On Saturday, May 17, 2014 6:11:23 PM UTC+1, Ian Bingham wrote:
Prof.Bengtsson of Reading University put under "enormous pressure" for

daring to say that Global Warming may have been exaggerated. I don't carry

a brief for either camp and keep an open mind, but that really is

deplorable. Do we have a scientific community motivated by the spirit of

scientific enquiry, or do we have The Spanish Inquisition? His paper was

rejected because the editor said it contained errors, but that sounds mighty

like a rationalization to me; he just expressed an opinion that was out of

favour. The scientific community has sunk pretty low when that sort of

thing can happen.


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This is speculation based only what Prof Bengtsson has said himself, spun by the Daily Mail (who very much have a dog in the climate fight) and picked up by other sympathetic media outlets (some Murdoch's).

It ill behooves Prog Bengtsson to scream "McCarthyism" when he himself stated: "It's a shame that the GDR disappeared otherwise would have been able to offer one-way tickets there for these socialists. Now there's unfortunately not many orthodox countries left soon and I surely do not imagine our romantic green Communists want a one-way ticket to North Korea. But if interested I'd gladly contribute to the trip as long as it is for a one way ticket."

I see no evidence of a Spanish Inquisition, and a claim that "the scientific community has sunk pretty low" is purely imaginative extrapolation from a shaky premise.

To counter such claims, IOP - which rejected the paper "*in its present form*" - took the unusual step of publishing the full reports of the reviewers, which you can see he http://ioppublishing.org/newsDetails...y-in-the-times

What Prof. Bengtsson could have done, in the way many who have initial submissions rejected, is rewrite and re-submit rather than crying to the press about "unbearable pressure".

Moreover, he claims to have been "bullied" for joining the GWPF (where his complaints naturally were aired); by which I'm sure he means been subject to criticism for, as a respected and eminent scientist, throwing his lot in with a purely politically motivated and fossil-fuel-funded pressure group.

Stephen.