The Heartland Institute is still misrepresenting 500 scientists as “co-authors” of a paper that challenges the human role in global warming.
Although Heartland President and CEO Joseph Bast conceded on Monday that his organization had been wrong to present the scientists as people who personally and professionally doubted the proof of humankind’s impact on the climate, he refused to respond to the demands from dozens of those scientists to have their names removed entirely from the web-published “paper.”
They have no right – legally or ethically – to demand that their names be removed from a bibliography composed by researchers with whom they disagree. Their names probably appear in hundreds or thousands of bibliographies (My emphasis: RL) accompanying other articles or in books with which they disagree.
But if you click here on the Heartland site, you get to the now-redacted original article by renowned denier Dennis T. Avery, and if you then click on the Download Full Text (pdf) button, you go to a page that DOESN‘T say “bibliography” or even “references.” It says, unapologetically, “Co-authors: Alphabetical List.”
To strain the point, Joe Bast might look up the definition of “co-author.” My Oxford says simply “a joint author,” while TheFreeDictionary goes the extra mile and adds the word “collaborating.”
And if it’s not clear enough yet for Mr. Bast, he might even look up “collaborator,” which would get him to this:
1. To work together, especially in a joint intellectual effort.2. To cooperate treasonably, as with an enemy occupation force in one’s country.
