CSI's Balles Prize Go Es to New Yorker Staff
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SI July-Auugst CUT pgs_SI MJ 2010 5/27/10 3:45 PM Page 5 N E W S A N D C O M M E N T CSI’s Balles Prize Go es to New Yorker Staff Writer an d Au th o r Mich ael Sp ecter The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry ference, available online at www.ted.com/ (CSI) has awarded its Robert P. Balles talks/michael_specter_the_danger_of_ Annual Prize in Critical Thinking for science_denial.html. 2009 to Michael Specter for his book The Robert P. Balles Annual Prize in Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hin - Critical Thinking is a $1,300 award given ders Scien tific Progress, Harms the Planet, to the author of the published work that and Threat ens Our Lives, published in best exemplifies healthy skepticism, logi- Octo ber 2009 by The Penguin Press. cal analysis, or empirical science. Each Michael Specter has been a staff year, CSI selects the paper, article, book, writer at The New Yorker since 1998, or other publication that has the greatest where he covers science, technology, and potential to create positive reader aware- public health issues. His bio shows his ness of important scientific issues. bona fides as both a foreign correspon- CSI established the criteria for the dent and a medical/science writer. prize, including use of the most parsi- Specter came to The New Yorker from The New York Times, where he had been monious theory to fit data or to explain a roving foreign correspondent based in apparently preternatural phenomena. Rome. From 1995 to 1998, Specter ser - Michael Specter This prize has been established through ved as the Times Moscow bureau chief. genetically engineered foods, synthetic the generosity of Robert P. Balles, an asso- He came to the Times from The Wash - biology, energy, and health care. ciate member of CSI, and the Robert ington Post, where, from 1985 to 1991, Specter argues that this fear has real P. Balles Endowed Memorial Fund, a he covered local news before becoming consequences and will lead to future dis- per manent endowment fund for the the Post’s national science reporter and, asters when scientific progress declines benefit of CSI. later, the newspaper’s New York bureau and the world is not capable of feeding This is the fifth year the Robert P. chief. In 1996 he won the Overseas its growing population, diseases that Balles prize has been presented. Previous Press Club’s Citation for Excel lence for could be eradicated infect millions of winners of this award are: his reporting from Chechnya. He has people, and global warming threatens our very survival as a species. 2008: Leonard Mlodinow for his twice received the Global Health Coun - book The Drunkard’s Walk: How Ran - In a paragraph sure to sound familiar cil’s annual Excellence in Media Award, domness Rules our Lives, published in first for his 2001 article about AIDS, to skeptics, Specter offers some thoughts 2008 by Pantheon “India’s Plague,” and second for his on how to combat the rising tide of denialism. He writes: 2007: Natalie Angier, New York Times 2004 article “The Devastation,” about science writer and author of the book the ethics of testing HIV vaccines in To accomplish any of this we will The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Africa. He also received the 2002 AAAS have to recognize denialism when we Beautiful Basics of Science Science Journalism Award for his article see it. As a society and as individuals, that means asking tough, skeptical 2006: Ben Goldacre for his weekly “Rethinking the Brain,” about the scien- questions, then de manding answers column “Bad Science,” published in tific basis of how we learn. supported by compelling evidence. The Guardian newspaper (U.K.) In Denialism, Specter discusses the When the government, a company, or 2005: Shared by Andrew Skolnick, any other group makes a claim, we contradictory beliefs held by large seg- Ray Hyman, and Joe Nickell for their need to scrutinize the claim with care ments of the population concerning sci- series of articles in the SKEPTICAL but without passion. Most impor- ence. For while there is no question as to tantly, we must learn to accept data INQUIRER on “Testing ‘The Girl with the benefits science has brought to the that has been properly judged and X-Ray Eyes’” verified—no matter what it says, or world in terms of health, life expectancy, Nominations are now being accepted food production, wealth, and standards how much we might have wished that it pointed in another direction. for 2010. Please send submissions to: of living, there is a fear of science and scientific progress. Specter points to this The SKEPTICAL INQUIRER highly rec- Barry Karr, Executive Director, CSI fear and efforts to impede science exem- ommends a presentation Michael Spec ter PO Box 703 plified in such areas as vaccinations, gave