wegman bak

wegman616

see main

---

==

mann hockey stick bk:

COOCH: birther, homophobe, ~ACA (un-Const) ~ EPA GHG sci unsound

went after all MMann records UVa 99-05, fraud statute --> CID (CEI foia had failed)

complied, but then asked for more? ~ state gop rep, Rep Moran D Va, wapo, aclu, aaup, FIRE, may 5 UVa faculty

12/09 Mashey and Deep Climate blogger ~ WEGMAN report (USA today)

found 1/3 plag and distorted from Bradley's [mm co-author] 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

MM support by Don Kennedy stanford pres?, nye, ehrlich, may 10 250 sci, NAS 11 nobels, open letter to Sci mag

markey house sci suppression

UCS nature journal ~ cooch. AMS, UCAR, AAAS

==

Edward Wegman

Bernard J. Dunn Professor

Primary Research: Computational Statistics

Email: ewegman@gmu.edu

Office: 119 Planetary Hall, MSN 6A12 Phone: 703-993-1691

not updated since 2007 off site

==

In May 2013, DeSmog published the FOIA Facts  (1, 2, 3, 4) series on the misdeeds of George Mason University (GMU) Professor **Edward Wegman and his long-time helper Yasmin Said, authors of the long-discredited 2006 Wegman Report(WR).  Behind those blog posts was a much more detailed report, published only today.  In May 2013, I sent that to a few Federal agencies and to Aurali Dade, GMU's AVP for Research Integrity and Assurance. I had thought to be done with the Wegman/Said/GMU saga, but was proved wrong.

On 03/24/15, Wegman and Said served legal complaints via Milt Johns of Day & Johns, once law partner of Ken Cuccinelli,  known for fruitlesslegal actions. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney_General_of_Virginia%27s_climate_science_investigation

Wegman and Said demanded $2M for tortious interference with contracts, asserting conspiracies, malice and punitive damages.

In June 2012, they had silently left their Editor-in-Chief roles at  Wiley's journal WIREs:Computational Statistics(WIREs:CS).  Wiley has never explained, but perhaps their departure was related to well-documented plagiarism complaints against *WIREs:CS papers*, Wegman and Said(2011) and Said and Wegman(2009). 

During March-May 2011, I and Ted Kirkpatrick reported to Wiley evidence of plagiarism as it accumulated, such as Ted's analysis. Said's false rank and affiliation on the masthead was fixable in a day, although retractions would have taken a bit longer. Only Steven Quigley responded and his early replies seemed reasonable. By early September, the false rank/affiliation were still wrong and Quigley's last reply on plagiarism was a discouraging stonewall.

By January 2012, Wiley had let them massively, but quietly, rewrite the online papers. But exposure of the cover-up reignited discussion, because few had ever seen such behavior by credible publishers.

During March-May 2012, David Graves helped me write to Wiley board members and executives.  We got no responses except a few by UK Communications Director Helen Bray.She told us there was no plagiarism problem and the replacement papers were fine and continued after Said and Wegman had left.

Wiley did not seem to be listening to us, so their rationale for a year's stonewall, a cover-up and then forced resignations is unknown to us.  SInce there is nothing to hide, our interactions with Wiley are shown and analyzed in §Q and §B.4 of the attached PDF, “Wegman, Said and Johns Sue Me For $2 Million.”

The essence of Wegman and Said's complaint was that I had told Wiley about the WR's plagiarism. They never mentioned the two papers or my role in reporting them to Wiley, strange omissions.  Perhaps they had not read my 2012 Report,  pp.50-52, which excerpted the key 2011 interactions with Wiley.  They got 23 pages of emails from Wiley, so they had clear evidence … but against their claims, and somehow that response did not get filed with court, my lawyers had to ask for it.

Wegman and Said acted as though their contract  conferred immunity to plagiarism allegations, so our reporting them was charageable as a malicious, illegal conspiracy. They seemed to think that Wiley would care only about WR plagiarism, not WIREs:CS papers.  They again claimed that all allegations of plagiarism were false, but this time in official court documents.

None of this made any sense to me, but then I am no lawyer. As it turned out, it made no sense to good lawyers either, and they quickly found numerous problems with the lawsuit filed against me, starting with venue choice of Virginia.

Wiley is headquartered in New Jersey and I am a long-time Californian with no ties to Virginia, where this case should never have been filed. Had they included Californian Graves, or Canadians Kirkpatrick or Deep Climate, it would have been worse.

Even with me as the only listed defendant, the case was rapidly removed to US Federal Court, but it did not last long.

On 04/30/15, before the first hearing, Milt Johns ended the case with voluntary dismissals by Wegman and Said.

The next day, Johns joined another law firm, Fluet Huber + Hoag, having left his own firm Day & Johns.

Since they filed “voluntary dismissals without prejudice” they theoretically could try again, but see our Motion to Dismiss.

They had started organizing this legal case in March 2014, a year before I was informed.  Johns subpoenaed Wiley in April 2014 and GMU in June 2014, also without informing me, a legal no-no.  He then threatened DeSmog with legal action, but rather vaguely, and finally escalated by copying Wegman's complaint for Yasmin Said, thus doubling the demands and paperwork.

Some good came of all this. Although their complaint listed the Wiley contract as an Exhibit, Johns had neither filed it with the court nor provided it when I was served.  When my lawyers finally got it, it strengthened 2013's allegations of serious funds misuse by Wegman and Said, and of course included known use of non-original material as a cause for termination.

For the expected next steps, I had to dig out old emails and organize them for the potential defense, and much of the attached report would never have been written otherwise. Thankfully, court records are mostly electronic, or many trees would have been slaughtered for the paperwork  seen in PDF §A-§D.

Although these silly complaints wasted the time of courts and some of mine, they did not cost me money.

The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) kindly offered to pay my legal expenses. Please consider donating. With advice, representation or funding, CSLDF helps others defend far more difficult and expensive cases than mine. They are a real resource for support for the climate science community. Thanks!

I also thank Cozen O’Connor’s Chad Kurtz, Tom Wilkinson and Peter Fontaine, good lawyers who also know the climate wars.

Many issues needed no explanations for them and I learned a great deal, including a few unfamiliar Latin phrases.

All this leaves a few open questions:

Will GMU continue in its resolute “See No Evil” approach?  Misconduct complaints like FOIA Facts just seem to vanish, and they changed policies to make them more opaque.  Wegman remains on the Promotions and Tenure Committee.

Will Wiley consider explaining its 2011-2012 behavior?

Why do so many of the legal harassments of the climate community involve GMU-trained lawyers?

And why do they keep citing the Wegman Report as credible, even in 2014, PDF §X.2?   David Schnareand Jonathan Riches  lost another round, but they keep pushing their “Waste Time” key, from voluminous court history (Case C20134963).

What were Wegman and Said thinking? And why did Johns not tell them this was a really bad idea?

What does the academic community think of $2 Million lawsuits to suppress investigative reporting of plagiarism?

---

deepclimate

Wegman and Said leave Wiley journal and Said disappears from GMU

Posted on July 13, 2012 |

The saga of statistician turned climate science critic Edward Wegman and his protege Yasmin Said has taken yet another strange turn. The pair’s tenure as editors-in-chief at the Wiley journal they founded three years ago quietly came to an unceremonious end recently, while  release of the hard-cover encyclopedia based on the journal also appears to have been delayed. Not only that, but it now seems that Yasmin Said’s stint as research assistant professor at George Mason University ended at the same time.

CHANGES AT WIREs COMPUTATIONAL STATISTICS …

Wiley Interdiscplinary Reviews – Computational Statistics (WIREs Comp Stat) began in 2009 as one of a series Wiley interdiscplinary journals (the WIREs stable has now reached eleven strong and includes WIREs Climate Change). Although WIRES Comp Stat itself is completely unrelated to climate studies, the original trio of editors – Wegman, Said and Rice University statistician David Scott – had collaborated earlier on the highly controversial congressional report on paleoclimatology known as the Wegman Report.

Wegman and Said also penned two major overview articles for the WIREs Comp Stat journal. Last year, I documented extensive copy-and-paste scholarship in *Color Theory and Design* and, even more shocking, in *Roadmap for Optimization*, the featured article in the journal’s inaugural issue. That continued a pattern of dubious scholarship seen in the Wegman Report itself, as well as in a followup paper on climate science social networks that was retracted – twice!

Wiley received complaints concerning both WIREs articles, and dealt with them in a most peculiar way: Wegman and Said were allowed (or allowed themselves) a complete “do over” of each article in turn. Dozens of citations were added, while all traces of previously evident copy-and-paste were scrubbed away. Here’s a small sample comparing a section on linear programming in the original version ofRoadmap to Tom Ferguson’s *Linear Programming: A Concise Introduction*, with the large swathe of identical wording highlighted in cyan, and trivial differences in yellow .

[graf]

That brings us to the current WIREs Comp Stat lineup, where all of a sudden David Scott is alone at the top of the masthead. That’s reflected in the latest  author style guide,  dated June 30, which also confirms that the change was very recent indeed.

It’s also noteworthy that the editorial board is down to only six members.

• Jerome H. Friedman, Stanford University
• Michael Friendly, York University
• Genshiro Kitagawa, Institute of Statistical Mathematics
• Carlo N. Lauro University of Naples “Federico II”
• Jae C. Lee, Korea University
• James L. Rosenberger, Pennsylvania State University

Back in 2010, there were almost double that number, but five have left in the last year or so. They include:

• Jianqing Fan (Princeton University)
• Xiao-Li Meng (Harvard University)
• Luke Tierney (University of Iowa)
• D. Michael Titterington (University of Glasgow)
• Antony Unwin (University of Augsburg)

WIREs Comp Stat, like all the WIREs journals, was conceived from the start as a “serial encyclopedia”. But as far as I know,  only the  Encyclopedia of Computational Statistics was also slated for release as an actual hard-cover encyclopedia, with a planned publication date of July 13, 2012 – today!

The Amazon U.K. website still shows the July 2012 publication date, but there is no indication as to when it will actually be released. (Google Books goes one better, happily showing a publication date of October 2010). Nevertheless, Amazon still has  the original description.

The Encyclopedia of Computational Statistics (EoCS) draws together material normally identified under the rubric of computational statistics. This includes material drawn from computationally intensive statistical methods such as bootstrapping; data visualization; machine intelligence; density estimation; data mining; pattern recognition; clustering and classification; and computational Bayesian methods such as Markov chain Monte Carlo. …

And Amazon UK is still taking orders, as they have for more than a year, although at £1,108.65 a pop (more than US $ 1700), one wonders how many pre-orders there could possibly be.

In contrast, the Wiley.com page for the *Encyclopedia of Computational Statistics*has no release date or description whatsoever but merely notes: “This product is not currently available for purchase from this website”. I can’t even find the front cover anywhere (although Wiley does show the compelling graphic at right).

Not all parts of the Wiley empire have gotten the memo though. Wiley’s Iranian subsidiary, like Amazon UK and other booksellers, still has a release date of July 2012 and the original description.

… AND CHANGES AT GMU

Meanwhile, interesting changes are also afoot at George Mason University. It seems that barely over a week ago, Yasmin Said disappeared completely from the GMU online ‘People Finder” directory, as well as the full GMU directory. Her erstwhile post as Research Assistant Professor in GMU’s School of  Physics, Astronomy and Computational Sciences could be seen in the Google cache from June (but even that is gone now).

[graf]

Wegman and Said had ended up in SPACS after last year’s merger of their former “home” department of  Computational and Data Sciences. Said’s departure also leaves the Wegman-led research unit Center for Computational Data Sciences (confusing, I know) down to Wegman  and six other professors (each of whom also has a primary “home” posting).

