Wegman, Edward g m u

=see Smokey Joepromoted to primary 6/16 based on mann bk and JOScapt 6/16 bold<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/edward-wegman">https://www.desmogblog.com/edward-wegman</a>=see littlemore series on demog on wegman, based on mashey eg<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">New Mashey Report Drills into Academic Misconduct</h3>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy#Congressional_investigations" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">2006 Wegman Report</a> to Congress, already <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/10/wegman_scandal_gmu_investigate.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">under investigation</a> for extensive plagiarism, also appears to be guilty of falsifications, misrepresentation and frabrications that could give rise to a charge of academic misconduct, according to a new report by computer scientist and entrepreneur John Mashey (attached, below).<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mashey" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Mashey</a> and the Canadian blogger <a href="http://deepclimate.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">DeepClimate</a> have analysed Wegman extensively in the past, primarily for the plagiarism of which Wegman is so clearly guilty. But Mashey digs deeper in the current report, questioning whether the numerous errors, oversights and misrepresentations in the report can be explained by inadvertence or incompetence, or whether Wegman and his prinicpal co-author Yasmin Said were intentionally distorting the information they were plagiarizing and, in the process, pointedly misrepresenting science.The Wegman Report was commissioned by Congress as an “investigation” into a controversial “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">hockey stick” graph</a> that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had used prominently in an effort to illustrate the reality of climate change. Although Edward Wegman’s report was highly critical of that graph, later analysis (mostly by DeepClimate) showed that, in mounting the attack, Wegman had extensively cribbed one of the graphs own authors, Raymond Bradley.What Mashey now demonstrates is that, in addition to misrepresenting Bradley’s words as his own, Wegman also twisted, misrepresented or completely changed the meaning of some of Bradley’s work, without explanation or reference to any other source that might justify the manipulations.As Mashey says - showing an extensive analysis of Wegman against the original: “Bradley is methodically weakened, silently contradicted or even directly inverted ….”These errors could have been attributable to “mere serious incompetence and poor scholarship, including inability to understand a textbook well enough to summarize it correctly,” Mashey says. But he later adds, “I think most of this is purposeful.”Mashey’s analysis is compelling. He reveals minor, but annoying changes, such as when Bradley is talking about a “strong temperature signal” available from tree rings and Wegman, in the midst of a purloined paragraph, amends Bradley’s text to add the word “relatively” - as in a “relatively strong temperature signal.”Indeed, having relied overwhelmingly on Bradley’s text to present himself as an expert on the use of tree rings to create a reconstruction of historic temperatures, Wegman then changes a final sentence to arrive at a conclusion exactly opposite to Bradley’s own. Bradley, explaining both the strengths and weaknesses of using tree rings, says this:“If an equation can be developed that accurately describes instrumentally observed climatic variability in terms of tree growth over the same interval, then paleoclimatic reconstructions can be made using only the tree-ring data.”Wegman, who had added confusing or “confounding” references in the midst of several earlier paragraphs, removes Bradley’s positive conclusion and adds instead this flatfooted statement, instead:“Thus tree ring proxy data alone is not sufficient to determine past climate variables.”Finally, Mashey demonstrates that Wegman was also guilty of that most obvious of undergraduate cheats: bibliography padding - the inclusion of numerous irrelevant references to give the impression of careful scholarship.Mashey writes: “Bibliography-padding can also be a form of fabrication, and 40 of 80 references (in Wegman) are never cited, leading one to wonder if the (Wegman Report) authors had actually ever studied them. Many are clearly irrelevant or found in dubious sources inappropriate for such a report. A tabloid writer’s 1987 ozone article in a fringe technology magazine is listed as an “Academic paper.” It cannot possibly be relevant.”As usual, Mashey’s own report is painstakingly annotated and he generously credits the previous excellent scholarship by DeepClimate. Wegman, who must surely have been humiliated by having a related paper <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/wegman-paper-retracted-plagiarism" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">thrown out of a scholarly journal</a> - also for plagiarism - must surely stand accountable soon, lest the reputation of George Mason University be permanently damaged by its tolerance of this poor and political performance.mann bk:pre-emptive action b/c of 2005 energy bill (failed 2004?)
Barton and whitfield sent ltr to MM, bradley co-author, NSF, IPCC for info on whole career? $, location of data, changes made ...?! source code~ by Eur geogr union, Nature Jrnl, NAS, 20 sci, 30 sci orgs~ waxman and dems and even mod gop  Chair Rep Boehlert who offered a truce to Barton and NAS help but Barton (on staffer rec?) went to Wegman (defense DoD navy data mining.Ch 11mann bk: de F Christy complained to U va (--> USAToday Op-ed)made bones on diff between satellite ad surface temps (--> meme) based on calc errorhe would only share part of his CODE; wegman said he could not share his b/c classified (navy intel)ch 12: 2007 big year: inc truth,
IPCC ARA 4, Nobeleven Luntz 180 after 2002 memo
ARA ~ pillars of deniers
but 2008 Nature jrnl artl misrepped, --> GW stopped meme --> Geo Will Wapo op ed; superFreakonomics 2009
Jrnl G res defreitas, carter amd ---M&M PNAS12/09 Mashey and Deep Climate blogger ~ WEGMAN rept (USA today)found 1/3 plag and distorted from Bradley's well known textbook!Irony is that wegman lied to congress, which is what he tried and failed to prove about MM!
stole? McL fig(s?)apr 2010 formal invest at GMU---Smokey Joe Strikes Again?Turns out climate skeptics' favorite report might not be as scientific as Congressman Joe Barton claims.
KATE SHEPPARD NOV. 23, 2010 Back in 2005, Joe Barton (R-Texas), then the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, made it his personal mission to investigate both climate science and climate scientists. Nicknamed "Smokey Joe" for his efforts to appease polluters, Barton has long made it clear he thinks the science on climate change is "pretty weak stuff."To prove that climate scientists have been wrong about their predictions, Barton and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) enlisted Edward Wegman, a statistician at George Mason University, to write a report evaluating studies of man-made global warming. The Wegman Report, released in 2006, has been much-touted by climate skeptics in the years since. But it now looks like large parts of the report used information that was plagiarized, pulled from Wikipedia, or taken out of context—and it appears that Barton's office may have been feeding Wegman's team the information to include in the report.Wegman's report primarily attacked the "hockey stick chart," first published in a 1998 report co-authored by climate scientists Michael Mann (now of Pennsylvania State University), Raymond Bradley of the University of Massachusetts, and Malcolm K. Hughes of the Laboratory for Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona. The chart grew much more notable after it was included in the 2001 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a version of it was featured in the movie An Inconvenient Truth several years later. But in a searing piece in USA Today, reporter Dan Vergano reveals numerous problems with the Wegman report. Studies of the 91-page text "found repeated instances of passages lifted word for word and what appear to be thinly disguised paraphrases," the piece notes.Much of the reportedly plagiarized text came from a book written by Bradley, who has asked George Mason University to investigate the matter. Analyses of the text show that some phrases were largely reproduced, and at some points tweaked in order to change the meaning. This was revealed in a lengthy report from retired computer scientist John Mashey of California, who concluded that 35 of the report's 91 pages "are mostly plagiarized text, but often injected with errors, bias and changes of meaning."Mashey's takedown of the Wegman report also points to evidence that Barton's staff was feeding Wegman’s supposedly unbiased team of scientists material to use in the report. Mashey found a presentation (PDF) online from Wegman report co-author Yasmin Said of Johns Hopkins University chronicling the team's "Experiences with Congressional Testimony." The presentation notes that Wegman's group met with Barton staffer Peter Spencer, who delivered a "daunting amount of material" to use in compiling the report, and that Wegman and his team were charged with evaluating whether criticism of the Mann-Bradley chart was "meritorious." The presentation also notes that Barton's staff saw themselves as "'referees' in the Hockey Game"—even though none of those involved had "any real expertise in paleoclimate reconstruction."Wegman has denied that his team was being primed by Barton's staff. "Although Dr. Said's presentation seemed to imply that we were being coached by the Republicans being given only their selected materials to look at, this was not true," Wegman told USA Today in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Barton's office did not respond to Mother Jones' request for comment about the charge that they were feeding information to Wegman's team.Mashey, though, says all signs point to Barton's office having "manipulated, manufactured" information for the Wegman report. He notes that the report relied heavily on a paper criticizing the hockey stick graph written by two Canadians with no background in climate science, mining consultant Stephen McIntyre and economist Ross McKitrick. McIntyre confirmed in an interview that the Wegman team contacted him for information for their report. However, Mann—the scientist whose work they questioned—was never asked to provide information to the team.Subsequent studies have found while there was some valid criticism of the statistical methods in the original graph, the McIntyre-McKitrick paper introduced some of its own errors and reached a flawed conclusion. The paper does not, in fact, invalidate the hockey stick—particularly since numerous other studies have reinforced the Mann-Bradley findings. Moreover, Mann and his colleagues acknowledged in the original paper that there are uncertainties and that further study was needed on the subject, and they later issued updates to their findings in response to some valid criticism—but that's all part of the scientific process.That nuance, of course, was lost in the Wegman report. It's also worth noting that Barton's enlisting of Wegman to conduct the report is also outside of typical protocol for committees looking for an independent read on scientific disputes. Congress will generally request a report from the National Research Council, a branch of the National Academies, when there is disagreement on an issue like multiple climate studies. Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, wrote to Barton in July 2005 offering the Academies' services. But rather than asking the NRC to review the science, Barton asked Wegman to write the report.The chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology at the time, Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), criticized his colleague's multiple attempts to undermine the science as "misguided and illegitimate." Boehlert wrote in a July 2005 letter to Barton, "[Y]ou have taken a decidedly different approach—one that breaks with precedent and raises the specter of politicians opening investigations of any scientist who reaches a conclusion that makes the political elite uncomfortable."So Boehlert requested an NRC study on the reconstruction of surface temperature records. The NRC report largely supported the work of Mann and Bradley, noting that while there may have been some justifiable questions about statistical methods and that some uncertainties "have been underestimated," there was nevertheless "an array of evidence" supporting the main conclusion of their work. (Boehlert, now retired, penned an op-ed in the Washington Post last week criticizing his party for willfully ignoring the science on climate change.)Aaron Huertas, press secretary for the Union of Concerned Scientists, also questioned the role Barton and his staff played in shaping the report and called it "an abuse of the power of Congress" to put out a shoddy report for the sole purpose of lobbing baseless attacks at climate scientists. "If something that doesn't meet basic academic scrutiny is being put out there with the congressional seal on it, then that's a problem," said Huertas.Despite his repeated attacks on the very premise of global warming, Barton has tried to claim that all he wants is an independent evaluation of the science. At a stop at the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen last year, Barton claimed that "the premise that mankind, through the emissions of CO2, is causing the planet to warm...has never been independently analyzed or tested by any scientific group." He asserted that "credible" scientists should look at the evidence, and, in response to a question about who that might include, suggested the National Academy of Sciences—failing to note of course that the NAS had done as much, despite the fact that he has rejected their research on the subject.Barton and other Republicans have frequently cited the Wegman report as proof that scientists are cooking the books on global warming. The report is also cited heavily in the court filings of crusading Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who has repeatedly tried to force the University of Virginia, Mann's former employer, to hand over documents that he believes will demonstrate that the scientist committed "fraud" in his research. Cuccinelli mentions the Wegman report five times in one subpoena of Mann's documents and email.The report is now four years old, but Barton might be getting another turn to fire at climate scientists from the bully pulpit as chairman of one of the top committees with jurisdiction on climate and energy policy. While caucus rules typically limit Republicans to three terms, Barton is seeking a waiver so he can again serve as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Several other incoming leaders of key committees have already indicated they would like to replicate the kind of investigation into climate science next year.Meanwhile, Barton continues to tout his "investigations" into Mann and other scientists. He wrote a letter to the editor of the Washington Post last month in response to a column from Mann that criticized Barton and others for politicizing the science, and again went after Mann: "I think Mr. Mann is entitled to make up his own mind, but not his own truth." All the evidence coming in about the Wegman report indicates that someone was bent on making up the truth, and it wasn't Mann.12/16<div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="25" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QFQgZKAAwAA" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/curious-coincidences-george-mason-university-ed-wegman-milton-johns-and-ken-cuccinelli" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">Curious Coincidences at George Mason University: Ed Wegman ...</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">https://www.desmogblog.com/curious-coincidences-george-mason-university-ed-weg...