Advanced agnotology

“The late-November revelations of skullduggery at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia came as an unwelcome confirmation of that warning. Higher education so far seems not to have registered the full significance of the ensuing scandals in which public confidence in the integrity of climate science in general has been shaken. ”

The revelations of skullduggery at the Climate Research Unit at UAE should have resulted in prosecutions for fraud and misconduct in public office. From a legal point of view, the destruction of emails – confirmed by the information commissioner’s office – should have made this prosecution feasible. There is a latin maxim, Omnia Praesumptur Contra Spoliaterem (from memory) which means everything is presumed against a destroyer of evidence.

With this in mind, whether or not the Crown Prosecution Service begins a prosecution depends upon the prosecutor’s code. This has a two stage test: firstly, is there a greater than fifty per cent chance of getting a conviction, see the latin maxim above; and secondly, is it in the public interest to prosecute.

The last point provides the sting and the relevance to your post. There should be a huge interest in ensuring that science whether conducted at public or private expense is performed honestly and is therefore reliable and valid. Since there has been no prosecutions of those at UAE one can reasonably conclude that the Crown Prosecution Service doesn’t think that it is in the public interest to prosecute.

I disagree.

That’s a deeply, deeply bizarre take on what happened gyges. We have multiple investigations which have come up with conclusions utterly at odds with what you claim.

But I suppose it’s mission accomplished for the denialist brigade – we’re likely to see an entire thread dedicated to chasing phantoms like yours. Namely, ones which presume guilt and ignore context.

“John Hinderaker’s point is well taken.”

There should be some sort of advanced usage manual warning against EVER writing this sentence.

I see that the power of net anonymity has much the same effect on commenter gyges’s ethics (in his case, with respect to truth-telling) as the invisibility ring supposedly did on that of the mythical Lydian shepherd-turned-king of that name.

Hi Marc

“That’s a deeply, deeply bizarre take on what happened gyges. ”

I was under the impression that the information commissioner wrote, “the prima facie evidence from the published emails indicate an attempt to defeat disclosure by deleting information. It is hard to imagine more cogent prima facie evidence.”

The rest of my argument stems from that letter.

Hi Michael

“gyges, I swear that Proctor and Gamble is not diverting a portion of its profits to the Church of Satan. Really this time.”

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to tell me.

Hi MDS

“gyges is just understandably grumpy because now ve has to obtain the raw temperature data…”

It’s more a case of integrity of climate science that is of concern, as expressed in my original quote:

“Higher education so far seems not to have registered the full significance of the ensuing scandals in which public confidence in the integrity of climate science in general has been shaken.“

gyges,

Please slip your ring back on.

“Is it dangerous to join?”

Only if danger gives you a case of the sexys. Then yes, you gorgeous rebel.

Wait til the NAS changes its name to the International Association of Dangerous Scholars Men of Mystery.

Hi Michael

“gyges, I swear that Proctor and Gamble is not diverting a portion of its profits to the Church of Satan. Really this time.”

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to tell me.

You’re very welcome! I knew that if we simply discussed the matter rationally we could put some of those deliberate misunderstandings behind us.

Gyges, please provide a link showing that the information commissioner said that evidence was destroyed or that emails were deleted.

roac,

In the Republic, Gyges use a ring of invisibility to see the Queen in the buff, then seize the throne, etc. It’s actually Thrasymachus who tells the story of Gyges, not Socrates, but it seems rather important in the narrative, so I tend to remember Gyges from Plato rather than from Herodotus, where it is just one more droll anecdote. The invisibility the ring confers is equated with ultimate power, and knowledge as power, because the ability to argue your way out of the consequences of any act, however heinous, is analogized to invisibility. If you want to commit some atrocity and get away with it, the idea is that you need the ring of Gyges, or Johhny Cochrane as your lawyer — same thing.

Now, why someone would choose “gyges” as their handle, is beyond me. Going for some ‘whiff of sulfur’ effect, I guess. I was a little worried that maybe Gyges was his actual name, in which case my comment would have been unpardonably rude, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Pay no attention to that idiot wall, people. Focus.

Hey, um, did you hear about the porn star samurai sword rampage…? ;-)

Gyges point is a familiar one: If you haven’t got something to hide, what troubles you about total surveillance?

