From the ‘truth is stranger than fiction department’, reporting from San Francisco at the AGU Fall Meeting
ED11D-02
Professional Ethics for Climate Scientists
Monday, December 15, 201408:15 AM – 08:30 AM Moscone South 102
Several authors have warned that climate scientists sometimes exhibit a tendency to “err on the side of least drama” in reporting the risks associated with fossil fuel emissions. Scientists are often reluctant to comment on the implications of their work for public policy, despite the fact that because of their expertise they may be among those best placed to make recommendations about such matters as mitigation and preparedness. Scientists often have little or no training in ethics or philosophy, and consequently they may feel that they lack clear guidelines for balancing the imperative to avoid error against the need to speak out when it may be ethically required to do so. This dilemma becomes acute in cases such as abrupt ice sheet collapse where it is easier to identify a risk than to assess its probability. We will argue that long-established codes of ethics in the learned professions such as medicine and engineering offer a model that can guide research scientists in cases like this, and we suggest that ethical training could be regularly incorporated into graduate curricula in fields such as climate science and geology. We recognize that there are disanalogies between professional and scientific ethics, the most important of which is that codes of ethics are typically written into the laws that govern licensed professions such as engineering. Presently, no one can legally compel a research scientist to be ethical, although legal precedent may evolve such that scientists are increasingly expected to communicate their knowledge of risks. We will show that the principles of professional ethics can be readily adapted to define an ethical code that could be voluntarily adopted by scientists who seek clearer guidelines in an era of rapid climate change.
source: https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm14/meetingapp.cgi#Paper/11679
h/t to Steve Milloy
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in some state universities in the USA, all professors regardless of field are required to pass an annual ethics examination as part of their appointment, including tenured faculty.
Where? I really like to know and no sarc. (I have grand kids).
I just did my annual ethics refresher here in Georgia. (Though disappointingly it only had obvious things like don’t steal from the state, don’t lie on your grant hours, nothing about drawing the appropriate conclusions from trash data or in general following the scientific method.)
This is quite common in corporate environments as well. In that case it is CYA, if an employee causes harm to a customer the corporation can say. “Well we told him that was not allowed…”
“This dilemma becomes acute in cases such as abrupt ice sheet collapse where it is easier to identify a risk than to assess its probability.”
“Arctic sea ice volume holds up in 2014″
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30399079
“Arctic sea ice may be more resilient than many observers recognise”
Things just not going to plan…
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/79721000/jpg/_79721234_cryosatmap1.jpg
Snap !! We both posted the same link at more or less the same time lol
Yes, notice the BBC have not had the usual reporters in the arctic these past two autumn melt maximums.
… and then the BBC said ..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30399079
“Look, Santa! It bounces!“
The Orwellian aspect of it all bothers me deeply.
We may have been mistaken that 1984 and Animal Farm were warnings. They seem to have made great ‘how to’ manuals for the totalitarian inclined…
Well, we have learned one thing today: Mann has a sense of humour, using his name and the word ‘ethical’ in the same sentence.
Of course, what is really sad are all those gullible people, who will attend what they believe is a potentially enlightening lecture.
It may turn out to be more enlightening than you expect. There are these things called Freudian slips…. Mikey may have a hard time keeping his subconscious contents from bursting forth when he least expects it.
Mann is a sad person who is totally deluded. In part that must be his own personality, but in large measure it must be the kinds of people who surround him.
I understand that when a Roman general had a triumphal procession someone would stand at his side and whisper into his ears something like “you are not a god”. The Romans 2000 years ago understood the corruptive effect of sycophantic admirers, but not Mann.
Scottish Sceptic,
The phrase was:
Respice post te, hominem memento te (“Look behind you! Remember that you are but a
Mannman!”)[Close enough to ‘you are not a god’.]
Here is my check list were I on the Climate Change Select Committee of the House of Commons, London:
1. Please provide an unbiased reading list concerning sources of primary, undoctored temperature data sources, both on land, on ocean surfaces and derived using satellite-based technology.
2. Please provide an unbiased reading list concerning methods used to ‘homogenise’ data sets, the methods used and the controversies over the ensuing results of such homogenisation. In particular, such a reading list should include how a single number for ‘global mean temperature’ is reached, how controversial such a number is and whether any political imperatives come into play when generating it.
3. Please provide an unbiased source of global funding for climate science since 1990, including all the terms and conditions for awards, the outcomes sought and the selection panels used to award the funding.
4. Please provide an unbiased analysis of global media coverage of ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’ to set the scene for claims that anything other than the media reporting of climate science is ‘setttled’.
5. Please provide an unbiased reading list concerning temperature fluctuations in geological time, over the past 20 millennia and since 1000 AD.
