NY Times mag sends a sports and music writer to do a science writer's job
SUMMARY: The New York Times Magazine is slated to publish a story on March 29 -- promoting the controversial global warming views of physicist Freeman Dyson -- that was written, not by a scientist or science writer, but by Nicholas Dawidoff, whose previous work for the Times has focused largely on sports and music.
For an article to be published March 29, The New York Times Magazine sent Nicholas Dawidoff, whom Brad Johnson refers to as a "baseball writer" and who has not previously written about science for the Times, to profile physicist and global warming skeptic Freeman Dyson. Dawidoff, who has published four books -- The Fly Swatter, a biography of his grandfather Alexander Gerschenkron; In the Country of Country, a collection of biographies of country musicians; The Catcher Was A Spy: The Mysterious Life Of Moe Berg; and The Crowd Sounds Happy: A Story of Love, Madness and Baseball -- and began his career covering baseball for Sports Illustrated, allowed Dyson to advance the falsehood that in the 1970s, there was a widespread belief that the earth was cooling that is tantamount to the current global warming consensus. Dawidoff also quoted Dyson accusing Al Gore of being global warming's "chief propagandist" and "an opportunist" and scientist James Hansen, the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, of "consistently exaggerat[ing] all the dangers" of global warming.
New York Times science writer Andrew Revkin reported in a New York Times Dot Earth blog post that Hansen responded to Dyson's characterization, writing: "Mr. Dyson's own analytical work on climate and greenhouse gases is very limited, however, which is why James Hansen of NASA, whose work is strongly challenged by Mr. Dyson in the magazine story, fires back that Mr. Dyson 'doesn't know what he's talking about.' "
According to a Nexis search, Dawidoff has written the following articles for The New York Times Magazine:
- A December 28, 2008, article about lyricist Lew Spence, headlined "A Tune for His Times."
- An August 22, 2008, article headlined "John McEnroe Is Still Pretty Complicated."
- A December 30, 2007, article about tennis player Gloria Connors, mother of tennis star Jimmy Connors, headlined "Mom vs. the World."
- A December 28, 2003, article about New York Mets fan and frequent caller to New York City radio station WFAN Doris Bauer headlined "THE LIVES THEY LIVED; Doris of Rego Park."
- An October 13, 2003, article about Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, headlined "Mr. Washington Goes to Mississippi."
- An August 26, 2001, article about the 2001 baseball season, headlined "The Way We Live Now: 8-26-01; Hurts So Good."
- An August 12, 2001, article about the Mets' minor league stadium in Brooklyn, headlined "The House That Rudy Built."
- An April 4, 1999, article about the beginning of the 1999 baseball season, headlined "The Way We Live Now: 4-4-99 -- Vocal Minority; The Tyranny of the Slugger."
- An October 19, 1997, article about newspaper columnist Sidney Zion headlined "Hopefuls, Street Toughs; Power Brokers; Networkers; Strivers; Grande Dames; Musclemen; Exiles; Reformers; Purists; Clones; Big Mouths; Outsiders; Air Kissers; Fanatics; Gossips; Nightclubbers; The Last Smoke-Filled Room."
- A January 26, 1997, article about Bruce Springsteen entering the political arena, headlined "The Pop Populist."
- A December 29, 1996, article about bluegrass singer Bill Monroe, headlined "GOOD SAD."
Dawidoff has also written the following pieces printed in other sections of The New York Times:
- A June 15, 2008, op-ed about his father's mental illness, headlined "The Man Who Wasn't There."
- A June 1, 2008, article for the Times' former quarterly sports magazine "Play" (a separate section from The New York Times Magazine) about sports fans, headlined "These Total Stangers Are My Family."
- An October 4, 2005, op-ed about the Peck Slip boulevard in New York City, headlined "Catch of the Day."
- An October 30, 2004, op-ed about the Red Sox winning the 2004 World Series, headlined "What Boston Won, What Boston Lost."
- A September 29, 2002, book review of former Major League Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent's book The Last Commissioner, headlined "A Kid in a Candy Store."
- A March 30, 2002, op-ed about baseball teams' payrolls, headlined "Buying Up Baseball's Possibilities."
