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When peer review fails

Posted Nov25-09 at 12:30 AM by sylas
Updated Dec12-09 at 02:37 AM by sylas (Modification as explained in comment #4)
Peer review, even when it works well, is not an assurance that an idea is correct, or that it is free of errors, or that the hypothesis argued in a paper should now be recognized by default. It only means that the paper has been deemed worthy of consideration by other scientists.

Peer review usually works well for maintaining the quality of articles in a journal, but sometimes it fails. There can be good papers that are rejected by incompetent reviewers. Usually a scientist will eventually publish their results anyway, in another journal or after a rewrite to deal with trivial minutiae that some clueless reviewer fixated upon.

Even more fun is where peer review fails to stop lousy papers, and lets unmitigated nonsense into some otherwise credible journal. I propose to look at some spectacular examples. These are not merely papers with a few errors or deficiencies that should have been picked up. These are way over the top examples of ludicrous material in a real journal (not one of the faux-science journals listed previously). It's not common, but it happens. Usually it indicates some break down of procedures at the journal.

Moving Observers in an Isotropic Universe

The paper mangles basic first year level relativity to propose a "solution" to the famous "twin-paradox" of relativity; which was never a real paradox, only a thought experiment to help explain some of the counter intuitive aspects of special relativity from when it was first published. The author is Subhash Kak, a professor of Electrical Engineering, and also Asian Studies. He has an interest in philosophy of science also; but he doesn't understand relativity; as this paper shows. Neither did the reviewers, which is more disturbing.

There is a discussion of this paper in the physicsforum thread Understanding Einstein's Twin Paradox, past the usual level?; I link to msg #7 where I first joined in to give my own account of the paper, which I had investigated when it first came out.

The journal, despite the impressive title, actually has a very low impact factor of 0.489 (2007). Even so, it is a serious black mark for their review process that this kind of nonsense got into a physics journal. I suspect some failure of the review process must have occurred but that is only a guess.

Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics

This is not merely a refutation of conventional global warming ideas, oh no! It is a sweeping dismissal of the physics of energy balance in any atmosphere of any planet; an error ridden account of how the atmospheric greenhouse effect is a violation of thermodynamics. Thanks to the topicality of the subject matter, this got a fair bit of press from those who disbelieve the conventional story of modern climate change; but has been mostly ignored by working scientists. It continues to be mentioned (perhaps unfairly) in internet discussions as a convenient example for holding up climate skeptics to ridicule.

There is a discussion of this paper in the physicsforum thread Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics; again I link to msg #7 where I first joined in to give my own account of the paper.

This journal also has a very low impact factor of 0.558 (2008). In this case, it also seems likely that the paper was not actually peer reviewed at all. The journal description states "review articles are by invitation only and all research papers undergo stringent refereeing". This paper was listed as a "review article", and hence was most likely published by invitation of an editor, without the kind of review that would immediately pick up the fundamental errors that fill the paper. I do not know who invited the paper or how carefully it was checked by the editor, if at all.

Gerhard Gerlich is the main author. He appears to publish mostly in mathematics; but with very little in the way of published work since 1990. He has no background in climate science, but has long been rather notorious for his denial of basic physics in relation to climate.

The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories

This is a confused defense of so-called intelligent design in biology, in the light of various confusions in relation to the Cambrian explosion and other matters. Of the papers I am listing, this one has the most comprehensive dissections available, thanks mostly to the controversy of teaching evolution in the USA and the many willing supporters of good science education who take up the various attacks in considerable detail.

This paper has been discussed also at physicsforums. See thread Serious challenge to Evolution?. I am linking to msg #6, where the paper was introduced to the discussion.

This case is one where the trail to publication was clearly exposed. The journal is another low impact journal (0.424 in 2004) and would not normally publish on this topic -- let alone papers of this low quality. However, the editor at the time, Richard Sternberg, was a convenient sympathizer and managed to bypass all the normal procedures which would have picked up this travesty, just before he was due to retire, which saved everyone the trouble of firing him. The journal swiftly issued a statement indicating that normal procedures were not followed, and promising it would not happen again.

