84 thoughts on “Page Charges The Problem. Can you suggest a solution?”

1. Lucia,

   Thanks for pointing out this regularly overlooked detail. It’s difficult enough coming up with the hours between running a company, family and of course the hockey playoffs just to run a blog, there is substantially more work to take the time to create the paper. In the meantime it is free for the AGW crowd as these fees are often paid by the universities and govt. organizations.

   The monetary load on top of that is not insignificant.

2. Canadians invented the hockey stick. Then they broke it.

3. Jeff Id: You have precisely captured the issue of why we need some sort of fund. I’m sure there are people “out there” who are familiar with forming coalitions, groups, clubs etc. These could collect money to cover things of this nature.

   That said, such a thing needs to be run by the sort of people who like to run clubs/ coalitions and interest groups, and not the authors who want to beaver away on the details of figuring out Principle Components or RegEm. Alternatively, there needs to be some sort of governemnt fund one can apply to.

4. Pre Sell signed copies of the paper on WUWT
   if that’s allowed.

5. Steven–
   That’s a good idea. I don’t know if it’s allowed. At AGU, paying the charges gives the author 200 online copies. So, 200 * $5 would be 1000. Mailing is trivial, so that would be enough to cover most the charges (if 200 sold!)

   Do you think 200 people would want a copy?

6. The problem is not the expense of publishing. The problem is that blogs should be perfectly acceptable for raising issues about scientific studies. Roger Pielke Sr’s rejoinder to Schneider http://climatesci.org/2009/05/25/debate-question-for-professor-steve-schneider-and-colleagues/ is exactly the type of move which will eventually help solve the problem. Honest scientists have to step up or be forced to step up to demand quality work of their peers.

   When an alarmist inside the club publishes junk (see e.g. Mann), the solution is to nail him on the bad numbers, post the work on blogs and spread the word. Challenge him to a debate (or to respond to the issues raised) and spread the word on every blog, talk radio program, or mainstream news outlet available. If the alarmist won’t respond, flood Andrew Revkin et al with e-mails pointing out the lack of response. Tell the world.

   They can run, but they can’t hide. Trying to hide behind “not published” is a losing strategy for them. They published a study. That study has been called into question. The issues have been spelled out convincingly. If they don’t respond to the critique, they will eventually lose the battle of ideas.

   And the ad hominem response of Schneider is great. By trashing people instead of responding to cogent criticism, he simply reminds the world that truth and honesty aren’t important to him anyway.

7. If you put those tiles around a mug and had a contributor’s price I reckon they’d go ok…. esp. if you had a plug at CA and WUWT.

   And I’d hit the tip jar to see it in full colour – you can’t do this in BandW. Get it on the cover!

8. Lucia, Signed numbered copies at 9.95 a piece. It’s a bargin. The trick is to collect the money before submitting. limited edition 100 copies ( gotta save some for the grand kids) if the paper gets rejected you get a signed rejected paper. big deal. 10 bucks. If the paper gets accepted you got a collectors item to show your grandkids. Get talk radio to promote the sale. Then give a signed copy to rush and have him auction off a copy signed by him and the authors.

9. Stan–
   Debates and journal articles aren’t either/or issues. Neither are journal articles and blogs.
   Blogs already can raise issues. Debates can even take place. But publishing a result in a peer reviewed paper is an important hurdle with regard to getting newspaper coverage and gaining a broader audience.

   Going to conferences would be fine too. But once again, I’m not eager to spend $1000 of my own money out of pocket to fly or drive to some conference in some far away state, stay in a hotel and present a conference discussing an otherwise publishable result. I’m sure that SteveM, RyanO and the Jeff’s don’t want to do so either.

   And what’s the point to challenging Schneider to a debate? Where will the debate be? My back yard? Who is going to pay for me to fly to the debate location etc? And what would I debate him on?

   I have a very focused analysis I want to publish in a peer reviewed journal. I think SteveM, Ryan and the Jeff’s have very focused things they will be wanting to put together and publish in a peer reviewed journal.

   Unless funding issues can be resolved there will be no debates, no peer reviewed articles etc.

10. steven m— Given the peer review process, circulating signed copies before publication might deep six papers. When you submit, you need to say whether or not the paper is previously published and/or previously submitted elsewhere.

    I don’t know about the other but there is no way I want to get in an argument about whether or not selling 100 signed copies prior to submission constitutes “publishing”. If the editor thinks it does and publication constitutes a bar to publications, I’d be dead in the water.

