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Thursday, April 5, 2018
Bizarre reasons
The LANL PAD Alan Bishop has suddenly stepped down. Very odd, lots of crazy speculation as to why since the reason he gave is so bizarre that no one understands it.
32 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Haven't heard any crazy speculations. What are the speculations?
Maybe it has something to do with the contract bid. We’ve been told informally that UC/A&M/Battelle won the contract for LANL with an announcement coming any day now. Can’t wait to see the ant-UC folks (Mechels and Mello) and the Santa Fe New Mexican have their heads explode. Will be entertaining.
The real answer is much simpler: Interim director Terry Wallace has always despised Bishop, so he settled the score like he settled several other scores recently. Wallace cares a lot more about feeding his fragile narcissistic ego than he cares about the lab.
The real answer is much simpler: Interim director Terry Wallace has always despised Bishop, so he settled the score like he settled several other scores recently. Wallace cares a lot more about feeding his fragile narcissistic ego than he cares about the lab.
April 7, 2018 at 9:30 PM
This is true about Wallace. He is more about loyalty than Trump but did Bishop give a reason? Anybody hear?
Interim director Terry Wallace has always despised Bishop, so he settled the score like he settled several other scores recently. Wallace cares a lot more about feeding his fragile narcissistic ego than he cares about the lab.
In other words, Alan has finally gotten a taste of his own medicine. After all, this is exactly what he did for decades to anyone in T-division who so much as dared to express an independent opinion. Shortly after LANS came into power, Alan instructed his henchman Tony Redondo to get rid of any group leader who was perceived as a potential challenger. This was done under the guise of "reorganization", but in fact led to complete decimation of basic research in the division. Entire research areas disappeared.
Even though Tony was finally disposed of in 2015, having served his purpose, none of the harm has since been repaired. If anything, the damage appears irreversible.
I don't know if this realization ever occurred to Alan, or if he was caught up in his short-term scheming. Perhaps the calculation was just that: to stay on for as long as possible, climb up as high as possible, and collect the largest salary and the largest management bonus possible. And it's conceivable that he was also encouraged by the example of Nanos: no matter how much damage one caused, there would be no real accountability. Worst comes to worst, one can just retire at some point.
So Alan is pretty much "exhibit A" of how things operated under LANS.
I have also heard it was just Wallace settling some old scores. Wallace my not be in very long but he he wants to leave a mark. I am not sure why Wallace had an issue with Bishop but from what I have heard over the years is that Wallace just did not get along with very many people so he has many scores to settle.
With the Sandia contract award, all of the key personnel, including the PAD (VP) level, were replaced by NTESS. The bidder's key personnel had to be submitted in the proposals and evaluated for contract award. No proposed key personnel could be on more than one bid team. If that's the case for the LANL RFP then maybe Bishop is simply wanting to continue working at LANL.
from what I have heard over the years is that Wallace just did not get along with very many people so he has many scores to settle.
April 8, 2018 at 11:03 PM
Wallace got his first upper management position based on his Mommy's position in the NM State Legislature. That pissed off a large number of better-qualified candidates, as well as some honest upper managers who hated the corrupt political patronage system in NM. His credibility has been zero as well as his qualifications.
So is he actually gone? No change in org chart or notice he wants to spend more time with his family. He was very bad for science and hurt people for no reason except perhaps they hadn’t put his name on their papers.
The above comment attempting to conflate Alan Bishop and Pete Nanos is utterly hilarious and so entirely off the mark that it falls into the realm of the ridiculous. If anyone in this little drama deserves to be compared to Nanos, it would be Terry Wallace, though Wallace seems to also be inspired by Trump's leadership style as well.
April 11, 2018 at 5:43 AM: "utterly hilarious", "entirely off the mark", "ridiculous". I guess April 8, 2018 at 8:53 PM really hit a nerve, huh?
There's actually a good point in the original post. While Bishop and Nanos could not be more different in their manners, they are very similar in their substance. Both are bullies, who could not stand any challenge or free expression. Any perceived competition had to be eliminated. Nanos did this by yelling and abusing people to their faces, Bishop by hiring minions like Redondo and having them to do the dirty work. The effect is the same. The legacy of Nanos is long-term damage to the Lab. The legacy of Bishop is the decimation of basic research in T-division.
