Talk:Friends of Science

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Contents 1 FoS statement 2 FoS Goals 3 Astroturfing accusation 4 Criticism of FoS 5 Innapropriate Synthesis 6 Not Neutral

[edit] FoS statement

I have some trouble with the statement.

Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8C over the last 100 years, which is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas ("heat islands"), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas ("land use effects").

Of course, 3 decades of satellite data cannot show a "change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures", as three decades is to short for any long-term analysis. However, it can show a change in the temperature. It can show an increase in temperature (or a lack of the same). But what is a "no change in the rate of increase of temperature"? Are they claiming it getting warmer at a constant rate?

I suspect they want(ed) to claim that the satellite temperature record shows no increase in temperature (it does, but some early interpretations failed to show this, as they failed to account for orbital decay and other problems).

But given that parts of the statement are, read literally, nonsensical: Do we report what they say or what they try to say? --Stephan Schulz 15:50, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I originally added it, with This statement is curious, because the temperature trend clearly has changed over the last 3 decades, compared to, say, the two previous decades.. I think I'll restore that William M. Connolley 16:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the discussion on what is the most common interpretations of the temperature records belongs to pages such as satellite temperature record and such. This page remains neutral by focusing on what FoS says without supporting or criticizing it. --Childhood's End 21:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

No: wiki is not a free platform for (in my view, nutters like) FoS statements. If they say something, then its fair to comment on it. The current wording is imperfect, but will do for me William M. Connolley 23:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

BTW, if you're interested in the prehistory of all this, the FoS current statement (which as Stephan says is nearly incomprehensible) didn't originally say that. They had: Temperatures have increased around built-up areas ("heat islands"), but satellite, balloon and long term mountain top observations have observed no increase at all. [1]. Of course it wasn't true in march 2005 - see the sat rec page (and wasn't true re the urban/rural stuff either - see the UHI page for refs) - and sometime after that they must have realised it was unsupportable and replaced it with something incoherent instead. Which is also insupportable, of course, but less obviously so William M. Connolley 23:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Childhoodsend, "This page remains neutral by focusing on what FoS says without supporting or criticizing it." We need to express the views of the FoS, not those of others. Tynedanu 14:00, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FoS Goals

Do you think that this sums up the goals of the FoS? "Friends of Science aims to assist the Canadian Government in examining the science and data behind the Kyoto Protocol, and the Global Warming debate." Tynedanu 13:52, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Nope. This is at best their claimed goal. See WP:RS#Self-published_sources_in_articles_about_themselves for why it is not a good idea to report their claims without qualification ("According to the FOS website [proper ref here], ..."). --Stephan Schulz 13:55, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

You were right and I changed the goal to quote their web site, and added a link. Sorry about that, I'm just a newbie! Tynedanu 14:13, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Astroturfing accusation

I tagged the reference to the claim that "FoS has been criticised as an act of Astroturfing with close links to the oil industry". The reference leads to a blog, which does not seem to meet Wikipedia strict standards about such sources. As per Wikipedia:Reliable sources :

A self-published source is a published source that has not been subject to any form of independent fact-checking, or where no one stands between the writer and the act of publication. It includes personal websites and books published by vanity presses. Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources.

Now, Stephan Shultz, a known climate change believer, has removed this tag twice, the last time on the ground that "The blog article is the claim".

Now, if we are to allow such claims that circulate on blogs all over the internet, everything on Wikipedia will be criticized.

The Astroturf accusation sould be removed unless properly sourced. Please give feedbacks. --Childhood's End 21:13, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I've cited the Toronto Star. But in relation to criticism, I think Stephan has a point. The fact that an organization has been criticised in a blog is proved by reference to the blog. The question is not one of verifiability but notability, and some blogs are now notable sources. Note that in this case, all the Star writer did was lend his imprimatur to criticisms first made on a blog. JQ 20:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

While the Toronto Star is almost printed by the Liberal Party of Canada, which signed Canada into Kyoto, that's already a more acceptable source. But I think that to be used as a source, the article must go farther than only cite the blog without endorsing or even commenting the blog's statement. From what I see, the Star's article only indicates that a blog said that, which does not help for the verifiability of the claim made by the blog.

