Undercover Activists Buy Off Professors in Climate Sting
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The basic problem here is that two top academics are clearly selling the use of their credentials for clear commercial gain of a private company and using sophisticated means to hide the fact of such sale.
That part is bad enough, even worse is the eager sales pitch and readiness to suggest financial shenanigans to hide the source of the funding that these professors are engaging in. It's very clear that these are not first-timers or unwilling participants. This is their normal MO for writing and speaking on the topic.
In none of these cases is the sponsor identified. All my work is published as an independent scholar. – Frank Clemente
Somehow it seems like these days, if someone gets caught doing these things in real life, nothing happens. Dumping toxic waste is pro-business. Bribery is freedom of speech. Torture? Heck, it's not torture, and they're really bad people anyway.
Sometimes I want to grab these people and ask them, seriously, if this isn't evil, then what IS?
> Torture? Heck, it's not torture, and they're really bad people anyway.
The use of torture 'by the good guys' is actually pretty ubiquitous in modern TV.
I mean, for God's sakes, the Nazis wore skulls and didn't notice they were the baddies!
You mean like the Queen's Royal Lancers [1] (17th/21st Lancers in WW2) maybe?
Maybe they cover it up with "God is great!" sometimes, but then they pop out, "We love death as you love life!"[1]. Sometimes, rarely, they do you the favor of actually printing the Chaos Star of the occult on their book-covers[2] (and I seriously thought that was a pop-culture reference until I found the link proving its truth). Or maybe they're just cheering, "Let him die! Let him die!"[3].
[1] -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfagPS6490
[2] -- http://crookedtimber.org/2015/03/10/who-is-aleksandr-dugin/
It is absolutely, always the normal behavior to disclose all sources of funding.
For example, I had the paper EpiCaster: An Integrated Web Application For Situation Assessment and Forecasting of Global Epidemics[1] open.
This paper includes section 9, Acknowledgements:
We thank our external collaborators and members of the Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Lab- oratory (NDSSL) for their suggestions and comments. This work has been partially supported by NSF Nets Grant CNS- 0626964, NSF HSD Grant SES-0729441, NIH MIDAS project 2U01GM070694-7, NSF PetaApps Grant OCI-0904844, DTRA RD Grant HDTRA1-0901-0017, DTRA CNIMS Grant HDTRA1- 07-C-0113, NSF NETS CNS-0831633, DHS 4112-31805, DOE DE-SC0003957, NSF REU Supplement CNS-0845700, US Naval Surface Warfare Center N00178-09-D-3017 DEL ORDER 13, NSF Netse CNS- 1011769 and NSF SDCI OCI-1032677.
That's just a random paper, as an example. That is simply how academic papers are done, and anyone who isn't disclosing funding isn't following normal behavior.
Maybe some people will be suspicious of this paper because it is partially funded by the US Naval Surface Warfare Center. That's their choice, and this disclosure enables them to judge it based on that.
To me it feels like the headline and the story are that these guys have a conflict of interest because of the funding (i.e. "we paid these scientists to say climate change isn't a problem"), but in fact everything in this article is consistent with it going the other way around - they have a conflict of interest because they have strong beliefs on a scientific topic, and may be willing to do dodgy stuff in favor of that.
I never said that nothing wrong happened (I honestly don't know), just that it feels like a bait-and-switch because I get the strong implication here that the point of this story is that these guys are taking bribes to induce them to say what they are saying, which is very different from "they are hiding the source of the funding which enables them to say what they are saying".
If you already believe something and someone is going to give you money to promote your views, why on earth would you say no?
2) Intentionally publishing in a sham journal to avoid peer review.
These are both tolerable behavior in the free market, but ought to be firable offenses for university professors.
No, it doesn't imply that at all.
to buy somebody off:
"to bribe someone to ignore what one is doing wrong."
"To bribe someone in order to ensure cooperation"
The implications carried are that the payments were a bribe and that the actions taken as a result were improper.
I wonder if topics like education, biotech, military engagements, and torture are handled in a likewise fashion? A dime per word so to speak.
If you claim to be a scientist, you leave your personal beliefs at the lab door and abide to the experimental results. If you cannot do that, you pick a different subject of study and let some other unbiased scientist pick on the thorny (for you) subject.
How would you feel if Hawkings were a Christian, and he would take money from the Pope and then wrote a report on how he saw Jesus in the black hole?
And your analogy is only comparable if Hawking already had a history of reporting about seeing Jesus in black holes.
Which is why deliberately concealing and lying about funding sources in the manner described is SO BAD
The same way I feel about all such claims: if they can't be independently reproduced, they're garbage. The more bizarre the claim, the easier it should be to disprove it. Authors who publish outlandish claims that cannot be substantiated by others will be first disgraced and then, worse, ignored.
Hawking and the pope aren't relevant to your example. All that matters is that someone claims he saw Jesus in a black hole. It's not even clear that such a thing is a falsifiable claim, and if it weren't, it wouldn't be accepted for publication anyway. But even if it took the form of one, it would be immediately disproved and that would be the end of it. It's the claim that's important, not who made it or who paid him to do so.
