Talk:An Inconvenient Truth/Archive 8
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Prot?
I've put this down to semi, & will ask the admin who put it at full to check William M. Connolley 18:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
- I asked for full protection because I felt everyone could do with a good chat, instead of just making the changes at will. GreenJoe 22:28, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
We should add "Innacurate" in the title paragraph
via sources above. well documented (via court) that the film is innacurate.--68.115.80.156 03:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Also, why is the Critism section blank? Obviously there is quite a bit of Critism spicifically about this film. If critism is spicifically about this film, should it not be included here?--68.115.80.156 04:00, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Not gonna happen. Chris Cunningham 08:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Gore and IPCC awarded Nobel Peace Award
Minimal wire message here. I would suggest for some in-depth-coverage before jumping the gun. --Stephan Schulz 09:27, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- That type of info should be added on al gore's page.--65.107.88.154 13:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Did he win it for AIT? --DHeyward 13:52, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- He won it for the work associated with AIT, in the timeframe of AIT. It doesn't need to be literally cause-and-effect to be pertinent to the article. Chris Cunningham 14:17, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I noticed the fact the he along with the IPCC group were awarded the Nobel Prize was added to the article. Out of curiosity is there any sort of official announcement from the Nobel Committee that is availabe to read? The reason I ask is that if AIT isn't mentioned specifically as part of the reason he was given the award then I don't think it should be mentioned in this article. Again the article is about the film, not Gore. So if it's not mentioned as part of the reason why the award was given it shouldn't be here IMO. Elhector 19:23, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
British Judge's Ruling
The article should mention that the film has been legally described as biased and containing untruths and is not permitted to be shown without disclaimers to that effect in England. This might even be reasonable to briefly mention in the lead. --Blue Tie 12:11, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Concur. The decision will not be appealed, so its ratio decidendi is now 'officialized'. --Childhood's End 13:10, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- The judgment should obviously be mentioned. And indeed it is. But the question is which bits of the judgment should be used, and how prominently. Perhaps you would care to propose some text you consider unbiased? William M. Connolley 13:33, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Why bother, anything that casts any doubt on the alter of Global Warming will not be agreed upon by many here.--65.107.88.154 13:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I will trust William's words and will look at the judgment more closely as soon as I get time. --Childhood's End 15:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Why bother, anything that casts any doubt on the alter of Global Warming will not be agreed upon by many here.--65.107.88.154 13:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- The judgment should obviously be mentioned. And indeed it is. But the question is which bits of the judgment should be used, and how prominently. Perhaps you would care to propose some text you consider unbiased? William M. Connolley 13:33, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
See discussion above. The Dimmick case is already covered in the article. Your characterization is not accurate. rewinn 15:40, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- My reading is that his characterization his rather accurate, although it could benefit from certain qualifiers. --Childhood's End 15:47, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Read the decision. The judge finds the movie broadly accurate. Out of the entire span of the film, the judge found only 9 points that required clarification in the attached materials, and accepted the defendant's proposed documentation. BlueTie's characterization is inaccurate; the study materials are not disclaimers and the film as a whole was not found to be biased. The subject has already been discussed above; it's pointless to start ab novo. rewinn 15:54, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- (as a note, I was not trying for technical accuracy. I was just pointing something out. I do not really even know the details, but since it is in the news, it seemed appropriate to give it some mention.)--Blue Tie 22:52, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- The judge didn't accept "the defendant's proposed documentation" (the guidance note). He told the defendant to amend the existing guidance note to include warnings about factual errors and political bias and to send out the guidance note in the AIT package for schools (until this court case, the note was only available as a PDF at a website for teachers). He was also critical of DEFRA's (to me, rather creepy) statement that the DVDs were being sent to schools because "influencing the opinions of children was crucial to developing a long term view on the environment among the public". And when awarding two-thirds of the costs to the plaintiff, the judge said, "I conclude that the claimant substantially won this case by virtue of my finding that, but for the new guidance note, the film would have been distributed in breach of sections 406 and 407 of the 1996 Education Act." Substantially won. The plaintiff brought the case because he thought the film contained "serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush" and, as such, was unsuitable as a teaching material. Substantially won. The only reason that the film may still be shown in schools is that it is to be accompanied by an amended guidance note warning that the film promotes a particular political agenda(um) and is, in part, wrong about the science.
