Peter Wood's double standard on plagiarism

Tim, the URL for the "Flyspeck" link in the first paragraph got a bit munged up; it's got part of the Scienceblogs URL at the front.

Woah. To me, "NAS" means "National Academy of Sciences" not "National Association of Scholars." I've never even heard of the latter.

Er...is that Chronicle blog a Chronicle sanctioned blog? The factual errors alone, much less the slander, double standarding, etc. make it rather shocking. His handling of the comments was reprehensible and about as unscholarly as could be.

Seems reasonable that it's reached a threshold of malconduct and misjudgement which makes it worth pulling the plug, or, at least, bracketing in some way.

(And yes, pulling the plug is a big deal. Meet speech with more speech, etc. Except, he's part of a systematic attempt to destroy a key part of academia and academic standards and he does not meet reasonable academic standards in doing so. Bracketing is the LEAST that should be done. I.e., "The Chronicle web editors observe that Wood is talking slanderous nonsense. Here's a corrective piece.")

That "~500(?) person college in NYC..." is King's College in NYC, who offers a curriculum that "teaches a compelling worldview rooted in the Bible and informed by close study of great works of philosophy, political theory, and economics." (My emphasis)
The current president of this august institution? Dinesh D'Souza. No school can do with out scholars, and they only seek out the finest ones.

A fortuitous acronym that I'm sure was not lost on the weasely Mr. Wood.

But perhaps that can be solved to avoid even the merest hint of confusion by referring to Peter's would-be grandiose sounding organisation of reactionary pretensions as 'WoodNAS'.

Of course in everydaty usage it unfortunately sounds much like 'wooden ass', but dems de breaks.

CHE is very cagey about that blog. I don't know all of the posters, but some others are conservative think tank shills. Of course none of this is disclosed. Richard Vedder is on the faculty of Ohio U. and head of a "Center" for blah blah, when he's also involved with AEI and several other cosnervative think tanks, none of which are disclosed to CHE readers.

His "Center" strongly appears to be an astroturf or whatever you would call an "academic" center where quote marks seem to be required for certain words.

Sadly, in the real world I'm busy with some consulting or energy modeling conference at Stanford this week, but a few more notes:
See Wikipedia page on NAS*.
This ws founded 1987 with different name, changed later, but long before Wood arrived.
Apparently he was the best he could get.

But please, if you comment on the CHE blog, be polite, factual, and cite things, despite Wood's non-use of such. I will do a multi-part commentary on my usual style.
For instance, look up the fine Aussie phrase dog whistle politics and think about Wood's target audience. How many dog whistles can you find beyond the more obvious PT Barnum?

Likewise, reading that and his other posts, can you find any cases of "accuse the other side of your own behavior"?

Oops, back to architecture.

Either somebody is imitating Peter Wood in the comments of his article, *or* he actually said this:

"I see nothing to apologize for, thank you. I stand by my comments and rather welcome this display of self-congratulatory ignorance on the part of people who are desperately afraid to look at the facts. I am not going to spoil it by providing citations. Those are easily available to anyone willing to look."

Seriously. "I am not going to spoil it by providing citations." That's so ridiculous that I have to assume somebody is pretending to be Wood because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

>>in the comments of his article

>[where did it say that?!](http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/bottling-up-global-warming-skept…)

Peter Woods calls himself the president of an organisation for scholarship, while his published excuse for his slandering of various actual scholars is that he Googled for a few minutes to form his opinions.

It doesn't get much more academically or morally bankrupt than that.

ok, I have emailed Kerry Emanuel and E.O. Wilson asking if they still consider themselves members of the "National Academy of Scholars".

Has anyone contacted the Chronicle of Higher Education to ask if they are ok with having libel committed on their website? And if not, what are they going to do about it?

> "I am not going to spoil it by providing citations."

Keep in mind, folks, that this one's mighty squirmy yet easy to catch...