6. Please provide an unbiased reading list concerning the assumptions made in all the proxy data sets generated using tree ring analysis, pine cone analysis etc etc and whether such assumptions are generally regarded to be inviolable and valid outside the gilded life of academia.
7. Please provide an unbiased reading list concerning correlations between temperature and the following:
i. Solar activity.
ii. Oceanic Oscillations.
iii. Cloud cover.
iv. Carbon Dioxide.
v. Other means of affecting magnetic modulations of the earths stratosphere (with the subsequent effects on Jet Stream power, oscillation around a mean latitude etc etc)
8. Please provide an inbiased reading list concerning the nature of climate computer models, their performance over the past 25 years, the assumptions intrinsic to them and the limitations of their performance. Please indicate how many more years of ‘modelling’ will be required to generate models which actually predict the following five years of climate accurately (even using such a simple measure as ‘global temperature’).
9. Please provide an unbiased reading list concerning the political settlements made in the past 25 years concerning global financial redistribution based on climate change. Please ensure that a clear list of winners and losers emerge under such scenarios and correlate UN policy with such lists in terms of ‘one country one vote’ procedures at UN HQ in New York.
10. Please provide an unbiased reading list analysing the scientific contributions to the IPCC Framework Documents and comparing them to the political claims made in the ‘Summary for Policy Makers’. Please ensure that lies, hand-waving, grubby compromises and the desecration of the scientific method are flagged up, highlighted in red and the subject of specific sections of any analysis presented.
11. Please provide an unbiased reading list comparing the outputs of the IPCC to the NGPCC ‘organisations’. Please highlight the critical difference in assumptions made whether either or both reports focus in an unbalanced way on particular input variables and whether either or both organisations are funded in ways which renders outputs overtly political rather than scientific.
12. Please provide an unbiased analysis of paid-for advertorials in the UK and US Press, documenting the depth of money spent by climate zealots vs climate skeptics in attempting to manipulate public opinion. Please ensure that editors of UK titles are placed under no illusions that failure to comply with such investigations will lead to serious consequences in terms of ‘Freedom of the Press’, since Freedom of the press is not ‘freedom to subvert government policy based on lies’…..
That would do for a start.
I’m sure Professor Mann would be delighted to be part of such a thorough, rigorous, unbiased, truly scientific evaluation of his field. Even if it led to a 90%+ reduction in funding for carbon dioxide-led warming studies using computer models……..
Great list, only it will be ignored.
When someone asks if man is causing global warming.. they say YES!
When you ask, how do you know? They say Michael Mann told me so.
OK. That is the extent of their knowledge. IMO
What he really means of course is that other scientists are not supporting the cause strongly enough for his liking. This is the “soft” approach – making excuses, they just need some training (or is that indoctrination). Is the next step to “name and shame” the recalcitrant ones?
Correct–this is his means of nudging people into his “If you see something, say something” mindset.
Those who have violated their own consciences try to drag everyone else down with them so their guilt is not so apparent. Or, as Richard John Neuhaus famously remarked, “Where orthodoxy is optional, sooner or later it will be proscribed.”
Michael Hammer on December 15, 2014 at 1:24 am
– – – – – –
Michael Hammer,
You have analysed Mann’s strategy well. Mann is advocating more alarmism from the body of the science community.
John
In olden days a glimpse of hockery
Was looked upon with some mockery
Now heaven knows,
anything goes
Good authors too who once knew better peer review
Now forge and splice and throw down the lew
anything goes
The world has gone mad today and good’s bad today
And black’s white today and day’s night today
When most guys today that media prize today
Are just silly self-promos
So though I’m not a great Stats-man
I know that you’re bound to answer
When I save the world,
anything goes
When you are trying to save the world from ————– anything goes.
Fill in the blank with your choice — Global Warming, Capitalism, Christians. Man-bear-pig etc
I don’t think too many people would know the old song your tag line comes from. Nice little poem. Good poets borrow, great poets steal. You are definitely a thief.
As an ethical admission I am an atheist but I don’t feel any pressing need to save the world from Christians.
Eugene WR Gallun.
So, the guy who still refuses to share his data, code, and methods with the scientific community is going to tell us about ethics in science. This is the same guy whose work was paid for by tax money to begin with but claims he will never let the word see what he did. Hmmmm, his take on the very meaning of science should be enlightening.
‘Fox on Hen-House Operations’ will be the followup presentation.
Hen House Protection Service
Sylvester Fox & Co.
