Cites nearly half a million dollars in state grant-funded climate research conducted while [Dr. Michael ] Mann— now director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State— was at UVA between 1999 and 2005.
From The Hook, it seems satirical YouTube videos will be the least of Dr. Mann’s worries now.
=================
No one can accuse Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli of shying from controversy. In his first four months in office, Cuccinelli directed public universities to remove sexual orientation from their anti-discrimination policies, attacked the Environmental Protection Agency, and filed a lawsuit challenging federal health care reform. Now, it appears, he may be preparing a legal assault on an embattled proponent of global warming theory who used to teach at the University of Virginia, Michael Mann.
In papers sent to UVA April 23, Cuccinelli’s office commands the university to produce a sweeping swath of documents relating to Mann’s receipt of nearly half a million dollars in state grant-funded climate research conducted while Mann— now director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State— was at UVA between 1999 and 2005.
If Cuccinelli succeeds in finding a smoking gun like the purloined emails that led to the international scandal dubbed Climategate, Cuccinelli could seek the return of all the research money, legal fees, and trebled damages.
“Since it’s public money, there’s enough controversy to look in to the possible manipulation of data,” says Dr. Charles Battig, president of the nonprofit Piedmont Chapter Virginia Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment, a group that doubts the underpinnings of climate change theory.
…
The Attorney General has the right to make such demands for documents under the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, a 2002 law designed to keep government workers honest.
=================
more at The Hook
h/t to Chip Knappenberger
I am a VA resident, and all I can say is “Go get him, Cooch!”
No, he does not shy away from controversy, and he is both loved and hated for it.
Take Mann out to the woodshed and show him a new use for a hockey stick.
Well I am as abhorent of cooking the books regarding any science results, as anybody.
When dealing with material that the average person can’t reasonably be expected to understand to the point of making their own choices when it comes to issues where the government steps in on scientific grounds; such abuse by “scientists” is anathema to me.
But I’m also not in favor of government witchhunts; unless their is clear evidence of malfeasance..
I think it is ok for the AG to enquire as to just how Mann used State funds while he was being State supported; I think they need to tread very carefully.
In the long run; people such as Mann are going to be judged by their peers, in the light of history.
It is that they should be concerned about when they do their work; it shouldn’t be some beurocrat breathing down their necks; while having no understanding of the science issues.
It seems that Scientists who fabricate stuff. and are found to have done so do tend to get quite harshly treated. I’m not sure the average worker who screws up even on government pay (tax dollars) is similarly treated.
Like that guy in Robocop said … “Iiiiiiii LIKE it!!!!!!”
I am no Mr. Mann fan but I am even less a fan of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and his ideological dogma masquerading as the rule of law. I may not respect Mann for his ideological orthodoxy but attacking one ideology or orthodoxy with another is counter productive and unethical. Two wrongs still won’t make a right no matter what the true believers on either side of the equation say.
[REPLY – When asked the difference between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, one cleric replied, “Orthodoxy is my doxy, whereas heterodoxy is another man’s doxy.” ~ Evan]
Professors are strongly encouraged to get grant money help help support their research and their universities. The large research universities are supported to a substantial degree by research grants and professors spend an inordinate amount of time writing grant proposals. The competitive nature of research grants is one of the main reasons for America’s leadership in science. Not sure what the purpose is for harrassment of professors by state government. If professors stop getting research grants, does state government plan to just close down research universities? What’s the next step? Asking lawyers to sign off on research grants?
I think this is a great idea. Fire up the subpoena machine and get the raw data and all of the adjusted data etc… Even if no wrong doing is uncovered, at least get all the data in the public sector.
Uh-oh.
This is ugly!
You may not like him or the work he has done but using the minutiae of the law to bring the man down is going a bit far. I thought you freedom loving Americans wanted the State off peoples backs.
George E. Smith says:
April 29, 2010 at 4:17 pm
‘It seems that Scientists who fabricate stuff. and are found to have done so do tend to get quite harshly treated’
George. If they do not like fleas they should not sleep with dogs. People who bend over to enhance their careers are the problem with AGW. CO2 is not the issue, immoral conduct is the issue and its called dishonesty.
regards
i have mixed feelings about this. on the one hand, if Mann has done something wrong i think he should be punished correctly…but is there enough evidence to spend tax dollars on this trying to find out?
Sounds more like a witch hunt to me.
While some of y’all celebrate the present target –
I hasten to remind you that, quite often,
the snake turns on its handler once released.
I do not agree with Dr. Mann on some of his main points,
but for an attorney general, no less, to act this way
suggests that he knows little about the law
and respects it even less.
If there is still important raw data which Mann is still refusing to disclose, then the Virgina attorney general should proceed.
Wow. I hope sweeping swaths don’t cause global warming,
I have a feeling that this investigation will take years to resolve.
If the government got out of funding science, this wouldn’t be a problem. We need to save money, this looks like a good place to start.
I would feel more sorry for him if, every time he is interviewed, he didn’t give these emotional “I’m the victim” monologues …….
The guy is a fraud – he continues to promote his fraud – and the rest of us are being sked to fundamentally change the way we live because of it.
Sorry – he needs to be taken down and waiting for the history of science to ultimately write itself correctly is not going to happen fast enough.
Whatever Ken Cuccinelli is opposed to, you can assume the opposite is the correct position.
I have no comments on his actions, but I would definitely like to see more pictures!
Surely, as there is nothing to hide, there will be no problem producing any and all requested documentation(?)
George E. Smith says:
April 29, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Well I am as abhorent of cooking the books regarding any science results, as anybody.
plm – Then you should applaud “Cooch’s” fulfilling his obligation to the VA constituency in investigating Mann’s arguably fraudulent misuse of VA taxpayers (to say nothing of U.S. taxpayers $) . PSU’s whitewash of Manns conduct will stand as a longstanding embarrassment concerning PSU’s credibility.
There is a tragically overdue need for crimes against the public to be at least investigated, and then if found at fault, that the guilty be actually penalized – proportionately, and no less, no more.
You must be kidding, George, scientists conduct unquestionable “peer review”? Politics, power, money, ego – CAGW? Anyone remotely involved with wuwt and/or knowledgeable of the CAGW fraud knows that scientists have demonstrated the gravest failings concerning objective honesty in favor of one or more of the aforementioned human weaknesses (and others). Even now, little has actually been done to check past and current illicit “scientific” promotion of CAGW fraud while even more taxpayers money is being dedicated to rat-hole wasteful “green” programs that Chu and Biden have promoted TODAY – ie: CO2 sequestration, and more!.
Sorry, George, the in case you haven’t noticed the WORLD is in economic collapse, largely due to CAGW fraud and getting worse as objectivity is labeled “CAGW consensus” – just saw an Americanpower.com commercial this minute. Priorities, let’s get realistic priorities on the to do list – while we still have the chance.
Count me in the same boat as folks who are uncomfortable with this. The science has been politicized far too much already, and a drumhead lead by a career-aggrandizing narcissist isn’t going to accomplish anything except giving the Greens a martyr to rally around. This will fail and it will backfire.
It does seem a bit strong handed. But when scientists or any other person enters the field of public policy, they should expect to be treated as roughly as any politician.
The problem is that climate science isn’t really science; it is computer modeling. And it seems that the modeling is influenced by the desired political action.
One trend in scientific papers is the inclusion of more detailed data and methods as supplemental data. If I recall correctly, Mann’s most recent Science paper included 10 pages of supplemental material and massive amounts of data, available to all on the Internet. I doubt whether the AG or anyone in his office has any credentials for evaluating these data. The peer review system is not perfect, but it’s much better for experts to evaluate the validity and signficance of scientific manuscripts than for lawyers or random citizens to be involved. During my career as a scientist I have been involved as an writer, editor or reviewer of about 700 scientific papers and I am often impressed at how critical, insightful and useful peer reviewers are. Science is self correcting and BS is quickly exposed. Perhaps since a scientist career depends on one’s credibility with other scientists, fraud is very rare and quickly destroys a career.
I am fully in favor of an investigation. If Dr. Mann is found innocent then we should all stand up for the rule of law and any further harassment of Dr. Mann on these issues should cease.
If, however, there has been an orchestrated attempt to sway policy makers and public opinion with false data and presentations then let the wheels of justice roll. This is probably the biggest con in the history of mankind and the people responsible should pay a heavy price.
Do the ends justify the means?
While this type of “inquiry/inquisition” might well (finally) examine all the facts and all the charges, I too must agree with the many who have posted asking if this is a witch hunt.
I’m not a fan of Mann either, but one can smell the tar and feel the tickle of the feathers. Justice would be holding Penn State’s feet to the fire. In both cases, neither represents due process.
The answer to my question; NO!
The more sunshine the better.
The head of the ccx said CO2 Cap and trade is worth 10 trillion dollars per year that’s a lot wealth distribution and I want to know who was cooking the books.
‘I received an astonishing email from a major researcher in the area of climate change. He said, “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.” ‘
‘ “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” ‘
“Mike, Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis. Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.”
‘ “Proving bad behavior here is very difficult. If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted.” ‘
I don’t know what the AG’s problem with Mann is but I do see a proper course where the law should be involved. If the VA legislature has, as the US government has, a policy of releasing data and methods with research it funds and Mann has not followed that policy, the AG should go after Mann, personally and through his institution. Not following grant conditions is no more honorable than not following highway contracts.
Unfortunately, so called climate science and scientists of the AGW faith, became political a long time ago. In fact, most science is now dependent completely on public grants from taxpayers. As such, they bow to their politicians agenda. This will not be the last enquiry and will become a trend from both sides of politics when in power, in all areas of science that are used in formulating policy.
I see it as a welcome trend, mirroring reality in science nowadays. More universities will also come under attack and investigation. The playing of leftist politics has become an art form at many universities for many years.
My comment seems to have disappeared. Any reason?
REPLY: It’s there.
To paraphrase Mann’s oft-repeated answer to questions pertaining to his statistics and his methods to arrive at his hockey stick shaped bunk: “HOW DARE YOU!?”
Thank God someone has finally ‘dared’.
The world has NEVER seen his work, the work which is one of the main foundations of AGW. If the ‘hockey stick’ is fubar, so then is the career of Michael Mann as well as the careers of the whole ‘hockey stick’ team, so this will be a fight to the finish…
Let’s think of the harm that Mann’s bad math has already done to the world economy and society (nevermind history and science in general) and what it would have done if Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick had not shown how slanted it was.
Think of how many careers Mann has ruined like Sallie Baliunas etc. etc. etc.
The incentive system in climate science is backwards. Bad math and bad science is rewarded while objective science is punished. Toe the party line or be ostracized. We need something to start the balling rolling to reverse this backwards incentive system. For a short time, it looked as though Climategate would cause the field to right itself on its own. I’m not so sure anymore. This might be a good second start.
As a Virginia resident, I am all for this. They just had to raise my tuition due to budget cuts, so I am very unhappy that the State gave him money for his shoddy “research”. The less government funding for this, the better. I suspect that this was a slimy deal to begin with, a political payoff from someone well-connected. It certainly didn’t cost $500,000 to make a hockey stick.
There’s an object lesson for all climate scientists in this — transparency protects you from this outcome. Had Mann released all of his data, code and methods, then the debate would simply have been “are his findings correct”. But because he has stubbornly refused to release his data, code and methods and because he has refused to answer legitimate technical questions, and because he has conspired to deny his the ability to publish their criticism, he now faces a wrecked career, widespread public allegations of fraud and potential financial ruin.
His best defense at this point would be to publish *everything*. It’s not the mistake it’s the cover-up that leads to charges of fraud.
Generally I’m opposed to heavy-handed legal investigations, and particularly when they involve scholarly work. But given the heavy-handedness of the EPA in recent months and Mann’s part in providing the science to legitimize that autocratic behavior, I think his work needs to be investigated.
In fact, the federal government needs to form a high-level commission to investigate all aspects of climate science and its theories and do an engineering grade study on the claims that are being made.
To that end, this may be a step in the right direction.
As far as I am concerned…. If you are using taxpayer funds for research, or anything for that matter. You should be held to the utmost scrutiny and to the highest of possible standards… If you don’t want the scrutiny, don’t use government money. Use yer own.
If Mann has misused Taxpayer funds…. He should suffer the full consequences.
Burn down the ivory tower.
To all of you who want to protect this miscreant, I hope your taxes rise beyond your ability to pay them. They are already there for a substantial portion of the population.
Well apparently Michael likes to talk to lawyers. Why should we mind?
This is a terrible idea, and I hope that Mr. Cuccinelli reconsiders and withdraws the demand. One doesn’t have to agree with Dr. Mann to oppose this witchhunt. More intimidation is not going to help to resolve the scientific questions in dispute, and this is clearly an attempt to intimidate.
I can not imagine there is any real belief that Dr. Mann committed a legal fraud upon the Commonwealth of Va. Writing papers which do not agree with the DA’s perspective does not constitute fraud. Nor does emphasizing those pieces of evidence which support a particular point of view while de-emphasizing contradictory clues.
And as for finding “a smoking gun like … Climategate” — please. The Climategate papers did not show fraud. They showed collusion and intimidation, bias in presenting conclusions, and reluctance and/or inability to provide data and algorithms which would allow a fair criticism of their work, among other behaviors. While I would criticise this behavior as not professional, it falls well short of legal fraud.
The chilling effect of such investigations as Mr. Cuccinelli proposes (a) is not going to help free and open inquiry into the science; (b) is likely to be used against the open-minded as well as the closed-minded; and (c) can only distract attention from the real scientific issues involved. In addition, this will only tend to de-legitimize the skeptic approach to the topic, in public opinion, by associating this bad behavior with climate skeptics.
George E. Smith says:
April 29, 2010 at 4:17 pm
“In the long run; people such as Mann are going to be judged by their peers, in the light of history.”
George, love your stuff, but when have academics ever had to answer to their peers for bad science? Case in point: Paul Erlich. Here’s a man that has been wrong about just about everything idea he ever advanced. What’s his punishment? Department chairmanship, numerous awards and accolades, lifetime tenure. If anyone deserves public scorn and ridicule, it is he. And yet, he basks in the glow of academic awards and advancement.
Given the pattern of behavior over the years from Mann, and given what was revealed about him in Climategate, there is every reason to believe he has played fast and loose with the work he did at UVA. If not this AG, then exactly who is going to bring Mann and others like him to account? And why would anyone think this is illegal? Remember Elliot Sptizer in New York. He made a career out of going after political targets as the AG and rode it all the way to the governorship. Too bad about that pesky call girl thing. You can bet Mann will be lawyered up to the hilt, so if there is anything amiss in this, it will get knocked down quickly. It would be great if Mann had to lay out his research for everyone to see in a court of law — no tricks, no hiding.
I don’t think this is mere harassment or a fishing expedition. I suspect the AG has “got something” on Mann that will at least qualify as embarrassing.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick were called as expert witnesses? Or Prof Richard Lindzen?
I would enjoy seeing if a defense attorney could outsmart them regarding climate questions.
Not that I’m rooting for a full-blown trial. A good, thorough deposition would get the facts out… if there are real facts, and if Mann wasn’t making it up as he went along most of the time.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot, lots of folks are getting a little worried. Remember when Dr Wei-Chyung Wang was demanding in his Climategate emails that Tom Wigley should help push a lawsuit against Dr Keenan, for charging Wang with fraud? And folks at realclimate & tamino were cheering Wang on? The situation looks a little different now, doesn’t it?
Mann has put himself into the public sphere with his work and given what we know at this point it deserves a far greater degree of scrutiny than the ‘academic community’ has provided this far.
Irregardless of what anyone thinks about how right or how wrong the investigation might be, it’s the Atty. Gen. of Virginia’s ball game now. It’s his job, and that’s what he’s paid to do.
But I will say this: Making a lot of noise about political parody after that bunch of emails is bound to attract attention.
He did this to himself.
I agree entirely with Arn Riewe (April 29, 2010 at 5:36 pm)
This might even put some ethics in some of the other collaborators. This is not a witchhunt. This is justice.
Recall: “February 10, 2008: Canadian Environmentalist David Suzuki Calls for skeptical leaders to be thrown ‘into jail’ – Excerpt: At a Montreal conference last Thursday, the prominent scientist, broadcaster and Order of Canada recipient exhorted a packed house of 600 to hold politicians legally accountable for what he called an intergenerational crime. […] “What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there’s a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they’re doing is a criminal act,” said Dr. Suzuki, a former board member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. “It’s an intergenerational crime in the face of all the knowledge and science from over 20 years.”
The whole DA crusading for election thing is just bizarre.
Only in the US.
My innate tendency to see conspiracies (from watching too many episodes of Boston Legal) brings to mind:
a) Only for $500,000? Yes it is a large sum, but what will the lawyers fees be on both sides? There is more to this than meets the eye.
b) The VA state charges might be bargained against Mann’s threatened litigation against the “Hide the Decline” video maker.
c) I would have thought cooperation with the AG would benefit UVA as a way of distancing the university from the machinations of its former employee and thereby preserving its reputation, without having to mount any internal investigation.
I cannot believe I am reading people here defending Mann. He is one the most unethical scientists in the debate who intentionally produced fraudulent works pawning them off as “new statistical methods” which is pure BS. He from the start was looking for anyway to manipulate the data to get the conclusions he wanted and here we have people complaining he may get what he deserves? Is this WUWT ot RealClimate?
PS: I also suspect the AG isn’t going after frauds in the science of CAGW, but something much more mundane, like expense account irregularities.
HR said:
“This is ugly!
You may not like him or the work he has done but using the minutiae of the law to bring the man down is going a bit far. I thought you freedom loving Americans wanted the State off peoples backs.”
@ HR: One of the first jobs of state is to PROTECT its people and their freedoms. If there is a reasonable suspicion that certain bodies or individuals are involved in fraudulent or generally illegal activity that is intended to attack the freedoms of the people (not to mention using the people’s own money – i.e. tax money to do so) then I want the state ON those individuals’ backs.
I, too, am against witch hunts–especially those whose primary objective is not to find and punish the guilty but to provide TV time and press coverage for public officials. However, I am also afraid of the effects the policies recommended by the AGW alarmists will have on my children. Given the societal importance of getting the science right, I am for forcing advocates on both sides of showing all their publicly funded work.
If I were Dr. Mann (heaven forbid) and I had uncovered some “science” that I believed showed that the world will end unless we immediately invoke procedures A, B, C, etc., I would BEG people to examine my work to either confirm my conclusions or show me where I was wrong. The last thing I would do is hide my work from anyone, but especially from people expressing a sceptical view. Since such behavior is the opposite of Dr. Mann’s, I concluded a long time ago that Dr. Mann is either behaving abhorently or doesn’t believe his rhetoric, or both.
So although in principle I’m against witch hunts, I’m not convinced the Virginia AG’s action is a witch hunt. Even if it is, given the importance of the issue, I not only tolerate the Virginia AG’s action, I applaud it.
I am sick and tired of the activist AG’s (Spitzer, Cuomo, et al). I don’t care who their target is.
Wow, I didn’t realize WUWT had a Michael Mann fan club – but its good to see opposing views. George E. Smith, BillD, markinaustin, John Egan sound like they don’t know who Michael Mann and his role in the CAGW debacle.
As I posted on The Hook and for those un-initiated, Mann is the author of the hotly disputed Hockey Stick world temperature graph underpinning all catastrophic AGW theories.