My question was, how would you feel about:
1. A scientist with strong political/religious views.
2. That works in a scientific problem that have strong implicationis for his strong views.
3. Then he does accept funding from established political players that allign with his strong views. He fails to report his funding sources.
4. And finally - surprise, surprise - goes on to write articles that "reach" to the "conclusion" that validate his political/religious views.
The reason is that the GP claimed that there is nothing morally wrong with said scientist because of #2. (the scientist sincerily believes in those biased views). And that the former example has no difference with:
a) Scientist picks one field of study.
b) Scientist accepts funding from a third party that is interested in such field of study.
c) Scientist produces results in his field of study.
There's also your point in:
> He fails to report his funding sources.
Which to me is inherently dishonest, especially in a world where you can decide not to publish your results.
So I guess I still don't think what you're suggesting is ok, but my solution is different and more complex than I think you're suggesting. Mainly because I don't think unanimity is healthy and I don't think lack of bias is achievable or even necessarily desirable. But I still agree that what you've suggested is a problem given how science is done right now.
> In Happer’s case, investigators said they were part of a “Middle East oil and gas company” and asked to ensure that their commissioning of the report could not be traced. Happer reached out to a friendly Exxon lobbyist who suggested channeling it through Donors Trust, the shady donor anonymity organization that has been called the “dark-money ATM” of North American conservatives.
The problem is the deliberate process of hiding conflicts of interest and of especially hiding funding from foreign organizations.
> Clemente referenced past articles and even testimony in front of state legislatures and said, “In none of these cases is the sponsor identified. All my work is publised as an independent scholar.”
At the very least, it should be illegal to not disclose such conflicts on interest when testifying under oath.
Would this qualify ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_Congress
or
You're missing the point.
It's not that this guy was paid off and therefore changed his views.
It's that he published research that he claimed was independent that was not, and in the process neglected to disclose his sources of revenue and conflicts of interest.
Those very conflicts of interest would, under normal circumstances, force folks to question the nature of the research and the quality of the results. IMO that's getting awfully close to academic misconduct. It's certainly extremely unethical.
Edit:
BTW, "Merchants of Doubt" has covered this territory extensively, so to be honest, I'm not sure Greenpeace has added much to the dialog, here, aside from flat out catching folks in the act.
Yeah flat out catching highly placed, non-anonymous culprits is very significant. I'll bet a lot more people would be paying attention to this article compared to those who read or watch Merchants of Doubt.
> Those very conflicts of interest would, under normal circumstances, force folks to question the nature of the research and the quality of the results.
The fact that someone has a conflict of interest should be stated, certainly. But we should always question the nature of research and the quality of results. In one of these cases, it doesn't even seem that a research paper was being purchased but simply an essay, which presumably would not be cited by anyone or even considered a presentation of facts by other scholars. But in any case, we shouldn't assume someone's research is honest and valuable just because he doesn't seem to have an economic conflict of interest. There's a lot of bad science done with deliberate intent to deceive that involved no such conflict of interest at all.
The bottom line is that science is not being nearly tough enough on itself, and the results are what you'd expect: a lot of bad papers that are either useless and irrelevant or full of lies, errors, and fabrications. Reporting conflicts of interest might help a little, but it shouldn't be used as a cover for gullibility.
Reckon you're part of the problem, then. Appeal to authority and a refusal to hold research to a high standard.
> They should at minimum lose their jobs, have any research redacted from journals and possibly face jail time.
We agree on this. I don't even see how it's controversial. I'd just like to see the other 99% of crap science handled the same way.
Most of everything is crap, the good stuff survives mostly. The bad stuff survives as crap mythos and some good stuff goes under.
https://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/12/08/exposed-academi...
We cannot know what his original view on climate change might have been. Even if he was on the conservative side to begin with, there's a large spectrum from "Earth might be getting warmer, but I don't think it's anthropogenic" to "CO2 is actually good for us!"
Perhaps some of his previous papers were paid for by others with similar interests as well. Judging from the way he tried expertly to hide the source of funding and avoid proper peer review, it certainly doesn't sound like this is the first time he's done it.
Moreover, humans are remarkably good at changing their beliefs in the face of cognitive dissonance. Someone who is repeatedly paid to advocate a certain point of view might honestly come to believe that the bullshit he's been spewing is true, and gradually move to a part of the spectrum that is much more radical than where he started out.
Does it matter? You don't have the right to demand that everyone agree with you, even if you're right. We don't burn people at the stake or try to silence them for disagreement. Please stop trying to create unanimity; it's not healthy.
What we should punish people for: lying to Congress, taking or offering bribes, doing dishonest work while in the public employ. All of those apply, and any should be sufficient, at a bare minimum, to justify firing these professors. However, thinking that climate change doesn't exist or isn't anthropogenic is not a crime. Saying so is not a crime, either. And I'm damned glad of it!
His original view, if there ever was such a thing, still matters because many of us would like to know whether he changed his views after accepting the bribe. It doesn't matter if he changed his views from right to wrong or the other way around, what matters is that a scientist might have changed his public views based on something other than evidence.
