6 ms·

Hm, I feel like this is way less sinister than it sounds. From what I know of his prior reputation, Will Happer has long made his position on climate change cle

by x1798DE 11y ago

Hm, I feel like this is way less sinister than it sounds. From what I know of his prior reputation, Will Happer has long made his position on climate change clear, so it's not like he changed his mind when people offered him a big pile of money. If you already believe something and someone is going to give you money to promote your views, why on earth would you say no?

gohrt 11y ago
1) Intentionally hiding the source of funding; aka taking a bribe. 2) Intentionally publishing in a sham journal to avoid peer review. These are both tolerable behavior in the free market, but ought to be firable offenses for university professors.
- sseveran 11y ago
  If applied universally there would be significantly fewer professors. But I don't really think that would be a bad thing.
- noobermin 11y ago
  Hiding the source of funding doesn't seem like the worst of issues, although it certainly makes some research look suspect for its partiality. The worst part is avoiding a good journal. For some professions, just publishing in a sham journal can be pretty harmful for one's reputation...hence the reluctance many have for publishing in open access journals.
  - HiLo 11y ago
    How is deliberately lying about your incentives and hiding your source of funding under oath testifying to Congress even remotely ok? How are you rationalizing this? What kind of message does it send if we let people lie under oath about what could potentially be so catastrophic? What if they did the same thing about nukes, what's the difference right?
- x1798DE 11y ago
  I can't comment on the other parts of it really (and I don't know the whole story so I reserve judgement), I'm just skeptical of the claim that he was "bought off" - which would imply that he changed his views because of the money. If the headline were, "Professors agree to hide source of funding and run a climate change journal with lax peer review standards", then I might hold off, but then again, that probably wouldn't look as sexy in a headline.
  - shkkmo 11y ago
    > which would imply that he changed his views because of the money No, it doesn't imply that at all. to buy somebody off: "to bribe someone to ignore what one is doing wrong." "To bribe someone in order to ensure cooperation" The implications carried are that the payments were a bribe and that the actions taken as a result were improper.
- SCAQTony 11y ago
  No question that this matches the definition of manufacturing consent albeit if he guy was all ready on their side or not. I wonder if topics like education, biotech, military engagements, and torture are handled in a likewise fashion? A dime per word so to speak.
  - 20after4 11y ago
    This sounds like standard operating procedure in politics. The only surprise here (if there's any surprise at all) is that academics aren't at all immune to the same corruption.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Albright 11y ago
My thoughts exactly. If someone were to phonily offer Hawking a cartoonish sack of money to write a report about black holes, should we be shocked when he shows interest in the offer?
- crpatino 11y ago
  No, no, no, no. You miss the point. If you claim to be a scientist, you leave your personal beliefs at the lab door and abide to the experimental results. If you cannot do that, you pick a different subject of study and let some other unbiased scientist pick on the thorny (for you) subject. How would you feel if Hawkings were a Christian, and he would take money from the Pope and then wrote a report on how he saw Jesus in the black hole?
  - Albright 11y ago
    There is no such thing as an unbiased scientist. They are human, after all. Whenever you read about scientists reporting on X or discovering Y, you should absolutely consider their motives, especially in contentious subjects such as this one. And your analogy is only comparable if Hawking already had a history of reporting about seeing Jesus in black holes.
    - shkkmo 11y ago
      > you should absolutely consider their motives, especially in contentious subjects such as this one. Which is why deliberately concealing and lying about funding sources in the manner described is SO BAD
  - fredkbloggs 11y ago
    > How would you feel if Hawkings were a Christian, and he would take money from the Pope and then wrote a report on how he saw Jesus in the black hole? The same way I feel about all such claims: if they can't be independently reproduced, they're garbage. The more bizarre the claim, the easier it should be to disprove it. Authors who publish outlandish claims that cannot be substantiated by others will be first disgraced and then, worse, ignored. Hawking and the pope aren't relevant to your example. All that matters is that someone claims he saw Jesus in a black hole. It's not even clear that such a thing is a falsifiable claim, and if it weren't, it wouldn't be accepted for publication anyway. But even if it took the form of one, it would be immediately disproved and that would be the end of it. It's the claim that's important, not who made it or who paid him to do so.
shkkmo 11y ago
The problem is not that Will Happer's positions, nor is it even that he accepted industry funding for his papers laying out those positions. > In Happer’s case, investigators said they were part of a “Middle East oil and gas company” and asked to ensure that their commissioning of the report could not be traced. Happer reached out to a friendly Exxon lobbyist who suggested channeling it through Donors Trust, the shady donor anonymity organization that has been called the “dark-money ATM” of North American conservatives. The problem is the deliberate process of hiding conflicts of interest and of especially hiding funding from foreign organizations. > Clemente referenced past articles and even testimony in front of state legislatures and said, “In none of these cases is the sponsor identified. All my work is publised as an independent scholar.” At the very least, it should be illegal to not disclose such conflicts on interest when testifying under oath.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- sitkack 11y ago
  > it should be illegal to not disclose such conflicts on interest when testifying under oath Would this qualify ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_Congress or https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001