[graf]

And, unlike last year, this year’s directory listing shows that the Center no longer even has an online presence; indeed, there is little evidence of much recent activity there on the entire GMU website. All this is in contrast with the heady days of 1997, when the Center had no less than 20 GMU “regular” research faculty, as well as eight “corresponding” research faculty from other institutions, such as Wegman Report co-author David Scott and Wegman Report “reviewer” Enders Robinson. Unlike the global surface temperature record, the Center for Computational Data Sciences has clearly seen a severe decline in the last fifteen years.

In fact, not only has the Center gone dark, at least on the web, but the erstwhile GMU statistics “Galaxy” server itself has  disappeared. Only a year ago, it was billed asthe server for “Statistics at George Mason University”. It hosted not only the Center (albeit with badly of date information), but served as a portal to all statistics-related departments at GMU, as well as linking to professional organizations and conferences.

[graf]

But as of the beginning of this month, the Galaxy front page just had a list of four courses (mostly associated with Wegman in the past), before finally going dark a few days ago.

[graf]

DEVELOPMENTS AT THE INTERFACE SYMPOSIUM

And that brings us to yet another significant change involving Wegman and Said.

The Interface Symposium on statistical computing dates back to 1967, and George Mason University (and Wegman in particular) have played a leading role since its reorganization as the expanded Interface Foundation in 1988. That involvement included hosting the Interface website at GMU.  So when the GMU Galaxy server went offline, the Interface Symposia website went down too. Fortunately, we can trace its  much of its recent developments via Google cache and Archive.org.

Over the years, Wegman was a constant presence at Interface and many of his former students participated in various ways (a detailed chronology can be found in Appendix A.6.2 at p. 75 in John Mashey’s magnum opus, Strange Scholarship in the Wegman Report) .

That culminated in the 2010 Seattle conference where Wegman and Said served as co-chairs. Two Said-organized sessions on climate science and policy saw participation from contrarians Fred Singer, Don Easterbrook, Jeff Keuter (of the Marshall Institute) and Said herself holding forth on Climategate. Mark Berliner of Ohio State provided the sole “balance” from the mainstream.

As I noted at the time, this travesty was financially suppported by the computing and graphics sections of the American Statistical Association, as well as the National Institute of Statistical Sciences.

[O]ne of the conference co-chairs, Yasmin Said, accused climate scientists of “the willingness” to “bend the peer review process” and “destroy data”. And one of the invited presenters, Don Easterbrook, goes further and accuses climate scientists of outright scientific fraud …

How can the ASA allow itself to be associated with, let alone give financial grant support to, such a symposium?

Well, perhaps in the end, the ASA couldn’t, although Wegman and Said did return to co-chair the 2011 edition held at the SAS campus in Cary, NC.

In any event, the 2012 edition of Interface was notable for the complete absence of Wegman for the first time in many years; nor was there anyone else from George Mason University. As he did at WIRES Comp Stat, David Scott was there to pick up the pieces, co-chairing a fine program committee, and hosting the conference at Rice University. By all appearances, the  result was a compelling event with the theme of *Future of Statistical Computing: Internet Scale Data, Flexible Modeling, and Visualization*.

AN EVOLVING STORY

To be sure, one can only speculate as to the full context and significance of  Wegman and Said’s departure from Wiley, Said’s exit from GMU, and all the other changes. That will likely remain the case even when those organizations finally respond publicly to these developments. Nevertheless, it does seem that there are starting to be consequences for Wegman and Said, whether Wiley and GMU care to admit it or not.  And perhaps the coverup attempts will also start to unravel.

Still, the impact of Wegman and Said’s efforts on the politicization of climate science has yet to be addressed.And here, once again, Wegman’s longtime collaborator David Scott has a responsibility to step up once and for all.

True, Scott may well have had nothing to do with the unacceptable scholarship in the background sections of the Wegman Report, or the manifestly biased and deeply flawed analysis at its core. But that is all the more reason for him to finally do the right thing and remove his name from the report.

This story is far from over and I’ll await developments along with everyone else. Meanwhile, I’ll also be focusing future efforts on revisiting Wegman and Said’s benighted analysis of paleoclimatology and the McIntyre-McKitrick “hockey stick” critique, beginning with the ever-shifting and confused definitions of “red noise” within the Wegman Report. Stay tuned.

This entry was posted in Climate science disinformation and tagged David Scott, Edward Wegman, George Mason Umiversity, Wiley, WIREs Computational Statistics, Yasmin Said. Bookmark the permalink.

27 RESPONSES TO “WEGMAN AND SAID LEAVE WILEY JOURNAL AND SAID DISAPPEARS FROM GMU”

==

desmog mashey

People try to paint climate scientists as members of a cabal or conspiracyto hide the truth, but this idea is often promoted by thinktanks, politicians, bloggers, journalists and some economists, members of a tight social network themselves. Their emails are not usually subject to FOIAs, but the FOIA Factsresearch fortuitously found unexpected data.

Email to Ed Wegman highlighted close relationships between UK‘s main climate anti-science charity, Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), its counterparts in the US and Canada, and some key Congressional staffers. Many email addresses were quite familiar, with a few surprises, including involvement of AIER, a previously unnoticed thinktank.

In the English-speaking machinery of climate anti-science, GWPF is the main UK gear, seen to be well-meshed with AEI, CATO, CEI, CFACT, GMI, Heartland Institute(HI), ICSC, IER, Mercatus (GMU), PERC,SEPP plus staffers for Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) and SenatorJames Inhofe(R-OK), among others.

In October 2010, USA Today‘s Dan Vergano sent FOIA requests to George Mason University (GMU), which gave them to Ed Wegman for reply. The American Tradition Institute ( David Schnare, Chris Horner, etc) published the full sequence in May 2011, then Vergano put separate files online in 2013, two noted inFOIA Facts 2. Regarding Peter Spencer, who managed the Wegman Report’s creation for Rep. Barton, Wegman wrote to GMU FOIA officer Phil Hunt, forwarding a message from Patrick David Henderson, Chair of GWPF‘s Academic Advisory Council:

‘VIA EMAIL on October 19, 2010

Dear Phil: This is the only email on my GMU accountthat even has Peter Spencer’s email. Note that this is from the past August.

Best,

Ed

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:18:03 +0100 From: Patrick David Henderson <EMAIL> Subject: Reviewing the IPCC

To: (list of people enumerated later)

Dear All, As you know, the expert committee appointed by the InterAcademy Council to review the role and functioning of the IPCC is due to report at the end of this month. Against this background, you might be interested to see the three attached documents* which were submitted as evidence to the committee. The respective authors are Gordon Hughes, Ross McKitrick and me.* Although we are all professors of economics, each of these submissions follows its own distinctive line of argument: they are in fact complementary. Taken together, they present a strong case for change, alongside specific proposals for giving effect to it.’

In addition to his long-time gmu.edu email, by September 2005 Wegman began to use a gmail account through which he handled all Wegman Report communication. Henderson sent to both accounts. Wegman had resumed attacks on climate science in 2009, speaking more, giving Fred Singer, Jeff Kueter (GMI) and Don Easterbrook slots at his Interface conference, §0.3, §A.6.4. This single email proves nothing about any earlier conversations, except that Wegman claimed no more such messages arrived via gmu.edu. The fortuitous find was GWPF‘s recipient list.

GWPF‘s Director is Benny Peiser, a social (sports) anthropologist known for his inept failed attempt to refute Naomi Oreske’s 2004 essay on consensus in climate science. In 2007, Mr. Klaus-Martin Schulte, then an endocrine surgeon at the NHS and King’s College London, tried again, and likewise failed. Perhaps his obvious endocrinology expertise was even less relevant to climate than Peiser’s. That attempt was orchestrated by Robert Ferguson and especially the Viscount Christopher Monckton, an in-law of Lord Nigel Lawson, the Chairman of the GWPF Board.

Henderson’s To: list included many long active in climate anti-science, a few new names and some people that seemed irrelevant to climate anti-science, perhaps past associates he wanted to convince and may well not have expected or wanted this email. People are listed by groupings, tagged as Heartland experts or speakers, DeSmogBlog database, SourceWatch, Wikipedia, or Other. Mention in earlier reports is tagged as c, s, f. Use Full Search on the PDFs. Many of these people have moved among thinktanks or have many more affiliations, have attended Heartland or other conferences together. This is a very tight-coupled social network, but is not so explicit as the open list of contributors to IPCC reports.

Relevant scientists are scarce in this list, but it certainly includes many economists associated with politics and/or thinktanks, some with strong ideological bents that seem to make non-scientsts spend their time casting doubt on science they find inconvenient.

Most of these were familiar, as seen by the high density of H, D, S, and csf tags. A new addition is the American Institute of Economic Research (AIER), which seems a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) public charity that runs a for-profit investment subsidiary. That may bear further scrutiny, but AIER‘s relevance here is in some its various “educational” materials:

2001A Climate of Opinion: The Kyoto Protocols and Atmospheric Science,?

This Economic Education Bulletin cites Robert Essenhigh, Arthur Robinson, John Christy, the Greening Earth Society, John Daly, Indur Goklany, Richard Lindzen, Frederick Seitz, the OISM Petition. Readers can assess the quality of “education” provided by this 501(c)(3) entity.

2005Economics, Climate Change Issues, and Global Salvationism, D.Henderson

2009Climate Science, Economics, and Policy, David Henderson

AIER ran a conference in 2007 with PDF Proceedings also sold as a book, and unlike Heartland Conferences, some participants are quite credible, but readers might guess the likely results given the mix of participants:

2008 GlobalWarming Debate Science, Economics, and Policy, Kerry Lynch, Ed.

‘with content by Michale J. Rizzo (sic, AIER), Carl Wunsch (M.I.T.), David S. Chapman (U Utah, Geology and geophysics), William R. Cotton, William M. Gray, James I. Mills (Architecture & Planning, U Utah), David Henderson, Ross McKitrick, Claudia Rosett, Kenneth P. Green, Robert H. Nelson(Environmental Policy, U MD),E. Calvin Beisner, Richard S. Lindzen.‘

Also participating were Edward J. Kane (Finance, Boston College), Robert O. Mendelsohn (Economics, Yale), Gilbert E. Metcalf (Economics, Tufts U), Gordon E. Michaels (CTO Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Richard L. Stroup (PERC, CATO, Mont Pelerin), Peter J. Wilcoxen (Economics and Public Administration, Syracuse U).

People can study the PDF of the proceedings, which include statements such as these in the Introduction, by AIER Senior Economist Michael J. Rizzo:

‘Just as important, the scientific consensus is not as strong as the popular one. The state of scientific knowledge is less certain than the media and others often suggest. …

Climate science is extremely complex for three reasons, …

First, it is an immature science….

Second, climate science is virtually the “science of everything.” …

Third, modern climate science relies on large, complicated models that seek to describe and predict the climate system, but these models are inherently unreliable and unstable. For instance, climate models predicted three to six times more warming than that which has occurred to date. Complexity does not ensure accuracy. (In this regard, climate models are reminiscent of the failed macroeconomic econometric models that were popular a generation ago.)

Thus, even a broad climate “consensus” may prove fragile. …

According to the scientists at our conference, identifying mankind’s role in the climate question is not easy and might not even be possible for decades.Potential natural sources of climate change include solar variability, aerosol variation, changes in cloud cover, greenhouse gases, changes in land use, and natural variability from factors such as El Niño and the oceans’ thermohaline circulation. Changes in any or all of these may be sufficient to account for the changes in global mean temperature since 1880.

Evidence abounds to suggest that CO2 is far from the most important contributor to global warming. Previous interglacial periods were much warmer and had far lower concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere; and it might eventually be demonstrated that CO2 concentrations lag temperature increases. When the temperature change is within a few tenths of a degree, it is difficult to identify the particular causes.’

Some economists can be Merchants of doubt about science, not just a few old physicists.