</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="Fmb ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=mashey+wegman+cuccinel%3Bli+mann&oq=mashey+wegman+cuccinel%3Bli+mann&aqs=chrome..69i57.8304j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b0" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8Q7B0IGzAA" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none; user-select: none; background-image: none; border: 0px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 0px; filter: none; width: 13px; text-decoration: none; display: inline-block;"><span class="mn-dwn-arw" style="border-color: rgb(0, 102, 33) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 5px 4px 0px !important; width: 0px; height: 0px; margin-left: 3px; top: 7.5px; margin-top: -4px; position: absolute; left: 0px;" /></a><div class="action-menu-panel ab_dropdown" role="menu" tabindex="-1" jsaction="keydown:m.hdke;mouseover:m.hdhne;mouseout:m.hdhue" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QqR8IHDAA" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VzufXM_f1WYJ:https://www.desmogblog.com/curious-coincidences-george-mason-university-ed-wegman-milton-johns-and-ken-cuccinelli+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VzufXM_f1WYJ:https://www.desmogblog.com/curious-coincidences-george-mason-university-ed-wegman-milton-johns-and-ken-cuccinelli+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">In a March 16 e-mail to the journal, Wegman blamed a student who "had ... at George Mason University: Ed Wegman, Milton Johns and Ken Cuccinelli. John Mashey | October 30, 2011. By John Mashey • Sunday, October 30, 2011 - 21:40 .... from the fossil fuel companies in exchange for persecuting Dr. Michael Mann.</a></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="30" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QFQgeKAEwAQ" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/mashey-report-reveals-wegman-manipulations" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">Mashey Report Reveals Wegman Manipulations | DeSmogBlog</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">www.desmogblog.com/mashey-report-reveals-wegman-manipulations</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; 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cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nCvDBFT86woJ:www.desmogblog.com/mashey-report-reveals-wegman-manipulations+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">May 23, 2011 - Earlier Mashey reports include Strange Scholarship in the Wegman .... Cuccinelli's AG office runs political operations against Dr. Mann and ...</a></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="36" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QFQgkKAIwAg" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.csicop.org/si/show/strange_problems_in_the_wegman_report" style="cursor: pointer; 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left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:U3rI3qRxIvIJ:www.csicop.org/si/show/strange_problems_in_the_wegman_report+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><div class="f slp"><a class="fl" href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:U3rI3qRxIvIJ:www.csicop.org/si/show/strange_problems_in_the_wegman_report+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">by JR Mashey - ‎2016 - ‎</a><a class="fl" href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?bav=on.2,or.&bvm=bv.142059868,d.eWE&biw=1600&bih=770&um=1&ie=UTF-8&lr&cites=4818378156494430273" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">Cited by 1</a> - ‎<a class="fl" href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?bav=on.2,or.&bvm=bv.142059868,d.eWE&biw=1600&bih=770&um=1&ie=UTF-8&lr&q=related:QSBai2dR3kKjuM:scholar.google.com/" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">Related articles</a></div>The report is also a key to Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's attack on the University of Virginia and Michael Mann (Russell 2010). ... in the Wegman Report: A Façade for the Climate Anti-Science PR Campaign” (Mashey 2010b).</div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="44" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QFQgsKAMwAw" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://deepclimate.org/2010/09/26/strange-scholarship-wegman-report/" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">John Mashey on Strange Scholarship in the Wegman Report | Deep ...</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">https://deepclimate.org/2010/09/26/strange-scholarship-wegman-report/</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="Fmb ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=mashey+wegman+cuccinel%3Bli+mann&oq=mashey+wegman+cuccinel%3Bli+mann&aqs=chrome..69i57.8304j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b3" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8Q7B0ILjAD" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none; user-select: none; background-image: none; border: 0px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 0px; filter: none; width: 13px; text-decoration: none; display: inline-block;"><span class="mn-dwn-arw" style="border-color: rgb(0, 102, 33) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 5px 4px 0px !important; width: 0px; height: 0px; margin-left: 3px; top: 7.5px; margin-top: -4px; position: absolute; left: 0px;" /></a><div class="action-menu-panel ab_dropdown" role="menu" tabindex="-1" jsaction="keydown:m.hdke;mouseover:m.hdhne;mouseout:m.hdhue" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QqR8ILzAD" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eLrd4EbP08kJ:https://deepclimate.org/2010/09/26/strange-scholarship-wegman-report/+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eLrd4EbP08kJ:https://deepclimate.org/2010/09/26/strange-scholarship-wegman-report/+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">Sep 26, 2010 - Guest post by John Mashey Strange Scholarship in the Wegman Report ... fraud) by contrarians to make a case of alleged “fraud” against Mann et al. ... MapleLeaf, McIntyre has condemned Cuccinelli in no uncertain terms.</a></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px;"><div class="rc" data-hveid="50" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QFQgyKAQwBA" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://deepclimate.org/2010/10/08/wegman-under-investigation-by-george-mason-university/" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">Wegman under investigation by George Mason University | Deep ...</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">https://deepclimate.org/.../wegman-under-investigation-by-george-mason-university/</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="Fmb ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=mashey+wegman+cuccinel%3Bli+mann&oq=mashey+wegman+cuccinel%3Bli+mann&aqs=chrome..69i57.8304j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b4" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8Q7B0INDAE" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none; user-select: none; background-image: none; border: 0px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 0px; filter: none; width: 13px; text-decoration: none; display: inline-block;"><span class="mn-dwn-arw" style="border-color: rgb(0, 102, 33) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 5px 4px 0px !important; width: 0px; height: 0px; margin-left: 3px; top: 7.5px; margin-top: -4px; position: absolute; left: 0px;" /></a><div class="action-menu-panel ab_dropdown" role="menu" tabindex="-1" jsaction="keydown:m.hdke;mouseover:m.hdhne;mouseout:m.hdhue" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QqR8INTAE" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LjRuR9n7dt8J:https://deepclimate.org/2010/10/08/wegman-under-investigation-by-george-mason-university/+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LjRuR9n7dt8J:https://deepclimate.org/2010/10/08/wegman-under-investigation-by-george-mason-university/+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">Oct 8, 2010 - Citing John Mashey's Strange Scholarship magnum opus in the ... We've asked Cuccinelli'soffice for reaction to news of the GMU ..... Mann et al; “The lack of widespread instrumental climate records” Luterbacher et al. So, I'm ...</a></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="56" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QFQg4KAUwBQ" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/wegman-plagiarism-scandal-heating-up/" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">Wegman plagiarism scandal heating up | The Way Things Break</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">https://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/wegman-plagiarism-scandal-heating-up/</cite></div>Oct 8, 2010 - I've been a little unsure how or when to discuss John Mashey's and Deep ... EdwardWegman stooped in attempting to discredit the work of Mike Mann, ... out that Cuccinelli's latest CID attempt against Michael Mann relies ...</div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="59" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QFQg7KAYwBg" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/5/22/1386828/-In-just-five-weeks-2M-climate-denier-lawsuit-implodes" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">In just five weeks, $2M climate denier lawsuit implodes - Daily Kos</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">www.dailykos.com/story/.../-In-just-five-weeks-2M-climate-denier-lawsuit-implodes</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; 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cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" /></li><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?biw=1600&bih=770&q=related:www.dailykos.com/story/2015/5/22/1386828/-In-just-five-weeks-2M-climate-denier-lawsuit-implodes+mashey+wegman+cuccinelli+mann&tbo=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QHwhAMAY" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?biw=1600&bih=770&q=related:www.dailykos.com/story/2015/5/22/1386828/-In-just-five-weeks-2M-climate-denier-lawsuit-implodes+mashey+wegman+cuccinelli+mann&tbo=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QHwhAMAY" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">May 22, 2015 - Wegman (and his report) concluded that Mann's work was flawed. ... partner of uber-climate-denier (and uber-jerk) Ken Cuccinelli, the ex-Virginia ... left Day & Johns just one day after dropping the bizarre suit against Mashey.</a></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="66" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QFQhCKAcwBw" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/13/909370/-" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">More strange tales from the Republican war on science - Daily Kos</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/13/909370/-</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="Fmb ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=mashey+wegman+cuccinel%3Bli+mann&oq=mashey+wegman+cuccinel%3Bli+mann&aqs=chrome..69i57.8304j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b7" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8Q7B0IRDAH" style="border-radius: 0px; 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position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wEv7HQG8tNoJ:www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/13/909370/-+&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wEv7HQG8tNoJ:www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/13/909370/-+&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">Oct 13, 2010 - Last Monday, Virginia Attorney General Cuccinelli announced that he was ... The WegmanReport was the first real attempt to try Michael Mann in the court ... from Dr. John Mashey in a 250-page examination of the distortions, ...</a></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="72" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QFQhIKAgwCA" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2010/11/joe-barton-wegman-report" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">Smokey Joe Strikes Again? | Mother Jones</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">www.motherjones.com/environment/2010/11/joe-barton-wegman-report</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="Fmb ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=mashey+wegman+cuccinel%3Bli+mann&oq=mashey+wegman+cuccinel%3Bli+mann&aqs=chrome..69i57.8304j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b8" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8Q7B0ISjAI" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none; user-select: none; background-image: none; border: 0px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 0px; filter: none; width: 13px; text-decoration: none; display: inline-block;"><span class="mn-dwn-arw" style="border-color: rgb(0, 102, 33) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 5px 4px 0px !important; width: 0px; height: 0px; margin-left: 3px; top: 7.5px; margin-top: -4px; position: absolute; left: 0px;" /></a><div class="action-menu-panel ab_dropdown" role="menu" tabindex="-1" jsaction="keydown:m.hdke;mouseover:m.hdhne;mouseout:m.hdhue" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QqR8ISzAI" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:N3LQPGFcf_oJ:www.motherjones.com/environment/2010/11/joe-barton-wegman-report+&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" /></li><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?biw=1600&bih=770&q=related:www.motherjones.com/environment/2010/11/joe-barton-wegman-report+mashey+wegman+cuccinelli+mann&tbo=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QHwhNMAg" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?biw=1600&bih=770&q=related:www.motherjones.com/environment/2010/11/joe-barton-wegman-report+mashey+wegman+cuccinelli+mann&tbo=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QHwhNMAg" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">Nov 23, 2010 - Mashey's takedown of the Wegman report also points to evidence that ... However, Mann—the scientist whose work they questioned—was never asked ... Cuccinelli mentions the Wegman report five times in one subpoena of ...</a></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 28px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="79" data-ved="0ahUKEwi9mdS0q4HRAhWF5SYKHQ15Ba8QFQhPKAkwCQ" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/08/on-wegman-who-will-guard-the-guards-themselves/" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">On Wegman – Who will guard the guards themselves? | Watts Up With ...</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/.../on-wegman-who-will-guard-the-guards-themselves/</cite></div>Oct 8, 2010 - Wegman's criticism of Mann's work is widely cited–his famous claim that 'right ... KenCuccinelli's investigation of the University of Virginia's grants for .... Congratulations to John Masheyand Deep Climate for exposing the ...</div></div></div>BScited by o'sullivan in ball trial <h1 style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Legal Analysis of Mann’s Vexatious Claim<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><o:p xmlns:o="o" /></h1> <o:p xmlns:o="o" />It is my opinion that Michael Mann is on a hiding to nothing here as reported in <a href="http://co2insanity.com/2010/05/07/how-to-expose-post-normal-junk-climate-science-in-five-steps/" rel="nofollow" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">previous articles</a> in which I’ve made commentary. The weakest element in Mann’s prosecution is his willful refusal to abide by the normal strictures expected of reputable scientists.<o:p xmlns:o="o" /> <o:p xmlns:o="o" />McIntyre and McKitrick (MM) whose statistical analysis first exposed Mann’s shoddy work were themselves vindicated by the US Congress-sponsored Wegman Report that affirmed that their analysis of the disputed papers, MBH98 and MBH99 was robust.<o:p xmlns:o="o" /> <o:p xmlns:o="o" />Despite these detailed studies exposing the ‘errors’ in Mann’s work the marginalized Mann to this day refuses to publish corrections or let anyone see his calculations, contrary to scientific ethics.<o:p xmlns:o="o" /> <o:p xmlns:o="o" /><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Much maligned Michael is so tight-lipped he won't even comment on why his Ph.D was rushed through, such is the calamity that has befallen him. But he is clearly the author of his own downfall and its no wonder a reasonable <span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">person (or juror) may rightly infer that his conduct appears dishonest and indicative of a possible data fraud. 

