It has been one of those days…first the GISS data train wreck in apparently reusing last months temperatures to make this months “hottest October ever” announcement, now we find that the director of The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) may not have the goods for the PhD he goes by. He’s about to become the president of the American Meteorological Society. Interesting times – Anthony
Reprinted from NRO’s Planet Gore
Dr. Pepper, Dr. J, Dr. Karl . . . [Chris Horner]
Well, this testimony, submitted to the House of Representatives is strange, what with “Dr. Tom Karl” – now the lead author of the U.S. government’s Climate Change Science Program assessment being prepared to support EPA regulation of carbon dioxide – having never earned an academic Ph.D.
That’s according to North Carolina State University, that is, which is the school from which I found a Karl resume claiming a Ph.D., earned “1977-78”. I first found this on a Johns Hopkins website but, after asking Karl’s employer NOAA to clarify where the “Dr.” title they serially tout was earned, that CV has been taken down (but not before I saved the file, of course). NOAA wouldn’t answer my question, but only sniffed that if I can point to them claiming Karl has a Ph.D. – as opposed to just promoting him as “Dr. Karl” apparently on the basis of a 2002 honorary doctorate of humane letters – I should tell them.
The thing is, I have just received documents under the Freedom of Information Act showing that Mr. Karl is indeed styled as “Dr. Karl” on the express basis of having earned that 1978 NCSU Ph.D., as a proposed “co-investigator” in an application for a million-dollar-plus federal grant. The grant was awarded. No word yet whether the U.S. mail was involved in the process.
I suppose it’s possible that Hopkins just made this up to get the grant, and wasn’t relying on anything Mr. Karl told them. And the same could be true of NOAA, which reviewed the grant application (as evidenced by a letter in the responsive documents), and then received $100,000 from the proceeds of the grant. Maybe they got together to prepare Mr. Karl’s House testimony without his input, too.
Given the apparent seriousness of these revelations, I’ve got some correspondence underway seeking clarification from Hopkins, NOAA, and Karl. But, this is a busy time, what with – have I mentioned this? – a book coming out today. More later.
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And the data keeps piling up on how AGW is just a big fraud.
In any company, anyone who gains employment based on the fradulent use of a title he does not have WOULD BE FIRED ON THE SPOT!
“usually to those who have distinguished themselves in areas other than science”
Sometimes in the area of contributions to the institution’s endowment fund. Slightly less prestigious than having a lecture hall or dorm named after you.
[…] There also appears to be some credential problems amongst the folks in charge. […]
“ace (10:19:21) :
Google “Dr. Thomas Karl” and you’ll find several summaries and articles that pre-date 2002.
Somebody may have been telling porkies…”
You mean he was calling himself doctor even before he received the honorary doctorate that does not confer the title “doctor”? I am shocked!
I know nothing of Karl. But there are a lot of phony Doctorate and Masters degrees out there. Some from diploma mills, some from imaginations.
In various government jobs advanced degrees bring raises and may be absolutely required for promotion. And where the degree(s) come from won’t arouse much interest. Often you will get the tuition paid too.
For initial hiring the checking is usually more careful. You aren’t on the inside, they want someone competent, and they can choose among many applicants.
All these are generalizations as they must be. We probably have 10,000 public agencies that hire. And that is without counting the immense public school system where academic certificates and papers are treasured even more.
Private industry, to my personal knowledge, sometimes overlook faults found after hiring. It all depends on the bosses, the person, and the nature of the problem.
Lying on your CV is a firing offence at all the companies I have worked for. The principle is that the employee is no longer able to be trusted.
So out they must go.
Graeme,
As it is in the government. The Deputy CIO at Dept of Energy was fired for claiming a Phd on her resume that she did not have. Of course, when they investigated, it turned out she didn’t have the Masters or Bachelors she claimed either.
If this guy ‘puffed’ his resume, he should be fired as well.
Ed (06:23:03) : For those of us outside of the USA and too poor to travel there to every become familiar with them, US rules are not clear. Here in Australia, persons with an honory Doctorate can and often do use the title Dr, but it is considered Infra Dig. Those who do use the honory title are called W**ers by the populace. In fact here in Aussie land, to actually use a real title of Dr outside of acadamia (and even there most times) is also considered to be an invite to either examine someones piles (in public!), or receive a punch in the nose! The only time to flaunt the title is either when you are on TV lying and big-noting yourself for money (understood, so quite acceptable!), or in a court of law as an expert on something or other (perhaps still lying and big-noting oneself, but this time gratis as a public duty!).
Oddly enough my girlfriend has a Ph.D in physics but never calls herself “Dr”.