- I would have been astonished by this discussion a month or two ago when I first started editing Wikipedia articles. A reputable (by global standards) justice system has said that an important film about an important person talking about an important topic is propagandistic and inaccurate and not suitable to be shown in schools without a warning to that effect. Yet this criticism has to be watered down before it can appear in Wikipedia. No astonishment now, though. Before I finally got around to creating a Wikipedia account, I had read loads of allegations that there was a cabal of Wiki-tyrants (led by William Connolley) that deleted anything that didn't accord with a particular view of climate change. Most of these whinges came from genuine "deniers" - the few people (mostly American) who still don't accept that Man has any responsibility for climate change. So I didn't take their whinges seriously. ("Deniers" is, shamefully, applied to all sorts of people, including many who don't deny AGW at all, but these whingers were mostly the real deal.) After a couple of months of dipping in and out of the edit-
warsdiscussions in various climate-change-related articles, I can now see what the "deniers" meant. There is a tyranny in Wikipedia when it comes to climate change. This squabble about the High Court ruling exposes it completely for what it is. Vinny Burgoo 19:27, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Read the decision. The judge finds the movie broadly accurate. Out of the entire span of the film, the judge found only 9 points that required clarification in the attached materials, and accepted the defendant's proposed documentation. BlueTie's characterization is inaccurate; the study materials are not disclaimers and the film as a whole was not found to be biased. The subject has already been discussed above; it's pointless to start ab novo. rewinn 15:54, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
It should be added to the article that the person who brought this challenge, lorry driver Stewart Dimmock is a member of The New Party (UK) which is bankrolled by Scottish businessman Robert Durward, the director of the British Aggregates Association- more info in this article here http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?id=83662003&tid=733 where he is described as "an avowed enemy of environmentalists, an opponent of "witchhunts" against drink-drivers and an advocate of letting the army sort out schools, hospitals, and roads".
Durward says he is "a businessman who is totally fed up with all this environmental stuff... much of which is unjustified, such as the climate change levy. We also have the aggregates tax, which will put the UK quarry industry out of business." Durward and Adams established the Scientific Alliance in 2001. http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=136 the Scientific Alliance is a pro heavy industry lobbying group. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Einztein (talk • contribs) 18:17, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I don't think it's a good idea to add this to the article. I think it's a bad idea to start throwing peoples political party affiliations into the article. I mean, as the article stands right now it doesn't address the fact that Gore is a Democrat or that he works with enviromentalist lobbying groups. And it shouldn't address those things about Gore. This is an article about the film. I don't think adding info about the political party and the guy that founded it would improve the article at all. Adding anything about Durward would be a bad idea as he's not even a party to the case so he's not relevant to the subject. Let's avoid throwing political affiliations into the article, it's just going to make this article suffer from more edit warring and partisan bickering. Elhector 18:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I think it is important. The person arguing the case against this film on todays "The World At One" on BBC Radio [Radio] was one Martin Livermore, Director of the Scientific Alliance and the link between this person and the person that brought the court case was not stated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Einztein (talk • contribs) 18:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Quick comment before I address what you said above. You should always sign your coments using four tildes (~~~~). Throw 4 tildes at the end of the comment and it will auto sign your comment with your user name and a time and date stamp :-) Moving on. I still don't see how this is important. As I stated above I think it's best to leave politcal party affiliations out of the article. Just because the link between the guy bringing the case and this lobby group wasn't brought up on the BBC doesn't mean it should be brought up here in the article. Wikipedia isn't supposed to act as if it's some sort of investigative journalism project that trys to expose alleged links between certain people and certain orginizations. That's not our purpose here. Now I do think that this information might be useful over in the article for either the lobby group or the political party you