I notice that Robyn Williams and Stephan Lewandowsky continue to peddle their nonsense about scientists and climate change.
It is neither necessary nor sufficient to have a degree in a science discipline to be a scientist. Some of the greatest scientists in history had no formal academic qualifications. Some of the great fraudsters in history had an armful of degrees. A degree is merely an indicator.
To be a scientist requires just that a person proposes testable hypotheses and applies the scientific method. Not that their hypotheses are necessarily right, just that they apply the scientific method with rigour and care, and that their tests are repeatable, and that their conclusions are based on logic. It also requires that a scientist be open-minded, and be willing to reject previously strongly held views when presented with irrefutable evidence to the contrary. Finally, a scientist (should) normally attack only another person’s method and conclusions, not their person.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the scientific method thus:
a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses
Lewandowsky is not a scientist. He does not provide testable hypotheses, and he does not apply the scientific method. Williams has at times past shown some skill in applying the scientific method, but when it comes to climate change, he has treated it more as a religion than a science.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but no so-called ‘climate scientist’ has ever won a scientific Nobel Prize. None have won the Physics Prize, or the Chemistry Prize or the Prize in Medicine. None have ever won the Fields Medal in Mathematics. Yet there have been individuals such as Guglielmo Marconi who never went to university and later won the Nobel Physics Prize. Marconi did more for human welfare than all of the so-called climate scientists put together.
Williams has stated that sea levels could rise 100 metres. As no one has demonstrated my calculations wrong, I maintain that it is impossible for sea levels to rise anywhere near that level.
For my money, Maurice Newman is better at applying the scientific method than either Williams or Lewandowsky, and therefore Newman has more claim on the title of ‘scientist’.
And, by the way, peer review is also merely an indicator of the scientific method. It also is neither necessary nor sufficient. A person need never publish in a peer-reviewed journal to be considered a scientist. As long as individuals have used the scientific method, and have reached novel and potentially ground-breaking conclusions which are testable then they can be a great scientist even if they never write for a peer-reviewed journal (they might simply publish on a blog!)