Climate Propaganda, Climate Science Process

Who Wrote the Fake Heartland Strategy Memo?

162 Comments

Certainly Peter Gleick is still in the running.

But as I wrote in Forbes last week, the memo does not have the feel of having been written by a “player” like Gleick.  It feels like someone younger, someone more likely to take the cynical political knife-fighting statements of someone like Glieck (e.g. skeptics are anti-science) and convert them literally (and blindly) to supposed Heartland agenda items like trying to discourage science teaching.  Someone like an intern or student, who might not realize how outrageous their stilted document might look to real adults in the real world, who understand that leaders of even non-profits they dislike don’t generally speak like James Bond villains.   Even Megan McArdle joked “Basically, it reads like it was written from the secret villain lair in a Batman comic.  By an intern.”

Now combine that with a second idea.  Gleick is about the only strong global warming believer mentioned by the fake strategy document.   I don’t think many folks who have observed Heartland from afar would say that Heartland has any special focus on or animus towards Gleick (more than they might have for any other strong advocate of catastrophic man-made global warming theory).   I would not have inferred any such focus by Heartland, and seriously, who would possibly think to single out Peter Gleick of all candidates (vs. Romm or Hansen or Mann et al) in a skeptic attack strategy?

The only person who might have inferred such a rivalry would have been someone close to Gleick, who heard about Heartland mainly from Gleick.  Certainly Gleick seems to have had a particular focus, almost obsession, with Heartland, and so someone who viewed Heartland only through the prism of Gleick’s rants might have inferred that Heartland had something special in for him.  And thus might have featured him prominently in a hypothesized attack in their strategy document.

So this is what I infer from all this:  My bet is on a fairly young Gleick sycophant — maybe a worker at the Pacific Institute, maybe an intern, maybe a student.  Which would mean in turn that Gleick very likely knows who wrote the document, but might feel some responsibility to protect that person’s identity.

162 thoughts on “Who Wrote the Fake Heartland Strategy Memo?”

  1. There we go, nicely worded, Paul.

    I neither think it is authentic or fake: we cannot know either at this point. And this is my stance–no more, no less.

    Is the story about its being delivered in the mail suspicious? Yes.
    Is the story about its being delivered in the mail a proven falsehood? No

    Is it impossible that a pilfered memo from the Heartland was mailed using one of the country’s governmental or private mail carries? Of course it is.

    Is Gleick’s story about how he came into possession of the “memo” questionable? Yes.
    Does having a questionable story mean the story is necessarily untrue? No—one can find plenty of unlikely stories in the world (take, for instance, otherwise intelligent people following a parks manager on issues of global warming. Does not make sense if one looks at it.)

    Is it possible that it was an anonymous package with Glieck’s name in its text? Yes, although rather too coincidental.
    Is it possible that Gleick—an outspoken alarmest scientist who the Heartland actually invited to “dinner” at one point in time—might end up in a Heartland memo? Why not? Perhaps that was why he was the recipient (assuming hypothetically, for just a moment, that the mail story is true).

    Is it likely, however, that it was an anonymous package? Dubious at best, but again, not impossible.

    Is it possible that Gleick scanned the memo into a PDF after receiving email confirmation about the memo’s content? Yes.

    Is it possible that it is a forgery? Yes.
    Has it been proven that it is a forgery? No.

    Has McArdle made a compelling case for the document being a forgery? Sure.
    Has McArdle proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the memo is a forgery? No.
    Has Pauld thought for himself and decided McArdle (who was not there) is the last word on the subject? Apparently, although it is not clear that he has thought for himself.

    Is it possible that lines from the memo have been cut-and-pasted from other documents? Very possibly, and evidence would suggest yes.
    Is it possible that Gleick cut-n-pasted them? Yes.
    Is it possible that a Heartland admin assist, intern, or exec cut-n-pasted them? Yes.

    Is it possible that the inaccuracies in the memo exist because the document is a forgery and the forger had inaccurate information or was forced to guess about information? Yes.
    Is it possible that the inaccuracies in the memo exist because of sloppy/harried/overworked workmanship from someone inside the Heartland? Yes.

    Is it possible that the most sensational part of the memo (about stopping science teachers teaching science) is actually the result of poor word-choice/sloppy writing/spell or grammar check or some other reasonable typo mistake? Yes.

    Is it possible that some evil genius strategist inside the Heartland set Gleick up? Very unlikely–who could have predicted any of this?

    Is it possible that the author is HI president Joe Bast? Possibly.
    Has it been proven that Bast is the author? No.

    Has Pauld “shown” conclusively that Bast is not the author? Nope. He’s made some vague allegations about the HP software, but that’s the extent of the analysis.

    Has the Heartland really, really reacted to the “fake” memo? Yes. One only needs visit their site to see the “FAKEGATE” link on their home page.
    Why would the Heartland care about a “fake” memo? Unknown, but interesting…

    Is the continued conversation about the “fake” memo keeping an otherwise uninteresting story alive? Yes.

  2. Waldo: Are a computer bot programmed by Meyers to make his opponents look ridiculous?”

    I have never actually seen you. I guess the answer is “I don’t know”.

  5. You know, Paul, another thing occurs to me.

    Let’s just pretend for a second that the “memo” in question is the work of a devious forger. This fraudulent author is bent upon embarrassing the Heartland Institute by providing an allusion to some action that Heartland is supposedly going to take in the future but which is actually invented by the forger.

    Does the forger pepper the “memo” with references to “payments to congress,” “hitmen,” “planing child pornography on climate scientists computers,” or “deliberately confusing the public” or any number of more inflammatory statements?

    No,what the Devious Forger inserts into an otherwise cut-and-paste document is “two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.” And that’s it.

    The rest of the memo is a snoozefest and full of very little that is not already available to the public or even of real interest.

    The forger hopes that this one sentence will do the work of espionage for him/her when there is a whole host of other, more newsworthy, more sensational lies which would grab a good deal more media attention. And it is very easy to suppose that the statement in question is actually a misstatement and should read “two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching only IPCC climate science” or something to this effect.

    Nor does the memo imply that the Heartland is raking in the big bucks—in fact, it appears that Heartland is comparatively small taters in the big picture. Is that what a forger would want the public to think in this instance, or would it be better for liberals to have a monied opponent attempting to buy off public opinion via the wealth of, say, big oil? Why post that the Heartland lost 20% of its budget in 2011? Why not lie and say “Despite our successful ploy to dupe the public into thinking we have lost 20% of our 2011 income, the Anonymous Donor has secretly deposited over $500k in our account in the Cayman Islands and plans to deposit at least double that in the next biennium.” Now THAT really would have gotten some attention.

    But our forger does not do this. Either this is an extraordinarily savvy forger, an extraordinarily unimaginative forger, or the real thing. Or none of the above.

    Is any of this proof that the memo is authentic? No, simply more conjecture.

    Thanks, Paul, for getting me to think a little further on this funny issue.

  6. Waldo: I think you do better when you don’t think too hard on your own. Don’t you have some authority you can consult to learn what you should think about the memo?

  7. Waldo

    How the mighty have fallen.

    At the time of Copenhagen the alarmists were on the verge of passing CO2 taxes of Cap and trade.

    Now there isn’t a chance no matter who wins the white house.

    Watching them twist slowly in the wind is funny and slightly pathetic !

  8. *****”Don’t you have some authority you can consult to learn what you should think about the memo?”

    Now Paul, you are the one who has repeatedly, evangelically, and exclusively suckled at McArdle’s tit—have you even had an original thought on this subject yet (or any subject for that matter)? It is terribly ironic when one of Meyer’s Minions begrudges anyone an “authority.”

    And you are the one who wanted to “discuss” the memo, so remember that you asked how “it is plausible to think the memo is authentic.” Whatever you say, the questions above are perfectly reasonable unless, of course, one is a denialist.

    Even McArdle writes:

    “That said, I think it’s impossible to prove — at least with my forensic skill levels. People do write crazy memos sometimes–there are lunatics in every movement, and most organizations. While this just doesn’t feel like the right kind of crazy to me, it’s possible I’m wrong.”

    Did YOU read the McArdle pieces?

    One might suggest that these petulant little ad hom attacks of yours mean that you have noting of substance to say anymore and certainly nothing original. You might just concede that there is a possibility—and only the possibility, not the certainty—of the memo’s authenticity just as I’m happy to concede the possibility that it is a fake. It would make you seem much more adult and much less vindictive and defensive—and less like the smart idiots in the Salon article above.

    How about this:

    Another possibility is that the memo lacks a header or footer, is poorly written, has inaccuracies, etc. because it is a draft. Perhaps the writer (assuming hypothetically for just the moment that it is authentic) had given this to his/her admin assistant or intern to spruce up for distribution and the draft was, for some reason, mailed to Gleick. It might be wise to see who was fired from the Heartland during the time-frame we are talking about.

  9. The argument is far from over, even if the Cap’n’trade disaster is.

    How’s that peer-reviewed article coming, by the way?

