University investigating prominent climate science critic
Officials at George Mason University confirmed Thursday that they are investigating plagiarism and misconduct charges made against a noted climate science critic.
[Readers, if the quality of prose and punctuation of Stough's letter is at all representative of the quality of faculty and education at GMU, then the university itself is suspect.]
[Readers, if the quality of prose and punctuation of Stough's letter is at all representative of the quality of faculty and education at GMU, then the university itself is suspect.]
R. Bradley
In 2006, GMU statistics professor, Edward Wegman, spearheaded a Congressional committee report critical of scientists' reconstructions of past climate conditions -- notably the 1999 "hockey stick" paper in Nature, which concluded that the 20th Century was the warmest one in a millennium. A National Research Council report later that year largely validated the 1999 paper's research, but the "Wegman" report has knocked around in public debate over climate ever since.
GMU spokesman Daniel Walsch confirms that the university, located in Fairfax, Va., is now investigating allegations that the Wegman report was partly plagiarized and contains fabrications. Last month, a 250-page report on the Deep Climate website written by computer scientist John Mashey of Portola Valley, Calif., raised some of these concerns. Mashey says his analysis shows that 35 of the 91 pages in the 2006 Wegman report are plagiarized (with some of the text taken from a book, Paleoclimatology: Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary, by Raymond Bradley of the University of Massachusetts) and contain erroneous citations of data, as well.
"I'm very well aware of the report, but I have been asked by the university not to comment until all the issues have been settled," Wegman says, by phone. "Some litigation is underway." Walsch confirms that the university has asked Wegman not to comment.
"Clearly, text was just lifted verbatim from my book and placed in the (Wegman) report," says Bradley, who is also one of the authors of the 1999 Nature study. In response to earlier concerns raised by the Deep Climate website, Bradley says he wrote a letter in April to GMU, noting the possibility of plagiarism and demanding an investigation of both the 2006 report and a subsequent, federally funded study published by some of Wegman's students. "Talk about irony. It just seems surreal (that) these authors could criticize my work when they are lifting my words."
In a July 28, 2010, letter to Bradley, GMU vice-president for research Roger Stough said he expected a university committee to complete its investigation of Wegman by the "end of September." University policies allow professors to appeal any finding of misconduct within 30 days. The university president has 100 days to respond to that appeal.
"Dr. Wegman's status as an employee and faculty hasn't changed at all," says Walsch.
By Dan Vergano, USA Today, October 8, 2010
Link: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/10/wegman-plagiarism-investigation-/1
Link: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/10/wegman-plagiarism-investigation-/1
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6 comments:
Seriously? Is this how you nerds spend your time? Accusing my grandfather of plagiarizm and other stupid accusations. Get a life.
I am sorry he is your grandfather, but he is guilty of far more than simple plagiarism. So, prepare yourself.
How would you know, Tenney? Do you personally know him?
John Mashey has recently analyzed the entire "Wegman Report," which is filled with untruths and distortions. It is a crime to mislead Congress, by the way.
All the links you need are in this new post on my blog:
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2010/11/john-mashey-on-strange-scholarship-in.html
I am aware of said allegations and yet, you failed to answer my original question.
You don't need to apologize to his grandson for being related to him. Dr. Edward Wegman has accomplished so much in his lifetime. He is human and by default, as everyone with common sense knows, humans make mistakes. I am sure you have made several in your day.
You might want to consider other ways to spend your free time and stop slamming people whom you don't know personally. You don't know the whole story. So stop pretending like you do.
It is clear that you do not have any notion of how the university system works. Dr. Wegman's private life is not at issue here. It is his public and professional life that is under scrutiny. An academician lives his/her professional life in the public eye in so far as his/her work is published or recorded. All such work is criticized. All academicians know this and are prepared for the scrutiny and subsequent criticisms. Thus, Dr. Wegman's so-called report is now under scrutiny, and it is perfectly awful in its many errors, plagiarisms, distortions, etc.
The people who criticize are not nerds, they are normal academicians. They are trained to examine published work in excruciating detail during their doctoral studies. Anyone who publishes knows their work will be picked apart by colleagues, thus they normally try to do their best work so that few mistakes are discovered. It seems that Dr. Wegman intentionally put together a report to smear Dr. Mann. Dr. Mann's work has been repeated by other scientists and has been verified by multiple lines of evidence.
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