A claimed “first world conference on research integrity” opens in Lisbon, Portugal, today. The conference media release explains: “The controversies surrounding the recent assessment report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) demonstrates how research integrity is a critical issue not only for the science community, but for politicians and the society as a whole as well. In August 2007 the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had to withdraw previous published historical climate data.
The incident came after a British mathematician discovered that the sources used by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) have disregarded the positions of weather stations, plus intentionally using outdated data on China from 1991 and ignoring revised data on the country from 1997.
Now 350 concerned scientists, scientific managers and magazine editors from around the world are scheduled to attend the event in Lisbon, initiated and organised by the European Science Foundation (ESF) and the US Office for Research Integrity (ORI). It marks a milestone for the science community as it will link all those concerned parties in a global effort to tackle the issue head on.
”At the very least, countries should know how misconduct will be handled in other countries and whom to contact if they have questions. A more ambitious goal is to begin to harmonize global policies relating to research integrity,” says Conference Co-Chair Nicholas Steneck from the University of Michigan.
“By now there are no consistent global standards for defining and responding to major misconduct in research. Definitions and practices vary from country to country and even institution to institution. Improper practices that could be ignored in one country could get a researcher dismissed from a position in another country,” Steneck adds.
The conference will be focusing on both individual and institutions’ responsibilities, and of funding agencies as well as publishers, according to Conference Co-Chair Tony Mayer from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Mayer is also the former Senior Science Policy Adviser to the ESF.
Jose-Mariano Gago, the Portuguese Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Janez Potocnik, the European Commissioner for Research, Angel Gurri?a, the Secretary-General, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and Tim Hunt from the Cancer Research UK, South Mimms will kick off the event by participating in the opening talks. .
In his keynote address, Paul David form the Oxford University, UK, and Stanford University, Palo Alto, U.S., will give an overview on analytical and empirical studies of ORI on the problem of scientific misconduct. David is well known for his research in the economics of science and technology, with special reference to the impact of intellectual property rights protections on the direction and conduct of ‘open science’ research.
Howard Alper, Professor of Chemistry and Vice-President Research at the University of Ottawa, and winner of the first Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal in Science and Engineering, Canada’s most prestigious award for science and engineering, is also affiliated with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada, because he is also an expert in the situations in developing and emerging countries. From his experiences he presents the best practices for the benefit of a society.
Herbert Gottweis from the Institute of Political Sciences, University of Vienna, Austria, will reconsider the Hwang gate from 2005 and present the lessons learned. Gottweis is vice-president of the Austrian Research Fund (FWF) and coordinator of the PAGANINI (“Participatory Governance and Institutional Innovation“) project of the European Union.
The conference will also touch on the situation in developing and emerging countries, where scientists often have to produce publications in numbers under pressure to achieve the formal scientific qualifications. Thus voices from Africa, like that from Amaboo Dhai, University of the Witwatersrand Medical School, Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics, Parktown, South Africa, will also be heard. In addition, Annette Flanagin of JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and Muza Gondwe, University of Malawi, College of Medicine, Blantyre, will contribute their experiences from the „African Journal Partnership Project“. Flanagin is the author of the JAMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors, now in it’s 10th edition.
In other words the World Conference on Research Integrity focuses on an open sore of science, taking into consideration the reality, legal and institutional aspects, as well as regional, social and psychological environments in which scientists work.It intends to be the beginning of the healing process.
For more information on the conference please go to:
http://www.esf.org/conferences/researchintegrity
Live news and photos from the event will be posted on the ESF Media Centre:
http://www.esf.org/media-centre.html
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
So Jen – what proportion of the conference papers “focus” on the IPCC ?
Hi Luke,
The IPCC is the focus of a key media release for the conference:
“The controversies surrounding the recent assessment report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) demonstrates how research integrity is a critical issue not only for the science community, but for politicians and the society as a whole as well. In August 2007 the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had to withdraw previous published historical climate data.
The incident came after a British mathematician discovered that the sources used by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) have disregarded the positions of weather stations, plus intentionally using outdated data on China from 1991 and ignoring revised data on the country from 1997.”
So no doubt the IPCC will be a focus for at least one of the sessions?
Denis – well most likely it will receive some attention being a large public science activity affecting all of us – but I’m asking if it will be a focus.
Who cares? The industry funded lobby groups and MNC-fisted guvmints will manipulate the scientific findings to push a political agenda regardless. It happened with the IPCCs report.
