Nature editorial chastises IPCC for conflict of interest policy

June 30, 2011

The Nature editorial  published today will be unwelcome criticism for the IPCC from a normally very friendly quarter. “Shot with its own gun” is the headline and the editorial chastises Pachauri and the IPCC for failing “to make clear when this new conflict-of-interest policy will come into effect and whom it will cover. It needs to do so — and fast”.

Allowing Greenpeace to ‘dictate’ the IPCC’s renewable-energy report was particularly inept and as one Nature reader puts it “The IPCC has become a Centre of Criticism”. But the fundamental problem with the IPCC is of course that it has become an advocacy group with a pre-determined agenda where scientific evidence has been replaced by dubious results from scenarios. Claiming that model results of a chaotic and imperfectly understood system are “settled science” is the travesty.

But criticism coming from Nature is friendly fire indeed.

Nature 474, 541 (30 June 2011) doi:10.1038/474541a

Shot with its own gun

In the past two years, the IPCC has displayed a talent for manoeuvring itself into embarrassing situations, making itself an easy target for critics and climate sceptics.

The problems began in late 2009, when it was reported that the IPCC’s fourth assessment report, published two years earlier, mistakenly claimed that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. The subsequent fallout seriously damaged the IPCC’s credibility, and was exacerbated by the inept attempts of the group’s chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, to contain the crisis. A subsequent review of the organization’s governance and policies saw it commit to a number of wide-ranging reforms.

This month, the IPCC is in the crosshairs again. The revelation that a Greenpeace energy analyst helped to write a key chapter in the IPCC’s Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation, released last month, sparked widespread criticism across the blogosphere. Compared with the glacier faux pas, the latest incident is trivial. But it should remind the IPCC that its recently reworked policies and procedures need to be implemented, visibly and quickly.

In response to the glacier blunder, the IPCC pledged greater caution in the processes it uses to select scientific experts and to evaluate grey literature, and to make sure that (unpaid) work for the panel does not clash with interests arising from the professional affiliations of its staff and contributing authors (see Nature473, 261; 2011). But it has failed to make clear when this new conflict-of-interest policy will come into effect and whom it will cover. It needs to do so — and fast. 

This is the only way that the organization can counter recurring claims that it is less policy-neutral than its mandate from the United Nations obliges it to be. In particular, it needs to make clear the position for the working groups on climate-change impacts and adaptation (the science group adopted a rigid conflict-of-interest policy last year). Pachauri is on record as saying that the new conflict-of-interest policy will not apply retrospectively to the hundreds of authors already selected for the IPCC’s fifth assessment report, due in 2014. This is unacceptable. He should make it a priority to ensure that the rules cover everyone involved — including himself. …

The IPCC’s vulnerability to such attacks should also prompt it to reconsider how it frames its findings. Journalists and critics alike gravitate towards extreme claims. So when the IPCC’s press material for the May report prominently pushed the idea that renewables could provide “close to 80%” of the world’s energy needs by 2050, it was no surprise that it was this figure that made headlines — and made waves. The IPCC would have saved itself a lot of trouble and some unwarranted criticism had it made the origins of this scenario explicit.

Now with the natural death of the Kyoto Protocol and with a few decades of cooling in front of us it is time for the IPCC to be disbanded.

Related articles

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Iraq and Afghanistan wars have provided a $4 trillion stimulus package

June 30, 2011

The cost of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan are estimated at 225,000 lives and up to $4 trillion in U.S. spending, in a new report  by scholars with the Eisenhower Research Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. 

Nearly 10 years after the declaration of the War on Terror, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan have killed at least 225,000 people, including men and women in uniform, contractors, and civilians. The wars will cost Americans between $3.2 and $4 trillion, including medical care and disability for current and future war veterans, according to a new report by the Eisenhower Research Project based at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. If the wars continue, they are on track to require at least another $450 billion in Pentagon spending by 2020.

The group’s “Costs of War” project, which involved more than 20 economists, anthropologists, lawyers, humanitarian personnel, and political scientists, provides new estimates of the total war cost as well as other direct and indirect human and economic costs of the U.S. military response to the 9/11 attacks. The project is the first comprehensive analysis of all U.S., coalition, and civilian casualties, including U.S. contractors. It also assesses many of the wars’ hidden costs, such as interest on war-related debt and veterans’ benefits.

The Costs of War has released its findings online, at www.costsofwar.org, to spur public discussion about America at war.

