Please Turn Around, Dr. Gundersen, You’re Blowing Your One Chance!
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I was ruminating about Peter Gleick, and the AGU Task Force on Scientific Integrity, when I came across a very apropos quote. This is from another arena of life entirely, that of professional baseball. No one was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame this year. Voters seem to have been turned off by the steroid scandals, which involved some of the players eligible this year. The pitcher Curt Shilling was what you might term “collateral damage”—he had nothing to do with steroids, was always clean, and yet he didn’t get in to the Hall of Fame this year. Shilling has his supporters and detractors, but yesterday he made one of the most mature comments I could ever imagine. I can only hope that climate science holds players as honest and responsible about their own profession as is Curt Schilling. He said:
“If there was ever a ballot and a year to make a statement about what we didn’t do as players — which is we didn’t actively push to get the game clean — this is it.”
“Perception in our world is absolutely reality. Everybody is linked to it. You either are a suspected user or you’re somebody who didn’t actively do anything to stop it. You’re one or the other if you were a player in this generation.
“Unfortunately I fall into the category of one of the players that didn’t do anything to stop it. As a player rep and a member of the association, we had the ability to do it and we looked the other way, just like the media did, just like the ownership did, just like the fans did. And now this is part of the price that we’re paying.”
In the same way that selective blindness happened in baseball regarding steroid use, mainstream climate scientists and the AGW supporting blogosphere and the media and the journals and in the latest example, the American Geophysical Union (AGU), all of them have “looked the other way” regarding such things as the scientific malfeasance of the Climategate folks, and more recently the actions of Dr. Peter Gleick. Let me briefly review the bidding of the Gleick saga.
Dr. Peter Gleick was the Chair of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Task Force on Ethics and Integrity in AGU Scientific Activities. As he tells the tale, he received a document from an anonymous sender purporting to come originally from the Heartland Institute. He wanted to verify the accuracy of the document. So far, so good. At that point, it seems like a man with integrity would go to Joe Bast at Heartland and say “Hey, Joe, I got this crazy letter. Is any of this true?”. If Peter was rebuffed there, he could consider other options.
Not Peter. Instead of taking the straight path, he went corkscrew. He called up some poor hapless secretary at the Heartland Institute, and impersonated a Company Director in order to obtain confidential company Board of Directors briefing papers. There’s a technical name for that kind of action. It’s called “wire fraud”.
Now, if Peter’s tale were true, about wanting to verify the accuracy of the document he’d received, you’d think he’d look at the actual papers he obtained through wire fraud. Then he’d compare the authentic Board briefing papers to the document he’d received, and then throw the document he’d received in the trash.
Why? Because it was an obvious forgery. Both the style and the content, including critical details, differ radically from the other documents he had, documents he knew were authentic for a simple reason—because he had stolen them himself.
Once he saw that the document he’d received was fraudulent, you’d think Peter would have stopped there and destroyed everything. But not our Chair of Scientific Integrity. Corkscrew wins again. Instead of taking it all straight to the shredder, he took the document, mixed it in with the authentic documents, and secretly and anonymously emailed them all to various recipients without any mention that one of them was fraudulent.
Now, I don’t know if there’s a crime in the latter part. Stealing secret business documents is one crime. Is revealing them to the public a second crime, particularly when there is one known forgery added to the bunch? Distribution of a forged document? I don’t know about crime, but I do know … that’s slime.
Fast forward a few months. After being exposed and having no other way out, Peter confessed to all except forging the initial document, and he may be right. It doesn’t matter. None of it justifies wire fraud and an attempt at scurrilously damaging Heartland’s reputation by his circulation of a very deliberately deceptive package of documents including a known forgery.
So Dr. Gleick resigned from the Task Force. He’d demonstrated he didn’t have enough integrity to be Chair of the AGU group charged with considering and encouraging Scientific Integrity. He was replaced as Chair, presumably by the person among the other Task Force members with the next highest amount of integrity. This was a woman named Dr. Linda Gundersen.
In a post I wrote almost a year ago, called “An Open Letter to Dr. Linda Gundersen“, I congratulated Dr. Gunderson on what I saw as a difficult post to fill. I pointed out the very public nature of her promotion, due to the precipitous and most theatrical pratfall of her predecessor, Dr. Peter Gleick. I also noted that she had a huge opportunity, which was to start by having the task force consider the lack of scientific integrity of her predecessor.
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.