<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Key Legal Issues That Undermine Mann’s Case<span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><o:p xmlns:o="o" /> <o:p xmlns:o="o" />Upon discussions with various respected legal experts the advice we have given to Dr. Ball is that he has a sound case; Mann faces defeat in light of his unethical methods that are little more than a cherry-picking of a small number of trees.<o:p xmlns:o="o" /> <o:p xmlns:o="o" />By any reasonable scientific standard Mann’s position is untenable, as affirmed by the US Congress via the <a href="http://www.uoguelph.ca/_{rmckitri/research/WegmanReport.pdf}" rel="nofollow" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Wegman Report (2006</a>), which in its 'Findings,' concludes,
 
"Normally, one would try to select a calibration dataset that is representative of the entire dataset. The 1902-1995 data is not fully appropriate for calibration and leads to a misuse in principal component analysis."<o:p xmlns:o="o" /> <o:p xmlns:o="o" />The implications for debunking Mann in court are thus huge because as Wegman says,<o:p xmlns:o="o" /> <o:p xmlns:o="o" />" ..at least 43 authors have direct ties to Dr. Mann by virtue of coauthored papers with him. Our findings from this analysis suggest that authors in the area of paleoclimate studies are closely connected and thus ‘independent studies’ may not be as independent as they might appear on the surface..."<o:p xmlns:o="o" /> <o:p xmlns:o="o" />Wegman then points out that unlike any reputable branch of science, climatology is a very recent field of research and permeated with a culture of ‘ pal review’ rather than ‘peer review.’  Wegman concludes that "the work has been sufficiently politicized that this community can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility."<o:p xmlns:o="o" /> <o:p xmlns:o="o" />Thus Ball, like a modern day Paris, may aim his arrows to deftly shoot Mann's Achilles Heel with an argument that McConchie will find impossible to deflect – secrecy in scientific research is anathema to good science, as spelt out in Wegman's 'Recommendations.'<o:p xmlns:o="o" /> <o:p xmlns:o="o" />Recommendation 2. We believe that federally funded research agencies should develop a more comprehensive and concise policy on disclosure.....Federally funded work including code should be made available to other researchers upon reasonable request, especially if the intellectual property has no commercial value. Some consideration should be granted to data collectors to have exclusive use of their data for one or two years, prior to publication. But data collected under federal support should be made publicly available. (As federal agencies such as NASA do routinely.)<o:p xmlns:o="o" /> <o:p xmlns:o="o" /><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 19.5px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As Ken Cuccinelli, the Attorney General for Virginia has discovered, apologists for academic data fraud have helped to hide junk science for too long; only open court confrontation will bring about a final conclusion to the great global warming swindle.[pitch for ball?]5/15In the newest variation of legal attacks on climate science, climate science blogger and computer scientist <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=46d3564f64&e=15e3916d62" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">John Mashey</a> was recently sued in retaliation for his work to uncover academic misconduct by several researchers who disputed widely-accepted findings on global warming.  Two of these researchers, Edward Wegman and Yasmin Said, recently served Mashey with tandem complaints, claiming that his work connecting them with <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=a22438d5a0&e=15e3916d62" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1432485144547_419926" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">plagiarism, falsifications, errors, and funding misuse</a> constituted “tortious interference with contract” and “conspiracy” — and claiming that because of this, he owed them millions of dollars in damages.   Wegman and Said were among the authors of the 2006 “Wegman Report,” which has since been discredited by <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=a7309b4664&e=15e3916d62" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mashey</a> <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=67237d7012&e=15e3916d62" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">and</a> <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=f62de7db5e&e=15e3916d62" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">many</a> <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=48c0dd79f4&e=15e3916d62" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">others</a>, and which was originally commissioned by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) as part of <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=b70a161528&e=15e3916d62" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">a Congressional investigation of climate scientists</a>.  Subsequent work by Wegman and Said, based on the Wegman Report, was later <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=f702215874&e=15e3916d62" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">retracted for plagiarism</a> and the investigations themselves were criticized as “<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=d0d251565d&e=15e3916d62" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">political intimidation</a>.”   In their lawsuits, Wegman and Said claimed that because Mashey had voiced his findings of plagiarism and misconduct regarding the Wegman Report and other work, and otherwise “injured [their] reputation[s],” they were “forced to resign” from positions as editors of an academic journal, causing them to lose profits “as well as the ability to edit and publish, and the professional prestige and credibility such a position entails.”  Wegman and Said sought an astonishing $2 million in economic and punitive damages from Mashey, plus reimbursement for their legal fees.    The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund has stepped in to pay Mashey’s legal defense costs, which have totaled more than $15,000.  Sadly, legal bills in the tens of thousands of dollars – or more – are not uncommon for those subjected to harassing legal attacks, not to mention the substantial time drains and mental anguish such litigation can cause defendants (especially in cases that drag on for years, as is often the situation).  While Mashey was lucky in that Wegman and Said ultimately withdrew their complaints, it was still a time-consuming, expensive, and frustrating experience -- and Mashey’s litigation illustrates that the entire climate science community is at risk for becoming collateral damage in the “<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=85c3842934&e=15e3916d62" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">street fight</a>” on climate science. Unfortunately, legal attacks on the climate science community happen on a <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=9fac17ae5e&e=15e3916d62" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">regular</a> <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=15ab2e92b1&e=15e3916d62" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">basis</a>.  Please help us fundraise so that we can continue to fight back against such attacks.  <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=2d27d5786e&e=15e3916d62" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; background: transparent;">Support of $25, $100, or more</a> will go a long way to ensure that those advancing climate science can continue their important work without worrying about legal harassment slowing them down.   For more on John Mashey’s case, please check out his blog post on the experience <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=907fa0b2e0&e=15e3916d62" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">here</a>, and our blog post <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://climatesciencedefensefund.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=635c98e780ac7191328d30eeb&id=fd309e0454&e=15e3916d62" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1432485144547_419946" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22.5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">here</a>.=
ref above congressa story in today's USA TODAY contains a <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2010-11-22-plagiarism_N.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">response by statistician Edward Wegman </a>of George Mason University, to plagiarism and other charges made against a 2006 Congressional committee climate critique that he led.The response came after <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2010-11-21-climate-report-questioned_N.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">plagiarism experts described copying</a> of source materials as "inappropriate" and "obvious," in the controversial 2006 Wegman report.Essentially, the 2006 report contains a critique of statistical techniques used by climate scientists in 1998 and 1999 papers, and was requested by Rep. Joe Barton, R. - Texas, then head of the House energy committee, as part of an <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/educate/environmental/LIPA6.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;">investigation of climate scientists</a>.The plagiarism charge against the Wegman report, dubbed <a href="http://rankexploits.com/musings/2010/copygate-vs-skepticgate-new-words-coined/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">"Skepticgate</a>" by Pace University climate writer Andrew Revkin, were first made by the <a href="http://deepclimate.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Deep Climate </a>website last year, with further analysis by retired computer scientist John Mashey of Portola Valley, Calif. They have charged Wegman and his fellow report authors with plagiarism and other shortcomings that compromise the credibility of their findings, including hidden influence by Barton committee staffers during the composition of the report. A 2007 presentation at GMU by one of the report's authors, Yasmin Said, says that an energy committee staffer, Peter Spencer, sent the report authors a "daunting amount of material" over the nine months of its composition.Wegman says that Said's presentation description is "not true" and that Spencer only sent 11 scientific studies, two chapters of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and a PowerPoint presentation by climate statistics critics Stephen McIntyre and economist Ross McKitrick of Canada's University of Guelph. Wegman says that Energy committee staffers did not pressure the report authors to come to a particular outcome in the report. By email, he said, "there is a lot of speculation and conspiracy theory in John Mashey's analysis which is simply not true." He added, "we have never intended that our Congressional testimony was intended to take intellectual credit for any aspect of paleoclimate reconstruction science or for any original research aspect of social network analysis.""Unattributed near-verbatim copying is plagiarism, period, " Mashey says, by email. "In fact, much plagiarism exists not to claim intellectual credit for discovering something, but to claim expertise as a base for making strong statements."Unlike universities, Congress does not appear to to have particular ethical standards for scholars submitting reports to its committees, such as the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.20703/pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Wegman report's 2006 release</a>. "I don't see any reason why the standards for Congress would be lower than those for an academic institution," says Liz Wager of the London-based<a href="http://publicationethics.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;"> Committee on Publication Ethics</a>, which acts as a global forum for editors and publishers to maintain ethical standards in scientific publications.Some critics of climate science have suggested any plagiarism in the Wegman report is <a href="http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/continuing-copygate-discussions/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">a side show</a>. However, without commenting directly on the case, the federal <a href="http://ori.dhhs.gov/policies/plagiarism.shtml" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Office of Research Integrity</a>'s John Dahlberg, says, "No, that's not right. We take plagiarism very seriously."<a id="readmore" style="line-height: 23px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><a id="readmore" style="line-height: 23px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></a><a id="readmore" style="line-height: 23px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><a id="readmore" style="line-height: 23px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><a id="readmore" style="line-height: 23px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><a id="readmore" style="line-height: 23px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By Dan Vergano</a><a id="readmore" style="line-height: 23px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">===</a><a id="readmore" style="line-height: 23px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">

