The climate science credit crunch

Off topic, but, for readers having trouble with adverts, there is always the Ad Blocker Plus application. It really does the job, especially as it stops the RAM getting gummed up with adverts on an eternal loop.

@ Kristinn (#3)
Thanks, running on a fresh install of Firefox with Adblock Plus, and had forgotten to write an exception rule for WUWT. ABP is great for protecting oneself on random websites, but for those one uses regularly and appreciates, I’d humbly suggest disabling it for the domain (very easy to do).

Cold and wet in England, no summer to talk of.

I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but it sure looks mighty fishy and quite possibly unethical.
No matter what, were I Mann or Steig, I’d send a nice letter of both apology and thanks, explaining that I had missed the email while traveling, but found the error contemporaneously. “great minds” and all that…
Plausible deniability and the appearance of increased civility would likely make the problem go away.
Wanna bet that they can’t bring themselves to do so?

If it is indeed plagarism, then shouldn’t a respected publication like Nature cease all affiliations with such scrupulous scientists?

Perhaps McCulloch should have had confidentiality agreements of some sort, and his work be accompanied with a statement that unauthorised disclosure could upset international relations.
I think Lubos is on the right track actually (and sadly).
When talent and skill are in short supply, then such people make up for it in towering arrogance.

80% chance of rain tomorrow in Eastern Oregon, where a broad swath of what is SUPPOSED to be dryland wheat still sits in fields waiting to be harvested. It will likely sprout and have to be dumped.

I can not wait for these guys to be revealed for what they really are in the eyes of the general public. Most of us that follow WUWT and CA are well aware of their need to silence dissent. The cold light of reality will mockingly cast them into the dustbin of history. Good, honest, open science will win the day.

Thunder, Lightning and raining cats & dogs here in rural No. Ca. Same thing yesterday late afternoon.
Place is soaked.

Lubos Motl (09:09:25) :
Those people are building on the assumption that climate realists don’t have to get credit for anything because no one in their climatological “community” would dare to complain. This is analogous to the “Aryan” scientists not giving credit to the Jews in Germany of the 1930s.
———————————————
Godwins Law does not apply to crusades as important as ‘climate realism’.

Taken from the University of Washington’s policy on Cheating.
Whats good for the graduates should be good for the professor.
Quote
“What is academic misconduct?
You are guilty of cheating whenever you present as your own work something that you did not do. You are also guilty of cheating if you help someone else to cheat.
Plagiarism
One of the most common forms of cheating is plagiarism, using another’s words or ideas without proper citation. When students plagiarize, they usually do so in one of the following six ways:
1. Using another writer’s words without proper citation. If you use another writer’s words, you must place quotation marks around the quoted material and include a footnote or other indication of the source of the quotation.
2. Using another writer’s ideas without proper citation. When you use another author’s ideas, you must indicate with footnotes or other means where this information can be found. Your instructors want to know which ideas and judgments are yours and which you arrived at by consulting other sources. Even if you arrived at the same judgment on your own, you need to acknowledge that the writer you consulted also came up with the idea.
3. Citing your source but reproducing the exact words of a printed source without quotation marks. This makes it appear that you have paraphrased rather than borrowed the author’s exact words.
4. Borrowing the structure of another author’s phrases or sentences without crediting the author from whom it came. This kind of plagiarism usually occurs out of laziness: it is easier to replicate another writer’s style than to think about what you have read and then put it in your own words. The following example is from A Writer’s Reference by Diana Hacker (New York, 1989, p. 171).
* Original: If the existence of a signing ape was unsettling for linguists, it was also startling news for animal behaviorists.
* Unacceptable borrowing of words: An ape who knew sign language unsettled linguists and startled animal behaviorists.
* Unacceptable borrowing of sentence structure: If the presence of a sign-language-using chimp was disturbing for scientists studying language, it was also surprising to scientists studying animal behavior.
* Acceptable paraphrase: When they learned of an ape’s ability to use sign language, both linguists and animal behaviorists were taken by surprise.
5. Borrowing all or part of another student’s paper or using someone else’s outline to write your own paper.
6. Using a paper writing “service” or having a friend write the paper for you. Regardless of whether you pay a stranger or have a friend do it, it is a breach of academic honesty to hand in work that is not your own or to use parts of another student’s paper.
7. In computer programming classes, borrowing computer code from another student and presenting it as your own. When original computer code is a requirement for a class, it is a violation of the University’s policy if students submit work they themselves did not create.
Note: The guidelines that define plagiarism also apply to information secured on internet websites. Internet references must specify precisely where the information was obtained and where it can be found.
You may think that citing another author’s work will lower your grade. In some unusual cases this may be true, if your instructor has indicated that you must write your paper without reading additional material. But in fact, as you progress in your studies, you will be expected to show that you are familiar with important work in your field and can use this work to further your own thinking. Your professors write this kind of paper all the time. The key to avoiding plagiarism is that you show clearly where your own thinking ends and someone else’s begins. “

Heck, we could wake up in the middle of an ice age tomorrow and Ms Ekwurzel, and all the rest of them, would still not flinch. Ekwurzel by the way was on that team that got their clocks cleaned in that NPR debate in 2007.

