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Unbelievable: The tenured academic’s response to faked gay marriage opinion study

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Noted by Barry Arrington here.

Whitewash duly reported in the New Yorker is

In retrospect, Green wishes he had asked for the raw data earlier. And yet, in collaborations in which data is collected at only one institution, it’s not uncommon for the collecting site to anonymize and code it before sharing it. The anonymized data Green did see looked plausible and convincing. “He analyzed it, I analyzed it—I have the most ornate set of graphs and charts and every possible detail analyzed five different ways,” Green said. Ultimately, though, the system takes for granted that no one would be so brazen as to create the actual raw data themselves.

The author burbles on, as expected, about the nature of “belief” …

So the prof didn’t ask to see the raw data … ?

Well, excuse US creationist hillbillies but

1) If I were buying a house, the first thing I would want after the initial [in principle] agreement is a title search. = In principle, I’ll buy the house on a mutually agreed date if the law agrees you own it and I agree to your conditions stated on that date.

2. If I were buying a used car, I would get it checked out by a Class A licensed mechanic before I forwarded any serious money to a dealer.

Yet I’m supposed to believe that a tenured professor of political science at Columbia University is no way as smart as a dumb hack like me in the most basic ways imaginable? The stuff that keeps most of us in funds?

Don’t we all need a conversation about why people are going into debt to pay for education from these kinds of people, and paying taxes for it, and pledging money for it?
And why isn’t that conversation happening yet?

