date: Fri, 7 Feb 1997 11:29:43 -0700 (MST) from: eronen matti subject: Re: Pentti and this mess to: Keith Briffa On Fri, 7 Feb 1997, Keith Briffa wrote: > Matti, > please tell me in some detail what the hell is going on. I was away for > a week with flu and come back to find incomprehensible messages from Joensuu > and now you. I have tried to phone Pentti but with no success. What is the > problem and is what Janice wrote back a problem for you. Please do not think > I have yet taken any side in this because I have yet to find out the > background. > > awaiting some sane explanation > > Keith > -- > Dr. Keith Briffa, Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, > Norwich, NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom > Phone: +44-1603-592090 Fax: +44-1603-507784 > Dear Keith, This is a difficult thing, but I try to explain this in simple words. Before I left here, I wanted to make sure that dendro work will be in progress in Finland while I am absent. As you know, Pentti has not given the data (just a part) to the other members of the Finnish research group. I told him that I will not sign the contract with him for this spring, before he has delivered all data. A short time before I left here he told me that he had sent the data to Markus and Mauri, and I put my name to the contract paper. Markus and Mauri managed to open the files after some difficulties, but when they had studied the data for some weeks, they found that the "gap" was about 600 years long! Pentti had cut and hidden this part of the material. We cannot work with a man like him. He lied to me that he had sent all data and this way got my signature to the contract. I think that it is also a serious wrongdoing to hide a crucial part of the data in this way without telling anything to the collaborators. He only makes tricks to prevent the other researchers (including me and undirectly also you) from making progress in the research. And he pretends to work with us for a common project! You can make your own conclusions from this, but in Finland Pentti has spoiled many things. One thing is that I am not willing to be his supervisor any more. For five years he has told me that the doctoral thesis will be finished in a few months. I guess it will remain at that stage. As you can see, I am really angry and disappointed. I try to continue the research with Mauri and Markus. I have written here in Boulder a rather long manuscript, some kind of synthesis of our five-six year work in Lapland. I intended to publish it with Pentti, but I have now changed my mind and must partly rewrite it. I don't know the details of the financial disagreement, but Dr. Veijo Ilmavirta, the man responsible for EU-projects at the University of Helsinki, is furious. He has only sent me some short messages telling that Pentti's behaviour is unacceptable. His e-mail is Veijo.Ilmavirta@Helsinki,fi. These things will be settled but there is no return back as it was before this incident. Best wishes, Matti