The author is a philosopher, not a biologist, and notorious for his involvement with the intelligent design movement. A starting point for further reading is Sternberg peer review controversy at wikipedia.

Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis

This is an exception to my list; my excuse is personal interest. It is probably the first such case in which I became personally interested. It is not actually a failure of peer review, since the editors acknowledged up front that they doubted the paper was valid but could not identify the flaw, and so published the paper as a kind of puzzle for their readers.

The paper purports to show certain hidden patterns (bible codes) in the arrangements of letters in the Hebrew book of Genesis, which are far beyond what could have occurred by chance. The authors range from a naïve but serious mathematician (Rips) who seems to have let his religious beliefs over run his professional skepticism and integrity, to an wholehearted crank who may have been deliberately tuning his search list or else fooling himself to a remarkable level even given his comparative lack of real expertise in mathematics (Witztum).

The flaw was duly found, and published; the patterns were not the result of hiding codes in Genesis itself, but a result of tuning the lists of codes used to search for patterns so as to give a strong result. However, this did not stop supporters of the so-called bible codes trumpeting the publication in peer reviewed journals as a vindication of their particular brand of nonsense.

There is a lot more on this available, especially at the torah codes page of Brendan McKay who was the main individual who put in the work to solving the puzzle. It is quite hilarious, frankly. The story has also been picked up at physicsforums. See the thread Bible Code debunk.

The journal Statistical Science has low to medium impact; 0.919 in 1998 and 2.135 in 2008. In my opinion this was not really a failure of peer review; the problems with the paper were not immediately obvious and required some work to uncover, beyond what was possible in a peer review.

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If anyone would like to propose more examples of really spectacular implosions of peer review in science, please add them in the comments. I am not interested merely in papers that are less than the usual quality -- of which there are many -- or papers that are published in journals where you would not normally expect conventional mainstream scientific peer review. I want examples that really leave your head spinning as to how on earth it ever got published at all.
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  1. Old Comment
    I think the topic you bring up is extremely important considering we rely on these studies to assist in the process of scientific knowledge. And yet, the institutions that allow this sort of thing to happen, increases the foundation for which arguments against science are built upon.

    I would add in that not only are the journals editors and reviewers accountable, but also that many of the institutions that foster said “bunk” research are at fault. All they really have to do is not play with the stats and list the “all” limitations. Researchers typically have too much at stake to allow complete objectivity, but that is where the institutions need to step up. In my limited experience, it seems that it would be very easy for an IRB to whimsically review the submissions of their more accredited/tenured researchers, who also tend to be the most zealous.

    It takes people like you to bring the information out, and us; the rest of the scientific community, to recognize faulty research when it is exposed.

    Also, we need to not jump on any new findings like they are the second coming of "God."
    Posted Nov27-09 at 08:31 AM by vaatc vaatc is offline
  2. Old Comment

    NCBI ROFL (blog pointer)

    Aficionados of weird articles may also like to follow the light hearted and often amusing blog: NCBI ROFL. It is run by two grad students at UC Berkeley.

    More at the NCBI ROFL FAQS. (Have acronym; will LOL.)
    Posted Dec8-09 at 02:34 PM by sylas sylas is offline
    Updated Feb23-10 at 10:29 PM by sylas (grammar clean up)
  3. Old Comment
    Xezlec's Avatar
    This is interesting and I'm sure it's important to point these things out, but since this blog will now inevitably end up in a link from some conversation somewhere on the net as "evidence" that peer review is just meaningless mutual-recognition old-boy-network fluff, and that <insert kook "theory" here> is 100% legit and the only reason it hasn't been published is that those darn scientists are trying to silence him or that science journals are no better than liberal arts, etc., can we add at least a brief disclaimer that peer review does, in fact, work remarkably well most of the time, and that these kinds of examples are quite exceptional?
    Posted Dec12-09 at 12:35 AM by Xezlec Xezlec is offline
  4. Old Comment
    Quote:
    Quote by Xezlec View Comment
    This is interesting and I'm sure it's important to point these things out, but since this blog will now inevitably end up in a link from some conversation somewhere on the net as "evidence" that peer review is just meaningless mutual-recognition old-boy-network fluff, and that <insert kook "theory" here> is 100% legit and the only reason it hasn't been published is that those darn scientists are trying to silence him or that science journals are no better than liberal arts, etc., can we add at least a brief disclaimer that peer review does, in fact, work remarkably well most of the time, and that these kinds of examples are quite exceptional?
    Wouldn't it more likely to be the reverse? These are examples that peer review doesn't always prevent dumb ideas from getting published.

