'Climategate' investigation differs from other misconduct inquiries

PHILADELPHIA - When news of the so-called climategate scandal involving a researcher at Pennsylvania State University broke, the orderly world of the ivory tower was suddenly invaded by a shouting match worthy of talk radio.

Confronted by a torrent of complaints and concerns from the public and from state officials, the university started a familiar procedure - a misconduct inquiry, which escalated into an investigation last month, focused on the activities of climatologist Michael Mann.

It's an inquiry that's normally prompted by a specific complaint launched by a fellow researcher who suspects that data in a piece of published work were made up, manipulated or copied.

There are no scientists pointing out instances of cheating on the part of Mann, who is director of Penn State's Earth System Science Center. Instead, the complaints are coming from people angry over statements about Mann's work made in a series of e-mails stolen from a server in England in November. Critics interpreted those e-mails as admissions by scientists that important data fundamental to the climate change debate were falsified.

The scientists involved deny this, and most of their colleagues stand by them. So experts in misconduct question whether a formal investigation makes sense without a more specific charge.

"Fraud is something that occurs in published works - not in unpublished e-mails,'' said David Goodstein, a former provost of Caltech and author of "On Fact and Fraud: Cautionary Tales From the Front Lines of Science.''

University spokesman Bill Mahon says this case is indeed unprecedented. "We've never had a case in all my 26 years at Penn State where there's been such an incredible amount of politics outside the university interjected into it.''

Still, it's not the first time politics has become entangled with fraud charges. "Misconduct allegations can be used as a tool to undermine scientists by those who don't like their results,'' said Nicholas Steneck, a University of Michigan historian.

Some scientists point to a parallel with Pittsburgh researcher Herb Needleman, whose results forced industry to get lead out of gasoline and paints.

The allegations against Mann stem from two high-profile papers in 1998 and 1999, containing what were later dubbed the "hockey stick'' graphs because they showed temperatures shooting upward during the 20th century.

Last November, unidentified hackers stole more than 1,000 e-mail messages exchanged between climate researchers. One message, written in 1999, referred to a "trick'' Mann used and an effort to "hide the decline.''

The researcher who wrote that e-mail quickly explained that "trick'' meant simply a technique for graphing data, and the "decline'' referred to a well-publicized issue involving tree rings. Both papers were thoroughly reviewed by a National Academy of Sciences panel several years ago.

Though the academy review found no evidence of fraud, the complaints following the e-mail release prompted Penn State to launch an inquiry headed by Henry Foley, dean of the graduate school and vice president for research.

In February Foley's panel cleared Mann of falsifying or suppressing data, concealing e-mail, and misusing privileged or confidential information. But the panel reported it didn't have enough information to clear him of the lesser charge of "deviating from accepted practice in his field.''

The fourth charge is now under investigation by another panel of Penn State professors and expected to be concluded by June.

Nevertheless, political groups and others have accused the university of a "whitewash'' for exonerating Mann on the most serious charges.

"Any time you have a university faculty question another university faculty, it stands to reason there's a conflict of interest,'' said Joe Sterns, communications director for the Pennsylvania branch of the Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative advocacy group.

Others questioned Penn State's decision to continue with a formal misconduct investigation. "The university's waffling on the fourth charge, without explaining itself, further victimizes Mann,'' said Yale historian Daniel Kevles, author of a 1998 book about a prominent fraud case against Nobel-winning biologist David Baltimore. (Baltimore was subsequently cleared.)

Since the National Science Foundation provides most of the funding for climate science, it is overseeing the Penn State investigation. Susan Carnohan, communications adviser to NSF's inspector general, said she couldn't comment on the case except to say that NSF would make it difficult for a university to whitewash such a case.

Small world: My office in Lauritsen Lab was not very far from Feynman's, although he was not very active by then. In those days Goodstein was in the Sloan Annex. Feynman would still drop into Seminars, though, and pick up the topic — and ask questions — like he was still a twentysomething grad student instead of a sixtysomething year old.

I don't know whether Feynman would have involved himself publicly in the present discussion (although he would surely have had his opinions). For all of the colorful stories about him, he was not a controversialist. I do remember that he refused to sign a petition against the Vietnam War (this was before I was in grad school), and that a number of very famous scientists who had signed on were puzzled by his demurrals.

He was, above all, his own man.

First, he would be someone the nation could turn do, as they did in the wake of the Challenger disaster. I don’t think we have such a person now.

Second, I would hope he would see the damage being done to science, and weigh in. Not a given as all, and as you have pointed out, he was very much his own man.

I agree, except to add that it’s a good idea to be cautious about such leadership. Although a great admirer of Einstein the scientist (and no physicist can be anything else.) Einstein’s political opinions fell into two — not always mutually exclusive — categories: infantile or dangerous. He was a defender of Stalin to the end of his life, and an apologist for all the outrages of the Soviet Union. I would follow Feynman, if only because he was the type of man who would not wish to be followed.

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