A future post may review the 3 attachments by Hughes, McKitrick and Henderson,included with Henderson’s email. Some suggestions might actually have been useful. Some rely heavily on McKitrick’s opinions of the IPCC and claims to statistical credibility.

The attached spreadsheet is a map of people X (activities and organizations), similar to Appendix A.6 in older PDF, wherein many of the abbreviations are explained. Most of the people listed above are strongly connected via shared activities and organizations involved in climate anti-science, with far too many to show in a simple table. Many of the same people appear again and again.

Update 06/13/13: A few of GWPF‘sAdvisors are also involved with the Instiute for Economic Affairs (IEA), another well-connected thinktank. From IEA‘s list, those in common include David Henderson, Professor Sir Gordon Peacock and Sir Samuel Brittan. IEA‘s list also included IER‘s Robert L. Bradley (on email list) and George Mason Unversity’s Walter E. Williams, for whom Nancy Mitchell Pfotenhauer was a research assistant. Unlike GWPF, but like many US thintkanks, IEA has had serious tobacco involvement, confirmed by checking the files mentioned in Fakery 2, fn203, and searching the LTDL. Clearly, IEA has been involved with Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, and British American Tobacco since the 1980s and getting money.

Update 06/13/14: Lord Lawson’s climate-change think tank risks being stripped of charitable status.

---

off bs

Milton C. Johnsis a founding attorney at the law firm, Day & Johns, PLLC.  He has been in private practice for over 17 years and has spent almost 30 years in government and defense contracting arenas in a variety of roles. He is an adjunct professor of Business Law at Northern Virginia Community College, and a former adjunct professor of business law at Strayer University in Woodbridge, Virginia and of legal research and writing at George Mason University School of Law.

A graduate of George Washington University with a B.A. in Political Science, he earned a Master’s Degree from that school in Security Policy Studies. His Juris Doctorate was awarded by the George Mason University School of Lawwith High Honors.

Mr. Johns has appeared and argued in General District, Juvenile and Domestic Relations District, and Circuit Courts of numerous Virginia jurisdictions, and the Supreme Court of Virginia.  He is also admitted to practice and has appeared and argued in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of Virginia.  His primary areas of practice are in business litigation, corporate law and formation, government contracts and serving as counsel for government contracting companies.  This practice includes drafting and review of nondisclosure agreements, teaming agreements, contracts (prime and sub), compliance review and advice (FAR, DFARS, ITAR, EAR, SBA), novations, mergers and acquisitions, GSA Schedules, NISPOM security matters and employment law.  His litigation efforts include discovery, motions practice, and bench and jury trials.  Other practice areas include intellectual property, export control (ITAR/EAR), employment law, personal injury, criminal and civil defense, domestic relations, wills, employment, consumer, collections, bankruptcy and landlord/tenant law.

Mr. Johns has served as an elected representative to the Prince William County School Board since 2004, and since 2008 has served as the Chairman at Large.  Mr. Johns was awarded the Aeronautical Merit Cross, second class, by the government of Spain in 1995. He is published in fiction and nonfiction.

• ** This website is for informational purposes only. No legal advice is provided on this website. Day & Johns, PLLC provide legal services only pursuant to written agreements between the firm and its clients. This website should not be construed as an offer of legal services outside those jurisdictions where the firm's attorneys are admitted to practice law.
• ### Contact Us

Phone: 703-268-5600

Fax: 703-268-5602

==

Nearly two years ago, Canadian blogger Deep Climate found thefirst few pages of plagiarism in the Wegman Report.  Since then, he and others have found many more, whose chronology is graphed in Plagiarism chains involving Edward Wegman and/or students, 10/07/11, going back to 1996.

After 17+ months beyond the first of many formal complaints, and despite exhortation from a Nature editorial in May 2011 to move faster, George Mason University (GMU) is still reviewing the situation.

Dan Vergano of USA Todayreported on 05/16/11 that

“Neither Dr. Wegman nor Dr. Said has ever engaged in plagiarism,” says their attorney, Milton Johns, by e-mail. In a March 16 e-mail to the journal, Wegman blamed a student who “had basically copied and pasted” from others' work into the 2006 congressional report, and said the text was lifted without acknowledgment and used in the journal study. “We would never knowingly publish plagiarized material” wrote Wegman, a former CSDAjournal editor.”

But who is Milton Johns, to be so confident of his firm statement?

A quick search finds Milton C. Johns, Attorney at Law, whose motto seems to be:

When Experience, Integrity and Understanding matter most…

His About Me notes he has published both fiction and nonfiction, and shows:

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, Arlington, VA Juris Doctor with High Honors, December 1997

GMU J.D. Wesley Russell is the actual filer of Civil Investigative Demands against the University of Virginia. His boss, GMU J.D.Virginia Attorney General Ken **Cuccinelli  has been well-funded by coal and utilities.  He has also received funding from the Koch brothers,  long-time givers to GMU and its various institutes.

Their latest CID relies heavily on the Wegman Report, and like it, is filled with errors.  As the CID's detailed climate material seems unlikely to be covered in law school, it remains to be seen if unacknowledged help was provided by others, perhaps VA residents well-connected with GMU, like Fred Singer or Pat Michaels.

Milt Johns has a page at the Red Dog Express, RPV Network, where Crescendo to Climategate Cacophony, p.115 had  found Jerry Coffey, who in 2005 contacted Wegman, starting the work that led to the Wegman Report.  One of John's “friends” there is Cuccinelli, unsurprising as they were contemporaneous at GMU.

Actually, the relationship was much closer, as in  ~2008, Milt Johns was a partner in a 4-person law firm, Cuccinelli & Day, LLC, so  Johns was Cuccinelli's law partner.

Coincidences happen.

UPDATE 11/06/11

Courtesy of J. Bowers, we find that the lawyer David Schnare, who has been filing the complaint against U VA for the “American Tradition Institute” (ATI) got his J.D. from GMU in 1999.   Well, coincidences do happen sometime, especially around a school beloved of the Koch brothers.

==

Excerpts from Wegman's complaint may be instructive.  The almost-identical Wegman and Said suits are dissected in detail, but a few excerpts are shown below.  Disputedimplies more complex refutation than simple False.

‘3. Defendant John Mashey is a nationally recognized science figure and blogger, writing regularly for “Desmog Blog,” and has reached into Virginia and the nation, creating substantial contacts, thus subjecting him to the personal jurisdiction of this court.’ False, not VA, although the first comment is nice, whatever it means.

‘FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS

6. Edward Wegman was the lead author in a 2006 report to Congress, referred to as the “Hockey Stick Report” or the “Wegman Report,” that cast serious doubt on the reliability of the statistics used by proponents of “global warming” theories of anthropogenic climate change.  Disputed, Strange Scholarship… and Replication…

7. In March of 2009, Defendant John Mashey, via the web blog Deepclimate.org performed an analysis of the Wegman Report that purported to show plagiarism by Wegman.’  False:Dec 2009, Deep Climate, not me.

8. In March of 2010, based on Mashey's writings, Raymond Bradley, of the University of Massachusetts, made a complaint to Said's employer, George Mason University, alleging plagiarism in the report from one of Bradley's textbooks.’  False, based on work of blogger Deep Climate.  Strange Inquiries pp.24-28, 30, USA Today

9. Two different committees investigated the charges and no plagiarism was found.’  False,  by FOIA.

19. John Mashey, John Doe, and others used defamation and engaged in common law and statutory conspiracy to get Wegman removed from the editorial board at Wiley by the letter writing campaign.’ Disputed.  PDF §Q

21. Wegman was never found to have committed plagiarism, and any such allegation is untrue.’ False, disputed.

22. John Mashey, John Doe, and others were motivated by malice, spite, and ill will, all driven by a publicly expressed desire to discredit or ruin their opposition.’  Disputed.PDF  §Q.

Following is the overview of the full report. People who understand plagiarism can skip many of the examples.  PDF  §Q is 40 pages long only for completeness, to show the real interactions with Wiley.  A useful selection of court records is attached, sometimes with annotations.

img many many pdf's]

https://www.desmogblog.com/2015/05/19/ed-wegman-yasmin-said-milt-johns-sue-john-mashey-2-million

==

said returns?

http://www.interfacesymposia.org/interface/history.html

==

https://www.**desmogblog.**com/:{edward-wegman}:

Credentials

• Ph.D., Mathematics, University of Iowa (1968).
• M.S., Mathematics, University of Iowa (1967).
• B.S., Mathematics, St. Louis University (1965).

Source: [1], [2]

Background

Edward Wegman is a statistics professor at George Mason University, and past chair of the National Research Council’s Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics. He is also a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and a Senior Member of the IEEE.

Wegman contributed to the 2006 Committee on Energy and Commerce Report investigation inquiring into the Michael Mann's Hockey stick graph, in what became known as the “Wegman Report.” Wegman received criticism on more than one occasion for allegedly plagiarizing sections of the report. [3]

Wegman has been a program chair of the Interface Foundation of North America, Inc., which is the host organization for the Symposia on the Interface of Computing Science and Statistics. He was once a Senior Member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).[4]

Stance on Climate Change

“We were not asked to assess the reality of global warming and indeed this is not an area of our expertise. We do not assume any position with respect to global warming except to note in our report that the instrumented record of global average temperature has risen since 1850 according to the MBH 99 chart by about 1.2º centigrade. [5]

Key Quotes

“Overall, our committee believes that Dr. Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.” [6]

Key Deeds

July 27, 2006

Testified at a hearing on “Questions Surrounding the 'Hockey Stick' Temperature Studies: Implications for Climate Change Assessments - PartII.” [7]

July 19, 2006

Testifiedat a hearing of the [barton?] House Committee on Energy and Commerce (Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations) where he presented his findings from the investigation into the hockey stick published by Michael Mann.[9]

Wegman notes (PDF) that “We were not asked to assess the reality of global warming and indeed this is not an area of our expertise.”

July 14, 2006

The Wegman Report, officially titled the “Ad Hoc Committee Report On the 'Hockey Stick' Global Climate Reconstruction” was released.

It was commissioned by Congress as an investigation into the “hockey stick” graph published by Michael Mann and used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) prominently to illustrate the reality of climate change. The Wegman report was highly critical of Mann's graph.

Wegman was later accused of plagiarizing sections of the report, largely from one of the graph's original authors, Raymond Brandley.

Although the George Mason University is investigating the report, they have not yet acted on the charges. *Nature* recently questioned why George Mason University has taken over fourteen months in their review.

A report by John Mashey found Wegman's report to be guilty of falsifications, misrepresentation and fabricationsthat could give rise to a charge of academic misconduct. When Wegman tried to publish the report in the peer-reviewed journal of Computational Data and Statistics Analysis (CSDA), it was rejected due to possible plagiarism from Wikipedia and textbooks. [8]

Affiliations 

• George Mason Universtiy (GMU) — Statistics professor.

Publications

Wegman has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals in the area of statistics. According to a search of Google Scholar, he has not published any articles in peer-reviewed journals on the subject of climate.

• “Ad Hoc Committee Report On the 'Hockey Stick' Global Climate Reconstruction” (PDF, July 2006). Authors include Edward J. Wegman, David W. Scott, and Yasmin H. Said, with contributions from John T. Rigsby, III, and Denise M. Reeves.

