On March 5, 2010, Mann co-author Bradley filed a plagiarism complaint with George Mason University, alleging that Wegman had copied boilerplate descriptions of proxies from Bradley’s useful but ordinary textbook, which blogger Deep Climate described (incorrectly) as “seminal”. Bradley’s allegations were based on comparisons previously reported by Deep Climate (e.g. link). In a subsequent interview with USA Today, Bradley breathlessly stated:
Clearly, text was just lifted verbatim from my book and placed in the (Wegman) report. Talk about irony. It just seems surreal (that) these authors could criticize my work when they are lifting my words.”
Making Bradley’s allegation even more surreal, it turns out that Bradley’s own description of tree rings as proxies had been copied, including more than a dozen figures and captions almost verbatim, from Harold Fritts’ 1976 textbook, Tree Rings and Climate. Of the first 13 figures in Bradley’s dendro chapter, 12(!) are either copied exactly from Fritts 1976 or, in a few cases, with negligible “paraphrase” (e.g. Bradley Figure 10.10 combines single-columned Fritts Figure 7.10 and 7.11 into a double-columned figure).
In all 12 figures, Bradley copies often lengthy text from Fritts 1976 (in the form of captions). In six of the 12 figures, although the language is taken from Fritts 1976, Bradley cites other provenance for the articles. In each such case, the language in Bradley appears to be a paraphrase of the cited article, while it is, in fact, a copy of the uncited version in Fritts 1976. Since much of Bradley’s dendro chapter is a commentary on the figures from Fritts, Bradley’s text draws heavily on ideas from Fritts 1976, and, in some cases, Bradley’s language tracks Fritts’ rather closely (without specific attribution.) Bradley 1985 included a commendation of Fritts 1976 in its introduction, but this commendation was removed in Bradley 1999.
For the six figures actually referenced to Fritts 1976, the Bradley 1985 captions all conclude with “after Fritts 1976” (“after” is dropped in Bradley 1999). I leave it to readers to comment on whether the term “after” Fritts 1976 fully captures the fact that the figures are in fact identical and the lengthy captions are, in most cases, either verbatim or near verbatim.
In this article, I will compare 12 Bradley 1985 figures and captions to predecessor Fritts figures and captions. In my next article (link), I’ll compare language in the running text. It also turned out that Bradley had an ulterior motive in his plagiarism complaint (see link): Bradley offered to withdraw his plagiarism complaint against Wegman if Wegman withdrew his report from the Congressional record.
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.1
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.1 is identical to Fritts 1976 Figure 2.3.
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Fritts 1976 Figure 2.3: Drawing of cell structure along a cross section of a young stem of a conifer. The earlywood is made up of large and relatively thin-walled cells (tracheids); latewood is made up of small, thick-walled tracheids. Variations in tracheid thickness may produce false rings in either earlywood or latewood.
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.1: Drawing of cell structure along a cross section of a young stem of a conifer. The earlywood is made up of large and relatively thin-walled cells (tracheids); latewood is made up of small, thick-walled tncheids. Variations in tracheid thickness may produce false rings in either earlywood or latewood (after Fritts, 1976).
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.2
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.2 is identical to Fritts 1976 Figure 1.5 and Fritts 1971 Figure 3.
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The caption to Bradley 1985 Figure 10.2 states:
Trees growing on sites where climate seldom limits growth processes produce rings that are uniformly wide (left). Such rings provide little or no record of variations in climate and are termed complacent. (right): Trees growing on sites where climatic factors are frequently limiting produce rings that vary in width from year to year depending on how severely limiting climate has been to growth. These are termed sensitive (from Fritts, 1971).
The caption to Fritts 1971 Figure 3 is related but not so close:
Trees with ample moisture and favorable temperatures are not limited by climatic factors (left). Their rings are uniformly wide and there is little variation in thickness from one ring to the next. Trees on arid or extremely cold sites may often be limited by climatic factors (right). Their rings are narrow and there may be marked variation in ring thickness corresponding to variations. in climatic factors which have limited growth.
However, the caption to unreferenced Fritts 1976 Figure 1.5 is virtually identical:
Trees growing on sites where climate seldom limits growth processes produce rings that are uniformly wide (A). Such rings provide little or no record of variations in climate and are termed complacent. Trees growing on sites where climatic factors are frequently limiting produce rings that vary in width from year to year depending on how severely limiting climate has been to growth. (B) These are termed sensitive.
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.3
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.3 is identical to Fritts 1976 Figure 5.8 and Fritts 1971 Figure 5.
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The caption to Bradley 1985 Figure 10.3 states:
A schematic diagram showing how low precipitation and high temperature during the growing season may lead to the formation of a narrow tree ring in arid-site trees. Arrows indicate the net effects and include various processes and their interactions. It is implied that the effects of high precipitation and low temperature are the opposite and may lead to an increase in ring widths (from Fritts, 1971).
This is virtually identical to the corresponding caption in Fritts 1976 – Figure 5.8. (Bradley changed “will increase” to “may lead to an increase”.)
Model Part A. A diagram representing some of the relationships that cause climatic factors of low precipitation and high temperatures during the growing season to lead to the formation of a narrow ring in arid-site trees. The arrows indicate the net effects and include various processes and their interactions. It is implied that the effects of high precipitation and low temperature are the opposite, that is, ring width will increase.
The caption to Fritts 1971 Figure 5 is related:
Physiological Model A illustrating how low precipitation and high temperature during the growing season (season of cambial activity) may cause a ring to be narrow for conifers growing on semiarid and warm sites. The climatic conditions affect physiological processes which limit the rate of cell division, the amount of cell expansion or the length of the growing season.
The Bradley language is clearly derived from the language from the unreferenced Fritts 1976.
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.4
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.4 is identical to Fritts 1976 Figure 5.9 and Fritts 1971 Figure 6.
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The caption to Bradley 1985 Figure 10.4 states:
A schematic diagram showing how low precipitation and high temperature before the growing season may lead to the formation of a narrow tree ring in arid-site trees. (from Fritts, 1971).
The language from the corresponding Figure 5.9 in unreferenced Fritts 1976 is:
Model Part B. A diagram representing some of the relationships that cause climatic factors of low precipitation and high temperatures prior to the growing season to lead to the formation of a narrow ring in arid-site trees. Compare with Fig 5.8.
The language in cited Fritts 1971 Figure 6 is again related but not as close as the unreferenced Fritts 1976:
Physiological Model B illustrating how low precipitation and high temperature prior to the growing season (season of cambial activity) may cause the ring to be narrow for conifers growing on semiarid and warm sites. The climatic conditions may affect physiological processes which precondition the plant, reduce the potential for rapid growth and reduce the rate of cell division (shown in Model A) so that a narrow ring is formed.
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.5
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.5 is identical to Fritts 1976 Figure 1.5.
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The caption to Bradley 1985 Figure 10.5 is copied almost word for word from caption to Fritts 1976 Figure 1.5:
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.5: Annual growth increments or rings are formed because the wood cells produced early in the growing season (earlywood, EW) are large, thin-walled, and less dense, while the cells formed at the end of the season (latewood, LW) are smaller, thick-walled, and more dense. An abrupt change in cell size between the last-formed cells of one ring (LW) and the first-formed cells of the next (EW) marks the boundary between annual rings. Sometimes growing conditions temporarily become severe before the end of the growing season and may lead to the production of thick-walled cells within an annual growth layer (arrows).This may make it difficult to distinguish where the actual growth increment ends, which could lead to errors in dating. Usually these intra-annual bands or false rings can be identified, but where they cannot the problem must be resolved by cross-dating (after Fritts, 1976).
Fritts 1976 Figure 1.5: Annual growth layers or rings are formed because the wood cells produced early in the growing season (EW) are large, thin-walled, and less dense, while the cells formed at the end of the season (LW) are smaller, thick-walled, and more dense. An abrupt change in cell size between the last-formed cells of one ring (LW) and the first-formed cells of the next (EW) marks the boundary between annual rings. Sometimes growing conditions temporarily become severe before the end of the growing season and cause subsequently formed cells to be smaller with thicker walls (arrows). When more favorable conditions return, the subsequently formed cells are larger and have thinner walls. The resulting dark bands within the growth layer are called intra-annual growth bands or false rings and are usually identified by the gradual transition in cell-size on both margins of the band. Occasionally these intra-annual bands are indistinguishable from the true annual ring and the problem must be resolved by crossdating. In A, the false ring is within the latewood formed near the end of the growing season. In B, it is within the earlywood formed near the beginning of the growing season. Growth is in the upward direction. (Adapted from Kuo and McGinnes Jr, 1973).
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.6
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.6 is identical to Fritts 1976 Figure 1.8.
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The caption to Bradley 1985 Figure 10.6 is copied almost word for word from caption to Fritts 1976 Figure 1.8:
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.6: Cross dating of tree rings. Comparison of tree-ring widths makes it possible to identify false rings or where rings are locally absent. For example in (A), strict counting shows a clear lack of synchrony in the patterns. In the lower specimen of (a), rings 9 and 16 can be seen as very narrow and they do not appear at all in the upper specimen. Also, rings 21 (lower) and 20 (upper) show intra-annual growth bands. In (b) the positions of inferred absence are designated by dots (upper specimen), the intra-annual band in ring 20 is recognized and the patterns in all ring widths are synchronously matched (after Fritts 1976).
Fritts 1976 Figure 1.8: Cross dating makes it possible to recognize areas where rings are locally absent or where intra-annual growth band appears like a true annual ring. The patterns of wide and narrow rings are compared among specimens. Every fifth ring is numbered in the diagram and in A the patterns of wide and narrow rings match until ring number 9, after which a lack of synchrony in pattern occurs. In the lower specimen of A, rings 9 and 16 can be seen as very narrow and they do not appear at all in the upper specimen; while rings 21 (in the lower) and 20 (in the upper) show intra-annual growth bands. In the upper specimen of B, the positions of inferred absence are designated by two dots, the intra-annual band in ring 20 is recognized and the patterns in all ring widths are synchronously matched (Drawing by M. Huggins).
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.7
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.7 is identical to Fritts 1976 Figure 1.9 and Fritts 1971 Figure 2.
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The caption to Bradley 1985 Figure 10.7 states:
Standardization of ring-width measurements is necessary to remove the decrease in size associated with increasing age of the tree. If the ring widths for the three specimens shown in the upper figure are simply averaged by year, without removing the effect of the tree’s age, the mean ring-width chronology shown below them exhibits intervals of high and low growth, associated with the varying age of the samples. This age variability is generally removed by fitting a curve to each ring-width series, and dividing each ring width by the corresponding value of the curve. The resulting values, shown in the lower half of the figure, are referred to as indices, and may be averaged among specimens differing in age to produce a mean chronology for a site (lowermost record) ( from Fritts, 1971).