- An October 20, 2001, op-ed about resuming the Major League Baseball playoff series after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, headlined "It's Still O.K. to Root Against the Yankees."
- A March 23, 2000, op-ed about playing major league games in Japan, headlined "The International Pastime?"
- A May 30, 1999, book review of Marcos Breton and Jose Luis Villegas' book Away Games, headlined "The Dominican National Pastime."
There is a real problem with credentials when it comes to global warming scepticism. you can see the post below, a comprehensive debunk of the main weapon in the sceptics arsenal. I had a problem recently in New Zealand when my professional body for engineers (like chartered accountancy) 'IPENZ' made a submission to government, heavily influenced by global warming sceptics, that purported to represent the views of all engineers in NZ and suggested inaction was a -plausible response in terms of legislation. I made the point that we're engineers, NOT scientists, and we're not equipped to adjudicate on the science - we should leave that to the scientists, and the good scientists at that.
http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/11/inhofe-morano-recycles-long-debunked-denier-talking-points-will-the-media-be-fooled-again/
Ed Zachary. Check THIS out: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/7074601.stm
http://www.skepdic.com/climateskeptics.html also has some goos references.
here's from the article. dyson talking about hansen: "he has all the credentials. i have none. he has a ph.d. he's published hundreds of papers on climate. i haven't."
and dyson is very big on coal. he says scrubbers can remove the soot particles, which is the real problem. except the countries he's encouraging to use coal, and already are using it, like india and china, are not using scrubbers. for someone claiming to see the whole picture, how can he not know that?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?pagewanted=4&_r=2&hp
Eh, I don't think the point of the article was to present Dyson as an opponent of global warming, rather the point was to present him as a odd and controversial (yet brilliant) scientific figure. As such, this article is not reporting science, it is reporting the life of a scientist...very different things.
Sorry, this is off base. Nicholas Dawidoff is a distinguished, accomplished writer. The Catcher Was a Spy is not a book about sports, it is a thorough biography of a complex man (who was, in fact, a spy).
The fact that this is a piece about an individual, not a scientific response, makes it appropriate for a writer like Dawidoff to compose this article. He doesn't do the scientific stuff except to explain this man's beliefs.
If he is not qualified as a writer, what makes algore an expert to hype global warming? He went into politics riding on his racist father's coattails after he died. He took some pictures in Vietnam, claimed he hated tabacco because of his sister's cancer, yet still farmed it. He won't debate anyone about the credibility of his hoax because he knows he has no scientific understanding to stand upon. Yet, he's qualified to be movie maker and an expert on global warming?
This writer was qualified to write the story. He showed what the leftists hate, that more and more scientists see the myth, and understand that the global warming is a hoax and has put the human race in grave peril.
We've all been waiting a long time for any wingnut to back up their golbal warming position with, a peer reviewed climitologist paper that supports them.
We're still waiting.
While we wait you could take a stab at explaining the grave peril that you take a teasing swipe at.
"If he is not qualified as a writer, what makes algore an expert to hype global warming?"
First of all, how come you're not asking if Al Gore is qualified as a writer on global warming? That is, after all, what you're asking in regard to Nicholas Dawidoff.
Regardless, I think your premise is that Al Gore is some kind of newcomer to environmental issues, in the same respect that MMFA is asserting that Dawidoff is a newcomer.
In a nutshell, here's why your premise goes down in flames...
Al Gore first studied atmospheric change in college under professor Roger Revelle, who was one of the early pioneers of measuring carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Shortly after he entered Congress in the 1970's, he helped organize and conduct the first ever congressional hearings on global warming. In the 1980's, Al Gore continued to make the environment one of his primary issues as a Senator. In 1992, he published his first book on environmental issues.
So go ahead and bring forth some other premise to convince us that Gore's not an expert or global warming. I don't believe he is anyway. But you can't convince me that he's new to environmentalism, or that he's recently adopted it as a pet issue, or that he's new to writing about it.
Um.... DJNate... buddy...
I hate to be the one to burst your little bubble here... but....um...
You better sit down for this... no seriously... you better sit down...
This may come as a shock to your system and that clump of gray matter between your ears...
But those scientists that you think that are all coming to some inane conclusion that global warming is a hoax... have all been taking money from Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Dirty Energy!
