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Opinion piece in today's WSJ claims that SNA shows that the scientists
whom agree on global warming are all a tightly-knit group -- a mutual
admiration society -- that dismiss all contrary findings without
consideration.

Here is an excerpt... Wall Street Journal; July 14, 2006; Page A12

 > In addition to debunking the hockey stick, Mr. Wegman goes a step
 > further in his report, attempting to answer why Mr. Mann's mistakes
 > were not exposed by his fellow climatologists. Instead, it fell to two
 > outsiders, Messrs. McIntyre and McKitrick, to uncover the errors.
 > Mr. Wegman brings to bear a technique called social-network analysis
 > to examine the community of climate researchers. His conclusion is
 > that the coterie of most frequently published climatologists is so
 > insular and close-knit that no effective independent review of the
 > work of Mr. Mann is likely. "As analyzed in our social network," Mr.
 > Wegman writes, "there is a tightly knit group of individuals who
 > passionately believe in their thesis." He continues: "However, our
 > perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback
 > mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized
 > that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing
 > credibility.
 >
 > In other words, climate research often more closely resembles a
 > mutual-admiration society than a competitive and open-minded search
 > for scientific knowledge. And Mr. Wegman's social-network graphs
 > suggest that Mr. Mann himself -- and his hockey stick -- is at the
 > center of that network.

Since this has become a political issue, is the opposing group also an
echo chamber? Similar to the red-blue political divide we see in the
USA?

Would be interesting to run Mark Newman's community algorithm on all
scientists/papers involved in global warming, eh?

Valdis

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