More hackery from Jacoby
Feb. 10th, 2007 12:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petardierThe Globe didn't print my latest anti-Jacoby missive. I can't really fault them though. One of the four responses was from a scientist whose views Jacoby has mis-characterised. Two others were anti-Jacoby as well.
Here's what I wrote:
Jeff Jacoby is at it again. He finds statements in print elsewhere, presents them as fact in his column, and draws sweeping incorrect conclusions from them.
He claims that the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) is written by bureaucrats, not scientists, and that these bureaucrats have distorted the science. Many other sources claim that the authors of the SPM are nearly all scientists whose work has been acknowledged. Did Jacoby check on this? I doubt it.
He claims there is evidence of global warming on Mars. Mars is significantly different from Earth. Its orientation, orbit, thin atmosphere, and lack of oceans all make for a vastly different environment from that on Earth. To infer global warming on Mars from data that only go back 3 Martian years (6 Earth years) is premature, to say the least. Did Jacoby check on this? It doesn't seem likely.
Given that I've found two major errors in Jacoby's column with minimal effort, my confidence in the rest of his "facts" isn't high. I do agree with his last statement though. Journalists should check things out. It's lucky he's got a soft job writing for the opinion page where he's not held to journalistic standards. Jacoby doesn't appear to have the ability or the inclination to make it as a journalist.
Here's what I wrote:
Jeff Jacoby is at it again. He finds statements in print elsewhere, presents them as fact in his column, and draws sweeping incorrect conclusions from them.
He claims that the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) is written by bureaucrats, not scientists, and that these bureaucrats have distorted the science. Many other sources claim that the authors of the SPM are nearly all scientists whose work has been acknowledged. Did Jacoby check on this? I doubt it.
He claims there is evidence of global warming on Mars. Mars is significantly different from Earth. Its orientation, orbit, thin atmosphere, and lack of oceans all make for a vastly different environment from that on Earth. To infer global warming on Mars from data that only go back 3 Martian years (6 Earth years) is premature, to say the least. Did Jacoby check on this? It doesn't seem likely.
Given that I've found two major errors in Jacoby's column with minimal effort, my confidence in the rest of his "facts" isn't high. I do agree with his last statement though. Journalists should check things out. It's lucky he's got a soft job writing for the opinion page where he's not held to journalistic standards. Jacoby doesn't appear to have the ability or the inclination to make it as a journalist.
