The anatomy of nonsense

DaveScot, the semiliterate sycophant who used to administer Bill Dembski's ID blog, is in a tizzy. In addition to being an evolution denier, DS is a climate change denier and a promoter of medical woo, you see, and he thinks there's evidence that "[James] Hansen’s former boss at NASA declares himself an AGW skeptic." He is sure that:

The video below is U.S. Senator James Inhofe describing the letter he received from former NASA supervisor and senior atmospheric scientist Dr. John S. Theon

But no! As Tim Lambert points out, and as any fully literate person could tell from the email DS himself reproduced, Theon is not and never was the supervisor of James Hansen. Hansen, of course, is the NASA climate scientist who brought the dangers of climate change to the public attention in the '80s, and remains one of the most powerful advocates for urgent action.

In the email DS quotes, Theon explains that he was "in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results. I did not have the authority to give him his annual performance evaluation." As Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist who works in and with NASA's climate science team, explains, "He was not Hansen's 'boss' (the director of GISS reports to the director of GSFC, who reports to the NASA Administrator)."

Theon's only involvement with Hansen was as a paper-pusher at NASA, responsible for budgeting and accounting, not as a scientific colleague or reviewer. His opinion on climate change is not rooted in any particular expertise in global climate modeling, nor does he actually cite any scientific basis for his claims. He's spouting off, and as long as he says the things that denialists want to hear, they'll keep dishonestly touting him