February 25, 2012
The plagiarism by Prof. CNR Rao (Science Advisor to the Indian PM) and Prof. SB Krupanidhi of the Indian Institute of Science which was the subject of an earlier post seems to be growing. It extends at least to 2 more papers as revealed by a commenter, x1, on Rahul Siddharthan’s blog post and as reported in the Calcutta Telegraph.
==========================
UPDATE!! The body-count is growing and has now reached 5 papers. The intrepid sherlock here is again X1. (Comments 50 & 51)
Perhaps it is time for the PM to side-line this Scientific Advisor. At best he is a lazy and not very conscientious supervisor and at worst his ethical standards are sadly lacking. Keeping him on sends the clear message to the entire Indian scientific community that
- ethical standards are not that important,
- copying a few paragraphs without attribution is not such a big deal and can just be glossed over, and
- supervisors bear no responsibility or liability for what their students get up to and can pass the buck downwards
===========================
Neither CNR Rao nor SB Krupanidhi come out of this very well. Their competence to supervise research leaves much to be desired. Krupanidhi, particularly, seems not even to believe that plagiarism is a serious breach of ethics.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: C. N. R. Rao, Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Krupanidhi, Plagiarism, Scientific misconduct
Posted in Academic misconduct, India, Science, scientific misconduct | 5 Comments »
February 25, 2012
Joerg Zwirner has been following this for some time at his AbnormalScience blog. Retraction Watch also posted about this. But it has now reached the ORI and even the main-stream media.
Yet another case of a Person of Indian Origin (PIO), Dr. Bharat B Aggarwal of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, being suspected of massive scientific misconduct this time at the University of Texas. Apparently 65 papers are being reviewed for the manipulation of images.
Deccan Herald:
A prominent Indian-American researcher at (the) University of Texas is under scanner for alleged falsification and fabrication in various publications regarding cancer fighting properties of plants.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Abnormal Science, Bharat B Aggarwal, image manipulation, M D Anderson Cancer Center, ORI, Scientific misconduct, University of Texas at Austin
Posted in Academic misconduct, Medicine, Science, scientific misconduct | Comments Off on Prominent Indian-American researcher being investigated at the University of Texas
February 24, 2012
Insurance companies are in the business of making perceived risks seem much larger than actual risk. Their profits are directly impacted by increasing the risk perceptions of the party seeking insurance. It is not surprising that they exaggerate the dangers of whatever is being insured against. To be “alarmist” for an insurance company is just good marketing. However much of their marketing and publicity is presented under the cloak of “scientific research”. Any report from an insurance company about future risks and purporting to be an “objective” or “scientific” study needs to be discounted and taken with a very large shovel of salt. Yet, the media often swallow such publicity and merely reproduce their reports with little effort to see through the conflicts of interest.
I have posted earlier about Munich Re and their attempts to suggest that global warming will increase the frequency of natural disasters. Anything to increase the perceptions of risk.
Now JunkScience reports on the case of Kerry Emanuel and his alarmist positions and his connections to Insurance companies:
Based on a request for investigation from JunkScience.com, Nature has forced MIT’s Kerry Emanuel to disclose his employment with insurance companies as a conflict of interest.
In the Feb. 14 Nature Climate Change study “Physically based assessment of hurricane surge threat under climate change,” of which Emanuel is a co-author, the “Additional Interests” section disclosed:
The authors declare no competing financial interests. However, in the interests of transparency we confirm that one of us, Kerry Emanuel, is on the boards of two property and casualty companies: Homesite and Bunker Hill, and also on the board of the AlphaCat Fund, an investment fund dealing with re-insurance transactions. In all three cases, Dr Emanuel receives fixed fees but owns no stocks or shares. Dr Emanuel does not stand to make any personal financial gain through these directorships as a consequence of the reported findings.
There was obvious reluctance in the disclosure from the wording (“no competing financial interests” even though insurance companies are gaming global warming alarmism) to the fact that, despite our asking, we had to find out about the disclosure on our own initiative — i.e., after our initial exchange with Nature, the journal editors stopped communicating with us.
JunkScience also reported that the Consumer Federation of America says in a new report:
…. Although insurers have become adept at shifting the cost of catastrophe losses to others, they still use catastrophic weather events to advocate for measures that would shift risk even more, such as higher rates, or putting more policyholders in pools or created taxpayer-supported entities. Thus, many consumers exposed to catastrophe weather risk are also vulnerable to insurer attempts to unjustifiably increase rates or hollow out coverage…
Tags: climate change, Consumer Federation of America, Insurance, Insurance and alarmism, JunkScience, Kerry Emanuel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nature
Posted in Alarmism, Business | Comments Off on Insurance Companies and alarmism
February 24, 2012
Global Warming: How to approach the science
pdf > RSLindzen-HouseOfCommons-2012
Seminar at the House of Commons Committee Rooms
Westminster, London
22nd February 2012
RA Lindzen: “‘Global Warming’ refers to an obscure statistical quantity, globally averaged temperature anomaly, the small residue of far larger and mostly uncorrelated local anomalies. This quantity is highly uncertain, but may be on the order of 0.7C over the past 150 years. This quantity is always varying at this level and there have been periods of both warming and cooling on virtually all time scales.
