Putting the Science Police to Better Use

In scientific fields that bear on contentious public issues such as endangered species and climate change, writes journalist Keith Kloor in the latest Issues in Science and Technology, self-appointed “sheriffs of scientific literature and public debate” are taking it upon themselves to shut down discussion of inconvenient views and findings. Kloor writes:

The article doesn’t quite back up that ominous tone. The opening anecdote is about a paper on rising species diversity in some local ecosystems that was rejected by the journal Nature after a peer reviewer worried that the media might interpret it the wrong way -- but was published soon afterward in the almost-as-prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Most of the rest focuses on Roger Pielke Jr., a longtime environmental studies professor at the University of Colorado who is on board with the consensus view that carbon emissions are warming the planet but has endured ferocious public criticism for his oft-expressed observation that warming doesn’t seem to be bringing more hurricanes or other major weather disasters.1498670775108