So the second part of the Penn State University (PSU) inquiry into the conduct of Dr Michael Mann has now concluded… The inquiry, which was set up after the university received a large volume of angry correspondence from members of the public who believed that emails contained in the CRU email hack showed that Dr Mann had committed serious misconduct while based at PSU.
The four charges leveled at Dr Mann by the inquiry were
- Did [Mann] engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to suppress or falsify data?
- Did [Mann] engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones?
- Did [Mann] engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any misuse of privileged or confidential information available to [him] in [his] capacity as an academic scholar?
- Did [Mann] engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities?
Back in February PSU administrators ruled that there existed ‘no credible evidence’ that there was any merit to the first three allegations, however they decided that the fourth allegation required further investigation by academic staff. The results of that investigation have now been published, and they state that
A panel of leading scholars has cleared a well-known Penn State climate scientist of research misconduct, following a four-month internal investigation by the University.
Penn State Professor Michael Mann has been cleared of any wrongdoing, according to a report of the investigation that was released today (July 1). Mann was under investigation for allegations of research impropriety that surfaced last year after thousands of stolen e-mails were published online. The e-mails were obtained from computer servers at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in England, one of the main repositories of information about climate change.
The panel of leading scholars from various research fields, all tenured professors at Penn State, began its work on March 4 to look at whether Mann had “engaged in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting or reporting research or other scholarly activities.” Mann is one of the leading researchers studying climate change.
A full report on the findings of the committee can be viewed at “Final Investigation Report Involving Dr. Michael E. Mann.”
So how widely published will it be that one of the scientists who had to withstand a vast volume of entirely false accusations with regards to his honesty and academic integrity has been completely and utterly vindicated by an investigation? My guess is barely. Yes places like Realclimate and Deltoid will cover it, but the mainstream media outlets which published a huge amount of critical material when ‘Climategate’ was considered a scandal are completely silent. The BBC Science and Environment section has nothing on this story, likewise the Guardian Environment section has no mention of the latest findings. Sadly it just goes to show once again that while the possibility of a scandal based on hearsay and blog based rumour can be a major story, the far more mundane truth that actually Mann is a diligent, honest and well respected scientist isn’t considered newsworthy. Consequently the millions of people who rely on mainstream media for their news will be left with the impression that Mann and other honest scientists may well be in the process of attempting to manufacture a perceived crisis called global warming.
Equally, those who frequent climate sceptic blogs may be left with the impression that although this later round of investigation chose to interview Richard Lindzen, a well known sceptical scientist (with obligatory links to the oil industry and right wing think tanks, and who has been proved wrong on numerous occasions), it was simply a whitewash, a case of the university acting to protect its own reputation in the face of public criticism. Indeed this was the claim made after the initial three charges were rejected by sources such as Fox News and well know climate sceptic blog site Climate Audit. As Scholars and Rogues aptly demonstrated though, these claims of further wrongdoing by a university inquiry in order to cover up research misconduct are extremely unlikely. It was alleged that this whitewash was done in order to preserve the funding which Mann’s work brought in, however S&R’s research into the matter shows that
According to a list of grants at The Free Republic, Mann has brought in a total of $4.2 million since he joined PSU in 2006, with a significant portion of that money to be spent over the next several years. From 2006 to 2009, Mann’s grants totaled about $1.8 million. In that same period, PSU’s total research income was $2.8 billion ($2,804 million). As a percentage, Mann’s grants represented 0.06% of the total research money that PSU was granted between 2006 and 2009.
The chances of a University risking its reputation as a centre of international excellence by whitewashing an inquiry into one researcher’s conduct is highly unlikely. As of course were the claims that Mann and many other scientists were colluding and conspiring to invent climate change in order to frighten the world into taxing people or bring about a UN based world government, however that didn’t stop these allegations becoming a major news story conveniently timed to coincide with the COP15 conference where world leaders came together attempting to negotiate a follow up to the Kyoto treaty.
With COP15 having been and failed, allied with increased public perception that climate change is not an important issue (and may even be a fraudulent invention of Dr Mann and other scientists) it should be vital that the news outlets who provided so much coverage when they saw a scandal now present a similar amount of coverage that it turns out that their claims turn out to be entirely baseless. However sadly that isn’t how the media works; scandal and allegations sells, carefully researched science and academic inquiries which find no wrongdoing don’t.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by anarchist606. anarchist606 said: RT @sytaffel: PSU enquiry into Climategate scientist clears Mann of any misconduct https://mediaecologies.wordpress.com/2010/07/04/psu-ma … […]
Actually there is a perfunctory article on this on the Guardian, shamelessly linking back to their earlier lies:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/02/michael-mann-cleared
with 300-plus comments full of “whitewashing” conspiracy theories.
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Thanks for the link Pussycat… Whereas Climategate was a front page story, this one doesn’t even make the Environment section frontpage though…
And yes, the claim that
‘university noted Mann’s “outstanding” work was widely recognised in science circles – discounting accusations of misconduct. However, it chided him for circulating the unpublished work of other researchers without their consent.’
manages to lie twice in the space of one short paragraph. Firstly the claim that Mann was cleared of misconduct because his work is widely recognised is just a flat out lie, and secondly claiming that the report ‘chided him’ – it didn’t, and states that there is disagreement among researchers as to what is appropriate, but that Mann has clearly not done anything wrong.
But I suppose when journalists have spent so much time propagating the idea that there was a scandal they find it hard to tell the truth and just report on the inquiry’s findings, that Mann did nothing wrong, has not committed any fraud and is not guilty of any form of research misconduct.
[…] 5, 2010 by sytaffel Yesterday I wrote about the Penn State University investigation into Michael Mann’s research conduct which stemmed from the Climate Research Unit email hack widely known as Climategate, and […]
[…] other investigations, by the House of Commons select committee, the Oxburgh Report, and the inquiry by Penn State University into the conduct of Michael Mann, one of the scientists prominently featured in the emails, had all […]