Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
Guest post by Thomas Fuller
Regular readers will remember that the fuss generated by Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick chart caused an investigation. A U.S. Congressional committee, led by Congressman Joe Barton, asked Edward Wegman to investigate the methods and findings of Michael Mann. (See the Wegman report titled “AD HOC COMMITTEE REPORT ON THE ‘HOCKEY STICK’ GLOBAL CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION” here)
Now Wegman’s work is being investigated in much the same manner by people alleging that Wegman’s work contains plagiarized material.
The investigating institution, George Mason University, is responding to a formal complaint by Raymond Bradley, who was a co-author with Michael Mann of the work Wegman looked into.
One of the anonymous weblogs specializing in climate hysteria, Deep Climate, has been trumpeting charges about Wegman’s work for quite some time, alleging among other heinous crimes that some of the post grads working with Wegman had plagiarized work. Given the source, I had not paid much attention to it.
But if there is a formal complaint, we need to look at it seriously. Wegman’s criticism of Mann’s work is widely cited–his famous claim that ‘right answer, wrong method equals bad science’ is certainly and obviously correct–but it will have to apply to him, too.
I should also note that this is being handled better than Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s investigation of the University of Virginia’s grants for Michael Mann–basically because it’s being handled by the institution involved, as it should be.
I don’t like the weblog Deep Climate, and I very much respect the report Edward Wegman put out. I understand what the report said and I agree with its conclusions. So I’m hoping this investigation is thorough, quick and that Wegman’s work stands.
But there’s no way we can ignore this and complain about a lack of vigor in finding out what went wrong with CRU, Climategate and the Hockey Stick. This is bad news (for me). But it is news.
Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick will not be resurrected–there is enough criticism of it from his own colleagues in the leaked emails of Climategate to insure that. But Wegman’s report may sink under the weight of plagiarized material and while that would be a pity, that’s sometimes the way things work.
Let’s watch this and see, and report on the results in a clear-eyed fashion. Just because we have policy preferences and have opinions doesn’t mean we can ignore the facts.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
Desmong said:
Actually, you’ve overstated the problem by quite a large margin. The claim is that 10 pages contain unattributed copying (ie plagiarism). 35 pages contain cited summaries that Mashey and DC consider insufficiently different (not plagiarism yet still potentially a problem at least for a strict academic paper.)
Even then, there’s no proof that their claims are correct. Example: they show a common link between WR and a Wikipedia article. Yet the Wikipedia article itself is, by definition, material drawn from other sources… which are also improperly unattributed. It is possible that both drew from a third source, which for all we know may have been Wegman himself.
Yes, it’s a mess. But I’m content to sit back and allow all sides an opportunity to speak. We don’t really know what happened here.
Win or not, Wegman will be flogged, then placed upon the rack and then drawn and quartered, and his body parts taken to the four corners of the World and his head put on a pike at the top of the Washington Monument. When a mob of any persuasion is after you, you can’t win. Little wonder that so few scientists dare to challange the march to Utopia and the New World Order.
Anna v at 3:47
“…What is sad is that the link above clearly shows that we are on the downslide towards the next ice age. Instead of wasting money trying to thought control a bit of beneficial warming ( I believe it is hubris to think that we can control the weather by playing with CO2) the UN should be concerned of solutions for coming cold seasons, maybe in decades or even hundreds of years, but come they will….”
Don’t you think that’s what it’s all about? They know the cooling is coming. But right now there’s an uptick in temps and is correlated with CO2. Now is the time to spin the hysteria to amass power and wealth, before the cooling begins. Then when the cooling begins, they can say “see, we were right and thankfully we were able to put in all these controls of CO2 which got our climate to reverse the warming”. But in 50 years when this generation is gone, the future generation can start all over again but with claims of global cooling hysteria, allowing them to amass yet more power and money.
When I was a young scientist I was naive. During my lifetime (and paying attention to history) I’ve learned that everything really is about the money. From Judas till now…follow the money.
If Wegman was investigating Mann, BRADLEY, and Hughes it would have been necessary to use their own words as evidence. As dedro is a “Very Small” field the amount of written descriptions in 2005 would have been limited to text written by the perpetrators.
We are talking about an investigation of original work and those who participated in that work. So even if they copied verbatim all that Bradley has ever written to be used in the Wegman report, Bradley was given credit for being investigated.