Also, April 10, 2018 at 9:44 AM is right. In certain groups, the condition for conversion from postdoc to staff was to start putting Bishop's name on one's papers. You can check the publication records of those who were converted: before their promotion they all suddenly discovered the urge to "work with Alan". As a result, Alan's publication record is spectacular. People would always wonder what fraction of these papers he actually bothered to read.
These comments are proof positive that commenters on this blog do not work at LANL. Anyone who does would know the Bishop story by reading their email. Week old news.
Yes, many people referred to him as "and Alan Bishop" for insisting his name be added to papers on which he'd done nothing.
On another note, exchangemonitor says he is now LANL Chief Scientist. This must be a position created for him. https://www.exchangemonitor.com/sarrao-bishop-head-lanl-science-programs/?printmode=1 Is this how he gets around the contract change? Will this let him stay on no matter who wins the new contract? And does this imply that it is known in upper management circles who has won?
What's obvious is that another poor soul will be spending eternity in Liar's Hell.
April 15, 2018 at 11:39 AM
Oh please, everyone knows this about Alan, EVERYONE. In fact if you look on the internet you find a official story on ethics of authorship.
https://www.salon.com/1999/06/14/scientific_authorship/An offending survey When junior physicists decide who deserves to share authorship on their scientific papers, sometimes politics is more important than work.
" One investigation by Swazey, Anderson and Lewis published in American Scientist found that inappropriate authorship among science faculty is as common as plagiarism among students. The message is loud and clear: If you are young, know your place. If you are old, you deserve some "generosity." Sometimes the profession seems to extend this generosity beyond belief. A junior physicist, on the average, authors two papers a year. Some senior physicists are able to be authors on many more papers. Particularly prolific are K.H.J. Buschow and F.R. de Boer at the University of Amsterdam, who in a single year published 54 and 37 papers respectively. This proliferation was matched by A.R. Bishop at Los Alamos National Laboratory, who in addition to his busy publication schedule also has considerable administrative duties. No comments were received from these prolific authors after requests by fax and e-mail."
OK, who gets to call ethics violations here? Seriously, who should prosecute this? Professional societies, DOE/NNSA IG or Ethics Council? The US attorney? Who? Somebody needs to go down, hard.
Wish there was something that could be done about ethics violations, 7:14. We had to take ethics training regularly at LANL. At first it was clear that ethics training was for the little people not the management. Then the little people got into the act. When publishing in journals such as Science and Nature, one has to sign that everyone who made significant contributions was included on the paper. Then people started to ignore that. I explained to my mentees that putting someone’s name on a paper who had not contributed was as bad as not including someone who had. They had to think about advancement and that went away. I retired.
The lack of ethics has damaged LANL beyond measure. I regularly sat on national and international review committees where the rules are strict: funding is based on rankings from peer review, conflicts of interest are not allowed. LDRD among other things has been deeply tainted by becoming patronage from the management. Much money is thrown away because of manager convenience or predjudice. Early money is what gets new things going and maintains vitality in an organization. Spending on projects that aren’t going to work in preference to those that will (often because the better projects are thought to be able to get outside money) has been a mighty contributor to the death of scienc at LANL.
One can hope for better under a new contract but remember it has always been: same monkeys different trees.
I do not know how to stop these ethical violations. The people who do them have a great deal of power. You report problems to a professional society, chances are the person you report has a lot of friends there and they will even be part of any investigation. Get labelled a trouble maker and you will find getting another job very difficult, no matter how good a scientist you are. Everywhere you apply can get a phone call about what a bad hire you would be. I have seen people do their very best to destroy the careers of those who wouldn't play along. There is a reason the system persists. The funders want to fund who they want so they aren't going to appreciate anyone who insists on ethical behavior, either. I thought science was supposed to be better than that and then I came to LANL. I am sorry to have to advise you to be careful.
Since we are on the whole scientific ethics slant and Alan Bishop perhaps we should roll out some the "issues" with one of Alans picks non other than Tony Redondo. The old blog had a whole discussion on what happaned and it was not pretty. Below is the link to get the story.
http://lanl-the-rest-of-the-story.blogspot.com/2008/11/comment-of-week.html Comment of the Week
Things are really heating up in the recent Terry Wallace post. Just take a look at the comment below!
If you haven't been following this controversy it begins here. In later comments the charges become quite specific and there are links to download the relevant documents.
Anyone want to predict how this will play out? Anonymous said...
