Talk:Edward Wegman

message: Hi John.  The transcript of the hearing has Whitfield saying he and Barton asked Wegman to do this but they don't really say why him, well not directly.  It seems obvious to me because he was the chairman of an NAS committee (but perhaps it's because of his reputation and CV or that he did it for free or they like George Mason University or they picked him out of a hat.)  (Just like I imagine Dr North was chosen because of his involvement in the NRC.)  But maybe they're just two guys that said yes and are qualified.
I have it written too strongly, I don't know why they asked him.  I'll see what I can fix.  I just wanted to put in something about why.  Maybe just because he's qualified.  I don't remember any involvement with AGW by him before this, so maybe they were trying to be as unbiased as possible.  (And he is part of the NAS after all, so he's part of the mainstream.)
Last summer, Chairman Barton and I inquired into this matter after we learned that the lead author of these federally funded studies - Dr. Michael Mann -- to share the computer code he used to generate his results with researchers who sought to replicate the result of Mann's studies.  The researchers, one of whom will testify today, reportedly could not replicate his work based on what the study said. The researchers nevertheless identified several methodological and data problems with the work.  How critical were these problems identified by these researchers?  
Were the problems undetected because Dr. Mann assessed his own work in an IPCC report? These are serious questions, and the answers contain broad implications for global policy on climate change. We should ensure that science is providing us with reliable, balanced, well-considered, and unbiased answers.  
Now, when Chairman Barton and I wrote a letter asking that the Mann report be reviewed by some statisticians...
...And so what we did was, we asked that Dr. Wegman and a team that he had review these data.
Dr. Wegman is Chairman of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, and at the committee's request he assembled this ad hoc committee of statisticians to examine the hockey stick studies and related articles and his committee report prepared for Chairman Barton and me and the committee and publicly released this Friday provides important findings for Congress and the public to consider about the soundness and openness of climate change research and assessment and I can tell you right now that his document has 
been peer reviewed also, and we will get into that later.
In addition to Dr. Wegman, we have Dr. Gerald North of Texas A&M University, who will testify on the first panel about the current state of historical temperature understanding.  Dr. North chaired a recent National Research Council panel on 
historical temperature reconstructions and we look forward to hearing his perspective for improving climate change assessments.
Sln3412 23:09, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and edited it out. Sln3412 23:15, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. It's a fine distinction, but being asked because he is notable (as evidenced by being Chair of a panel) isn't the same as being asked in his capacity as Chair.JQ 00:51, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why he was asked to do the double checking of the statistics 

message: The most recent edit (by User:Gmb92) removed a long superfluous list of reviewers, but substituted the slightly misleading statement: "At the hearing, Dr. Wegman indicated that the report had only been peer-reviewed by those he selected." My recollection is, his ad-hoc committee selected the reviewers, but I've misplaced the ref, darn it.
For that matter, the quotes from his report aren't the best, imo. For one, we need his concluding "equation"
(from memory) Method wrong + Results right = Bad Science
Anyway, this is a memory-prod to return here when time permits...  Pete Tillman (talk) 08:00, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Wegman report, peer review

message: The word "mined" in quotes was introduced by Cla68 here. He attributes it to , which is a dead link (correct link is ). Where did the word "mined" in quotes come from, and who said "mined?" I wonder if sources are being misrepresneted. As we all know, misrepresenting sources, especially to put words in the mouth of a party to defame an identifiable living persons with claims of fraud is problematic, to say the least. Hipocrite (talk) 14:55, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "mined" in quotes 

message: :I've put a pov and coatrack tag on the section. Identification of problems can be found in #Blogs in the article and #"mined" in quotes. There are others - but these are the obvious ones. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 15:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: This edit violated WP:SYN.  The Guardian article, for example, didn't even mention Wegman.  I've rewritten the section to highlight Wegman's involvement but at the same time explain enough about what was going on for the reader to understand.  If someone has a reliable source (i.e. not a blog like Climate Audit or RealClimate) which actually mentions Wegman by name and disputes his performance and actions related to his investigation, we could probably include that.  Meanwhile, I need to go leave a note on Hipocrite's user talk page. Cla68 (talk) 11:09, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Please address the above question regarding the provenance of the quotes you previously placed in this article. Hipocrite (talk) 11:10, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

text: WMC, I have no personal connection or relationship, professional or otherwise, with Wegman, Mann, or M&M.  Do you?  If so, you shouldn't be touching this article. Cla68 (talk) 22:36, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