Senate committees have been held, corrections published and books have been written about Mann’s alleged dishonest and possibly fraudulent Hockey stick temperature graph history: The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science (Independent Minds), A.W. Montford.
In short, Mann abolished a richly documented historical event of a Medieval Warm Period in about 1200 AD when temperatures were warmer than today, by relying only on limited tree ring historical temperature proxy data to show that today’s temperatures are higher than in the last 2000 years and thus similarly rising CO2 levels can be modeled as being responsible for the warming. The proven statistical faults, hiding the decline with Jones (of failure of tree proxies after 1960), avoidance of release of data and cherry picking of tree sets are a study in what’s wrong with conviction driven research.
A short summary is here- http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/fraudulent-hockey-sticks-and-hidden-data/
The legal probe is not about a single possibly mistaken grant application, it is about 20 year history of alleged distortion of science, which threatens to trash the world economies and science itself. After 2 years of utter frustration at unaccountability by scientists (how many have ‘lost’ original data – but hey, just trust my adjusted data) I am ready to do a deal with the devil himself.
Regards
“””nevket240 says:
April 29, 2010 at 4:32 pm
George E. Smith says:
April 29, 2010 at 4:17 pm
‘It seems that Scientists who fabricate stuff. and are found to have done so do tend to get quite harshly treated’
George. If they do not like fleas they should not sleep with dogs. People who bend over to enhance their careers are the problem with AGW. CO2 is not the issue, immoral conduct is the issue and its called dishonesty.
regards “””
I believe I made myself quite clear that I don’t abide scientific malfeasance. and I thought I said that those who do so tend to be
thoroughly dealt with. But I don’t encourage going overboard.
I also don’t condone the behavior of drivers who drive in the bike lane before they get to the dotted line zone; where it is legal; and in California mandatory if you are making a right turn.
I believe if you weigh the actions of politicians vis-a-vis the climate question with those of the scientists involved; you will find that the politicians are a lot worse than all but the most agressive of the scientists.
My work is always subject to criticism from both my colleagues and from my employers; I welcome that from my colleagues, because after all; the aim is to drain the swamp; which is more important than who should do that; and my boss is expecting me to make enough profit for the company; so he can keep on employing me. Both my employer; and our customers expect that what I do should work more or less the way I told them it would; so skullduggery wouldn’t remain undiscovered for long; and if I did it; I would know about it; and I am my worst critic.
This is absolute madness. Is Cuccinelli going to pronounce on tree rings or principal component analysis?
Are we going to intimidate scientists into not approaching sensitive issues?
Total insanity.
Mann’s shenanigans pale in comparison to those of Hanson at NASA. While Mann’s manipulations have wasted millions, Hanson’s shoddy methodology has wasted billions.
I suggest that persons of their ilk should not be punished if they fully disclosure their misdeeds in “Nature” a once proud journal, now a propaganda arm of socialist Germany.
Some of you aren’t getting it. Misappropriating public money is BAD. I have seen professors at my alma mater, NCSU, terminated for misappropriating merely hundreds of dollars. The SBI was involved. I can name names. We’re talking hundreds of thousands here….
Point: whatever you do, don’t screw around with public money….ever.
He has to be held to account. If he attempts to delay the process then that is just further evidence that he has something to hide. Unimaginable amounts of public money are at stake here, your money. CAGW is fraud.
You can fund grants that produce garbage as well as useful results. It is the funding agency that decides which to fund. Was Mann painting garbage as fertilizer in his grant proposals?
I wonder how many of you have read university science grant budgets? Most of the money goes to support graduate students, postdocs and technical assistants. If a professor only has an academic year salary (only paid for 9 or 10 months) grants can pay a month or two of regular salary for summer pay. Grants also cover publication costs, travel to one or two meetings per year and other expenses such as computers, supplies etc. Universities usually charge about 60% of salaries as “indirect costs” which contribute to the admistrative and building costs of the university. One important criterion for getting a grant is the productivity from past work. This does not mean whether a particular hypothesis was supported. It does mean that results were published in highly selective and high profile journals. Many scientist have distinquished careers without a single publication in Nature or Science.
If reviewers who are expects in the field found Mann’s manuscripts important and convincing enough for publication in Science and Nature, how is the AC going to provide evidence to the contrary? Presumably Mann would need to take a few weeks off from teaching and research to comply with the AG demands. Thus, compliance with the AG’s program would result in a loss in the areas of reseach and teaching.
I am glad to see a lot of people thinking this whole situation through, in the framework of the bigger picture of a potential witch hunt. Maybe it is , may be it isn’t , but put the show on the other foot. What if it were a left wing politico coming after Anthony, in purely a witch hunt mode? No one would be too stoked then. This definitely smells a bit like a witch hunt, which is really no good, regardless of your politics. That being said, I do hope that there is some substance behind this and that it isn’t purely political & if there is substance that Mann pays accordingly.
It took 10 years to clear up the under aged girl in the 2000 olympics. The parents could have been honest in 10 days.
I have been in legal cases for medical malpractice. Don’t say the lawyers can’t investigate what they haven’t studied. This is the first real inquiry Mann faces and Jones has not faced one.
It is a confrontation Lisa Jackson will face one day. 500,000 in grants is no different that lying on a 500,000 dollar home loan. It is about time. Now my attitude is not about revenge. It is about someone walking publically into court under oath and telling us all why they want to be a lwbreaker and refuse to respond to FOIA. Why did Mann want to destroy records and why does he admit he has lost the heat and can’t explain the decline.
They other fake inquiries didn’t ask the correct questions. Mann [may have] cheated to obtain grants and it is a very broad reason why you really do not want to do business with the governments. Spitzer fought companies as a method of shake down for money. This is very different case. From my professional point of view, this is really the first time for Mann to get worried.
Steve McIntyre discusses grant conditions and policies here:
http://climateaudit.org/2005/02/27/data-policy-1-us-global-change-research-program/
Grants are contracts and tend to include specific binding legal requirements. What has happened with climate science does not need peer review to see if the researchers lived up to the conditions of the grants. The question becomes. “What were the specific requirements for each grant and did the researcher live up to these requirements for each grant.” This review needs a lawyer.
I support Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s efforts.
Maybe if we actually held the AGW snake oil salesmen accountable for their actions they would be better stewards of the people’s money. When the money and fame and air tickets to Bali fell like rain they had every reason to maintain the AGW house of cards by all possible means and they did so for their own aggrandizement.
Unfortunately, the damage they have done to countries, economies, people and science may be incalculable.
I say go get him Ken!
The ROI is well worth it if malfeasance is found. Future agitators will think twice and the grants will be scrutinized even further.
If Mann’s work was honest, he should have nothing to hide. It is past time we found out the truth.
I don’t like witch hunts either but consider that AGW has an impact measured in the trillions of dollars. We need to know all the facts. The Mann data is a high profile component of claimed proof of AGW. Given that there is well founded suspicion that something could be amiss in the Mann data it is reasonable to require full disclosure. The problem from what I can see is that Mann is doing everything he can to obstruct access to such data. When two previous investigations into his hockey stick both found reason to discredit the findings he did not respond in a way one would expect a scientist to respond. He brazened it out and indeed continues to advocate his findings.
We have seen the outcomes of peer based investigations with the events surrounding the Hadley Research Centre climategate investigation. Given the people appointed to the investigation had previously declared their belief in AGW, the suggestion of a conflict of interest leading to a desire to see the University vindicated, the very restricted group of people interviewed (all from the AGW camp) and the extremely superficial report there are again grounds to be suspicious of the impartiality of these investigations.
If gentle methods of arriving at the truth do not work, eventually someone is going to use more forceful means. This is entirely predictable and if you do not want it to happen co-operate with the gentler approaches. Thus while I don’t subscribe to witch hunts and think retribution, if warranted, is best left to his peers I do believe we need the truth and given the current situation that can only be assured by an really impartial investigation whose only goal is the truth. If the outcome of these actions is such an investigation and if should happen that the findings are damaging to Dr Mann then I would argue that the wellbeing of the innocent public outweighs the outcomes for Dr Mann. Maybe he has nothing to hide and will be vindicated, However, he must know whether he has anything to fear or not and if he does, then to have forced the issue to this point is very stupid on his part. If you play hardball, sooner or later you will find a worthy opponent. I am not sure is is justifiable to cry foul when that happens.
Here is an interesting read,
David Suzuki
The foremost environmentalist in Canada, and a man who has gained international recognition in the fight against global warming, David Suzuki received more first-place rankings than the second and third places combined.
When asked his thoughts about placing first, Suzuki displayed the trademark humility that no doubt helped him take the top spot. “I am flabbergasted,” he said. “It is an enormous responsibility to live up to that trust.
I don’t get you guys who want to go soft on Mann. I don’t see him as being a stupid fool, but other than through complete stupidity, how could he have come up with that MWP-ignoring “hockey stick” — except by design. That “stick” was designed for public consumption, for manipulating the force of public opinion. It was a linchpin in the whole argument that got CAGW hysteria going.
Maybe there is a better way to publicly shine the light of day on Mann’s schtick, but so far it hasn’t surfaced.
Count me out of this crusade/witch-hunt. I’m in the heretic camp. The angry mob mentality is not my way; it’s not THE way. It’s just plain wrong in too many ways to list.
No, folks. Just no. Not the way. The way of corrupting and politicizing sciences is THEIR way, not ours.
I smell trolls.
Yes, most of you don’t get it. Commonwealth of VA paid Mann for science, not political science. The AG investigation is more about fraudulent representation than misappropriation of funds. Is it not wrong for someone to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in government grants just to submit a canned report where the conclusions are pre-determined?
mpaul says: April 29, 2010 at 5:22 pm
“But because he has stubbornly refused to release his data, code and methods”
Do you guys even bother to look before coming out with this stuff?
Here is the complete data and code for one of his recent papers.
Nick
1. It is an excerpt of an article so I don’t appreciate the accusatory tone
2. This has nothing to do with his current papers. It has everything to do with MBH98 done while Mann was at UVA
3. You could do well to heed the admonisment you just published
4. If Mann failed to follow procedure at that time, we as US taxpayers have every right to investigate. As a non US citizen this does not concern you.
Pathetic whitewashes by various official inquires both in U.S. and Britain have emboldened Climate Cultists to continue pushing their CO2 propaganda scam. AGW is garbage in/garbage out (GIGO) from Day One– not right, not even wrong, just Warmist bumpf propagated in bad faith under false pretenses for the sole purpose of financing junk-science assaults by Luddite sociopaths such as Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenberth et al.
Witch-hunt? We’d say, a long past due calling-to-account of those who since 1988 have with malice aforethought abused the public trust at terrible cost, not only to the governmental fisc but to the integrity of scientific enterprise. Mann of course will offer every self-serving excuse imaginable; deny, obfuscate, smear opponents, as if he reigned like Eric Holder over a tribal fiefdom of hyper-politicized jacks-in-office, justifying corrupt incompetence by any and all means.
Nothing one can say adequately characterizes Green Gangsters of Mann’s ilk. Once an upstart prosecutor ferrets out the facts, disinterested parties can begin to draw conclusions.
*sigh*
Lot of ad hominem and irrelevant slag being directed at the VA AG on this. Sure, there’s a lot of folks ticked at Cucinelli for his first ‘big’ announcement – that the state’s Universities were not supported in the law with some of their actions, actions which the previous two Governors encouraged, even though they could not get them codified via legislation. Cucinelli pointed this out, as was his job, and people had hissy fits.
Likewise, the actions he’s taking here are squarely within his purview and responsibilities – to investigate the potential mis-use of government allocated funds, quite possibly rising to the level of something calling for criminal sanction (yes, $500K is a ‘drop in the bucket’ in governmental budgetary terms, but it’s still a large enough sum to be significant). It is quite probable that these suspicions have been raised by the revelations of Dr. Mann’s apparent willingness to ‘cook the books’ with regard to his professional works – it is quite logical to make the connection that if he’s willing to play funny with one set of numbers. . . There is also the possibility that the AG’s office has received other, non-public information indicative of malfeasance on Dr. Mann’s part during his tenure at UVA with regards to his handling of grant funding.
What some are eager to see here, a complete review of Dr. Mann’s professional works during his UVA tenure – well, don’t get your hopes up folks. This won’t be about the veracity of Mann’s professional publications or pronouncements – superficially, the investigation will have very, very little to do with Dr. Mann’s “work product” – it will be an examination into whether or not he mis-used any of the taxpayer monies he was provided to conduct his research. As such, it won’t be an investigation of his ability for creative statistical manipulation, but an audit to see if he also engaged in creative book keeping and accounting. Or if he tried to ‘hide the decline’ from any hinkyness from his funding accounts. . .
Global warming is only about politics – if science mattered the scare would have disappeared long ago.
Unlike (former) NY-AG Spitzer who shook down large corporations because it was easy money, Cuccinelli is playing the politics of global warming, and I support him for it. There are too many Holdren’s and Chu’s around, lying for the anti-science big-government side.
Cuccinelli was one of the first (and few) to challenge the EPA re: CO2:
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=600&sid=1893914
He understands that it is politics and not science driving the global warming scam.
First, I want to thank you, Anthony, for all that you have done to reveal information regarding the so called global warming issue that is not covered by the main stream press. I hope that you, McIntire, McKitrick, and so many others recieve the Nobel Prize (if that would mean anything since it’s handed out now like Halloween candy).
I have invested over 2000 hours research into the so called global warming issue and in doing so discovered your site WUWT. I have also reviewed Climate Audit, Bishop Hill, Real Climate, etc., to many to list and my bookmarks have become unmanagable. You do an excellent job and I sincerely appreciate it.
I am from Virginia and respect our current governor for taking the actions that he has taken. It has certainly rattled the AGW monkey’s cage. They will not sleep for a long time now as the stakes are much higher. They have too much ego, power, and money riding on further exposure to their schemes. It will be hot in the blogosphere for a long time to come. I hope that you are caught up on your sleep.
I have not commented in the past as there are so many visiting on your site with greater intellect than myself, so I have been along for the ride. I think we are coming up on the whoopie doos (dirt bike terminology) and it’s about to get exciting. I have a firm grip so bring it on!
Virginian,
Thanks for the kind words
Anthony
The state is well within the statute of limitations by it’s three different measures. Mann as many scientists, probably loaded up his boxes and drug them to Penn State which can be a big problem They are not his sole personal property and this can be theft.
Mann has a sassy attitude and that will hurt him. Lack of cooperation with authorities because you have a PHd and they are too stupid to need to know the details of your work will backfire.
The mnost recent law firm that left the office tower I officed in was over 200 lawyers. They are not only expensive, but Penn state will not cover his VA case. When docs move, they buy insurance coverage for prior cases. Science is not generally a litigious field but now the grants are fat and the stakes are high. Mann is gone so he doesn’t have uses of clerks and secretaries at Virginia where his files are. (I suspect he left next to nothing which is another problem)
Mann is around 40,000 in a hole for a retainer and will need to use more than 1 lawyer and a researcher.
CEI has filed against Gavin Schmidt who sorta partners with Mann and will be a case of a lower risk for Gavin. Now if an inspector General files on schmidt and Hansen for breech of duty and malfeasance, they will join the “elephant graveyard”
CEI’s lawsuit is civil and not a direct party.
Now these cases are incredibly critical for the greenies because the EPA doesn’t do original research and relies in good faith on these unaudited and uncertified findings for climate forecasting.
BillD says:
“I have been involved as an writer, editor or reviewer of about 700 scientific papers and I am often impressed at how critical, insightful and useful peer reviewers are.”
BillD’s optimism in the light of such long experience is not to be easily dismissed (I wonder in what field he works), however it may be hard to see objectively from within the establishment and this peer review has been shown to fall victim to small groups of ‘mates’ , groupthink, fads and ideology. I believe BillD also misses one important distinction:
Peer review may work well in theoretical research, but once that research hits the tarmac of commercial reality or policy, its naive to rely on peers to verify data. Regulators must and normally do step in. That is why the results of peer reviewed scientific studies by drug companies get audited by gun-wearing FDA investigators. It is why there are federal laws requiring medical research data to be secure and unalterable for such audits – lives are at risk.
With climate data, there was no commercial product, no drug for approval, so no regulator, and the unaudited conclusions went directly into global policy, costing trillions and placing millions of lives in developing countries at risk (directly via biofuels or by misdirection of resources). Imagine me going to FDA with a new drug saying, oh I lost the validation data – but we’re in luck, I have my ‘adjusted’ data – can I sell it now?
Interestingly a similar problem occurred with the disastrous DDT ban – there was not a new product, just the removal of one, so no FDA audit and millions of Africans died of Malaria needlessly (hmm, again, never mind, its only third world deaths).
There was infinitely more scrutiny of Viagra safety data than the world changing AGW [..wait, as a man I am totally OK with that priority 🙂 ]
Climate data risks lives – maybe the world, so its data, risk analysis and conclusions need auditing by an FDA-like body before being used for policy. I don’t get which part of this is not blindingly obvious to everyone?
The EPA might have been that body, but they admitted to rubber stamping the IPCC findings – an abdication of responsibility beyond my comprehension, unless politically driven.
In the absence of a Climate FDA-like body, legal means seem the only avenue to audit, so I say more power to this Cuccinelli in this endeavor, whatever his motives.
I generally agree with you, but on the idea of having the FEDS do an investigation…No way would I want that to happen. The current administration would never do it for one, and if they did it would just end up being a waste of time. We are far better off having the VA state AG do the investigation, if he finds something wrong you can be sure every other state AG will smell the blood and start snooping around. If the VA AG is even halfway successful, watch the finger pointing start anew. Stock up on popcorn folks, this should be a good show.
theduke says:
April 29, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Generally I’m opposed to heavy-handed legal investigations, and particularly when they involve scholarly work. But given the heavy-handedness of the EPA in recent months and Mann’s part in providing the science to legitimize that autocratic behavior, I think his work needs to be investigated.
In fact, the federal government needs to form a high-level commission to investigate all aspects of climate science and its theories and do an engineering grade study on the claims that are being made.
To that end, this may be a step in the right direction.
Why are there a flock of people (whom I’ve never seen post here before) coming in and asking us to pity Michael Mann, saying it’s an awful thing to persecute poor, humble scientists, and how the VA Attorney General is nothing but a (put your favorite ad hominem here)? I’d guess this is a sure sign that the Warmistas are really, really, REALLY frightened.
Hang him high, Cooch.
I posted a comment that apparently disappeared. The old wattsupwiththat format displayed it as pending commentator approval.
BillD,
What was that all about? You sound like an educrat protecting your gravy train. Are you saying that anything goes, as long as the grant money keeps coming in?
None of that matters in this situation. What matters is the evidence the AG has that convinced him to investigate Michael Mann. At this point, we are not privy to that information. [Don’t miss the short linked article at the Hook, and the interesting comments below it. Some are reasonable, and some are scientifically illiterate emotion. Anyone can add a comment.]
Maybe the AG is betting his career on this information demand, maybe not. But it appears that he has the authority to act:
The folks getting all riled up about Mann having to lay his cards on the table would be better off directing their energy against the EPA for preposterously labeling CO2 a “pollutant.”
That one deliberate misrepresentation, based completely on pseudo-science, and which made an end run around Congress, will cost us literally $Trillions. And for what benefit, exactly? Does anyone believe that CO2 will be forced below 1990 levels, with China, India, Russia, Brazil, and a hundred other countries in the picture, snickering at our national self destruction?