spoke of above. You could also just be bold and add the info to the article yourself. Just be warned that it will likely be reverted and you will be expected to try to justify the addition of the information here. And as I'm sure you can see from all the above discussion that can be incredibly frustrating. Elhector 19:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I agree with Elhector: suspicious as I am of the motives of the people who brought the case, the final judgement was handed down by a judge whom we should assume (lacking evidence to the contrary) to be unbiased. Incidentally, the judgement didn't say that the film was "propagandistic and inaccurate and not suitable to be shown in schools without a warning to that effect", or that it is "not permitted to be shown without disclaimers to that effect in England". These are all gross exaggerations. What the judge actually said is that the film contained a (small) number of statements that were, at worst, unproven and that it isn't suitable to be used as a sole source of teaching material, which to my mind is pretty obvious and doesn't come close to the outright ban that the plaintiffs wanted. Cosmo0 19:12, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I find it unlikely that this lorry driver financed this case himself, don't you? It is highly likely he was funded by the The New Party (UK) and ultimately by Robert Durward, chief bankroller of the party and director of the British Aggregates Association. Einztein 19:20, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Who really knows? You may be right. However, Wikipedia is not a place for speculation. Elhector 19:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I find it unlikely that this lorry driver financed this case himself, don't you? It is highly likely he was funded by the The New Party (UK) and ultimately by Robert Durward, chief bankroller of the party and director of the British Aggregates Association. Einztein 19:20, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I agree with Elhector: suspicious as I am of the motives of the people who brought the case, the final judgement was handed down by a judge whom we should assume (lacking evidence to the contrary) to be unbiased. Incidentally, the judgement didn't say that the film was "propagandistic and inaccurate and not suitable to be shown in schools without a warning to that effect", or that it is "not permitted to be shown without disclaimers to that effect in England". These are all gross exaggerations. What the judge actually said is that the film contained a (small) number of statements that were, at worst, unproven and that it isn't suitable to be used as a sole source of teaching material, which to my mind is pretty obvious and doesn't come close to the outright ban that the plaintiffs wanted. Cosmo0 19:12, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Quick comment before I address what you said above. You should always sign your coments using four tildes (~~~~). Throw 4 tildes at the end of the comment and it will auto sign your comment with your user name and a time and date stamp :-) Moving on. I still don't see how this is important. As I stated above I think it's best to leave politcal party affiliations out of the article. Just because the link between the guy bringing the case and this lobby group wasn't brought up on the BBC doesn't mean it should be brought up here in the article. Wikipedia isn't supposed to act as if it's some sort of investigative journalism project that trys to expose alleged links between certain people and certain orginizations. That's not our purpose here. Now I do think that this information might be useful over in the article for either the lobby group or the political party you spoke of above. You could also just be bold and add the info to the article yourself. Just be warned that it will likely be reverted and you will be expected to try to justify the addition of the information here. And as I'm sure you can see from all the above discussion that can be incredibly frustrating. Elhector 19:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I think it is important. The person arguing the case against this film on todays "The World At One" on BBC Radio [Radio] was one Martin Livermore, Director of the Scientific Alliance and the link between this person and the person that brought the court case was not stated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Einztein (talk • contribs) 18:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I don't think it's a good idea to add this to the article. I think it's a bad idea to start throwing peoples political party affiliations into the article. I mean, as the article stands right now it doesn't address the fact that Gore is a Democrat or that he works with enviromentalist lobbying groups. And it shouldn't address those things about Gore. This is an article about the film. I don't think adding info about the political party and the guy that founded it would improve the article at all. Adding anything about Durward would be a bad idea as he's not even a party to the case so he's not relevant to the subject. Let's avoid throwing political affiliations into the article, it's just going to make this article suffer from more edit warring and partisan bickering. Elhector 18:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
