By Dr. David Schnare
N.B., Dr. Schnare is the lead attorney in the UVA-Mann email case.
This week Nature Magazine published an editorial suggesting that “access to personal correspondence is a freedom too far” and that Michael Mann, whom they favorably compare to Galileo, should have his emails, written and received while he was a young professor at the University of Virginia, protected from public release on the core basis that to do otherwise would “chill” the work of scientists and academics. I note Galileo was forced to keep his work private. Had he the opportunity, he would have published it far and wide. Mann is quite the opposite. He wants to keep secrets and let no one know what he did and how he did it.
Nature, unfamiliar with the facts, law and both academic and university policy as applies in this case, conflates too many issues and misunderstands the transparency questions we raise.
The facts of the case include that these emails are more than five years old; that they contain none of the email attachments, no computer code, no data, no draft papers, no draft reports; that the university has already released over 2,000 of them, some academic and some not; that when they were written Mann knew there was no expectation of privacy; that all emails sent or received by a federal addressee are subject to the federal FOIA, and many have already been released; and that nearly 200 of the emails the University refuses to release were released by a whistleblower in England.
That latter group of emails, part of the “Climategate” release, do more than merely suggest Mann engaged in academic improprieties. They show he was a willing participant in efforts to “discriminate against or harass colleagues” and a failure to “respect and defend the free inquiry of associates, even when it leads to findings and conclusions that differ from their own.” Other emails document Mann’s communications were not “conducted professionally and with civility.”
Thus, emails already available to the public demonstrate that Michael Mann failed to comply with the University of Virginia Code of Ethics and the American Association of University Professors Statement on Professional Ethics.
A question, not mine, but asked by many who are interested in the history of this period, is not whether Mann failed to live up to the professional code expected of him. It is to what degree he failed to do so and to what lengths the university will go to hide this misbehavior. If we merely sought to expose Mann’s failure to display full academic professionalism, we would not need these emails. Those already in the public eye are more than sufficient for any such purposes.
I want those emails for a very different reason. Our law center seeks to defend good science and proper governmental behavior, and conversely to expose the converse. Without access to those kinds of emails, and, notably, research records themselves, it is not possible for anyone to adequately credit good behavior and expose bad behavior. This is one of two reasons we prosecute this case. It is the core purpose of a freedom of information act. Because the public paid for this work and owns this university, it has not merely a right to determine whether the faculty are doing their jobs properly; it has a duty to do so. This is not about peer review; it is about citizens’ acting as the sovereign and taking any appropriate step necessary to ensure those given stewardship over an arm of the Commonwealth are faithfully performing.
The second reason we bring this case is to defend science and the scientific process. Anyone who has taken a high school science laboratory course knows that the research or experimental process begins with recording what was done and what was observed. As UVA explains in its Research Policy RES-002, “The retention of accurately recorded and retrievable results is of the utmost importance in the conduct of research.” Why? “To enable an investigator to reproduce the steps taken.”
Currently public emails show Mann was unable to provide even his close colleagues data he used in some of his papers and could not remember which data sets he used. A query to UVA shows the university, who owns “the data and notebooks resulting from sponsored research,” had no copy of Mann’s logbooks and never gave him permission to take them with him when he left UVA. The university refused to inquire within Mann’s department as to whether anyone there knew whether he even kept a research logbook, so it’s impossible for me to know whether he stole the logbook or just never prepared one in the first place.
The emails ATI seeks are all that appears to be left of a history of what he did and how. Absent access to those emails, anyone seeking to duplicate his work, using the exact same data and methods, has no way to do so. That is in direct conflict with both good science and the UVA research policy.
Nor should access to these kind of emails “chill” the academic process.
As a former academic scientist, I understand the need and desire to keep close the research work while it is underway. Both I and the university have a proprietary interest in that work, while it is ongoing. Once completed, however, I have a duty to share not only the data and methods with the academic community, I also have a duty to share the mistakes, the blind alleys, the bad guesses and the work and theories abandoned.
Science advances knowledge by demonstrating that a theory is wrong. All the mistakes, blind alleys and bad guesses are valuable, not just to the scientist himself, but to his colleagues. By knowing what did not work, one does more than simply save time. One gains direction. One mistake revealed often opens a vista of other ideas and opportunities. The communications between scientists during a period of research are the grist for the next generation of work. Ask any doctoral candidate or post-doc how important being part of the process is on the direction of their future research. They will tell you that these unpublished communications are as much an important scientific contribution as the final papers themselves. Anyone who wishes to hide those thoughtful discussions hides knowledge.
