This rebuttal comment to I’ll Trade You Cuccinelli For Splattergate With A Player To Be Named Later was so well written, and so extensive, I felt that it deserves the honor of a guest post status.
– Anthony
Guest Post by Thomas Fuller
But it didn’t rise to a criminal level (that was the UK deleting emails in advance of Freedom of Information requests, not Michael Mann). What Ken Cuccinelli is doing is going fishing for wrongdoing without an allegation of such wrongdoing–and that’s not how we should be doing things in this country.
I’ll get a lot of flack from you on this–and don’t be shy, I can take it. But remember as you write–District Attorneys are not always Republican, and controversial scientists can be skeptics at times, too. Don’t let your desire for a short term victory in the daily news cycle let you ignore what would be an erosion of all our civil liberties, I beg of you.
Let’s begin by examining the validity of your statement, “But it didn’t rise to a criminal level (that was the UK deleting emails in advance of Freedom of Information requests, not Michael Mann). What Ken Cuccinelli is doing is going fishing for wrongdoing without an allegation of such wrongdoing–and that’s not how we should be doing things in this country.” On the contrary, there are outstanding allegations of wrongdoing.
Michael Mann and the University of Virginia refused to comply with the law and a citizen’s lawful FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request for e-mail held by the University, claiming the e-mail no longer existed. When Virginia Attorney General Cuccinelli served a subpoena on the University to deliver the e-mail, the supposedly deleted and non-existent e-mail was recovered from the University computer servers. Consequently, it appears there is every reason to suspect a crime was committed when the citizen’s FOIA request was denied on the basis of a fraudulent claim of destruction of the e-mail. Unlike the case with the University of East Anglia, the statute of Limiitations is likely to remain in force in the Virginia case. It remains to be determined whether or not the evidentiary discovery will support misdemeanor and/or felony charges. That is the purpose and due process of law for which the CID is needed and proper.
Then there is the issue of the $466,000 (nearly a half million dollars) in grant monies Michael Mann solicited and received from the State of Virginia and its taxpayers, in addition to the huge sums of money he and the University of Virginia received from the U.S. Government. It has been argued by a group of scientists and others that Michael Mann and the University of Virginia should somehow be uniquely immune from a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) in a prima facie FOIA and/or fraud criminal case on the basis of some unwritten gentleman’s agreement to avoid interference with the intellectual freedom of scientists. Thusly, these same people see no cognitive dissonance, hypocrisy, or injustice when they punished, sanctioned, threatened, intimidated, and/or defrauded non-scientists and dissenting scientists by dismissing state climatologists, dissenting climate scientists, dissenting meteorologists, academics, students, political appointees, and others without any Civil Investigative Demand, administrative board hearing, arraignment and trial, or other due process of law thay are now claiming for Michael Mann and the University of Virginia without any statutory or constitutional right.
Rubbing salt into the wounds of the public they have wronged for many years, they are trying to carve out a privileged position of immunity for themselves just as the Members of Congress have done so before them. Discriminating against other classes of citizens, these so-called scientists want to enjoy an immunity from investigation and prosecution not enjoyed by other citizens in our society. Expressing outrage that anyone would seek to interfere with the privacy of their communications and right to publish their communications while remaining immune from due process of law, members of their class of citizens have been running rampant in innumerable criminal cases of defrauding governments, businesses, private citizens, and causing the deaths of private citizens.
For one example, Dr. Scott Reuben pled guilty to numerous charges of fraud in which he faked numerous medical studies published in medical journals as peer reviewed research for such companies as Pfizer. Despite the peer reviews, Dr. Reuben didn’t even have any patients enrolled in his faked patient studies. Physicians relied upon these faked perr reviewed papers to provide medical care to their patients. It was subsequently determined that Dr. Scott Reuben had been faking a number of medical studies for some thirteen years without being discovered and prosecuted.
Somewhere there is someone reading the forgoing and saying Dr. Reuben is just an isolated case, and his fraud is not representative of any widespread scientific fraud. Unfortunately, they are just plain wrong and ignorant of the facts.
