Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Dear Dr. Gundersen;
I see that due to the highly theatrical auto-defenestration of your predecessor, Dr. Peter Gleick, you are now the Chair of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Task Force on Scientific Integrity. I’m not sure whether to offer my congratulations or my condolences. Let me offer you both, as you have both huge opportunity and huge danger in front of you, and the reputation of your Task Force has already suffered serious damage.
Next, let me put it to you straight. As Dr. Gleick’s demise for wire fraud is just the latest demonstration, far too many climate scientists have all the scientific integrity of a desperate grifter whose con is going badly wrong. Consider for example the response from Dr. Gleick’s supporters to his actions, who in many cases have lauded him as a “whistleblower”, and some of whom stop just short of proposing him for climate sainthood.
So my question for you is this: what are you planning to do about this abysmal state of affairs?
Make no mistake. If Peter Gleick walks away from this debacle free of expulsion, sanction, or censure from the AGU, without suffering any further penalties, your reputation and the reputation of the AGU will forever join his on the cutting room floor. People are already laughing at the spectacle of the chair of a task force on scientific integrity getting caught with his entire arm in the cookie jar. You have one, and only one, chance to stop the laughter.
Because if your Task Force doesn’t have the bal … the scientific integrity to take up the case of its late and unlamented commander as its very first order of business, my Spidey-sense says that it will be forever known as the “AGU Task Farce on Scientific Integrity”. You have a clear integrity case staring you in the face. If you only respond to Dr. Gleick’s reprehensible actions with vague platitudes about “the importance of …”, if the Task Force’s only contribution is mealy-mouthed mumblings about how “we deplore …” and “we are disappointed …”, I assure you that people will continue to point and laugh at that kind of spineless pretense of scientific integrity.
Folks are fed up with climate scientists who lie, cheat, and steal to attack their scientific opponents, and who then walk away without the slightest action being taken by other scientists. As long as there are no repercussions from the scientific community for the kind of things Dr. Gleick has done, mainstream climate scientists will continue to do them. Indeed, Dr. Gleick’s own actions were no doubt greatly encouraged by the fact that you noble scientists were so full of bul … of scientific integrity that you all let the Climategate un-indicted co-conspirators walk away scot-free, without even asking them the important questions, much less getting answers to those major issues.
You have the opportunity to actually take a principled stand here, Dr. Gundersen, and I cannot overemphasize the importance of you doing so. Dr. Gleick’s kind of unethical skullduggery in the name of science has ruined the reputation of the entire field of climate science. The rot of “noble cause corruption” is well advanced in the field, and it will not stop until people just like you quit looking the other way and pretending it doesn’t exist. I had hoped that some kind of repercussions for scientific malfeasance would be one of the outcomes of Climategate, but people just ignored that part. This one you can’t ignore.
Well, I suppose you can ignore it, humans are amazing, anyone can ignore even an elephant in the room … but if you do ignore it, in the future please don’t ever expect your opinions on scientific integrity to be given even the slightest weight. The world is already watching your actions, not your words, and you can be assured that those actions will be carefully examined. If you let this chance for meaningful action slip away, no one out here in the real world will ever again believe a word you say on the subject of integrity.
I cannot urge you in strong enough terms. Do not miss the boat on this one. The credibility of your panel is already irrevocably damaged by the witless choice of your first chair. The move is yours to make or not, the opportunity is there to take the scientific high ground. You will be judged on whether you and the Task Force have the scientific integrity to take action regarding Dr. Gleick, or whether you just take the UN route and issue a string of “strongly worded resolutions” bemoaning the general situation.
Let me close with a quote from Megan McCardle at The Atlantic:
When skeptics complain that global warming activists are apparently willing to go to any lengths–including lying–to advance their worldview, I’d say one of the movement’s top priorities should be not proving them right. And if one rogue member of the community does something crazy that provides such proof, I’d say it is crucial that the other members of the community say “Oh, how horrible, this is so far beyond the pale that I cannot imagine how this ever could have happened!” and not, “Well, he’s apologized and I really think it’s pretty crude and opportunistic to make a fuss about something that’s so unimportant in the grand scheme of things.”
