| Lomborg´s texts have many errors |
It has been richly documented that Lomborg´s claims are often
erroneous and misleading. When his book `The Skeptical
Environmentalist´ was reviewed in 2001/2002, it got favourable
reviews in newspapers and other lay journals where readers were
impressed by the amount of technical details, notes and references. But
in Scientific journals, not least Nature, Science and Scientific
American, the reviews were very negative because specialists were able
to see that many of Lomborg´s claims simply were not true.
Likewise, the more recent book by Howard Friel, `The Lomborg
Deception´, documents many errors, especially in
Lomborg´s
book `Cool it´. And here at the Lomborg-errors web site are
listed a total of more than 500 errors for the two books, some of them
minor errors, but others are gross and severely misleading. To this may
be added the manipulated and misleading outcomes of the Copenhagen
Consensus conferences.
Lomborg´s response has mainly been to refuse to acknowledge the
errors.
Many of the errors are of such a type that if they were corrected, then
Lomborg would no longer be able to make the points that he is making.
So there is an obvious suspicion why he would not acknowledge them – if
he did, he would have to change or modify many of his conclusions –
just those conclusions that appeal to many readers.
It is my assertion that in general, the errors presented on this web
site do hold up under
scrutiny. There have been a few attempts to question the error
claims (most notably by A. Rörsch et al., see Journal
of Information Ethics 14(1): 16-28 (2005)), but these attempts
have
been repudiated by me (see K. Fog in Journal
of
Information
Ethics
14(2): 66-76 (2005)), and the situation at present is that all claims
of errors on this web site have been maintained. A few claims have been
modified slightly in response to comments, but none has been modified
in any essential way. Some issues may always be debatable, but most
issues are about matters of fact, and here it seems possible to reach a
final conclusion about what is true and untrue. If Lomborg quotes
a text, and the original says something different from Lomborg´s
quote, then this for instance is an unequivocal error.
| Many errors are deliberate |
Nearly all errors go in the same direction – they give a bias in
disfavor of the environmental cause. This overall bias suggests
that the errors are probably not just accidental, but deliberate
attempts to distort the evidence in this particular direction.
Furthermore, in some cases there is more direct evidence that
errors are deliberate. In the error catalogues on this web site, these
cases (about one hundred cases) are emphasized with color markings. The
reader may scroll through the pages where the markings help him to find
these cases, and he may then for himself judge if the evidence for
deliberate misleading is convincing. He may also study for instance this more elaborated
example.
Furthermore, it also seems that the Copenhagen Consensus conferences
have been manipulated deliberately by Lomborg in order to mislead
people – see for instance
this debate between Lomborg and me. In short,
I suggest that Lomborg has a certain agenda, and that he was and still
is willing to manipulate and distort the evidence in order to reach his
goals.
| The difficulty to prove that errors are
deliberate |
Right since 1998 when Lomborg started to write about the environment,
my personal impression was that he misled deliberately. After the
publishing of
his first book in Danish in September 1998, we were a group of people
who organized the work to debunk his book and produce a counter-book
which was published in 1999 (the English edition of that book appeared
in 2002, see this
link). In those chapters that I wrote for the
counter-book, I used formulations like “Lomborg misleads deliberately”.
However, the main editor always deleted these formulations and said to
me: “Can you prove that he did it deliberately? If not, then
don´t write it”. So I had to omit these formulations.
This changed, however, when Lomborg published his first book in
English, `The Skeptical Environmentalist´. This time evidence had
accumulated that the misleading was deliberate. For instance, if
experts had pointed out to Lomborg certain incorrect postulates in his
Danish book, and had done this with professional authority and with
reference to scientific sources, and Lomborg still maintained the same
postulates in his English book, then you have a proof that Lomborg
writes in bad faith. And then you know why he avoids criticism by not
publishing in a scientific forum, and publishes instead for lay people
who do not
know the matters of fact.