</a><a id="readmore" style="line-height: 23px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Edward Wegman</a>

<a id="readmore" style="line-height: 23px;">Misdeeds: Statistician from George Mason University in Virginia (which receives financial support from Koch and other dirty companies), who in '06 was enlisted by congressional denier "Smokey" Joe Barton (R-Texas) to disprove anthropogenic global warming. "</a><a href="http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/108/home/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;">The Wegman Report</a>," billed as an "independent" analysis, was actually based on source material provided by a Barton staffer. Despite the affront to scientific rigor, the work attained iconic status on wacky denier blogs.

The Wegman Report has been thoroughly deconstructed by John Mashey at <a href="http://deepclimate.org/2010/09/26/strange-scholarship-wegman-report/" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Deep Climate</a>, who found it to be full of plagiarized sections, distorted data and unwarranted conclusions. This was too much even for George Mason, so Wegman is currently under formal investigated by his own university.

Corporate Teats: Far Right think tank money, originating from Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Peabody Coal.

Most Egregious Lie: "Our findings from this analysis suggest that authors in the area of paleoclimate studies are closely connected and thus 'independent studies' may not be as independent as they might appear on the surface."

==

Congressman Joe “Apologize to BP” Barton of Texas was among those honking on the “Climategate” horn the loudest. The problem is that Barton lacks intellectual integrity of his own. As <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/11/22/plagiarized_climate_report_joe_barton" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Salon reports</a>:

A couple of years ago, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, asked a statistician named Edward Wegman to produce a report that would cast doubt on climate change science, because Barton -- then the chairman of the House energy committee -- is less a citizen legislator than the whims of the oil and gas industries made animate and elected to Congress.

The report criticized some statistics used to prove that the last century was the warmest one in centuries, which means it proved that global warming is pretend, in the eyes of most Republicans…

</div>

The only problem, other than the fact that the report is overwhelmingly without merit, is that it was <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2010-11-21-climate-report-questioned_N.htm" target="_blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">largely plagiarized</a>.

==

Wegman actually stands accused of having committed a host of infractions with the “AD HOC COMMITTEE REPORT ON THE 'HOCKEY STICK' GLOBAL CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION” that he presented to Congress in 2006. The worst, however (and the easiest to prove) is that he or his co-authors plagiarized a huge amount of material from a book by one of their targets, Raymond Bradley. In many cases, the only differences between Wegman's lifted quotes and Bradley's original material occurred when Wegman (or his assistants) changed the text to change the meaning.

===

The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy#Congressional_investigations" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">2006 Wegman Report</a> to Congress, already <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/10/wegman_scandal_gmu_investigate.php" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">under investigation</a> for extensive plagiarism, also appears to be guilty of falsifications, misrepresentation and frabrications that could give rise to a charge of academic misconduct, according to a new report by computer scientist and entrepreneur John Mashey (attached, below).

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mashey" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Mashey</a> and the Canadian blogger <a href="http://deepclimate.org/" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">DeepClimate</a> have analysed Wegman extensively in the past, primarily for the plagiarism of which Wegman is so clearly guilty. But Mashey digs deeper in the current report, questioning whether the numerous errors, oversights and misrepresentations in the report can be explained by inadvertence or incompetence, or whether Wegman and his prinicpal co-author Yasmin Said were intentionally distorting the information they were plagiarizing and, in the process, pointedly misrepresenting science.

===

<h1 class="entry-title" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 8px; vertical-align: baseline; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; font-variant: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, part 2: The story behind the Barton-Whitfield investigation and the Wegman Panel</h1>

<div class="entry-meta" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span class="meta-prep meta-prep-author" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Posted on <a href="http://deepclimate.org/2010/02/08/steve-mcintyre-and-ross-mckitrick-part-2-barton-wegman/" title="2:24 am" rel="bookmark" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="entry-date" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">February 8, 2010</a> <span class="comments-link" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">| <a href="http://deepclimate.org/2010/02/08/steve-mcintyre-and-ross-mckitrick-part-2-barton-wegman/#comments" title="Comment on Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, part 2: The story behind the Barton-Whitfield investigation and the Wegman Panel" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">155 Comments</a></div>

Perhaps the most disturbing episode in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“hockey stick” controversy</a> was the investigation of climate scientists by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee under Republican representatives Joe Barton and Ed Whitfield, and a subsequent report for that same committee  by an “independent” panel led by George Mason University statistics professor Edward Wegman. In light of various renewed “skeptic” allegations of scientific misconduct against Michael Mann and Phil Jones, and <a href="http://deepclimate.org/2009/12/22/wegman-and-rapp-on-tree-rings-a-divergence-problem-part-1/" sl-processed="1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">my recent revelation of possible plagiarism and other questionable scholarship in the Wegman report</a>, a complete review of the events of 2005-2006 would seem to be in order.

In short, the Energy and Commerce Committee refused the offer of a proper scientific review from the National Academy of Sciences in favour of an investigative process that was ad hoc, biased and unscientific. And the report resulting from that process  is tainted with highly questionable scholarship.

I can now fill in important gaps in the timelines of the initial investigation and the Wegman panel. But more importantly my review has led to some startling conclusions:

<li style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Not only was the original Barton-Whitfield investigation (in the form of intimidating letters) inspired by the allegations of “climate science auditor”  Steve McIntyre, but the defining impetus seems to have been a little known Cooler Heads Coalition-Marshall Institute sponsored presentation by McIntyre and sidekick economist Ross McKitrick in Washington barely a month beforehand.</li>

<li style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Energy and Commerce Committee Republican staffer Peter Spencer played a key but hitherto undisclosed role in the investigation and the subsequent Wegman panel report, and  apparently acted as the main source and gatekeeper of climate science information for the panel.</li>

<li style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Steve McIntyre was in communication with the Wegman panel, at least concerning technical questions around replication of his work. The full extent of McIntyre’s communications or meetings with Spencer or other staffers, as well as Wegman panelists, is still unknown. However, the record shows there were at least two intriguing opportunities for face-to-face meetings in Washington during the Wegman panel’s mandate.</li>

</ul>

In my last post, <a href="http://deepclimate.org/2010/02/04/steve-mcintyre-and-ross-mckitrick-part-1-in-the-beginning/" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I laid out some inconvenient facts about McIntyre’s fellow travellers on his way to taking his place in the pantheon of climate skeptics</a>. As noted there, McIntyre (and McKitrick) had achieved some measure of fame with their lionization by the Wall Street Journal in early 2005. In the received wisdom about the subsequent Barton-Whitfield investigation, Antonio Regalado’s front page article is seen as its prime impetus.