Anyway, I look forward to Michael Mann’s explanation of how he got peer reviewed by using an upside down chart. Who wants popcorn?
Clearly Mann is a poor scientist, and dogged to the point of petulance in defending his flawed statistical analysis, and the conclusions he draws from them.
Nevertheless, I am uneasy about using this form of attack. All scientists receive funding, and it is essential that they be able to pursue their research without fear that they may be called to account if they turn out to be wrong – an ever present possibility in science. Is this enquiry going to assess the quality of Mann’s science? On who’s advice? If so, I think a dangerous precedent could be set.
I don’t believe funding is the right tool to use to go after Mann. If the current enquiries did their job (!?!), he would be rightly “convicted” on scientific grounds, which is the basis on which this whole issue should be considered.
Global warming is about politics – the science has become irrelevant otherwise the scare would have ended long ago.
Unlike the (former) NY-AG Spitzer who scammed large corporations since it was easy money, Cuccinelli is playing global warming politics. There are too many Holdren’s and Chu’s around, so I appreciate what Cuccinelli is doing.
He was one of the first (and few) to challenge the EPA on the CO2 scam:
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=600&sid=1893914
Question with boldness!
(I sincerely suggest the rest of you need to spine up.)
Although this AG may be a political kind of guy, it is also possible that he intends to do an honest investigation. If so, I welcome it. Ideally, Mann should receive fair treatment, no more and no less. He should not be immune from investigation because he is a scientist.
As I understand it (I am not a lawyer), “fraud” as a legal term is difficult to prove. Several elements must be present and provable. It seems unlikely Mann will end up prosecuted for fraud, but if he actually did commit a crime against the taxpayers, then he should be.
It disappeared again.
You don’t have to post this, but I didn’t use to have problems posting on here and now it doesn’t work.
The VA AG is not interested in the science, but in Mann’s actions in enforcing the AGW agenda. Otherwise why would his principle interest be in emails. He is engaging in his own brand of politics to attack a fellow, possibly crooked, politician.
Dr. Mann chose politics over science a long time ago. He dressed his politics in science to be sure, but as many here understand, his science was crap and the only reason it got wide approval was its politics.
Now that the politics are changing, Mann and the others who chose that route are finding out what happens when political tides change.
I like this guy! 🙂
The purpose is not to use the power of the state as a club for some ideological witch hunt. It is to compel the release and disclosure of documents and data created at the public’s expense that, heretofore, Dr. Mann has refused to divulge. Honor the discovery request and nothing more will be heard on this issue for years – unless there IS a smoking gun.
Maybe it IS all about money. Don’t know if anyone else noticed this. Interesting list of co-patentholders, too (Al’s not on it, though).
Fannie Mae owns patent on residential ‘cap and trade’ exchange
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Fannie-Mae-owns-patent-on-residential-_cap-and-trade_-exchange-91532109.html#ixzz0mVG4RyGi
When he wasn’t busy helping create a $127 billion mess for taxpayers to clean up, former Fannie Mae Chief Executive Officer Franklin Raines, two of his top underlings and select individuals in the “green” movement were inventing a patented system to trade residential carbon credits. Patent No. 6904336 was approved by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office on Nov. 7, 2006 — the day after Democrats took control of Congress. Former Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., criticized the award at the time, pointing out that it had “nothing to do with Fannie Mae’s charter, nothing to do with making mortgages more affordable.” It wasn’t about mortgages. It was about greenbacks. The patent, which Fannie Mae confirmed it still owns with Cantor Fitzgerald subsidiary CO2e.com, gives the mortgage giant a lock on the fledgling carbon trading market, thus also giving it a major financial stake in the success of cap-and-trade legislation.
Various culpable universities and government bodies have been trying to cover Climategate up with their transparently rigged investigations.
This may be the only way to bring the necessary information out in the open.
When the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around. James Taylor
Unfortunately, it has come to this, but it always does anyway, legal action is the only way to stop them. They have not got the message that now the majority is sick and tired of it. This includes all the others promoting the farce (newspapers, journals, politicians, comercial interests etc) who know that it is a farce but continue to push it.
Nicely written, Anthony.
Sweeeeettt!
Hope he gets a cell next to Madoff, after he pays the VA taxpayers and the Federal taxpayers back. He and Gore have killed countess thousands already by conning gullible governments into diverting food to alcohol, and this just for starters.
[snip]
When Mann accepted the funding, he likely signed a piece of paper to the effect that, if requested, he would have to turn over all his work to the State. The A/G is just doing his job. With the odor of fraud in the air, the A/G would be irresponsible not to at least look things over. When you accept public money, that’s just part of the deal.
It will be interesting to see if Mann still has the documentation. If he can produce it, I doubt that any serious problems will be found since it is not likely to be a rigorous technical review of his work. The biggest problem for Mann will likely be an inability to produce the documents. His contract likely included a clause requiring him to keep everything safe and intact, which would include the original data as well as the “value added” type. The real bonus will be if all the documents are released as a result of this investigation.
This could be very interesting.
Anthony
My accusatory tone was directed at the quote from mpaul, who said that Mann stubbornly refuses to release data and code, when he clearly does, recently at least.
I didn’t take issue with the investigation at all. However, I’d notice that there has been a lot of talk here about the supposed misuse of UK taxpayer funds at UEA, not all by UK citizens.
1 Most likely the AG has dedicated a lot of hours into this case and is taking it forward because he has a strong case
2 To this point, we have seen no real legal cases because the witnesses to fraud and malfeasance have never had a phone call. No one has called Mcintyre. (this is a classic test for a coverup. They won’t call experts that may tell them what they do not want to hear.)
3 There are attorneys that specialize in dealing with proprietary information cases, employment law and research related property cases.
4 In the course of Mann going up the road to PSU, he would need to have a contract to compensate for work he took with him and performed at Virginia.
One of the earlier companies I ran, I had enough legal work to hire my own attorney from wall Street. It is a luxury to have in house council and prevent a lot of problems. I am very familiar with the Enron havoc. Very familiar.
Mann demonstrated fraud alongside the honest services theory like in Skilling’s case at Enron. When Hansen and Mann are into these head trips, they have blatant disregard for honesty. They won’t come out and say publically they really have no clue why is is getting cooler. Bring out the popcorn (salt free)
I just have to wonder why Cuccinelli is doing this? I can’t believe he’s just trying to get some money back into the state coffer. Possible reasons?
1. There is some existing knowledge of specific fraud; this investigation is to back it up.
2. Cucinelli wants the publicity.
3. Cucinelli wants to put AGW on trial.
4. There’s a potent political pressure to discredit Mann.
5. His college application was rejected by UVA.
Unless the reason is #1, I’m against this investigation.
Anthony — I think it would be interesting to conduct a quick reader poll of for or against this investigation.
For those worrying about the cost of fees if any funds are recovered: don’t sweat the small stuff. State lawyers aren’t paid on continguency. They are full-time salaried employees of the AG’s office. The state has to pay them anyway, even if they are only deciding how to construct new laws. Would you rather they were calling the SWAT team to prevent Teapartiers from singing “God Bless America?” Let’em do something useful for a change.
TOKYO – The Japanese Coast Guard has obtained an arrest warrant for the leader of the Sea Shepherd environmental group for its disruption of Japan’s annual whale hunts, local media reported Friday
This is off topic but explains this mess. Lisa Jackson, Mann and a carbon crisis cartel have gone too far and we reach a tipping point.
Some of us are conservative and conservationists. We have had enough false accusations about destroying the planet. We have done due diligance and know quacks when we encounter them.
Hopefully the first of many such actions against the ponzi scheme gang. They have ruined so many careers, caused the wasting of $trillion of dollars . . . they all have some ‘splaining to do.
Step 1, it is a good step.
Forget about the multi-trillion dollar fake carbon market
based on fake CAGW. What did he do to science?
For you fawning purists; here you go.
http://www.blip.tv/file/3539174
finally, someone with the courage to go after Mann. go for it.
i have no sympathy for those who argue against it. the battle is FAR from over:
26 April: BBC: Victoria King: Election 2010: Parties do battle over climate change
…for 90 minutes on Monday, Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem and Green representatives went head-to-head on the issue in front of bodies such as Greenpeace, Oxfam, Christian Aid and the WWF. ..
For the Lib Dems, Simon Hughes set his party up as the most ambitious of the main three on green matters. As Mr Miliband put it: “Simon says, ‘My plan is bigger than your plan’.”
There was conflict between Mr Hughes and Darren Johnson of the Greens, possibly because they share many of the same potential voters…
The Ask the Climate Question hustings was chaired by the environment editor of the Independent, Michael McCarthy, with questions ranging from nuclear power to emissions reductions..
***(Clark, Conservatives) “We’re all agreed on the ambitions and aspirations but what’s been lacking is action,” he said, promising to introduce a bill in the Queen’s Speech in a month or so’s time, if elected, to get going straight away.
Mr Clark came under fire for the number of Tory MPs and candidates that are climate change sceptics, but he insisted that wasn’t a problem. Asked about one such sceptic, in particular, he said: “I don’t agree with that guy, I’ve never heard of him.” ..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8644192.stm
29 April: Bloomberg: Deutsche Bank Says Tax Probe Targets Employees Who Trade Emission Credits
Prosecutors and tax investigators yesterday searched Deutsche Bank, HVB Group and RWE AG in a raid on 230 offices and homes to investigate 180 million euros ($238 million) of tax evasion. The probe targeted 150 suspects at 50 companies…
Yesterday’s raids were the biggest related to a fraud that may have tainted an estimated 7 percent of European Union carbon trades in 2009. The U.K., France and the Netherlands have also said they’re investigating “carousel fraud,” where traders buy and sell carbon permits, collect tax and disappear before turning it in to authorities…
http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-04-29/deutsche-bank-says-tax-evasion-probe-targets-seven-trading-floor-suspects.html
For all his flaws I’d never compare Mann to a witch. Perhaps we should give Mann a little credit and call this a hunt for the fox rather than a witch hunt.
One wonders what it was that moved Mann from U Va to Penn State.
This guy portrays one of the reasons I don’t care much for republicans either. They mix good sense with religious drivel, as in what the H E double toothpicks does sexual orientation have to do with anything? Discriminating against that is like telling me I can’t do something because I have red hair. Bizarre. Very bizarre. Anybody who wants to regulate someone else’s life and their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in any way, shape, or form, should be voted out of office. They are as bad as green democrats and are the other side of the same %&*$ coin!
George E. Smith at 6:13 pm
G, your morally right, as always. And I also detest overbearing government.
And…. I live with one of the premier grant writers in the whole country, has written 100’s of them, been awarded over $200 million and teaches her own grant writing-management courses. Two of the key tenets within those courses are: 1) The grantor can, at any time (and they do!) demand documentation on anything and everything, without cause, and especially HOW YOU ARE SPENDING THE MONEY! 2) If you failed to follow the rules (and there are MANY!) the Grantor can demand back ALL of the money for the smallest of errors, WITHOUT further (legal) action!
There are many ways grant awardees get themselves into trouble. Here are the two most often violated: You must write the grant to the RFP required results and then, if you get awarded, THAT is what you MUST do. In other words every grant/RFP (especially State & Federal) is very specific as to what it wants the awardees to be doing/accomplish. You MUSTY do that and nothing more.
Two, in ALL State & Federal grants (and most large foundation grants) there are budgets with multiple buckets of allocated $$ that are set-out in the grant when it is written. When you get the money you can NOT spend it anyway you want, disregarding what you wrote in the grant request. For example, you run a little short in one bucket because you didn’t underestimate the total of that expenditure, equipment let’s say. No mater how desperate, you CAN NOT take money from another bucket allocated for something else, EVEN if you OVER estimated that one. (Accept in the case of one typically small bucket and then you better check first if it’s okay.)
Do people do it out of ignorance or trying to get away with it? Sure. And every GOOD grant seeker AND ADMINISTRATOR knows and ACCEPTS that, the Grantor (in this case the State of VA via the AG) does not need suspicion of wrong doing, legal precedent, etc. or to have or give ANY reason for requesting the documentation that proves you did nothing wrong. Almost every grant is audited in some way at some point.
AND, UAV admin knows this fact and is ultimately responsible for what was done and how the money was spent. Why? Because it wasn’t given directly to Mann by the State. It was given (probably direct deposited) to UAV. UAV then doled it out. Oh, and kept a hunk for themselves. It’s called – “indirect” or sometimes “administration costs” and typically it’s not audit-able. That’s the small bucket I mentioned above. But it can be 20-30% or more….
While this needs to be done properly and fairly, in view of the fact that PSU completely dropped the ball in their own whitewash of Mann and his scientific misconduct, as documented in the UEA emails, this seems entirely appropriate.
To my mind, Mann’s own conduct in advocating public policy positions based on his misconduct and deception as documented in the Climategate emails has opened him up to this liability.
I had not looked at Mann’s background previously, but he was at UVA 6 years, exactly the time it takes an assistant professor to come up for tenure. Does anybody know if Mann was denied tenure by UVA in 2005. That would be a somewhat delicious bit of irony, and a bit of a belated credit to UVA for turning out this charlatan.
Ian H. at 5;52pm
The Virginia DA just got elected to a [I believe} four year term. I doubt very seriously he is posturing for re-election.
Commenters in general:
I don’t like witch hunts either but suppose the DA has something to go on. I
have been in court, mainly on juries, and Mann’s additude will be a disaster in
a court of law. He’s such a self satisified prick {MODERATOR_ I expect a snip}
I would be surprised if his lawyers can keep him under control.
Of course, the DA might be on a snipe hunt. [Had to get a bird in somehow.] On the other hand’ it would be hilarious if a legal snipe hunt brought down the greatest snipe hunt in history by the hockey stick gang.
Nick Stokes says:
April 29, 2010 at 7:46 pm
“My accusatory tone was directed at the quote from mpaul, who said that Mann stubbornly refuses to release data and code, when he clearly does, recently at least.”
Nope. You’ve changed the tense from the past to the present, ie “he stubbornly refuses”. You quoted mpaul: “But because he has stubbornly refused to release his data, code and methods”. “He has refused” is past tense. “He refuses” is present tense. This becomes more obvious when reading what mpaul said in context. So was this deliberate?
Peter Wilson says:
April 29, 2010 at 7:20 pm
“Is this enquiry going to assess the quality of Mann’s science?”
In my opinion, this would not assess Mann’s ‘science’, only assess scientific fraud, for example,
was “hide-the-decline” data manipulation ?
Did he prevent critics from publishing evidence disproving his findings without a scientific reason?
Did he make untrue statements, though he must have known better?
My first thought is “way to go, Cooch.” My second thought was that it may not be good policy to go after scientists with whom you disagree. However, Mann, violated several of the canons of good scientific research by not being forthcoming with data and methods (see McIntyre, et al) and, apparently, being part of the clique seeking to stifle comment and dissent. Had he been an honest scientist, who presented data and methods and reacted to critique and comment by changing methods or refuting the comments, he would, in my mind, be untouchable. Not the case. His story is almost “the dog ate my homework” when critics tried to get data.
Go, Cooch, wins in this case.
One more thing. As a thinking woman with an appreciative eye, good looking men can become quite ugly quickly when they open their mouths too much.
That said, more power to this man from Virgina regarding global warming and state grants. Go after Mann with guns a-blazing!
Going after the money might be a very good approach to Mann malfeasance. After all it was a tax evasion case which brought down Al Capone. How dare I compare Al Capone to Michael Mann. Have at it trolls and warmists.
I think we’ve been misled intentionally by Hansen, Mann, et al, and that a thorough investigation would show that to be the case. Given the potential ultimate cost to the public of our government adopting all of the AGW recommendations (which might well have happened if Climategate had not occurred, and still might, given our present extreme left-wing government) and that Hansen and Mann were at the center of the propaganda effort, I say more power to the AG.
If this was mostly made up, and it would certainly appear that the Hockey Stick was, then the perpetrators do indeed belong in jail. If they have to get there via an intentional misuse of grant money, that’s fine with me. Al Capone went in for tax evasion, after all, and not for all of the more egregious crimes he supposedly committed.
In my opinion, Mann and Hansen left the world of science long ago, choosing instead to join the cabal seeking control over massive injections of tax revenue via the AGW scam. Madoff cost investors billions; Mann/Hansen/Gore/Pachuri were seeking to cost taxpayers trillions. I have absolutely no problem with the legal system seeking to bring this nonsense to a halt as soon as practicable. And if a few people do jail time as a result, I’ve no doubt that they’ve done more than enough to deserve it.
This is not a witch hunt. This is simple justice. Lie, cheat, defraud; go to jail. If they did nothing, they have nothing to fear. The AGW crowd will willingly cover Mann’s costs in this if he whines loudly enough, as he no doubt will. And if he has less time for his “science” in the next few months, science will be the better for it.
Quoting:
Leon Brozyna: “Take Mann out to the woodshed and show him a new use for a hockey stick.”
Commenting:
Leon, I think a hockey stick might have been used that way once or twice in your actual hockey games. Perhaps not in the orderly way you seem to have in mind, I reckon. 😉
Jeff L says:
April 29, 2010 at 6:33 pm
… put the show on the other foot. What if it were a left wing politico coming after Anthony, in purely a witch hunt mode? No one would be too stoked then.
—-
Why would Anthony be subjected to a politician’s witch hunt? On what grounds? He’s not working on the public dime, unlike Mann. No, we would not be “stoked” if Anthony were under attack, but Anthony’s work is not jeopardizing our livelihoods and way of life and can be defended under simple freedom of speech. Mann has not simply being doing research, he’s courted public attention and made himself into a media figure. He was very happy to see his ‘science’ become the basis of public policy, even while he denied skeptics access to the data upon which his conclusions were made. As Reed Coray says above, in a comment that sums things up beautifully
“If I were Dr. Mann (heaven forbid) and I had uncovered some “science” that I believed showed that the world will end unless we immediately invoke procedures A, B, C, etc., I would BEG people to examine my work to either confirm my conclusions or show me where I was wrong. The last thing I would do is hide my work from anyone, but especially from people expressing a sceptical view.”
#
HaroldW says:
April 29, 2010 at 5:36 pm
More intimidation is not going to help to resolve the scientific questions in dispute, and this is clearly an attempt to intimidate.
I don’t see any attempt to intimidate here, although there’s been plenty of that on the AGW side (as you note in your comment). I just see a desire by the AG to find out if the funding was not used appropriately.
And as for finding “a smoking gun like … Climategate” — please. The Climategate papers did not show fraud. They showed collusion and intimidation, bias in presenting conclusions, and reluctance and/or inability to provide data and algorithms which would allow a fair criticism of their work, among other behaviors. While I would criticise this behavior as not professional, it falls well short of legal fraud.
The problem here is not legal fraud, it is scientific fraud. “Collusion and intimidation”, “bias in presenting conclusions” (fraudulent conclusions) and refusing to share the data and algorithms on which those conclusions are based constitute fraudulent science. This, in an unpoliticized atmosphere, should be enough to have certain individuals ejected from their positions, or at least censured and blocked from further funding. In the absence of a willingness to act on these documented abuses of scientific process by the academic world, and in light of the fact that the results of this fraudulent science are being actively pushed into the political and public policy domains, it is incumbent upon political leaders who are doing their job to investigate. I do worry, however, about the ability to find unbiased experts to assist in this investigation.
