Major UK science publisher retracts 43 peer reviewed papers-Smithsonian

3/27/15, "Major Science Publisher Admits “Fabricated” Peer Reviews," Smithsonian, Erin Blakemore

"Peer review is at the heart of scientific publishing. But its rigor has come into question lately—and news that a major publisher has retracted scientific papers could point to a wider peer review problem in progress.

BioMed Central, a U.K.-based science publisher with 277 peer-reviewed journals in its catalog, has retracted 43 scientific papers, Fred Barbash reports for the Washington Post. He notes that though most of the papers come from Chinese universities, a representative told him that rather than being an issue of China, the retractions come from “a broader problem of how scientists are judged.”

Retraction Watch’s Cat Ferguson spoke with Elizabeth Moylan, BioMed Central’s senior editor of scientific integrity, who noted that some of the peer review concerns stem from suspicions about third-party involvement:

"Some of the manipulations appear to have been conducted by third-party agencies offering language-editing and submission assistance to authors. It is unclear whether the authors of the manuscripts involved were aware that the agencies were proposing fabricated reviewers on their behalf or whether authors proposed fabricated names directly themselves."

When Barbash spoke to BioMed Central’s associate editorial director for research integrity, she confirmed that the publisher had received a number of “very convincing” peer review reports.

However, odd email addresses and multiple reviews in different specialized fields raised red flags, which were confirmed when they learned that the scientists who had supposedly penned the reviews “hadn’t written them at all.”

But the problem doesn’t seem to be unique to BioMed Central. Barbash notes that the Committee on Publication Ethics issued a statement warning of “systematic, inappropriate attempts to manipulate the peer review process of several journals across publishers.” It’s an issue that has galvanized people like the anonymous founders of PubPeer, an anonymous feedback tool that lets scientists provide post-publication peer review without revealing their identities.

“While standard ‘pre-publication’ peer review often does improve the quality of published work, it is also clear that it lets through a huge number of mistakes, and a surprising amount of misconduct,” they told Vox’s Julia Belluz earlier this month. 

“And the system as it stands has great difficulty in correcting work once published.” 

For now, BioMed Central is retracting, rather than correcting, the falsely peer-reviewed articles."

=======================

More about PubPeer, link in above article. "Only two things can go wrong with a mathematics paper: it can contain a visible mistake, or it can be plagiarized." In life sciences, "there are many more opportunities for mistakes and dishonesty,"...

3/14/15, "Why you can't always believe what you read in scientific journals," Vox.com, Updated by Julia Belluz

"When people talk about the flaws in the scientific process, they often raise the problem of peer review.

Right now, when a researcher submits an article for publication in a journal, it's sent off to his or her peers for constructive criticism or even rejection. The idea is that science is like a self-cleansing machine: the scrutiny of one's colleagues is meant to ensure quality and keep the junk at bay.

But there are problems with this traditional "pre-publication" peer-review model: it relies on the goodwill of scientists, who are increasingly pressed and may not spend the time required to properly critique a work; it's subject to the biases of a select few; it's slow; and it sometimes fails. This means that even in the highest-quality journals, mistakes, flaws, and even fraudulent work make it on the record.
 
In the past, there was no way to publicly point out those errors, barring the rare event of a retraction. 

Now, the (anonymous) founders of a new website, PubPeer, are trying to change that. Since establishing the site in 2012, they've grown into a global platform for "post-publication" peer review — a new method some say could replace the current model.

PubPeer researchers can now comment on scientific articles, critiquing and discussing works anonymously, as soon as they've been published in journals — like a comments section on a news site. The space for criticism is no longer confined to just a few reviewers; anyone can log in and leave a thoughtful remark.

PubPeer has already amassed more than 25,000 comments in its centralized database. It has helped uncover science fraud, and recently became the subject of a court case over the right to anonymous scientific discussion. Along the way, it's creating a successful model that could replace the hallowed — and flawed — traditional peer-review process. On the condition of anonymity, I interviewed the PubPeer founders — an early career researcher, computer scientist, and graduate student — about the revolution in peer review they're trying to shape, why science commenters tend not to troll, and why they refuse to reveal their identities.

Julia Belluz: As you see it, what's wrong with the scientific peer-review process right now?

PubPeer Organizers: While standard "pre-publication" peer review often does improve the quality of published work, it is also clear that it lets through a huge number of mistakes and over-interpretations, and a surprising amount of misconduct. And the system as it stands has great difficulty in correcting work once published.

JB: How does PubPeer address these issues?

PP: PubPeer enables centralization of all commentary about published work. Instead of two or three pre-publication referees producing a confidential report to a strict deadline, any expert in the world can add to information about a paper after careful study, and that information is available to all.

A distinguishing feature of PubPeer is that we allow anonymous comments, including an option for strong, user-controlled anonymity. This has some potential disadvantages (which experience suggests are often over-dramatized) but has clearly enabled many serious problems to be brought to light.

JB: Can you talk a bit about how you created PubPeer? What sparked the idea? 

PP: The idea for PubPeer was born of the frustration of observing so many uncorrected and unacknowledged flaws in published work — a very widespread sentiment among researchers. We know from discussions with colleagues that the idea of a commenting site was not necessarily original. Several precursor sites were launched. But it seems we were the first to find a formula and a platform that prospered.

JB: How many people are using the site? And where are they coming from?

PP: The top countries connecting to the site are the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, France, Canada, Israel, Brazil, Switzerland, and Italy. We assume they are all scientists.

JB: In journalism, a fair amount of trolling happens in comments sections. How do you avoid that? What kind of vetting of the comments goes on?