But the institution of war is vital to a modern economy and massive spending of taxpayer’s money – in whatever form – is nothing more than a stimulus package for any economy. Infrastructure spending , sometimes on little needed infrastructure, is a commonly used vehicle for injecting a stimulus. The building industry for example has a vested interest in promoting bridges and roads to nowhere and the car industry supports public schemes for scrapping old cars. That the weapons industry has a vested interest in promoting wars is obvious. And war is also a commonly used vehicle for propping up or revitalising a flagging economy.

Industrial economies are intimately connected with the production of military technology and military capacity. Because of this, the elimination of war would prove economically devastating as large sectors of society, both in technology and manufacturing, would be wiped out.

After the first gulf war in 1991, the New York Times assessed the economic benefits of the conflict

As a result of the war in the Persian Gulf and its aftermath, the United States is likely to borrow far less from abroad this year than last. Many forecasters expect the deficit in the current account — the broadest gauge of the nation’s imports and exports of goods and services — to shrink sharply in 1991. 

According to a report released by the Department of Commerce yesterday, the United States’ current account deficit amounted to $99.3 billion in 1990, down from $110 billion in 1989. The $99.3 billion figure is the smallest gap since 1984.

Here is how the gulf war could narrow the gap even more: For starters, the invasion of Kuwait helped touch off the recession, cooling the nation’s appetite for imports. Then, the allied victory caused crude prices to plunge, slashing the bill for imported oil.

In addition, America’s allies are contributing about $51 billion to the United States’ war kitty, money that otherwise would have had to have been borrowed from private investors overseas. 

Finally, postwar rebuilding in the Middle East will increase business for American construction companies and equipment producers. United States arms makers are also expected to benefit as countries restock their arsenals.

In fact, if the allies anted up the bulk of their share of war costs right away, analysts said, the United States could become a net foreign lender, at least for a month or two, for the first time in a decade.

 

But whether the economic, social and political benefits of the $4 trillion and 225,000 lives spent on the War on Terror have been worthwhile is a question that will not be properly answered except in the light of historical perspective. 

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Posted in Economics, Politics, US | 2 Comments »

Earthquakes this week

June 29, 2011

Following the Weather Action warning last week ,

Earthquakes so far this week (23rd – 29th June).

University of Edinburgh earthquake locator

>= 6.5 6 – 6.5 5 – 6 4 – 5 < 4

Earthquake report is here.

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Hari, Johann: Plagiarising Churnalist

June 29, 2011

Churnalism is a form of journalism in which press releases, wire stories and other forms of pre-packaged material are used to create articles in newspapers and other news media in order to meet increasing pressures of time and cost without undertaking further research or checking.

Now we have Johann Hari (who I had never heard of till yesterday) apparently just lifting the writings of people he has interviewed and reproducing them as if they were said to him. The Telegraph:

Johann Hari, a multiple award winning political journalist who writes for newspapers around the world, was exposed after a reader noticed that a quote in one of his stories had been cut and pasted from a book.

Such was the controversy that he was forced to respond in a personal blog, but his defence only further fuelled the intensity of the attacks against him.

Within 24 hours the discovery had sparked a massive backlash as other examples of his alleged plagiarism were uncovered.

On Twitter, the micro-blogging website, users posted a series of jokes in which famous sayings in history were re-created as if Mr Hari had been told them in intimate interviews, while blogs from rival journalists accusing him of so-called “churnalism”. ….

Calls also grew for him to hand back his George Orwell prize, the most prestigious in political journalism, while the Independent, his main newspaper, received demands that he should be sacked.

His reversal of fortunes has been dramatic. Just a few days ago Mr Hari remained the darling of the left wing and was recently named as one of the most influential people on the left in Britain. He has reported from wars all over the world and been a regular art critic on television and a book reviewer.

As well as the Orwell Prize he has won awards from Amnesty International, the British Press Awards and Stonewall, the gay right activists. He has been a renowned critic of other organisations if he believed they strayed from the truth, especially those on the right, and has more than 60,000 followers on Twitter. …. 

Last night the Media Standards Trust, which funds the Orwell prize, demanded an investigation to see whether he should be stripped of the award. It said that the issue had “the potential to damage its reputation”. The organisers of the award said they were following a “process” normally carried out in “situation such as this”.

Toby Young writes on his blog:

For some time now, Hari has been under fire for his cut-and-paste technique – that is, passing off things that his subjects have said elsewhere as things they’ve said to him during his interviews.

A typical example was his 2009 interview in the Independent with Malalai Joya, billed as “the bravest woman in Afghanistan” (hat tip Brian Whelan). Here’s an extract from the interview:

I ask if she was frightened, and she shakes her head. “I am never frightened when I tell the truth.” She is speaking fast now: “I am truly honoured to have been vilified and threatened by the savage men who condemned our country to such misery. I feel proud that even though I have no private army, no money, and no world powers behind me, these brutal despots are afraid of me and scheme to eliminate me.”