We’ll do the guarding for you
Open 24 hours
Many of the comments here have failed to understand what is meant by this use of the word ‘ethics’, that or I have missed the sarcasm. The key line is, “…… consequently they may feel that they lack clear guidelines for balancing the imperative to avoid error against the need to speak out when it may be ethically required to do so.” In other words it’s intended to promote the old Schneider, Greenpeace, et al doctrine, It is unethical not to be alarmist, not to exaggerate, not to denigrate opponents, not to smooth or nudge or cherrypick data.
Bingo!
Mann will present that he is ethical because if he showed his data and code, people would not be properly alarmed.
After all, in the words of the prophet, Al Gore, “There is no controlling legal authority.”
He is placing in the public domain a claim that climate scientists cannot be held to any standard of ethical behaviour because they have not signed onto an ethical code. Therefore being accused of behaving unethically is not a sanctionable offence, even if true.
Frankly, I doubt this tack would work. Recipients of grants have to subscribe to standard ethical conduct clauses.
Preaching about them is helpful actually. The more climate scientists learn that unethical and fraudulent behaviour will no longer be tolerated, the better.
Thankyou. Good point.
Eugene WR Gallun
Peter, you nailed it. He wants “Authority” (e.g. government) to force scientists to to “offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.” I would anticipate he’d next enact the complementary requirement that would sanction any scientists not toeing the line. (Many politicians, activists and even scientists have already suggested the latter.)
The phrase that clarifies his narrow (and warped) definition of “ethical” is “Scientists………….speak out when it may be ETHICALLY REQUIRED to do so.” (my caps).
Thus the sentence “Presently, no one can legally compel a research scientist to be ethical.” only relates to speaking out, not to silly things like sharing data, claiming honors, hiding declines to name just a few.
There is no hint that he understand what the real meaning of “scientific ethics” is.
BTW, I would prefer scientists do science and leave policy to policy makers.
I cannot force myself to find anything funny in something that smells like the end of civilization. Sorry.
CO2 is odorless……………. ;^D
Alberta Slim
Laughing out loud.
Lucifer doing a lecture on striking matches.
While you’ve a lucifer to light your fag,
Smile, boys, that’s the style.
What’s the use of worrying?
It never was worth while, so
Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag,
And smile, smile, smile.
Oh mann…
The most famous works of Kafka were :-
The Trial and The Metamorphosis , it will be interesting to see if current litigation brings about any kind of change in the manner of brutish man.
…Presently, no one can legally compel a research scientist to be ethical…
Sounds to me like he’s preparing the ground for a legal defence of some kind. I wonder what…?
No, this is Lysenkoism at its most pure. Labor camps await scientist who won’t shout out the party line — oops, I mean support the Consensus. He wants Show Trails of disagreeing scientists and then off to the gulag.
This hardly sounds like an ethics symposium as a launchpad for advocacy.
There is no evidence that ‘Climate Scientists’ are interested in ethics……. money, yes, ethics, no.
Looks like it’s the co-author giving the talk:
http://i62.tinypic.com/sqpmhk.png
Given current weather conditions as I look out of my window (man-made California drought being ended by man-made California deluges), it could be a poor turnout. The bridges are going to be nasty this morning.
** Rolls over and goes back to sleep after making note to self: Stop logging on to WUWT when getting up for a pee in the middle of the night **
You mean it will be ‘Mann the slides’?
Curious. Try replacing “abrupt ice sheet collapse” with other risks that may or may not be improbable.
-This dilemma becomes acute in cases such as Invasion by Flying Saucers where it is easier to identify a risk than to assess its probability.
-This dilemma becomes acute in cases such as The Internet becoming Self-Aware and Creating Terminators where it is easier to identify a risk than to assess its probability.
-This dilemma becomes acute in cases such as a New Viral Black Death where it is easier to identify a risk than to assess its probability.
You can justify anything if you don’t care about whether the downside is actually going to happen.
By ignoring probability you open the door to the decline of the human race. Every time someone leaves their house, they risk bodily harm or death, car accident, catching a flu, being robbed, beaten or murdered, tripping and breaking their neck and a host of other risks. Fortunately for humanity, we are able to balance those risks against probability and actually keep functioning.
Is it really only 15 minutes long? That seems far too long for Mann to discuss his ethics.
“The right to search for truth
implies also a duty
one must not conceal
any part
of what one has recognized
to be true” – Albert Einstein
Do you think Dr Mann will be giving this quote in his lecture?
Maybe Mann has an ethics trick up his sleeve as well, how to hide decline of scientific standards. He is, after all, a distinguished torturer of data. Why would ethics be any different.
Sounds like you believe Mann would agree with your definition of ethics
I wouldn’t count on that.
Last ditch effort to try to convince people that all his BS is real and he still has credibility. Bit like the band playing on the deck of the Titanic.