Rud Istvan, sends this open letter along for publication and writes: This puts UQ on the horns of a terrible dilemma. The preferred political response is always to sweep such a situation under the rug and ignore it.
The letter follows.
Prof. Alistair McEwan, Acting-Pro-Vice Chancello, University of Queensland
Ms. Jane Malloch, Esq. Head Research Legal, University of Queensland
Mr. Graham Lloyd, Environmental Editor, The Australian
Prof. Richard Tol, University of Sussex
5/22/2014
Prof. McEwan:
On May 20, 2014, you issued a formal statement concerning the controversy published by The Australian on 5/17/14 surrounding Cook et. al, 2013 Environ. Res. Lett. 8 024024, ‘Quantifying the Consensus’, hereinafter QtC. That statement presents the University of Queensland (UQ) with an ethical and legal dilemma. I call your attention to it expecting UQ will do the right thing.
Your statement makes it quite clear that UQ considers QtC was done under the sponsorship of and with support from UQ. This is indisputable. The solicitation for volunteer raters for the analysis that became QtC was: survey.gci.uq.edu.au/survey.php?c=5RL8LWWT2YO7. UQ released a statement about the importance of QtC in the UQ News on January 16, 2014 headlined, “UQ climate change paper has the whole world talking.”
Your 5/20/14 statement said in part:
“Only information that might be used to identify the individual research participants was withheld. This was in accordance with University ethical approval specifying that the identity of participants should remain confidential.”
And that is precisely your dilemma.
The published paper itself identified all the individual research participants (raters). They were either named authors (with affiliations provided, for example second author Dana Nuccitelli affiliated with UQ associated website SKS, as noted in UQ’s 1/20/14 news release, or were specifically named without affiliation in the paper’s acknowledgement. Lest you doubt this, following is that portion of the paper as originally published.
Your dilemma is this. If the UQ ethical approval exists as you officially stated, then the paper as published grossly violated it. QtC is therefore unethical according to UQ policy, and should be withdrawn forthwith.
We need not cite here all the governing Australian principles that UQ is obligated to follow under such unfortunate circumstances. Those include but are not limited to www.uq.edu.au/research/integrity-compliance/human-ethics
There is 2014 retraction precedent concerning another unethical climate related paper from the University of Western Australia. If, on the other hand, there was no such ethical approval, or that approval did not require concealing rater identities, then you have officially misrepresented grossly invalid grounds for withholding the anonymized additional information needed for replication, such as date and time stamped ratings by anonymous rater. Said information has repeatedly, formally been requested by Prof. Richard S.J. Tol (Sussex University (U.K.), and an IPCC AR5 lead author) for his legitimate research purposes concerning what UQ said is a seminal paper. That data should still exist, and should be provided to Prof. Tol under UQ Policy 4.20.06a §8.2 and §9.1 (as last approved 11/28/13).
Either way, you and UQ both appear in a very bad light. It appears that UQ congratulates itself on gross ethical breaches (especially when basking in so much notoriety), while at the same time withholding anonymized primary data underlying a self admitted important research paper in contravention of UQ written research data policy. Either retract the admittedly unethical paper, or retract the grossly mistaken excuse and release the requested data to Tol.
I note in passing there is a third possibility, to wit Tol’s requested data does not exist. In which case, QtC should be retracted for being unsupportable if not also unethical. As you are probably aware, there have been many recent instances of unsupportable research subsequently retracted. These include but are not limited to papers from Ike Antkare in 2010, and many recent papers from the SCIgen group (which interestingly bears surficial similarities to SKS) now being retracted by Springer and by IEEE. Those two precedents may be particularly germane to UQ’s instant dilemma.
This letter is as copyrighted as those Ms. Malloch writes concerning this matter on UQ behalf. You and anyone else in the whole wide world are hereby granted permission to freely reproduce it in whole or in part. I suspect some may.
I look forward to whichever decision (retraction or data provision) you think best for UQ under the aforesaid circumstances.
Sincerely yours, s/s
Rud Istvan, Esq., JD/MBA
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
mem says:
May 23, 2014 at 2:36 am
I would reckon that the UQ international rating has just plunged to below third world level.
===================================
Mmmm, no. I don’t take exception to your estimation of its rating, only the “just” part.
What goes around comes around. Stewing….own juices… It is hard not to laugh. It is not the fact that they are in this unenviable position, it is the fact they deliberately created it and repudiated those who sought to protect the common weal – from them!
It had better exist. First the boast.
