Alleyne appears to have given the press release a quick once-over, and then engaged with his keyboard before thinking things through. I don’t think he read the Science paper or Fairchild’s lay summary, and given the rehashed quotes I assume that he never spoke with the research leader. If so he’s a very bad boy, and for this offence against the information deserves a thorough textual kicking.

It may be ugly, but Alleyne’s Telegraph piece closely resembles the press release, and that press release is deficient owing to the current warming and geoengineering spin put on the story by the PRs. This was clearly designed to attract the attention of hacks as they wade through their daily digests of press releases from EurekAlert!, AlphaGalileo and whatnot. Media-friendly blah it is, and entirely irrelevant to the subject at hand.

Alleyne’s sole original contribution is the statement that “such glaciation could happen again if global warming is not curbed”. That is clearly wrong, and amounts to misrepresentation of the science as presented in the paper (did Fairchild say it in conversation, perhaps?). But Alleyne could I suppose mount a defence of diminished responsibility on the grounds that he works for the Daily Telegraph.

I see that on your blog today you and others have had a pop at Bob Ward, and accused him of defending Alleyne’s journalism. I fail to see how Bob is defending Alleyne. Rather, this noted science PR focuses his attack solely on the PRs who spun Fairchild’s work for public consumption. I regard Bob’s take on the matter as simplistic, and said so today on the PSI-COM list. But he does have a point of sorts, and I largely agree with his comments on your blog.

As for the Telegraph, I entirely agree with you and those among your blog followers who comment on its all too evident decline in journalistic standards. Other of your commenters are hyperbolic bordering on hysterical. With all due respect, Ben, it’s like Comment is Free, only a little more focused.

the telegraph article was wrong because it claimed the researchers had shown increasing CO2 causes ice ages. this was the entire thrust of their piece and they make the mistake both in the headline, and in the body of the text.

please can you explain with reference to the birmingham press release exactly how you feel that document is responsible for this complete and utter misreading of the science?

i’m baffled by your stance. i’m reading it now. they don’t make that error anywhere in the press release. what makes you think that they do? have i made a mistake?