Anthony, you dodged the question. Why would a professor make such a discovery and then post it on a blog? Academians “speak” to one another through published papers. Those published papers are then put up for scrutiny and “peer review” by other academics. Not blogs. Remember, one of the problems with the IPCC report is that some of the assumptions were from work that was not published nor peer reviewed. So, for whatever reason, this guy from Ohio State decided his blog was good enough and then decided to tell the authors. It wasn’t nice what the bad guys did and probably unethical, but it’s the Ohio State professors own fault. He should have followed protocal. Not just for “credit” but also to put properly put his “discovery” up for peer review. In essence, one can say that the bad guys simply did what the professor should have done in the first place. Now the academics will determine whether or not the professor’s work has merit and the discussion will move forward. But, posting to a blog does not advance the discussion in academic circles, which again is one of the many flaws in the IPCC report. Now, if you think that the professor’s posting on a blog is the same thing as the peer review process, then one cannot criticize the IPCC (or anyone else) for using non-published material.

Am I reading the mood on this as more horrified than anything else?
I’m upset that this happened at all. It has horrible implications. I’m even more upset at the prospect that Nature may do nothing.
Normally this crew has a hundred comments. I’m wondering if you’re all feeling like I am.

“Why would a professor make such a discovery and then post it on a blog? Academians “speak” to one another through published papers.”
*People* can “speak” to each other on the interwebs and a professor may post his opinions on a blog because he likes to see people’s opinions.
Acamadamians can “speak” to each other in burps and f*rts, for all it matters.
Andrew

I acknowledge that the guys should have credited the professor. It was at best unethical and I think seems to bring their character and integrity into quesiton. Further, I think it also suggests that all of their work should be looked at with extremely critical eyes. But, I have a professor friend who submitted a correction to the American Meteorological Society regarding mathematics error of a previous submission. That opens it up for further scrutiny. Sending a private email was indeed gracious and nice, but it was not typical procedure. If he had submitted it to an academic journal, open for all academics who regularly read the journal, it would have eliminated the problem. Further, it would have been available to those who have better things to do than surf the internet. I have been published and the peer review process included getting totally raked over the coals by academics who disagreed with my work…necessarily so because I was blowing up their entire life’s work since they had no clue as to what they had missed all these years. But, their scrutiny forced me to rewrite the work several times, tighten up the argument and be more clear. It is the formal and accepted process. It has not been replaced by the internet or blogs. Academics then respond with their own published material and the discussion is advanced. Again, this is part of the problem with the IPCC report as some of their data was not put up for scrutiny in the published fashion and instead published by the IPCC as accepted fact. It’s also why one cannot say there is a consensus because the material was not allowed to go through the formal process. While the bad guys deserve total condemnation on this matter, had the professor followed proper procedures, then they would never had had the opportunity to pirate his work.

Andrew (08:11:25) :Academicians can “speak” to each other in burps and f*rts, for all it matters.”
Sounds like my days after 3:30 MicroBi lab-on fridays,,,
Can’t even THINK of doing that now…

Hey LloydH,
I’m glad you asked; I learned something new today! Looks like they’ve simplified now, and all you have to do is visit the home page of the website you want to unblock, click on the ADP menu button to the right of the ADP logo, and choose “disable on “…””
If that’s not working the way I think it should (I just found out about it) you can always do it the old way, which is to open the ADP menu, pick “Preferences”, the click “Add Filter”, then type in “@@|http://whateverdomainyouwanttobunblock.(com, org, etc.)”, without the parentheses, of course…
Hope this helps.
K
(sorry for the OTness)

Water seeks its own level. When publishing gateways refuse to present opposing points of view – the information seeks new outlets. By election certain science journals bring about their own demise and new, respected forums arise.

Can’t watch the vid unless you are in the UK.
Mark

symonsezwlky (08:48:40) :
Among people of integrity the peer review process can be very good. But it is very easy to subvert, which has happened in climate “science”. Internet review is still evolving but will be far better than peer review ever was. The manipulation by the AGW cabal relied on peer review but I think they are being exposed by sites such as WUWT and CA and others on the internet.

Just hilarious