    Personally, I rather like the paraphrase of William Churchill:
    No one pretends that democracy peer review is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy peer review is the worst form of Government journal oversight except all those others that have been tried from time to time.
    See also Winston Churchill and peer review, an editorial by Scott Fraser (Clin Ophthalmol. 2007 June; 1(2): 91–92), in which he discusses review at the journal.

    However, I take your point. There's no guarantee against quote miners determined to miss qualifications they don't like; but its worthwhile making it harder for them.

    The blog already notes that It's not common, but it happens. Usually it indicates some break down of procedures at the journal." That's somewhat buried in the middle of the introduction; I have now also made a modification that may make it a bit harder to miss.

    I have replaced
    To make matters worse, peer review doesn't always work well.
    with
    Peer review usually works well for maintaining the quality of articles in a journal, but sometimes it fails.
    What do you think?
    Posted Dec12-09 at 02:36 AM by sylas sylas is offline
  5. Old Comment
    The usual way to refute a thesis in a peer reviewed Journal is to write an article to the Journal, pointing out the error with the evidence and sources to support your position.
    The Journal is then under a moral obligation to print the refutation. I know of several papers that consist of for instance nothing more than pointing out that the author has inadvertently divided by zero.
    This has the benefit of increasing the publication record of the respondent with all the prestige that that implies.
    Regarding the paper
    Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics •Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner (2009)
    I have read in another thread that the Journal asked you to put your criticism in the form of an article with the aim of publication.
    If as you say the Physics is so bad you should find it very easy.
    Bloggers have thrown mud at the article but as far as I know it has not been refuted in a peer reviewed journal.
    I have a Physics Degree and can see nothing wrong with the article.
    So as it stands the G&T article gives the best account of the topic-that's the way the system works!
    Posted Feb3-10 at 07:15 AM by suibhne suibhne is offline
  6. Old Comment
    Quote:
    Quote by suibhne View Comment
    The usual way to refute a thesis in a peer reviewed Journal is to write an article to the Journal, pointing out the error with the evidence and sources to support your position.
    Not always. In many cases, you don't even bother. Consider the first paper I list: "Moving Observers in an Isotropic Universe", by Subhash Kak. It's nearly as bad as Gerlich and Tscheuschner, but as far as I know no-one has bothered to refute it. Why would you bother? Kak has written a very silly paper with no influence. It is a black mark for the journal and their review process, but not a matter of urgency to refute.

    There is a major difference with Gerlich and Tscheuschner, independent of its errors. The topic is one with wide public interest and a lot of public confusion. Hence, although it has no influence whatsoever in the world of science, it may still be worth having a published rebuttal, since the paper is widely used outside the world of science by people who don't have the background to see where it goes wrong. In this sense, the paper by Gerlich and Tscheuschner is a bit like "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories" by Meyer. It panders to a non-scientific community who are actively trying to reject completely conventional ideas in science.

    As it turns out, I have been working with a couple of others on a published rebuttal, and it is due to appear shortly in the same journal, all being well.

    Note that when you have papers as bad as those listed here, there is little to compare with on what is "usual". These are all very unusual cases.

