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
@ur momisugly thelastdemocrat, Kent Clizbe
Good to paint the global picture. I had not heard of Willi Muenzenberg, the inspiration for the Frankfurt School. A big struggle for the mind is needed to save the West. One battle is in the climate science area. In my (&Stapel’s) country, I am spending part of my time fighting fraudulent and nonsensical “science” in criminology and islam studies.
(As I wrote earlier on Retraction Watch: ) Two scientific fraud complaints by me have been rejected at all official levels. One of these cases is “Dutch criminologists lied”; here is an overview in English: http://www.keizersenkleren.nl/?p=259
The worst part is not played by the involved scientists, but by the National Committee for Scientific Integrity (LOWI), which is a collaboration of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and the universities. LOWI had organized a hearing, for which it did not allow me to make a recording. Afterwards they made up a false representation of the hearing, insinuating I would have opposed the disputed study for its low social relevance. The LOWI chairman twisted my words, and he made me look like an enemy of academic freedom. Less than a year later the Stapel affair “shocked” the KNAW, and this LOWI chairman led the main investigation. KNAW’s crocodile tears irritate me much more Stapel’s deceit.
“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. …”
–
It makes you wonder how many good, honest scientists have been left without funding because they couldn’t compete with the liars and cheats who are better “salesmen” and who can more easily fool government bureaucrats. The ones who tend to get funding are the ones who tell them what they want to hear. The worst part is: When you subsidize fraud, you get more of it; and when you punish honesty in science, you get less of it.
In reply to
yt75 says:
April 30, 2013 at 2:37 am
You can forget about the climate if that makes you feel good, although one might want to consider things like for instance : since the industrial revolution, burning hydrocarbons has raised the atmospheric CO2 concentration by 38%, and 38% is quite a bit.
But anyway, again you can forget about that if you want, doesn’t change much regarding the fact that one if not the prime reason of current crisis that is only starting is due to below :
William:
…yt75,
Your post illustrates the communication gap between well meaning CO2 haters who are concerned about ‘dangerous’ warming and the so called ‘skeptics’. The communication gap exists as the ‘skeptics’ discuss all aspects of CO2, climate mechanisms, and observations concerning 20th century temperature changes while those pushing the paradigm that CO2 is a dangerous polluting gas hide the data and analysis in published peer reviewed papers that indicates the warming due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 rise will be benign (less than 1C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 with most of the warming occurring at high latitudes which expands the biosphere.)
The key reason why the warming due to doubling of atmospheric CO2 will be benign is that planetary clouds in the tropics increase or decrease to resist forcing changes by reflecting more or less sunlight off into space. This mechanism works to stabilize planetary temperature. The IPCC’s general circulation models assumed planetary cloud cover in the tropics and water vapor would amplify the warming due to CO2. Observations due not support the assumption that water vapor is amplifying the CO2 forcing. Without amplification, IPCC model predicts roughly 1C warming for a doubling of atmospheric CO2. There is no dangerous global warming problem. The current warming is observed warming is primarily at high latitudes and caused the biosphere to expand. The tree line has extended a couple of hundred miles further north and there are more shrubs at higher latitudes.
What is odd, surreal, is that if there is no dangerous warming problem increases to atmospheric CO2 are unequivocally beneficial to the biosphere and humanity for the following reasons.
Higher CO2 is significantly beneficial for all plants on the planet. Plant growth rates increase when atmospheric CO2 increases up until roughly 1200 ppm. The optimum level of CO2 for plants is around 1000 ppm to 1200 ppm. Commercial greenhouses inject CO2 into their greenhouse (to reach 1000 ppm to 1200 ppm) to increase yield and reduce growing times. Cereal crop yield wheats, rice, barley, and so on yields increase by roughly 40% for CO2 doubling from 280 ppm to 560 ppm.