(she says, after having bitten)

Well, if nothing else, Peter Wood's comments on that article, assuming they are his which is entirely plausible - would seem to thoroughly repudiate any veneer of academic credibility that NAS* might wish to project. It's essentially a virtuoso display of asserting "I'm right, and you figure out why your evidence doesn't trump my evidence-free assertion".

Be polite to CHE, Kerry, etc.

Academia often has much to argue about, including policies, which, like the size and shape of government, often have legitimate different points of view.

There is nothing wrong for academics who feel their viewpoint isn't represented organizing.

here the issue might be: a) this may have been set up as a front long ago or b) it may have been getting diverted away into other areas ... like dismissing climate science as PT Barnum, Bruno Latour, etc.

Sometime soon, I will put together a scholarly analysis of Wood's since it has interesting characteristics.

This is another example of selling not-X to an audience by associating X with Y or Z that the audience is known to dislike. See POl2 in this chart.

In Wood's case, he tries to associate {climate science, Mann and I} with {PT Barnum, Bruno Latour, postmodernism and the academic establishment}. The first is obvious to anyone, the others are dogwhistle for some conservative academics.
This technique is used to create negative associations in people's minds without providing any substance.

Emanuel says "I have had several exchanges with Peter Wood, one of which (link?) he published in their online edition ... I certainly object to their stance on the subject."

As Mashey suggested, here's the Wikipedia link to the [National Association of Scholars](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_of_Scholars).

Email despatched to Chronicle editor questioning the nature of Peter Wood's post and his reluctance to provide the evidence supporting his innuendo and false claims, plus referring to the comments supporting Michael Mann made by Scott Mandia, Tenney Naumer, James Haughton, tedkirkpatrick, Eli Rabett and others.

May I suggest that others may consider doing likewise?

The "National Association of Scholars"?

It appears to be an ironic optimism of the very inverse-Socratic sort that also spawned the title "American Thinker".

I'm tied up with 3-day energy workshop, but others may find Peter Wood's articles at NAS to be of interest. I suspect Tim has looked already. Wood has doubled down with a copy of the CHE article, but there are many interesting bits. He writes again on plagiarism.

But of more interest here might be To Serve Mann: Virginiaâs AG Puts Climate-Researcher on the Menu.

Read! The link to "informed sources." given that Wood has not been forthcoming about sources.

> "informed sources"
slight misquote, the link is called "informed observers"

Before that he writes "At NAS, we are neither supporters nor skeptics of climate science per se. We support good science on important topics. Good science ...."

Milloy.

Shorter 'Good science':
Lie down! Roll over! Play dead! Goooood science!

Thanks Hank, as I note, I'm in middle of (good conference, i.e., energy modeling & economic folks).

Milloy ... no wonder Wood didn't name sources.

Hi there

DELTOID is mentioned in this excellent new podcast from radio Ecoshock:

The Machinery of Climate Denial

Well done, Tim!

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_association_of_scho…

Sourcewatch is better, not as easily gamed by astroturfers.

If this is the first time you've heard of the NAS they've been around forever. See also "Accuracy in Academia" for a real horror story.

Yes, it was the first I'd heard of this NAS; the climate anti-science seems to be a relatively recent effort, starting with Wood, perhaps, last few years. I of course checked Sourcewatch, but it's a bit out of date in various ways.

Current funding patterns have changed from the early days; I've taken some look at the 990s and there are interesting tidbits to be had on money, who gets it, and governance.

AIA was listed in CCC, p.52.

From that "To Serve Mann" article:

> As critics have pointed out, Mannâs graph of temperature changes was arranged in a manner to leave out a medieval period of global warming that may have been greater than recent temperature increases.

Riiiiiiiight.

And that article also argues that some think the Penn State investigation was because:

> For one thing, Penn Stateâs internal review was carried out by Penn State employees who had a stake in protecting the institution and its stream of climate research grants.

One would imagine that defending provably bad research would **damage** the institution and its chance of getting further grants.

And Wood is pushing "hide the decline" and claims that "normal checks and balances of peer review were compromised" as apparent evidence of malfeasance. He does suggest that Cuccinelli and his staff won't understand the science, but "...some of the side chatter could reveal habits of mind and character that do cast light on the larger question of the scientific integrity of Mannâs work."

