The Scientist Vote

`"Vote Democrat," says a meteorologist and noted global warming proponent. But Democrats won't be getting the vote of the esteemed physicist who just resigned from a scientific body for silencing debate. Michael Mann, director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center, took to the pages of the Washington Post Friday to say that while "as a scientist, I shouldn't have a stake in the upcoming midterm elections," he regretted to announce that "unfortunately, it seems that I — and indeed all my fellow climate scientists — do." Mann warns that Republicans would launch "a hostile investigation of climate science." But investigation is, in fact, warranted. Harold Lewis, physics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been a member of the American Physical Society, the second-largest association of physicists in the world, for 67 years — most of the organization's existence. A couple of days before Mann's piece appeared, Lewis tendered his resignation. Meteorologist Anthony Watts called it "an important moment in science history ... on the scale of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenberg church door."...more