Bishop Hill UEA - a new story
Nov 23, 2010 Climate: Briffa Climate: CRU Climate: Russell David Holland has asked me to post some details of a letter he has received from UEA via WhatDoTheyKnow. David is away this evening.
The letter appears to be a direct response to the guest posting here yesterday and can be seen here. It outlines two errors in UEA's recent FOI response, although only the first appears significant to me. This is the key excerpt:
In response to your question “Please tell me the names and positions or job titles of all UEA employees that had access to a copy of my Russell submission or Boulton’s annex”, we responded as follows:
“The University never received directly a copy of your submission to the Russell Review. We only had access to the information included with Prof. Boulton’s letter to Keith Briffa”.
This is incorrect due to a misunderstanding on my part. While the University itself did not receive a copy of your submission from Muir Russell, Professor Keith Briffa acquired a full copy of your submission by way of a request made to you by a third party.
The submission of Professor Briffa and Dr. Osborn in response to the letter and annex from Prof. Boulton was drafted specifically to deal only with those issues that were put to them by Prof. Boulton. In providing their response they showed the annex in a format that could be clearly linked to your submission to the Russell Review to explicitly demonstrate that your allegations had been formally considered.
The "request made...by a third party" presumably refers to the copies of the unexpurgated version of the submission that David handed out on request after Muir Russell refused to publish it. Apparently some 150 copies were distributed.
So the new version of UEA's story is that Russell sent a redacted version of Holland's submission to them - the redactions removing key pieces of evidence to support Holland's case. UEA had access to the full submission, but only referred to the evidence in the redacted version in their reply to Boulton.
IIRC, Russell claimed to have given full consideration to Holland's allegations, but it seems clear that this is not true, since no response was sought or obtained on the key evidence (which I'll post about tomorrow). Russell would seem to have a great deal of explaining to do as to why he removed this information.
The hole that UEA and their colleagues on the Russell panel are digging is getting steadily deeper and deeper. I wonder when they will decide to call it a day?
Reader Comments (71)
On 17th April I received from David a link to his evidence. I didn't pass it on to Briffa, honest guv. I presume anybody could have requested it, using an alias.
I don't think these folks are smarter enough to stop digging. If they were smart, they never would have been part of all this garbage in the first place. When incompetence stares back at us from all corners, we might as well acknowledge that we are dealing with incompetents. It isn't going to get any better.
stan. I agree. It is inconceivable that anyone with any commonsense and knowledge of the meticulous way that the Bish, Steve M and David H operate, would not have realised that they were stepping into quicksand carrying only a shovel. Utter stupidity.
I heard a blues song the other day containing the line
"You're so bad at lying, you'd be better off telling the truth"
Another thought stan, it is going to get better.
"The hole that UEA and their colleagues on the Russell panel are digging is getting steadily deeper and deeper. I wonder when they will decide to call it a day?"
When the Arctic ocean is ice-fee in winter, perhaps?
On the other hand, they may have discovered anew 'Law of Holes': when you're in one - don't panic, dig deeper.
Stan has hit the nail on the (empty) head.
A digression: Yesterday in Athens Al Gore did an unbelievable thing - he told the truth. Before a Green group he admitted that his support of corn ethanol was a mistake, and that he had been trying to influence Iowa corn farmers because he was running for President. (Iowa is an important primary election state.)
What was Gore thinking? If you are trying to Save The Planet, you can say or do anything, and there are no consequences? UEA, Russell, et al must believe they are bullet proof and invisible. But the tide is turning.
More over at Climate Audit: UEA and the Muir Russell Cooper Up
The Information Policy and Compliance Manager appears to be taking their responsibility for the accuracy of their official statements seriously (and hang the consequences).
What a contrast to the ambiguities in the statements of the VC (Acton) and the Pro-VC (Davies).
One hopes that the members of the Council of the University and the University Visitor are paying attention.
AJC - yes that struck me too. Does anybody know if/when the HoC Science and Technology Committee will report on their recent oral evidence session?:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/science-and-technology-committee/inquiries/100831-new-inquiry---reviews-into-crus-e-mails/
Don B
Every morning, when a scientist wakes up, he should say to himself
"Correlation is not causation; correlation is not causation; correlation is not causation."
and straight after saying that he should say
"Quantify quantify quantify"
and right after that
"Precision precision precision.".