  10. Waldo:  You need to read up on your logical fallacies.  I have never appealed to Megan McCardle’s authority by asserting that the memo was fake simply because she said so.  That would be a siily argument to make.  After all, she isn’t an expert on fake memos.

    What I have done is to refer you to her posts as a source of a good common sense analysis of the issue.  I  have suggested that while her analysis is not exhaustive, it was a good place to start.

    At this point, nearly everyone following the issue has recognized the memo is a fake.  There may be a few outlier hold out such as you and the websites that carelessly allowed themselves to be duped by it.

    There is no positive evidence that it is authentic and you have laid out examples of the type of implausible and fanciful speculations that one must engage in to explain away even a tiny bit of the the evidence of fakery.In others words, no reasonable doubts remain.

    With that I will join the rest of the world and move on.

  11. Waldo

    The argument is far from over, even if the Cap’n’trade disaster is
    **************
    That is funny coming from an alarmist.

    They love to say “the debate is over”. In this case I agree with you the debate isn’t over and unless it starts warming significantly again the CAGW cause will go down the toilet.

    Since it hasn’t warmed significantly since 1995 [17 years] and since the warming attributed to CO2 was only 20 years [78 to 98] the “cause” is going down !

    Good riddance.

  12. Say what you will, netdr, the “debate” goes on. All over the news. 97% consensus among scientists. International attention. I think it is funny how often denialists have trumpeted the ‘end of CAGW’—a little like Dubya when he said, “Mission Accomplished.”

    If you think you can prove otherwise, do so. Otherwise one might say you are here faking it.

  13. No logical fallacies there, Paul, everything perfectly possible. And is that the best you can do? Have you read up on logical fallacies?(One supposes it is equivocation, ambiguity, or circular to suppose a memo could be delivered through the mail? Very smart there buddy.)

    Nevertheless, I agree that it is time to move on (although one could also say that you just tapped out). The issue is largely dead anyway unless Heartland makes the public relations blunder of suing bloggers and Gleick and keeping this ridiculous little fiasco in the news.

    Cheers.

  14. Pauld says:

    ‘At this point, nearly everyone following the issue has recognized the memo is a fake. There may be a few outlier hold out such as you and the websites that carelessly allowed themselves to be duped by it.’

    ‘With that I will join the rest of the world and move on.’

    Appeal to popularity!

  15. As I understand it, Shills, it’s only an “appeal to authority” if one believes in the possibility of global climate change. Otherwise one is “thinking for yourself” when one follows the exhaust fumes of an organization such as the Heartland.

    Very slowly, there is an increase in the number of outliers who believe the memo is possibly legit. Still proves nothing, but it is an interesting phenomenon. Here’s another:

    http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/02/is_the_heartland_strategy_memo.php

  17. Shills is my co-conspirator in clarity, co-captain of the debate team, and brother-in-arms for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Sadly, I have no minions. I am, however, taking applications, so if you want, you can be my first minion, Paul. We’re going to have to work on your pugnacious attitude and limited reasoning skills, sooth your penchant for sectarian thought, and alleviate your psychological projection. But I’m willing to work on you—some may claim you are a lost cause, yet I have hope!

    I thought you were “moving on” though.

  18. I know I promised to move on, but this is just too much fun 🙂

    You say, “Let’s just pretend for a second that the “memo” in question is the work of a devious forger.”

    Yes, this has been considered. Megan McCardle has suggested that this evil villan writes in a way that is suspiciously similar to the evil villans from the Batman comic book series. Steven McIntyre has proposed none other than “Dr. Evil”, himself, from the James Bond movies. It is certainly a provocative idea you raise.

  19. Yeah, there is something about this place…

    I personally saw nothing particularly Batmanly or Dr. Evilly in the said memo—in fact, it resonated very much with your typical blah-blah-blah businessese. McArdle’s thesis is that the document has a “different worldview” from the other (typical) denialist documents and therefore reads like something a super-villain (or an intern—who must be some kind of super-villain) would write.

    One supposes that a devious forger would write with a worldview that he/she projects onto the Heartland. This is very possible.

    One could also suppose that this worldview is, in fact, the worldview of a denialist whackjob. If one reads Climate Skeptic or Watts Up With That or There’s No Frakken Consensus or Jo Nova, one can certainly find a number of denialist whackjobs in the house.

    But again, we are left in the land of conjecture here.

  20. By the way, Paul, how do YOU read the “memo” in question? Once again, you are citing McArdle (not “McCardle”). What have YOU done to evaluate the provenance of the documents?

  21. Waldo: You do not seem to have a good understanding of how “circumstantial” evidence is used to “prove” a given proposition. To assist your understanding, let me provide a basic primer. I’ll do this not so much for you alone, but also for anyone reading this who wants to think clearly about circumstantial evidence.

    Circumstantial evidence is based upon “conditional probabilities”. If one is using circumstantial evidence to prove guilt, one compares the “conditional probability” that certain undisputed “circumstantial” facts would exist assuming that the defendant is guilty versus the “conditional probability” that certain undisputed “circumstantial” facts would exist assuming that the defendant was innocent.

    This is a fairly abstract concept so let’s bring it down to this concrete case. In the case of the memo, one can ask what are the conditional probabilities that certain language would be contained in the memo on the assumption that it fake compared to the assumption that it is authentic?

    Megan McCardle’s posts do not expressly analyze the memo in terms of conditional probabilities, but the concept is implicit in her analysis. For example she compares that conditional probability that the memo would describe Heartland’s K-12 curriculum as an effort to “dissuade” teachers from teaching science given the assumption that the memo is fake versus given the assumption that the memo is authentic.

    She concludes that this conditional probability is much greater on the assumption that the memo is fake. On would expect a fake memo to contain a sinister spin on otherwise neutral facts. On the other hand, with authentic memo one would expect Heartland to describe the K-12 curriculum in a positive light as it has elsewhere (i.e. as an effort to teach “more science rather than less.”)

    One example is not sufficient to establish “proof” so she goes on to provide a litany of other examples. The memo states as fact something that contradicts the authentic “phished” documents. It states that the Koch’s brothers contributed $200,000 to Heartland whereas the authentic “phished” documents state that the Kock brothers contributed $25,000. So what is the conditional probability that such a mistake would be contained in a faked memo versus the conditional probability that such a mistake would be contained in an authentic memo written by Heartland’s CEO or staff members.

    Similarly, she notices the phrase “anti-climate”, an unusual phrase that has a negative connotation, but is ultimately nonsensical. What is the conditional probability that such a phrase would be used by Heartland to describe its own supporters in an authentic memo versus the conditional probability that such a phrase would be used by Gleick in crafting a fake memo. This wording becomes especially telling given that Gleick frequently uses this phrase in his own verified writings? You get the idea?

    At some point, when one provides a long list of such conditional probabilities, one can reach a conclusion to a reasonable degree of certainty that the memo is fake. I think that McCardle’s analysis is sufficient to accomplish this task.

    Since you seem unpersuaded by McCardle’s analysis, let add one more item that she did not consider. The memo contains the following language: “This document offers such a set of priorities. I propose that at this point it be kept confidential and only be distributed to a subset of the directors and senior staff”

    This strikes me as the type of statement that is likely to be contained in a “fake” memo that is intended to cast Heartland in a negative light. First, it suggests that someone at Heartland is deceiving not only the general public, but its own staff and directors about its “true” priorities. That sounds pretty evil. Moreover, a faker is likely to know that Heartland could objectively prove that the memo was not contained in the authentic “phished” documents by making its computer records of the email containing them available for inspection. Accordingly, the faker would need an explanation why the memo was not among the “phished” document and the above quotation provides ready-made explanation. The inclusion of this the type of statement thus has a relatively high conditional probability on the assumption that the memo is fake.

    On the other hand, the conditional probability that such a statement would be contained in an authentic memo is exceedingly small for several reasons. First, when the memo is stripped of its negative spin, it does not disclose any information that was not previously disclosed to the entire board and staff in the phished documents. It does not contain any secrets. Accordingly, the inclusion of the quote would be inexplicable in an authentic memo. Second, it is hard to imagine that such language would be contained in an authentic memo that does not identify its creator or its recipients. How could it remain a “secret” if the members of the “secret” cabal are not identified?

    Most importantly, the statement is sounds so sinister precisely because its inclusion would be highly irregular–indeed, grossly unethical. Heartland’s staff and CEO report to the entire board. If the existence of such a memo were ever disclosed to the entire board, its creator would likely be fired, if the excluded directors had sufficient clout. Alternatively, it could cause mass resignations of excluded directors, who would not want to be associated with an organization that undermines their ability to discharge their fiduciary responsibilities to set the Institutes’ true priorities. Even the directors on the distribution list would be placed in an untenable position—do they maintain the confidence and thereby violate their legal duties to the other directors and Heartland or do blow the whistle on the Heartland’s CEO and staff. Is it plausible that Heartland’s CEO or staff would open such a “can of worms” to keep “secret” content that has already been disclosed to the entire board?

