This post will be a top sticky post for a day, new stories will appear below this one.
While this issue was covered previously on Climate Audit, I thought this needed the exposure that WUWT could afford.
There’s a famous quote from CRU’s Phil Jones to Warwick Hughes that pretty much sums up the entire issue of climate science, saying essentially that the work is above reproach and there’s no reason to allow it to be questioned by providing access to raw data for replication, especially by climate skeptics, even though it was done on public funds:
“We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.”
As readers know, a few people have been trying to get access to the poll data from Lewandowsky’s “moon landing hoax” paper (the one where he hid his involvement and the poll was mostly posted on climate alarmist sites, and WUWT wasn’t even asked) and have been stonewalled. This response about data access from Professor Paul Johnson, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Western Australia takes stonewalling to a whole new level, and is a close second to that famous quote from Phil Jones.
Some foreword might be helpful to understand the context as to why this sort of behavior exhibited by Jones, and now Paul Johnson, is broadly damaging to the reputation of science.
The issue with Lewandowsky is unscientific and unethical behavior by creating an advance conclusion (all climate skeptics are conspiracy nutters) followed by attempts to hide his association with the study to people who were polled, selective distribution of the poll, mainly to websites who are advocates of climate action, then outright mocking of the very people who was supposedly studying, then actually writing in his own conclusions to an ethics investigation that was supposed to be done independently.
One cannot imagine a more egregious abuse of the scientific process as we have witnessed with Lewandowsky’s vilification of climate skeptics using the journal Psychological Science as a bully pulpit.
Dr. Judith Curry’s thoughts about Michael Mann’s behavior seem germane here, simply substitute Mann with Lewandowsky:
For the past decade, scientists have come to the defense of Michael Mann, somehow thinking that defending Michael Mann is fighting against the ‘war on science’ and is standing up for academic freedom. Its time to let Michael Mann sink or swim on his own. Michael Mann is having all these problems because he chooses to try to muzzle people that are critical of Mann’s science, critical of Mann’s professional and personal behavior, and critical of Mann’s behavior as revealed in the climategate emails. All this has nothing to do with defending climate science or academic freedom.
Barry Woods advises me of this gobsmacking response from UWA’s Vice Chancellor, Paul Johnson, and provided all the emails from the timeline to me for inspection. It is important to know that Lewandowsky has left UWA where his paper was originally approved, data gathered, written, and published from, and is now at the University of Bristol.
Barry Woods writes:
I wrote to Lewandowsky last September, & eventually got a response via a Bristol Uni press officer referring any concerns to UWA.
Woods also wrote to the journal editor Eric Eich, asking for access to data so that a comment could be sent to the journal:
I wrote to Maybery (UWA) in early March (and a couple of reminders), then received Paul Johnson’s email.
…
One of the lessons of Climategate was that even most scientists agreed on was ‘data transparency’. I can’t believe the VC of University of Western Australia’s response to me. AND that he would put it in writing! Four and a half years on from Climategate, and we still have universities refusing to share data with critics.
Here is the letter from UWA’s vice-chancellor as a screen-cap. The bolding was done by Johnson Woods:
I have pixelated the email address for Mr. Woods (which is private) so that he doesn’t get attacked/spammed, and the other email participants by cc: are not on display due to them being in Mr. Woods contact list, only their names display. Johnson’s email address is also pixelated for the same reason.
I also verified that the email is genuine, by looking at the email headers within it.
And, it appears that by the UWA’s own published policy they are quite open to data sharing:
In the “Code of Conduct for the Responsible Practice of Research”, it becomes clear that Vice Chancellor Paul Johnson’s statement of “It is not the University’s practice to accede to such requests” is a bald faced lie:
Steve McIntyre and others have suggested that some of Lewandowsky’s poll data may have been falsified, and they want to test that assumption. UWA Vice Chancellor Paul Johnson’s response puts him at odds with the 3.4 and 3.8 sections above.
