The Denialosphere1 is all atwitter (when isn’t it?). Roy Spencer has had two papers rejected by Geophysical Research Letters. Marohasy has the basic non-story with a sensationalistic title “How To Censor a Climate Sceptic” and no mention of censorship in the actual post. No such problem in the rest of the Denialosphere.
The course is clear! Spencer must put the full paper, as submitted, and with the reviewers and editors comments on-line to reveal the gross perfidity and vile machinations of the GLR. There can be no other way but to reveal the rot of this pestilent conspiracy to the light of day! Expose the jackbooted thugs of the scientific kleptocracy to public opprobrium. Seriously, but more below.
A few points I’d like to discuss with reference to this:
- What are the facts
- It’s not censorship
- The realities of publishing research papers
- Spencer must vindicate himself (or try)
What are the facts?
They seem pretty straightforward actually. According to Spencer himself two papers were submitted to ‘Geophysical Research Letters’ and both were rejected with “instructions to not resubmit either one.” (more on resubmission below).
With respect to this Spencer is saying “I have now experienced scientific censorship“, implyng that the rejection was on the grounds of politics and suppression of climate skepticism rather than on the merits of the paper. This is not an unusual private allegation made by rejected authors, but it is quite a serious public accusation to make against an academic journal.
It’s not censorship
Let’s just get this one out of the way first. It is not censorship when someone simply declines to publish 
your work. Censorship is when there is some sort of organized effort, usually official, to suppress a particular type of work or information. No one, anywhere, is under any obligation to publish anything Roy Spencer submits, ever.
If the rejection of Spencer’s papers by GRL is part of a broad, organized effort to suppress his work then it would be censorship. Out of est 6,400 scientific journals these papers have been rejected by … one. If that is an example of what Spencer considers a statistically significant sample size then it is small wonder his work was rejected.
Nonetheless, the accusation of censorship is a serious one and has gotten some traction, at least in the Denialosphere (eg Dr. Roy Spencer: Two of his papers submitted to Geophysical Research Letters were both rejected due to “scientific censorship”), so let’s look at it in more depth.
The realities of publishing research papers
Reading some of the histrionics in the Denialiophere I get the impression that their idea of the workings of science goes something like this: You are a scientist. You do science.You write it up and send it to a journal. They publish it. If they reject it then something is very obviously seriously wrong with them.
Ummm, no. Not how it works. Let’s pick it up at “…to a journal.”
The editor of the journal will give the paper a once over to see if it is worth pursuing at all or if it is an example of crackpottery, eg perpetual motion machines, no evidence of literacy, obvious glaring errors, etc. It may well go straight back to the author at this point.
Assuming it proves to be something that the journal may be interested in publishing the editor will then select two anonymous referees from the journal’s pool.
The referees are fellow scientists who as part of their craft voluntarily review papers. This is something most scientists do for one or more journals. The ideal referee is someone who is a proven authority in the field in question, but not too close to the author’s work.
The referees independently review the paper with a checklist that might look something like this:
- Was the subject worth investigating at all? e.g. “Flight velocity of the European Swallow (Hirundo rustica) laden with fruit of The Coconut Palm (Cocos nucifera) Arecaceae” may not be considered a valid topic for scientific enquiry (although the the flight kinematics of the unladen swallow is another matter).
- Were the assumptions made (if any) reasonable/defensible?
- Was the design of the experiment/study appropriate to answer the question(s) asked?
- Was the methodology (equipment, sample sizes, interview questions, etc) appropriate to the design?
- Are the results presented and analysed fully, appropriately, accurately?
- Does the interpretation of the results follow logically from them?
- Is the work something that this journal should publish?
Depending on the journal and the scope/nature of the work there may be more that is appropriate, but this covers the basics. Further. the reviewer is required to show how it is that the work “fails” one of the tests. It is not enough to simply scribble in a margin “design sucked – reject.”
Nowhere does anyone ask “do you like the results” or “do the results agree with what is generally accepted as true” or some such. These do not matter, ever.
The paper is then returned to the editor who compares the reviewers remarks with one another and with her own assesment of the paper.
Not that there aren’t some biases in the system. For example a work that purports to overturn the dominant wisdom is absolutely going to scruitinized more closely. But done properly the review process is meant to weed out bad science based on design, methodology and interpretation – NOT conclusions, ever.
Even if it is good science a journal may still reject a paper. Not surprisingly everyone would like to publish in one of the more prestigious journals like Science or Nature. Journals such as these have the enviable luxury of being able to pick and choose from very many submissions.