Phil. October 9, 2010 at 5:26 am,
For info. – Cucinelli filed his original CIDs 23 April 2010. See page 5:
http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/pdf/052710_petition.pdf
The charges need to be looked at. My read of Wegman’s statement that litigation is underway is that he might be pursuing his own legal action. Mashey’s analysis is a incoherent jumble. The emergence of so many warmistas on this site at this time is passing strange and feels like a concerted counter-attack. Remember that the prime mover in this attack on Wegman comes from a PR firm.
Lionsden,
Put down the pipe and step away from the keyboard. Kudos for saying something mild about the Church of Climatology’s jihadi element putting out a video depicting children being graphically murdered for not joining the congregation? The be-headings put online by the other jihadi’s was less disturbing and that this was squarely aimed at children is beyond contempt.
Throwing back at them their own verbiage is plagiarism when science fantasy is presented as science fact? Mann should have made the pitch for Pons and Fleischman. They’d have their own wing at MIT by now. Maybe even action figures!
I find this a bit amusing. Plagiarism, is a serious academic charge. It implies intellectual theft. What it doesn’t do, is address the validity of the statements. If this is the tactic for going after the Wegman report, then they are, by default, acquiescing to the content of the report. Personally, I don’t care who wrote what part of it. It doesn’t matter to me. If Wegman plagiarized some of the report, take his hall pass away, and let’s speak to the specifics of the report.
What I find interesting, is the use of “plagiarism”. It’s a report! I don’t believe they asserted any original thought unique to the writer. So, they copied and pasted incorrectly. It is an easy fix. Add a couple of footnotes and done! That said, it still doesn’t change the content of the report. Trying to equate this with mis-use of public funds or deliberately circumventing federal laws is laughable. This is nothing more than a diversionary tactic in a slight-of-hand 3rd rate magic trick.
By coincidence, I lodged a complaint of plagiarism with Mason University on 25th April as Deep Climate seemed “willing to wound but afraid to strike”. The complaint was as follows:
“Dear Dr Stough,
You may be aware that allegations of plagiarism against Prof Edward Wegman and Yasmin Said are circulating on the internet, in particular by the host of a website called Deep Climate. The link below refers:
http://deepclimate.org/2010/04/22/wegman-and-saids-social-network-sources-more-dubious-scholarship/#more-1552
These allegations relate to a matter of his conduct when preparing a report (http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/108/home/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf)
for the United States House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee on a matter of great public importance. On pages 17 and 18 of the report, in some prefatory passages, it is alleged he borrowed heavily on material available on the internet and from a well known textbook without acknowledging the source.
The whole affair seems inconsequential, but if an acknowledgement should have been give it is best given as soon as possible.
Please treat my email as a complaint of research misconduct; being plagiarism as particularised at the above hyperlink.
Refards,
Bob Denton.”
I’ve heard nothing further, I@d assumed it would be binned. Prof Bradley is lucky that Mason University is taking any action at all, no matter how dilatory.
Given that Prof Bradley has complained formally himself it’s a little surprising that Prof Wegman hasn’t trawled through the report and published a list of acknowledgements which should’ve been made but which, for whatever reason, weren’t made at the time.
The affair is relatively minor, amounting to nothing more than a failure to give due acknowledgement to text, whose substance was clearly derivative and which contained claim to originality. However, if an undergraduate would expect to be given advice to take care to comply fully with the professional responsibility to acknowledge the work and words of others then a professor must equally expect to receive such advice and an appropriate admonition.
Is there not some irony in the fact that this complaint against Wegman’s professionalism is now getting public attention in the same week Michael Mann wrote a political editorial decrying attacks on other academics because it would “stifle” the science and turn away new innovation?
Also not being said? With the vast fortune available in the Church of Climatology’s coffers and portions of the fortunes of their largest contributors at stake, this is what they are grasping at. This is what they’ve come to in defence of their pitch. That sink in to anyone yet? If not head on over to your local jurisdictional night court and watch a better brand of misdirection being presented by your local streetwalkers and pimps. At the very least, that’ll be worth sitting through for the vivid imaginations at play. The Church of Climatology’s misdirections are always the same and as this does also, lacks any real mental investment at all.
If you can’t win in the theatre of the original topic, change both the subject matter the venue. Anxiously awaiting the “meat is murder” shift in act 3.
“Is there a list of what is meant to have been plagiarized…”
Below are two examples:
http://deepclimate.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/wegman-social-networks-v-2.pdf
http://deepclimate.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/wegman-bradley-tree-rings-v20.pdf
REPLY: So BCL, when will you be carrying this item?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/08/hal-lewis-my-resignation-from-the-american-physical-society/
I’ll make it easy for you, you don’t even have to reference the blog you despise, just use the link to the GWPF inside.