One of those continuing agendas is discrediting science, kicked off by the Tobacco lobby groups and filtrating many operations. So we have witnessed it from Jennifer’s various positions, not a genuine interest in scientific integrity, but a lopsided push for vested interests.
In disbelief? Open your mind, go forth and Google etc and read outside of your comfort zone.
In denial? You’re either a direct beneficiary or one of their suckers.
Pinxi, are you suggesting that this conference in Portugal is a sponsored by the Tobacco lobby? do you have any evidence for this or are you just making it up because you are angry that the IPCC has been so exposed?
“angry that the IPCC has been so exposed” – Jen you are now so into framing you can’t even tell anymore. Extraordinary given the topic.
Well the topic is an international conference on scientific integrity.
Presumably Luke, you and Pinxi ( being hard headed, rationalist scientific supporters )are not suggesting that some highly topical current disciplines such as climate study are beyond examination?
Like Jen I found the reference to the tobacco industry a bit confusing.
Maybe Gunns is behind it all – they’re apparently happy to rely on genuine science.
Or it might be AGW sceptics or big oil or Haliburton or neo-cons – who knows?
The list of class enemies is endless.
Or should we leave such examinations to the Greens – they don’t have vested interests in such enquiries?
Far from it – have as much integrity as you like – just amused how a conference on “integrity” has been frame posted. Classic.
Pinxi is obviously on the turps again and doing a random drive-by shooting – but she’s not (if you read) saying the conference is anything to do with tobacco. She’s saying (IMO) that who cares – shills will still shill – so won’t change much. McIntyre of course will have the whole world’s science data and programs on a big FTP site so he can check all the figures for all science in great detail.
But collateral damage is a possibility – might put Energy and Environment out of business if you’re insisting on “rigour”.
And half the denialist movement will be in jail for “try-ons” and maybe sedition.
Sounds good.
Hard to disagree with that Luke – “shills” will “shill” presumably – but it’s the selective labelling which worries me.
Do you actually have an objective criteria or is the term only employed against those who “shill” for the wrong side?
PS – sorry for the inverted comma’s but I don’t know how legit a word shill actually is?
PPS – I thought you were the one always calling for rigour?
More sleazy spin from Luke. The only “framing” that Jen is guilty of is framing a question to Pinxie but Luke just couldn’t help himself from quoting out of context and fabricating an issue.
The whole post is presented again for the record, Jen said:
“Pinxi, are you suggesting that this conference in Portugal is a sponsored by the Tobacco lobby? do you have any evidence for this or ARE YOU JUST MAKING IT UP BECAUSE YOU ARE ANGRY THAT THE IPCC HAS BEEN SO EXPOSED? (my emphasis)
“By their deeds shall ye know them” and by Luke’s standards do we know him.
Meanwhile, back at the issue of scientific integrity, that is at least 380 very important scientific identities who consider this to be a major issue. Does that amount to a consensus?
A: The Makah are the only Indian tribe in the country whose right to whale is explicitly written in a treaty. In 1855 the tribe ceded most of its ancestral lands to the U.S. in return for certain rights, including the right to fish, hunt and whale in its usual and accustomed areas. The tribe accepted a relatively small reservation, in part, because it was on the sea that provided much of its food.
Q: Are there rules governing Makah whaling?
A: Makah whaling is governed by tribal, federal and international laws.
• A tribal management plan restricts where and how whales may be hunted. The whalers who killed a gray whale Sept. 8 broke the restrictions: They didn’t have a permit; they used a motorboat instead of a canoe; they hunted in an area set aside for resident whales. They also did not quickly kill the whale. Instead, the animal, harpooned and shot multiple times, took about 10 hours to die.
• In a deal with the U.S., the International Whaling Commission has set a quota of five gray whales a year — totaling no more than 20 over five years — for Makah subsistence hunting. The Makah may not sell the meat commercially and must demonstrate a shortage of whale meat on the reservation before each hunt.
According to WDCS the meat from the last hunt was mostly wasted.
Ooops , posted on the wrong thread…
Mott – are you really that stupid. If you notice the framing issue came in earlier than Pinxi’s bit.
Back to it – read the conference programme – they’re not focussing on the IPCC. There are a wide range of issues. This post is framed as an IPCC inquiry.
Now don’t be tedious and extrapolate that a conference on science integrity isn’t a good thing. Didn’t say that. Also don’t extrapolate that the IPCC doesn’t have controversial issues – whatever the outcomes may be. The recent GISS temperature adjustment is not yet an IPCC issue. The Wang issue (unproved) is not yet an IPCC issue. Using the IPCC/climatish issues as a media example to illustrate the importance of the conference issue is fair cop – but is the conference focussing on the IPCC.