Now, lest you think that my claim that “the world is already watching” in the quote above is mere hyperbole, I suggest you google ‘Dr. Linda Gundersen’, no need for quotes. Note that the most highly ranked link, first on the Google list, is my post “An Open Letter to Dr. Linda Gundersen” here on WUWT.
I closed that post by saying:
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.
In short, I did what I could to let her know that I wished her success, that her actions in this regard wouldn’t go unnoticed, and to encourage her to take the path of scientific integrity and at a minimum to perform and make public a non-adversarial inquiry into, and the lessons learned from, the downfall of her predecessor.
I thought that it was critical to deal with Glieck’s actions because they perfectly exemplify a huge problem in climate science, called “noble cause corruption. This occurs when someone is so convinced of the correctness and the importance and the nobility of their cause that they start shading the numbers, just a little at first, not much, just highlighting … and in the later stages of noble cause corruption they may well find themselves manufacturing the numbers wholesale, without any idea how they got to that point. It’s not your usual kind of corruption, the kind for money or fame. Instead, it’s corruption in the service of a “noble cause”, as they tell themselves. The problem, of course, is that noble cause corruption is still … well … corruption. Lethal and antithetical to science.
Climategate revealed that beyond fudging the numbers, some climate scientists were so convinced that they were saving the earth that they were willing to secretly commit a variety of highly unethical and even illegal acts in the furtherance of their noble cause. That’s the end result of noble cause corruption that starts with shading a few numbers, or as I sometimes call it as regards climate science, “Nobel cause corruption”.
Now, a year later, I find that my pessimism regarding Dr. Gundersen was wholly justified. Steve McIntyre went to the latest AGU meeting. He discusses some of what went on in a post worth reading, entitled “AGU Honors Gleick“. Dr. Gundersen, it seems, has done absolutely nothing regarding l’affaire Gleick. Well, not quite nothing. Sounds like she did a very credible impersonation of Pontius Pilate, wherein she washed her hands of the whole business, says it’s nothing to do with AGU in the slightest. No reprimand, no UN-style “strongly worded letter”, no commentary. No discussion of the issues exposed by the affair, no interview with the currently un-indicted Dr. Gleick to try to clear the waters, not what Steve McIntyre calls the scientific equivalent of a “one-game-suspension”, not even some vague, plain vanilla statement deploring the kind of actions without mentioning any names. Nothing.
Now that would be bad enough. But it gets worse. The AGU leadership honored Gleick by inviting him to make a presentation! That’s double-plus ungood, as the man said.
It’s bad enough that the AGU leadership did not censure him, or even discuss his actions in the abstract to see what lessons might be learned.
It is a whole other message, however, to invite him to speak. That is an honor. That sends that message that the AGU understands poor Dr. Peter. It says he took one for the team, and that wire fraud in the defense of a noble cause is no big thing … So much for the scientific integrity of the AGU, in this case at least they just showed they have none at all.
Finally, remember, this is not just some ordinary member of AGU that has done something totally lacking in integrity. It’s not even just an AGU official who stands self-condemned of a huge ethical lapse. Heck, it’s not even just a member of the AGU Task Force on Scientific Integrity being found with his hand in the cookie jar. This is the Chair of the AGU Task Force on Scientific Integrity, caught red-handed and self-confessed … and Dr. Gundersen says this has nothing to do with the AGU Task Force on Scientific Integrity or the AGU?
Really?
In any case, Dr. Linda Gunderson, in a move that I truly don’t understand, has now taken one for the team as well. She has stood as the steadfast bulwark against the malevolent creeping scourge of scientific integrity, by refusing to even consider the process whereby she got the job that she holds …
Ah, well. I suppose it must have earned her, if not the respect, at least the gratitude of her colleagues. They must have been afraid for a minute that she might do something. Glad that’s straight. Her name must serve as a beacon of hope among wire fraudsters everywhere, at least the ones with integrity. I just hope that keeps her warm at midnight, when she considers the cold wind of history whistling through the shredded remains of her own reputation …
Finally, it’s not too late, she could pull out of the nose dive. Dr. Linda could still do the right thing. She could still open a discussion about noble cause corruption, and what it has done to the field of climate science. She could still talk about the increase in scientific fraud, and what that means to science itself.
