Deltoid

Plagiarism? What plagiarism? If it's not a right-wing talking point that's being mindlessly amplified by clueless journalists, then it doesn't exist.

There was no plag-- wait, there was nothing, nothing at all, simply nothing.

Come on, climate changes. Public opinion changes. I'm merely reporting on the winds of public opinion. There's no deliberate denialist movement. Oh, and here's some linkspam.

[insert linkspam here]

Posted by: frank | April 23, 2010 2:01 PM

Actually, it's not plagiarism, according a fried who has done much expert witnessing. he says, in lawyer-speak, it is:

"striking similarity"

Posted by: John Mashey | April 23, 2010 10:48 PM

Yeah, it's not plagiarism. Writing just moves in natural cycles. And it's the sun.

Posted by: t_p_hamilton | April 24, 2010 1:08 AM

...ad hoc ergo propter hoc.

Perhaps you meant "post hoc, ergo propter hoc". You know, where the "post hoc" bit has always been a key factor in assessing allegations of plagiarism.

Posted by: Lotharsson | April 24, 2010 1:23 AM

I think El Gordo wins the internets with ad hoc ergo propter hoc ...

This is undoubtedly the iwttiest remark I've seen El Gordo "post". The fact that it was an unintentional own goal merely adds to its lustre.

Posted by: Fran Barlow | April 24, 2010 2:26 AM

It's not plagiarism because:

a) Al Gore is fat b) Earth Day was on Lenin's 100th birthday c) Computer modellers d) Can't we get back to the science? e) You warmenistas want to control our lives f) something with -gate in it g) Co2 is plant food h) Beware an ice age i) It's really cold were I am j) Calling people deniers is like saying they are Nazis-sympathisers k) Carbon traders are evil (see how fat Al Gore is?) l) the MWP, LIA and Mann m) the world is only 8000 years old n) climate has been changing for billions of years o) Warming will be good for us p) Arctic ice grows in winter q) Himalayan glaciers won't disappear entirely until 2350 r) I think we should be nicer to deniers s) They've forgotten about clouds t) They predicted an ice age in the 1970s u) The Hockey Stick is bent v) Big government w) Scientific grant grubbing x) Phil Jones is suicidal y) Those CRU scientists were really rude z) Rajendra Pachauri looks like a carpet salesman and wants people to stop eating meat ...

OK ... no need for any trolls to add comments now ... I suspect I've covered it.

Posted by: Fran Barlow | April 24, 2010 2:58 AM

Fran, you forgot to mention that serial use of the term denier is mob (or should I say 'blog')sanctioned bigotry cloaked by intellectualism.
Call it what it is: heresy.

Posted by: SamG | April 24, 2010 3:16 AM

What, you don't think ad hoc could have caused proctor hoc?

Let's just say on the evidence presented it appears extremely unlikely.

I suggest you take a look at the methods used by any university to establish plagiarism - often routinely used for submissions by undergrad students - and see if the evidence presented by DeepClimate is likely to meet those tests.

Posted by: Lotharsson | April 24, 2010 3:39 AM

Longer SamG: Your use of a noun implies an adjective of my choice, even after it's been extensively explained to me that not only are other adjectives possible and that my adjective of choice is not implied by those using the noun, but that context strongly implies an adjective different to the one I have in mind. But I'm going to keep on harping about it because...well, what else have I got, really?

Posted by: Lotharsson | April 24, 2010 3:46 AM

Let's just say on the evidence presented it appears extremely unlikely.

Whatever! It's all just oil of a duck's back with this lot ;)

Posted by: duckster | April 24, 2010 3:53 AM

Kudos to deepclimate on this - I hope this effort gets brought to wider attention some day. Its clear that some pretty damning "cut and paste and move words around a bit without really understanding what they mean" went on.

Posted by: Dave H | April 24, 2010 5:14 AM

Call it what it is: heresy.

You wish you were a heretic. All you really are is ignorant, and not particularly bright.