C3 plants (all plants except for grasses) lose roughly 50% of the water they absorb at their roots due to a process called trans-respiration. When atmosphere CO2 rise the C3 plants produce less stomata on their leaves which reduces water loss. This has enabled plants to move in desert regions reducing desertification.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/05/030509084556.htm
Greenhouse Gas Might Green Up The Desert; Weizmann Institute Study Suggests That Rising Carbon Dioxide Levels Might Cause Forests To Spread Into Dry Environments
The Weizmann team found, to its surprise, that the Yatir forest is a substantial “sink” (CO2-absorbing site): its absorbing efficiency is similar to that of many of its counterparts in more fertile lands. These results were unexpected since forests in dry regions are considered to develop very slowly, if at all, and thus are not expected to soak up much carbon dioxide (the more rapidly the forest develops the more carbon dioxide it needs, since carbon dioxide drives the production of sugars). However, the Yatir forest is growing at a relatively quick pace, and is even expanding further into the desert.
Plants need carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, which leads to the production of sugars. But to obtain it, they must open pores in their leaves and consequently lose large quantities of water to evaporation. The plant must decide which it needs more: water or carbon dioxide. Yakir suggests that the 30 percent increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide since the start of the industrial revolution eases the plant’s dilemma. Under such conditions, the plant doesn’t have to fully open the pores for carbon dioxide to seep in – a relatively small opening is sufficient. Consequently, less water escapes the plant’s pores. This efficient water preservation technique keeps moisture in the ground, allowing forests to grow in areas that previously were too dry.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html
The green shoots of recovery are showing up on satellite images of regions including the Sahel, a semi-desert zone bordering the Sahara to the south that stretches some 2,400 miles (3,860 kilometers). Images taken between 1982 and 2002 revealed extensive regreening throughout the Sahel, according to a new study in the journal Biogeosciences.
The study suggests huge increases in vegetation in areas including central Chad and western Sudan.
In the eastern Sahara area of southwestern Egypt and northern Sudan, new trees—such as acacias—are flourishing, according to Stefan Kröpelin, a climate scientist at the University of Cologne’s Africa Research Unit in Germany.
“Shrubs are coming up and growing into big shrubs. This is completely different from having a bit more tiny grass,” said Kröpelin, who has studied the region for two decades
“Before, there was not a single scorpion, not a single blade of grass,” he said.
“Now you have people grazing their camels in areas which may not have been used for hundreds or even thousands of years. You see birds, ostriches, gazelles coming back, even sorts of amphibians coming back,” he said.
“The trend has continued for more than 20 years. It is indisputable.”
The extreme AGW paradigm pushers are hiding observations and analysis that indicates a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will result in less than 1C warming. An obvious observation to support the assertion that there will be less than 1Cwarming is there was been no warming for the last 16 years. The observations indicate something is fundamentally incorrect with the general circulation models that ‘project’ a warming of 3C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from 0.028% to 0.056% is absurdly high.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/04/global-warming-slowdown-the-view-from-space/
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-global-LT-vs-UAH-and-RSS.png
The general circulation models that were used to project a warming of 3C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 predicted and require to create the 3C warming, that would be warming of the tropical troposphere at around 8 km above the planet’s surface. The warming at this level in the atmosphere occurs due to a predicted increase in water vapour at this altitude and due to increased CO2 at altitude in the atmosphere. The tropic tropospheric warming at around 8km then warms the tropics by long wave radiation. There is no observed tropospheric warming at 8 km. One of the major physical reasons for the lack of warming is found in Lindzen and Choi (2011) analysis (See link to paper below) that low level cloud cover in the tropics increases or decreases in to resist planetary temperature forcing changes by reflecting more or less sunlight off into space.