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Comments
Seversky @ 15 [reposted]
Michael Mann has been cleared of any academic wrongdoing by several inquiries.
Those inquiries did not address wrongdoing by Mann specifically, those investigations had targeted other people and reach no findings about Mann himself. Yet in the most notable investigation of Mann specifically, Mann fought to withhold disclosure by UVA of Mann's emails while he was a UVA professor. More on the inquiries that did not exhonerate Mann can be found below, salient portions excerpted by me. http://climateaudit.org/tag/steyn/ http://climateaudit.org/tag/muir-russell/ http://climateaudit.org/tag/hide-the-decline/ http://climateaudit.org/tag/exoneration/ http://climateaudit.org/2014/05/09/mann-misrepresents-the-epa-part-1/
The EPA Documents Although the IPCC 2001 incident was not even mentioned in the Penn State reports, it was mentioned in the EPA documents cited in Mann’s pleadings. These documents did not originate in an investigation of academic misconduct by Mann or others, but in connection with the longstanding EPA regulatory proceedings leading up to and following from Massachusetts v EPA, and, in particular, in connection with EPA’s denial of various petitions to reconsider its GHG Endangerment Finding, a topic in which EPA was hardly a disinterested party. The backstory of these proceedings is itself very interesting, but, for the most part, well outside the scope of today’s post (the parties are once again gone to the U.S. Supreme Court in connection with EPA’s "tailoring rule" in Utility Air v EPA). The salient point in the discussion below is that EPA appears to have been aware of Hockey Stick controversies and had wisely taken care to cover itself with caveats. It was therefore able to avoid taking any position on allegations concerning Mann’s IPCC 2001 diagram, which, for its purposes, was moot. But from the perspective of Mann’s pleadings, the EPA documents provide no "investigation" or "exoneration" of the amputation of data in the IPCC 2001 report. The EPA dismissed this comment as follows:
Response (1-5): EPA has reviewed the petitioner’s information and has determined that the graph provided by the petitioner from Professor Easterbrook’s talk is not from the AR4, but rather from the Third Assessment Report, which was published in 2001 and is no longer the most recent IPCC assessment report. In the AR4, the latest data on this issue was assessed and depicted in Figure 6.10. In this figure, three out of the 12 reconstructions terminate in 1960 (as noted in Table 6.1 in the same chapter), because the reconstructions in the underlying papers also terminate in 1960. Six of the 12 reconstructions extend to 1990 or later, again based on the time period covered by the relevant dataset. EPA’s TSD actually uses a figure from the NRC (2006), which shows six reconstructions, one of which terminates in 1960. Because these assessment reports are showing the entirety of the data represented in the underlying literature, there is no evidence of any "artful deceit," nor is this evidence that the AR4 is "scientifically questionable."
Whereas CEI had pointed (albeit with incorrect identification) to the IPCC 2001 diagram (under Mann’s lead authorship) as an example of "artful deceit", EPA’s response considered the diagrams in the NAS 2006 report and IPCC AR4, stating that these diagrams showed "no evidence of any "artful deceit." Because EPA had relied on NAS 2006 and IPCC AR4 in their Endangerment Finding, they were entitled to assess the diagrams that they had actually used. But nothing in this paragraph constitutes an "investigation" or "exoneration" of Mann’s truncation of the Briffa reconstruction in the IPCC 2001 report.
http://climateaudit.org/2014/02/27/mann-misrepresents-noaa-oig/
Terms of Reference The OIG investigation was triggered by a letter from Senator James Inhofe on May 26, 2010. The OIG interpreted its terms of reference as follows:
Pursuant to your request, we conducted an inquiry to determine the following: 1. Whether NOAA carried out an internal review of the CRU emails posted on the internet; 2. The basis for Dr Lubchenco’s above testimony statement before the House Select Committee on December 2, 2009; 3. Whether NOAA has conducted a review of its global temperature data comprising the GHCN-M dataset, which is maintained by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center; 4. Whether any CRU emails indicated that NOAA: a. Inappropriately manipulated data comprising the GHCN-M temperature dataset; b. Failed to adhere to appropriate peer review procedures; c. Did not comply with federal laws pertaining to information/datas sharing, namely the Federal Information Quality Act, the Freedom of Information Act and the Shelby Amendment?
Nowhere do these terms of reference include or require the OIG to investigate Mann’s conduct and they did not do so. They did not seek an explanation from Mann as to why IPCC authors were worried that Mann might push them beyond "what was right" or explain why Mann, who was not an AR4 author, would be mentioned with Co-Chair Solomon as pressing IPCC authors. The third email was the notorious email in which Jones had asked Mann to forward his deletion request to Eugene Wahl, who, at the time of the OIG report, was employed by NOAA, characterized by the OIG as follows:
CRU email 1212073451 dated May 29, 2008 in which the Director of the CRU requested a researcher from Pennsylvania State University to ask an individual, who is now a NOAA scientist, to delete certain emails related to his participation in the IPCC AR4.
The OIG reported that the incident had taken place prior to Wahl becoming an employee of NOAA and therefore not under NOAA jurisdiction:
This scientist explained to us that he believes he deleted the referenced emails at that time. We determined that he did not become a NOAA employee until after the incident, in August 2008, and therefore did not violate any agency record retention policies. Further, this individual informed us that in December 2009 he received a letter from Senator Inhofe requesting that he retain all of his records, which he told us he has done.
http://climateaudit.org/2014/02/25/mann-misrepresents-the-uk-department-of-energy-and-climate-change/
Like the Commons Committee recommendations and conclusions to which it was responding, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) Response to the Commons Committee is likewise concerned only with CRU scientists and not Mann, as evident in the following statement of its concerns:
