Posted on 02/03/2010 1:04:54 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Panel Absolves Climate Scientist By JOHN M. BRODER
WASHINGTON — An academic board of inquiry has largely cleared a noted Pennsylvania State University climatologist of scientific misconduct, but a second panel will convene to determine whether his behavior undermined public faith in the science of climate change, the university said Wednesday.
The scientist, Dr. Michael E. Mann, has been at the center of a roiling dispute arising from the unauthorized release of more than 1,000 e-mail messages from the servers of the University of East Anglia in England, home to one of the world’s premier climate research units.
While the Penn State inquiry, conducted by three senior faculty members and administrators, absolved Dr. Mann of the most serious charges against him, it is not likely to silence the continuing controversy over climate science. New questions about the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to which Dr. Mann was a significant contributor, have arisen since the hacked e-mail messages surfaced last November.
That faculty board did not look into the science of climate change itself, the university said in announcing its results. That, it said, is “a matter more appropriately left to the profession.”
Dr. Mann was named in 377 of the e-mail messages, including several that critics took to suggest that he manipulated or destroyed data to strengthen his case that human activity is changing the global climate.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
1.... uh...
This was a given being the vast majority of academia is liberal/progressive.
Please explain on which charge(s) you think he should have not been cleared...and why.
Hmmm....academics passing on the sins of another academic. And imagine that! They absolved him! Kind of like doctors ruling on malpractice of other doctors, lawyers’ disciplinary commissions, cops investigating cops....
Nothing to see here, just move along....
I think they stopped teaching integrity some time ago.
Gee, you — you — you don’t suppose Penn State gets any FEDERAL GRANT MONEY do you???
NAAAAAAHHHHHH...
Academia...circling the wagons.
The jury agreed with the defense, and Mr. Capone was acquitted.
The glove don't fit, they did acquit.
Nothing to see here, move along.
PSU...what a joke.
Pennsylvania State Legislature (you know...our overwhelmingly Dem body?) will they look into this malfeasance and outright fraud at one of our state schools?
I know, I know...I crack myself up sometimes too.
Whitewash
Please explain which charges he should NOT have been absolved of?
Are you refuting that he was wrong?
Are you refuting that academia is tainted, not objective, peer-reviewed amounts to a buddy system and that it is largely a liberal infestation and cesspool?
So he did nothing wrong and now they want to see if what he did do woke up the sleeping masses.
Two words. Peer Review of work is needed.
Can the "experiment" be repeated by a whole new team without communication with the tainted pool?
Can we run the model in reverse and "guess" what the temperatures are going to be at different points in the past 200 years?
In truth both PSU, Mann and the NYT truly qualify as teabaggers. Teabaggers as I understand the expression describes a “ball sucker”. A more apt description of this inbred northeastern elite circle jerk of a commission could not be found. The funny thing is that probably all the participants are actual teabaggers. I believe this is what they call projection?
ACORN’s internal review found nothing wrong too!
This was an amazingly brilliant PR announcement.
They create 4 potential wrongs he may have done knowing that 3 of the 4 are ridiculous. This provides face saving for the university.
They absolve him of three of the 4 and can declare that he is mostly cleared so that the public stops watching and moves on. Heck he is 3/4 pure, who among us can claim that we are 3/4 pure?
But those scientists who believe Mann has done irreparable harm, there is still a problem and Mann is it. Mann will continue to be under pressure from his peers and this second investigation will stand aside while Mann’s peers continue to take him apart and he resigns. Then this new committee will announce his guilt.
Charge of first degree hockey stick fabrication:
Why? Withholding data and processes from public review to keep them from figgering out what he did.
EXACTLY! bttt
Penn State report on Mann: new investigation to convene.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/03/penn-state-report-on-mann-new-investigation-to-convene/#more-16007
3 02 2010
The report is out, and further investigation is forthcoming.
Excerpts from the report are below, where they considered 4 allegations. They say only one had merit. That will be the subject of the upcoming investigation.
Excerpts:
“It is clear to those who have followed the media and blogs over the last two months that there are two distinct and deeply polarized points of view that have emerged on this matter. One side views the emails as evidence of a clear cut violation of the public trust and seeks severe penalties for Dr. Mann and his colleagues. The other side sees these as nothing more than the private discussions of scientists engaged in a hotly debated topic of enormous social impact.
We are aware that some may seek to use the debate over Dr. Mann’s research conduct and that of his colleagues as a proxy for the larger and more substantive debate over the science of anthropogenic global warming and its societal (political and economic) ramifications. We have kept the two debates separate by only considering Dr. Mann’s conduct.”
…
“Decision 4. Given that information emerged in the form of the emails purloined from CRU in November 2009, which have raised questions in the public’s mind about Dr. Mann’s conduct of his research activity, given that this may be undermining confidence in his findings as a scientist, and given that it may be undermining public trust in science in general and climate science specifically, the inquiry committee believes an investigatory committee of faculty peers from diverse fields should be constituted under RA-10 to further consider this allegation.
In sum, the overriding sentiment of this committee, which is composed of University administrators, is that allegation #4 revolves around the question of accepted faculty conduct surrounding scientific discourse and thus merits a review by a committee of faculty scientists. Only with such a review will the academic community and other interested parties likely feel that Penn State has discharged it responsibility on this matter.“
An investigatory committee of faculty members with impeccable credentials will consider this matter and present its findings and recommendations to Dr. Henry C. Foley within 120 days of being charged. The committee will consist of the following five faculty members:
1. Dr. Mary Jane Irwin, Evan Pugh Professor, Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering;
2. Dr. Alan Walker, Evan Pugh Professor, Department of Anthropology and Department of Biology;
3. Dr. A. Welford Castleman, Evan Pugh Professor, Department of Chemistry and Department of Physic;
4. Dr. Nina G. Jablonski, Head, Department of Anthropology; and
5. Dr. Sarah M. Assmann, Waller Professor, Department of Biology.
Ms. Candice Yekel, as Director of the Office for Research Protections and as the University’s Research Integrity Officer, will provide administrative support and assistance to the committee.
The investigatory committee’s charge will be to consider what are the bounds of accepted practice in this instance and whether or not Dr. Mann did indeed engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities.
Read the report here (PDF) http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/03/penn-state-report-on-mann-new-investigation-to-convene/#more-16007
3 02 2010
FYI: “Peer review” is completely broke per the analysis of Climategate emails. Mann et al pressured the journal editors to NOT publish skeptic papers, so then they could say that it wasn’t peer reviewed. This complete circle jerk by maybe two dozen AGW crooks has destroyed climate science and any notion that “peer review” makes it right. Read the authoritative analysis here:
Climategate Analysis
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/climategate_analysis.html
Acclaimed Climategate Analyst points to whistle blower rather than hacker
http://www.climategate.com/acclaimed-climategate-analyst-points-to-whistleblower-rather-than-hacker
Dr. Costella, in his analysis, “Climategate Analysis,” has now published what is widely regarded as the best review of all 1,000+ emails and other documents contained in a 62MB upload to a Russian Internet server on November 19, 2009.
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