PP: The key point non-scientists struggle to understand is that effective criticism of science must have genuine substance. It's extremely difficult to invent a damaging criticism of a good paper, even if you want to. Just saying something is crap or nitpicking is deeply unconvincing. We normally moderate such comments, but our users are also quite effective at policing these issues. Our commenting and moderation policies reinforce this by requiring comments to be based on publicly verifiable information. So the whole issue of conflicts of interest and trolling is not nearly as serious as elsewhere: a comment has force if it makes a good point that a reader can check, and if it does, it matters little who made it.

JB: Have you noticed any trends in who comments or in which disciplines? What types/fields of scientists are the most active users? 

PP: The bulk of our commenting is in the life sciences, but PubPeer is open for discussion of all publications. Nanotechnology, chemistry, climate science, management studies, and quantum mechanics all have active communities on PubPeer.

JB: Why do you think you have so many life sciences commenters? 

PP: An interesting question is the degree to which different fields are subject to misconduct. Thus, it seems only two things can go wrong with a mathematics paper: it can contain a visible mistake, or it can be plagiarized. By contrast, in much of biology, readers have to trust the authors to describe their experiments accurately, and there are many more opportunities for mistakes and dishonesty. In addition, it seems particularly easy to spot problems in image data, which abound in life sciences. A recent study reported on PubPeer found that fully 25 percent of a random sample of cancer research publications contained problems in image data. That is a shocking statistic.

JB: What impact have you had so far? Has PubPeer resulted in any major findings of fraud or retractions or the like?

PP: There are now more than 25,000 comments in the PubPeer database, which represent a great deal of collected wisdom and expert information available to other scientists.

In terms of helping uncover fraud, PubPeer channeled many of the questions about the STAP stem-cell fiasco last year [when a famous stem cell paper came under fire after anonymous commenters on PubPeer pointed out big flaws in the research]. We are aware of several cases where researchers appear to have lost jobs after incisive commentary appeared on PubPeer, and there are certainly many high-profile researchers whose work has been called into question on the site.

JB: There's been a lot of talk in recent years about how broken science is, particularly the peer-review process. What are the bigger systemic changes that need to happen in order to fix it?

PP: The biggest problem is the pressure to chase after "metrics" — indirect measures of scientific success. The most important metric is publication in top journals, which determines jobs, grants, everything. This distorts the scientific process toward mostly illusory "breakthroughs" and "high-impact research" at the expense of careful work. Scientists now find themselves ruled by often-incompetent kingmakers — the editors of the top journals — who effectively decide their futures and make scientific fashion.

PubPeer is helping scientists retake control of their lives, work, and careers by providing a collective judgment that is independent of and ultimately more important than acceptance by the top journals. That judgment is the expert opinion of your peers. We are also big fans of open-access publishing and the use of pre-print servers such as ArXiv or the newer bioRxiv; we believe these will also loosen the stranglehold of the top journals on research.

JB: Finally: why do you refuse to reveal your identities? You're critiquing science in an open democracy, not offering political dissent in a repressive regime or something.

PP: You need look no further than the Sarkar suit for an answer. [Fazul Sarkar is a cancer researcher who sued PubPeer, demanding the identities of anonymous commenters who criticized his work; the court sided with PubPeer.] There is a good chance that we as organizers would have been sued by now or suffered some kind of reprisal — rejected papers, non-funded grants, etc. And certainly we would have come under pressure to remove posts about colleagues or reveal the identity of commenters. That said, we do not expect or plan to remain anonymous indefinitely, but it has helped protect us while we build up the platform."

.
=======================
--------------------------------------

More on "famous stem cell paper" mentioned in above Vox article: Japanese author is disgraced, American co-author skates:

"In the US, investigations into scientific misconduct usually take place under a veil of secrecy. In all likelihood, Brigham has begun its own inquiry [into Vacanti's involvement] but, in stark contrast to the one carried out by Riken [in Japan], we probably won’t learn anything about it – even the fact of its existence – until after a verdict is reached." Vacanti himself is on a year’s sabbatical from Brigham."...
.
2/18/15, "What pushes scientists to lie? The disturbing but familiar story of Haruko Obokata," UK Guardian, John Rasko and Carl Power
. 
"And what of Obokata’s US colleagues? More particularly, what of Charles Vacanti, the chief co-author of the now-discredited Stap cell papers?

Charles Vacanti, 3rd from left 

This charming, silver-haired midwesterner, who headed the anesthesiology department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, did almost as much to confuse the issue of replication as Obokata herself. From the start, Vacanti claimed that he had been able to create Stap cells, including human ones, though he offered no evidence. What he did offer, however, was his own special recipe, which he posted online in mid-March (around the time that Riken first declared Obokata guilty of misconduct), assuring the scientific community that if he could make Stap cells, anyone could.

Unfortunately, that humble boast backfired. No one else could get his recipe to work. Many hoped that Vacanti would toil night and day until he proved the existence of Stap cells, but instead, last September, he left Brigham for a year’s sabbatical. Had he lost faith in Stap cells? Apparently not. As a parting gesture, Vacanti posted an improved recipe which, he said, “should increase the likelihood of success”. So far, the new recipe seems no better than the old one. 

Vacanti’s role in this scientific debacle is especially intriguing because Stap cells originally sprang from his fertile imagination. For well over a decade, he had been working on a hunch that pluripotent stem cells exist in all mammalian tissue, ready to swing into action whenever needed. It was a big, bright, potentially career-defining idea which for a long time Vacanti couldn’t sell. He lacked conclusive proof. He also lacked credibility. After all, he was not a stem cell scientist but an anesthesiologist and tissue engineer best known for grafting an artificial ear on to the back of a mouse (the infamous Vacanti earmouse)....

The year 2014 was one of extremes for Haruko Obokata....Barely 30 years old, she was head of her own laboratory at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) in Kobe, Japan, and was taking the male-dominated world of stem cell research by storm. She was hailed as a bright new star in the scientific firmament and a national hero. But her glory was short-lived and her fall from grace spectacular, completed in several humiliating stages. 

