I have a bit of time free and a connection available so I just had to get this story up that I’ve been reading on my cellphone. I have to hand it to Donna Laframboise of nofrakkingconsensus, she’s a tireless detail ferret. She’s already found a boatload of errors in the various IPCC reports, now she finds word for word copying from a book to write the health effects section of the IPPC WG2 report.
Donna writes in “The Book the IPCC Plagiarized”:
It appears unlikely that a good faith, bona fide review of the scientific literature took place prior to the writing of significant sections of the IPCC’s first health chapter. Instead, the climate bible surreptitiously incorporated numerous opinions expressed a few years earlier by the activist-oriented person in charge of writing this chapter.
Then the media told the world that the IPCC’s proclamations regarding global warming and diseases such as malaria were the considered, consensus view of thousands of experts.
Of course we’ve been saying for some time that the “malaria link” to global warming is unsupported, one might even call it hyped, seeing how bad the correlations (or lack thereof) are. Now we find the IPPC didn’t really bother to check research. They just copied it from a doomsday book by an activist. See below.
Donna points out this word for word similarity between the book and the 1995 WG2 report:
McMichael’s 1993 book, page 154:
In eastern Africa, a relatively small increase in winter temperature would enable the malarial zone to extend ‘upwards’ to engulf the large urban highland populations that are currently off-limits to the mosquito because of the cooler temperatures at higher altitudes – e.g. Nairobi (Kenya) and Harare (Zimbabwe). Indeed, such populations around the world, currently just outside the margins of endemic malaria, would provide early evidence of climate-related shifts in the distribution of this disease.
Climate Bible’s 1995 Working Group 2 report, page 574:
Hence, it is a reasonable prediction that, in eastern Africa, a relatively small increase in winter temperature could extend the mosquito habitat and thus enable faciparum malaria to reach beyond the usual altitude limit of around 2,500 m to the large, malaria-free, urban highland populations, e.g. Nairobi in Kenya and Harare in Zimbabwe. Indeed, the monitoring of such populations around the world, currently just beyond the boundaries of stable endemic malaria, could provide early evidence of climate-related shifts in malaria distribution.
another example:
McMichael’s 1993 book, page 150:
Sandstorms in Kansas (USA) and in the Sudan have been accompanied by increased illness and death from bronchitis and asthma.
Climate Bible’s 1995 Working Group 2 report, page 578:
Sandstorms in Kansas (USA) and the Sudan have been accompanied by increases in bronchitis and asthma.
Sheesh.
Read the whole IPCC train wreck here. It’s not just a couple of sentences, there’s plenty more where this sample came from.
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Well, other that the fact that you cannot plagiarize a title and that McMichael was using some of his own previous writing, has anyone noticed that the book itself was not peer reviewed, while the WG2 report was. Therefore, by the IPCC rules it should NOT have been cited and, indeed, it was not. Eli does appears to recall some objection in these quarters to citing grey lit.
However, what McMichael did, in science land is the equivalent of taking stuff from a non peer reviewed conference paper and putting it into a peer reviewed journal article where it is evaluated and suggestions made for changes, which does appear to be the case. Where the line is, is using material from one peer reviewed paper in another.
As the saying goes:
Stealing from one author is plagiarism.
Stealing from many is research.
Plagiarism, cribbing, all etymology.
If you do not quote your damn sources, it is plagiarism.
The claim of plagiarism holds for me, note the claim is that the IPCC plagiarized the book.
The IPCC passed off previously published, copyrighted work as it’s own without attribution.
If IPCC chapters are just meant to be the previously published opinions of the lead author then fine it isn’t plagiarism.
richard telford: September 4, 2010 at 5:20 am
McMichael was presumably chosen because he had relevant expertise.
The problem with that is that an unbiased reading of his book reveals McMichael did *not* have relevant expertise, merely a relevant agenda.
Plagiarism is the wrong word. It is, after all, his own work and assuming he owns the rights to it he can do whatever he wants.
It is, however, more inadequately or improperly reviewed, unattributed, improperly sourced material slipped into an IPCC document for scare-value.
Early explorers in the PAC NW documented malaria among the local Native population,
not being stupid they chewed willow bark for the quinine. I had a old biology prof who
studied malaria in the Western US and central America, his take- it was present from the Arctic circle to Terra del Fuego. The Anopheles Mosquito is here,in the NW.
always was. The way malaria is spread is due to unclean, wet conditions. Not warm.
Of course if the greens had their way those unclean conditions,due to economic collapse, would help with the surplus population..
I think this shows the pitfalls of not being forthright, as a writer. Self plagiarism is a serious ethical issue. In this case it would also seem to indicate that resources used to explore the health effects somehow wound up going to essentially a thumb-ups to McMicheal’s previous publication, not unlike Glaciergate.