    Quote:
    Regarding the paper
    Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics •Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner (2009)
    I have read in another thread that the Journal asked you to put your criticism in the form of an article with the aim of publication.
    If as you say the Physics is so bad you should find it very easy.
    Not quite. This paper is easily the worst published paper in physics I have ever read. For something like that to get published, something went badly wrong within the journal itself. This can happen from time to time. Given this, publication may not be quite the easy road you think. Furthermore, there is often quite a lead time in journal publications.

    However, we have now been able to get a reply published. It took a while. My hope is that the earlier problem was an aberration, and that the journal will manage better in future.

    Quote:
    Bloggers have thrown mud at the article but as far as I know it has not been refuted in a peer reviewed journal.
    It has now. I'll give you the reference when the paper comes out.

    Quote:
    I have a Physics Degree and can see nothing wrong with the article.
    Then you should trade in your physics degree.

    That's a bit harsh. The errors in this paper are beyond dreadful, but to see the errors you have to also be able to follow the distortions and misrepresentations of the underlying greenhouse effect. The paper is grossly ignorant of its own topic.

    Quote:
    So as it stands the G&T article gives the best account of the topic-that's the way the system works!
    You don't have any idea what you are talking about, frankly. If your field is not in climate physics and atmospheric physics, they you are being merely extremely naive. This paper contradicts pretty much every elementary undergraduate text book on atmospheric physics. It was published in a low impact journal, by authors who have no formal publication record on the subject and has had almost zero impact on the field.

    To say that this paper gives the "best account in the field" is ridiculous.

    I do not say this about every criticism of conventional climate physics. I am speaking of this one specific paper, which is an extreme case. It's riddled with errors and distortions of the physics it attempts to describe.

    The paper by Gerlich and Tscheuschner certainly belongs in this list of instance in which peer review failed. I am listing very exceptional cases in this blog article. Peer review normally works pretty well, but occasionally it goes horribly wrong.

    Cheers -- sylas

    PS. Sorry for the long delay in replying! I've been out of action for a bit.
    Posted Feb20-10 at 11:15 PM by sylas sylas is offline
    Updated Feb21-10 at 12:24 AM by sylas (rewrite a bit to relate to wider example and consider the value in rebuttals)
  7. Old Comment
    There is an old Chinese proverb.

    "When you pick up a large stone to throw be careful not to drop it on your toes"

    The Gerhard and Tscheuschner paper seemed to be a genuine contribution to the ongoing debate.
    Those who believe in AGW have treated this paper with an unusual amount of hatred and derision.
    In particular Eli Rabbet and Arthur P Smith have led these attacks on the blogosphere.
    If you go to their own websites you will find that these attacks have backfired.
    A contributor to both these threads has been Fred Staples a Physicist whose was responsible for heat transfer in a nuclear power plant.
    He patiently and with good manners demolishes both attacks because his understanding of thermodynamics is far superior.
    Eli took sometime in producing a non peer reviewed paper with some others but seems to be keeping very quiet lately about it.
    I think I understand why.
    Arthur Smith has produced a non peer reviewed paper attack.
    If you Google Arthur p Smith, not spaghetti,the arrogance of physicists, you can catch up with his thread.
    Currently Smith has boxed himself into a corner by saying that a gas molecule moving upwards in the Earths Gravitational Field would remain at a constant temperature.
    This as any high school physics student knows is rubbish.
    Typical HSPQuestion is " using the kinetic theory of gases calculate the rms speed of a N2 molecule at STP and if this molecule moved vertically upward how high would it get, what would happen to the temperature as it went higher"
    (In case you cant work out the answers I will give them: 517m/s,13.6Km,drops constantly)
    I look forward to reading your peer reviewed paper and I shall criticise any errors I find.
    That's the way human knowledge develops not by throwing mud.
    Posted Feb22-10 at 09:05 AM by suibhne suibhne is offline
  8. Old Comment
    Quote:
    Quote by suibhne View Comment
    ....snip nonsense....
    Sorry, but you are not the kind of person for whom education on these things does any good. You are welcome to read the paper when it comes out, and I don't expect you will get any benefit from it. This is not my problem.

