https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Tim_Ball#Creationism
Credential fudging and climate denial
Ball has been represented in the
media as a climatologist (
Canada's first, don'tcha know?) who has held a professorship for upward of twenty-eight years. However, he carefully
omits this in his
curriculum vitae.
[2] In fact, he was a professor of geography with a focus in historical climate who retired in 1996. When the
Calgary Herald published a letter
[3] that questioned the credentials listed for Ball (in an article in which Ball attacked
Tim Flannery[4]) Ball sued for libel, while admitting that he had not been a professor for twenty-eight years.
[5] (Don't think too hard about that or it might make your head hurt.) Before the suit was dropped (against 3 defendants), Tim Lambert of
Deltoid dared Ball to sue him, too.
[6] Lambert also expressed doubt over the relevance of Ball's research:
“”However, hardly any of those 51 publications are in scientific journals but include things like gardening magazines. I looked in Web of Science and could only find four papers by Ball, all on historical climatology, none on climate and atmosphere. I don't see how Ball can possibly win his case, but I guess that's not the point.
[7]
Eli Rabett has created the "Tim Ball Award for Resume Stretching" in his honor.
[8]
Even within the deniosphere, Ball hasn't come up with anything new or impressive. All he does is constantly repeat
points refuted a thousand times about solar cycles and how
carbon dioxide is plant food. For example, take a look at his ingenious "refutation" of rising sea levels where he
just puts some ice cubes in a glass and lets them melt.
Creationism
Ball also seems to be a
creationist of some sort. In an op-ed in
Canada Free Press, he wrote:
“”Even though it is still
just a theory and not a law 148 years after it was first proposed, Darwinian evolution is the only view allowed in schools. Why?
Such censorship suggests fear of other ideas, a measure of indefensibility.
[9]
On his website, he attacks
Richard Dawkins and claims
science,
evolution, and
environmentalism are
religions. He also believes that the
Bible's predictions have been just as verified as those made by science:
“”Perhaps the ultimate irony
[10] is that the biblical views on nature, human roles and responsibilities are as logical as any other including modern environmentalism.
[11]
When you take his global warming denialism together with creationism and his admiration for
Immanuel Velikovsky,
[12] there's clear evidence for
crank magnetism.
Tim Ball's reading list
Ball recommends some great reading for all the
warmists:
“”There are three Web sites I have some respect for. One is the one I helped set up by a group of very frustrated professional scientists who are retired. That’s called Friendsofscience.org. It has deliberately tried to focus on the science only. The second site that I think provides the science side of it very, very well is CO2Science.org, and that’s run by
Sherwood Idso, who is the world expert on the relationship between plant growth and CO2. The third, which is a little more irreverent and maybe still slightly on the technical side for the general public, is
JunkScience.com.
[13]
More lawsuits
In 2011, Ball found himself at the receiving end of a couple of libel suits. In February, University of Victoria climatologist (and now a member of the British Columbia legislature) Andrew Weaver filed a lawsuit against Ball for his op-eds that
accused Weaver of incompetence and corruption. In March, Penn State climatologist
Michael Mann filed a lawsuit against Ball and his
think tank for publishing statements on their websites that claimed Mann was complicit in a "cover-up" of
Climategate and that he had committed scientific fraud.
[14]
Since the suits were launched Canada Free Press has retracted one of the interviews with Ball on the website.
[15] Furthermore, they seem to have scrubbed a good deal of Ball's articles and Ball-related material.
[16]
http://rabett.blogspot.ie/2006/09/playing-tim-ball-click-here-to-play.html