If anything is “chilling” it is the thought that a neo-Galileo is hiding knowledge.
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Gail Combs says: November 15, 2011 at 5:53 am
Leif Svalgaard says: November 14, 2011 at 9:56 pm
This absolutely floors me!
Looks like the difference between scientific work that can affect the life and health of others (engineering standards involved), and scientific work that is simply enjoying exploring.
Of course, Climate Science crossed over this line, without anyone paying due attention. Now we reap the consequences.
Galileo has an undeserved reputation as a persecuted scientist. I’ve said this before, but he was shot down (and not really persecuted at that), because he promoted a theory he had no way, at that time, of proving. His promotion of said theory was to the point of persecuting his opponents.
The fact that he was correct is beside the point. He was gigged for his methods more than anything else. I find it ironic that Galileo, who heaped more persecution and vilification on his opponents than he ever received, actually was treated quite fairly. In fact, for the times, the authorities bent over backwards to treat him with consideration. It was only when he broke the agreements that he agreed to that he was put under house arrest.
Gail Combs said
“Is it only chemists working in industry who were taught to keep a daily lab notebook???”
No in most areas of Science there is a culture of keeping day or log books (not sure about medical science). In my 4 decades of being a professional scientist I haven’t come across one who didn’t (unfortunately some are not well kept). Although in recent years keeping a soft copy in Word (or whatever word processor) is more prevalent.
I think this speaks volumes about Leif Svalgaard though !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a stunning statement.
JJThoms says: November 15, 2011 at 5:16 am
See the impossible Schnare request here:
http://climateandstuff.blogspot.com/2011/06/schnare-vs-uva-impossible-request.html….
Your ignorance is showing (a) re normal and necessary legal procedure (b) the provenance of your remarks (The Ford Prefect, complete with links to DeSmog etc)
I know almost nothing of the Dr. Michael’s UVA ordeal. Was a FOI request sent to the doctor who in turn failed to provide them or did Greenpeace call is admin buddies at the university and they just did a dump of the emails and forwarded them to Greenpeace? I don’t know.
“I think this speaks volumes about Leif Svalgaard though !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a stunning statement.”
Of all the comments on this thread, I must agree this identifies my ‘most shocking’.. Leif has done serious damage to his own reputation(!?) Why in the world would I believe a word he says now?? It is almost an in your face assertion that he operates like “hide the decline” M Mann. Why would he not correct this impression that he gave of himself? Please Leif, say it isn’t so.
Paul Westhaver says:
November 14, 2011 at 7:54 pm
“Conspiracy to lie is not an academic privilege requiring protection. Michel Mann is no Galileo….though I’m sure he imagines that the myth of Galileo is a template for his own self-contructed myth.
1) Galileo did not invent the telescope, although he sure made an effort to assume that credential… Hans Lippershay invented it 12-18 months prior.
2) Lippershay also sketched the craters of the moon first. Not Galileo.
3) Galileo did not first describe a Sun-Centered “cosmos”…that was done by Copernicus or ?Samos? in ~300 BC??….A lot of people think it was Galileo.”
Paul, that was Aristarchus of Samos. He had a relative simple way of measuring the size of the Earth and Moon by comparing the shadow the Earth was making on the Moon. His result was that the Moon is about 1/3 of the Earth’s diameter. Then he measured the angles of the triangle Moon, Earth, Sun when the Sun was illuminating half of the Moon making a 90° angle. The other 2 angles were then in his measurements 87° and 3°, so the Sun was about 18 to 20 times further then the Moon. From the apparent size of the Sun and the Moon (about the same) and the measured angle he concluded the Sun is about 7 times bigger in diameter then the Earth or about 18 to 20 times the Moon, so why would a bigger Sun (300 times the Earth volume) fly around a smaller Earth?
Pretty simple and nice piece of logic. Copernicus also cited Aristarchus in the manuscript then deleted the reference (hm, don’t remember where I read that…cannot find a link now)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos
Robert Brown says:
November 15, 2011 at 3:45 am
———————————-
Whistle blowing is not a crime.
