Ruinenpornography

For the festivities of our choice, Ms. Rabett recently gifted Eli with a book, Schottenfreude, German words for the human condition, by Ben Schott, where the author provides examples of the dexterity of the German language.

Of course, the prototype that has made it into other languages is Schadenfreude, happiness at the misfortune of some others, the rejoicing by certain parties at a boat getting stuck coming to mind, but Schott has others like Ruinenpornographie, which he defines as the morbid fascination with photographs of contemporary urban decay.  Eli will re-purpose it to fit the demise of Pattern Recognition In Physics, a two issue journal that was set up by and a bunch of buds who, let Eli be polite, don't quite fit into the 97%.  This was an important step for the denialists, because it opened the gate to the scientific literature.  While there are nuisance journals that are not followed by the citation services like World of Science or Scopus, and the occasional outlier that sneaks in because a bud of the editors has something weird to say, this was the real thing, published by the house that published the EGU journals.

After two issues that set new records for wrong Copernicus Publications has terminated the journal

Copernicus Publications started publishing the journal Pattern Recognition in Physics (PRP) in March 2013. The journal idea was brought to Copernicus' attention and was taken rather critically in the beginning, since the designated Editors-in-Chief were mentioned in the context of the debates of climate skeptics. However, the initiators asserted that the aim of the journal was to publish articles about patterns recognized in the full spectrum of physical disciplines rather than to focus on climate-research-related topics.

Even Eli, trusting bunny that he is, would have been, shall he say, skeptical of that one given the all star team of editors.

Recently, a special issue was compiled entitled "Pattern in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts". Besides papers dealing with the observed patterns in the heliosphere, the special issue editors ultimately submitted their conclusions in which they “doubt the continued, even accelerated, warming as claimed by the IPCC project” (Pattern Recogn. Phys., 1, 205–206, 2013).

They were too greedy and obvious.  For the long haul they should have started quietly, but no.

Copernicus Publications published the work and other special issue papers to provide the spectrum of the related papers to the scientists for their individual judgment. Following best practice in scholarly publishing, published articles cannot be removed afterwards.

In addition, the editors selected the referees on a nepotistic basis, which we regard as malpractice in scientific publishing and not in accordance with our  publication ethics we expect to be followed by the editors.

Well, maybe nepotistic is not quite the right word, after all these guys are not family, or maybe they are, in which case incestuous would be better, but these are strong words

Therefore, we at Copernicus Publications wish to distance ourselves from the apparent misuse of the originally agreed aims & scope of the journal as well as the malpractice regarding the review process, and decided on 17 January 2014 to cease the publication of PRP. Of course, scientific dispute is controversial and should allow contradictory opinions which can then be discussed within the scientific community. However, the recent developments including the expressed implications (see above) have led us to this drastic decision.

Interested scientists can reach the online library at: www.pattern-recogn-phys.net

Nasty implication there.  Certainly the publishers are not happy about the clown show they let in the door.  However on a more serious note, Eli would like to ask the bunnies to stop rolling on the floor and direct their browser to the preceding post, where the Rabett has, with permission, put up Andy Dessler's testimony to Congress and the first comment by eveningperson

One of Andy's key points is

What about alternative theories?

Any theory that wants to compete with the standard model has to explain all of the observations that the standard model can. Is there any model that can even come close to doing that?

*No*.

Eveningperson gets to the nub of why Pattern Recognition In Physics and skepticism in general flails (and yes that is a pun, but one with a point)

as Dessler points out, no other explanation accounts for the whole body (or standard model) of current climate change science and it is notable that there is no body of 'skeptics' building and refining an alternative model. 'Skepticism' consists largely, as far as I can see, of the continual circulation of a body of zombie memes that are never developed into a coherent model, indeed, these memes often logically contradict each other. This even after decades of development of the standard model. 

UPDATE:  More at Retraction Watch and Big City Lib.  And the bleating has begun.

Rog (I hate relativity and climate science) Tattersall even posted the Dear Nils-Axel letter they got

We regret to inform you that we decided to terminate the journal Pattern Recognition in Physics

 While processing the press release for the special issue “Pattern in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts”, we read through the general conclusions paper published on 16 Dec 2013. We were alarmed by the authors’ second implication stating “This sheds serious doubts on the issue of a continued, even accelerated, warming as claimed by the IPCC project”. Before the journal was launched, we had a long discussion regarding its topics. The aim of the journal was to publish articles about patterns recognized in the full spectrum of physical disciplines. PRP was never meant to be a platform for climate sceptics. In addition to our doubts about the scientific content of PRP, we also received information about potential misconduct during the review process. Copernicus Publications cannot risk losing its excellent reputation in the scientific community. We therefore wish to distance ourselves from the apparent misuse of the originally agreed aims & scope of PRP and decided today to cease the publication. This decision must come as a surprise for you, but under the given circumstances we were forced to react.   

In the Dirty Harry sense, didn't Copernicus even look at the list of clowns who were the editors and take an early pass before getting pied??