James L. Powell
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James Lawrence Powell (born July 17, 1936 in
Berea, Kentucky Berea is a home rule-class city in Madison County, Kentucky, in the United States. The town is best known for its art festivals, historic restaurants and buildings, and as the home to Berea College, a private liberal arts college. The population ...
) is an American
geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althoug ...
, writer, former college president and museum director. He chaired the geology department at Oberlin College later serving as its provost and president. Powell also served as president of
Franklin & Marshall College Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) is a private liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It employs 175 full-time faculty members and has a student body of approximately 2,400 full-time students. It was founded upon the merger of Fran ...
as well as
Reed College Reed College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus in the Eastmoreland neighborhood, with Tudor-Gothic style architecture, and a forested canyon nature preserve at ...
. Following his positions in higher education, Powell presided over the
Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...
and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. Powell served 12 years on the
National Science Board The National Science Board (NSB) of the United States establishes the policies of the National Science Foundation (NSF) within the framework of applicable national policies set forth by the President and the Congress. The NSB also serves as an ind ...
and recently retired as executive director of Graduate Fellowships for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Diversity. His book, ''Night Comes to the Cretaceous'', explores the scientific debate regarding
dinosaur extinction Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutiona ...
. In ''Four Revolutions in the Earth Sciences'', Powell addresses dinosaur extinction in addition to three other scientific debates: deep time,
continental drift Continental drift is the hypothesis that the Earth's continents have moved over geologic time relative to each other, thus appearing to have "drifted" across the ocean bed. The idea of continental drift has been subsumed into the science of pl ...
and
global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
. Powell has posited that the scientific consensus on
global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
nears universality and he actively counters climate change denialism in his research and other publications.


Education

Powell earned a BA degree in 1958 from
Berea College Berea College is a private liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky. Founded in 1855, Berea College was the first college in the Southern United States to be coeducational and racially integrated. Berea College charges no tuition; every a ...
, a private liberal arts college located in Powell's home town of
Berea, Kentucky Berea is a home rule-class city in Madison County, Kentucky, in the United States. The town is best known for its art festivals, historic restaurants and buildings, and as the home to Berea College, a private liberal arts college. The population ...
. Powell then received a PhD in
Geochemistry Geochemistry is the science that uses the tools and principles of chemistry to explain the mechanisms behind major geological systems such as the Earth's crust and its oceans. The realm of geochemistry extends beyond the Earth, encompassing the ...
from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
in 1962.


Career

Powell began his career at Oberlin College in 1962 where he held the position of chair of the geology department from 1965 to 1973. He became the associate dean of arts and science in 1973, then vice president and provost in 1975. After serving two years as a visiting administrator at Stanford University, Powell returned to Oberlin to serve as its acting president from 1981 to 1983. Following a 20-year career at Oberlin, Powell served as president of
Franklin and Marshall College Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) is a private liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It employs 175 full-time faculty members and has a student body of approximately 2,400 full-time students. It was founded upon the merger of Frankli ...
from 1983 to 1988, then president of
Reed College Reed College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus in the Eastmoreland neighborhood, with Tudor-Gothic style architecture, and a forested canyon nature preserve at ...
from 1988 to 1991. Powell left academia to preside over the
Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...
(1991-1994) followed by the National History Museum of Los Angeles (1994-2001). Since 2001, Powell has been serving as the executive director of the National Physical Science Consortium. Powell served 12 years on the
National Science Board The National Science Board (NSB) of the United States establishes the policies of the National Science Foundation (NSF) within the framework of applicable national policies set forth by the President and the Congress. The NSB also serves as an ind ...
first appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1986 and serving as its vice chair in 1990. In 2015, Powell was named a fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He resigned in March 2022 in protest against the publication of an article in ''
Skeptical Inquirer ''Skeptical Inquirer'' is a bimonthly American general-audience magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) with the subtitle: ''The Magazine for Science and Reason''. Mission statement and goals Daniel Loxton, writing in 2 ...
'' by CSI fellow Mark Boslough regarding the Bunch et al. Tall el-Hammam airburst paper,, which had been based on research funded by the
Comet Research Group The Comet Research Group, Inc. (also known as the CRG) is non-profit organization whose members promote their research focused on cosmic impact events or meteor air bursts on Earth in the distant past, including events of biblical significance. ...
(see below) and authored primarily by its members. He stated that it "violates nearly every tenet of proper skepticism" as defined by CSICOP and CSI, citing CSI-co-founder and executive council member
Ray Hyman Ray Hyman (born June 23, 1928) is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, and a noted critic of parapsychology. Hyman, along with James Randi, Martin Gardner and Paul Kurtz, is one of the founders of the ...
.