But did she actually say this to Hari? The words Hari quoted are identical to those in a press release for her book, Raising My Voice: The Extraordinary Story of the Afghan Woman Who Dares to Speak Out:

I am truly honoured to have been vilified and threatened by the savage men who have condemned our country to such misery. I feel proud that even though I have no private army, no money and no world powers behind me, these brutal despots are afraid of me and scheme to eliminate me.

The furore has forced Hari to respond in a personal blog entitled Interview Etiquette.

He does protest too much.

Churnalism is nothing new and neither is plagiarism by journalists. But Mr. Hari seems to have plagiarised not merely for “improving” the quality of his articles but also for mis-representing his interviews (and by inference his interview techniques) as being far more productive and effective than they actually were.

Not just plagiarism in the service of an over-inflated journalist ego but actually a lack of ethics which is tantamount to corruption.

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Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Media | 3 Comments »

Midsommar

June 26, 2011

Light blogging during the Midsommar holidays which I am spending on the west coast of Sweden.

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Let Saab die with some dignity

June 24, 2011

Victor Muller continues pimping Saab around the world and dragging it through the mud to a slow and undignified demise — all just to satisfy his own inflated ego. He continues jetting around the world ostensibly to find new money to rescue Saab but he has never addressed the fundamentals. Saab now cannot pay its workers  (but Muller took out a fat bonus on the grounds that Saab had achieved 80% of its business plan!!!!!).

There are demands from the unions that the government should step in — one wonders why and to what purpose? Or that the government should allow Russian dirty money into the company. But these are both incredibly  short-sighted suggestions and little more than the empty posturings of an obsolete and  decadent trade union.

The fundamentals don’t work and subsidising Saab with taxpayer money is no solution. For 12 years I always drove a Saab (a Saab 9000 and later Saab 9.5’s) and I admire the car and the brand which is still strong. But the cars are no longer competitive and it is time to end the agony and call it a day.

From the FT:

Labour unions have threatened legal action after the owners of Saab, the struggling Swedish carmaker, said it could no longer pay employees’ wages.

Netherlands-based Swedish Automobile – which used to be known as Spyker Cars – said that Saab Automobile, which it owns, would be unable to pay employees’ wages because it had not yet obtained the short-term funding that it was seeking.

The news will fuel doubts about the survival of Saab. Production at its plant in Trollhättan, north of Gothenburg, has been closed for most of the past two months because of a dispute with suppliers over unpaid bills.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d1a78c26-9d68-11e0-9a70-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1QAFzI4Y7

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Posted in Automobiles, Business, Ethics, Sweden | 1 Comment »

Conspiracy theory: 5 nuclear experts who helped Iran’s program among 44 who died in Russian plane crash

June 23, 2011

Two days ago:

21st June: A Russian plane exploded into flames after crashing on a highway just short of its airport, killing 44 and leaving eight survivors fighting for their lives, officials said Tuesday.

The RusAir Tupolev 134 was trying to land at its destination of Petrozavodsk in the Karelia region of northwestern Russia in bad weather but failed to make the runway and instead hurtled onto a road 1.25 miles away. 

The impact of the landing blasted parts of the plane and corpses of the passengers several hundred meters distant as the burning wreckage blazed in the night sky.

“The plane sustained a hard landing two kilometres from Petrozavodsk,” the emergencies ministry said in a statement on its website. “Forty-four people were killed and eight people injured.”

Russia plane crash

The wreckage of Tu-134 plane, belonging to the RusAir airline, is seen on a highway near the city of Petrozavodsk Tuesday, June 21, 2011. Photo AP

But today’s Haaretz reports that:

Nuclear experts killed in Russia plane crash helped design Iran facility.

The five Russian scientists were among 44 killed earlier this week; no official investigation of foul play has been opened, though Iranian nuclear experts have in the past been involved in similar accidents.

The five nuclear experts killed in a plane crash in northern Russia earlier this week had assisted in the design of an Iranian atomic facility, security sources in Russia said on Thursday.

The experts – who included lead designers Sergei Rizhov, Gennadi Benyok, Nicolai Tronov and Russia’s top nuclear technological experts, Andrei Tropinov – worked at Bushehr after the contract for the plant’s construction passed from the German Siemens company to Russian hands.

The five were employed at the Hydropress factory, a member of Russia’s state nuclear corporation, and one of the main companies to contract for the Bushehr construction.

While sabotage is not being mentioned officially as a reason for the crash it is not far away from the thoughts of the investigators.