The posters here are correct. Redondo's case = clear-cut plagiarism. Simple homework: read his "paper" & the "Comment" then follow refs therein.
At any half-decent institution, this sort of gross misconduct would've meant the end of one's scientific career. Not at LANL though where up is down and down is up. The guy stopped doing science, moved into management and years later was made Theoretical Division Leader!
Ask yourself: how can a plagiarist become a leader of a premier division at a major natl lab? The story of corruption actually goes deep here and makes for an interesting investigation. (Hint: Bishop really wanted to install a yes man to do dirty work for him. Redondo fit the bill perfectly: dumb and loyal. Bishop and Terry W. knew very well that Redondo had scientific fraud in his past, but hid that info from the committee. )
This kind of rotten culture permeates LANL. A good investigative journalist only needs to dig a bit -- it's a treasure trove.
It suits Bishop very well to have this kind of “publication record”. I mean, he could have asked that only some of the people add his name to their papers, some of the time. The number of papers per year would have been sensible then giving him a chance to argue that they were in fact his work. But it’s hard to contain Ego and Greed, so now he has a record of having his name on more papers than he can read. It’s one thing to commit ethical violations, it’s another to be so conspicuous about it.
It also suits LANS very well to have Alan as their Chief Scientist.
So rather than getting rid of Bishop it seems he has found a way to escape the contract change. A bad penny never held on better. Guess science isn’t going to get much chance at the “new” LANL.
32 comments:
Haven't heard any crazy speculations. What are the speculations?
Something is lurking in the dark, and at LANL that often results in another coverup.
Maybe it has something to do with the contract bid. We’ve been told informally that UC/A&M/Battelle won the contract for LANL with an announcement coming any day now. Can’t wait to see the ant-UC folks (Mechels and Mello) and the Santa Fe New Mexican have their heads explode. Will be entertaining.
What reason did he give? He has always been an outsider to UC and Bechtel management so not sure what the cause would be unless personal.
The real answer is much simpler: Interim director Terry Wallace has always despised Bishop, so he settled the score like he settled several other scores recently. Wallace cares a lot more about feeding his fragile narcissistic ego than he cares about the lab.
Too bad. Bishop was better than most of the LANS wrecking crew.
The real answer is much simpler: Interim director Terry Wallace has always despised Bishop, so he settled the score like he settled several other scores recently. Wallace cares a lot more about feeding his fragile narcissistic ego than he cares about the lab.
April 7, 2018 at 9:30 PM
This is true about Wallace. He is more about loyalty than Trump but did Bishop give a reason? Anybody hear?
Interim director Terry Wallace has always despised Bishop, so he settled the score like he settled several other scores recently. Wallace cares a lot more about feeding his fragile narcissistic ego than he cares about the lab.
In other words, Alan has finally gotten a taste of his own medicine. After all, this is exactly what he did for decades to anyone in T-division who so much as dared to express an independent opinion. Shortly after LANS came into power, Alan instructed his henchman Tony Redondo to get rid of any group leader who was perceived as a potential challenger. This was done under the guise of "reorganization", but in fact led to complete decimation of basic research in the division. Entire research areas disappeared.
Even though Tony was finally disposed of in 2015, having served his purpose, none of the harm has since been repaired. If anything, the damage appears irreversible.
I don't know if this realization ever occurred to Alan, or if he was caught up in his short-term scheming. Perhaps the calculation was just that: to stay on for as long as possible, climb up as high as possible, and collect the largest salary and the largest management bonus possible. And it's conceivable that he was also encouraged by the example of Nanos: no matter how much damage one caused, there would be no real accountability. Worst comes to worst, one can just retire at some point.
So Alan is pretty much "exhibit A" of how things operated under LANS.
I have also heard it was just Wallace settling some old scores. Wallace my not be in very long but he he wants to leave a mark. I am not sure why Wallace had an issue with Bishop but from what I have heard over the years is that Wallace just did not get along with very many people so he has many scores to settle.
With the Sandia contract award, all of the key personnel, including the PAD (VP) level, were replaced by NTESS. The bidder's key personnel had to be submitted in the proposals and evaluated for contract award. No proposed key personnel could be on more than one bid team. If that's the case for the LANL RFP then maybe Bishop is simply wanting to continue working at LANL.
I'm reminded of a quote, paraphrasing, that if you have enemies, it's because you defended a position at some point in your life.
