Homewood is a climate change ‘sceptic’ whose claims that climate data is being manipulated made headlines in yesterday’s Telegraph. He has a blog called notalotofpeopleknowthat. My post-Christmas binge on Ben Goldacre’s latest book “I think you'll find it is a bit more complicated than that” set off my spidey sense. So who is Paul Homewood, what are his credentials and how is he viewed in his field of study?
To date my web search has not yielded any answers. Interestingly his own website contains no biographical details or why he is interested in disproving climate change. This is not to say he is wrong of course, but it all seems rather odd, especially for someone who is computer literate enough to run his own blog. I would have thought that a key part of the website would be about establishing his expertise. After all, even a journeyman academic (such as me) has a substantial digital footprint and I have never been lauded by the press as any kind of expert.
Ben Goldacre’s work has heightened my awareness of the sort of people quoted as experts in the press. Ad hominin attacks are out of order, but so-called ‘experts’ are often people who are selling things or have vested business interests. Is Paul Homewood as academic, a businessman, an oil company employee, a conspiracy theorist? The truth is I have no idea. That makes his expert profile even more intriguing than most of the people Goldacre cites in his work.