If they should choose to ignore this, you have a very serious case for ethics violations here, either in regard to the naming of the ‘anonymous’ raters, a case for which you may have trouble establishing standing, or in regard to their fraud in representing a duty to protect the anonymity of the raters. A case for which your standing should be self evident.
Either way; expect to be sued. They’re backed into a corner and have little choice but to cause you discomfort in hopes that you will lose interest and go away.
At least you have a cause and standing for a countersuit.
What the definition guy said.
+ 100
This “cargo cult” of lost weather data depends total on humans being stupid and easy misinformed.
It is only about taxes and the power to spend the taxes.
Brandon, DGH,
I get your points, but lest we forget – it’s fairly obvious that UQ is hiding behind a bogus excuse with the confidentiality thing.
The open letter to UQ by Rud Istvan (Esq., JD/MBA) will keep the light shining into the UQ ‘s academic hive. Thank you.
It looks to me like the hubris in this matter shown by UQ may be intended to be a substitute for scientific professionalism and integrity. The net result is that the public sees that UQ has morphed into the role of a fawning and subservient apologist for John Cook.
Rud Istvan, I particularly like this closing part of your open letter to HQ,
That is rubbing her nose in it.
John
I agree with John above – love the copyright snark. A brilliant paragraph…
“If I have seen further than others, it’s because I’ve stood on the shoulders of giants.” – Isaac Newton.
The only people who will stand on the shoulders of Cook, Nuccitelli, Marriott or Lewandowsky are propagandists, political hacks, and PR spin-meisters .
Mark Bofill
Firstly, let me say that whether or not the University is hiding behind the confidentiality thing this post is completely wrong. You’ll note that there are 23 names (9 authors, 12 acknowledged, 2 advisors) listed in the paper but there were 24 participants in the rating process.
‘m not here to defend TCP. It’s junk. And it’s clear from Brandon’s blog that the data that was withheld calls into question the methodology the SKS Kidz employed. To the extent that Cook claims he can’t release any more data without making it possible to identify the participants then I guess I can agree that he’s making excuses.
However, there is some substance to their claim regarding confidentiality. The only reason we have most of the information about who rated papers was the leaked forum. That information does nothing to contradict their explanation regarding confidentiality. From the progress charts that were released with the leak (and until recently remained live at SKS) we know the identities of two participants who were not acknowledged in the paper. The others remain anonymous.
I’m not normally superstitious, but the figure “97” is gathering something like mystical significance. First Doran and Zimmerman used it, then Cook, and now, bizarrely, it appears that Jens Soentgen and Helena Bilandzic decided to review “97 climate skeptical non-fiction books.” Has anyone noted other 97s in play? Is it a secret message (meaning, perhaps, “the following is utter nonsense”)?
NoTricksZone has the story on Soentgen and Bilandzic:
http://notrickszone.com/2014/05/23/german-professors-peer-reviewed-paper-on-skeptics-belief-of-a-climate-conspiracy-backfires/
Is Wendy Cook, one of the acknowledged participants in the study, related to John Cook?
Wife
DGH,
I see your point now.
TY.
Mark Bofill, DGH, the issue of rater identity is a canard.
Suppose we ignore the lack of any evidence there were any confidentiality agreements regarding rater identities. Suppose we ignore the fact the raters actively broke any supposed confidentiality with one another. Suppose we ignore the fact (perhaps more than 200) people not participating in the study had access to information about rater identities. Suppose we ignore the fact a dozen rater identities were posted in a publicly accessible location, then left there for over two years after they were publicly discussed. Suppose we ignore all that and just accept the identities of the raters should be kept confidential.
It’s still not relevant. Anonymizing the raters would be easy. The only problem anyone has actually raised with me is anonymized rater data would still allow people to associate some raters with the ratings they performed. That’s only true for those raters whose identities are already known.
The seance is settled.
I am in medicine but this literature “review” would never pass muster in a journal club with residents (baby docs who are learning about research). Reviews are usually done on papers less than 5 years old unless a paper is considered a seminal work in the field. When you cull papers down to those that meet your study criteria, you look at the study design and rate the studies accordingly based on the entire paper, not just the abstract. A literature review whose sole purpose is to look at abstracts to divine how many researchers support a particular point of view is pretty useless. Conventional wisdom for years held that peptic ulcers were caused by stress related factors and the lone researcher whose work identified H. pylori as the cause was ignored in favor of the “consensus”. Consensus actively discourages independent thought and is dangerous in any field.