Self-plagiarism is seen as forbidden or frowned upon in many areas of publication. I found some informative reading on it by a Miguel Roig Ph. D. at this address.
http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~roigm/plagiarism/
The author makes some good points about ethical writing such as follows.
“In writing, self-plagiarism occurs when authors reuse their own previously written work or data in a ‘new’ written product without letting the reader know that this material has appeared elsewhere. According to Hexam, “… the essence of self-plagiarism is [that] the author attempts to deceive the reader”. ”
and
“The concept of ethical writing, about which this instructional resource revolves, entails an implicit contract between reader and writer whereby the reader assumes, unless otherwise noted, that the material was written by the author, is new, is original and is accurate to the best of the author’s abilities.”
I think many other points on the topic seem reasonable enough too. I have to say I’m with Ms. Laframboise on this one. The ‘deception’ aspect seems faily well demonstrated here, and is in keeping with many other aspects of IPCC’s ethical problems of process and publication. We thought we were getting the work of the UN and were being told about the amazing consensus behind it and the real dangers for which we must basically ‘Buy Now’ to ‘Save our souls’. Remember, we get branded ‘denier’ for disagreeing with almost any aspect of the doctrine.
It’s audacious how he starts with reordering our social values and then tries to unethically convince us recycled snippets of his book are the product of large-scale scientific consensus. This looks worse than Glaciergate to me, which was another example of ‘thousands of scientists’ rubber stamping material that had no proper background. It also seems both much larger and much higher up the the IPCC’s thesis outline structure. To borrow an example from Essay Writing 101, this isn’t merely a contaminated example (Secondary Support or lower), but a contaminated Primary Support statement. In these cases, involving so many writers and areas, wouldn’t the Health effects section be meant to be able stand alone as a Thesis Statement on the specific area?
I know there are grey areas that are open to interpretation, but this is a serious ethics story that, for all I can see, may go beyond the self-plagiarism. So far we’ve learned that thousands of scientists have determined anecdotes by hikers and a previously published book by someone in the IPCC hierarchy amount to solid evidence of the dangers of climate change to environment and health and to question that is Voodoo. Meanwhile back at home Jim Hansen cites this stuff to compare the labours of insecure and hardworking miners to ‘death trains’ and David Suzuki compares job-worried families to slave owners fighting against the abolition of slavery.
Thank you Donna.
Re: the Reiter affair:
http://www.ofcomswindlecomplaint.net/Misreprestn_Views/IPCC/ResignationAllegations.htm
It is plagiarism. If he is copying large chunks of text from another source, even if he is making some small edits, he is still infringing the copyright of the other source. Even as author, he is highly unlikely to be the copyright holder which is usually vested in the publisher. Acknowledgement as to source with the approval of the copyright holder should be given at the least.
He is making use of material which does not belong to him without due acknowledgement, that’s plagiarism.
Hu McCulloch says:
September 4, 2010 at 4:54 am
I concur with Aric Anderson (9/3 @ur momisugly 10:51AM) and Latimer Adler (9/3@ur momisugly11:00AM) that the problem here is not plagiarism per se, since you can’t plagiarize yourself.
I disagree. We usually describe plagiarism as “taking the work of another” but the failure to cite and credit previously published work is the essential element. It does not matter if the work is your own. If you quote from it or paraphrase it or use the outline of the argument, you must cite it. Anything else is plagiarism. You can plagiarise yourself.
Well, Eli, this is after I went looking for my eyeballs, you know, after they popped out and all that…
The IPCC rule, and the underlying spirit of the rule, is that you do not cite non peer-reviewed material, because you do use such material as sources, to begin with.
NOT (since you like using caps) employing such material but not citing them.
What McMichael did is, take material from non peer-reviewed material, not acknowledge the source – and this is in effect, a trick for which, enough observers have the IPCC sussed.
The trick is to take, non peer-reviewed material and claims and smuggle them into the IPCC, which elevates the status of the claims, and use that status, to prop up the scientific veracity of those claims.
Mathematician & Songwriter, Tom Lehrer has something appropriate to say…
Well done Donna!