Posted by: MartinM | April 24, 2010 8:21 AM

I figured SamG was a poe. I mean 'bigotry'? If there were any messianic persecution complex I figured even your average wingnut wouldn't melodramatically wallow in, it was that one. At least that's what I figured was the tell- that and heretic, which as Sam correctly posits, would've fit quite nicely in Fran's list.

Of course, omniscience is a necessary condition to knowing the wingnut brain. Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZezfjWox5s

Posted by: Majorajam | April 24, 2010 11:06 AM

Apologies for the thread hijack, but the wonderful Professor Richard S Lindzen gets prime opinion column space in The Australian this weekend, humming the same old tune as always.

Maybe time for another part in The Australian's War Against Science?

Posted by: Mike | April 24, 2010 1:54 PM

Maybe time for another part in The Australian's War Against Science?

...and two minutes later, there it is. Impressive.

Posted by: MartinM | April 24, 2010 2:02 PM

But wasn't Wegman a Congressional Report and since when do the latter have to be peer reviewed?

Posted by: Dave Andrews | April 24, 2010 4:31 PM

But wasn't Wegman a Congressional Report and since when do the latter have to be peer reviewed?

Er...this thread's about plagiarism, not peer review.

(Peer review can be sufficient to detect or consider the possibility of plagiarism, but it's not necessary. And plagiarism by an academic is generally considered a very serious matter.)

Posted by: Lotharsson | April 24, 2010 9:54 PM

Well doesn't DC have a heading " Implications for Peer Review" and say he is going to explore this further in relation to Wegman?

Moreover, DCs comments all pertain to the social network analysis and not the statistical analysis which, of course, was the real meat and investigation of Mann's dodgy statistics.

Posted by: Dave Andrews | April 25, 2010 3:45 PM

Shorter Ducky: Who cares about respect when u can have attention?

Posted by: Majorajam | April 25, 2010 4:38 PM

So Dave boy, your comment at @ 36.

I take it you did read paras 4 & 5 of John Mashey's post @ 35.

P.S. Could explain the technical aspects of why Mann et al's work was in your assertion, dodgy' and explain why Mann et al's work has been independently reproduced around the world, reproduction of results being a fairly key activity in science.

Posted by: Jeremy C | April 25, 2010 5:25 PM

re: #41

That's not what it's about, and I won't scoop DC ... but he has found yet more fascinating stuff. I do offer a hint of something worth revisiting: Replies to Stupak questions. Remember, the WP was throwing lots of rocks at paleo* peer review...

Also, remember the earlier round of striking similarity with Bradley. The social networks stuff is a separate part, with intersting differences.

Since much reading material was provided by Barton Staffer Peter Spencer (meaning: much was probably selected by M&M, unless P.Spencer happens to be an expert), it seems at least possible that the selection and modification of the Bradley text happened earlier than the Wegman Panel, although of course, they knew about Bradley, since they referenced it elsewhere. Among the various possible combinations of copying and making changes, it is hard to find a pleasant one...

But, for the social networking part, it is really hard to find any reason to think that had come from outside. Unlike the Bradley part, the social networking part got reused in Said, Wegman, Sharabati, Rigsby (2008) ... which thanks 3 separate Federal agencies. That has implications, none good.

Of course, who actually did the plagiarism work is unknown, but it would seem slightly surprising if the same person did both the Bradley part and the social networks part.

Posted by: John Mashey | April 25, 2010 10:04 PM

Jeremy C "why Mann et al's work has been independently reproduced around the world"

Like Chris O'Neill you keep coming out with this line but never, apart from PNAS 2008, provide any references to these suppossed supporting papers.

And even if you could I bet they would all involve former collaboraters with Mann, thus reinforcing Wegman's social network analysis.

Posted by: Dave Andrews | April 26, 2010 4:38 PM

Jeremy C,

And how often do the same people crop up in those papers and why didn't you notice this?

Bradley, Briffa, Jones and Mann. All there. The other papers have all been dealt with on Climate Audit also.

