Year after year, websites that attack climate science win Web Blog Awards for best science site. It adds an air of legitimacy to these sites, further increasing traffic and profile. I never could figure out why. It is certainly not the quality of scholarship or writing.
I finally found an explanation. Leo Hickman of The Guardian tracked down Nikolai Nolan, founder of the Web Blog Awards, to understand the process.
The breakdown comes from the nomination process. Members of the general public nominate sites for consideration in the science category. A panel of 200 people that submitted a nomination are then given the chance to select the five finalists from the 15-20 sites receiving the most nominations. Translation: the nomination process is freepable.
Climate change denial sites solicit viewers to nominate the site for a Web Blog Award in the science category. Here is this year's push from Anthony Watts and his crew. Nominations for these sites flood in, pushing them to the top of most frequently nominated list. The panel that selects the five finalists will also likely be dominated by people that nominated denial sites. By the time the public gets a chance to vote, all or most of the nominees tend to be sites attacking climate science.
To give you an idea of how biased the selection process has become, here is what Anthony Watts said when soliciting nominations for WUWT this year:
It is that time again, and after winning this two years in a row, can WUWT make it to “Hall of Fame” status by winning it a third year? Hard to say, but if we do, that will put us out of the running forever, since we cannot ever win the science category again if WUWT wins three times.
I’m going to ask for reader help again this year, and it is easy for you to submit a nomination.
Last year you may recall, that skeptic blogs swept the competition worldwide. WUWT won the lifetime achievement award and these four skeptic blogs were also winners in their categories:
The bottom line is that legitimate science sites do not put effort into getting people out to nominate and vote. Nolan admits the process is flawed, but seems reluctant to change the process for the science category.
Unfortunately, I have no good solution for it, since they follow proper voting procedures and legitimate science blogs don't want to make an effort to compete.
Leo Hickman asks why not set up a panel of scientists to select the finalists.
The problem is finding a qualified, unbiased panel that would work for free. Most categories aren't the type that would have experts in their field.
True, but even an expert panel would not solve the problem if the pool of potential finalists is restricted to a list dominated by denial sites. Consider this year's pool of potential finalists:
Best Science or Technology Weblog
australianclimatemadness.com
bishop-hill.net
chiefio.wordpress.com
climateaudit.org
climatedepot.com
drroyspencer.com
joannenova.com.au
judithcurry.com
mashable.com
motls.blogspot.com
notrickszone.com
scienceisbeauty.tumblr.com
skepticalscience.com
stevengoddard.wordpress.com
tallbloke.wordpress.com
techcrunch.com
wattsupwiththat.com
Most of these sites (13 of 17) are climate "skeptic" forums. SkepticalScience, which debunks flat-earth attacks on climate science, has requested to be removed from consideration because it considers the whole process to be flawed.
Nolan faults climate science sites for not getting more involved.
But it seems that science blogs would rather complain about the results than try to submit nominations themselves, so I'm not very motivated. No point in eliminating sceptic blogs from the category when there's not much down the list to replace it with.
The Web Blog Awards are a very small piece of the larger disinformation campaign. Another cog in the disinformation machine. It pales in comparison to the corporate capture of politicians and public policy.
Just for good measure, the flat-earth crowd is also eyeing the Best Weblog about Politics category. James Delingpole and the Global Warming Policy Forum, blogs dedicated to attacks on climate science, made the list of finalists in the politics category this year.
Best Weblog About Politics
americanthinker.com
blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/jamesdelingpole
borderlessnewsandviews.com
dailykos.com
eureferendum.com
fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com
hotair.com
maddowblog.msnbc.com
michaelsmithnews.com
occupywallst.org
order-order.com
pjmedia.com
pjmedia.com/instapundit
politico.com
powerlineblog.com
thegwpf.org
thinkprogress.org
The moral of the story is that we should not be surprised when climate skeptics win best science or even political blog. A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. And well-financed lies travel even faster. Trouble is nature bats last, cannot be gamed, does not accept bribes, and is not moved by the suffering a few billion people.