    It is worth noting that at some point, the weight of circumstantial evidence can become even more convincing that direct evidence. For example, imagine that someone on Gleick’s staff came forward and stated that he saw Gleick create the fake document. The motives and honesty of such a whistleblower would immediately come under attack. Should we believe his testimony? How probable is it that Gleick would do such a thing in the presence of a witness?

    The last step of this analysis is to analyze all your evidence of the memo’s authenticity within this framework of “conditional probabilities”. I leave that to you as homework, but I’ll give you a hint of the correct answer: none of the evidence you cite for its authenticity suggests that the conditional probabilities of the memo being authentic are greater than the conditional probabilities that it is a fake. In short, your evidence has little, if any, “probative” value.

  22. Paul I am so proud of you. It took a little while and a great deal of naggling on my part, but you finally came around to doing some original thought. I knew you had it in you. So, let’s look at what you did:

    *****Circumstantial evidence is based upon “conditional probabilities”.

    That’s very good, Paul. However, the degree to which “conditional probabilities” can be applied may be somewhat different in that we probably view he main actors in this little drama with somewhat differing degrees of reliability. In other words, what we each consider “probable” given the circumstances may not be the same things. As we shall see below.

    *****[McCardle] compares that conditional probability that the memo would describe Heartland’s K-12 curriculum as an effort to “dissuade” teachers from teaching science given the assumption that the memo is fake versus given the assumption that the memo is authentic…One would expect a fake memo to contain a sinister spin on otherwise neutral facts.

    Yup, as I posted above, our devious forger is not very creative and did not manage to produce something which lighted a great many fires. Why would a devious forger, if she/he were smart enough to put this whole plan in action, invent such a relatively mundane miscarriage?

    This reasoning might actually speak to its authenticity as much as it to its forgery.

    *****On the other hand, with authentic memo one would expect Heartland to describe the K-12 curriculum in a positive light as it has elsewhere (i.e. as an effort to teach “more science rather than less.”)

    Perhaps. But, if the memo is meant for distribution behind Heartland’s closed doors, would the writer particularly worry about a “positive light”? You and I have both been on the inside of organizations—sometimes people say things to one another they are not supposed to. Look what happened to the CRU scientists once their private conversations became public.

    Your reading here is only valid if we assume that the Heartland really, truly does want to “teach more science” (which is a denialist mantra which many of us are dubious about).

    You are very certain about people being “duped”—are you sure you are not one of them?

    Or, as I’ve posted above, this could simply be poor word choice and/or a first draft.

    ***** The memo states as fact something that contradicts the authentic “phished” documents. It states that the Koch’s brothers contributed $200,000 to Heartland whereas the authentic “phished” documents state that the Kock brothers contributed $25,000. So what is the conditional probability that such a mistake would be contained in a faked memo versus the conditional probability that such a mistake would be contained in an authentic memo written by Heartland’s CEO or staff members.

    Now, let me give you the first primer on human nature: people make mistakes. If this is a fake memo, the fabulist made a mistake; if this is an authentic memo, the Heartland made a mistake.

    And let me give you the second primer on human nature: people lie. If the memo is a fake, the fabulist lied; if the memo is authentic, it is possible that the Heartland lied about the amount of money the Anonymous Donor contributed—yes, even to its board of directors. Such things happen from time to time. In other words, we assume it is “a mistake” that one document states $25K and another $200K. We also assume that the Heartland employees would not lie to each other or their directors—a dangerous assumption, as we shall see below.

    *****Similarly, she notices the phrase “anti-climate”, an unusual phrase that has a negative connotation, but is ultimately nonsensical.

    If you look above you will see that I’ve conjectured about this very thing. Sloppy word choice? Accidentally reusing a phrase in common parlance? The work of an angry and devious forger? Yes to all of the above.

    I’ll say it again, Paul: The memo in question might be a fake.

    And I’ll say it again: There is no conclusive proof that the memo in question is a fake.

    The inclusion of an “unlikely” phrase only makes it unlikely, nothing more.

    *****This wording becomes especially telling given that Gleick frequently uses this phrase in his own verified writings? You get the idea?

    I get the idea. And, as I have said all along, this might be Gleick’s handywork. On the other hand, is it possible that someone in the Heartland misused the term? Yes.

    After all, scientific analysis would suggest a different set of authors than Gleick. Are you basing your analysis on one single phrase? Is that a solid use of “conditional probability”?

    ******At some point, when one provides a long list of such conditional probabilities, one can reach a conclusion to a reasonable degree of certainty that the memo is fake. I think that McCardle’s analysis is sufficient to accomplish this task.

    I disagree. See above.

    *****Since you seem unpersuaded by McCardle’s analysis….

    Weeeeeeeell, I fine her reasoning persuasive, but not the final word, not entirely convincing, and even she admits what she wrote was entirely conjectural. I like your term: “agnostic.”

    *****….let add one more item that she did not consider.

    And this is where I’m really proud of you, Paul. Your first original idea. It’s a big step.

    *****The memo contains the following language: “This document offers such a set of priorities. I propose that at this point it be kept confidential and only be distributed to a subset of the directors and senior staff”*****This strikes me as the type of statement that is likely to be contained in a “fake” memo that is intended to cast Heartland in a negative light. First, it suggests that someone at Heartland is deceiving not only the general public, but its own staff and directors about its “true” priorities.

    See my primer above, Paul (people lie). Is this unlikely? Maybe…but it is also entirely possible that there is a cabal within the Heartland. In fact, when we think about it, why is Heartland so suddenly concerned with “Fakegate”? Perhaps we have people trying to deceive their own people and directors—this is not beyond the realm of possibility in the age of Ponzi schemes and governmental cover up. In fact, this is very often the sort of charge leveled against climate scientists.

    *****That sounds pretty evil.

    Well, there is evil in the world, Paul. People sometimes do bad things for personal gain or for ideological reasons.

    ****** Accordingly, the faker would need an explanation why the memo was not among the “phished” document and the above quotation provides ready-made explanation. The inclusion of this the type of statement thus has a relatively high conditional probability on the assumption that the memo is fake.

    Perhaps—that’s one explanation.

    Or the memo could have arrived in the mail—that’s another explanation.

    In either case, there is no “ready-made explanation”; one is as likely as the other, and both are simply more conjectures. It may even have a “high conditional probability,” but this is again only a “probability,” and I am not even convinced that this probability is so “high.”

    *****[The memo] does not contain any secrets. Accordingly, the inclusion of the quote would be inexplicable in an authentic memo.

    “Inexplicable”? No. Improbable at the most. Again, this behavior (if we assume for the moment that it is true) may account for the reaction of the Heartland. Did it ever occur to you that the Heartland just had its dirty laundry aired?

    Or, again, perhaps the example above is simply bad writing, poor choice of phrase, etc.

    *****Second, it is hard to imagine that such language would be contained in an authentic memo that does not identify its creator or its recipients. How could it remain a “secret” if the members of the “secret” cabal are not identified?

    Bingo. If we have a subset of the Heartland behaving in an even more unethical manner than the organization as a whole, they may not want their names on said memo—and this could also account for a lack of logo, the difference in style, even the unearthed “evil” in the document.

    *****Most importantly, the statement is sounds so sinister precisely because its inclusion would be highly irregular–indeed, grossly unethical.

    And this is where we may see our probabilities differently. I’m of the opinion that Heartland is a rather unethical, ideological institution—I would not be surprised if a number of its members were actually even more unethical and ideologically driven than the rest of the organization. People behaving unethically are not a particularly new phenomenon, after all.

    *****Heartland’s staff and CEO report to the entire board. If the existence of such a memo were ever disclosed to the entire board, its creator would likely be fired, if the excluded directors had sufficient clout. Alternatively, it could cause mass resignations of excluded directors, who would not want to be associated with an organization that undermines their ability to discharge their fiduciary responsibilities to set the Institutes’ true priorities. Even the directors on the distribution list would be placed in an untenable position—do they maintain the confidence and thereby violate their legal duties to the other directors and Heartland or do blow the whistle on the Heartland’s CEO and staff. Is it plausible that Heartland’s CEO or staff would open such a “can of worms” to keep “secret” content that has already been disclosed to the entire board?
    I could just refer you to the above, but I think I will again restate the possibility that the memo in question could do all these things and, therefore, our “cabal” may not want this before the directors for the very reasons you state.

    I hadn’t even thought of this, but you have provided a new motivation for the behavior of the organization. Interesting.

    *****It is worth noting that at some point, the weight of circumstantial evidence can become even more convincing that direct evidence.

    Yes, if the circumstantial evidence is convincing and alternative explanations cannot be offered.

    *****For example, imagine that someone on Gleick’s staff came forward and stated that he saw Gleick create the fake document. The motives and honesty of such a whistleblower would immediately come under attack. Should we believe his testimony? How probable is it that Gleick would do such a thing in the presence of a witness?

    Unknown. We will have to wait for such a witness. How will Heartland react if a witness comes forward and says the memo is authentic and he/she put it in the mail?