zzalpha 11y ago
Will Happer has long made his position on climate change clear, so it's not like he changed his mind when people offered him a big pile of money. You're missing the point. It's not that this guy was paid off and therefore changed his views. It's that he published research that he claimed was independent that was not, and in the process neglected to disclose his sources of revenue and conflicts of interest. Those very conflicts of interest would, under normal circumstances, force folks to question the nature of the research and the quality of the results. IMO that's getting awfully close to academic misconduct. It's certainly extremely unethical. Edit: BTW, "Merchants of Doubt" has covered this territory extensively, so to be honest, I'm not sure Greenpeace has added much to the dialog, here, aside from flat out catching folks in the act.
- chetanahuja 11y ago
  "BTW, "Merchants of Doubt" has covered this territory extensively, so to be honest, I'm not sure Greenpeace has added much to the dialog, here, aside from flat out catching folks in the act." Yeah flat out catching highly placed, non-anonymous culprits is very significant. I'll bet a lot more people would be paying attention to this article compared to those who read or watch Merchants of Doubt.
- fredkbloggs 11y ago
  While I agree that this conduct is improper and should lead to the loss of their chairs (and retractions, if any paid "research" ended up in scholarly journals), you're also missing something important about science when you say: > Those very conflicts of interest would, under normal circumstances, force folks to question the nature of the research and the quality of the results. The fact that someone has a conflict of interest should be stated, certainly. But we should always question the nature of research and the quality of results. In one of these cases, it doesn't even seem that a research paper was being purchased but simply an essay, which presumably would not be cited by anyone or even considered a presentation of facts by other scholars. But in any case, we shouldn't assume someone's research is honest and valuable just because he doesn't seem to have an economic conflict of interest. There's a lot of bad science done with deliberate intent to deceive that involved no such conflict of interest at all. The bottom line is that science is not being nearly tough enough on itself, and the results are what you'd expect: a lot of bad papers that are either useless and irrelevant or full of lies, errors, and fabrications. Reporting conflicts of interest might help a little, but it shouldn't be used as a cover for gullibility.
cafebeen 11y ago
It's hard to say what he believes, but there seems to be evidence of what is normally considered misconduct, specifically, in using a sham peer review process and misrepresenting the funding sources. I don't think he has to say "no" to the funding, but representing it as "peer reviewed research" that "received no financial compensation" would seem intentionally deceptive. This press release seems to have more detail: https://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/12/08/exposed-academics-for-hire/ https://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/12/08/exposed-academi...
crpatino 11y ago
Nothing wrong, as long as you change all your business cards from "Chief Scientist" to "Market Guru".
kijin 11y ago
> Will Happer has long made his position on climate change clear We cannot know what his original view on climate change might have been. Even if he was on the conservative side to begin with, there's a large spectrum from "Earth might be getting warmer, but I don't think it's anthropogenic" to "CO2 is actually good for us!" Perhaps some of his previous papers were paid for by others with similar interests as well. Judging from the way he tried expertly to hide the source of funding and avoid proper peer review, it certainly doesn't sound like this is the first time he's done it. Moreover, humans are remarkably good at changing their beliefs in the face of cognitive dissonance. Someone who is repeatedly paid to advocate a certain point of view might honestly come to believe that the bullshit he's been spewing is true, and gradually move to a part of the spectrum that is much more radical than where he started out.
- fredkbloggs 11y ago
  > We cannot know what his original view on climate change might have been. Does it matter? You don't have the right to demand that everyone agree with you, even if you're right. We don't burn people at the stake or try to silence them for disagreement. Please stop trying to create unanimity; it's not healthy. What we should punish people for: lying to Congress, taking or offering bribes, doing dishonest work while in the public employ. All of those apply, and any should be sufficient, at a bare minimum, to justify firing these professors. However, thinking that climate change doesn't exist or isn't anthropogenic is not a crime. Saying so is not a crime, either. And I'm damned glad of it!
  - kijin 11y ago
    I don't think you disagree with me. Of course people have every right to deny climate change or whatever else they want to deny. His original view, if there ever was such a thing, still matters because many of us would like to know whether he changed his views after accepting the bribe. It doesn't matter if he changed his views from right to wrong or the other way around, what matters is that a scientist might have changed his public views based on something other than evidence.
    - 11y ago
plaguuuuuu 11y ago
Doesn't matter what the guy personally believes. Science is a method, not a political platform.
mcguire 11y ago
"The emails and recordings also outline how Happer ran a sham peer-review process through the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a prominent U.K.-based climate skepticist think thank. Happer admits that his papers would not likely be published through typical the academic peer review process. “I would be glad to ask for a similar review for the first drafts of anything I write for your client. Unless we decide to submit the piece to a regular journal, with all the complications of delay, possibly quixotic editors and reviewers that is the best we can do, and I think it would be fine to call it a peer review.""