Precedences in Queensland suggest there will be an application to the State Government by UQ to have legislation changed to protect there stance. If the State Government is sufficiently embarrassed, the legislation will go through. I expect UQ to try and involve the Government if ignoring the letters fails to make the situation with Cook go away. There is no corruption in Queensland, the Government says so.
The thing is, they won’t stop until they are stopped
The fact is none of these UQ boozos have bothered to look at the current state of climate. The newest posting here is saying that even NOAA is admitting that NH is likely to be ABOVE anomaly this winter (as I predicted last year on this site last year… ahummm), but remains to be confirmed of course. BTW with both SH way above normal and in a consistent trend AND NH also this will be a huge blow to the whole AGW agenda. For those of you expecting a sudden demise FORGET IT it will still take I guess another 2 years for total abandonment of the C02 driven AGW theory. LOL
Fun to poke at bonfire embers. Although this fire is very far from out, I assure you all.
JW and Fabi, the swipe at Ms. Malloch took hours to polish. Shollenbergers revenge, if you will. Glad you appreciated it. Now research the paragraph above for an even bigger swipe at UQ. Hidden devastating sarcasm.
Roy, you remind me of a college room mate now a high school English teacher, who has been editorializing some essays from my next book. Surficial is a valid word with a meaning slightly different than superficial. Skin surface is not the same as appearance even though appearances are from the skin surface. And ‘bears’ referred not to the papers generated, but rather the generating organizations. Singular related to originating organization was meant and intended. But you have to know what SCIgen is to get the buried joking insult. I deliberately chose not to be clearer, so you of course could have confused the two and come to your gramatically correct conclusion for the wrong intended construction. You really should volunteer to copy check UQ PR.
Brandon and DGH, you are both right. With hindsight I would have deleted the two words ‘all the’ in the letter and have avoided this issue entirely. Such is life. I move on,there are bigger plays afoot.
JohnD, you are correct that ‘they’ won’t stop until stopped. So this an opening salvo about stopping, period. Will not be the last, since mere venting on blogs has not stopped much. UQ crossed a red line with their cease and desist ploy. Unlike Obama, to me that means war. So be it. Begun. Now organizing serious army troops, not just skirmishing via this letter.
For those of you who relish this sort of ‘humor’, reread The Mouse That Roared. ‘Quattrium’ 4He is involved in the UQ situation. I just oiled my chain mail armor and sallied forth. Long live the Grand Dutchy of Fenwick, and also the royal realm of WUWT! (Steyn is more a music aficionado, but will still probably grok this allusion as he also sallies forth against the Mann.)
Regards all
Rud;
It’s too late now, but your letter includes an unclosed parenthesis: “(with affiliations provided, …”
What to do when UQ ignore this letter?
The paper: http://www.mulr.com.au/issues/34_1/34_1_5.pdf
discusses how students can gain redress from errant Australian Universities.
Although it views issues from the student viewpoint, it indicates opportunities for methods of redress in this case perhaps?
“III RESOLVING STUDENT DISPUTES WITHOUT RECOURSE TO
COURTS AND TRIBUNALS
A The University Visitor
B Parliamentary Ombudsmen
C Student Ombudsmen within Universities
IV RESOLVING STUDENT DISPUTES IN COURTS AND TRIBUNALS
A Judicial Review under Statutory Regimes
B Judicial Review under the Common Law”
mods, I’m am late to the game, but is:
“Prof. Alistair McEwan, Acting-Pro-Vice Chancello, University of Queensland”
the correct title or a typo?
These unethical propagandists need to be exposed & ridiculed relentlessly ie:
Mass letter campaigns (Write not email) to *all* government members (state & federal) repeatedly and relentlessly such that they are continuously buried in snail‐mail (which takes up much physical space, and takes many paid workers to open, read, forward, respond to, and file), and we must not stop until they really do actually listen and take real (not ‘token’) action.
Also write to print, radio & tv media, especially when they promote alarmist fiction as though it’s fact. Flood their comments, twitter etc etc etc too.
They (politicians and media) all know that most people have a pathetic 2 second attention span these days, so if we *all* are not as, or even more relentless than the IPCC and other climate alarmists, they will just ignore us and laugh at us…
Our efforts should also be documented on facebook, twitter, blogs, *everywhere* and be continuously updated, so that *nobody* can ever forget what’s going on and what we’re doing (relentlessly) to stop it.
This is a fight that we cannot afford to lose! If you don’t believe that then you don’t know the full scope of what the UN, IPCC and their shady associates wish to implement via deliberate false pretenses.