text: Christopher Booker gives additional detail in his recent book.  I have a copy of The Hockey Stick Illusion on the way which I hope will give additional information.  The recent changes which were made to this article actually aren't too bad, but a few additional details about how and why Wegman was chosen as the investigator would probably be helpful. Cla68 (talk) 00:54, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you planning to use Christopher Booker's work as a source of factual information? Really? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:09, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe.  Because of the opinions given in the RSN discussion about Booker, I'd like to confirm whatever Booker says with a second source, such as the Illusion book I mentioned above.  Otherwise, if I added a statement from Booker's book to this article it would be attributed, i.e. "Christopher Booker states that the Energy committee selected Wegman because..." Cla68 (talk) 01:33, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Using Montford to corroborate Booker is like... well, it's not the greatest idea I've ever run across. When using partisan sources (whether singly or multiply) it's especially important to attribute everything carefully, because of the BLP implications if nothing else. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:42, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I don't think that we can discuss the validity of the sources or the information contained in them when either one of us don't have access to them.  Once I receive the Illusion book, which should be any day now, if you like you can get out your copy of it and Booker's book and I'll get out my copy and we can discuss this further. Cla68 (talk) 01:48, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: One more thing, SBHB, if you can find any other books that give greater detail on Wegman's involvement in the investigation, please say so here. Cla68 (talk) 01:58, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Remember that this is Wegman's biography, not a replay of the investigation. All we need to do is note his leadership of the inquiry without going into excessive detail. He has a distinguished career that should be covered without inordinate focus on any one episode. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:46, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That's one reason why I think that Booker or Montford may be ok as a source in this particular instance, because details as to when or why Wegman was selected to lead the investigation appear to me to be fairly non-partisan in nature.  The section should focus on Wegman's actions.  The controversy over the veracity and validity of his conclusions can and should be detailed in the Hockey stick controversy article. Cla68 (talk) 04:12, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  When you say his selection was non-partisan, I think you need to check some facts.  Barton turned down a (real nonpartisan) offer by the NAS.  They then used Jerry Coffey to contact Wegman, although it is unclear who actually suggested Wegman.  Coffey has clear views on both politics and AGW - I would hardly call him nonpartisan.  See p.115[ http://www.desmogblog.com/crescendo-climategate-cacophony], which points you at the various primary sources to back all this up.JohnMashey (talk) 06:01, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: But Coffey didn't do the investigation, Wegman did.  And the president of the National Academy of Sciences (whose quote was removed from the article) backed him.  Remember, the hearing transcript quoted Wegman as saying that he voted for Al Gore in the presidential election.  Also, North's NAS investigation did not refute Wegman's conclusions.  If you're proposing to put any information in this article that suggests that politics had some part in Wegman's conclusions, then we're going to need to include all the relevant information and the section will get rather lengthy, rather fast.  I'm not necessarily against that.  I favor inclusion over exclusion. Cla68 (talk) 06:08, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I just read through your paper, Dr. Mashey and although the paper can't be used as a source, if you'd like to use any of the sources you used for that paper, please list them here.  It appears to me, however, that most of what you go into would be more appropriate at the Hockey stick controversy article than here. Cla68 (talk) 06:26, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, I'll pass for now, as my real point is that this whole set of inter-related pages is likely to get rethought.  It probably doesn't make much sense for me to try to extract dozens of references, given the complex story in which they were embedded.  However, you were claiming that Wegman's *selection* was non-partisan, and I answered about *selection* (although in fact the investigation was demonstrably partisan, too).  My report has the long history of politically-partisan actions that led to the Barton-Whitfield letters, and then the rejection of the NAS offer.    Read CCC, Barton: p.110-112, and quote at top of p.24 for Larry Neal's comment.  NAS/NRC has very clear procedures for minimizing bias and partisanship .  That wasn't good enough for Barton. We know what Wegman said about voting, but we do not know his actual vote or whether that is relevant.  We do know that Wegman was contacted by an intensely-partisan friend, that the panel got much of its information through Barton staffer Peter Spencer, that they were warned upfront by P.Spencer to expect criticism.  (Why? Was the result predetermined?)  We know they talked to McIntyre, never contacted Mann.  OK, one reference I can't resist is Yasmin Said's 2007 talk  See p.26 for pictures but read the whole thing.   Finally, with regard to notability, I think he is actually notable apart from this, but he didn't seem notable to Wikipedia until July 2006.JohnMashey (talk) 17:29, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: If you look through the articles on people connected to the AGW topic (we call articles on living people "BLPs") and check the talk pages for each BLP, I think you'll find a surprising number of quite intense debates about what should or should not be added as content to each.  Cla68 (talk) 22:49, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