    Precisely what you are speaking of with gas molecules is completely unclear. If we had a link, we'd see what it is really about, and I have no doubt at all that Arthur is getting the details correct. Not you.

    I see you are making the same points with the same lack of clarity over at "Skeptical science", and so I suggest you continue there, where you will get more response than I can be bothered providing for you here.

    This blog is not intended to be an open discussion forum, and it is certainly not intended to debate the merits of individual papers.

    My point here is simply that peer review sometimes fails very badly. I have given a number of examples. If you can't see that Gerlich and Tscheusner is a case of peer review failing badly, then you will no doubt see that peer review failed badly when I and my co-authors were able to publish a rebuttal saying that G&T is nonsense.

    I am not going to waste time in these comments trying to explain this further for you. Goodbye.
    Posted Feb22-10 at 07:24 PM by sylas sylas is offline
    Updated Feb22-10 at 08:55 PM by sylas
  9. Old Comment
    I think that any objective person reading my last post and looking at your reply, might form the conclusion that you are not quite the omnipotent judge of Physics that you think you are.
    If and when you get published I will read your paper and my comments will be constructive, pointing out any errors I see.
    I am of the old school where debate was meant to shed light and progress human understanding.
    Personal insults and mud slinging demeans the perpetrator.
    Posted Feb23-10 at 05:05 AM by suibhne suibhne is offline
  10. Old Comment
    Quote:
    Quote by suibhne View Comment
    I think that any objective person reading my last post and looking at your reply, might form the conclusion that you are not quite the omnipotent judge of Physics that you think you are.
    Any person reading our posts who speaks of my thinking I am an omnipotent judge of physics is not being objective. I suggest no such thing. I've seen your notion of debate at the skeptical science blog, and suggest you continue it there. Not here, please. Thank you.
    Posted Feb23-10 at 06:55 AM by sylas sylas is offline
  11. Old Comment
    Sylas

    Here is the link and statement you asked for earlier.

    "In fact, I stated earlier that the atmosphere would be essentially isothermal, at the surface temperature. So your claim that I think the "temperature at top of the N2/O2 atmosphere would be about 30 degrees C below the surface" is wrong. Not that I see any significant logical conclusion you are drawing from the issue. http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/..._of_physicists

    Earlier I kind of thought that you would want to read the whole thread so that I could not be accused of quoting out of context.
    I would like you to make a more robust challenge to the G&T paper, I think they have had it too easy up till now.
    I would brush up on my Thermodynamics, that's where AP Smith and Eli Rabbit got into deep water.
    Posted Feb23-10 at 05:55 PM by suibhne suibhne is offline
  12. Old Comment
    Quote:
    Quote by suibhne View Comment
    Here is the link and statement you asked for earlier.

    [...]

    http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/..._of_physicists

    Earlier I kind of thought that you would want to read the whole thread so that I could not be accused of quoting out of context.

    I would like you to make a more robust challenge to the G&T paper, I think they have had it too easy up till now.
    I would brush up on my Thermodynamics, that's where AP Smith and Eli Rabbit got into deep water.
    Thanks very much suibhne; and you are quite right; I did want to see the whole context. It makes much more sense now.

    The "more robust" challenge to G&T will appear in print soon enough, and there's no rush, IMO. So thanks for the encouragement, it is already done, and we can wait a bit until it comes out. However, I think you already know about it. Arthur is a co-author and Eli Rabett is the one who first proposed the idea and started the ball rolling. Chris Colose, who is also a member here are PF, has done a power of good work with it, and there are others. But I want to wait until it is actually in print before advertising it more widely.

    As I suggested previously, I am not particularly interested in "debating" this whole issue; certainly not here. If that is what you would like, you'll find better places for it than my little PF blog, seriously.

    Neither is my interest really about "challenging" the G&T paper, or defending Arthur or other physicists. My interest is basically education, and you can't force that down the throat of people who don't think they need it. So if someone thinks they understand the issues already, then they are not actually my target audience. We both know there are plenty of folks who are confused and looking for help, and don't know who to trust. They see a paper like G&T and wonder if it really does mean the whole greenhouse effect is just wrong. Or else they suspect the paper must be mistaken and would like to know where.

