Playing plagiarist games at WUWT

This is weird.

I just noticed that Anthony Watts elevated a comment by "Brad Keyes" (archived here), who I assumed was the same "Brad Keyes" who made a brief appearance here back when HotWhopper was very new, thread-bombing as he is inclined to do.  Anthony says he doesn't agree with Brad or think he's sincere, but he's making Brad's comment prominent in the interest of fairness - or something like that.

Thing is the writing style doesn't match up well with the "Brad Keyes" some of us have had to tolerate on various websites.  That "Brad Keyes" is a pedant.  This one isn't displaying that tendency to quite the same degree, though it's there if you look for it.  However there is a twitterer who does bear a remarkable resemblance to the other "Brad Keyes" who links to the same blog as the WUWT "Brad Keyes". So I figure they are one and the same.

Anyway it's not all that relevant to the point I want to make here.  The comment was elevated because Anthony chose this as a "Quote of the Week" (archived here) and everyone at WUWT piled on Brad Keyes calling him a plagiarist, accusing him of being a scientist etc etc.  (I think some mistook him for an actual climate scientist, which is hilarious if you've ever come across Brad Keyes.)  This was the quote that started it all:

Susan Crockford writes
…commenter Brad Keyes at The Conversation defends the use of the “Ursus bogus” image with this astonishing statement:

“The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians’—and readers’—attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today’s world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty.”

Here's the link to the comment made by Brad Keyes at The Conversation - you may have to click "read more".

In Brad Keyes' response at WUWT he wrote:

To those who have described my comment as “plagiarism” (a mastertrope of dog-whistling, ad hominem and Islamophobia obviously intended to liken me to Edward Wegman’s “foreign,” “non-American,” “A-rab!!!” grad student):

Brad hasn't specifically said his comment wasn't plagiarism.  And right up top of that same article he wrote:  "As the poster of the “astonishing statement,”", rather than "as the author".  So again, he's not claiming authorship.  However, elsewhere he wrote:

The passage you thought you recognized was, in fact, a PARAPHRASE of the climate-scientific ethics Schneider expounded so memorably in a wide-ranging Discovery interview.

Again, Brad doesn't claim authorship of the statement.  He claims it was a paraphrase of a statement by Stephen Schneider, presumably this one:

On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.

So Brad Keyes is wrong.  One could hardly claim that the following is a fair or accurate paraphrase of the above.  Stephen Schneider would never have countenanced "sensational exaggeration".  Why would he?  The facts are sensational enough on their own.

“The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians’—and readers’—attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today’s world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty.”

But back to the point of this article.  Did Brad Keyes plagiarise?  Let's see.   I did a Google search of some of the text.  I wasn't looking to check who first wrote the statement.   I did what I often do, search a fragment of text to find the source.  In this case I was wanting to find the comment at the Conversation.

To my surprise instead I found the following, from a letter to the New York Times back in April 2009 (my bold italics).

“The Civil Heretic” was a perfect example of what Freeman Dyson disagrees with: blatant and unfounded exaggeration. Dyson is not a “global-warming heretic”; he does not dispute the science. He simply says, and rightfully so, that the science is both uncertain and very much exaggerated. It is no secret that a lot of climate-change research is subject to opinion, that climate models sometimes disagree even on the signs of the future changes (e.g. drier vs. wetter future climate). The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians’ — and readers’ — attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today’s world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty.

MONIKA KOPACZ
Applied Mathematics and Atmospheric Sciences
Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass.

Not just identical word for word but identical punctuation!

Those of us who've had the misfortune to trip over comments by "Brad Keyes" in the past are well aware that his favourite pastime is playing games - or, more accurately, trolling and thread-bombing.

It looks as if he's enjoying playing games still.  But this time with Anthony Watts and his crew at WUWT.

How delicious!

PS It looks as if I wasn't the only one to stumble across Brad Keyes' plagiarism.  I've just noticed in the archive that David at WUWT did as well.