For fun I entered her in the Qantas database as “Dr” and she chuckles whenever she gets a letter from them.
NSIDC finally posted about the sea ice recovery.
I wish someone would explain this comment:
“The near-record daily growth rate slowed toward the end of the month and has now fallen below the 2007 growth rate. It is important to reiterate this fast rate of growth is not unexpected under current conditions.”
“The repositioning of the legion slowed toward the end of the month and we have now, er, fallen back slower than previously. It is important to reiterate this skillful redeployment is not unexpected considering the intense opposition. Please don’t kill me, my wife and children would starve.”
Here’s a link showing him being addressed as “Dr.” as early as 1995:
http://globalchange.mit.edu/forums/agendas/MIT-GCF-9_Agenda.pdf
You know, I’ve been referred to as “Dr.” on a number of occasions, because people assume I have a Ph.D. because of the work I’m in. But I always correct anyone who makes that mistake. I don’t know if we should assume the same kind of mistaken presumption here, but it doesn’t look like he did anything to disabuse people of the notion.
Dear all,
perhaps a European perspective might help . .
In many countries you cannot get a
PhD, but a Doktor, Doctor, Dottore . .
The customs in each country are slightly different.
In Italy every person with a degree is a dottore, any teacher a profesore..
In Germany you can/must add your title to you name once you finished
your tesis/exams . .
Depending on your university your Doktor in physics/chemistry or similars will be of science, philosophy or
technics (for basically the same research you could get a different title depending which university you are at! However the final exam porcedure is slightly different)
Personally I never met a person with a Dr. h.c. on no other title and I have no idea, if it becomes officially part of the name like a “proper” Dr., but you might check that . . it might be absolutely correct behavior according to German standards (however it might also not be and what that means for an Amercan goverment employe I dont know)
Best regards,
LoN
Very well said, F Rasmin. Same is true across the ditch in Kiwiland.
We just had a senior bureaucrat bite the dust for falsely passing herself off as a PhD in a CV. But I agree Karl should get the benefit of the doubt until proven culpable.
There have been at least two high profile cases in New Zealand in which senior public servants have claimed fictional PhDs; both ‘resigned’ or were outright fired. An Honorary degree is not a PhD, which is awarded on the basis of a substantial thesis; it is awarded as a University’s ‘gift’, recognising significant achievement ranging from a large bequest to community work, including arts, culture or whatever. It is not research based and so using the title ‘Dr’ in an academic context implies a PhD and that, at the very least, is highly misleading. Other Doctoral degrees (D.Litt, D.Sc for example) may recognise a distinguished career in a particular field. Those so honoured would have a PhD anyway in almost all cases and many would be full Professors.
There have been one or two attempts to pass off degree-mill PhDs as the real thing in academic hiring and they always get caught; I’m aware of one case where a PhD from London was wrongly claimed – that person has also left the academic world.
Folk may be interested to know that NZ has elected a new government that will be rather cooler on emissions trading than the previous. Since we use a rather arcane proportional representation electoral system, most governments are coalitions. The main minor partner of the previous Labour government was the Greens and NZ had ambitions to be a world leader in carbon control. The new National government is still in favour of a milder version, but is far less evangelical and includes at least a couple of sceptics in its ranks. The main secondary partner is ACT (Association of Consumers and Taxpayers), whose leader Rodney Hyde is a vocal sceptic and has made the scrapping of emissions trading one of his basic negotiating demands.
He won’t get that, but a lower, slower, much more cautious approach is likely and will have public support. I’ve done a couple of newspaper and radio commentary pieces from a sceptical standpoint and the public reaction has been around 90 percent supportive. The true believers get pretty excitable, though.
Anthony (and others) thank you so much for this site – its been a revelation for me.
“Cathy (16:29:15) :
NSIDC finally posted about the sea ice recovery.
I wish someone would explain this comment:
“The near-record daily growth rate slowed toward the end of the month and has now fallen below the 2007 growth rate. It is important to reiterate this fast rate of growth is not unexpected under current conditions.”
”
This is similar to the Russian reports at the beginning of WWII, in which they would report that their patriotic forces had met the Germans outside of City ‘A’ and inflicted a stunning defeat, with the German’s falling back in disarray towards city ‘B’. Looking on a map reveals that City ‘B’ was 50 miles closer to Moscow than city ‘A’.
What they are doing is making the4 best of a bad situation that they simply do not want to report.
