The Australian’s War on Science 69: Michael Asten

Posted by Tim Lambert on August 30, 2011
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In The Conversation Michael Ashley writes about The Australian‘s War on Science, with emphasis on Michael Asten’s misrepresentations of the science:

When I contacted The Australian’s opinion editor late last year to express dismay at their bias, I was given the example of Michael Asten, a part-time professorial fellow in the school of geosciences at Monash University, Melbourne, as someone who was well-qualified to comment. …

So, Asten, with no expertise in the field, is using a paper published in Nature to argue the opposite of what the paper actually says.

He then spins this as “top scientists cast doubt” on the IPCC. …

But once again, Asten misunderstands the science. The Riva et al paper wasn’t an observation of the total sea-level rise at all, just an estimate of the contribution from melting ice. …

You would think The Australian, if it had any editorial integrity, would have called a halt to Asten’s ready access to the opinion pages after serious flaws were found with each of his contributions. But the lure of publishing an opinion supporting their editorial bias, from an apparently reputable source, was just too strong to resist.

You can get an idea of the extent of The Australian‘s campaign against climate science if you consider that even though I’m up to number 70 in this series, only one of Asten’s four opinion pieces was previously covered here (as number 55).

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Comments

  1. #1 jakerman
    August 30, 2011

    A great article by Ashely. It deserves broad disemination. And I like this teaser at the end:

    >And if you think the bias in The Australian only affects its choice of OpEd pieces, wait till you read Tim Lambert’s examination of news reporting in his article later in this series for The Conversation.

  2. #2 Vince whirlwind
    August 30, 2011

    Mark Hendrickx has shown up at the conversation to continue his vapid promotion of uncertainty. He doesn’t say much about The Australian’s mis-representation of their non-experts’ qualifications, though.

  3. #3 jakerman
    August 30, 2011

    David Karoly presented analysis of Reporting from The Australian, which I heard in an audio presentation perhaps last year or earlier this year. Can anyone remember where that was?

  4. #4 Tim Lambert
    August 30, 2011

    [Karoly's talk is here](http://ams.confex.com/ams/91Annual/webprogram/Paper184755.html)

  5. #5 jakerman
    August 31, 2011

    Thanks Tim, that’s the one.

  6. #6 Marco
    August 31, 2011

    I think, Vince, that that is because there is considerable uncertainty on those qualifications. Could be they’re experts, could be they’re cranks, but with all that uncertainty there’s no way of telling!

  7. #7 Acacia
    August 31, 2011

    An excellent article, I wondered why Asten didn’t get any follow up last December after his articles on Pearson’s research.

    And the war goes on yesterday and today.

    Perhaps if the denialist press promoted action rather than stagnation on AGW there would be less room for pessimism.

  8. #8 Vince whirlwind
    August 31, 2011

    Nice one Marco.

  9. #9 Philip Machanick
    September 1, 2011

    Don’t forget, The Oz has its reputation as the originator of post-modern science (it’s all equally good, just opinion, choose a point of view you like) to uphold.