Obokata shot to prominence in January 2014 when she published two breakthrough articles in Nature, one of the world’s top science journals. She and her colleagues had demonstrated a surprisingly simple way of turning ordinary body cells – she used mouse blood cells – into something very much like embryonic stem cells."... 







 

.

Slaves from Burma kept in cages in Indonesia are forced to catch seafood some of which is shipped to US supermarkets. Dead slaves may be thrown overboard and eaten by sharks-2015 AP report, 2014 Time report

3/25/15, "Your seafood might come from slaves," AP, Benjina, Indonesia, via NY Post 

"The Burmese slaves sat on the floor and stared through the rusty bars of their locked cage, hidden on a tiny tropical island thousands of miles from home.

Just a few yards away, other workers loaded cargo ships with slave-caught seafood that clouds the supply networks of major supermarkets, restaurants and even pet stores in the United States.

Here, in the Indonesian island village of Benjina and the surrounding waters, hundreds of trapped men represent one of the most desperate links criss-crossing between companies and countries in the seafood industry. This intricate web of connections separates the fish we eat from the men who catch it, and obscures a brutal truth: Your seafood may come from slaves. —

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Associated Press notified the International Organization for Migration about men in this story, who were then moved out of Benjina by police for their safety. Hundreds of slaves remain on the island, and five other men were in the cage this week.
—
The men the Associated Press spoke to on Benjina were mostly from Myanmar, also known as Burma, one of the poorest countries in the world. They were brought to Indonesia through Thailand and forced to fish. Their catch was shipped back to Thailand, and then entered the global commerce stream.

Tainted fish can wind up in the supply chains of some of America’s major grocery stores, such as Kroger, Albertsons and Safeway; the nation’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart; and the biggest food distributor, Sysco. It can find its way into the supply chains of some of the most popular brands of canned pet food, including Fancy Feast, Meow Mix and Iams. It can turn up as calamari at fine dining restaurants, as imitation crab in a California sushi roll or as packages of frozen snapper relabeled with store brands that land on our dinner tables.

 
In a year-long investigation, the AP interviewed more than 40 current and former slaves in Benjina.
 
The AP documented the journey of a single large shipment of slave-caught seafood from the Indonesian village, including squid, snapper, grouper and shrimp, and tracked it by satellite to a gritty Thai harbor. Upon its arrival, AP journalists followed trucks that loaded and drove the seafood over four nights to dozens of factories, cold storage plants and the country’s biggest fish market.

Some fishermen, risking their lives, begged the reporters for help.

“I want to go home. We all do,” one Burmese slave called out over the side of his boat, a cry repeated by many men. “Our parents haven’t heard from us for a long time, I’m sure they think we are dead.”

Their catch mixes in with other fish at numerous sites in Thailand, including processing plants. US Customs records show that several of those Thai factories ship to America. They also ship to Europe and Asia, but the AP traced shipments to the US, where trade records are public.

The major corporations identified by AP declined interviews but issued statements that strongly condemned labor abuses; many described their work with human rights groups to hold subcontractors accountable.

National Fisheries Institute spokesman Gavin Gibbons, speaking on behalf of 300 US seafood firms that make up 75 percent of the industry, said his members are troubled by the findings.

“It’s not only disturbing, it’s disheartening because our companies have zero tolerance for labor abuses,” he said. “These type of things flourish in the shadows.”

The slaves interviewed by the AP described 20- to 22-hour shifts and unclean drinking water. Almost all said they were kicked, beaten or whipped with toxic stingray tails if they complained or tried to rest. They were paid little or nothing.

Runaway Hlaing Min said many died at sea.

“If Americans and Europeans are eating this fish, they should remember us. There must be a mountain of bones under the sea,” he said. “The bones of the people could be an island, it’s that many.”

The small harbor in the village is occupied by Pusaka Benjina Resources, whose five-story office compound includes the cage with the slaves. The company is the only fishing operation on Benjina officially registered in Indonesia, and is listed as the owner of more than 90 trawlers. However, the captains are Thai, and the Indonesian government is reviewing to see if the boats are really Thai-owned. Pusaka Benjina did not respond to phone calls and a letter, and did not speak to a reporter who waited for two hours in the company’s Jakarta office.

At the Benjina port, the AP interviewed slaves from a dozen fishing vessels offloading their catch into a large refrigerated cargo ship, the Silver Sea Line.

The ship belonged to the Silver Sea Reefer Co., which is registered in Thailand and has at least nine refrigerated cargo boats. The company said it is not involved with the fishermen.

“We only carry the shipment and we are hired in general by clients,” said company owner Panya Luangsomboon. “We’re separated from the fishing boats.”

The AP followed that ship, using satellite tracking over 15 days to Samut Sakhon, Thailand, and journalists watched as workers packed the seafood over four nights onto more than 150 trucks, following deliveries to factories around the city.

Inside those plants, representatives told AP journalists that they sold seafood to other Thai processors and distributors. US Customs bills of lading identify specific shipments from those plants to American firms, including well-known brand names.

For example, one truck bore the name and bird logo of Kingfisher Holdings Ltd., which supplies frozen and canned seafood around the world. Another truck went to Mahachai Marine Foods Co., a cold storage business that also supplies Kingfisher, according to Kawin Ngernanek, whose family runs it.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” said Kawin, who also serves as spokesman for the Thai Overseas Fisheries Association. “Kingfisher buys several types of products.”

When later asked about abusive labor practices, Kawin was not available. Instead, Mahachai Marine Foods manager Narongdet Prasertsri responded: “I have no idea about it at all.” Kingfisher did not answer repeated requests for comment.

Every month, Kingfisher and its subsidiary KF Foods Ltd. send about 100 metric tons of seafood from Thailand to America, according to US Customs records. These shipments have gone to Stavis Seafoods, a Boston-based Sysco supplier, and other distributors.