by x1798DE 11y ago

gohrt 11y ago

1) Intentionally hiding the source of funding; aka taking a bribe. 2) Intentionally publishing in a sham journal to avoid peer review. These are both tolerable behavior in the free market, but ought to be firable offenses for university professors.

sseveran 11y ago
If applied universally there would be significantly fewer professors. But I don't really think that would be a bad thing.
noobermin 11y ago
Hiding the source of funding doesn't seem like the worst of issues, although it certainly makes some research look suspect for its partiality. The worst part is avoiding a good journal. For some professions, just publishing in a sham journal can be pretty harmful for one's reputation...hence the reluctance many have for publishing in open access journals.
- HiLo 11y ago
  How is deliberately lying about your incentives and hiding your source of funding under oath testifying to Congress even remotely ok? How are you rationalizing this? What kind of message does it send if we let people lie under oath about what could potentially be so catastrophic? What if they did the same thing about nukes, what's the difference right?
x1798DE 11y ago
I can't comment on the other parts of it really (and I don't know the whole story so I reserve judgement), I'm just skeptical of the claim that he was "bought off" - which would imply that he changed his views because of the money. If the headline were, "Professors agree to hide source of funding and run a climate change journal with lax peer review standards", then I might hold off, but then again, that probably wouldn't look as sexy in a headline.
- shkkmo 11y ago
  > which would imply that he changed his views because of the money No, it doesn't imply that at all. to buy somebody off: "to bribe someone to ignore what one is doing wrong." "To bribe someone in order to ensure cooperation" The implications carried are that the payments were a bribe and that the actions taken as a result were improper.
SCAQTony 11y ago
No question that this matches the definition of manufacturing consent albeit if he guy was all ready on their side or not. I wonder if topics like education, biotech, military engagements, and torture are handled in a likewise fashion? A dime per word so to speak.
- 20after4 11y ago
  This sounds like standard operating procedure in politics. The only surprise here (if there's any surprise at all) is that academics aren't at all immune to the same corruption.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Albright 11y ago

