Skeptics Set Up Scientific Society To Escape Journals That ‘Keep Out’ Dissenters

Date: 20/06/15

Some scientists and meteorologists have banded together to create their own scientific organization so they can study, publish and engage in science debates they argue mainstream scientific bodies don’t want to have.

The Open Atmospheric Society was founded to “give you a voice where other societies may not.” The group is meant to be an alternative to traditional scientific societies that have members who are actively trying to shut out scientific debate, according to OAS founder Anthony Watts.

“In 2009, with the release of the Climategate e-mails we saw a disturbing revelation: a small clique of scientists were actively trying to keep out scientific papers that gave other viewpoints on climate,” Watts, a meteorologist who is skeptical of man-made global warming, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Indeed, one of the leaked Climategate emails between U.S. and UK scientists talked about how they would keep skeptics from publishing any papers. A 2004 email from University of East Anglia Climatologist Phil Jones told a fellow U.S. scientist that “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report,” referring to two papers authored by skeptical scientists.

“Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” Jones stated.

“That sort of gatekeeping and replication problem still exists today, with papers that don’t follow the political narrative on climate often being rejected,” Watts said.

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