A bunch of right-wing ideologues support the action of another right-wing ideologue? I’m shocked. Next you will tell me that Jonah Goldberg is opposed to socialism.

Johnson is well-known for his magnanimity in admitting when he’s gotten little things wrong, so I’m sure he’ll see to this in due course.

That’s the funniest thing I’ve read all day, bar none. More likely, in about twelve hours there’ll be a massive influx of his flying monkey commenters.

The name has that characteristic blend of magniloquence and vagueness that characterises all the best wingnut groups.
eg: Heritage Foundation, Family Leadership Council, Adam Smith Institute, Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence.

I’m not sure that Gyges in Herodotus (personally chosen as one of the two authors whom my classical education treated least adequately) is just another droll anecdote. I’ve always assumed there was a point behind it about the way things work among the barbarians, or semi-barbarians.

I’ve always assumed there was a point behind it about the way things work among the barbarians, or semi-barbarians.

I think it’s a very interesting story. The Queen says to Gyges: “You have seen me naked. For a woman to have been seen naked by a man other than her husband is intolerable. There are two possible solutions: My guards can kill you, now; or you can kill my husband and marry me (and incidentally, become King of Lydia). Either way is fine with me — you choose.”

Experience teaches us, of course, that human beings do not treat a situation like the one described as an occasion for analytical thinking, and it must have taught Herodotus the same thing. What I get out of this story — and there are others like it in the Histories — is that the fifth-century Greeks had just discovered analytical thinking (or so I learned in school) and found it to be a lot of fun.

“… My guards can kill you, now; or you can kill my husband and marry me (and incidentally, become King of Lydia). Either way is fine with me—you choose.”

Well? Well? Don’t leave us hanging like that, roac.

E.O. Wilson was the target of a lot of over-the-top criticism for a while, which I suppose led him to the NAS.

Boo-hoo. This is disturbingly similar to climate change skepticism: the trope of the noble outsider driven out by the close-minded consensus of those who are better trained in a discipline, and still suffering the slings and arrows of the politically-motivated establishment. I would have expected Wilson to have more spine; we’re talking about the guy who once was proud to have been “physically attacked” by having water poured on him. Regardless, if he’s serious about the ecological views that he’s touted, maybe he should consider whether his feelings are worth the impact to a cause he cares so much about. Because it’s not the equivalent of trained evolutionary biologists, neuroscientists, and geneticists going after Mann. If his strong feelings about politically-motivated witch hunts have led him to join an organization now backing a politically-motivated witch hunt, well, a situational irony* spandrel** has certainly manifested in his current phenotype.

*Or whichever form of irony best fits this case. I can never keep them straight.

**This presumes that situational irony isn’t a “meaningful” adaptation, but merely a side effect. The literature is conspicuously silent on this subject.

Gyges, the letter you quote says very clearly that the a crime was committed AND that there would be no prosecution because of the (rather amazingly short) 6 month statute of limitations which had already expired before the crime came to light.

So the reason why there was no prosecution is not mysterious.

Though it is mysterious why so many people here take that statement as an investigatory exoneration.

Though it is mysterious why so many people here take that statement as an investigatory exoneration.

Perhaps it’s because many people are usually using those particular charges to attack climate change research in general, whereupon we also take into account of things like this:

The report of the independent Science Assessment Panel was published on 14 April 2010 and concluded that the panel had seen “no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit.” It found that the CRU’s work had been “carried out with integrity” and had used “fair and satisfactory” methods. The CRU was found to be “objective and dispassionate in their view of the data and their results, and there was no hint of tailoring results to a particular agenda.” Instead, “their sole aim was to establish as robust a record of temperatures in recent centuries as possible.”

rather than embracing deliberate oversimplifications by dishonest partisans. But of course, when gyges assaults the “integrity of climate science,” what ve really means is, “some people probably illegally deleted e-mails, an act which has virtually zero bearing on published results in climate science.” Uh-huh. Pull the other one; it’s got bells on.

He went with option B.

Whew. Though in the Michael Bay version, he probably pretends to choose A, then fights his way out. Because who would want to be married to someone so willing to sell you out to any other guy who catches her in the buff?

mmm, Kristen Scott Thomas, mmm…

Sorry, where were we again?