Take for another example, the problem with widespread fraud due to ghostwritten peer reviewed science papers. Acta Crystallographica Section E was compelled to retract more than 70 peer reviewed papers ghostwritten by Chinese scientists as faked or fraudulent studies. Pharmaceutical companies have a reputation for ghostwriting peer reviewed studies in-house and then paying medical doctors and scientists to permit their name to b used for publication of the studies. This fraudulent practice has been reported to be widespread in the pharmaceutical industry and some academia for many years as an outgrowth of the academic practice of using graduate students to perform service for their superiors holding doctorates. The University of Alabama at Birmingham has been yet another academic institution which had to retract a number of fraudulent peer reviewed papers and remove eleven proteins registered in a database of such proteins used in science.
The fallout from the notoriously fraudulent stem cell research of Hwang Woo-suk and the investigation of his associate, Professor Gerald P. Schatten of University of Pittsburgh have been ongoing.
Closer to NASA there is the case of Samim Anghaie, his wife, and their business, NETECH, which fraudulently obtained 2.5 million dollars in contracts from NASA among the 13 U.S. government contracts totalling 3.4 million dollars.
Within climate science there has been a number of incidents of suspected fraud, one of which was reported by Dr. S. Fred Singer described the allegations of either fabrication of Chinese weather station data or plagiarism by Wei-Chyung Wang, University of Albany, from work by his colleague in China, Zhaomei Zeng.
Suffice it to observe, scientific fraud is not at all uncommon, and some commentators describe scientific fraud as being rampant. Looking at the known incidents of scientific fraud, it can be seen the perpetration of such fraud is highly rewarding with grants and contracts amounting in various examples as $70,000, $466,000, and $3,400,000. Whistleblowers are typically punished for their honesty, resulting in great reluctance to disclose such scientific fraud or enthusiastic cooperation with such fraud.
In your statement, “But remember as you write–District Attorneys are not always Republican, and controversial scientists can be skeptics at times, too,” you indulge in a fallacy seemingly common to many so-called Liberal-Left Democrats. You see opponents as necessarily being some kind of badly fundamental religious Right-wing extremist or at least some misguided minority Right-wing-nut Republican. Well, such ideas are extremist fantasies. There ae a great many people who describe themselves, as Republicans, yes, but also Democrats, Libertarians, independents, and others who insist upon honesty, integrity, and impartiality. A great many of these people cheerfully wish a pox on all politicians, activists, and Lamestream journalists who seek to frustrate the ability of ordinary citizens to govern their own lives free of interference by by people who think they know better what is best for other people besides themselves and seek to make themselves immune from the same rules and burdens they would impose on others. Whether it is the special immunities and privileges the MainStream Media (MSM) seek to deny ordinary citizen journalists or the climate data and information climate scientists attempt to deny ordinary citizen observers of climate science, you don’t have to be a Republican, a political conservative, or a right-wing-nut, to join with our political opponents in demanding non-discriminatory application of the due process of law to scientists the same as other citizens and professions.
At the very least, the University of Virginia and/or Michael Mann appear to be liable to investigation and prosecution for the violation of laws relating to the FOIA release of the e-mail evidencing Michael Mann’s involvement in the handling of $466,000 of state grant funds. There is more than ample evidence that scientific fraud is a common enough crime to warrant investigations, and convincing evidence of at least some violations of law with respect to FOIA disclosures. Scientists are not yet privileged with the immunity needed to commit FOIA violations and scientific fraud with complete immunity from investigation and prosecution. let the Attorney General represent the citizens of Virginia and safeguard their taxpayer monies and their right to the freedom of information guaranteed by written laws.
Tom Fuller, I think the world of your work and contributions here but I think your last comment misses a key point.
Many of those that offend the Mannian-Jonesian line are already subjected to tyrannical and overbearing forces. From blacklists to Judith Curry’s published advice to climate science students to Ross McKitrick’s experiences attempting to publish the nefarious consequences you warn us against are already afoot.
As much as a I love you Tom, I have to give my thumbs up on this one to D. Patterson.
Peace and thanks to you both.