Israeli covert activities have previously been blamed by the Iranian government for the death of two of their nuclear scientists.

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Posted in Aviation, Nuclear Power, Russia | 3 Comments »

Arab spring withering into autumn

June 23, 2011

The prospects and hopes and expectations of the Arab spring spreading throughout the Arab world are now becoming uncertain. In Tunisia and Egypt the military is firmly in control and whether a real shift of power to the people will now take place remains in doubt. There is still hope and the change itself is irreversible but how far the change will go remains to be seen. It will only be by attacking the high unemployment and endemic corruption that a measure of success can be achieved.

But the fires lit by the events in Tunisia and Libya are struggling to stay alight in Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain. In Saudi Arabia the government has so far managed to douse even the smallest sparks that were flickering.

In Bahrain the King with the help of the Saudis is suppressing all opposition from the Shia majority:

The sentencing of 21 men to prison terms ranging from two years to life has sent waves of anger through the majority Shia community in Bahrain. Family members say they have already experienced weeks and months of anxiety about loved ones, to whom they have been given little access.

They say the men have been tortured, denied appropriate legal representation, and are now being sentenced harshly for crimes they did not commit in a bid to silence opposition calls for reform.

In Yemen:

Opposition figures blamed pro-government military officials for allowing more than 60 suspected members of al-Qaida to escape Wednesday from a Yemeni prison. The mass escape from the prison occurred Wednesday in the southern city of Mukalla.

Opposition leaders blamed senior military officials loyal to embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh for the prison break. They said it was an effort to get financial support from Washington and prop up the regime of the Yemeni president, the Yemen Post reports.

As the Hindu puts it:

Yemen, in many ways, is the most complicated situation. It is infested with the maximum external interference — Saudi Arabia, U.S., Iran, GCC and assorted countries. At one time, its long-serving President had accepted the principle of resigning and leaving, but since seems to have changed his mind. The injuries he suffered in an attack on his compound and consequent flight to Saudi Arabia have paradoxically given him time to consolidate his position and strengthen his support base in Yemen. The south wants to secede and parts of north want to merge with the big northern neighbour, but the latter is not interested, it seems. The Shia-Sunni act is also being played out there. Al-Qaeda was reported to have captured a town, Zinjibar, in the south, but it was suspected to be a diabolical move of the President who, thereby, calculated to win the sympathy of the Americans. The latter are exploiting the situation and relentlessly bombing suspected concentrations of the al-Qaeda, hoping to eliminate its leadership.

In Libya things are getting very messy and the NATO efforts sans the US is less than impressive:

Libya has turned out to be the cry of despair for those who have committed their armed personnel, scarce financial resources and, more importantly, prestige in the outcome of the situation there. The conflict has gone on for longer than anyone expected and is costing the western nations more than they would really care to spend. Having pushed through Resolution 1973 with the help of the Arab League, they had calculated a quick and low-cost operation. Like in Afghanistan, Nato cannot afford to pull out without being able to claim victory. Two or three factors have frustrated their plans — Muammar Qadhafi’s stubborn refusal to disappear from the scene, the absence of an identifiable and credible alternative leadership, and the continued loyalty of many African states to Mr. Qadhafi. Mr. Qadhafi is no doubt counting on the fatigue — financial and military — factor weakening public support for the Nato operation. Nato strikes killing civilians will further erode support and provide more propaganda ammunition to Mr. Qadhafi.

And in Syria an embattled Assad is balancing between cosmetic reforms and a ruthless and bloody repression of his opponents:

Tens of thousands of Syrians are demonstrating in support of the president a day after pro-democracy protesters rejected his speech. President Bashar Assad vowed reform in a speech Monday that was only his third public appearance since the revolt against his family’s 40-year-rule erupted in March.

But his vague overtures to a pro-democracy uprising fell flat with the opposition, and anti-government protesters took to the streets shouting “Liar!” and demanding his ouster. Thousands of people carrying Assad’s pictures took to the streets of Damascus on Tuesday, pledging allegiance to the president.

….  The opposition estimates more than 1,400 Syrians have been killed and 10,000 detained as Assad unleashed his military and security forces to crush the protest movement that erupted in March, inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, and that spread to region after region.

There is now a real possibility that the  fresh green  Arab Spring which promised so much just a few months ago may wither into an Arab Autumn and millions may have to withstand a dormant and repressive period before a new Spring finally arrives.

But this new season will surely come.