In considering our response, the Government is concerned that the reviews speak to the two fundamental issues of events at CRU: firstly, were CRU’s data and science sound, and secondly, were the University and its scientists intentionally trying to hide information? In addition, we have considered how these events reflect more broadly on the scientific community’s practices of generating and sharing data.
Throughout the short document, CRU is mentioned repeatedly; Mann not at all.
http://climateaudit.org/2014/02/24/mann-misrepresents-the-uk-commons-committee/
They stated that, "within [their] limited inquiry", Jones had "no case to answer", a conclusion that was subsequently widely cited, generally without the qualifications and limitations of the Committee’s actual statement (as, for example, the Mann pleadings):
In addition, insofar as we have been able to consider accusations of dishonesty-for example, Professor Jones’s alleged attempt to "hide the decline"- we consider that there is no case to answer. Within our limited inquiry and the evidence we took, the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact.
However, instead of finding that Jones had "no case to answer", the Muir Russell panel reached the opposite conclusion, finding that the 1999 WMO diagram was "misleading" (but without linking back to the Commons Committee report):
On the allegation that the references in a specific e-mail to a "trick" and to "hide the decline" in respect of a 1999 WMO report figure show evidence of intent to paint a misleading picture, we find that, given its subsequent iconic significance (not least the use of a similar figure in the IPCC Third Assessment Report), the figure supplied for the WMO Report was misleading. We do not find that it is misleading to curtail reconstructions at some point per se, or to splice data, but we believe that both of these procedures should have been made plain - ideally in the figure but certainly clearly described in either the caption or the text.
http://climateaudit.org/2014/02/21/mann-and-the-muir-russell-inquiry-1/
The actual quotation from the Muir Russell report (shown below) clearly limits its findings to CRU scientists,as National Review and CEI had asserted and contradicting both Mann’s complaint and blustery reply:
On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt.
Had Mann’s Reply Memorandum provided the actual quotation, it would have confirmed National Review’s and CEI’s claim that the Muir Russell had confined its findings to CRU scientists, but not in the quotation as altered by Mann and/or his lawyers. Conclusion Contrary to the claims in Mann’s complaint and Reply Memorandum, neither the Oxburgh panel nor the Muir Russell inquiries "exonerated" Mann himself. As clearly stated by National Review, the Muir Russell inquiry did not "offer any opinion on Mann, who was not a part of CRU, but merely a collaborator with some of its scientists". In future posts, I’ll show that other Mann claims of "exoneration" are also untrue.
http://climateaudit.org/2014/02/17/mann-and-the-oxburgh-panel/
Conclusion As noted at the start, Mann’s pleadings assert that he was "investigated" by multiple investigations and that all of the investigations (i.e. including Oxburgh) exonerated him of scientific misconduct, fraud, academic fraud, data falsification, statistical manipulation, manipulation of data and even supposed findings that his work was "properly conducted and fairly presented" and that these findings were announced and reported in "international and national media" of which the defendants were aware. However, it is evident that the Oxburgh panel did not interview Mann or carry out any of the steps necessary to conduct an investigation of Mann’s work and that they did not provide the wide-ranging "exoneration" asserted in Mann’s pleadings. Furthermore, public statements by members of the Oxburgh panel on Mann’s work were highly critical and, far from indicating the widespread exoneration claimed by Mann, suggested the opposite. Indeed, Mann himself at the time perceived these opinions as damaging to himself, as he dismissed Hand’s as a "rogue opinion" and unsuccessfully sought an apology from Hand.
Seversky also notes:
His "hockey-stick" graph has been broadly replicated a number of times using different methods of statistical analysis.
lol - yes, all those failed climate models that predict global warming that has mysteriously paused for the last 18 years when compared to actual temperature measurements. Failed statistical models have replicated Mann's failed statistical model, and not one of their "predictions" have matched reality for going on 18 years now.Charles
May 26, 2015
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Oh, thank god. I actually thought Charles had a point for a minute...then he goes on to blab about the ACA. What an asshole.evnfrdrcksn
May 24, 2015
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@charles#18 In the formulation of knowledge I presented, not all consequences of any event or outcome play a causal role in their being retained. As such, merely replacing the word consequences with knowledge is equivocation. If I needed to trick someone into believing I was dead to avoid being killed, the steps necessary to do so would be knowledge. It would solve a problem. Your examples commit the facility of the appeal to undesired consequences.Popperian
May 24, 2015
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NEWS My #comment-566250 to Seversky is still awaiting moderation.Charles
May 24, 2015
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News, I have #comment-566250 awaiting moderation, please.Charles
May 24, 2015
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Popperian @ 16
First, you’re equivocating. The consequences you’re implying would not be knowledge.
The consequences of accepting a lie is certainly knowable, and in the instance of inept, unsubstantiated lies, even predictable. The carcinogenic evidence against smoking tobacco was known and predictable and yet the tobacco companies lied about it. Their lies only served to solve their own problems (avoiding class action lawsuits). Obama's lies about the unAffordable don'tCare Act causing people to lose their insurance plans was predictable based on simple actuarial analysis of increased risks covered without commensurate increased funding. It was so predicatble that the ACA had to be passed before we could find out what was in it. Lies are not knowledge and do not form the basis of knowledge.
