Something quite strange just happened. I recounted in my earlier post that Dr. Oreskes had promised to notify me when her paper was accepted for publication. Here is that email;
----------------------------------------------
Dear Mr. Nierenberg,
Thank you for your detailed communication. I appreciate your concern for your father's legacy and your loyalty to him.
I have tried to explain the basis for my views to you; obviously we have a difference of interpretation here.
I believe that what I said in my senate testimony, as an expert witness, was a fair interpretation of the documentary evidence, which includes the minutes of the committee meetings, the report itself, the peer reviews of it, and its reception in the scientific community and the Reagan White House. You are, of course, entitled to a different interpretation.
The evidence for my reading of the historical record is provided in full in a paper I am currently preparing for publication, which is based on extensive archival research here at SIO and in the archives of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Once the paper has completed peer-review and is accepted for publication, I would be happy to share a copy with you. If you still feel my interpretation is faulty or incomplete, I would encourage you to write a discussion in the journal.
Yours truly,
Naomi Oreskes
-----------------------------------------
I have only corresponded with her a couple of times since then, here is the full chain.
When I found out independently that her paper had been posted on line without any notification to me. So I wrote her the following on February 14th.
----------------------------------
Can I assume that the paper that I have listed in the subject, which is the one that you referring to in December?
Regards,
Nicolas Nierenberg
-------------------------------------
I received the following reply on February 15th indirectly from a Julia Partrdige
--------------------------------------
Yes but it is not yet published.
Naomi Oreskes
---------------------------------------
This was my response sent the same day
---------------------------------------
Perhaps, but it is now posted to the internet. If one desired to have a response posted is that available on the same site?
Nicolas Nierenberg
-----------------------------------------
There was no correspondence between then and when I found out that her paper had been published without notification to me. I was not happy to find that out and wrote the following on September 7th.
------------------------------------------
I am sure that you have some wonderful explanation for why you didn't inform me that your paper on my father was accepted for publication, and is now in print. Your previous explanation was that the web site you published to was not a peer reviewed site, but I don't believe that was true in this case. One might almost believe that you were concerned about the journal seeing the response.
Nicolas Nierenberg
-----------------------------------------
This is the bizarre response I just received from Shannon Sloan.
------------------------------------------
Mr. Nierenberg,
Given the hostile and threatening tone of your previous correspondence,
Dr. Oreskes saw no reason to further any conversation with you and now
formally requests that you cease and desist any further contact. Thank
you.
Shannon Sloan
Public Relations/Assistant to the Provost
Sixth College Business/Provost Office
ssloan@ucsd.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------
It appears that Dr. Oreskes' altering of the historical record is now not just limited to my father.
I should point out that her paper was published months before either this site was created, or I responded to the erroneous story in the Times on line on some blogs. So her failure to notify me, as she had promised to do, had nothing to do with that.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Hi Nicholas
I would strongly recommend that you submit your critique as a comment to "Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences" - IMO that is the best and most effective way to correct an inaccurate peer reviewed paper.
Dave
Also, if you wrote to The Times about this, and if they refused to publish your reply, I suggest you take it up with the Press Complaints Commission.
And if you feel the BBC film misrepresented your father you could take it up with the BBC Trust.
Dave
Also, re. the BBC Trust, see here and here.
Dave
daver,
Thank you for your comments.
We intend to submit our manuscript for publication. We would have already done this had Dr. Oreskes informed us of the publication of her paper as she had promised. Foolishly we were waiting to hear from her.
Based on your suggestion I have filed a complaint with the press complaints department.
I haven't viewed the BBC film, but thank you for those links.
Hi Nicolas
Parts I and II of the BBC film can be viewed online here. (Only part I is relevant to this though).
Dave
Unfortunately that link only works in the UK. I believe there are other ways to watch the video at this point.
If all else fails, I believe that, in the circumstances, they must have an obligation to make it available to you to watch, e.g. by setting up an ftp site for you to download it from - you could ring them and ask.
Dave
Just to fill in this conversation we did publish a paper in HSNS subsequently. The BBC issued a correction as did the Times.
Unfortunately this had little effect on Dr. Oreskes or others who now simply cite the same material from her book rather than the peer reviewed publication. They never cite our paper as another viewpoint, and therefore in my opinion the idea of correcting the historical record in this manner in the social sciences doesn't work.
In any actual science field this couldn't happen.
Post a Comment