Edit to add: Furthermore, I don't think this is unreasonable of them! Figuring out which experts to trust is a really hard problem in a society as complex as ours has become, and this makes it harder to argue for "you should trust scientists".
Seems like there is some info being left out. Both sources seem to be hiding things, why not publish the entire e-mail exchanges?
Seems quite different than how it was being portrayed. From what I'm seeing, they asked for a white paper, not a research paper and Happer said they could send money to his 501c3 charity which only pays part of his travel expense and would only write what he believed in. Even correcting them on peer review in an academic sense vs a white paper reviewed by his peers...
Am I missing something nefarious here? Because this seems much more like a 'hit piece' on a guy who is testifying before congress.
The great thing about publishing is that it gives other educated people a chance to rebut and question the argument.
I also believe funding sources should be kept secret in some cases so that the paper or research can be judged on its own merit rather than judged based on the motivations of the entity funded it.
Peer review is the primary mechanism by which modern science verifies evidence, especially in fields like climate change where it's often very difficult to replicate another scientist's data.
Evasion of peer review is like including an obfuscated blob in a critical part of some security software. It is highly suspicious by definition, and the community has every right to assume that it is malicious unless the author can demonstrate otherwise.
But the issue is the author effectively saying "this project's source code undergoes independent security audits prior to each release" and then being paid to include an un-audited blob.
In both cases person is being paid to deceitfully and deliberately abuse the trust placed in him.
Your second paragraph is irrelevant. The problem is not publishing this research, the problem is the intentional deceptions about both conflicts of interest and the lack of peer review.
Your third paragraph is also dead wrong. Disclosure of all conflicts of interest is critical, not to mention required in order to publish in any respectable scientific journal.
2. Sure, but this is tangential to my comment at best.
3. my belief is not "also dead wrong" Disclosure of conflicts of interest is not the same as disclosure of funding sources in all cases.
I'd also like to point out that your comment is an example of what I consider to be the type of poorly thought out middle brow discourse that perfectly characterizes the worst form of discussion on the internet. Unilateral statements like "your wrong" contribute nothing at all.
Ok, let us look at what you wrote:
> I have some questions about this "sting" that were unanswered in the article.
You don't ever ask any questions, and thus this is a rhetorical device to cast doubt on the article.
> It would be one thing if the academic were paid to have a certain opinion, its is another thing entirely to pay an academic to falsify research supporting a viewpoint they already hold. It reads as if the academics were paid to support a thesis with evidence. Once you are at a high enough academic level you should be able to write a paper arguing for and supporting a thesis whether or not you believe in that thesis on a personal level. It's important to sustain debate on all sides of an issue regardless of whether or not all of those sides are politically popular.
Straw man argument. Nobody is arguing against commercial funding for research or papers. The issue is deliberately concealing funding/independence and deliberately evading peer review.
> The great thing about publishing is that it gives other educated people a chance to rebut and question the argument.
Not when you deliberately avoid peer review.
> I also believe funding sources should be kept secret in some cases so that the paper or research can be judged on its own merit rather than judged based on the motivations of the entity funded it.
Ok, what are those cases? Oh right, you were just making a rhetorical point and don't have any actual examples.
I'm utterly shocked and disappointed by how many people on here are saying things along the lines of "what's the big deal?"
Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation by Charles Barber
I would find it much more damning if they found a professor that would change their position for money, rather than finding people that will accept money to forward a position they think is correct.
>The emails and recordings also outline how Happer ran a sham peer-review process through the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a prominent U.K.-based climate skepticist think thank. Happer admits that his papers would not likely be published through typical the academic peer review process. “I would be glad to ask for a similar review for the first drafts of anything I write for your client. Unless we decide to submit the piece to a regular journal, with all the complications of delay, possibly quixotic editors and reviewers that is the best we can do, and I think it would be fine to call it a peer review.”
The headlines are actually somewhat mundane compared to the substance. This is the reverse of the Planned Parenthood tapes.
I really don't think submitting papers to similarly minded groups in the name of "peer review" is an uncommon occurrence on any side of the climate change debate -- or any other debate for that matter.
Yes it is. It's not just uncommon, it's simply unacceptable in regular scientific research. Don't believe me, here's Prof. Happer's own words:
Verbatim from William Happer's email:
"For example, Golkany knew the names of the reviews he received, but for a journal, the peer reviewers would normally be anonymous.
.
.
Unless we decide to submit the piece to a regular journal, with all the complications of delay, possibly quixotic editors and reviewers that is the best we can do, and I think it would be fine to call it a peer review"
He knows exactly what he's doing is wrong and why. He's deliberately engaging in a a sleight of hand in order to deceive the casual reader/listener with the words "peer review".
Demonstrating that scientists bow to pressure isn't exactly helping the global warming cause.
The fossil-fuel sector has a enormously greater incentive to bribe people to affect the system, and a metric fuckton more money to do it with. It doesn't make sense to imply some kind of parity of wrongdoing.