Heck, every good theoretical paper needs an example. So she could even talk about how noble cause corruption and blind fanaticism blighted first the Climategate unindicted co-conspirators, then Dr. Peter’s career, then Dr. Linda’s career, and eventually has cast a shadow over the AGU itself …
Alternatively, she could write up a piece and publish it here on WUWT, I’m certain Anthony would have no objections. She could tell us all just why she has done nothing regarding Dr. Gleick’s actions. That’s what I’d do in her shoes. Well, no, actually if I were in her shoes, I’d open a non-adversarial inquiry, to see what we could all learn from Dr. Peter’s fall. But my point is, the game’s not over yet, she could pull through, and I would be very happy to see her do so.
Or not. She could do nothing. But it’s not just her. The problem is the silence of all the rest of the lambs. As Curt Schilling said,
You either are a suspected user or you’re somebody who didn’t actively do anything to stop it. You’re one or the other if you were a player in this generation.
Dear friends, science is in trouble. Retracted papers and inadequate peer-review and horribly slanted papers and even forged papers are all on the rise. If the AGU is unwilling to stop honoring those who actively promote forged documents, then why should anyone place any credence any of them? People are becoming disillusioned, losing faith and trust in science because of the unethical, unscientific, immoral, and sometimes even illegal actions of people like Dr. Gleick and the Climategate crowd … and Dr. Linda Gundersen and the AGU leadership seem to have put themselves firmly in the camp that Curt Schilling called those who “didn’t actively do anything to stop it”.
I’m not made that way. Now I admit, I can’t do much, any more than many of us can … but I will not go gentle into that good night, and I encourage you not to either. This is me raging against the dying of the scientific light. We all need, in Curt’s words, to “actively push to get the game clean.”
w.
APPENDIX: The actual charge of the AGU Task Force, from here:
Task Force on Ethics and Integrity in AGU Scientific Activities
Charge
The Task force will:
• 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.
• 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.
David L
January 10, 2013 at 1:47 pm
###
Thanks for proving my point.
John –
Your reading comprehension fails you. I’ve expressed no hostility towards Anthony Watts. I’ve suggested a reasonable standard of ethical behavior to which ALL writers and blogs should adhere–disclosure of conflict of interest. Frankly it’s astounding that you are so confused on this point.
[Reply: Not true. A hostile comment of yours personally attacking Anthony Watts was snipped. — mod.]
the honest straight shooter Joe Bast.
Stealey continues to amuse!
This is netiher here nor there some people would say…
http://web.archive.org/web/19981205232429/http://www.razberry.com/raz/laframboise/full_texts/morin/morin14.htm
Trafamadore: The jury for science may be one thing, but the jury for a paper is something else. Mann’s methodology has been found to be incorrect. Do you agree that, as one of the many inputs of the jury of science, that papers that have bad methodology should be withdrawn…at the very least, so that someone else doesn’t make the mistake of thinking the methodology is sound?
Schroedinger said:
Ah, you must be talking about the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum climatology. Peter Gleick is at one and the same time a forger and a hero, so long as we don’t observe his actions -too closely.
Stop making self-indignant, irrelevant points. And stop molesting cats.
trafamadore says:
January 10, 2013 at 11:26 am
trafamadore, I hesitate to even reply to someone whose reading skills are so poor, but I soldier on. My point was that the Steig paper deserved a retraction. That’s the part where it says “… rather than being retracted …”. I know what a correction is. It got a correction, not the retraction it deserved, and certainly not the revised cover image of Nature it would have in a just world …
You say the rate is low. I say “we expect it to be low”, and you come back to tell me “But it _is_ pretty low”.
Yes. I know that.
I say again. Since retractions only occur when an honest scientist hits an honest mistake or when someone is forced to retract, WE EXPECT THEM TO BE LOW. Can we get past the fact that it is low? That’s not the statistic of interest in any case.
You could think of it as like prison breakouts. On the night when the siren goes off a few miles from your house and the Warden says “We have 10,000 high-security violent prisoners, and only two of them escaped”, does the fact that the numbers are low make you feel safe? Absolute measurements are not everything.
Mmmm … I see. You think the number of retracted papers is the problem. It’s not. It’s the symptom of a growing rot in science. The worrisome thing is, as the NYT article and Nature point out, that more and more of the retractions are for fraud. That’s why I said that
From advocative slanting of data and conclusions and pal-review all the way up to actual fraud, all of the symptoms of both ordinary corruption and more particularly noble cause corruption are a rising problem right now, across the board. Nature magazine sees that. Reputable scientists see that. Blog readers see that. The New York Times sees that. The problem is particularly bad in climate science, where many of the main players have been shown to be totally corrupted, datasets and computer code is routinely withheld, and journal editors are pressured not to print opposing views. So yes, everyone sees that the rising incidence of fraud and improper advocacy and the associated loss of the public trust in science are increasingly problematic.
