
Undercover Activists Buy Off Professors in Climate Sting - hiraki9
http://magazine.good.is/articles/academics-for-hire-disclose-fossil-fuel-funding
======
chetanahuja
I see people arguing that there's nothing bad in this report. The shady,
underhanded and dishonest context is so clear, I'm shocked to see so many such
objections.

The basic problem here is that two top academics are clearly selling the use
of their credentials for clear commercial gain of a private company and using
sophisticated means to hide the fact of such sale.

That part is bad enough, even worse is the eager sales pitch and readiness to
suggest financial shenanigans to hide the source of the funding that these
professors are engaging in. It's very clear that these are not first-timers or
unwilling participants. This is their _normal_ MO for writing and speaking on
the topic.

~~~
javajosh
What confuses me is that we all seem to have more-or-less the same moral
compass when it comes to fiction. "The bad guy" is often going to extremes to
prevent something from going public - dumping toxic waste in a river, taking
bribes, selling a vote, torturing people in secret etc.

Somehow it seems like these days, if someone gets caught doing these things in
real life, nothing happens. Dumping toxic waste is pro-business. Bribery is
freedom of speech. Torture? Heck, it's not torture, and they're really bad
people anyway.

Sometimes I want to grab these people and ask them, seriously, if this isn't
evil, then what IS?

~~~
shkkmo
> What confuses me is that we all seem to have more-or-less the same moral
> compass when it comes to fiction.

> Torture? Heck, it's not torture, and they're really bad people anyway.

The use of torture 'by the good guys' is actually pretty ubiquitous in modern
TV.

~~~
javajosh
That is very observant, something I've written about elsewhere. Not quite sure
what to do about it to be honest. It makes me sick.

------
x1798DE
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
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.

~~~
x1798DE
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
> 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.

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aleh
Wonder if anyone is going to do the opposite - try to buy off pro-global-
warming professor to produce exaggerated doomsday prediction - and what the
outcome is going to be.

~~~
hackuser
I wonder if Greenpeace is doing more to undermine confidence in all academic
research, undermining confidence in climate change science much more than the
denial of it.

~~~
sanderjd
This was my first thought. The only difference between me and the climate
change skeptics I know is that they have no faith in the integrity of
scientists, and I do. "See, the oil and gas industry has been buying off
scientists!" won't help my argument, they'll just think that it's a
countervailing force to all the scientists on the other side of the question
who are being bought off by …whoever they think it is.

Edit to add: Furthermore, I don't think this is unreasonable of them! Figuring
out which experts to trust is a really hard problem in a society as complex as
ours has become, and this makes it harder to argue for "you should trust
scientists".

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adolgert
When you get a grant, the university has academic freedom stipulations in the
contract or memorandum of understanding. You cite sources for every paper.
There's a yearly statement of conflict of interest on file. There is
absolutely no way these researchers aren't aware of the difficulty of what
they've done, even if they are saying what they believe.

------
OniBait
I'm a bit curious what people's opinions are after reading this
[http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/08/breaking-greenpeace-
co...](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/08/breaking-greenpeace-co-founder-
reports-greenpeace-to-the-fbi-under-rico-and-wire-fraud-statutes/)

Seems like there is some info being left out. Both sources seem to be hiding
things, why not publish the entire e-mail exchanges?

~~~
OniBait
Ah, I see the entire exchange was published here
[http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2642410-Email-
Chain-H...](http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2642410-Email-Chain-Happer-
O-Keefe-and-Donors-Trust.html)

Seems quite different than how it was being portrayed. From what I'm seeing,
they asked for a white paper, not a research paper and Happer said they could
send money to his 501c3 charity which only pays part of his travel expense and
would only write what he believed in. Even correcting them on peer review in
an academic sense vs a white paper reviewed by his peers...

Am I missing something nefarious here? Because this seems much more like a
'hit piece' on a guy who is testifying before congress.

~~~
knughit
He is embezzling money from a 5013c also?

~~~
OniBait
How in the world did you arrive at that conclusion!?

------
Rumford
The truth will out, complicated character-assassination plots notwithstanding.

------
n0us
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 arguing for and supporting a thesis
whether or not you believe in that thesis on a personal level. It's important
to sustain debate on all sides of an issue regardless of whether or not all of
those sides are politically popular.

The great thing about publishing is that it gives other educated people a
chance to rebut and question the argument.

I also believe funding sources should be kept secret in some cases so that the
paper or research can be judged on its own merit rather than judged based on
the motivations of the entity funded it.

~~~
rcthompson
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.

~~~
n0us
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.

------
skj
Will this be enough to fire tenured professors?

~~~
gohrt
One of them, Frank Clemente, is emeritus. He retired in 2010, and gets
whatever pension or such PSU offers. I wonder what their disciplinary options
are. This is clearly a case of an end-of-career cash-out of social/political
capital.

------
carc
To all the people that are somehow saying that this isn't all that bad, you
seem to be missing the point. The problem isn't that these professors are
taking money to support something they already support. It's that they are
taking money and then going to lengths to avoid disclosing the funding OR to
make it look like their papers went through a real peer review process...

I'm utterly shocked and disappointed by how many people on here are saying
things along the lines of "what's the big deal?"

------
kaitai
I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of cash. Anyone want to let me know who
will buy off a math professor?

~~~
gohrt
The cigarrette companies hire statisticians to publish bogus research about
the health effects of smoking.

~~~
civilian
Really any drug company (or an anti-drug organization like the DEA) would be
looking for someone who can do dark magic with statistics.

------
nostromo
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.

~~~
epistasis
Eh, not really, take this for example:

>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.”

The headlines are actually somewhat mundane compared to the substance. This is
the reverse of the Planned Parenthood tapes.

~~~
crazy1van
> Happer ran a sham peer-review process through the Global Warming Policy
> Foundation, a prominent U.K.-based climate skepticist think thank.

I really don't think submitting papers to similarly minded groups in the name
of "peer review" is an uncommon occurrence on any side of the climate change
debate -- or any other debate for that matter.

~~~
chetanahuja
_" I really don't think submitting papers to similarly minded groups in the
name of "peer review" is an uncommon occurrence"_

Yes it is. It's not just uncommon, it's simply unacceptable in regular
scientific research. Don't believe me, here's Prof. Happer's own words:

Verbatim from William Happer's email:

 _" For example, Golkany knew the names of the reviews he received, but for a
journal, the peer reviewers would normally be anonymous._

.

.

 _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 "_

He knows exactly what he's doing is wrong and why. He's deliberately engaging
in a a sleight of hand in order to deceive the casual reader/listener with the
words "peer review".

~~~
knughit
It is a peer review,but you are judged by the quality of the peers you choose.

------
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.

~~~
Terr_
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.

