If the “skeptical” Dane Bjorn Lomborg had any standing with the White House it will quickly evaporate with the incoming Obama administration.
President-elect Barack Obama has chosen John P. Holdren as his science advisor – a man who was one of the most vocal critics of Lomborg’s famously inaccurate book The Skeptical Environmentalist”.
“The Skeptical Environmentalist” was so offensive to the scientific community that Scientific American published a ten-page evisceration authoured by four actual researchers, including Holdren.
Lomborg tried to refute this critique on his website but apparently knew so little about science that he sent a blanket email to his supporters pleading for help. It read:
“Naturally, I plan to write a rebuttal to be put on my web-site. However, I would also love your input to the issues – maybe you can contest some of the arguments in the Scientific American, alone or together with other academics. Perhaps you have good ideas to counter a specific argument. Perhaps you know of someone else that might be ideal to talk to or get to write a counter-piece.”
Holdren, wryly noted: “It is instructive that [Lomborg] apparently did not feel he could manage an adequate response by himself. (In this, at least, he was correct. But he could not manage it with help, either.)”
It looks like Obama has chosen not to take science advice from the likes of Lomborg. Sorry Bjorn. I think your race is run.