text: I would not suggest doing anything with this article right now, but wait until a bit of the dust settles.  I do not suggest the following as RS, but as elsewhere, people might want to consult "Strange Scholarship in the Wegman report", linked from http://deepclimate.org/2010/09/26/strange-scholarship-wegman-report, as it does point to RS answers for many of the questions here.JohnMashey (talk) 05:20, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: I've mentioned this before - but a polemic opinion book such as "The Deniers" is not a reliable source for information on a BLP.
I've also got significant problems with the "Statisticians blast Hockey Stick" reference, since i am rather certain that this is referring to an Op-Ed by McIntyre & McKitrick (this one), and thus most certainly isn't a reliable source for factual information, and only to the opinions of the authors. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 09:17, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I independently found that when looking at the tag. I've removed assertions of fact attributed to opinion articles written by participants in the controversy, but I hope someone can find a reliable source for some of this information, so I left it commented out. Hipocrite (talk) 12:51, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm increasingly concerned that this BLP is being manipulated as a WP:COATRACK to replay the hockey stick controversy. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:30, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  The article is pretty good right now, I'd argue, but, of course, I'm all for shrinking down every blp to a stub and then deleting them unless the person is shockingly famous. Hipocrite (talk) 14:32, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I just readded the sources that were used before.  I don't think there is anything controversial about the hearing transcript.  The byline on that America's Intelligence Wire story in Infotrac was "Brian Mahoney", not M&M.  If the article, however, is actually a press release from M&M then I can understand the reluctance about using it as a source.  Infotrac sometimes screws up the bylines of article editors, I think because whatever program they use to compile articles doesn't always grab the correct name from the original source. Cla68 (talk) 23:01, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources 

message: Is the ref tag still needed? There seem to be a reasonable number of third-party refs here.
I also noticed that cites to Lawrence Solomon's book The Deniers are tagged as "unreliable source?" I just reread his profile of Wegman , and (other than the unfortunate title) it seems prosaic. I noticed that editor Kim D. Petersen objected to the use of the book, calling it a "polemic opinion book". While the book of course reflects Solomon's opinions, he seems to have done his homework re Wegman. Perhaps we should source the cites to the National Post online article, and sidestep the book issue. Or just drop the cites, as they're all double-cites, the other to his (third-party) 2004 distinguished alumni award .  Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:51, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Housekeeping: Ref tag still needed? + comment on ''The Deniers'' tag 

message: Does the insertion of Joe Barton's name imply to the reader that he was the sole member of this committee to desire a third party to review the statistical methods in question? A respected statistician HAD to be brought in by SOMEONE. Any argument against this has huge implications. Did any member of this committee which included 26 Democrats, request another mainstream statistician for this ad hoc and pro bono panel? Where there any of these Democrats that expressed opposition to Wegaman BEFORE selection. If so,should that not be included? If it's insertion is to implicate bias, does this also imply bias or POV on the part of the editor? Keeping in mind Sln3412 above, it would seem to imply to readers that Joe Barton's POV is the sole reason for a mainstream statistician being at the hearings. Would it not be more NPOV to simply state that he was there as a third party mainstream statistician to provide "independent verification of the critiques of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) [MBH98, MBH99] by McIntyre and McKitrick (2003, 2005a, 2005b) [MM03, MM05a, MM05b] as well as the related implications in the assessment"? 
Multiperspective (talk) 19:54, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Peter Bloomfield, a statistics professor at North Carolina State University, was brought in by the NAS as a third party mainstream statistician to examine the work of Mann et al. . . . dave souza, talk 23:23, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ad hominem 

message: Here's what I did (ran out of edit-summary space):
*Added Wegman's reponse to the initial blog-based allegations. Wegman was particularly critical of Mashey's work: ""I will say that there is a lot of speculation and conspiracy theory in John Mashey's analysis which is simply not true..."
*Shortened the Nature cmt, per Tim Osborn's suggestion. I'm not sure we need this at all.
*Added the journal's explanation for the retraction, from the Science Insider article, as Tim suggested. Plus some misc copyedits, moved a ref.
See what you think. Thanks, Pete Tillman (talk) 02:46, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Tillman wants to have Wegman's criticism of me in (despite fact that Wegman has not actually refuted anything in 8+ months), but that's OK.  However, I object to the omission of the properly-sourced statement '"Neither Dr. Wegman nor Dr. Said has ever engaged in plagiarism," says their attorney, Milton Johns, by e-mail.'  That is far stronger, more-precise and more inclusive statement than the knowingly-published or stand-by-their-work comments.  It covers far more than just the CSDA paper and is actually capable of eventual judgement in the real world.  Why isn't that in there in place of one of the others?JohnMashey (talk) 05:11, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Revision of "Investigations into charges..." section

