The favourite topic at the BBC is the BBC. The Beeboids just love publishing stories about themselves when they involve praise of the corporation, and they are at it again today with a puff piece about their science coverage.
At least they published it in the right part of their website, because the piece is certainly entertaining for a number of reasons, and it is so creative it is worthy of the label ‘art’.
For example, only the BBC could commission an ‘independent’ review that is carried out by a man so thoroughly compromised by his close links with the corporation he may as well be on the payroll. Consider these BBC appearances by Professor Steve Jones (There are others, I just got bored looking beyond Wikipedia):
‘In The Blood’ – six part television series on human biology on BBC TV
‘The House I Grew Up In’ – participant on talk show on BBC Radio 4
‘The Reith Lectures’ on BBC Radio in 1991
Interviews on BBC Radio 4 Today and BBC Five Live in 2008
Interview on ‘Sunday Sequence’ on BBC Radio Ulster in 2006
Interview on BBC Five Live in 2009
Appearance on BBC Radio 4 ‘In Our Time’ in 2007
Appearance on ‘The Forum’ on BBC World Service
Now ask yourself, would you consider a man whose career has benefited from that amount of BBC exposure and expenditure to be ‘independent’ and capable of scrutinising the corporation in a dispassionate and impartial manner? Going beyond that, would you consider in light of the information in the short video clip below that the BBC is anything other than hopelessly biased in its coverage of climate science, before Jones’ assault on any coverage at all of the concerns of the climate counter consensus?
If that is not enough, let us not forget that despite Jones’ concerted effort to play the ‘science is settled’ card so the BBC is giving too much coverage to anthropogenic global warming (AGW) sceptics (who he deliberately and wrongly misrepresents as ‘deniers’) how about these damning words from the BBC Trust’s own report ‘From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel’? (See this excellent post on Biased BBC by Robin Horbury explaining how the BBC Trust is compromised by outrageous bias)
Despite the wholesale and intended lack of balance in the BBC’s coverage, in the BBC piece they report of Jones that:
He said the BBC “still gives space” to global warming sceptics “to make statements that are not supported by the facts”.
Given that the proponents of AGW are still unable to provide proof that mankind is responsible for the changes observed in climate, yet continue to state as fact that man is warming the planet, it is ludicrous he should state sceptics make statements unsupported by facts.
As a professor of science he should know there is a difference between causation and correlation. But the fact he describes sceptics as ‘deniers’ shows he is utterly partial and dismissive of anyone who does not share his beliefs. This man is a corrupter of science.
In addition to indulging his personal biases, accuracy is clearly not one of Prof Jones’ strong points. He uses his report to make an explicit attack on the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which he claims made a submission to his review. However, as the GPWF explain on their website, they did not make any submission to the review at all. If Jones can get something as basic as that incorrect then how can anyone have confidence in his assertions?
The public has been becoming increasingly sceptical of the AGW industry’s claims. As such many people suggested the AGW crowd would become increasingly desperate as their unsubstantiated claims fall apart and therefore would attempt to seize for themselves control of the coverage of the subject. Professor Steve Jones is the man the BBC turned to in order to advance that aim. He has served his purpose. And has done so at our expense. The BBC. It’s what they do.
This story is a tiny but timely reminder that with the Guardian and BBC still hard at it shoring up the BBC’s insipid dominance of the broadcast media and online news in this country, the only entity left to challenge the establishment’s state funded orthodoxy is the blogosphere. We are witnessing the most successful and far reaching attempt yet by the liberal left to censor the news and information delivered to the public and indoctrinate us with their selective worldview – and do it with our money.
Watch them come for the blogs next.
Autonomous Mind 
Why would anyone conclude that Prof Jones has an understanding of the climate?
The man is a geneticist – not even a physicist. So even if he wasn’t hopelessly compromised by his past employment with the BBC (not to mention by being a Left-winger – of course!) his scientific background affords him an entirely spurious status.
They might as well have commissioned a professor of accountancy.
Why did he feel the need to give us his view of climate “science” anyway? He seems to put an awful lot of venom into his “assessment” of climate “deniers”. I have worked within the UK science establishment for 27 years (polar sciences) and have watched its credibility evaporate with the rise and rise of activists like Jones pretending to be scientists.
“Watch them come for the blogs next……”
The BBC reported yesterday that “Mr Cameron said the public inquiry will be widened to examine broadcasters and social media” the active words being social media.
Any betting that the definition of social media will include blogs?
The BBC dishonest and systemically tendentious?