Did you check any background – of course you didn’t – you accepted the frame. So by your deeds mate I certainly know you by now. You don’t check – you just shoot. Hanging judge Mottsa. Well matey boy – this ain’t the wild west.
So your vast inflated ego as usual has prevented you from any cognitive traction.
Does Christy get his own session?
Luke got it. The origins of the agenda to discredit science was kicked off by the Tobacco lobby groups who funded lobby groups to discredit global warming science in order to discredit the quality of science in general to help support their position that there’s no credible scientific evidence that tobacco causes cancer. Jennifer you should know the historical origins of the discrete model that pays your wage, otherwise you’re a pawn.
Motty has so much trouble following a thread that one wonders if he’s allowed outdoors
Breathtaking front, Luke. You misquoted Jennifers question to Pinxie by leaving out the question mark altogether to make it appear like a statement and you now have the gall to claim that you were actually refering to something earlier. So why did you bother with the quote at all?
Is this the sort of stunt they now teach you in the departmental workshops on sleaze and spin? Keep trying, there must be some poor gullible turd out there that would actually believe you.
No it’s what they teach grubby activist turds like youself at media manipulation classes actually.
Try to read the context of the whole thread gramps.
Instead of railing against my poor levels of punctuation with feigned indignation be more worried about misrepresentation on the core issue and stop being so patently and boringly dishonest.
Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is predicated on a correlation of global temperature with atmospheric CO2.
The correlation coefficient needs to be at least 0.5 for a direct causal relationship to be possible.
The correlation of the IPCC data for the 150 years of measured temperatures is less than 0.2 which translates into no possible direct causal relationship of CO2 driving global temperature.
(This should have been obvious with the accelerated increase in CO2 during the cooling trend from 1943 to 1975 before the warming started.)
This failure to validate the basic premise of AGW by the IPCC is a clear breach of science protocol.
It is time this misrepresentation of science is exposed.
I always find it amusing that trolls like Luke and Pinxi can go about two sentences before they start calling people names. “Tobacco lobby groups?” Can’t they ever even be the least bit original.
The Global Warmists don’t need any help from “deniers” to discredit themselves. Look at NASA’s fabrications of data, and look at how the IPCC overseers just ignored almost any reviewer comment that they didn’t like while using non peer-reviewed or unpublished articles in justification of the refusals.
I think what we’re seeing here from the reactions of Luke and Pinxi are the signs of desperation arising now that they know the end is near for their scam. Better find a new crisis fellows – some other means of trying to find a way to impose your superior views and lifestyles on everyone else.
Norm trys some denialist norms – maybe you’re genius. Duh – let’s see – a low corwellation maybe coz duh temperature is driven by more things than CO2 alone. Solar + greenhouse – aerosols.
WOW ! Gee isn’t that complex – more than one thing. Hurts the brain doesn’t it.
AGW is not predicated on a correlation at all. It’s predicated on well known physics chump.
As for 1943-1975 try investigating aerosols and why the southern hemisphere behaved differently to the north.
What REALLY needs to be exposed is complete stupidity like you’ve penned above.
As for Sammy Seal. – well reality is very interesting isn’t it Sammy
(1) you ignore serial turds like Mott from your analysis – how selective
(2) you’ve already fabricated data yourself – did “I” say Tobacco lobby group above – NO !! So what a fabricating liar you are. So Pinxi has suddenly become plural.
(3) How has NASA “fabricated” data – you mean you disagree with their analysis
(4) Many reviewer comments were ignored as they were idiotic – would you like a quota of idiotic responses allowed to make you feel better
(5) Gee “non-reviewed” literature – you’d need an axe to chop your way through the massive bibliographies – have you looked? of course not.
(6) What lifestyle am I proposing to impose on you? Have I proposed anything to impose on you?
So as usual Sammy – you’re just another lying denialist nitwit – even your first sentence above is incorrect. Try to lay straight in bed eh?
Luke,
Too bad we’re worlds apart in time zones.
Your response at 8:36 am was truly brilliant. What was it you were trying to say. Did you have an eye-opener this morning, Luke. It sure seems like it.
You did make it almost two sentences though before you ran out of ammo and started the name calling. Really impressive arguments though – sure to win over a lot of adversaries. Now have another toke or shot and go back to sleep. Of course, you probably are just skipping classes again aren’t you?