Thanks for stopping by to tell us you don’t see it as a problem. You’ll pardon me if I pay no attention.
We’ve seen both scientific malfeasance and political activism, acting both singly and in concert, far too many times now for me to mix them up. I know I usually don’t. If you think I accused Glieck of bad science, point it out. I thought I just called him a crook.
I didn’t call Gleick out for bad science. I called him out for crime, of mail fraud, and for circulation of forged documents. I called him out for lack of scientific integrity. I didn’t, but I should have called him out for industrial-strength stupidity, pulling a caper like that when he’s the big boss of the Scientific Integrity panel. It is sadly emblematic of the headset of far too many mainstream AGW supporting scientists, many of whom look on him as a hero. And I called out Dr. Linda Gundersen for ignoring Gleick’s actions, despite the fact that that is one of the specific jobs of her Task Force on Scientific Integrity, of which he was the Chairman
Talk about ignoring the elephant in the room, the meetings of Dr. Linda’s Task Farce must be hilarious, trying to work around “he-who-must-not-be-named” … but I digress.
I don’t understand. Gleick is a minor researcher, I don’t know what you are talking about regarding “his data” being correct or not, I have no clue about that. That’s never been the issue. The issue is that the Chair of the Task Force on Scientific Integrity has committed mail fraud and distributed a forged document, in order to try to discredit the scientific arguments of his scientific opponents. He can’t attack the science, so he attacks Heartland to impugn the science.
Does that sound like “scientific integrity” to you? It’s just another in the unending string of ad hominem (or in this case “ad fundingem”) arguments so beloved of AGW supporters. He’s trying to swing the scientific discussion by using both stolen and forged documents to attack the people on the other side.
Now I don’t know if you call that scientific malfeasance, to try to illegally and immorally and improperly influence a scientific discussion. Maybe not. But whatever name you put on Gleick’s actions, I call them crooked and scientifically dishonest, with no more integrity than a snake has hips.
For me, he is a scientist using illegal methods to try to anonymously influence a scientific discussion in his favor. I call that scientific malfeasance. YMMV, doesn’t matter, he’s a fraud and a passer of forged documents.
You must be new to the field. They don’t retract papers in mainstream climate science. Take Mann’s clique as an example. The Team™ just says that they have “moved on”, and that there are newer, shinier things to focus on. They refuse to discuss past mistakes, they say they are over them, nothing to see here folks, move along now … so no, no retractions.
No clue what this means.
My sports metaphor doesn’t contain Lance Armstrong, so it cannot break down because of Lance or whatever he did. That is your personal contribution, and the fact that your contribution has broken down has nothing to do with me.
My sports metaphor says that we all need to “actively push to get the game clean.” Sorry you don’t like it and you think it’s all broken down, but that’s what I plan to do, and I invite you to join in.
w.
Jake Diamond,
I know Joe Bast. He is an honest man, unlike the deceitful cartoonist John Cook of the Unreliable blog SkS.
Your ad hominem attacks against Joe Bast lack corroboration. Your personal hatred is unsupported by verifiable facts. Your assertions are nothing but your personal opinion, and are worth as much. But no more.
trafamadore said:
To claim that Gleick’s political activism does not taint him as a scientist is absurd. It contradicts Gleick’s own thinking. He forged a document to taint skeptics and their scientific view with political activism.
Whether he personally typed the fake document is almost irrelevant. He is still a forger.
Placing an orangutan jaw with a Neanderthal skull is an act of forgery;
Placing a fake signature on a genuine document is an act of forgery.
Placing fake experimental results in with genuine ones is an act of forgery.
And placing a fake document in with genuine ones is an act of forgery.
It is a sad day for the integrity of science and journalism, when Willis and others have to resort to baseball analogies or similar, to try to make the willfully blind see what should be manifestly obvious.
Jake Diamond says:
January 10, 2013 at 12:29 pm
Aw, jeez, another random internet pop-up with an uncited, unsupported, nasty accusation. Why is it you guys specialize in personal attacks? If you don’t trust Joe, that’s between you and Joe. Claiming that Joe can’t be trusted without giving any specifics, on the other hand, is just low-down character assassination. Are you a politician running a negative attack campaign?
In any case, your reading skills need honing. Point out to me where I said you should rely on Joe Bast’s word. I said nothing of the sort.