We also have a clear case from UWA’s own records obtained via FOI law that Lewandowsky Ghost-wrote Conclusions of UWA Ethics Investigation into “Hoax”.
So, the “investigation” supposedly done by UWA into the research of Lewandowsky was actually done by Lewandowsky himself.
This episode is turning into quite an ethics quagmire for UWA, I can see why Johnson would purposely violate their own policy by telling Woods that UWA won’t share the data. The data itself must be damning for them to want to protect it this much in violation of their own policy; perhaps with data even showing that some of the responses to the poll that McIntyre wants to examine came from within the University itself, creating another, more culpable conflict of interest and violation of UWA’s own research policy.
When a university administrator decides that “It is not the University’s practice to accede to such requests”, because of the perceived ‘attacks on science’, it seems they believe the work of colleagues rather than check the issues being raised. It is clear Johnson is more trusting of a former colleague vs the ‘anti-science forces of denial’, as climate skeptics are often falsely characterized as.
No matter what you think about climate science, or science in general, I would hope that you would embrace the need for transparency of data as the most important issue of science, because it is within the data where truth lives. Without the verification and replication of science that data access allows, science runs the risk of falling victim to the human emotional condition of opinions, agendas, tribalism, and personal vendettas acted out via the process of noble cause corruption.
I believe that is what we see here and it is a sad day for science when administrators in two universities and a journal editor circle the wagons to protect a science paper that may not only be wrong, but is likely based on an emotional response turned into a vendetta by the principal investigator, Lewandowsky, we all lose.
In cases of public malfeasance, it if often the cover-up which gets more attention for prosecution than the original infraction, and this looks to be the making of just such a situation.
Dave says: “I keep telling you, it is a religion, a cult actually, it is not open to being questioned. Any lie, any misdirection is allowed, even promoted, to keep the adherents dazzled”
No doubt about it.
The greatest positive contribution to the biosphere and vegetative health of our planet the past 200 years, along with increasing crop yields and world food production by following the irrefutable law of photosynthesis. That fact has been twisted and turned upside down into CO2=pollution.
Though there is plenty of manipulation with regards to CO2’s effect on temperature and use of unethical methods to perpetrate this scam, nothing can match the mind boggling scientific fraud perpetrated by covering up the massive benefits of CO2 as confirmed by thousands of studies.
This would be like taking your teenager to his family doctor for a regular check up and the doctor discovering that he’s dehydrated, then insisting that he cut back on drinking water because water is toxic(yeah, right if you drink a gallon of it in an hour).
The 280 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere 200 years ago was severely deficient. Ideal CO2 levels for our biosphere and plant world would be double the current 400 ppm. All animals eat plants or something that ate plants.
Biological science is crystal clear that patient earth and its creatures would see increasing health with much more CO2 in the atmosphere than at current levels. To hide this intentionally is a crime the perpetrators, ironically, accuse people of, who want to see the data that supports their work.
Do you think the doctor that insists that water is toxic is beyond reproach, simply because he’s a doctor?
In a just world, the scientific quacks taking part in this fraud would be held accountable, not rewarded and given protection.
Hey Magma, no conspiracy ideation needed. A simple check of the news headlines makes it quite clear that fraud in academic psychology is far from unknown, including the manufacturing of data from whole cloth. Even the New York Times is aware of that, as they report in their story of one of the most respected academics in the field of psychology getting busted making up survey results. To ignore that possibility would be to stick one’s head in the sand about the real world. Why won’t the data be released? What’s so hard about doing that? The refusal to do so raises questions that go to the heart of the scientific method and how studies can be based on “secret” data that can’t be reviewed. In that case, it’s legitimate to ask: Does the data actually exist? Diederik Stapel’s (see link above) data did not, except in his imagination.
Here’s another example, also from the last two years:
http://news.sciencemag.org/2012/09/harvard-psychology-researcher-committed-fraud-u.s.-investigation-concludes
“Former Harvard University psychologist Marc Hauser fabricated and falsified data and made false statements about experimental methods in six federally funded studies, according to a report released yesterday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Office of Research Integrity (ORI).”