“The truth is, these are the kind of things that keep you up at night,” said CEO Richard Stavis, who grandfather started the company. He said his business visits international processors, requires notarized certification of legal practices and uses third-party audits.

“There are companies like ours that care and are working as hard as they can,” he said.

A similar pattern repeats itself with other companies and shipments.

The AP followed another truck to Niwat Co., where part owner Prasert Luangsomboon said the company sells to Thai Union Manufacturing. Weeks later, when confronted about forced labor in their supply chain, Niwat referred several requests for comment to Luangsomboon, who could not be reached for further comment.

Thai Union Manufacturing Co. is a subsidiary of Thai Union Frozen Products PCL, Thailand’s largest seafood corporation, with $3.5 billion in annual sales. This parent company, known simply as Thai Union, owns Chicken of the Sea and is buying Bumble Bee, although the AP did not observe any tuna fisheries.

Thai Union says its direct clients include Wal-Mart, and ships thousands of cans of cat food to the US every month, including household brands like Fancy Feast, Meow Mix and Iams. These end up on shelves of major grocery chains, such as Kroger, Safeway and Albertsons, as well as pet stores. Again, however, it’s impossible to tell if a particular can of cat food might have slave-caught seafood.

After the AP’s story was released Wednesday, the company issued a statement saying it had immediately terminated business ties with a supplier after determining it might be involved with forced labor and other abuses. It did not say which supplier.

“Thai Union embraces AP’s finding. It is utterly unacceptable,” it said. “This is to prove that Thai Union takes the issue of human rights violation extremely seriously.”

Indonesian Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti, who has been cracking down on illegal foreign vessels, including those from Thailand, vowed to take swift action.

She tweeted the AP’s report and distributed copies of it in a meeting to a wide range of high-ranking government officials, including police, a high court judge, a prosecutor, the navy and customs.

“I’m not going to tolerate such a thing to continue happening in our waters,” she said in an interview. She added that campaigns to save wildlife get far more attention than abuse involving humans at sea.
.
Illegal fishing is “killing people and nobody knows or cares about this for so long,” she said.

The enslaved fishermen on Benjina had no idea where the fish they caught was sold, only that it was too valuable for them to eat. Their desperation was palpable.

A crude cemetery holds more than 60 graves strangled by tall grasses and jungle vines. The small wooden markers are neatly labeled, some with the falsified names of slaves and boats. Only their friends remember where they were laid to rest.

In the past, former slave Hla Phyo said, supervisors on ships simply tossed bodies into the sea to be devoured by sharks. But after authorities and companies started demanding that every man on the roster be accounted for upon return, captains began stowing corpses alongside the fish in ship freezers until they arrived back in Benjina.

“I’m starting to feel like I will be in Indonesia forever,” said Phyo, wiping a tear away. “I remember thinking when I was digging, the only thing that awaits us here is death.”"

Top image of slaves in cage by ap.

Second image caption: "A security guard talks to detainees. The slaves said they were kicked, beaten or whipped with toxic stingray tails if they complained or tried to rest, and that many died at sea." ap photo  

======================

2014 Time report on child fishermen slaves:

3/5/2014, "Child Slaves May Have Caught the Fish in Your Freezer," Time, Charlie Campbell

"Thailand is the third largest seafood exporter in the world, but much of the tuna, sardines, shrimp and squid it exports has been caught by victims of human trafficking.

After two years toiling without pay on a Thai fishing boat, Sai Ko Ko fell ill. “[The captain] verbally abused me but I was so sick I couldn’t work,” recalls the 21-year-old. “He knocked me down, dragged me and threw me into the sea.”

Luckily, Sai Ko Ko was rescued by another vessel and ended up in an Indonesian immigration center. 

But countless other illegal Burmese migrants like him fair much worse. Many are mere children forced to endure slave-like conditions. And, shockingly, the fruits of their anguish continue to be unwittingly enjoyed by families across the U.S., Europe and elsewhere.

Thailand is the third largest seafood exporter in the world. The sector was worth some $7.3 billion dollars in 2011, and around a fifth of the catch ends up on American dinner tables — particularly tuna, sardines, shrimp and squid. But the industry heavily relies on trafficked and forced labor on unlicensed vessels. Victims typically hail from Cambodia, Laos and, most commonly, Burma. Beatings and starvation are commonplace.

On Tuesday, the London-based Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) released a report detailing Sai Ko Ko’s plight and that of tens of thousands like him. Slavery at Sea calls on the Thai government, international community and consumers to demand “net to plate” traceability on all seafood products.

“Migrant workers in the Thai fishing industry, many of them trafficked illegally, are suffering terrible abuses and all too often are denied their basic human rights,” said EJF executive director Steve Trent, blaming endemic corruption, poor enforcement, inadequate victim support, unacceptable working conditions and deficient migration policy.

Much has been made of recent reforms in Burma, officially known as Myanmar, as the former pariah state transforms into a quasi-democracy following a half-century of brutal junta rule. But for many on the ground, especially myriad ethnic minorities, precious little has changed. Most of the 55-million population subsists on less than a dollar a day, and three quarters don’t have electricity. Promises of well-paid jobs in neighboring nations continue to entice.

Around three million Burmese migrants currently live in Thailand. (When in May 2012 Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi made her first trip abroad for 24 years, she tellingly visited compatriots in Mahachai, a commercial fishing hub 20 miles south of Bangkok known as “Little Burma.”) Many would-be migrants, not possessing valid documentation, pay brokers several hundred dollars to arrange their passage over the border, with the promise of well-paying jobs upon arrival.