The chilling effect of such investigations as Mr. Cuccinelli proposes (a) is not going to help free and open inquiry into the science; (b) is likely to be used against the open-minded as well as the closed-minded; and (c) can only distract attention from the real scientific issues involved. In addition, this will only tend to de-legitimize the skeptic approach to the topic, in public opinion, by associating this bad behavior with climate skeptics.
Rubbish. Free and open inquiry into the science was stifled long ago by political correctness and the name calling of critics of the AGW ‘mainstream’, which intimidated those who saw problems with the science into keeping quiet for fear of losing their own funding. The open-minded got no encouragement in that scenario, and how on earth would you typify who would be under similar political investigations as either open- or close-minded? If scientists simply did their jobs, and provided the data and information needed for proper review by all stakeholders, there would be no need for legal or other investigations of this nature.
The worst that generally happens to good scientists is to see their work ignored or rejected; I know of one fisheries scientist who worked for NOAA, who saw all of his [essentially correct] projections of future problems with tuna stocks at the then- current fishing levels hushed up and ignored. He may even have been told to destroy his report. This was decades ago – back in the 1970s. Again, science got perverted by the hiding of information, but this time not by the scientist. Mann is only getting the attention he deserves, even if it’s no longer the kind he courted. I doubt that the legal process will turn up much, as the real trial has to occur in the court of science, but it will be interesting to see.
You besmirch the name of Al Capone, Stan Stendera!
Wikipedia defines witch hunt as follows:
QUOTE
The term “witch-hunt” is often used by analogy to refer to panic-induced searches for perceived wrong-doers other than witches. The best known example is probably the McCarthyist search for communists during the Cold War which was discredited partly through being compared to the Salem witch trials.
UNQUOTE
I know nothing and care less about the politics of the VA AG.
I see no evidence of a panic induced search for wrong doers.
Mann’s scientific methods have been well documented by M&M, Wedgman and others.
The AG is merely looking for evidence that will stand up in court.
The science is already in.
Unfortunately, it has been ignored for far too long.
I like many other contributors to this thread, do not like the intrusion of the law into matters, such as science, that are better handled by more appropriate techniques.
But the AGW ill use of the scientific method has been going on for thirty years.
The costs are now mounting rapidly into the many billions of dollars.
Enough is enough.
The scientific community, by their lack of action have demonstrated that they are unable or unwilling to correct the situation, left to their own devices.
It’s time now for the law to act.
The scam cannot be allowed to continue.
Please o’ please witch hunt to the full extent of the Virginia law, maybe Mann will come clean and start talking. This whole AGW, cap n’ trade nonsense has got to be exposed for the pure scam it truly is. I say to scientists on all sides of the debate, go study the situation and come back in a hundred years when maybe just maybe we will have obtained significant a breadth of knowledge and confidence of cause and effect with regard to the global climate.
For now stop the insanity which truly is the corruption and wealth distribution strategy of the AGW “inner” circle, for the good of humanity. If you cant defend you position either in the political or scientific arenas maybe your spewing pure nonsense and should just stop. I think people in the masses are just completely and utterly tired of with being force fed “science” for some “cause” or “personal goodness”.
Witch Hunt oh ya I be the first to start piling the sticks.
I have just made a long post that wnet into the ether.
In short – I don’t like the law entering into scientific disputes either.
But the scientific community has failed to act,
despite clear evidence of Mann’s methods (M&M, Wedgman etc).
This is far bigger than the scientific community.
It has already cost taxpayers many billions of dollars
and threatens much much more.
Peer Review has failed.
Legal action is, unfortunately, now required.
Jim says:
April 29, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Jim, does that mean you don’t want the government to fund medical research as well? what about research into the safety of the water and food you drink? should that go away too?
Small potatoes….if the Republicans regain the US Senate, just wait for Sen. Jim Inhofe to regain his former position as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Now THAT would lead to some interesting headlines for sure! We’ll see….
Y’all are wise in the ways of the world.
An investigation is not a conviction. An honest man has nothing to fear from an investigation. Further, the climate gate emails and many public comments from the alarmists have called for firings, banning, civil lawsuits, and physical violence against skeptics. And in fact many of the evils that have been called for by the crowd in which Mann runs were acted out on skeptics. I think an investigation without prejudiced is absolutely appropriate and actually anything less would be immoral. Here is a person who took $500,000 in taxpayer money, taxpayers have a right to know if the money was spent on science or politics given the evidence of climate gate. Even if no conviction comes of the evidence, there is nothing like the truth to clean up corruption.
But how do we know if he is a witch?
I know we can build a bridge out of him
-Monte Python
It would be funny if the EPA weren’t about to destroy our economy over this fraud
Some are arguing against Cuccinelli on the grounds that you don’t like to let conservatives have too much power in science any more than you like to let leftists have too much power. But this makes little sense, either in theory or as applied to this Cuccinelli case.
Theory-wise, it matters nothing whether the one creating or using science is leftist or conservative. All that matters is whether what he says is true and evidentially justified. In this case, either Cuccinelli is right that there has been possible malfeasance by a crook scientist or he is wrong about that. There is no evidence that Cuccinelli is doing anything that might turn out to be malfeasance. Do we know that Mann innocently spent the monies? No.
Some wax libertarian, arguing that one should like the government poking its nose into science. But libertarians are not in favor of crooks thriving on government expenditures procured through lies.
Just the facts, ma’am. Leave politics out of it.
The popcorn industry would like to thank everyone involved. The way all this is twisting and turning will need enough analysis to keep statisticians busy for decades. There’s a climate signal in there someplace.
Yes, it leaves a nasty taste, but which extreme do you prefer? – a Cuccinelli style witch hunt or a British government committee style whitewash? Mann seems at present unassailable; even if the process proves a long dragged out one, it will take the wind out of his sails.
And we should never forget that he’s quite prepared to use the force of the law against the Minnesotan satirists.
As a researcher at a public university where the “Old Boys Club” rules and whistleblowing seldom does any good, I applaud Mr. Cuccinelli.
Reed, Rod, vigilantfish, and AusieDan — well put.
It seems no one is much upset when universities do a once over and declare everything peachy keen. But if someone with real power and the ability to deal out real punishments for fraud gets involved then things have gone too far. If the University of Penn felt there should be an investigation why shouldn’t the governments who did the actual funding also feel that way?
Do you not think the hockey stick is clear evidence of malfeasance?
Why should they tread very carefully if they are enquiring about the use of public funds? The customer, or the customer’s representative, should always be allowed to ask about the use of their funds. You should tread very carefully when implying otherwise.
An attorney general isn’t a bureaucrat, and it’s silly to think that state attorneys can’t get their hands around the science issues.
I really couldn’t care less who this AG is or what his motives are. Whether or not this could be considered a witch-hunt is irrelevant. The fact is, we NEED this investigation to happen. Mann and all the rest of these scientist wannabes need to be brought down one way or another.
I also agree that every aspect of work backed by government funding should be made public. If I’m paying for this crap I have the right to know EXACTLY how my money is being put to use.
Many people think that discrimination based on sexual orientation is a big issue.
Actually, states do regulate many such types of regulation. Are you against that?
The problem is that it’s illegal for public universities to extend rights to state employees prior to those rights being made law. Virginia hasn’t yet afforded state employees protection rights against discrimination based on sexual orientation. However, when it does, I’m sure Cuccinelli will enforce such law.
Sorry, I meant to type. “Actually, states do regulate many such types of discrimination.”
As a red-blooded libertarian, I do not agree with all the AG’s controversial moves.
However…most of them, I do. That is why I voted for him.
When it comes to, in his short term so far, of having the kahunas to flip the proverbial middle finger at the Feds by petitioning the egregious EPA findings, or suing the Feds for the unconstitutionality of the written-in “coercion” of the healthcare bill, or taking on the malfeasance of the Hockey Team as it relates to the public funds that I helped pay for out of my paycheck while Mann was at UVA…I say “give ’em hell, Ken!!”
And to Henry Chance…I really enjoy your legal perspective on what is going on throughout these events.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I couldn’t disagree more.
I don’t think it’s essential that scientists taking public funds be able to pursue their research without fear that they may be called to account if they turn out to be wrong.
In fact, I want scientists to fear that they may be called to account if they turn out to be wrong using public funds. An engineer or contractor building a public bridge or public building will surely be called to account if they turn out to be wrong.
I want scientists to stop throwing caution to the wind. We see far too many cases of overreaching conclusions these days. It’s time to pull the reigns in.
This is an audit. No big deal. If he is above board then there is nothing for him to worry about. A lot of people get audited.
You cannot love science and support the defiant refusal to share information at the same time. There is a bad smell here that only sunshine can cure. How appropriate that the home state of Thomas Jefferson would undertake this inquiry.
I commented some months ago that I thought they were vulnerable to a suit for treble damages under the False Claims Act. Apparently PA has a state version of the federal act. To the extent that Mann and the university collected federal funds they are still vulnerable to a federal action. Under federal law a False Claims suit need not wait for the feds to act. A private party could bring the suit as a qui tam action and participate in part of the recovery.
Rocky Road 8:59 pm
I thought about who I could use instead of Al Capone. No one really met the criterion. I do agree I defamed Capone.
If you want to know what I really think about Mann scroll up to my earlier post about Mann. You can make your own conclusions about that comment.
By any of the laws of logic, if the scientific community whose rule is: “beyond reasonable” doubt has supported Mann, then there is no way that a legal case based on the “balance of probabilities” would have a chance.
The irony is I think a court of law is far more likely to find mann “guilty” than any group of his scientific “peers”. This clearly shows that the science community is far too willing to “turn a blind eye” to wrongdoing by other “scientists” and rather than requiring assertions to be “true beyond reasonable doubt”, it seems to me the general scientific community are supporting the idea that scientists can say whatever they like trash the statistics, politicise the subject and they will never be held to account unless it is proven beyond all reasonable doubt that they definitely unequivocally …. Oh, they’ve retired, too late to do anything.
I’m not sure what evidence the AG has to pursue Mann, but it can only be for misuse of public funds. As odious as he is, I don’t believe Dr. Mann has misappropriated funds, or at least not to the extent that it will be found out/important enough to bring him to trial. Once cleared of misappropriating public funds the CAGW camp will trumpet that this proves he’s (a) a matry and (b) a scientist of unimpeachable integrity whose science has been proved correct by the inability of the Virginia government to provide any evidence of malfeasance.
If he isn’t cleared they will say (a) he is the victim of a witchunt and (b) a scientist of unimpeachable integrity whose science whose science is beyond reproach.
He can’t lose.
Al Gored says: April 29, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Recall: “February 10, 2008: Canadian Environmentalist David Suzuki Calls for skeptical leaders to be thrown ‘into jail’ […]
=====
Indeed he did. And his call was somewhat more temperately echoed recently by another Canadian group, West Coast Environmental Law, who asked (March 26/10),
Who lacks the sense to make a monument to consequences, will make a monumental to sacrifice.
Those who love life, on the other hand, will test the power of ‘NO’. It’s not just a pretty word.
Sorry mods, looks like I messed up on that blockquote attempt … it’s eaten my cited text 🙁
Please note the action involves the University of Virginia directly
and Mike Mann only tangenitally … so far.
If the UofV has the information Attorney General Cucinelli is seeking, then
their former Professor Mann need not be bothered.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
April 29, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Small potatoes….if the Republicans regain the US Senate, just wait for Sen. Jim Inhofe to regain his former position as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
It is possible that Republican will win back the Senate in November. Barbara Boxer in California is one of the key races. If she loses that could tip the scales. It is still close but it is obvious she is worried. She has disappeared from the national spotlight and is completely focusing on November. She had been an important player in Cap N Trade. But not a peep has been heard from her in it’s latest incarnation.
A lot has come to the surface since Republicans lost control of the Senate. Inhofe could have a parade of corruption about global warming for America to behold. I hope Glenn Beck lives to see the day Inhofe marches out the corruption he revealed about Cap N Trade on his show tonight. It was the hardest hitting piece of investigative journalism probably since Watergate. I genuinely pray for protection for Glenn Beck after what I saw him reveal on tv tonight. Barak Obama/Van Jones/AFL-CIO/George Soros/SCIU/Franklin Raines/Fannie Mae/Goldman-Sachs/’The Emerald City’—it was all in there. I wish there was video of it available on the internet!
If it is true that any data fed into Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick graph code produces a hockey stick shape then it is an open and shut case!
Leaves a nasty taste in my mouth too, but the choice seems to be do we want a witch hunt or a British government style whitewash? That said, I can’t feel much sympathy for a man who is willing to use the force of the law to silence a satirical web site. Seems like he’s in for some unpleasant exposure whatever happens.
Never seen so many trolls, warmists and folks with bleeding hearts for Meltdown Mann (of all people!) on WUWT.
Fortunately, many of the people who have been posting on here for years (when I was only lurking) have pointed out a few good home truths.
The “scientific community” have been almost criminally irresponsible in their refusal to provide proper scrutiny of what has been going on in climate science, even when there has been absolutely clear evidence of very bad scientific practice, absolutely incompetent statistical procedures and some barefaced fraud. And persistent and brazen refusal to release raw data and methodology to independent scrutiny.
Meanwhile the whole AGW hypothesis has been picked up and hyped up by scientifically illiterate politicians, the mass media, and high finance scam artists. And, oh yes! by the European Union and the United Nations.
The recent climategate “enquiries” in the UK have been amongst the most pathetic whitewashes you can imagine. The politicians of every major party in the UK, campaigning for next week’s election, are in a frenzy to prove that their green agenda is greener than the other party’s green agenda.
Meanwhile the economy is going to hell on a handcart. So much money is already being wasted on useless measures (which will have absolutely zero effect on the climate) that we could have realistically used it to transform the lives of many of the world’s poorest people.
So if the US legal system can achieve just a little scrutiny and transparency in the case of Meltdown Mann and his hockey stick, then I for one will be absolutely delighted.
And if Mann finishes up sitting in Al Capone’s old cell then I think it would be just deserts.
This is a culmination of a decade of anti-science propaganda from media outlets like Fox News. The tactics are the same as those used by Holocaust deniers and Evolution deniers – pull the scientists into court where they will be “exposed on the stand”.
I believe Mann is a good scientist, but that is not the crux of the the matter. Should scientists be in a position where they can be sued to return grant money when their research turns out to be a failure? Where does that leave all scientists and all academics?
This is also about an ambitious politician trying to prove himself – like Richard Nixon did with Alger Hiss. Hiss was probably guilty but that is not the point here. What is to stop any politician jumping on any bandwagon-of-the-month and prosecuting any scientist or academic who has received a grant?
American science has already been dragged through the mud by the crazy Evolution Wars. Do you really want American science to drop further behind because for the sake of the Tea Party or election victories? Do you really want scientists from the academy to be at the mercy of ambitious popiticians? If you do, then I am sure Stalin and Lysenko would surely have agreed with you.
Here’s an interesting post, from a Feb. 1 WUWT thread on the Penn State investigation of Mann::
HankHenry 8:32 pm
If Mann is a fox let’s let the hounds out.
As I read this in a country which is run by bureaucrats and self-righteous NGOs who answer to no one, it would be impossible for me to praise American democracy too highly. Treasure it; if you let it slip away, you’ll never get it back.
For this reason alone, it is worth supporting a suit against anyone suspected of misusing taxpayers’ money to deliver a political result — pour encourager les autres.
And now, more importantly, may we have some more pictures of Mr Cuccinelli, please?
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
April 29, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Small potatoes….if the Republicans regain the US Senate, just wait for Sen. Jim Inhofe to regain his former position as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Now THAT would lead to some interesting headlines for sure! We’ll see….
Those were my thoughts when I first read some of the more alarmed comments here.
Sen. Inhofe is already on record calling for criminal investigations. If , as looks likely, the Republicans do well in November the whole atmosphere ( pun intended ) surrounding “Climate Science” may become very hot indeed.
Oh, no. You mean the govt is going investigate the people are they giving money to?
Oh, the horror.
So, that might mean people will less willing to take grant money.
Oh, it going to ruin the world!
No longer are people going to get free ride from the tax payer.
Something must be done to stop this madman.
Is Gavin Schmidt now moderating these comments? Or has everyone suddenly gone soft in the tree-ring department?
BillD,
You think that lawyers don’t sign off on grants now? Wow. Did you just not think that statement through before you typed it?
I was at UVa between 2000 and 2003 inclusive. The man who was hired in part to replace Mann when Mann left for Penn State is a friend whom I met before he came to UVa through his then fiance who was a grad student at UVa.. He got his job because he is a good scientist. He is a good scientist who believes in AGW. I can absolutely guarantee you that no matter what his caliber as a scientist if he had applied for that position and NOT been an AGW proponent he would never have gotten the job.
When *this* changes I’ll start to worry about your concern regarding a chilling effect from Cuccinelli looking into potential misuse of funds provided by the state.
Need I remind anyone that Mann got his job at UVa in part because of his “sexy” hockey stick that was almost certainly a centerpeice of most or all of his grant applications while still at UVa and that there’s now quite compelling evidence the “science” which Mann engaged in to produce that plot has come under some level of scrutiny? If money awarded based on that sort of behavior can’t be questioned because of fear about some chilling effect, then we shouldn’t be putting tax-payer money into scence research at all.
And, by the way, I rely largely on tax-payer money for all of my efforts.
””’By Jim on April 29, 2010 at 4:52 pm
If the government got out of funding science, this wouldn’t be a problem. We need to save money, this looks like a good place to start.””’
Jim,
I agree that encouragement of a basically non-gov’t approach to funding scientific research is a good way to minimize the political bias in climate science.
John
Haha anyone looking like the devils apprentice and are raising hell for the possibility of mismanagement of public funds, well that person got my support.
I wonder if Mann on a schtick still thinks he can afford it? :p
all I can say bring it on the quicker the better
Let’s not be nasty to the poor wittle Mann. Sure, he’s as crooked as that hockey schtick, but this witch hunt is going TOO far. You’re just a bunch of bullies. And there’s more of you than them, so it’s not a fair fight. Could you consider maybe tying one hand behind your backs, just to even things up a little?[/sarc]
HR says: April 29, 2010 at 4:28 pm
This is ugly! You may not like him or the work he has done but using the minutiae of the law to bring the man down is going a bit far. I thought you freedom loving Americans wanted the State off peoples backs.
Oh mann, great logic. Yes, we libertarians want less government. Where do you draw the line? Certainly you agree we need to prosecute murderers, rapists, pedophiles, etc. Fraud involving government funding, umm. One thing you’re not considering is that we also firmly disapprove of stupidly asinine government spending. I consider all of Mann’s Yamal tree infested statistics in that catagory. This attorney is being paid a salary. At this point it has cost the State of Virginia some computer time and a certified mailing fee. If he finds something worth prosecuting, then the costs go up. If nothing else, as already suggested above, an open admission of how he fudged the data will be money well spent.
The legal probe is not about a single possibly mistaken grant application, it is about 20 year history of alleged distortion of science, which threatens to trash the world economies and science itself.
If that is why you want the AG to take action, then, to me, this is wrong. The AG should be doing this if only there is suspicion that the money didn’t go where it was supposed to go. If that is explicitly what this is about, then OK. If he’s doing this to try and knock down flawed science? Sorry, that’s not his job. Thanks to the skeptical community (us) and the internet, the world community is slowly but surly starting to ask questions that needs to be asked – more and more people are no longer accepting AGW with absolute blind faith. It’s going slowly, but the science IS refuting some of the results of the Hockey Stick type studies. Slowly but surly, the MWP is rising back into prominence. The Mannites cannot keep their thumbs on the scales forever.