However, although the WSJ undoubtedly raised awareness of McIntyre’s work, there are compelling reasons to consider that explanation incomplete. The letters are considerably more detailed and raise additional issues from those discussed in the WSJ article. Did something happen in the four-month gap between the time the article appeared in February 2005 and the issuance of the Barton-Whitfield letters in late June 2005?

M&M go to Washington – again

A careful search of McIntyre’s blog ClimateAudit provided at least part of the answer to both concerns, as seen <a href="http://climateaudit.org/2005/05/07/upcoming-washington-trip/" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">in this brief post from May 7, 2005</a>:

Ross McKitrick and I will be making two presentations in Washington on May 11 sponsored by Cooler Heads Coalition/George Marshall Institute: 12.20 at the National Press Club and 3 pm somewhere on Capitol Hill.

</blockquote>

The afternoon Capitol Hill meeting remains somewhat mysterious, but <a href="http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/293.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">M&M’s presentation</a> and the <a href="http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/316.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Press Club discussion transcript</a> are both available.  Once again, Jeff Keuter of the Marshall Institute and Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute  were on hand with an effusive welcome; Ebell noted that McKitrick had appeared more often for such presentations than anyone else.

In his portion of the Press Club discussion, McIntyre laid out his complaints concerning access to Mann’s data and computer code, as previously aired in<a href="http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?ID=6013&Method=Full&PageCall=&Title=Wall%20Streeet%20Journal%20Airs%20Critique%20of%20%22Hockey%20Stick%22%20Graph&Cache=False" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Antonio Regalado’s  Wall Street Journal article</a>.

But he also had some new issues to raise. Presaging Wegman’s later “social network” analysis, McIntyre expanded his comments to the whole “hockey team” and laid out a list of studies he claimed could not be considered “independent” because of overlapping authorship (p. 17). (He also boasted that he thought taking on the team was an “even match”).

McIntyre went on to complain that the IPCC had failed to do “due diligence” in “checking” the data or constituent studies and claimed that the National Science Foundation, funder of much of Mann’s work, had failed to enforce disclosure rules that, in McIntyre’s opinion, compelled Mann to release his computer code.

McIntyre also presented some dubious technical analysis, purporting to show various techniques of “cherrypicking” among paleoclimatologists, and even spliced the UAH satellite temperature  data onto the Moberg reconstruction to show that recent temperatures were not much warmer than the medieval warm period and that recent trends were modest (remember this was early 2005, before application of important corrections later that year).

As for the genesis of his interest in the “hockey stick”, McIntyre compared it to a mining promotion. This echoed his invocation of the Bre-X scandal in the WSJ article. But then he went even further.

There is no magic bullet for it, but it is astonishing to me how little due diligence there is in this, compared to the due diligence in a prospectus or any kind of public offering of stock, even by cruddy little mining companies. Peer reviewers merely give advice to the editor as to whether a paper should be published.

</blockquote>

Epiphany indeed. It so happened that the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee had <a href="http://archives.energycommerce.house.gov/publications/107-031402OIwitlist.shtml" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">investigated one aspect of the  Enron  scandal</a> in 2002. But  the Enron comparison was perhaps unnecessary, as that same Subcommittee had looked at climate issues once before, as we shall see.

In any event, with McIntyre’s analysis in hand and with the impetus of the May 2005 roundtable, committee chair <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Joe_Barton" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Smokey” Joe Barton</a> and subcommittee chair <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ed_Whitfield" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ed Whitfield</a> swung into action.  They tapped staffer Peter Spencer to help organize an investigation of  “hockey stick” authors Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes, and to serve as committee contact.

Spencer, a staffer attached to the Republican cohort of the  Energy and Commerce Committee, was an obvious choice. Under previous chairman Billy Tauzin, he had been instrumental in organizing <a href="http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/107/hearings/07252002Hearing676/print.htm" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">an Oversight and Investigations subcommittee hearing on the use of climate models in the U.S. National Assessment </a>in 2002. That session heard from a “balanced” panel of five scientists that included climate science critics Patrick Michaels and Roger Pielke, Sr.  (Spencer has kept up his interest in climate science; he accepted a<a href="http://www.legistorm.com/trip/list/by/traveler/id/8305/name/Peter_Spencer.html" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">trip to the 2009 Heartland Institute </a><a href="http://www.legistorm.com/trip/list/by/traveler/id/8305/name/Peter_Spencer.html" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">International Conference on Climate Change</a> in New York, with Barton’s approval).

The Barton investigation began with a set of detailed letters of inquiry sent to the three authors, <a href="http://www.mission-k.net/globalwarming/hockeystick/081221-062305_Mann.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mann</a>, <a href="http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/108/Letters/062305_Bradley.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bradley</a> and <a href="http://archives.energycommerce.house.gov/reparchives/108/letters/062305_Hughes.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hughes</a>, that focused not only on data and computer code, but details of funding and past research associations.  The letter sent to Mann asked for details on all research and funding thereof. A couple of specific requests invoked Regalado’s Wall Street Journal article and the Energy and Environment article, but in line with McIntyre’s more recent concerns, Mann was also asked to elucidate his IPCC role.

Again, following McIntyre’s newly raised concerns, letters were also sent to <a href="http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/108/letters/062305_pachauri.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Rajenda  Pachauri</a>, IPCC chair, and <a href="http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/108/Letters/062305_Bement.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Arden Bement</a>, director of the National Science Foundation.

Each letter to the scientists started out identically:

Questions have been raised, according to a February 14, 2005 article in The Wall Street Journal, about the significance of methodological flaws and data errors in your studies of the historical record of temperatures and climate change.

</blockquote>

Several people have drawn attention to letters from the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee to Mann, Bradley, Hughes, the director of the U.S. National Science Foundation and the chairman of the IPCC, which were posted up at the Committee website on Friday here.<a href="http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Letters/06232005_1570.htm" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </a>

The letters refer to the Wall Street Journal [this would presumably be the article of Feb. 14, 2005, in which Mann said that he would not be "intimidated" into releasing his algorithm, rather than the recent editorial], as well as to our articles.

</blockquote>

McIntyre says that after he was profiled in the Wall Street Journal, he received a phone call from the congressional staff of Rep. Barton. ”They wanted to know if I had spoken to the Wall Street Journal and if the article was true,” McIntyre tells ES&T.

</blockquote>

Everyone, that is, except <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4693855.stm" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">CEI head Myron Ebell, who openly boasted at the time to the BBC</a>:

</blockquote>

On July 15, 2005, National Academy of Sciences president <a href="http://www.geo.umass.edu/climate/cicerone-letter.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ralph Ciccerone sent Barton a letter</a> that noted scientists’ concerns along with a better way forward:

</blockquote>

Attempting to resolve the issue, The National Research Council [operational arm of the joint National Academies] has even offered to perform an independent review of the controversy for Barton. Bill Colglazier, the council’s executive director, declares, ”It was a sincere good-faith offer, but [the congressman] didn’t seem too positive on this”.

</blockquote>

<p style="font-style: inherit; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px 0px 1.7em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">At the same time, <a href="http://www.realclimate.org/Boehlert_letter_to_Barton.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Representative Sherwood Boehlert, </a><a href="http://www.realclimate.org/Boehlert_letter_to_Barton.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">chairman of the House Science Committee, issued an opening salvo</a> in what was to become a running war between the two committees.  He expressed his “strenuous objections” to Barton’s “misguided and illegitimate investigation,”  and stated that Barton’s unprecedented approach raised “the specter of politicians opening investigations against any scientist who reaches a conclusion that makes the political elite uncomfortable.”

Nevertheless, Mann and the others all furnished formal detailed replies to Barton (you can read them, along with other reaction from scientists, at the <a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/07/barton-and-the-hockey-stick/" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">RealClimate post “Scientists respond to Barton”</a>).

And then, on the surface at least, things became very quiet and were not to heat up until 2006, with its duel of competing reports and hearings. The Science Committee hearings (and National Academy of Sciences report) would come in March 2006, while Barton shot back with a report by a panel led by Edward Wegman and his own set of hearings in July 2006.

An “independent” panel

When I first started re-examining the <a href="http://www.realclimate.org/Boehlert_letter_to_Barton.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Wegman report</a>, I was struck by the paucity of information about its mandate, formation and operation. The report itself seemed to describe a highly informal process, to put it mildly.

<p style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px 0px 1.7em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce along with Chairman of the Subcommittee of Oversight and Investigations have been interested in discovering whether or not the criticisms of Mann et al. are valid and if so, what are the implications. To this end, Committee staff asked for advice as to the validity of the complaints of McIntyre and McKitrick [MM] and related implications. Dr. Wegman formed an ad hoc Committee (Drs. Edward J. Wegman – George Mason University, David W. Scott – Rice University, and Yasmin H. Said – The Johns Hopkins University). The Committee was organized with our own initiative as a pro bono committee. [p. 2]

</blockquote>

<p style="font-style: inherit; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px 0px 1.7em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Although there appeared to be no official information beyond this, I wondered if the reference to Barton’s staff might hold a clue to missing details. I had discovered Peter Spencer’s involvement by noticing his name as the contact in the Barton-Whitfield letters; now, I decided to see if there might be evidence of his involvement in the Wegman panel. And that’s how I found a hitherto <a href="http://www.galaxy.gmu.edu/stats/colloquia/AbstractsFall2007/TalkSept7.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">unnoticed 2007 symposium presentation</a> by Wegman co-panelist (and protege) Yasmin Said, which was considerably more forthcoming. Said gave crucial – and in my opinion, shocking – details about the inception and process of the Wegman panel. [The presentation has since been removed from the GMU website, but <a href="http://deepclimate.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/said-talksept7.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">it is available here.</a>]

Here’s Said on the background of the Wegman panel:

– This approach was based on independent recommendations from Dr. Fritz Scheuren, ASA 100th President and from the National Academy of Science where Dr. Wegman chaired CATS.

</blockquote>

But Coffey is also a dyed-in-the-wool “Tea Party” Republican and gun nut, as <a href="http://www.rpvnetwork.org/profile/DrJerryLCoffey" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">his page at the Republican Party Virginia Network</a> makes clear. A recent comment for the Virginia Republican Defenders of the Second Amendment group reads:

The place for ammunition shoppers to be Saturday was the Gun Show at the Showplace in Richmond. Everybody had ammunition and there were even some bargains.