In reality, vulnerable individuals are sold to fishing boat captains for a huge profit, and must then work off several thousand dollars of “debt.” Thai immigration and law enforcement officials are often complicit in these deals. Prosecution of perpetrators is rare. Many migrants get sold from boat to boat and don’t see land for years, sleeping in the open and forced to take bizarre amphetamine cocktails to stay awake for days on end. Due to dangerous conditions and tortuously long hours, work-related injuries are commonplace, and many throw themselves overboard to their deaths as their only means of escape.

Even for young slaves who are rescued, there is no end to the nightmare. Aye Ko Ko, 17, was among 14 people rescued from a fishing boat last March only to spend the next year at a detention center. “No one helps us,” he told EJF in January. “No organizations come to see us, like they did before. Some people are tired of it all and just want to go home.”...

The Thai government says it is working on the issue. Thai Labor Ministry Deputy Permanent Secretary Boontharik Samiti told Associated Press that “all agencies have collectively come together in an effort to prevent this problem in a sustainable and long-term fashion.” But lack of progress in human trafficking has been noticed by the U.S State Department, which produces the annual Trafficking in Persons Report, and this year will likely move Thailand to the worst of four categories. Restrictions on fish imports could follow as a consequence.

Andy Hall, a migrant labor expert based in Thailand and Burma, tells TIME that consumers hold the key. “People are still buying the fish from Thailand so there’s no really an incentive to get serious about this issue,” he says, adding that the enforcement resources available to the Thai authorities are “miniscule
compared to the size of the problem.”

Hall highlights how pressure by Finnish retailers has led to a boycott in Thai pineapple products after similar abuses were highlighted. “We don’t see that kind of pressure in other parts of Europe, and especially not in the U.S,” he says. “Your average consumer in the West doesn’t have so much interest in where their products are coming from.” Human traffickers count on that apathy."


.

Famous 97% human caused global warming consensus claim doesn't stand up: Survey was padded with irrelevant papers, article about tv coverage on global warming was taken as evidence for it, about 3 quarters of papers claimed as endorsements had nothing to say about the subject matter-Richard Tol, The Australian

3/26/15, "Global warming consensus claim doesn’t stand up," The Australian, Richard Tol, opinion
. 
"Now almost two years old, John Cook’s 97 per cent consensus paper on anthropogenic global warming has been a runaway success. Downloaded more than 300,000 times, voted the best 2013 paper in Environmental Research Letters, frequently cited by peers and politicians from around the world, the paper seems to be the definitive proof that the science of climate change is settled. It isn’t. 
.
Consensus has no place in science. Academics agree on lots of things, but that does not make them true. Even so, agreement climate change is real and human-caused does not tell us anything about how the risks of climate change weigh against the risks of climate policy. But in our age of pseudo-Enlightenment, having 97 per cent of researchers on your side is powerful rhetoric for marginalising political opponents. All politics ends in failure, however. Chances are the opposition will gain power well before the climate problem is solved. Polarisation works in the short run, but is counterproductive in the long run.
.. 
Cook and colleagues argue 97 per cent of the relevant academic literature endorses that humans have contributed to observed climate change. This is unremarkable. It follows immediately from the 19th century research by ­Fourier, Tyndall and Arrhenius. In popular discourse, however, Cook’s finding is often misrepresented. The 97 per cent refers to the number of papers, rather than the number of scientists. The alleged consensus is about any human role in climate change, rather than a dominant role, and it is about ­climate change rather than the dangers it might pose.
.. 
Although there are large areas of substantive agreement, climate science is far from settled. Witness the dozens of alternative explanations of the 18-year pause in warming of the surface atmosphere. 
.. 
The debate on the seriousness of ­climate change or what to do about it ranges even more widely.
.. 
The Cook paper is remarkable for its quality, though. Cook and colleagues studied 12,000 papers, but did not check whether their sample is representative for the scientific literature. It isn’t. Their conclusions are about the papers they happened to look at, rather than about the literature. Attempts to replicate their sample failed: a number of papers that should have been analysed were not, for no apparent reason.
.. 
The sample was padded with irrelevant papers. An article about tv coverage on global warming was taken as evidence for global warming. In fact, about three-quarters of the papers counted as endorsements had nothing to say about the subject matter.
.. 
Cook enlisted a small group of environmental activists to rate the claims made by the selected papers. Cook claims the ratings were done independently, but the raters freely discussed their work. There are systematic differences between the raters. Reading the same abstracts, the raters reached remarkably different conclusions — and some raters all too often erred in the same direction.
.. 
Cook’s hand-picked raters disagreed on what a paper was about 33 per cent of the time. In 63 per cent of cases, they disagreed about the message of a paper with the authors of that paper. The paper’s reviewers did not pick up on these things. The editor even praised the authors for the “excellent data quality” even though neither he nor the referees had had the opportunity to check the data. Then again, that same editor thinks ­climate change is like the rise of Nazi Germany. Two years after publication, Cook admitted that data quality is indeed low.
.. 
Requests for the data were met with evasion and foot-dragging, a clear breach of the publisher’s policy on validation and reproduction, yet defended by an editorial board member of the journal as “exemplary scientific conduct”. Cook hoped to hold back some data, but his internet security is on par with his statistical skills, and an alleged hacker was not intimidated by the University of Queensland’s legal threats. Cook’s employer argued that releasing rater identities would violate a confidentiality agreement. That agreement does not exist.
.. 
Cook first argued that releasing time stamps would serve no scientific purpose. This is odd. Cook’s raters essentially filled out a giant questionnaire. Survey researchers routinely collect time stamps, and so did Cook. Interviewees sometimes tire and rush through the last questions. Time stamps reveal that. Cook argued time stamps were never collected. They were. They show one of Cook’s raters inspected 675 abstracts within 72 hours, a superhuman ­effort.
.. 
The time stamps also reveal something far more serious. After collecting data for eight weeks, there were four weeks of data analysis, followed by three more weeks of data collection. The same people collected and analysed the data. After more analysis, the paper classification scheme was changed and yet more data ­collected.
.. 
Cook thus broke a key rule of scientific data collection: observations should never follow from the conclusions. Medical tests are double-blind for good reason.
.. 
You cannot change how to ­collect data, and how much, after having seen the results.
.. 
Cook’s team may, perhaps unwittingly, have worked towards a given conclusion. And indeed, the observations are different, significantly and materially, between the three phases of data collection. 
.. 
The entire study should therefore be dismissed.
.. 
This would have been an amusing how-not-to tale for our students. 
.. 
But Cook’s is one of the most influential papers of recent years.
.. 
The paper was vigorously defended by the University of Queensland (Cook’s employer) and the editors of Environmental Research Letters, with the Institute of Physics (the publisher) looking on in silence. Incompetence was compounded by cover-up and complacency.
.. 
Climate change is one of the defining issues of our times. We have one uncontrolled, poorly observed experiment. We cannot observe the future. Climate change and policy are too complex for a single person to understand. Climate policy is about choosing one future over another. That choice can only be informed by the judgment of experts — and we must have confidence in their learning and trust their intentions.
.. 
Climate research lost its aura of impartiality with the unauthorised release of the email archives of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. Its reputation of competence was shredded by the climate community’s celebration of the flawed works of Michael Mann. Innocence went with the allegations of sexual harassment by Rajendra Pachauri and Peter Gleick’s fake memo. 
. 
Cook’s paper shows the climate community still has a long way to go in weeding out bad research and bad behaviour. If you want to believe climate researchers are incompetent, biased and secretive, Cook’s paper is an excellent case in point." .  
.
"Richard Tol teaches economics at the University of Sussex and the Vrije University Amsterdam." 
.. 
Richard Tol is also a former UN IPCC author. ed.
.
===================
..
3/25/15, "The Institute of Physics is corrupt," Bishop Hill .

