“Gaygate 2023 and Climategate 2009 reinforce each other. So when will basic honesty and academic standards return to academia? To climate science?”
It’s a whitewash–again. The plagiarism (and data falsification?) of Harvard president Claudine Gay brings to mind the similar exposé of the Climategate emails, whose words, sentences, and paragraphs had to be swept under the rug back in 2009/2010 by an embarrassed establishment protecting its own. [1]
Wiki’s whitewash, for example, brought attention to the source (“denialists”) and then misrepresented the importance of the exposé.
The story was first broken by climate-change denialists, who argued that the emails showed that global warming was a scientific conspiracy and that scientists manipulated climate data and attempted to suppress critics. The CRU [Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia] rejected this, saying that the emails had been taken out of context.
No, the “conspiracy” was violating scientific standards and scheming to take dissenting voices out of the debate in the name of “the cause.” It was about exaggeration and appearances in the name of an agenda. The quotations simply need to be read, not parsed with any agenda in mind. Here are three examples:
“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow, even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” — Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit, disclosed Climategate e-mail, July 8, 2004.
We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try to find something wrong with it.” —Dr. Phil Jones, Director of the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University, email to Warwick Hughes, 2004.
“Mike [Mann], can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith [Trenberth] re AR4? Keith will do likewise…. Can you also e-mail Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his e-mail address…. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.” — Dr. Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit, disclosed Climategate e-mail, May 29, 2008.
Harvard’s Whitewash
Fast-forward to Harvard’s whitewash where the prohibited act is forgiven because of the source of reporting. “‘It’s part of this extreme right-wing attack on elite institutions,’ stated Charles Fried, a Harvard law professor” (quoted in Jennifer Schuessler, the New York Times, December 20, 2023). He continued:
The obvious point is to make it look as if there is this ‘woke’ double standard at elite institutions. If it came from some other quarter, I might be granting it some credence. But not from these people.”
Really? And from a law professor? What a revealing commentary on “elite institutions”–and a slap to honest scholarship from diverse voices.
Conclusion
Climategate apologist Andrew Dessler stated: ““There is no doubt that these emails are embarrassing and a public-relations disaster for science.” Claudine Gay supporters will similarly say: “There is no doubt that her mistakes are embarrassing and a public-relations disaster for Harvard.” But go further in each case to the root problem of the rot: climate exaggeration and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), respectively.
Gaygate 2023 and Climategate 2009 reinforce each other. So when will basic honesty and academic standards return to academia? To climate science?
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[1] Gaygate will include not only plagiarism, it appears, but data withholding and even data falsification.