Bishop Hill Comedy of AAAS
Jun 29, 2011 FOI The American Association for the Advancement of Science has issued a somewhat overwrought statement, parts of which look like a despairing plea for the Mann emails to be kept under wraps:
The sharing of research data is vastly different from unreasonable, excessive Freedom of Information Act requests for personal information and voluminous data that are then used to harass and intimidate scientists. The latter serve only as a distraction and make no constructive contribution to the public discourse.
Of course, personal information is not subject to FOI requests in the UK. Excessive, intimidating and harassing requests can likewise be rejected - I assume it is no different in the USA
So I wonder which jurisdictions the AAAS is talking about.
This bit made me laugh too:
The scientific community takes seriously its responsibility for policing research misconduct, and extensive procedures exist to protect the rigor of the scientific method and to ensure the credibility of the research enterprise.
It's hard not to recall the Penn State investigation into Michael Mann, which, if I recall correctly, concluded that he could have done nothing wrong because he had brought in so much grant money.
They have a sense of humour at the AAAS I think.
Reader Comments (51)
And what will AAAS say if emails reveal evidence of, shall we say, somewhat selective and misleading methods of data selection and manipulation?
Really? You don't see anything wrong with starting fraud investigations against people whose conclusions you don't like? What about starting Income tax audits for anyone who writes a letter to the editor that you find offensive? What about investigating someones psychological medical history for whistleblowers?
Once you embrace non-scientific harassment of scientists (or academics or civil servants or authors) to pursue political goals you have crossed a line. While you might think it ok for some person or topic now, imagine how you would feel if it was a different topic or person....
Isn't it a bit hysterical how all these clowns fall back on the same lines ("unreasonable", "excessive").
I'm quite certain that there's probably no skeptic FOI request they'd regard as 'reasonable', nor would they ever find any whitewash too transparent to regard as complete exoneration. These guys make our case for us. The problem is not just Mann; the entire climate-science industry is rotten.
The judge hearing the UVA case has established a procedure for reviewing material that UVA claims is private. This is all archival material; it will require IT staff and lawyers, but little or none of Mann's time.
Or, perhaps, such fraud investigations were started based on evidence of fraud? I don't know, tough call on that on, eh?
Do people read about what actually happens or do they simply base their conclusions on whatever their friends tell them?
Mark
Fred
The AAAS piece mixes several different issues. My post is about FOI and policing of scientific misconduct. Some of the other areas I have no dispute with. I don't think use of FOI can be construed as harassment in normal circumstances though.
Funny thing is AAAS had no issues with groups like Greenpeace using FOI style requests to get their hands on academics e-mail , even from the same university as in this case. I guess that was 'different '
FredT - there are two different points at issue here.
First is the ATI case. This is a straightforward FOIA request for public records. The university fought this vigorously and once the matter got to court they lost, utterly and completely. They have to produce.
The second is Cuccinelli's investigation. I opposed this initially but I've changed my mind in the wake of all the secrecy and whitewashes. We absolutely, positively, cannot trust the climate-science industry to police its own any longer.
I wonder if they'd care to share these "extensive procedures"! Sounds to me like an echo of Pachauri's hollow assurances of how the IPCC procedures are so "rigorous" and "robust"!
I also chuckled at this bit from the AAAS:
Yet they seem to fall strangely silent when it comes to scientists becoming the self-appointed arbiters of policy and circumventing the democratic process.
And speaking of Pachauri, I rather like historian Walter Russell Mead's recent description of him as:
Mind you, to his credit, Pachauri has recently attempted to polish his rather tarnished image, and he seems to have lowered the bar on acceptable material for the IPCC imprimateur: all that's now required is "published literature" ... details, video and links at:
Merchants of doom on the great green ship of fools
It is sad to see just how far the cancer of Corruption of Science has spread.
Oh, I think there is some probable cause. There was evidence given in the ClimateGate emails that these people are not exactly on the level in terms of "public discourse". My advice to you would be to read The Bishop's book, if you haven't already.
Now that we've established that you agree with me about probable cause (you read Bishop's book between the previous paragraph and this one), you would probably also agree with me that a full tax audit for Michael Mann wouldn't be over the top either!
What are they hiding that makes them so afraid? Are they so corrupt? It does suggest that we all should be digging deeper to see just how bad it is.
I wonder who at the AAAS wrote this document? My guesses would be the famous wit and raconteur Ben Santer, or perhaps Bob Ward.
It's full of lies and misrepresentations, written as a Soviet Proclamation, in the style of a collective cry...my vote is for "The Bright", aka Peter H Gleick.