When I worked around New Year 2001 / 2002 on the revision of my
chapters of
the Danish counter-book to produce a counter-book in English, I
discovered many such cases where Lomborg´s dishonesty could be
proven. At the same time, Lomborg was about to become the director of a
new environmental institute established especially for him. Therefore,
time was ripe to lodge a complaint to the Danish Committees for
Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD). The complaint that I lodged
(and one of the two other complaints that followed) focused on proofs
that some texts were not just misleading, but deliberately misleading.
What happened is described here.
The
DCSD
ruled
by
common
consent
that
Lomborg
had acted contrary to the standards of good scientific practice
by being selective and thereby creating bias. However, when it came to
decide if this bias was deliberate, they flinched and did not pronounce
any
assertion. It seems that they partly had become frightened, and partly
felt pity with Lomborg, feeling that the verdict that he was
objectively wrong should be strong enough. This, however, was a blatant
mistake on their side. It is of course difficult to know an other
person´s motives – who can see what happens inside the brain of
another person ? – but it was precisely the duty of the DCSD to decide
on that, and they failed to do their duty. In the end, it led to the
suspension of their ruling.
See here.
I was frustrated by the fact that much evidence had been presented to
the DCSD that the errors were deliberate, but that they failed to go
into depth with this evidence. This frustration was the reason to
produce the Lomborg-errors web site. Here, I have subsequently gathered
much more evidence that Lomborg is not in good faith. This is true not
only of his books, but also of the Copenhagen Consensus conferences in
2004 and 2008, where Lomborg fiddled with the crucial discount rates
(see here).
Based on all this evidence, I have come to expect in advance that all
what Lomborg does and says is carefully thought out and deliberately
misleading. The problem for me is that it is so hard to make others see
this in the same way. For some strange reason nearly all people expect
in advance that when Lomborg says something particular, then
he means it (for instance, if he says that we should have more wind
power, then he means it).
People may think that even if it is not completely true what Lomborg
says, at least he believes himself that he is right. In my
opinion, that is also a naïve way of thinking. Rather, I would
suggest that you think of Lomborg´s saying and doing as spin.
Spin is about manipulating public opinion. Spin implies promoting a
hidden agenda.
The `father of spin´, Edward
Bernays, wrote in his
book `Crystallizing public opinion´ (1923, p. 212) that “ the
only difference between `propaganda´ and `education´
really, is the point of view. The advocacy of what we believe in is
education. The advocacy of what we don´t believe in is
propaganda.” In my view, Lomborg advocates what he does not believe in.
Put more precisely, he does not care if any postulate is true or false.
All he
cares about is how he can make the general public react the way that he
wants. All that he says and does has the purpose to further certain
assertions in those people who have sufficient power and influence to
be of interest. Whether these assertions are true is of minor
importance, as long as they cannot readily be disproved (Lomborg has
several techniques to avoid that false claims are readily disproved,
for instance referring to a source which few people will bother to
check).
As a critic of Lomborg, I am facing this problem: When I on this web
site have documented abundantly that Lomborg´s books are full of
errors, and that many errors are deliberate, then I would anticipate
that people conclude that you cannot trust that person. But many people
do not conclude that. Why not? If the alleged errors hold up, how come
that Lomborg is not effectively called out on his errors? If you
know that a man lied to you yesterday, and two days ago, and three days
ago, how can you be so naïve that you believe that what he says
today is true?
| What could be the explanations that people
still trust Lomborg? |
Ordinary people have no chance at all to judge the correctness of what
Lomborg says. They cannot go into details and check who is right. They
have to trust other peoples judgment. What determines whom they trust?
One important factor is that Lomborg appears as a very professional
person. His books are full of (overly) precise figures, very technical
notes, and thousands of references, so obviously this man is not just a
shallow or superficial charlatan. And people think that if he is not
superficial, then it must be true what he says. He has checked the
official statistics for us, hasn´t he?
Another important factor is the importance of his language, his voice
tone, and his body language. People perceive him as a lively, open and
spontaneous person. He looks directly at the audience with open blue
eyes. A man who is spontaneous and lively cannot at the same time be
cynical and thinking things out coldly, can he? A lot of people judge
other people from their body language, and on the basis of the body
language they beliveve that Lomborg cannot possibly be calculating and
designing. Actually, however, a careful analysis of his replies in
public
debates often will reveal that he is very calculating, but people do
not notice that in the heat of the debate.