I'm reminded of a quote, paraphrasing, that if you have enemies, it's because you defended a position at some point in your life.
That cannot be Alan, I have never known him to have any positions whatsoever, of course that could be seen as having a position.
from what I have heard over the years is that Wallace just did not get along with very many people so he has many scores to settle.
April 8, 2018 at 11:03 PM
Wallace got his first upper management position based on his Mommy's position in the NM State Legislature. That pissed off a large number of better-qualified candidates, as well as some honest upper managers who hated the corrupt political patronage system in NM. His credibility has been zero as well as his qualifications.
So is he actually gone? No change in org chart or notice he wants to spend more time with his family. He was very bad for science and hurt people for no reason except perhaps they hadn’t put his name on their papers.
The above comment attempting to conflate Alan Bishop and Pete Nanos is utterly hilarious and so entirely off the mark that it falls into the realm of the ridiculous. If anyone in this little drama deserves to be compared to Nanos, it would be Terry Wallace, though Wallace seems to also be inspired by Trump's leadership style as well.
The year was 2003, at LLNL, Eric Steele, PF Manager, lost the crown jewels security keys. Then did not report it for weeks!! Say, what!!??!!
April 11, 2018 at 5:43 AM: "utterly hilarious", "entirely off the mark", "ridiculous". I guess April 8, 2018 at 8:53 PM really hit a nerve, huh?
There's actually a good point in the original post. While Bishop and Nanos could not be more different in their manners, they are very similar in their substance. Both are bullies, who could not stand any challenge or free expression. Any perceived competition had to be eliminated. Nanos did this by yelling and abusing people to their faces, Bishop by hiring minions like Redondo and having them to do the dirty work. The effect is the same. The legacy of Nanos is long-term damage to the Lab. The legacy of Bishop is the decimation of basic research in T-division.
Also, April 10, 2018 at 9:44 AM is right. In certain groups, the condition for conversion from postdoc to staff was to start putting Bishop's name on one's papers. You can check the publication records of those who were converted: before their promotion they all suddenly discovered the urge to "work with Alan". As a result, Alan's publication record is spectacular. People would always wonder what fraction of these papers he actually bothered to read.
These comments are proof positive that commenters on this blog do not work at LANL. Anyone who does would know the Bishop story by reading their email. Week old news.
"The legacy of Bishop is the decimation of basic research in T-division."
To be fair he also did lots of damage to CCS as well.
Yes, many people referred to him as "and Alan Bishop" for insisting his name be added to papers on which he'd done nothing.
On another note, exchangemonitor says he is now LANL Chief Scientist. This must be a position created for him. https://www.exchangemonitor.com/sarrao-bishop-head-lanl-science-programs/?printmode=1
Is this how he gets around the contract change? Will this let him stay on no matter who wins the new contract? And does this imply that it is known in upper management circles who has won?
April 12, 2018, said:
"In certain groups, the condition for conversion from postdoc to staff was to start putting Bishop's name on one's papers."
I call BS. Name one or more specific instances or face a fiery eternity in Liar's Hell.
I call BS. Name one or more specific instances or face a fiery eternity in Liar's Hell.
April 14, 2018 at 3:29 PM
All you have to do is look up Alans publication record, the rest is rather obvious.
April 14, 2018 at 5:46 PM said:
"All you have to do is look up Alans publication record, the rest is rather obvious."
What's obvious is that another poor soul will be spending eternity in Liar's Hell.
No, what’s obvious is that Alan has a minion so loyal that he will try to defend him here even in the face of obvious, overwhelming evidence.
What's obvious is that another poor soul will be spending eternity in Liar's Hell.
April 15, 2018 at 11:39 AM
Oh please, everyone knows this about Alan, EVERYONE. In fact if you look on the internet you find a official story on ethics of authorship.
https://www.salon.com/1999/06/14/scientific_authorship/An offending survey
When junior physicists decide who deserves to share authorship on their scientific papers, sometimes politics is more important than work.
" One investigation by Swazey, Anderson and Lewis published in American Scientist found that inappropriate authorship among science faculty is as common as plagiarism among students. The message is loud and clear: If you are young, know your place. If you are old, you deserve some "generosity."