I figure it’s as least as important as your coverage of bigfoot and monster jellyfish which have graced your blog.
-Anthony
Anyone who wants to see the side by side comparisons needs to go to deep climate.
‘SkepticGate’. Hah, poor fools. This budges no thermometer, no feedback of water vapor, no stat of Mann, no echo in chamber.
=================
So the accusation is that Dr Wegman described the background information on the science without proper attribution. What does this have to do with the scientific basis of his criticisms of Mann, et al’s work? Criticisms that both “expert panels” agreed upon under oath.
Desmong,
The Wegman report has been out there for years, if there are “other problems” with it please do tell.
While Eli thinks that Tetris’ suggestion that of rabetts guarding the lettuce is a fine one, there are reasons why universities are charged with investigating complaints against their faculty and strong motives for doing it right. Reports on these investigations must be reported to the funding agencies which evaluate them. There are serious penalties, including global defunding, which threaten any school which obviously washes stuff under the rug, which is why no quarter is given.
Here again, it is useful to understand the mechanism. Written complaints generate inquiries, usually at the administrative level. Inquiries determine if investigations are needed. Investigations determine if penalties are required. All of this is reported to and monitored by the granting agencies.
A good website for getting an understanding about how all this works and inside stuff in general is Medical Writing, Editing and Gransmanship.
Eli nominates Tetris for thread winner.
The plagiarism allegations as I recall from Deep C. where about background material from textbooks. A technical report is not quite the same as a journal or book publication but it is still best to include all the citations or a statement like “much of the background section is taken from …”
I object to to composition of the panel. Wegman, although a respected statistician, was well known for his conservative views and ties to the defense industry. He was a vocal supporter of Reagan’s S.D.I. The panel was Wegman, a friend he invited and one of Wegman’s grad students. That’s just too narrow. If the House committee wanted an independent review they would have recruited a much boarder panel with several statisticians and climatologists. No one on the panel had any experience in climatology. The Nation Academy review was better in this regard and vindicated Mann’s work.
I believe that Tetris is right concerning your remark that
“I should also note that this is being handled better than Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s investigation of the University of Virginia’s grants for Michael Mann–basically because it’s being handled by the institution involved, as it should be.”
He noted “The “fox guarding the chicken coop” analogy somehow seems more appropriate, although it fails in its ability to reflect universities’ politically correct aversion to blood on the walls.”
I have been following the commentary here on Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s investigation. The Northern Virginia Jewish Center invited him back for a public forum last week. He has been there a number of times before since he used to represent many of their members in the legislature. He is a conservative and they are (mostly but not all) liberal. The questioning was very pointed and sometimes emotional due to the viewpoint differences but both the questions and the answers were very polite. The answers were detailed. He made the point several times that he is not investigating Mr. Mann’s science and that Mr. Mann is not a party to the investigation. He also pointed out that it is an internal Virginia Government investigation and that the documentation he is requesting is internal Virginia property and that as the state Attorney General he is assigned by law the responsibility of investigating these matters. The law that mandates this came up because of previous misbehavior with state funds by State University professors. There were four follow-up questions to the original question on the subject. Given the way he handled this issue in conjunction with the way he handled quite a number of other issues, I would rate the likelihood of his being on “witch hunt” quite low.
I had the opportunity to talk with several members of the community after the meeting who had seen him there over a number of years. They have had active co-operation with him on areas where they agreed and polity agreement to disagree with him on other issues. They all had the highest respect for his integrity and intelligence. I cannot share the actual experience with you. However, I am now convinced based on his work over a number of years with a group that does not fully share his political views. This investigation will be done with complete integrity.
Blade remarked rhetorically, “I’m sorry, did you mean to suggest that Virginia Taxpayers have had their money misused or squandered by Wegman?” I have read enough in the Washington area newspapers over university financial scandals to know that most major universities hide them as long as possible and prefer to hide behind academic freedom. However, financial scandals in research are frequent although I cannot judge their frequency compared to purely academic scandals based on newspaper reports. The way to discourage misbehavior in obtaining and running grants is to audit them whenever there is reason to suspect misbehavior in obtaining or running them. Professors are strongly incentivized by their employers to get grants.