This is a link to a review paper that was prepared by EPA’s own scientist that supports the assertion that the research and analysis does not support the extreme AGW paradigm. The EPA buried the report. The EPA and IPCC of course are completely ignoring the data and logic that indicates the majority of the 20th/21st warming was not due to the rise in atmospheric CO2.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/endangermentcommentsv7b1.pdf
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/DOUGLASPAPER.pdf
“ A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions
We examine tropospheric temperature trends of 67 runs from 22 ‘Climate of the 20th Century’ model simulations and try to reconcile them with the best available updated observations (in the tropics during the satellite era). Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs. These conclusions contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data.”
http://www.johnstonanalytics.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/LindzenChoi2011.235213033.pdf
“On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications by Richard S. Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi
We again find that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST fluctuations exceeds the zerofeedback response thus implying negative feedback. In contrast to this, the calculated TOA outgoing radiation fluxes from 11 atmospheric models forced by the observed SST are less than the zerofeedback response, consistent with the positive feedbacks that characterize these models. …. … CO2, a relatively minor greenhouse gas, has increased significantly since the beginning of the industrial age from about 280 ppmv to about 390 ppmv, presumably due mostly to man’s emissions. This is the focus of current concerns. However, warming from a doubling of CO2 would only be about 1C (based on simple calculations where the radiation altitude and the Planck temperature depend on wavelength in accordance with the attenuation coefficients of well mixed CO2 molecules; a doubling of any concentration in ppmv produces the same warming because of the logarithmic dependence of CO2’s absorption on the amount of CO2) (IPCC, 2007). This modest warming is much less than current climate models suggest for a doubling of CO2.
Social psychology died when Stanley Milgram was bullied into retirement. Since then no proper scientist would dare enter that field of study. Just look at the type of hypothesis that Stapel was proposing – litter makes you racist, and eating meat makes you aggressive. These are not scientific hypothesis, but they are Pythagorean ideals which should be enough to set of anyone’s BS meter.
“It was a quest for aesthetics, for beauty — instead of the truth,”
Hmmn,….. however Keats had a different approach-
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’
And then there is confusing a sociologist with a scientist…I don’t think sociologists are well versed in scientific method.
Kids here in the UK are being pushed into ‘social sciences’ at 16. You ask anyone of this age what they’re going to do from 16 to 18 and the answer is an ‘ology’, it’s quite bizarre.
Of course most of them give up after a couple of terms and change to hairdressing or car maintenance; it’s almost as if the teaching staff feed their confidence by suggesting they’re ‘clever’ enough to do a Maureen Lipman ‘ology’ knowing full well that they will ‘fail’, which is nonsense of course as hairdressing/car maintenance is far more likely to earn them a living wage than an ‘ology’, and thus learn a lesson in humility.
Of course the teachers pushing this agenda should know that what it actually does is cause them to feel failures; I guess they never studied psychology.
Enjoy:
http://youtu.be/vEfKEzX9QLE
Al Gore thumbed his nose at the world and DARED anyone to indict the people he depended on, to run his energy markets manipulation scheme.
He told his believers to “do whatever is necessary” including “occupying” (that means sabotage through any dishonest means that can be shown to be one of ‘good will’ for ‘the country’ or for ‘future generations of children’ etc.
He encourages it today and it is a bigger crime syndicate than anything President Grant ever dreamed.
It’s crime on an eNORmous scale, the crime of simply everyone banding together in a convulsion of lying, character assassination, racial-ethnic bigotry against the types most likely to be against such,
accompanied by wholesale looting of anything one thinks one can get away with stealing.
Over all this: Al Gore’s notorious energy market manipulations to give the Occidental Oil Stocks he’d been left by his dad – IN THE ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SECTOR –
some value.
It’s crime on a scale world wide too big to be quantified, an anarchist social democrat’s wet dream Crime as demanded necessary to ‘save’ civilization
while dismantling it and going shopping with the proceeds.
While threatening those WITH anything that they’d better get used to the new paradigm. If you’re ambitious prepare to feed everyone whether you want to or not.
There is a lot of qualifying going on along social and historical lines about the social sciences by commenters who are very negative about the social sciences.
Can you spot the paradox?
richardscourtney says:
April 30, 2013 at 7:41 am
Rud Istvan:..
Peak oil is nonsense.
____________________
I for one find your comment Richard to be wrong. Not surprising, as most who trash the peak oil theory conveniently ignore the fact that oil now costs 4 times as much as back in 2004-2005, when we expected peak oil to hit. It did.
The fact that we now extract from other (non conventional, expensive) sources is irrelevent to the prediction. Virtually all the big old fields around the world are in decline.
