Tom Harris: "I wasn't 'caught' editing Wiki - I edited it openly to correct mistakes."

Is that so? The "mistakes" you sought to correct are still there. I take it you didn't want the fact that you are associated with the "High Park Group" (a PR company that lobbies for energy companies) mentioned.

Tom Harris: "Citing Wikipedia is hardly meaningful considering since anyone can can edit it."

Do you see the irony in this, coming as it does right after your words above?

Mr. Harris,

When you provide a direct quotation - which you did - and that direct quotation is not available as you claim, then you must expect just criticism. It is only legitimate to quote when the quote actually exists. Instead, you just made it up. Nobody has ever made the assertion that you quoted, least of all as a "assertion repeated by politicians and climate campaigners the world over" - except, apparently, yourself and your co-authors.

Maybe that's OK in public relations but my standards are a little higher. Your quotation was demonstrably untrue, and suggests either an ignorance of how to attribute correctly, or, if you presented the attribution *knowing* that it has never been made, a deliberate lie.

The responses you have provided are all statements of fact. The IPCC Fourth Assessment does indeed include scientists from over 130 countries. It does indeed include more than 2400 scientific expert reviewers, more than 800 contributing authors, and more than 450 lead authors. The warming of the planet is indeed unequivocal. The overall assesment is "90% certain" that human activity has contributed to the majority of warming.

For your own part, I must say you have managed to generate, at best, a questionable reputation. I will leave readers to decide for themselves whether you have been attempting to cover your tracks concerning links between yourself, the National Resources Stewardship Project and the High Park Group. I will remind all that if an item is up for debate moderators can be called into to evaluate a situation on Wikipedia. If you seriously have an issue you could take the matter up there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tom_Harris_%28lobbyist%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Natural_Resources_Stewardship_Project

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Park_Group

I will also take the opportunity to point out to readers your objectives. As the blogger below correctly states, the purpose of scientific debate is not to confuse everyone or create chaos. It does not exist to be manipulated for political, and least of all, party political purposes.

http://creekside1.blogspot.com/2007/03/tom-harris-busted.html

Lev's first 2paras are splitting hairs. I provided quotes that showed the direction media and pollies are headed. The quote in our piece was attributed to no one in particular and was obviously a paraphrase, so, I will admit it should have been in single quotes.

Lev: "The IPCC Fourth Assessment does indeed include scientists from over 130 countries."

Tom: Does it? People aside from scientists are included in the list.

Lev: "It does indeed include more than 2400 scientific expert reviewers, more than 800 contributing authors, and more than 450 lead authors."

Tom: I never disputed that, although I would remove the word "scientific" since some were not scientists.

Lev: "The warming of the planet is indeed unequivocal."

Tom: Oh? "The planet" is cooling right now, and that is "unequivocal".

Lev: "The overall assessment is "90% certain" that human activity has contributed to the majority of warming."

Tom: As I said, this statistic has little, if any, significance. I could find another group who said the opposite. Besides, if you use words like "overall assessment" you need to show that more than a few dozen IPCC authors are known to support that assertion and McLean and I showed that this is highly improbable (unless hundreds of them reviewed hundreds of pages and had no comments whatsoever).

Lev: "For your own part, I must say you have managed to generate, at best, a questionable reputation. "

Tom: Ad Hominen attack - see #1 and #27 on http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ .

I have gone back and forth with Wiki and they are determined to stick with their version of events and have the final say so I stopped correcting as I am sure well-informed people take a publicly-corrected site with a grain of salt. The editors are extremely biased - see http://tinyurl.com/6eu9f6 .

Lev: "I will also take the opportunity to point out to readers your objectives."

Tom: Again, how nice of you. I won't insult you by trying to read your mind. Your tactic here must be somewhere on http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ . Anyone see which one?

A good test of the veracity and currency of Wikipedia is to see how long it takes them to clue into the fact that I am no longer with the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, my last day with them being at the end of February 2008, well over four months ago. This was announced, as was my appointment with ICSC, in broadly circulated news releases, prominently on both groups' Web sites and in blogs all over the place. Somehow, Wiki missed it entirely. Duh!

Tom, you should know by now that Wikipedia is simply a synthesis of contributions, not a repository of "facts". Its only useful function is to provide a series of signposts, which if followed, might lead to a factual source. Anyone who quotes Wikipedia as being in itself a reliable source is only kidding themselves.

Which unfortunately makes you look a bit of a goose:

>>A good test of the veracity and currency of Wikipedia is to see how long it takes them to clue into the fact that I am no longer with the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, my last day with them being at the end of February 2008, well over four months ago. This was announced, as was my appointment with ICSC, in broadly circulated news releases, prominently on both groups' Web sites and in blogs all over the place. Somehow, Wiki missed it entirely. Duh!<<

The only conclusions that I can draw from the above statement are i) that you are insufficiently important to cause anyone to volunteer an update and ii) you are too lazy to do it yourself. The idea that somewhere there is a Wiki editor going "ohmygod, we forgot to update Tom Harris" is highly risible.

The authors are trying to create confusion between the authors and the reviewers of the report. The authors create the report by pulling together a large amount of peer-reviewed literature into a summary. All those scientists who wrote the literature can be assumed to agree with the summary as they have ample opportunity to object, withdraw, etc. The "expert reviewers", beyond the authors, are volunteers who self-select. They are not picked by the IPCC. Anyone with a vaguely relevant qualification can be one. Including victims of what appears to be senility or at least Lord Kelvin Syndrome, like Vincent Grey. As I understand it, the claim of consensus rests upon the synthesis of all the contributing scientific papers which is agreed, not upon whether all the reviewers agree.