Debate on climate change consensus

Powell has researched the scientific consensus view of anthropogenic
global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
(AGW) in a series of studies evaluating the peer-reviewed literature. In 2012, Powell reviewed 13,950 peer-reviewed publications between 1991 and 2012 with "global warming” or “global climate change" as keywords. Evaluating this dataset, Powell showed a 99.97% scientific consensus view supporting AGW. In 2016, Powell duplicated this method on articles published during 2013 and 2014. In this set, Powell found a 99.99% consensus "verging on unanimity" by the scientific community. While agreeing that the consensus on AGW is high, other scientists have argued that the consensus is closer to 97%. The debate centers around the selection of scientific papers identified as supporting AGW and therefore included in the study. For example, in their 2013 study, Cook et al. excluded 66.4% of the papers examined because the abstracts did not endorse AGW either explicitly or implicitly. Powell reviewed the abstracts of hundreds of articles on plate tectonics, evolution, and impact cratering to show that scientists almost never directly affirm the ruling paradigm of their discipline. On that basis, Powell included papers in the study as long as the abstracts did not explicitly reject AGW. Powell has further argued that the extent of the scientific consensus is important. In ''The Consensus on Anthropogenic Warming Matters'' Powell argues that the "stronger the public believe the consensus to be, the more they support the action on global warming that human society so desperately needs." This metastudy included 54,195 publications from five earlier studies by Powell and others demonstrating that the scientific consensus on AGW is 99.94%. In November 2019, Powell published "Scientists Reach 100% Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming." Powell, J. (2019). Scientists Reach 100% Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467619886266 He reviewed over 11,600 peer-reviewed articles published in the first seven months of 2019 but found none that rejected anthropogenic global warming.


Views and scientific activism

Powell has encouraged scientists to do more than publish in scientific journals. "I think it’s time for scientists to get up from the lab bench and speak out." Concerning the consequences of global warming, Powell said: "I want my grandchildren to be able to say... he did something. He tried to do something." There is no scientific debate regarding the existence of AGW according to Powell. Through his research and other publications Powell has criticized politicians and others who defy the scientific consensus by denying AGW. In a 2014 editorial, Powell urged the university presidents of Brown University and
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
to change course by divesting their institutions from fossil fuels. A
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
editorial co-authored by Powell and Michael E. Mann recommended that the American Museum of Natural History remove Rebekah Mercer from their board as her family foundation supported climate change denialism. In a self-published 2020 book, Powell defended the controversial
Younger Dryas impact hypothesis The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis (YDIH) or Clovis comet hypothesis is a speculative attempt to explain the onset of the Younger Dryas (YD) as an alternative to the long standing and widely accepted cause due to a significant reduction or shut ...
which has been rejected by the mainstream scientific community. In 2022 he published a paper in the journal ''Scientific Progress'', writing that this scientific rejection was premature.


Recognition

Powell is the recipient of several honorary degrees. Oberlin College awarded Powell an honorary doctorate of science in 1983. The
Tohoku Gakuin University is a private university in Sendai, Japan. It was founded under a Christian background (specifically the German Reformed Church, which later was known as the Reformed Church in the United States. A large part of the Reformed Church in the United S ...
of Japan honored Powell with a Doctor of Humane Letters in 1986. Beaver College and
Berea College Berea College is a private liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky. Founded in 1855, Berea College was the first college in the Southern United States to be coeducational and racially integrated. Berea College charges no tuition; every a ...
(his alma mater) have also honored Powell with honorary degrees. The minor planet, 9739 Powell, discovered by
Carolyn Shoemaker Carolyn Jean Spellmann Shoemaker (June 24, 1929 – August 13, 2021) was an American astronomer and a co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9. She discovered 32 comets (then a record for the most by an individual) and more than 500 astero ...
, was named for Powell in 1987.


Books

* * * * * * * * (Amazon Kindle book)


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Powell, James L. 1936 births Living people American environmentalists American geologists Berea College alumni Franklin Institute Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Oberlin College faculty People from Berea, Kentucky Presidents of Franklin & Marshall College Presidents of Reed College