Surely not! Who’d have thought it?
Actually, you’d get more balance and independent thought from the Mafia.
It’s not just his past associations with the BBC that are worth looking out. Jones is no longer very active as a researcher, and is increasingly becoming a media person – this is the direction he clearly wants to go in.
The very fact that he talks about organised denialism should be enough to indicate that he cannot be taken seriously. In his mind, as with the BBC, there are only two groups when it comes to climate change: the In group and the Out group. The In group are those approved by the IPCC, everyone else is in the Out group. There can be no shades of grey allowed – so for example people like Judy Curry, Roger Pielke Sr and Bjorn Lomborg are all Out, even though they accept the AGW hypothesis.
They can come for me any time they like but I won’t be retracting one single word (and some of them are strong) I’ve written on the subject of the AGW scam and its leading con artists.
‘For example, only the BBC could commission an ‘independent’ review that is carried out by a man so thoroughly compromised by his close links with the corporation he may as well be on the payroll’
BBC reviews make government ones seem like souls of truth-seeking probity.
It’s a wonder the public still has such vast faith in our great politico-media establishment institutions still.
I wonder if they will manage to link the possible increased height of Everest to AGW, I am sure a genetisist could come up with some weird connection…if he tried. Why do so many of these “scientists” no longer do actual experiments and arrive at empirical results. Latest scare, height increases possibility of cancer, straight from a computer “model”, a blonde model would be as useful!
All these reviews and inquiries are always run by hand picked ahem ‘independant’ people. It’s somewhat akin to having Herman Goering as Chief Judge at the Nuremburg trials.
To Uncle Badger ….
At least a professor of accountancy would follow the money.
I generally just skip over these Beeb self-adulation thingies.
Biased BBC has been doing some excellent digging and seems to have unearthed yet more evidence for the rigged nature of the farcical BBC (complete lack of) Trust.
The more of this sort of stuff one treads, the more it really does look like a silent coup d’etat has taken place in this country, with all the key positions having become occupied by Leftists and self-styled ‘liberals’.
Isn’t it Mr Jones who is a denier? He would, given his way, deny people the right to express their views.
‘john in cheshire
21/07/2011 at 4:59 pm
Isn’t it Mr Jones who is a denier? ‘
You’d think.
But this may be one the things that make the BBc so unique.
How to fight back against this turgid lefty corruption? Simples…don’t pay ’em.
Don’t bother offering yourself up for prosecution, hoping to change the world with your reasons for non-payment…just rip up all brown envelopes from TV licensing and politely close the door on any unwelcome visitors and there is sod all they can do about it.
I notice that the BBC report highlighted by AM is under the heading of “Entertainment and Arts”.
Can we take it that Steve Jones is an Entertainer ?
Scud1 – I’ll add to your post one powerful weapon for not paying the licence fee: one little “implied right of access denied to Capita, TV Licensing & BBC” notice outside your door, and you have no concerns whatsoever – the Capita salesman are not legally permitted to bother you ever again.
Problem solved. £145.50/year better off and you are doing your part, and the only part, in ridding this nation of the poisoned chalice of maligned propaganda.
“I wonder if they will manage to link the possible increased height of Everest to AGW”
Simple. It’s expansion of course, things expand when they get hot and we know it must be really hot up there near the top because heat rises and it’s also nearer the sun. I know these things because I’m a pseudo-scientist.
Jone’s position on this is strange. He is a virulent anti-Creationist, on the grounds that creationism flies in the face of science. Yet by advocating that we should automatically accept the AGW consensus as proclaimed by the anointed experts, he is promoting a faith-based approach to science.
In both cases there is a requirement to follow an entirely unquestionable source, which must be accepted without question.
As a BBC presenter, not only is Jones an odd choice for an independent BBC reviewer, but he cannot see his own inconsistent and glaring philosophical contradictions in the matter.
Have you seen these videos on the clear Bias of the BBC?
“BBC Environment Correspondent Comes Clean”
“There is a sort of misapprehension here that we in the media have probably helped to perpetuate: that the science of climate change, all the details, are settled. In fact there’s a lot of uncertainty about big areas of the science as to what will happen.”
smokescreen obscures climate study
“Fake climate change blamed for recent UK winter (16Feb11)”
ADVERT BBC STILL ONE SIDED 17 March
“BBC Biased Broadcasting (To children!!)”