The language from Figure 1.8 in the unreferenced Fritts 1976 version is virtually identical:
Standardization of ring-width measurements is necessary to remove the decrease in size associated with increasing age of the tree. If the ring widths for the three specimens shown in the upper figure are averaged by year, without removing the effect of the tree’s age, the mean ring-width chronology shown immediately below them exhibits intervals of high and low growth associated with the varying age of the samples. This age variability can be removed by fitting a curve to each ring-width series, and dividing each ring width by the corresponding value of the curve. The resulting values shown in the lower half of the figure are referred to as indices and may be averaged among specimens differing in age to produce a mean chronology for a site.
The language in Figure 2 from the citation, Fritts 1971, is again related, but not as close as the unreferenced Fritts 1976:
Standardization is necessary because the first-formed rings are generally wider than those found in the older portions of stems and because some trees grow more rapidly than others. If ring-width measurements, plotted as a function of year of formation (upper plots) are averaged, the mean chronology will show long-term variations arising from differences in ring age and mean growth rate of different sampled specimens (fourth plot). When an exponential curve is fitted as shown in the upper plots and the value of each cure during each year is divided into the ring width for that year, new values are obtained which are referred to as indices (lower plot). These indices do not vary as a function of tree age and mean growth and have an expectation value of 1.0. Such indices may be safely averaged (lowest plot) to obtain a ring-width chronology that is likely to correspond to short-term fluctuations in climate that have limited the growth of the trees.
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.9
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.9 is identical to Fritts 1976 Figure 8.8.
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The caption to Bradley 1985 Figure 10.9 states:
Five year running means of ring width indices from Pseudotsuga menziesii at Mesa Verde, Colorado, corrected for autocorrelation and plotted on every even year from AD442 through 1962 (after Fritts et al 1965)
The caption to unreferenced Fritts 1976 Figure 6.6 is identical:
Five year running means of ring width indices from Pseudotsuga menziesii at Mesa Verde, Colorado, corrected for autocorrelation and plotted on every even year from AD442 through 1962 (Modified from Fritts et al 1965c)
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.10
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.10 is copied from Fritts 1976 Figures 7.10 and 7.11:
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The captions are indistinguishable:
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.10: Magnitudes of the elements of the first and second eigenvectors of climate at Mesa Verde, southwestern Colorado, and their corresponding amplitude sets. In eigenvector 1, (which reduces 13% of the climatic variance) the eigenvector elements for temperature are all the same sign; the corresponding signs for ten elements for precipitation have the opposite sign. This arises because temperatures throughout the 14 month period are somewhat positively correlated with each other, but they are negatively correlated with precipitation for ten out of 14 months. In eigenvector 2 which reduces 11% of the climatic variance) the eigenvector expresses a mode of climate in which the departures of temperature for July to November are opposite in sign to those of December to July. All elements for precipitation have signs opposite those of temperature, indicating a generally inverse relationship. The eigenvectors are multiplied with normalized climatic data to obtain the amplitude sets. Asterisks mark those elements with the largest positive and negative values, indicating a climatic regime for the year which most resembles the eigenvector in question (either positively or negatively (after Fritts 1976).
Fritts 1976 Figure 7.10: Plot of the magnitudes of the elements of the first and most important eigenvector of Mesa Verde climate, which reduces 13% of the climatic variance, and the corresponding amplitude set. The eigenvector expresses a mode of climate in which the departures of temperature for July to November are opposite in sign to those of December-July. All elements for precipitation have signs opposite those of temperature, indicating a generally inverse relationship. The eigenvector is multiplied with normalized climatic data to obtain the amplitude set. Asterisks mark those elements with the largest positive and negative values, indicating the most resemblance of the climatic regime for the year to that particular eigenvector. (See Fig 7.9).
Fritts 1976 Figure 7.11: The magnitudes of the elements of the second eigenvector of Mesa Verde climate, which reduces 11% of the climatic variance, and the corresponding amplitude set. The eigenvector elements for temperature are all the same sign; and the corresponding signs for ten elements for precipitation have the opposite sign. This arises because temperatures throughout the 14 month period are somewhat positively correlated with each other, but they are negatively correlated with precipitation for ten out of 14 months. The eigenvector is multiplied with normalized climatic data to obtain the amplitude set. Asterisks mark those elements with the largest positive and negative values, indicating the most resemblance of the climatic regime for the year to that particular eigenvector. (See Fig 7.12).
Bradley Figure 10.11
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.11 copied three of the five panels of Fritts 1976 Figure 7.13.
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The captions are indistinguishable:
Bradley Figure 10.11: Response functions obtained from a stepwise regression analysis using amplitudes of eigenvectors to estimate a ring-width chronology representing six Pinus ponderosa sites along the lower slopes of the Rocky Mountains, Colorado. Steps with 1, 3 and 12 predictor variables are shown. Percentage variance reduced can be calculated by multiplying the R2 value by 100. The regression coefficients for amplitudes are converted to response functions though when response functions are complex as in this example, a linear combination of many eigenvectors is needed to obtain the best fitting relationship (after Fritts 1976).
Fritts 1976 Figure 10.11: Response functions obtained from a stepwise regression analysis using amplitudes of eigenvectors and prior growth to estimate a ring-width chronology representing six Pinus ponderosa sites along the lower slopes of the Rocky Mountains, Colorado. Steps with 1, 3, 7, 12 and 20 predictor variables are shown. The regression coefficients for amplitudes are converted to response functions (Equation 7.22) . When response functions are complex as in this example, a linear combination of many eigenvectors is needed to obtain the best fitting relationship. Prior growth was entered into regression after the step with 12 variables. The percent variance can be calculated by multiplying the R2 by 100.
Bradley Figure 10.13
Bradley 1985 Figure 10.13 is identical to Fritts 1976 Figure 8.9 and Lamarche 1974 Figure 6.
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The caption to Bradley 1985 Figure 10.13 states:
Growth of pinus longaeva on lower forest border (…) and upper treeline (—) sites of the White Mountains, California, and the precipitation and temperature anomalies inferred from the departures in ring width. Data expressed as 20 year averages of standardized normal values. Arrows show dates of glacial moraines in nearby mountains (after Lamarche 1974)
The caption to Fritts 1976 Figure 8.9 is virtually identical:
The 20-year average growth , expressed in standardized normal values, in Pinus longaeva on lower forest border (…) and upper treeline (—) sites of the White Mountains, California, and the precipitation and temperature anomalies inferred from the departures in ring width. Arrows show dates of glacial moraines in nearby mountains (From Lamarche, V.C. 1974 Science 183 (4129) 1043-1048, copyright 1974 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.)
The caption to Lamarche 1974 Fig 6 is related, but not nearly as close as the unreferenced Fritts 1976:
Departures from mean growth(normalized 20-year means) trees on ecologically contrasting sites in the White Mountains and inferred climatic anomalies. Arrows show dates of glacial moraines in the nearby Sierra Nevada (19); all except the youngest were formed during periods judged to be relatively cool from the tree-ring evidence. Glacial advances of the early 1300s and early 1600s also coincide with unusually wet periods.
analogous to the stepwise regression coefficients described in the previous section…
Needless to say, there are many other examples.
Note: Edited on December 12, 2023 to streamline presentation.
Climate Audit 
226 Comments
Bradley must not have remembered the adage about glass houses and throwing stones…
Not a pane left unbroken. LOL
Oh-oh.
The same proverb came to my mind after reading first few paragraphs of Steve’s comparison of the two textbooks.
Really – using so many Fritts’ Figs and legends, I would be very silent about any verbatim liftings whatsoever… Good work, Steve McI!
Or being careful about calling others black when oneself is a pot.
“The team that couldn’t shoot straight”: a metaphor that just keeps giving.
In the age of the internet it is very hard to get away with any form of plagiarism, copying without crediting, etc.
WWW = wicked, web, weave?
Oh Dear Steve, you wicked man. When I wrote my thesis some years ago now, there was a reference to one particular paper that appeared in every other paper on the subject by soemone called Lundgren. When I ask the British Library for a copy they couldn’t find the paper and nor could every other institute that they tried. It seems that every researcher copied every other researcher’s bibliography, oh except this one, me.
I always thought scholarly works were SUPPOSED to contain citations to impossible to find references! Isn’t that what separates scholars from the great unwashed masses?
We used to make up the references – some of them. But then that was for architectural history.
I guess Mashey, Bradley et al will be hopping from foot to foot right now. you know gun, foot ouch. he he 🙂
One should try and remember that if you’re going to shoot yourself in the foot, you should take it out of your mouth first. Embarrassing to say the least. But I expect it will be ignored by the usual suspect’s blogs and such.
The phrase, “Game, set, match,” comes to mind.
May I assume that the fruits of your labors will be placed in a gift basket with a ribbon neatly attached and sent to the Chancellor of UMass Amherst in accordance with their Policy on Scholarly Misconduct which may be found at
http://www.umass.edu/provost/admin/policies/misconduct.pdf?
I just don’t get this. Each of those sections seems to be explicitly attributed by Bradley to Fritts (or Lamarche). Is the argument that he should have said Fritts(1976) instead of Fritts(1971)? Maybe an inexactitude, but hardly plagiarism.
In just the first example, you say he’s using Fritts without citation, but it’s very clearly cited.
He has merely copied Fritts’ own reference to himself.
No, there’s no such reference shown in Fritts (1976).
Click on the narrow blue rectangle just to the right of the images from Fritts. Those images are, I believe, the ones Bradely used.
It’s not clear to me, either. I think the suggestion is that Fritts(1976) cites his earlier papers whereas Bradley cites no-one. It doesn’t read like that though.
Maybe McSteve is referring to DC’s characterisation “seminal” (which it’s not)? Must say this post is not completely clear to me either.
That’s what I thought the point was…..just a dig on it being the ‘seminal’ work…of which most of those parts were directly lifted.
Nick, paraphrasing and quoting are two very different things.
IIRC, a reader who follows the citation would have the impression that Bradley paraphrased Fritts (1971) rather copied Fritts (1976). You are saying this is not plagiarism?
Yes, he’s clearly indicating that it’s not his own. Arguing about which of two very similar Fritts sources he should have cited is very feeble stuff. But as I said below, the convention is that where material is in both a paper and a textbook, you should cite the paper.
Nick, your convention has nothing to do with the authors obligation to properly attribute a direct quote. I could not find any source which gives this a pass. Proper attribution was not done. It should have been done. The reader has no idea that there has been verbatim copying of these passages.
In all the cases quoted, the figure and caption were followed by the words (from Fritts…) or (after Fritts…). “from” is unmistakeable. I believe “after” also conveys that meaning, but in any case it could not be said that the reader was left with “no idea” that the caption is from Fritts.
In any case, if you use a figure with permission, and cite it, then clearly the figure is “verbatim”. It would be odd not to use the caption that went with the figure.