at the February 2010 TED Con - Amherst, NY 14226-0703 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Ju ly / Au g u st 2010 5 SI July-Auugst CUT pgs_SI MJ 2010 5/27/10 3:45 PM Page 6 N E W S A N D C O M M E N T Investigations Exonerate Climate Research Unit from Britain, the U.S., and Switzerland. of Scientific Misconduct The panel examined the unit’s published peer-reviewed research from the past Is this the beginning of the end—or at November 2009 after more than a thou- twenty years and interviewed key staff. least the end of the beginning—of the sand e-mails and 3,000 other documents Here is the international panel’s “Climategate” phase of the great Cli - hacked from the university’s server were number one conclusion: “We saw no mate Wars? We’ll see, but climate con- disclosed by climate-science critics, with evidence of any deliberate scientific mal- trarians’ widely publicized accusations subsequent accusations of scientific mis- practice in any of the work of the about a noted British climate research conduct. CRU maintains one of the three Climatic Research Unit, and had it been unit’s alleged misconduct have now main international climate datasets. (The there we believe that it is likely that we been examined and, largely, rebuked. other two are at the National Oceanic and would have detected it. Rather we found Two independent investigations in Atmospheric Administration’s National a small group of dedicated if slightly dis- Britain into critics’ charges that climate Climatic Data Center in North Carolina organised researchers who were ill-pre- scientists at East Anglia University’s Cli - and NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space pared for being the focus of public matic Research Unit (CRU) mishandled Studies in New York.) attention. As with many small research climate data and engaged in scientific On April 12, 2010, an eight-page groups their internal procedures were misconduct have been completed. They report of the international panel set up rather informal.” found that while the unit’s record-keeping by the university in consultation with The panel mildly criticized the CRU practices could have been better, the most the Royal Society to examine the integ - for not involving more professional sta- serious accusations against CRU and cli- rity of CRU’s research was issued. The tisticians in its work and for not collab- matologist Phil Jones, its director, are seven-member panel was chaired by the orating more with a much wider scien- unfounded. eminent British geology professor and tific group. The unit was at the center of the con- Royal Society fellow Ron Oxburgh It also said CRU “accepts with hind- troversy that first broke out in late (Lord Oxburgh) and included scientists sight” that they should have devoted Penn State Panel Finds mal charges, the panel assembled from The fourth allegation, that Mann devi- ‘No Credible Evidence’ for the morass of accusatory messages four ated from accepted research practices, was synthesized allegations to examine. referred to a committee of faculty scien- Three Allegations against That panel issued its report Febru ary tists, with a report due June 3. See Chris Michael Mann 3, 2010. It cleared Mann of three of the Mooney’s Point of Inquiry podcast inter- four allegations. view with Michael Mann at www.pointof The same November day in 2009 that “After careful consideration of the evi- inquiry.org/Michael_mann_unprecedente hacked e-mails about climate science dence and relevant materials,” the inquiry d_attacks_on_climate_research/ from East Anglia University were dis- committee reported it found that: closed, Pennsylvania State Uni versity NOAA Says March Was began getting a barrage of e-mails and There exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had or has ever engaged in, Warmest on Record phone calls (and later letters) about or participated in, directly or indi- Meteorology Depart ment professor and rectly, any actions with an intent to The National Oceanic and Atmos pheric climate expert Michael E. Mann. The suppress or to falsify data. ... Administration reported on April 15 that messages accused Mann of manipulating There exists no credible evidence the world’s combined global land and data, destroying records, and colluding that Dr. Mann had ever en gaged in, or participated in, di rectly or indirectly, any ocean surface temperature “made last to hamper scientific discourse about actions with intent to delete, conceal, or month the warmest March on record.” global warming. Many of the complaint otherwise destroy emails, information, This is from the monthly NOAA messages were very similar in content, and/or data. ... National Climatic Center Analysis, based and most were from outside the univer- There exists no credible evidence on new global data and records going back sity, but the university decided the mat- that Dr.