Those claiming that there was some fraud or what have you involved here on Karl’s part, that he lied to his employer for example, are going to have to ignore a lot of evidence that there were plenty of places that recorded Karl’s credentials correctly. Here are the credentials listed in some 2002 testimony before Congress ( http://www.ogc.doc.gov/ogc/legreg/testimon/107s/karl0725.htm ):
Here is his bio for President-elect of the AMS ( http://www.ametsoc.org/amsnews/bios/karl.html ):
Here is a public affairs release from NASA after Karl received an award from the AMS:
My guess is that in places where he was listed as “Thomas Karl, PhD” the mistake was probably made by someone else. After all, his not having a PhD is probably a bit unusual for someone who has the career and achievements that he has had and so there would be a general tendency on the part of people to assume that he does. As others here have noted, when we were still graduate students, journals would always put the title “Dr.” in front of our names when they wrote to us…as they surely figured it was less insulting to err on this side.
James says
Being in her position, I mainly do the same. It is only in rather rare circumstances that I will choose to use that title. If you listen to “Car Talk”, Tom and Ray’s criterion is that you should have to deal with blood to use “Dr.” in front of your name.
By the way, I mislabeled that press release, which was from NOAA not NASA, and I forgot the link, which is here: http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/releases2003/feb03/noaa03r217.html
[Looks like this is one “Dr.” who is up past his bedtime.]
One last thing, if you look up “doctor of humane letters”, you will find that it is always conferred as an honorary degree, so just saying “doctor of humane letters” as was the case in one of the three examples I gave above is not being dishonest. Admittedly, adding the term “honorary”, as was the case in the other two examples, may avoid confusion by those who aren’t familiar with this fact…at the risk of sounding redundant to those who are.
[…] Are Indeed Heating Up More flubs at the top of the climate food chain – this time NCDCs Karl RED HOT LIES – How Global Warming Alarmists Use… …Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You […]
I have a humble BA (Philosophy), as does my wife.
Quite some time ago, I had the opportunity to attend a Royal Society soiree (more usually attended by Fellows). It was a last-minute thing – they took our names over the phone, and when I turned up at the door they had engraved name badges for us, which provided admittance. The problem was that both our names were prefaced by ‘Dr’ – apparently the lowest default designation!
There was no easy way of correcting the error, so we both just wore them. My wife spent quite a lot of time avoiding Sir Roger Penrose (who she worked with in the publishing field, and who knew she was not a Doctor), but apart from that the evening was fine…..
The Bimbo Eruption Squad is sure spinning for Dr. Karl 🙂
Thanks Joel
Joel,
If an AGW skeptic used false or inaccurate academic CV info, it is all we would hear about.
You can rationalize away all you want about Thomas Karl, but the fact remains: he is being given credit for things he did not accomplish in order to make him sound more authoritative.
AGW depends completely on arguing from consensus and appeals to authority, supported by ad homs against any who dare question the apocalypse.
Mr. Karl is one of the big promoters and beneficiaries of this.
It is only proper to call out when the profits of doom are scamming us.
Which is basically 24/7.
I don’t have any special expertise in climate or solar science. I have, however, spent the better part of the past 36 years working in system analysis and engineering. Models and simulations are the tools of the trade. When someone claims predictive powers for one, while omitting the entity (e.g. the Sun) that drives the system (e.g. the climate), we’re out of the realm of legitimate differences in technique, and into the realm of deliberate fraud.
That this clown would misrepresent his credentials while participating in a conspiracy to commit fraud should surprise no one.
From one philosophic Geezer to another:
My humble and terminal BA is in English Lit, but philosophy is my true love.
I think that the Plato would not have been susprised at such fundamental concepts of modern physics as quantum mechanics and chaos theory. In the __Timaeus__, he creates a cosmogonic ‘mythos’ in which a divine Artisan shapes a pre-existing ‘stuff’ according to his vision of pure and perfect form. Now, the pre-existing ‘stuff’ is formless and inconceivable but it does exhibit its own irrational and unpredictable modes of behavior, and is not just passively receptive of form. Plato calls this force ‘the wandering cause’, and it must be dealt with by the Artisan as the natural grain of wood or of marble must be by the sculptor.
How can I drag this back to climate and other topics discussed in this blog? Let me advert to Leif Svalgaard’s warning about falling into ‘cyclomania’. Plato was very interested in cycles, i.e. rationally describable forms of change, and especially in the cycles of celestial objects: but his conception of the cyclic repetition of things should be tempered by an appreciation of the part that the Wandering Cause plays in change. There is, at the bottom of of things, an irreducible element of randomness, turbulence… quodlibet.
We think we have a grasp of certain repeating phenomena of the ocean-atmosphere couplet: AAM, PDO, AMO, QBO, MJO …ho-ho-ho; but the same never returns, pace Nietzsche, and this cool phase of the PDO will have significantly different charactersitics than that of the mid-twentieth century.