The same applies to Wegman. You cannot make assuption on one type of plagarism that are different from the other. Your standards are as usual, doubled.
No. Wegman included two tables from Bradley, each cited at the end (after Bradley…). I don’t believe anyone has complained of plagiarism there. In fact, Mashey (p 117) explicitly says:
“Pages 11-12 are acceptably cited tables from Bradley (1999),”
I am not arguing this point with you. Please stop stating the obvious and stick to the salient points.
IIRC The permission was wrt the copyright and the publisher. John M said explicitly that it did not cover verbatim copying of the caption. Isn’t it “weak” and “feeble” to argue that ambiguous interpretation of copyright permission for the publisher somehow covers off the author’s obligation properly attribute a quote?
Nick, apologies for getting testy. I see where you are comming from on the copyright permission and am doing some reading on it now so I can get clear on how it does or does not apply in this situation.
Re: Nick Stokes (Oct 18 16:02),
The point is that the DC complaint is that Wegman copied from Bradley 1999 without sufficient attribution. But Bradley 1999 copied from his 1985 book likewise without sufficient attribution. And the 1985 book copied from Fritts 1976 with proper attribution for the most part. So it would seem we have a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Bradley(1999) clearly says it’s a second edition. And the text from Fritts is clearly attributed to Fritts, as are the diagrams.
Nick, in Figure 10.2. Bradley cites that the picture comes from Fritts ’71, which was the original source. The Caption however is almost word for word with Fritts ’76. The Caption for this picture in F71 is dissimilar. So the citation covers the picture, but not the similarity for the caption. Bradley correctly attributed one reference but not the other.
This sort of thing exists in all of Steve’s examples. Partial accreditation to one reference source, but no citation for another reference source that was obviously available to Bradley and presents the information in eerily similar terms as what Bradley used.
There is a convention that when you have material which was in a paper, and later appears in a textbook, you should cite the original paper.
He clearly says his material came from Fritts. Agruing about which of two captions is closer is very weak stuff.
Nick, it’s not convention to lift text almost verbatim from a particular publication (from Fritts76 in this instance) without attribution, or indication that such an act has taken place. A trusting innocent following Bradley’s reference to Fritts71 would notice that, unlike the figures, the captions are different, and might be moved to assume that the rewrite is Bradley’s work, not that of Fritts.
Nick,
Come on, you do get this. Even if there is attribution, copying 12 out of 13 figures goes beyond any “fair use” defense. If Fritts did not explicitly waive copyright, there is potentially a real legal issue here. Very interesting.
Jak–
INAL, but I think this may well be right. Citation is relevant to plagiarism, but often won’t help much on a copyright claim.
I think it’s unlikely that he quoted without Fritt’s permission, probably indicated in a preface. Do you have any contrary information?
The figures from the 2nd addition appear to be properly cleared.
With some difficulty, copyright permissions for the figures can be found by searching “permissions”. Around page 530 IIRC. Couldn’t find the first edition though. And doesn’t account for the verbatim text.
p. 599.
Nick Stokes —
I can’t keep track of different people’s positions. What was your position on whether Deep & John showed Wegman plagiarized Bradley?
Well, here, for example. Not even DC and Mashey make a big issue of plagiarism re the use of Bradley in the WR – their issue is mainly the alteration of what Bradley said. And it’s 1.5 pages in a 250 page report.
My issue has consistently been the large-scale copying in the SNA section, which CA studiously ignores while creating a distraction on Bradley.
But I see you’ve joined the rah-rah chorus here. Could you detail exactly what act of Bradley’s excited your condemnation?
First: What condemnation? I don’t see bringing up the issue that copying from one textbook into another might be a copyright issue is a condemnation. I’m not making a value judgement of any sort.
Word for word copying, and copying of figures might be a copyright violations, particularly if the copying is into a text book competing with Fritts. That would be a matter for the lawyers. I suspect citation wouldn’t matter. My understanding is probable impact of one book on another’s potential sales matters more in copyright.
This could become a matter for lawyers rather than attorneys. Or not– it depends a bit on who holds the copyright etc.
“Oh my. Do I understand correctly..”
OK, not condemnation, excitement? Whatever, what specifically in the textbook are you commenting on here? That might be a copyright violation?
Nick-
No. Not excitement either. Specifically: At the time I wrote, the figures copied and verbatim text. Examples are given in SteveM’s post.
I realize threaded comments make it difficult to figure out when different things were said, but, you’ll note on other threads, I’ve already engaged the issue of permissions ownership etc. If they got permission, then it’s ok. If not.. not. Looks like JohnM found evidence that there is permission for the figures. We don’t know if there is permission for verbatim text.
if a copyright holder wanted to figure this out, they would look into this. Even my orginal post that seems to set you off mentioned series of questions &etc. I’m not sure why you think bringing up a question is “excitement” or “condemnation” yada, yada. It’s a conversation.
their issue is mainly the alteration of what Bradley said. And it’s 1.5 pages in a 250 page report.
what?
what alteration? their issue is not MAINLY with the alteration, Bradley’s issue is not with the alteration. Bradley raise this issue because Wegman misrepresented him. DC did not lead with this and neither did Mashey. And so, now we have the issue of Bradley altering what Fritts said.
I’ll try my response again – whenever I mention plag— my comments seem to go into moderation:
Well, here, for example. Not even DC and Mashey make a big issue of pla..ism re the use of Bradley in the WR – their issue is mainly the alteration of what Bradley said. And it’s 1.5 pages in a 250 page report.
My issue has consistently been the large-scale copying in the SNA section, which CA studiously ignores while creating a distraction on Bradley.
But I see you’ve joined the rah-rah chorus here. Could you detail exactly what act of Bradley’s excited your condemnation?
Steve: Bradley filed a formal complaint with George mason about his text and complained about “lifting” text to USA Today. Are you saying that Bradley’s complaint doesn’t “matter”?
OK, that worked, but lost the links:
Well, here, for example.
….
But I see you’ve joined the rah-rah chorus here. Could you detail exactly what act of Bradley’s excited your condemnation?
Again, when I use links, it goes into moderation
my views:
your comment:
Whenever I try to link, my comments go into moderation.
Re: Nick Stokes (Oct 18 18:14), Of course they do. So do mine. It’s obviously to limit spam.
Well, they don’t now.
My first attempt to link was to the Air Vent, “As copygate turns”, comment 22, where I explicitly say that the Bradley issue is minor.
Steve,
What I’m saying is that the mass copying of text in the Social Networks section, from Wiki and two textbooks, all totally unattrributed or cited, matters a lot more than the Bradley stuff in terms of plagiarism. That’s reflected in Mashey’s report. And you’ve totally avoided it.
I think steve is trying to demonstrate that the bradley stuff is weak. The issue in LEGAL PLAY is bradley. Bradley and DC made it so. So they get to reap what they sowed
Steven,
There is no “LEGAL PLAY”. GMU has decided to investigate plagiarism in the Wegman report. It’s their job to investigate whatever might be there.
Nick Stokes:
I see Nick is a revisionist historian today. It was a big deal until it wasn’t.
I’m sure that Wegman’s main concern isn’t Mashey’s diatribe, but Bradley’s complaint at George Mason which is about plagiarism and not “alteration” of what Bradley said.
No revisionism – see my first comment on the topic here. That’s what I’ve said all along.
YOUR issue may not be bradley, but THEY did make bradley an issue and THEY did not make a main part of their deal the alterations.
So, you are revising THEIR position, not yours.
Having lost the citation battle they switched to the quote battle, and now that bradley is found doing the same thing the focus turns to the alteration battle, except bradley alters Fritts as well.
So, now bring on the SNA battle. But bradley didnt have an issue with the SNA. he wanted his battle. why? Pound of flesh is why. And now he’s the target. sucks to pick fights.
No. Here’s what DC said in his first post on the matter.
“Today we’ll take a closer look at Wegman et al’s key passage on tree-ring proxies and do a detailed side-by-side comparison with its apparent main antecedent, chapter section 10.2 in Raymond Bradley’s classic Paleoclimatology: Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary.
That comparison leaves no doubt that Wegman et al’s explication was substantially derived from that of Bradley, although the relevant attribution appears to be missing. There are, however, several divergences of note, also in the main unattributed, and some of Wegman’s paraphrasing introduces errors of analysis.”
No mention of plagiarism in the whole post. Nor is the word plagiarism (or variants) used in p116-7 of the Mashey report, where this section of the WR is covered, except in the phrase “not claimed plagiarism”.
Steve: Once again, Bradley made the complaint to George Mason, not Deep Climate. And Bradley was the one who complained about “lifting” text to USA Today, the interview that led to the present discussion. DC’s assertions that Wegman’s paraphrasing “introduces errors of analysis” is DC’s claim, but DC saying something doesn’t make it true. Little evidence to support this claim has emerged. Moreover, this doesn’t connect readily to a plagiarism claim. Bradley’s claim is plagiarism and that’s the proceeding of interest.
Nick,
Seeing you brought up DC’s statement (“There are, however, several divergences of note, also in the main unattributed”), why don’t you comment on DC’s accusation of Wegman introducing carbon dioxide. Interesting that the change from the original was by Bradley, no? (Very impressive pick up from Steve).
You are also being disingenuous in saying there was no charge of plagiarism in the whole post. Yes, the word plagiarism was not used, but check for “attribution”. A rose by another name…
You are also incorrect when you say this was DC’s “first post on the matter”. Hell, in the post itself, DC says: “My first post on the Wegman Report showed…” Your reading skills are normally better than this. Why don’t you check the real first post and search again for charges of lack of attribution. (Most people won’t be surprised what you will find). Unusually sloppy work, Nick.
jak,
Bradley is no less an authority in the field than Fritts. He’s perfectly entitled to have a view on the effect of CO2 on tree rings at variance with Fritts. But Wegman is not – if he wants to vary the statement, he should quote an authority. Of course, it’s clouded by the fact that he didn’t say whose authirity he’s relying on.
Incidentally, I haven’t seen the context of the Fritts sentence – it’s not even clear that he’s talking about tree rings. It could be just general plant growth.
One other thing I’d remark about this is that little was known about paleo CO2 levels anyway in 1976, and not even that much in 1985. There was no ice core history – Mauna Loa readings only since 1959. I very much doubt that anyone could cite observations of CO2 effects on treerings then. The knowledge of CO2 levels was lacking.
Furthermore, there was no HS controversy then – those making dark remarks about Bradley’s possible motives are way off the mark. CO2 effects on tree-ring growth were uncertain, but not contentious.
On DC’s first post – this was it. His earlier post had been on the issue of whether Rapp had copied from Wegman.
Nick,
No. The original post was far more than whether Rapp had copied from Wegman. It also contains clear accusations against Wegman for copying from Bradley, e.g.