    After all, G&T is not refuting global warming or climate change, They are attempting to "refute" the whole physics of the greenhouse effect itself, which was first described around 1863 or so by John Tyndall. See msg #76 of thread "Need Help: Can You Model CO2 as a Greenhouse Gas (Or is This Just Wishful Thinking?)". The physics of how the atmosphere results in a warmer surface temperature is elementary, and G&T's attempt to portray this as a violation of thermodynamics because the atmosphere is cooler than the surface is a failure to grasp first year level physics.

    So that is where we stand, and where we must leave it. If you have read the paper and believe you understand it, and think it is correct (or even "best account of the topic"!), then go in peace. I don't see any prospect of my changing your mind. You may read further on the topic, but my guess is that nothing will change for you as a result.

    You apparently do not accept that I have a good understanding of the relevant physics. I don't mind, because I don't think you have the remotest comprehension either, so we are even on that score. The point is, given this, our "discussion" on physics will not be productive. Similarly, Arthur has done a first rate job in the thread you list, and needs no defense from me. If you think he's wrong, that's fine. I expect nothing else. And if anyone is reading these comments, then they can read the thread themselves what Arthur actually says. If they can't follow his account then I don't think anything I can add is likely to help them.

    Thanks for your comments, really. But I'm not going to debate physics with you here. Best wishes -- sylas
    Posted Feb23-10 at 06:58 PM by sylas sylas is offline
  13. Old Comment
    Sylas
    My point is that if there is a peer reviewed paper you simply cannot dismiss it out of hand because you don't like it.
    You must address your disagreement with a rational critique of the points of concern.
    This is so that the interested reader can follow your line of reasoning and cheque your sources.
    You seem to be doing just that and I look forward to reading the article.
    Things move on and clarity is often achieved.
    A welcome development is shown in the A .P.Smith blog further on.
    In a reply to Terry Oldberg, Arthur while defending UCARs exposition of AGW theory says that the word "heat" should not be used to describe "back-radiation".
    Nothing irritates a person with a Physics degree more than a claim of heat moving from a colder surface to a warmer surface without a machine mentioned as part of the narrative.
    You mentioned a Churchhill earlier in your Blog.
    He promised the British people not an easy victory but "blood, sweat and tears".
    Another war leader Benito Mussolini promised the Italian people easy victories and a new Roman empire.
    At the end of the war one was regarded as a hero and the other as a fool.
    My main point on this blog is not about Physics, it is, never underestimate the opposition!
    Posted Feb24-10 at 03:45 AM by suibhne suibhne is offline
  14. Old Comment
    Quote:
    Quote by suibhne View Comment
    A welcome development is shown in the A .P.Smith blog further on.
    In a reply to Terry Oldberg, Arthur while defending UCARs exposition of AGW theory says that the word "heat" should not be used to describe "back-radiation".
    Nothing irritates a person with a Physics degree more than a claim of heat moving from a colder surface to a warmer surface without a machine mentioned as part of the narrative.
    Strictly speaking, Arthur says only heat is a "poor word" choice. Specifically, he says:
    You seem to believe the "back radiation", whatever it may be called ("heat" is a poor word for it) is nil. Do you agree that your argument is based on their being no such thing as "back radiation"? And yet it is measurable (see above discussion). Therefore your theory of the effect is demonstrably falsified by the evidence. Perhaps UCAR's presentation of the theory is poor - I certainly don't agree with precisely the way they've phrased it. But every popularization of science includes statements that are, technically, incorrect. That doesn't make the general sense invalid - and the general sense of what UCAR presented there is perfectly accurate.
    It's a minor point of terminology, and as Arthur notes, the general sense is all perfectly accurate. The issue for the UCAR, and Arthur, and me as well, is how to phrase explanations in a way that can be comprehensible to a reader just starting out learning these things. As Arthur notes, every popular explanation invariably gets technically incorrect on minor points of detail, for the sake of simplicity. Outright errors should be avoided, of course, but in the choice of phrasing, full technical correctness is not always the best choice!

