Comments on: Bre-X #1: the March 1997 P.D.A. Convention

By: Living in interesting times « Samantha, Gordon, & Me

Living in interesting times « Samantha, Gordon, & Me — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:57:12 +0000

[...] evidence of this ongoing interest, a reflection on Bre-X was one of the very first Climate Audit posts (Feb 6, 2005). I observed that Felderhof and de Guzman were lionized at the 1997 PDA convention [...]

By: TCO

TCO — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 03:32:46 +0000

I got no problem with that. My point stands that you will get further with the Pope by appealing to Benedictine ideals than Lutheran ones (even if they are identical in content).

By: Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 00:57:32 +0000

You’d think that one of the learned societies that’s hectoring Barton might volunteer to report on this for Barton. If they want to be self-governing, then they have to self-govern. If they don’t self-govern, then someone will do it for them.

By: TCO

TCO — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 00:20:24 +0000

sentence 1: agreed. that was my point.
sentence 2: ok. I’d even say that science should be at a higher “spirit of the law” standard.
sentence 3: why me? I think they’re scandalous. My point IS THAT they should be indicted on the basis of scientific ethics.

CAPICSE?

By: Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 00:02:27 +0000

I’ve looked for similar rules within science and the rules regarding falsification are very similar to full, true and plain disclosure. “Falsification” within codes of scientific conduct uses the term as it is understood legally – which includes material omissions i.e. a failure to disclose adverse information. Can you explain to me why the MBH omissions of the R2 and omission of the calculations in the CENSORED directory are not “falsification” as understood in scientific codes of conduct?

By: TCO

TCO — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 23:32:16 +0000

Just like teasing you. You Canadian, you.

Did you write any of those shaky prospectuses?

P.s. you’re still not going to get anywhere telling the scientists that they need to imitate capital raising prospectuses. And there are plenty of ideals in science to appeal to anyhow. no need to cite such a foreign thing to them…

By: Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 23:10:43 +0000

TCO, you’re missing the nuance. When I started into the climate field, I heard lots of people complaining and whining about IPCC disclosure and bias. So I thought – if there’s no objective standard of disclosure, then nobody has any real standards for complaint. Since IPCC scientific assessments are somewhat sui generis, how could you get traction for an accusaiton of bias?

So my simple point was this: 1)there’s lots of experience in what is and isn’t proper disclsoure in mining prospectuses; 2) no one’s ever argued that disclosure applicable to mining promoters shouldn’t be at least a MINIMUM standard to appraise IPCC (they claim much better than that with their stadiums of reviewers); 3) does IPCC or the important underlying qualifying reports meet “full true and plain disclosure” standards – which require the disclosure of material adverse results.

By this simple standard, the nondisclosure of the R2 and other failed statistics, the nondisclosure of the CENSORED results, the misrepresentation of robustness to presence/absence of dendro indicators and the misrepresentation of the Gaspe series would all raise eyebroes.

Academics don’r seem to me to have a clue about the exact nature of “full true and plain disclosure” obligations as they apply in securites, but the Barton Committee understood exactly and asked these very questions.

I’m not saying that promoters don’t play fast and loose and take things to the limit, but the existence of the requirement gives investors and regulatorss some traction.

The Barton committee

By: TCO

TCO — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 22:03:27 +0000

And you want the scientist to be more like Canadian mineral exploration securities? Sheesh. those things are noteworthy for booshwa. And the CA laws for not being that strict on disclosure.

By: DavidC

DavidC — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 10:03:34 +0000

Correction is due here. Felderhof did appear in Toronto at the OSC court hearing in February 2005, saying he wanted to clear his name.

By: Louis Hissink

Louis Hissink — Sun, 06 Feb 2005 13:14:34 +0000

SM has made a totally pertinent point here. Mann et all, in their methodoly, would fail in terms of the Australiajn JORC standards.

Significantly, it took a miner to recognise the specious nature of the Hockey Stick Graph.

Equally, I also looked at this Hockey Stick Graph, and wondered about its robustness.