Bishop Hill Cuccinelli tries again
Oct 5, 2010 Climate: Mann The Washington Post is reporting that Virginia Attorney-General Ken Cuccinelli has reapplied for the email correspondence of Hockey Stick maestro Michael Mann. Regular readers will remember that a judge quashed a previous demand, but left the door open for Cuccinelli to try again.
Cuccinelli has limited his demand to the e-mails and documents related to one state grant Mann received. The attorney general dropped requests for paperwork related to four other federal grants. But he expanded a section explaining why he sought the records, laying out in writing that he seeks the documents because Mann wrote two papers on global warming that "have come under significant criticism" and that Mann "knew or should have known contained false information, unsubstantiated claims and/or were otherwise misleading."
"Specifically, but without limitation, some of the conclusions of the papers demonstrate a complete lack of rigor regarding the statistical analysis of the alleged data, meaning that the result reported lacked statistical significance without a specific statement to that effect," the CID alleges.
(H/T Jiminy Cricket in the comments)
Reader Comments (30)
I was going to post this in another thread where it would have been sooo off topic as to tempt the wrath of the Bishop :(
However this new thread allows me to post it as truly legit ^.^
I think an aspect of the scientific debate that took place over the last 10 - 12 years has passed us by.
First the great work by Steve McIntyre and second the great book by the Bish, has effectively taken the Hockey Stick out of the debate. What we have not realised is that it has also taken Steve McIntyre out of the debate.
Over a truly exciting couple of days earlier this year, Tamino, Gavin, Steve, Atomic Rooster (sorry Hairdryer), the Bish, Judith Curry and others battled over the aftermath of "The Hockey Stick Illusion". In my opinion our side won an emphatic victory which ended with Gavin and even Phil Jones admitting that it was not possible to create a paleoclimate reconstruction using proxies, any further back than 1500 AD. The unprecedented warming argument went right out the window)
During that debate I remember Gavin and others saying that the Hockey Stick was no longer relevant, they had moved on, why were we still arguing about it?
THE major player on the Sceptic side of the debate since 1997 has been Steve McIntyre. He was the major player because he attacked and ultimately (with huge help from the Bish) he destroyed THE major argument put forward by warmists which we all know as The Hockey Stick.
Today the warmist argument is "the science is settled" and "its simple physics" and the science is radiative physics.
Steve McIntyre is NOT going to engage in that argument because he does not know anything about radiative physics and he will not say anything unless he is totally sure of his facts.
As far as I understand it NOBODY fully understands radiative physics so there IS NO Steve McIntyre figure out there who can stand up and rip apart the argument.
[Snip - bear in mind that I am also in the firing line for things you say]
Until our understanding of radiative physics improves, the idiot statements by people like Bob Watson have to be answered by looking logically at "the big picture" NOT by attacking the science.
As I have tried to say a number of times, examining the last four interglacial periods GIVES that big picture. CO2 went through the roof and therefore one assumes that all the feedbacks were also in play, however temperature went through the floor. Those four interglacials were a real world NOT a computer generated model of what is happening today.
Afraid that I am still less than impressed with Cuccinelli. What he basically seems to say is that Mann isn’t a very good scientist. Well, no, but if that is enough to justify a fraud investigation then the words “floodgate” springs to mind :o) Somebody called “Goldfish” posted this on Budiansky’s blog in September.
Goldfish said...
"I think the comment above includes a small error of reasoning: equating controversies over the law (in this case, the law regarding Enron accounting practices) and controversies over science. Ruling on the former is the kind of issue the judicial system is built to handle. Ruling on the latter is not.
If the question is, did Prof. Mann’s actions constitute fraud, then the proper arena to settle the issue is the courts. If the question is, is Prof. Mann correct in interpreting his data, that is better left to the scientific arena. If the question is, what should governments do in response to Prof. Mann’s findings, then we enter the arena of policy and politics.
What the judge said in his ruling was that the attorney general failed to state his reasons for believing that Prof. Mann may have committed fraud. The judge kept the door open for the AG to come back and explain his reason to believe that Prof. Mann violated the state’s false claims law.
There is another aspect to the matter here, and the judge’s ruling may eventually help shed some light on it. An investigator armed with subpoena powers can go after a case as a fencer or as a fullback, with finesse or with brute force. Sometimes a full-out brute-force charge, with subpoenas flying, is in order: if you think people are going to destroy evidence, for example. But often the better approach, to conserve resources and reputation, is to begin the investigation with a lower profile, marshal facts and evidence, and bring your subpoenas to bear when you really need them to nail down your case.
Of course, there are other motives to begin with subpoenas. One is to harass the subject of investigation. Another is to draw attention to the case and yourself. What bothers many people, myself included, is that these two motives might be in play here. And we would rather see our state’s legal apparatus striving hard for justice rather than for political points.