    Terry is looking at the diagram in the UCAR page marked "Global Heat Flows". In the original paper by Kiehl and Trenberth in 1997, this diagram is marked more precisely as "Energy Flows". But I can see what UCAR is trying to do... they are emphasizing that these energy flows are the flows that together make up the flow of heat. This is well worth understanding. It's all spontaneous, not needing any kind of special heat pump process.

    For working physicists there shouldn't be any problem following this. Sometimes there is, however, which is where things get weird. I don't bother with such folks for their own sake. I honestly have no interest in trying to help Gerlich and Tscheusner, or to "debate" them. This isn't a sensible academic debate, comparable to what goes on in the usual point and counter point of published paper and published response. The whole nature of this "dispute" is very different from that, which is why their paper is listed in this blog article as a failure of peer review. If the specific points I have made about G&T in our paper and at this forum are correct (see msg #7 and following of the thread "Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics", which is where G&T was discussed at PF) then G&T should never have got into a journal at all, any more than the nonsensical papers by Kak or Meyer which I have listed in this blog. They are all very unusual examples where peer review failed to filter out papers founded on not on any new research or insight, but simply on trivial misunderstandings of basic science.

    I am only really interested in explaining this for others, as a matter of basic education, not debate. I am writing mainly for people who know that they are starting out understanding these topics and who really do want a bit of help. If you disagree with me, that is your prerogative of course. I don't mind.

    The fundamental problem for Terry, at Arthur's blog, is not getting the terminology perfect, but understanding that backradiation exists, and is measured, and is very large. It comes from the atmosphere, as radiation emitted from molecules by virtue of their temperature. The molecules which can do this are mainly water and carbon dioxide.

    Using the technical term for "heat" as the flow of energy from a hot body to a cooler one, the diagram Terry is using actually shows a radiant heat flow of 26 W/m2 from the surface up into the atmosphere. This is the 350 W/m2 of thermal radiation upwards, less 324 W/m2 of thermal radiation downwards. Sometimes people also refer to the radiant energy coming from a body by virtue of its temperature as heat radiation. I prefer the term "thermal radiation". The flow of radiant heat is technically the difference between thermal radiation in and thermal radiation out, or the upwards surface radiation minus the downwards backradiation (see also msg #34 of thread "Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics")

    The net heat flow, of course, is upwards, from the warm surface into the cooler atmosphere, and it is a conventional spontaneous heat flow from a warm body to a cooler one.

    Cheers -- sylas
    Posted Feb24-10 at 05:32 AM by sylas sylas is offline
    Updated Feb24-10 at 05:48 AM by sylas
  15. Old Comment

    initial reference for the rebuttal to G&T

    Passing on a bit of information from the thread Accepted physics paper. Woo hoo.

    We've got the acceptance letter, but there's a bit of confusion as to when our rebuttal of G&T will appear. We were originally told March 30, but this has been moved. April 20 is the next best guess. On this assumption, the reference for our paper is
    • Joshua Halpern, Christopher M. Colose, Chris Ho-Stuart, Joel D. Shore, Arthur P. Smith, Jörg Zimmermann (2010) Comment On "Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects within the Frame of Physics", (to appear in) International Journal of Modern Physics (B), Vol 24, Iss 12, April 20 2010. (specific issue may be tentative)

    I'll confirm this when it actually appears. I'm not professionally a physicist, so being a co-author on this has been fun. As noted previously, this particular paper deals with an unusual case where great expertise is not required. I am consumed with curiosity to see how it goes over. G&T have published an extraordinarily silly paper, but they aren't going to like being told so in print. It may be fun and games for a bit when it comes out.
    Posted Apr3-10 at 10:56 AM by sylas sylas is offline
  16. Old Comment