"Richard Tol has posted up a review of the strange affair of the "97% consensus", as the second anniversary of Cook's infamous paper draws near. An edited version has apparently been published in the Australian..

"The sample was padded with irrelevant papers. An article about TV coverage on global warming was taken as evidence for global warming. In fact, about three-quarters of the papers counted as endorsements had nothing to say about the subject matter. 

 

Requests for the data were met with evasion and foot-dragging, a clear breach of the publisher’s policy on validation and reproduction, yet defended by an editorial board member of the journal as “exemplary scientific conduct”." 

 

It really has to be read, and as an indictment of the corruption of climate science it's hard to beat. That the Institute of Physics and the University of Queensland would stand behind such a blatant piece of politicking and deceit is almost beyond belief.

As far as they are concerned when it comes to climate science there is no study too fraudulent, no conduct too reprehensible, no deception too blatant."

.
============================= 

.
JoNova comments at Richard Tol blog about his Australian piece at top:

"Richard S J Tol25 March 2015 at 10:12

Comment by Jo Nova:
 

Richard, thank you for the hours you've spent trying to analyze this pointless but revealing "work".

Cook is beyond saving, but those who promote him deserve to bask in his science. Daniel Kammen needs to justify his decisions. Cooks standards are his standards now.

It seems to me that UQ and ERL and the Institute of Physics should wear Cook's glory in full.

The bizarre thing is that they don't need Cooks paper to promote "the consensus". It's not like it provides some key evidence for the climate debate, even on a sociological level."

2014 Hamas attacks on Israel were war crimes per Amnesty International, Hamas killed civilians in both Israel and Gaza, deadliest event killing 11 Gaza children was caused by Hamas rocket. All Hamas rockets were unguided-Amnesty Int.