Even if [the study?] was faked, because Broockman couldn’t fund it, it could have actually solved the problem as advertised.
Theories start out as a ideas about how the world works which we conjecture to solve a problem.
Now you are equivocating. You first argued faked studies could actually solve a problem, and now you've shifted the goal posts to theories and ideas about how the world works. A study should attempt to prove or disprove a theory. Faking the data will never prove or disprove anything (except advance the faker's agenda, but agenda's are not theories about how the world works), and faking data is not theorizing (theories attempt to explain how the world actually does work, not how SJW's wish the world would work).
Third, if I lied and told you a drug that significantly reduced aging, but it does not, it won’t solve the problem it supposedly solves: reducing the effects of aging.
Well, since you're lying about the drug, you are likely lying about the problem it won't solve, but you lie regardless to cover the problem your lies do solve, which would be avoiding lawsuits while sustaining fraudulent profits, or getting an ACA passed before your supporters realize they been swindled.Charles
May 24, 2015
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Peter Thiel's comments on the American university system say it all. A variety of academics, scientists and particularly Ivy League professors and alumni inherit a priestly-caste status. They are the truth holders. They are the diviners of the universe. And we must pour an endless stream of funds, and an increasingly greater amount of resources into their steadily decreasing return of investment. The education bubble is ready to burst; and it will be far more glorious than the housing or tech bubbles. But does anyone know how to short sell or buy put options on Harvard?jw777
May 23, 2015
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@Charles#6
So do lies. They solve the liar’s problem, and their consequence remains embedded long after the lie is exposed.
First, you're equivocating. The consequences you're implying would not be knowledge. Second, have you heard of the fallacy of undesired consequences? Third, if I lied and told you a drug that significantly reduced aging, but it does not, it won't solve the problem it supposedly solves: reducing the effects of aging. Theories start out as a ideas about how the world works which we conjecture to solve a problem. This would include the idea that a particular drug significantly reduced aging. Since they start out as a guess, they are not guaranteed to actually solve the problem in question either. In both cases, criticism comes into play. The idea that knowledge comes from authoritative sources is bad philosophy.Popperian
May 23, 2015
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Charles @ 7
No, sharing data and its measurement is how science is supposed to work. If the data isn’t archived along with the studies and papers, then nothing should be published. No data, then no publication, no kudos and all grant monies are to be refunded.
Agreed. It appears there was a a rush to publication before properly verifying the data and procedures. It appears there was a failure to delay and properly investigate when doubts about the original findings began to emerge. Nonetheless, it was an independent attempt to replicate which finally brought the problems to light. That was science working as it should.
Scientists are just people in white smocks, and people lie; they lie on resumes, websites, in speeches, on TV, in newspapers, studies, and (gasp) even in their data.
As Dr Gregory House frequently averred, "Everybody lies". Yes, scientists are just human beings in lab coats. They can make mistakes and are corruptible like anyone else. That's why there are procedures like independent replication and peer-review. No, they're not perfect, no human enterprise ever is. But they're the best we can do.
Hiding faked data (e.g. Michael Mann’s “nature trick” to fabricate his “hockey stick”) was possible because of the collusion of like minded pals peers. Peers who “replicated” Mann’s work all the way down to obscuring how Mann adjusted the data, ridiculing those who called for the data, and even “losing” the raw data sets.
Michael Mann has been cleared of any academic wrongdoing by several inquiries. His "hockey-stick" graph has been broadly replicated a number of times using different methods of statistical analysis. Of course, as a human being, he can make mistakes like anyone else. But the same applies to his critics and, in this case, the inquiries have found that they were in the wrong.Seversky
May 23, 2015
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ppolish, Yes, I don't dispute that scientists such as Faraday and Maxwell, and many others, were (and are) Christians. However, polistra seems to be saying that this was a bad thing. Maybe s/he can say some more. Edit: From the wikipedia page on "Theory":
In physics the term theory is generally used for a mathematical framework—derived from a small set of basic postulates (usually symmetries, like equality of locations in space or in time, or identity of electrons, etc.)—which is capable of producing experimental predictions for a given category of physical systems. One good example is classical electromagnetism, which encompasses results derived from gauge symmetry (sometimes called gauge invariance) in a form of a few equations called Maxwell's equations.
daveS
May 23, 2015
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I'll let BA77 supply the links on the discovery of electro/magnetism. Summary....God Inspired. Ditto on QM. Love the BA77:)ppolish
May 23, 2015
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ppolish, There's a section on the page you linked to entitled "How does MRI scanning work?", which explains it in terms of electricity & magnetism and QM. Doesn't that count as theory?daveS
May 23, 2015
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Inventor of MRI inspired by doing good. Theory Schmeory. http://creation.mobi/super-scientist-slams-societys-spiritual-sicknessppolish
May 23, 2015
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Polistra,
Theories have never given us a useful result. Theories lead solely and strictly to tyranny and genocide.
Do you think we would have life-saving medical imaging technologies such as MRI and positron emission tomography without theories?daveS
May 23, 2015
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Polistra @ 8