My thoughts exactly. If someone were to phonily offer Hawking a cartoonish sack of money to write a report about black holes, should we be shocked when he shows interest in the offer?

crpatino 11y ago
No, no, no, no. You miss the point. If you claim to be a scientist, you leave your personal beliefs at the lab door and abide to the experimental results. If you cannot do that, you pick a different subject of study and let some other unbiased scientist pick on the thorny (for you) subject. How would you feel if Hawkings were a Christian, and he would take money from the Pope and then wrote a report on how he saw Jesus in the black hole?
- Albright 11y ago
  There is no such thing as an unbiased scientist. They are human, after all. Whenever you read about scientists reporting on X or discovering Y, you should absolutely consider their motives, especially in contentious subjects such as this one. And your analogy is only comparable if Hawking already had a history of reporting about seeing Jesus in black holes.
  - shkkmo 11y ago
    > you should absolutely consider their motives, especially in contentious subjects such as this one. Which is why deliberately concealing and lying about funding sources in the manner described is SO BAD
- fredkbloggs 11y ago
  > How would you feel if Hawkings were a Christian, and he would take money from the Pope and then wrote a report on how he saw Jesus in the black hole? The same way I feel about all such claims: if they can't be independently reproduced, they're garbage. The more bizarre the claim, the easier it should be to disprove it. Authors who publish outlandish claims that cannot be substantiated by others will be first disgraced and then, worse, ignored. Hawking and the pope aren't relevant to your example. All that matters is that someone claims he saw Jesus in a black hole. It's not even clear that such a thing is a falsifiable claim, and if it weren't, it wouldn't be accepted for publication anyway. But even if it took the form of one, it would be immediately disproved and that would be the end of it. It's the claim that's important, not who made it or who paid him to do so.

shkkmo 11y ago

The problem is not that Will Happer's positions, nor is it even that he accepted industry funding for his papers laying out those positions. > In Happer’s case, investigators said they were part of a “Middle East oil and gas company” and asked to ensure that their commissioning of the report could not be traced. Happer reached out to a friendly Exxon lobbyist who suggested channeling it through Donors Trust, the shady donor anonymity organization that has been called the “dark-money ATM” of North American conservatives. The problem is the deliberate process of hiding conflicts of interest and of especially hiding funding from foreign organizations. > Clemente referenced past articles and even testimony in front of state legislatures and said, “In none of these cases is the sponsor identified. All my work is publised as an independent scholar.” At the very least, it should be illegal to not disclose such conflicts on interest when testifying under oath.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
sitkack 11y ago
> it should be illegal to not disclose such conflicts on interest when testifying under oath Would this qualify ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_Congress or https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001

zzalpha 11y ago

Will Happer has long made his position on climate change clear, so it's not like he changed his mind when people offered him a big pile of money. You're missing the point. It's not that this guy was paid off and therefore changed his views. It's that he published research that he claimed was independent that was not, and in the process neglected to disclose his sources of revenue and conflicts of interest. Those very conflicts of interest would, under normal circumstances, force folks to question the nature of the research and the quality of the results. IMO that's getting awfully close to academic misconduct. It's certainly extremely unethical. Edit: BTW, "Merchants of Doubt" has covered this territory extensively, so to be honest, I'm not sure Greenpeace has added much to the dialog, here, aside from flat out catching folks in the act.