Some of the reviews of Lomborg´s film `Cool it´say that he
is mild-mannered (here)
or
`he
actually
seems rather kind´ (here).
People
with
no
prior knowledge about him think that he looks like a
nice person whom they would like to chat with and who would be good to
others. Sadly, that is not so. He may be kind to those who support his
agenda or who are of help to him, but his treatment of those
whose agenda he does not like, may often be described with words like
sly, scheming
or vicious. This is not to say that if somebody
opposes him, he gets angry at them. Not at all. Rather, in a number of
cases, he has been the one who instigated conflict and deliberately
insulted others, thereby turning people into enemies. For instance, one
Danish scientist who helped Lomborg with a lot of information and
references for `The Skeptical Environmentalist´, subsequently
found that Lomborg´s book - and a long follow-up newspaper
article written by Lomborg - contained a character assassination
on him. Another example where Lomborg is certainly not kind is here. Time and time again,
Lomborg has written or said things which
he knows will frustrate and infuriate scientists, often in a way which
goes unnoticed by the general public, but is very insulting to the
scientists. The purpose may be to make the scientists react emotionally
in order to undermine their authority in the minds of lay people. Also,
Lomborg seems to be sensible, balanced and authoritative when he
speaks. Only when you check the source information do you discover that
the evidence has been manipulated. In short, people who just judge him
from his appearance are deceived.
I recall the time in May 1999 when our counter-book against Lomborg had
just been published, and when public hearings were arranged. I attended
a hearing in a lecture hall at Copenhagen University. Four experts each
made a lecture where they advanced their professional criticisms of
Lomborg. He sat at the desk, looking down on the table top, his head
coming further and further down, especially during the last of the four
lectures, which was a scathing hatchet job exposing error upon error.
Next followed a 15 minutes break, and after the break it was
Lomborg´s turn to reply. He entered the lecture hall happily
smiling, completely unaffected, as if nothing had hit him, and he
delivered his defense so well that the audience would believe that the
poor man had done nothing wrong. To be able to do so is a fantastic
talent - ordinary people do not have that total control of their
body language. And it has its effect on the audience, maybe more than
any arguments.
Likewise, if you point out to an ordinary person
that he has made an unequivocal error, he will admit that and maybe
even be shameful. We count on people behaving like that. If you
attend a debate meeting and do not fully understand the science that is
being debated, you judge who is the loser by looking at the body
language. The loser bends down, makes some admitments, and has a
feebler voice. But not so with Lomborg. He never shows that kind of
body language. He has debated very complicated matters about the state
of the whole globe and every environmental issue with lots of experts
knowing much more than him. But he has never in his words or in his
body
language acknowledged that he was wrong on anything. So you simply
cannot use his body language to judge who is right. But people think
you can, and therefore they misinterpret the situation.
How does he get away with it?
|
If Lomborg is
really so wrong, if there really are so many errors, why is he not
called out on it? Well, he is, but somehow he avoids that criticism has
any serious effect. A list of methods whereby he avoids that criticism
hits him is presented here on
Lomborg-errors.
When Lomborg appears on electronic media, he somehow manages to
persuade others that they should not even try to
hear what his critics say. For instance, one of Lomborg´s most
severe critics, Stephen Schneider, appears in the film `Cool it!´
in some kind of interview. Actually, the interview was made more or
less against Schenider´s will - the filming team simply entered
Schneider´s office without his permission (see here). No wonder that Schneider does not
appear as a kind and happy person in that interview. When Lomborg later
spoke of Schneider on TV (Danish TV2News, 23-05-2011) , he said that
Schneider was the most important of his critics, and called him a
`grumpy old man´. So the audience will understand that the most
important criticism came from a grumpy old man, so why even bother
about what the critics say?
Another example from Danish media is a radio interview where he manages
to put the web sites opposing him in such a ridiculous light that
nobody who hears the interview will even dream of consulting those
ridiculous web sites (more details here).
If it is true that Lomborg misleads deliberately, then you might ask:
what are his motives to do that? Is there a hidden agenda? This is
discussed here.
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