Related DeSmogBlog Posts

• “Wegman Report: Not just plagiarism, misrepresentation.” Richard Littlemore. 5 June 2011.
• “Nature Scolds GMU over Wegman Inquiry.” Richard Littlemore. 26 May 2011.
• “Mashey Report Reveals Wegman Manipulations.” Richard Littlemore. 23 May 2011.
• “Wegman Paper Retracted for Plagiarism.” Richard Littlemore. 16 May 2011.
• “GMU still paralyzed; Wegman, Rapp still paranoid.” Richard Littlemore. 6 January 2011.
• “GMU Paralyzed by Plagiarism Investigation.” Richard Littlemore. 14 December 2010.
• “Joe Barton: Misleading Congress; Misleading America.” Richard Littlemore. 12 October 2010.
• “Hockey Stick Basher Wegman Under Investigation.” Richard Littlemore. 8 October 2010.
• “Wegman, et al: Using Statistics to Mislead Congress?” Richard Littlemore. 27 September 2010.
• “Deep Climate exposes more cheating by team Wegman.” Richard Littlemore. 23 April 2010.
• “Wegman's Report Highly Politicized - and Fatally Flawed.” Richard Littlemore. 8 February 2010.
• “Plagiarism? Conspiracies? Felonies? Breaking out the Wegman File.” 7 February 2010.

Resources

1. “Edward Wegman,” George Mason University. Accessed February, 2012.
2. “Edward J. Wegman,” Statistics at George Mason University. Archived December 27, 2008.
3. Dan Vergano. “Experts claim 2006 climate report plagiarized,” USA Today, November 22, 2010. Archived February 23, 2012, with WebCite.
4. “A Brief History of the Interface Symposia,” Interface. Accessed February, 2012.
5. “Report on the 'Hockey Stick' Global Climate Reconstruction” (PDF). Testimony of Edward J. Wegman. Archived February 28, 2008, from the Committee on Energy and Commerce website.
6. “Report Raises New Questions About Climate Change Assessments” (PDF Press Release). U.S. House Committee on Energy & Commerce press release.
7. “Summary of Hearings on Climate Change (12-8-06),” American Geosciences Institute Government Affairs Program. Accessed February, 2012.
8. John Mashey. “John Mashey on Strange Scholarship in the Wegman Report,” Deep Climate, September 26, 2010.
9. “Hearing: Questions Surrounding the 'Hockey Stick' Temperature Studies: Implications for Climate Change Assessments,” Committee on Energy and Commerce. Archived July 30, 2008.
10. “Edward Wegman,” Wikipedia Entry.
11. “Edward Wegman,” SourceWatch Profile.

Related Posts

• Beyond Melania, Plagiarism Denial From Politicians, Climate Deniers
• Ed Wegman, Yasmin Said, Milt Johns Sue John Mashey For $2 Million
• FOIA Facts 3 - More Plagiarism - Get Grants Or Claim Credit
• FOIA Facts 2 - No Pro Bono - Federal Funds Mis-Used For Wegman Report And Much More
• FOIA Facts 1 - More Misdeeds By Ed Wegman, Yasmin Said, George Mason University

TAGS:

michael mann

hockey stick

global warming

climate change

desmogblog

global warming blog

denial industry

climate change denier

Edward Wegman

global warming research

climate misinformation

Wegman report

george mason university

smogger

climate change skeptic

climate denialism

denial database

---

wiki

Wegman Report (officially called the Ad Hoc Committee Report on the 'Hockey Stick' Global Climate Reconstruction) was prepared in 2006 by three statisticians led by Edward Wegman at the request of Rep. Joe Barton of the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce to validate criticisms made by Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick of reconstructions of the temperature record of the past 1000 years, in particular the reconstructions by Mann, Bradleyand Hughes which had become the focus of the hockey stick controversy.

• 1Background
  • 1.1Congressional investigations
  • 1.2National Research Council Report
• 2Committee on Energy and Commerce Report (Wegman Report)
  • 2.1Discussion and hearings
  • 2.2Issues raised by the Wegman Report
    • 2.2.1Critiques of MBH98 and MBH99 by McIntyre and McKitrick
    • 2.2.2Peer review: social network analysis
    • 2.2.3Interactions between climatologists and statisticians
    • 2.2.4Sharing of data and methods
  • 2.3Plagiarism charges against Wegman
    • 2.3.1Social network analysis paper
    • 2.3.2Disciplinary procedure
• 3Notes
• 4References in chronological sequence
• 5External links

Background[

Main article: Hockey stick controversy

Investigations of paleoclimate date back to the 1930s. but quantitative methods were slow to come into use. In the 1960s, Hubert Lamb generalised from historical documents and temperature records of central England to propose a Medieval Warm Period from around 900 to 1300, followed by Little Ice Age. This was the basis of a "schematic diagram" featured in the IPCC First Assessment Report beside cautions that the medieval warming might not have been global. The use of proxy indicators to get quantitative estimates of the temperature record of past centuries was developed, and Bradley & Jones 1993 introduced the "Composite Plus Scaling" (CPS) method used by most later large scale reconstructions.^[1][2] Their study was featured in the IPCC Second Assessment Report, and in the United States House Committee on Science its findings were disputed by Pat Michaels.

In 1998 Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley and Malcolm K. Hughes developed new statistical techniques to produce Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1998 (MBH98), which showed global patterns of annual surface temperature, and included a graph of average hemispheric temperatures back to 1400 with shading emphasising that uncertainties (to two standard error limits) were much greater in earlier centuries.^[3] Jones et al. 1998 independently produced a CPS reconstruction extending back for a thousand years, and Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1999 (MBH99) used the MBH98 methodology to extend their study back to 1000.^[4][5] The term hockey stick was coined by the climatologist Jerry Mahlman, to describe the pattern this showed, envisaging a graph that is relatively flat to 1900 as forming an Ice hockey stick's "shaft", followed by a sharp increase corresponding to the "blade".^[6][7]

A version of this graph was featured prominently in the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR), which also drew on Jones et al. 1998 and three other reconstructions to support the conclusion that, in the Northern Hemisphere, the 1990s was likely to have been the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year during the past 1,000 years.^[5] The graph was featured in publicity, and became a focus of dispute for those opposed to the strengthening scientific consensus that late 20th century warmth was exceptional.^[8]

In 2003, as lobbying over the 1997 Kyoto Protocol intensified, Soon and Baliunas published a paper claiming greater medieval warmth,and on this basis theBush administration chief of staff Philip Cooney deleted references to climate reconstructions from the first Environmental Protection Agency Report on the Environment. The paper was quickly dismissed by scientists in the Soon and Baliunas controversy, but on July 28, Republican Jim Inhofe spoke in the Senate speech citing Soon and Baliunas to claim "that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people".^[9]

Later in 2003, Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick published McIntyre & McKitrick 2003 disputing the data used in MBH98 paper. They were given extensive publicity, and met Inhofe as well as making a presentation sponsored by the George C. Marshall Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. In 2004 Hans von Storch published criticism of the statistical techniques as tending to underplay variations in earlier parts of the graph, though this was disputed and he later accepted that the effect was very small.^[10] In 2005 McIntyre and McKitrick published criticisms of the principal components analysis methodology as used in MBH98 and MBH99. Their analysis was subsequently disputed by published papers including Huybers 2005 and Wahl & Ammann 2007which pointed to errors in the McIntyre and McKitrick methodology.

In June 2005 Rep. Joe Barton launched what Sherwood Boehlert, chairman of the House Science Committee, called a "misguided and illegitimate investigation" into the data, methods and personal information of Mann, Bradley and Hughes. At Boehlert's request a panel of scientists convened by the National Research Councilwas set up, which reported in 2006 supporting Mann's findings with some qualifications, including agreeing that there were some statistical failings but these had little effect on the result.^[11] Barton and U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield requested Edward Wegman to set up a team of statisticians to investigate, and they supported McIntyre and McKitrick's view that there were statistical failings, although they did not quantify whether there was any significant effect. They also produced an extensive network analysis which has been discredited by expert opinion and found to have issues of plagiarism.

Congressional investigations

The increasing politicisation of the issue was demonstrated when,^[12] on 23 June 2005, Rep. Joe Barton, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce wrote joint letters with Ed Whitfield, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, referring to issues raised by the 14 February 2005 article in the Wall Street Journal and demanding full records on climate research. The letters were sent to the IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri, National Science Foundation Director Arden Bement, and to the three scientists Mann, Bradley and Hughes.^[13] The letters told the scientist to provide not just data and methods, but also personal information about their finances and careers, information about grants provided to the institutions they had worked for, and the exact computer codes used to generate their results.^[14]

Sherwood Boehlert, chairman of the House Science Committee, told his fellow Republican Joe Barton it was a "misguided and illegitimate investigation" into something that should properly be under the jurisdiction of the Science Committee, and wrote "My primary concern about your investigation is that its purpose seems to be to intimidate scientists rather than to learn from them, and to substitute congressional political review for scientific review." 

Barton's committee spokesman sent a sarcastic response to this and to Democrat Henry A.**Waxman'sletter asking Barton to withdraw the letters and saying he had "failed to hold a single hearing on the subject of global warming" during eleven years as chairman, and had "vociferously opposed all legislative efforts in the Committee to address global warming .... These letters do not appear to be a serious attempt to understand the science of global warming. Some might interpret them as a transparent effort to bully and harass climate change experts who have reached conclusions with which you disagree." The U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) president Ralph J. Cicerone wrote to Barton that "A congressional investigation, based on the authority of the House Commerce Committee, is probably not the best way to resolve a scientific issue, and a focus on individual scientists can be intimidating", and proposed that the NAS should appoint an independent panel to investigate. Barton dismissed this offer.^[15][16]

Mann, Bradley and Hughes sent formal letters giving their detailed responses to Barton and Whitfield. On 15 July, Mann wrote emphasising that the full data and necessary methods information was already publicly available in full accordance with National Science Foundation(NSF) requirements, so that other scientists had been able to reproduce their work. NSF policy was that computer codes "are considered the intellectual property of researchers and are not subject to disclosure", as the NSF had advised McIntyre and McKitrick in 2003, but notwithstanding these property rights, the program used to generate the original MBH98 temperature reconstructions had been made available at the Mann et al. public ftp site. ^[17]

Many scientists protested against Barton's investigation,with 20 prominent climatologists questioning his approach.^[18] Alan I. Leshner wrote to him on behalf of the American Association for the Advancement of Science expressing deep concern about the letters, which gave "the impression of a search for some basis on which to discredit these particular scientists and findings, rather than a search for understanding."^[19] He stated that MBH had given out their full data and descriptions of methods, and were not the only evidence in the IPCC TAR that recent temperatures were likely the warmest in 1,000 years; "a variety of independent lines of evidence, summarized in a number of peer-reviewed publications, were cited in support". Thomas Crowley argued that the aim was intimidation of climate researchers in general, and Bradley thought the letters were intended to damage confidence in the IPCC during preparation of its next report.^[20]

A Washington Post editorial on 23 July which described the investigation as harassment quoted Bradley as saying it was "intrusive, far-reaching and intimidating", and Alan I. Leshner of the AAAS describing it as unprecedented in the 22 years he had been a government scientist; he thought it could "have a chilling effect on the willingness of people to work in areas that are politically relevant."^[14] Benjamin D. Santer told the New Scientist "There are people who believe that if they bring down Mike Mann, they can bring down the IPCC."^[21]

Congressman Boehlert said the investigation was as "at best foolhardy" with the tone of the letters showing the committee's "inexperience" in relation to science. Barton was given support by global warming sceptic Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who said "We've always wanted to get the science on trial ... we would like to figure out a way to get this into a court of law", and "this could work".^[20] In his Junk Science column on Fox News, Steven Milloy said Barton's inquiry was reasonable.^[22]

In November 2005, Science Committee chair Sherwood Boehlert requested the National Academy of Science to arrange a review of the matter, and its National Research Council set up a special committee to investigate and report.^[23]