I’ve written a whole article more or less on this subject on my blog which might interest people: “Academic Consensus v. Common sense Scepticism”
While sleaze is everywhere, it is particularly notable in academia that is infected with the anti-human notions of Post-Modernism and Marxism. (Read “Higher Superstition: The Academic Left’s Quarrel With Science” for an extensive exposition. Joseph A Olseon makes a brief reference to PM on April 29, 2013 t 7:11pm.)
Note the academic’s distinction between business and his work. Typically they want a free ride, not having to justify the cost of their work to anyone. While many people do not want to do the selling, in the real world they work for someone who does or hires sales specialists. But a successful enterprise ensures that sales and product research/development work together, or at least directs both to achieve the end result of good products that enough people want or a few are willing to pay well for. (That’s the case with consultants as well. Sales people have to provide feedback – the case of Black and Decker’s development of the first consumer-priced two-speed electric drill for example, designers have to ask questions of sales people.) For academics, the selling is often done by university administration, but apparently they want the academics to participate.
“Double blind funding of research” urged y “Jeff L” is wrong, as it further divorces researchers from reality thus reinforces the mind-body split that is at the root of the bad ideas. (That’s the notion from Plato of a real world we cannot know (except through priests – which academics try to set themselves up as), and the unreal world we live in (which they position as bad). In contrast Aristotle talked of reality – “A is A”.) Mark C’s idea of aggressive fraud detection is better, though government-funded institutions are bureaucracies thus unlikely to be effective. (Many businesses can’t – a major avionics company failed to eliminate dishonest management despite many fancy programs and years of trying.) Louis makes a good point about honest scientists losing out – that’s why we have a justice system in general, the first line in organizations is management (aided by internal investigators in some cases – unfortunately IHR and legal departments tend to obstruct).
Recognize the funding for academics comes from voters, who fail to foster and elect sensible honest people.
An example of the PM/M methods in a different field and ideology is the article that some defenders of the Catholic church’s treatment of Galileo refer to. The article is a smear attempt, but what’s really interesting is the combination of facts and suppositions. I suspect the article was written by two different people – one provided some facts, the other wrote an introduction and conclusion.
Always good to remind ourselves of how easy it can be to err ethically. Common in life – a continuum from “little white lies” to criminal behaviour, including by politicians and priests (noting a significant proportion abused children).
Complete with excuses made by others, often on the basis of “family” support, often a “clique” mentality (sometimes “good old boys network” of implicit collusion, as simple as committee appointments given only to people who will go along with the clique).
Neville Chamberlain’s excusing of Hitler is a huge example from history – obviously Hitler was a war-mongering devious person, Chamberlain evaded that reality.
(Of course many German voters are also at fault – they elected Hitler, then did not stop him when he grabbed powers. The roots of that failure are chronicled in Leonard Peikoff’s book “The Ominous Parallels” (between Nazi Germany and trends in the US).)
The foundation is ignoring reality –human life is in reality and requires productive effort to sustain. That requires use of the mind, rationally – figuring out what is edible (different colours of the same plant can be safe or toxic), protecting oneself against the elements, avoiding physical dangers (deranged individuals, wild animals, floods), etc.
One little-recognized result of dishonesty is corruption of one’s own mind – warping the thinking skills needed for life. People do compartmentalize, and con others into supporting them (Stapel, priests, and politicians being examples).
JP Miller says: on May 2, 2013 at 12:03 pm
“Is that really the message you want to send to students, prospective students, and the community at large?“
Well, yes, it is what they want.
See my early post about their tactics.
(Their message is one of hatred and using force, they hope to train students to their ideology and incite many people.)
Meanwhile, I am ROFL at Defender Curtis’ reference to philosopher Hume, an anti-human follower of Kant, whose ideas led to Marxism and its cousin National Socialism (Nazi).
Defender Curtis has his interests backwards – if one does not start with epistemology (method of knowledge needed to understand life) one cannot determine ethics, because one will not have a criteria to judge what is ethical.