Sat Feb 23 11:10:23 GMT 2008
On June 8, 2007, we sent our first letter to Stuart Ashman of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, documenting the plagiarism and taxonomic claim-jumping that seems to have occurred in NMMNHS Bulletins. Since then, the DCA has held three inquiries into our allegations, none of which we consider to answer our questions.
Recent events (February 2008) consitute the third inquiry: skip down to that heading if you don't need the background.
Ashman's response of June 19, 2007 stated only that "after discussing this matter with Dr. Lucas and Dr. Hunt, I find that they adhered to the publishing practices and policies of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science".
We hardly considered it satisfactory that Ashman's investigation consisted of asking Lucas and Hunt whether, in their own opinion, they had done anything wrong. We also noted that adhering to NMMNHS practices and polices does not in itself tell us anything, given that no-one is able to state what those policies are.
We made these points in our letter of July 10, 2007, which Ashman did not reply to. We complained to the State Governor's office on July 24, 2007, and James Jimenez, of the Governor's office, responded by asking Ashman to investigate more fully (see Jimenez's letter to us of August 10, 2007.
As a result of the Governor's Office's intervention, Ashman wrote to us on October 4, 2007, to inform us of the more in-depth inquiry that he had undertaken:
I, once again, reread your previous correspondence had further discussions with Dr. Hunt and Dr. Lucas. In order to ensure that I was not missing anything and to perform further due diligence I determined that it would be helpful to have the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees review the matter [...] the Executive Committee determined that no further action was required.
That was all: "no further action was required". We replied on November 15, 2007, explaining that this response was wholly inadequate, and expounding in detail what kind of response could be satisfactory. In summary, we asked to know in detail how our reasoning was incorrect, why our concerns were unwarranted, what the "publishing practices and policies" of NMMNHS are, and what the content was of the responses that Lucas and Hunt were said to have made to our allegations. [Please read the letter for the full version.]
Ashman replied on November 16, 2007 in a very short letter that did not address any of our points, and merely stated that our concerns were "without merit".
Finally, our letter of December 10, 2007, reiterated our dissatisfaction with Ashman's total failure to address any one of our specific points; there was no reply to this letter, and that with our correspondence with the DCA was at an end.
[Ashman has subsequently stated, on the record, that "saying 'no merit' is not enough of an answer"; and that there should be (but isn't) a written record of the investigation. See below.]
In February 2008, a sequence of articles appeared in the Albuquerque Journal:
In the first of these articles, Ashman was quoted as saying "It didn't warrant that kind of formal inquiry", in explaining why no written report exists of the second inquiry described above. By the second article, this had become "There isn't [a written record documenting the investigation and conclusion]. There should be", and "I agree that saying 'no merit' is not enough of an answer". The third article, an editorial, called for a "full, third-party review".
In response to this, we assume, the third inquiry was set up. We read in the Albuquerque Journal for February 21, 2008, that the Department of Cultural Affairs was to hold a new inquiry into our allegations that very day. None of the scientists who sent the original complaints was contacted to offer material to the inquiry panel, or indeed informed that it was taking place -- we only heard about it from the Journal.
The inquiry was held behind closed doors -- no outside observers, for example journalists from the Albuquerque Journal -- were allowed to be present. The two scientists who were brought in to review the allegations (Orin Anderson and Norman Silberling) are both former Lucas collaborators. Neither of them is a vertebrate palaeontologist. In short, this inquiry was deficient in every respect: in using Lucas colleagues as the "outside" reviewers, in failing to include a vertebrate palaeontologist among the reviewers, in being conducted without any reference to those bringing the allegations, and worst of all, in being held in secret.
The result appears predictable: the results of the inquiry will apparently be published by March 3, but as reported by the Albuquerque Journal, Norman Silberling, one of the two independent experts, had already reached his conclusions three days before the inquiry, when he sent a letter to Stuart Ashman [local mirror] pronouncing Lucas innnocent.
It has become apparent that both of the outside reviewers brought in to conduct the DCA's independent inquiry have long histories with Lucas that call their independence into question.
According to the online GeoRef database, Lucas and Orin Anderson have co-authored a total of 65 publications, of which 26 are abstracts and 39 appear to be full papers.
Lucas and James Silberling have co-authored five publications, made up of two abstracts and three full papers.
Both outside reviewers have been the subject of fulsome dedications of volumes edited by Lucas and his colleagues:
Lucas, Spencer G., Steven C. Semken, William R. Berglofm and Dana S. Ulmer-Scholle (eds). 2003. Geology of the Zuni Plateau. New Mexico Geological Society, Fifty-fourth Annual Field Conference, September 24-27, 2003.
With great pleasure, I dedicate this book to one of the foremost students of the geology of west-central New Mexico, Orin Anderson. [...] I began to work with Orin in 1988 on that west-central New Mexico field conference. [...] I learned much from Orin, and I learned much about him. [...] In my mind, he joins that short list of the great students of the geology of west-central New Mexico, which now includes Clarence Dutton, Julyan D. Sears, Charles Maxwell and Orin Anderson.-- Spencer G. Lucas
The front-matter of this volume may be freely downloaded [local mirror], and the dedication fills the whole of page vi.
Lucas, Spencer G., and Justin A. Spielmann (eds). 2007. The Global Triassic. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 41.
It is both an honor and a pleasure to dedicate this volume to Norm Silberling and Tim Tozer, two of the great knights errant of the Triassic timescale. [...] I (Spencer Lucas) worked with Norm in Sonora, Mexico, during the mid-1990s. Together, we collected the first Early Triassic ammonites found in Mexico, and Norm brought great clarity and wise caution to interpretation of the structural morass of the Caborca terrane from which lesser observers have mostly conjured tectonic fantasy. I can truly say that Norm is a fine gentleman and a gentle soul -- soft spoken and well spoken, but with a penetrating intellect and vast experience that made him one the most valuable field collaborators of my career.
This dedication, which runs to twelve pages including references, may be freely downloaded [local mirror].
It is difficult to see how two men to whom Lucas has dedicated entire volumes, both with extensive record of co-authorship with Lucas and one of whom ranks among "the most valuable field collaborators of [Lucas's] career", can be expected to make a fair and unbiased evaluation. However, as reported in the Albuquerque Journal, Silberling pointed out in a phone interview that "This was in no way a jury trial, so there's no way friends of Spencer and people who have been with him shouldn't comment".