Again, if this is strictly about misappropriation of funds, then fine. If it’s about a conservative AG’s political witch hunt trying to prove the science is a fraud through the court, rather than through science, then this is a VERY bad idea. The courts are NOT the place to decide science – John Edwards and cerebral Palsy comes to mind. When thinking about policy decisions, I always try and put the shoe on the other foot. What will happen when a “True Believer” AG decides to go after Pat Michaels or Richard Lindzen in the same manner, simply because they disagree with the science?
PS. No offense to any witches who might get angry at being associated with Mann – please don’t turn me into a newt! 🙂
That’s quite a strawman. All the AG has done is subpoena documents from the UV. It’s an audit (or so it appears).
Here’s my rhetorical question: Should grant recipients be in a position where no one can check out if they misused the money they were appropriated?
Sonicfrog says: April 30, 2010 at 5:12 am
Again, if this is strictly about misappropriation of funds, then fine. If it’s about a conservative AG’s political witch hunt trying to prove the science is a fraud through the court, rather than through science, then this is a VERY bad idea. The courts are NOT the place to decide science
Sonicfrog. Forget the word “science”, perhaps you would better understand the issue if I said that this is a group of people who have told the world that as experts in the subject they are absolutely certain that mankind is heating the globe (in public) and then we find out that in private they are actively talking about the fact the evidence points at alternatives like sulphates to explain the temperature record.
Whether it is an attorney giving legal advice, a doctor giving medical advice or a climate “expert” giving advice on the climate, government must expect that the funding it gives and the advice it receives is totally without any suspicion of fraud. Indeed because of their special position in society, the onus is on the experts to prove (when required) that they have not acted fraudulently rather than experting us to treat them as some special case of expert knowledge unless we can prove they were acting fraudulently.
All this investigation is doing, is asking Mann to prove he acted as any government employed expert should – that is nothing to do with “proving the science” and everything to do with the integrity of his working methods: whether his has acted impartially in the public interest when he uses public funds.
jorgekafkazar says: April 29, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Why are there a flock of people (whom I’ve never seen post here before) coming in and asking us to pity Michael Mann, saying it’s an awful thing to persecute poor, humble scientists, and how the VA Attorney General is nothing but a (put your favorite ad hominem here)? I’d guess this is a sure sign that the Warmistas are really, really, REALLY frightened.
Because there’s a mailing list being sent out to all subscribers asking them to go to specific sceptic boards and ‘scupper’ the discussion there with pro-AGW views. This was reported on WUWT recently, I’m sure.
Just a couple more legal points.
1 The grantee is the University of Virginia. That is why they were named. The checks didn’t go to Mann
2 The grantee provides administration of the grant and reports on benchmarks required for progress in funding (someone mentioned buckets of monies)
3 In the course of litigation, this strategy may cause Virginia to side with the accuser and against Mann.
4 There will be some turnover at schools. It can be because Penn State wants a fancy name added to their high profile strategy, it may be because Mann is just a tad careless and frequently in the doghouse with Virginia by reason of not being up to snuff on reports, compliance issues or even prudent use of funds. It will come out.
5 What are the presenting problems?
a. Was there fraud?
b Was there a severe shortcoming under the test of expectations of meeting
honest services theory for the stake holders
c Was there mismanagement of resources in the program?
d In the course of the intangible, was this a fabricated concept and a study to find the pink unicorn, a genetic relationship with it’s common ancestor the lochness monster and not even a revelant hypothesis or study. (Was this an abuse of science?)
Peter Wilson says:
April 29, 2010 at 7:20 pm
“…..Nevertheless, I am uneasy about using this form of attack. All scientists receive funding, and it is essential that they be able to pursue their research without fear that they may be called to account if they turn out to be wrong – an ever present possibility in science….”
If you are in industry working in science and you are found to have falsified data or are incapable of preforming the job, you get sacked. I have fired several scientists and techs for those very reasons.
Now tell me why academic scientists using MY tax money should not be held to the same standards as other scientists. If Mann was playing games with the funding and that includes lying on the grant application, then he needs to be called to account.
Is this case a witch Hunt at tax payers expense? Valid question
Is this a witch hunt?
1 Obama is sending SWAT teams to board drilling platforms. from the department of the Interior
A. The department of the Interior doesn;’t have SWAT teams
B Swat teams with bullet proof vests etc? Are there armed terrorists and gangs on the rigs?
C. The fire was 9 days ago. The rig in question is long gone.
D Is this a publicity stunt for the Green peace crowd and appeasement and demand for environmental justice?
2 Accusing people of a witch hunt at severe taxpayer expense is now a common defense for the guuilty parties
3 Are show trials beneficial for gaining points for re election? For Obama For above mentioned AG?
4 Will lack of dramatic response result in being targeted and a loss of popularity?
This guy is hilarious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-3nkQYONic
A Birther who wants to start a new Scopes Monkey Trial.
I hope it’s all televised, this time:
previous attempt to use the courts to try to control Science
And the funniest part – the University he hopes to prove incompetent – is where he got his first college degree. Maybe UVA will review lots of documents and find that they made a mistake:
his Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering was awarded in error.
Which would make his acceptance into the George Mason University School of Law, another public university in Virginia, invalid. Which would nullify his JD, which would make him ineligible to be AG.
Keep digging, Ken.
Pops says:
April 30, 2010 at 3:46 am
Is Gavin Schmidt now moderating these comments? Or has everyone suddenly gone soft in the tree-ring department?
_____________________________________________________________________
The best thing about WUWT is that the only remarks censored are those that are way off topic or off-color. Freedom of speech is allowed here.
Anu,
There’s one pertinent detail you’re leaving out: the Attorney General has wide latitude in investigating possible wrongdoing. He can dig as deep as he wants, for as long as it takes to make a determination on whether to prosecute.
None of your strawman arguments amount to a hill of beans. It is Michael Mann who needs to be concerned at this point. And he clearly is, turning away all requests to tell his side of the story. Prior to the AG’s investigation, Mann was a real Chatty Cathy doll: pull his string, and out came the arrogant talking points.
But now, Mann and others will be forced to answer, under oath, anything the AG questions them about. This has never happened to any alarmist grant beggars before, and it will be mighty interesting to watch.
Queen1 says:
April 29, 2010 at 4:59 pm: I have no comments on his actions, but I would definitely like to see more pictures!”
You got that right! LOL
I’d love to see Mann get his comeuppance, but this guy seems to be doing this for ideological reasons rather than for any disclosure of truth. That makes me uneasy. I want Mann to be taken down, but I want it to be done fairly, ethically, and objectively.
(Ordering public universities to take out “sexual orientation” from their anti-discriminatory statements? Seriously? A little too far to the fringe for my taste.)
toby says:
April 30, 2010 at 1:23 am
(…)
Do you really want scientists from the academy to be at the mercy of ambitious popiticians? If you do, then I am sure Stalin and Lysenko would surely have agreed with you.
——————-
Reply:
May I borrow your own phrase and, based on the “ambitious scientist” meme, refine the argument with this more pertinent question:
Do you really want civilization and the very essence of science to be at the mercy of ambitious scientists?
Your support of Mann as a “scientist” is puzzling, very puzzling indeed. But your questions “Should scientists be in a position where they can be sued to return grant money when their research turns out to be a failure? Where does that leave all scientists and all academics?” are completely misdirected. Why? Because good science has no moral position–it can neither be a success or a failure in that context; it just IS. However, public funding of science has certain guidelines that cannot be crossed. We’ll see what the AG finds–I’m sure, contrary to Mann, he’ll share his results.
Anu says:
April 30, 2010 at 6:13 am
And the funniest part – the University he hopes to prove incompetent – is where he got his first college degree.
——————-
Reply: It isn’t the university he hopes to prove incompetent–it is Michael Mann. Based on what we’ve seen of Mann’s specious “science” and his academic reticence, that shouldn’t be difficult.
This is the part about politics I hate. You have to decide whether or not to stomach some odorous side of a person in order to benefit from the part that can do some good. This is true of living in Oregon as well. The odorous part of our state’s laws and regulations get my nickers in a bunch. Which is one of the reasons why I am about as far away from the I5 corridor as you can get and still be an Oregonian. Heck, even Pendleton, with its ban on wood heat on inversion days gets to me.
Anymore, there isn’t a state in the Union that adheres to our founding constitution regarding the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If one class of people, though honest and contributing, can be discriminated against and denied these unalienable rights, someone, somewhere, will come after you and your rights. The politician we are discussing seems unclear about this historically well-attested behavior.
Yes.
Darned right they should – unless they disclose their failure.
Otherwise, scientists have no fear about taking public funds to generate over-reaching conclusions.
Oops — I’ve reread the story about the investigation. It looks as though the AG is going to try to find a smoking gun e-mail or document indicating knowing fraud in construction of the hockey stick. That would be almost impossible to prove. There’d need to be evidence much more incriminating than anything in the Climategate e-mails.
Still, there just might be something of that nature. It’s worth a look. It would be foolish not to look.
Another Obvious Troll says:
April 30, 2010 at 5:03 am
Could you consider maybe tying one hand behind your backs, just to even things up a little?[/sarc]
Maybe Mother Nature could tie one of the Poles ice behind her back so She has only one in a growing trend instead of both. That would help the trolls a little too.
toby says:
April 30, 2010 at 1:23 am
Toby,
You’ve been spending too much time under the bridge.
Ever since the leak from the University of East Anglia that the whole cabal (at least the US participants) were headed for trouble.
They are going to be investigated, indicted, and otherwise piloried to the point that their careers were ruined the day the leak occured.
Hanson, Mann, Trenburth et al are facing real trouble from many fronts.
The chance of any of them getting any more grants is between slim and none.
[snip – we don’t discuss chemtrails here]
Many of you are now so concerned and consider this a witchhunt from the gov? LOL. Sure, like it hasn’t been pointed out that Mann is a fraud to the core and he is in no way concerned with truth/facts or other… only what his masters tell him.
The govs grant money is MY, YOUR, money. Should it be thrown away? Or, if you knew that all one had to do was fill in “due to AGW” that they would get funding, even on the most preposterous studies? How about your grant money going to a study of “the effect of a child only having one pair of shoes to wear to school” (this was found in another article, so I don’t know if it true, but you can only imagine the nonsense being funding in our ‘higher’ institutions. If it is their money, let them fund it, or else the public should have a period of access to either voice a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote on which issues should be funded… say in grants over $100k, for example.
Real science/studies are often NOT funded because they go against the status quo, not necessarily because they have no value. Time and time again researchers that would put the advancement of science/med/life first often had their funding canceled because profits of another company would cease, or the military’s uses of technology would be proved (found out), etc.
When someone is caught in a scandal using public money, they should be investigated and it is a shame the entire fed gov has NOT been the ones to do this… we all know why, of course. Bho is heavily funded by, and receives lots of power, from his agw friends.
How much evidence does one need before you’d have an investigation take place? Like many have said… this is science. If the data and practices are sound, it could only reinforce their position.
Bryn says:
April 29, 2010 at 5:52 pm
…Only for $500,000? Yes it is a large sum, but what will the lawyers fees be on both sides?
Ever heard of “death by a thousand paper cuts”? If you don’t hold everyone accountable (regardless of the dollar value associated with the accountability vs. the potential crime) can you hold anyone accountable?
Bad science or junk science should not be against the law. But scientific misconduct should qualify as misappropriation of funds. Same with using state money to support a blog site, or using state (university) computers to work on a blog site.
This is not saying Mann did any of these things, but that if they happened they should be prosecuted. Let’s have a fair investigation to see if more action is warranted.
Wow. It’s like opening day of the fishing season—I’ve never seen so many people trolling before.
Kinda’ fun to see some of the remarkably specious arguments some people put forward. I hope they notice that their comments/views get posted here, unlike the sites on the other side of the discussion. Everyone is welcome here and I will never deny any of them their right to be wrong.
For those uncomfortable with this guy, the nature of conflict hasn’t changed much over the centuries. Exact quote eludes me, but I think it was “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” which is from Sun Tzu’s Art of War. They guy is trying to make a name for himself and probably has thoughts of a run at the governer’s job or maybe the White House at some point.
If this turns into a witch hunt, then it deserves to be denounced. At this point all that has happened is that he’s asked for the documentation. I think he is searching for a needle in a haystack. But he seems to think that there is one and he can find it. I think there is one too, and I hope he does find it. If he makes one up, that’s another matter.
This is not about attacking scientists whose science turns out to be wrong. This is about investigating scientists who got the science wrong, knew it, and said they didn’t. Proving it in a court of law may be as difficult as prosecuting Watergate. But the court of public opinion has different standards, and the investigation itself reveals that which causes resignations and retractions. It also sets a new standard, a warning to others engaged in the same practices that there may be consequences and perhaps they should clean up their act.
Of course such consequences fade from memory over time so that a few decades later history may repeat itself.
Roger Knights says:
April 30, 2010 at 6:55 am
…There’d need to be evidence much more incriminating than anything in the Climategate e-mails.
—————
Reply: Try the algorithm that Mann used to construct the hockey stick–garbage in, hockey stick out. You could enter any page of phone numbers from a phone book and you’d get the hockey stick. Now, would that be enough for the state of Virginia to ask for their money back? I’d say it would.
James Mc says:
Because there’s a mailing list being sent out to all subscribers asking them to go to specific sceptic boards and ‘scupper’ the discussion there with pro-AGW views. This was reported on WUWT recently, I’m sure.
Does that make the AGW-supporters posting here the first-ever sheep in sheep’s clothing?
Reasonable debate is a great thing. I don’t expect we’ll see too many of these new posters on the more science-based threads, though!
Anthony, I hope you earn advertising money for every click. 🙂
John Egan April 29, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Sounds more like a witch hunt to me…I do not agree with Dr. Mann on some of his main points, but for an attorney general, no less, to act this way suggests that he knows little about the law and respects it even less.
Do you consider Bernie Madoff the victim of a witch hunt, too? If Mann used public funding to pursue a personal political agenda, that’s fraud, and — contrary to your opinion — that *is* against the law. Particularly the one cited in the article, because, as someone who was once responsible for ensuring that $50 million worth of taxpayer-funded equipment was not misused, I had to read that law and sign a statement that I understood it.
If Cuccinelli succeeds in finding a smoking gun like the purloined emails that led to the international scandal dubbed Climategate, Cuccinelli could seek the return of all the research money, legal fees, and trebled damages.
Which becomes the title for this chapter: “Treble For Mr. Mann”
Yeah, it’s a witch hunt for sure.
But keep in mind the old saw “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean no one is out to get you.”
Sometimes a witch hunt finds a real witch and Mann appears to be one of the real ones.
Recall that looking into Bill Clinton’s extra-marital sexual escapades started out looking like a witch hunt but as it turned out he really did have a very inappropriate boss/underling sexual relationship with a young female White House intern. The witch hunt found a real witch.
Bryn says:
April 29, 2010 at 5:52 pm
…Only for $500,000? Yes it is a large sum, but what will the lawyers fees be on both sides?
John Galt says:
April 30, 2010 at 7:35 am
Bad science or junk science should not be against the law. But scientific misconduct should qualify as misappropriation of funds. Same with using state money to support a blog site, or using state (university) computers to work on a blog site.
Another take on this issue, I’ve received grant money before. Used it to put in field plots, expensively run HPLC’s, GC’s, Mass spec’s, Plasma spect’s, etc. Costly to operate. But from what I’ve read in Mann’s papers, he reanalyzed previously collected tree specimen. In other words, he sat in front of a computer and developed statistical procedures. Doesn’t $500,000 sound like a lot of money for this.
I know Ken personally. He is a friend of mine. We have discussed the general outlines of what he can do to bring some better science into the global climate discussion. He is a very very smart fella and he understands that “the science” is not settled. He is also a very strong fiscal conservative. He is doing several different things with this information request, one of which is to put the Virginia university system in particular, and all universities in general, on notice that transparency in science is essential to scientific progress.
This is no witch hunt. This group knows there are a lot of reasons why Mr. Mann’s activities deserve more careful and deeper investigation that the his university or the British have given in the recent past. This will only happen if the university administration starts demanding a higher level of performance from their faculty.
I expect there have already been some phonecalls from the UVA Board of Visitors/Administration and Ken’s office so that they can have a behind closed doors sit down to sort out what might come of all this.
Let’s keep in mind – scientific fraud done with public funds is a crime, and I speak not only as a Ph.D. scientist, but as a practicing attorney. Ken has my praise and support.
He has to be condemned to work in a hockey sticks factory until he gets sick by just seeing them.
What I like about this site is the diversity of views; I wouldn’t read it if all the posters were skeptics. So, I’m okay with so-called “trolls” if they’re on topic and not rude. Certainly, a hot topic like this will draw new posters and since it’s not being covered on RC, some of that audience is likely weighing in here. Hopefully, they’ll stick around and perhaps widen their perspectives.
Wiki: “… a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community… with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.”
Dave Springer says:
April 30, 2010 at 7:55 am
Yeah, it’s a witch hunt for sure.
Sometimes a witch hunt finds a real witch and Mann appears to be one of the real ones.
plm: Whoooa..although I’m sure there are/were “good and bad” witches I believe credible witches may have at least made attempts to interpret “nature” to the best of their ability, hmmm…ok, I concede your point.
RockyRoad says: “You could enter any page of phone numbers from a phone book and you’d get the hockey stick.”
To be fair, you need to put red noise into the Mannomatic to get a hockey stick out. Numbers in a phone book are block-random white noise. Red noise has the same statistical characteristics of a random temperature series.
Smokey says:
April 30, 2010 at 6:27 am
Weren’t you the one predicting that Dr. Phil Jones would be
executedfired ?How did that prediction work out for you ?
http://www.uea.ac.uk/env/people/facstaff/jonesp
I’m interested to see how a freshman AG witchhunt goes over with the people of Virginia. Kenny has been in office since January 10, 2010 – I’m sure Virginians will be thrilled to hear he wants to spend tens of $millions to investigate an ex-Assistant Professor of UVA that hasn’t worked there since 2005.
Having seen the whitewash of the UK enquiries I can only hope the AG does a better job. For BillD’s comment about needing lawyers to sign off a grant application; well maybe they should but what the applicant needs to be is honest and transparent with his results. George E Smith seems to think that scientists get a rough ride. I can’t agree. I remember many years ago the Thalidomide disaster that produced so many damaged babies. The scientists were certainly well sheltered until a newspaper broke the court ban on comment. It seems to me that persons in a position of power are very well protected against the consequences of their behaviour. Just look at Climategate and the outcome. But if you are the average company Joe and transgress, be sure the whole weight of the law will fall on you. I say go to it AG. When will somone hunt down Al Cap’n’Trade Gore?
[snip – inflammatory]
“D. King says:
April 29, 2010 at 8:02 pm
http://www.blip.tv/file/3539174
”
Thanks for the link – that was very interesting.
@ Nick Stokes says:
April 29, 2010 at 6:59 pm
“But because he has stubbornly refused to release his data, code and methods”
Do you guys even bother to look before coming out with this stuff?
Here is the complete data and code for one of his recent papers.”
Er, what he did recently isn’t the issue here. What he did while he was at the University of Virginia IS. That’s what’s being investigated.