Soooooooo, in the interest of science, we should note that when Al Gore cast the tie-breaking vote on ethanol the year was 1994 and he was NOT running for President; he was in fact Vice President of the US and acting in his capacity as President of the Senate.
Personal aside; I'm against all farm subsidies in general and ethanol subsidies in particular; I consider ethanol subsidy for transport fuel to be a "crime against humanity".
Russell and UEA playing pass the blame game , so whose back is going to get tired of taken knifes in it of the other one first ?
Don B,
are you calling Al Gore a LIAR?!?!?!?!?!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
CRU/UEA wants skeptics to break this cycle?
acementhead-
This news report quotes Al Gore as saying he was fond of Iowa farmers because he was about to run for President.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40317079/ns/us_news-environment
Sorry for my absence. I have added a bit on the 'Redaction' thread and will put some more up tomorrow. I am pleased to see the someone at UEA reads the Bish. What I do not understand is that if Briffa had the gumption to ask someone to get him a copy of my submission, why didn't Davies and Acton? Perhaps they did. I also can not understand why Russell would not, if necessary with a written confidentiality agreement, give at least Acton a copy as he knew it was being widely circulated.
I can not believe that any lawyer could justify the redaction of paragraph 44 on the grounds that any of the individuals mentioned might sue the Russell Enquiry. I can think of no reason why Russell would not publish the advice if he had it.
When Russell refused to publish my submission I offered an alternate letter which they also refused to publish unless I allowed them to redact the following paragraphs:
If a review into one of the most serious matters one can think of could not publish a general allegation such as I made in those two paragraphs, it it a waste of taxpayers money. I think there never was a legal basis or someone would have been knocking on my door by now.
Shub - I pulled up this reference:
http://www.penelopeironstone.com/UngarMoralPanic.pdf
but I'm not sure it is the same thing. Here, IMO, we have a concerted attempt to foil legitimate inquiry rather than an unprepared and untested reponse to a new public safety threat.
As an example of properly working safety investigations in an area where it is accepted things can go wrong I'd cite air crash investigations and hence the public trust flying in pretty big numbers. The problem in the climate scene is that the "wrong" answer cannot be entertained...
David H - I am sure you will be aware of this but FWIW:
Q122 Stephen Mosley: You mentioned Mr Holland there. There has been criticism, and I know we have received complaints as well, of your decision not to publish David Holland’s submission detailing the alleged breaches of the IPCC’s rules. Did you take Mr Holland’s evidence into account before you made the judgment on the allegation of the breaches of the IPCC’s rules?
Sir Muir Russell: Yes, and you will see that Mr Holland’s recent comments do acknowledge that in fact Briffa and colleagues saw his submission and commented on it. So we have quite extensive paperwork, and I think it is reproduced in the evidence on the website, that shows Mr Holland’s submission being taken very carefully into account in responses and, I can assure you, being very fully discussed by us before we produced the material that is in the second half of chapter 9. The only issue, I think, turns on whether the full submission was appropriate to publish, given some elements of the terms in which it was written. But I think the substance of the issues has all been dealt with. The team went into that pretty carefully.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmsctech/uc444-ii/uc44401.htm
Hey guys, After everything has been relatively quiet for a couple of weeks, you suddenly put one of the main issues in Climategate back on the front burner - just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. Do you have any idea what trouble I will be in if I try to keep up with this over the next few days?
Great job, David.
"No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true"
Nathaniel Hawthorne said it better than i could, so i will not try and improve on it.
NBY:
I was quoting Ungar's Risk Society paper. And I would agree that trying to understand institutional behaviour in broad strokes should not equal to excusing the involved parties of their legal/official responsibilities. These are two different things.
Which is why I raised the question: How long will CRU/UEA go on behaving like this - looking over its shoulder, reacting to the reactions to their reactions? Aren't they sick of this already?
The consensus warmist institutional position consists of scientists trapped behind an official facade, listening to 'moral entrepeneurs' warning them of 'folk demons' (the skeptics) and adopting reflex actions (instead of self-motivated ones).
"Let us not admit even to a single mistake - the deniers will use that to attack the very foundations of our edifice" - is the official position. I recollect there is a Mann email saying something to this effect to Jones.