Someone tell slacktivist the bat signal is up!

Well, to be fair, I don’t recall that The Shack got too much into the weeds on bearing false witness. Though Satan did inexplicably appear in the guise of a toothpaste salesman.

Hmmm. So I take it you think that “In the event, the matter cannot be taken forward because of the statutory time limit” is an exoneration?

And “The fact that the elements of a section 77 offence may have been found here, but cannot be acted on because of the elapsed time, is a very serious matter. The ICO is not resiling from its position on this.” is an exoneration?

The ICOs earlier statement “The ICO is gathering evidence from this and other time-barred cases to support the case for a change in the law. We will be advising the university about the importance of effective records management and their legal obligations in respect of future requests for information.” is an exoneration?

I don’t really think so.

I presume you didn’t expect anyone to follow the link?

Weird. Would you mind um, finding and quoting where I said that AGW is a lie? Because it would surprise even me!

Just because I think that destroying records or attempting to destroy records in response to a Freedom of Information Act is a crime doesn’t make me a warming denialist. Those are um, rather noticeably different things.

Er, not so fast, Mr. Puchalsky. I’ve been reading up some more on this matter, and now I’m embarrassed to admit that I might owe gyges and Sebastian an apology. It seems that Professor Mann, whose work is under attack by the Attorney General of Virginia with the support of the National Association of Scholars, actually ran the e-mail shredder at the University of East Anglia while he was supposedly employed at the University of Virginia. Hence all the to-do about the CRU’s potential offenses. Bizarre as the above arrangement seems, the only other alternative would be that dishonest people are deliberately conflating information retention at the CRU with their scientific results in order to smear climate scientists involved in the latter but not the former.

You haven’t worked much with government investigators if you think that letter is anything just short of screaming at the top of their lungs that a crime was committed. The letter insists, multiple times, that they aren’t prosecuting because of the statute of limitations. The ICO is also using this as an example to the parliament of why the statute of limitations ought not be so short.

But if you insist that it is some kind of exoneration, I can’t stop you from exhibiting the fact that you know next to nothing about basic inter-governmental communication.

I see that Sebastian is a super-duper governmental investigator expert. His expertise is so great that it can turn a potential offense into an offense! Once again, where is Anderson? He’s a lawyer, I seem to remember. Perhaps he can explain this new British law to me, in which people are considered to be convicted of crimes based on a letter that says something like “we’d be investigating this if the statute of limitations hadn’t expired.” Who needs trials? For that matter, who needs investigations? I mean, the letter says that they saw reports in the news media. Surely that’s all the evidence needed?

But wait, we have investigations of this actually, in which investigators actually investigated whether wrongdoing was committed and found none. But that’s no good, of course, because Sebastian the expert in inter-governmental communication has decided that this particular letter is the one that really counts.

Once again, what’s your real name, Sebastian? You’re accusing people, by name, of committing a crime. Those people have not only not been convicted, they have been investigated and found innocent. Let’s evaluate your expertise. Surely you aren’t a coward, right?

Perhaps the evidence will settle whether or not, in 1993, Mann appeared in the music video for 95 South’s (vastly superior) “Whoot There it is.”

mds, yes, it is true that the Sebastian has, for no logical reason whatsoever, decided to focus on East Anglia in a story about Virginia. But logic doesn’t matter to people like him. He’s going to keep bringing up that one letter, because that’s what denialists do — they find one piece of writing somewhere where one person has written something that can be misquoted into sounding like it supports them. (Ever wonder how many times that letter is going to be quoted with the word “potential” mysteriously disappearing?)

And they have to be pushed back on that one point that they keep harping on. I’ve seen Sebastian do this here a number of times, and he’s not going to stop until he’s stopped. And yes, I don’t normally care about pseudonymity, but he is libeling named people after all. That’s the line at which I think it’s reasonable to say that the person really should give their name.

Michael has referred to those slacktivist posts a number of times. And yeah, it’s good fun to make the reference, or whatever. But from my point of view those posts are, well:

1. My gosh, vicious liars *really are* vicious liars!
2. They’re doing it to reinforce group identity and make themselves feel better about themselves.
3. Profit?

