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Undercover Activists Buy Off Professors in Climate Sting

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Re: Undercover Activists Buy Off Professors in Climate Sting

#41

Post by kijin »

x1798DE wrote: post #3

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?

> 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.

Re: Undercover Activists Buy Off Professors in Climate Sting

#42

Post by kijin »

JamesBarney wrote: post #37
nostromo wrote: post #18

This seems a bit like the Planned Parenthood tapes: approach someone with false pretenses, and then report the things they say in the worst possible way. I would find it much more damning if they found a professor that would change their position for money, rather than finding people that will accept money to forward a position they think is correct.

I think most of the controversy around the Planned Parenthood tapes was around the editing not the style of journalism.

I agree. This time, the papers are out there, edited by the authors themselves.

Re: Undercover Activists Buy Off Professors in Climate Sting

#43

Post by cm2187 »

I don't know if Greenpeace's claim is true but in any way they are shooting themselves in the foot. If the promise of a shaddy payment could push academics to say anything, then what about a massive political, media and peer pressure? What if the only way for research to get funding is to attempt to prove the catastrophic effects of global warming.

Demonstrating that scientists bow to pressure isn't exactly helping the global warming cause.

Re: Undercover Activists Buy Off Professors in Climate Sting

#44

Post by kijin »

n0us wrote: post #14

I have some questions about this "sting" that were unanswered in the article. It would be one thing if the academic were paid to have a certain opinion, its is another thing entirely to pay an academic to falsify research supporting a viewpoint they already hold. It reads as if the academics were paid to support a thesis with evidence. Once you are at a high enough academic level you should be able to write a paper a…

Given how cleverly the authors tried to evade peer review, the evidence might have been quite flimsy to begin with.

Peer review is the primary mechanism by which modern science verifies evidence, especially in fields like climate change where it's often very difficult to replicate another scientist's data.

Evasion of peer review is like including an obfuscated blob in a critical part of some security software. It is highly suspicious by definition, and the community has every right to assume that it is malicious unless the author can demonstrate otherwise.

Re: Undercover Activists Buy Off Professors in Climate Sting

#45

Post by HiLo »

noobermin wrote: post #15
gohrt wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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?

Re: Undercover Activists Buy Off Professors in Climate Sting

#46

Post by rcthompson »

n0us wrote: post #14

I have some questions about this "sting" that were unanswered in the article. It would be one thing if the academic were paid to have a certain opinion, its is another thing entirely to pay an academic to falsify research supporting a viewpoint they already hold. It reads as if the academics were paid to support a thesis with evidence. Once you are at a high enough academic level you should be able to write a paper a…

Your first paragraph is dead wrong. Science is not supposed to be about which side can pay more to "support their thesis with evidence". That would clearly lead to a blatant bias toward collecting evidence that favors the desired outcome. Also, it's not important to sustain every side of every debate in perpetuity. If that was the case, nothing would ever get done. Once there is enough evidence, collected in an unbiased fashion, that one side becomes untenable, the correct action is to put that debate to bed.

Your second paragraph is irrelevant. The problem is not publishing this research, the problem is the intentional deceptions about both conflicts of interest and the lack of peer review.

Your third paragraph is also dead wrong. Disclosure of all conflicts of interest is critical, not to mention required in order to publish in any respectable scientific journal.

Re: Undercover Activists Buy Off Professors in Climate Sting

#47

Post by [deleted] »

n0us wrote: post #14

I have some questions about this "sting" that were unanswered in the article. It would be one thing if the academic were paid to have a certain opinion, its is another thing entirely to pay an academic to falsify research supporting a viewpoint they already hold. It reads as if the academics were paid to support a thesis with evidence. Once you are at a high enough academic level you should be able to write a paper a…

[deleted]

Re: Undercover Activists Buy Off Professors in Climate Sting

#48

Post by Terr_ »

cm2187 wrote: post #43

I don't know if Greenpeace's claim is true but in any way they are shooting themselves in the foot. If the promise of a shaddy payment could push academics to say anything, then what about a massive political, media and peer pressure? What if the only way for research to get funding is to attempt to prove the catastrophic effects of global warming. Demonstrating that scientists bow to pressure isn't exactly helping t…

Oh please, there's not even a remote equivalence there.

The fossil-fuel sector has a enormously greater incentive to bribe people to affect the system, and a metric fuckton more money to do it with. It doesn't make sense to imply some kind of parity of wrongdoing.

Re: Undercover Activists Buy Off Professors in Climate Sting

#49

Post by n0us »

rcthompson wrote: post #46
n0us wrote: post #14

I have some questions about this "sting" that were unanswered in the article. It would be one thing if the academic were paid to have a certain opinion, its is another thing entirely to pay an academic to falsify research supporting a viewpoint they already hold. It reads as if the academics were paid to support a thesis with evidence. Once you are at a high enough academic level you should be able to write a paper a…

Your first paragraph is dead wrong. Science is not supposed to be about which side can pay more to "support their thesis with evidence". That would clearly lead to a blatant bias toward collecting evidence that favors the desired outcome. Also, it's not important to sustain every side of every debate in perpetuity. If that was the case, nothing would ever get done. Once there is enough evidence, collected in an unbia…

1. I said nothing about "what science is supposed to be about" Research costs money. If I chose to fund a study about the positive effects of a coal industry on the lower class it is within my right to do so and in no way excludes someone else from funding a study on the negative effects.

2. Sure, but this is tangential to my comment at best.

3. my belief is not "also dead wrong" Disclosure of conflicts of interest is not the same as disclosure of funding sources in all cases.

I'd also like to point out that your comment is an example of what I consider to be the type of poorly thought out middle brow discourse that perfectly characterizes the worst form of discussion on the internet. Unilateral statements like "your wrong" contribute nothing at all.

Re: Undercover Activists Buy Off Professors in Climate Sting

#50

Post by [deleted] »

shkkmo wrote: post #20
x1798DE wrote: post #3

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?

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 shad…

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