These guys are just hoping to spin their way out of this. :)
David Holland
Better look out that mac and cheesecutter ready for the next instalment.
Are the UEA now saying: for everyone's convenience they employed the paragraph numbering scheme of the original David Holland submission, had access to that submission, based their answers on parts of that submission, but for reasons known only to Geoffrey Boulton and themselves, chose to answer as though they had not seen that submission?
Assuming my grasp of this thread has not evaporated - I have a hard time seeing how this does not place several people in contempt of parliament(?)
Whitewash:-
Always leaves its mark on whoever applies it.
Never lasts as long as you think.
Requires constant maintenance, especially in adverse climatic conditions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brace yourself Sir Muir; you are in receipt of a hospital pass.
The scientists at UEA/CRU involved with the convoluted reality avoidance (coverup), as revealed by Holland's correspondence, cannot really be objective scientific observers of climate. No, that would be A does not equal A. A contradiction.
John
Trying to keep our minds off Wegman, are we?
Stan, and Dr Bratby - time and again we see Believers engaging in strategies which reveal a fundamental want of forensic insight. "Why", we ask, "would any sane person think such-and-such would advance his cause"? It is presumably this same shortcoming which may allow them, honestly, to confuse opinion with science. From their point of view, it means the difference between being a fool or a charlatan, but from ours, it means that we cannot treat these people as if they were simply being dishonest, but must accept that they genuinely believe in the CO2 fairy. We have to accept that these people really have learned a different scientific method from the one we learned. Over at Curry, I have been treated to Michael Tobis defending neglect of the null hypothesis on the grounds that it was "not likely to increase the citation count" of the guy who reports it, and I've had Bart Verheggen claim that as the "scientific consensus", of which he remains so fond, emerges, it becomes "the new null hypothesis" - all with apparently straight faces. These gentlemen, I learn, are significant professional climate "scientists", so their aberrant beliefs may reasonably be thought typical of the field.
With grotesque intellectual disabilities such as these, the best we can hope for is to eventually marginalise them and remove their influence over policy (and preferably their funding, to boot). They are probably incapable, literally incapable, of understanding their error.
"With grotesque intellectual disabilities such as these, ..."
Thanks Tom.
John Whitman: ¨convoluted reality avoidance¨ - wonderful
& re Al Gore
It matters not in which year he claims to have been ´...running for President; he was in fact Vice President of the US and acting in his capacity as President of the Senate.´ When Hillary and Bill failed to destroy the USA medical profession and with Gingrich leading the electorate in a new, healthy, direction, Al saw an opportunity.
Nov 24, 2010 at 1:19 AM | bigcitylib
"Trying to keep our minds off Wegman, are we?"
No.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/23/wegman-responds-to-usa-today/
TomFP,
Early on at Tom Fuller's old blog, I made an observation about the hubris exhibited by alarmist scientists. Bart informed me that it was I who was guilty of hubris because I, a non-scientist, had the temerity to question the opinions of science professionals! There's simply no point in arguing with someone who butchers logic that way.
I've made the same point about Mann and his friends and their insistence on slandering any and all who disagree as being funded by fossil fuel companies. Those who steadfastly ignore facts are not competent to be investigators and ultimately, that is all that a scientist is -- one who investigates, a seeker of facts. A record such as theirs is disqualifying. They have proven themselves incompetent by their dogged rejection of uncontradicted fact. Maybe they live in a parallel universe unfettered by a requirement for fealty to reality. Perhaps they 'know' because their 'truth' is buttressed by their feelings, supported by their politics, and confirmed by their needs to be important.
Stan - as a retired physicist I totally agree. And thanks for a new word (for me at least) - fealty
You're dealing with a University hierarchy here. Those people are chosen according to their lodge or, increasingly I suspect, common purpose membership, not intellectual ability, so thinking five or six moves ahead isn't in their make-up.
In a battle between intellect and group arrogance, intellect always wins but it takes time.
TomFP, yes: scientists believe that truth is determined by proclamation. This is a fundamental aspect of science today, and it is in most fields of science.
Douglas Keenan - that bad? I had thought it was largely confined to climate "science"...