message: on March 16, 2012, with a detailed account & very full analysis of the various version of the papers; and comments by various people (65 comments as of May 21, 2012). An anonymous blog, not a RS, but the details of the Wikipedia plagiarism can presumably be documented here internally. "Wiley cover-up: Complete Wegman and Said “redo” hides plagiarism and errors" .   
The question was asked above about the relative weight to be given to this; after a reading of the material, I think a longer and more detailed section may be needed; we usually cover rather intensively incidents involving misuse of Wikipedia.   DGG ( talk ) 03:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Subsequent posting at deepclimate

message: See No Evil, Speak Untruths, Break Rules, Blame Others bears strongly on the accuracy and completeness of various sections of the Wikipedia page.  Of course, it is not RS, but includes many links to RS (such as FOIAs), so treat it like a long Talk comment.
'In October 2011, USA Today reported additional concerns that separate 2009 review article authored by Wegman and Said contained material copied without attribution from Wikipedia. Wegman, his attorney, and George Mason University declined to comment on the allegations.[15]'
:See p.34: After a long series of complaints, Wiley allowed Wegman and Said to quietly edit their papers, but then both disappeared from masthead around the last week of June 2012.  See Wiley WIREs:CS, Editors-in-Chief = Scott.  Of course, this could be just a coincidence, having nothing to do with numerous letters and emails sent to the Wiley Board and executives after March.
'George Mason University provost Peter Stearns announced on 22 February 2012 that charges of scientific misconduct had been investigated by two separate faculty committees: the one investigating the Wegman Report gave a unanimous finding that "no misconduct was involved" in the 2006 report to Congress. Stearns stated that "Extensive paraphrasing of another work did occur, in a background section, but the work was repeatedly referenced and the committee found that the paraphrasing did not constitute misconduct". The 2008 social network analysis paper was investigated by a separate committee which unanimously found "that plagiarism occurred in contextual sections of the (CSDA) article, as a result of poor judgment for which Professor Wegman, as team leader, must bear responsibility." Stearns announced that Wegman was to receive an "official letter of reprimand", and in response to telephoned questions said the university was going to send the investigation reports to federal authorities. A university spokesman said the reports would not be made public.' 
:See  pp.11-14, which annotates the results from two FOIA replies (those are RS).  By FOIA, Stearns' claims of multiple investigation committees were false.  There was one inquiry committee (7-page report), and one investigation committee (9-page report).  Plagiarism expertsthought the plagiarism was "obvious" or "shocking."  The committee managed to ignore everything except the 1.5p subset that had already been the cause of a retraction by Elsevier. 
:See pp.35-36, which annotates Stearns' letter with results of the FOIAs and other data.
'Bradley said the university had failed to notify him of its decision, and described the split result as "an absurd decision" which would encourage GMU students to think it acceptable to copy work without attribution. Stearns said that "instead of allowing the university process to be completed", which had taken over two years, Bradley had openly discussed the plagiarism. The university was going to consider ways to make investigations more streamlined, and it was not investigating any other complaints about Wegman.'
:See pp.39-40 on Retaliation.   Stearns' statement is accurately quoted, but effectively impugns Bradley's reputation and is uncritically repeated in Wikipedia, without context. FOIAs revealed the timing and nature of delays (p.8-10).  People might want to think hard about the wisdom of such in Wikipedia, in effect promoting the idea Bradley was at fault, but without a single RS that supports that.JohnMashey (talk) 22:04, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wegman and Said no longer editors; FOIAs show Stearns wrote untruths to GMU faculty; Retaliation? 

message: In case anyone comes back to edit this page, they might want to check Ed Wegman, Yasmin Said, Milt Johns Sue John Mashey For $2 Million.  Of course, as a blog, that's not RS, but it includes copies of various court records, and directions of how to get them if somebody wants to check. Of course, they are primary sources, which make them hard to use in Wikipedia, even of they are strong evidence in the real world. For instance, it is a fact that Wegman's complaint said what it did, although course that doesn't imply that what was said was true.  For example, some were trivially false:
'7. In March of 2009, Defendant John Mashey, via the web blog Deepclimate.org performed an analysis of the Wegman Report that purported to show plagiarism by Wegman.’  False: Dec 2009, Deep Climate, not me.
8. In March of 2010, based on Mashey's writings, Raymond Bradley, of the University of Massachusetts, made a complaint to Said's employer, George Mason University, alleging plagiarism in the report from one of Bradley's textbooks.’  False, based on work of blogger Deep Climate.
 
9. Two different committees investigated the charges and no plagiarism was found.  False, by FOIA JohnMashey (talk) 05:10, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wegman and Said Lawsuits 2014-2015 

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