The ultimate PREVENTION is to eliminate government research funding, and then eliminate the entire structure of theory/proof.
I favor government funding of basic research, like the superconducting supercollider, but I don't like government agencies being in charge of the projects or deciding what to fund. But I don't know whom to trust with that responsibility. Private enterprise, public education, scientific bodies, all have their agendas and susceptibility to being co-opted, especially when careers and billions of dollars are at stake.
Theories have never given us a useful result. Theories lead solely and strictly to tyranny and genocide.
Well, the advances in mathematics that have come from theorizing about quantum mechanics and SUSY, for example I believe are useful. I also think building the technological infrastructure and skills are useful. All that is going to other countries these days, and ultimately our economy and leadership with it.
(1) Fresh observation. ... If the observation is truly new, it will be worth paying for.
Yes, This works in application research (your point no 2) but in basic research without a likely opportunity to commercialize, it is prohibitively expensive with only the likes of IBM or Pfizer able to pursue it, but they'll be looking to hedge their bets with "likely" theories, and avoiding most things truely radical. Consider how petroleum companies don't fund much non-petroleum energy research, and how they obstruct smaller companies that try. Then again, dotting the countryside with windmills is not viable either. :-/
2) Fiddle with something until it works. This is how we get new products, NOT THEORY.
Yes. This is what engineers and entrepreneurs do better than anyone.Charles
May 23, 2015
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@Charles: "Replication is not the cure. Rather, exposing the data, metadata, its custody and measurement process is the cure." Exactly. But that isn't going to happen in the current system. The ultimate PREVENTION is to eliminate government research funding, and then eliminate the entire structure of theory/proof. Theories have never given us a useful result. Theories lead solely and strictly to tyranny and genocide. There are two ways of getting a meaningful and positive result in science: (1) Fresh observation. Look in places where people haven't looked before, or look in old places without wearing theory-goggles. If the observation is truly new, it will be worth paying for. (2) Fiddle with something until it works. This is how we get new products, NOT THEORY. Both of these can be fairly expensive, but both yield a result that will interest enough people (or businesses) to be worth funding independently by subscription.polistra
May 23, 2015
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Seversky @ 4
No, attempted replication of the original study which uncovers problems with it is how science is supposed to work. That’s one of the reasons for doing it.
No, sharing data and its measurement is how science is supposed to work. If the data isn't archived along with the studies and papers, then nothing should be published. No data, then no publication, no kudos and all grant monies are to be refunded. Scientists are just people in white smocks, and people lie; they lie on resumes, websites, in speeches, on TV, in newspapers, studies, and (gasp) even in their data. Hiding faked data (e.g. Michael Mann's "nature trick" to fabricate his "hockey stick") was possible because of the collusion of like minded pals peers. Peers who "replicated" Mann's work all the way down to obscuring how Mann adjusted the data, ridiculing those who called for the data, and even "losing" the raw data sets. Faked data can be replicated, actually even easier than real data, and faulty studies are easy to replicate. Real science is hard; hard to originate and harder to replicate due to hidden variables. Replication is not the cure. Rather, exposing the data, metadata, its custody and measurement process is the cure. And then lifetime bans of any authors who either falsify or manipulate data or fail to publish their data and how it was measured.Charles
May 23, 2015
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Popperian @ 3
Again, knowledge is information that causes itself to remain when embedded in a storage medium. It plays a causal role in it being retained. It solves a problem.
So do lies. They solve the liar's problem, and their consequence remains embedded long after the lie is exposed. "Cigarette smoking is no more ‘addictive’ than coffee, tea or Twinkies" 1994 "If you like the plan you have, you can keep it." 2009Charles
May 23, 2015
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None of these seem to relate to this case at all. So, what do you think Green should have asked for?wd400
May 23, 2015
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Silver Asiatic @ 2
In Seversky’s lemonade, faked data is merely “science working exactly as it is supposed to work.”
No, attempted replication of the original study which uncovers problems with it is how science is supposed to work. That's one of the reasons for doing it.Seversky
May 23, 2015
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What I want from ideas are their content, not their providence. Again, knowledge is information that causes itself to remain when embedded in a storage medium. It plays a causal role in it being retained. It solves a problem. The knowledge in the study failed to solve a problem as advertised. It could not be reproduced, regardless of what the other research team believed. Even if was faked, because Broockman couldn't fund it, it could have actually solved the problem as advertised. Would I agree with Broockman faking the data? No. But that doesn't change the fact that knowledge is objective, in that is dependent of anyone's belief.Popperian
May 23, 2015
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The anonymized data Green did see looked plausible and convincing.
I'll guess that if it had led to a different conclusion, the data veracity wouldn't have been convincing.
to create the actual raw data themselves
In Seversky's lemonade, faked data is merely "science working exactly as it is supposed to work."Silver Asiatic
May 23, 2015
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After decades of Orwellian conditioning unfortunately this is what happens to population: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/21/gallup-americans-greatly-overestimate-percentage-of-gays-lesbians-in-u-s/Eugen
May 23, 2015
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