I said the first step of a reasonable man would be to go show Joe the document and ask him about it. I also said “If Peter was rebuffed there, he could consider other options.” Given that in this case the document actually was forged, I suspect Joe would have given Peter chapter and verse showing exactly where the document was wrong, I mean it was pretty obvious … and if Peter had good reason to be unsatisfied with Joe’s answer, then he could consider other options.
But we won’t ever know, because Peter chose corkscrew.
All the best,
w.
Willis Eschenbach says: “My sports metaphor doesn’t contain Lance Armstrong, so it cannot break down because of Lance or whatever he did.”
Opps, maybe I should explain, Armstrong is a bicyclist that makes his living bicycling, like baseball players make their living tossing their balls about. You see, he illegally used EPO to boast his O2 capacity to cheat similar to the baseball players who in your metaphor used steriods to boast their strength and cheat. But, after your long monologue, I can understand your failure to get it, that’s okay, I understand.
You know, based on your rant, you would think us scientists could just sit about repeating other people’s work and finding irascible results. In fact, at the beginning of papers we ofter actually do repeat a wee bit of someone’s work to set up our experiments. You know how often I have found fishy results? Never. Zippo. Nadda. And look what happened to the B.E.S.T. study last summer that was funded by private monies to disprove results from the evil government scientists. That turned out to be a waste of the Koch brothers $$. So I dont know how empty you think the science ethics glass is, but from my perspective in the trenches it’s always been pretty full. No, you wont get that one either. Nevermind.
The bottom line is that you want scientists to crucify Gleick when you guys hold up the E. Ang. robbers as heros.
John Whitman says:
January 10, 2013 at 1:55 pm
Appreciated.
Indeed, for a couple of reasons. First, Gleick’s was from noble cause corruption. Gundersen’s is from ordinary corruption. Well, as I write that I may be misjudging her, she may think she’s saving the world from Thermageddon™ as well … but that’s not the main reason.
Also, Dr. Peter’s actions were done (it seems to me) in the heat of some intellectual passion. Dr. Linda’s, on the other hand, strike me as much more calculated. But that’s not the main reason either.
The main reason is that his transgression is over and done, while hers is ongoing. Every meeting, on some level, they have to deal with not dealing with it.
It also, however, offers her an unparalleled opportunity—she still can take action and reclaim her reputation. She still could pick up the torch and move forwards. That’s what I wanted to point out to her. My original title is now the subtitle, and I think Anthony’s title is far better … but my intention was to let her know she still has a chance.
w.
– – – – – – – –
Jake Diamond,
Again, I revert to my parody of you. Will you agree that what you unilaterally ask of other private organizations and people means they can unilaterally ask it of you as a private person? Will you agree to my request for you to unilaterally provide me with private info that I request of you? Using your ‘logic’, my request to you is so I can make sure you are being ethical in commenting here and that you do not represent an ethical / moral / legal conflict of interest in your comments here? Will you agree to my probing of your private affairs as you are of Anthony?
You are a parody in real life by your question to Anthony. Please stop pretending. Your question to Anthony is specific enough to clearly indicate that you already know the answer that he has long since previously provided. And you know that the answer to your question is already in the public domain on this site for almost a year.
HI has a fundamental right to privacy under the US constitution. Anthony’s site, private life and business have a fundamental right to privacy under the US constitution. And both of them admirably withstood the jerkwater-like l’affaire Gleick, that simpleton of all frauds. AGU legitimacy is damaged already by condoning him.
John
Schroedinger says:
January 10, 2013 at 7:49 am
Schroedinger, I commented on this above, saying I didn’t know who Rawls was. However, upon reading the rest of the thread, I see he is the man who leaked the IPCC documents. So now I can answer your question.
Yes, you did miss me criticizing him, although I didn’t know his name at the time, but I criticized his actions. It was on Judith Curry’s blog a week or so ago. I had to say it two, maybe three times, as I recall, before Mosh and others would stop bugging me about it. I said then what I will say to you now.
The reason that I am not a reviewer for the IPCC document is that I knew I could not live by their onerous privacy agreements, because I disagree with the rationale for their very existence.
I am a man that considers it a very large wrong to break my given word. To me it is a huge thing, and so I make every effort to keep my word. I didn’t know if I could do that if I were an IPCC reviewer, so I opted out.
So I do strongly disapprove of what Rawls did. I think it was wrong to say he’d keep it private and then divulge it. It is not an action that would cross my mind once I’d agreed to keep it private, absent very unusual circumstances. Which is why I didn’t sign up.