And here’s another case where there was no data. The whole idea was completely made up.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-effects/201401/the-mathematics-happiness-turns-out-be-fraud
“Puzzled by the absence of data explaining the equation and questioning the apparent simplicity of the happiness ratio, Nick Brown, a part-time psychology student in his fifties studying at the University of East London, investigated further and found that the scientific-sounding ratio came apart in his hands. Losada had in effect made it up. And Fredrickson, clearly impressed by the math but unable to challenge or reproduce it herself, not only adopted it wholesale but built an influential article and book around it.“
What makes Climate Studies different from all the other sciences and university studies? How is it that we have in Climate Studies the one science that is settled? Whereas, there is room for research in all other fields of university and private studies, we have closed the door on the future in climatology? I propose that we shut down separate climatology departments and simply include the settled conclusions in the ordinary department of meteorology.
Perhaps following the precedent set in so many universities in having settled at least one intellectual endeavor, that the principle should be extended to all other studies and simply declare all the rest as settled, and Universities be declared as only teaching institutions and the receipt of further grants, bequests, and any other source of funding for research unnecessary.
Perhaps even University operations should be converted from the present form and simply be established as hired bureaucracies whether of the public or private stripe. Perhaps reducing professionalism to mere bureaucracy is long overdue. We no longer need to permit the free exercise of judgement at all, since all matters are settled.
Isn’t it a wonderful sensation to apply the principle of settlement to all matters? Since establishing such a state of affairs removes any further need for free enquiry, therefore there is no call to teach such matters, merely the established and settled knowledge we have before us. And since all is settled there is no longer any requirement for policing University establishments, as their data is sacrosanct beyond any possibility of further scrutiny like settlement of authority on the FBI to deal with matters of insurance and political activity. The wonderful sense of human awe at the place he has in the universe can now be transferred to those holding title to settled matters.
If we can settle matters subject to science, what else is there around to settle? Lots and lots, starting with political control. Settling that matter provides a wonderful sense of security in that no further decisions are necessary,and those holding the reins of settlement are due the respectful envelopment of awe at such perfection in the hands of mere fellow human beings. Surely we will all hang pictures of them in our homes and work places. We no longer are required to engage in the messy and often nasty decision making so unsettling in a world where business stuck up its ugly head and demeaned simple work from its settled place in the scheme of settled life. We can all depend on Big Settlement, never mind who is doing the settling or why.
I am an Australian reader and have never heard of the term ‘circle the wagons’.
“it is a sad day for science when administrators in two universities and a journal editor circle the wagons”
Does this mean that they should be in their offices rather than out on the corral?
But great article, I think UWA will lose this one, data must be accessible to other researchers, it is the basis of science.
jimmi_the_dalek says:
April 3, 2014 at 3:15 pm
I wonder if anyone else finds it ironic that, in a paper dealing with conspiracy theory, some people are speculating that he made up the data?
—————————————————–
It’s more ironic that Lewandowsky, as one in a large group of true believers in CAGW, a group that regularly claims that there is conspiracy between Big Oil, “anti-scientists,” conservative think-tanks, polluters, automobile enthusiasts, and Denialists, would write a paper accusing people of “conspiracy ideation.”
Or, it’s more ironic that UWA would refuse to release data in violation of university policy in order to defend the integrity of a scientific paper written at the university.
It’s ironic that reputed “scientist” Lewandowsky would claim that climate science is settled.
It’s ironic that Lewandowsky and his followers think he’s being smeared after he wrote a paper smearing people by “proving” they suffer from psychological disorders.
There’s a lot of irony to go around in this controversy.
Hot of the press:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-deniers-intimidate-journal-into-retracting-paper-that-finds-they-believe-conspiracy-theories/
rogerknights says:
April 3, 2014 at 5:11 pm
Pretty lousy choice of a thread to hijack! OTOH, compared to Dr Lew stuff, it’s nice to add something about the world maybe getting to be a better place.