    Of course, that would solve any problems associated with page charges. No paper, no page charges.

11. If the journal permits black and white figures in print with colour online then this is definitely the way to go. With the exception of journals like Nature and Science almost nobody reads the dead-tree editions anyway – if you want a paper copy you print one from the pdf. Getting page charges waived is also relatively simple in many cases if you’re not using a US university as your address.

12. Jonathan–
    For simple figures, I plan to do what you suggest: use color on line and black and white in the dead tree version. We’ll see how waiving page charges goes too.

    But, different journals have different rules, page charges and various policies toward waiving fees. RyanO’s paper should, presumably, be submitted to Nature. I don’t know their policies about page charges and couldn’t quickly find any information at their site.

    Do you have a link so we could learn Nature’s official policies?

13. While having stellar work such as done by Lucia, the Jeffs, Ryan, Steve Mc, Anthony Watts, and so forth published in the peer-reviewed literature is desirable, I question the notion that this will then receive significant press coverage. I have noted a decided trend for alarmist papers to receive such attention, but other papers, such as documenting solar influences, slow-downs in “galloping” Greenland glaciers, and so forth, to be largely ignored.

    There is also the editorial bias within these journals to contend with (just ask Roy Spencer).

    There is another model to consider – write a book. Look at the success in Australia of Plimer’s effort. With all of those challenging various aspects of the so-called consensus, different contributors could write a chapter. For example, Lucia writes a chapter on models vs. real world data. Watts does a chapter on the weather stations fiasco. McIntyre a chapter providing an update on the hockey stick saga. Perhaps Pielke Sr. on the IPCC’s willful ignorance of import of land use changes. The Jeff’s could do a detailed take-down of the Steig et al. attempt to heat up Antarctica.

    The advantage of this concept is, assuming you can get a publisher, you make money rather than spend it.

    Just a thought.

14. Oh please get together and write a book!

15. It’s a while since I last published in Nature, and the web site seems to have changed. But note the guide to authors at http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/gta/index.html and in particular the comment at the end of section 5.9.

    Costs: A contribution towards the total cost of reproduction of colour figures is requested. We currently charge £735 for the first colour figure and £262.50 for each additional figure. Inability to pay this charge will not prevent publication of colour figures judged essential by the editors.

    With Nature the best approach is just to try and get something in, and worry about issues like who is going to pay for it if and when this becomes a problem. If they want it they will publish whatever; if they don’t they won’t. However I would be very surprised if Nature wanted to touch anything this controversial – they are increasingly political in their approach.

    Physical Review journals are very nice to deal with – no page charges if you submit in their version of LaTeX, and free colour figures online.

16. Thanks Jonathan. I’ll look into Phys. Rev.

    The difficulty with the “see who pays for it” it approach is that those who are uncomfortable with submitting and worrying about an argument afterwards remain inhibited from putting something together.

    Maybe we (as I number in this group) should learn to overcome this– but in the meantime… what? So, having something in place to cover these things would be useful.

    To those wanting books: Books are a lot of work. Papers are more tightly focused. Both serve different roles. Right now, I want to deal with the issue of how to permit potential authors to feel comfortable about page charges so that their discomfort about dealing with this issue is not an impediment to preparing and submitting an article for peer review.

    I know some of you want to wave away peer review as an issue. But a) the talking point will not go away unless some of us write some and b) even if it were not a talking point, publication in more prestigious journals makes an analysis more visible. It just does.

    I don’t imagine dealing with the issue will result in skads of papers, but dealing with the subject now seems necessarily to motivate a half dozen or so papers. The alternative is: none.

17. Curious

    If you put those tiles around a mug and had a contributor’s price I reckon they’d go ok…. esp. if you had a plug at CA and WUWT.

    I’m sure RyanO could make money on mugs with the tiles! If he could add a link to his blog post and later the url for his peer reviewed paper, it would be even better.

18. If numbered signed editions of the published paper are pre-sold, then there is no need to send out preprints, thus there would be no problems with prepublication elsewhere. You just have to make clear that you’re selling either limited edition reprints after publication, or limited edition copies of the rejected paper after rejection by “too many” journals. I like the suggestion to include copies of all the rejection letters. Do make clear that you reserve the right to republish, consistent with the policies of any journal which accepts the paper, so you can also reuse the material in other publications such as books. Buyers have to know that their limited edition items only apply to the number of items in this edition, but you might need to create more later but labeled differently.