Sounds like he's fully bought in to the denialist line here. Including:

> But academe has brought this crisis on itself.

1) Now, I know of one guy educated in classics who has picked up a lot of climate science, and sometimes people have relevant experience not instantly obvious from simple labels like "computer scientist." But people might look at the first poster in Wood's thread and wonder if he has the expertise to comment.
"I thought Dr. Wood was going to suggest that advocates of anthropogenic global warming had one-upped Barnum by not just selling bottled hot air, but by selling bottled hot air about hot air."

I see Family Wealth Cousneling, with PhD in Social Thought, "Dr. Whitaker has written two books on Plato, and he has edited over twenty volumes of classical Greek, Latin, and German texts in translation. Currently he is writing, with Paul Schervish, Director of the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy, a book on philosophy, spirituality, and philanthropy." ââhe worked as an assistant to two Boston University Presidents,â Perhaps he intersected with Dr. Wood.

And I see Defining wisdom director of Morton Foundation.

2) I'm busy with an energy modeling conference, but I am working on a serious reply to Wood. (Well, it will likley be sent to certain other people as well.)

Wood's audience is clearly NAS people and the subset of CHE readers who read his posts, of whom one would guess many would align with NAS. I think NAS tends towards humanities and social sciences, or maybe conservative scientists, but I would guess relatively few who know much climate science. if they read Wood, they have gotten a steady stream of the evils of sustainability, and occasional whacking of climate science. At least one person has quit.

The () give plausible opinions.

1) PT Barnum (--: well-known charlatan)
2) Bruno Latour (probably --; anything pomo is dogwhistle for NAS)
3) the educational establishment (-- for NAS)
4) Climate scientists as a group, including (?, maybe -)
5) Mike Mann, specifically [2 mentions] (maybe have heard of, barely)
6) Mashey [5 mentions] (never heard of)

The piece is designed to use false associations/red herrings and dogwhistle tactics to attack 4)-6), without the slightest evidence. 3) is both used as dogwhistle to attack 4)-6), but then 1) and maybe 2) are used to whack 3), confirming NAS members' likely views. Since I'd guess the typical NAS member (unlike Kerry E) is not a climate expert, and since there is zero substance, I'd guess that all most would remember after a few days was
(Barnum, Latour, establishment) ~ (climate scientists, Mann, Mashey) ... since there is zero substance.

So, here was the structure:

Barnum: First third of article.
Higher education = Barnum

Mashey-1, in Science ... of course, he mentions Science, but gives no reference, and if someone goes and finds it, it is behind paywall ... thus guaranteeing few will ever look at the real article. [Later, he does manage a URL for Latour].

"attempting to patch tattered reputation of Mann-1".
SSWR wasn't trying to do that, as that didn't need to be done, except in this anthropologist/adminstrator paid $160K+nice benefits to do this. [990 forms]

"hockey-stick" exponentially-increasing, well, Wood didn't read MBH99 either.

Mashey-2 ... flyspecking: almost looks like a quote, but it isn't, and of course, in addition to the one Tim found, there are multiple other Wood posts whacking plagiarizers. flyspeck: sure that's why SSWR was 250 pages long, and I didn't even try to get far into the falsifications.

"pounces with demands": needless to say, I have never demanded anything, unless Wood thinks standard, well-supported academic misconduct complaints are demands.

"His critics say Mashey-3..."
the actual passage is:
'As a result, his critics say, Mashey is more interested in destroying his foes than in debating the issues. Wegman told Elsevier in his e-mail that various investigations have
made the year âa professional and personal nightmare.â
Mashey says exposing poor scholarly practices is just as important as uncovering what he calls âbad science.â The copied sections of the CSDA paper, he says, are âclear evidence of incompetence [that is] understandable to the public.â Of course, I didn't file the Bradley complaint, which was certainly the main cause of the (deserved) nightmare.