However, a much larger issue to me is that I also think it was totally wrong of the IPCC to keep the drafts and reviewers comments private. That’s sooooo last century … put the drafts up on the web and let everyone comment. The IPCC doesn’t have to pay any attention to the comments, but what the heck, they might actually learn something.
So yes, I see it as a transgression. For me, because I prize my word, it would be a mortal sin to make public something I had agreed to keep private. I can see for others it’s a venial sin. That’s their business—every man has to live his own life and make his own peace with the man in the mirror every day. So I can’t argue levels of transgression, that’s angels on a pin. But for me, no, it would be very wrong.
Sorry I didn’t recognize Rawls’ name. In the prior discussion at Judith’s blog it was his actions rather than his name that I was responding to. If I read the name it didn’t stick.
Regards,
w.
PS—Next time, please have the courtesy, not to mention the wisdom, not to say “did I miss you doing X, or are you a hypocrite?”. Apart from being unpleasant, it’s the fallacy of the excluded middle.
In fact, you did miss me doing X. Meanwhile, I’m thinking “What kind of jerkwagon accuses me of possibly being a hypocrite without first getting the facts”?
In addition, even if I hadn’t spoken about him, that certainly doesn’t make me a hypocrite. Perhaps as in this case, the subject is of little interest to me. He did it, I wouldn’t, so what? Or perhaps I just haven’t enough information to make a comment. There are plenty of other possibilities, that’s the “excluded middle” in the name of the fallacy.
So as you see, your claim, that either you missed my comment or I am a hypocrite, is logically false to start with … how dumb does that make you look? And how unpleasant? That’s your opening salvo, your first comment on the thread? Do you realize how that makes you look?
So unless you approve of having people look on you as a jerkwagon, I’d advise a gentler approach. You know, some kinda thing like “Hey, willis, have you written about Rawls, the guy who leaked the IPCC documents?”. Then I could say “Yes, I wrote about it at Judiths”, and you could avoid looking foolish for accusing me of hypocrisy when I’d already spoken on the subject, and I could avoid thinking you’re a jerkwagon for blithely tossing “Or are you a hypocrite” into a peaceful conversation without a scrap of evidence … there’s no reason for that kind of thing.
Gleick did what he did in an attempt to damage Heartland’s donor base. Admitted identity theft and alleged forgery in the name of noble cause
Here is Aus, less than 1 week ago, a self-identified “anti-coal activist” mocked up (ie. allegedly forged) a digital facsimile of a major bank’s market notice of withdrawal of loan facilities to a coal miner, purportedly on the grounds that the bank (the ANZ) had withdrawn the loan facility due to the anti-environmental aspect of coal mining. This person then emailed this alleged forgery to various well-known journalists from the financial press
Some of these journalists, obviously wishing such a press release to be true, tweeted it around without compunction or fact-checking. Others published it on their website with a very incompetent fact check: to wit, they phoned the mobile number quoted on the alleged forgery and were greeted with said “activist” pretending to be a bank spokesman. This they took as true, since they wanted to believe it was
The resultant damage on the ASX reached over $314m in an hour or so
So, we have alleged forgery and identity theft with the malicious intent of financially damaging a publically listed company, and this succeeded. Seems familiar … and the parallelism continues:
The Aus Green Party (actually in a formal coalition with the current Govt in federal power !) has been making statements published in the MSM to the effect that “noble cause” applies here (ie. it’s OK to commit forgery, identity theft and malicious property damage in the name of nobility). The very same journalists, who may well be regarded as accessories after the alleged fact based on their completely incompetent “fact-checking” prior to publishing, are now busy publishing articles to support this “noble cause” and also to dilute their own accountability (eg. only a “hoax”)
The Aus corporate cop, ASIC, has seized the “activist’s” laptop and mobile (gee, eh) and say they are investigating. The Aus Federal Govt has said absolutely nothing, and is unlikely to because their own coalition partners are aggressively pushing the noble cause muck in the MSM
Although these alleged crimes carry maximum penalties of 10 years jail and $0.5m in fines, we in Aus suspect that the eventual outcome will be the equivalent to a stern warning for a “silly, stupid hoax”
As with Gleick, if no hard accountability is imposed, this may well result in further copy cats. Such is noble cause corruption
It was a hypothetical element in a scenario of future events, of which a financial/economic crisis was the major hypothetical element. But I think it’s more likely than not that temperatures will fall over the next four years.
