I heard that Fred Singer passed away. My condolences to his friends and colleagues. I've known Fred for many decades — I first met him in the late '80s when I was starting grad school.

I always liked Fred personally. While he savaged many other scientists (e.g., Ben Santer), he was always nice to me. He was like an irascible uncle who would say the most preposterous things at Thanksgiving and everyone would just roll their eyes.

2013 photo

It's perhaps not so endearing when you recognize all of the bad science he pushed over the years & how it contributed to setting back enviro policy.

One should read Merchants of Doubt by @NaomiOreskes & @ErikMConway for a review of his activities in the science/policy arena.

I think it's fair to say that absolutely none of the scientific pronouncements he made turned out to be correct.

But a lot of what he wrote WAS amusing. Like this piece: https://twitter.com/AndrewDessler/status/630873017564835840?s=20

You can see all my tweets about Fred here: https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Aandrewdessler%20fred%20singer&src=typed_query

Here is a video of Fred and me debating climate science in 2013.

Here's Fred talking to my class in 2013. There are a lot of really interesting exchanges here.

A few of the highlights:
22:30-23:30 & after 27:30: Fred defends his statement that Oreskes & Conway claim that Oxygen-15 is a carcinogen
40:00, talks about Oregon Petition
55:00, talks about 2nd hand smoke
1:00:30 says tobacco companies exaggerated his work for them

Here he is talking to my class in 2014 (via skype): https://twitter.com/AndrewDessler/status/439544643336683520?s=20

So RIP, Fred. I'll miss having you around, and my classes will be worse off without you.