    The formal reference for rebuttal to G&T, and their reply

    The issue of the journal with our paper has just showed up at the journal website. There is also a reply from G&T which as yet I have not received... and my Uni library only has internet access going up to 1 year ago. I will get hold of a copy sometime I expect. Anyhow, the references are:

    This is not a topic appropriate to physicsforums under our guidelines, but I will be available to discuss the paper at a new climate physics discussion board. See Published comment, and reply, on Gerlich and Tscheuschner 2009, at Climate Physics Forums.
    Posted May7-10 at 11:26 PM by sylas sylas is offline
  17. Old Comment
    Its interesting to note that one of the authors Joel Shore now admits that saying that "backradiation" is heat was a mistake.
    Readers will note that this is exactly the point I was making to sylas before his "comment" paper was produced.
    Clausius might as well never have been born as far as sylas is concerned.
    Its important to get a person competent in thermodynamics to check for "howlers" such as we have here.
    On the other hand a great deal of humour was occasioned by Sylas et al.
    Always look on the bright side!
    Posted Oct10-11 at 06:01 PM by suibhne suibhne is offline
  18. Old Comment
    G&T peppers their paper with remarks that don't follow and set up examples that are irrelevant. They appear to have competence in physics of solids and liquids but disregard gas spectroscopy. How can you claim to deal with the greenhouse effect without addressing the volumes of data and work done in gas spectroscopy? I sympathize with their position of using what they know and their experiences and intuition to tackle what to them appears to be a new problem with significantly different parameters and scale than what they would likely be accustomed to in almost any other field, but I get the impression they believe their lack of experience in the area represents the state of the science.
    Posted May10-12 at 11:46 PM by Jose_X Jose_X is offline
  19. Old Comment
    suibhne, admitting he did not use a technical term properly but instead relied on more vague common language usage of that word, does not by itself represent a weakness in their primary arguments nor does it forgive the failures in the G&T paper. [and are we talking about comments made on a *blog*?] Among its problems, the G&T paper sets up an irrelevant scarecrow to tear down, with the authors apparently oblivious to the state of the science.

    Back radiation can be described as a transfer of energy regardless of whether that transfer results in heat exchange across a given idealized boundary. Build up of heat within a confine (more energy in than energy out) "promotes" an increase in temperature. While the analogies are not perfect, this effect is present when we close the door to an oven that is turned on or generally when we increase insulation around a heated space. Note that the sun does not stop radiating the earth with energy. Whenever the earth slows down its dissipation back into space of this acquired energy from the past, there is a good chance that the average temperature is going up. Conductivity within the Earth+atmosphere system (a point of physics I think G&T tried to leverage) is only relevant to properly explain the distribution of energy but not to explain the net energy increase. As concerns the meaning or meaninglessness of "average temperature", that can certainly be a meaningful notion to the extent we consider changes from a given average value when the distribution is roughly in the same ballpark. I believe climate scientists and statisticians have over the years analyzed those numbers *much* more attentively than did G&T in their paper. Even making that average notion more precise (assuming, for argument's sake, that it wasn't useful today), you certainly don't disprove a physical effect based on the imprecision of some term. You also don't, for example, disprove a quantum effect merely because a classical approach might fall short. [Perhaps G&T should have looked at gas spectroscopy and QED more closely in order to be able to correctly come up with more definitive conclusions.] Generally, the G&T paper is liberal with claims it does not prove.

    From what modest amount I have read, I think that while climate science may not "prove" very much in the fairly rigorous mathematical sense of that word (it is a science, after all, simply serving to augment our best understanding of nature until a stronger theory comes along) and while individuals participants make mistakes and can certainly at any given time get pieces of the science wrong, the evidence (again, IMO, but in the opinion of most experts, apparently) surely has risen to support some more concrete action from government (an approximate representative of the people), given what is at stake and our current long run on an unsustainable path that may bring much pain and complications to future citizens. One cannot claim morality and also show such disregard for our great great grand children and the prices and lifestyle decisions they will be forced to make the more we drag our feet.
    Posted May11-12 at 12:35 AM by Jose_X Jose_X is offline