November 15, 2011 
I am gobsmacked — literally gobsmacked at the latest from McIntyre…
A long detailed post about the a scandal around one of Yale’s star academics and its failure to deal with the allegations of child molestation raised against him. McIntyre links this to the current Penn State scandal. Of course we’re all familiar with another Penn State academic and inquiry …
Say no more. A nod is as good as a wink to a blind man!
As usual, he’s chumming, throwing bait out in the water so that it’s bloody enough to attract the sharks and then standing back all innocent-like to deny he meant anything sinister.
But his sharks circle and can’t resist — they’re drawn by the scent of blood and here’s Richard Drake with the first real bite:
The way things come to prominence is a mystery. But eventually they do. The fact that abuse of minors can be tolerated or overlooked by ‘upstanding academic leaders’ is something that should not only attract national press attention but cause a lot of hard questions to be asked about how these institutions have reached such a pass.
That’s the link with the very different concerns we have with climate academia. Atrocious leadership in one area is unlikely to excel in the other.
And in the involvement of Neil Wallis in the phone hacking scandal still unfolding in the UK and in lending a hand to UEA’s dreadfully dishonest PR efforts post-Climategate we have another example where one part of the story is very prominent within the mass media and the other completely ignored.
Till now. Such artificial boundaries between openness and self-censorship cannot forever endure.
Never mind that no one has been charged with anything when it comes to climate science inquiries and all have been exonerated of any charges of academic misconduct. We won’t let that stand in the way of a convenient smear! Unwilling to accept the conclusions of the various inquiries, McIntyre and his followers continue to chum and churn, hoping to keep the appearance of wrong-doing alive, despite the official findings.
But it’s Geoff Sherrington who stirs up the waters the most and takes the biggest bite:
We are in strange territory here. Earlier I posted (while travelling and away from my library) that Lasaga was not a name tossed around at the time in the geochemical world that I infested. Given Steve’s longer header above, the reason is probably because geochemists fall into two main groups, those who aim to dicover valuable goods (exploration) and those who aim to publish (academic). This classification is a little rough on individuals in both groups and nothing personally insulting is meant to anyone.
No, no personal insult meant! Just one huge sweeping smear against those who do academic work! Pedophiles and perverts all!
See — chumming really works!
Wait — there’s more!
Because this is a blog about climate auditing, it comes to mind that there seems to be a personality type that inhabits the climate science world, just as in academic geochemistry. Maybe the strong point in common is the immersion of this psychological type in matters of science that are hard to impossible to prove. I know some eminent geochemists and geologists who would contest even the presence of water in silicate melts in Nature, let alone publish extensively among a close group that awards mutual medals. One wonders how much Science can be advanced with the apparatus and opportunities available in a prison cell. Is there such a place as a dreamland for scientists, a dreamland that forms into a clique with a cloak of respectability?
Those academic geochemists! One is a pervert and therefore one concludes that the field attracts perverts!
It is too difficult to generalise far down this path, [but note that he does anyway] so we won’t go into the unacceptable private conduct area. In the exploration geochemistry world, I have never encountered strange sexual or intellectual conduct, not even gossip about it, nothing I can recall about anyone going to the little room to break big rocks into small rocks.Climategate was something of a window, albiet an alien one, into the minds of several. For example, read the sign-off from Keith on Mon May 12 21:26:29 2003. This was probably a joke, but Climategate did give a strong impression a cult behaviour; and when there are cults, who knows how strange they can be.
Exploration geochemists are normal red-blooded men! Men of normal tastes! It’s those damn academic types, wot! Cults! Perversions! Pedophiles!
Steve, thank you for once more drawing attention to the strange personal properties that can be acquired by some scientists. The one that bothers me most is the departure from the generally accepted “scientific method” in the loose sense. It seems that it is often accompanied by departure from the norms of general social conduct, such as a reticence to conduct an honest inquiry, a dogged defence of inventive methodology that is plausibly flawed and so on to areas seldom discussed. [my emphasis]
Yes, be very afraid of those academic types who do not follow the rigors of science and its methods — down that path lies perversion!!!!
CHE has this to add:
A month or so ago, Judy Curry had a thread on a study of Jungian psychological profiles of climate scientists vs other physical scientists, and the results were quite striking. They are indeed, very, very different. It isn’t just your imagination.
You can read that Jungian drivel here.
Of course, the denizens of CHUM-O-RAMA deny they mean to link the Penn and Yale sex scandals to Mann and the various inquiries — O NOES! That would be very very bad! So when such a thing is suggested at Deep Climate, they’re all a-twitter about being so misunderstood!
In keeping with the sexual theme, Steve has a new post up in which he features a “deep throat” source into the Penn State Inquiries into Michael Mann – whom Steve calls PS. More porn-chum for his sharks.
Seriously gobsmacked here. This really must be preserved for posterity.
The Policy Lass 
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