19. Scooter–

    Well, it’s hard to know how many limited edition reprints you can sell. If the page charges are waived, you don’t get your 200 reprints. If they aren’t waived, you get your reprints. So… the logistics are a bit pf a pain. Do you sell, on the assumption fees won’t be waived, and refund money if they are waived because in that case you don’t get any? Or what?

    It’s a good idea, and if it’s clear the fees aren’t waived, I would be happy to hang out a shingle and sell signed copies of whatever I’m permitted to sell. It’s sort of a fun idea.

20. and they’d be a good coaster set!

21. 🙂 There you go . . . Antarctic coasters for the lukewarmer mugs. I like it!
    .
    As far as the arguments go against needing to publish, there is one important facet that has not been mentioned: the work will never get cited unless it is published. Well, maybe not never . . . but you get the point. A work that can be cited is a work that needs to be rebutted. And that is the point: force a rebuttal. Once you force a rebuttal, then the other side has admitted that the information is worth rebutting. So long as it stays in the blogosphere, it can be ignored. Look at Tamino’s site in the Dangerous Curves thread, or the Antarctic Ice thread.
    .
    The other facet is that the climate blogosphere is occupied by a bunch of people who are more interested in climate than the average bear. The audience is therefore limited. To reach a larger scientific audience, publication is the way to go.
    .
    Neither I nor Lucia nor Steve M is trying to convince the readers of their respective blogs, because for the most part, the readers tend to agree. Neither are we attempting to convince RC, since that is likely not possible. We are trying to convince the undecideds.
    .
    In a battle of credibility, who do you think wins? A couple of dudes with some fancy pictures and nary a publication between them, or a PhD climatologist with 25 peer-reviewed papers?
    .
    Anyway, that’s my take on it, and I’m happy Lucia started this thread.

22. If I believed that a single paper being published would make a difference, I’d regard it as a fairly decent return against the extra taxes and inconvenience that it might stop to pay for the whole thing (since there’s no way I’m going to put in the time necessary to do anything directly myself). The issue then becomes justifying this one paper over the other few potential gems.
    Rather than selling printed copies, why not just split the cost 10 ways, and list the ‘publishing costs donated by’ in the publication. Too many names and this becomes unworkable though.

23. I also forgot to mention that publication eliminates the “put up or shut up” argument. 😉

24. Ryan – get those beauties on some mats and I’ll be ordering!

25. RyanO– I can help you get those set up on coasters and you can have a CafePress store. (We need to each have our own so the money goes to the person who created the image.)

    Sean–

    It’s not that one paper makes the difference. One hopes, over the longer run, it’s a series of papers by a number of different people.
    One difficulty is that no matter how tendentious or poorly argued a paper making so rather amazing claims might be, no rebuttals appear primarily because those who might write the rebuttal don’t want to spend $1000-$X000 after going through the aggravating process of peer review.

    The result is, the papers’ claims will be treated by many as “true” simply because no one rebutted them formally. I thing well argued blog rebuttals are just as technically worthy as formally published versions. But, a) the vast majority of people don’t see them, b) they don’t get cited and c) no one writing a followon paper id “dinged” by reviewers for not paying attention to any and every blog rebuttal.

    If we all knew there was a “fund” to cover these things, it could make a big difference in the medium run. (i.e. 3-5 years.)

    I do like your idea of asking people to “sponsor” a paper. Many papers do mention who paid for the work, and I would be happy to mention the names of 10 people who each gave $100 to ‘sponsor’ an article.

26. Any potential to work with an editor for a whole issue in some major journal on “Auditing Climate Models” that could publish all the authors/articles mentioned?
    Is there any potential for a collective grant to do so?

27. David–
    If you know agencies who might provide grants for such a thing, that would be great. Also, if you know a suitable editor, who might be interested in such an idea, that would be great. Let us know.

