Lomborg Responds to the Ruling on the Matter of Scientific Dishonesty from
the Danish Committee
In the beginning of last year several complaints regarding my book ‘The
Sceptical Environmentalist’ were handed in to the Danish Committee on
Scientific Dishonesty (the DCSD). Naturally, I have been looking forward to
being cleared of the charges of scientific dishonesty. Therefore I have
submitted my comments on many of the accusations to DCSD.
Unfortunately the DCSD has made their decision without taking a position to the
content of the complaints. The DCSD has ruled that ‘it is not DCSD's remit to
decide who is right in a contentious professional issue’. I find this
ruling inexplicable and it means that there is still no ruling about the
numerous complaints put forth in public. So I maintain that the complaints of
the plaintiffs are unfounded.
The main conclusion by DCSD finds that my book is ‘clearly contrary to the
standards of good scientific practice’ because of systematically biased
selection of data and arguments. But since the DCSD has neglected to take their
position on the technical scientific disputes their conclusions are completely
unfounded. The DCSD does not give a single example to demonstrate their claim of
a biased choice of data and arguments. Consequently, I don’t understand
this ruling. It equals an accusation without defining the crime.
The DCSD, however, refers to the criticism of my book put forth by 4 scientists
in Scientific American. This is a one-year-old discussion, which I participated
in at that time, e.g. by writing a 34-page response.
But in spite of the fact that the DCSD received a copy of my response, they
refer to none of my arguments. In fact the only thing that the DCSD does is to
repeat the Scientific American arguments over six pages, while only allowing my
arguments one line. This seems to reflect an extremely biased procedure. On top
of that the DCSD has failed to evaluate the scientific points in dispute
outlined in Scientific American article.
My initial response when I read the conclusion of the DCSD was one of surprise
and discomfort. But when reading through the complete ruling I found it to be:
 | Inexplicable in its negligence to take a position on the complaints of the
plaintiffs |
| Undocumented by ruling the book to be systematically biased
without documenting this with a single example |
| Biased by its reference to only one side of the comprehensive discussion
concerning my book (the plaintiffs side) |
Bjorn Lomborg. Press release, Copenhagen 2003-01-07
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