A fellow called Robyn Williams has a monopoly on the reporting of science on Australia’s publicly funded national radio, the ABC. He runs several programs including Ockam’s Razor broadcast on Sunday morning.
He is usually quick to promote the latest scare and perhaps not surprisingly has become a great supporter of alarmist global warming claims. It is not difficult to find credible scientists to interview who support the consensus on global warming. Unfortunately, however, anybody holding a skeptical view risks ridicule when they speak out, including from Robyn Williams.
Here is a disgraceful introduction from Robyn Williams to the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canberra, Professor Don Aitkin. No doubt if Professor Aitkin were not a skeptic he would have been given a suitably adoring, or at least a gracious, introduction.
Also, in the following introduction Mr Williams suggested Nigel Lawson is a trained economist, he is not. He is a journalist by training. But was a very able Chancellor of the Exchequer in Margaret Thatcher’s government.
Here goes:
Robyn Williams: It is one of the disappointments of my life as a broadcaster that I’ve never managed to interview Nigella Lawson. How would she fit into a science program you may wonder, but that’s mere detail.
I have, on the other hand, had her father Nigel Lawson on the Science Show, talking about innovation or some such, with his usual flair and penetrating intelligence. Not a science-trained man, but economics is near enough, isn’t it, and he was Thatcher’s Chancellor of the Exchequer (or Treasurer).
Now Lord Lawson has brought out a book on climate called An Appeal to Reason. Here’s the first paragraph of a review in this week’s Spectator magazine:
‘When there is so much data suggesting the world’s climate is heating up’, goes the review, ‘some may find it presumptuous of Nigel Lawson, who is not a scientist and has undertaken no original research, to hope to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy. Would we take seriously an appraisal of his time as Chancellor of the Exchequer written by someone whose only expertise was in oceanography?’
Well the same could apply to Professor Don Aitkin, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canberra, a political scientist and like Lawson, a journalist. Professor Aitkin gave a lecture on climate to the Planning Institute of Australia, A Cool Look at Global Warming. That was a couple of weeks ago, and I thought you might like to hear some of his thoughts, recast for Ockham’s Razor. Though 9 out of 10 Australians are said to be alarmed at climate change, 10% think differently, and Professor Aitkin is one of them.”
Now read/listen to ‘A challenge to global warming orthodoxies – part one’ by Don Aitkins here:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2008/2226464.htm
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
From his bio: “Robyn admits to spending as much time acting as studying. Early in his career he made guest appearances in The Goodies, Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Dr Who and stood in for Tom Jones for four months in his TV series.”
Well, I guess that qualifies him to condemn science views held by others. I hope he doesn’t mind my opinion on left-wing, taxpayer funded broadcasts.
That anyone as arrogant and self-opinionated as Robyn Williams can have a position of influence beggars belief.
“a disgraceful introduction”? Hardly a surprise.
Check these out:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/05/23/1179601487356.html
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/theaustralian/comments/a_piece_of_propaganda/
Remember this is the fool that claimed it was possible that sea levels could rise 100 metres ( yes metres ) in the next century.
Even the Ipcc only predicts around two thirds of one hundredth of this measurement,i.e. 60 cm.
HIPPO Al only claims around 6 metres so silly Robin is at the fanatical extreme end of nutcase predictions and I would ask the obvious, what is this twit doing running the ABC’s science show?
You could literaly haul in any layabout off the street and you would get a better and more reasoned estimation of sea levels in the next 100 years. The ABC is a disgrace.
I think even James Hansen is now catching up with Robyn Williams — isn’t his latest prediction for a sea level rise of 75m?
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/040908EA.shtml
The nutcases are trying to outdo one another.
Without protest, condemnation or criticism, Robyn Williams interviewed some nut on his program not long ago, that expressed a desire to introduce a virus into water supplies in order to kill off over half the worlds population, because the world is over populated in his opinion… It was in relation to Human impacts on climate and environment…
This seems a common theme with the left…
However they never seem willing to relieve us of their own esteemed presence voluntarily in order to save the world though…. ; )
Once again, we get someone with the brains of a professor, who can’t understand or simply hasn’t read, the claims of the IPCC.
The current temperature is an issue already, as climate change is already affecting Australian. And this is just the start of the change, we have a lot more to cope with yet. This will be global warming, which affects everyone. If a few benefit, what about the majority who don’t?
filing this here:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/williams_cool_on_sceptic/
SJT says:
“The current temperature is an issue already, as climate change is already affecting Australian. And this is just the start of the change, we have a lot more to cope with yet.”
One of the few times I heard Robyn Williams was when he was a guest host the local science show. He did a piece on GW in australia and he went on and on about the native australian fauna (like kangaroos) were thriving in during the drought while the imports (like cows) were dying.
I was not a AGW skeptic at the time but it made me wonder. Gee, if the the native australian fauna are adapted for drought then maybe episodes of drought are natural parts of Australia’s climate.
Too many alarmists think they can take any natural event, claim it is a result of AGW. Yet Natural events which are bad for humans have occurred for millennia. There is no evidence that number or frequency of these events has increased due to CO2 induced warming (mostly because we don’t have the data to say one way or the other).
Unfortunately, too many people willing to believe these unsubstantiated claims by alarmists. Just like people believed that natural disasters meant the gods were angry.
“This seems a common theme with the left…:
And with the right.
Check this out – David Rockefeller expounding his views on population control…
In Robyn’s defence I did hear him mildly correct Jeremy Leggett at an ANU presentation last year when Leggett said that the signs of climate change are all around us. Leggett cited our drought and the UK’s ‘biblical’ floods. I can’t remember the exact wording (the podcast is probaby still available on the ABC Science Show web site) but I think Robyn suggested that maybe this wasn’t a universal opinion.
I’d heard from the UK that the floods were being described as the worst in 60 years – I suppose that means the ones that occured around 1947 were at least as bad…
On the ‘Flannery – the Wrong Weather Maker’ thread of this blog I’ve just drawn attention to what I suspect are serious errors in a paper in the Australian Meteorological Magazine that was co-authored by Kevin Hennessy of CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, who was Coordinating Lead Author of the “Australia and New Zealand” chapter of the IPCC’s recently-published Assessment Report (thanks to Luke for drawing attention to the paper in question).
If, to use Robyn Williams’s phrase, there’s a ‘science-trained man’ (or woman) who’s able to show that my analysis is wrong and that Mr Hennessy and his co-authors are right, I’ll be glad to accept correction. In the meantime, however, I’d like to register my unalloyed admiration for the penetrating contributions Professor Aitkin and Lord Lawson have made to the climate change debate – including, in Lawson’s case, his incisive questioning of experts who appeared before the House of Lords Committee inquiry into The Economics of Climate Change in 2005.
‘”WHEN THERE IS SO MUCH DATA SUGGESTING THE WORLD’S CLIMATE IS HEATING UP.”
The skill is to massage the data so as to confirm the pre-conceived concept of anthropogenic global warming.
It has been well documented that with appropriate statistical manipulation and misusing advanced methods, such as principal component analysis it is possible to ease the little ice age and the previous warming periods described in Roman and again in medieval times. Thus was presented the infamous ‘hockey stick graph.”
from http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/002975.html
Robyn Williams misrepresents The Spectator
In my previous post I referred to an introduction that the ABC’s Robyn Williams gave to an Ockham’s Razor presentation by Don Aitkin. He used a quote from a piece in The Spectator to suggest that Aitkin’s view should be taken with caution, if not disregarded.
Here is the part of the article that Williams quoted:
When there is so much data suggesting the world’s climate is heating up’, goes the review, ‘some may find it presumptuous of Nigel Lawson, who is not a scientist and has undertaken no original research, to hope to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy. Would we take seriously an appraisal of his time as Chancellor of the Exchequer written by someone whose only expertise was in oceanography?
Here are the next two paragraphs:
For some, this will be reason enough to rubbish his new book on global warming. Ironically those most keen to deride him may also be those who were first in the queue to embrace Al Gore, the Nobel prize-winning climate change campaigner. This would be the same Al Gore whose not very scientific qualifications amount to five F-grades from Vanderbilt Divinity School and a Harvard thesis on the impact of television on the American presidency.
In truth, pugilists on both side of the argument need to recognise that while expertise is always paramount, it is not out of place for other leading public figures to pose intelligent questions. After all, scientists and activists are demanding a political, not an academic, response to their findings. In this short and tightly argued book, Nigel Lawson successfully unravels some of the lazy assumptions upon which the current debate has been framed.
Williams has taken The Spectator quote completely out of context and used it to imply the opposite of what it in fact says. This is either extremely unprofessional sloppiness, or deliberate and therefore bad faith. Certainly it is unbecoming of a senior ABC broadcaster and reveals Williams to be just one of those “pugilists” that the article admonishes.
(copied with permission)
I wonder if Robyn Williams is aware of the ABC’s own Independent Complaints Review Panel.
The ABC Board has established an Independent Complaints Review Panel (ICRP) to review written complaints which relate to allegations of serious cases of bias, lack of balance or unfair treatment arising from an ABC broadcast or broadcasts.
Perhaps he could chat with Kirsten Garrett (Executive Producer, Background Briefing, ABC Radio National) who as an independent expert panel member that granted an excellence in journalism award to the ABC’s Four Corners was required to advise the Australian Museum that her panel’s recomendations were still valid despite the ICRP finding that ‘Lords of the Forests’ was biased, innacuate and brached the ABC’s code of practice.
Perhaps Robyn should be nominated for the Eureka for Environmental Journalism. Any one interested on the award its criteria and past winners see http://www.austmus.gov.au/eureka/go/eureka-prize/environmental-journalism
Thanks heavens Duffy would never try one on. What’s that Complaints hotline number BTW?