After you have convinced people that you fervently believe your cause to be more important than telling the truth, you’ve lost the power to convince them of anything else.
I am hoping for action on this, but sadly, I have been in this game long enough to not expect scientific integrity, even from scientists who sit on scientific integrity task forces … and I would be delighted to be proven wrong.
In any case, my warmest and best wishes to you, Dr. Gundersen. I do not envy you, as you have a very difficult task ahead. I wish you every success in your work.
w.
APPENDIX:
From the AGU website, I find the following, and I encourage people to note the names of the participants in this scientific experiment. If they actually step up to the plate, if the Task Force and the AGU do take action regarding Dr. Gleick’s misdeeds, if they don’t just blow smoke and mouth smooth-sounding words, then these are the people to congratulate.
And vice versa.
AGU Task Force on Scientific Ethics
Chair
Linda Gundersen, USGS, Reston, Virginia.
Members
David J. Chesney, Michigan Tech University, Houghton, Michigan
Floyd DesChamps, Alliance to Save Energy, Washington, DC
Karen Fischer, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
Tim Grove, MIT Earth Atmosphere & Planetary Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Linda Gundersen, USGS, Reston, Virginia
Noel Gurwick, UCSUSA, Washington, DC
Dennis Moore, NOAA/PMEL, Seattle, Washington
Arthur Nowell, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
Len Pietrafesa, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, South Carolina
Jeff Plescia, Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, Maryland
Peter Schuck, NASA/GSFC CODE 674, Greenbelt, Maryland
Jagadish Shukla, Geo Mason-Center Ocean/Land Atmosphere, Calverton, Maryland
Vivian Weil, Center for Ethics, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois
Staff Liaison
Randy Townsend
The Scientific Ethics Task Force is responsible for reviewing and guiding the Union’s standards, principles, and code of conduct on ethics and integrity in scientific activities.
Committee Charge
Review the current state of AGU’s scientific ethical standards in the geophysical sciences and those of other related professional/scholarly societies;
Based on this knowledge, update AGU’s protocols and procedures for addressing violations of its ethical principles;
As appropriate, revise and augment AGU’s current ethical principles and code of conduct for AGU meetings, publications and for interactions between scientists with their professional colleagues and the public;
Propose sanctions for those who violate AGU’s ethical principles, and
Consider whether AGU should adopt a statement of ethical principles as a condition of membership or for participation in certain activities of the Union. If so, develop a recommendation on how the principles would be applied to AGU members and or participants in AGU activities.
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I share your seniment, but I think this letter would have had greater impact if it were not so “over the top.”
I am of the opinion that Peter Gleick falls into the category of falsus in uno falsus in omnibus and his various works and pronouncements should be treated accordingly.
I disagree with the use of childish humor in this post. I disagree with the conclusions.
The AGU should be asked, forced, to recruit “Deniers” to formulate the charge to a NEW COMMITTEE & have those “Deniers” assist in picking a new task force composed of at least one “Denier” who’s been hurt by the actions of “warmers.”
Great challenge, Mr. Eschenbach!
But then, your clarity of exposition and commitment to actual scientific integrity is why you are one of the shining lights of real Science.
This is right up there with your superb posting on Judith Curry’s blog last July – a treatise I keep bookmarked and quote from frequently: http://judithcurry.com/2011/07/25/a-scientists-manifesto/#comment-90161
Just one of the many “money quotes” from that: “I was astounded when Phil Jones came out with his statement about how it was right for him to conceal his data because someone might have the audacity to try and find something wrong with it.