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Stephen Mosher had earlier analyzed the “fingerprints” of Gleick’s writing style and other clues in the forged document even before Gleick admitted to being the person who had forwarded the documents to alarmist websites. It was posted on Climate Audit, but I forget to save the link. I include a shorter post of his below.
In addition, there are these considerations:
Gleick’s lawyerly statement said that he received it in the mail–but that left open the possibility that he mailed it to himself–or mailed it to someone who mailed it back to him. That would have been a smart thing to do, to create a misleading trail of evidence (i.e., an envelope mailed from a far-away city).
No, but there are shades of gray and shades of probability. Joe Bast wasn’t just wildly guessing—he’d read comments like the above.
Trafamadore said:
And look what happened to the B.E.S.T. study last summer that was funded by private monies to disprove results from the evil government scientists. That turned out to be a waste of the Koch brothers $$.
This comment show you are prone to accepting the propaganda launched against the Koch brothers, rather than the truth. They are actually very interested in science. They’ve been providing funding for NOVA and other PBS programs for years, including a show a couple of years ago on evolution. There is no indication that they put any pressure on anyone working on the BEST project to come up with results more to their liking. Rather, they simply wanted a better accounting for the temp record, and they accept what the results are, which is scientific by its very nature..
Once again we hear the tired old ‘equivalence’ argument.
trafamadore wrote:
No, the bottom line is, Gleick could not find anything really damning in the documents he phished, so he forged one with suitably damning quotes. Those are the quotes that the complacent/compliant media focus on.
Nobody has forged any emails from the UEA and tried to pass them off as genuine because the ones that were released are damning enough all by themselves.
People like you turn a blind eye to Gleick’s transgressions, just as you did with those of ‘the team’ at UEA.
You talk about crucifying.
Tallbloke, a blogger who received early word of the release, had his house raided and searched by the police who were (I kid you not) liaising with the U.K. anti-terrorism unit.
vs.
Gleick -lauded at the AGU, as if nothing had happened.
Heartland can claim damages if its directors, officers, and donors were harassed, and some donors withdrew. Offsetting benefits don’t count. I.e., suppose you were mugged and $25 stolen, and spent $1000 in medical bills. You could still sue for pain and suffering, plus the medical bills, even if, thanks to a sympathetic story in the media, $5000 in donations poured in from the public.
@Jack Diamond:
Watts isn’t paid for his blogging. A Heartland document describes a request he made last year for funding for a different project:
Watts later reported on the progress of this project:
See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/07/an-update-on-my-climate-reference-network-visualization-project/
trafamadore says:
January 10, 2013 at 5:43 pm
Willis Eschenbach says:
I guess my writing is not clear. The phrase “cannot break down because of Lance or whatever he did” doesn’t mean I don’t know who Lance is, or what he did. I know both, very well. It might have been clearer to say
Here’s the deal. You can’t make up some cockamamie “extension” of my metaphor involving Lance Armstrong and argue against that. Lance is not my metaphor, he is YOUR metaphor. You are arguing against yourself.
Strange, I don’t recall ever saying anything like that. Given your prior misunderstanding, you’ll need to provide a quote of mine to substantiate your claim that e.g. I think you are interested in “finding irascible results” … although I do enjoy the image.
Next time I see a paper of yours, I’ll be sure to remember that. … Oh, wait, you’re an anonymous random internet popup. I have no reason to believe you are a scientist in the slightest. That could be totally made up.
But assuming it’s not, if you haven’t found “fishy” results, you’re not working in climate science. Here’s just some of the ones I’ve dealt with, not even all of them. Links to all of these are at my index page. And yes, it does need updating …
So if you’re not finding fishy science, you’re not looking at climate science.
You go on to say:
Man, there’s so many wrong statements in that short paragraph, I’m not even going to touch it. I don’t think there’s a true thing in it.
Ooooh, your “perspective in the trenches” … dude, you’re nothing but bunch of fine words on the internet. Claiming you are some expert because of your experience, when you don’t post under your real name? Pathetic. Like I’m gonna believe you’re some guy “in the trenches”? For all I know you’re a fifteen-year-old staying up late and posting from your folks computer.
Differences
1. I don’t want anyone to crucify Gleick. I would like him to face some consequences for his actions. You might condone mail fraud and circulation of forged documents. Serious people don’t. I don’t want anyone to crucify Dr. Gundersen either. I wrote this post in part to point out to her that she has time to pull out of the ethical nosedive she’s in. I’m not some monster, just a guy.