This necessarily means “rejecting” many papers that are perfectly acceptable science, but are simply not creme de la creme. In fact no journal accepts every paper it receives, and such premier journals will have rejection rates of 90-95%.
A submission may garner any of the following responses:
- Acceptance
- Acceptance with minor revisions
- Rejection, suggestion of alternate publications
- Rejection, invitation to resubmit with revisions
- Rejection, call for major revisions (with or without alternate suggestion or invitation for resubmission)
- Rejection, request to not resubmit
Generally the last suggests a work so deeply flawed in conception, design and/or methodology that no amount of reworking can turn it into acceptable science.
If that is the case then there is nothing to be done. But if as Spencer alleges his work is solid science why not merely submit to a different journal? With 6400 science journals in the world it should be possible to get the work published fairly soon.
So is it possible that Spencer’s work was rejected purely on merit? It would not be without precedent (and here and here). Spencer acknowledges that he has gotten repeatedly rejected by the prestige journals, although again he alleges political motivation. A “simplified version” of one of the papers is online but even the informal discussion is not kind.
Spencer must vindicate himself (or try)
The only way for Spencer to vindicate himself is to post the full paper, as submitted and with the complete reviewers and editors comments on-line.
Let the whole world see that what he submitted was robust, solid science and that the reasons for rejection were facile and disingenuous. This is the only way to vindicate himself and show to the world that he is in fact the victim of politically motivated censorship. Further, it will expose the conspiracy to suppress skeptical science.
Because at this point the most parsimonious, heuristic explanation is that Spencer’s work was in fact deeply 
flawed and was quite correctly rejected based on it’s own lack of merit. Further, that Spencer himself is self-deluded and using the laughable global conspiracy meme to explain his own failings.
In fact to date the only evidence of censorship of climate science is to suppress it, not the skeptics.
So there’s the challenge. Substantiate the accusations of censorship by putting up the work as submitted along with the full commentary received from Geophysical Research Letters. Nothing else will suffice.
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Denier “Challenge” aka Deathwatch Update: Day 38 … still no evidence.
1As I discuss here I do not use the term “Denier” to refer to all climate change doubters. Those who thoughtfully and intelligently address the facts I call ’skeptics’.
Those who irrationally deny the existence of the science and instead propagate the lies and distortions such as those discussed above and linked to the right under “Debunking Denier Nonsense” are “Deniers”.
The choice of the correct term is based on their actions, not their conclusions.
IMAGE CREDITS:
Darth Vader, Storm Troopers by anthony040
The Worst Part of flickr Censorship is… by net_efekt
Greenfyre's 
Spencer’s views on evolution expose the paucity of scientific thinking he brings to the debate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_(scientist)#Views_on_Intelligent_design
AFAIC, statements like that make any other opinion of his completely worthless. His Bronze Age fantasy usurps scientific reality when the two are in conflict. He may have the letters after his name, but he’s not a scientist – he’s a conjurer who uses science to cloak his personal, religion-fuelled agenda.
WordPress parsing broke the wiki link. Here it is again: http://tinyurl.com/5gs2h7
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Skeptic scientist is CENSORED! ¦ or not. | CommentURL.com…
\r\nSpencer must put the full paper, as submitted, and with the reviewers and…
Mike, I read somewhere that GRL allows authors to select their own reviewers as a means of speeding up the publication process. If so that might explain Spencer’s preference for it over other journals.
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Mike, it’s not all that unusual. Roughly 3/5ths of the journals I’ve submitted to allow (and several require!) authors to select or propose their reviewers. (The last one I submitted to recently changed their policy to require a proposition of at least six reviewers, none North American, none of whom had collaborated with each other or with any of us, all experts in my (rather niche) field. That list, we estimate, has only about ten names on it period.)
I’m not sure how prevalent this is in the earth and atmospheric sciences, nor if GRL uses that policy (or if they use the lighter “suggested reviewer” version). I’ll see if I can find out.
The irony of this is twofold:
1) GRL rejected Spencer even with the supposed “cronyism”. Where to fall back from there?
2) Wasn’t Spencer one of the people supporting Wegman when he accused Mann of the “social network” of researchers? (This is still the standard Denier means of addressing the multiple independent “hockey stick” reconstructions — “they’re all cronies of Mann!”)
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Last time I submitted to GRL (last year), they required 5 suggested referees who had knowledge of the topic. But they don’t allow you to “select” the reviewers.
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I get rejected as a poet all the time. I’m so glad to know that it’s really because of a conspiracy, and not anything to do with the relative merit of my work or the competitiveness of the journals to which I submit!