Mashey-4 == Latour, who gets an actual URL.
"Since he knew (on what authority?) that man-made global warming was a scientific fact, it now struck him as crucial to combat âexcessive distrust of good matters of fact.â"

Sorry, I am not Latour. And this is great projection: Wood *knows* AGW is junk (how?) Latour was at least returning to reality.

"I suppose Mashey-5 offers an instructive example of one way to put âexcessive distrustâ of authority back in the green glass bottle. "
Ahh the punchline, Mashey == Latour AND Barnum, together.

"We donât need perfect assurance in our scientific theories but we do need to believe that the scientists are doing their best to get to the truth."
Hmm, not just Mann (and reading past Wood posts, clear).

Back to Barnum (about half of the whole piece is Barnum).

Finally, AGW = contemporary higher ed = Barnum

===
Anyway, this is false association (or red herring, or something), with dogwhistle, but it is *not* slander.
See Defamation.

Why? Slander = spoken, libel = written, and on a CHE-sponsored website, a venue with credibility.

Thank Peter Wood for getting people *very* interested in NAS, as no one would have noticed without this silly post in CHE. Maybe some time he can trade notes with Wegman.

> Wood knows AGW is junk (how?)

Apparently he Google(-Galileo'd) it.

Just to note something of relevance to an earlier dispute: Peter Wood [comes down on the Shankman/Mead side](http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?doctype_code=Article&doc_id=1693) of the Mead/Freeman controversy. Of course, even stopped clocks, etcetera. I just mention it because there was a view among other Deltoid commentators that Mead/Freeman was a clear left/right wing split.

> even stopped clocks

Stopped clocks [and anthropologists](http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=7107) ...

Good one Hank.
I'm now tempted to inquire into having a closely neighbouring body, preferably with an interacting orbit, named after Montford, in the hope that one day they might be jointly referred to as the 'Benny-Hill system'.

@HR&c: : ) !!

Wood is also an anthropologist, and seems to have quite a high RPM* on various subjects:
http://www.google.com/search?q="peter+wood"+anthropology

Reading just the first search hit
http://old.nationalreview.com/comment/wood200504260810.asp
finds this example of Wood intentionally misreading a text and then attacking the strawman he pretends to have seen.

He writes:

"... the executive board of the American Anthropological Association ... declared
'The results of more than a century of anthropological research ... provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution.'

Wood then calls that statement "a breathless lie" and writes 'Homosexual marriage outside contemporary Western societies is exceedingly rare and never the basis of "viable social order.'

The AAA said there is no evidence that marriage must be "an exclusively heterosexual institution" or society will collapse.

Who claims anthropology provides evidence marriage has to be "exclusively heterosexual" to protect society from collapse?

Dunno.

Does archaeology have anything to say about books making such claims? Wellllll, there's [this sort of thing](http://www.worldagesarchive.com/Reference_Links/False_Testament_%28Harp…)

Sounds like Wood's academic professional association debunked claims and he got upset but couldn't disagree with what they actually said, so he made stuff up and attacked it.

I'm still looking for anything Wood has published.

__
* he spins

Argh. Underscores restored:
http://www.worldagesarchive.com/Reference_Links/False_Testament_%28Harp…

Let's see what else turns up.

oh ... dear ....
http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/docu…

Testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Science Education June 2, 2011

Peter W. Wood

President, National Association of Scholars

"Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education ....

...

... We are a species that thrives only in families, but families are a social reality that the social, behavioral, and economic sciences bring into focus. Our in-grained ability to form stable pair bonds between men and women requires social form ...

...

... Do we want social science that helps us hack through the thickets of data to clarify complicated social problems? I think we doâand the place for that research is in policy-oriented think tanks, commissions, and programs set up for specific purposes. An agency created to fund basic science is the wrong place through which to fund work that aims to contribute to public policy discourse...."

and

"... Post-modernism brought into the social sciences the view that truth is just a social construct.... and that claims that something is true mostly reflect efforts to dominate and to exercise power. This view is inimical to genuine scientific research ...."

