
Lomborg is a Dane, and is subject to review by the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty. The DCSD released a 16-page report claiming that The Skeptical Environmentalist was "scientifically dishonest."
The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology, and Industry, which oversees the DSCD, today said the DSCD was itself dishonest in its attack on Lomborg. Reviewers at DMSTI called the DSCD report itself "competely void of argumentation," "emotional," "biased," "deserving of criticism," "completely dissatisfactory," and finally remitted the paper, saying its conclusions were not acceptable.
"The DSCD did not apply a fair standard for 'good scientific progress' in its evalution of [Lomborg's work]," invited outside commentators to review Lomborg's work in violation of normal, professional channels, the DSCD "should reconsider its competence in this case," "Failed to give [Lomborg] an opportunity to refute the claims before going public," and finally: "The DCSD has not documented where Lomborg was biased in his choice of data or argumentation."
Man, someone was pissed. The last is damning.
When the DCSD paper came out, there were a lot of articles touting it as evidence that Lomborg's arguments lacked merit. I bet the silence today will otherwise be deafening.
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-17 10:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-17 10:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-17 11:13 pm (UTC)(oh, and isn't "My Favorite Headache" a Geddy Lee solo project?)
no subject
Date: 2003-12-17 11:34 pm (UTC)Lomborg Vindicated!
Date: 2003-12-19 05:05 am (UTC)When I saw that Steve Schneider was among the chief detractors, I didn't have to wonder any longer. This guy is a scientific whore who jumps on every popular bandwagon that comes along. He is a publicity hog. In the 70's he was chief among those predicting an upcoming ICE AGE. When the temperature trend changed he jumped on the global warming bandwagon. He has been quoted as justifying lying to the public for the "greater good." Why anyone still listens to this guy is beyond me.