Fraud and deceit are a slippery slope
Story submitted by Bruce Webster
An article in the New York Times chronicles the descent of a sociologist into wholesale fraud. It is worth reading the whole article, because I believe it offers insight into some of the pressures, temptations, and self-rationalizations that many scientists struggle with.
Here is one key passage that will likely not surprise anyone here at WUWT (all emphasis in quoted text is mine):
Each case of research fraud that’s uncovered triggers a similar response from scientists. First disbelief, then anger, then a tendency to dismiss the perpetrator as one rotten egg in an otherwise-honest enterprise. But the scientific misconduct that has come to light in recent years suggests at the very least that the number of bad actors in science isn’t as insignificant as many would like to believe. And considered from a more cynical point of view, figures like Hwang and Hauser are not outliers so much as one end on a continuum of dishonest behaviors that extend from the cherry-picking of data to fit a chosen hypothesis — which many researchers admit is commonplace — to outright fabrication.
“Cherry-picking of data” is, of course, not an unknown topic in these parts. But here’s an even more intriguing passage:
Stapel did not deny that his deceit was driven by ambition. But it was more complicated than that, he told me. He insisted that he loved social psychology but had been frustrated by the messiness of experimental data, which rarely led to clear conclusions. His lifelong obsession with elegance and order, he said, led him to concoct sexy results that journals found attractive. “It was a quest for aesthetics, for beauty — instead of the truth,” he said. He described his behavior as an addiction that drove him to carry out acts of increasingly daring fraud, like a junkie seeking a bigger and better high.
And again:
What the public didn’t realize, he said, was that academic science, too, was becoming a business. “There are scarce resources, you need grants, you need money, there is competition,” he said. “Normal people go to the edge to get that money. Science is of course about discovery, about digging to discover the truth. But it is also communication, persuasion, marketing. I am a salesman. I am on the road. People are on the road with their talk. With the same talk. It’s like a circus.”
And finally how it all turned out:
…the universities unveiled their final report at a joint news conference: Stapel had committed fraud in at least 55 of his papers, as well as in 10 Ph.D. dissertations written by his students. The students were not culpable, even though their work was now tarnished. The field of psychology was indicted, too, with a finding that Stapel’s fraud went undetected for so long because of “a general culture of careless, selective and uncritical handling of research and data.” If Stapel was solely to blame for making stuff up, the report stated, his peers, journal editors and reviewers of the field’s top journals were to blame for letting him get away with it. The committees identified several practices as “sloppy science” — misuse of statistics, ignoring of data that do not conform to a desired hypothesis and the pursuit of a compelling story no matter how scientifically unsupported it may be.
A lesson for climate science. Be sure to read the whole thing. ..bruce..
Source of story : http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/diederik-stapels-audacious-academic-fraud.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0
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It is quite interesting psychologically. He says he originally did faithfully accurate attempts to work out complicated relationships and found journals were not ‘into that’. From there the ascent into pure malarkey became a self sustaining addiction.
Oh? You mean there are climate charlatans out there who are intelligent, well groomed, well spoken, hard working, scientifically sincere and pleasant people who could do work as meteorologists? Even when they will patiently be held accountable for all forecasts, every day and all day.
Somehow, I find that rather difficult to believe.
Advances in Geophysics, Vol. 25, 1983.
I return to this work each year when writing a research paper.
I was in the 90’s and 00’s an avid reader of all issues of JGR and GRL.
Yet surprisingly, ‘The Theory of Climate’ as explained in volume 25 is as new today as then, i.e. no advance since 1983, absolutely nothing new discovered in 30 years.
What a moras.
Could it be that the publication of Volume 25, Advances in Geophysics, “The Theory of Climate” so infuriated a small group of alarmists, extremists, that in their collective hatred they organized and formed the International Panel on Climate Change UN, in order to ‘end-game’ the well established physics based science of 1983.
Within volume 25, only two references to Hansen, by Manabe in Chapter 2 (very interesting his examination of ‘assumptions’) and not a reference to anything Trendberth. How delightful.
I will still reference this work for many decades to come.
Yep it’s worth reading the whole lot. Let’s hope Lewancooksy reads it too.
The story reminded me of why doping is so common in sports.
“arrogant bully” who “cozied up to students to manipulate them.”
So by twiddling his students’ work, he only screwed them figuratively, not literally? The literal one is what teachers and professors get fired over.
Ken Mitchell says:
April 29, 2013 at 6:43 pm
RAH’s rule (via Ken): If it has to have ‘science’ in the name, it isn’t science.
Corollary: If it has to have ‘smart’ in the name, it isn’t (e.g. smart grid).
Political similarity: If it has to have ‘Democratic’ in the name, it’s not a free country.
Hmmm, I think we are transforming into the States of American Democracy (well, I couldn’t resist the acronym).
Biological reality: If it has two X chromosomes, you’ve already lost, Dude.
I have long said that the climate debate seemed to have a lot in common with a scandal in the field of history a decade or so ago. If you have not read of the Michael Bellesile affair, you should. It had some close parallels – a popular theory bought lock, stock, and barrel (an apt phrase if you know the story) by a community of liberal historians; a denouncement of any disagreement from outside the community with the claim that only historians could determine the truth, insistance that the NRA was behind the attack on peer-reviewed professional studies, a claim of getting threats by mail, and an epic downfall of the theory led by the dogged work of a software programmer who was working on a degree in history, and an attorney who was an amature historian. Unfortunately, damage had already been done. The fraudulant work had been cited in court cases. I suspect some students are still citing the discredited research. Once fraud is committed it takes on a life of its own and can not be completely killed. That is easily seen today by the large number of people associating autism with vaccinations, despite the underlaying study having been shown to be fake.