“A natural question at this point would be: does the Wegman et al passage quoted above have an antecedent in the literature? Yes it does. Here is the opening of section 10.2, entitled Fundamentals of Dendroclimatology from Raymond Bradley’s seminal Paleoclimatology: Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary.”
and
“No attribution is given for this passage”
and
“After all that, the discovery in Wegman of more prosaic reliance on lightly edited excerpts from Wikipedia..”
Your attempts to claim that DC never claimed plagiarism are not at all persuasive.
Nick, you say: “Bradley is no less an authority in the field than Fritts.” This is an absurd statement. Fritts has done an enormous amount of original dendro work and is authoritative on botanical issues. I’m unaware of any original dendro work by Bradley.
As to the effect of CO2 on growth, this was widely known prior to 1976 and did not require ice cores.
While the HS controversy did not exist in 1985, Bradley was a very early entrant to the field. Bradley and Jones 1993 was an important precursor to MBH. Bradley and Jones were both involved in DOE programs in the 1980s.
Steve,
Bradley has written an authoritative textbook. That means he is authoritative, and us well able to express a view on his own.
And it turns out he has to. Fritts wasn’t even talking about treering width in the sentence you quoted.
Of course CO2 was known to affect growth. Plenty of authorities other than Fritts could have been cited on that. But Bradley would very reasonably be listing factors for which there were observations of CO2 effect on tree-rings.
To observe, you need overlapping periods of treerings and known CO2, aand also significant CO2 variation. With only 26 years of accurate CO2 history, and with the lag of treering history, there would have been little overlap, and not much CO2 change to correlate with. I think it is very unlikely that a CO2 effect on treering growth had been observed and published in that time. And noone has Fritts saying to the contrary.
Here’s Fritts, in 1984, publishing clear evidence of a CO2-treering link. After his 1976 book, but before Bradley’s book:
link to paper
And here is a paper claiming 1% significant link between atmospheric CO2 and ring width from 1979. Doesn’t predate Fritts 1976, but there may be earlier papers. The paper is a joy to read though – the authors caution about not removing samples, about problems of inverse calibration. Even though they achieve 1% significance, they caution the reader not to assume an effect because of the complexity of the system. How far climate science has gone backwards since 1979.
link to paper
Re: Nick Stokes (Oct 18 18:16),
“Today we’ll take a closer look at Wegman”
that would imply as others pointed out a PREVIOUS look.
just saying.
reading skills.
See above – the earlier post was on Wegman, but as the source for Rapp, not a sink for Bradley, although that did get minor mention.
Nick,
“the earlier post was on Wegman, but as the source for Rapp, not a sink for Bradley, although that did get minor mention”
There are so many things wrong this statement. The purpose of DC’s post was quite amorphous. It originally started by claiming that Wegman plagiarized from Rapp (or claiming Rapp wrote large tracts of Wegman report)! Then it was reversed. Then it was expanded to include charges of plagiarism by Wegman. I count 13 paragraphs on the latter issue. Then for good measure, DC threw in a few paragraphs about the politics behind forming the Wegman report.
So, DC’s post is quite the mess. However, a few thing are clear:
1) It was DC’s first post on Wegman Report
2) It clearly accuses Wegman of plagiarism
Nick’s attempts to re-write history are quite worrying. As jak correctly says, DC’s first post on this issue claimed that Wegman had copied from Rapp. This was ridiculed by many, who pointed out that Wegman came before Rapp. So DC gave up on this and went in search of another fabrication to discredit Wegman.
Paul, DC lists his posts relevant to the issue here (at the bottom). The one I cited is first on the list.
Nick,
In your increasingly amusing attempts to extricate yourself from the hole of claiming DCs posts were not about plagiarism from Bradley, you just succeeded in trapping yourself. If we go the DC listing of posts that you say explains why you ignored DC’s first post on Wegman, we see how DC describes what you call “the issue” : “Here are pointers to material most relevant to the allegations of plagiarism that were sent to George Mason University by Raymond Bradley last March and April”
I think it is time for you to stop digging.
Nick,
I nominate you for apologist of the day award. Above and beyond the call of duty, defending the indefensible, keeping AGW alive for yet another day! Truly, historic work and sacrifice. A selfless act of defending the faith.
I second that nomination!
Medaille d’or for stupidity, nothing for intellect.
Nick Stokes said:
“their issue is mainly the alteration of what Bradley said.”
Wegman was just trying to be helpful by putting carbon dioxide back into the list of things which can affect the growth rate of trees when carbon dioxide levels rise, after temperature has risen.
Bradley, as a ‘climate professional, really should have known this and not tried to hide it by removing it from the caption he made use of without correct attribution. It’s a deliberate attempt to misdirect the reader from spotting the circularity of the alarmist argument.
Bad behaviour by Bradley. Tut tut.
Cuts both ways Lucia
You should be trivialising Steve for this no?
Nathan–
What cuts both ways?
Your post:
“I can’t keep track of different people’s positions. What was your position on whether Deep & John showed Wegman plagiarized Bradley?”
So to maintain your ‘position’ shouldn’t you be trivialising this?
**I just don’t get this.**
But of course you fully get the Mashey and DC explanation.
Re: Nick Stokes (Oct 18 16:02),
1. wegman cited bradley
2. The complaint shifts to
A. he used words without quoting
B. he mispresented Bradley
1. Bradley cited Fritts.
2. the complaint shifts to
A. he used words without quoating
B. he misrepresented Fritts.
Pretty much the same thing in both cases. Except, Wegmans writing is protected under the speech and debate clause ( most likely) while Bradley’s is not.
Pretty much the same thing except ” nobody thought Wegman’s synopsis of Bradley was seminal, while DC was fooled by Bradley.
In any case. DC or mashey or bradley need to lay out just what kind of quotation is required. When they do, if they do, there is more stuff coming. Sadly, people were warned not to go down this path.
it could get worse, Nick, much worse. just sayin.
Well, it’s very weak so far. The phrase (after…) is an explicit indication that the text is from elsewhere.
“After” indicates that the text or figure has been modified in some way. It does not indicate that it is an exact copy
No, usually it does. It means “this is where I got it from”.
Bradley shows how “after” is used. Some of the captions have “From” and some have “After”.
So “After Rowe 1947” means that the cited passage or figure has been modified (perhaps just editorially).
“From Rowe 1947” means the cited passage or figure is a direct copy.
After would indicate that errors or new material entered by the current author should not be attributed to the cited author.
Isn’t this the point of the later comments by SMc on the attribution to Fritts 1976 of the idea trees are forms of filters for climate signals. Bradley is citing Fritts as an authority for a position that he did not state. So if Bradley had taken a diagram from Fritts and modified it to support his position, the proper caption would be “After Fritts” and not “From Fritts”.
FWIW, Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition:
after (second def.): 3: so as to resemble: as a:in accordance with b:with the name of or a name derived from that of c: in the characeristic manner of d: an imitation of.
The word “verbatim” seems to be missing.
“In accordance with” sounds pretty much it.
Hmmm,
Verbatim doesn’t seem to be there.
http://dictionary.sensagent.com/in+accordance+with/en-en/
weakest stuff I’ve read for a long time.
Semantics – The use of “after” alerts the reader that the figure/chart/etc. is a modification of the cited reference; “from” denotes a copy of the referenced original.
Weak?
While Mashey and Deep have asserted vainly that Wegman has also ‘distorted’ Bradley, those claims have been shown (see the collide-a-scape thread) to be hysterical, conspiratorial nonsense.
Mashey & Deep won’t discuss the matter any further, except at Deep’s blog where Deep is well known for deleting embarrassing things.
It stands that as far as the accusation of Wegman plagiarising Bradley goes, the lifting of wording is as good as it gets.
If you say this is ‘Weak’ (agreed), go tell that to Mr. Mashey.
Steve’s discovery that Bradley has also lifted wording from Fritts could hardly be more relevant.
Regards, Alex
The figures aren’t particularly similar to Wegman’s report – largely because Wegman doesn’t include any pictures from Bradley, so there is no direct comparison to be made. But there is clearly large scale copying, and the clearer referencing in Bradley is really splitting hairs as Bradley is referenced by Wegman.
But the running text example is almost identical to the type of criticisms made by DC and Mashey against Wegman. The paras highlighted have no explicit reference (in 1999, and just a broad brush reference in 1985) and contain exactly the sort of copying indicated by DC – long strings of words identical, some words inserted / taken away, overall paragraph essentially the same flow.
To me, the running text example in Bradley 1999 is so close to the form of alleged plagiarism in the Wegman Report even you’re going to be struggling to split hairs over it.
I stated there were no comparable figures from the Wegman Report – this is not quite correct. From the report, Table 1 and Table 2 are both clearly quoted as “After Bradley” in their captions and in the text – so Wegman’s referencing is pretty much identical to Bradley’s text book.
The key word in Steve’s post, Nick, is “Seminal”. DC claimed that Bradley’s work was such. This claim couldn’t be further from the truth with respect to the dendroclimate sections if he copied (even if properly attributed) work from others.
seminal sem·i·nal (sm-nl) adj.
2. Of, relating to, or having the power to originate; creative.
3. Highly influential in an original way; constituting or providing a basis for further development: a seminal idea in the creation of a new theory.
seminal [ˈsɛmɪnəl] adj
1. potentially capable of development
2. highly original, influential and important
3. rudimentary or unformed
How can one claim a work is such when such large sections (though properly attributed) are simply copied from previous work?
Does “Deep” in “Deep Climate” stand for “couldn’t stop digging”?
I always thought Deep Climate was the Climategate leaker.
Some usages of seminal may indeed be usable in this case.
I was wondering if it might be more semi-seminal in a post-normal kind of way:)
I wonder if the Team can rearrange the following words into a well known phrase or saying:
Their, hoisted, petard, on, own.
pwned
Nice work Steve. 🙂
Oh my. Do I understand correctly: This is a textbook sold for $$$ copying a competing textbook sold for $$$. If so, this has the potential to bust out of the academic-plagiarism rabett-hole and move into the tort-money-lawyers realm of copyright disputes.
Is Fritts still alive? Was the copyright unexpired when Bradley wrote his book? Who owned or owns the copyright to either Fritts publication? We know the Wegman report had little chance of affecting sales of Bradley’s text book. Even if it did, some fair use would apply when responding to a request from Congress. But this wouldn’t apply when one guy writes a book that will compete with a previously published textbook. How did Bradley’s new textbook affect sales of Fritts textbook?
I’m still trying to figure this post out. Do you have a particular aspect of Bradley misuse that you are referring to?
Nick–
Copying figures and text into a textbook that would cut into sales of Fritts textbook.
Lucia,
I would like you to point to a specific example.
John M has indicated in this thread that the figures were included with permission. Captions would normally go with that.
I haven’t seen any text use that would violate fair use – or that breaches citing conventions. But you must have – that’s why I’m asking for something specific.
That’s because you seem to have made up your own definition of the word “after”.