</blockquote>

Also unexplained was the necessity of a preliminary approach to Wegman by a third party.  But Coffey’s qualifications for the job are evident in <a href="http://www.personalliberty.com/news/study-suggests-gun-possession-may-not-protect-against-assault-19409715/#comment-40161" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">comments at PersonalLiberty.com</a>, with his reference to the  “Gore global warming boondoggle” and his recommendations of climate science reading material:

</blockquote>

After the initial contact, Dr. Wegman received materials and a visit from Congressional Staffer Peter Spencer.

Peter Spencer explained that the House Committee on Oversight and Investigations was interested in understanding whether the criticism of the paleoclimate temperature reconstruction

published by Dr. Michael Mann and his associates was meritorious.

• This curve was used in the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to reinforce concerns about global warming.

• There had been some criticism of the statistical methodology, but this was not being taken seriously within the climate change community.

– Because of the public policy implications, the House Committee wanted an independent expert opinion.

• Dr. Wegman was asked if he would be willing to take on this task and would he form a small team to look into the issue.

• He agreed and recruited Dr. David W. Scott and me as well as one other participant, who later dropped out.

• We were warned that we should be prepared for criticism and that we should have thick skins.

• Peter Spencer began sending us a daunting amount of material for us to review over the next 9 months. [Emphasis added]

</blockquote>

Nevertheless, Said insisted that the approach of the panel was one of an “honest broker” (where have I heard that one before?) and that it had an “unbiased perspective.”  She admitted that none of her team had “any real expertise in paleoclimate reconstruction, but were arguably pretty good statisticians.” As if that could repair the lack of domain knowledge, so painfully obvious in the panel’s report.

Said also opined that the panelists saw themselves as “referees” in the “hockey game,” which she characterized as a “debate” going on in “weblogs.” Well, certainly one side of the debate was; the other (scientific) side was also producing more and more corroborating and refining evidence with each passing year. But maybe Spencer was not passing that along.

Perhaps the most unintentionally humorous statement (among many others) was this:

[Mann's] main adversaries were Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, both Canadian citizens, who were usually unkindly referred to as the “Canadians.”

</blockquote>

The conduct of the Wegman panel also casts doubt on their independence and impartiality.

<p style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px 0px 1.7em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We have been to Michael Mann’s University of Virginia website and downloaded the materials there. Unfortunately, we did not find adequate material to reproduce the MBH98 materials.<p style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px 0px 1.7em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" font-weight="font-weight" inherit="inherit" line-height="line-height" px="px" widows="widows" auto="auto">We have been able to reproduce the results of McIntyre and McKitrick (2005b). While at first the McIntyre code was specific to the file structure of his computer, with his assistance we were able to run the code on our own machines and reproduce and extend some of his results.

</blockquote>

Hail, hail the gang’s all here

The extent of McIntyre’s communication with the Wegman panel, or indeed with Peter Spencer and other Republican staffers, is not known (although it should certainly be ascertained). However, it is worth noting that on at least two occasions all of the principals were together at events in the Washington area.

The U.S. Climate Change Program workshop in November 2005 was one such meeting. The <a href="http://www.climatescience.gov/workshop2005/participants.htm" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">list of participants</a> includes both McIntyre and staffer Spencer. George Mason University was well represented; Wegman and Said were only two of several professors from that institution. Another George Mason-connected personage was none other than climate skeptic and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Science_and_Environmental_Policy_Project" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Science & Environment Policy Project</a> head <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=S._Fred_Singer" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fred Singer</a>, who was  Distinguished Research Professor at George Mason’s <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_for_Humane_Studies" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Institute for Humane Studies</a> from 1994 on. (Indeed, the<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_Mason_University" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Institute is only one of 40 libertarian research centres and affiliates hosted at George Mason</a>).

Also present were two staffers from the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology, Christopher King and James Paul. Perhaps, then, this is the occasion where word of the Wegman panel first got out. Be that as it may, in <a href="http://deepclimate.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/boehlert_2005.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">that same month Science  Committee chair Sherwood Boehlert requested that the National Academy of Science review the matter</a>. This led to the  comprehensive National Academy of Sciences report <a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years</a> by a distinguished panel led by Gerald North.

That led to competing sets of hearings in 2006 – and another “hail-hail-the-gang’s-all-here” moment in Washington at the Science Committee hearings. That was <a href="http://climateaudit.org/2006/03/04/one-observers-report-on-the-nas-panel/" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">reported by a ClimateAudit fan</a> in a post that is the only one ever to  mention Peter Spencer.

</blockquote>

<p style="font-style: inherit; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px 0px 1.7em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The subsequent House Energy and Commerce Committee hearings in July 2006 provided another round in the political debate. As related in the Government Accountability Project report<em style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Redacting the Science of Climate Change [p. 62, See full 1.5 MB <a href="http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/File/Commdocs/hearings/2007/oversight/28mar/gap_redacting_climate_sci_report_07mar.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">PDF</a>]:  BANNON?

According to Lauren Morello of the Environment and Energy Daily, the hearing was scheduled for a time when the committee knew that Mann could not attend. [Environment and Energy Daily (July 20, 2006)]

</blockquote>

For one thing, new light is cast on a key Wegman et al section on tree-ring proxies I discussed in <a href="http://deepclimate.org/2009/12/22/wegman-and-rapp-on-tree-rings-a-divergence-problem-part-1/" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Wegman and Rapp on Tree-Rings: A Divergence Problem, part 1</a>. There I showed that the section was largely derived, without attribution, from “hockey stick” co-author Raymond Bradley’s paleoclimatology text book, but with significant errors and distortions interspersed in the text (see also <a href="http://deepclimate.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/wegman-bradley-tree-rings.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">this side-by-side comparison of the two texts</a>).

Ascertaining the exact process whereby this occurred may require close questioning of the responsible author, along with careful examination of earlier drafts. But it is also clear that all documentation supplied by Spencer, whether or not  included the Wegman bibliography, should be identified and then carefully checked and reviewed. It may well be that one of these contains a previously undiscovered main intermediate antecedent for the section in question.

And to come full circle, one of the entries in Wegman’s bibliography turns out to be none other than McIntyre and McKitrick’s May 2005 presentation. Although McIntyre is not cited, it is reasonable to infer that McIntyre’s discussion of co-authorship in climate science may have inspired Wegman’s social network analysis. (A bizarre footnote: for some reason, Wegman’s bibliographic entry lists the incorrect date of September 7, not May 11).

In coming months, I’ll examine in detail various aspects of the Wegman Report,  its antecedents (whether attributed or not), and update  other  developments.

Meanwhile, there is now ample evidence to suggest that the so-called climate science “auditors” and “investigators,” along with their hidden sponsors, should themselves be thoroughly investigated.  And high time too.

[Updated Feb. 8: (editing and extension of summary and document list update)]

===

Key documents:

The Hockey Stick Debate: Lessons in Disclosure and Due Diligence, Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, Marshall Institute, May 11, 2005. [Presentation:<a href="http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/293.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">PDF</a>, Roundtable transcript: <a href="http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/293.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">PDF</a>]

Ad Hoc Committee Report on the ‘Hockey Stick’ Global Climate Reconstruction, Edward J. Wegman, David W. Scott and Yasmin H. Said. [<a href="http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/108/home/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">PDF</a>]

Experiences with Congressional Testimony: Statistics and The Hockey Stick,Yasmin Said, September, 2007. [<a href="http://www.galaxy.gmu.edu/stats/colloquia/AbstractsFall2007/TalkSept7.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">PDF</a>]

Wegman-Bradley Tree Ring Comparison [<a href="http://deepclimate.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/wegman-bradley-tree-rings.pdf" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">PDF</a>]

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<div class="entry-info" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; position: relative; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This entry was posted in <a href="http://deepclimate.org/category/climate-science-disinformation/" rel="category tag" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Climate science disinformation</a> and tagged <a href="http://deepclimate.org/tag/competitive-enterprise-institute/" rel="tag" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Competitive Enterprise Institute</a>, <a href="http://deepclimate.org/tag/ed-whitfield/" rel="tag" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ed Whitfield</a>, <a href="http://deepclimate.org/tag/edward-wegman/" rel="tag" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Edward Wegman</a>, <a href="http://deepclimate.org/tag/joe-barton/" rel="tag" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Joe Barton</a>, <a href="http://deepclimate.org/tag/marsall-institute/" rel="tag" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Marsall Institute</a>, <a href="http://deepclimate.org/tag/michael-mann/" rel="tag" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Michael Mann</a>, <a href="http://deepclimate.org/tag/peter-spencer/" rel="tag" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Peter Spencer</a>, <a href="http://deepclimate.org/tag/ross-mckitrick/" rel="tag" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ross McKitrick</a>, <a href="http://deepclimate.org/tag/steve-mcintyre/" rel="tag" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Steve McIntyre</a>, <a href="http://deepclimate.org/tag/yasmin-said/" rel="tag" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Yasmin Said</a>. Bookmark the <a href="http://deepclimate.org/2010/02/08/steve-mcintyre-and-ross-mckitrick-part-2-barton-wegman/" title="Permalink to Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, part 2: The story behind the Barton-Whitfield investigation and the Wegman Panel" rel="bookmark" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">permalink</a>.</div>

5/16/2011

The journal Computational Data and Statistics Analysis (CSDA) has withdrawn a paper by George Mason University Professor Edward Wegman and his student Jasmin Said for plagiarism, USA Today <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2011-05-15-climate-study-plagiarism-Wegman_n.htm" target="_blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">has reported</a>.

The newspaper quotes CSDA editor Stanley Azen (<a href="http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/05/retracted-climate-critics-study-panned-by-expert-/1" target="_blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">who is denying responsibility</a> for what appeared to be a rushed, one-man review of the Wegman/Said paper), saying the journal's legal team has decided to pull the study because of the evidence of plagiarism from Wikipedia and textbooks.

The Wegman work is part of a flurry of "analysis" (at least one expert derides this particular paper as "an opinion piece"), that Wegman and Said conducted on behalf of U.S. Congressman Joe Barton (R-Texas), who was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy" target="_blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">using the material</a> to attack the climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann.