National Research Council Report[

Main article: North Report

At the request of the U.S. Congress, initiated by Representative Sherwood Boehlert as chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, a special "Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Past 2,000 Years" was assembled by the National Research Council to quickly prepare a concise report. The NRC Committee, chaired by Gerald North, consisted of 12 scientists and statisticians from different disciplines. Its task was "to summarize current scientific information on the temperature record for the past two millennia, describe the main areas of uncertainty and how significant they are, describe the principal methodologies used and any problems with these approaches, and explain how central is the debate over the paleoclimate temperature record to the state of scientific knowledge on global climate change." ^[24]The NRC report went through a rigorous review process involving 15 independent experts.^[25] The report provided a summary and an overview, followed by 11 technical chapters covering the instrumental and proxy records, statistical procedures, paleoclimate models, and the synthesis of large scale temperature reconstructions with an assessment of the "strengths, limitations, and prospects for improvement" in techniques used.^[26]

The NRC committee's report (the North Report) was published on 22 June 2006.^[27] Committee member John Michael Wallace said that "Our conclusion is that this recent period of warming is likely the warmest in the last millennium", and added that "This doesn't change the scientific landscape in terms of the greenhouse warming debate".^[28] In its summary, the NRC committee noted the development of large-scale surface temperature reconstructions, especially MBH98 and MBH99, and highlighted six recent reconstructions: Huang, Pollack & Shen 2000, Mann & Jones 2003, Hegerl et al. 2006, Oerlemans 2005, Moberg et al. 2005 and Esper, Cook & Schweingruber 2002. Its main findings were; 20th century instrumentally measured warming showed in observational evidence, and can be simulated with climate models, large-scale surface temperature reconstructions "yield a generally consistent picture of temperature trends during the preceding millennium", including the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, "but the exact timing and duration of warm periods may have varied from region to region, and the magnitude and geographic extent of the warmth are uncertain." It concluded "with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries", justified by consistent evidence from a wide variety of geographically diverse proxies, but "Less confidence can be placed in large-scale surface temperature reconstructions for the period from 900 to 1600", and very little confidence could be assigned to hemispheric or global mean surface temperature estimates before about 900.^[29]

The NRCcommittee stated that "The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators". It said "Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer supporting evidence, the committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium", though there were substantial uncertainties before about 1600.

 It added that "Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that 'the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium' because the uncertainties inherent in temperature reconstructions for individual years and decades are larger than those for longer time periods and because not all of the available proxies record temperature information on such short timescales." It noted that "Surface temperature reconstructions for periods prior to the industrial era are only one of multiple lines of evidence supporting the conclusion that climatic warming is occurring in response to human activities, and they are not the primary evidence."^[30]

At the press conference, North said of the MBH papers that "we do roughly agree with the substance of their findings. There is a small disagreement over exactly how sure we are."^[31] All three from the NRC committee panel said it was probable, though not certain, that current warming exceeded any previous peak in the last thousand years.^[23] When asked if they could quantify "less confidence" and "plausible", Bloomfield explained that their wording reflected the panel's scientific judgements rather than well defined statistical procedures, and "When we speak of 'less confidence' we're more into a level of sort of 2 to 1 odds, which IPCC, they interpreted 'likely' as that level, roughly 2 to 1 odds or better."^[28][31]

Various criticisms of the MBH statistical methods were discussed in Chapter 11 in the context of more recent research which explored ways of addressing these problems, and showed greater amplitude of temperature variations over 1000 to 2000 years. Recent papers cited included Wahl & Ammann 2006 (in press). On McIntyre and McKitrick's criticism of principal component analysis as tending to bias the shape of the reconstructions, it found that "In practice, this method, though not recommended, does not appear to unduly influence reconstructions of hemispheric mean temperature", and reconstructions using other methods were qualitatively similar. Some of the criticisms of validation techniques were more valid than others, these issues and the effect on robustness of the choice of proxies contributed to the committee's view of increased uncertainties. They called for further research into methods and a search for more proxies for earlier periods.^[32]

At the press conference the three NRC panellists said they found no evidence supporting the allegations of inappropriate behaviour such as data manipulation, or "anything other than an honest attempt to construct a data analysis procedure". Bloomfield as a statistician considered all the choices of data processing and methods to have been "quite reasonable" in a "first of its kind study". He said "I would not have been embarrassed by that work at the time if I'd been involved in it". In response to a question from Edward Wegman on the MBH use of principal components analysis, Bloomfield said this had been reviewed by the committee along with other statistical issues, and "while the issues are real, they had a very minimal effect, not a material effect on the final reconstruction."^[31]

Committee on Energy and Commerce Report (Wegman Report)[

Barton dismissed the offer of a joint investigation with an independent panel appointed by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS),^[15] and on 1 September 2005 statistician Edward Wegmanwas contacted about giving testimony. Bardon's staffer then met Wegman, and explained that theUnited States House Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations wanted expert opinion on the validity of criticisms of the Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1999 reconstruction. Wegman set up a team of statisticians, and over the next nine months Barton's staffer provided them with material to review.^[33] The team included Wegman, Yasmin H. Said who had been his graduate student, and statistician David W. Scott, all statisticians with no expertise in climatology or other physical sciences.^[34] They were assisted by two others;^[35] Wegman testified that one of his graduate students did the code for them,^[36] and another of his graduate students provided a section of the report in draft, but was not an author of the report.^[37]

Lacking Barton's agreement, Boehlert's Science Committee independently requested the NAS in November to commission the National Research Council Report. On 10 February 2006 theWall Street Journalrevealed Barton's contact with Wegman when it reported that "people familiar with the matter" said that Barton had already requested an analysis of the hockey stick from statistician Edward Wegman. It said that the deputy staff director for Barton's committee had made a statement that closer study was needed because of anticipated costs of mitigating climate change, and that Barton's concerns were "unlikely" to be fully addressed by the NAS.^[38]

In an editorial dated 14 July 2006, the Wall Street Journal announced that a report commissioned by the Energy and Commerce Committee was due to be released that day. It gave a preview of the conclusions of the report, which had been prepared by three statisticians.^[39] The committee chairman U.S. Rep. Joe Barton issued a press release giving a summary of the report's findings, with quotations from the report.^[35][40]

The Wegman Report was not peer reviewed in the same way as the NRC Report, but was sent out to a number of referees before it was released. Wegman lacked the procedures and staff which the NRC had in place to organise peer review.^[41] One of the referees, Grace Wahba, later said she was given the report only 3 days in advance, and her criticisms were ignored.^[42]

Discussion and hearings[edit]

The Wegman Report was discussed at hearings of the United States House Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations under its chairman U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield. The first hearing was held on 19 July 2006, five days after the report was announced and released.^[39][43] Michael E. Mann was given only three days notice of the hearing and advised the committee that he was unable to attend on that date due to a commitment to look after his baby daughter, but the hearing went ahead with testimony from paleoclimatologist Tom Crowley who Mann recommended in his absence. The other scientists giving testimony were Gerald North, chairman of the National Research Council panel that had produced the NRC report, Tom Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center, and Hans von Storch. Wegman and Steven McIntyre also testified at the hearing.^[44][45]

A second hearing was arranged on 27 July 2006, and heard testimony from Mann, John Christy, a climate scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, and Jay Gulledge of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. The hearing also heard testimony from Wegman and McIntyre.^[45]

In an interview, North stated that the politicians at the hearing at which the Wegman Report was presented "were twisting the scientific information for their own propaganda purposes. The hearing was not an information gathering operation, but rather a spin machine."^[41]

• The American Statistical Association held a session on the role of statistics in public policy debates about climate change at the September 2006 Joint Statistical Meetings. Speakers were Edward Wegman, John Michael Wallace, and Richard L. Smith.^[46]

Issues raised by the Wegman Report[edit]

The report opened with a statement that its remit was to provide "an independent verification of the critiques" of MBH98 and MBH99 by McIntyre and McKitrick (MM), "as well as the related implications". They produced a social network analysis to imply problems of peer review not being independent, suggested that climatologists worked in isolation from statisticians, and alleged that there was inadequate sharing of methods and data.^[47]

Critiques of MBH98 and MBH99 by McIntyre and McKitrick

• The report stated "We have sought to reproduce the results of MM in order to determine whether their criticisms are valid and have merit", and concluded "In general, we found MBH98 and MBH99 to be somewhat obscure and incomplete and the criticisms of MM03/05a/05b to be valid and compelling".^[48]
  • Mann's immediate response was that the report "uncritically parrots claims by two Canadians (an economist and an oil industry consultant) that have already been refuted by several papers in the peer-reviewed literature inexplicably neglected by Barton's 'panel'. These claims were specifically dismissed by the National Academy in their report just weeks ago."^[49]
  • In the testimony of Jay Gulledge of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the report had reproduced MM's work verbatim but had only made a partial assessment of its validity, and had failed to assess the merits of their criticisms. The report made no attempt to find if MM's suggested corrections made any significant difference to the outcome. These suggested corrections had been thoroughly tested by Wahl & Ammann 2006, who had found only two of them to be valid and these had very little effect on the outcome.^[50]
  • Gerald North gave testimony that "Dr. Wegman's criticisms of the statistical methodology in the papers by Mann et al. were consistent with our findings", referring to the NRC report which had found that the methodology did not have an undue effect on the graphs. In his view, "none of the statistical criticisms that have been raised by various authors unduly influence the shape of the final reconstruction. This is attested to by the fact that reconstructions performed without using principal components yield similar results."^[51]
  • RealClimate stated that the result of fixing the alleged errors made no practical difference to the overall reconstruction, and the hockey stick shape remained. Similarly, studies that use completely different methodologies also yield very similar reconstructions.^[52]
• The Wegman Report stated that the MBH method creates a hockey-stick shape even when supplied with random red noise (Figure 4.4). "It is not clear that Dr. Mann and his associates even realized that their methodology was faulty at the time of writing the MBH paper." (Section 4)
  • On 23 July David Ritson, Emeritus Professor of Physics at Stanford University, emailed Wegman to ask if the Wegman team had used the same red noise method as MM, and if they had carried out a basic procedure to check if the Principal Component (PC1) they showed in their illustrations was due to a systemic signal or to random noise. Wegman did not reply to this, or to follow-up emails which pointed out that MM had provided Ritson with their code on 6 November 2004, and this code had an error which produced noise with "extraordinarily high persistence" resulting in the hockey stick shapes. The Wegman Report did not discuss this improper procedure or provide specification data for their own results. After Ritson copied this correspondence to Mann and North, he wrote to congressmanHenry Waxman on 16 August 2006 about this key information missing from the Wegman Report.^[53] In his written evidence to questions raised at the hearing, Mann said that "the errors that Dr. Ritson has identified in Dr. Wegman’s calculations appear so basic that they would almost certainly have been detected in a standard peer review."^[54]
  • Hans von Storch testified that the tendency to produce hockey-stick shapes from random data would only apply if there were no other significant signals, and "in very many practical situations it would not show up."^[55]
• The report stated "The controversy of Mann’s methods lies in that the proxies are centered on the mean of the period 1902-1995, rather than on the whole time period", and the net effect of this decentering was to produce a "hockey stick" shape.
  • The MBH reconstruction involved temperature records of various lengths, the shortest being the instrumental record from 1902 to 1980, and their convention centered data over this modern calibration period.^[56] Their procedure used principal component analysis (PCA) to find the leading patterns of variation (PC1, PC2, PC3 etc.), and used an objective selection rule procedure to establish how many significant principal components had to be kept to accurately represent the full dataset. The Wegman Report only dealt with PC1, and Mann describes it as "trivially true, but in reality totally inconsequential" that changing the centering period will change the order of principal components so that PC1 shows a different pattern. MM had confined their calculation to PC1 and PC2; like Wegman they ignored the selection rule and eliminated the significant "hockey stick" pattern which was in the original data.^[57]
  • In testimony, von Storch stated his working group (von Storch & Zorita 2005) had examined how seriously the "biased centering" reported by Wegman would affect overall results, and "the effect is very minor. It does not mean that it is not a glitch but it really doesn’t matter here, at least to the extent we could test it."^[58]
• The report said that MBH method creates a PC1 statistic dominated by bristlecone and foxtail pine tree ring series (closely related species). However, there is evidence in the literature that the use of the bristlecone pine series as a temperature proxy may not be valid (suppressing "warm period" in the hockey stick handle); and that bristlecones do exhibit CO₂-fertilized growth over the last 150 years (enhancing warming in the hockey stick blade).
  • Barton's letter had asked about these proxies, and in reply Mann referred to the detailed examination in MBH99 of the effect that removing these proxies had on the validity of the reconstruction.^[59]
  • The NRC report, as stated in North's testimony, found that modern CO₂ fertilisation affected these trees at some but not all of the places where samples had been taken for the Mann study, and in view of calibration difficulties it was easier not to use them. However, "strip-bark data are considered suspect only after the modern increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. This is why other studies that rely on strip-bark pine records only use them to infer past temperatures prior to 1850.^[60]
  • Crowley described this as a "red herring", and testified that his own studies using different methodology had results which were remarkably close to MBH, "bristlecone pine or no bristlecone pine". He said "If the bristlecone pine record is removed from the composite of a dozen or so records, it will show slightly greater warming in the Middle Ages. But one record can only make so much a difference when it is averaged among a dozen, especially since the general shape of the bristlecone pine record is comparable to the other records."^[61]
  • In his prepared statement to the hearing, Gulledge noted the Wahl & Ammann 2006 study found that excluding the bristlecone and foxtail pine proxies showed slightly more warming in the early 15th century, but had less effect on earlier and later periods. Overall, this made very little difference and did not undermine the main conclusion that medieval warmth had not reached late 20th century temperatures.^[62]
• Many of the same proxies are reused in most of the "independent studies" so these "cannot really claim to be independent verifications."^[40]
  • Tom Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center, testified that the TAR had reviewed multiple proxies which were independent of those used by MBH, and supported the conclusion that current warming exceeded that in earlier centuries.^[63]
  • Mann's response to Barton's questions, as submitted to the hearing, noted that more proxy data had been published since 1999, and had been used with new methods in reconstructions which confirmed that late 20th century warming was exceptional, includingMoberg et al. 2005 which covered 2,000 years.^[59]