If the AG can come back and say, “Look, here is what I have done so far. I have sent investigators to interview key people and inspect public documents. What they found suggests hanky-panky. At this point, to pursue the case further, I need access to more evidence. To get that, I need to issue these formal demands.” Then I will feel better about him pulling out the subpoenas.
But even if this is a carefully conducted inquiry, I will have qualms. In the 1980s, I had a front-row seat as Congressman Dingell’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee did some rather careful spadework on the charges of fraud in Nobel laureate David Baltimore’s lab before calling him before Congress and giving him a public thrashing. Dingell got a good deal of criticism for trampling on academic freedom, and a separate federal inquiry eventually cleared Baltimore of the fraud charges, http://tech.mit.edu/V116/N28/baltimore.28n.html . Dingell and his investigators got caught up in the excitement of the chase. Congress, and the courts, can be poor places to judge the practice of science."
Keeping the above in mind I still do not think that the reasons provided by Cuccinelli are good enough. Just the “knew or should have known contained false information”. So is Cuccinelli arguing “fraud due to laziness and/or stupidity”? :o)
However, trying to be openminded here there might be something in Caccinelli limiting himself to 1 grant instead of 4 if the one grant he is concentrating on is a later grant but on balance much better dealt with by Steve McIntyre, Bish etc than the AG in my opinion.
Dung
You stinking pile of excrement! (I've always wanted to say that but never had the opportunity :-) )
That's the major argument - the only argument - history as recorded. But. And this is a big but. Are humans doing enough to challenge nature successfully?
My view no. But I am among thousands / millions who don't know either. There is no-one who knows the correct answer.
My view again - certainly in the minority - is to wait till science gets its act into gear and produces provable theories about climate before doing anything whatsoever.
It is clear from Cuccinelli’s Civil Investigative Demand that the Office of the Attorney General now has a far better understanding of the issues than it previously did. That is partially due to The Hockey Stick Illusion. I sent the OAG a copy of the book, and they e-mailed me on August 26th saying that they were about to read it. So, big congratulations to His Eminence!
Dung
McIntyre's only just started flexing his fingers. Wait till he puts all those 'value-added' surface temperature adjustments on the operating table. But its tough going if your maths is weak. I've only just discovered that CPS means 'composite plus scale' and EIR is 'error in variables', now he's talking about 'cross-sectional heteroscedasticity'.
If this ridiculous attempt by Cuccinelli actually gets anywhere, then say goodbye to American science as we know it.
Mann 'should have known' whether there was any false information? Take a step back and forget about the specifics and your feelings about AGW here. Cuccinelli is attempting to make anything less than scientific perfection a case for legal prosecution. As I have never in all my years seen a paper in any field I would describe as 100% perfect, then any nutjob with enough money for a lawyer could mount a case against the authors of any published paper they didn't agree with.
The logical conlusion of success in this case, would be scientists meeting up in 'Geek-easys', pretending to discuss football, whilst slipping each other studies under the table, and coughing forulae into each others ears whilst lookouts scanned the streets.
Douglas J. Keenan, thanks for this. I just had a very, very quick look (I am currently suppose to be drafting a claim:o) but it looks like they now focus on a later grant? as I mentioned above, there might be some merit to that. This could be interesting. However, it doesn't change the fact that the investigation was started without the AG having a proper understanding of the issues..... ;o)
Dung
Re radiative physics. Damn difficult for non-specialist scientists, which is a shame because it seems likely, to me, that Miskolczi has got it right. However, Lord Monckton comes to our rescue, yes, simply by using the IPCC radiative physics science against itself. Not many seem to refer to this piece of work but I think it's stunning and key to our deconstruction. The litmus test is that Gavin Schmidt, who first attacked Monckton's piece, then failed with deafening silence to respond to Monckton's response. But people forget or never noticed. I put it into my "Primer".
I'm somewhat disturbed that there are people saying the science of Mann should be kept out of range of being investigated. The problem here is that the science of Mann SHOULD be completely and utterly transparent BECAUSE of the involvement of public money.
Sone claim that this will have a negative impact on science. I say twaddle, if you are using public money then your science should be completely "auditable". The IG should have to go through the courts to get info on how the science was cobducted with public money...all this info SHOULD already be available.
If Mann and co feel they are being unfairly targeted then they only have themselves to blame for the state of their secretive, shoddy science!
If there are to be changes in the way climate science is conducted then those changes aren't going to happen because of Mann et al suddenly Feeling all touchy geeky on how public money has been spent bur because transparency and honesty has been enforced!