I agree that a few blogs may become notable sources over time, but they're usually biaised for one side or the other. Verifiability is even more important then. Desmogblog has an open biaised view and cannot be an adequate source, unless its claims can be verified.

Also, I must disagree that the fact that an organization has been criticized in a blog deserves by itself an encyclopedic mention. As I said, if we were to add in Wiki all the criticism about everything that can be found in blogs just to indicate that this or that has been criticized, the relevant information would be drown into criticism from anyone's blog.

The Astroturf claim by Desmogblog has not been shown to be verifiable so far. I guess they got the information from somewhere and did not only throw that in the air? Let's find something solid about this claim before integrating it into the article. I'll tag it for some time while research is made. --Childhood's End 16:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

The claim is not that they astroturf, the claim is that they are criticised for astroturfing. Notability of the criticism is a valid question. However, I agree with User:John Quiggin that some blogs are notable, and in particular that DeSmogBlog is. Google has 19300 hits on it, and there are 7 current articles on Google News.--Stephan Schulz 17:03, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Well then, JunkScience is also notable. Should we add all the claims they make about global warming? And that's just one example... --Childhood's End 22:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't, as I feel it adds nothing of value. But properly attributed you could add it e.g. to global warming controversy. "Junk science web site Junk Science claims..." --Stephan Schulz 23:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

You know just as I do that it would be erased. --Childhood's End 03:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism of FoS

Obviously, this article should be renamed "Criticism of Friends of Science", as it now contains more stuff about criticizing it than describing it. Or should we add information about the claims made by FoS so that it becomes a bit more relevant to spend as much space on one single statement that they made? --Childhood's End 18:58, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Innapropriate Synthesis

I undid UbER's edit removing the large section of the Criticism section. I would like UbER or anyone else to please discuss and explain why this is Inappropriate Synthesis and then, when their point has been proven and a consensus reached, redo the edit. I will continue to undo the edit and keep the article in its current state if it is not discussed. JoeyETS 22:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

There doesn't need to be consensus to remove blatant disregard for policy. I think the the policy is rather clear by itself. You can't combine two separate ideas to make a third and original one. Quite simple. ~ UBeR 23:06, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I hate to admit it, but I can see UbER's point: the Scientific criticism section is basically original research. I think the best approach for the article would be to find other published critisms of FOS, and quote and/or cite them in the section on Scientific Criticism. In the meantime, having said that, if the choice is between the article containing some fully referenced original research on the one hand, or lacking any mention of the scientific criticism of FOS on the other hand, I'd argue that the article is better off with the original research. So for now I agree with JoeyETS that the section should stay, but I hope someone will update the page with some non-OR criticism of FOS soon. Yilloslime 23:21, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, I'm not inherently opposed to the section being removed, I just want to make sure it's not being removed because of bias. Bias from both sides of the Global Warming debate is ever-present in edits of this article, so I'm over-cautious. I see UbER's point, he's quite right, but I agree with Yilloslime that it should stay in until a proper source for scientific criticism.JoeyETS 03:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Huh? If UBeR is right, there is no reason to keep this section until something that respects WP policies has been proposed. You cannot have something stay if it violates WP policies because you think that some criticism against the subject is in order. Actually, this page is about FoS, not about global warming controversy, and it can live without any criticism. If you add any, it must comply with the policies. Removal is in order. --Childhood's End 13:04, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

It's a choice between violating one of two policies: Original Research and Neutral Point of View. What about putting the Original Research warning box at the top of the article? This article now contains no criticism section, so I believe that it is biased in its point of view. When choosing the lesser of two evils, does anyone else agree that inappropriate synthesis is favorable to bias? JoeyETS 13:10, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Do you suggest that an article about an org. can only be neutral if it includes some criticism? Remember that this article is about Friends of Science, not about global warming controversy. Criticism can be added if it complies with content policies, just like for any other article. --Childhood's End 13:19, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

