- John Brignell
John Brignell, Ph.D., is a retired
Professor of Industrial Instrumentation atUniversity of Southampton . [ [http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/jeb/cv.htm cv ] ]Popular science works
Brignell retired in the late 1990s from his academic career and now devotes part of his time to his interest in debunking what he asserts to be the use of poor science and false statistics common in much of today's media. In this context, he has expressed controversial opinions on many subjects. In particular, he has disputed the theory of
anthropogenic global warming , [ [http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/2001%20November.htm November 2001 ] ] questioned the relationship betweensecond-hand smoke andlung cancer , [ [http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/2005%20November.htm November 2005 ] ] and suggested that the hole in theozone layer existed before the rise in the use ofchlorofluorocarbons . [ [http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/2001%20November.htm November 2001 ] ]He has published two popular science books, "Sorry Wrong Number" and "The Epidemiologists: Have They Got Scares for You!", which have been reviewed in the British press (for example, [ [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2000/12/19/thlefanu19.xml Le Fanu J. In sickness and in health "Telegraph" (December 2000)] ] [ [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2004/09/13/hdoc12.xml Le Fanu J. In sickness and in health: why must medical research resort to quackery? "Telegraph" (13 September 2004)] ] ).
In mid 2005, Brignell prepared a list of over 600 links to news reports linking various contradictory phenomena to global warming. [ [http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm A complete list of things caused by global warming] ] In November 2007, this list appeared on the "spiked" website [ [http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2045/ Got a problem? Blame global warming! | spiked ] ] , then the
Rush Limbaugh show [ [http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_112907/home.guest.html Global Warming Causes Everything] ] , and has since been quoted in other places, eg. [ [http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007 Senate Report Debunks "Consensus" ] ]Criticism
Bob Carroll (author of the "Skeptic's Dictionary") initially accepted Brignell's argument against the EPA. However, he changed his mind on the basis that the "scientific principle" (relative risk less than 2) that Brignell used to reject the finding was not recognized by epidemiologists or statisticians. [ [http://skepdic.com/news/newsletter41.html Skeptic's Dictionary Newsletter 41 ] ]
Books
*John Brignell and Godfrey M Rhodes, "Laboratory on-line computing: an introduction for engineers and physicists", Intertext, 1975. ISBN 0-7002025-8-7.
*John Brignell and Neil White, "Intelligent sensor systems", Institute of Physics (Great Britain), 1994. ISBN 0-7503029-7-6.
*John Brignell, "Sorry, wrong number!", Brignell Associates, September 2000. ISBN 0-9539108-0-6
*John Brignell, "The epidemiologists: Have they got scares for you!", Brignell Associates, July 2004. ISBN 0-9539108-2-2.References
External links
* [http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~jeb/cv.htm Curriculum Vitae]
* [http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/number%20watch.htm Number Watch]
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