@rewinn and others : again, shall I repeat myself, please read par. 44 of the ruling if you havent, which is the ratio decidendi. The judge says (my bold) "I am satisfied that, with the Guidance Note, as amended, the Defendant is setting the film into a context in which it can be shown by teachers, and not so that the Defendant itself or the schools are promoting partisan views contained in the film, and is putting it into a context in which a balanced presentation of opposing views can and will be offered." The fact that the judge finds the film to be broadly accurate or that there is a consensus about global warming is an obiter dicutm and mostly irrelevant to the main point, which is how, and why, is it allowed to show the movie at schools. --Childhood's End 20:24, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Shall we simply quote from the decision: "in the light of the changes to the Guidance Note which the Defendant has agreed to make, and has indeed already made, and upon the Defendant's agreeing to send such amended Guidance Note out in hard copy, no order is made on this application," http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2007/2288.html . The article is fine as is. rewinn 22:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Or this quote, yes. It begins with "in the light of the changes to...". The judge tells you again that he would not have ruled this way without the changes made. --Childhood's End 13:33, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
- The accuracy is obviously highly relevant to this article, though. Whereas other things highly relevant to the case (the funding by the New Party, for example) are irrelevant to the article William M. Connolley 13:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
- Or this quote, yes. It begins with "in the light of the changes to...". The judge tells you again that he would not have ruled this way without the changes made. --Childhood's End 13:33, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, I have now found out that the person that brought this case, Stewart Dimmock is not just a member of the The New Party (UK) he stood as a candidate in the Dover District Council election on 3 May 2007
http://www.ukprwire.com/Detailed/Education/Government_forced_to_work_overtime_on_Al_Gore_health_warning__10450.shtml
His party affiliation is mentioned in numerous sources so I see no reason why it should be censored on Wikipedia Einztein 20:30, 12 October 2007 (UTC): http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=%2B%22Stewart+Dimmock+%22+%2B%22new+party%22&mkt=en-gb&scope=&FORM=LIVSOP
- No one is stating the information should be censored from the Wikipedia. It's just not important for this article and Frankly you've failed to explain why political information should be included in a article that is not about politics. Again, the information would be more appropriate for the article about the politcal party, the lobby group, or Dimmock's article if he has one. If he doesn't have one feel free to create it. Good luck with the notability issue on that one though :-) Elhector 20:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- The man probably does not deserve an article by himself but the party which he represented in an election does (and it has one). So in effect you are saying you do not want his political affiliations mentioned on this page when just about every other independent media source does mention it. Einztein 22:41, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Its not being censored. Its just not worth mentionning. He isn't important, the ruling may be. Why not start a page on him if you think he is notable? William M. Connolley 20:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Of course it isn't being censored as I haven't yet added it (and I will do). To say this issue is not about politics is just false as this issue is an enormously political issue. The political and business affiliations of Al Gore are of course well known. It is only fair that people who criticise him have their own political affiliations made clear to the public. Einztein 22:41, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I'm going to address both of your posts above in this post. Firstly, Wikipedia is not a media source, it's an encyclopedia. It doesn't matter if other independent media sources are mentioning it. I actually question if there is such a thing as a "independent" media source anymore. Secondly, there may be political issues concerning this movie but I again state that this article is about the film, not politics. We're trying to keep politics out of the article. The article mentions nothing about Gore's political and business affiliations. Those affiliations are dealt with in the Gore article. So to add anything about someone elses would unbalance the article. Lastly you stated above that "The man probably does not deserve an article by himself...". If he doesn't deserve an article about himself