But I was more amazed when NOBODY CONDEMNED IT. Everyone took your path, Judith, and refused to say a word about Phil’s anti-scientific stance. That’s why I filed the first of all of the Freedom of Information requests for CRU climate data. Because the climate establishment, you and the others, were far too busy working away in your laboratories to ask the tough questions. You were all morally or ethically opposed to naming names by publicly saying ‘Hey, Phil, give Warwick the data, anything else goes against scientific transparency’. ”
—
Here’s hoping the AGU will do a U-turn and start supporting actual scientific integrity – but history tells me not to hold my breath…..
The Fanatics will only consider changing their tune when billions of aggrieved people world wide are complaining to them each day about the world’s dropping temperatures, even as the Fanatics continue their chant of ‘çontuinuously increasing world temperatures’..
I’d like to amend my previous comment. The AGU must fire it’s head, it must fire whoever picked Dr Gleick. Why: Picking someone so unethical to head an ethics investigation is an unbelievable & unacceptable demonstration of utter gross professional & ethical mis-judgement.
How could we accept that the existing committees is acceptable? How can we accept that any of the existing members are acceptable on ethical grounds, in & of themselves!? The head of the AGU must have known the personality, beliefs & ethics of Gleick at least as well as all the members, therefore, a new head of AGU must reestablished.
My prediction…Peter Gleick is secretly retained at the AGU as a “special consultant” with a salary of $150,000. Meanwhile, the AGU Integrity Panel holds their first press conference… “Peter? Peter who? Let’s talk about global warming? Uh earthquakes? How about plate tectonics! Yeah…that’s interesting. Peter who???”
Perhaps the first thing the “Task Force on Scientific Integrity” should look into:
How a man who has demonstrated a complete lack of scientific integrity became Chair of the AGU task force in the first place. The vetting process, if it exists at all, is demonstrably worthless.
Second thing:
Devise an improved vetting process and subject each of the task force members to it, especially the new Chair.
Keith Minto says:
February 21, 2012 at 8:57 pm
I generally don’t quote other’s comments, yielding instead to a recurring self-delusion that I can explain it more strongly and clearly. However, there was no way I was going to be able to beat that. As an obituary for the AGW alarmists, that’s as good as it gets.
w.
GogogoStopSTOP says (February 21, 2012 at 10:00 pm): “I’d like to amend my previous comment. The AGU must fire it’s head, it must fire whoever picked Dr Gleick. Why: Picking someone so unethical to head an ethics investigation is an unbelievable & unacceptable demonstration of utter gross professional & ethical mis-judgement.”
Heh. Well said. I didn’t see your comment until after I had submitted mine. Yours renders mine superfluous.
Great minds think alike! 🙂
jb says:
February 21, 2012 at 9:39 pm
Yeah, you’re likely right, jb, I probably should have rubbed her tummy and blown in her ear before warning her that she needs to act …
The problem is, I’m terminally honest, and I’m not going to sugar coat it. Sorry. I don’t know how to do “under the top”. It comes out of my electronic pen looking like mashed potatoes made from dehydrated potato powder instead of real potatoes, and sounding like a strongly worded resolution from the UN deploring low self-esteem among career criminals.
So … I invite you to write a much nicer version and send it to her. I’m sure compared to me, you’ll sound quite reasonable. In fact, I encourage everyone to do so, let her know that I’m a knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing reformed cowboy who is way over the line … but be sure to add that like me, you are concerned about the heat-death of climate science from chronic malfeasance.
w.
Markus Says;
First you argue with them
Then they fight you
Then you laugh at them
Then they get angry
Then you win.
Ouch!
That’s gotta sting, just a bit, that slap, and burn as badly as rotgut bathtub gin going down. I’m optimistic that scientific integrity will trump ideology, but…
…okay, I’m not. Like Willis, I’d love to be surprised, though.
I once posted a commemt at WUWT that “Eschenbach’s Hawk soars with the Eagles”. I was wrong! Willis Eschenbach is an EAGLE.
I don’t think we do ourselves any favour with this. It comes across as arrogant. Maybe I don’t know her well enough but taking the high road and genuinely offering help and debate might have been a better option.