Mailman
I think the motive behind Cucinelli's CID is the pending suit Cuccinelli has against the EPA's CO2 endangerment ruling. If he can uncover evidence of data manipulation or intentional use of inappropriate statistical methodology, then he has more ammunition to go against IPCC science publications, the latter which the EPA relied upon heavily (almost exclusively) in promoting its endangerment ruling. Don't forget, Mann was once a lead author for the IPCC (right after he received his PhD, no less). More Climategate type e-mails also could be very damning when presented before the presiding judge(s), especially if some relate to IPCC matters -- the final rulings in the EPA case will be made by judges, not juries, as this is administrative law. The IPCC is what its all about, and the IPCC publications stand as the basis for the EPA's rulings; it will be a while before there is a new IPCC publication -- long after the EPA has socked it to the American public, unless someone stops the EPA.
Cuccinelli knows what he is doing -- he is a sharp cookie. On TV interviews, he is very persuasive and comes across as very reasoned. Coal mining is big business in western Virginia; Cuccinelli is looking out for the people of Virginia. (The coal industry is after the EPA as well; does Peabody Coal sound familiar? Remember the documents filed in the recent UK inquiry?) Cuccinelli also has the most important suit filed against Obamacare. Cucinelli is a big target of the liberals and socialists; lots of smear tactics are being employed.
DrCrinum; "Don't forget, Mann was once a lead author for the IPCC (right after he received his PhD, no less). "
Yes, I'd forgotten this. Does anyone know whether there any plausible reason ever given for why such a supposedly vital position was given to someone so, at the time, inexperienced?
In the absence of such a reason it sounds very dubious, like maybe he could be relied upon to come up with the "right" answer; whereas someone who was more established might dare to think for themselves or be persuaded by evidence. Who appointed him? Who did they "take advice" from?
"If this ridiculous attempt by Cuccinelli actually gets anywhere, then say goodbye to American science as we know it."
What is particularly nauseating to me is the pretension by some that "scientists" shouldn't be investigated. If it's OK that government giveth to science, then it's OK for government to taketh away.
Andrew
Funded and pensioned by the public, dedicating their lives to the pursuit of truth, why would these scientists object for one moment to revealing their data and methods?
Jerry
You are removed from my Christmas e-card list -.-
Mikee finds it "extremely disturbing" that anyone would dare to question his authority.
I'm sure Al Capone found the IRS interest in his personal finances disturbing as well.
ZDB,
Congratulations on your post here. You have obviously "learned the lesson" (by the way, this is a phrase that UK politicians are always using after the latest screw up by public servants has been disclosed. I wish they would find a new one.) that you will he heard with respect for your opinions when you respect us.
Peter Walsh
ZDB,
Again, welcome to the world of non-trollery.
My riposte to your point is that if American science will tolerate a postdoc of negligible experience inventing 'mathematical' tests unknown to established statistics that serve no function other than excusing his egotistical antiscience nonsense, then it deserves every legal challenge coming its way.
Mann knew what he was doing. Conventional (scientific, tested, established) methods gave the 'wrong' answer, so Cuccinelli has a pretty good case in asserting that the invented ones were an act of deception. Some call wilful deception 'fraud', and it has already cost worldwide science enormous credibility - and that's just the start..
This investigation makes no sense. How does the Fraud against taxpayers act apply here?
And for that matter, there is nothing in Mann's papers written at Virginia that are in dispute.
Cucinelli is just not doing a good job here. He is letting vague press details dictate his legal briefs.
From Pielke Jr.'s site an interesting "endorsement" of Mann:
"I expect that Cuccinelli's request will again be turned down. Just because Michael Mann's work is contested and perhaps even fatally flawed does not rise to the level of academic fraud. Academics have every right to be wrong. Cuccinelli's fishing expedition should again return empty handed."
Zed's gotten out of bed again to defend the indefensible.
How predictable.
American science, if it keeps running off a political agenda, eating billions and refusing to be transparent, which is what it is doing today, will need no help to die. It is doing a great job of itself.
it is duly noted that the most reactionary troll here, our sweet little Zed bug, rises to the defense with near galvanic predictability.
Keep up the dependable work, Zed dear.
[BH adds. ZDB's posting was polite and to the point, as other commenters have noted. Please don't lower the tone of the thread]
hunter
Zed's gotten out of bed again to defend the indefensible.
True. But if he minds his manners, let him speak. It is when he acts like a spoiled brat that irritates most of us.
"It is when he acts like a spoiled brat that irritates most of us."
Oct 5, 2010 at 9:31 PM | Don Pablo de la Sierra
Yeah? Well it's when you act like a spoilt brat that most of us are irritated. Actually.
Artwest,
At Pielke Jr.'s blog, there was a post back in May on Richard Tol's draft submission to the IAC concerning the IPCC. Here is an except from this draft:
"The most important problem of the IPCC is the nomination and selection of authors and Bureau Members. Experts are included or excluded because of their political allegiance rather than their academic quality. The “right” authors are put in key positions with generous grants to support their IPCC work, while the “wrong” authors are sidelined to draft irrelevant chapters and sections without any support."