28. Several years ago, our local newspaper sponsored a public debate over AGW and the validity of the warmer’s predictions, and then summarized each presenter’s discussion in the context of an extensive and well-written newspaper article concerning the topic.
    .
    The warmers were out in force and presented their classical set of arguments based on a combination of the hockey stick and the predictions of the climate models. Their fundamental case can be summarized as “The hockey stick is right, the climate models and their predictions are right, nothing else but CO2 explains it.” The anti-warmers (aka skeptics aka deniers) were not nearly as well represented, but did score a few points here and there.
    .
    The debates caused a brief surge of local public interest in the AGW story, and several short Letters to the Editor were written by lay-person AGW skeptics which offered up the main points of criticism of the hockey stick and of the climate models, as quoted from Lindzen and Singer.
    .
    The response from the warmers was quick, vociferous in its tone, and quite instructive as to the warmer’s general attitudes towards those who hold a contrary opinions. The warmers said that the authors of these skeptical letters were not climate scientists themselves, they had no climate science qualifications of their own which might lend credibility to anything that they said, and that the peer-reviewed climate science literature totally refuted every one of the criticisms that had been cited.
    .
    Further, the warmers concluded their response with the suggestion that until these lay-person skeptics had successfully published their own peer-reviewed climate science papers, they had no business offering up any contrary opinions to consensus climate warming theory. The clear implication was that until these people had obtained what the warmers consider to be proper credentials, none of them should be allowed to express a skeptical opinion in a public forum.
    .
    With that, the skeptics pretty much disappeared from the local AGW debate. I thought it quite interesting, however, that no one brought up the point that Al Gore has none of the climate science credentials the warmers were expecting of a lay-person skeptic who happens to be more interested in AGW science than in AGW polemic.

29. Hi all,

    Lucia, get the tip jar up. Soon. When it’s up, if you’d like to do an interview for Examiner.com via email, maybe we can get some new traffic here to supplement your regular visitors and inaugurate the tip jar. Let me know.

30. Also, for your lukewarming graphics, my wife has some t-shirt designs, as well as prints and posters, up on RedBubble. It’s like Lulu.com for graphics–and there are other sites like it. You might give it a try. I’d love a tie with that graph…

31. It would make a great tie!

32. Ryan O

    “A couple of dudes with some fancy pictures and nary a publication between them, or a PhD climatologist with 25 peer-reviewed papers? ”

    I think it could look a little differently.

    “A couple of tech dudes working for free in their spare time with some fancy pictures and few climatology publications between them, or a government funded PhD climatologist with 25 peer-reviewed papers?”

    Underdogs are like puppies.

33. Speaking personally, I would not say that publication charges have been a major or even minor factor in why I haven’t published more. There are other reasons, some good, some bad. Even if publication costs were an issue, I am 100% confident that readers at WUWT and CA would underwrite the costs on PayPal within a couple of days. The new server was financed in a few days and so would any article.

    Going to conferences would be fine too. But once again, I’m not eager to spend $1000 of my own money out of pocket to fly or drive to some conference in some far away state, stay in a hotel and present a conference discussing an otherwise publishable result. I’m sure that SteveM, RyanO and the Jeff’s don’t want to do so either.

    Not entirely true. I’ve been to four AGU conferences on my own nickel (and the cost is more like $2500 than $1000) or with support from CA readers and have made presentations at all four. Schneider’s accusation that this particular blog proprietor hasn’t gone to professional meetings to present and defend his views is simply untrue.

34. I stand corrected! I hadn’t kept track of how many conferences you’d traveled too.

    It sounds like the CA readers are very generous. That bodes well for the tip jar method of getting page charges covered. (And even possibly conference fees.)

35. Lucia,
    It is a great idea to get a fund going for “amateur” bloggers who have the technical competence to create important material. However, aren’t there academicians out there who would join together with a part-time researcher to publish through their own processes? I thought researchers and academicians had to “publish or die”. Surely they are not required to pay for their own publications without support from their institutions? Or are uncorrupted academicians that hard to find?

36. Joel–
    I don’t think you can really pick up the phone and start fishing for academic slap on as authors provided they pay the fees. Authors are supposed to be involved in writing the paper.

    Academics usually pay for journals out of grant funds that pay for the work. You’ll also see the grant that supported the work mentioned on the paper. The funding agency who paid the grant will want to see that. That way, they can tell the funding agency the paper arose from the grant. When there is a grant number supporting the work, it’s difficult for the faculty member to plead that the work is truly unfunded just to get out of paying fees. (Most faculty would rather spend the money on equipment, supporting grad students etc. So, they too would like to get out of paying if they can!)

    Some universities do have some budgets set up for paying page charges when a faculty member has no grant. The money usually comes from overheads charged to the grants! 🙂

    Some academics plead poverty and get fees waived. They can sometimes be in the same boat we are. On the other hand, I suspect few faculty members could put out a tip jar and get readers to pay fees. So… we’ll see how this works.

37. I didn’t really intend that you ask them just for their name, but also their help. Start from the genesis of the idea with your favorite academic, and who knows, they may even provide new insights.

    But put up a tip jar and I will contribute to you and whoever else is pursuing the truth.