The Penn State review essetially confirmed that the highest eschelons of modern science is driven more by the pursuit of grants rather than the pursuit of truth.
Clearly, these FOIA requests have found a very sensitive motherlode of embarrassing data. The only reason to get this upset is because the publication of this information could be career ending.
My guess (having worked for NASA for years and seen the cover ups and good 'ol boy network at work) is someone was covering for Hansen's extracurricular escapades, and now more than one person feels they are in some troubled ethics waters.
Remember, Hansen could file forms and his superiors could fail to act upon disturbing information, simply filing them away in the mountains of files NASA produces daily. The civil servant code of ethics is a self-policing affair, were groups of unscrupulous people can band together and wreak all sorts of havoc without ever having to 'report up'.
Commenter at WUWT came up with this inconvenient background, from the 2009 AAAS Annual Meeting:
"In introducing Gore, AAAS President James J. McCarthy cited the impact of his work: ‘No single individual deserves more credit…for our public acceptance of climate science – public acceptance that has emboldened growing numbers of mayors, governors, senators, and presidential candidates to embrace the urgency of addressing anthropogenic climate change’.”
“The audience responded with a standing ovation that lasted over a minute, until Gore left the room.”
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2009/0215am_gore.shtml
For the advancement of what, again?
I didn't notice them objecting to lawsuits by Andrew Weaver and Michael Mann. Nor do I recall them objecting to Raymond Bradley's attacks on Wegman. .
Re: hro001
> I wonder if they'd care to share these "extensive procedures"!
if you doubt them you could always FOI a couple of scientists for copies of their procedures...
There must be something really bad in those emails.
I
What's that about flak and proximity to target?
============
The question is this:
http://www.aaas.org/aboutaaas/organization/board.shtml
That little bit of misdirection went out under their imprimatur, but who drafted it?
"There must be something really bad in those emails."
There is. You'll see in August.
I think your doing this wrong, all i see is reaction from AGW blogs, they said this, they said that!...get on the streets. Organize, March, lobby. your like an old woman with a lost cat, grow some balls.
AAAS thought process --
1. We are good people, the best. Our intentions are only for good. We want only to save the earth and all living things upon it. If we believed in god, we would certainly be his chosen people.
2. People who disagree with us are bad people. Since we want only the best, they must want the worst. Or else they wouldn't disagree with us. Their intentions are clearly evil.
3. The bad people want documents belonging to the good people. This must be stopped. We cannot allow the bad people to succeed. At anything. Because they are bad. And what they want is bad. Whatever it is they want. So they must be stopped. We cannot let them get our documents. Because that would be a bad thing. Obviously.
4. We hereby ask that all the other good people join with us in stopping the bad people. The future of the earth and all living things depends upon it.
5. Stop the bad people.
6. Help the good people.
7. Oh, and the science is settled. Always. No matter what. It IS settled. For good. Because the good people said so.
The end.
"AAAS thought process --
1. We are good people, the best. Our intentions are only for good. We want only to save the earth and all living things upon it. If we believed in god, we would certainly be his chosen people.
2. People who disagree with us are bad people. Since we want only the best, they must want the worst. Or else they wouldn't disagree with us. Their intentions are clearly evil.
3. The bad people want documents belonging to the good people. This must be stopped. We cannot allow the bad people to succeed. At anything. Because they are bad. And what they want is bad. Whatever it is they want. So they must be stopped. We cannot let them get our documents. Because that would be a bad thing. Obviously.
4. We hereby ask that all the other good people join with us in stopping the bad people. The future of the earth and all living things depends upon it.
5. Stop the bad people.
6. Help the good people.
7. Oh, and the science is settled. Always. No matter what. It IS settled. For good. Because the good people said so.
The end."
How does stating the obvious get anyone anywhere except brownie points from the Bish?
This is what im talking about people.
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2011/0629board_statement.shtml
"The Penn State review essetially confirmed that the highest eschelons of modern science is driven more by the pursuit of grants rather than the pursuit of truth."
Sean2829
If you think about it this is destined to be the case unfortunately if that is your job and life's work.
"The sharing of research data is vastly different from unreasonable, excessive Freedom of Information Act requests for personal information and voluminous data that are then used to harass and intimidate scientists."
Who has used FOIA to request personal information? Are they talking about Hansen? Hansen is employed by a US government monopoly, NASA, and is accountable for every moment that he is on the payroll or using NASA resources.
What is the AAAS crying about? What a bunch of spoiled babies. At least they aren't being targeted by a KGB like government group (created by Obama) that intends to go snooping into the medical practices of American doctors. Imagine if scientists receiving government funding were treated like medical doctors and audited without notice and threatened with losing their PHD status if they made mistakes or if they refused to produce documentation when requested to show it.