Wegman, Edward J.

Professor and Director, Center for Computational Data Sciences, GMU (current)

www.galaxy.gmu.edu/stats/faculty/wegman.html

www.galaxy.gmu.edu/stats/faculty/wegman.resume2.pdf

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Wegman

www.galaxy.gmu.edu/stats/colloquia/AbstractsFall2007/TalkSept7.pdf [SAI2007] see A.11

Activities: A.HOCKX, A.Hockey, BALI2007

Organizations: GMI, GMU

People: Coffey, P   Spencer, Scott, Said, Reeves, Rigsby, McIntyre,

at least

Wegman’s Panel included a long-time off-and-on associate (Scott, see comments there) and a recent

(2005) PhD student and frequent co-author (Said). [SAI2007] mentions that another person dropped out.

The WR thanked a recent Wegman MS student and occasional co-author (Rigsby), and a then-current PhD

student (Reese) for their help. The WR strongly criticized the social network in climatology, a fairly

small field. Statistics is a huge field, so it seems odd that a panel would be composed of Wegman, a

long-time associate, a recent PhD student, with help from two more students.

His resume lists an interesting possible connection

―Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, Innovative Science and Technology Office Washington, DC:

development of the ultra high speed computing research program, 1985-1986‖

GMI was started in 1984 to support President Regan‘s SDIO, aka ―Star Wars‖, and GMI has generally had

Board members involved with this topic, such as Canavan, and that might have been a connection. It is

hard to know, given the many overlaps of government agencies and consultancies.

In any case, [SAI2007] (A.11) offers a very different perspective on the process.

Finally, Wegman was listed as a signatory to the 12/18/07 BALI2007 letter. Regardless of what he may

have thought in 2005-2006, by 2007 he seems to have subscribed to a typical anti-science viewpoint. That

letter was filled with classic anti-science statements, including:

―…there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late

20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural mult i-decadal or millennial

climate cycling.‖

This is only believable to those who know nothing about the statistics of time series whose yearly random

noise is substantially larger than the yearly average trend.

===

Spencer, Peter (P.Spencer)

House Energy and Commerce Committee (R), 07/13/01- Professional Staff Member

www.legistorm.com/person/Peter_Spencer/19161.html

www.legistorm.com/trip/list/by/traveler/id/8305/name/Peter_Spencer.html 03/08/09

Activities: US.CONG, A.HOCKX

Organizations: U.S. House of Representatives

People: Barton, Wegman, at least

Heart#2 trip to NYC, paid for by Heartland.

He seemed to be the key Barton staffer in managing the WR.

He was also involved in 07/25/2002 House hearing [DEE2010e]:

republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/107/hearings/07252002Hearing676/print.htm

The 6 testifiers included Janetos, Karl, Lashof, Michaels , O’Brie n, Pielke, Jr … in that order.

=

As a byproduct of <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/foia-facts-1-more-misdeeds" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">FOIA Facts 1</a> and <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/foia-facts-2-no-pro-bono-federal-funds-mis-used" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">FOIA Facts 2</a>, Ed Wegman or Yasmin Said are now alleged to have included plagiarism or falsification in 9 papers or talks associated with funding from the Army Research Organization (ARO grants 0447 or 0059) or the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA grant 5876), 2005-2009.

Of 6 plagiarized works already reported to George Mason University (GMU), Elsevier retracted one. By FOIA, the other 5 had either been claimed for credit on grants or cited to support Said's grant proposal. Study of grant claims unearthed 2 more works with problems.

Finally, Wegman wrote a 2009 grant proposal for half a million dollars, but evidence shows about half the text was plagiarized. Although unconnected with Federal funding, plagiarism or falsification are alleged against 4 more works. Of 13 total works with problems, 7 involved both Wegman and Said, and 3 by each alone, so they cannot blame all this on grad students.

</div>

<div class="blogreadmore" style="margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Read more: <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/foia-facts-3-more-plagiarism-get-grants-claim-credit" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">FOIA Facts 3 - More Plagiarism - Get Grants Or Claim Credit</a></div>

</div>

<div class="blogheader clearfix" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border-bottom-width: 5px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(255, 205, 51); height: 45px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Tue, 2013-05-21 05:30JOHN MASHEY

</div>

<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.3em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/foia-facts-2-no-pro-bono-federal-funds-mis-used" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">FOIA Facts 2 - No Pro Bono - Federal Funds Mis-Used For Wegman Report And Much More</a></h2>

</div>

As begun in <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/foia-facts-1-more-misdeeds" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">FOIA Facts 1,</a> Ed Wegman and Rep. Joe Barton repeatedly called the Wegman Report "pro bono"* but Wegman and Said later claimed it as work done for existing Federal  grants paid quarterly.  In response to Dan Vergano FOIA request  <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/702915-usa-today-wegman-response.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Wegman</a> and <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/702914-email-from-dr-said.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Said</a> each said the work was pro bono, years after claiming for credit it and much other irrelevant work. Together, they "charged" 48 inappropriate works to grants they effectively treated as slush funds.

Wegman was funded by Army Research Office (ARO) grant 0447, $217K for <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/W911NF-04-1-0447-1-Proposal_0.pdf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">"Analytical and Graphical Methods for Streaming Data with Applications to Netcentric Warfare."</a> He claimed credit for 75 papers and talks, listed in the thumbnail at left or full-sized in <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Sheet.xls" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Sheet §0.1</a>.

Dark blue shows fit (possibly relevant) papers, but almost all acknowledged earlier grants and were published or mostly done before 0447. Wegman improperly claimed them again in late 2008, perhaps because he had done so little new relevant work in peer-reviewed research journals. Ignoring them leaves just cyan (light blue) talks, outnumbered by grant-unfitworks: green for alcoholism, red for attempts to discredit climate science and orange for miscellaneous others unrelated to his or Said's grants.

The chronology matches well - fit papers essentially vanished after 2005, as Wegman plunged into climate and worked on alcoholism with Said, who claimed the Wegman Report for her grant. A 91-page report on unfamiliar topics and Congressional hearings had to consume much more effort than anything else. Even by simple counts, more than half of each person's works were inappropriate, but the grant time spent inappropriately was almost certainly larger.

Lamar Smith (R-TX) might want to investigate obvious funds misuse before <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/29/lamar-smith-science_n_3165754.html" target="_blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">trying to meddle with the National Science Foundation.</a>

"Congress has a responsibility to review questionable research paid for by hard-working American taxpayers. ... Public funds should be used to benefit the American people."

</blockquote>

</div>

<div class="blogreadmore" style="margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Read more: <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/foia-facts-2-no-pro-bono-federal-funds-mis-used" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">FOIA Facts 2 - No Pro Bono - Federal Funds Mis-Used For Wegman Report And Much More</a></div>

</div>

<div class="blogheader clearfix" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border-bottom-width: 5px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(255, 205, 51); height: 45px; position: relative;">Mon, 2013-05-20 06:00JOHN MASHEY

</div>

<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.3em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/foia-facts-1-more-misdeeds" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">FOIA Facts 1 - More Misdeeds By Ed Wegman, Yasmin Said, George Mason University</a></h2>

</div>

</div>

New Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) replies have exposed more misdeeds by Professor <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/edward-wegman" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Edward Wegman</a> and Yasmin Said at George Mason University (GMU),  closely involved with the Kochs, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and many others known for attacks on climate science. This post reviews background and attaches FOIA files that unearthed evidence for:

-pervasive mis-use of Federal funds for inappropriate work,

-plagiarism or falsification in documents used to seek grants or credit,

-GMU violations of Federal rules for reporting misconduct, atop an already-absurd procedure.

Readers unfamiliar with the history might first read the background below the fold and then return here for a summary of the posts to follow in this series:

<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/foia-facts-2-no-pro-bono-federal-funds-mis-used" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">FOIA Facts 2</a> - Wegman and Said used existing grants from the Army Research Office and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism for efforts on the 2006 Wegman Report, showing "pro bono" claims made to Congress as false. That was not the only funds mis-use. Together, they claimed 48 inappropriate papers or talks, easily consuming more than half their effort. Grants of $492K produced attacks on climate science  and much foreign travel, but almost nothing in peer-reviewed research journals.

<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/foia-facts-3-more-plagiarism-get-grants-claim-credit" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">FOIA Facts 3</a> - More plagiarism and falsification are documented in 13 total works by Wegman and/or Said, including a few new ones and at least 7 claimed for grant credit. Wegman also wrote a half-million-dollar grant proposal, but evidence shows that roughly half the text was copy-paste-edit plagiarism. Luckily for Wegman, it was rejected.

<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/foia-facts-4-george-mason-takes-the-money-breaks-the-rules" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">FOIA Facts 4</a> exposes worse misbehavior at GMU, which badly mishandled simple plagiarism complaints, including one on a Federally-funded paper. That was retracted in May 2011 and finally ruled as misconduct in February 2012. Federal rules required multiple notifications to several agencies, but FOIA requests found no trace of them. GMU seemed to ignore Federal rules, but perhaps other funding and influence are more important.

In any case,  Wegman was appointed in Fall 2012 to a 3-year term on the <a href="http://cos.gmu.edu/sites/default/files/COS_Committees_Elected_2012_0.pdf" target="_blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">GMU College of Science Promotion and Tenure Committee</a>.