Mr Patterson,
A lovely counterpoint and well written. It confirms my personal experience of life which has taught me that a significant degree of scientific research is fraudulent and underpins the careers of those who make it to the top, even in the hard sciences such as physics. At the softer end of science fraud seems to me to be the norm either in the research itself or in its interpretation for policy by vested interests, for example: The AGW corpus and the pharmaceutical/medical/media complex. The latter is now commiting genocide for profit across the world and the former is attempting to emulate the latter.
I hope the good guys are able to stop it.
JM
Tom Fuller says (October 6, 2010 at 11:40 pm): “So although I think you make a strong case, for me it fails.”
Too bad. For me it works. Well said, D. Patterson.
Thanks to both Mr Fuller and Mr Patterson. I enjoyed reading both of your views. Well presented debate is a great learning experience. Keep up the good work both of you.
How strange that we were prompted to stop talking about certain subjects because Thomas Fuller had finished with them. Very strange indeed. He was happy to provide links to his own article and book. He also linked to Judith Curry’s strange website, mainly devoted to the abstract noun and the notion that everyone has been wrong on climate except Judith Curry. Thomas even tells us that “at WUWT you can easily scroll down to find interesting and relevant reports on papers and discoveries.” This would have to be at least as illuminating as Judith Curry’s links to wiki definitions of common English words.
I should add that it’s great to see alternative views given prominence by Anthony, however much they irritate me. I whinge about what Thomas Fuller and Judith Curry have written on WUWT, not about the fact that they have been permitted to do so.
Anyway, a great job, Mr. Patterson. I really needed that!
Tom Fuller says:
October 6, 2010 at 11:40 pm
… I don’t believe scientists are more honest than other humans and I do believe they should be bound by law. If prima facie evidence exists of a crime then I believe action is warranted. To date, I don’t see evidence of that…
I think that is the whole point of an investigation. Think of it as a police investigation. Someone thinks a fraud has been committed and reports the matter to the police. The police know the suspect, and have one sided evidence of the crime (from the complainant). Do the investigators dismiss the investigation?
I would say “No”, they should investigate the allegation. If the evidence presented by the complainant warrants further investigation the police would then move to look at supporting evidence of the crime. They look at documentary evidence and interview the suspect. The police would then examine the evidence and decide whether any further action should be taken.
If the allegation is found to be probably true then the alleged offender should be taken to court. If the allegation is found to be probably false then no prosecution should follow. Are you saying that scientists should be above these types of investigation? Are we now to believe that any scientist should be able to produce peer reviewed papers and their findings should not be open to scrutiny?
It seems to me that anyone under investigation has two options. Keep silent, do not assist the investigators, and wait to see the evidence in court (if that is what the investigators deem the correct thing to do). Or, explain what happened, provide supporting documentation. I know that if I was accused of any crime I would fight it all the way. I would try to ensure the case did not end up in any court, and that my version of events was heard, and possibly judged.
As you state:
To date, I don’t see evidence of that…
A possible crime has been reported. It is being investigated. Let the investigation continue and let us see where it goes. If Mr Mann has done nothing wrong he will be found innocent after the investigation. What is wrong with that scenario?
I greatly fear that this may serve as a precedent that will be used to marginalize and even silence scientists that publish papers that may offend the majority rather than support it, as in Mann’s case.
I think the process of law must be followed in every case. You, as a scientist, should recognise that this case is not about marginalising or silencing anyone, but detering those who would consider being fraudulent in presenting their results. Or in the case of Mr Mann what did he do with the grant money?
Do you honestly believe that Dr. Reuben, Hwang Woo-su and Professor Gerald P. Schatten and others should have been immune from investigation because they are scientists? What do you think the impact on the scientific community would be then?
Cogent and succinct, Mr. Patterson. Would there more letter writers with the same ability.
This was an excellent post by D. Patterson. I sincerely wish you were enroute to DC to occupy one of those 535 seats, we could use you there.
Particularly salient was the point:
This is spot-on. There is far more scrutiny (although not quite enough) at both the state and federal level for programs such as student grants, student loans, welfare payments, and yes, even Wall Street insider trading and other shenanigans.