Figure 4.5 p. 34 of the Wegman Report, "digitised" from "the temperature profile as presented in the IPCC Assessment Report 1990."

• As Barton highlighted in his press release, theIPCC Third Assessment Report had assessed the 1990s as the hottest decade and 1998 the hottest year in 1,000 years.^[35] The Wegman report concluded that assessment could not be supported by the MBH studies, and said that "The cycle of Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age that was widely recognized in 1990 has disappeared from the MBH98/99 analyses, thus making possible the hottest decade/hottest year claim." On the basis of their Figure 4.5 showing their "digitised" version of a schematic from the IPCC First Assessment Report (FAR), they said "It is clear that at least in 1990, the Medieval Warm Period was thought to have temperatures considerably warmer than the present era.Wegman, Said & Scott 2006, pp. 34, 49
  • Jay Gulledge stated that the scientific understanding of the Medieval Warm Period had developed over time, and the schematic diagram as used by Wegman, McIntyre and the Wall Street Journal "is not a plot of data and is inappropriate as a comparison to MBH". The 1990 IPCC FAR had been clear that even then there was evidence showing regional rather than global medieval warming. The MBH analysis had emphasised uncertainties, and its overall robustness had been reaffirmed by Wahl & Ammann 2006 and by the NRC report.^[64]
  • When questioned about the WR Figure 4.5, Wegman said he "had not been able to obtain a copy of the 1990 report", but believed that the figure "was related to the European temperatures and was a cartoon– essentially a cartoon" which they were simply using as an example. When asked about the data supporting the figure, he said "I take no responsibility for what IPCC did in 1990. There is no way I could do that. Their data is not available to me. In fact, the reason it was digitized was that I had to go back and construct it from their picture. That doesn’t mean no data exist."^[65]

Peer review: social network analysis[edit]

• In the WR, "we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not necessarily independent." It continued, a "social network of authorships in temperature reconstruction is described of at least 43 authors with direct ties to Mann by virtue of having coauthored papers with him. The 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.
  • At the hearings, Wegman stated this was a "hypothesis", and "should be taken with a grain of salt." He listed 6 people who had participated in his own informal peer review process via email after the report was finalized and said they had no objection to the subcommittee submitting it. He defined the social network as peer reviewers that had "actively collaborated with him in writing research papers" and answered that none of his peer reviewers had.^[66]
  • One of those listed by Wegman was the statistician Grace Wahba, who told North by email "Hey they used my name and they said I was a referee. He sent it to me about 3 days beforehand and I sent him a bunch of criticisms which they didn‘t take into account."^[42]
  • At the hearings, North criticised aspects of this analysis, which had not been available for the NRC to examine. He "was not impressed by the social network analysis" and differed from "the report's conclusions on this subject". Indeed, he would look favourably on an application for tenure by a young scientist who "got busy and found himself 43 coauthors."^[67]
  • In John Quiggin's opinion, the social network analysis was not based on meaningful criteria, did not prove a conflict of interest and did not apply at the time of the 1998 and 1999 publications. Such a network of co-authorship is not unusual in narrowly defined areas of science.^[68]
  • When allegations of plagiarism in this section were examined, Wegman said that material in it had been "basically copied and pasted" by a student who was the "most knowledgeable" person about such analyses on his team, as she had taken a one-week course on network analysis with Kathleen Carley of Carnegie Mellon University. Carley described the paper based on this section as "more of an opinion piece", lacking the data needed to support its argument.^[37][69]
  • The paper based on this social network analysis, published by Wegman and his former student Said, reached the conclusion that eminent scientists ought not work together, and that the findings of studies would be less biased when a "principal author tends to co-author papers with younger colleagues who were his students".^[69]

Interactions between climatologists and statisticians[

• The Wegman Report said that there was no evidence that Mann or any of the other authors in paleoclimatology studies have had significant interactions with mainstream statisticians. It alleged that the paleoclimate community was relatively isolated, relying heavily on statistical methods but not seeming to interact with "the statistical community".
  • In his written response to questions, Mann said Wegman appeared to have written this without making any investigation, and many statisticians working in climatology had been offended by Wegman's claim. The NRC committee included the statisticians Douglas Nychka and Peter Bloomfield who had both worked with climatologists, and Mann himself had been a member from 2003 to 2005 of the American Meteorological Society Committee on Probability and Statistics along with other scientists and statisticians. The National Center for Atmospheric Research Geophysical Statistics Project had provided such interaction for over a decade, and more than 24 of those participating had had subsequently gained doctorates in statistics. Mann as a graduate student had participated in its inaugural workshop in 1994. Its head Doug Nychka had been directly consulted for Wahl & Ammann 2006. Textbooks had been published on statistical climatology, and von Storch testified that he had co-authored "Statistical Analysis in Climate Research" with the statistician Francis Zwiers.^[70]

Sharing of data and methods[

• The Wegman Report said "Sharing of research materials, data, and results is haphazard and often grudgingly done. We were especially struck by Dr. Mann’s insistence that the code he developed was his intellectual property and that he could legally hold it personally without disclosing it to peers. When code and data are not shared and methodology is not fully disclosed, peers do not have the ability to replicate the work and thus independent verification is impossible."
  • Mann indicated in testimony that the methods and data had been available since May 2000, including the necessary algorithms, in full accordance with National Science Foundation requirements, but NSF policy was that computer codes were proprietary and not subject to disclosure. Despite this, the full code used for MBH98 had been made public.
  • In his written testimony, John Christy said that when he and Roy Spencer had been asked by Frank Wentz et al., "we provided sections of our code and relevant data files. By sharing this information, we opened ourselves up to exposure or a possible problem which we had somehow missed, and frankly this was not personally easy. On the other hand, if there was a mistake we wanted it fixed."
  • Rep. Henry Waxman contacted Wentz, and read out his response that "Dr. Christy has never been willing to share his computer code in a substantial way", but had replied to their request by writing "I don't see how sharing code would be helpful". In Wentz's view, "he simply didn't want us looking over his shoulder, possibly discovering errors in his work. So we had to take a more tedious trial-and-error approach to uncovering the errors in his methods." Christy told Waxman that "We shared with them the parts of the code that they were most concerned about."
  • When Ritson repeatedly emailed Wegman asking for clarification of the code and data used by the Wegman team to produce random red noise, Wegman failed to answer.^[53] After congressman Waxman asked him about this, Wegman replied on 1 September 2006 that his spam filter was set to stop all emails related to the topic, and his team did not look at their emails often. He added "It is not clear to me that before the journal peer review process is complete that we have an academic obligation to disclose the details of our methods." On 15 September Waxman wrote formally to Wegman asking for this information, and commenting that the Wegman report had said that methodology had to be fully disclosed to allow independent verification. In his written response to questions raised at the hearing, Mann said "It would appear that Dr. Wegman has completely failed to live up to the very standards he has publicly demanded of others." Ritson commented in September 2007 that Wegman had still not responded to further requests, and while he could sympathise with someone with a weak position not wanting to answer questions, "in this instance Wegman has made a central point of the need for openness in science, and never, over my academic career, has anyone avoided actions by promising to implement a series of steps which they apparently had no intention of ever doing."^[54][71]

Plagiarism charges against Wegman

Wegman's institution, George Mason University, confirmed in October 2010 that they were investigating misconduct charges, following a March 2010 formal complaint by Raymond S. Bradley alleging plagiarism and fabrications in the Wegman Report. A 250-page study by computer scientist John Mashey, posted on the "Deep Climate" website, claims that 35 of the 91 pages in the Wegman Report were plagiarized, and "often injected with errors, bias and changes of meaning." Wegman responded that he was "very well aware of the report", but at the university's request would not comment further until all issues were settled.^[72] 

Reviews by outside experts contacted by USA Today found plagiarism from textbooks which was obvious and inappropriate; the social network analysis section had also been partly copied from Wikipedia. Wegman said there was "speculation and conspiracy theory" in John Mashey's analysis, and said that "[t]hese attacks are unprecedented in my 42 years as an academic and scholar." He stated that the Wegman Report never "intended to take intellectual credit for any aspect of paleoclimate reconstruction science or for any original research aspect of social network analysis."^[73]

Social network analysis paper

As an extension of the part of the Wegman Report which used social network analysis to suggest that there had been inappropriate close collaboration between some climate scientists, Wegman and Said published a paper (since retracted) in 2008 in the journal Computational Statistics & Data Analysis where they suggested "that certain styles of co-authorship lead to the possibility of group-think, reduced creativity, and the possibility of less rigorous reviewing processes".They concluded they had provided "insight into the why certain fields of study may have migrated into a more politically driven framework."^[74] 

After computer scientist Ted Kirkpatrick of the Simon Fraser University read the "Deep Climate" website allegations of plagiarism, he made a formal complaint to the journal.^[69] On 16 March 2011, Wegman sent an email to the journal saying that a student "had basically copied and pasted" work by other authors into the Wegman Report, and this text had been used in the journal paper without acknowledgement. He said that "We would never knowingly publish plagiarized material". In May 2011 the journal's editor, Stanley Azen of the University of Southern California, announced that the journal was retracting the paper, because it used portions of other authors' writings without sufficient attribution.^[75] John Dahlberg of the United States Office of Research Integrity indicated that plagiarism could result in sanctions. A George Mason University spokesman declined to comment and said it was a "personnel matter".^[69]

The manuscript of the paper had been submitted on 8 July 2007 and accepted for publication on 14 July 2007. Network analysis expert Kathleen Carley described it as an opinion piece which speculated that collaboration between scientists "leads to peer review abuse. No data is provided to support this argument". Wegman's student had attended a one-week course taught by Carley, thus becoming what Wegman described as the "most knowledgeable" of his contributors on the topic. Following the GMU inquiry, the student issued a statement that she had been "Dr. Wegman's graduate student when I provided him with the overview of social network analysis, at his request. My draft overview was later incorporated by Dr. Wegman and his coauthors into the 2006 report. I was not an author of the report." She had met with a GMU misconduct committee, and said that "My academic integrity is not being questioned."^[37]