    *****The last step of this analysis is to analyze all your evidence of the memo’s authenticity within this framework of “conditional probabilities”.

    I think we’ve done that, at least as far as the evidence here is concerned. And we are still in the exact same territory as we were before: we can make good educated guesses, but nothing more, and most of these guesses are based on an a priori belief in the ethical, logical workings of the Heartland, which you and I differ on.

    You’ve made a mighty and valiant attempt at “proving” the provenance of the memo, but there is still reasonable doubt.

    ***** I’ll give you a hint of the correct answer: none of the evidence you cite for its authenticity suggests that the conditional probabilities of the memo being authentic are greater than the conditional probabilities that it is a fake. In short, your evidence has little, if any, “probative” value.

    I disagree. See above.

    In the end, Paul, there is virtually no ground gained. Your reasoning is sound except that you predicate your probabilities on two general notions: (one) that unlikely ideas or wordings prove the memo in question is false; and (two) that since people in the Heartland would never behave in illogical, secretive, or self-destructive ways, the memo is false. Any of these is a proverbial Schrodinger’s Cat scenario—these premises might or might not be true but we will never know until the door is opened. I would argue that there is not even a preponderance of evidence here—simply more conjecture heaped on conjecture.

    Your next big test is to be able to deal with just such multiple possibilities, even if they are not the possibilities you would like to believe in.

  23. WADO: You are creatve to say the least. Even so your implausible and fanciful explanations are unlikey to ring true to anyone but yourself. Rather than going through your dribble line by line let me direct you to something hot off the press.

    Heartland Institute has weighed in with its own detailed forensic analysis of the fake memo.  In addition to the ground covered by others, it highlights numerous additional factual mistakes that have not been noted elsewhere, but that would be obvious to someone inside the organization.  I will not attempt here to repeat its content.  Anyone interested can read it here. http://fakegate.org/bast-on-forged-memo/

    The most interesting new material concerns the use of comptuter forensics to analyze the fake memo.  The Heartland staff has with painstaking effort specifically identified which portions of the fake document were copied directly from the phished documents, which portions are paraphrased and which portions are  the forgers own words.  Having provided this helpful information,  Mr. Blast observes:

    “Text Analysis Efforts apparently are underway to use authorship analysis software to find the true author or authors of the memo. Since the memo contains so much material copied and pasted from, or paraphrases of, my own writing, such a comparison of the content and writing style of the forged memo and the stolen documents wouldn’t rule me out as a possible author of the memo. I hope persons conducting such analyses will use the text highlighted in the forged memo attached to this current essay, rather than the entire memo, so that their investigation is limited to the actual words of the forger rather than my own. Since I am a prolific writer, other samples of my writing can be found easily by going to http://www.heartland.org.”

    If your team wants to complete such an analysis based soley on the forgers own words, go for it.  Thus far, the efforts I have seen on the internet have the obvious flaw that Mr. Blaat has identified.

    Waldo, with all of this information on the table, you have several options.  Develop some new arguments that can withstand scrutiny; or admit your open mind empty mind position is untenable or slither away in silence and shame.

  24. Gee, the Heartland Institute has come up with an analysis of the documents. I wonder what their take is? And why are they so darned concerned?

    I do not admit my position is untenable—quite the opposite. Your one original argument above has undergone scrutiny and been found somewhat tenable but completely unproven. And there are plenty who are not convinced.

    Nor shall I slither anywhere for I feel no shame and do not particularly intend to be silent.

  26. Hi Lance, no I am not a lawyer. I was a roadie but now I’m serving time, so it is somewhat ironic that you should ask me that question.

    Okay, that’s the smartass answer—I’m just kidding. It’s actually better that you don’t know who I am. The real me is not very exciting, and the good peeps here will have a good time theorizing that I am an agent of the IPCC or some such.

    What do you do?

  27. i am still having fun too.

    This thread is getting long so it might be helpful to recap.

    I have argued that all the internal evidence from the documents is consistent with theory that the memo is a fake.  The facts that require an explanation fit my theory like a seamless garment. If you are aware of any facts that are inconsistent with my theory let me know.

    Your theory is that all of the following propsition are plausable as a group.

    1.  A memo that has at least a dozen errors that are inconsistent with its supporting documents  was written by a careless insider.

    2.  Although the memo was written to Heartlands Board as a high level planning memo its tone and negative spin make it sound as if it were written by a comic book villan or as you suggest an internet whack-job.

    3.  The memo is distrbuted to a  secret subset of directors so as to make it sound sinister and potentially inflamatory within the organization even though it contains no secrets.

    4.  The document was leaked by someone who was deemed sufficiently trustworthy to have gained access access to the secret  document.  It occurred to this person to mail it anonomously to Peter Glieck without explanation or corroborating documents.  It did not occur to the leaker to send it to a Heartland director who had been excluded from  its distrbution.

    5.  Although the document was created by a Heartland insider its style had certain telltale signs that caused many to identify Peter Glieck as its likely creator well before Glieck confessed to being the source of the fake memo and the phished documents.

    6. Although Glieck claims to have received the fake document in January, he did not scan it until after he received the phished documents and shortly before he distrbuted the package.

    Waldo, it seems you are a hard person to convince.  Let me try a different tactic.

    Imagine that a salesman came to your home seeking to sell you a Picasso painting.  You ask why you should believe that the painting is authentic?  After much thought the salesman says with great conviction:  It is not impossible that this painting was created by Picasso.

    I think you are in the same position as the salesman.  If you think it is plausible that the memo is authentic I think you need a better argument than “it is not impossible that the memo is authentic.”

      You seem to be a creative.  Construct an affirmative argument in favor of the memos authenticity.

  28. Now Paul, as you know I am happy to accept the idea that the memo is a fake. Said it over and over, as a matter of fact. That is the difference between us—your train has exactly one station it goes to and that’s it. That’s it. The idea that someone, somewhere in the world might see things differently is absolutely galvanizing to you.

    And I am not particularly hard to convince of anything; you have simply not produced a convincing argument. Besides, I want to see proof, Paul, not a biased, preordained, denialistic judgment.

    But fine. Let’s make an affirmative argument simply for the sake of making an affirmative argument.

    1. Several scientific analyses of the memo lead directly back to its putative source—the Heartland institute, not Peter Gleick.

    2. Peter Gleick is the winner of a MacArthur Foundation Genius award, a scientist, a graduate of Yale with a PhD from UC Berkley, the author of dozens of studies—all of which requires a high degree of attention to detail—and yet the memo in question is riddled with lousy writing and putative inaccuracies. Someone with Gleick’s educational pedigree and professional background would be able to manufacture a better memo than the one we have to deal with.

    3. Peter Gleick has said the memo arrived through the mail. Since we live in America, people (even scientists) are presumed innocent unless proven guilty. So we must assume Gleick is telling the truth unless proven otherwise. No one has proved otherwise.

    4. Most of the memo is accurate.

    5. Most of the writing is grammatically correct and utilizes appropriate syntax. McArdle’s and McIntyre’s evaluations of the writing are completely and totally subjective—and, in fact, both must resort to gross hyperbole to make their points. The style of the memo is appropriate (if not artful) for business. This suggests a corporate source. Since the most obvious corporate source is the Heartland, we must assume someone on the Heartland staff wrote the memo.

    6. The Heartland Institute is seriously uncomfortable with “Fakegate” despite the fact that the memo in question tells the world very little and has very little purchase on the media. The Bast doth protest too much, methinks. Heartland is acting too guilty to be an innocent corporate entity. Therefore Heartland created the document and is embarrassed by and afraid of its content.

    7. We cannot trust the Heartland or the Koch brothers.

    As for the Picasso salesman, I would immediately check here: http://www.artcyclopedia.com/

  29. Waldo: Only your first point contains an affirmatve argument that the memo is authentic.  You skip over heartlands convincing rebuttal that demonstrates that most of the fake document was copied or paraphrase from Heartland documemts. Therefore forensic computer analysis must focus exclusivery on the forgers own words. I have read the links you previously cited on this point and the analysis has the exact fault Heartland identifies.

    I would agree that your first point is the best that can be done with what little you have in terms of affirmatve evidence.  The remainder of your points are not affirmative evidence of authenticity, but attempts to rebut evidence of fakery.  They are pretty lame also, but lets take a quick look.

    Point 2:  This point goes to whether Peter Gleick is the author of the memo not whether it is a fake.  Your argument here has caused Warren to surmise that the memo was written by someone closely affiliated with Gleick, perhaps an intern.

    On the other hand I tend to agree with Steven McIntryes view that Gleick is perhaps the first MacArthur genius who qualifies as one of the world’s dumbmest criminals.  How could this be? Dumb people and/or extremely arrogant people frequently do dumb things.  Gleick is arrogant and thought he could never be caught.  Thus he acted carelessly.

    The evidence certainly points in the direction of Gliecks authorship but has not risen yet to proof beyond a reasonable.  To get back on track let us limit ourselves to the question of the memos authenticity.