and his political and business affilations then are they really worth mentioning at all? Your running into a Notability issue here. (I generally hate to quote Wikipolicy as I think it's quoted way to much and abused, but I think it's necessary to point out in this case.) Elhector 22:54, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- What you seems to be suggesting here is that you are censoring this article by avoiding any mention whatsoever of anyone's political affiliation. I am quite certain that if there was a famous court case in an encyclopedia and it was judged that the political affiliation of one of the parties was directly significant to the reason that the person brought that case then the encyclopedia would mention it. Einztein 23:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I agree with Elhector and William Connolley. I think that they both gave excellent reasons to ignore the trivial details of party affiliation of the person who brought the suit. I would argue that even a big discussion of the suit is inappropriate. A summary of the results is enough. --Blue Tie 22:57, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Sorry, it is not a trivial detail. He was a candidate in an election for a party whose main funder is a businessman in heavy industry who has stated his disgust of environmentalistism and who has also founded a lobbying group masquerading as a scientific thinktank, the Scientific Alliance with a PR man and former aide to two British Prime Ministers, Major and Blair, Mark Adams. Einztein 23:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I'm going to address both of your posts above in this post. Firstly, Wikipedia is not a media source, it's an encyclopedia. It doesn't matter if other independent media sources are mentioning it. I actually question if there is such a thing as a "independent" media source anymore. Secondly, there may be political issues concerning this movie but I again state that this article is about the film, not politics. We're trying to keep politics out of the article. The article mentions nothing about Gore's political and business affiliations. Those affiliations are dealt with in the Gore article. So to add anything about someone elses would unbalance the article. Lastly you stated above that "The man probably does not deserve an article by himself...". If he doesn't deserve an article about himself and his political and business affilations then are they really worth mentioning at all? Your running into a Notability issue here. (I generally hate to quote Wikipolicy as I think it's quoted way to much and abused, but I think it's necessary to point out in this case.) Elhector 22:54, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Of course it isn't being censored as I haven't yet added it (and I will do). To say this issue is not about politics is just false as this issue is an enormously political issue. The political and business affiliations of Al Gore are of course well known. It is only fair that people who criticise him have their own political affiliations made clear to the public. Einztein 22:41, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- It may not be trivial in some article, but it is trivial in THIS article. Remember. This is an article about the film. The trial is about the film and so it is a citable bit of info about the film. But the participants in the suit are really third order detail and then information about them is fourth order detail. And finally, information about who might fund them is fifth order detail. Its really too extreme. The cut should come before or no further than the third level. If the detail of the suit are important to you, then consider making that a separate article and putting all that cruft in there with a link in this article. --Blue Tie 23:37, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- As a fan of the film and of Al Gore generally, I must agree that the political affiliation of the named plaintiff doesn't belong in an article about the movie. It would be right for an article about the lawsuit or about the named plaintiff, but legally the outcome of the case (in theory) would be the same even if Al Gore filed it himself against himself. rewinn 23:42, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- OK, I will start an article about the lawsuit and link it from here (if it doesn't already exist). Einztein 23:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- As a fan of the film and of Al Gore generally, I must agree that the political affiliation of the named plaintiff doesn't belong in an article about the movie. It would be right for an article about the lawsuit or about the named plaintiff, but legally the outcome of the case (in theory) would be the same even if Al Gore filed it himself against himself. rewinn 23:42, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- POV is obvious here. the same exact type of information that "is trivial to THIS article" is heald in high regard in other articles relating to Global Warming. Wikipedia is lost to the Church of Global Warming.--207.250.84.10 21:05, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Nine errors?