And still Mann uses dodgy statistics in PNAS 2008, which surprisingly wasn't on your list.

Why do you still "have faith" in what he does?

Posted by: Dave Andrews | April 27, 2010 4:36 PM

And even if you could I bet they would all involve former collaboraters with Mann,

...and those that don't, share 99.9% of his genes... so there.

Posted by: Martin Vermeer | April 28, 2010 4:58 AM

As DC and I have been careful to say, the similarities in the text are striking, but that does not guarantee that Wegman actually performed plagiarism himself, given that others were involved. Of course he is responsible for the report, especially given his central role.

Posted by: John Mashey | April 28, 2010 10:33 AM

Former Skeptic,

Well, from around 1910 to 1940 there was no reason to beat her and indeed this situation continued from the 1940's to the late 1970's. Then there were occassions from 1979 to the late 1990's when I wondered if I should but things quietened down again after that.

BTW, did I tell you my wife's name is CO2?

Posted by: Dave Andrews | April 29, 2010 4:39 PM

The saga continues... inspired by Deep Climate, I've been examining the Wegman Report in detail. Plodding patience pays off... but the latest is an example of breathtakingly-bizarre incompetence.

Many WR references were sourced through Barton staffer Peter Spencer, according to Yasmin Said p.5. I've been studying them, and I find BAD, WORSE, and AWFUL.

BAD
Of the ~80 references in the Bibliography, only ~30 are actually referenced in the body. Some are totally irrelevant, a 1.5 page review of Wunsch(2006). That is about Dansgaard-Oscher events, rather irrelevant to Mann's work, since the last occurrence was thousands of years before. Some of the "reviews of impo0rtant articles have yet more seeming cut-and-paste.

In normal scholarship, when summarizing an article, one normally paraphrases to show that one understands it, or at least, block-quotes a few key pieces. One doesn't do undergrad-level cut-and-paste. [This isn't publicly written up yet, but will be, and will at least double the number of pages with problems like this. This will likely show up at Deep Cliamte's place.]

But ~50 of the ~80 references aren't even referenced, and some might be OK, but that is a high fraction. There are many more irrelevant or "grey literature" references ...

At best, this is bad scholarship, consistent with someone else selecting many of their sources for people who have little clue about relevance or importance. Some references only seem to appear there to repeat common anti-science memes. This is why seeming plagiarism is just the most obvious hint that something is wrong and makes one dig deeper.

WORSE
But, Wegman, Scott, Said's report included the following (unreferenced) "reference," on p.57:

Valentine, Tom (1987) “Magnetics may hold key to ozone layer problems,” Magnets, 2(1) 18-26.

Without even seeing the article, it is unclear how a 1987 article about ozone layer in an (offbeat, non-scholarly) technology journal could have anything to do with the purported investigation of 1998-1999 papers on temperature reconstructions.

AWFUL
It turns out (H/T Michael Tobis & Anna Haynes) that Tom Valentine has written about topics mentioned below, as well as psychic surgery. He was the editor of "Magnets" 1988-1991, a step up from his earlier writing for the "National Tattler," but not a scholarly journal. He later ran a talk show that among other things promoted the dreaded "black helicopters."
fuel-less engines
suppresion of inventions, H/T MTp
his bio, read carefully, H/T AH
promoted the black helicopters

While Wegman, Scott, and Said did this pro bono, the salaries of everybody else involved in the House were paid for by US taxpayers ... and we got scholarship of this quality, because NAS was "unlikely" to address all of Mr. Barton's concerns."

Posted by: John Mashey | May 2, 2010 9:08 PM

Indeed.

Posted by: Stephan Lewandowsky | May 3, 2010 9:50 AM

Please DC attributes claims that are part of the general knowledge of dendroclimatology to one author and claims plagiarism. I could do the same thing with a half a dozen other sources including skeptics.

Posted by: Tom | May 4, 2010 6:34 PM