2. Nobody knows who released the data from East Anglia. Makes it hard to say much about them.
3. The UEA documents revealed extensive wrongdoing, so bad that only the expiration of the statute of limitations precluded criminal charges being filed. As a result, the release of the data is clearly covered under the whistleblower exemption. It revealed rot and corruption at the heart of the leading lights of the AGW movement. Gleick’s actions, on the other hand, revealed nothing.
4. I haven’t heard them described as “heroes”, nor have I described them that way myself. But I’m glad they did it. It revealed that Phil Jones had flat-out lied to my face about my FOIA request, and it showed him and others plotting behind the scenes to obstruct and finally deny my valid, legitimate FOIA request. Lowlifes one and all.
5. One main difference is the UEA release revealed crimes, conspiracy, and malfeasance at a public institution, whereas Gleick’s crimes revealed nothing at a private institution … at the end of the day, there was nothing scandalous or terrible or wrong about what Heartland was doing. That’s the crazy part, Gleick auto-defenestrated over nothing.
6. UEA is funded by taxpayer money. That’s why I can FOIA them, and why it was a crime for them to avoid my FOIA request. Their emails and their data are public documents. Heartland Institute is a private business. Their documents are private documents. I see no equality between revealing one, or revealing the other.
Best regards,
w.
trafamadore says:
January 10, 2013 at 5:43 p
The bottom line is that you want scientists to crucify Gleick when you guys hold up the E. Ang. robbers as heros.
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Gleick is manifestly guilty- he admitted it, but you won’t admit his admission. You lack any sense of the absurd, tramadore.
I think here you mean “uphold” rather than “hold up” the “E. Ang. robbers”, unless you mean that we guys held up the hold-uppers. Hold on- did I say that right?
Lots of trolls out here. I wonder what the trolls have to say about Peter Gleick’s review of Donna’s book about the IPCC.
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3DB7LHRMJ14G5
Peter has had nearly a year to delete all the lies he made in that smear review of Donna’s book but clearly he either lacks the courage to retract it or he has zero integrity, possibly both.
Willis Eschenbach says: “Here’s the deal. You can’t make up some cockamamie “extension” of my metaphor involving Lance Armstrong and argue against that. Lance is not my metaphor, he is YOUR metaphor. You are arguing against yourself.”
and on and on. the metaphor distraction. But you havent articulated a response to the case that I was making, that Gleick should not be hit in the science world for public activism. Just like Armstrong would not be hit for stealing from biking organizations.
Your long list of web articles are just web articles, written on the spot, no different that what you and I are doing. They are _opinion_ at the best and dont factor in the science papers they critique. You would be better to use the Gail Combs (sp?) approach and use real articles.
“And look what happened to the B.E.S.T. study last summer that was funded by private monies to disprove results from the evil government scientists. That turned out to be a waste of the Koch brothers $$. Man, there’s so many wrong statements in that short paragraph, I’m not even going to touch it. I don’t think there’s a true thing in it.”
And pls, point out the long list of inaccuracies in that statement, because I am unaware of any. I would go on to say that the B.E.S.T study confirmed the temperature rise they set out to disprove.
In terms of your list of differences between Gleick and east Ang, robbery, you only have shown Gleich to be a bad thief. And I am unaware of any factual proven problem with any of the science that was discussed in the East Ang emails as they exposed no scientific problems, only people discussing problems, including the FOI requests that someone has to pay for. Nevertheless, stealing from a public institution is still stealing. In terms of looking for wrongdoing in the Heartland release, that was not the pt, it was to see who was contributing to Heartland, right. And I was under the impression that much was learned. Finally, in terms of your vendetta on Gundersen, and even if some of your pt are valid, I am sure the you must realize that Heartland is not viewed favorable by most scientists (unless they work for industry), and many scientists view him as you do the East Ang robbers. Yes, shame lies on both sides. I think you can count on them to be easy on him.
mpainter says: “Gleick is manifestly guilty- he admitted it, but you won’t admit his admission. You lack any sense of the absurd, tramadore.”
hey…
one person admits, the other skulks away and hides. I actually dont see the difference when they basically did the same thing. It would be _absurd_ to think anything else.
And I admit his admission, really, and I dont agree with what he did. This is about penalizing him as a scientist for what is civil infraction, activism, for which, so far, he hasnt even been convicted.
Whats the matter with “up hold”? easier to write than “hold on your shoulders”…