I don’t remember the running on E-Cats by April line, when he was working on the original low temperature steam model he used it for heating the lab.
Rights to the E-Cats were acquired by by a mysterious partner several months ago, the partner recently identified themselves – Industrial Heat in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Not the big company I had hoped for, but they seem reasonable. They’re also a lot quieter than Rossi used to be so it’s tough to gauge where they are. I think they have not yet hooked a unit on to a steam turbine to produce power, which might suggest they’re having issue controlling things, but could mean there’s no need to until they’re good and ready. Patience.
Rossi apparently is doing more research and is not involved much in the manufacturing efforts, so maybe they aren’t having control problems.
A 5-6 month test by 3rd parties should have concluded last month, but people be writing up the results and running it through peer review, so it may be months before we hear details. One hint comes from an Italian blogger who posted in Italian “Sources that I used to draw are now depleted, new sources (Italian, Bolognese but not) tell me that the report is completed and the performance certificate cat Rossi is remarkable!” A better translation would be nice, but the meaning is clear. Patience.
Meanwhile, other projects and efforts are moving along and I don’t have time to keep up with everything. A good summary, well, it doesn’t go into any details, it just summarizes all the projects, is at http://www.e-catworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Energy_Breakthrough_Powering-Up-1april2014.pdf
So, all sorts of stuff going on, but nothing I can spear and bring into the daylight.
Patience.
You must be very young thingadonta, it was an expression used in the older western movies, when the wagon trains were moving to another region, and they were attacked by North American Indians. “Circle the wagons! was to barricade themselves, as a protective ploy by placing the covered wagons in a circle. Unhook the horses etc. So they could hide behind and shoot down de ‘redskins’. Didn’t always work though. .
I agree refusal to produce research papers to others sounds a bit suss. It’s also not unusual for other academics to query an academic’s thesis? Especially a Ph.D candidate’s. They usually publish their findings in a professional or scientific magazine and invite others to comment.
Personally I think they would rather hide them forever forgotten, and throw away the key. Especially if the university was afforded a grant, gee, that is their life blood, is the research facilities.
There is one thing you can rely on here in Australia. It’s called the GAF (Give A F%$k) attitude. If you want anything from say a university, property management company, utility etc etc most of the time you are pushed from pillar to post and nothing gets done, all for a fee of course.
bushbunny:
Yeah I figured that’s what it meant, but i’ve never heard the expression in Australia.
This is an abbreviated version of the email I sent to Paul Johnston,
I am astounded that you have sought to protect the data of … from the analysis of Steve McIntyre. In science, open access and analysis is a basic scientific tenet. What do you fear? …
By your actions you have already brought unwanted attention to the generally declining standards of rarefied world of the academic ivory towers and have (further) trashed the reputation of a leader in that decline, your very own UWA (where I studied economic alchemy and numerology in the 1970’s). Who would have thought one pseudo-scientific ‘professor’ in one discipline could have wrought so much destruction on a whole university? Thank goodness he has gone to the UK as it will take them much longer to notice.
Einstein never feared challenges to his ideas or research, in fact he revelled in them as it made him validate his theoretical musings. Since when did the UWA feel it had the ability to turn proven and well-tried scientific principles into a new paradigm of secrecy and spin?
What does it say about the modern post-scientific world that the UWA, through you supports taking taxpayers funds then hiding the shoddy work and false conclusions from the world. …
Either become a realist seeker of truth and release the data or get out of the way …
There is another possibility for this reaction. I think elections are being held in Western Australia (WA) this w/e, or is it a re-run due to some ballot papers went missing a week or so ago. Not sure. One thing I am sure about is that the balance of power in the Senate will be determined by the WA result. I have a feeling the ALP and Green hold on power in the Senate will change as has most states and territories, excluding SA and ACT, to favour the Liberal National Party (LNP). Abbott and the LNP will then have control to rid this country of this kind of academic misconduct, rot and finally dismiss climate change alarmist fear mongering.