Does anyone know where on line the actual legal postings have been placed. It might be good to go to the original sources and read what the State and the University actually say in their pleadings and what the court has responded to date. I am still suspicious of letting the fox guard the chicken coop whether the chickens are pro or anti global warming, pro or anti vaccine, pro or anti anything else.
David Gibson
As I see it, John Mashey merely got what he’s been after for years now. Attention.
@James Baldwin Sexton
“I find this a bit amusing. Plagiarism, is a serious academic charge. It implies intellectual theft. What it doesn’t do, is address the validity of the statements. If this is the tactic for going after the Wegman report, then they are, by default, acquiescing to the content of the report. “
Who is “they”? deepclimate? John Mashey? Why can the report not be both wrong and plagiarized? Or have elements which are right and wrong, and elements which are plagiarized? Why is there a need to take a position that the report is either correct in its entirety or plagiarized?
We know that the National Academy of Sciences concluded Mann’s work had statistical flaws but that they didn’t affect the conclusions. We also know that subsequent publications from different authors using different methods have further affirmed those conclusions.
“It’s a report! I don’t believe they asserted any original thought unique to the writer. So, they copied and pasted incorrectly. It is an easy fix. Add a couple of footnotes and done!”
Well the issue must surely be why they did copy and paste so liberally in the first place. Furthermore why did they include so many unused references? Given that the IPCC reports see so much controversy over a single bad reference it seems curious you’re willing to apply a different standard where you agree with the conclusions.
All that does is create impossible hurdles for information contrary to your expectations to overcome while fostering poor standards among publications which do support you.
James Sexton says:
October 9, 2010 at 7:30 am
What James said. Game – Set – Match.
Wegman’s work is a academia bureaucrat’s report not an original research published in a peer review paper that would steal someone’s idea. You can bet that many congressinal reports are probably having the same minor problems. But since it’s climate science politics, the witchhunt organized by Mashey and his friendly desmogblog Canadian crowd connection named DC and its handful of followers from Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Victoria is supposed to unearth a misattribution here, a lack of reference here and that’s supposed to discredit Wegman’s work?
Poor Bradley!
Reminds me Mann and Schmidt p….g in their own pocket recently.
In reference to the case being built against Mann, this could be a defendant’s (IE strategic advice from a lawyer) to force a judge to disallow evidence from a paper currently being investigated.
Plagiarism lives in a grey area when centered around commonly understood phenomenon. When we define a commonly used English word, are we guilty of plagiarism when we fail to site a dictionary? When we define a commonly understood method of using tree rings as a proxy, are we guilty of plagiarism when we fail to site one of the many folks who first studied the use of tree rings for such purposes? Some things by their nature (IE tree rings), are defined by a finite set of words in the description, thus are ready cases of plagiarism but not easily made to stick in a court of law.
@Pamela Gray
“Plagiarism lives in a grey area when centered around commonly understood phenomenon. When we define a commonly used English word, are we guilty of plagiarism when we fail to site a dictionary?”
I can’t imagine any individual would consider this example a “grey area” with regards to plagiarism.
If I reposted your comment elsewhere without reference to you at all you’d rightly accuse me of plagiarism. If I posted a comment 80% similar to yours just with some words changed or switched around you’d do the same.
If I wrote a full post here on WUWT and it was later discovered large portions of it were cobbled together unreferenced copied and pasted comments from other people then you’d rightly expect both the original authors to cry foul and for that to reflect negatively on me and the quality of my work. It wouldn’t mean necessarily the point of the post was either right or wrong but it would mean that was not a good example of an argument supporting it.
Huub Bakker (October 8, 2010 at 11:10 pm), your faculty-member viewpoint that universities have “abrogated the right to make their own investigations” is an interesting one, but I suspect it goes a bit too far. Surely the universities, societies, and journals should be the first line of defense. There are times when they are so badly broken that outside pressure and outside supervision are required. And even before it gets that bad, outside opinions should always be given serious consideration, and funders have some responsibilities, as well. But once the universities were halfway sound, would you not want them to be the first line of defense? Would you want them ignoring bad practice because they no longer have any responsibility to investigate it? Do the skeptic auditors like us have the time to dig into every little problem? I have to hold my breath and agree with Tom Fuller on this one. I say “hold my breath” because of course neither plan is going to prevent all risks. We have been seeing the problems that arise if the universities are the only enforcement in town.
Or perhaps I should just say that proper oversight is situational. It depends on the particular problem. First the universities to fix what goes wrong with the professors and the departments, then the funders and the public to fix what goes wrong with the universities or the journals or the societies.