3/26/15, "Palestinian armed groups killed civilians on both sides in attacks amounting to war crimes in Gaza conflict," Amnesty International, press release
.
"Palestinian armed groups displayed a flagrant disregard for the lives of civilians by repeatedly launching indiscriminate rockets and mortars towards civilian areas in Israel during the conflict in July and August 2014, said Amnesty International in a new report published today.
.
Unlawful and deadly: Rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian armed groups during the 2014 Gaza/Israel conflict provides evidence that several attacks launched from inside the Gaza Strip amount to war crimes. Six civilians in Israel, including a four-year-old boy, were killed in such attacks during the 50-day conflict. In the deadliest incident believed to have been caused by a Palestinian attack, 11 children were among 13 Palestinian civilians killed when a projectile fired from within the Gaza Strip landed in the al-Shati refugee camp.
..
“Palestinian armed groups, including the armed wing of Hamas, repeatedly launched unlawful attacks during the conflict killing and injuring civilians. In launching these attacks, they displayed a flagrant disregard for international humanitarian law and for the consequences of their violations on civilians in both Israel and the Gaza Strip,” said Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.
.
All the rockets used by Palestinian armed groups are unguided projectiles which cannot be accurately aimed at specific targets and are inherently indiscriminate; using such weapons is prohibited under international law and their use constitutes a war crime. Mortars are also imprecise munitions and should never be used to attack military targets located in or near civilian areas.
.
“Palestinian armed groups must end all direct attacks on civilians and indiscriminate attacks. They must also take all feasible precautions to protect civilians in the Gaza Strip from the effects of such attacks. This includes taking all possible measures to avoid locating fighters and arms within or near densely populated areas,” said Philip Luther.
.
At least 1,585 Palestinian civilians, including more than 530 children, were killed in Gaza, and at least 16,245 homes were destroyed or rendered uninhabitable by Israeli attacks during the conflict, some of which also amounted to war crimes.
.
“The devastating impact of Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians during the conflict is undeniable, but violations by one side in a conflict can never justify violations by their opponents,” said Philip Luther.
.
“The fact that Palestinian armed groups appear to have carried out war crimes by firing indiscriminate rockets and mortars does not absolve the Israeli forces from their obligations under international humanitarian law. The war wrought an unprecedented level of death, destruction and injury on the 1.8 million people in the Gaza Strip, and some of the Israeli attacks must be investigated as war crimes.
.. 
“The Israeli and Palestinian authorities must both co-operate with the probes of the UN Commission of Inquiry and the International Criminal Court to end decades of impunity that have perpetuated a cycle of violations in which civilians on both sides have paid a heavy price.”
.
According to UN data, more than 4,800 rockets and 1,700 mortars were fired from Gaza towards Israel during the conflict. Out of the thousands of rockets and mortars fired, around 224 are estimated to have struck Israeli residential areas, as Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system intercepted many others.
.
The death of Daniel Tregerman, a four-year-old boy, on 22 August 2014 clearly illustrates the tragic consequences of using imprecise weapons such as mortars on civilian areas. His family had fled their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz because of the fighting but returned the day before he was killed.
..
Moments after the alarm sirens went off, a mortar launched from Gaza struck the family car parked outside the house. Daniel’s little sister who was also present watched him die before her eyes.
.
“My husband and son were in the living room and I was yelling for them to come into the shelter. Shrapnel [from the mortar] entered Daniel’s head, killing him immediately,” his mother, Gila Tregerman, told Amnesty International.
.
Hamas’ military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack.
.
The briefing also highlights the Israeli authorities’ failure to adequately protect civilians in vulnerable communities during the conflict, particularly Bedouin villages in Israel’s Negev/Naqab region, many of which are not officially recognized by the Israeli government. Ouda Jumi’an al-Waj was killed by a rocket that struck the Bedouin village of Qasr al-Sir near the Israeli city of Dimona on 19 July.
.
Most Bedouin villages are classified as non-residential “open areas” by the Israeli authorities, so the Iron Dome system to intercept rockets does not operate there and there are no bomb shelters. More than 100,000 people live in Bedouin villages in southern Israel.
.
“Civilians living in Bedouin villages during the conflict were left vulnerable and exposed, one manifestation of the discrimination they face on a daily basis. The Israeli authorities must ensure everyone is given equal protection,” said Philip Luther.
.
Other civilians killed by attacks launched in Gaza included an agricultural worker from Thailand, Narakorn Kittiyangkul, who was killed when a mortar struck the tomato farm in southern Israel where he was working. Ze’ev Etzion and Shahar Melamed were killed in a mortar attack on Kibbutz Nirim on 26 August.
.
In the deadliest incident believed to have been caused by a Palestinian armed group during the conflict, 13 Palestinian civilians – 11 of them children – were killed when a projectile exploded next to a supermarket in the crowded al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza on 28 July 2014, the first day of Eid al-Fitr.
.
The children had been playing in the street and buying crisps and soft drinks in the supermarket at the time of the attack.
.
Although Palestinians have claimed that the Israeli military was responsible for the attack, an independent munitions expert who examined the available evidence on behalf of Amnesty International concluded that the projectile used in the attack was a Palestinian rocket.
.
“Evidence suggesting that a rocket launched by a Palestinian armed group may have caused 13 civilian deaths inside Gaza just underscores how indiscriminate these weapons can be and the dreadful consequences of using them,” said Philip Luther.
.
Mahmoud Abu Shaqfa and his five-year-old son Khaled were seriously wounded in the attack. His eight-year-old son Muhammad was killed. “The rocket fell near the car…The whole car was pierced by shrapnel. A piece of shrapnel pierced me… My son [Khaled] came to me. He was screaming ‘Daddy get up, get up…’ My entire leg was torn open and my arm had been wrenched to my back.”
.
There are no bomb shelters or warning systems in place to protect civilians in Gaza.
.
The report also details other violations of international humanitarian law by Palestinian armed groups during the conflict, such as storing rockets and other munitions in civilian buildings, including UN schools, and cases where Palestinian armed groups launched attacks or stored munitions very near locations where hundreds of displaced civilians were taking shelter.
..
“The international community must help prevent further violations by tackling entrenched impunity and by ending transfers to Palestinian armed groups and Israel of all arms and military equipment that could be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law,” said Philip Luther. Amnesty International is calling on all states to support the UN Commission of Inquiry and the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over crimes committed by all parties to the conflict."
.
======================
.
3/26/15, "Amnesty: Hamas rocket attacks amounted to war crimes," BBC

"Rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian militant groups during last summer's conflict in Gaza amounted to war crimes, Amnesty International says.

Militants displayed a "flagrant disregard" for the lives of civilians during the 50-day war, a report found....

According to UN data, more than 4,800 rockets and 1,700 mortars were fired from Gaza towards Israel between 8 July and 26 August. Around 224 projectiles are believed to have struck Israeli residential areas.
.
Amnesty said that all the rockets used by Hamas and other militant groups, some of which have ranges of up to 160km (100 miles), were unguided projectiles which could not be accurately directed at specific targets and were "inherently indiscriminate".

The majority of Israel's 8.3 million people live within reach of the long-range rockets....

Mortars are also imprecise munitions which Amnesty said should never be used to attack military targets located in or near civilian areas....

The group said an independent munitions expert had concluded that a Palestinian rocket had exploded next to a supermarket in the al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City on 28 July, killing 13 civilians, 11 of them children aged between seven and 14."...





 
.

Due to Great Lakes ice conditions opening of St. Lawrence Seaway connecting Atlantic Ocean to Great Lakes delayed til April 2 though Great Lakes may still not be navigable-NY Times

3/24/15, "Deep Freeze on Great Lakes Halts Cargo Shipments," NY Times, Ian Austen and Mary M. Chapman, Thunder Bay, Ontario

"The trip to pick up a load of iron ore powder in Conneaut, Ohio, was supposed to take four days by way of the Great Lakes. But within sight of its destination, the cargo ship, the Arthur M. Anderson, got trapped in ice. Two heavy icebreakers from the Canadian Coast Guard eventually broke the vessel free.