The crime is the powers that be failed to follow-up. Now look at where we are. Harry (of the read me file fame) knew the data they had and what they were trying to do was garbage and now even the original trash is gone. They can’t even provide the starting point or the original data or why they chose certain pieces to be included or ignored.
And that my friend is not science.
Mann was part of this and his involvement runs deep and continues to today. I’d like to see the emails. And because “WE” paid him for his time and for the resource to do the research I’d like to find out how he spent that time and disposed of our resources.
Emails will shed some light.
Wayne Delbeke says:
November 14, 2011 at 8:32 pm
R. Shearer says:
November 14, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Hasn’t he already been cleared after thorough investigation by Penn State University?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Like Joe Paterno? University investigations don’t seem to be so thorough.
Sorry, my crude attempt at sarcasm. I think the main stream media is much like coach McQuery in the case of the Penn State scandal and climate alarmism.
What is obvious: Mann is either a fraud or a poor scientist. In either case he shouldn’t be getting government grants (or any grants) unless there is some agenda other than the science.
Can we agree that breaking the Law, refusing to comply with FOI can lead the culprit to doing Gaol time. Ergo, who is protecting Mann? as always follow the money.
“This is not about peer review; it is about citizens’ acting as the sovereign and taking any appropriate step necessary to ensure those given stewardship over an arm of the Commonwealth are faithfully performing.”
As a lifelong citizen of the great Commonwealth of Virginia, I whole-heartedly approve of this statement.
Lars P,
Yes.. I was writing the entry from memory and did not consult the volume of data easily at my disposal.
You are correct it was Aristarchus of Samos who first on paper described the Sun Centered Solar system and “Cosmos” and that description was read and understood and further documented by Copernicus. There may have been others but we don’t know that yet.
I am critical of Mann. Likewise I am critical of Galileo accidently today becaus he was referenced in the above in a populist attempt to make Mann a sympathetic figure….like Galileo.
I believe however that Galileo was just an opportunistic and flawed snot as Mann. History is on my side. Galileo has enjoyed an uncritical illumination from the brightness of other people for centuries. Common knowledge would have you believe that Galileo was responsible for a host of wonders. Common knowledge is, in the end, common and wrong. Galileo had employers and he also possessed an ego and a need to be grandiose and self promoting. In service to his ego he was prickly and attempted to exploit a small piece of knowledge for his own gain, relying heavily on the secret that his knowledge was not just his and the public were largely illiterate and that if he was in any way wrong, nobody would know. In this way Galileo was a deceptive and dishonest sack of shit.
Mann is just like him. Mann, tediously toiling away with a bit of theory, with an agenda…just like Galileo…relying on sophistry and phony privacy claims to conceal his deceit.
Too bad that nowadays we have tools to deal with the likes of him. The facts, in no small part thanks to A. Watts et al, will get out and his pathetic scheming self interest will be laid bare.
Too bad Galileo wasn’t pilloried for being a plagiarizer and fraud.His was pilloried for the wrong reason. Let be certain that Mann gets his comeuppance for the right reasons which are:
For conspiring to advance a popular theory (though flawed) at the request of his peers for money and fame and in service to his political goals. Like Galileo, Mann is a sack of shit.
Lars P,
Yes.. I was writing the entry from memory and did not consult the volume of data easily at my disposal.
You are correct it was Aristarchus of Samos who first on paper described the Sun Centered Solar system and “Cosmos” and that description was read and understood and further documented by Copernicus. There may have been others but we don’t know that yet.
I am critical of Mann. Likewise I am critical of Galileo accidentally today because he was referenced in the above in a populist attempt to make Mann a sympathetic figure….like Galileo.
I believe however that Galileo was just an opportunistic and flawed snot as Mann. History is on my side. Galileo has enjoyed an uncritical illumination from the brightness of other people for centuries. Common knowledge would have you believe that Galileo was responsible for a host of wonders. Common knowledge is, in the end, common and wrong. Galileo had employers and he also possessed an ego and a need to be grandiose and self promoting. In service to his ego he was prickly and attempted to exploit a small piece of knowledge for his own gain, relying heavily on the secret that his knowledge was not just his and the public were largely illiterate and that if he was in any way wrong, nobody would know.
Mann is just like him. Mann, tediously toiling away with a bit of theory, with an agenda…just like Galileo…relying on sophistry and phony privacy claims to conceal his deceit.