Nick William Jefferson Stokes?
No, the usage is as I say. But if your case is based on a citation saying after… rather than from… then it is feeble indeed.
If “after” is identical to “from”, what term means what everyone else thinks “after” means, ie “based on”, or “in a similar fashion to”, etc ?
Well, as SpenceUK noted, Wegman himself labelled his Table 1 and Table 2 with “after Bradley…” and there are no claims of plagiarism there.
And your point is?
That Bradley’s citation of diags and captions saying “After Fritts” was normal and perfectly adequate. So was Wegman’s (there), as agreed by John Mashey in his report p 117 where he says:
“Pages 11-12 are acceptably cited tables from Bradley (1999),…”
Re: Nick Stokes (Oct 18 19:46),
Yes. He indicated after my comment that bothers you. You’ll also see that I discuss that the issue of permission would matter. You’ll also notice when I brought up the discussion, I asked a series of questions– because copyright violation matter on a bunch of things. I didn’t say copyright had been violated.
With permission, they can quote word for worse text, and then the only issue would be plagiarism.
Lucia, there was at no stage any evidence that the figures had been included without permission.
Nick–
Geez Nick, I only said this was an issue someone would look at. JohnM looked afterwards, and found the permissions for the figures. He seemed to understand which figures I meant– and despite your hysterical repetition that I state which ones, you appear to have also understood.
I can’t figure out why you become so emotional so frequently.
Lucia, you said that “JohnM looked afterwards, and found the permissions for the figures.” It seems to me that JohnM said something different: “It has been my experience that permissions are granted for reproducing figures. I’m not familiar with permissions being granted to reproduce verbatim text in these types of cases.” I’ve looked fairly carefully at Bradley 1985 and didn’t notice any mention of permissions.
Having said that, permissions in this case may be moot since it looks like the publisher of both Fritts 1976 and Bradley 1985 is the same – Academic Press.
Steve – upon review, I see that John M did provide specific information on permissions in earlier post. My apologies.
SteveM–
I thought this is JohM’s comment indicating figures are cleared:
I agree that he did not say the verbatim text is cleared. We don’t know.
But the issue may be moot. If Academic press owns the copyright, they would just be asking themselves permission.
Of course, if Nick looks back at my post that unhinged him in the first place, he will not that I ask:
That’s a relevant question. I asked it calmly. You answered it calmly. John M provided additional information– all calmly.
Steve: I see the comment now.
Lucia, crossreferencing the Bradley 1999 numbering to the Bradley 1985 numbering – the figures attributed to Fritts 1976 show permissions from Academic Press (who also seem to hold the copyright on Bradley 1999). The permissions for the figures attributed to Fritts 1971 are from Quaternary Research, the publisher of Fritts 1971.
Lucia,
It has been my experience that permissions are granted for reproducing figures. I’m not familiar with permissions being granted to reproduce verbatim text in these types of cases.
However, if it is viewed as “practice” that verbatim text can be used without quotation marks, that would seem to weaken Bradley’s claims against Wegman.
The stuff with the social networks would be different since it didn’t have citations, although seems to me a plaigerism finding for a pro bono congressional report is a stretch, and who is there to make a copyright claim?
If I were a student, I wouldn’t want it in my thesis though.
My interest here wasn’t in copyright but in copying practices – in the past, I’ve tried to discourage ruminations about copyright and I’d prefer that people interested in copyright discussions do so at Lucia’s since she’s interested in the topic.
Hahaha. Oh dear. But where did Fritts copy his text from? The plot thickens….
I am joining late to the party but…didn’t Bradley read the Wegman report, when it came out? Would have been foolish if he didn’t, as he was a subject to the inquiry (p. 64: “What is the current scientific consensus on the conclusions reached by Drs. Mann, Bradley and Hughes”).
On the other hand, if Bradley did read Wegman, how did Bradley manage to fail to spot the plagiarism for so many years?
I surely can spot “my” writing style with no problem. Is Bradley aware of, can he recollect his own writing? Has Bradley actually written the plagiarized text himself?
Woo has standing to file a complaint with UMass Amherst?
Everyone – go to it. Just be specific.
Well there is copyright and copyleft…
So why did Bradley not save himself a bit of work. Use a one-liner, “Read Fritts”.
stephen richards: your
It seems that every researcher copied every other researcher’s bibliography, oh except this one, me.
IIRC, there was a paper published, that showed that many bibliographies were lifted en masse from previous research, without actually using the reference.
The authors just tracked the same spelling mistakes from one article to another.
Latest from Deep Climate. Entirely predictable:
mondo | October 18, 2010 at 3:58 pm | Reply
Steve McIntyre has a new piece up at CA that is pertinent to this thread.
[DC: McIntyre appears to be nitpicking about several figures that were attributed by Bradley to Fritts and where Bradley used the same captions.
Does he seriously think this is going to fly? ]
*
Rattus Norvegicus | October 18, 2010 at 4:51 pm |
He can’t be serious?! The man has lost it.
For people not familiar with textbook writing, cut-and-paste of earlier textbooks is so common to be standard in the business. The “writers” of textbooks are frequently given recent textbooks in the subject by their publisher, and asked to put them together into a new version – to get into the business without actually have to hire multiple experts ot write a book from scratch. This is how those big BIO 101 textbooks are written all the time.
Use this knowledge as you think about the current case. It may or may not be relevant, but academic textbook publishing is much like the proverbial sausage making – a messy business at best.
MarkB – Well, the “messy business” bit would explain why Bradley didn’t recognize Bradley as copied, quoted, misquoted, misrepresented or whatever else by Wegman…
MarkB–
Out of curiosity, is the publisher giving them blocks of text from a text whose copyright is owned by the publisher? Does the publisher arrange for the copyright release from the copyright holder? Or are the giving authors blocks of text from a work whose copyright they neither own nor license and telling authors to use that?
I think this would matter. That’s why I asked a bunch of questions– who owns the copyright on Fritts etc.
Is this for real?
Seriously? You are complaining that he referenced pictures that were from an earlier publication and largely identical?
Hah haaaaaaaaaaaaa
At least he referenced them!
See that means that it’s not his work. When you reference a figure, it typically meana the caption too – or at least you can assume it does.
Steve, maybe you should have audited Wegman!
Hey, write up a complaint and see how far you get.
Put your money where your mouth is, DC and Mashey complained – you do the same and see how far you get…
This WILL be fun won’t it.
Nathan, that was exactly my thought when I read the complaint about Wegman. I bet there’s a run on text comparision software, and it’s not gonna be pretty what people find.
Nathan
Have you not yet learned the difference between plagiarism and copyright?
They are the same or different as it suits these guys. Case in pointNick.
Is this Socratic Irony?
1. Wegman did reference Bradley, the likes of you and Nick Stokes are splitting hairs over the style of referencing
2. I doubt it is Steve’s intent to complain about Bradley. It seems likely that Steve is pointing to double standards, i.e. that the alleged plagiarism in Wegman is nothing to worry about, rather than your implication that there is a claim of plagiarism against Bradley
3. DC and Mashey made did not formalise their claims, Bradley did, so your characterisation here is inaccurate
I have said little about Wegman’s referencing of Bradley. I think the big issue is the copying of large slabs of text from Wiki and two textbooks, with no citation at all, in the social networks section, as catalogued by John Mashey in pp119-128 of his report. But it suits CA to focus on the Bradley material, which at least has a veneer of citation.
It depends on the message you try to take from the post. Does the post completely vindicate Wegman? No, but then only GMU can do that at this time. Does the post highlight the double standards of DC, Mashey and Bradley? Why yes. Yes, it does.
Wow – thank you – nice and careful job as always.
I amused myself for a short while last week checking how prevalent simple copying and pasting is in climatology cargo-cult science. I found that copy and pasting of text from one article to another is common. In fact, the CAGW scare may in the future be shown to most strongly correlate with the adoption of word-processing programs which make it possible for academics to recycle text effortlessly (or should that be endlessly?).
I put (no use of the verb cutting-and-pasting for ZT) my findings here at the URL that can be found by clicking on ‘ZT’ above.
Nice work.
So… the first case I read on your website (Nature paper begins life as a report) is extremely weak and reflects, possibly, a lack of knowledge of current practices in science.
Many papers will begin as reports. The research will have been funded by a body who will require a report to show that the work funded was done as agreed. This report is shown in your second link. The researchers will then, if sufficient interesting results have come from the work, then write their results into an academic paper, sometimes with extra work tacked on, sometimes not. The very fact that the SAME AUTHORS are on the report as are on the paper should give you some idea that this has happened here. Or would you prefer the authors spend more time (and (taxpayers?) money) rewriting every word of the report on the same piece of research?
@Chris S.
If you check the Nature submission guidelines you’ll see that the word “original” shows up. I suspect that Nature, being internationally respected etc., etc., is quite likely to want to have articles that have not been published publicly before, in any form. But, I am sure that some forms of ‘original’ are more ‘original’ than others.
I don’t care how authors spend their tax payer given money to create papers and articles. I wouldn’t mind betting that if there were more science going on in this field there would be less cutting and pasting – but what do I know of current scientific practices?!
I once bought two books of agroforestry. Different authors, quite close publication dates. Books were identical in text and figures about 80% of the content. Only practical examples were different. I felt cheated.
Interesting that all of Fritts’ figures are referenced while only a few of Bradely’s are.
Thank you Steve. It looks to me as if you’ve accidentally found another killer detail, while doing the plagiarism comparisons. I get the impression that Bradley has copied nearly a whole chapter from Fritts but has made one extremely telling change.
Where Fritts said
Bradley omitted carbon dioxide…
then Deep Climate criticised Wegman for reintroducing carbon dioxide…
Steve: wasn’t “accidental”
So Wegman plagiarized Fritts and not Bradley? That could be an interesting defense. (Especially if Wegman gets rights to Fritz before any hearings.)
When you explain it as clearly as that, there can be no misunderstanding. For me, that’s the most salient point so far.
Lucy, this is not a killer detail. The context was not given. They are talking about different things. Fritts is listing factors affecting plant growth. Bradley is listing factors affecting tree-ring width.
The effect of CO2 on plant growth has long been known through ag experiments. In 1985, the evidence for CO2 affecting treerings would have been slight. There was little or no ice-core data, and only a fairly short period of reliably measured CO2 (since 1959).
The context is here.
Re: Nick Stokes (Oct 20 07:56),
Last I looked tree rings are parts of plants. Also if you knock “carbon dioxide” out of your search criteria, there are no hits, indicating that Bradley couldn’t have copied from another part of the Fritts text. So the question is what did Bradley 1999 and the WR respectively, preface the list of external factors as? (I’d go check but I’m in the middle of writing this and the answer is what it is).