Disciplinary procedure

A Nature editorial commented on the implication that the plagiarised material in the retracted paper was likely to also be present in the earlier "infamous" Wegman Report, including allegations against Mann and his co-authors which had frequently been cited by climate-change sceptics. The George Mason University's policies indicated that its initial inquiry should have been completed within 12 weeks of the original complaint, and although 14 months had passed without this being resolved,there were loopholes for extensions. It said that the university should "take the initiative to move investigations along as speedily as possible while allowing time for due process. Once an investigation is complete, the institution should be as transparent as it can about what happened", especially where public funds were involved.^[76]

George Mason University provost Peter Stearns announced on 22 February 2012 that charges of scientific misconduct had been investigated by two separate faculty committees, and that theone investigating the 2006 Wegman Report gave a unanimous finding that "no misconduct was involved". Stearns stated that "Extensive paraphrasing of another work did occur, in a background section, but the work was repeatedly referenced and the committee found that the paraphrasing did not constitute misconduct". He said that the2008 social network analysis paper was investigated by a separate committee whichunanimously found "that plagiarism occurred in contextual sections of the (CSDA) article, as a result of poor judgment for which Professor Wegman, as team leader, must bear responsibility", and Wegman was to receive an "official letter of reprimand". The investigation reports were to be sent on to federal authorities, but would not be made public.Bradley described the split result as "an absurd decision" which would encourage GMU students to think it acceptable to copy work without attribution.^[77]

Notes

==

SW

Edward Wegman, a statistics professor at George Mason University and past chair of the National Research Council’s Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, is notable for coauthoring the 2006 Committee on Energy and Commerce Report (Wegman Report), which criticized Michael Mann's "hockey stick" finding - and which has since been found to contain plagiarized sections (including text lifted from a researcher it criticized)^[1] and other weaknesses.

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1Career
• 22006 Energy and Commerce hearing - Wegman report
• 3Charges of plagiarism and misconduct
  • 3.1George Mason University investigations
  • 3.2May 2011 retraction of 2008 social network analysis article based on part of Wegman Report
  • 3.3October 2011: more apparent Wikipedia copying found in Wegman-coauthored 2009 review article
• 4Articles and resources
  • 4.1References
  • 4.2Related SourceWatch articles
  • 4.3External resources
  • 4.4External articles

Career

Wegman received a B.S. in mathematics from Saint Louis University in 1965, he then went to graduate school at the University of Iowa where he earned an M.S. in 1967 and a Ph.D. in 1968, both in mathematical statistics.

He held a faculty position at the University of North Carolina for ten years. In 1978, Wegman joined the Office of Naval Research, in which he headed the Mathematical Sciences Division.^[2]

Later, Wegman served as the first program director of the Ultra High Speed Computing basic research program for the Strategic Defense Initiative's Innovative Science and Technology Office. He joined the faculty of George Mason University in 1986 and developed a master’s degree program in statistical science.^[2]

Wegman has been the associate editor of seven academic journals, a member of numerous editorial boards, and the author of more than 160 papers and five books. He is a member of the American Statistical Association, a former president of the International Association for Statistical Computing, and a past chairman of the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics for the United States National Academy of Sciences.^[2]

Wegman received the 2002 Founders Award from the American Statistical Association, for "over thirty years of exceptional service and leadership to the American Statistical Association."^[3]

2006 Energy and Commerce hearing - Wegman report

In 2006 Joe Barton chose Wegman to assist the United States House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee in its inquiry into the "Hockey stick graph."^{[4][5][6][7][8]}, for which he coauthored the Wegman report.

Charges of plagiarism and misconduct

George Mason University investigations

See Wegman Report for investigation timeline and further information.

In October 2010, George Mason University (GMU) announced they were conducting a formal investigation into charges of plagiarism and misconduct related to the Wegman Report.^[9] In November 2010, USA Todayreported that the "review of the 91-page report, by three experts contacted by USA Today, found repeated instances of passages lifted word for word and what appear to be thinly disguised paraphrases." Wegman criticized the "speculation and conspiracy theory" in the original allegations, and said that "these attacks are unprecedented" in his long career.^[10] A Nature editorial in May 2011 urged progress in GMU's Inquiry "as speedily as possible while allowing time for due process."^[11]

18 months after the initial allegations, the investigation has not been completed.^[1]

May 2011 retraction of 2008 social network analysis article based on part of Wegman Report

In May 2011 the journal Computational Statistics and Data Analysis retracted a 2008 social network analysis by Yasmin Said, Edward Wegman and coauthors^[12] (based on part of the Wegman Report^[11]) because the paper used portions of other authors' writings without sufficient attribution.^[13] Wegman said that he would never knowingly publish plagiarized material. The lawyer for both authors said they stand by their work.^[14]

October 2011: more apparent Wikipedia copying found in Wegman-coauthored 2009 review article

Dan Vergano of USA Today writes that,

"following work by Columbia University statistician Andrew Gelman finding more botched copying of Wikipedia in a separate 2009 WIRES CompStats review article [coauthored] by Wegman, Deep Climate has released an analysis finding 13 blocks of copied Wikpedia text in the review article. ...Wegman and Said are editors in chief of the journal in which the review article appears..."^[15], ^[16]^, [17]

According to John Mashey's "Plagiarism chains..." infographic (in Resources section below), "there were 2 plagiarism chains that started before [Wegman student] Said arrived at GMU."[1]

Articles and resources

References

1. ↑ ^Jump ^up ^to:1.0^ ^1.1 Dan Vergano (2011-10-05). More Wikipedia copying from climate critics. USA Today. Retrieved on 2011-10-06. “George Mason University, under fire for an 18-month investigation into acknowledged copying in the retracted study, did not reply to a request for comment on the latest news.”
2. ↑ ^Jump ^up ^to:2.0^ ^2.1 ^2.2 The University of Iowa Alumni Association distinguished alumni award page
3. Jump up↑ ASA Founders Award winners
4. Jump up↑ Committee on Energy and Commerce Hearing
5. Jump up↑ Full Wegman Report
6. Jump up↑ Wegman fact-sheet
7. Jump up↑ Wegman's testimony
8. Jump up↑ Transcript of the entire hearing
9. Jump up↑ University investigating prominent climate science critic, USA Today, Oct 08, 2010
10. Jump up↑ Dan Vergano (November 22, 2010). "Experts claim 2006 climate report plagiarized", USA TODAY.
11. ↑ ^Jump ^up ^to:11.0^ ^11.1 Template:Doi

Incomplete citation. Click here to automatically expand (or here to expand by hand)

12. Jump up↑ doi|10.1016/j.csda.2007.07.021}:
13. Jump up↑ Journal Retracts Disputed Network Analysis Paper on Climate, AAAS Science Insider, 2 June 2011
14. Jump up↑ Climate study gets pulled after charges of plagiarism, by Dan Vergano USA Today, article updated 5/15/2011. Accessed 6/6/2011
15. Jump up↑ Dan Vergano (2011-10-05). More Wikipedia copying from climate critics. USA Today - Science Fair. Retrieved on 2011-10-08. “Prominent climate science critics copied from Wikipedia again in a 2009 review article, botching the text, again, suggests a new analysis.”
16. Jump up↑ Andrew Gelman (2011-09-19). Another Wegman plagiarism copying-without-attribution, and further discussion of why scientists cheat. Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science (Andrew Gelman). Retrieved on 2011-10-08. “Copying from Wikipedia but introducing an error in the process...”
17. Jump up↑ Deep Climate (pseudonym) (2011-10-04). Said and Wegman 2009: Suboptimal Scholarship. Deep Climate. Retrieved on 2011-10-08.

Related SourceWatch articles

• George Mason University
• Wegman Report
• Yasmin Said

External resources

• Wegman's university faculty page
• Wegman's resume

• Plagiarism chains involving Edward Wegman and/or students. Infographic by John Mashey, 2011-10-07

==

BAK

promoted to primary 6/16 based on mann bk and JOS

capt 6/16 bold

==

mann bk:

pre-emptive action b/c of 2005 energy bill (failed 2004?)

Barton and whitfield sent ltr to MM, bradly 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 11

mann bk: de F Christy complained to U va (--> USAToday Op-ed)

made bones on diff between satellite ad surface temps (--> meme) based on calc error

he 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, Nobel

even 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 and ---

M&M PNAS

12/09 Mashey and Deep Climate blogger ~ WEGMAN rept (USA today)

found 1/3 plag and distorted from Badly'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

---

==

cited by o'sullivan in ball trial

Legal Analysis of Mann’s Vexatious Claim

It is my opinion that Michael Mann is on a hiding to nothing here as reported in previous articles 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.

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.

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.

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 person (or juror) may rightly infer that his conduct appears dishonest and indicative of a possible data fraud.

Key Legal Issues That Undermine Mann’s Case

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.

By any reasonable scientific standard Mann’s position is untenable, as affirmed by the US Congress via the Wegman Report (2006), 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."

The implications for debunking Mann in court are thus huge because as Wegman says,

" ..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..."

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."

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.'

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.)

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?]

==

5/15

In the newest variation of legal attacks on climate science, climate science blogger and computer scientist John Mashey 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 plagiarism, falsifications, errors, and funding misuseconstituted “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 Mashey and many others, and which was originally commissioned by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) as part of a Congressional investigation of climate scientists.  Subsequent work by Wegman and Said, based on the Wegman Report, was later retracted for plagiarism and the investigations themselves were criticized as “political intimidation.”

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 “street fight” on climate science.

Unfortunately, legal attacks on the climate science community happen on a regular basis.  Please help us fundraise so that we can continue to fight back against such attacks.  Support of $25, $100, or more 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 here, and our blog post here.

---

ref above congress

story in today's USA TODAY contains a response by statistician Edward Wegman of George Mason University, to plagiarism and other charges made against a 2006 Congressional committee climate critique that he led.

The response came after plagiarism experts described copying 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 investigation of climate scientists.

The plagiarism charge against the Wegman report, dubbed"Skepticgate" by Pace University climate writer Andrew Revkin, were first made by the Deep Climate 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 Wegman report's 2006 release. "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 Committee on Publication Ethics, 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 side show. However, without commenting directly on the case, the federal Office of Research Integrity's John Dahlberg, says, "No, that's not right. We take plagiarism very seriously."

By Dan Vergano

---

Edward Wegman

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. "The Wegman Report," 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 Deep Climate, 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 Salon reports:

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…

The only problem, other than the fact that the report is overwhelmingly without merit, is that it was largely plagiarized.

==

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 2006 Wegman Report to Congress, already under investigation 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).

Mashey and the Canadian blogger DeepClimate 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.

---

Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, part 2: The story behind the Barton-Whitfield investigation and the Wegman Panel

Posted on February 8, 2010 | 155 Comments

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

Perhaps the most disturbing episode in the “hockey stick” controversy 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 my recent revelation of possible plagiarism and other questionable scholarship in the Wegman report, 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:

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.

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.

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.

All this, along with new information about the circumstances of the Wegman panel’s formation and mandate, raises serious doubts about the supposed independence of the Wegman panel.

In my last post, I laid out some inconvenient facts about McIntyre’s fellow travellers on his way to taking his place in the pantheon of climate skeptics. 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 in this brief post from May 7, 2005:

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.

This was to be the duo’s second trip for the Washington think tanks; the first had taken place in November 2003, as discussed in M&M, part 1.

The afternoon Capitol Hill meeting remains somewhat mysterious, but M&M’s presentation and the Press Club discussion transcript 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 inAntonio Regalado’s  Wall Street Journal article.