I'm surprised by how the discussion is getting sidetracked onto "controversial" and the complainant, and how little discussion (or, gratifyingly, edit warring) there is about the "nine errors" of the court case. We've just had [1] removed, which I think is fair, because its wrong: The decision listed nine major factual errors in the film. is incorrect. Lots of people seem to be misreading this; Tim Lambert says it most forcefully [2] but Ive said much the same [3]. Discuss (or not?). I think the current state of the page is a bit too pro-Gore, but the alternatives suggested are far too anti-Gore William M. Connolley 22:14, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Have you had a chance to view my proposed changes to the article? I have a draft of it here. I think the best way to deal with it is to have a short description and then include a link to the actual court findings. My draft is very similar to what is there now, i just reorganized things a little. I also think it deals with the whole controversy discussion here a little bit better then slapping the controversial label on the film in the lead. Let me know what you think. Elhector 22:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I'm aware this is already in the article. The purpose of the intro is to summarise the main points of the article. The high court ruling is a major decision about the factual accuracy of the film and hence should be mentioned here. Iceage77 22:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Ok, but if your going to add it, add it correctly. You can't just cherry pick one part of the court decision you like and slap it in the intro. The court did find that on a whole the film is mostly accurate as far as science goes. If you notice there are like 40 other things that are discussed in the article that are not addressed in the lead. Otherwise the lead would be as long as the main article. A court finding that the movie had 9 errors in what is otherwise considered mostly accurate by the court is more then worth discussing in the article itself, but I question whether or not it's lead worthy. Elhector 22:58, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- The "9 errors" is what was picked up by the mainstream media for their headlines so I'm not cherry-picking just reflecting their coverage. Iceage77 23:05, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I have noticed that is what most of the mainstream media is picking up, but honestly it's just a very small part of the whole ruling. We're not the media here so we don't need to be guilty of the same mistakes they're making. The best source in my opinion is the horses mouth. In this case that would be the court ruling itself which is freely available on the internet. Somewhere there is a link in this talk page to it. Good luck finding it though, this talk page is growing by the minute :-P Elhector 23:10, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Yes but notability is determined by coverage in reliable secondary sources. If we base our analysis on the primary source that is WP:OR. I have seen the link BTW. Iceage77 23:19, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- This is exactly why I hate quoting wiki policy... It's a court ruling and a court document. I think that makes this a little bit of a different situation. In this case I think WP:COMMON trumps WP:OR in this situation. (There I go quoting WP policy again... I think WP:COMMON is the most important guidline of all though.) Elhector 00:05, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- Yes but notability is determined by coverage in reliable secondary sources. If we base our analysis on the primary source that is WP:OR. I have seen the link BTW. Iceage77 23:19, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I have noticed that is what most of the mainstream media is picking up, but honestly it's just a very small part of the whole ruling. We're not the media here so we don't need to be guilty of the same mistakes they're making. The best source in my opinion is the horses mouth. In this case that would be the court ruling itself which is freely available on the internet. Somewhere there is a link in this talk page to it. Good luck finding it though, this talk page is growing by the minute :-P Elhector 23:10, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- The "9 errors" is what was picked up by the mainstream media for their headlines so I'm not cherry-picking just reflecting their coverage. Iceage77 23:05, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- Ok, but if your going to add it, add it correctly. You can't just cherry pick one part of the court decision you like and slap it in the intro. The court did find that on a whole the film is mostly accurate as far as science goes. If you notice there are like 40 other things that are discussed in the article that are not addressed in the lead. Otherwise the lead would be as long as the main article. A court finding that the movie had 9 errors in what is otherwise considered mostly accurate by the court is more then worth discussing in the article itself, but I question whether or not it's lead worthy. Elhector 22:58, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I'm aware this is already in the article. The purpose of the intro is to summarise the main points of the article. The high court ruling is a major decision about the factual accuracy of the film and hence should be mentioned here. Iceage77 22:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- The supposed error about coral reef bleaching was not actually an error at all. So that makes 8 errors in total. Einztein 23:28, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
- I haven't read anything yet stating it wasn't an error. I did notice you decided to create an article about the lawsuit though. If you can find a source stating that the court was wrong on this one then by all means include it in the article you're creating. Let me know when you've got the article up, I'd love to read it :-) Elhector 00:07, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- The source is that scourge of climate change denying, The Guardian