</div>

<div class="blogreadmore" style="margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Read more: <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/foia-facts-1-more-misdeeds" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">FOIA Facts 1 - More Misdeeds By Ed Wegman, Yasmin Said, George Mason University</a></div>

</div>

===

<div class="print-breadcrumb"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/">Home</a> > <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/blog">Blogs</a> > <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/blog/john-mashey">John Mashey's blog</a> > See No Evil, Speak Little Truth, Break Rules, Blame Others</div>

<h1 class="print-title">See No Evil, Speak Little Truth, Break Rules, Blame Others</h1>

<div class="print-submitted">By John Mashey</div>

<div class="print-created">Created 2012-08-20 03:00</div><div class="print-created">
</div>

<div class="node-blog-user-name"><a title="View user profile." href="http://www.desmogblog.com/bio/484/john-mashey">John Mashey</a> [1]</div>

</div>

<div class="node-blog-content clearfix">20 August 12 at 3:00am

<h1 class="title"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/see-no-evil-speak-little-truth-break-rules-blame-others">See No Evil, Speak Little Truth, Break Rules, Blame Others</a> [2]</h1>

The "Wegman Report", led by <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/edward-wegman">Edward Wegman</a> [8] of George Mason University (GMU) got criticized in 2010's <a target="blank" href="http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2010-11-21-climate-report-questioned_N.htm">Experts claim 2006 climate report plagiarized</a> [9].  Experts called it "obvious" even "shocking" plagiarism.  GMU's <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/see-no-evil-george-mason-university">i</a> [10]ncompetent handling, mistreatment of complainants and flawed rulings were <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/see-no-evil-george-mason-university">mostly documented in March</a> [10], but recent <a target="blank" href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/405453-foia-request-gmu-hunt-4-9-2012.html">FOIAs </a>[11]expose<a target="_blank" href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/405454-foia-response-gmu-hunt-4-26-2012-usa-today-foia.html"> more</a> [12] untruths.

Is the harsh title fair?  Read on, then study the<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/see.no.evil.speak.little.truth.pdf"> 69-page attachment.</a> [13]

GMU Provost Peter Stearns' <a target="_blank" href="http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2012/02/george-mason-university-reprimands-edward-wegmand-/1">February letter to GMU faculty</a> [14] made claims of non-plagiarism that contradicted not only experts, but themselves.  The process consumed almost two years to assess four (4) pages of text.

Stearns' letter was even more untruthful than previously known.  It  fabricated an imaginary second investigation committee, seemingly to somehow excuse crucial contradictions.   This seemed an attempt to defend the Wegman Report at all costs, even with potential problems from <a target="blank" href="http://ori.hhs.gov/case_summary">Federal</a> [15] agencies <a target="blank" href="http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2012/oig12002/oig12002.pdf">who</a> [16] expect schools to handle misconduct properly.  They fund much of GMU's actual research, done by faculty that to the best of my knowledge are normal, credible researchers.

However, a few groups in GMU are closely, even uniquely enmeshed with people behind the machinery of anti-science, such as <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute-manifestation-kochtopus-empire">Charles Koch</a> [17], <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/climate-change-and-well-informed-denial">Ken Cuccinelli</a> [18], <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/david-schnare">David Schnare</a> [19], <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/s-fred-singer">Fred Singer</a> [20], and <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/patrick-michaels">Pat Michaels</a> [21], plus the <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute">Heartland Institute</a> [22] and key Washington think tanks.  GMU even has a long history of tobacco connections, <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/fake-science-fakexperts-funny-finances-free-tax">oddly relevant</a> [23].

Following are a few brief summaries to motivate the title's phrases:

See No Evil: Via FOIA, the only investigation committee took 200 days to produce a 9-page report.  It ruled on Ray Bradley's three complaints based on Canadian blogger <a target="_blank" href="http://deepclimate.org/">Deep Climate</a> [24]'s early discoveries:

<ul>

<li>2.5 <a target="blank" href="http://deepclimate.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/wegman-bradley-tree-rings-v20.pdf">pages</a> [25] of <a target="blank" href="http://deepclimate.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/wegman-bradley-ice-cores-corals-v3.pdf">text</a> [26] mostly from Ray Bradley's book: paraphrasing, not plagiarism although serious plagiarism experts said otherwise long ago.</li>

<li>5.5 <a target="_blank" href="http://deepclimate.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/wegman-social-networks-v-2.pdf">pages</a> [27] of near-verbatim plagiarism of social networks text: never mentioned.</li>

<li>1.5 <a target="_blank" href="http://deepclimate.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/wegman-social-networks1.pdf">page</a> [28] subset re-used in later paper: plagiarism, likely unavoidable, since the publisher had forced retraction in May 2011. This is an obvious contradiction.</li>

</ul>

But there was more, found by Deep Climate and others:

<ul>

<li>Another 70 pages of formally-reported plagiarism, 27 in WR alone, in 6 more articles, half Federally-funded, and four PhD dissertations: never mentioned.</li>

<li>Alleged <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/wegman-report-not-just-plagiarism-misrepresentation">falsification</a> [29] in the Wegman Report: never mentioned.</li>

</ul>

Speak Little truth: GMU VP Roger Stough rarely told complainants much and when he did, he was often wrong or misleading, now seen more clearly by FOIA replies.  Stearns' letter   fabricated committee(s) and processes that never happened, casting doubt on the credibility of anything there.  GMU never informed Ray Bradley of any result.  GMUacknowledged receipt of other complaints, which then seemed to vanish into limbo. Complainants got no status reports.

Break Rules: FOIA replies exposed large policy-breaking schedule slips, at best poorly explained, at worst misleading.  GMU ignored its policy of pursuing all significant issues -  Stearns said there were no more investigations.   GMU's seemed to maximize discouragement and stonewalling of external complaints, even from distinguished academics like Ray Bradley or Ohio State's Rob Coleman, an experienced misconduct expert.  One can imagine GMU's handling of internal complaints, especially from junior faculty of students.

Blame Others:   GMU violated its "retaliation" policies by making false or misleading claims about Bradley, impugning his reputation and helping incite vitriolic blog attacks against him.   Universities are supposed to guard complainants from retaliation, repair it if need be, not do it themselves.  GMU owes Bradley many apologies.

Why would they do this? FOIAs have revealed actions far outside GMU's own policies, the norms of academe and possibly Federal rules.  Big universities are expected to know how to follow misconduct policies, so mere incompetence seems an insufficient explanation, especially with experienced administrators who should know better.

We cannot know exactly what happened, but GMU has some unusual connections that might help explain this.  No explicit pressure need be assumed, but a few parts of GMUare deeply involved in climate anti-science activities, so it is no surprise that something like the Wegman Report was written almost entirely by GMU faculty and students.

Funding. Charles Koch is by far the largest single foundation funder for each of GMU Foundation, its <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/koch-and-george-mason-university">Mercatus Center and Institute for Humane Studies</a> [30] (IHS).   His donations to these usually exceeded the research grants of most government agencies. His lieutenant <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/richard-fink">Richard Fink</a> [31] cofounded Mercatus and is a  Director of it and IHS. Koch is a Director of Mercatus and Chairman of IHS.

Money comes from other Koch allies, such as <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-denial-palooza-sponsors-have-received-67-million-exxonmobil-koch-and-scaife-foundations">Richard Mellon Scaife</a> [32], Searle Freedom Trust, Earhart Foundation, L&H Bradley and  <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/fake-science-fakexperts-funny-finances-free-tax">DONORS Trust+Capital,</a> [23] the second largest foundation giver, which anonymizes the real givers' identities.  The recently-discovered <a target="_blank" href="http://www.eri-nonprofit-salaries.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=NPO.Summary&EIN=541899251&">Knowledge and Progress Fund</a> [33] seems to send Koch money only toDONORS.  It is a real money maze

.

Governance. <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/koch-industries-inc-lobbying-activities">Nancy Mitchell Pfotenhauer</a> [34] is the Vice-Rector of the GMU Board of Visitors. She was a Koch Industries lobbyist and an executive of <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/americans-prosperity">Americans For Prosperity</a> [35].  The Board also includes <a target="blank" href="http://bov.gmu.edu/bios/dennis.html">Kimberly Dennis</a> [36] (Searle Freedom Trust, DONORS) and <a target="blank" href="http://bov.gmu.edu/bios/mcgettrick.html">Mark McGettrick</a> [37], Executive VP at Dominion Resources, a large utility that has donated well to the campaign of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, as has Koch Industries.

Lawyers. Ken Cuccinelli, his Deputy Wesley Russell and his <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/curious-coincidences-george-mason-university-ed-wegman-milton-johns-and-ken-cuccinelli">ex-partner Milton Johns (Wegman's lawyer)</a> [38] all got their JD degrees at GMU in the 1990s.  So did David Schnare, of the <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/american-tradition-institute">American Tradition Institute</a> [39] (ATI), well-known for FOIA harassment of UVA, Michael Mann, James Hansen, <a target="blank" href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2012/07/climate-science-attack-group-turns-sights-on-texas-professors.html">Andrew Dessler and Katharine Hayhoe</a> [40].  FOIA has legitimate uses, but can also be employed for harassment.  The reader can decide which <a target="blank" href="http://www.webcitation.org/69s2LDIj7">these</a> [41] are.

Schnare is also an Adjunct Professor who recently <a target="blank" href="http://www.law.gmu.edu/assets/files/academics/schedule/2012/summer/SCHNARE_FederalismLitPrac-S.pdf">taught a GMU course </a>[42]on how to do FOIAs, use the <a target="blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Quality_Act">Data Quality Act</a> [43], using this <a target="_blank" href="http://www.webcitation.org/69x9WhoYW">outline</a> [44].  it starts:

'This course is an introduction on how to sue the government when it does what it should not do. Citizens, advocates of small government and Tenth Amendment proponents engage

</blockquote>

He also offers "externships" to give students practice, via a new 501(c)(3) "public charity," originally (and legally still) the <a target="blank" href="http://fmelawclinic.org/?page_id=36">George Mason Environmental Law Clinic.</a> [45]  it is now called the <a target="blank" href="http://fmelawclinic.org/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Free Market ELC</a> [46], consisting of him and <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/chris-horner">Chris Horner</a> [47], as at ATI.  He was <a target="_blank" href="http://www.webcitation.org/6A48o5bgk">looking for students</a> [48] to file FOIAs against some Virginia university, likely not GMU.

Conclusion. We cannot know whether the strange process and absurd rulings came from overt pressure or implicit GMU culture.  A few parts of GMU form a very large gear in the machinery of anti-science and they defended Wegman at all costs.

Public funding of research depends on credibility, of which little is found in GMU's handling of this case.  Maybe it is time for a first-ever institutional debarment from Federal funding until they rebuiild a track record of normal behavior.  Given the credibility problems of key people, this may require outside teams.

Finally, people might recall the potential felony issues raised <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/crescendo-climategate-cacophony">here</a> [49]  and wonder if this process might add more obstruction of justice to the mix.  The old saying may apply: "It's not the crime - it's the cover-up."

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