I hold a PhD in Physics and Mathematics, believe that total transparency in Science is the safest and best way to go, and have a Shakespearian taste in humor as in: “What fools we mortals be”. I have occasionally participated in but generally stayed away from Academia because of a sense of personal distaste for Academia’s strong leftist tilt. The epic battle between Anthony and the Warmists has been satisfying to watch. I cheer him on. I would never be able to stand up to the forces that he has chosen to battle.
Kudos to you all.
Is anyone but me tired of the newspaper headline sensationalism? There has always been fraud in science. Some poor guys will feel their careers are on the line and make bad choices.
Before we spin a few extra doughnuts in our hummers to celebrate the demise of AGW, we might want to consider the possibility that the recent flattening and even lowering of GMAT and SST’s might just be the imput from a cyclical planetary air and water conditioner called PDO. We might want to think about the indications that Arctic temperatures might be warmer now than than during the Midieval Warm Period (if we can trust the proxies).
We are dumping a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere. Whether that CO2 will behave like it did in Tyndall’s jar in a free atmosphere is an open question. The modelers treating their model output as data definitely do not know, but then again, neither do we.
Nothing is going to happen to Dr. Peter Gleick, thunderstorms are going to council it out.
Mark McDonald says:
February 21, 2012 at 11:16 pm
Then why on earth are you not out doing just exactly that, instead of wasting time bitching about what I do?
Gotta love the Armchair Admirals …
w.
They will not do anything, they will think it will just go away. To them he is a hero.
Scum all of them.
Michael Mann is retained as an AGU fellow, despite his documented attempts to ruin the careers of fellow scientists with differing opinions.
Michael Mann is retained as an AGU fellow, despite his documented attempts to corrupt the peer review process.
Michael Mann is retained as an AGU fellow, despite his documented (and admitted) participation in a conspiracy to destroy incriminating emails.
Michael Mann is retained as an AGU fellow, despite having nominated Phil Jones to AGU fellowship, knowing first hand that Jones had fomented a conspiracy to destroy incriminating emails.
Phil Jones was accepted as an AGU fellow, despite having refused requests to provide publically funded data under his stewardship, in one case making the decidedly unsicentific and scientifically unethical statement ““Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.”
Phil Jones is retained as an AGU fellow, despite having escaped prosecution for evading FOIA requests by dint of a statute of limitations.
Peter Gleick is made chairman of the AGU task force on ethics and integrity, despite being well known as a strident political activist in the arena of his professional field, and having obvious conflicts of interest with the task force mission.
Question: Which of these is different from the others? Answer: None of them.
Making a weasel like Gleick the head of an ethics and integrity task force is not an anomaly for AGU. It is the result of a broken professional culture, one that does not react to these transgressions with outrage but instead with muted “disappointment” fronting for tacit agreement. The simple fact of the matter is, Linda Gunderson is going to have no chance reforming the behaviour of an organization whose members, likely as not including Linda Gunderson, do not find anything untoward in their behaviour.
Being myself experienced chiefly of outfits like the American Medical Association and such colleges, societies, and associations as encompass the various clinical specialties, I’ve come to the conclusion that all such ostensibly high-minded organizations – emphatically to include the American Geophysical Union – remind us only too damned well of a remark made by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations:
I think that highfalutin’ convocations like the A.G.U. should henceforth abandon all the noble-sounding Latinate mottoes – especially the hideously tainted Royal Society’s much-violated “Nullius in verba” – and go to something more pertinent to their actual objectives, like:
Where I come from, what the AGU is doing here is called a “Dog and Pony Show”.
Willis
Never mind the whingers and carpers!
Yet again you hit the nail smack on the head and have precisely the right tone.
Glad that birthday booze hasn’t detracted from your great talents!
Unfortunately, their statist funding will likely INCREASE, such that misconduct, to and beyond the level of fraud and thuggery, will not incur any negative consequences.
By the statists, for the statists. In a few days, they’ll be laughing at their opponents.