GMU Paralyzed by Plagiarism Investigation
Update: A new verion of the Mashey report is attached, with a whole new section of juicy emails
Plagiarism charges against George Mason University statistician Edward Wegman have brought the university’s administration to an apparent standstill, according to the latest report from John Mashey (attached).
Wegman actually stands accused of having committed a host of infractions with the “AD HOC COMMITTEE REPORT ON THE ‘HOCKEY STICK’ GLOBAL CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION” that he presented to Congress in 2006. The worst, however (and the easiest to prove) is that he or his co-authors plagiarized a huge amount of material from a book by one of their targets, Raymond Bradley. In many cases, the only differences between Wegman’s lifted quotes and Bradley’s original material occurred when Wegman (or his assistants) changed the text to change the meaning.
Per Mashey’s report, Rice University received a similar complaint against one of Wegman’s co-authors, David R Scott. Rice responded immediately, investigating the charge and clearing Scott as the culprit in nine days. Nine MONTHS later, GMU has made no finding. We wait with interest ….
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| strange inquiries v1 0.pdf | 2.59 MB |
| strange inquiries v2 0.pdf | 2.94 MB |
GMU are caught between a Koch and a hard place (ORI)
It's perfectly clear that GMU is acting like a rabbit caught in the headlights. GMU are caught between their major funder Koch, the Office of Research Integrity and the academic world at large.
It's hard not to conclude that Koch are putting pressure on GMU. Similarly, it's hard not to believe that Koch funded and were the primary drivers behind the Wegman Report as part of their war on climate science and everything else that potentially threatens their future profitability.
It's about time that GMU cuts the strings attached to Koch's funding and come clean about Koch et al., the WR and Wegman. Yes it's going to be painful, but honesty is sometimes painful. Accepting funding with strings attached can no-longer be acceptable in academia, because of its corrupting influence. The effect of Koch and their ilk is anti-scientific and ultimately stifles research that conflict with Libertarian politics and profiteering. Also the Kochs are putting personal profit by promotion pseudo-science above the the US's need for world class science and the high technology that derives from it. The war that Koch, Exxon and others are waging against science is probably in-part why the USA has fallen behind China in high technology manufacturing.
Ref.
Google Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine
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