RockyRoad says:
April 30, 2010 at 6:51 am
Reply: It isn’t the university he hopes to prove incompetent–it is Michael Mann. Based on what we’ve seen of Mann’s specious “science” and his academic reticence, that shouldn’t be difficult.
I guess you missed the headline, above:
Virginia Attorney General goes after Mann and UVA
In case you missed it, UVA stands for University of Virginia – U. VA, get it ?
Good luck proving that an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences wasted 1/2 $million without his Department Head and colleagues being implicated.
As I said, I look forward to watching all this on TV. Ken was pretty good as Jefferson on “Married With Children”, but he didn’t have the gravitas of Fred Thompson on “Law and Order”:
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_rVmPG-JoGY/0.jpg
Peter Wilson says:
April 29, 2010 at 7:20 pm
“…..Nevertheless, I am uneasy about using this form of attack. All scientists receive funding, and it is essential that they be able to pursue their research without fear that they may be called to account if they turn out to be wrong – an ever present possibility in science….”
“Attack”? “Wrong”?
The assertions of Peter Wilson are so misplaced at to be risible.
Firstly, there is no “attack” when a funder asks to be shown where and how provided monies were spent. This is simply good housekeeping. And any organisation of repute has all its financial activities assessed by an independent accountant, so a complete reply to the request merely requires that the accountant’s report be provided. Hence, failure to provide a full and immediate reply to the request tells all that the funder needs to know, so the funder would then know not to provide future funds to the organisation.
The politics and/or nature of the representative of the funder is not relevant to these facts. And the public should expect their representative(s) to ask to be shown where and how provided monies were spent when those monies were provided from the public purse.
Secondly, scientists do their research and find what the research reveals. If it were known what the research findings would be then there would be little point in doing the work. Hence, the findings of scientific research are what they turn out to be so cannot be thought to be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. However, if the methodology used to obtain those findings is incorrect and/or inadequate then the scientists responsible should be “called to account” because their practice of science is “wrong” and, therefore, their “wrong” science practice is likely to provide misleading findings.
There are minimum standards of conduct in each profession, including professional science. All accusations of professional misconduct should be investigated to exonerate those falsely accused and to chastise those determined to have been rightly accused. This is true for everybody in every profession. And there is no reason why scientists should be exempted from it (e.g. an engineer would be expected to obtain advice from a materials scientist when using a novel material for construction of a bridge, and a scientist would be expected to obtain advice from a statistician when using a novel statstical method to analyse data). Indeed, it is essential for the proper conduct of science that scientists are not exempted from it.
Richard
Anu,
Did I predict that Jones would be fired? Or executed?? Kindly show me exactly where I said either one. What I did say was that Jones is “despicable” for cheering the news of John Daly’s demise. I also noted that Jones was still receiving his full pay and benefits, that he was still in the same office, and that he apparently had the same duties that he had before, and that the only change was the nameplate on his door. I’ve also stated more than once that the Jones investigation would be a complete whitewash, which in fact it was.
But an investigation by a state Attorney General is quite a bit different than the rank cronyism displayed by the old boy committee that gave Jones a free pass and a pat on the head.
Unlike the Jones “investigation,” the AG will no doubt take statements from people hostile to Mann, and from Mann’s co-workers — most of whom will not lie to someone who can prosecute and imprison them if they perjure themselves, and some of them will no doubt willingly volunteer information. Michael Mann has stepped on plenty of toes. You can read in his emails how he bosses his co-workers around, giving them their marching orders. No doubt some co-workers will be calling the AG to volunteer their own tidbits of information. Certainly the eastanglia emails were only the tip of the iceberg.
And your frantic talk about a “witch hunt” is about as credible as labeling the Climategate emails as being “stolen.” As a taxpayer I support this investigation. The grant process has corrupted individuals and universities alike, at our expense. We pay, as they connive to game the system. Anything that shines the light of day on what’s happening is good for the taxpayers, and good for science in general.
We will see where the AG’s investigation leads. The fine thing about it is that it raises the awareness of the general public, many of whom still do not know about the ongoing scam of promoting the repeatedly falsified CAGW conjecture in return for grant money in the $billions, and the hijacking of the climate peer review process by a small clique of scheming scientists like Michael Mann, who connives to destroy individuals and scientific journals that don’t play the game the Michael Mann way.
With the high visibility of the state Attorney General, people who never paid attention to how their taxes are being wasted are now starting to sit up straight and pay attention. That can only be a good thing.
@Grumpy Old Man
‘I say go to it AG. When will somone hunt down Al Cap’n’Trade Gore?’
The hunt will probably start the moment after someone finds out exactly how Al earns his carbon rights. Apparently he earns points by planting trees, but nobody seem to know exactly what’s what when it comes to his tree planting work.
Case in point: you start a carbon trading company which is earning carbon trade points by planting trees, i.e. something that is offsetting co2 “pollution”, but you don’t actually plant any trees yourselves yet you earn points, which you do by donating money to organizations that says they’re planting trees, and of course nobody seem to know if those organizations are in fact planting trees themselves neither. The only thing that’s supposedly important is that carbon rights has to be valued more then the cost of donating to one or more supposedly honorable tree hugger’s organizations.
It’s not like Mann was making off with the grant money. He *was* earnestly pursuing research. The complaint seems to be was he over zealous carrying his argument ahead. Personally, my gripe is the extreme overuse of the adjective “robust” by climate scientists. I’ve come to believe it’s somehow symptomatic of the shortcomings of the run of the global warming argument. Too much of the robust evidence and not enough of the puzzle pieces coming together into a plausible picture.
I think it is safe to say we have positive identification of a “troll” (comparing the VA AG to a vapid TV character in a lame attempt to inflame and distract reasonable discussion).
FYI. It is my understanding that realclimate can’t cover this. The patent holder of theMannomatic temp adjuster is a principle in the blog. I am sure his counsel has told him silence has become golden in the discovery phase of this trial.
Mann works a door or two down from the Realclimate office. It is also down the hall in the same building as The Gavin Schmidt and James Hansen.
WUWT covered the office locations. Mann has a lot of free time to blog his feelings and do research. It is publish or perish, baby. You can’t talk up a storm if you have a slice of the right tree. Tom’s Restaurant in Seinfeld is in the building.
Anu says:
April 30, 2010 at 9:49 am
RockyRoad says:
April 30, 2010 at 6:51 am
Reply: It isn’t the university he hopes to prove incompetent–it is Michael Mann. Based on what we’ve seen of Mann’s specious “science” and his academic reticence, that shouldn’t be difficult.
I guess you missed the headline, above:
Virginia Attorney General goes after Mann and UVA
In case you missed it, UVA stands for University of Virginia – U. VA, get it ?
———————
Reply: I don’t give much credibility to headlines–those are constructed to raise blood pressure and pull in readers rather than convey facts (and even less credibility to people that say “get it?”). But if the UVA is found complicit, they should be reprimanded too. But really, the issue isn’t incompetency–the beef is whether there’s been malfeasance with public funds spent on scientific research, which turn out to be criminal conduct if such is found. The guidelines, as indicated by others commenting above, are strict and unyielding and there are serious consequences.
I’m looking forward to the results and my prediction is that Mann won’t be exhonerated–if the UVA is similarly implicated that’s their problem. It’s science I care about, not some charlatan scientist or his enabling university indirectly starving poor people throughout the world. Let this investigation be as robust as possible.
There are a lot of contrarians on this site today, and I find it sad that all the arguments so far have precious little to do with the real issue, which is the proper conduct of scientific research. There’s rants about witch hunts and politics and all sorts of distracting, nonsensical things. Let’s keep it to the proper execution of scientific research.
bill frumkin says:
April 29, 2010 at 9:43 pm
But how do we know if he is a witch?
I know we can build a bridge out of him.
But could you not also build a bridge from a Bristlecone Pine.
John Egan says:
I do not agree with Dr. Mann on some of his main points,
but for an attorney general, no less, to act this way
suggests that he knows little about the law
and respects it even less.
The AG’s job is to protect the interests of the state. If Dr. Mann has used state granted funds inappripriately, then the people deserve to get their money back. I’m sure the AG has a wealth of knowledge of Virginia and federal law.
Dr. Mann on the other hand…..a man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn no other way–Mark Twain
David Schnare says:
April 30, 2010 at 8:32 am
David,
do you know if the AG is calling on McIntyre to come for deposition?
That will be helpful — something the Oxburgh gang did not do
David Schnare says:
April 30, 2010 at 8:32 am
“He is doing several different things with this information request, one of which is to put the Virginia university system in particular, and all universities in general, on notice that transparency in science is essential to scientific progress.”
So, too, is conducting research without fear of persecution. I, for one, would be feeling pretty uncomfortable if every research result I produced when at the University of Virginia was subject to scrutiny that could result in criminal charges because the state’s Attorney General determined that a research decision I made led to a result which wasn’t one that the AG liked. In fact, if that were the case, I am pretty sure I would have selected a different University to attend (outside the state of Virginia).
Should I be living in fear of Cuccinelli’s successor somewhere down the line? An AG who thinks that pursuing GHG emissions reduction is a good idea and that research I conducted while at UVa could be interpreted to have 1) slowed that pursuit, and 2) been mollified had I made different research decisions?
If Cuccinelli has a particular alleged crime that he is investigating, that is one thing. If he is heading up a fishing expedition, then this is hugely scary. Thus far the available information seems to point to the latter. Yikes!
Science in the state of Virginia will not be the better because of this effort.
-Chip Knappenberger
davidmhoffer says:
April 30, 2010 at 7:39 am
“This is not about attacking scientists whose science turns out to be wrong. This is about investigating scientists who got the science wrong, knew it, and said they didn’t”
Scientists hardly ever admit that they are wrong. That’s why the scientific
process is organized so that the collective (‘the peers’) in the end decide
what will stand and what will be buried in the archives. Mann’s hockey
stick has survived an exceptional scrutiny by 3-4 statisticians! If it is
to be falsified I think the key lies in new proxy material, but then again,
with a new warm year 2009 the hockey blade keeps climbing upwards.
I would guess that a 0.5 M grant has been duly reported and audited
when the project closed? What could be the point of this political
initiative? Actually I can guess …
MinB says:April 30, 2010 at 8:46 am
Wiki: “… a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community… with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.”
As Wiki is a known AGW website, they’ve intentionally lost this part of the definition: “.. .obviously ridiculous assertions with no basis in fact….. to cover situations like this:
Anu says: April 30, 2010 at 9:30 am
I’m interested to see how a freshman AG witchhunt goes over with the people of Virginia. Kenny has been in office since January 10, 2010 – I’m sure Virginians will be thrilled to hear he wants to spend tens of $millions to investigate an ex-Assistant Professor of UVA that hasn’t worked there since 2005.
But it always is somewhat humorous, in a juvenile way.
Tim Clark says:
April 30, 2010 at 8:11 am
Bryn says:
April 29, 2010 at 5:52 pm
…Only for $500,000? Yes it is a large sum, but what will the lawyers fees be on both sides?
John Galt says:
April 30, 2010 at 7:35 am
Bad science or junk science should not be against the law. But scientific misconduct should qualify as misappropriation of funds. Same with using state money to support a blog site, or using state (university) computers to work on a blog site.
Another take on this issue, I’ve received grant money before. Used it to put in field plots, expensively run HPLC’s, GC’s, Mass spec’s, Plasma spect’s, etc. Costly to operate. But from what I’ve read in Mann’s papers, he reanalyzed previously collected tree specimen. In other words, he sat in front of a computer and developed statistical procedures. Doesn’t $500,000 sound like a lot of money for this.
Not really, less than $100,000/year would barely support a single grad student, the university charges about 59% overhead. The university’s Office of Research Administration submits the applications to the granting authority and university officers sign off on it and submit the required reports. If the university didn’t comply with reporting requirements they’re on the hook. It’s not unusual to have periodic audits on past grants, I was once asked to explain why I’d ‘sole sourced’ a particular item 7 years before as part of one of their regular audits.
tens of $millions? Please.
And I think many of you are confusing the term Witch Hunt with Fishing Expedition.
I think it’s neither, but I don’t think the term Witch Hunt can be justified at all.
#
Tim Clark says:
April 30, 2010 at 8:11 am
“Another take on this issue, I’ve received grant money before. Used it to put in field plots, expensively run HPLC’s, GC’s, Mass spec’s, Plasma spect’s, etc. Costly to operate. But from what I’ve read in Mann’s papers, he reanalyzed previously collected tree specimen. In other words, he sat in front of a computer and developed statistical procedures. Doesn’t $500,000 sound like a lot of money for this.”
Another take on the issue: sceptics would perhaps not know the real
costsof gathering and processing material, because they get a police order
and demand ‘hand over all you have done the last 25 years’ (McIntyre
method).
Seriously though, 0.5 M is a lot of money, but for a research group
collecting different proxy materials and combining them; maybe not
excessive.
Point is: why didn’t any of the Mann critics come up with the idea and
do the creative part?
Then
Smokey says: April 30, 2010 at 10:10 am
Sure. Fabricated data sets. Out of a job.
Reputation destroyed. Charlatans.
Again – how did things turn out for Professor Jones ?
http://www.uea.ac.uk/env/people/facstaff/jonesp
Reality did not match your fevered imagination in the case of Professor Jones – do you really think your wishful thinking will come true with Professor Mann ?
Yeah, and maybe Kenny will prove President Obama was born in Kenya, too:
mikael pihlström, April 30, 2010 at 11:22 am:
“Mann’s hockey stick has survived an exceptional scrutiny by 3-4 statisticians!”
Mikael, who are you trying to fool here? Your statement above is not credible. It may get a pass on realclimate or climateprogress or tamino. But not here.
Michael Mann’s original hockey stick chart was debunked by McIntyre & McKittrick.
As a result of their debunking of Mann’s chart, and the Wegman et al. Report to Congress validating M&M’s falsifying of Mann’s paper, Mann’s original Hokey Stick can no longer be used in the UN/IPCC’s Assessment Reports, even though the IPCC would love to continue using it. Mann’s chart was their best visual propaganda. Very scary. But wrong.
The IPCC is now forced to use pale imitations of Mann’s original chart. But the imitations lack the alarming visual impact of Mann’s chart, and the fact that they use inferior hokey stick charts shows, more than anything, that the IPCC acknowledges that Mann’s attempt to erase both the MWP and the LIA has been thoroughly debunked.
Hmmmmmm…. I wonder if the RICO Act would apply? Given the hypothetical collusion intimated by several of the Climate Gate emails, coupled with potential criminal activity spanning years also intimated in the emails (diversion of public funds, FOI Act violations, funding acquired by fraudulent means, etc), it just might.
“The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization….”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act
See also: http://www.ricoact.com/ricoact/nutshell.asp
for a lay mans summary of applicability.
Smokey says:
April 30, 2010 at 11:50 am
“Michael Mann’s original hockey stick chart was debunked by McIntyre & McKittrick. ”
M & M showed that Mann’s statistical method was not good. This
was confirmed in a publication by a third party , concluding
however that it did not change the essence of the matter (the
stick). If I remember correctly all this was reported in the last IPCC
report.
Yes! Time to release the Kraken.
I don’t know if Mann’s original grant proposals are available to the public. Presumably, he proposed to use proxies, such as tree rings to estimate average temperatures over the last 2-3,ooo years. Since his salary was probably paid by the university, most of the budget probably went to pay for graduate students, postdocs and technical help. He published a number of papers based on the grant proposal work, presumably based on the methods and work found in the grant proposal. Unless some of the money was misappropropriated, it seems likely that he used the money for its intended purpose. I doubt that the AG is well qualified to weigh in on the assumptions and quality of the analysis.
mikael pihlström … and why would the IPCC have any credibility? Those who wish for the essence of the hockey stick to be upheld wrote their views into the IPCC report. This is independent?
Your statement would have some power if a competent statistician stated that the essence of the hockey stick was confirmed. Related parties are not confirmation. A statement that the method is bad, but which deliberately does not comment on the validity of the results is not confirmation either.
Re: James, April 30, 1150:
RICO: I don’t think there is any statute of limitations on RICO at the federal level. Several states have equivalent laws on the books. The VA AG is just the first round in what promises to be decades in court litigating the perpetrators and willing participants in this fraud. I’m buying popcorn.
I believe that the AG has got something on Mann, although it may be small. (E.g., blogging at RC during time that he was billing to the UVA.) The AG wouldn’t have entered into something as potentially embarrassing as this if he didn’t have some assurance that he wouldn’t come out empty handed.
This gives him license to ask for the records; and having the records he can fish for other things that might turn up. But there’s nothing unprecedented about that; “discovery” proceedings, which are quite legal, have the same effect. Ditto when the police execute a search warrant and find unexpected incriminating evidence.
A chilling effect would occur only if the AG were to prosecute or seek restitution on a flimsy basis, or seek excessive restitution. Those would be objectionable (constituting a “blackwash”?), but we haven’t got there yet, and I doubt that we will. (For one thing, it would surely backfire.) That’s the place to draw the line, not here. An inquiry shouldn’t be considered impermissible merely because it might turn into a star chamber exercise. That fear of what might happen would rule out all inquiries.
Oh, this is what the AG is doing:
“In papers sent to UVA April 23, Cuccinelli’s office commands the university to produce a sweeping swath of documents relating to Mann’s receipt of nearly half a million dollars in state grant-funded climate research conducted while Mann— now director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State— was at UVA between 1999 and 2005.”
He wants to look at the university records of how the money was spent. This really has nothing much to do with Mann’s research per se. A grant project has different categories: personel, supplies, equipment, travel, indirect costs. The university keeps a record of those accounts. So, the AG will get a pile of records of the bills and payroll. That should keep some clerks in the university accounting department busy for a few days. It will say anything about data and how the data were analyzed and interpreted. Seems to me that this is unlikely to have any effect on Mann–it’s only a test of whether accounting is keeping good records. Certainly, the accounting department and their records do not bear on how the research was carried out and how its results were interpreted.
When a professor moved from one university to another, he or she often has to leave equipment behind. But you can be assured that the data books and files move with the professor and that no one at the university has an interest in archiving the raw data.
AG Cuccinelli is an engineer before law school. He of course has entered a suit against the EPA and it’s rulings and standards.
Sorry Mann. You won’t get to apply your emotional arguements and pass. More recent engineers also study computor programs, modeling and have extensive math and physics. I am sure if the AG does some of the questions under oath, Mann will not be able to justify his political position by claiming conservatives don’t care about the planet.
Since I am handy dandy with fortran, I can e-mail the code to the lawyers that show what Mann tried in terms of raising and lowering temps to get the slope he wanted on his graph.
It doesn’t take 500,000 dollars to Mann ipulate the software and push down the MWP and raise a hockey stick.
Somewhat off topic, but it seems to me that the supporters of AGW/CC react to challenge and requests for proof, in much the same way evolutionists respond to the absence of proof.
Henry chance:
Raising/lowering temps like this?
If that (dislike of findings) were the AG’s sole motivation, he’d have launched this inquiry many years ago. This launch is, I suspect, due to information that has recently come to his attention, and/or that he has decided to treat more seriously in light of Climategate, which is smoky enough to justify a check for fire.
Maybe Minnesotans for Global Warming can draw a picture of him in a pointed hat and riding a hockey stick.
Sharkey, the word you’re looking for is “cojones.” Kahunas are Hawaiian “big men.”
