Okay you two, I furnished some examples of rrors in Lomborg's book which you had been calling for. You are obviously entitled to make of them what you will but I think it is time for something in return.

I will remind you of the working party's deliberations about whether the book should be judged, as requested by Lomborg, as a scientific work or rather as a debate-generating book without the rigour required of a scientific work.

“No consensus on the Working Party was forthcoming in its reply to this question, as some members of the Working Party argued that the book is not science/research but in its manifest onesidedness gives the appearance of a topical debate-generating book, while other members of the Working Party argued that the book has been presented and, in wide circles including the scientific community, perceived as research/science and must therefore be assessed in accordance with scientific standards, i.e. be examined on its individual merits in accordance with the Executive Order on the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty."

By acceding to Lomborg's request the committee came afoul of the reviewing panel because they didn't fully articulate whether this was appropriate and was one of the three procedural reasons for their assessment being judged invalid.

Do you two think it was appropriate for the committee to review the book as a scientific work or not?

yes

SR,

Actually, you have provided examples of accusations against BL not actual examples of errors.

Given that BL's work was controversial I'm sure that there are many accusations. The DCSD failed to substantiate their judgement and got justifiably canned, and then was unable to redo their report with the actual justifications.

Dear mhaze,

The “members of the Working Party argued that the book has been presented and, in wide circles including the scientific community, perceived as research/science and must therefore be assessed in accordance with scientific standards.” and you appear to agree with them.

But the review committee said this was an inadequate reason for permitting the book to be judged in this way thus found the DSCD's findings to be invalid. What who you have put forward to strengthen their case?

Dear Shadow Minister,

“In all, Indonesia`s forest fires affected approximately 1 percent of the nation´s forests." Error: According to an authoritative report by Goldammer & Hoffmann (see comments to chapter 10, p. 116), the affected forest area made out 4-5 % of the nation´s forests. In the region that was hardest hit, 25 % of the forest area burned.”

Why isn't this an error? Or do you class it as a permitted embellishment?

SR,

With all due respect, any book published for public consumption is not formatted in the same way as a scientific research paper, and the working committee while openly acknowledging this criticises the book for citing non scientific works and media etc.

Similarly comparing claims in the book against other studies is largely puerile unless one digs further into the detail. Your quote with regards the fires in Indonesia is a prime example. BL claims that the fire affected 1% of the forest in the country, a research paper claimed it was 4-5%.

Before claiming BL was dishonest one needs to consider:
- Was the report quoted the only report on the subject?
- Was the definition of "affected" the same for each as this could range from completed destruction to being part of an area that was partially burnt.

Given that the working party's entire report was thrown out due to the committee breaking its own rules, the entire exercise stinks of a nit-picking witch hunt rather than any attempt at a reasonable assessment.

Shadow Minister,

The fires occurred in 1997. The book was published in 1998. The initial reports on the fire were that it wasn't especially big. Lomborg was writing from those initial reports. Later reports said the fires were bigger than originally estimated. (Remember that several parties, including the Indonesian government, were anxious to make the fires seem as bad as possible for economic and political reasons).

Had Lomborg been writing a year or two later he might have reached different conclusions. But his views were based on the then available data. But some were anxious to find error, real or fabricated. And desperate men take desperate measures.

Oh, and can I mention that no one has found errors with the data on plastics which was the purpose of this thread. SR, unable to research for himself, will just have to wait for some other activist to tell him what to think.