The EPA and DEC routinely crucifies companies and private citizens for largely political reasons. State AG’s nearly destroyed the Tobacco industry all the while setting up a protection racket that Al Capone or Michael Corleone would never dare to dream of (did Big Tobacco hide their emails?). And later, (now hidden deep in the socialist memory hole) it was only ten years ago that several state AG’s and the Clinton’s AG Reno crashed the stock market while attempting to break Microsoft (did Microsoft hide their emails?).
At least this kind of action by the Virginia AG carries the moral authority of Fiscal Responsibility without anything near the draconian Iron Fist seen in the many other show trials. It is a baby’s first step toward Accountability, but I truly believe the first of many. And if we stick to Fiscal Responsibility without regard to party politics we will at least have a fighting chance to recede the Government Glacier.
What would be great is if all fifty state AG’s began doing this simultaneously, and let the chips fall where they may. And then later we can finally replace that disgusting political hack AG Holder with a real constitutional attorney (I nominate Mark Levin).
In the future when people/groups/agencies are seeking funding, the TaxPayer funded state/federal governments will become the avenue of LAST resort instead of the first (or only).
Bravo. On target.
Two spelling/typo corrections.
“Physicians relied upon these faked PEER reviewed papers to provide medical care to their patients.”
“There ARE a great many people who describe themselves …”
“I don’t believe scientists are more honest than other humans and I do believe they should be bound by law. If prima facie evidence exists of a crime then I believe action is warranted. To date, I don’t see evidence of that.”
______________________________________
Virginia Qui Tam Law Blog excerpts:
“Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli used his powers under the VFATA to serve a civil investigative demand on the University of Virginia. He seeks records and other information related to work of a guy named Michael Mann (who is a leading scientist studying climate change a/k/a global warming) while he was a professor at UVa.
The CID was issued based on information from the “Climategate” incident last fall. Climategate involved thousands of emails from Dr. Mann being leaked to the public. The emails allegedly show Dr. Mann conspiring to rig research results; apparently, reasonable people can disagree about what is said in these emails.
It is also a fact that if Mann’s emails do in fact contain evidence of Mann falsifying research results, he has liability to the Commonwealth under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act. This is so because he received hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of state and/or federal grants to continue his research while he was at UVa.”
http://vaquitamlaw.com/2010/07/06/is-uva-allowing-a-political-bias-to-inhibit-cooperation-with-the-virginia-attorney-general.aspx
——————-
The strategy of Mann and UVa has been simple since day one—they have continually sought to turn this into a battle about academic freedom, rather than a simple investigation into whether or not Mann made misrepresentations on several grant applications.
As I have pointed out before, most lawyers representing targets of a CID take advantage of the opportunity to try to convince the government that there has been no wrongdoing, and that the client has nothing to hide.
There are very good reasons for this, because this epic battle over this CID is much ado about nothing. Even if a target “wins” and the CID gets set aside, they haven’t really won anything at all, because a CID is just a preliminary investigative tool .
http://vaquitamlaw.com/2010/08/18/hearing-to-be-held-on-uvas-challenge-to-the-oags-civil-investigative-demand-this-friday-august-20-2010-at-200-pm.aspx
As stated elsewhere, arguing that there is no evidence of fraud to avoid an IRS audit doesn’t fly. The climategate emails raised suspicion regarding the actions of Micheal Mann, these suspicions have only increased with the various whitewashes.
The Virginia AG, the powers of the Virginia CID & Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act really doesn’t care how many people jump up and down and say move along, there is no evidence of fraud visible at this time. The CID or if invoked the VFATA discovery process will determine if fraud may exist.
“Consequently, it appears there is every reason to suspect a crime was committed when the citizen’s FOIA request was denied on the basis of a fraudulent claim of destruction of the e-mail.”
&
“It remains to be determined whether or not the evidentiary discovery will support misdemeanor and/or felony charges. That is the purpose and due process of law for which the CID is needed and proper.”
The deletion of emails in response to a FOI request perverts that legal process. If such actions can be seen to have no consequences for the perpetrator then FOI, one of the most important pieces of legislation to have been enacted IMHO, becomes a busted flush. The fact that this is being pursued in such a high profile and polarised case is immaterial to the process but could have ramifications far in excess of any crime that may be uncovered. For scientists to seek impunity and others to support that is an attempt at pervertion of justice. If scientists wish to do some special pleading let them do so at the correct time and place; this is not it.