……… …. while I avoid making forecasts for tenths of a degree change in globally averaged temperature anomaly, I am quite willing to state that unprecedented climate catastrophes are not on the horizon though in several thousand years we may return to an ice age.”
Tags: global warming, House of Commons of the United Kingdom, Richard Lindzen
Posted in Alarmism, Climate | Comments Off on Richard Lindzen’s address at the UK House of Commons
February 23, 2012
I have yet to come across a case where Alarmism and the invocation of the Precautionary Principle to spend billions has been justified. The Precautionary Principle itself is flawed and is usually invoked to justify actions in favour of a political ideology which go against common sense. There are no principles involved. For example the billions spent on “preventing” the alleged Y2K meltdown were shown to have been essentially unnecessary when countries which just did not have the money to spend suffered no significant ill-effects (Ukraine and Romania for example).
The Precautionary Principle: An activist is walking down the street snapping his fingers continuously. A guy stops him and asks, “Why are you snapping your fingers all the time?” The activist answers, “To keep wild elephants away.” “That’s ridiculous!”, says the guy. The activist replies, “Oh, yeah? You don’t see any wild elephants around do you?”
The AGW othodoxy is following the same path where trillions are being spent in following political objectives which have no basis and go against common sense.
Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT has been addressing the UK House of Commons.
The Independent: Is catastrophic global warming, like the Millenium Bug, a mistake?
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: AGW, Alarmism, global warming, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Precautionary Principle, Richard Lindzen
Posted in Alarmism, Climate | Comments Off on Spending billions for no return: AGW alarmism going the way of the Y2K panic
February 23, 2012
The Global Warming priesthood have long experience in fudging data, cheating and suppressing opposing views. But Peter Gleick, a true acolyte of the religion, has now been reduced not only to lying, cheating and stealing but also to forgery and fakery.
The blogosphere has been full of the Fakegate or the Peter Gleick affair for the last week. First he used impersonation and lying to extract confidential documents from Heartland. He clearly has broken some laws. But he found nothing very damaging regarding climate sceptics so he forged a “summary” document so as to be able to add some spice to the affair. He then disseminated the documents widely and these were immediately publicised by a gullible and hypocritical orthodoxy.
Peter Gleick - Faker
Of course Gleick is a climate alarmist and activist and for him and his friends Heartland remains the “villain” and his ends of “exposing” the alleged bad guys apparently justifies his dishonest and criminal means. His authorship of the forged document was recognised by Steven Mosher and Climate Audit just from his writing style and bad punctuation. Needless to say Gleick is considered by the global warming priesthood as an expert exponent of integrity in science research. In this sordid case some are delusional enough to see him as a hero.
Gleick’s own work is unimportant and lacking any real scientific content. His lack of ethics (apart from his poor writing and general incompetence) is of no great significance. But his behaviour exposes and is in the tradition established by the Hockey Stick crowd (Mann, Jones, Hansen, Trenberth et al) of fudging and cheating and suppression of opposing views.
BREAKING: Gleick Confesses
Peter Gleick Confesses
Gleick’s AGU Resignation
Megan McArdle gives Mosher and the blogosphere props for pointing to Gleick
Peter Gleick Confesses to Obtaining Heartland Documents Under False Pretenses
FakeGate: Just Another Day at Team Green
Fakegate Illustrates Global Warming Alarmists’ Deceit and Desperation
Tags: Climate Audit, climate change, Fakegate, Forgery, global warming, Heartland Institute, Megan McArdle, Peter Gleick, Scientific misconduct
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Corruption, Ethics, Fraud | 1 Comment »
February 22, 2012
The apparent over-representation of scientists of Indian origin in cases of scientific misconduct ought to be exercising the minds of the Indian scientific community – both in India and abroad. But any efforts to stamp out plagiarism in India – and many are trying – are completely undermined when eminent scientists from the most prestigious Indian institutions start trivialising or making excuses for plagiarism.
S. B. Krupanidhi
The Prime Minister’s Science Advisor Professor CNR Rao has admitted and apologised for his plagiarism but has gotten away without the paper written under his supervision being retracted. The apology should have been accompanied by highly-visible measures to stamp out the increasing incidence of “cut-and-paste” artists posing as scientists. Instead the nonchalant attitude of a co-author, SB Krupanidhi (Professor and Chairman, Materials Research Centre, Indian Institute of Science) gives me little confidence that there is much value being given to the integrity of scientific research. He blames the student he was supposed to be supervising but will take no action as the Indian Institute of Science tries to brush everything under the carpet. “People make mistakes. There will be no action taken against the student, ” he said.