Well, it is quite clear (to me at least) that all requests for data have failed for reasons stated in Section 3.8, to wit:” 3.8 Research data related to publications must be available for discussion with other researchers.”
Obviously, if you are not considered to be a “researcher” (whatever qualification that entails), then you are not entitled to squat. Period. End of Story. Go away. Be Silent. You do not exist.
I think this is reaching just a bit. There is at least an equal probability that neither Paul Johnson nor anyone else at UWA has looked at the data in detail. The instant they do, they become responsible for any taint. As long as they don’t look they can maintain distance from potential scandal.
I think this is simply a rock UWA does not want to turn over. And why bother? Lewandowsky is no longer there so they can wash their hands of any responsibility for him; it’s ancient history. And his new employer University of Bristol can likewise evade responsibility because the work was not done under their auspices and they don’t have the data anyway.
It’s a neat arrangement; everyone who is in a position to release the data can, without obvious and undeniable duplicity, claim it’s not their problem and you have to talk to one of the other parties.
I suspect the UWA “Code of Conduct” is only enforceable by UWA, and then only if they chose to do so. Unless an accrediting body or government grant funding agency wants to get involved, this is probably the end of the line.
The expression is not used or I haven’t heard it used much. But doing an Ostrich (head in the sand) is similar. I am uncertain but I thought Flannery worked once for UWA.
Perhaps Magma can enlighten us as to a reasonable rationale for withholding the requested information. Other than “you just want to find something wrong with it”, of course.
No Flannery came to the UNE once to get experience in excavation, but he has been to USA
in Adelaide. He’s going to Harvard too for some reason.
cnxtim says:
April 3, 2014 at 3:57 pm
There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever, academics are the latest criminal class
——–
A friend of mine who is a former war correspondent and journalist got his PhD in history a few years ago. He comments frequently that he feels very comfortable in academia because it is the last refuge of scoundrels (he’s had a chequered life).
Suddenly the UWA website has no more information on VC Johnson: no results found. http://www.uwa.edu.au/university/governance/executive/vc What are they trying to hide?
@sergeiMK. You are correct, of course. Lewandowsky does not need to provide any evidence. Whatever he says, it must be true because he says it.
Jimbo says:
April 3, 2014 at 12:39 pm
Damian says:
April 3, 2014 at 2:08 pm
rogerknights says:
April 3, 2014 at 5:11 pm
I would humbly suggest that any of you that have already made up your mind because the consensus view regarding LENR (“cold fusion”) is that “the science is settled” might stop to consider where you’ve heard that refrain before…
If you feel the slightest twinge of discomfort at that comparison, take a look at the research results from some fellows over at that crackpot institution known as MIT…
Seriously…The moon landing really was a hoax….right? Guys?
In this particular SEARCH FOR TRUTH, TRUTH died a very long time back.
I actually think that UWA has played this all wrong they should have asked Carmen “I can’t recall” Lawrence for advice. For the non Australians Carmen has selective amnesia as per her testimony in the Mark’s royal commission she managed to escape the 3 perjury charges that followed by simply not being able to recall events and a case could not be proved. The full transcript of the Mark’s royal commission is available online (http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/intranet/libpages.nsf/WebFiles/Royal+Commissions+-+Report+of+the+Royal+Commission+into+use+of+executive+power/$FILE/Report+of+the+Royal+Commission+into+use+of+executive+power.pdf)
Her count: 14 ”I don’t recalls’, six ”I don’t remembers” and four ”I can’t remember”
Was probably not her finest moment and it forever haunted her political career. All but the staunchest supporters find the selective memory defense a constant source of humor and gave her the loving nickname.
UWA has untapped talent and the next step is clearly the Carmen defense they can not recall what they did with the data.
thingadonta is obviously to young to have watched “Wagon Train”