38. I think the mug idea has the most appeal. Not only do you get to contribute to the paper’s costs, you also get the mug! Keep the price reasonable and plan on selling a bunch.

    To add to the earlier ideas, I would suggest creating a special, limited edition mug just for the paper. This mug could have some unique features and possibly a serial number added on. When you reach the level you need to fund the paper, you can stop selling the limited edition mugs. Those folks who purchased a mug will then have an interesting conversation piece for show and tell.

39. I’m willing to perform a solo ‘full monty’ show at my local pub with all proceeds (or lack thereof) going toward this marvelous venture.

40. I would have thought a simple (even one column) very condensed, concise letter to the Editor would have sufficed. ie: We have performed 500 separate runs + 230 statistical tests using Steigs own data which confirms that the data presented in Steig et al is was flawed etc..

41. Get a paper accepted and then ask on all the better sites for contributions to cover page charges . You probably will get more money than you think you will. And it will be fun to see how much TCO puts in.

42. VG–
    At journals, editors send comments to reviewers and the authors. The comment has to be sufficiently long to explain what the person writing the comment to looked at and what they found. The comment has to survive questions by people who are disinclined to believe you. (e.g. the original authors who you are criticizing.)

    So, it might be that Ryan and the Jeff’s can write a 1 column discussion or not. It depends on precisely which items they want to discuss. The material at CA and Air Vent is currently much more than a 1 column page. For peer review, they need to distill it to it’s essence, but include all relevant material. Then, submit.

43. Joe-h,
    Yeah… right… Like TCO would contribute.

44. The Heartland Institute.

    Yeah, I know, but really, any paper of this sort is going to be accused of being funded by the evil empire anyway so why not make one accusation minimally true?

45. Lucia,

    I’d be happy to donate $50 if you need support for a paper. I’d suggest that you place a tip jar dedicated to funding for publication and/or conference travel on your blog. There are plenty of people who care enough about AGW nonsense to donate.

46. Gary-
    I’m aware that Heartland/Cato/Hoover/ SPPI/ etc. all fund special events and seem to fund papers published by their own publications houses. These publications– like Singer’s NIPCC report) — compile existing peer reviewed articles that support their position.

    Different people have varying opinions about the merit of these things. One thing is clear: They reports themselves aren’t peer reviewed in the sense of journal articles.

    However, as far as I am aware, the groups do not have fund that we amateurs can draw on to cover our own submissions should we happen to write something and wish to publish in a peer reviewed journal.

    I think it would be wise for Heartland/ Cato/ Hoover and whomever institutes to create funds that people can apply to to cover page charges for relevant papers. But… I’m not them.

    I’ll be calling around to find if the groups do have such things and, if they do, how one can apply. I’ll be suggesting such things.

    Tip jars are good short term. But I am thinking long term on this. If we can get Heartland / Cato /Hoover etc. to set up such a thing, then it will exist. People will know it exists and this will take a load of their mind.

47. Perhaps for once my experience as a liberal Democrat may prove to be of practical use–almost all the liberal blogs I have followed since about 2000 lived almost exclusively off the proceeds of tip jars until about 3 years ago. A lot of them made a decent living through this mechanism. I wouldn’t try to calculate the odds, leaving that to you, but I will bet a $50 donation that you will get at least one tip of over $500.

48. I added a ‘tip’ jar. I’m using an icon showing a stack of books, and it says “Tip to help pay peer review fees etc.” I just set up the account at PayPal. I think you need a pay pal account, but I’ll look into credit card fees later and figure out if I should accept credit cares. (If you accept credit cards, then *every* donation is assessed a fee, even if they don’t use a credit card. If people know agencies other than paypal that might be better, let me know.)

49. There’s $20 in the tip jar (and I had to learn how to create a paypal account!). I was planning on donating more, but the $20 was a fixed option. If you’re postively going ahead with writing a paper, I’m good for another $100.

50. Thanks Bill,
    Hhmm… I’ll have to find a way to make the donation amount flexible.

51. Ryan O,

    I understand why you might think — “A couple of dudes with some fancy pictures and nary a publication between them, or a PhD climatologist with 25 peer-reviewed papers? ” This is simply a restatement of the same idea conveyed by Schneider’s snark to the Examiner — “If these guys think they are “winning” why don’t they try to take on face to face real climatologists at real meetings–not fake ideology shows like Heartland Institute–but with those with real knowledge–because they’d be slaughtered in public debate by Trenberth, Santer, Hansen, Oppenheimer, Allen, Mitchell, even little ol’ me. It’s easy to blog, easy to write op-eds in the Wall Street Journal.”

