Thursday
Feb042010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill As expected, PSU inquiry is whitewash
Feb 4, 2010 Climate: Mann Steve McIntyre has posted some initial thoughts on the Penn State inquiry into Michael Mann's conduct as revealed by the Climategate emails and, as expected, the inquiry has been cursory and biased and has broken its own rules.
As many observers have noted, PSU derives a large income from Mann's presence on its staff, and it was therefore quite foreseeable that they would move mountains to keep him.
Which is why the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has said that they are going to do their own investigation.
And another thing - it is slightly surreal for Penn State to find Mann innocent of having suppressed data when the code for his Hockey Stick confidence interval calculations is still not available.
Reader Comments (16)
Did anyone expect otherwise?
Quell surprise!
Let me see here.......... well what price the CRU getting away with err........... lying, obfuscation, cheating, defamation of character etc.......yeah very, very, very short odds.
Same old, same old, the Tories will be just as climate stooopid as well.......so no end in sight.
Mann, eventually, will go down as one of the biggest charlatans in scientific history. The truth will out eventually.
White washing the fence: planks 1 thru 3 are finished. Plank 4 is so tainted it will require another coat.
Working from the old Russian saying that:
"a fish rots from the head"
What confidence can we have in either employing Penn State graduates? or, in the reliability of any of their research?
Eventually the truth will out. Mann and the rest of the AGW charlatans will
be exposed as the liars that they are.
FWIW, they will have a place in history, though they probably won't like it.
Mann, eventually, will go down as one of the biggest charlatans in scientific history. The truth will out eventually.
That is a certainty, and his name will be emblazened on on the Wall of Shame right next to Trofim Denisovich Lysenko.
As for PSU, what do you expect from a state school? Too many politicians involved. Not that the Ivy League would do any better. But honestly, you have not dealt with politics until you have been involved in a university facuilty meeting. To paraphrase Woodrow Wilson when asked what political experience he had, he replied that he was the President of Princeton University.
Both David and Keith are correct. Both Mann and PSU will pay a terrible price for this -- eventually.
At this point, it appears Penn State administration has bought a ticket to ride the 'IPCC Express'. They will not be alone, the swaying smoking car is filled with compliant institutions and journalists. While outwardly occupied with the spectrum of literature supplied by the engineer, they must now be a little wary of what lies down the track.
I have never regarded Mann as a reliable source of scientific knowledge, but when I followed a thread related to his testimony before some government committee, where he claimed that he had never calculated the rsquared statistic, my respect for him fell to zero. Anyone collecting statistical data would first of all put it through a standard boilerplate computer package where rsquared would be on the third or fourth line of the printout.
What will happen to Mann when all the good citizens of Pennsylvania have read the Bishop's book?
Tar? Feathers? Stake? Noose? Guillotin?
A splendid future, no doubt.
it is all very good fun, but I haven't seen anything that looks solid enough in the emails that could catch Mann. Distasteful- plenty. Evidence of one-sided promotion of his viewpoint- in spades. Is that misconduct- not by a mile.
Additionally, it is easy to forget that Mann has changed academic institution a couple of times. I don't see how Penn could investigate Mann's behaviour under a different employer.
Finally, i don't see it as the remit of the enquiry to reinvestigate detailed aspects of the science; the view would be that, absence evidence of malfeasance, the science is settled in peer-reviewed journals.
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Per
Shouldn't they be able to ascertain, for example, if he has withheld the code for his PC retention calculations and his confidence interval calculations during his time at PSU?
Yawn. So predictable. It's obvious the culture of lies and deceit goes all the way to the top. It's so ingrained they probably don't even see the problem now.
"What confidence can we have in either employing Penn State graduates? or, in the reliability of any of their research?"
"It's obvious the culture of lies and deceit goes all the way to the top."
Classic conspiracy theory: evidence against the conspiracy becomes part of the conspiracy.
Mann has been exonerated but in a witch-hunt the facts don't matter.
Froank O'Dwyer wrote:
""What confidence can we have in either employing Penn State graduates? or, in the reliability of any of their research?"
"It's obvious the culture of lies and deceit goes all the way to the top."
Classic conspiracy theory: evidence against the conspiracy becomes part of the conspiracy.
Mann has been exonerated but in a witch-hunt the facts don't matter.
February 5, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterFrank O'Dwyer"
Sorry to disappoint you Frank, but the "hockey team", of which Mann is a key member, stand accused of:
"Gate Keeping" pal reviewing, nobbling journals, possibly getting journal editors who were willing to publish papers which the "team" disapprove of dismissed. Mann personnaly, stands accused of some pretty dubious use of statistics (publishing an statistically insignificant - if not downright incorrect correlation as fact), and, failing in his obligation to make his data and code available for others to attempt to repeat his results - both a basic and integral part of the scientific method and an obligation enterred into as a condition of publication in the vast majority of journals.
I call that a pretty damning list of allegations.
The Penn State Inquiry has not found it necessary to even approach Mann's critics (Steve McIntyre would be the obvious person for them to speak to - they didn't) as part of their investigation, before, as you put it "exonerating" him.
If Penn State considers the alleged behaviour so insignificant that it can't even be bothered to investigate, then I think that really does raise questions about the quality of research and teaching at that institution, and by implication the employability of those taught at an institution finding those standards acceptable.
You may have read in my previous comments, that I generally assume cock-up before conspiracy? you may also have seen me draw the analogy with the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland and the actions of individuals in covering up the crimes of paedophile priests. I am not sure that there ever was an institution wide conspiracy there, just individuals and small groups anxious to protect the good name of their institution. You can see how successful they were in protecting that good name by Googling "Ryan Report, Dublin" or "Ferns inquiry"
Where is my conspiracy theorising, in questioning the integrity of the institution which accepts the alleged and implied mis behaviour and by implication, those who teach there and those who were taught there?
or by some strange process of trans-substantiation, is any questioning of AGW and the team pushing it "Conspiracy theorising"?
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