
University dumps professor who found polar bears thriving despite climate change - rblion
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/oct/20/susan-crockford-fired-after-finding-polar-bears-th/
======
ohazi
Flagged. The Washington Times is not a reputable source. If people want to
discuss this, please replace the article with one that isn't a dumpster fire
of deliberately misleading information.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_J._Crockford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_J._Crockford)

She was paid by a conservative think tank for years and didn't disclose her
conflict of interest.

~~~
war1025
Would people consider it a conflict of interest if someone was paid by a
liberal think tank for years and published research in line with that
viewpoint?

The question should be weather the research is replicable, not who funded it.

~~~
ohazi
> Critics point out that none of Crockford's claims regarding the effects of
> climate change on polar bears has undergone peer review, nor has she ever
> published any peer-reviewed articles whose main focus is polar bears.

Keep in mind that peer review is the _lowest_ bar for academic quality. It's
_barely_ table stakes.

~~~
war1025
Don't believe I said anything regarding peer review.

~~~
gremlinsinc
Peer review usually means people tried to replicate it. Lack thereof usually
means most reputable scientists won't even give it the light of day because
it's not based in reality.

~~~
war1025
Peer Review is basically just gate-keeping for journals. It has nothing to do
with replicating the research, just with verifying that the person submitting
the paper crossed their Ts and dotted their Is rigorously enough.

------
Hongwei
Canadian universities have had some questionable incidents around free speech
[1]. So I wondered as I was reading this if this is, as the prof says, "cancel
culture."

However there's this ... "Crockford is a signatory of the International
Conference on Climate Change's 2008 Manhattan Declaration, which states that
"Carbon dioxide and other 'greenhouse gas' emissions from human
activity...appear to have only a very small impact on global climate," and
"Global cooling has presented serious problems for human society and the
environment throughout history while global warming has generally been highly
beneficial." Between at least 2011 and 2013, she received payment from The
Heartland Institute, in the form of $750 per month" [2]

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsay_Shepherd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsay_Shepherd)
[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_J._Crockford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_J._Crockford)

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ycjim
Seriously? Washington Times has mixed factual reporting, not reliable:
[https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/washington-
times/](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/washington-times/)

~~~
protomyth
And I am to trust a site called Media Bias / Fact Check website because?

~~~
viraptor
Because they list and link to the reasoning behind their opinion. You can read
the sources and any extra information and form your own. This is not simply
"we think it's bad, trust us".

~~~
not_a_cop75
Honestly, trust this is bad because we said so is not a logical response. At
least hot link to the opinion of why.

~~~
happytoexplain
The link seems to say more than "this is bad because we said so".

------
dragontamer
Seems to come down to he-said / she-said?

> “There is no evidence to suggest that Dr. Crockford’s adjunct appointment
> was not renewed for ‘telling school kids politically incorrect facts about
> polar bears,’” said Ms. Parkin. “The University of Victoria, in both word
> and deed, supports academic freedom and free debate on academic issues.”

vs

> Ms. Crockford accused officials at the Canadian university of bowing to
> “outside pressure,” the result of her research showing that polar bear
> populations are stable and even thriving, not plummeting as a result of
> shrinking Arctic sea ice, defying claims of the climate change movement.

\---------

I guess I was hoping for a better argument given the headline? Is there a
strong basis for cause-effect here?

It doesn't seem like Ms. Crockford was a tenured professor either. Her former
position was as an "adjunct professor". I admit that I'm ignorant to college-
politics, but hopefully someone can fill me in on some of these facts.

~~~
dlemire
At least in my experience with Canadian institutions, an adjunct professorship
is largely an honorary title. It is typically unpaid. You can supervise
graduate students and apply for some grants, but that is about it. Also it is
not meant to be permanent... You receive it for a fixed duration (say 3 years)
and have to renew it. Renewal may be based on several factors but certainly
may include how well you work with people from the school in question.

I don't know anything about the case being discussed here, but my expectation
is that the non-renewal of an adjunct status cannot be compared with getting
fired as a tenure or tenure-track professor.

Disclosure: I own her book.

------
Vxss
Just so we're clear, this is a Washington Times article. It must be a
reflection of a complete shift of internet culture rightwards that this rag
has been upvoted here significantly.

~~~
UncleOxidant
This is a good argument for having the ability to downvote things here. Not
sure why we can only upvote.

~~~
wglb
You can downvote comments once your karma reaches a threshold.

Stories can't be downvoted, but they can be flagged.

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danShumway
I'm seeing some warning signs in this article when I dig into the sources:

> University of Victoria economics professor Cornelis van Kooten warned of the
> threat to free speech on campus. “I think the climate change movement has
> done extreme harm to academic freedom,” he said, and the movement isn’t
> alone.

Why are we interviewing economics professors about suppression in the Climate
science?

Then we get to Judith Curry[0]:

> Her Polar Bear Science blog came under fire in a 2017 study in the journal
> BioScience by 14 academics, including Penn State climatologist Michael E.
> Mann, decrying the influence of “denier blogs,” which Georgia Tech professor
> emeritus Judith Curry blasted as “absolutely the stupidest paper I have ever
> seen published.”

On whom Wikipedia says:

> In 2019 she stated that she would not “bother with” peer-reviewed journals,
> in favor of publishing her own papers so that she could editorialize and
> write what she wanted “without worrying about the norms and agendas of the
> ‘establishment.’”[1]

It's very hard for me to find a source here in support of her that isn't
spending a lot of time using coded language for, "the establishment is
corrupt, you can't trust mainstream scientists, you can only trust this fringe
group and the reason no one agrees with us is because they hate us, not
because we're wrong." It reminds me a lot of when I was growing up in a
Creationist community, and I'd hear regular reports about the 'brave'
scientists that would get fired because they rejected fossil record evidence.

I'm not going to outright say bias doesn't exist in climate science, but if a
publication like the Washing Times wants to claim it does, I'd expect to see
much more compelling evidence than this article provides.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Curry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Curry)

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anigbrowl
OP, I feel you could find a less biased source to cover this story for the
same reason I don't post outrage articles from left-leaning websites despite
my being outrageously lefty.

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stillbourne
Susan Crockford's research is a crock, read up on why here:
[https://www.desmogblog.com/susan-crockford](https://www.desmogblog.com/susan-
crockford)

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rblion
I posted this just to see what people would say. I'm working on a project in
media and this thread is good research, believe it or not.

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aussieguy1234
For context in where this is coming from:
[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times)

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rinchik
I'm confused by the comments. Is it fake new because WT is the source, or is
it fake news because we have a legitimate source (e.g. University's or
professor's statements) that actually confirms that it's fake?

I'm not, personally, familiar with WT but seems there are a lot of jumping to
conclusions happening here.

I don't wanna say that EVERYONE is bias, just curios about what really
happened.

~~~
happytoexplain
I believe it's the source that is the issue. It's "fake news" in that the
source is extremely biased, and therefore untrustworthy. Not that we _know_
the content is strictly composed of lies.

~~~
rinchik
But.. every news outlet is bias and "propagandist", NYT has A LOT of eye
rolling, leftist extremism fueling articles, WP as well, even New Yorker is
super bias (New Yorker is more fun to read though..) but all of the above also
have gems. I still glance through those as it is important for getting a full
picture and not just a picture of one of the political bubbles.