None of them are seeing it as a myth... those weak knee'd fools are taking money to lie for personal gain at all of our expense! Pure and simple! And you obviously don't get it...
Stop wasting your time and ours with your close minded idiocy.
Is it not a bit disingenuous here to equate Dawidoff's and Gore's qualifications to study a topic of some political and environmental moment that is outside both their areas of expertise?
Which of the two do you think had more thorough and immediate access to sources and information, worldwide?
Would that be the former vice president and Senator who has written other books and introduced complex bills concerning the environment in Congress? Or would it be a NYT writer with no global warming or scientific credentials?
By making such a flimsy argument, you make it clear beyond doubt that your agenda is political, not environmental or ecological or sustainability-oriented.
It's always so easy to spot doctrinaire right-wing positions. They assert political tenets as fact. And with a few exceptions, they emphasize believing over actual research.
Believing is, after all, so much less taxing that weighing and evaluating. Our recent right-wing president spent eight years preparing the world to reap failed harvests from that truism.
As much as I respect Freeman Dyson's work in Physics, it obvious he knows very little about Climate science. When a scientist is learned in one area, it dosen't automatically make them an authority in all areas.
MMFA would be better off dissecting the article after publication for conservative misinformation rather than questiong the writers credentials in my opinion. Good writers don't have to be experts in the field they are writing about if they are well sourced.
I betcha the NYT Times has a science writer that wouldn't mind handling this one.
this appears to be a personal piece on Dyson, a look at his life, not some nuts and bolts discussion of global warming - that isn't where the emphasis seems to be. let it be published before you slam it's author, if that isn't elitist pettiness, I don't know what is.
It's kind of like asking Liz Smith to write a piece on economic policy. Get it? And it's not "elitist pettiness", it's about competence.
if it was economic policy, I would agree with you. But if Liz Smith were writing a personal profile on a particular person who is an expert on economics, and after reading the article it focused on the person, not their policies as Smith most likely wouldn't be commissioned to write such an article, then it would be perfectly fine.
first of all, it already was published. online on march 25, i had a link to it yesterday in this thread. maybe you missed it. it's not merely a personal profile. it makes clear in the second sentence that it's about his views on global warming. that is a continuing thread throughout the entire article. so a science writer would have been the correct person to ask the appropriate questions. the article ends with dyson mocking the prius as a "rich man's toy". so let's mock energy conservation and let's not worry about pollution. i could listen to limbaugh and hear that. here's the link, again.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp
I think MMFA's charge is actually worse than you make it out to be. They're flat out accusing the NYT Magazine of promoting the controversial global warming views of physicist Freeman Dyson. From what I've read of the article, it appears to be like you said, a personal profile, not an op-ed of controversial global warming skepticism. I'm thinking MMFA should take the time to dissect the article and find something in it to crow about, rather than just throwing stones at the author.
there are parts of the story mentioned here, right in the middle. dyson attacking al gore as an "opportunist". and accusing james hansen, one of the leaders in global warming research, of "exaggerating" the effects of global warming.
I guess that's what happens when I read the NYT Mag article instead of the MMFA article.
What the what. As your own post notes, it's a profile on Dyson -- clearly, Dawidoff is a profile writer. Read your own story. And maybe, just maybe, actually wait for the article to come out before condemning the content. Not everything is a conspiracy.
it's already out. mmfa mentioned quotes from it.
Apparently, you have to be a scientist to write about a scientist or else the scientist's science is not science. Did anyone at MMFA actually read the article?
here's something else from the new york times. this is from march 27 and it's trying to say that there are major problems with florescent bulbs. maybe there are with certain brands, but i have been using them for years in many places, inside and outside my house. i've had a clinker once in awhile but usually they do exactly as advertised. i have a 23 watt on my front porch, equal to a hundred watt, and it's burned 8 to 12 hours a night for 4 years. they also have "soft white" bulbs if some bother your eyes. this article seems to be suggesting more problems than are really there. these bulbs save a considerable amount of electricity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/business/energy-environment/28bulbs.html?partner=rss
sorry, fluorescent. the link doesn't seem to be coming through, they may block it, you can google it i guess.