I’ve been haphazardly collecting and reading some articles regarding the latest media darling of the climate science denial crowd, Steven (he’s a real, if dishonest, scientist) Koonin. It’s to be a followup to Ben Santer’s article and intended to be a bibliographic Student Resource for those curious about the disingenuous game Koonin has been playing for years.
Then a couple days ago I read the following “critical review” - at SkepticalScience.com, it was reposted from Yale Climate Connections and written by the respected Mark Boslough - and it’s been haunting me since, so I’ve decided to purge it from my system by posting Boslough’s unedited article, with a few additional thoughts of my own.
Boslough, admits to being a good friend of Koonin. Indeed his review, is more about understanding and forgiveness for Koonin’s unfortunate excesses, along with K’s failures in judgement and character. Rather than an critical examination of the malicious lies Koonin repeats like a wind up doll.
Where Boslough sees an unfortunate, to be pitied, I see a malicious liar for hire.
Someone who should be exposed and shamed for his wanton disregard for honesty and our children’s futures. Instead, we get yet another example of dancing by the contrarian’s drum beat.
I share the article as written thanks to their generous CreativeCommons repost permission. I did add bold and red highlights to single out specifics. I also share a few thoughts of my own in green print.
This is intended for students who are sick and tired of old white guys getting away with this sort wanton deception. Students who are already busy trying to figure out how to confront the fire hose of disinformation … (continued after Boslough’s article) (edited June 5th, PM)
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A critical review of Steven Koonin’s ‘Unsettled’
Posted on 1 June 2021 by Guest Author at SkepticalScience.com
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Mark Boslough
I would normally ignore a book by a non-climate scientist promising “the truth about climate science that you aren’t getting elsewhere.” Such language is a red flag.
But I’ve known the author of “Unsettled” since I took his quantum mechanics course as a Ph.D. student at Caltech in the 1970s. He’s smart and I like him, so I’m inclined to give his book a chance.
But smart scientists aren’t always right, and nice guys are still prone to biases – especially if they listen to the wrong people.