-----

Oy!

Shorter: don't trust anthropologists who say there's no research support for what we claim defines marriage. Ask a thinktank if this needs to be studied.

Hank: in addition, careful examination of the 990 forms may be of interest.

> ...the place for that research is in policy-oriented think tanks, commissions, and programs set up for specific purposes. An agency created to fund basic science is the wrong place through which to fund work that aims to contribute to public policy discourse...

WTF?! That's most telling...he's starting to look more and more like a shill.

2009 Form 990 has two interesting features, that I see -

"Public support" percentage is low, under 60% for 2008 and 2009. The other money is coming from "Educational Partnerships" - which look like they may well be from the plethora of academic centers....:

Under "Program Service Accomplishments", there's 209k spent on "Promotion of academic centers" - discuss and meet with academic leaders at various colleges and universities about opening specific academic centers on the campus."

It sounds like they're the Atlas Economic Research Foundation of academe - a Johnny Appleseed (or midwife?) of on-campus right wing enclaves.

What may be most interesting about Scholar Wood is his vast body of published work and original research in refereed anthropological journals.

I'd be grateful if anyone could find it.

What *are* these "educational partnerships"? Are they with the right wing academic centers, or with someone else, and what services does NAS provide for them?

Also, it would seem that the National Association of Scholars has had a single Decider up until recently, despite a plethora of Advisory Board members.

What kind of association is it, if just one person calls the shots?

Q for Mashey re NAS - where is there evidence of "a long gap in their 990-form funding records"?

(and does it coincide with a presidential administration? (not GWB's))

So, in one place for everyone (Anna has done some cleanup, thanks!):

Sourcewatch,

NAS, Wikipedia,

"Originally called the Campus Coalition for Democracy, the National Association of Scholars was founded in 1987 by Herbert London and Stephen Balch..."

So, this is newest 990 (2009).

Using 990 finder for national association of scholars gives us 990s for 2002-2009.

This is MMAN for CCfD, 1987.

This is MMAN NAS, 2006-.

There is also mention here.

Anyway, I'm busy writing the dissection, so haven't tracked the funding very far, but it is incomplete, for whatever reasons. Likewise, I haven't looked hard at the NAS affiliates. One does wonder if Wood is a) representative or not and b) whether NAS members actually read all this stuff he puts out, as none have actually showed up to comment.

(sorting out Advisors vs Directors - confusion partly since the NAS "people" page (http://www.nas.org/people.cfm) isn't showing up named as such on their sitemap)

And John, IRS filings for 2002-2009 are here (link)

(Oops, John M. already gave a "2002-2009 irs filings" link.)

Questions for Peter Wood, sent just now:

When did the NAS board of directors grow from 2008's 5 (balch, wood, rickets, gregory & irving) to a much larger board? (today it lists 34)

And when did this larger board acquire voting rights?

Another question for Peter Wood:

Can you explain the discrepancy between what people have told me in email about National Association of Scholars, and its own Form 990 filings?

I see two discrepancies with the 2007 Form 990:

1. During a period in which the group supposedly had a 20+ member Board of Directors, none were listed in the section "current officers, _directors_, trustees and key employees".

2. And 0 officers, directors or trustees were permitted to vote on organization business at board meetings.

(other years also show discrepancies)

I've looked in Google Scholar, but haven't found anything relevant by PW Wood. Ha anyone happened to look for peer-reviewed literature by him?

When did the National Association of Scholars change its mission?
It was "dedicated to keeping outside political influences from tainting teaching and learning on campuses", according to a 1995 NYTimes article.

Again, this sounds like dog-whistles / code-words.
I would guess that means something different to NAS members than to the general public.

Yesterday morning I emailed Dr. Wood asking for his climate science qualifications; if I get a response I'll report back. (and add it to SourceWatch)

Emails also sent to National Association of Scholars affiliate heads, asking them please to express their opinions frankly & openly on the issues Dr. Wood raises, over at the CHE blogpost.
(Or in email, & if such are received, I will report back.)

re Marion#24 - fyi, last I checked, the Wikipedia article on Natl Assn of Scholars was actually *better*, in most ways, than SourceWatch's (though the latter does contain some original reporting)
This does happen, when there's no pushback... wonder why there's no pushback.

