In a legal brief on Wednesday the University of Virginia urged a county court to set aside the latest filing by the state’s attorney general, who has demanded that the university hand over a trove of documents that he claims will show that a leading climate scientist committed fraud while he was on the UVa faculty. The attorney general, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, a Republican, reissued his demands this month, shortly after the court tossed out his original request. In its new filing, the university says that Mr. Cuccinelli, in his zeal to undertake “an unprecedented and improper governmental intrusion into ongoing scientific research” and to take aim at a scientist whose climate-change research he disagrees with, merely repeated the same arguments that the court dismissed in August and offered no new justifications for his investigation.
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9 Responses to U. of Virginia Asks Court to Dismiss Cuccinelli’s Latest Climate-Research Demand
gasten - October 22, 2010 at 8:30 am
If this incomplete and on-going research is off limits in terms of accountability – I trust it is also not currently being used to promote the AGW hoax. If this “science” is part of the hoax, while being supported by tax dollars, there certainly should be accountability or we should turn off any tax-supported funding.
rrowlett - October 22, 2010 at 8:40 am
Science is always accountable: to the observable data and to the scientific community at large. Hypotheses to account for the data are developed, tested, reviewed honed by knowledgeable experts, and ultimately achieve larger consensus. Scientific accountability is *not* defined as agreement with one’s uninformed biases, beliefs, or opinions. Unfortunately, Mr. Cuccinelli doesn’t understand that latter point. But he is not alone. A significant fraction of politicians of all persuasions fit into that boat.
gasten - October 22, 2010 at 8:57 am
What should we conclude if, in order to promote the AGW “science”, there was a coordinated effort to suppress peer review that didn’t agree with the AGW garbage? It would appear to me that these folks did not believe their research would withstand scrutiny. Is that being accountable?
bnmoore - October 22, 2010 at 9:30 am
Enough wasting of taxpayer money by university researchers who know, in their hearts they know, that the research they are being funded to do is bogus or at best marginal in what it would prove. The peer value of “look at me, I’ve got a plum grant…nah, nah, nah” has become too much a part of the state university systems especially. The Virginia AG is convinced that this stuff needs to be restrained, and this professor and his research is a good example to make. Let the VA AG run it to ground, I say.
softshellcrab - October 22, 2010 at 9:58 am
There is already a very solid evidence trail not only to support that the climate (i.e. global warming) research was faked, but that the faking was done deliberately to obtain research funds which only were being given to research that supported, rather than refuted, global warming. The attorney general is doing his duty in seeking additional evidence to prosecute this matter.
pallen661 - October 22, 2010 at 11:16 am
Better question is why isn’t this AG going after organized crime, robbers, murderers and thieves. He’s wasting Virginias taxpayers money going after Mann, whose work has been validated as meeting the standards of his field, through publication, peer review and then even secondary post publication review inspired by the climategate witch hunt.
gasten - October 22, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Dissent and opposing viewpoints were stifled through a variety of means. In addition the supposed supporting data of the global warming enthusiasts often was not shared. There was not the opportunity to conduct peer reviews on much of the research if it can’t be accessed.
In my opinion it’s a fairly obvious scam. I am shocked that so many have been fooled. Most likely it’s due to the large amounts of grant money that “bought” opinion.
As a taxpayer I gladly support an AG going after corruption of all kinds — white collars (or white labcoats) too.
bnmoore - October 22, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Pallen661: An attorney general, and his department, can/should do more than one thing at a time. This particular AG is aggressive on several fronts including organzided crime, gangs, drugs, illegals, white collar crime, misappropriation of taxpayer funds, etc. It’s just that the media pick and choose which of these things get air time, and which don’t. Cuccinelli seems to be able to juggle more than one ball at a time in the air.
archman - October 25, 2010 at 3:04 pm
It seems that the anti-science, anti-intellectual spam movement has pervaded the comments section for this article. Too bad. Please get your information regarding climate change (and this particular court case) from somewhere other than cable news and 3rd party blogs. Postings like most of these only cry out to me that I need to be doing a better job educating my students about the scientific method, and how information gathered this way is analyzed, reported, and corroborated.