Toby, good to see you follow Rahm’s dictum: “Never let a good recto-cranial inversion go to waste.” Alger Hiss wasn’t “probably” guilty, ask the KGB.
Well it can be bad Karma. Sometimes people sit on a secret and come out when theey find a problem is exposed. Let me paint a scenario. Some rather sharp student gets put down a few notches by Mann at Virginia. They then read the e-mails and see his attitude in writing is cocky and disrespectfull like he as when they sat in his classes. Here now we have a 500,000 dollar grant and the student was put to a keyboard to enter the data and Mann did some heavy duty armchair science. He snagged a little tree ring daa from Briffa, wrote a little program and used a little canned software, attaches thits to a little powerpoint presentation and voila, we have 500,000 plus a little student slave labor and a little work for Michael turninto a famous report.
It is very likely Michael was tattled on. Yes, I am saying someone carried this case into the AG office. Resentment and a little bitterness can trigger the CRU leak and it is siometimes even the trigger before people embezzle money.
I am not saying the ideas for this case originated by head scratching on the part of the AG.
From what I read, there was not 500,000 dollars worth of heavy lifting by Mann et al. or at all. I do see the net procedes for the study may have a heavy overhead burden, but he didn’t do 40,000 dollars worth of work.
What’s this about witch hunt? Witch hunt? Against people who have been fanning the greatest fraud ever on taxpayers?
Let those who have created this fraud feel the fury of the taxpayer, feel the fury of those who live in beautiful landscapes ruined by useless windmills, the fury of those who have been deprived of refrigeration in hot countries, of electricity to run hospitals and all those who have suffered in many other ways, by this ridiculous vilification of CO2.
Perhaps Ken Cuccinelli and Dr Charles Battig, riding the Fraud against Taxpayers act 2002 will at last come to the rescue. It’s about time Anthony Watts and all the other brave lone fighters get some big guns behind them.
I want one of the cases to end up with a subpoena for Al Gore. It would be wonderful to see him take the stand and actually have to answer some questions.
Roger Knights says:
April 30, 2010 at 1:46 pm
If that (dislike of findings) were the AG’s sole motivation, he’d have launched this inquiry many years ago.
The AG would have found it impossible to “launch his inquiry” many years ago, since he was just elected in November 2009, and assumed office on January 16, 2010:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Cuccinelli
This launch is, I suspect, due to information that has recently come to his attention, and/or that he has decided to treat more seriously in light of Climategate, which is smoky enough to justify a check for fire.
Or maybe it’s just a political gimmick, like saying he will not get a Social Security # for his seventh child, because “it is being used to track you”.
The former Virginia AG, also a lawyer and a Republican, had no such “recent information” on this UVA assistant professor who left in 2005.
mikael pihlström says:
April 30, 2010 at 12:03 pm
“…that it did not change the essence of the matter (the
stick).”
Wrong!
Watch this all the way through.
http://www.blip.tv/file/3539174
RockyRoad says:
April 30, 2010 at 10:51 am
Reply: I don’t give much credibility to headlines–those are constructed to raise blood pressure and pull in readers rather than convey facts
Virginia Attorney General goes after Mann and UVA
This headline I referred to was written by Anthony Watts.
You should show more respect to the founder of this website – he has done a good job getting people of very diverse backgrounds to discuss climate science and associated issues. This headline is hardly “constructed to raise blood pressure and pull in readers rather than convey facts“.
Well I do believe that I have read this entire thread.
And I don’t have any quarrel with those who say it is quite proper and to be expected, that a researcher be able to account for his usage of grant funding. My dearest and longest lifetime friend whom I went to grade school with, worked his entire life in Academia living solely on Government Grant funding for his Research; as did his wife; who is as distinguished in their field as he is. Even in retirement his services are still sought by the CDC in Atlanta. So I do understnat Grant funding; although I have never been in that position myself.
I also acknowledge that by all accounts Mann’s “hockey stick” has been discredited; although I cannot claim that I understand the Statistical issues involved. I also hold a jaundiced view of dendrothermometry.
And I have read the Climategate e-mails that talk of using “Mike’s Nature trick.” And I do believe that those who paid for the acquisition of his data; should have access to that and to the methodoligies of his processing of that data.
But I don’t think you send in SWAT teams to seize his computers, and logs etc to feather the electoral ambitions of some activist politician either. There are proper avenues of enquiry and investigation.
But if you are gung ho for the firing squad; well I will just keep your preference in mind; just in case you ever go astray.
George E. Smith says:
April 30, 2010 at 3:18 pm
The have already sent in swat teams against ordinary citizens here in the USA.
“This is the nightmare abuse of power by the government we have all been fearing …Danny Henshaw were awakened by their local Virginia game warden, who arrested Danny on an apparently trumped up Class 2 Misdemeanor charge….Danny was released from custody in 2 hours and allowed to return to the farm where he and Cindi were controlled around the clock by armed guards from September 12th through September 22nd.” http://nonais.org/index.php/2006/09/29/henshaw-incident/
Documents at http://nonais.org/index.php/2006/10/02/henshaw-documents/
I have a friend who traveled to the Henshaw’s farm and was an eye witness to the blood trails, human feces and the rest of the mess left by the “swat” team.
Who said anything about a SWAT team? Are you grasping at straws to find something wrong with this?
Now the nightmare is fully revealed…
Foxnews has a copy of the letter AG Cuccinelli sent to the University of Virginia.
The breadth of Cuccinelli’s request is staggering.
Smells more like a fishing expedition, rather than a targeted investigation, to me.
(and just for the record, I am certainly caught up in all of this)
-Chip Knappenberger
George E. Smith says:
April 30, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Well I do believe that I have read this entire thread.
And I don’t have any quarrel with those who say it is quite proper and to be expected, that a researcher be able to account for his usage of grant funding.
Indeed it is, bear in mind that the grant is awarded to the university and the PI has to justify expenditure to the university.
I also acknowledge that by all accounts Mann’s “hockey stick” has been discredited; although I cannot claim that I understand the Statistical issues involved. I also hold a jaundiced view of dendrothermometry.
Bear in mind that the ‘Hockey stick’ paper was published while Mann was at UMass so wouldn’t be the subject of this investigation. As far as I can tell from his CV Mann was a co-PI on one grant from Va: “Resolving the Scale-wise Sensitivities in the Dynamical Coupling Between Climate and the Biosphere”, University of Virginia-Fund for Excellence in Science and Technology (FEST) [Principal Investigator: J.D. Albertson; Co-Investigators: H. Epstein, M.E. Mann] U.Va internal award: $214,700
And I do believe that those who paid for the acquisition of his data; should have access to that and to the methodoligies of his processing of that data
Which may prove not to have been the state of Virginia.
Looking at Ken Cuccinelli’s record I’m hardly impressed.
I wouldn’t trust any finding that comes out of this, it will be completely partisan.
Mann has revealed his true motivations—”environmental justice.” Time to expose this Mann for the socialist fraud he is. Don’t let up. No prisoners. Then move on to the next progressive.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10120/1054507-100.stm
Anu, April 30, 2010 at 11:39 am
Upthread, Anu quote, verbatim:
“Weren’t you the one predicting that Dr. Phil Jones would be executed fired?”
As I said: “Did I predict that Jones would be fired? Or executed?? Kindly show me exactly where I said either one.”
Since you have now verified that I never used either word, are you ready to retract? As I stated, Jones was out of a job. Or do you disagree? I seem to recall that he was forced to “step down” as Director of CRU, after which he blubbered about suicidal thoughts, his hair turned snow white, and he looked like he aged about 15 years in a couple of months. That looks like being forced out of a job to most folks, hard as that is for you to admit. The fact that he was given a pat on the head and his nameplate back probably has something to do with knowing where the bodies are buried.
And since you’re in your mom’s basement keeping a database on everyone’s opinions, why did you leave out my statements that the whole CRU business would end up being a whitewash? Inconvenience? Cherrypicking? Trolling?
pcknappenberger says:
April 30, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Now the nightmare is fully revealed…
Yes, it certainly does look like a fishing expedition, as I pointed out above there was only one grant from Virginia ($214,000) and Mann was only a co-PI. The AG is claiming the right to investigate all grants received by UVa with which Mann was associated, mostly from NOAA. Appears to be casting a broad net and probably exceeding his authority. Hard to believe there is sufficient justification to claim the right to see all of Mann’s emails and documents from 1999 to the present!
I love this bit:
10. The scope of this CID is to reach any and all data, documents and things in your possession, including those stored or residing on any computer, hard drive, desktop, laptop, file server, database server, email servers or other systems where data was transmitted or stored on purpose or as a result of transient use of a system or application in the course of day to day research or product processing work that is owned or contracted for by you or any of your officers, managers, employees, agents, board members, academic departments, divisions, programs, IT department, contractors and other representatives.
Is there a definition of “things”. It is used extensively in the CID. Does Mann have to explain why he flused faeces down the toilet as this must shurely be a “thing”. And he has therefore wilfully destroyed the evidence.
Is this CID a joke. Shurely it not enforceable. 30 days to produce what has been requested must be a staggering task.
All this for $500k over 6 years spread amongst how many people and how much equipent etc.
Must be a joke?
If not it will help China/India rise to dominate the sciences for it will destroy US science.
/harry
We need some perspective on this. What’s the guy done wrong? He’s not a murderer or rapist. At worst what’s he done :-
1) Bad science – well I’m afraid you’re going to have to go after alot more scientists, I can think of a few virologist for a start.
2) Used his science to promote his own political ideas. I’m not sure the US system is totally politics-free. My outsider understanding is your supreme court judges are employed with tax dollars to bring their own convervative or liberal ideas to the rule of law. Just because you don’t like somebodys politics is not a reason to bring the full weight of the state down on somebody.
There is a notion of freedom of speech and thought that should even extend to those paid with tax dollars. You should be careful what you wish for.
L says:
April 30, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Sharkey, the word you’re looking for is “cojones.” Kahunas are Hawaiian “big men.”
================================
Thank you, L.
LOL my part. I partially attribute that to being on Percocet because I’m recovering from a severe arm fracture being stupid on in-line skates. Correction noted.
Chris
Norfolk Virginia USA
If Mann had not flagged himself so badly with discredited junk science, such as the hockey stick, and the fact that that “junk” has helped drive the IPCC and potential multi-trillion dollar cost to the taxpayer and international criminal redistribution of wealth, then perhaps Mann could be quietly going about his work, doing what so many other good scientists in the world currently do without incident: good science.
Chris
Norfolk Virginia USA
“HR says:
This is ugly!
You may not like him or the work he has done but using the minutiae of the law to bring the man down is going a bit far. I thought you freedom loving Americans wanted the State off peoples backs.”
HR, with all due respect, Americans do want the State off their backs, AND out of their pocketbooks. Mann, et al. were taking money from the State’s taxpayers, and there seems to be a prima facie case that they were using that money to engage in scientific fraud. If scientists want taxpayer money then they have to be prepared to answer to those same taxpayers for how that money is used.
As far as I am concerned ALL of the work product from those scientists belongs to the State and the State’s taxpayers who paid for it. And the taxpayers want to know if they got value for their money. If Mann and the rest of the “scientific community” have a problem with that then they should stop taking taxpayers’ money.
As to culpability, Mann’s “Hockey Stick” graph was featured in early IPCC reports and in Gore’s propaganda movie. The “Hockey Stick” showed no Medieval Warm Period (MWP) or Little Ice Age (LIA), which Mann’s selective data and methods smoothed out. It showed “unprecedented” warming coincident with the industrial use of fossil fuels. To my knowledge, Mann never retracted his findings.
The essential IPCC argument is:
Current warming is unprecedented (no MWP or LIA).
The warming is correlated over time with carbon dioxide produced by industrial combustion.
Therefore, human activity is responsible for the rise in temperature,
And should pay financiers, governments and the UN trillions of dollars.
However, the MWP and LIA did happen, and not due to industrial combustion. Current warming has precedent in Natural Variability.
CO2 levels rose after the temperature increase.
Human use of fossil fuels contributes little to the increase of a trace gas such as CO2.
A doubling of atmospheric CO2 would have about the same effect on average temperature as moving from Boston to New York City.
Predicted catastrophic scenarios depend on IPCC feedback and coupling estimates in climate models. These scenarios are not happening. The decadal disasters and tipping points continue to be late for their appointments.
Therefore, we do not owe the would-be rulers our Liberty, our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
It is about time!
I wish the AG good luck in figuring this out.
If the climategate emails are real and his wonderful hockey stick generator program is also real – there seems to be a whole lotta fraud going on.
Let’s see if his climategate co-conspirators get roped in as well.
This may make the UK whitewash look a bit foolish.
For those that do not think this is the AG’s job, you obviously do not understand that we are a nation of laws and the AG is just doing his job – much better than a lynch mob.
Yeah, I realized that after I hit Submit.
Or maybe it’s both.
Well, so far he hasn’t held a press conference about the matter, or issued any public / political statements of a partisan nature. I.e., he hasn’t tried to inflame public opinion, merely offered a justification for his action. He could have acted in a more “political” fashion.
The prior AG was a lame duck when Climategate hit. The latter event is the “recent information” (smoke) that would justify a look-see for fire in Mann’s activities. The latter is also what may have motivated a UVA informant to tattle recently on Mann, as someone speculated above.
———
I doubt that anything that is legally fraudulent or improper in a major way will be found, but it would be madness not to check it out just in case (the precautionary principle), even with a slightly scary, partisan AG, given the trillions at stake. Furthermore, non-fraudulent behavior that is relevant to Mann’s mindset is needful for the public to know, given what’s at stake. And it’s rightful for the public to know, given that they paid the freight.
For instance, did he send or receive e-mails in which this phrase (or its equivalent) was used: “We’ve got to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period”? Or did he say that to my hypothesized “tattler”? If so, the public will know that what it’s dealing with in his article is “advocacy research,” not science.
I suspect (partly based on the quote from the former president of UVA that I posted earlier in the thread) that the AG has heard oral testimony to this effect (i.e., testimony that indicates bias and an ends-justifies-the-means attitude on Mann’s part) and that he is now looking for hard (documentary) evidence to back this up. If so, he’s doing his duty.
Anu says…:
A birth certificate still has not been provided. What was provided online was a certificate of live birth. They are not the same.
So please move on from trying to make Ken Cuccinelli look like an unbalanced human being.
I continue to feel the urge to quote this about you Anu:
“Cast not your pearls before swine lest they trample them under their feet then turn and tear you to pieces.”
Harry Lu says:
April 30, 2010 at 6:40 pm
I love this bit:
10. The scope of this CID is to reach any and all data, documents and things in your possession, including those stored or residing on any computer, hard drive, desktop, laptop, file server, database server, email servers or other systems where data was transmitted or stored on purpose or as a result of transient use of a system or application in the course of day to day research or product processing
Is there a definition of “things”. It is used extensively in the CID.>>
Poorly worded, but at end of day it means any data you had, no matter where you stored it, cough it up. USB stick, cought it up, backup tape we get to see what was on it. The impact will in large par be on the IT department. If they have the proper archive and e-discovery software in place, they enter the terms, run the report, and anything Mann touched comed up. Print and ship. I doubt they have it though, most universities aren’t that sophisticated, they may not have even standard backup procedures.
I reject the notion that this is a witch hunt though. Sur it was “only” 500K. If a cop sees a thug grab a puser, she arrests the thug. Dollars in purse $50. Cost to arrest, process, court appearancesm public attourney, 3 weeks in jail, one year community service (supervised) about 40,000. But fail to do that and watch the number of stoleb purses sky rocket.
I don’t like this prosecutory on a lot of issues but on this one he his bang on. A whole lot of universities are trying to find our right now if they have proper backup and ediscovery tools in place and can responde to someting like this cost effectively. And a who lot of researchers who have been over the line are slowly stepping back.
This could be a painful think, but it is a nesessary thing. Mann will write a book at some point and retire to a large house in a nice part of time with an internal climate control system that allows him to predict anything he wants.
mikael pihlström says: April 30, 2010 at 12:03 pm
“M & M showed that Mann’s statistical method was not good. This
was confirmed in a publication by a third party , concluding
however that it did not change the essence of the matter (the
stick). If I remember correctly all this was reported in the last IPCC
report.”
Well, yes, that’s how the IPCC tells the story. But the facts are somewhat different than what the IPCC would have you believe.
The conclusion that any criticism of AGW does not change (to use your word) the essence seems to be standard (dismissive) operating procedure. But on this particular matter, the IPCC’s reporting on the “controversy” has been unconscionably dishonest and decidedly unbalanced.
http://hro001.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/the-climate-change-game-monopoly-the-ipcc-version/
George E. Smith says:
April 29, 2010 at 4:17 pm
How will we obtain the evidence if the data is hidden?
It seems almost obligatory to people in the climate change research to hide their data. Look at all the trouble some have had in getting simple temperature readings from the likes of CRU.
All scientists, whether publicly funded or not, should make their methods and data public.
During WWII, one of the biggest problems people like Bohr and Szilard (true giants in science) had with their work was the necessity of secrecy while the bomb was being built. They felt such secrecy was anathema to science. Neils Bohr suggested once the war was over to share all the ‘secrets’ with the Soviet ‘ally’. Churchill and FDR would have nothing to do with it. Churchill actually thought the physical rules of the universe could be hidden.
Bohr said the alternative to sharing the data would be an arms race.
Now who turned out to be right?
My, how things have changed in the field of science.
We now have scientists acting like politicians and politicians pretending to be scientists.
Even actors are acting like scientists. Danny Glover said the Haitian earthquake was a direct result of the Copenhagen treaty talks collapsing.
(Psssst…, Danny, don’t give up the day job.)
“….in to the possible manipulation of data,”
Again, I’m going to say, if it is true that any data put through Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick computer program outputs a hockey stick shape then that is manipulation of data.
Send in the hounds!
Doug Badgero says:
April 29, 2010 at 6:07 pm
So, if you were in charge, Bernie Madoff would get a pass?
Jeff L says:
April 29, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Number one: Anthony’s efforts are not publicly funded.
Number two: All of Anthony’s data is published.
Ron Pittenger, Heretic says:
April 29, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Ron,
Here I thought I was cynic about human affairs and had seen it all.
I had no idea that anyone could even conceive of such an outrage. Yet, there it is.
And people wonder why I don’t trust government or private business interests.
I’m still shaking my head in disbelief.
I do appreciate the information. Another reason for loving WUWT.
The “warmists” are just like the Goldman Sachs guys – they can’t prosper without gaming the system.
In a fair fight, they’re curled up in the fetal position – it’s only if you bind 3/4ths of your limbs, blindfold and mentally impair yourself, that they’ll call it even…and then the pile-on ensues.
Global Warming = Peak Oil = The Easter Bunny.
WestHoustonGeo says:
April 29, 2010 at 8:48 pm
I was at a fight once and a hockey game broke out…
Henry chance says:
April 30, 2010 at 5:55 am
I would be outraged at this. Everyone knows unicorns are blue.
Henry chance says:
April 30, 2010 at 6:11 am
Maybe there is evidence of sabotage in the oil rig explosion. If true, prudence would dictate some response to prevent other ‘accidents’.
The problem is that politicians have been known to hype up incidents for their own purposes. Hitler with the Reichstag Fire, http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2007/03/the-reichstag-fire-and-the-enabling-act/ and some of us might even remember LBJ and the Tonkin Gulf episode.