Also, as Wegman was preparing his report he would have had the Idso’s studies (via their web site if nothing else), and the Idsos show that the result of higher CO2 was increased levels of dry weight in trees. Now I suppose one could imagine it to be possible for a tree to have double the growth rate without having wider rings, but come on, Nick, have some common sense! To say it was illicit for Wegman in 2006 to add CO2 (back) to tree ring growth factors is just silly, even if Bradley had some tenuous reason not to include it.
Dave,
The first thing is that Lucy claims that Bradley copied nearly a whole chapter from Fritts and made one telling change. The “whole chapter” claim is completely false, and has no basis in the post.
But the two sentences cited are from different contexts and are talking about different things. The presentation of the Fritts quote is misleading.
It’s true that you could suspect that CO2 would increase treering width. But Bradley is entitled to put a list of factors that have been shown to affect treering width. And Fritts’ sentence does not say that.
Nick,
Hmmm. Your “context” really doesn’t clarify much as google books provides only a minimal amount of surrounding wording. You claim that Fritts is talking only about plant growth as opposed to tree-ring growth. Maybe you are correct. But the two words immediately preceding the sentence you cite are “plant structures”. And later in the book, Fritts uses ring width as a specific example of plant structures. (“plant structures, such as ring width.”)
So you may be jumping the gun here. Looking at the broader context of what the book is about, I would be surprised if Fritts is talking only about overall plant growth in isolation without linkage to rings, but I am not going out on a tree width limb. Anyone here with access to the complete book who can answer this? (Steve?)
So, CO2 affects plant growth (uncontested), but can’t be shown to affect that critical part of tree growth affected by everything else, tree rings ! Jeebers Stokes, you’re clutching at straws !
Get a grip and look at what you’re trying to do, straining at gnats while swallowing DC’s BS whole without batting an eyelid. It makes you look entirely partisan, interested only in smearing Wegman, which funnily enough seems to be the motivation of a number of people who don’t like his conclusions but can’t argue against them on scientific grounds. So they go personal. Classy.
How the argument has shifted! Firstly Bradley copying from Fritts, then Bradley deviating from Fritts, and now (since they were writing about different things anyway) it’s just “Bradley was wrong! Bloggers know best! What a fool!”.
“Bradley was wrong! Bloggers know best! What a fool!”.
What lacuna did you pull that one out of?
Nick Stokes is all over the place with his “point” about Bradley not omitting anything. Lucia is not quite convinced either:
“Nick–
“You have shown no statement of Fritts identifying CO2 as a factor in treering width. Bradley made no omission”
How obtuse can you be?
Click your link– which will not reveal the text on page 11. One has to type in the search terms. No, add “structure”, read the paragraph above. Fritts is discussing factors that affect tree rign growth using the word “ring”. His style is to say that
a) tree ring growth is affected by things that affect plant growth.
b) things that affect plant growth are ….
If Fritts is not saying CO2 affects tree rings, then he is also not saying water, temperature, light, humidity or anything else affects tree rings. That reading means that he is writing a section discussing factors that affect tree ring growth while never ever ever mentioning a single factor that affects tree ring growth.
That’s an idiotic interpretation.
Bradley made no omission.
Yes. He did.”
The entertaining exchange is here:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2010/maybe-rapp/#comments
If anyone is interested, Fritts’ classic is available, see http://www.blackburnpress.com/trerinandcli.html
ZT said:
“Wow – thank you – nice and careful job as always.
“I amused myself for a short while last week checking how prevalent simple copying and pasting is in climatology cargo-cult science. I found that copy and pasting of text from one article to another is common. In fact, the CAGW scare may in the future be shown to most strongly correlate with the adoption of word-processing programs which make it possible for academics to recycle text effortlessly (or should that be endlessly?).
“I put (no use of the verb cutting-and-pasting for ZT) my findings here at the URL that can be found by clicking on ‘ZT’ above.”
————
Actually ZT, that’s a wonderful Web site you’ve created, and your plagiarism investigation should be of interest to every AGW skeptic. You’ve provided a ton of ammunition. I’m posting the URL below in the hopes passes through the filters. If a moderator sees this, please keep the URL and check his work out. I think we have a winner here.
http://climatologyplagiarism.blogspot.com/
I just love your work Mr McIntyre!!
You could have been the best investigative journalist in history, no question.
Its only a pity that this “copygate” has hardly been covered at all in the MSM. As a result MSM, wont notice the gang who cant shoot straight blowing another foot off.
Re: various points of law made above…
1) Assuming Prof. Bradley out-and-out stole Fritts’ work, it’s been 11 years since Bradley’s later textbook version. Statute of limitations would probably protect him from copyright claims.
2) I’ve seen a few posts, here and there, suggesting that Wegman is protected by the “Speech and Debate clause”.
That clause provides legal protection to Members of Congress, not to regular Joes – and certainly does not provide protection from ethics complaints at private universities.
See, Art I, sect 6:
“The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.”
3) Come now, how do we know Prof. Bradley doesn’t have an infinite number of graduate students with typewriters in his garage, helping him with the copy ?
jim–
Are you an attorney? I’m not. If you are, then could you tell us a little more?
1) On your 1, I found this article on statute of limitations and copyright. http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2006/03/30/statute-of-limitations-in-copyright-law/ It claims with plagiarism:
Is that incorrect?
2) On your (2). An attorney at Judy Curry’s and later at my blog, said the Speech and Debate clause has been intepreted to cover Congressional staff and also reports submitted for reading in congress. Links to legal discussions and SCOTUS cases suggest he might well be correct. Is he wrong? Can you elaborate?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, but if you do, please provide more details. I think the information would be useful to all of us trying to get a handle on what’s going on.
jim–
I guess SteveMc would prefer you discuss copyright at my blog. Come on over if you know the answers. I am curious.
lucia:
Yes, I am an attorney but, no, I don’t normally practice Intellectual Property law. Your points of law seem correct, but the application of facts will be determinative.
Re: Copyright
I am making an assumption (perhaps incorrectly) that Bradley wrote a book ~eleven years ago, and a run of books were printed and distributed at that time. I believe that event would be too long ago to be actionable [assuming infringement occured…].
In my scenario, the statutory period begins when the books are initially distributed – not when the last one is thrown away.
If the publisher is continuing to print and sell the books, then the Publishing House could be liable for infringement.
Assuming there are current royalties due to Bradley, I imagine they would be accessible through an unjust enrichment theory.
This is a textbook, not a novel, however. Based upon my understanding of the industry, I would guess that Bradley received a one-time fee for his work in 1999, rather than royalties into the present day.
Bradley likely signed control over his work to the publisher for a fee; if so, I have trouble seeing why he should be liable for subsequent infringements beyond his control.
A quick method to ascertain if I’m correct in my assumptions would be to see who claims the copyright to Bradley’s textbook: Bradley, or Houghton-Mifflin [or other publisher…]
Re: Speech and Debate:
When determining what the language of a portion of the Constitution really encompasses, courts will look to the original understanding and purpose behind the text.
In the case of this clause, the purpose is to allow members of Congress to do their job of legislating, without fear of reprisals from the executive branch. The clause reinforces separation of powers.
If a Senator / Representative defames, lies, or gives away state secrets during a legislative function – he’s protected from prosecution / lawsuit. [Note that the Constitution allows each house of Congress to punish their otherwise-protected, offending Members.]
If a regular Joe is testifying falsely before Congress – he doesn’t get the protection. Ask Roger Clemens.
The doctrine has been expanded to include Congressional staff, under an agency theory. Again, look to the purpose of the clause. Members can’t function without their staffers. Allowing broad prosecution of staffers would undercut the Congress – so it is limited.
It is not my understanding that Wegman was acting as Rep. Barton’s employee / agent, so my interpretation is that the doctrine would not expand to cover Wegman. Barton doesn’t need Wegman to function as a legislator – so Wegman doesn’t merit any special protection. My understanding of Wegman’s participation is that it was invited, expert testimony. [Not too different from testimony on steroids in baseball…]
Congressional committee reports are, likewise, protected, because to do otherwise could prevent the operation of Congress.
Note the subtle distinction, here.
Wegman co-wrote a report [which, I believe, is not protected]. Wegman’s report was, subsequently, released as part of the report of a Congressional committee [which is protected – at least for distribution to other Members of Congress].
Wegman was not the publisher of the document that the Congress released. He had no control over what the committee would publish. I believe that he wouldn’t be subject to a copyright-infringement claim for his words within the Congressional report.
Wegman was president of the statistical section of NAS, however. Wasn’t his report released in parallel by NAS ? He must have some sway, there. Assuming infringement occurred, I believe Wegman could have some exposure for reports published by NAS- although the actual party sued would probably be NAS, itself. Reports circulated separately by NAS would not be covered by the speech and debate clause.
Fundamentally, as with other Constitutional protections, the clause is a shield against prosecution by the Executive branch. It does not protect against the ethics investigation of a private university.
I’m not sure if I am reading more than what is written, but if Bradley 1999 does not attribute figures to Fritts, regardless of whether its a second edition and the first does give attribution, then wouldn’t Bradley 1999, in the second edition, be plagiarizing Fritts? Like I said, perhaps I misread what is written above.
As for Bradley 1985 – as far as I can see he provides mostly correct attribution for a text book, which is essentially a big review paper. Where the figures are pretty much duplicate Bradley cites the figures as “from”, while ones where he has made changes are cited as “after”. This is proper form – at least when I learned technical writing at UBC in the 70’s.
Steve: your distinction here is incorrect: virtually all the Fritts’ figures were used as is and both prepositions are used.
You’re somewhat missing the points in this post.
Bradley complained of text being lifted verbatim from his book. Bradley lifted verbatim text from Fritts 1976, including some lengthy captions that were not attributed. Much of Bradley’s text is a commentary on Fritts’ figures and inevitably paraphrases Fritts.
I got that. I was just confused about the references to Bradley 1999 – which is the Bradley work Wegman is accused of copying without proper citation.
Steve, I think you’re making a fool of yourself with that post.
. Bradley lifted verbatim text from Fritts 1976, including some lengthy captions that were not attributed.
“Lifted”? “Not attributed”? Except for the “from Fritts” or “from LaMarche” in every one of them? “Not attributed” in the same sense that Socrates is not dead or that water is not wet?
Could you please consult an established academic, ask him if the above constitute plagiarism (hint: it doesn’t), then honorably admit your mistake and move on?
Re: toto (Oct 19 02:35), toto (Oct 19 02:35),
Look carefully at the years. Bradley cites Fritts 1971 in figure captions, but the text is lifted without attribution from Fritts 1976.
The first problem is that this severely confuses the problem of something being “unattributed”.
If you include something and don’t attribute it then you lead the reader to think it’s your own work and not that of the real author. It’s unambiguous that the text is attributed and is at best wrongly attributed.
