May 16, 2011
Retracted climate critics' study panned by expert


By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY

Plagiarism and peer review concerns aside, some readers are asking
whether a soon-to-be-retracted study by climate critics was any good.
So, we asked an expert.

In a story in Monday's newspaper, we reported on the federally-funded
2008 Computational Statistics and Data Analysis study headed by Edward
Wegman of George Mason University. Echoing charges of plagiarism in a
2006 Congressional report by Wegman and colleagues that was critical of
climate scientists, experts have noted apparently copied text --
including portions taken from a Wikipedia entry -- in the CSDA study.
Journal editor Stanley Azen of the University of Southern California,
says the journal will retract the 2008 study, wiping it from the
scientific record.

But how good was the study? We asked network analysis expert Kathleen
Carley of Carnegie Mellon to take a look at whether the CSDA study, a
"bibliometric" critique of publishing links between climate scientists,
was any good in the first place. "I see this paper as more of an opinion
piece," Carley says, by email.

Carley is a well-established expert in network analysis. She even taught
the one-week course that one of Wegman's students took before 2006,
making the student the "most knowledgeable" person about such analyses
on Wegman's team, according to a note that Wegman sent to CSDA in March.

In the CSDA study, the researchers compared the normal "entrepreneurial"
style of collaboration between top scientists against papers written as
collaborations among students of one "mentor" professor. "The authors
speculate that the entrepreneurial style leads to peer review abuse. No
data is provided to support this argument," Carley says, by email.

Here are more of Carley's emailed comments from her review of the study:

Q: Would you have recommended publication of this paper if you were
asked to review it for regular publication -- not as an opinion piece --
in a standard peer-reviewed network analysis journal?

A: No - I would have given it a major revision needed.

Q: (How would you assess the data in this study?)

Data: Compared to many journal articles in the network area the
description of the data is quite poor. That is the way the data was
collected, the total number of papers, the time span, the method used
for selecting articles and so on is not well described.

Q: (So is what is said in the study wrong?)

A: Is what is said wrong? As an opinion piece - not really.

Is what is said new results? Not really. Perhaps the main "novelty
claim" are the definitions of the 4 co-authorship styles. But they
haven't shown what fraction of the data these four account for.

So, how did the paper get published? The journal shows the manuscript
was submitted July 8, 2007 and accepted July 13, 2007, for publication.
This is a very fast review of a paper. Most take months and require
review by two-three outside experts.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request last year, Wegman
sent USA TODAY two emails detailing the paper's review, to and from his
friend, the journal editor, Stanley Azen of the University of Southern
California:

July 8, 2007 Professor Stan Azen Editor CSDA

Dear Stan: Yasmin Said and I along with student colleagues are
submitting a manuscript entitled ―Social Network Analysis of
Author-Coauthor Relationships.This was motivated in part by our
experience with Congressional Testimony last summer. We introduce the
idea of allegiance as a way of clustering these networks. We apply these
methods to the coauthor social networks of some prominent scholars and
distinguish several fundamentally different modes of co-authorship
relations. We also speculate on how these might affect peer review.

We think this is an interesting and provocative paper. We hope you
like it.

Cheers, Ed Wegman

July 13, 2007, from Dr. Azen to Dr. Wegman:

Title: Social Networks of Author-Coauthor Relationships
Computational Statistics and Data Analysis

Dear Ed: I personally reviewed your very interesting (and unique)
manuscript. I think the paper is very interesting, and I could not
identify any errors. So, I am pleased to inform you and your colleagues
that your paper "Social Networks of Author-Coauthor Relationships" has
been accepted for publication in Computational Statistics and Data Analysis.

Your paper will now be forwarded to the Publisher who will contact
you soon with full details. Thank you for submitting your work to this
journal.

With kind regards,

Stanley P. Azen

Co-Editor Computational Statistics and Data Analysis

Azen says he must have overseen an earlier, more extensive review of the
paper involving outside reviewers. But he says he has no records of this
earlier review, because his records were destroyed in an office move. "I
would never have done just a personal review," he says.

On the plagiarism issue, we asked expert Skip Garner of Virginia Tech to
comment on the significance of retraction under these circumstances:

The retraction of an article is a serious and impactful action, for
it confirms that a complete analysis by the editors confirmed
inappropriate 're-use' of material, and in this case issues with the
review process that was in place at the time. Only authoritative
individuals and bodies such as editorial boards or ethics committees can
make the determination that re-use of material without proper citation
is 'plagiarism' following an accusation, for due process must take
place, for this can impact careers and entire lines of research.

Another important, often missed part of a retraction is adequately
communicating that a paper has been retracted to all that may consider
using it. In other words, it is important that the notice of retraction
be propagated back to the literature databases and search engines so
that future users know not to use the material. Retracting on a web site
is only the first step in that process, for future users may not
discover the retraction unless the retraction is obvious and closely
associated with every instance of the original publication. And one
final note, the finding of 'plagiarism' may also be an indicator of
other possible questionable ethical issues such as conflict-of-interest,
haste vs. scientific rigor and bias, which may need to be investigated.

On Mon, 16 May 2011 11:13:38 -0400, Harryk
wrote:

May 16, 2011
Retracted climate critics' study panned by expert


By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY

Plagiarism and peer review concerns aside, some readers are asking
whether a soon-to-be-retracted study by climate critics was any good.
So, we asked an expert.

the right's gonna be all over this! you bet...surely beck and rush
will feature this...legislators will call for investigations...

oh. wait...this is by climate change CRITICS

which means we'll never hear from them again

But how good was the study? We asked network analysis expert Kathleen
Carley of Carnegie Mellon to take a look at whether the CSDA study, a
"bibliometric" critique of publishing links between climate scientists,
was any good in the first place. "I see this paper as more of an opinion
piece," Carley says, by email.

carnegie mellon...you cant trust ANYONE who went there! :-)

Gene wrote:
On Mon, 16 May 2011 11:13:38 -0400,
wrote:

May 16, 2011
Retracted climate critics' study panned by expert

snips

http://deepclimate.org/2010/09/15/we...tation-review/









That's an amazing read...thanks, Gene. Apparently the doctoral
dissertation process at GMU, at least in some departments, leaves a lot
to be desired. Ouch.