(Let’s not be too precious and consumed with mock indignation eh?)
“I was not a AGW skeptic at the time but it made me wonder. Gee, if the the native australian fauna are adapted for drought then maybe episodes of drought are natural parts of Australia’s climate.”
This is just the start of the change. Established native flora are showing severe stress around here.
Actually, I thought Robyn Williams was much gentler than Prof Aitkin deserved – he is, after al, peddling nonsense. However, I’ve noticed Williams is uniformly courteous to his guests, even when he disagrees with them.
Um, I don’t see that Williams actually said that Lawson was economics-trained, but rather that he’d been Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that he was NOT science-trained.
There IS a difference…
He also DID note that Lawson was a journalist.
And given some of the inaccuracies that Aitkins included in his piece, I’d be a little inclined to say that the good professor didn’t so much ‘speak out’ as ‘speak out of turn’.
I also beg to differ from the first comment here: whilst Williams did make “guest appearances in The Goodies, Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Dr Who and stood in for Tom Jones for four months in his TV series”, he also has a degree in science with Honours. This is on top of his decades of close association with the brightest scientific minds in the world, and I think both together do make him eminently qualified to comment upon the science views held by others. Especially so where those others are not science-qualified themselves.
Of course, those here who would disagree and say that a science journalist, even one with a degree in science, shouldn’t critique academics, might stop to ask why, in contrast, a biologist is entitled to step outide of their area and critique a climate scientist.
Oh, and as a working biologist myself I will add my voice to SJT’s and note that the species of Australia’s drought-adapted wildlife with which I work are indeed showing extreme signs of drought stress, including very worrying declines in population on top of unusual phenological changes. Whilst episodes of drought certainly are a natural part of Australia’s climate, as Raven notes, if the current drought reflects a possible quasi-stable future for our climate then there are many native species that will NOT cope.
And please note that I am not calling the current weather ‘climate change’ per se. Of course, to anyone who can’t contemplate the mere possibility of AGW there will be no difference…
Well, no apology 7 days later, but a much better introduction:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2008/2232630.htm
You people are incredible. Robyn Williams is one of the most well-respected science journalists in the country, and has been for well over twenty years.
If you went to the trouble of listening to some of the programs that he produces, like Okham’s Razor, you will see that he works to get controversial speakers onto the programs, such as in this case of getting Don Aitkin onto Okham’s Razor twice! Robyn is pretty convinced – as most of us trained in science are – that there are climatic effects brought about by human activity. However the true scientists among us are always ready to listen to new data, or new analyses of data.
I found Don Aitkin’s talks engaging and interesting, and I agree that there are a number of crazy claims made in the climate-change camp, most of which are dreamed up by newspaper editors with a view to a headline; but I don’t think that Aitkin’s case, which boils down to there’s not enough evidence of warming so let’s not do anything about it just yet, is made.
The human affects on the globe have gone beyond being a twinkle in a greeny’s eye: global business and economists are now working with climate change as a very real threat.
In the 1960s and 1970s in the West, we had industrial pollution… and greenies and concerned citizens made a big deal about it, and as a society, we fixed it. (And not just through exporting our industries… this was 20 years before the rise of China and India)
Also at that time, there was tremendous, and justified, concern about over-population and how to feed the planet… and as a planet, we fixed it (and yes, not permanently, as evidenced by the current shortages of food commodities).
So, Global Warming or Climate Change is another one of these planet-wide threats: we have to plan for it and start to do something about it. Doing that is only a good insurance policy. It is not even agreeing that Climate Change is a certainty: it is just agreeing that Climate Change is a reasonable probability that you should plan for.
If there was a 20% chance that you were going to die from smoking cigarettes, you would at least consider cutting back, or giving up altogether. Well, given the weight of scientific opinion on the side of Climate Change, you would have to agree that the probability of it having some sort of bad affect on our environment is higher than 20%.
But most importantly, don’t shoot the messenger. In Robyn Williams’ case, he’s not even the messenger, he’s just the paper that the message is written on, given that he has shown time and again a willingness to air unorthodox views.
In Don Aitkin’s OWN WORDS about the Razor pieces:
“For the record, Robyn Williams invited me to give a talk after the original paper’s summary in the Australian. When he read the full paper he asked me to do two. I have no complaint at all, since I recognise that that my paper does not support the orthodoxy. I also had no complaint about the introduction, other than it did not make clear that in my professional life I have had a great deal to do with the funding of scientists and science policy. Robyn made that clear in his introduction to the second talk. Just as Robyn exerted no influence over me with respect to the content of my talks, since that is my business, I believe that he is entitled to introduce speakers as he likes: that is his business. Both of us carry the can for our own decisions.”
I think that there are a number of posters above, including Jennifer, who owe Robyn Williams an apology.