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Posted in Behaviour, Middle East, Politics | 1 Comment »

Serious earthquake and extreme weather prediction for June 27th to July 2nd

June 23, 2011

Piers Corbyn of WeatherAction predicts:

June 21 04:12 GMT (UTC)  C7 Solar flare and Coronal Mass ejection (CME) heading for Earth 23/24th.  This is expected to give K6 Geomagnetic storm and will be the driver of WeatherAction’s ‘Some activity Red warning’ ~24Jun. 

The next VERY SERIOUS earthquake and extreme weather period is 27th June to 2nd July.

http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=354&c=5

article image

 

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Posted in Solar science | 3 Comments »

Continuing >> The strange and murky case of Silvia Bulfone-Paus

June 22, 2011

Professor Debora Weber-Wulff  has a comprehensive recapitulation of the twists and turns in the Silvia Bulfone-Paus / Borstel case. This is a strange story and at least 14 retractions, anonymous internet campaigns, Russian scientists being used as scapegoats, establishment scientists in denial, claims of nepotism and the destabilisation of science – no less (according to Nature)  have been some of the ingredients so far. The story continues ………. .

Copy, Shake and Paste:

Silvia Bulfone-Paus is an immunologist. She worked at the Forschungszentrum Borstel (FZB) outside of Hamburg in Germany, and is a professor at the Medical University in Lübeck.

Laborjournal.de reports that she published many papers together with the Russian couple Elena Bulanova and Vadim Budagian from Russia. Retraction Watch reported in March 2011 that 12 papers by the three authors have been retracted. The three have published 22 papers together, so there may be more.

In October 2009 the biologist Karin Wiebauer realized that the Western blots in some of the papers were very similar – sometimes just the labels were changed, in others a dose of Photoshop was used to mirror, move or distort the bands. This is the same method that Marion Brach used in the Hermann/Brach scandal end of the 90s [strangely enough, there is nothing in either Wikipedia about either them or the scandals].

In November 2009 Wiebauer informed the first author, Bulfone-Paus, of her discovery. Nothing happened. Finally, in April 2010 an investigation committee was convened. They determined that there was just sloppy publication, but the results were okay. There was a culprit found – the Russian couple. They were accused of deceit and the 12 papers retracted, although the Russians did not agree to the retractions. 

There ensued an anonymous Internet-based campaign. Colleagues then published an open letter supporting Bulfone-Paus,  saying the poor woman, who is a brilliant researcher and has published much, including work together with her husband, was deceived by her postdocs. The Borstel Board of Directors – sans Bulfone-Paus – published a good response to the open letter soon after forcing her off the board:

Severe failure in one area (as supervisor and responsible senior, corresponding and first author) can hardly be compensated by merits in other areas. […] For all scientists, one of the greatest goods in science is personal credibility and integrity, and that the most precious currency scientists have is the truthfulness of their data. The scientific community expects rigorous adherence to the rules of scientific research from principal investigators and, in particular, from heads of research divisions or departments. […] The scientific misconduct in Silvia Bulfone-Paus’s lab and her procrastination to go public despite being ultimately responsible has highly damaged the reputation of the Research Center. This is what cannot be tolerated.

But now the plot thickens: An additional paper by Bulfone-Paus (not including the Russian couple) in Blood  is currently under investigation. A co-author on this one is her husband, Ralf Paus, a dermatologist at the University of Lübeck. And the university has verified for Spiegel, a German news weekly, that they are currently investigating 6 papers of Paus. 

And now it bubbles up that Bulfone-Paus and Paus both have professorships in Manchester, in England, where they spend 20% of their time, according to the Times Higher Education. The couple also have three children, as reported by Spiegel in January. 

In other news about Borstel, another director, Peter Zabel, stepped down earlier this month amidst plagiarism charges. It seems he double published a paper (once in German and once in English), as well as in 2009 publishing a paper that included large portions of text and diagrams from a 2008 paper published in the US. The double publication is deemed not so severe, although it is not clear that the later publication makes clear that it is in fact a double publication – the abstract has been rewritten, but is still similar. Zabel has now also resigned from the editorial board of Der Internist.

The double publication was found by someone calling themselves Clare Francis, who informed Retraction Watch, Abnormal Science Blog, and me. It was found using the Déjà vu tool for searching for duplicate content in Medline. 

Joerg Zwirner, in a recent post to the Abnormal Science Blog, calls for setting up an Office for Research Integrity in Germany, as is to be found in the US. I heartily agree – this is far too complicated to understand for non-medical researcher, but it seems that there are deficiencies in the medical research complex in Germany that have existed for decades. And Hermann/Brach did not result in these being adequately addressed. Germany needs action, and it needs it now.

 

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Posted in Ethics, Germany, Science, scientific misconduct | 1 Comment »

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