    I understand that Lucia wants to publish and I encourage her to do so. I agree with those who feel she would get substantial contributions from her readers to defray any costs. I encourage you, too. But I’m attempting here to make the point that trying to do battle with Goliath by adopting Goliath’s methods is not likely to be the optimum strategy.

    You aren’t going to win a battle of resumes — whether it is 25 published papers to zero or 25 papers to 1. Either way, Goliath wins that fight every time. [Again, I’m not saying that publication has no value. It obviously provides some authority in the minds of some observers. It can’t hurt.] But you are David, you have a devastating slingshot available to you and I encourage you to put it to good use.

    Give the audience credit for having some intelligence. It is your most potent weapon. The members of Goliath’s exclusive club are, in essence, arguing that they alone possess the intelligence and education to understand climate science. They are posing as the great Oz and demanding that no one look behind the curtain.

    Your strength is to merely ask the audience why the rest of the world should not be allowed to look behind the curtain. What is Goliath hiding? Is it possible that the emporer has no clothes?

    If Goliath isn’t hiding anything, why the refusal to provide the data, code, methodology, etc. After all, isn’t that the essence of the scientific method? Goliath may claim to be the exclusive arbiter of what constitutes science, but almost everyone who ever took a high school science course remembers hearing something about the scientific method. Everyone understands that you have to show your work. It’s a real simple concept that everyone understands.

    Once you expose Goliath for failing to operate pursuant to the scientific method, the behemoth loses all claim to the title “scientist”. The appeal to authority fails. The thin veneer is breached. The audience doesn’t have to understand PCAs or RegEM or convoluted claims of robustness, merely that failure to operate in accordance with the scientific method means that it ain’t science anymore. QED.

52. Stan–
    The purpose of peer reviewed publications is not to have a battle of resumes. It’s to make what we do discover more visible. Blogs are great. But peer reviewed publications in journals are more visible.

    If you ask journalists friends how the decide what to cover in a newspaper, you will find that, to some extent, newspaper editors use certain “markers” do decide when something is news. So, for example, RyanO’s, Jeff and Jeffs stuff will be more “visible” when published in a peer reviewed journal.

    This isn’t a value judgment about whether things should be this way. But sometimes, you have to recognize that things are this way.

    If you want to use your David and Goliath metaphor, David does need arrive on the scene and actually launch the stone in his slingshot. Just saying “I have a stone in my sling shot. If I hurled it, it could hurt Goliath because his cranium is no sturdier than those of other mere mortals”, might be true. But the reporters on the sidelines aren’t going to write any big stories until David hurls the stone. Just the way it is.

53. There are a whole lot of intelligent people (the unwashed masses) out there who couldn’t care less about what’s in a “peer reviewed” publication. I’m not saying there no value in being Published In A Peer Review Publication. I’m saying there’s more value in being a Rock Star, if you want people to listen to you. If your goal is to Try and Satisfy A Group of Scientists, go ahead and write a paper for them. Is that the desired outcome? What happens after that? If you want to speak to a larger Crossover Audience, you do it in a way that they hear you.

    Andrew

54. Andrw_KY.

    There are all sorts of people out there, and each uses there own methods of deciding how to form their own opinion. The goal is not to have credence with “A Group of Scientists”. The goal is to make the results of analyses more visible to a wider audience. Even though many people don’t carethat results were presented in a peer reviewed paper, they still hear about the findings indirectly when newspapers pick up the stories.

    Think of it this way: A scientific result can be disseminated at a) a blog, b) a peer reviewed paper, c) a conference article, d) a debate, e) during an interview with a newspaper, f) on a radio program, g) in an interview on television.

    If you can do all of them more people will hear the message. It happens that doing both (a) and (b) will increase the likelihood of (e)-(g). I already blog. The Jeffs and Ryan already blog. SteveM already blogs. Publishing papers isn’t “instead off”. It’s in addition too. (The same holds true for those who began by publishing papers and started their blog afterwards. In fact, bloggers drive readership to papers. Ask Craig Loehle to estimate the impact of WUWT on the number of readers of his paper. I know the answer to this, and I can tell you, it’s high.)

55. Lucia: I would cover the full costs of a paper, especially from yourself, Ryan or the Jeff’s.

    All I ask, is to look it over first, and approve it. I would sign a non-disclosure, of course.