    3  Your point three likewise goes to Gleicks authorship not the memos authenticity.  That the memo came through the mail with no provenance or corroborating documents as Glieck claims is evidence that it is fake.

    4.  The fact that most of the memo is accurate is such a weak argument that I am not willing to grant that it counts at all.  Obviously whoever faked the memo had access to the other documents, whether that was Glieck or someone else.  We do know that he had access to the phished documents prior to the time he scanned the faked memo. 

    5.  When one limits one’s analysis to the portion written in the forgers own words one finds that its tone is not appropriate.  It sounds like it was written by someone who is tone deaf to his opponents rhetoric–who sees them as comic book villans.  McCardle, while in your camp generally, thought this was so obvious that it was humorous.  Perhaps you dont get the joke because you suffer from the same tone deafness  as the forger.

    Of course the portions of the memo that that were copied or paraphrased from the phished documents do have a tone that suggest a corporate source.  That source would be Heartland.

    6.  The idea that Heartland protests too much is pretty lame, but I guess you dont have much to work with.  The fake memo received wide spread coverage  in main stream media (including the NYT) as if it were authentic.  Heartlands response seems proportional to the unfavorable coverage the fake memo generated.

    7  Your last assertion that we cannot trust Heartland or the Koch brothers is beside the point.  The arguments for fakery are based on an internal analysis of the faked memo and the phished documents.  One does not have to rely upon Heartlands integrity to conclude that the memo is fake.

    One last point.  I have previously argued that it was evidence of fakery that the memo limited its distribution to a secret subset of directors even though the memo contains no secrets.The memo when stripped of its negative spin does not contain any information that was not previously disclosed to the entire board.  So why limit its distribution to a secret subset of directors.

    I have suggested  obvious explanations if the memo is fake, but suggest his would be inexplicable in an authentic memo.  You dispute my characterization of”inexplicable”, but I didnt see your explanation.  Could you explain?

      Just to be clear, I am willing to assume for the sake of argument that it is possible that an evil subset of directors exists at Heartland.  I just cannot explain why they would risk distrubuting a secret memo that contains no secrets.   That is the question I need your help on.

  30. point 2: Gleick is smart enough to proof-read his intern’s writing. Why would he have an intern write a memo in the first place? Didn’t he want this scam to come off correctly? Your and Warren’s point makes no more sense than anything else. (Which, as we shall see in the end, is the problem with an “affirmative argument” about this subject) And the surmise that Gleick acted carelessly is simply more of our conjecture in a never ending cycle of conjecture. This is why I would require proof.

    point 3: Gleick is smart enough to mail himself or have his cousin in Pittsburg mail him an envelope with his name and postal-stamp on it. Or he could fake it in any number of ways. Or he could have thrown away the envelop not realizing its importance. The mail conundrum neither proves nor eliminates the memo.

    point 4: Most of the document is accurate. This neither proves nor disproves the memo’s provenance.

    point 5: “tone is not appropriate” is a subjective call. Bast was clearly tired at the end of the day and not doing his best writing.

    point 6: If one has nothing to worry about, one has nothing to worry about and stays silent.

    point 7: We should be suspicious of anything the Kochs or the Heartland does or says. Including this instance. If the Kochs have their hand in things, money will be misappropriated in an effort at destabilizing anyone who opposes their narrow selfish interests. Heartland is driven by ideologues.

    There is a $175 discrepancy between the money in the memo and the money in minutes. Seems like a pretty good reason to distribute a secret memo to me.

    Now, remember Paul, I was only making an “affirmative” argument to humor you and so that you could feel good about yourself and try and knock down my “affirmative” argument. And this is a great teaching moment. As you can see, it is virtually impossible to assert anything with such a paucity of information—the syllogisms are impossible to make since there will always be a counter-explanation. Is Gleick smart enough to pull off a caper or is he too careless to pull off a caper? I’ve got to run know but will come back later and explain more.

  31. Waldo: I often find that the strength of an argument can often be best assessed by reading its critics as Warren has noted in a recent post. When an argument is strong, the response of its critics will be lame. Thus, the more I read your responses the more convinced I am of the strength of my arguments.

    Your points 2 and 3 are red-herrings on the issue of whether the document is fake as I have previously pointed out.

    You are apparently conceding point 4. Evidence that the memo is generally accurrate in the portions that have been cut and pasted from Heartland documents is not probative on the question of whether it is authentic or fake.

    On point 5 you suggest that assessing the tone of wording involves a subjective call. Perhaps this point is one that we should agree to submit to a person who is an editor of a prominent magazine, who is not a friend of the Heartland Institute and who is supportive of the consensus position of climate scientists. Oh, I guess Megan McArdle has already spoken. She thinks that faker’s wording in the memo is so outlandish as to be comical.

    On point 6, let’s imagine that the fake memo generated little negative publicity against Heartland. Still, Heartland would have a confession that one of its major critics, who regularly accuses Heartland of unethical conduct and who is the Chair of the ethics committee of the AGU no less, has engaged in unethical conduct with Heartland the victim. That is the type of information one could reasonably expect Heartland to publicize aggressively, even if it were not concerned about the obviously faked memo itself.

    On point 7, you don’t respond to my point that one does not need to rely upon the integrity of Heartland or the Koch brothers to recognize the validity of the internal evidence of fakery contained in the documents themselves.

    The discrepancy is $175,000 not $175.

    Your notion that Heartland insider might be lying about the amount of the Koch’s brothers contribution is based on wild speculation that is not supported by a scintilla of evidence. You should add occum’s razor to your forensic tool kit.

    Of course, one can always speculate about conceivable doubts. That is why I have proposed a standard of proof–“beyond a reasonable doubt”. As you will recall, a reasonable doubt is defined in the law as a “doubt that would cause a reasonable person to hesitate when making a decision in the most important of one’s affairs.”

    I guess you must sputter about quite a bit when making decisions about important matters.

  32. Waldo: I see that in constructing a point by point rebuttal of your arguments, I left out an important observation. You do not mention the computer analysis of the disputed document in your response, which was the tiny bit of evidence you were able to come up with as affirmative support for the authenticity of the fake memo. My bad. Can I assume that you are conceding the computer analysis that you previously cited is flawed for the obvious reasons I pointed out many comments ago, and which has been buttressed by Heartland’s rebuttal?

  33. Hi Paul, I got confused which computer analysis you are referring to above, but no, I did not deliberately leave any computer analysis out–my first point refers to HP’s document analysis and the other blog I linked to above, both of which would indicate a Heartland writer.

    I did not see that Bast’s response added anything substantive to the debate and he said exactly what a cornered exec would say in such situations—nor will any computer analysis from the Heartland do anything but buttress its own interests in the matter. Certainly you do not expect them to find anything but their own much ballyhooed victimization?

    But back to the issue at hand:

    *****Your points 2 and 3 are red-herrings

    Nope. Both go straight to the issue.

    Point 1 is that objective forensic analysis leads us right back to the Heartland; you cannot get more germane than that.

    Point 2 goes to the character of the man in question; Gleick is too smart to have pulled off such a bumbling attempt at a frame-up. It is no more a red herring than to insist that he is too arrogant or too careless.

    *****You are apparently conceding point 4.

    I concede nothing. The circumstantial probability that an inside memo is mostly correct is much higher than the circumstantial probability that an outside forged memo is mostly correct.

    (And in either case, when I am not playing this silly game with you, my position all along has been that we can neither determine if the memo is a fake or if it is a forgery. The correctness of the memo simply points to our inability to be determinant in the situation).

    ******On point 5 you suggest that assessing the tone of wording involves a subjective call. Perhaps this point is one that we should agree to submit to a person who is an editor of a prominent magazine, who is not a friend of the Heartland Institute and who is supportive of the consensus position of climate scientists. Oh, I guess Megan McArdle has already spoken. She thinks that faker’s wording in the memo is so outlandish as to be comical.

    Paul? (tee-hee)

    Did you just appeal to an “authority”?

    Wait, let me check…oh yup, you just appealed to an “authority.” Funny that. Guess it works unless one is appealing to a climate authority.

    But aren’t you the one who wrote: “Don’t you have some authority you can consult to learn what you should think about the memo?”

    Wait, let me check…yup, yup, that was you.

    I prefer to “think for myself,” thank you, and while I find McArdle’s writing provocative (and congrats on getting her name right), I am not convinced. I might suggest we’ve been over this point already. Several times.

    *****On point 6, let’s imagine that the fake memo generated little negative publicity against Heartland. Still, Heartland would have a confession that one of its major critics, who regularly accuses Heartland of unethical conduct and who is the Chair of the ethics committee of the AGU no less, has engaged in unethical conduct with Heartland the victim. That is the type of information one could reasonably expect Heartland to publicize aggressively, even if it were not concerned about the obviously faked memo itself.

