University of East Anglia very busy ignoring the real problem
Bookworm on Dec 01 2009 at 5:02 pm | Filed under: Climate change, Education
Laer Pearce, who blogs at the wonderful Cheat-Seeking Missiles, is on temporary hiatus right now as he works on a big writing project (which I can’t wait to read when it’s completed). Meanwhile, he sends me interesting emails, including the following, which I publish with his blessing:
Director of East Anglia climate unit steps aside - December 01, 2009
Phil Jones, the embattled director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, stepped aside today from his post. It is the highest-profile fallout yet from the flap over leaked e-mails among prominent climate researchers, including Jones.
The university’s statement quotes Jones as saying: “What is most important is that CRU continues its world-leading research with as little interruption and diversion as possible. After a good deal of consideration I have decided that the best way to achieve this is by stepping aside from the director’s role” while the university conducts an independent review of data security and its responses to Freedom of Information requests.
Peter Liss will become acting director for the CRU.
Interesting, isn’t it [adds Laer], that the independent review is merely of data security and FOIA responses – the least signficant of the questions raised by the breach?
Related posts:
- Evidence of global warming scam and massive collusion in the “scientific” community
- Media ignoring tea parties
- Keeping busy, oh so busy
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7 Responses to “University of East Anglia very busy ignoring the real problem”
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Books, the FOIA response may be less significant in some senses — read my piece on science as social contract to see why I think so — but on the other hand, the other stuff is “mere” scientific misconduct, where the FOIA stuff appears to be conspiracy to commit multiple felonies.
Charlie is right…..as a “real scientist” with a genuine research degree from a major university, I see the scientific fraud as genuinely the most important issues here. These guys ought to be given whatever would be the equivalent of “drumming out of the corps” is in the military – remember….where your insignia are stripped from your uniform, and your buttons are cut off, and you have to walk out of the installation between lines of your (former) comrades in arms……
However, there aren’t any jail terms for scientific misbehavior, while violating the FOIA can put you in jail. I sincerely hope that these guys get everthing that’s coming to them in this — first, jail time for destruction of data that was subject to FOIA release, and secondly a “drumming out of the corps” of the scientific brotherhood.
It’s just disgusting, and I’m not even talking about the downstream effects of their cheating – in the political and economic realm. If you take all of that into account, maybe a firing squad is the correct answer…and I’m only kidding a little bit. Something important was “murdered” by these guys over the last several decades.
Charlie and Earl, I understand what you say about scientific ethics, but what about fraudulent (i.e., criminal) misuse of public funds?
It is about time that scientists (I, too, am a degreed scientist in both hard and soft sciences) are made to be accountable for how theyobbtain and spend publically funded research dollars. Similarly, my take on Al Gore is that he has probably violated numerous securities laws by using bogus information to mislead investors in his multiple enterprises, inflating the value of his holdings, and general market manipulation. To put the shoe on the other foot, suppose Exxon-Mobil was to try to fraudulent manipulate the price of oil and its stock value by issuing scare stories, based on falsified data, about declining oil reserves? What would the reaction then be?
I agree completely, Danny – if we can show fraud, or any other actual crime, these guys should be punished to the extent the law allows.
I would be extremely cautious about prosecuting positive or negative statements about various issues that turn out later on to have been wrong, even if they did provide benefits to the person making them. What has been done in various attempts to criminalize businessmen attempting to pursue normal practices should not be done to these guys, despite my distaste for their (apparent) machinations. Unless there is specific documentary evidence of a conspiracy to benefit themselves by falsely misstating the facts, they should be provided the benefit of the doubt – that they actually believed this stuff, even though it turns out not to have been true.
Much as I detest Gore, his hypocrisy, the inflammatory scare stories he tells, and his personal enrichment using his influence with government, I do not want to cut down the forest of law that protects us, just to “get” that man. The same goes for Jones, Mann, et al. Proceed with care, get the goods, and then go after them if the empirical evidence warrants it.
Having said all that – and considering the economic havoc already wreaked – it still seems to me that the greatest damage of this episode could easily be to the scientific community and to the trust that is necessary for the enterprise itself and for the public to believe what comes out of it.
For me, the really troubling part of this is that even when we thought intentions were honorable, the science itself was STILL bad. This egregious, anti-science behavior by the global warming scientists is an example of the worst – and, if the Freedom Of Information Act requests are shown to have led to deleted emails and data as they tried to hide their tracks – even criminal.
But worse for me is the pervasiveness of uncautious, bad science.
Remember the corn-for-ethanol debacle? No fraud. No nefariousness. Good intentions all around. The USA set up social policies governing corn agriculture to practically force, via subsidies, the conversion of corn crops to ethanol, to save the environment. The science and economic studies were thought to be sound, and of integrity. Everything went into place. And it all collapsed, as poor people in poor countries suddenly began to starve due to shortage of corn. Then the environmental harm from the fertilizer used on the corn for ethanol suddenly raised widespread alarm. The severity of this shocked so many of the so-called brilliant who thought their models of the entire program were flawless. The lesson is: the law of unintended consequences. And we never learn.
And that’s WITHOUT the nefariousness of deleting your original raw data, hiding your declines, refusing to release your software, statistics programs, and data for public scientific review; and repeatedly massaging your data until you produce the “right conclusions” that satisfy your political friends and those who supply you with millions in grant money.
There was a recent news headline that essentially read: The British can make significant progress on global warming if they contribute just 3% of their economic well-being toward it. They will simply need to also drive less and eat less meat.
One can assume the British drive their cars when they need to, and when they want to vacation or visit loved ones. They don’t say, “Gee, I’m going to get in my car and simply drive around aimlessly because, hell, that’s what we do!” And eat less meat? Perhaps we all could eat a little better, but usually eating better involves home-cooked meals, and staying away from fast food that lacks calories and is high in saturated fat. Meat protein is rather lower on the list of concerns, to me. And get some exercise to keep that base 24-7 metabolic rate up! That’s where the real weight loss gain is.
There may or may not be nefarious science at work behind that latest headline. But my point is that people are outrageously uncautious, rushing to conclusions over and over that are not supported by experience. The theory is flawed, the result is flawed. And the policies that result from their announced results are usually policies that FORCE people into choices they don’t want. With usually disastrous (or “merely” very harmful) result.
And they never learn from the horrific results. They keep coming at us, over and over again, with yet another program to be forced upon us all, based on announced results that repeatedly don’t pan out.
And that’s when intentions are honorable. Now we are seeing, with the global warming East Anglia U controversy, what can happen when intentions are dishonorable, when the science is corrupted and deliberately distorted. And this is probably just the tip of the iceberg. Where will we find the next can of worms in this ongoing debacle?
I said:
> and staying away from fast food that lacks calories
oops. I meant high in calories and low in nutritional content…
Hiding my own declines!
Danny, I agree that’s bad, but it’s “merely” a crime. Subverting peer review is corrupting the whole body of human knowledge.