My dad was an attorney – general practice, and good at it. His principal client was the town of Londonderry, NH, where I grew up. He believed in the law as a tool to help people – he was the kind of lawyer who would sit with a client, listen to their case, and then honestly explain to them what they were likely to win, and what that win would likely cost in fees – even when the fees exceeded the likely award. Why would my father do this? Because the thought the courts were overused, and were not a place to settle petty fights when they might take away from the many more consequential issues passing through the court system.
Dad would have been utterly appalled by the behavior of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in his borderline censurable efforts to intimidate climate scientists (really a much wider attack on science in general – see RealClimate). While I have time and again argued for reasoned debate about the extent to which humans influence the climate, and the means by which they do so (yes, I personally think the data is clear that we do influence the climate in significant ways), Cuccinelli is not trying to get to any sort of truth that might further this debate. As there have been a lot of good, informative (if somewhat self-referencing) posts on Cuccinelli’s requests at sites like Climate Science Watch and Climate Progress, I won’t wade into the details of the inquiry or how it undermines academic freedom and the scientific process. Instead, I want to highlight one point, made by RealClimate, which captures why this whole inquiry is absurd, and why the Virginia Bar needs to intercede with someone who is abusing their office:
However, as appalling as this reasoning is, Cuccinelli’s latest request is simply bone-headed because the grant in question, entitled “Resolving the scale-wise sensitivities in the dynamical coupling between the climate and biosphere”, simply has nothing to do with the MBH98 and MBH99 papers! Even if one agreed with Cuccinelli about their quality (which we don’t), they are not referenced or mentioned even obliquely. The grant was to look at how climate variability impacted land-atmosphere fluxes of carbon, water and heat and doesn’t involve paleo-climate at all. So even if, for arguments sake, one accepted Cuccinelli’s definition of what constitutes ‘fraud’, nothing associated with this grant would qualify. We doubt there could be a clearer demonstration of the inappropriateness of Cuccinelli’s case….
That’s right, Cuccinelli is arguing that he has standing to run an inquiry into the results of two papers, which he argues are fraudulent, because the State of Virginia gave Michael Mann (the scientist in question) money to do ANOTHER STUDY whose outcomes are not questioned in the complaint.
I’m proud of my alma mater (U.Va.) for standing up to this absurdity.
I never found out what my father thought of climate change – he passed away in December 2002. But I do know he would have been disgusted by this case, and by the man wasting taxpayer dollars and time on a political fishing expedition.
Update: 10/11/2010
I had an email-exchange with Rick at Climate Science Watch, and he rightly pointed out that my offhand characterization of their reporting as “self-referencing” might be a bit unfair. CSW is an advocacy site that builds a case for its positions over time, across its reporting . . . so of course it will reference its own posts. And they are, it seems, a significant resource for people in the climate change community concerned with the politics of science these days. So, to be clear, my concern was more with the appearance of self-reference within a small number of blogs – something that is unavoidable, given the small number of good blogs that address this subject – not with the actual practice.
I expect he would have been appalled at the sheer number of armchair-lawyers commentating on a technical legal issue that they had absolutely no expertise in.
Civil investigative demands (CIDs) are a routine tool of law used to determine whether there is in fact anything to be investigated. It’s no more ‘intimidation’ than any other application of US law, and probably less intimidatory than some of the other options. It’s legal, normal, and has been done many times before.
The situation is that the controversy over the MBH98/99 papers has given reason to believe that the author may have deliberately misrepresented certain scientific results (I think the R2 issue is the clearest example), but these papers are not within the Attorney General’s jurisdiction. However, their existence gives reasonable grounds to check those papers and research that *are* within his jurisdiction to ensure that taxpayers funds have not been obtained under false pretences.
The CID is *not* an accusation of criminality or scientific fraud. It’s more like an audit of the accounts.
Honest scientific error is not being outlawed. The law being cited is very specific – you have to *knowingly* make false representations in an application for state funding to fall foul of it. Normal scientific method cannot possibly be affected – the level of honesty it demands is exceeded by routine scientific integrity. Scientific integrity requires that you discuss anything that *might* have gone wrong with the result, while this law only cuts in when you know that something definitely *is* wrong in what you say.
For more informed legal comment, see here.
Academia has no immunity from the law. If you are contracted by the government to provide certain goods in exchange for taxpayers’ money, it makes no difference whether it is concrete for road bridges or medicines for hospitals or scientific research. Fraud is fraud, it exists in every profession and area of commerce, and scientists are human enough that they sometimes do it too.