DaveA.. you beat me to it !!
Lewindowsky and Cook certainly are from the same ooze as these two.
The difference is that their fraud and deceit is open for all to see, and yet still accepted !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Social science has as much relationship to real science as a soya steak has to real beef.
Sociology is not a science, so it’s not a scientist who committed fraud. Sociology is in the same league as astrology, reflexology, whateverology. You either believ ein that mess or you don’t but any resemblence to actual facts is totally absent. In fact committing fraud is more a question of intent since all sociology is a big fraud.
Thinking of dishonest behaviours, have a look at Fig 5.19 of NOAA’s Greenland Ice Sheet report Card for 2012. The right hand scale shows the equivalent rise of sea level of the projected ice melt.
Then look at the University of Colarado Sea Level rise.
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/images-terrcryo/g-fig5.19.jpg
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/greenland_ice_sheet.html
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Is it reasonable to ask how Greenland ice melt can go from 0% to 200% of sea level rise in a decade?
Hmm. Looks like no one has written this yet, so I guess I’ll have to (it’s a dirty job…).
Ahem.
OMG, it’s worse than we thought!!!
Jeff L says: :”Academics are far from angels, but I can’t fault them too much in that they are doing what they have to do to survive…”
Sorry, their metaphorical “survival” has jeopardized the actual survival of our entire civilization, diverted money from more worthwhile causes, promoted the use of biofuels at the cost of human lives lost to starvation, and aided and abetted a resurgence of Socialism, the failed creed that resulted in the deaths of 120,000,000 people in the 20th Century, alone. That’s twenty Holocausts. No, we can and should fault many of these academics as ethical failures and utter parasites. That is their Lysenkoist legacy. Let it be written in large letters and never forgotten.
“The field of psychology was indicted, too, ….”
Psychologist heal thyself!
Summary:
‘At least one ‘academic’ is an arrogant lying cheating bastard’
Who knew?
Average temperatures in Portugal have in the last 40 years increased at a rate of 0.5 degrees per decade – twice as fast as globally – posing major dangers to the country, a climate expert has warned.
http://theportugalnews.com/news/temperature-rise-in-portugal-twice-global-rate-poses-threats/28299
A study carried out by researchers from varous universities, showed “systematic temperature increases that can reach three to seven degrees centigrade in summer, with stronger heating in the north and central interior and a strong increment in the frequency and intensity of heatwaves” in mainland Portugal.
The Portuguese met office (IPMA) said that the weather is going to change dramatically in the coming days with a steep fall in temperatures and snow over high ground.
http://theportugalnews.com/news/springtime-with-hill-snow-and-polar-air/28297
Portugal is getting cooler because it is getting warmer ?
jorgekafkazar says:
April 29, 2013 at 11:52 pm
“lives lost to starvation, and aided and abetted a resurgence of Socialism, the failed creed that resulted in the deaths of 120,000,000 people in the 20th Century, alone. That’s twenty Holocausts. No, we can and should fault many of these academics as ethical failures and utter parasites.”
Just the other day I read another Malthusian meltdown by money manager Jeremy Grantham, the boss of despicable loudmouth Bob Ward, and one by a Club Of Rome member, both still playing the warming card and fantasizing about the limited carrying capacity of Earth; so they both still want to depopulate the planet.
Eugenics (invented by Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin) and Wamism are both pseudosciences invented and used by the Malthusian movement to achieve their goal of depopulation. And they don’t even think of themselves as evil, they constantly have to explain to everybody that this is the only way mankind can survive, thus rationalizing themselves into having the DUTY to exterminate arbitrary amounts of people.
From Stapel’s book
Report of Phil Jones testimony to Parliament
‘The most startling observation came when he was asked how often scientists reviewing his papers for probity before publication asked to see details of his raw data, methodology and computer codes. “They’ve never asked,” he said.’ *
And the biggest problem that allowed Enron to get away with stuff for so long is that the auditors never asked the hard questions…..if they asked any questions at all.
Why do we allow academics to (mostly) get away with standards of conduct that wouldn’t be acceptable as the treasurer of a small sports club? Are we so brainwashed by the laughable idea of ‘academic integrity’ that we can’t conceive of the idea that academia is awash with at least as many crooks, vagabonds and ne’erdowells as the rest of society…and in some fields seemingly a lot more?
Stapel’s story – as written in the NYT – has huge parallels with climatology. I urge you all to read it in full. I just hope Revkin has seen and understood it too.
* Fred Pearce: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/mar/01/phil-jones-commons-emails-inquiry
Lew Skannen says:
April 29, 2013 at 8:23 pm
It is very unfortunate but at least I can take heart that it could never happen in Australia. Definitely not in the School of Psychology at UWA. That is for sure.
Well, maybe not as much in future now he’s gone to UK. But hopefully the investigations continue.
What a coincidence! Seconds before I came to WUWT this morining I was thinking:
Then what is the ‘first’ post I see? 🙂
As a budding Physicist years ago I was told, “when you need to see results cook the books”. Clearly the “mantra prevails”.
– OLD NEWS from September 2011, covered by NYT cos Strapel is plugging his new book
… Shame on the NYT and the other media which feeds the public a constructed reality instead of reality itself
– a quick Google finds Why is the New York Times publicising fraudster Stapel’s book?
Stapel
CAGW science reminds me of drug taking in cycling and other sports. Grand Prix anyone?
Now, the comment brought back President Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation. Aside from say space exploration, never could he have imagined that any science today would be funded by the federal government to the tune of eye popping billions each and every year and that’s not to mention state governments, overseas climate change spending and organizational grants to Calamatologists.