Letter to James Delingpole of the Telegraph

Dear Mr. Delingpole,

I am writing to you as a response to the interview you gave with Sir Paul Nurse for the program Horizon, which aired on Monday 24^th January 2010. I wanted to summarize for you just why you are completely and profoundly wrong, and, since you are clearly not a stupid man, why you hold such a foolish point of view. After giving it some thought, I decided the best way to proceed was with a point by point rebuttal of your statements made during the interview. I would add that I have read some of your blog posts to round out my picture of your position, so that I might be more accurate in its portrayal.

I shall start with the footage of the press conference, where you announced you had first discovered the story:

“In to my lap fell the story that would change my life, and quite possibly save Western Civilisation from the greatest threat it has ever known”.

This is one of the most incredible statements I have ever heard a journalist make, and, sir, I believe you should be ashamed of yourself. Firstly, please explain to me why it has changed your life? I assume it is because it made you instantly famous, thrusting you in to the limelight and furthering your career. If that is the case, then shame on you, sir, because your motivations are therefore clearly personal, and based on personal gain, rather than what is best for society and humanity as a whole.

You clearly think Climate Change, as caused by humans, is a myth, but to describe this as the greatest threat Western Civilisation has ever faced is a statement of breathtaking stupidity. In what sense is it a threat? One of two conditions must be true. Either the climate is changing due to the influence of human industry, or it is not. If it is, then we need to take steps to change the situation. These steps are well known to everyone, so I will not go in to them here, but consider this. Imagine if, in a few hundred years time, we had taken the steps necessary, but it was discovered that the climate was not changing. We would have done things like broken our dependency on fossil fuels, which will run out soon anyway, and would mean that we would no longer be relying on uncertain, politically unstable countries for our fuel. If we transition to more renewable means of energy production, then the energy future of mankind would be far more secure than it is with hydrocarbons. So even if the climate was not changing, future humans would see a move away from fossil fuels as a good thing. Unfortunately, the climate is changing, so we either act, or we face the consequences.

This leads me to my question. In what sense is this a threat? Are you talking about the amount of money we would have to spend on it? To be sure, this will be a great deal, but since, as I have mentioned, fossil fuels, principally oil, will begin to run out soon anyway (then gas, although we have large deposits of coal still), we will have to spend this money sooner or later anyway. Is the threat you feel some kind of libertarian reaction to perceived government control and interference? If it is, that is nonsensical. If human action is damaging the environment (you know, the environment? That thing that keeps us alive and allows us to grow food? Heard of it?) then we need laws to prevent those actions. Being afraid of big government in this case is like saying the outlawing of Murder is a gross infringement on our civil liberty. Of course, this is all conjecture on my part as to your point of view, I would be most grateful if you could enlighten me as to why climate change advocacy is the greatest threat civilisation has ever faced.

Ok, on to the interview:

“The suggestion of the Scientists in the Climategate emails was that you hide the decline using ‘Mike’s Nature Trick’ which I think is some sort of fudge. This very fact of splicing two different sorts of data together on a graph…Scientists don’t do that. They don’t try to hide the decline by using ‘Mike’s Nature Trick’. What they do is they admit to the flaws in their data and don’t try and disguise that fact.”

You are correct. Scientists shouldn’t do that. Of course, the graph in question was not a part of the peer review literature, and if it was, then it would have been rejected by the scientific community. But then, you would know that if you understood peer review, wouldn’t you? As I shall come to, you quite clearly do not.

Below, I have included statements made by Sir Paul Nurse.

JD: “What is being done in the name of Science and ‘the consensus’ is essentially advancing a political agenda (that) has much more to do with control and governments intruding further in to our lives.”

PN: “Consensus is actually the position of the experts at the time, and if it’s working well…they evaluate the evidence. You make your reputation in Science by actually overturning (the consensus), so there’s a lot of pressure to do it. But if over the years, the consensus doesn’t move, you have to wonder is the argument and evidence against the consensus good enough?”

JD: “Science has never been about consensus, and this is one of the most despicable things about Al Gore’s so-called consensus. Consensus is not science.”

This is just staggering. How can a man who writes so much about science be so ignorant of it? Consensus is not science?! Science is structurally consensual! Do you know why? Because of EVIDENCE! Let me explain, and I’ll choose a nice, simple example.

Imagine you are in a room, with some friends, sat around a coffee table, on which sits a mug. The mug is large, empty and bright red. You can see the mug, and this visual is your first piece of evidence. From this observation, you form ‘The Mug Hypothesis’, which states: “There is a large red mug on the table”. Note that the hypothesis might be wrong. You might be under a misapprehension, hallucinating, or the subject of an optical illusion. Therefore, to corroborate your initial hypothesis, you gather more evidence. You pick the mug up, and feel its form in your hands. Its apparent weight and solidity further convince you of its existence, so you formulate ‘The Mug Theory’, which states: “There exists here a large, red mug”. You then declare this theory to your companions, and invite them to each hold it in turn, and each make a statement as to its features. They each, in turn, declare it to be a mug, also that it is large, and bright red. Do you see what has happened here? You have formed a consensus that the large, red mug exists. Are you all wrong because consensus is bad?

The thought experiment goes further. You now have a working theory of the mug, and can use this to first make a prediction: “This mug will contain a hot fluid”, and secondly to test this prediction, by pouring in to it hot tea from a thermos. The tea is contained by the mug, further proving your theory that the mug exists. And, due to the consensual position of your companions, each is comfortable passing the mug around and sipping the tea, convinced, as they are, that the mug exists.