While I agree that academia does not stand outside the law, especially where taxpayer dollars are at stake, I think your reading of the CID is rather generous. While I fall into the category of armchair lawyer, I did grow up reading my father’s legal briefs, and I can easily follow the logic of a legal filing. Your reading of the CID runs contrary to what the courts found on the initial filing – Cuccinelli does not have standing to investigate, because the possible fraud used as a justification for the CID did not employ Virginia’s taxpayer dollars. All he’s done here is attempt to amend his filing to include a single grant from the Commonwealth of Virginia in his complaint, even though the articles he wants to investigate have nothing to do with that grant, nor has he raised a question about the research or publications that came from that grant. To be honest, it is a bit of a lazy refiling that isn’t going anywhere. Cuccinelli knows this (I don’t think he is stupid), and I am sure he knows he will be smacked down again by a court in short order. But then he can turn to the voters (he has ambitions for higher office, by all accounts) and blame the courts for preventing his investigation.
What offends me about this case is not that someone would question science or the integrity of someone’s research (especially because peer review has significant problems as a check on quality) – we should all be doing this. What offends me here is the appalling misuse of public office – even if Cuccinelli was genuinely concerned about the articles in question (do you really think he is? I honestly doubt it), he was told he had no standing. As the feds, who have standing, have not chosen to take this up, they are clearly satisfied that there is no need for an investigation. But Cuccinelli has not accepted this, despite the clear finding of the court, and this refiling doesn’t really alter the original finding. It just ties up U.Va. lawyers and financial resources to fight off a spurious inquiry. That’s piss poor.
Well, I’m only an armchair lawyer too, and every case has two sides. I’m not qualified to figure out the administrative arcana of federal block grants. It sounds more like a loophole than a vindication, though.
Do I think Cuccinelli is genuinely concerned about it? Yes, although perhaps not in the way you mean. I think there is a genuine annoyance at the idea of anybody getting away with fraud against the taxpayer, and in this specific case with regard to such a fraud’s consequences for the world as a whole.
(I don’t know why the feds haven’t taken it up. Perhaps they have a different view of what is in the taxpayers’ best interests. Or their own.)
He may also be hoping for the next retired judge to be a little less personally involved with UVa.
As for politics, while this is to some extent exactly the sort of thing he was voted in for, I don’t know that it would help further his ambitions very much. People want more than mere populism. If you want an ulterior motive, I think it is far more likely a fishing expedition for material to use in his battle with the EPA. As far as interested public opinion is concerned, Mann’s Hockeystick is already dead in the water; a laughing stock. It achieves little of tactical importance to pursue it any further. It sure is popular, but you can find other ways to be popular without taking such risks.
It may be a little Machiavellian, but possibly the plan is to have the Establishment rally round to defend it, to draw the nation’s attention to their doing so. If you can induce the opposing generals to mount their last stand on the ground where they are weakest, you may not need to actually breach the walls.
They must have thought long and hard about this. Like you say, I don’t think he is stupid.
NiV, my friend, you still surprise me after all these comments . . . which is a good thing. I think if I had you pinned down, this would be a lot less fun. I agree that people want more than populism, in the end. And you may well be right about the EPA issue – but I fear that while your larger theory is plausible (and I am not saying the man is stupid) I cannot bring myself to give Cuccinelli that much strategic credit. But, I may well be underestimating him, and if I am, a lot of other people are . . . in which case people ought to take your at least plausible interpretation a lot more seriously, lest they indeed fight a battle on unsure ground.
Great post, Ed. First time I read it here (sorry!), but the mentioning of your father really touched my heart. My father-in-law passed away in September, just about a year after soon-to-be-wife Naomi took me to her home and we met each other. Later he soon became ill so I had very limited interaction with him while he was alive. Although I was told that he, retired elementary school teacher, was a stubborn man, I thought that he was great. As sudden farewell happened subsequently, the more we got to hear about his past and how he was from his friends and students, the more I wish I had more interaction with him through being “teacher.” Thankfully he thought I was a good fit with his daughter, so I gotta do well to make him “proud” than “appall”…
I am sorry to hear about an ongoing accusation on academic (scientific) work from politics. Occasionally there are controversies on history or diplomatic research, but in general such case is seldom here. As much as I miss the US academic world, lack of such political intervention is perhaps the thing I like where I am now… We’ll see at where we get closer (SC-KY, DC-Kyoto, and next?)!