“David Bellamy, the BBC and Global Warming”
“BBC’s biased reporting of Global Warming”
“BBC LIES TO KIDS in Newsround 16-12-2009”
“CRU Inquiry BIASED 31 03 2010”
BBC changed article because of Activists DEMANDS
Other accounts of BBC bias;
Can We Trust The BBC?
“BritainAndAmerica.com’s video warns Americans that the BBC is a trojan horse for many left-liberal values.”
And Remember this one
BBC lies and cons the public (Children in need phone scam)
There are 10’s of thousands of articles of the continued BBC bias on Man made global warming “Climate Change” Luckily we can get our impartial information and opinions elsewhere and become well informed about the subject and form our own opinions accordingly.
Personally I wouldn’t watch or listen to single program on the BBC (which I don’t) even if they payed me £150 a month never mind a year.
There has been no Global warming since 1998 therefore there has been minimal to no effect on the climate from anthropogenic activity this is absolute common sense based on scientific observations, But that’s irrelevant, if the BBC continues down this crazy self destructive path they then should be held accountable to the British public and not a biased “BBC Trust”.
Time will tell, with the public enduring colder temperature trends and becoming more sceptical with the church of climatology, will soon find that their opinions have already been dismissed.
The BB[C] is a corporation that does not inform me of the views and opinions I’d like to hear about in a fair and honest balanced way therefore I will refuse to affiliate my self with such a “Corporation”, I’ll pay tax if I must, to stay out of prison or maybe I won’t at least I’ll be in control of my own life.
Of course part of this is driven by a simple-minded idea that there are only two binary responses possible to the AGW-hypothesis. Either with the IPCC or a denialist.There are of course a whole range of options and thinking in those in or out terms ultimately leads people like Jones to idiotic conclusions:
http://progcontra.blogspot.com/2011/07/climate-quadrant.html
Steve Jones, ah yes, the pseudo scientist who “cooks” up his data.
@ Scud1 – I ain’t opened my door to a stranger in 2 years, it seems to be working as my family and friends know to phone me before hand and I haven’t had to pay my TV Tax for 2 years, I was watching TV one day when they came knocking on my door but I just turned it down till they went away.
‘Shevva
22/07/2011 at 9:15 am
@ Scud1 – I ain’t opened my door to a stranger in 2 years..
.. my family and friends know to phone me before hand …
..but I just turned it down till they went away.’
With respect (which I offer for your stances), in a free-speaking democracy that is no way any person should have to exist.
Prof. Jones’ wife makes TV films. Funny, that.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/7/21/on-the-media.html
Curious that the BBC can’t wait to broadcast the conclusions of this report yet refuse to let us know what is in the Balen Report ( investigation by BBC into allegations of biased reporting by BBC against Israel ). Strange that, isn’t it ?
Why in any case, would anyone above the age of 8 want to watch a BBC science programme? Even I, with no advanced science qualifications, find the BBC’s science output shallow, below elementary level, being mainly a demonstration of how clever the BBC can be with advanced graphics and sound effects.
They love themselves like we love life.
The BBC’s ‘science’ formula is tiresome, at best – particularly as practised on BBC 4, which is about the only BBC TV channel I now watch.
They find a presenter with something suitably quirky about them (a strong accent, mild speech impediment, curious appearance, ‘right-on’ opinions etc) and then build the programme around him (or her) and his personal opinions.
The recent series on the history of botany, was a good example. Factually it wasn’t bad but it was made for viewers recently gravitated from the Teletubbies and was presented by someone whose chief attribute appeared t be the number of times he could use the word ‘I’ in a sentence.
It’s a gimmicky, solipsistic, approach where style doesn’t so much triumph over content as trample it into the dust and then dance on its grave.
The Fabian Society’s progeny now control the Civil Service, Education, Politics and the Mass Media – including the BBC. The Beeb hasn’t been impartial since the early 1960s, my question is – why has it taken so long for the British public to realise this?
Prof Jones’ list of appearances suggest he should be a member of that other bastion of fairness and Right Wing thought … Equity.
I can only agree with The Gray Monk – as I’ve said before, this country has been the subject of a silent coup d’etat.
AM’s latest post refers rather pertinently to this, too.
The weatherman failed to turn up on the Today programme on Fri so they used the forecast from the Guardian – ” which just happens to be on hand”
Sometimes these people are beyond parody.
I have to express my appreciation for your kind-heartedness for all those that should have help with this one study. Your very own dedication to passing the message throughout had become pretty functional and has constantly made most people just like me to get to their targets. Your entire warm and helpful guidelines means much to me and especially to my peers. Thank you; from everyone of us.