Somebody at British I.T. organ "The Register" seems to have it in for climate scientists (as commenters at Deltoid have mentioned). Whether there's a genuine agenda, or whether it's just a cheap attempt to get attention and generate page views is impossible to say, but in recent months a whole swathe of articles on climate change denial have appeared on the site. I'll be posting a rebuttal on the science later, but in this first post I want to concentrate on the writers.
Here are three of the articles - and notice the pattern.
Are the ice caps melting? Climate science's bipolar disorder by Steven Goddard, July 3rd 2008
Painting by numbers: NASA's peculiar thermometer by Steven Goddard, June 5th 2008
Is the earth getting warmer, or cooler? A tale of two thermometers by Steven Goddard, May 2nd 2008
Yep, stay tuned on Thursday, August 7th for Goddard's latest rant against climate change - it seems El Reg have signed some sort of monthly column contract with him.
But who the hell is he? If you do a search for "Steven Goddard" on Google, it doesn't really show up much, other than his articles in The Reg. If you add "climate" to his name, it gets even weirder. This guy is invisible. The only other trace of him I managed to find was a comment on a blog here, linking back to his article at The Register.
This isn't the first invisible climate contributor on The Register. Shortly after I started this blog, I commented on a weird article attacking climate science as "junk science". The article was credited to John Atkinson, an "I.T. Professional", who once again fails to appear on Google. Since I wrote that piece, I did find one very tenuous link to John Atkinson. It seems that a guy called "John A" is pops up regularly at ClimateAudit, the blog run by Stephen McIntyre, who is known to be a propaganda mouthpiece for powerful oil interests. Interestingly, this "John A" is an I.T. professional too, and in fact ran the Climate Audit website until recently. At the risk of sounding like a bit of a conspiracy theorist... coincidence?!
On a whim I did a little search for Steve Goddard on CA too. I stumbled across a comment on this page, his first and last contibrution to the site (in April), which pointed to this Youtube account, which he created in April, the same month that he popped up on The Register. So Atkinson appears to be the real ex-webmaster of Climate Audit, while Goddard seems to have sprung fully-formed into the intertubes in April this year. That's where the trail falls cold so far, although somebody is hopefully getting in contact with me about Goddard shortly. Frankly, it all smells a bit fishy to me.
I'll be posting a detailed look at the junk science in Goddard's articles in the next 24 hours (you can see a rebuttal to Atkinson's piece here), but any further information you guys can find would be greatly appreciated...
http://layscience.net/trackback/173
I have noticed those articles on The Register, but after reading one of them I started ignoring them. I'm not in a position to provide a lot of input or do a lot of basic research at the moment, so when my bullshit filter pings I tend to walk away unless it's important for my current job.
So thanks for that bit of detecting - very interesting.
I was putting most of my self-education in science into evolution and medicine until one "debate" I had with friends went down the climate-change pathway and I had to read up for my own satisfaction. Which means that I am now infuriated with climate denialists who haven't bothered doing their research first, as well as junk medicine salesmen and anti-evolutionists who haven't bothered doing their research first.
That argument also prompted my own rant on basic science concepts-for-the-masses here: http://sumdubito.blogspot.com/2008/05/science-101-how-we-know-that-what-....
Keep up the good work.
I think that Steven Goodard must be a love child or something of Steve McIntytre. He was acknowledged at the end of one of the Goddard's recent diatribes. One minute he is claiming to be just a concerned citizen regarding flawed data from the evil pro-global warming scientists ; "I am not associated with the energy industry in any way, directly, indirectly or financially. I am an independent scientist/engineer who has taken the time to analyze the data - and I see red flags popping up all over the place." posted July 4. Next he's spouting forth with all the usual denialist crap.
The Reg used to be an entertaining read. Now its just a mouthpiece for a bunch of rightwing freemarket fundamentalist ranters!
Happy hunting!
best rob
D. Robert Sutherland Assoc Prof Dept Medicine Univ of Toronto
Thanks for posting this. I was reading Steven Goddard's latest Register 'article' and I became suspicious. I am no climate scientist, but the language of his article seemed to have an agenda. He would quote published, peer reviewed papers, then counter with 'not really' and go on to say it was simply wrong without really explaining why. Or he would just say things like 'the graph below shows...'. But his graphs are just a bunch of lines without any real descriptions of what they mean.
I tried clicking the link to his name at El Reg and it did not tell me anything about who this guy is, what his qualifications are, what he does professionally, nothing. Why should I believe any article written by someone completely anonymous? So, like you, I tried Goggle. The only sensible page I found with information on the guy was this one. Thanks for confirming my doubts.
I have noticed editorial bias with a scent of commercial interest at El Reg before. For example they are running a completely unbalanced campaign against Wikipedia and explain how things like (the commercial) Britannica Online are much better.
- John
Martin, do let us know when your informant comes along! In the meantime, I'm guessing that "Steven Goddard" is a pseudonym, and I have some thoughts on whom he might be affiliated with; I may write more about this.
(The link to the 2 May article is incorrect, by the way.)
-- bi, International Journal of Inactivism
Fixed the link, and also the screwed up formatting :|
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Nice site you have yourself - I've read it a few times, and I was surprised to see I hadn't blog-rolled it, so you're on there now.
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Actually I think I've found Goddard, but we'll see...
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I don't entirely disagree about Wikipedia, but I do agree that they seem to have an agenda generally. Why else would they suddenly start a steady stream of climate coverage articles written by denialists with no experience in the actual field of science? Why not have, say, Goddard, and then a genuine climate scientist to give balance? It's all a bit odd.
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i believe those promised 24 hours are over ?
Eeesh, indeed, life intervened sadly, although I do plan to return to it.
Of course I'm not the only one who's late - Goddard hasn't posted this month at El Reg yet.
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The Register posts by Andrew Orlowski and Lewis Page are little better.
It used to be one of my favourite news outlets, but it has decided that the "cool" stance is to mock any attempt to protect the planet, and to constantly echo the clean coal agenda.
This one: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/10/spain_half_wind_powered/ reads far more like a sponsored lecture than a news story.