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I don’t think you are, though even in poetry circles there are those who cry conspiracy and censorship (complaining of cronyism and nepotism in contests, etc.). There are entire websites (with heavy traffic and participation) devoted to it.
If I were Mr. Spencer I’d be so embarrassed. Egads! I don’t understand why a creationist would bother trying to pretend to be a scientist.
Honestpoet: Don’t you see? Galileo! Galileo! Galileo!
(Set aside how most users of the Galileo Gambit tend to be as ideological as the Inquisition and claim persecution by those who follow the scientific method. The irony would be delicious if we weren’t in the damn test tube.)
I maintain, by the way, that there appears to be a HUGE ideological bias amongst laymen in the perception of how science works. (Note that I don’t subscribe to traditional left/right dichotomies, instead seeing things like this.)
* A collectivist tends to see science as cooperative, with people working to catch each other’s errors (including their own, since no one’s perfect). The cooperative effort of a decentralized, emergent “scientific body” works to further understanding.
*An individualist sees science as an individual’s triumph over old ideas. The image they tend to hold is a lone inventor with a brilliant idea (of course, this lone inventor is always absolutely right with no chance whatsoever of being wrong), struggling against an entrenched worldview by the oppressive majority. The scientific establishment must actively work to quash this visionary’s research, but the truth will eventually topple the greybeards’ views and emerge victorious.
There are elements of reality in both worldviews — for instance, science is by definition conservative and thus resistant to new ideas, hence the whole process of peer review — but by and large science tends to operate closer to the collectivist’s view. (Ask any scientist or philosopher of science.) This only encourages the individualists, especially those who cling to their ideology in the face of understanding how science works.
The Deniers love to bring up Galileo as their example, forgetting that it’s invalid. (They equate science with the old church, you may note; very few scientists or theologians would think this is a valid equation.) Robert Park said it best: “It is not enough to wear the mantle of Galileo: that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment. You must also be right.”.
What surprises me the most is that those who support science haven’t picked up the best possible counterexample, that of an individualist non-establishment scientist, working alone (well, perhaps; there’s some debate about the role of his first wife), coming up with a visionary idea so revolutionary that the “conservative, oppressive consensus-based scientific establishment”… reviewed it on its own merits, accepted it, and rewrote the fundamental assumptions of pretty much all of known science, awarding a Nobel Prize to the scientist in question, who moved on to become the first modern “scientific celebrity“. Today, his face is the very icon of the scientist, and his name is synonymous with genius.
That’s right, the perfect counter to the Galileo Gambit is none other than Albert Einstein, a figure more dear and recognizable to people alive today since several were alive at the same time. If science were as oppressive as the individualists claimed, Einstein never would have been able to publish, since he wasn’t part of the establishment. Far from being oppressed, this story completely shatters the individualist’s worldview by showing the meritocratic nature of science.
One can’t help but notice that the individualist worldview is often held by those who oppose action on climate or any form of market intervention whatsoever. I can only hope that improved science education, particularly on scientific methods and the nature of science itself, can help undo this misconception, which seems to be one of the biggest PR hurdles for modern science to overcome since it’s so pervasive.
With that hurdle understood, it should be clear why conservatives (the more common term for “individualist” in modern parlance, even though it’s probably an incorrect mapping) so love the “maverick” quality, and why they so adore maverick scientists and scream persecution and conspiracy at the establishment. In Roy Spencer’s creationist sense, it should explain why Expelled was made (well, that and another’s profound misunderstanding of science — am I the only one noting the irony in the religious people claiming persecution from science casting *themselves* as Galileo?).
It’s just one more underlying mine set in the battlefields of the culture wars, buried underneath more prominent anti-science arguments. I can only hope we know now where it’s been planted, and can avoid it in the future.
Brian D, thanks for that link, it made my day! 🙂
[…] Brian D.) « The Caliph instead of […]
Back in Einstein’s day (and mine) we had something in science called refereeing. Now we have something rather different called peer review. [1] Alas, since she got into bed with corporate interests, science has lost her virginity, whored herself out, and finally fallen into the clutches of the pimps and brothel-keepers who run sleazy town. They treat here real well, as long as she performs profitably, but they damn well make sure she behaves herself. [2]
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[1] They are synonyms
[2] Substantiate the claim and demonstrate it’s relevance to this post.
Aww, crap. I thought science went to bed with the Phantom Soviet Empire… and now I hear that she actually went to bed with “corporate interests”! I think we may soon need a paternity test to sort this stuff out.
[…] https://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/skeptic-scientist-is-censored-or-not/ […]
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