    Or they could be overreacting to a non-issue because there is something there after all. And once again, Paul, we are playing a game of wild speculation and betting on probabilities which we cannot accurately determine. I said this about two posts earlier: we see different degrees of reliability in the actors here, and (just for argument’s sake) I think the Heartland has been reacting in a very suspicious manner.

    ******On point 7, you don’t respond to my point that one does not need to rely upon the integrity of Heartland or the Koch brothers to recognize the validity of the internal evidence of fakery contained in the documents themselves.

    Sorry, I thought it was pretty clear. We do need to rely upon the integrity of Heartland and the Koch brothers because they are not entities who we can trust, and therefore we must question any statement they may make, together or collectively, including any statements about the documents in question. And I do not particularly see much validity in the evidence so far—you seem to think you’ve been proving your point, when in fact you have not.

    *****The discrepancy is $175,000 not $175.

    Beautiful. What a great teaching moment. I wish I could say I planned this out as a demonstration but, being an honest person, I cannot.

    What I meant to type was “$175K” (and you should have been able to figure that out) but I was in-between things and in a bit of a hurry, so I missed a key and didn’t take the time to proofread. Now, if you were an outside observer you could say, ‘Clearly this is not the real Waldo because the real Waldo knows that the figure is $175,000 not $175. We’ve got a fraudulent post!’ But in this case you would come to a mistaken conclusion for the simple reason that you did not factor in the possibility of a typo. Which could also account for the discrepancy in the memo—and this could be true whether the memo is fake or a forgery. Thus the inaccuracies in the memo can actually be accounted for by sloppy workmanship and we cannot dismiss the Heartland as a culprit.

    *****Your notion that Heartland insider might be lying about the amount of the Koch’s brothers contribution is based on wild speculation that is not supported by a scintilla of evidence.

    BINGO! You actually beat me to the punch here. This one was a set-up. All the arguments you’ve made or referred to so far are speculation, including McArdle’s authoritative article. No matter how good or bad, they are speculation.

    Is Gleick too arrogant to forge a good scam? Did an intern write the memo? Wild speculation.

    *****Of course, one can always speculate about conceivable doubts. That is why I have proposed a standard of proof–”beyond a reasonable doubt”.

    Agree. But you have not met the standard yet.

    *****As you will recall, a reasonable doubt is defined in the law as a “doubt that would cause a reasonable person to hesitate when making a decision in the most important of one’s affairs.”

    I am a reasonable person. And I am hesitating.

    ******I guess you must sputter about quite a bit when making decisions about important matters.

    Perhaps. But I guess you put on blinders, lower your head and batter down the doors of reason in your mad rush to reach a predetermined conclusion. Either that or you decide what you want to believe and then walk ass-backwards into the evidence you want to find.

    *****Thus, the more I read your responses the more convinced I am of the strength of my arguments.

    And the more I read your responses the more convinced I am of their weaknesses and thus remain unconvinced.

    I know that you are very committed to making me admit the forgery of Gleick’s memo, but you will simply have to do better if you want to convince this juror. I am open to be convinced; you can keep trying, but I don’t think we’ve changed ground on any of the issues at all. More importantly, you demonstrate why you are a denialist:

    1) You come to conclusions first and then seek information second.
    2) You manipulate any information you receive to reflect your beliefs.
    3) You disregard or denigrate any information or authority that does not fit your notions.
    4) You happily rely on “authorities” as long as they tell you what you want to hear.
    5) You see this behavior in other people but not yourself.
    6) You simply cannot conceive of any conclusions other than the ones you have already manufactured.

  34. Paul, I apologize. On review, you were referring to point #2 and #3 above and, in my haste (I was at work), I responded to point #1 and #2 instead. So:

    Point 3 in not a red herring? Why would it be?

    If Gleick were an intelligent man (which he is), he would have thought his scam through. Therefore he would have evaluated the need to make the scam seem believable and he would have thought through the problem of an “envelope.” He could use almost any envelope since he was, as far as I know, non-specific about how the actual memo arrived at his house or office. If he does, in fact, have a deviously forging “intern” (or a “sycophant” as Mr. Meyers fair-mindedly speculates) all the intern has to say is, “Why yes, I saw the envelope arrive in the mail; I opened the mail for Dr. Gleick and, not realizing its importance, I through the envelope away per our general office policy. Sorry.” Or Gleick could have used virtually any piece of mail which arrived at his house the day of or before his admitted deception of the Heartland staff person who emailed him the other documents.

    But Dr. Gleick thus far has done none of these easy deceptions. It is therefore more likely that he simply through away or mislaid the envelope before realizing its ultimate importance. This is the only rational explanation based on the probabilities above.

    And the trouble with “innocent until proven guilty” is that it is up to the one who alleges a mis-deed to prove that the mis-deed took place and that the defendant is guilty. You do not have enough evidence in this case to state convict. Therefore we must assume Gleick is innocent of forgery.

  35. Sorry, “threw away” not “through away.” Mea Culpa. How embarrassing. Wish this site had an “edit” button.

  37. Waldo: To respond to all your points in one post would be too long for one comment. Lets look one point at a time.

    Point 1.  Correct me if I am wrong, but the HP analysis excluded only one sentence of the faked memo because the author noted that it had been copied directly from the phished documents.  He correctly recognized that its inclusion would skew the results.

    He for some reason did not recognize that other large sections of the memo were also copied directly from the phished documents or were paraphrased.   If you disagree then examine the documents for yourself and present your own analysis.  No need to rely upon anything Heartland or I say. 

    Now apply some common sense.  It would hardly be surprising that a computer program would point to Blast or Heartland as a likely  author of a memo that is largely copied and pasted from documents written by Blast and Heartland.  A computer analysis that contained such a flaw would have no probative value. 

    To do a proper analysis one would have to exclude all portions of the faked memo that were copied or paraphrased from the phished authentic  documents.  The Hp analysis did not do this or at least provided no description of having done this. 

    Your only response to this argument is that Blast said only what any cornered executive would say.  Huh? One does not need

  38. Opps. End of last paragraph should be:

    cornered executive would say.  Huh? One does not need to rely upon anything Blast says.  The relevant information is fully contained in the documents. 

  39. You are correct, Paul. However, I would like to point out two things.

    1) The analysis still points away from Gleick and, in and of itself, your common sense approach above does nothing to suggest that the memo is fake. “Copied” text does very little except to suggest that our writer (whether a forger or an Heartland president) was a little bit lazy. “Paraphrased” suggests slightly more industry, but not much. And, in order for your point to be valid, we must speculate that Bast would not cut-and-paste his own material, which he might have if he were, say, in a hurry before a board meeting. No matter how you cut it, the results point back to Bast.

    2) Initially–or at least before HP’s computer analysis—several more subjective analysis (including McArdle’s) pointed to Peter Gleick: sentence structure, comma usage, word and phrase choice, a “Batman” like quality. But not we find that most of the memo comes from Heartland documents and the tone has changed to “It does not sound like Gleick, therefore it was a cut-and-paste forgery!”

    Gotta run.

  40. Got just a minute.

    In other words, much of the document is material that would point to Bast as the author. Therefore, are we meant to deduce that Bast is NOT the author because most of the material indicates that Bast is the author?

    And rather than quietly letting this die and getting on with his business of warming the planet, Bast has gone on the offensive. He could be trying to embarrass a long-standing opponent by standing on the high ground, but the the longer he stays up there, the more the issue will be examined. And the more the issue is examined, the less culpable Bast’s opponent appears to be (see above for an example). It is likely, therefore, that Bast is reacting in such a way to suggest that he has been cornered by something contained within the memo. One hopes that he is not actually trying to dissuade science teachers from teaching science or that he didn’t quietly deposit $175K in an off-shore account. But this is, of course, wild speculation. As is most of everything else you are going to throw on the fire in the next couple days.

  41. Waldo: Given your feeble reply, I will take it as conceded that the HP computer analysis has no probative value as affirmative evidence that he memo is authentic.

    On to point 2

    Gleick’s authorship is a red herring in the sense that the document can be shown to be a fake without proving him to be the author. Nevertheless, the strong evidence that he wrote the fake memo would certainly be evidence that it is a fake. Since you want to discuss this point, I am willing. It would take too long to fully recap the evidence of Glieck’s authorship so I will provide just a thumbnail sketch.

    Within a few hours of the faked memo’s publication many people had pegged Glieck as its likely author. (google Lucias Blackboard and read the comments on her first post on this topic) This was based on use of the odd phrase “anti-climate” in the memo and the unusual use of commas and parenthesis in the memo, examples of which are frequently found in Glieck’s blog posts and tweets.

    This evidence pointing to Gleick was identified well before he confessed that he was the source that “passed” along the memo and phished documents. Indeed, the fact that people were confronting him with this evidence (e.g. Roger Pielke, Jr) is likely why he confessed so quickly.

    With his confession, the case for Gleick’s authorship became much stronger. Whoever created the memo had prior access to the phished documents from which large portions of the memo were directly copied. This pool of potential creators is a relatively small group–most likely just high level Heartland staffers and directors, perhaps their secretaries and of course, Gleick.