While its ridiculous to suggest that every article about an organization needs a criticism section to have NPOV (and i don't think this what JoeyETS is saying), it's even more ridiculous to suggest that an article about a highly controversial group like FoS could be NPOV without a criticisim section. As an extreme example, it would be absurd to write an entry for the Aryan Nation that only included info from their official publications about themselves, and excluded all criticism of the group by others.Yilloslime 16:20, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

An organization like FoS exists per se and can be neutrally described for what it is without adding any criticism and by leaving the reader reach his own conclusions. This is not to say that the description should be left to the organization itself - quite the contrary, the description itself should be neutral. But while criticism can be relevant information, it is not necessary. And even if it was, it would not mean that invalid/fraudulent criticism should be allowed only for the sake of adding criticism. --Childhood's End 18:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Three points in repsonse to Childhood's End: 1. An uncritical description of FoS or most any controversial group is inherently biased toward that group's POV. 2. The criticism under debate is not "invalid/fraudulent" as you describe. The issue is it's the criticism of a wikipedia editor, not an outside source. 3. Though the disputed material violates WP:SYN, I'd like to also point everyone's attention to WP:IAR which I would argue applies here. Of course, we could have our cake and eat it too, if someone would find a published criticism of FoS that says essentially what the OR says. Yilloslime 18:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia prefers not to have blatant "criticism" section, per se, but rather integrated material that allows the reader come to their own conclusions. As I have stated before, value statements should be reserved for the reader, not the writer. That is true NPOV. But the bottom line is that if there's something negative to say about the FoS, then chances are someone has. ~ UBeR 19:31, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that you start with the assumption that FoS is controversial by its very existence and cannot be described neutrally without a criticism section. Now that is POV. A neutral description is neutral, period. Criticism can be relevant or useful info, but is not necessary. And even if it was, it would not mean that any criticism should be allowed only for the sake of adding criticism.

Besides, rules exist for a good reason, and you can certainly find some valid criticism allowed by WP rules if FoS is so obviously controversial no? --Childhood's End 19:48, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I reinserted the claims made by FoS, with links to the articles that show they are false, but without any refutation in the text. I suppose that's the way the rules say we should do it, though it makes for a rather whack-a-mole approach to front groups like this, that reappear every few years under different names, making the same bogus claims.JQ 22:10, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Well they got the temperature range correct. Whether they want to call that significant or not is up to them. Not sure on the distribution of measuring centers, but the UHI effect is mostly negligible, which is what I think the article states. ~ UBeR 00:20, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I guess a charitable parsing of their claim would be "ground stations show warming, satellite stations show much the same warming, but we at FoS define "significant' in such a way as to say they are both insignificant, and we also thought we'd mention the urban heat island problem even though it's long been known to be an order of magnitude less significant than the things we've just dismissed." Exactly how someone who doesn't already know the truth could extract that from their statement I don't know, but uncertainty, doubt and confusion are the products being pushed by FOS and similar after all.JQ 02:29, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not Neutral

I find that this article is not neutral. It's ridden with criticism. I agree with Childhoodsend, the article should be titled Criticisms of FoS in it's current form. I think that there should be a separate subheading for criticism, but please, let's try to keep the body of the article unbiased. Tynedanu 05:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Could you point out specific instances of bias so that they can be easily removed? Also, there was a debate about this above in which the criticism section was removed because it made the article biased, I have a feeling there might be another debate arising.

There's two ways we can do this. We can either have a basic description of the organization, stating only facts and giving no praise or criticism. This would be the most unbiased, but would not accurately portray the controversy of the issue FoS is involved in. Also, this would result in the article being even smaller than it already is.

The second approach is to give it two balanced sections, one with praise/evidence for and one with criticism/evidence against. This will be harder to keep unbiased, but if done right I think produces the best article. I prefer this option, but would like to know what other users think. JoeyETS 06:07, 10 June 2007 (UTC)