56. Lucia,

    My response is that I agree that publishing should be an “in addition to” move. But if the idea is to get the truth out, we also need to be encouraged to also think outside the traditional means of conveying ideas. I think combating a Big Lie is very important. This is bigger than publishing in a journal and climate blogging. We need some Bigger Mouths with Bigger Volume!

    Andrew

57. I dated a Liberal/Progressive/Feminist gal for a little while and you’ll never guess what she said when I said I knew that Global Warming wasn’t true.

    I kid you not, she was upset and cried out thusly:

    “What about the Polar Bears?!”

    She refused to talk about it after that. I suspect her and her friends aren’t too interested in reading climate science papers.

    Andrew

58. Les– Wow! That’s very generous.

59. “What about the Polar Bears?!” — Well, you just saved them.

60. Andrew_KY,
    I’m sure you could have found a religious/ suzy homemaker/ shopaholic girlfriend who would worry about polar bears too! 🙂

61. Les – Ditto Lucia’s comment. That is extremely kind of you!
    .
    And BillBodel – thanks to you as well. 🙂

62. I like this publication talk. Don’t let me down.

63. One of the benefits of publications over blogs is reaching a larger number of critical specialists on a topic who will debate the merits of an argument more on its technical competence than which side of a particular debate its conclusions support.
    .
    Thats not to say that journals are free from the petty grasps of ideology; far from it. Rather, they are relatively free compared to blogs which, perhaps more than any other medium save cable talk shows tends to cater to an audience of listeners seeking to have their preconceptions justified. While this place is often much better than the norm, the signal to noise ratio in the discussions at places like WUWT or Climate Progress tends to be quite low.

64. In fact, bloggers drive readership to papers

    Absolutely. I’ve had hugely positive reactions from Mauri Timonen and Demetris Koutsoyannis, each of whom got several thousand downloads after being linked at CA, and were very grateful for the attention.

65. One of the benefits of publications over blogs is reaching a larger number of critical specialists on a topic who will debate the merits of an argument more on its technical competence than which side of a particular debate its conclusions support.

    I don’t entirely agree. Climate Audit has definitely enabled me to reach a considerable number of statistical specialists whose interests are entirely related to technical competence, who would never have learned of the issues through our journal publications.

66. It is ironic that here we are trying to think up ways to raise a few thousand dollars, or even less, to fund important papers when, according to the warmists, the sceptics are all in the pay of “Big Oil” already. You’d think Big Oil could afford to be bit more generous!

67. Zeke and SteveM–
    I think the main thing is you get a different audience at blogs and when publishing in the peer reviewed literature. I think both are valuable.

    Braddles– If “Big Oil” is funding skeptics, they sure aren’t pro-active about finding and funding blogs!

68. Okay, I put $20 in the tip jar.

    TCO always urges you folks to publish and there is some merit in the suggestion, so I’m sure he will help out. 🙂

69. Lucia,

    Ryan was the one who raised the issue of battling resumes, not me. As for getting attention from journalists, I disagree. Journalists don’t read journals. They simply write what they are fed by sources they trust. If you don’t convince the sources, the journalists will never know you exist (publication or not).

    But journalists are becoming less relevant every day. They have already lost the respect of most of the public and they are hemorragging credibility. The only journalist who arguably matters at all is Revkin and there are better ways to influence him besides publishing.

    Yes, reaching the widest possible audience is a good idea. We’ve all acknowledged that repeatedly. By all means, go ahead and publish. But addressing the central issue — what is the most effective means of persuading the most people of the merit of your claims — I maintain that publication is far down the list. There are more effective strategies available.

70. Lucia,
    I’m not suggesting that the paper be circulated prior to publication. I’m suggesting that it be “pre sold” before it is published. basically, you have this situation. You can ask for donations before publication or after. I’m suggesting this. You write the paper. You post your abstract. Maybe your SI. You stipulate that you have completed the paper but not submitted it. Then you offer to sign signed copies of the paper, to be delivered AFTER publication.
    Or you can just ask for donations without offering any incentive.
    In both cases the person doing the donation “buys” a paper sight unseen.

71. Stan–
    I’m not sure I agree with you that journalists “lost the respect of most of the public and they are hemorragging credibility”. Anyway, whether or not they have, people do still do read some newspapers, and newspaper articles also get picked up by bloggers, radio hosts, television etc.

    The only journalist who arguably matters at all is Revkin and there are better ways to influence him besides publishing.

    What are these better ways?

    There are more effective strategies available.