JM,

Besides his doctoral thesis, ["Quoting Heaven: Narrative, Ritual, and Trope in an Heretical Shrine of the Virgin Mary in Rural Wisconsin." The University of Rochester, 1986.](http://de.scientificcommons.org/3884628), of which all of six copies seem to be mouldering in university stacks;

One contributor among many to ["The dictionary of Anthropology"](http://books.google.com/books?id=V5dkKYyHclwC&pg=PA608&lpg=PA608&dq=pet…), ed. Thomas Barfield, Professor of Anthropology, Boston University, Blackwell Publishing;

The author of an afterword to [Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation](http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/conversion-to-christianity-robert-w-hef…), ed. Robert W. Hefner, Professor of Anthropology, Boston University, University of California Press;

And a webpage, [A Timeline for Anthropologists](http://www.csuchico.edu/~curbanowicz/AnthropologyWebPages.html) which has apparently been lost in the ozone.

Wood is the author of [two partisan polemical screeds](http://www.encounterbooks.com/?s=peter+w+wood&search=Search) published by [Encounter Books](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encounter_Books) who are also (surprise!) the publishers of [Roy Spencer's](http://www.encounterbooks.com/?s=roy+spencer&search=Search) popular titles.

Thin gruel, indeed, for one who pretends to scholastic eminence.

LB: thanks, as you note, pretty thin so far.

However, courtesy of one of my favorites, not just because of Rocky&Bullwinkle, but for its great uses, the Wayback machine tells us that timeline is not lost in the ozone after all.

Good find, Mr. Peabody.

re: 52 Anna

Over at CHE, you might point to the NAS affiliates page, post the contents of your email and maybe extend the invitation to other NAS members. That's gets all that in one place.

JM#57, I have done so. (except for forgetting to point to the affiliates page...)

BTW, the NAS funding gap is funny - are our data sources reliable? NAS was getting plenty of non-dues "all other contributions" money in 2002-2005, but Media Matters doesn't show them getting any foundation funding (which would show up there) until 2006 - though MM does show the foundations funding other groups, during the 2002-2005 time period.

(never mind re funding gap, it turns out MediaMatters lacks data that old MediaTransparency site possesses.)

I mentioned to Tim:, Peter Wood's CHE
Tyranny or Theft:

"The tone of âBig Footprintâ was set by the opening keynote address by Christopher MoncktonâLord Moncktonâa hereditary peer and deputy leader of the UK Independence Party who is an outspoken skeptic about anthropogenic global warming. âSkepticâ is perhaps an understatement in his case.

Lord Monckton is an agile, nose-tweaking, derisive foe of those who believe that significant global warming has resulted from human contributions of CO2 to the atmosphere. He is more caustic still towards those who believe that carbon reductions, cap and trade, windmills, and the like can be deployed to achieve any meaningful reduction in greenhouse gases. Letâs say Lord Moncktonâs keynote address was not an attempt to find the redeeming features of a flawed movement, or to discover a winsome approach to those who are ambivalent about the alleged threat of global warming.

Several other speakers took similar tough-minded approaches, though none were so wry in delivery."

Wood was on several panels, although not the one that (included) Michael Chrichton (sic). See Wood comments on the post above, he says you "had to be there."

Tim kindly reminds me that the Viscount's talk had a feature unmentioned by Wood, i.e., it was the swastika talk.

H/T Anna Yaynes, see her efforts on the sponsor, AFA at Sourcewatch.

Oops, sorry, Anna Haynes (slip of the fingers).

