Wegman Report: Not just plagiarism, misrepresentation

Sun, 2011-06-05 13:27Richard Littlemore
Richard Littlemore's picture

Wegman Report: Not just plagiarism, misrepresentation

New Mashey Report Drills into Academic Misconduct



The Wegman Report was commissioned by Congress as an "investigation" into a controversial "hockey stick" graph that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had used prominently in an effort to illustrate the reality of climate change. Although Edward Wegman's report was highly critical of that graph, later analysis (mostly by DeepClimate) showed that, in mounting the attack, Wegman had extensively cribbed one of the graphs own authors, Raymond Bradley.

What Mashey now demonstrates is that, in addition to misrepresenting Bradley's words as his own, Wegman also twisted, misrepresented or completely changed the meaning of some of Bradley's work, without explanation or reference to any other source that might justify the manipulations.

As Mashey says - showing an extensive analysis of Wegman against the original: "Bradley is methodically weakened, silently contradicted or even directly inverted ...."

These errors could have been attributable to "mere serious incompetence and poor scholarship, including inability to understand a textbook well enough to summarize it correctly," Mashey says. But he later adds, "I think most of this is purposeful."

Mashey's analysis is compelling. He reveals minor, but annoying changes, such as when Bradley is talking about a "strong temperature signal" available from tree rings and Wegman, in the midst of a purloined paragraph, amends Bradley's text to add the word "relatively" - as in a "relatively strong temperature signal."

Indeed, having relied overwhelmingly on Bradley's text to present himself as an expert on the use of tree rings to create a reconstruction of historic temperatures, Wegman then changes a final sentence to arrive at a conclusion exactly opposite to Bradley's own. Bradley, explaining both the strengths and weaknesses of using tree rings, says this:


Wegman, who had added confusing or "confounding" references in the midst of several earlier paragraphs, removes Bradley's positive conclusion and adds instead this flatfooted statement, instead:

"Thus tree ring proxy data alone is not sufficient to determine past climate variables."


Mashey writes: "Bibliography-padding can also be a form of fabrication, and 40 of 80 references (in Wegman) are never cited, leading one to wonder if the (Wegman Report) authors had actually ever studied them. Many are clearly irrelevant or found in dubious sources inappropriate for such a report. A tabloid writer's 1987 ozone article in a fringe technology magazine is listed as an “Academic paper.” It cannot possibly be relevant."



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As Eli 'Rabbet Run' explains at:


Wegman deserves ignominy and humiliation. After-all, the WR was an attempt intended to manufacture a bogus argument to support the deniers' hatred of Michael Mann and his hockey-stick graph.
Through arrogance and incompetence Wegman was hoist by his own petard.


Koch skulduggery? I think so.

stephen harper




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