by Brad Keyes

It seems someone called Brad Keyes has been peddling defamatory denialism over here. (Don’t click.) Many thanks to all the concerned readers who, through no fault of their own, got lost on the Internet and wound up in that hive of scum and villainy that is the hottest site in the skeptosphere, only to see this crank trading on the counterfeit credibility that comes with having the same first and last name as yours truly.

So, what do we know about my nemetic namesake?

Well, climate science is easily the most complicated, multidisciplinary can of worms our species has ever opened, so we can assume this Keyes guy must have undertaken the many years of postdoctoral scholarship necessary to mouth off reliably on the issues… right?

Imagine my surprise when a Google Scholar search for the name “Brad Keyes” shows a grand total of zero hits in any relevant field.

Yes, that’s zero with two zeros.*

Ouch. So much for credibility!

So here’s a friendly warning for my disbelievalist Doppelgänger:

In science, reputation is everything. And reputation takes a lifetime to earn, but a moment to undo.

Just ask a water scientist called Peter Gleick.

In a single act of lateral journalism now known as Water-gate, Dr Gleick—a sought-after lecturer on scientific ethics—managed to discredit the Heartland Institute forever.

Just sayin’, Braddles old pal.

*Including the alternative form “Bradley” improves the results by a factor of infinity, but this isn’t particularly impressive when you recall that the denominator was 0.