    What strategies do you consider effective at persuading people of the merit of science based (or any) claims?

    I ask because it’s all well and good to suggest there are better ways to convince people of the merit of claims than peer reviewed journal articles. But that does those of use making claims little good unless we know what these better ways might be.

    Right now, I perceive peer reviewed articles to be a key element to convincing many people of certain types of scientific claims. It is not the only step. But cutting that element out of any strategy will make it much more difficult to a) make a wide group of aware the claim and supporting argument exist and b) convince many of these people that the claim and supporting argument exists.

    If I only blog, the audience for my claims and arguments to support them is mostly limited to my blog readers. Short of becoming a rock start, the readership is bound to remain relatively small compared to the wider audience of people who read newspapers, watch the news, listen to radio etc.

72. This is really not such a big issue and shouldnt deter anyone from writing papers.

    Most journals will waive page charges if you can argue that you have no funds available and if you’re prepared to have B/W pics in the paper version. Note the Nature wording ‘contribution requested’.

    I very much hope Ryan and the Jeffs will write a paper and send it to Nature. There is not much chance that Nature will publish it, but it would end up in some journal eventually.

73. I recommend looking for academic co-authors who have their own source of funds and experience with the process–particularly in the case of Jeff and Ryan whose argument is largely about statistical methodology, it makes sense to pair with someone from that background.

    Last, persistence is important. Nature is a very high profile journal, and one with a very clear party-line on these sorts of issues. The chance of rejection is high. You need to keep in mind that the right venue for criticizing applied statistics may be within the statistics community. The review comments and process are more valuable–and you shouldn’t look at the review process as a mere hurdle, its there is part to keep egg off your face. I’d think you’d prefer the vetting of statisticians over that which would be done by climate-science egg-heads.

74. A bit off topic but Ryan has done a very interesting new post on the Antarctic recon verification statistics and comparison to the original reconstruction.

    If you’re not blocked 😉

    http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/verification-of-the-improved-high-pc-reconstruction/

75. Hi Lucian

    I guess now you need a thermometer widget to show how you are doing relative to your fundraising goals… although a thermometer might be a bit er, insensitive, er, incorrect. Or something. How did your first day or so go with your tip jar?

76. Tom–
    I do need a thermometer!

    PayPal has a feature that will let me log the donations into a database automatically, I need to get the automatic payment logging working. When I do, I can create a thermometer display to show donations. But for some reason, it’s not working…. But, right now, I need to work on… something else.

    People have been very generous!

77. As with Les Johnson above I am willing to guarantee the costs of one peer-reviewed paper in a major journal (e.g. Nature) with the sole condition that if my contribution required I get an acknowledgement along the lines of how funding agencies get theirs.

    (paypal donation coming up too momentarily)

    PS While I’ve made the offer, I don’t expect that my offer will need to be taken up as if you do submit and it gets to the point where they want the money I’m certain that a bit of publicity will lead to plenty of money being donated $5-$20 at a time.

78. FrancisT–

    Acknowledgement would be no problem. In fact, I’d love to indicate the fact that the publications fees were covered by a readers, either individually or collectively.

79. i think it is a very good idea to publish in the peer-reviewed literature. There are tremendous advantages to being in the peer-reviewed literature- as opposed to not being there.

    Most journals will accept a plea of poverty, if you do not have funding.

    I also point out that Nature has published maths-based criticisms of various papers, particularly if the maths issues are complex. I don’t think it is helpful to say that Nature has a party line; we know that they were open enough to consider the M&M critiques (and others). If the referees agree (a non-trivial issue), the door is open.

    good luck

80. just hit the tip jar – hope publication will be possible. No need for any mention of contribution by name (in fact prefer not!) – not that $20 goes far! Also re: offers to sponsor paper with caveat of having “early review copy” – suggest this would not be best approach. Pay if you want to see it published and let the open authoring and reviewing approach of the blogs take its course.

    Still want some coasters though … 🙂

    and hope you can get a thermometer/tally sorted – and an accurate one of course …. :O

81. Be careful where you put that thermometer – the surrounding widgets may cause an inaccurate reading.

82. MarkB–
    If I hadn’t gotten hacked, I’d have the thermometer up by now. I’ve been trying to read and implement everything I can learn of think of to minimize future hacking. (My knitting fiend got hacked way back in something like 2004. It made me more paranoid than most, but obviously, I let my guard drop!)

83. … a “knitting fiend” sounds like something worth being scared about 🙂

84. curious– people can knit very scary things. . .

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