Yes Stan, an excellent summary. (and fealty is a new word for me too).
"I've made the same point about Mann and his friends and their insistence on slandering any and all who disagree as being funded by fossil fuel companies."
An allegation they never seem to be able to substantiate.
But then all you have to do is point them at this email...
http://assassinationscience.com/climategate/1/FOIA/mail/0962818260.txt
"Had a very good meeting with Shell yesterday. Only a minor part of the
agenda, but I expect they will accept an invitation to act as a strategic
partner and will contribute to a studentship fund though under certain
conditions."
"I'm talking to Shell International's climate change team but this approach
will do equally for the new foundation as it's only one step or so off
Shell's equivalent of a board level. I do know a little about the Fdn and
what kind of projects they are looking for. It could be relevant for the
new building, "
Two faced hypocrites.
Nial
So we have official confirmation that in fact Briffa and Osborn had David's full submission (which we knew anyway from their paragraph numbering).
Why then did Briffa and Osborn write "No text from Wahl is quoted above and therefore this statement is in error"?
O/T
Copenhagen targets will not be enough to stop global warming
This is the pre-UN conference press release masquerading as a news story from Louise Gray. Nothing speical there...
But of the 30 comments so far EVERY one is critical of her, the piece or the UN/IPCC.
I only mark this because the pre-Cancun cheer leading appears to be falling flat.
It is the use of the words "directly" and "access" by UEA that gives the game away. It indicated that CRU and UEA did have full knowledge of DH submission by sime other means but chose to answer it on the basis of the Boulton edition. However they ballsed it up. Briffa and Osborne refered to material that could have only come from the full submission.
That shows intent to mislead and to cover-up, not only on the part of CRU and UEA but also of Russell. That highlights they all understood perfectly the serious charge against CRU scientists that they were involved in an effort to include science in IPCC AR4 that rebutted M&M, but then proceded to cover their tracks when this became the subject of DH's FOI request.
What ever happened to that 01 March 2006 email from Briffa to the CLAs? I think that will tell some of the story.
TomFP
Climate science is about average for integrity. Many fields of science have less integrity, some much so.
Before getting involved in global warming, I was working against low integrity in other fields of science—my web site shows a portion of that work. I only got involved in global warming around 2005, when I saw that this was getting lots of attention.
Believers of scientists often say that it is impossible that all the scientists could be in a conspiracy to lie. They are partially correct. The scientists are not lying in the usual sense: they genuinely believe that they can determine truth by proclamation. They are “leading scientists”, and that is what leading scientists do. I.e. being able to determine truth has become a part of their identities. That is partially why they fight so incredibly hard against exposing the real truth: most people will do almost anything to prevent their identities from being destroyed. (In contrast, if a thief is caught, he might go to prison, but his identity is little dented.)
It was the prospect of having his identity destroyed that brought Phil Jones close to suicide. I have seen this happen before, e.g. Gothenburg University, in Sweden, declined to investigate an allegation against Christopher Gillberg, after Gillberg threatened suicide. Gillberg is a child psychiatrist—and child psychiatry is a long way from global warming.
Trying to keep our minds off Wegman, are we?
Nov 24, 2010 at 1:19 AM | Unregistered Commenterbigcitylib
Clearly you've not done your homework Bigcitylib
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/22/wegman-whiners-this-posts-for-you/
Anyone else notice that the new, "even handed" BBC allowed Harrabin to scare us all with limiting to 2 Deg C increases ahead of Cancun this morning on Today.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9222000/9222902.stm
If anyone else noticed someone shouting NO NO NO at their radio in the car this morning in Edinburgh, I'm afraid that was me.
And why do they meet in Cancun, why not Coventry ?
When I used to sell computers, one competitor often submitted a proposal that was so large and full of boiler plate that the customer could not possibly read it all. However, buried within it were all the facts which if properly explained the shortcomings of their offer. As a result, few hapless customers managed to sue the competitor when the computer failed to perform as expected as its limitations had always been properly explained in the proposal somewhere.
No one can fault the Russell review on the weight of its published report and the number of evidence pages on the web. Most of it, however, is padding to make it look as if it was a serious investigation. The website could not be less useful if it was specifically designed for it. It is a classic cover up. However, even here we find that some folk do not know when others are trying to help them. If John Mitchell had done as Susan Solomon told him on two separate occasions all of this might not have happened.
