Monday
Aug222011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Exoneration ad nauseam
Aug 22, 2011 Climate: Mann Another day, another full exoneration for the Hockey Team. This time it's the National Science Foundation who have cleared Mann on all charges following a review of the Penn State inquiry by the NSF's sleuths.
This bit made me laugh:
...no specific allegation or evidence of data fabrication or falsification was made to the University; rather, the University developed its allegation of data falsification based on a reading of publicly released emails...
We just, kinda, investigated some stuff...
Reader Comments (28)
From the report:
Do you look at what is not deleted, and decide whether or not, anything was deleted? Who are these people kidding?
Secondarily, I would presume the NSF could make these emails public.
Has 'full exoneration' fatigue set in yet?
Yes, but look at what's buried in the middle of the report:
As a result of our interviews we concluded:
3. There are several concerns raised about the quality of the statistical analysis techniques that
were used in the Subject's research.
5. There was concern about how extensively the Subject's research had influenced the debate in
the overall research field.
A legalistic point that helps Mann, but undermines the argument for the EPA regulating greenhouse gasses:
The NSF refused to apply FOIA, on the grounds that the research had not been used to influence agency policy.
NSF is agreeing that there is a higher burden for science that drives government policy - they've chosen to ignore that Mann's work has influenced a separate agency: the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency]. NSF doesn't regulate anything; Mann's work couldn't impact regulations emanating from NSF. Therefore, Mann is safe from FOIA.
Ha-Ha ! Take that evil deniers !
The argument that ultimately threatens to undercut the EPA's greenhouse gas endangerment finding is the fact that EPA didn't do its own evaluation of the science. EPA just accepted the IPCC's work, and argued that it had been done to similar standards as work done by the EPA.
NSF is stating that Mann's work [and, by extension, ALL CLIMATE SCIENCE funded by NSF] can be held to a lower standard because it is not expected to influence government policy.
The lawyers are going to love this...
NOAA?? integrity is no problem.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/noaas_climate_office_precursor_to_cap_and_trade.html
"A legalistic point that helps Mann"
I think it helps Mann only if a competent prosecutor does not get it thrown out as immaterial.
Mark
Who ya gonna believe -- me or your lyin' eyes?
Spin is spin. Politics is politics. And every time the NSF or some other body is forced to shed the facade of science and embrace political spin it is a victory. We know they are going to lie. We know they are going to protect the rice bowl. Just making them do it in public is a win. Every time they do, they tarnish their brand and more scales fall from the eyes of those paying attention.
By Michael Mann, in 2009:
This guys is a scientist?
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate, with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
I feel inclined to rant but will try to control myself.
How are the virtuous fallen!
My Ma was a scientist with qualifications beyond the dreams of those esteemed today. My Dad studied a scientific discipline for fun but remained a bureaucrat throughout his life. Both did their science for the innocent joy of it, unnoticed by the big wide world which pursued its way through depressions and booms and wars. Derived income was middling.
I am too old to reproduce further and so can pontificate without fear that I will ever have to match actions to words. However, I would like to think I would not now advise any child of mine to become a scientist, either to earn a crust or for fun. My impression is that the people they would have to work with are secretive pariahs and that the business of science has become thoroughly disreputable and dishonest.
Thus, in common with most other bodies associated with professionals, the NSF calls grey white in a situation that demands that grey be looked at as altogether too black.
My parents went into science and were free of such concessions to necessity. It’s not possible today.
I blame government’s slavish adherence to management theory and budgetary control in an area where it does not work. (The BBC suffers in the same way. I heard, too, that you can tell which restaurants are run by accountants and managers instead of cooks or chefs by the food.)
Enough!
I just wonder if any of those folk would be prepared to go and live as an "ordinary" citizen in China or Africa
For those that are not confused that this NSF MEMORANDUM is NOT an investigative report, but merely a procedural acknowledgement that the university is properly reporting a complaint of misconduct, William Connolley and company are getting chewed on by TheGoodLocust (of W.M. Wikipedia banning fame).
It is positively hilarious of the Stoat group's reading comprehension. They thought it was a full review...
We note that the University never received any formal allegations; rather, the University developed these allegations internally based on publically released documents. Consistent with our Research Misconduct Regulation (45 CFR §689), we referred an inquiry to the University.
Upon completion of the inquiry, the University provided us with its Inquiry Report which concluded there
was no substance to the first three allegations listed above; however, the Inquiry Report did find
sufficient concern regarding the fourth allegation listed above to recommend an investigation of that
matter. Consistent with the NSF Research Misconduct Regulation, the University notified us that it was
moving to investigation regarding the fourth allegation. In accordance with the NSF Research
Misconduct Regulation, we referred an investigation to the University.
...of W.Connelley Wikipedia banning fame
Shub:
This guys is a scientist?
