Edward Wegman - Energy and Commerce Hearing & Plagiarism Allegations

Energy and Commerce Hearing & Plagiarism Allegations

For more details on this topic, see Hockey stick controversy.

In 2006 Joe Barton chose Wegman to assist the United States House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee in its inquiry into the "Hockey stick graph." The report was critical of the graph, and Wegman offered testimony criticising the mathematics used.

In October 2010, George Mason University (GMU) announced they were conducting a formal investigation into charges of plagiarism and misconduct related to the Wegman Report. In November 2010, USA Today reported that the "review of the 91-page report, by three experts... found repeated instances of passages lifted word for word and what appear to be thinly disguised paraphrases" of wording taken from the book, Paleoclimatology: Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary, by Raymond Bradley, Director of the Climate System Research Center of the University of Massachusetts, as well as erroneous citations of data.

Wegman criticized the "speculation and conspiracy theory" in the original allegations, and said that "these attacks are unprecedented" in his long career. A Nature editorial in May 2011 called the delays in GMU's inquiry "disheartening," as "long misconduct investigations do not serve anyone, except perhaps university public-relations departments that might hope everyone will have forgotten about a case by the time it wraps up," and urged resolution "as speedily as possible while allowing time for due process."

In May 2011 the journal Computational Statistics and Data Analysis retracted a 2008 social network analysis by Yasmin Said, Edward Wegman and coauthors (based on part of the Wegman Report) because the paper used portions of other authors' writings without sufficient attribution. Wegman said that he would never knowingly publish plagiarized material. The lawyer for both authors said they stand by their work.

In October 2011, USA Today reported additional concerns that separate 2009 review article authored by Wegman and Said contained material copied without attribution from Wikipedia. Wegman, his attorney, and George Mason University declined to comment on the allegations.

George Mason University provost Peter Stearns announced on 22 February 2012 that charges of scientific misconduct had been investigated by two separate faculty committees: the one investigating the Wegman Report gave a unanimous finding that "no misconduct was involved" in the 2006 report to Congress. Stearns stated that "Extensive paraphrasing of another work did occur, in a background section, but the work was repeatedly referenced and the committee found that the paraphrasing did not constitute misconduct". The 2008 social network analysis paper was investigated by a separate committee which unanimously found "that plagiarism occurred in contextual sections of the (CSDA) article, as a result of poor judgment for which Professor Wegman, as team leader, must bear responsibility." Stearns announced that Wegman was to receive an "official letter of reprimand", and in response to telephoned questions said the university was going to send the investigation reports to federal authorities. A university spokesman said the reports would not be made public. Bradley said the university had failed to notify him of its decision, and described the split result as "an absurd decision" which would encourage GMU students to think it acceptable to copy work without attribution. Stearns said that "instead of allowing the university process to be completed", which had taken over two years, Bradley had openly discussed the plagiarism. The university was going to consider ways to make investigations more streamlined, and it was not investigating any other complaints about Wegman.