Scientists need to act like adults, shut up, appreciate the double standard they enjoy and just abide by the FOIA laws.
Anon,
A lot of us continue to be on the payrolls of universities. In the USSR of America, if you protest any of the PC gospel then you will suffer mightily, even if you cannot be fired. CAGW is part of PC gospel.
Let the people who are paying for the research have a say in how it's done? Outrageous! How DARE they!
Seems like they have made an AAAS of themselves!
JEM @ 12:39
Clearly the AAAS board is close to Penn State University:
Nina V. Fedoroff (2013)
AAAS President
King Abdullah University for Science & Technology;
Pennsylvania State University
And they also have strong interests in "green" energy, which is to benefit from a pro AGW position:
David Evans Shaw
AAAS Treasurer
Blackpoint Group
and board of directors of Shapphire Energy
More comedy this morning, from the BBC and Richard Black.
Apparently we are not meeting our targets to reduce carbon emissions that are so vital to the fight against global warming.
The main reason is thought to be energy demand due to the cold weather.
I read the voluminous post on this in WUWT earlier this morning and was struck by the AAAS's utter lack of logic and the ability of that body to manufacture slings and arrows from nothing more than sunshine.
As other posters have said, the smell of something nasty festering in the dark must be reaching epic proportions. Much of the hyperbole from the AAAS appears to be a fear reaction to me.
Idle speculation
We've had about 25 years of the climatology industry going hell for leather to 'prove' AGW. And they haven't managed to do so. Do we think that they are goig to come up with some big new breakthrough anytime soon, or is the current state of knowledge about the best they can get to. Maybe a tweak here or a dialturn there, but can they make any quantum changes in understanding?
Because if not, they have failed in their quest. They haven;t produced overwhelming evidence of AGW, let alone CAGW. Their flagship propaganda vessel IPCC has not captured the positions it was built for and instructed to do...instead it is itself looking wartorn and unshipshape. The commanders of the AGW putsch are themselves under siege.. and the AAAS statement is just another indication thereof. Panic not science, hysteria not rational thinking.
Nearly everywhere we look we see the AGW agenda falling apart. In UK its end will come I guess courtesy of a £30 speeding ticket...tee hee.
Does anyone seriously disagree? Am I missing the wood for the trees? Because if not, then the next ten to twenty years will be spent dismantling the AGW edifice brick by brick and discarding the trash that crawl from the woodwork.
"The scientific community takes seriously its responsibility for policing research misconduct, and extensive procedures exist to protect the rigor of the scientific method and to ensure the credibility of the research enterprise."
This statement is completely disingenuous in implying that all scientific research is and should be subject to the same level of scrutiny. The peer review process and university ethics committees may be adequate in a purely academic field, where the findings are not critical except to reputations. By contrast, in the pharmaceutical industry in which I work, clinical investigators would receive little sympathy from the FDA or EMEA if they suggested that the results of clinical trials were the business of experts in drug companies and they should just accept the findings. Climatology has moved from an academic backwater to a field of profound global economic and political significance. It is either naiive or disingenuous to expect to be 'left to get on with it' as though it remained purely academic; working openly under close scrutiny is something that they will have to get used to, it would be negligent for them not to be.
@ LatimerAlder
I wish I had your conviction. It may seem like that from the viewpoint of a regular follower of this blog but I fear that this irrational demonisation of CO2 still has a long time to run before it starts to decline. Too many (still comparatively young) reputations and careers hang upon it.
I also suspect/predict that the Mann emails, when they are released, will not reveal anything that we did not already know.... and that they will not have anything like the impact of the Climategate emails.
Having said that...the extraordinary and expensive rearguard action that is being waged to prevent these becoming public makes one dare hope there is something in them which may well attract the interest of the otherwise lacklustre main stream media. It will need to be more than the revelation that Mann is a vigorous and unscrupulous defender of his own orthodoxy.
My guess is that it may reveal a murky underside of the world of university funding.
Latimer
What you say about the "climatology industry" is correct. My view is that when sensible people, including those in government and academia — and I might even be tempted to include the likes of Sir Paul Nurse in that — step back and think, then they will see it that way as well.
We keep mentioning the emperor and his lack of clothes but his supporters are still seeing the wonderful new fabric, mainly because the emperor continues to shovel more and more information about it at them to the extent that they haven't the space to look at the situation from any sort of perspective. "Information overload" is the expression, I believe. It prevents you from seeing the wood, only more and more trees (bristle cone pines, for preference).