- http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2189456,00.html
- Regarding the lawsuit article I will make a start on it sometime this weekend. Einztein 00:19, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- FYI it looks like the article from the Guardian is an editorial. I haven't read the complete article yet though, I'm gonna do that when I get home tonight. A lot of times editors on Wikipedia will argue about whether an editorial is a reliable source. I won't harrass you about it though, I think sometimes editorials do work as a realiable source. It's kind of a case by case basis thing though. Good luck with the article! :-) Elhector 00:25, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- The supposed error about coral reef bleaching was not actually an error at all. So that makes 8 errors in total. Einztein 23:28, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
I think we're missing the big picture here. The reliable sources are quoting 9 errors cited by the court. That's notable. it's a reliable source. If there are rebuttals, they can be included but judging them "inaccurate" is Original Research and that is not what should be happening. Put all 9 issues cited by the court. Use a secondary source for their meaning. But censoring it because you may not agree with the court or the newspaper is not an option. --DHeyward 05:01, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- It's not a case of "censoring it", it's a case of finding a way to report it which doesn't happen to match the prevailing conservative media narrative (i.e. reporting as little as possible except for the phrase "nine errors", with the intent of making the film seem factually challenged). The nine errors need to have context provided, and when context is provided it turns out that the exact number of errors is fairly inconsequential. Chris Cunningham 08:36, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- The 'nine' errors are only the ones with political argumentation. I don't think the court addressed all the errors. I'm not sure what 'context' needs to be included except that it was a court ruling. Your interpretation that it is fairly inconsequential is interesting but unless you can provide a reliable source that says it, I'm not sure it can be included. There are reliable sources taht describe the nine errors, the court ruling and it's consequences. --DHeyward 20:33, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- Actually as WMC points out (try reading it again and follow the links), the reliable sources aren't "quoting 9 errors cited by the court" they are quoting 9 "'errors'" (note citation marks), on which the court has various comments. No where in the court papers are these stated as errors as opposed to 'errors'. --Kim D. Petersen 15:20, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- So then the 'errors' are notable. I didn't read too much into the quotation marks as they are used in the legal opinion. They are not there to imply that they may not be errors and he talks about errors without quotation marks. The marks are there to give a proper name to them. 'The Nine Errors' would be the long form of that and is simply used for clarity so that it is clear that he is speaking specifically about those errors that have political arguments and are inaccurate. There are more than nine errors in the complaint so the judge needs to be clear about the errors he is addressing. Nine errors fell within the context of the law which addressed political opinions in the film. Note that he says specifically that the nine errors are significant planks in Mr Gores's 'political' argumentation. If you look at point 17, he speaks about errors without quotation marks in the broad sense. The quote marks refer to the nine specific errors addressed by the court. --DHeyward 19:15, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- I disagree. The use of quotation marks clearly implies that the raw word is not appropriate. Though its not quite clear why we're arguing this, as the article doesn't cover this issue William M. Connolley 20:28, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- So then the 'errors' are notable. I didn't read too much into the quotation marks as they are used in the legal opinion. They are not there to imply that they may not be errors and he talks about errors without quotation marks. The marks are there to give a proper name to them. 'The Nine Errors' would be the long form of that and is simply used for clarity so that it is clear that he is speaking specifically about those errors that have political arguments and are inaccurate. There are more than nine errors in the complaint so the judge needs to be clear about the errors he is addressing. Nine errors fell within the context of the law which addressed political opinions in the film. Note that he says specifically that the nine errors are significant planks in Mr Gores's 'political' argumentation. If you look at point 17, he speaks about errors without quotation marks in the broad sense. The quote marks refer to the nine specific errors addressed by the court. --DHeyward 19:15, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- Finding 17 iii) "There are errors and omissions in the film, to which I shall refer, and respects in which the film, while purporting to set out the mainstream view (and to belittle opposing views), does in fact itself depart from that mainstream, in the sense of the "consensus" expressed in the IPCC reports. ". No quote marks. No question about the use of the word "error." Only when he illustrates the specific errors that he will address (i.e. the ones with political argumentation) does he use quote marks. --DHeyward 20:38, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- I agree, and said so a day or two back. The judge definitely thinks there are errors, in the plural, no quotes. But when it comes to 