Posted by Esteemed Pielkeologist, Eli Rabett points me to a post from Roger Pielke Jr complaining that he is being persecuted by the “liberal blogosphere”.
Apparently what prompted this was a comment from Brad DeLong on why he considers Pielke Jr to be dishonest:
I do remember that what knocked my view of your work over the edge was one of your attacks on Hansen.
Ah. “[Pielke] claims that [Hanson's] scenario B was off by a factor of 2 on CO2. This sounds like a lot until you discover that means that emissions grew by 0.5% per year instead of 1% a year. And that works out to scenario B having the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere within 1% of what has actually happened. Pielke is being much more than a little unfair by calling a prediction that got within 1% of the correct answer as not being ‘particularly accurate or realistic’.”
Well, DeLong was quoting me so Pielke has a go at me in his post. First he complains that:
Neither [Romm nor DeLong] links to my own words on my blog, apparently afriad of what might happen if people view what I have to say directly, rather than their cartoonish caricatures.
And then we get:
But even the big fish apparently see some gutter behavior as not really becoming of professionals (though Romm doesn’t seem to care), as to more effectively attack someone’s reputation they also rely on the minnows of the blogosphere, people who see it as their sole job to “trash” someone’s reputation via innuendo, fabrication and outright misrepresentation. Among these minnows are controversialist bloggers like Tim Lambert, who are professionally unqualified to engage in the substance of most debates (certainly the case with respect to my own work), yet earn their place exclusively by making mountains out of molehills (e.g., Lambert carpet bombs the internet with references to his post on the fact that I once botched a Google search, making insinuations of associated evilness in my soul) and ad hominem attacks (Pielke viciously attacked Al Gore!! Pielke is the Devil!!), without out once engaging the substance of my work (e.g., Al Gore agreed with my critique of his slide show and subsequently removed a slide from his show, I complemented [sic] Gore for his commitment to accuracy).
The big fish then feed on the minnows, for instance, Real Climate and Brad DeLong have cited Tim Lambert as an authority, including on my own work, yet to my knowledge Lambert has never actually engaged anything I’ve published in the peer reviewed literature much less any substantive arguments that I’ve made. Of course he doesn’t — he is not qualified to do so.
I almost don’t know where to begin with this.
1) After complaining that DeLong and Romm don’t link to his words when criticising him, he doesn’t link to my words. Probably because he can’t on account of his charges against me being fabrications.
2) In the very same sentence that he makes an ad hominem attack on me he alleges that I make ad hominem attacks. Does Pielke think ad hominem attacks are OK or not?
3) In the sentence directly following his claim that I see it as my sole job to trash Pielke’s reputation with “innuendo, fabrication and outright misrepresentation”, Pielke attempts to trash me using innuendo, fabrication and outright misrepresentation.
3a) Far from “carpet-bombing” the internet with references to my post about Pielke’s botched Google search, I have never once referred to it. (Link goes to a not-botched Google search.)
3b) Even those (not me) who have referred to that post are not insinuating that Pielke is evil, but rather that he is incompetent.
3c) I have never blogged anything about Pielke attacking Gore. You can see all my posts about Pielke here.
3d) I have never said that “Pielke is the Devil!!” I believe that readers of my posts about Pielke are capable of drawing their own conclusions about his character. See for example, this post and the first 50 comments there.
3e) I have engaged with the substance of Pielke’s work. See, for example, my post about Pielke’s critique of Hansen’s emission scenarios.
3f) Pielke is a political scientist. I am a computer scientist. Seems to me we are equally qualified or unqualified to comment on Hansen’s work. And can you imagine what Pielke would say if Michael Mann had said that Ross McKitrick was professionally unqualified to comment on his work?
Update: Thers reckons that Pielke’s metaphor mixing is even more violent than Tom Friedman’s. That’s a big call.
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