Too bad that nowadays we have tools to deal with the likes of him. The facts, in no small part thanks to A. Watts et al, will get out and his pathetic scheming self interest will be laid bare.
Too bad Galileo wasn’t pilloried for being a plagiarizer and fraud.His was pilloried for the wrong reason. Let be certain that Mann gets his comeuppance for the right reasons which are:
For conspiring to advance a popular theory (though flawed) at the request of his peers for money and fame and in service to his political goals.
So, what kind/s of documentation do you keep for the purpose of making it possible for another researcher to utilize your methods and data to confirm or deny your data inputs, process, and research results? What kind/s of documentation do you keep for the purpose of making it possible for administrators and auditors to confirm or deny your compliance with terms of grants, other funding, and tax reporting?
Lars P,
Thanks again and BTW I am a Mech Eng and very good at math and geometry. Your description of Aristarchus’ astronomical calculations was helpful….. I tried to get that from reproductions of his work but my eyes rolled back trying to figure out what he was doing…. (I am not as good at math as my 2400 year ago predecessors). Cheers Lars.
Gail Combs says: November 15, 2011 at 5:53 am
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 14, 2011 at 9:56 pm
In 46 years of research I have never kept a ‘log book’ nor have I known anybody who has.
_______________________________________
This absolutely floors me!
==============
What century are you living in !! Why write in a log book then copy to a computer Spreedsheets are wonderful calculators, doc editors are very good for documenting. No more unreadable log book entries, easy to share data.
Entering results straight onto a spreed sheet removes one source of error.
Gee!
Green peace and Patrick Michael’s emails were offered under the same terms as (initially) Mann’s. Give us the money we’ll see if we can give you the emails. Greenpeace backed off. Schnare had to reframe his request in order to get the cost down. Not sure how all this reached where we are but here is the university’s time-line to April
http://www.virginia.edu/foia/climatechange/timeline.html
Seems to me that both parties were treated the same initially.
The ludicrous request of Schnare:
http://www.virginia.edu/foia/climatechange/pdf/2011-01-06-Schnare%20et%20al-request-Mann%20records%20with%20attachment.pdf
How on earth can this be called a request to get to the research behind Mann’s science? This is real fishing for anything that can be mis-interpreted/taken-out-of-context/twisted and fed to the “skeptics” as “truth”
Come -on – it’s not long to Durban
Just in case people think that the likes of Mann are knowingly peddling a big fat lie, try listening to this interview with him (click the green triangle):
http://www.pointofinquiry.org/michael_mann_unprecedented_attacks_on_climate_research/
Like all fundamentalists, this bloke is a true believer.
interesting article but as Gail and others have highlighted, the scientific method requires appropriate records. whether those records are ‘public property’ is something for the lawyers to argue BUT in the context of the science and published material anything pertaining to that published material MUST be made available for scrutiny/replication. If not, the published and any subsequent use of the material must be withdrawn.
As a slight aside, I would like to recount a true story. a friend was stopped by the cops for a minor offence. the cop gave him a grilling and checked his motorcycle throughly for defects. after some time – he said he could go on his way. My friend looked at the cop, and asked what would happen if he called him a ‘XXXX’ (add any expletive you wish). the cop said he would have to arrest him for breach of the peace, etc. My friend asked, ‘but if I just thought you were a XXXX, that would be ok?’. yeah, said the cop – I can’t do you for that. – My friend then said ‘Well, ok, I’m just potentially thinking you are a XXXX’ – and rode off.
the point being that in law, as in science – a ‘thought’ is meaningless – unless its transferred into writing or other evidence, its still just a thought and has NO meaning or value to anyone else. This I fear, will be the legacy of Manns ‘work’. LOL
(apologies for bad grammar, etc – been a long day!)
BTW – to any warmista or tree hugging greenies who want to defend Mann in any way shape or form; I ask a simple question, involving quite simply, putting the ‘boot’ on the other foot:
imagine a prominent scientist, you could even say Mann himself, if you like ! – but let’s pretend they produced a work that said ‘We need more CO2, CO2 is good and is needed NOW’ and that work was disseminated all over the world and widely ACCEPTED as correct, governments reduced fuel tax, campaigns were on the TV saying to leave the lights ON and turn your heating up, burn bucket loads of coal etc, etc. How would you react if the workings of that work were hidden from view???