Not to take away from slacktivist, but he wrote those from his experience as an evangelical. Therefore he was concerned about giving these people an alternative, or something impractical like that. But, you know, in politics you see people who knowingly spread lies all the time. So you push back. You don’t stop because it makes you uncomfortable to push, or something. Right-wingers are cowards and they will always back off if pushed, you just have to do it.

Rich, you apparently don’t understand the difference between ‘convicted’, which requires violation of a statute AND prosecution within the statute of limitations (in this case 6 months, and the violation was not even discovered until afterward) and ‘guilty of an offense’ which merely requires that you actually, you know, did the the thing.

I’m not claiming that there will be a ‘conviction’. Of course there won’t. The statute of limitations bars a conviction. That is how they work. I’m well aware of that, and so are you. That is a completely different world from saying that he did not attempt to have evidence destroyed, which is definitely what he tried to do.

And blithe assumptions about what might have been in such emails that he wanted destroyed are crazy. When someone wants to destroy evidence in response to a Freedom of Information request is it REALLY your general assumption that it is ok? REALLY? And accepting his word afterward that no emails were destroyed is also crazy.

Or is it only your assumption when your tribal loyalties are in play?

Sebastian, you’re still lying, and the mind-boggling implication that you may be a lawyer means that you really, really know that you’re lying. You wrote — and this is a direct quote — “the letter you quote says very clearly that the a crime was committed”. Which it does not, of course. The letter states that the office would have very good reason to investigate whether there had been a crime, if the statute of limitations running out hadn’t made it moot. Or do you come from some magical land in which lawyers can’t parse the difference between those two statements?

And you are saying that they very definitely did commit a crime, even though we both know that that investigation never took place. (Other investigations did.) You’re saying that trying to have evidence destroyed “is definitely what he tried to do.”

OK, you are sure. You think it’s definite. The truth is a defense against libel, isn’t it? So where’s your name? Let’s see you attach it to your definite assertion of criminality in this case. Come on, you gutless creep.

“The point is that zombie lies are spread by people who are not themselves zombies (or vicious liars)”

I may be underreading them, but that’s not what I read. Here’s slacktivist post 1:

“But it is the case. Let’s go through that list again. The following are all true of the people spreading the Procter & Gamble rumor:

1. They didn’t really believe it themselves.
2. They were passing it along with the intent of misinforming others. Deliberately.
3. They did not respect, or care about, the actual facts of the matter, except to the extent that they viewed such facts with hostility.
4. Being told that the Bad Thing they were purportedly upset about wasn’t real only made them more upset. Proof that the 23rd largest corporation in America was not in league with the Devil made them defensive and very, very angry.”

Those people are vicious liars. I really don’t see any other way to describe them. They don’t believe the story they are spreading, they pass it along to deliberately misinform others, they view the facts with hostility, and they get defensive and angry when challenged on their lies.

The power of Slacktivist post 1, for some people — or so I’d imagine — consists mostly in the agonized discovery that people who slacktivist had thought were naive, or dupes, really were knowing liars. And he comes up for some reasons for it in post 2. Well… again, not really a surprise. The right wing is committed to evildoing. That surprises people, but, yeah, if you meet someone who believes abstractly that it’s a good thing to torture terrorists to interrogate them to keep us safe, that person is not a good risk as a person to watch your child.

IMEHO there is one thing that Sebastian and the ICO’s office is ignoring and it is so obvious as to defy belief!

The email (and other communications) that Holland was after were to do with the preparation of the IPCC 4AR Ch. 6. I actually spent a few days around Thanksgiving wading through the emails and a substantial plurality (30% – 40%) had to do with this very subject. If any emails were deleted, they did a really good job of hiding the fact that they *were* deleted. Everybody seems to ignore this exonerating evidence. In addition Michael Mann produced his emails for the Penn State misconduct investigation and they concluded that he had not committed any wrongdoing in this particular matter.

Frankly, I don’t see the alleged prima facie case here. A brief perusal — not even through — of the emails shows that this charge is ridiculous. It is also clear that CRU/UEA tried hard to find a reason why these communications were not subject to disclosure, but that is a different matter and much more of a judgment call.