Once we get to the point where we can actually get them to listen to what you just said properly and calmly then there will be quite a number of people who will agree. If that's the best they can come up with after a quarter-century then what is everybody making such a fuss about? And what's happened to all these tipping points that were just round the corner? And if x was going to happen before 2020 why are we not three-quarters of the way to x by now?
And several other questions of which my favourite (at the moment) is: How is it that a geologist & physicist who, in scientific terms, is barely out short pants, is considered to be more expert on the subject of climate than meteorologists, atmospheric physicists, palaeontologists and others with better qualifications and twice his experience?
Alexander:
I do wish I'd thought of that!Thanks for compliment, Mike.
I wonder if any social scientist has ever carried out a study of the rise in gullibility that seems to parallel the rise in the number of people who have enjoyed a university education. It seems to me that the more supposedly well-educated people gather in associations that have a rough equivalence with their major, the more likely that group is to believe in faeries and phantoms which constitute a threat to them in some way.
If the membership of the AAAS approved that amazing document, their collective intelligence and logic has been utterly subverted.
Look at the performance at the 2009 annual meeting. Let's spell it out.
Members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science gave Al Gore a standing ovation. Have these guys lost their critical faculties? I'm a fan of Bishop Hill and Lord Monckton (and Andy Murray — all the best for tomorrow, Andy!!) but none of them is going to get a standing ovation from me.
It beggars belief. And it would still beggar belief if I thought that his stance on AGW was right. He is not a reincarnation of Buddha or Christ returned to earth. He is a mediocre politician whose scientific knowledge is hardly better than mine and he gets a standing ovation from a meeting of scientists for producing a highly dubious polemic on a subject about which ought to be considerably more knowledgeable than he is.
I suppose having had the Nobel Committee award him and his cohorts the Peace Prize should have warned us of the sort of insanity that was going to follow.
Minor formatting error there. Apologies.
American Association for the Advancement of Science? Do they want to be the American Association for the Absolvement of Science or the American Association for the Anointment of Science?
It's a mistake to ascribe economically rational behaviour to the 'public' sector, for example in assuming that the amount of effort expended in covering up Mann's emails is in some way indicative of their value.
Deeply entrenched scientific incompetence is the real story. The AAAS rejects scientific fraud as a legitimate concern, but it does not, and cannot, address the general scientific incompetence behind both the climate "consensus" and its own defense of it. I have factually disproved the greenhouse effect promulgated by the "consensus", but my simple yet seminal analysis is being ignored: The proper comparison of atmospheric temperatures on Venus and Earth completely invalidates the greenhouse effect, and demolishes all of the current climate theories. That is the real, unavoidable bottom line and starting point for a true climate science. And my larger work is the starting point for a wholesale correction of the earth and life sciences.
August is going to be a really bad month for the climate political advocacy industry. The Hansen litigates will be filing, Mann's emails will be produced and CRUTEM will be made public. From a PR standpoint, the advocacy industry needs to get ahead of all the bad news and try to establish some kind of linguistic framework to respond to all the bad news. Their approach will be that this is just political harassment by the anti-science forces. I think its the best hand they have to play, but its a loser none the less.
Fred
FOIA is Law. Like everyone else, scientists including, should all abide to the law, like it or not. Those that don't are called criminals, even though their act might find sympathy among their peers or community. FOIA came into existence because people believe in this right, and it cuts both ways. Change the law if you don't like it, if you can gather sufficient support. In the mean time please respect those who exercise their right. One day you might find out how much you would appreciate the respect other have on yours.
The climate might be warming or cooling, let's lay bare the facts. Let's have arguments. That's scientific debate. That's how science progress. Name calling is not.
Alexander K,
Dennis Prager is a talk show host and columnist in the US. I've never heard his show, but he has written that he has a standard question he asks whenever someone calls in and offers a weird theory or makes a really off the wall assertion of fact -- "where did you go to grad school?" Almost always the caller did go to grad school and is shocked that Prager knows he did. Dennis explains that only someone who has gotten a grad school education could believe something that stupid.
The sharing of research data is vastly different from unreasonable, excessive Freedom of Information Act requests for personal information and voluminous data that are then used to harass and intimidate scientists. The latter serve only as a distraction and make no constructive contribution to the public discourse.
Well, I'm certainly pleased to see the AAAS take a firm stand on the efforts of Greenpeace to obtain the e-mails of Dr. Patrick Michaels from UVa through an FOI request.... but, oh, wait.... UVa was going to turn over the requested documents if Greenpeace paid a $4000 fee. No vigorous defense of academic freedom in that case. I'm sure FredT deplores that effort as well, don't you Fred?