The second problem is that the accusation actually concerns which would be a “better” cite, Fritts 1971 or Fritts 1976. This leads us down a path of saying that if, in your estimation, a citation is not optimal than this is the same as not citing at all. I think most people would disagree with that logic and with applying that standard to an accusation of plagiarism.
Standing back for a moment, taking a breath of sane air (breathes deeply), ah, that’s better! Just an overview from a long-time lurker and first-time contributer.
From Steve’s original post, through the many reasonable common-sense contributions on this thread (including ZT’s valuable website resource – thanks ZT!) surely it is clear, to any reasonably unbiased thinking person that “plagiarism”, or at least a lack of commonly-agreed attribution “protocol”, runs rampant through climate science?! In light of this, I find the likes of Nick Stokes’ arm-waving defense, and repeated puffing out of his desperate buzzword “weak”, to be totally disingenuous. The shifting of goal-posts from the original Mashey “charges”, to the focus on the (wholly irrelevant in terms of Mann’s statistical manipulations) Wiki social-networks stuff, is a clear sign of a political argument from a position of opposition at all costs, and not a scientific one.
Nick, you should be embarrassed! Are you interested in scientific integrity at all? What really is your point? You seek to defame a fellow professional (I assume you are a scientist) on the grounds of what? Not his statistical arguments certainly. Wegman’s audited obection to Mann is one of method, your objection to Wegman seems to me to be “find some dirt about Wegman…on something!”
I never made it all the way through Mashey’s diatribe. It seems to me to be written by a determined and “nit-picking” obssessive. As I said elsewhere, it comes across rather as Macbeth’s description of futility in life, “It is a tale, Told by an idiot, Full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” Be careful who you align yourself with Nick, fanatics are not known for their coon sense!
Oops, should read “Nick, you should be embarrassed”. Sorry Steve!!!
All very new to this posting malarkey! (blush)
Steve: edit made to avoid confusion.
Oh and “coon sense” should be “common sense” (rolls eyes), It’s my keypad honestly!!
Darn – I thought “coon sense” was some colorful phrase out of Appalachia.
That’s gotta leave a mark Steve.
In squash do you get the point when your opponent gets in the way of your shot?
Steve: In singles, yes. In doubles, it depends. BTW this weekend there is a Canada-USA team doubles tournament with age groups. I’m on the Canadian team in the over 60s.
Go Canada!
I’ve rephrased some points in my introduction to tie together with the closing. Nothing is changed – I’m just trying to clarify the points.
Yet more excellent work Mr. M.
Amazing that Wegman can draw this much fire 4 years later.
He must have hit the bulls eye.
Wegman was an acknowledged professional who appeared to not be in a “camp.” His destruction of the Hockey Stick and the group that created and promoted it was pretty good also. Yes, the Nick Stokes’ and fellow travellers really need to smear Wegman to reduce the impact of the Hockey Stick destruction.
Of course, if they hadn’t hung so much of their credibility on the wholesale slaughter of the well known paleoclimatology preceding the Hockey Stick they would not now look like such FOOLS!!
As predicted, the AGW bibliography is a target rich environment.
Since the AGW apologists imply that Wegman is falsifies due to his wicked plagiaristic ways, then I think we can all agree that by that standard the entire climate dendro field is to be shelved, and all work in it tossed out?
Steve, could you clarify your definition of the big-P for me:
1) In your initial post on Wegman-Mashey-DC, you define p.ism as …”using the ‘ideas’ of ‘another person without giving appropriate credit’ “. You then go on to say Wegman didn’t really copy after all, since Bradley was cited somewhere and listed in the bibliography.
[Steve: I didn’t say that. Show me a quote where I said that. It’s quite clear that the Wegman report copied parts of Bradley. Whether the copying rises to academic misconduct is a different issue. ]
2) The use of one of A.Watts’ photos without attribution in a presentation is definitely “p.ism” (your word at the top of the post, not mine)
3) Bradley directly citing Fritts (using “after Fritts, 1976”) for figures and figure captions *with permission* is also p.ism.
Seems like you’re the one casting a pretty wide net. Why don’t you take a good hard look at the Wegman report again and audit Figure 4.5, which is a “digitization” of the infamous IPCC (1990) “cartoon” showing temperatures through the medieval warm period and the Little Ice Age? For starters the y-axis in this figure is horribly stretched, suggesting a little photo-shopping was happening. Anyhow, in testimony, Wegman claims it was sourced from the IPCC (1990) report (H/T Eli):
%—————————————————–
MR. STUPAK. What was the 1990 IPCC temperature profile based on? Basically what was this based on? You are a statistician.
DR. WEGMAN. This–
MR. STUPAK. Was this based on data?
DR. WEGMAN. As I just said moments ago, this was a cartoon I believe that was supposed to be representing a consensus opinion of what global temperature was like in 1990 as published by the IPCC.
%——————————————–
But then Wegman goes on to say that he never read the IPCC report (H/T Belette):
%——————————————–
MR. STUPAK. Let me ask you this. Page 34 of your report, I
think you have it in front of you, your 52-page summary there,
you have a figure that you say is a digitized version of the
temperature profile in the IPCC assessment report of 1990. I
take it you read the 1990 IPCC report? [clarification of page numbers]
DR. WEGMAN. No, I have not been able to obtain a copy of the 1990 report.
%——————————————–
My questions (anyone feel free to answer): Why didn’t Wegman didn’t list the IPCC (1990) report in the bibliography? Did he or did he not read it? Why couldn’t he get a copy of it? (the GMU library currently has one, and presumably did in 2006) Where did this figure come from? Eli has more evidence if anyone wants to take a look…
Steve, is it true that Bradley wrote “after Fritts, 1976″ for the figures and figure captions and that he had Fritts’ permission?
You can click on the images in the side-by-side comparison above and see that each of the Bradley images ends with a reference to Fritts. The quoted sections from Bradley also all end “from Fritts” or “after Fritts”
The meat of Steve’s complaint seems to be that by using “After Fritz” might not convey the attribution correctly but I’m not familiar enough with academic publishing to answer that.
The other argument appears to be that in some cases the wrong year might be referenced.
This is all strikes me as extremely weak and I have to question whether the people here suggesting a legal case of copyright infringement by Fritts have even read this post past the headline.
“After” and “from” usually indicate a modification of the original text or diagram. If you copy direct and exactly it is considered insufficient to say “from” and “after”. You would normally be expected to give the full detail. This could be done by use of reference numbers in the bibliography or with text following the copied item.
However, in my opinion, all this cuffuful is nothing but an attempt by the “team” to discredit Prf Wegman in order to restore the reputation of their work. It has been done via the uni because the proof is less onerous than in court and it could be easier for the uni to condemn someone outside of it’s communnity in favour of it’s own community.
Mountains and mole hills come to mind.
“However, in my opinion, all this cuffuful is nothing but an attempt by the “team” to discredit Prf Wegman in order to restore the reputation of their work.”
Into what category would you put the counter-claim that Bradley has “copied” Fritts?
You might argue about the motivation behind the accusations against the Wegman paper but it is quite clear that there’s a case to answer. I say that without knowing what the answer is but so far I haven’t seen Wegman or anyone associated provide an answer, only various and sometimes incompatible defences from various people on blogs. A lot of material was copied and also altered in a fashion which isn’t at all obvious from reading the report so knowing why it was done that way would be helpful.
However this argument which appears to consist of quibbling over whether Fritts 1976 is a better cite than Fritts 1971 or whether the text was altered quite enough to justify “after” as opposed to “from” seems extremely tenuous to me.
If it can be shown that the way the Wegman report was written was “common practise” then what would be one type of defence however I’d have to wonder the following:
1. Why does it fall upon Steve McIntyre to show this instead of Wegman or someone involved in the report to do so.
2. If we assume that Steve McIntyre looked at Bradley’s work and then made his best shot at demonstrating he produced work that met the same standard of plagiarism as applied to Wegman then this rather shows the opposite of what was intended since if this is the “best” that could be found then Wegman fell well short of the mark.
Into the same category as the claim that Wegman copied Bradley.
Apparently both copied and both attributed, but, neither did so in a manner that is apparently acceptable to all viewers especially the biased ones.
One would think they would have learned not to cross S.M. by now! As my son would say….OWNED!
Steve lives up to his reputation as one of the ‘Infamous Five’! So named in an article by Ben Webster on the most important climate change sceptics.
“The most influential sceptic blogger. Feared by climate scientists for his doggedness in hunting down flaws or inconsistencies, he has a formidable appetite for detail. Led the attack on the ‘hockey stick’ graph that shows a long period of stable global temperature ending with a sharp upward curve in the past half century.”
Eureka, Issue 13, October 2010
(Eureka is a science supplement magazine issued monthly by The Times newspaper)
Lesley
Then Webster should change his list. Steve doesn’t classify himself as a “climate change sceptic” as far as I know. I would say he’s a genuine sceptic
What the original complaint and the Bradley copying amount to in the words of the bard
“Much ado about nothing”.
hook, line, sinker
McI’s case is pretty weak. Bradley probably has a defamation case against him.
Sorry. I should have said Bradley is probably kicking himself for raising the issue of plagiarism.
McI’s argument is pretty weak. Bradley probably has a defamation case against him.
When you falsely attribute discreditable conduct to someone… Some things are not so hard. I’d note too that there has been a move lately in defamation cases to hold bloggers/journalists responsible for their material as it appears on other websites, which means the responsibility to remove it from those websites may fall to them as well.
This move has happened in what country? Citation please?
Steve: Andrew Weaver sued National Post for allegedly defamatory comments by commenters at their blog. The case hasn’t been heard.
The National Post is Canadian, publishes in Canada. Is Weaver suing in Canada? Can I conclude bigcity might be referring to Canadian law? I understand Canada has more plaintiff friendly defamation laws than the US.
My impression is American courts have not been holding bloggers liable for their commenters’ posts– there have been honest to goodness rulings. I get this impression reading the Volokh Conspiracy where Eugene Volokh a first amendment scholar periodically posts on this issue. I’m pretty sure we have some of the most defendent friendly defamation laws in the world.
…and Canada does not have the same FOS standards that we have in the US.
I believe Weaver is from western Canada.
Uof Vic of “Deniers stole my computers” fame
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/04/21/bc-andrew-weaver-national-post-lawsuit.html
After Terence Cocoran National Post Tuesday Jan 26, 2010
“It is Mr. Weaver, for example, who said the IPCC’s 2007 science report — the one now subject to some scrutiny — “isn’t a smoking gun; climate is a battalion of intergalactic smoking missiles.”
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2488011#ixzz12puHoYHz
This comment on the DC thread attracted my attention:
“GMUGrad | October 9, 2010 at 2:01 am | Reply
I’m really rooting for my Alma Mater here to get this out in the open.
Good job Andrew and John Mashey”
Who is “Andrew” in this context?
Just to clarify, Weaver’s complaint is not about the bloggers comments. Its “a claim based on libel (written defamation) to defend himself against a series of articles critical of climate science published in the National Post.”