    From within this pool, it is possible to evaluate who is the memos likely creator. All of the evidence identified that pointed to Glieck prior to his confession, points to him now with more force. Particularly, telling is the phrase “anti-climate” an odd phrase that is not in common usage, but a phrase that appear frequently in Glieck’s writings. Moreover, the phrase, “anti-climate” to describe Heartland’s supporters stands out in much the same way as the phrase “anti-abortion” to describe Planned Parenthood’s supporters would stand out in a fake memo attributed to Planned Parenthood. The phrase is not one that an insider is likely to use.

    In addition, all the previously points I have made about the odd tone, the secret memo that contained no secrets and the numerous errors contained in the memo suggest that it was not written by a Heartland insider. Since I wrote my previous posts, an additional telltale sign has been identified by Heartland. The formal name of Heartland is “The Heartland Instutitute” not simply “Heartland Institute”. Accordingly when referring to Heartland it is proper to capitalize “The” as in “The Heartland Institute” rather than “the Heartland Institute”.

    Mr. Blast has noted that he is careful to recognize this distinction in all of his writings as can be independently verified by examining them. One would expect the CEO of an organization to exercise such care in referring to his organization.

    The memo, however, consistently identifies the organization as “the Heartland Institute”. This is precisely the type of subtle error that a forger would make, but that is unlikely to be made by Mr. Blast in memo he wrote or in a memo written by his staff, particularly if Mr. Blast were on its distribution list.

    Mr. Glieck claims, however, that he received the memo in the mail in “early” January before he received the phished documents. If this is true, then he could not be the forger. It is a common practice, however, to discount exculpatory claims by a suspect. Moreover, any evidence that Glieck might have to support this claim is uniquely within his control. He has not been forthcoming. I guess that is why you speculate about a lost envelope. The original memo also might have physical evidence of when it was created, on what type of printer it was printed and perhaps real fingerprints. It would be helpful for Gleick to release them for forensic analysis, if he is interested in the truth.

    What does the objective evidence show? The memo was scanned by Gleick as shown by the internal data from the memo shortly after he received the phished documents and immediately before they were disclosed. The memo is two pages, but it does not exhibit any scanned “folds” as one would expect if it was sent in a letter envelope appropriate to its length.

    You apparently find it hard to believe that Gleick, the McArthur Genius, could be among the “world’s dumbest” criminals. I think that arrogance and anger, on frequent display in Gleick’s writings, could explain his slips. Also, the memo contains only one glaring error—attributing a $200,000 contribution to the Koch’s brothers rather than a $25,000 contribution. As you have observed, people do make mistakes. This is the type of error, however, that would pop-out to Mr. Blast or his senior staff, but would more easily slip by a forger.

    All of the other errors are very subtle—doubling counting a number of expenditures, or referring to “The Heartland Institute” as “the Heartland Institute”. There are precisely the types of subtle errors that would be evident to Mr. Blast and his staff, but that a forger could easily miss.

    Although Gleick is one of the prime suspects he has never actually denied creating the memo. Instead he has issued an ambiguous statement that implies, but does not expressly deny authorship. That is the type of “confession” that one might expect from a “cornered” forger who wants some escape routes if further evidence develops against him. By contrast, consider the statement of another possible suspect, Mr Blast: “I say without qualification that I did not write this memo.”

  43. Paul, that’s pretty funny and I’m just curious. How on Earth do you think I conceded anything? I conceded nothing. As far as object forensic analysis is concerned, Joe Bast is the author of the memo. This is some pretty damning evidence for your contention that the memo is fake.

  44. Waldo says: “How on Earth do you think I conceded anything?”

    I made a fairly straight forward argument that the HP analysis was flawed and therefore not probative on the issue of whether the memo is authentic. You didn’t say anything relevant to this point. You just raise a bunch of other arguments that are irrelevant to my point.

  45. *****Gleick’s authorship is a red herring in the sense that the document can be shown to be a fake without proving him to be the author.

    Nope, has not been shown. In fact, it appears the memo has Heartland literally written all over it. And, if you remember, several people (yourself included) immediately seized on the idea that Gleick or one of his staff forged the memo.

    *****Nevertheless, the strong evidence that he wrote the fake memo would certainly be evidence that it is a fake.

    Except the evidence is not particularly strong. It is all circumstantial and conjectural.

    *****Within a few hours of the faked memo’s publication…

    And here Paul we are going over the same territory again and again. I know that you find the arguments persuasive, but this is all speculation. Every bit of it.

    I would like a little more substantive proof.

    *****You apparently find it hard to believe that Gleick, the McArthur Genius, could be among the “world’s dumbest” criminals. I think that arrogance and anger, on frequent display in Gleick’s writings, could explain his slips.

    And you realize, of course, how absolutely subjective and antagonistic your analysis is. Do you know Gleick personally? Personally, I am more liable to take his word than the Heartland’s.

    *****Also, the memo contains only one glaring error—attributing a $200,000 contribution to the Koch’s brothers rather than a $25,000 contribution. As you have observed, people do make mistakes. This is the type of error, however, that would pop-out to Mr. Blast or his senior staff, but would more easily slip by a forger.

    Subjective analysis and speculation, Paul, and no more or less ascertainable than anything else.

    ******All of the other errors are very subtle—doubling counting a number of expenditures, or referring to “The Heartland Institute” as “the Heartland Institute”. There are precisely the types of subtle errors that would be evident to Mr. Blast and his staff, but that a forger could easily miss.

    Subjective analysis and speculation. And you are antagonist toward Gleick—that much is obvious—and thus likely to only see one outcome.

    *****Although Gleick is one of the prime suspects he has never actually denied creating the memo. … By contrast, consider the statement of another possible suspect, Mr Blast: “I say without qualification that I did not write this memo.”

    And since Mr. Bast would never, ever lie, we have to believe him.

    So, let’s look at what Mr. Bast actually says next.

  46. Sometimes your style is a little dense and I get lost in what you are trying to say. So, let’s look at how and what the Heartland claims is inaccurate in the memo. Obviously this will take a little time and I must fit it into my daily schedule, so bear with me.

    This is Bast’s initial statement:

    • ******The Charles G. Koch Foundation does not fund our climate change efforts and did not contribute $200,000 to us in 2011. The foundation has issued a statement confirming that its 2011 gift of $25,000 – its first to Heartland in ten years – was earmarked for our work on health care reform, not climate.
    • Again, as long as Heartland is telling the truth here.

    • ******“[D]issuading teachers from teaching science” is not and never has been our goal.
    •
    Again, as long as Heartland is telling the truth. It is not at all improbable that the Heartland wants scientifically illiterate students. You may find that a ridiculous concept, but I do not—these are ideologues and backed by monied interests who stand to lose if AGW is a reality.
    •
    • *****As the “Fundraising Plan” clearly states, we are working with highly qualified and respected experts to create educational material on global warming suitable for K-12 students that isn’t alarmist or overtly political. We don’t believe this should be controversial.
    • Yet it is controversial. Heartland pays a number of scientists, almost none of whom are climate scientists (and thus not “highly qualified”), to produce documents that specifically produce denialist science. They may not believe that feeding corporate science to children should be controversial, but it is.

    • *****We do not seek to “undermine the official United Nation’s [sic] IPCC reports.” We have openly and repeatedly shown that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s reports are not peer reviewed in any meaningful sense,
    • “Any meaningful sense”? What does that mean? Either the information is vetting by experts (which it is) or it is not. This is some pretty misleading language here. And you want to trust these people? If there is anything which should cast dispersion on the group it is this statement: they are pretty clearly attempting to undermine the IPCC by making extremely vague accusations about the quality of the science work the IPCC does. Just because Bast says he doesn’t want to “undermine” the IPCC does not mean that that is exactly what he wants to do.

    • ******exaggerate the certainty of scientific understanding and forecasting abilities, and are written and promoted to serve political rather than scientific objectives.
    • One could say exactly—-EXACTLY—-the same thing about the Hearland. In fact, I will say that the Heartland writes and promotes a political rather than a scientific objective.
    •
    • ******We have produced two highly regarded volumes of scientific research,
    • They are not “highly regarded” outside the denialist community.

    • ******We do not pay scientists or their organizations to act as spokespersons or to “counter” anyone else in the international debate over climate change.
    • Actually, it would seem that this is exactly what they do.

    • ******We pay them to help write the Climate Change Reconsidered reports, in much the same way as any other “think tank” or scientific organization pays the authors of its publications.
    • In other words, ‘We pay people to say what we want them to say.’

    Okay, so far this is exactly what an exec on the defensive would say in such a situation. And it is also the sort of politco-double-speak we can expect and does nothing to clear an HP analysis on its own. These do nothing to clear the Heartland or counter the HP analysis. Actually, this response makes the Heartland more suspicious as its protestations of inequity are pretty clearly dubious at best. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: We cannot trust these folks, and this is a factor in how we view the memo in question.

  47. Waldo: Notice that my analysis is limited to an internal analysis of the documents. The documents speak for themselves and do not depend on the credibility of Heartland or anyone else.