Until more facts are in, maybe Obama needs to be cut some slack.
David Schnare says:
April 30, 2010 at 8:32 am
Dave,
One of the best comments I’ve ever read here.
Thank you.
1DandyTroll says:
April 30, 2010 at 10:17 am
I’ve often thought about setting up a carbon trading company.
First off, I would make sure others are doing the planting, or alleged planting. That way, when things go bad I can say, “Well, they said they planted 100,000 trees. Ask them what happened to the trees.”
Second, the trees, or alleged trees, would be in some remote, difficult to get to place, with lots of trees. Like somewhere in the Amazon or New Guinea. I would have lots and lots of footage taken of the locals actually planting trees.
Third, I would be prompt and thorough in paying all my taxes. That way, the only people in a position to go after me would be in on the scheme. The guys in Europe are in trouble because the didn’t pay their VAT taxes, not because what they did was a fraud.
Fourth, I would give to ‘good’ causes. You know, Greenpeace, various other tree hugging groups. Make a big deal about this.
Fifth, I would just ignore my conscience when I sell a hundred trees worth of carbon credits several times to several different people. After all, who’s being hurt? The buyers feel better and some trees are getting planted.
Sixth, I would donate lots of free trees to the Denver area. And make a big deal about it. See, I would be giving away some of what I sell.
The only problem with my scheme is that rotten little conscience of mine.
Lol…methinks that most of the upset with the AG, Ken Cuccinelli, stems from the fact that, horror of horrors, he is a Republican.
Have any Virginians here read the law in question?
Here is the law:
Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act
http://www.taf.org/virginiafca.htm
Be sure to read the “Definitions” section first. If UVA needs to know what the AG means by “things,” all they have to do is look there. Then read the “False claims; civil penalty” section. Look for the phrase “shall be liable.” After that, notice the “Civil actions filed by private persons; Commonwealth may intervene” section.
A few here have speculated that someone possibly brought “a civil action for a violation of § 8.01-216.3 for the person and for the Commonwealth” in the form of a complaint and supporting evidence to the VA AG. It would then be the duty of the AG to investigate, initiating the CID.
Here’s the AG’s Civil Investigative Demand letter:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/30755623/Untitled
If I lived in Virginia, I would be happy to know that my public serpent was doing his job. Please thank him for me.
BTW:
Anthony,
I like your new WordPress theme. However, I hate trying to read long pages of flat comments. Have you considered nesting comments? Large numbers of comments are so much easier to wade through when nested.
Comment Threading is Here! (Plus Other Cool Comment Settings):
http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/comment-threading-is-here-plus-other-cool-comment-settings/
Jabba the Cat:
Didn’t 0bama outlaw them or something? Anyway, an AG is supposed to be going after things like second-hand smoke, not misappropriation of public funds. Who does this AG guy think he is?
My impression is that Mann has to follow the FOIA law?
Because he get grants from the government?
Right?
So anyone can ask for data,code and mails? According to the law.
Or?
So an investigation shouldnt be a problem for him?
Just hand it over? End of problem?
Unless there is something to hide.
For those who do not know what the Wegman Report is;
http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/108/home/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf
Jack Simmons says:
May 1, 2010 at 1:16 am
Jeff L says:
April 29, 2010 at 6:33 pm
What if it were a left wing politico coming after Anthony, in purely a witch hunt mode?
Number one: Anthony’s efforts are not publicly funded.
Number two: All of Anthony’s data is published.
________________________________________________________________
You forgot #3 Anthony is already subject to attacks by the left wing politicos. I have seen enough of these attacks that I do not dare reference anything on this website. “breathtakingly ignorant” comes to mind not to mention suggestions we should all be put in jail or in an insane asylum.
diktater
Could not see any definition of things. Please could you reference them.
Henry chance says:
April 30, 2010 at 10:50 am
Mann works a door or two down from the Realclimate office. It is also down the hall in the same building as The Gavin Schmidt and James Hansen.
A bit Off Topic I know but does Gavin post on Real Cliamte during Working Hours using a Works Computer?
Wouldn’t that be an Offence?
Jack Simmons ,
You left out the first step in your carbon offset fractional reserve system setup.
Cut an sell all of the trees on the land you are going to plant trees on …..
A C Osborn says:
May 1, 2010 at 10:02 am
Henry chance says:
April 30, 2010 at 10:50 am
Mann works a door or two down from the Realclimate office. It is also down the hall in the same building as The Gavin Schmidt and James Hansen.
Really, according to Penn State his office is in the Walker Building at State College, Pa.
Smokey says:
April 30, 2010 at 5:06 pm
Didn’t you get the memo ?
Skeptics are the ones with great senses of humor:
You missed this entire thread:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/21/second-mann-spoof-video-removed/
Do you see the line through “executed”?
That’s known as “humor”, I thought someone would have explained it to you by now.
Does this look like Dr. Phil Jones is “out of a job” ?
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/
There is an “Acting Director”, Dr. Liss, appointed so that Dr. Jones could appear non-involved while Parliament is doing its’ obligatory political investigation. Notice Dr. Jones is Academic Staff in the interim – hardly “out of a job”. Do you know what that phrase actually means ? Do you even know what “Acting Director” means ?
http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2010/04/30/81707202/index.xml
And Dr. Jone is not on “administrative leave” – he get’s his same salary, doing the same work, in his same office, pending the conclusion of a
witch huntinvestigation.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46580-2004Nov12.html
Another “Acting Director” – two months, then gone.
( That’s touching , you concerned about Dr. Jone’s health and hair status. I hadn’t noticed. )
And as I’ve pointed out many times, U. of E. Anglia hasn’t even bothered to change his webpage during these “investigations”:
http://www.uea.ac.uk/env/people/facstaff/jonesp
You’re just twisting in the wind…
As for “keeping a database on everyone’s opinions”, that’s hilarious. You should find some smart teenager to explain to you how the Internet works.
Did you think your “That’s why all their reputations have been destroyed. They are now looked upon as self-serving, rent seeking charlatans” would be forgotten in a few days ?
“Things” isn’t defined, but you must have seen that a “thing” is an official product of discovery according to the law.
There was another when politicians made sure scientists gave only the results the state wanted to hear.
http://www.google.com/search?q=lysenko+affair
The oldest articles on Realclimate.org I see are from 2004. It was when Mann was still at Virginia and Scmidt joined mann among others and ramped up this site. Yes we see posts during the business day when they are at school or other locations on Taxpayer salaries. I posted earlier the Realclimate office for Mann schmidt and others is down the hall from NASA and in New Yourk. This site posted an article on this. It is very sticky when professors have misconduct question and they exhibit robust dabbling in companies outside their teaching campus.
“Jack Simmons says:
May 1, 2010 at 1:09 am
Doug Badgero says:
April 29, 2010 at 6:07 pm
I am sick and tired of the activist AG’s (Spitzer, Cuomo, et al). I don’t care who their target is.
So, if you were in charge, Bernie Madoff would get a pass?”
What do activist AGs have to do with the Bernie Madoff case? His ponzi scheme fell apart as redemptions mounted during the financial crisis. Nothing to do with activist AGs. Are you okay with the activities of Spitzer, et al against big tobacco and the financial companies?
I would love to see AGW supporters testify under oath but am uncomfortable with fishing expeditions. I do not consider it likely that criminal fraud could be proved.
Witch-hunts are dangerous when the hunter has mass opinion and the media behind him, when the accuser makes inflammatory charges, when severe penalties are possible, and when elite opinion is cowed into silence. None of these circumstances exists now. If the VA AG over-reaches, he won’t get away with it.
A.C.Osborn said:
“A bit Off Topic I know but does Gavin post on Real Cliamte during Working Hours using a Works Computer?
Wouldn’t that be an Offence”
Not sure if you are being ironic or not, A.C., but how many people commenting here can put up their hands and sweat they never posted during working hours?
As Shakespeare said “If we all got our just deserts, then who would esacpe whipping?”
I suppose next we will have AGs chasing biologists because they did not give equal time to Creationism in the laboratory or their field trips? Prosecuting medical scientists because they researched contraceptive or abortion pills? State hearings on who should be appointed to professorial positions, or hold tenure? Making sure historians and literature professors are “ideologically sound”? Wasn’t that what McCarthyism was all about?
We are way down the slippery sloope to Lysenko with this sh*t.
@wobble
I’ve got one that can read! <:-p
I’m a scientist. Sometimes I post on blogs from my work computer during working hours. I also do work at home on the weekends and at night. I also go into work to do experiments, to write reviews and to write papers during holidays. Usually I get to my office and lab at 7:00 AM (an hour early) but sometimes I stop at the gym to workout between 7:00-8:30. Sometimes I head home an hour early to enjoy a nice spring day. So far, my supervisor has evaluated me based on accomplishments such as papers published. And thankfully, the atorney general has not tried to nail me for the flexibility in my schedule.
“This is a repugnant piece of over-zealousness by the Virginia Attorney General, that I condemn,” says McIntyre over at ClimateAudit.
If the AG is serious, Mann should be delighted.
We ARE in that time. Most politicians want scientists to give them more global warming today.
An activist AG, or a non-activitst AG, could have investigated Bernie Madoff and uncovered his fraud before it fell apart. Your point that redemptions caused his scheme to fall apart is meaningless.
If you worked for a large defense contractor then such actions might be a felony. It’s all about how you are representing the use of your time. It’s illegal to claim 8 hour days for the week if you actually worked 12 on Thursday and 4 on Friday.
There should be nothing wrong with claiming the 12 and 4, but if the 12 and 4 are misrepresented, then it’s wrong.
No. McCarthyism was about finding Soviet/communist loyalists (or even spies) that were working for the US government. Interestingly, found many.
Cuccinellism is about investigating the accounting of public funds which were used by a known fraudster.
Wobble:
Fortunately, I work for a university, just like Mann and none of my research is “classified” by the government.
But when a university accepts public funds for a project, then specific rules apply to that project.
Wren says:
May 2, 2010 at 7:39 pm
“This is a repugnant piece of over-zealousness by the Virginia Attorney General, that I condemn,” says McIntyre over at ClimateAudit.
Followed by the ‘baying for Mann’s blood’ by the resident claque! As I’ve posted before the AG seems to be exceeding his authority in citing Federal grants, if he doesn’t do so of course he’s left with a single grant for which John Albertson (now at Duke) was the PI not Mann. Some of the comments over there remind me of the following from ‘A Man for all Seasons’, they should beware what they wish for:
“William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake! “
wobble says:
May 2, 2010 at 10:37 pm
“McCarthyism was about finding Soviet/communist loyalists (or even spies) that were working for the US government.”
Totally OT regarding this case, probably, but a bit regarding McCarthyism;
Did you know that it was the lend-lease agreement between the US and the USSR that was the reason why the politicians in the US became so angry and upset about the USSR spies?
As you know, the Lend-Lease was about sending equipment from the US to the USSR in order to help them in the war against Germany. The strange thing is, it didnt end in 1945. And believe me, the amount of equipment was no small matter.
But the thing that upset everyone was that intelligence papers was sendt with the very Lend-Lease US-transports to the USSR!
And it was truck-loads upon truck-loads of top secret papers.
At first noone cared, but finally this information reached up to the very top of society, and created an outrage.
One of the best books I’ve ever read describes this;
http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Sun-Making-Hydrogen-Bomb/dp/0684824140
Can anyone here say, “Cherry picked Yarmal tree data”? 33 trees show no warming and one single tree shows anomolous warming. So what did mann do? Throw out all the normal trees and keep the single tree. Without normalizing the data with the other trees it made the ‘hockey stick” and that just isn’t truthful. So go get the fraud and haul his faked data and cherry-picked tree out where everyone can see it.
“wobble says:
May 2, 2010 at 9:51 pm
Doug Badgero says:
May 1, 2010 at 8:25 pm
What do activist AGs have to do with the Bernie Madoff case? His ponzi scheme fell apart as redemptions mounted during the financial crisis. Nothing to do with activist AGs.
An activist AG, or a non-activitst AG, could have investigated Bernie Madoff and uncovered his fraud before it fell apart. Your point that redemptions caused his scheme to fall apart is meaningless.”
Please provide an example of an activist AG who has caught a Bernie Madoff. Are you suggesting that they should be allowed to go on fishing expeditions into anyone they are politically opposed to? What a joke.
To date activist AGs have done little except raise the cost of cigarettes and further their political careers at the expense our democratic republic.
Lots and lots of speculation here but the truth is that all we seem to have is the AG’s demand letter to the Rector at UV. We really don’t know his motives or his evidence. If Dr. Mann misused the funds or violated the terms of the grant, that’s one thing. If the AG thinks he can disprove AGW via a grand jury, that’s an entirely different kettle of eels. Don’t expect transparency. These guys only reveal what they are compelled to reveal. I may actually find myself on Dr. Mann’s side for once.
Issues by reason of retrospection
1. Bernie Madoff positioned himself within a regulatory body. So do Mann and Pachauri.
2 Argue from authority. So do Mann, Pachauri, Hansen and Jones
3 Madoff ran Nasdaq. Mann and 3-4 friends run the peer review side of a couple of publications
4 No 3rd party audits. Ask McIntyre about data secrecy. How dare Mr Watts question sites for gathering data.
5 Anger in private e-mails. This sometimes covers fear. Fear of getting caught.
6 Confessions in private. The heat is hidden. Can’t explain the lack of warming.
You all can always have fun analysing Algore, James hansen and M Mann using the freudian and Valliant ego defense mechanisms for benchmarks. Joe Romm displays the widest mix of anxiety disorders and the others I named do the wrap up of defense mechanisms.
1 example is the Label “denial” In the course of warmists using the label “deniers” they are actually doing 2 things. They deny there is a controversy and they employ another defense mechanism we call “projection”.
Are you serious? Do you really want examples of AG’s catching Ponzi schemes?
test Let me know how many more you want.
No, I’m suggesting that AG are allowed to investigate possible fraudulent use of public funds if probable cause exists. Evidence of Mann’s fraudulent activities (regardless of the timing) have provided probable cause to any prosecutor that desires to investigate.
So where’s the Amen Chorus to sing praises for Mann and of the evils of his prosecutors
– featuring Jim Hansen in a shrill falsetto, Al Gore in an unconvincing tenor, Judith Curry in a tone deaf alto
sorry Judith …
What witch hunt? What peer review?
It isn’t science or scholarship when you refuse to provide your data and methods for review. If this is legitimate research, then what is there to fear. This isn’t a radical concept. What is unscientific, is the attitude of the defenders and apologists for propagandists such as Mann, Hansen, Jones and the rest of the climate alarmists. If they aren’t willing to practice the scientific method; then they aren’t scientists. They are engaged in fantasy for political and economic purposes. It is their task to prove their hypothesis, not the other way around. Let the data and method speak for itself!
What should prove more interesting are the various communications requested. I suspect that if they are released, they won’t be limited to e-mails between scientific colleagues. I suspect there will be communications, instructions, and possibly payments between a variety of players across the political, business, and environmental spectrum on a national and international level.
I hope the Attorney General doesn’t settle for what they give him, but that he gets some forensic computer experts to find out what Mann as well as others at the university have tried to erase. Start keeping tabs on who is starting to squeal their indignation the loudest. Their tracks may show up in the released material. I’m hoping the material will be shared with James Inhofe as soon as possible and after November he will be able to do the same to Hansen at NASA.
Below is an excerpt from the Gold Standard for scientific peer review:
From SCIENCE: If should be submitting to us, authors implicitly agree to a number of editorial and publishing policies that are central to our mission. While many of these policies are associated mainly with original research published in Science, philosophically they underlie our approach across all of our publications. Any reasonable request for materials, methods, or data necessary to verify the conclusions of the experiments reported must be honored…
Before publication, large data sets, including protein or DNA sequences, microarray data, and crystallographic coordinates, must be deposited in an approved database and an accession number provided for inclusion in the published paper, under our database deposition policy.
*****************
jeff brown says:
April 29, 2010 at 9:11 pm
Jim says:
April 29, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Jim, does that mean you don’t want the government to fund medical research as well? what about research into the safety of the water and food you drink? should that go away too?
********
If the government must fund research, some isolation mechanism should be set up. For example, a science fund is set up that collects contributions from the government and other entities, like corporations, non-profits … whatever. Then a multi-disciplinary committee decides what research gets funded. I’m sure a politically astute person could come up with a better scheme that would do more to ensure impartiality, but you get the idea. The only exemptions might be big physics and space projects. So, the point is there should be a way to isolate science and politics. I don’t see why medicine should be exempted. There are plenty of companies that can fund that. And the government can definitely get out of the food and water research business as far as I’m concerned. That’s mostly overblown hype anyway.
BillD said:
“I don’t know if Mann’s original grant proposals are available to the public. Presumably, he proposed to use proxies, such as tree rings to estimate average temperatures over the last 2-3,ooo years. Since his salary was probably paid by the university, most of the budget probably went to pay for graduate students, postdocs and technical help. He published a number of papers based on the grant proposal work, presumably based on the methods and work found in the grant proposal. Unless some of the money was misappropropriated, it seems likely that he used the money for its intended purpose. I doubt that the AG is well qualified to weigh in on the assumptions and quality of the analysis.”
BillD, I don’t know what your understanding of graduate student and post-doc salaries is. I was a post-doc at UVa during this period (and a relatively well compensated one because I was an NSF fellow) and I made $35,000 per year. The graduate students made half that. I didn’t see a lot of names on those papers.
Now, that having been said, the overhead on science funds to support the liberal arts departments is actually quite large. So while it is true that the univeristy “pays” Mann’s salary, the pool out of which that salary is paid is funded by the overhead on grants brought in by Mann and his colleagues. That pool also pays for all of the liberal arts tenured falculty that are bringing in little or no grant funds. That would be the English, History, etc. folks. Additionally, Mann’s salary would have been a 9 month salary. It is considered perfectly acceptable for someone like Mann to pay his “summer salary” out of his grants. I will now use a totally made up number for Mann’s salary and leave it to the reader to decide if they want to determine Mann’s actually salary during the time period. But if Mann’s 9 month salary were $100,000 then it would be perfectly acceptable for him to pay himself $33,000 out of the grant three months out of eahc year. In this scenario, a 3-year, $500,000 grant could easily have 1/5th of it’s funds dispersed directly into Mann’s salary. Another $150,000 could easily go toward department overhead (out of which Mann and other salaries are drawn) leaving about $250,000 for “actual” research. This money could pay post-doc and graduate researcher salaries but also would go toward expenses for meetings (travel, hotel, etc.). I don’t know what Mann’s meeting schedule was like.
For me, the fact that so much of the money goes directly to Mann’s and colleagues salaries and travel expenses turns your argument against you. And makes me all the more convinced that this money had BETTER NOT have any kind of political agenda attached to it. Unfortunately, the evidence seems to be clearer every day that much of this work had a clear agenda with outcomes determined before the research was done and data maipulated to support that outcome. Unfortunately, with Mann “lawyering up” it’s unlikely that the waters will become anything other than muddier. And, oh, by the way, Mann is likely NOT paying for the majority of his legal expenses out of pocket. I’d like some clarity on that as well.
McIntyre has just posted a link to a video’d interview with Cuccinelli, here:
http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2010-05-07/politics-hour
In it Cuccinelli states that
So he’s got something to go on. He’d have been very foolish to have gone in flying blind. I hope it’s something clear-cut and purely procedural, otherwise Mann will look picked-upon.