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.

This betrays an utter lack of comprehension of how science actually works. But McIntyre was not done – he even invoked the Enron scandal and described his “epiphany” of a simlar lack of due diligence in climate science.

Epiphany indeed. It so happened that the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee had investigated one aspect of the  Enron  scandal 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 “Smokey” Joe Barton and subcommittee chair Ed Whitfield 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 an Oversight and Investigations subcommittee hearing on the use of climate models in the U.S. National Assessment 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 atrip to the 2009 Heartland Institute International Conference on Climate Change in New York, with Barton’s approval).

The Barton investigation began with a set of detailed letters of inquiry sent to the three authors, Mann, Bradley and Hughes, 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 Rajenda  Pachauri, IPCC chair, and Arden Bement, 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.

Here’s how McIntyre announced the letters on his website:

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.

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.

The only hint that McIntyre has ever given of any contact with Barton’s committee staff was in Paul Thacker’s analysis of the WSJ article, published inEnvironmental Science and Technology.

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.

Even here, McIntyre appeared to be suggesting that his only role was the confirmation of the WSJ article contents. But McIntyre has never mentioned the May 11 sessions, a notable departure from his usual practice of breathlessly blogging about every trip in glorious detail. Indeed, everyone involved appears to have gone to great pains to cover up the full story behind the Barton investigation, and the role of McKitrick and McIntyre’s sponsors, the  Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Marshall Institute.

Everyone, that is, except CEI head Myron Ebell, who openly boasted at the time to the BBC:

Myron Ebell, of the Competitiveness Enterprise Institute and a prominent global warming sceptic, told BBC News: “We’ve always wanted to get the science on trial,” and “we would like to figure out a way to get this into a court of law,” adding “this could work.”

That same article quotes shocked reaction from scientists. Raymond Bradley, thought the letters were meant to “undermine confidence in the IPCC,” while paleoclimatologist Thomas Crowley discerned a “more general intent to intimidate climate researchers.”

On July 15, 2005, National Academy of Sciences president Ralph Ciccerone sent Barton a letter that noted scientists’ concerns along with a better way forward:

A Congressional investigation, based on the authority of the House Commerce Committee is probably not the best way to resolve a scientific issue, and a focus on individual scientists can be intimidating.

If the House Commerce Committee would like to have additional information regarding the state of scientific knowledge in the area of research being conducted by Drs. Mann, Hughes, and Bradley, the National Academy of Sciences would be willing to create an independent expert panel (according to our standard rigorous study process) to assess the state of scientific knowledge in this area, or perhaps one of the professional scientific societies could take on this task for you.

But, as Thacker noted, there was no interest from Barton:

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”.

At the same time, Representative Sherwood Boehlert, chairman of the House Science Committee, issued an opening salvo 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 RealClimate post “Scientists respond to Barton”).

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 Wegman report, 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.

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]

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 unnoticed 2007 symposium presentation 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 it is available here.]

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

Dr. Edward Wegman was approached by Dr. Jerry Coffey on 1 September 2005 concerning possible testimony in Congress about a statistical issue associated with paleoclimate reconstruction.

– 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.

It turns out that go-between Coffey is a statistical expert who worked in government for most of his career. Wegman and Coffey have likely known each other a long time; they are both active members of the Washington branch of the American Statistical Society.

But Coffey is also a dyed-in-the-wool “Tea Party” Republican and gun nut, as his page at the Republican Party Virginia Network 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.

Said left unexplained the supposed “recommendations” and their context. Were these recommendations made in the specific context of a study on paleoclimatology? Did Coffey ask for these recommendations or did someone else?

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 comments at PersonalLiberty.com, with his reference to the  “Gore global warming boondoggle” and his recommendations of climate science reading material:

My favorite short read on global warming is Lawrence Solomon’s “The Deniers.” I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Ed Wegman since I had a ringside seat when Ed’s analysis got started. Others [sic] books you might enjoy are the last couple by Patrick Michaels; Fred Singer and Dennis Avery on the 1500 year cycle; and [Roy] Spencer’s latest.

Said goes on:

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]

So there you have it.  This supposedly “independent” panel began with a sounding out by a rabid Republican partisan and convinced climate “skeptic”. And Wegman agreed to a process that not only excluded climate scientists, but also involved Peter Spencer as a key conduit and gatekeeper providing climate science documentation and commentary. And all this was done by a House committee that had refused to even acknowledge the offer of a proper scientific review from the National Academy of Sciences.

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.”

Gee, thanks for that. I didn’t know my nationality considered a term of opprobrium in Washington, DC.

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

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.

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.

By all accounts, Wegman did not even bother to contact Mann, and yet worked directly with McIntyre in order to “reproduce” his results.

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 list of participants 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 Science & Environment Policy Project head Fred Singer, who was  Distinguished Research Professor at George Mason’s Institute for Humane Studies from 1994 on. (Indeed, theInstitute is only one of 40 libertarian research centres and affiliates hosted at George Mason).

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 that same month Science  Committee chair Sherwood Boehlert requested that the National Academy of Science review the matter. This led to the  comprehensive National Academy of Sciences report Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years 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 reported by a ClimateAudit fan in a post that is the only one ever to  mention Peter Spencer.

First of all, having followed the global warming controversy for the last five years, I was thrilled to meet many of the heavyweight skeptics: Fred Singer, Myron Ebell, Willie Soon, John Christy, Steve and Ross. I also enjoyed chatting with various staffers from the hill (Peter Spencer – House Energy & Commerce Committee …)

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 Redacting the Science of Climate Change [p. 62, See full 1.5 MB PDF]:

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)]

All these various indications of a biased process and the apparent role of Peter Spencer,  entirely support Sherwood Boehlert’s characterization of the Barton investigation as  “misguided and illegitimate.” And this new information may go some way towards resolving some of the enduring mysteries about the whole affair.

For one thing, new light is cast on a key Wegman et al section on tree-ring proxies I discussed in Wegman and Rapp on Tree-Rings: A Divergence Problem, part 1. 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 this side-by-side comparison of the two texts).

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:PDF, Roundtable transcript: PDF]

Ad Hoc Committee Report on the ‘Hockey Stick’ Global Climate Reconstruction, Edward J. Wegman, David W. Scott and Yasmin H. Said. [PDF]

Experiences with Congressional Testimony: Statistics and The Hockey Stick,Yasmin Said, September, 2007. [PDF]

Wegman-Bradley Tree Ring Comparison [PDF]

RELATED

Contrarian scholarship: Revisiting the Wegman report

In "Climate science disinformation"

Wegman and Said on social networks: More dubious scholarship

In "Climate science disinformation"

David Ritson speaks out

In "Climate science disinformation"

This entry was posted in Climate science disinformation and tagged Competitive Enterprise Institute, Ed Whitfield, Edward Wegman, Joe Barton, Marsall Institute, Michael Mann, Peter Spencer, Ross McKitrick, Steve McIntyre, Yasmin Said. Bookmark the permalink.

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 has reported.

The newspaper quotes CSDA editor Stanley Azen (who is denying responsibility 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 using the material 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

We gman’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, Michae ls , O’Brie n, Pielke, Jr … in that order.

---

As a byproduct of FOIA Facts 1 and FOIA Facts 2, 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.

Read more: FOIA Facts 3 - More Plagiarism - Get Grants Or Claim Credit

Tue, 2013-05-21 05:30JOHN MASHEY

John Mashey's picture

FOIA Facts 2 - No Pro Bono - Federal Funds Mis-Used For Wegman Report And Much More

Wegman's mis-use of Army funds, irrelevant work outweighed relevant

As begun in FOIA Facts 1, 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  Wegman and Said 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 "Analytical and Graphical Methods for Streaming Data with Applications to Netcentric Warfare." He claimed credit for 75 papers and talks, listed in the thumbnail at left or full-sized in Sheet §0.1.

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 trying to meddle with the National Science Foundation.

"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."

Read more: FOIA Facts 2 - No Pro Bono - Federal Funds Mis-Used For Wegman Report And Much More

Mon, 2013-05-20 06:00JOHN MASHEY

John Mashey's picture

FOIA Facts 1 - More Misdeeds By Ed Wegman, Yasmin Said, George Mason University

New Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) replies have exposed more misdeeds by Professor Edward Wegman 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:

FOIA Facts 2 - 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.

FOIA Facts 3 - 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.

FOIA Facts 4 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 GMU College of Science Promotion and Tenure Committee.

Read more: FOIA Facts 1 - More Misdeeds By Ed Wegman, Yasmin Said, George Mason University

---

Home > Blogs > John Mashey's blog > See No Evil, Speak Little Truth, Break Rules, Blame Others

See No Evil, Speak Little Truth, Break Rules, Blame Others

By John Mashey

Created 2012-08-20 03:00

John Mashey [1]

20 August 12 at 3:00am

See No Evil, Speak Little Truth, Break Rules, Blame Others [2]

The "Wegman Report", led by Edward Wegman [8] of George Mason University (GMU) got criticized in 2010's Experts claim 2006 climate report plagiarized [9].  Experts called it "obvious" even "shocking" plagiarism.  GMU's i [10]ncompetent handling, mistreatment of complainants and flawed rulings were mostly documented in March [10], but recent FOIAs [11]expose more [12] untruths.

Is the harsh title fair?  Read on, then study the 69-page attachment. [13]

GMU Provost Peter Stearns' February letter to GMU faculty [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 Federal [15] agencies who [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 Charles Koch [17], Ken Cuccinelli [18], David Schnare [19], Fred Singer [20], and Pat Michaels [21], plus the Heartland Institute [22] and key Washington think tanks.  GMU even has a long history of tobacco connections, oddly relevant [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 Deep Climate [24]'s early discoveries:

2.5 pages [25] of text [26] mostly from Ray Bradley's book: paraphrasing, not plagiarism although serious plagiarism experts said otherwise long ago.

5.5 pages [27] of near-verbatim plagiarism of social networks text: never mentioned.

1.5 page [28] subset re-used in later paper: plagiarism, likely unavoidable, since the publisher had forced retraction in May 2011. This is an obvious contradiction.

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

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

Alleged falsification [29] in the Wegman Report: never mentioned.

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 Mercatus Center and Institute for Humane Studies [30] (IHS).   His donations to these usually exceeded the research grants of most government agencies. His lieutenant Richard Fink [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 Richard Mellon Scaife [32], Searle Freedom Trust, Earhart Foundation, L&H Bradley and  DONORS Trust+Capital, [23] the second largest foundation giver, which anonymizes the real givers' identities.  The recently-discovered Knowledge and Progress Fund [33] seems to send Koch money only toDONORS.  It is a real money maze

.

Governance. Nancy Mitchell Pfotenhauer [34] is the Vice-Rector of the GMU Board of Visitors. She was a Koch Industries lobbyist and an executive of Americans For Prosperity [35].  The Board also includes Kimberly Dennis [36] (Searle Freedom Trust, DONORS) and Mark McGettrick [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 ex-partner Milton Johns (Wegman's lawyer) [38] all got their JD degrees at GMU in the 1990s.  So did David Schnare, of the American Tradition Institute [39] (ATI), well-known for FOIA harassment of UVA, Michael Mann, James Hansen, Andrew Dessler and Katharine Hayhoe [40].  FOIA has legitimate uses, but can also be employed for harassment.  The reader can decide which these [41] are.

Schnare is also an Adjunct Professor who recently taught a GMU course [42]on how to do FOIAs, use the Data Quality Act [43], using this outline [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

He also offers "externships" to give students practice, via a new 501(c)(3) "public charity," originally (and legally still) the George Mason Environmental Law Clinic. [45]  it is now called the Free Market ELC [46], consisting of him and Chris Horner [47], as at ATI.  He was looking for students [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 here [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."

---