And now for Knifefightgate…
The insidiously grasping hands of denialists have now pulled this tweet out of context at a climate debate in hopes to make it the next “Right Wing Outrage of the Day” [RWOOTD] . Notice that WOO, or make believe, is the main component of this charge.
Many factual things were presented in the debate but leave it to Watts to grab a non essential comment, take it out of context, and misreport it.
What Tom was doing when he made the reference to a “knife fight” was recalling what had been said to him after a climate science hearing in Washington. His notes for his presentation include:
An aside from a Congressman after a hearing: -You’re in a knife fight and need to fight back.
But Chris’s Tweet didn’t have room for the context. So when the blogosphere’s most popular climate-change pseudoskeptic, Anthony Watts, came across the little snippet, his interpretation did not square with the facts. Instead, he attributed the knife comment to Tom, rather than the congressional aide. And then proceeded to imply that Tom, as a public servant and a prominent member of the climatology community, was abusing taxpayer funds. “Their words cause me to question their ability to be unbiased scientists” was among the disparaging remarks made.
In an email to the offending scientist (which Tom shared with me), the outraged blogger wrote:
Some uncomfortable attention you’ve brought upon yourself in the current atmosphere of rhetoric and shooting in AZ, don’t your think? If you want to apologize to the American public, I’ll make my forum available to you..
This Tom did, and his notes were posted on the site. But by then the damage had been done. The first comment made to the original post tells it all:
So the climate scientists are calling this a knife fight and Glenn Beck is calling for an accord of non-violence. That is an amusing juxtaposition.
Clearly, the major offender here was not Chris Rowan, but Anthony Watts, who didn’t bother to ask the source if the tweet accurately represented what the source had said. Treating a tweet as a reliable source is something no reputable reporter would do.