9, they are 'errors'. So we only know that there are at least 2, and we don't know which of the 9 he asserts are really errors. Not very satisfactory, but there you are William M. Connolley 21:46, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- That's not my interpretation at all. There are errors. There are at least nine errors with political argumentation. These 'errors' are quoted. He didn't mean to address all the scientific errors since the law doesn't address errors in science, only political indocttrination. --DHeyward 23:57, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- You're welcome to your own opinions, of course. But in relation to 9, the judge said, always, 'errors' in quotes. You appear to go on and assert that the judgment doesn't address any scientific errors, which would rather undercut your original assertion. Unless you are asserting no scientific errors, only political ones? That would be weird, and definitely your own interpretation William M. Connolley 08:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
- I don't think the law addresses scientific fact. I think there are errors in the film. I think the judge only addressed those errors that are affected by law. The law addresses political indoctrination and propaganda in schools not simply errors. For example, the Bohr model of the atom is inaccurate and actually wrong. It is not against the law to present it and teach it as fact because it is not political. If the inaccuracy, however, was used to further a political agenda (i.e. Kyoto, fossil fuel reduction/alternative fuels, carbon credits, carbon neutral lifestyle, carbon tax, pollution laws, etc), then the error has crossed the line into the dominion of the courts. Courts don't render verdicts on science, they render them on the law. If I said "there are scientific errors in film. Nine of those errors have political implications" would you think there are more than 9 scientific errors or only more than 2? --DHeyward 04:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
- I believe that that is exactly what the judge is saying in section 23. He is not saying that these are scientific errors, only that there is enough political bias in his interpretation to warrant guidance for teachers to address a political imbalance. With that guidance in place, the judgement was to take no action (i.e. reject) the application.Trishm 13:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
- In short the film was deemed "political" though not biased towards a particular party. It is biased towards a certain political view. In section 12 we see that 406 is not considered to have been violated. Section 16 shows that the judge believes 407 has not been violated. "Equal air time" is not necessary. As long as people are notified that the government considers the film (per section 17) "to make a political statement and to support a political programme" then everything is ok. Section 406 and 407 having been taken care of the judge continues to deal with idea of government sponsored things having specific errors in them. Those are handled with a simple statement (Guidance Note) showing that not everything said in the film is in accord with scientific consesus (while maintaing that MOST of the work is in line with scientific consensus). The judge in essence said "This is allowable under British law provided you let people know this film does have a specific political goal and some speculation not based on facts" (my own paraphrasing). Interestingly section 19 points out that provisions 406 and 407 have no relevance normally to scientific validity, but because of the context of alarmism and "exaggeration in support of his political thesis" then it becomes necessary to have the Guidance Note to prevent worries over 406 and 407. 70.90.74.186 17:57, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
- I wasn't signed in when I posted my last comment (sorry) WeatheredPebble 18:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
- The Guardian has updated the article reporting on the nine errors, which itself contained an error! I'm not sure if we want to link to this rather than the previous link. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/11/climatechange Paul haynes 11:42, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
- You're welcome to your own opinions, of course. But in relation to 9, the judge said, always, 'errors' in quotes. You appear to go on and assert that the judgment doesn't address any scientific errors, which would rather undercut your original assertion. Unless you are asserting no scientific errors, only political ones? That would be weird, and definitely your own interpretation William M. Connolley 08:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
- That's not my interpretation at all. There are errors. There are at least nine errors with political argumentation. These 'errors' are quoted. He didn't mean to address all the scientific errors since the law doesn't address errors in science, only political indocttrination. --DHeyward 23:57, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- I agree, and said so a day or two back. The judge definitely thinks there are errors, in the plural, no quotes. But when it comes to 9, they are 'errors'. So we only know that there are at least 2, and we don't know which of the 9 he asserts are really errors. Not very satisfactory, but there you are William M. Connolley 21:46, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
- Finding 17 iii) "There are errors and omissions in the film, to which I shall refer, and respects in which the film, while purporting to set out the mainstream view (and to belittle opposing views), does in fact itself depart from that mainstream, in the sense of the "consensus" expressed in the IPCC reports. ". No quote marks. No question about the use of the word "error." Only when he illustrates the specific errors that he will address (i.e. the ones with political argumentation) does he use quote marks. --DHeyward 20:38, 13 October 2007 (UTC)