Yes, this is O/T and a shameless Ad Homin. Just back at you, you rat. I’m tired of the constant squealing from the midden and lest I be accused of plagiarism this quote for Rattus Norvegicus is from the University of Michigan web site.(http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Rattus_norvegicus.html)
“Some consider Norway rats to be the greatest mammal pest of all time. They have caused more deaths than all the wars in history. Rat-borne diseases are thought to have killed more people in the last 1000 years than all of the wars and revolutions ever fought. They harbor lice and fleas that carry bubonic plague, typhus, trichinosus, tularemia, infectious jaundice, and many other serious diseases. These rats also cause considerable damage to property including crops, destroying and pollution of human food storage, and damage to insides and outsides of buildings. It is estimated that rats cause almost 1 billion dollars in damage in the United States each year. Rats kill poultry, domestic livestock, and game birds and are responsible for the endangerment or extinction of many species of wildlife, especially those found on islands. (Nowak and Paradiso, 1983; Silver, 1927) ”
I’m fotunate to live in one of the few parts of the world that is actually completely free of Rats. Not many Rabbits or Rabets or Wabbits around here either due to the predatory habits of the Eagles, Kestrels and Owls.
I could go on, with my tongue pushed even further into my cheek, about “rats leaving sinking ships” etc. I would however be guilty of “guilding the lily” much like the IPCC. since Ihave no direct factual evidence that rats have the common sense to leave sinking ships.
I thought Eli was claiming that the IPCC reports were the right place to get original research peer reviewed!
(and apologies for getting “it’s” wrong in my previous post)
McMichael is the guy that Dr. Paul Rieter complained so bitterly about. Rieter is probably the world’s leading expert on parasitic diseases and tropical diseases in particular. His complaint was that the IPCC selected an activist public health physician with particular expertise as the lead author of the health section. McMichael then turned around and ignored all comments and recommendations from true experts in the field. Rieter quit the IPCC in disgust and threatened to sue if they didn’t remove his none from the list of contributors.
The thing is, the IPCC selected “their guy” not based on demonstrated expertise but on the basis of his advocacy of the AGW meme.
McMichael was not representing him self as lead author for the IPCC. He was reprenting the IPCC, which supposedly is an unbiased rsearch group which at one point claimed to only use peer review sources. McMichael’s, writing as a representive for the IPCC, was under obligation to show IPCC sources of ideas presented as coming from the IPCC, by failing to do so the IPCC was plagerizing, not McMichaels.
IMHO the issue here is not plagirism but instead referencing. If the IPCC is verbatim quoting as the above examples indicate I want to know the source be it Indur M. Goklany or A J McMichael. Speaking of which I wonder what Indur’s thoughts are on what Donna has uncovered. Perhaps a guest post.
Mooloo says:
September 4, 2010 at 4:50 am
Lawyers may disagree. If I pay for a new, independent report on something,
————–
Who paid the authors for their work on the IPCC?
.
[REPLY: The taxpaying public.]
Have you guys investigated the alleged plagiarism by the Wegman report? Seems a much more compelling case than a noted expert’s self-plagiarism.
To the moderator, nobody pays the scientists for their work on the IPCC. They are volunteers.
You might also want to take a look at how the science has developed in the 12 years intervening between the SAR and 4AR.
http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/did-the-ipcc-fourth-assessment-report-oversell-the-climate-malaria-connection/
Here is the link to 4AR WG2 Chapter 8. The malaria section is on page 404:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg2/ar4-wg2-chapter8.pdf
Rattus Norvegicus says:
“…nobody pays the scientists for their work on the IPCC. They are volunteers.”
Rattus, you are so naive it’s cute. Who do you think pays for those endless jaunts to Cancun, Mexico City, Bali, etc? The Tooth Fairy?
They may be volunteers, but skeptical scientists almost never get picked, do they? And whether the IPCC’s carbon-scheme salesmen are paid directly by the UN, or paid by their current tax-sucking institution, the public ends up paying the freight. The only exceptions are NGOs like the WWF, which sends its lobbyists in droves to advance its alarmist agenda.
And your links contain the most blatant propaganda:
Emerging evidence of climate change effects on human health shows that climate change has… [& blah, blah, etc.]
If you’re going to post a link, post something credible. The UN’s entire agenda is predicated on feathering its own nest, as anyone reading its self-serving bilge can plainly see.
Some commenters have observed that one cannot plagiarize one’s own work. While there may be some merit to this observation, surely McMichael was obliged to provide a citation to the source. It seems to me that other lead authors (Mann, Jones, & Briffa for example) of other sections of IPCC reports have never been reticent when it comes to citations of their own work.
Notwithstanding the above, there’s another wrinkle to consider – particularly in light of one of Jones’s assertions in Muir-Russell [9.3.4, p.74:]
If it is common practice in the writing of IPCC reports that lead authors do not necessarily bear responsibility for the writing (and/or inclusion) of ‘relevant text’, then the inclusion of McMichael’s unsourced material is, well, even worse than we thought!
Eli, the ol’ pea-shifter, sez: ‘where it is evaluated and suggestions made for changes’
I suggested, above, that bringing a 1993 statement up to date in 2005 would be a minimal effort, which the lead author did not bother to make.