Sometimes the profession seems to extend this generosity beyond belief. A junior physicist, on the average, authors two papers a year. Some senior physicists are able to be authors on many more papers. Particularly prolific are K.H.J. Buschow and F.R. de Boer at the University of Amsterdam, who in a single year published 54 and 37 papers respectively. This proliferation was matched by A.R. Bishop at Los Alamos National Laboratory, who in addition to his busy publication schedule also has considerable administrative duties. No comments were received from these prolific authors after requests by fax and e-mail."
Burn baby burn.
OK, who gets to call ethics violations here? Seriously, who should prosecute this? Professional societies, DOE/NNSA IG or Ethics Council? The US attorney? Who? Somebody needs to go down, hard.
Wish there was something that could be done about ethics violations, 7:14. We had to take ethics training regularly at LANL. At first it was clear that ethics training was for the little people not the management. Then the little people got into the act. When publishing in journals such as Science and Nature, one has to sign that everyone who made significant contributions was included on the paper. Then people started to ignore that. I explained to my mentees that putting someone’s name on a paper who had not contributed was as bad as not including someone who had. They had to think about advancement and that went away. I retired.
The lack of ethics has damaged LANL beyond measure. I regularly sat on national and international review committees where the rules are strict: funding is based on rankings from peer review, conflicts of interest are not allowed. LDRD among other things has been deeply tainted by becoming patronage from the management. Much money is thrown away because of manager convenience or predjudice. Early money is what gets new things going and maintains vitality in an organization. Spending on projects that aren’t going to work in preference to those that will (often because the better projects are thought to be able to get outside money) has been a mighty contributor to the death of scienc at LANL.
One can hope for better under a new contract but remember it has always been: same monkeys different trees.
I do not know how to stop these ethical violations. The people who do them have a great deal of power. You report problems to a professional society, chances are the person you report has a lot of friends there and they will even be part of any investigation. Get labelled a trouble maker and you will find getting another job very difficult, no matter how good a scientist you are. Everywhere you apply can get a phone call about what a bad hire you would be. I have seen people do their very best to destroy the careers of those who wouldn't play along. There is a reason the system persists. The funders want to fund who they want so they aren't going to appreciate anyone who insists on ethical behavior, either. I thought science was supposed to be better than that and then I came to LANL. I am sorry to have to advise you to be careful.
Since we are on the whole scientific ethics slant and Alan Bishop perhaps we should roll out some the "issues" with one of Alans picks non other than Tony Redondo. The old blog had a whole discussion on what happaned and it was not pretty. Below is the link to get the story.
http://lanl-the-rest-of-the-story.blogspot.com/2008/11/comment-of-week.html
Comment of the Week
Things are really heating up in the recent Terry Wallace post. Just take a look at the comment below!
If you haven't been following this controversy it begins here. In later comments the charges become quite specific and there are links to download the relevant documents.
Anyone want to predict how this will play out?
Anonymous said...
The posters here are correct. Redondo's case = clear-cut plagiarism. Simple homework: read his "paper" & the "Comment" then follow refs therein.
At any half-decent institution, this sort of gross misconduct would've meant the end of one's scientific career. Not at LANL though where up is down and down is up. The guy stopped doing science, moved into management and years later was made Theoretical Division Leader!
Ask yourself: how can a plagiarist become a leader of a premier division at a major natl lab? The story of corruption actually goes deep here and makes for an interesting investigation. (Hint: Bishop really wanted to install a yes man to do dirty work for him. Redondo fit the bill perfectly: dumb and loyal. Bishop and Terry W. knew very well that Redondo had scientific fraud in his past, but hid that info from the committee. )
This kind of rotten culture permeates LANL. A good investigative journalist only needs to dig a bit -- it's a treasure trove.
11/17/08 12:42 AM
It suits Bishop very well to have this kind of “publication record”. I mean, he could have asked that only some of the people add his name to their papers, some of the time. The number of papers per year would have been sensible then giving him a chance to argue that they were in fact his work. But it’s hard to contain Ego and Greed, so now he has a record of having his name on more papers than he can read. It’s one thing to commit ethical violations, it’s another to be so conspicuous about it.
It also suits LANS very well to have Alan as their Chief Scientist.
The phoney LANS “chief scientist” fits in very well with their org chart full of “leaders”.
So rather than getting rid of Bishop it seems he has found a way to escape the contract change. A bad penny never held on better. Guess science isn’t going to get much chance at the “new” LANL.
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