chetanahuja 11y ago
"BTW, "Merchants of Doubt" has covered this territory extensively, so to be honest, I'm not sure Greenpeace has added much to the dialog, here, aside from flat out catching folks in the act." Yeah flat out catching highly placed, non-anonymous culprits is very significant. I'll bet a lot more people would be paying attention to this article compared to those who read or watch Merchants of Doubt.
fredkbloggs 11y ago
While I agree that this conduct is improper and should lead to the loss of their chairs (and retractions, if any paid "research" ended up in scholarly journals), you're also missing something important about science when you say: > Those very conflicts of interest would, under normal circumstances, force folks to question the nature of the research and the quality of the results. The fact that someone has a conflict of interest should be stated, certainly. But we should always question the nature of research and the quality of results. In one of these cases, it doesn't even seem that a research paper was being purchased but simply an essay, which presumably would not be cited by anyone or even considered a presentation of facts by other scholars. But in any case, we shouldn't assume someone's research is honest and valuable just because he doesn't seem to have an economic conflict of interest. There's a lot of bad science done with deliberate intent to deceive that involved no such conflict of interest at all. The bottom line is that science is not being nearly tough enough on itself, and the results are what you'd expect: a lot of bad papers that are either useless and irrelevant or full of lies, errors, and fabrications. Reporting conflicts of interest might help a little, but it shouldn't be used as a cover for gullibility.

cafebeen 11y ago

It's hard to say what he believes, but there seems to be evidence of what is normally considered misconduct, specifically, in using a sham peer review process and misrepresenting the funding sources. I don't think he has to say "no" to the funding, but representing it as "peer reviewed research" that "received no financial compensation" would seem intentionally deceptive. This press release seems to have more detail: https://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/12/08/exposed-academics-for-hire/ https://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/12/08/exposed-academi...

crpatino 11y ago

Nothing wrong, as long as you change all your business cards from "Chief Scientist" to "Market Guru".

kijin 11y ago

> Will Happer has long made his position on climate change clear We cannot know what his original view on climate change might have been. Even if he was on the conservative side to begin with, there's a large spectrum from "Earth might be getting warmer, but I don't think it's anthropogenic" to "CO2 is actually good for us!" Perhaps some of his previous papers were paid for by others with similar interests as well. Judging from the way he tried expertly to hide the source of funding and avoid proper peer review, it certainly doesn't sound like this is the first time he's done it. Moreover, humans are remarkably good at changing their beliefs in the face of cognitive dissonance. Someone who is repeatedly paid to advocate a certain point of view might honestly come to believe that the bullshit he's been spewing is true, and gradually move to a part of the spectrum that is much more radical than where he started out.

fredkbloggs 11y ago
> We cannot know what his original view on climate change might have been. Does it matter? You don't have the right to demand that everyone agree with you, even if you're right. We don't burn people at the stake or try to silence them for disagreement. Please stop trying to create unanimity; it's not healthy. What we should punish people for: lying to Congress, taking or offering bribes, doing dishonest work while in the public employ. All of those apply, and any should be sufficient, at a bare minimum, to justify firing these professors. However, thinking that climate change doesn't exist or isn't anthropogenic is not a crime. Saying so is not a crime, either. And I'm damned glad of it!
- kijin 11y ago
  I don't think you disagree with me. Of course people have every right to deny climate change or whatever else they want to deny. His original view, if there ever was such a thing, still matters because many of us would like to know whether he changed his views after accepting the bribe. It doesn't matter if he changed his views from right to wrong or the other way around, what matters is that a scientist might have changed his public views based on something other than evidence.
  - 11y ago

plaguuuuuu 11y ago

Doesn't matter what the guy personally believes. Science is a method, not a political platform.

mcguire 11y ago

"The emails and recordings also outline how Happer ran a sham peer-review process through the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a prominent U.K.-based climate skepticist think thank. Happer admits that his papers would not likely be published through typical the academic peer review process. “I would be glad to ask for a similar review for the first drafts of anything I write for your client. Unless we decide to submit the piece to a regular journal, with all the complications of delay, possibly quixotic editors and reviewers that is the best we can do, and I think it would be fine to call it a peer review.""