It was a 24-day ordeal, and the ship returned to its home port in Wisconsin without picking up the cargo.

A deep freeze this winter left much of the Great Lakes blanketed in thick ice, sidelining the ship lines and companies that move vast amounts of grain, cement and other commodities through this system of waterways. And now the spring thaw, which creates piles of impassable ice, will most likely create more delays.

“There’s a lot of ice out there, and we need to understand the impact of that ice,” said Mark Barker, the president of the Interlake Steamship Company, which carries mostly iron ore, coal and limestone on its nine ships. “Last year, we pretty much lost the month of April.”

Cold spells and snowstorms have taken a bite out of businesses across the Northeast and Midwest of the United States, as well as in Canada. Car manufacturers have blamed the weather for weak sales. Housing starts, too, have slumped. And blizzards in places like Boston have been brutal for many local businesses.

Michael Dolega, who analyzes the United States economy at the Toronto-Dominion Bank, says he expects that the weather will cut first-quarter growth by as much as three-quarters of a percentage point. And not all of that loss will be made up later in the year, he said. “I don’t think it’s a welcome development,” said Mr. Dolega, who is based in Toronto.

The Great Lakes shipping trade largely hibernates during the late winter months, with occasional sailings for supplies like road salt. The Arthur M. Anderson was making its last run of the season in early February when it became stuck.

Shipping is usually up and running again by March. But the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the critical system of locks that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, has been postponed until April 2. Even when the locks open, there is no assurance that all of the lakes, particularly choke points prone to ice buildup, will be navigable

.

Last year’s ice-induced delays reduced early shipments from the United States by seven million tons, according to the Lake Carriers’ Association, which represents American shipowners. That amounts to about 10 percent of all American shipments on the lakes.

The Great Lakes are a vital conduit for companies in a wide range of industries. Grain from farms in Western Canada makes its way to markets around the world. Iron ore travels to steel mills along the shorelines. Power plants depend on the coal that travels via the lakes. Companies in steelmaking, electrical generation, construction and agriculture — like Cargill, United States Steel and Lafarge — all need the waterways.

For companies now facing dwindling stockpiles, there are few alternatives to ships for restocking. Shipping by rail is more costly, even if the tracks were not already overloaded. And hauling large quantities of, say, iron ore by truck is neither practical nor cost-effective. Replacing a single Great Lakes ore-carrying ship requires about 2,400 tractor-trailer trucks.

During a normal winter, some ships can continue to make relatively short treks without much trouble, particularly when ice cover is light. But the last two winters have been particularly harsh.

In 2014, ice cover peaked at 92.5 percent, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich. Ice persisted in some places until June. This year, ice cover was 89.1 percent.

“Two especially severe winters back to back — we haven’t seen that in a long time,” said George A. Leshkevich, who tracks the ice for the research laboratory. “All the lakes seem pretty brutal.”

It has created nightmarish troubles for vessels that must continue to attempt runs through the worst of winter.

Truck and train cargo that is too dangerous or too large for the bridge and tunnels spanning the international border between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, must instead travel the Detroit River. But dense ice stopped the Detroit-Windsor Truck Ferry for 31 days this year, 25 of them consecutively. At one point the ferry’s tug was stuck in Windsor with its barge separately frozen to a dock in Detroit.

Ed Bernard, vice president of the Toronto-based Precision Specialized Division, a heavy haul company, said he waited more than two weeks to ferry across the river sections of large chimneys destined for Ohio.

Gregg Ward, the co-owner of the ferry, said, “Our expenses continue, so it’s a tragedy for us. By the time this is over, we’ve lost 20 percent of the year.”

As the thaw gets underway, the shipping situation can actually worsen if wind causes ice to pile up in stacks. “I’ve been on a 235-foot Coast Guard ship going full speed ahead, and when it hit one of those, the ship shuddered to a stop,” said Lt. Davey Connor of the Coast Guard district in Cleveland, which is responsible for the Great Lakes.

Many companies are now playing the waiting game.

A United States Coast Guard icebreaker made initial attempts at breaking up ice last week in the port here. Eight imposing grain elevators, which collectively have the largest storage capacity in North America, make the Thunder Bay port an important hub for Canadian exports heading to the Atlantic Ocean.

Once again this year, the season’s first ships will not get loaded in March as they normally are. As the Canadian Wheat Board’s elevator nears capacity, Paul Kennedy, its manager, says that he may soon be forced to stop daily unloadings of 90 or so rail cars, which have come from the western part of the country.

“They’re starting to hunt and peck a little bit for space,” Mr. Kennedy said of his employees in the concrete elevator. “You don’t want to get to the point where you can’t unload any more cars and you’ve got loaded cars sitting on track.”

Railroads impose a $100-a-day charge for every loaded but idle car stuck on their tracks. Last year, when shipping didn’t start in Thunder Bay until April 26, Mr. Kennedy estimates that about 2,000 rail cars destined for the eight grain elevators along the city’s shoreline were backed up in rail yards.

The delays are just as painful for the companies that depend on the various commodities.

Robert Lewis-Manning, the president of the Canadian Shipowners Association, said that last year, two large steel makers “were getting awfully close to having to lay off people” because their stockpiles of iron ore, coal and coke almost ran out in the spring. He declined to identify the companies.

As his fleet of 22 ships gears up to resume service, Allister Paterson, the president of Canada Steamship Lines, said he expected that the most anxious customers would be suppliers and users of road salt along the lakes and the east coast of North America. With their stocks all but wiped out, such players will need to immediately start the long process of rebuilding.

“They were still recovering from last year, trying to get inventories up,” he said. “And now we have another brutal winter, so I suspect they will be in a restocking mode for quite a while.”" via IceAgeNow.info