    There are two minor exceptions in my analysis where I relied upon representations outside the documents that are fairly easy to verify objectively. The first minor exception is that I took Mr. Blast at his word that he is a stickler about referring about the capitalization of “The” when he refers to the “The Heartland Institutes”. That claim rings true to me. Anyone who has worked with CEO’s knows that they are often sticklers about such detail. Moreover, it can be objectively verified by examining his own voluminous writings for which he kindly provides a link.

    I also relied upon the dates on the emails Heartland released that contained the phished documents to show that Gleick received the phished documents before he scanned the fake memo. Mr. Gleick also has his computer files with the same information and is free to release them if he thinks that would be helpful or might contradict Heartland’s records. The scan date can be checked by you by downloading a copy that is posted by DeSmog blog, where the documents were initially published on the internet.

    I have carefully not used the types of claims that Mr. Blast uses in his analysis precisely because knowledge of such claims are uniquely within his personal knowledge and cannot be objectively verified. He can make such claims. I cannot and I do not need to.

    To the extent that such claims are relevant to an internal analysis of the documents, it is because one expects that insiders would describe their work in positive or at least neutral terms. On the other hand, a forger is likely to use wording that makes “The Heartland Institute” sound sinister. This is common sense. As I have previously noted, if a memo that purported to be from Planned Parenthood described its supporters as “pro-abortion” any claim of authenticity would be quickly rejected.

    You claim that Heartland institute does not “counter the HP analysis”, which is simply false. It has provided a detailed analysis of what in the memo is copied directly or paraphrased from the “phished” document and what is unique to the memo i.e. what was written by the forger. Anyone can objectively do their own analysis if the choose and point out any errors, if any, Heartland may have made.

    This information makes it obvious that the HP computer analysis is flawed. I am not quite sure why you seem to claim that the HP analysis is not flawed. Please explain. That would be helpful.

    Mr. Blast also kindly provides a link to his own voluminous writing so that anyone who wants to can reasonably complete a similar computer analysis without the obvious flaw contained in the HP analysis. It seems reasonable to me that such an analysis is better left to independent observers since such analysis done by Heartland would be met with suspicions by people like you who would speculate that they rigged the results. Heartland has attempted to make such a task easy.

    You dismiss my arguments as “speculations” and “conjectures”. I guess that all you have to work with. I would assert that my arguments are all logical and rooted in common sense observations that are commonly applied in every day life.

    One last point. I agree that Mr. Blast’s denial cannot by itself be taken as absolutely true. That is not why I offered it. I offered it as a contrast to Mr. Gleick’s ambiguous denial. Mr. Glieck’s denial sounds like the denial that would be made by a cornered forger. Mr. Blast’s denial is an example of the type one would expect from an innocent man.

    I am ready to move on to your next point, which I will likely post later today or tommorrow.

  48. Well, first off I never claimed the HP analysis was not flawed; what I claimed was the obvious: the HP analysis indicated Joe Bast as the author. Those that question this technological forensic analysis are basing their own analysis on very subjective criteria (such as the idea that most CEOs are “sticklers” for details) which is no more certain insisting Gleick is so “arrogant” or “angry” (a conservative cliché about academics, by the way) that he became the dumbest-smart criminal in the world.

    Furthermore, you should probably discount any typographical inconsistencies between Bast’s published writing and the “insider” memo for one very simple reason: as I’m sure you know (since you seem to feel you have a good grasp on the type of person who would write such a memo), no CEO sends anything out before the public without at least two or even three sets of eyes looking it over. Certainly you know this is a common-sense practice. The documents Bast so helpfully links to on the Heartland website have all been through a fact-check/ copy-check/ style-check by people paid in part to do so. Thus inconsistencies such as lower-case “t”s on “the Heartland,” poor word choice, or even mismatching numbers can easily be accounted for by the memo’s status as “confidential and only be distributed to a subset of Institute Board and senior staff.” Joe writes; others proofread; Joe publishes. Joe writers for insiders; no one proofreads; Joe gets published anyway.

    I must again point out that your idea of “common sense” proves absolutely nothing. This, my friend, is all you have to go on. And people are very often wrong when they do with their “common sense.” Thus you are stuck on the idea that the HP analysis is “flawed” because the most objective material counters all your subjective, conjectural assertions about the characters of the men involved. You do see that, don’t you? I’m not sure if you are deliberately not seeing this or if you really are blind to the reality.

    As for your assertion that “the documents speak for themselves”—again, subjective. I spent some time re-reading the memo in question. I see pretty much the exacting flat language of the businessperson in the alleged forged sections and likewise in the admitted copied sections: “Heartland plays an important role in climate communications” etc. And when they do claim something (such as the “counter” to the “Principals and teachers [who] are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective”), what they are willing to admit to sounds as sinister and as ideological as the things they aren’t willing to claim (“Other contributions will be pursued for this work, especially from corporations whose interests are threatened by climate policies.”). We know the types of donors the Heartland donors attacks—is it so hard to believe they would target corporations who stand to lose under the umbrella of AGW? Are you that guileless that you can’t conceive of this? (something tells me not)

    But let’s look at what the computer had to deal with.

    In the document:

    58 lines of text total, including dates and headers (note: some of these individual lines, such as headers, contain 1 to 3 words of text, so they are not always entire sentences which I have counted)

    32 of these lines are completely or mostly highlighted by the Heartland.

    7 of these lines are partially highlighted by the Heartland.

    In total then, 39 lines out of 58 lines were partially written or altered entirely by the alleged forger. Thus 19 lines are cut and pasted directly from Heartland documents.

    714 words in the memo total.

    420 words have been highlighted by the Heartland.

    This means that:

    The Heartland claims approximately 33% of the lines in the memo as their own.

    The Heartland claims 40% of the actual words in the memo as their own.

    This means that roughly 60% of the memo was written by the alleged forger.

    And (despite the fact that Heartland claims 60% of the memo is a forgery) a computer analysis still found Joe Bast as the most likely author of the memo.

  49. Waldo: you didn’t need to tell me that you dont value common sense. I knew that already. Let me suggest now that you are doing your homework that you do a computer analysis without the flaws you have now acknowledged. The download for the software is at wattsupwiththat.

    Your point 4 is the most fun yet.

    To explain its context I think that it can be stated more precisely that “the fact that the memo is generally accurate is evidence that it is an authentic Heartland document”  Fair enough?

    Although this argument might be true in other contexts, it is certainly not true here.  Whoever created the fake memo obviously had the phished documents to guide him because he  copied and paraphrased liberally from them.  The statement that the memo is generally accurate is true to the extent that the copied and paraphrased portions of the memo are consistent with the portions of the phished documents from which it was copied and paraphrased.  That,  of course, is a tautology.  It is the best one can do,  however, because to say the memo is “accurate” would require the assumption that the phished documents are accurate.  I suspect that they are, but this can only be verified by an appeal to extrinsic evidence to which I have no access.

    I could have gone on to point out that it is not true that the memo is generally accurate in those portions that were not directly copied or paraphrased.  Those portions are inconsistent in many way from the phished documents as Heartland meticulously documents at its website fakegate.org .

    Thus, on the whole, the innaccuracies or more precisely, the inconsistencies in the memo, are evidence that it is inauthentic or forged.

    I thought I was making progress based on the comment on point four by “Waldo all points in between” which you can read above.  Perhaps you should talk with him.

    Finally let me briefly recap a few points.  I previously challenged you to provide affirmative evidence that the memo was authentic.  You gave me six points but I could only see that points 1 and 4 could actually be construed as affirmative evidence and they have  now crashed and burned.  Everything else you have argued is an attempt to rebut evidence fakery.

    I further suggested that without affirmative evidence you are like an art dealer trying to sell a picasso painting whose only argument for the paintings authenticity is, “It is not impossible that Picasso painted this picture.”

    That is the state of your position.  I am willing to leave it at that now, but let me know if you still want to play.

  50. The arguments can go on and on for decades, until there is long term evidence that the CAGW hypothesis is true or not. In the meantime, back in the land of reality:
    1) There is no viable large scale alternative
    to fossil fuels. Nuclear can be used
    for electricity, but not for motor fuel.
    2) The Indians and Chinese will not stop
    their industrial development to suit us.
    Unless they do, the US stopping fossil
    fuel use will merely transfer US industry
    to India and China. They would love that!
    3) The truth of 1) above is beginning to
    set in in Germany, Spain, etc. Their
    blind plunging ahead with wind/solar is
    starting to collide with reality.

    It will be interesting to see how long it will take the USG to realize that they are wasting money and wait for some huge breakthrough (if it ever happens) before carrying the “alternative energy” idea ad absurdum.

    Meanwhile, everybody should have fun arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. And, the profs and other researchers and engineers will have a bonanza of free money to fund coocoo studies and projects. If the idea is to corrupt our R&D system, we are doing a fantastic job. It just proves we are all whores. The only question is the price.

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