Ad placement does not constitute endorsement

One of the joys of being on Scienceblogs is getting to watch the ever-changing banner and sidebar ads that are placed by the marketing folks at Seed. Unfortunately, the people making the advertising decisions are not scientists, nor do they vet their ad choices with us before running them. So, sometimes we bloggers aren't so thrilled with what pops up alongside our writing.

And right now, I'm not so thrilled with the ad for Bjorn Lomborg's book, Cool It! showing up in the side bar. Now, I'll admit that I haven't read the book, but what I've heard of it tells me that Lomborg has cherry-picked facts and made dubious economic arguments to claim that global warming is not an issue to be concerned about, and that it would simply cost too much to try to do something about it anyway. So, cool it, apparently.

Here's what others have to say about the book:

"Unfortunately, Lomborg's thesis is built on a deep misconception of Earth's system and of economics when applied to that system." (Partha Dasgupta, a University of Cambridge economist, reviewing the book in Nature)

"The glaring error in "Cool It," and the one that disqualifies the book from making a serious contribution, is that Lomborg ignores the main concern driving the debate. Incredibly, he never mentions even the possibility that the world might heat up more than 4.7 degrees [Fahrenheit by 2100]....the IPCC provides a range of up to 10.5 degrees -- more than double the number on which Lomborg bases his entire argument." (Eban Goodstein, a Lewis and Clark college economist in a Salon review)

(h/t James Hrynyshyn at The Island of Doubt for the reviews)

So the moral of the story: SW definitely does not endorse products in the advertisements, and this time, she's going out of her way to recommend against believing what you might read in the book should you choose to buy it anyway.