On a slightly less esoteric note – IF, and I use IF deliberately, IF any scientist showed a world/life changing result, he/she would and should shout it from the rooftops but he/she would also be the first and fiercest critic (if they are a true scientist!). If Manns work is soooo good and sooooo important and soooo valid – he would allow it to be severely disseccted and reworked to ensure validity. Where is this test of validity?
In the absence of this validity test, one can only assume that it would not pass such a test and Mann is likely a fraud.
Some people seem to be missing a key point here. UVA had already agreed to release some of Dr. Mann’s emails, per a court order, but are now stonewalling on others, because of a legal maneuver from Dr. Mann. It seems he interjected himself into an already settled legal matter and mucked it up.
@Gail Combs – You ask how much science will be lost because of the use of computers. I would hazard a guess that with an extreme solar event practically all of it.
Bound log books were used instead of looseleaf pages to avoid both the appearance of scientific and financial fraud and actual fraud. Would be fraudsters had to cope with the bound pages, rather than simply remove or substitute for the looseleaf pages. In this age of electronic computers, the equivalent safeguard against fraud is a computer system and storage systems maintained by independent administrators, and an audit trail independently verified by internal and external audits. Even then, undiscovered and unreported fraud is an ever present problem with electronic computer information systems. Experienced professionals in finance and accounting have a difficult time maintaining compliance with accounting and auditing standards. Scientists are all too often hopelessly incompetent at maintaining compliance with audit standards.
The open contempt some scientists have for compliance with the routine controls the rest of the world must live with every day only confirms the general public’s worst suspicions of scientific fraud and the need for draconian responses to such contempt for the public benefactors.
The impression upon the general public is seeing important areas of the scientific community behave like an undisciplined and rogue bunch of spoiled college fratternity/sorority juveniles intent upon their own selfish goals paid for out of the public’s own pockets contrary to any remote concepts of commonsense. It is only a matter of time before the pocketbooks will be closed to these people and institutions, and the entire scientific and academic community will suffer as a consequence of the unbridled lack of discipline and accountability of these contemptuous so-called scientists.
Just as there is no such thing as an unbreakable computer encryption code, there is no such thing as a computer information system which can be made as secure as a bound book. Consequently, there is still a role which can sometimes be played by a bound logbook even though informaton technology is used to secure the remaining aspects of a scientific research project.
RGB (Robert Brown)
I’m wondering how longer others are going to go on letting you bury yourself.,
Your belief that Universities will obey the law is interesting, but…
Do you really believe that UVA would have handed over the material if given a court order?
Really?
Really, absolutely, without question?
Because…
A court order was issued to UVA for this material in MAY.
Of course, UVA promptly turned over the required data. Right?
No, if they had done that, this whole thread wouldn’t exist.
Here’s a link to the history up to May. More has happened since then, of course.
http://www.atinstitute.org/court-orders-university-of-virginia-to/
What does this mean about the thousands of words you’ve written above?
It means:
1) You haven’t done your homework. You really don’t know what the current situation is, or how ridiculous this whole affair is. You’re defending the situation as it existed a year or two ago, and don’t know anything about the legal situation now.
You can find quite a bit of back information on this website, if you search. You REALLY need to do thatx before posting much more.
2) You are operating on assumptions about how Universities comply with the law, and the assumptions are wrong. UVA felt so unbound by law as to actually have lied about having the docs in the first place. A number of other Universities have complied immediately to FOIA requests when the target is a Skeptic. This whole situation is not about law or privacy; it is about politics.
The University is currently fighting both a Subpoena and a Court Order.
3) You don’t seem to know that the Court Order requires ATI to ignore, keep secret, not release, redact the kinds of personal emails you think should be protected. The only emails at issue for exposure are ones that might indicate legal malfeasance with regards to abuse of Federal grants.
I understand your impassioned feelings that your email should be kept private unless a court order is received. However, your emails are subject to law (as you seem to understand when you state that you expect that they will be turned over with a Court Order), including FOIA, which was where this all started. FOIA means that if you work at a gov’t job, your employer may SAY they’ll protect your emails, but they really can’t protect them from an FOIA. That’s the law.
RDCII
Mann’s Hockey Stick is a joke that would be laughed out of any Junior High School Science Lab.
The work of R. B. Alley (2000) on the 10,000 year GISP2 ice core record puts Mann’s Frankengraph to shame.