(http://wcel.org/resources/environmental-law-alert/uvic%E2%80%99s-andrew-weaver-sues-national-post)
“In addition to an injunction requiring the National Post to remove the offending articles, Weaver is also asking for an order requiring the National Post to help him get copies of those articles removed from other websites.”
About 2500 miles away from Weaver’s Victoria, BC ivory tower, and unlike some, in the real world.
It took Bradley many, many years to figure out that Wegman had copied, from one of his books, some text Bradley presumably had written himself (or had he? Has anybody got any reasonable explanation for such a delay?).
Imagine how long it will take now Bradley before he makes any move in a “defamation” case…
bigcitylib,
You knowledge of defamation law is poor. Have you ever heard of the concept of “limited purpose public figure”. Bradley would have very little chance of winning a case. Notwithstanding that, please point out exactly what errors in fact are contained in Steve’s posting.
Has anybody (pro ánd contra) taken the time to take 2 or 3 steps back and realise into what state “climate science” has been involved since apparently attorneys and lawyers are now seem to determine the state of affairs??? Y’all should be ashamed of yourself…
BCL says:
I take considerable care to avoid such actions myself and also have blog policies against commenters doing so. To my knowledge, all of my statements in the post are correct. Would you please identify any such statements either by myself or by commenters so that I can deal with them according to these policies.
I’d think that any suggestion that any of Bradley’s citation practices are plagiarism, which hangs over the entire post and gets repeated explicitly a number of times in the comments, should be removed.
Steve: As I said above, I wish to adhere to blog policies against false statements of discreditable conduct. I reviewed the post and didn’t see any false statements. Could you please identify any specific comments that you believe to make false statements alleging discreditable conduct so that I can review their compliance with blog policy.
Well, it seems to me that the suggestion that hangs in the air is that neither Wegman nor Bradley have committed plagiarism and that Bradley, given his practice of copying freely from other authors should be in a better position than most to see that copying by others of his own derivative work falls well within the accepted give and take of Academia.
It is you who conclude that equivalence = plagiarism.
Good grief, remind never to cross Steve in any way. He is relentless.
I don’t think Steve is saying that this is plagiarism, but that it is derivative and the attributions are sloppy, which (by implication) makes Bradley’s complaint against Wegman ring hollow, since Wegman appears to be not guilty of anything worse. If it were me I would have acknowledged deep gratitude to Fritts (for extensive reliance on his work) in the textbook’s introduction/acknowledgements section, and done so in every edition. I would also rewrite the captions (while adding new insights), would be more careful in the attributions, and would also be careful on what grounds I would call others plagiarists.
“…the attributions are sloppy, which (by implication) makes Bradley’s complaint against Wegman ring hollow, since Wegman appears to be not guilty of anything worse”
Exactly.
The “From Frits 1971” citation means that the figure, not the caption is taken from Frits 1971.
Bradley plagiarized Frits 1976 captions, while it seems that the Figures are not properly attributed.
“Plagiarists are always suspicious of being stolen from.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“They castrate the books of other men in order that with the fat of their works they may lard their own lean volumes.”
Jovius
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
Steve
I am not sure whether this is the right stick to beat him with although I see what you are trying to do. On one of the graphs,10.11 a statement is made after Fritt?
Or in simple terms are you saying what’s sauce for the goose…….
Given the number of trolls who are loudly shouting “you’re wrong” I think you are onto something, Steve.
This guys just can`t win a fight on a single subject!
They cant help themselves they cant put a fot right
even if they try.This is maby the most embarrasing contra productive fight they choose.
They have to be completely out of arguments and sense.
Why choose to mess with the Mike Tysons of climate sceptics if you dont have a guard and skills to protect you?
One opening and BAM! Lights out!
Or my favorite. “Don’t wrestle with pigs in the mud. You both get dirty and the pig likes it!”
I really hope Steve takes this as far as he can.
Wow, what a strong case he has! 😉
Go Steve, send out your lawyers, get in there and really see how far this can be pushed.
Let’s all encourage Steve to make formal complaints about this!
Oh wait, was this supposed to be Socratic Irony… I can’t tell.
I cannot pretend that I got to the end,
Of the pedant outpourings of Mashey,
From his logical twists to his villainous lists,
Colour-coded in fonts bold and flashy,
No evil stone left unturned, no banal detail spurned,
Would obsessive exhaustion bring cachet?
Well, though I get pleasure, reading phonebooks for leisure,
Endless tattle’s just a little too trashy!
This issue is tremendously complex and it’s easy to get into trouble if you dabble. I mentioned above I dabbled in plagiarism in photography. Here is a somewhat elementary scenario to show how complex it can be.
A is a noted landscape photographer who produces an annual calendar of 12 photos which have won him prizes in competitions run by bodies which have entry rules on plagiarism. The calendar is clearly marked copyright on the last page, which shows for one month in 12 of normal use.
B is an architectural photographer who enters competitions like A does, with the same rules. B takes a competition photograph of a home interior which has A’s caledar hanging from a wall. A can easily recognise it as his and questions us about possible infringements by B.
Assuming you are Solomon, but that the artistry cannot be cut with a sword, is there a case for
(a) plagiarism?
(b) breach of copyright?
(c) if one of the above, are there special arguments (like the size of the calendar in the final image) that apply in mitigation?
(d) does it matter if the copyright notice was showing when B took his photo? And if it was legible in his image?
(e) B published only to the Internet. Does this create a special circumstance?
(f) a Member of Parliament asked permission to use B’s photo on an official report. Special circumstance?
(g) A’s photo composition relies heavily on a lookout sign in Greek language. B does not speak or read Greek. He publishes his architectural image on paper via a British printer, though he lives in Norway. Is the printer liable?
(h) etc
This is what I meant by the need to investigate intent. If B knew the work of A well and made it a feature of his architectural image, we might well investigate. If B did not even realise that he had photographed A’s image, we would not be interested.
If this analogy is applicable to the discussion above, the accusations against Dr Wegman need not pay any regard whatsoever to Dr Bradley’s interactions with Dr Fritts. Each can stand alone. However, there are exceptions mentioned above that can turn this general statement into a particular statement to the contrary – like Dr Wegman misquoting Dr Fritts because of an unstated omission or addition by Dr Bradley in a set of attributed words.
In a sensible world, it’s a matter of who if anyone acted to gain advantage by deliberate intent to draw on the works of others; and whether that action was trivial or significant.
Complex- yes. I’ve followed the evolution of the plagiarism wars with interest, but some bemusement because plagiarism is an instace specifc and ill defined concept and I’ve found it difficult to arrive at any settled conclusion.
For my own benefit, as a starting point I’ve synthesised a range of legal concepts including forgery, passing off, obtaining by deception, breach of copyright, defamation of goods and lese majesty into a legalistic – that is sufficiently specific and comprehensive to be of use to a lawyer – definition and ordinance reflecting a range of views on what may constitute plagiarism trawled from the internet.
It goes as follows:
“Plagiarism is the passing off, intentionally, recklessly or negligently, in written or spoken form, of another person’s work, be it:-
a. an original idea or discovery or,
b. the same reduced to a form of words, record, process or other physical representation, or:
c. the expression of a modal idea in and original form of words or other original physical representation,
to a third person, in a deceptive representation that it is your own words or work, in order:
i. to avoid effortful cognitive processing or
ii. to obtain an advantage of any sort, or
iii. thereby diluting the reputation of another by giving no or insufficient attribution
Provided that, in relation to cases ii. and iii. above:
where the third person may be supposed by reason of general education or eduction in a specific art to be familiar with the works and words of the original author, even though the authorship be unknown, it will be presumed that no deception was intended or occurred unless the unattributed words are similar enough to be identified with original author but changed so as to misrepresent the opinions of the original author in a manner which is not manifestly obvious to the third person
where the third person is unfamiliar with the specific art it will be presumed that deception occurred and whether it was intended shall be determined as a matter of fact,
Further, there shall be a margin of appreciation allowed to an authour who derives his words from the work of another by summary and paraphrase as to whether there should be attribution to the source author and no finding of plagiarism may be made unless it appears beyond reasonable doubt that the derivative work fell outside the margin of appreciation. The incorporation of opinions different to those held by the original author into the summary or paraphrase shall be taken into account in assessing the margin of appreciation in any particular instance”
Applying this to the Wegman Report and parts derived from Bradley and Wikipedia my analysis is as follows;
It seems to me that an academic textbook is a representation made to persons engaged in a sphere of art but a report to congress is a representation made to a wider public. The onus to make express attribution should be greater in the latter case because there’s more room for deception by failure to attribute.
So far as the Wegman report is concerned, from the context there is no claim to the original ideas of others, there does, however, appear to be a lack of attribution of the source of the original form of words in parts, and this may have led parts of the public to whom the report was addressed to assume the words were originated by the authors of the report. I can see no harm that would have resulted from this misrepresentation, and no advantage that would accrue to Wegman, however the lack of attribution does dilute, (let’s say, until the entitlement to attribution is determined) “John Doe’s” reputation. This amounts to a discourtesy to the original author but nothing worse.
Further, it may be possible to dilute the reputation of “John Doe” the well known text book author, but is it possible to dilute the reputation of “John Doe” the virtually anonymous Wikipedia contributor? Or, is Wikepedia, a collaborative web resource, now entitled to attribution in it’s own right in the same way as a sentient person? Does it have a reputation to dilute?
As plagiarism goes, if plagiarism it is, and by reason of similarity and extent I think it possibly is: that in the Wegman Report is at the very lowest end of the spectrum and could be retrospectively made good by publishing an apology and acknowledgement. However the obligation to attribute may well fall within the margin of appreciation in this case.
It’s importance in this case is that, in a heavily politicised arena, the omission of the courteous words of acknowledgement – “after John Doe” – can be used to attempt to nullify the import of a document which depends in no way on courtesy towards Doe being observed.
Yes Steve:
I see that you have copied quite a number of things that Bradley atrributed to their authors. You have documented his meticulous adherence to scholarly convention.
Bradley , as you have proved, will never have to worry about being falsly accused of plagiarism.
Most of the above gleeful chortling is just BS.
Bradley was not writing a report for Congress on a critical matter of public policy. The accountabilty of the Wegman Report is of far higher import.
Does this mean that you accept that the technical details of the two cases are similar, but the intended audience is what counts?
Re: John M (Oct 20 18:39),
Hmm. Let me follow this line of logic a bit more. Would not then the relevant standard for quoting and citing be commissioned testimonial reports to the federal Congress of the United States, of which there are millions of examples dating back to the 18th Century?
O/T
looks like Gavin (if it’s him, seems real) is engaging over at air vent.
good for him & everyone concerned (SM mainly & JC for the courage + all the others) in opening the debate/discussion beyond the academic/MSM defined tribes.
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