TOI reports:
India’s top scientist and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s adviser CNR Rao had to apologise to a leading scientific journal for reproducing text of other scientists in his research paper.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: academic misconduct, India, Indian Institute of Science, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Krupanidhi, Plagiarism, Rao, Scientific misconduct
Posted in Academic misconduct, India, Science, scientific misconduct | 3 Comments »
February 22, 2012
If the 19th century was the dawn of the Age of Coal and the 20th century was the Age of Oil, the 21st century seems to be well on the way to being the Age of Gas.
Gas shales are being found all over the globe. The US has reserves of 860 trillion cubic feet of shale gas. In many countries gas-bearing shales have not yet been fully explored but known reserves include; in China (1,275tn cubic feet), Argentina (774tn), Mexico (681tn) South Africa (485tn), Canada (388tn), Libya (290tn), Algeria (231tn), Brazil (226tn), UK (200tn), Poland (187tn) and France (180tn). Exploration is still under-way in Russia, central Asia, India, the Middle East, south- east Asia and central Africa. New finds of Natural gas are being discovered off the coast of East Africa. Exploration is now extending to deposits of methane hydrates in the deep sea (>500m) and under permafrost. For electricity generation and large scale heating (district heating) gas is likely to be the preferred alternative. By 2030, gas will probably overtake coal and oil as an energy source. Compressed gas for transport is already in use. Wind and solar energy will not be insignificant but will remain expensive and just a minor contributor. Even where the renewables are used for political ends, gas will have to provide the necessary back-up.
The IEA called it in their special report: Are we entering a golden age of gas.
Reuters reports that new finds are converting East Africa into a gas hub: Statoil find adds to East Africa gas hopes
Martin Wolf writes in the Financial Times: Prepare for a Golden Age of Natural Gas
… the EIA notes that “the advent of large-scale shale gas production did not occur until Mitchell Energy and Development Corporation experimented during the 1980s and 1990s to make deep shale gas production a commercial reality in the Barnett Shale in North-Central Texas.” But, by now, it adds, “[t]he development of shale gas has become a ‘game changer’ for the US natural gas market.”
Tags: Age of Gas, dash for gas, gas glut, Natural gas
Posted in Energy, Gas | 1 Comment »
February 21, 2012
A panel of seismologists who met just days before the 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy are on trial over their reassurances to the public. WOLFANGO VIA FLICKR UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS.
Back in September when this trial for manslaughter began, many rushed to the defence of the scientists being indicted as being an “attack on science”. I wrote then that indictments for incompetence or negligence or even gross negligence by scientists should not be confused with being an indictment of the scientific method. Scientists are in a privileged position but that does not mean that they cannot be liable for their incompetence. As the trial lumbers on it becomes clearer that there was indeed some considerable incompetence involved. Now Nature reports that a Californian scientist and earthquake expert is testifying against the defendents:
….. The hearing also included some true scientific debate when Lalliana Mualchin, former chief seismologist for the Department of Transportation in California, testified as an expert witness for the prosecution. In 2010, when news about the indictment broke, Mualchin was among the few experts who openly criticized — and refused to sign — a letter supporting the indicted seismologists signed by about 5,000 international scientists.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 2009 L'Aquila earthquake, Earthquake, Italy, liability for scientists, Mualchin, scientific method, Seismology
Posted in Academic misconduct, Italy, Natural Disasters, scientific misconduct | Comments Off on Further twists in the Italian manslaughter trial of seismologists
February 21, 2012
The key requirement for the method of science is scepticism.
The scientific method is to make falsifiable hypotheses and then to check the hypothesis by gathering the evidence to check the falsifiability.
The IPCC and the Global Warming Orthodoxy have been making alarmist predictions for the last 20 years and their hypothesis comes in three parts:
- That global warming is occurring and will continue for at least the next 100 years
- That human activities are the primary cause of the global warming being observed, and
- That man-made emission of carbon-dioxide is the most significant human activity driving climate change.
In the last 20+ years, comparing actual observations show that each one of these 3 parts of this global warming hypothesis is – at best – oversimplified and – at worst – just plain wrong. “Wrong” in the sense that the causality proposed does not exist and that the mechanisms proposed for the causality are incorrect or non-existent. The IPCC predictions are being proved wrong and it is time to ditch the hypothesis.
IPCC predictions falsify global warming hypothesis
The 27th January article in the Wall Street Journal “No Need to Panic about Global Warming” by a number of scientists displaying true scientific scepticism was immediately criticised by members of the Orthodoxy. The original authors now reply to these criticisms in the WSJ:
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Alarmism, Falsifiable hyptheses, global warming, IPCC, Scientific misconduct, Wall Street Journal
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Environment, Science | Comments Off on When IPCC model predictions are wrong it is time to ditch the hypothesis