So it was with Briffa and Osborn. Incidentally Osborn must also have had my original submission. Boulton could not have been more helpful to Briffa. There had to be some evidence Russell could point to, if challenged by the Hoc STC, to demonstrate that some note had been made of my submission, but it was not until 6 May 2010 that a small highly attenuated and disguised part of it was put to anyone at UEA. That is, if we are to believe what David Palmer has been told. If you read Boulton's letter to Briffa he is almost telling him not to go to town on it, but just answer two short questions and Boulton says:
Briffa however could not take the hint (presuming, which is not certain, that it was mostly his work) and early on in his lengthy response says [with the bold as in the original]:
I suspect that Boulton never wanted Briffa to unscramble my submission and scrawl all over it. I am also perplexed as why Osborn got involved because he is now tarred with the same brush. However, the Review did the the best they could to bury what with hindsight they may come to rue. It was published on the web between the time the Information Commissioner published his Decision Notice on UEA and the time Russell began his press conference. The document title is:
The reference, for item 120, on one of the 16 evidence index pages at the Review website is:
The reference to it in the Report is footnote 36 on page 80:
There was a very good chance I would never have seen it were it not for a brief comment by Steve McIntyre in response to a comment I made at CA. Steve had seen it but so smeared and disguised were the bits of my submission that he missed them. And so, almost, did I as the matter under discussion was different. The penny only dropped when skimming the 31 page document I chanced upon:
Had Briffa just done a two page woffle as requested and not mentioned my name we would not be discussing it.
I will try to add some further detail over at the "Redation" thread.
"It's not the crime that kills you, it's the cover-up," President Nixon.
If only Briffa and Osborn had kept to the prepared script set by Boulton, but no, these masters of the CRU universe could not, simply could not refrain from rebutting aspects of DH's full submission. A submission that UEA stated it had not "directly" received, and so supposedly could not comment on. This admission of third-party involvement exposes the effort that went into NOT examining scientific malpractice as revealed by the Climategate emails.
Nov 24, 2010 at 1:19 AM | bigcitylib
"Trying to keep our minds off Wegman, are we?"
Trying to keep the attention off the Climategate anniversary are we?
JB
Douglas Keenan, I'm not sure I agree that they "believe in" science by proclamation, even though we are agreed that that is the result of their delusion. It's the more worrying possibility that they really believe in the soundness of their methods, (whose flaws include, but are not limited to, a mistaken belief in the value of weight of opinion - proclamation, if you like) and their apparent obliviousness to essential elements of the Scientific Method that I'm trying to draw attention to.
This is a different kind of delusion, and, when reinforced by its close relation - the belief that not only are they right, but virtuous, too - may be harder to deal with. Jerome Revetz has much to answer for...
There are procedures available to the Council of the University to defenestrate the VC (Acton) and
the Pro-VC (Davies) (see: http://www.uea.ac.uk/calendar - in particular the PDF 'Statutes').
Unfortunately "A complaint seeking the removal from office of the Vice-Chancellor for good cause may be made by not less than three members of the Council to the Chairman of the Council" a complaint to the University Visitor might be easier to initiate that process outwith UEA.
The PDF ''Visitor and Principal Officers' (as above) fails to list the Visitor but it is likely to be Vince Cable or David Willetts.
TomFP
For an example of where scientists claim that upwind and downwind are the same direction, see Section 4 of
http://www.informath.org/apprise/a4106.htm
For an example of where there are four dots clustered together and scientists claim that there are five, see Figure 1 of
http://www.informath.org/pubs/EAH02a.pdf
But maybe I am not fully understanding your point. Your comment said “a mistaken belief in the value of weight of opinion - proclamation, if you like”: how is this different from what I was saying? Once leading scientists in a field proclaim something, others lower down in the field face strong pressure to go along: otherwise, they will lose funding, promotion chances, and some of their status as full members of an elite group—which is again part of their identity.
David Holland
"When Russell refused to publish my submission"
Did he say why? Surely the point of an investigation is to investigate...
Chris
"shouting NO NO NO at their radio"
Me too. Harrabin appears to have learned nothing - either that, or he's worried about his job.