Willie Wei-Hock Soon (born September 30, 1965)[1] is a Malaysian astrophysicist[2] and aerospace engineer[3] who was long employed as a part-time externally funded researcher at the Solar and Stellar Physics (SSP) Division of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.
[9] Climate scientists such as Gavin Schmidt of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies have refuted Soon's arguments, and the Smithsonian does not support his conclusions.
The book treats historical and proxy records of climate change coinciding with the Maunder Minimum, a period from 1645 to about 1715 when sunspots became exceedingly rare.
[36] Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian documents obtained by Greenpeace under the US Freedom of Information Act show that the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation gave Soon two grants totaling $175,000 in 2005–06 and again in 2010.
In 2013, theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson wrote in an email to The Boston Globe: "The whole point of science is to question accepted dogmas.
Soon has links with conservative groups which promote his writings to influence the public debate on climate change, including The Heartland Institute, and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow.
In a speech at The Heritage Foundation, he accused the IPCC of being "a pure bully" engaged in "blatant manipulations of fact", and said "Stop politicizing science!
"[38] With William M. Briggs, geography professor David Legates, and journalist and British politician Christopher Monckton, Soon co-authored a paper published by the Chinese Science Bulletin in 2015.
Other researchers there have a similar arrangement, but nearly all of their funding comes through peer-reviewed award processes from government bodies such as NASA and the National Science Foundation,[12] whereas Soon has received very little federal money.
[44][45][46] The latter was identified by a 2013 Drexel University study as the largest single provider of money to political efforts to fight climate-change policy.
The story was published by The Boston Globe on 26 January with a statement by Monckton that allegations of failure to disclose a material conflict of interest were untrue, as the authors had not "received any funding whatsoever for our research, which was conducted in our own time".
[41][47] On February 21, publications including The Guardian and The New York Times reported that Soon had failed to disclose conflicts of interest in at least 11 papers since 2008, and alleged that Soon had violated ethical guidelines of at least eight of those journals publishing his work.
Charles R. Alcock, director of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, described the disclosure violations as "inappropriate behavior" that they would "have to handle with Dr.
"[41] He said that the contract with Southern preventing disclosure of their funding "was a mistake", and in a later email reply to questions said "We will not permit similar wording in future grant agreements".
[50] On March 2, 2015, The Heartland Institute conservative think tank released a statement by Soon,[51] which said he had "been the target of attacks in the press by various radical environmental and politically motivated groups".
The nearest case was raised by Steven Milloy's "Junk Science" blog when Nature Climate Change published a 2012 study by meteorologist Kerry Emanuel, who was paid a fixed amount by two companies to sit on their board.
The blog raised the same concern about a paper published a year later, but Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences decided this disclosure was not required.