In a controversial bid to expose supposed bias in a top journal, a US climate expert shocked fellow scientists by revealing that he tailored a wildfire study to emphasize global warming.
While supporters applauded Patrick Brown for flagging what he called a one-sided climate “narrative” in academic publishing, his move surprised at least one of his coauthors — and angered the editors of leading journal Nature.
“I left out the full truth to get my climate change paper published,” read the headline to an article signed by Brown published on Tuesday on the news site The Free Press.
Photo: Reuters
He said that he deliberately focused on the effect from higher temperatures on wildfire risk in a study in the journal, excluding other factors such as land management.
“I just got published in Nature because I stuck to a narrative I knew the editors would like,” the article read. “That’s not the way science should work.”
One of the named coauthors of the study, Steven Davis, an Earth system science professor at the University of California, Irvine, said that Brown’s comments took him “by surprise.”
“Patrick may have made decisions that he thought would help the paper be published, but we don’t know whether a different paper would have been rejected,” he said in an e-mail. “I don’t think he has much evidence to support his strong claims that editors and reviewers are biased.”
Brown is codirector of the climate and energy team at the Breakthrough Institute, a private nonprofit group that researches technological responses to environmental issues, including boosting nuclear energy.
He did not respond to a request to comment, but wrote about his revelation in detail on his blog and on X, formerly known as Twitter.
A number of posts applauded Brown for his “bravery,” “openness” and “transparency.” Others said his move raised ethical questions.
His presentation of the research in the study “is a choice, but to boast about it publicly is next level,” David Ho, a climate scientist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, wrote on X.
Ivan Oransky — cofounder of Retraction Watch, a blog that tracks cases of academic papers being withdrawn — said that Brown’s move “ends up feeling like a sting operation ... of questionable ethics.”
“Do scientists clean up the narrative to have a stronger story? Absolutely. Do scientists need to publish in order to keep their jobs? Absolutely,” Oransky said.
“It’s just that he got there by a remarkably flawed logic experiment that of course is convincing all of the people who are already convinced that scientists are not rigorous and honest about climate change in particular,” he said.
Nature’s editor-in-chief Magdalena Skipper called Brown’s actions “irresponsible,” adding that they reflected “poor research practices.”
She said that the key issue of other climate variables in the study was discussed during peer-review.
She pointed to three recent studies in the journal that explored factors other than climate change regarding marine heat waves, Amazon emissions and wildfires.
“When it comes to science, Nature does not have a preferred narrative,” she said in a statement.
Brown disagreed in a post on X.
“As someone who has been reading the Nature journal family, submitting to it, reviewing for it, and publishing in it, I think that is nonsense,” he wrote.
Scientists often complain of the pressure on young researchers to “publish or perish,” with research grants and tenure hanging on decisions by editors of science journals.
“Savvy researchers tailor their studies to maximize the likelihood that their work is accepted,” Brown wrote. “I know this because I am one of them.”
In publishing, “it is easy to understand how journal reviewers and editors may worry about how a complex subject, particularly one that is politically fraught, will be received by the public,” said Brian Nosek, a psychologist and cofounder of the Center for Open Science, a US body that promotes transparency in scholarship.
“But science is at its best when it leans into that complexity and does not let oversimplified, ideological narratives drive how the evidence is gathered and reported,” he added.
“It is unfortunate, but not surprising, that Patrick felt like he had to be a willing participant in oversimplifying his work to have a career in science,” he said. “In that long run, that is not a service to him, the field or humanity.”
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS