Inverted snobbery of ignorance

I am not often moved to anger... mostly just to grizzling. However the pompous little commentary but Lawrence Krauss in 16 August New Scientist made me see red. Krauss -- who is presumably paid by New Scientist to share his views of SCIENCE tells a sad little story of how he has been misunderstood in the press -- especially in the American Physical Society's Forum on Physics and Society – of which he is outgoing chair. This (not very) august body ran a special issue on climate change (specifically on the IPCC’s fourth assessment report) earlier this year. Krauss notes that, “They also prefaced the issue with an unfortunate editorial stating that there is "considerable" debate within the scientific community about the IPCC statement that global warming is anthropogenic.”

A significant ‘debate’ (what a very debased word ‘debate’ has become!) ensued. Of this Krauss notes that the FPS editors rescinded their statement about "considerable" debate and that ”we decided to attach directly to all FPS articles the disclaimer that already appears at the beginning of the newsletter: that they are not peer reviewed and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editors or the APS.”

Krauss ends his column with a question – it is this: “what constraints should be placed on public scientific forums so that they properly reflect ongoing science, while at the same time ensuring that one does not inappropriately censor unpopular minority viewpoints?”. He promises more columns on this to come – see http://genesis1.phys.cwru.edu/~krauss/newsciaug13.html
GB