If you already believe something and someone is going to give you money to promote your views, why on earth would you say no?
> 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...
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.
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.
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.