Thank you very much Patterson for making such a clear and well-informed case.
It leads me to disagree further with Tom Fuller (a) that there is already evidence of wrongdoing (b) that this action, in challenging Mann’s totalitarian bullying, will help the cause of freedom for minority scientific opinions, not diminish it.
It also makes me aware that while words cannot express the depth of my support for Steve McIntyre and all he has done, and his right to distance himself from Cuccinelli, there is an issue here, which is, at a deeper level, in line with Steve’s work of audit.
Re: Tom Fuller says:
October 6, 2010 at 11:40 pm
“I greatly fear that this may serve as a precedent that will be used to marginalize and even silence scientists that publish papers that may offend the majority rather than support it, as in Mann’s case.”
I do not understand this. Knowing that all your publicly funded research is potentialy open to FOI requests would, or should, only engender a level of professionalism in all your work, not just your methods and data, ( which always should be available and allow ones work to be reproduced before anyone should take it seriously) but in your communication and e-mails as well.
Placing ones work in the open should never be a concern. In my work for twenty years their was not one e-mail to any co-worker involving a subject at work which I would feel apprehensive about reproducing. The degree of unprofessionalism exhibited in the climate gate e-mails was quite astounding.
On the face of it this time the AGW is legally nailed. Lets wait for docs first though
http://www.suite101.com/content/legal-defeat-for-global-warming-in-kiwigate-scandal-a294157
This will be more important and significant than Climategate or Cucinelli when the NZ gatekeeper is/if charged in court
Good heavens. Another effortless demonstration by Anthony Watts and the WUWT team on how to run a large online discussion on a difficult and complex subject with complete impartiality, ready humo(u)r, reason, etc. etc.
Thank you, people. I had a creeping sense of unease, on occasion, when reading Thomas Fuller’s posts, and was unable to quite pinpoint why. D. Patterson’s lucid observations have somewhat resolved this.
I really think that visiting this site should be part of education. My youngest daughter is having to weather the storm – UK Government-subsidised Inconvenient Truth, her school signing up to the 10:10 lunacy (!), and so on.
She’s sailed through the whole cloud of scare-mongering and disinformation unscathed. Largely thanks to WUWT and its commenters. There are other beacons of course, but for us, surfacestations.org came first.
And it’s not only the subject matter: the whole style and manner of WUWT stands as an example. Hard-edged, and unfailingly courteous.
Got that, team? We loves ya –
RLawrence
“When I wrote that district attorneys (should have been Attorneys General) are not always Republican, what I should have probably said was that the scientist in the crosshairs may not always be from the well-defended and funded consensus position.”
Mr. Fuller, you are correct on that one. But the only consequence will be that they too must obey the law. They must follow the FOIA request. And so what? Give them the emails, and be done with it. Right?
Tom,
In creating a CID Cuccinelli does not have to have prima facie evidence of a crime committed. There needs only evidence to suspect a crime has been committed. The whole point of a CID is to seek information to determine if a crime has been committed.
While you make the point that the emails may show only the nastier side of scientific publishing, it is the information that Steve McIntyre uncovered, and ably presented in Andrew Montford’s Hockey Stick Illusion, that is relevant. Mann broke numerous rules of scientific standard practice in producing the hockey stick, creating a misleading graph through his failure to either stick to scientific practice or reveal the true extent of his deviations from standards. An example would be the padding out of the Graybill proxy series backwards 4 years to be able to include it in the group of longer proxy series. He needed to do this because otherwise there was no proxy to create the hockey stick. (Damn, I’ve handed back the copy of Montford’s book that I borrowed and I’m doing this all from memory.)
The fact that he then used this graph in material to elicit further funding can be construed as fraud.
I am an academic myself and I have no sympathy for a scientist who deviates that far from accepted practice to reach a preconceived conclusion and then hides all evidence that he has done so. I believe in academic freedom but not the freedom to defraud the government or the taxpayers.
The sanctity of reporters and their sources are a general
extention of the U.S. Constitutional right to a “Free Press”.
Saying that “the state” recognizes the need for a “greater
license granted to journalists”, does a form of revisionist
violence to the fact that “the state” has no
choice but to do so. Our founding fathers made that choice
for us over 200 years ago.