A caveat emptor on bad faith tactics - one such tactic is to publicly mischaracterize what someone asked privately, so as to leave them with the choice of either making the info public themselves, or allowing the mischaracterization to stand.

re Mashey's July 10 q "One does wonder...whether NAS members actually read all this stuff he puts out, as none have actually showed up to comment" - I suspect the membership is largely emeritus, so not comfortable with online reading & commenting.
(plus the required-login of Disqus is a PITA)

My understanding is that the #1 revenue source for the National Association of Scholars, educational partnerships funded by Teaching American History grants from the Dept of Ed., is shrinking and will go away.

> NAS*

http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?doctype_code=Article&doc_id=2109
----

"Ask a Scholar

Have a question Wikipedia canât answer? Weâll match your question to a scholar with an answer.

Questions submitted to âAsk a Scholarâ should call for educated judgment rather than facts that can be found easily with an internet search. We especially welcome questions that provide professors the occasion to draw erudite distinctions and incorporate mention of matters you had no idea were connected to the topic at hand....."
-------

>NAS* ask a scholar

Their preferred link:

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/content/ask-professor

"We take complex ideas and policy issues and make them digestible."
..
"Ask the Professor

Ask the ProfessorHave a question Wikipedia canât answer? The National Association of Scholars (NAS) is partnering with Intellectual Takeout to match readersâ questions to scholars with answers. NAS is a membership organization of scholars and citizens working together to re-civilize education.

Questions submitted to âAsk a Scholarâ should call for educated judgment rather than facts that can be found easily with an internet search. Simply fill out the form below, state your question, and the NAS will field it to some of their scholars. We'll get back to you with the answer as soon as possible!"

Ask a Scholar, from Intellectual Takeout, spawned from Minnesota's Center for the American Experiment, whose board members have included David Koch.

Rethinking Mashey's "One does wonder...whether NAS members actually read all this stuff..."

What NAS members (& others) *will* see is selected scare quotes gleaned from the reactions; which is why Dr. Wood was trolling for them, and why he needed to hyperbolize emails when the comments didn't get wild enough.

Scholarship it ain't.

Dr. Wood has a "climate thuggery" followup which has yielded a comment (link) from John Mashey explaining how funding drives anti-science; useful for showing to newbies and the disingenuous.

There seems to be some confusion about to the email I sent =========
"It's possible that you have not yet seen the writings of your president, Peter Wood, in the Chronicle of Higher Education at
http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/bottling-up-global-warming-skept…

Many of us would like to know whether the views Dr. Wood expresses, about efforts to protect an academic field under attack by outside interests, are representative of NAS membership.

So we *really* encourage NAS members to comment on Dr. Wood's column, frankly and openly expressing their views. (Dr Wood seems to have stopped commenting, but hopefully he will resume the dialog.)"
=========

(This email was characterized by Dr. Wood as asking "leading questions about my(his) views on climate change and sustainability.")

(sorry about whatever happened to the formatting in the above comment. The email was sent to NAS chapter heads.)

The National Association of Scholars has been getting $200-300k of Sarah Scaife Foundation money every year for about the last 20 years (Sources: Scaife form 990s, old MediaTransparency site).
Scaife looks to be the group's biggest foundation donor.

The definitive post on this whole episode: Rick Perry, Peter Wood and the blogosphere: Guest post from John Mashey (link)

(outcome: "...a (well-funded) Presidential candidate [Rick Perry] (or his staff) relying on Peter Wood for credible opinion regarding climate science.")

Peter Wood comes down on the Shankman/Mead side of the Mead/Freeman controversy.

No, you have misread him:

The 23-year-old Margaret Mead claimed to have found what her mentor had been looking for: evidence that western Polynesians were, like their eastern cousins, pretty relaxed about the sexual behavior of teenagers.

but

The behavior of the Tahitians towards the crew of the Bounty, Cookâs amazed encounter with the Marquesan girls, and Melvilleâs sojourn among the Typee are glimpses of a Polynesian world in which chastity wasnât even a consideration. In Samoa, by contrast, the idea was a powerful presence that shaped experience and behavior, even if people still broke the rules. People arenât robots, but rules still matter.

He argues that Mead was wrong, but so was Freeman, and that Shankman was pretty much right about things being more complicated than you might have thought.