However, we can not absolutely declare the mug to be extant. One of the group may be a consensus breaker, declaring “This is all an illusion. We are a part of a computer simulation, and the mug does not exist”. However, since he has no evidence to back up this claim, would you believe him? Imagine, to bring this point to a close, the consensus breaker then says “I can prove it”. He flips a switch, and the mug, tea and coffee table disappear. You would then all know that they were an illusion, and the consensus opinion would change to accept this new evidence.

This is what Science is. Consensus opinion that matches the available evidence. It would be absurd, for example, for someone in the above experiment to say: “There is no mug, because having a mug there is against my religion/politics” or “Those of you who claim that the mug is extant are merely pushing a political agenda”. Evidence is oblivious to political agenda.

Which leads me to another question. What agenda are scientists pursuing? And why? From the tone of your blog posts, you seem to think climate change is some kind of leftist conspiracy theory pushed by hippies and scientists so that government can further control our lives. How in the world did you arrive at such a ridiculous conclusion? First of all, can you please provide evidence that this is the case? For example, could you provide, say, some emails sent by scientists that elaborate on their dastardly Marxist plans? And why would they do this? Why would the scientific community want to politicise in this way? Can you not see the logical fallacy of it? The absurdity?

Talking of logical fallacy, here’s one: Ad Hominem. Linking the validity of a premise to the characteristics or beliefs of the person advocating the premise. I’m referring to the sneering way you bring up Al Gore. I don’t care if I’m talking to Stephen Hawking or Micky Mouse, if they have a position, and that position is backed up by evidence, then I have no choice to agree with that position. Just because you are suspicious of “Al Gore’s so called consensus” does not mean that that consensus is in error. If Adolf Hitler told you that the Earth was round, would you believe it was flat because he was a murdering tyrant?

PN: “I want to give an analogy. Say you had cancer and you went to be treated, there would be a consensual position on your treatment, and it is very likely that you would follow that consensual treatment because you would trust the clinical scientists there. Now the analogy is that you could say ‘well I’ve done my research in to it and I disagree with that consensual position. But that would be a very unusual position for you to take.”

JD: “Shall we talk about Climategate…I don’t accept your analogy…I think it’s very easy to caricature the position of Climate Change sceptics as the sort of people who don’t look left or right when crossing the road or think the quack cure they’ve invented for cancer is just as valid as the one invented by the medical establishment. I think it is something altogether different and I do slightly resent the way that you are bringing in that analogy.”

Another logical fallacy, this time a Straw Man. Note that I have been generous in my transcript of your quotation, filled, as it was, with a great deal more ‘umming’ and ‘ahhing’, indicative of your failure to answer the question, and providing the root of the fallacy. You divert the question in to an attack on the questioners intentions, accusing him of “Caricaturing the position of climate change sceptics”, when he is in fact doing no such thing. He has used an effective analogy to highlight the flaw in your position, and you respond with an attack on his motives. You then claim personal insult as a means to further deflect the analogy, yet another logical fallacy. The analogy is good, and you knew it.

PN: “Are you looking mainly at Peer Reviewed material or non-Peer revewed material?”

JD: “One of the main things to have emerged from the Climategate emails was that the Peer Review process has been, perhaps irredeemably, corrupted. What I believe in now, and I think we are seeing a shift in the way science is conducted…is a process called Peer-to-Peer Review. The internet is changing everything. What it means is that ideas which previously were only able to circulate in the seats of academe in papers, read by a few people, can now be instantly read, on the internet, and assessed by thousands and thousands of other scientists…and people like me who haven’t got scientific backgrounds but are interested.”

“It is not my job to sit down and read peer reviewed papers, because I simply haven’t got the time, I haven’t got the scientific expertise. What I rely on is people who have got the time and expertise to do it…I am the interpreter of interpretations.”

The Peer Review process has been irredeemably corrupted?! Precisely what planet are you on? I demonstrated in the above thought experiment what is meant by scientific consensus, and it is the peer review process that provides the forum to achieve this consensus. As I also demonstrated, this process is entirely subject to the available evidence, and if you don’t understand that now, you never will, and I can only conclude that you are an idiot (much as I hate to say it – that’s an ad hominem of my own, but such is life). Do you honestly think that a single graph produced by a single scientist in a non-peer reviewed publication with one flaw has brought the entire peer review process in to question? Irredeemably corrupted?!

“In…ter…net…? What is this ‘internet’?” says the poor, hapless scientist who has never heard of it before. I can’t quite believe you brought this up. My god man, it was scientists who INVENTED the internet! Do you think they don’t know how to use it? Peer-to-peer reviewing?! Sir, if you would just look, you would see that the scientific community has been using the internet to publish papers for peer review for years. It has, in fact, greatly improved lines of communication and united the global scientific community in ways that were once never thought possible. A researcher in Tokyo can finish his paper in the morning, and a professor in London can finish reading it with his afternoon tea. Honestly, peer-to-peer! As if you have independently come up with a great new way for science to be done! What you propose is how scientific communication is done! Just as an aside, precisely how did you get your job, since you are obviously so ignorant of your subject matter? I notice that you “Haven’t got a scientific background”. I confess, that statement did not come as a surprise.

“It is not my job to sit down and read peer reviewed papers, because I simply haven’t got the time, I haven’t got the scientific expertise”. No, sir, you clearly do not. But this brings me to my closing statement. You may not have the time or expertise to read peer reviewed papers. If this is the case, then you need to stop writing about science, because you have no idea what you are talking about. If, however, you wish to continue writing about it, then might I suggest you give the old peer review process a try. It’s the only way you will be privy to the state-of-the-art; it will also be good for you professionally. Do you know why? It’s called journalistic integrity.

Kind Regards,