They made no such choice to give reseachers, especially those
employed by public institutions, any form of sanctuary should
they need to take “desperate measures to defend” their work.
Private researchers and their work product may
be protected from casual public inspection if they have some
proprietary considerations or patents on a process.
I respectfully suggest both D. Patterson and especially
T. Fuller review the numerous U.S. Supreme Court
rulings over the past 25 years covering the rights (or lack
thereof) and the general parameters regarding “public
employees” be they hourly civil service, contract staff, or
academic staff and their various assistants.
The State of Virginia has it’s own rules and regs for it’s public
employees. There are Virginia court rulings that define what
state employees can and should expect as far as their “rights”
can be generally defined.
There are no loop holes for researchers at “public institutions”
under Federal FOIA giving academics an exception to allow
withholding of requested information they’ve created,
assembled, deduced, or by analysis formed while on the
public payroll.
Virginia FIO law doesn’t carve out or even hint at
a special exception for academic reseachers.
There is no violation of either Dr. Mann’s civil rights
of the University of Virginia’s instutional rights in
question here.
Mr Fuller:
I write to comment on your post to D Patterson at October 6, 2010 at 11:40 pm.
You – I think rightly – claim;
“I believe the University has a lower level of diligence required of it to search for and produce information for FOI than say, in response to a subpoena”.
But if your claim is correct, then so what?
The University would want to present information that supported its case and has an obvious reason to “lose” information that hindered its case. Hence, the University’s failure to provide the information (which was later shown to exist) is – of itself – a reason for suspicion.
And you say to D Patterson;
“You cite numerous other cases where criminal behaviour has been found, but I don’t see their applicability to Mann’s situation or the University’s, for that matter.”
Such cases do not directly relate to “Mann’s situation” but they demonstrate
(a) that such malfeasance is not rare behaviour by scientists
and
(b) that scientists can benefit from such malfeasance which can go undetected for years.
Therefore, the cases prove there is a need for investigations to reveal or disprove such malfeasance in any case where there is reason to suspect it exists. Indeed, an innocent scientist who finds him/herself under a cloud of such suspicion could be expected to welcome and assist the investigation that could clear his/her name. And the ‘Climategate’ emails provide significant evidence of misuse of funds by associates of Mann; e.g. see
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=332&filename=1056478635.txt
Hence, Mann is under a cloud of suspicion provided by his apparent ‘guilt by association’. And, therefore, there is a need for investigations to reveal or disprove his malfeasance if only as a method to provide exoneration of Mann.
And you assert;
“But given the adversarial nature of scientific publishing–very much like litigants–it [i.e. the behaviour of Mann] does not venture far from the norm in this type of case.”
Say what!?
The ‘Climategate’ emails provide a complete demonstration that the self-titled Team with the direct involvement of Michael Mann
(i) usurped the peer review process by conspiring to review (and approve) the papers of each other
(ii) usurped the peer review process by concerted effort to use the peer review process to prevent publication of papers which did not support their agenda,
(iii) attacked journals that published papers which did not support their agenda,
(iv) attempted to remove a journal Editor who would not reject all papers that did not support their view (soon after he did leave the job),
(v) wrote to the University that employed another journal’s Editor in an attempt to discredit her because she refused to reject for publication a paper which did not support their view
(vi) attempted to redefine peer review as a method to excuse refusal to mention a paper in the most recent IPCC Report (it was not mentioned in the Report but several not-reviewed papers were).
All these matters are spelled-out in their own words in their hacked (?) emails that can be read at e.g.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/22/bishop-hills-compendium-of-cru-email-issues/
Each item on the above list is far, far from “the norm” of behaviour in “the adversarial nature of scientific publishing”.
Perhaps most importantly you assert and ask;
“The threat of creating a chilling environment for scientific publications must be considered. Do we not have enough of a perverse incentive leading to piggy back publications regarding climate change and other controversial topics? Is it not possible that overzealous prosecution will impede scientific progress?”
The threat you mention most certainly does need to be considered because Mann and his associates have created “a chilling environment for scientific publications” (see my list above) which needs to be corrected because it is an impediment to scientific progress.