(Tol was a Lead Author for chapters in AR2 and AR3.)
Now concerning Michael Mann:
1) Received his PhD from Yale in 1998 from the Department of Geology and Geophysics.
2) Based upon a preliminary paper by Mann et al. in 1998, Mann et al. in 1999 published the infamous Hockey Stick which became an instant hit with the AGW crowd because it did away with the Medieval Warming Period.
3) Mann subsequently was appointed Lead Author for the IPCC's AR3 report, which was published in 2001.
"Meteor Mann" might well describe his rise to the top of the AGW clan.
The Bishop covers the details of Mann's rise to prominence quite thoroughly in The Hockey Stick Illusion pp. 30-40.
Can commenters please refrain from baiting ZDB, whose comment at the top of this thread was polite and to the point.
ZDB: I appreciate your phrasing your first comment here in the way you did.
Could all commenters please refrain from the bickering, which is very boring for the rest of us.
I tried placing the Mann scenario into the world of consulting.
Consulting can be a way of washing money around between organisations and individuals. All you need is a contract with a declared deliverable, the deliverable and an invoice that is paid. In many countries it is a way of passing bribes to people in decision positions. Nowadays the deliverable can be easily be hundreds of pages, because all they do is cut and paste from the internet.
However, there are lots of bad consultants (and their firms) out there who genuinely produce crap, and expensive crap at that. And get paid for it, sometimes at man day rates of USD 2000 (with the work done by a overworked, underpaid spotty graduate.)
So applying that thinking to Mann. Was the framework set up purely to obtain grant money without actually worrying about the associated deliverables? Whatever my thoughts on Mann, my feeling is not.
My guess is that this is just a "play in the game". AGs are politcal, and generally not stupid. I have followed some long term US cases, and politics is overtly part of the system. Is that any worse than the British way of working with "whitewash inquiries" where everything is agreed by unknown communication lines beforehand?
If you remember the "moral" aspect of Clinton's impeachment process was actually settled on party lines. As was Gore's loss of Florida.
The US justice system is what it is, and there are enough checks and balances to put Cuccinelli in his place should he cross a boundary.
The warning to scientists is not to make sure your books are in order, but that if you use political power in the US system, then equal and opposite powers may well come into play.
To be honest, I think Roger Pielke jnr's assessment is correct - the controversy in Mann's work is within the scientific field, and it seems likely that in the long run the flaws in his hockey stick papers will be so severe that the papers and associated methodology will be entirely discredited (a combination of M&Ms papers and the recent M&W paper go a long way to doing this, although for my money the most persuasive evidence of the stick being a mathematical construct rather than a real feature of the data was on Lucia's blackboard about a year ago, where she reconstructed the stick from artificial data selected by spurious correlations).
One of two things that stuck with me from my PhD was the following statement:
'There is no such thing as bad data, just bad interpretation.'
Mann's papers seem based on trying to extract information (i.e. an interpretation) that simply isn't present in the raw data.
BTW, the other comment that stuck with me from the same time was also relevant to climate science:
'You can't prove anything with models'
@ Jiminy Cricket
"The US justice system is what it is, and there are enough checks and balances to put Cuccinelli in his place should he cross a boundary."
Mann has placed himself in the public eye by his own actions and continues to do so. He is new to that experience and may be relishing it or not. Our host has done the same. Both have come under attack by doing so and it will always be that way. As JC has pointed out, there are checks & balances; if the AG has gone too far he will be pulled up but otherwise will be allowed to run and in which case, there will be a result. It is (if my memory is correct) the first real legal challenge to something at the root of this whole construct with the only thing certain being that there will be a looser. If it runs, it may well be fascinating.
Bishop,
Please forgive me for wot I had done.
Zed,
Thank you for being civil. I will be sure and return same.
Off for my penance,
hunter
The University of Virginia says it has spent more than $352,000 in legal fees in response to the Cuccinelli demands, lucky for them the legal bill was paid for by private funds.
Total (external) cost of Cuccinelli’s office in this affair : $737.89
http://virginiapolitics.mytimesdispatch.com/index.php/virginiapolitics/comments/defending_u.va._researcher_big_bucks_investigating_cheap/%28entry_id%29
Cuccinelli is going after Mann because Mann included citations of previous work on his RESUME. These citations (the so-called "hockey stick" has subsequently been re-created numerous times by numerous independent researchers) may or may not have influenced the university panel which provided the eventual grant that enabled Mann to help do research on AFRICAN SAVANNAH.
Cuccinelli needs to be disbarred. Virginia deserves better.