Only in the sense that Field Marshall Erwin Rommel was a stamp collector.
Yes it made me also laugh.....
Shub,
From Mann,
If you read it carefully, he was being quite honest, and didn't intend to put the second comma in.
Interesting, I didn't realise that, I thought the university was directed by some specfic complaints from some "denier" organisation.
I think this sums up the value of all the "exhonerations" and a fact that seems to have largely gone uncommented on, that all the defending institutions have cleverly been able to step in and taken over the definition, scope and administration of all the investigations themselves! Leading to the inevitable passive "exhonerations".
It's like listening to Libyan state TV.
We now have a situation in "science" much akin to the media stitchup that we had in the UK with Murdoch - even like the medieval church. There is a bunch with extremist political views and dollops of self interest who control "science" and whose views cannot be questioned because they are their own judge jury and execution (although the last is never needed for obvious reasons - except for sceptics of their "science").
They are a state within a state, they appoint their own leaders, they have their own courts (peer review) they determine what is true by judgement rather than fact and no politician dare oppose them.
Mann's university made it clear they asked him if done anything wrong and he said no , so that was fine with them, and they thanked him for all the research funding he brought in . That was the 'investigation'
Meanwhile lets remember Mann told them he did not pass on the delete the e-mails request from Jones but we now know , thanks to person he passed it on to , he in fact did and yet the 'investigating' university have said nothing about Mann's 'little miss-direction '
If Mann ever find himself actual under any investigation worth its name , its going to be fun for most others and a real shock for himself .
I have previously filed an allegation of research fraud with the NSF Office of the Inspector General. The NSF OIG subsequently issued a memorandum on the allegation. The memorandum comprised two paragraphs. One paragraph summarized the situation. The other said the NSF OIG had “determined that there was no evidence to support the allegation”; the determination was given without basis.
I have also filed an allegation of research fraud with the U.S. Department of Energy OIG. The DOE OIG concluded that the allegation was unsubstantiated; no explanation or elaboration was given.
Details are at
http://www.informath.org/apprise/a4200.htm
I suspect that the Inspectors General are there to just give the appearance of having a mechanism for government-agency accountability.
Mike Haseler said:
I think we need to make sure we don't lose sight of the real problem which is that no politician wants to oppose them because they have given him the perfect, rock-solid, cast-iron reason to do the one thing he wants to do more than anything while claiming that of course he doesn't really want to do anything of the sort, namely to raise taxes and thereby increase the state's control over the life of the individual.Putting the scientists back in their box would be the easiest sell in the world if the will was there. It isn't.
" no politician wants to oppose them because they have given him the perfect, rock-solid, cast-iron reason to do the one thing he wants to do more than anything while claiming that of course he doesn't really want to do anything of the sort, namely to raise taxes"
Precisely. Because all social-democracies are bust/about to go bust. Greece today, everyone else tomorrow, or the next day....The model of offering ever more benefits in return for votes has reached the point of unsustainability. The only thing that staves off disaster for soc-dem politicians is finding ever more fanciful ways of raising money to keep the show on the road. Fanciful climate scares leading to new taxes looks very useful from a politicians perspective.
From Douglas J. Keenan's link.
"One allegation of research misconduct that I made was against Sturt W. Manning. Manning was then a professor at the University of Reading, in England. My allegation was filed with the Vice Chancellor of the university. The vice chancellor, though, refused to investigate my allegation. I was told by telephone that the university had no procedures for investigating such allegations, because their professors always acted with integrity."
Unbelievable.
A document like this could exonerate a lynching. "All the forms were observed and procedures followed."
Three words can summarise the state of the art in the climate debate, in light of these exonerathons:
Mike's Nature Trick
Mike - Michael Mann, The Hockey Stick, Lead Authoring an IPCC chapter, the IPCC TAR, Tarring Soon and Baliunas, Jim Jefford, bristlecones, lake sediments, inverted curves, malaria
Nature - publisher of the trick, publisher of MBH98, Phil Jones UHI paper, Eric Steig's Antarctic smear, high seat of UK climate consensus orthodoxy and voice of the pulpit.
Trick - hiding the decline, the missing heat, the adjusted sensitivity, the adjusted GISS, the adjusted sea-level rise, the melting glacier, the disappearing forests, the vanishing crops, the lost temperature data, the accelerating world temperatures,...
Were not Michael Mann's emails going to be released on the 22nd August this year? Anyone know anything about them?
I've heard that there has been some action, but nothing specific yet.
you have to laugh at the reception TheGoodLocust's factual comments receive on Stoat...including a classic Mashey attack - missing the point violently as usual.
A prominent US columnist, James Fallows of The Atlantic Magazine, writes on this today in his blog. I have great respect for Mr. Fallows and have always enjoyed is writing and clear thinking. I'm struggling with his conclusions about Mann.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/michael-mann-cleared-again/244051/