And the answers to your questions are that the investigation leading to possible prosecution is needed if the impediment to scientific progress is to be removed. But this will not affect the “perverse incentive leading to piggy back publications” in any way because that incentive derives from the view of academia that number (and number of citations) and not quality indicates worth of publications.
And you make an inverted assertion when you say;
“I greatly fear that this may serve as a precedent that will be used to marginalize and even silence scientists that publish papers that may offend the majority rather than support it, as in Mann’s case.”
Scientists who attempt to “publish papers that may offend the majority rather than support it” on climate science have been marginalized (see my list above). The investigation with possible prosecution of Mann can only help to correct this.
And you conclude by saying to D Patteron;
“So although I think you make a strong case, for me it fails.”
Well, I think you provide a weak case which defeats itself.
Richard
“Consequently, it appears there is every reason to suspect a crime was committed when the citizen’s FOIA request was denied on the basis of a fraudulent claim of destruction of the e-mail.”
&
“It remains to be determined whether or not the evidentiary discovery will support misdemeanor and/or felony charges. That is the purpose and due process of law for which the CID is needed and proper.”
The deletion of emails in response to a FOI request perverts that legal process. If such actions can be seen to have no consequences for the perpetrator then FOI, one of the most important pieces of legislation to have been enacted IMHO, becomes a busted flush. The fact that this is being pursued in such a high profile and polarised case is immaterial to the process but could have ramifications far in excess of any crime that may be uncovered. For scientists to seek impunity and others to support that is an attempt at perversion of justice. If scientists wish to do some special pleading let them do so at the correct time and place; this is not it.
Mods.
This is a test post for this thread. I have posted a comment twice at some time apart & neither have materialised as awaiting mod….
[REPLY: Sometimes, especially if they contain links, a post gets automatically shoved into the spam pile. At that time it will not appear, even as waiting for mod, until a mod moves it out of the spam pile. Hence, occasionally a bit of patience is required… bl57~mod]
Tom Fuller I am a great fan of your writing and I admire the stand you have taken although I disagree with you.
With the enquiries that we have seen Penn state, and the two Cru and UEA enquiries. Which in noway enquired or considered any adverse evidence but totally ignored it. It seems that the only way forward must be in a court of law where all the evidence can be duly considered. With politics involved and vast amounts of taxes and power at stake I cannot see anyway a scientist who goes against those forces will not be under the same pressure as the late UK government scientist Dr.David Kelly. So however distasteful I would like to see some sort of legal challenge.
Tom,
You say there is a threat to chilling the environment in climate science if this goes shed.
I say the chilled environment already exists, but it’s been created by Mann, Schmidt, Ward et al and is used against anyone who questions mans role in Mann Made Global Warming.
Mailman
@ur momisugly Tom Fuller (October 6, 2010 at 11:40 pm)
A scientist resorting to desperate measures to defend his work can be by turns disgusting, pitiable and infuriating. I would submit that Michael Mann has been all of these. But given the adversarial nature of scientific publishing–very much like litigants–it does not venture far from the norm in this type of case.
If that is “the norm” (or even close to “the norm”) then all the more reason to clamp down on the whole industry and start enforcing some standards of practice.
The threat of creating a chilling environment for scientific publications must be considered. Do we not have enough of a perverse incentive leading to piggy back publications regarding climate change and other controversial topics? Is it not possible that overzealous prosecution will impede scientific progress?
Talk about alarmism! “The threat of creating a chilling environment for scientific publications must be considered”! Lets just leave the scientists alone to do whatever they want, in privacy, without independent investigation, and lets not ask too many difficult questions. Lest we create a “chilling environment for scientific publications.”
I greatly fear that this may serve as a precedent that will be used to marginalize and even silence scientists that publish papers that may offend the majority rather than support it, as in Mann’s case.
Tom, you don’t get it. We as sceptics don’t care about whether something offends or supports “the majority.” If a scientist is suspected (with reason), and subsequently found to be guilty, of having committed fraud, or of having broken any number of codes of practice in order, for example, to present misleading or false information, then that scientist should be silenced, and yes, marginalized, and stripped of his title.