I think the reason is that whether or not they had his measurements, other physicists could make their own. It’s too bad no climatologists outside Anglia have been doing anything for the last decade or so, or their results wouldn’t be so important.

But scientists don’t need to be asses for it to work. I think it’s better when they’re polite: “We regret having to disagree with our learned colleagues, but unfortunately their methodology was so poor that no valid conclusions can be drawn from their work, and it is puzzling how such elementary misunderstandings could be produced by such qualified researchers.”

I don’t know a single scientist (and I know a lot of scientists) who doesn’t think something is wrong with the way science works, from the “peer review” process (which people mistakenly believe ends when three scientists with a conflict of interest have told Nature your paper shouldn’t be published because it doesn’t support their work—-may arXiv be the end of this) to the common practice of publishing laughably long arcane papers that no one will read and that milk the “X in the presence of Y is correlated with an increase in Z” effect for all its worth just for the sake of having a publication, to the fact that every paper is signed by seven people most of whom could not explain anything in it and at least one of whom has probably not even read it, to the corrupt funding process, to the system of handing out awards, to the hilarious impossibility of tenure, to what is basically the miserable office-politics-riddled academic feudal life. The poor scientist in moments of mad fantasy may imagine a world in which open-minded peers entertain any possibility before discarding it, up to and including the possibility that their theories may be wrong, and researchers were allowed to spend their time researching instead of wondering how on earth they’ll get their next grant.

In other words, just because this is the way science is actually carried out does not mean we should be happy about it. If you find out the way your sausage is made involves grinding up sawdust and diseased rats, should you simply shrug and say, “Oh well! Guess that’s how sausage is really made!” (In case you were wondering, the answer is No, you should not.)

Jerkdom is not, in fact, a prerequisite for science, though it’s often a substitute for imagination. Look in the correspondence of the great scientists; are they *all* mean? Maybe Feynman was sometimes a jerk, but he was open to possibilities. Linus Pauling was open to possibilities. Einstein was open to possibilities. Science is a creative endeavor. To say merely that boys will be boys when they exhibit mafia behavior is delusional. Yes, Venter breathing down the neck of the grand consortium was the reason they finished ahead of schedule, for fear of being beaten by a private enterprise. It was good of Venter to chase them. But please note the major difference in this example: these climate scientists whose emails were leaked were collaborating to *prevent* competition by refusing to share their data. Their snarkiness was actually whinging about people who wanted to review them. Yes, scientists should be hard on each other, by all means. That’s the point. These climate scientists destroyed data and selectively refused to honor Freedom of Information Act requests specifically because, if one can say this about global warming researchers, they couldn’t stand the heat in the kitchen. They wanted to avoid scrutiny and marginalize those who wanted to scrutinize them. And that should not be science as usual, even if it sadly is.

Doesn’t the public discriminate at all? I have only worn a white coat when I was likely to get something icky down myself, and in which case it did not remain white for long; or when using a lathe or something like that. If we stuck a gorilla in a white suit, would it be a scientist?

Listen to the awful truth, people: SCIENCE IS MADE OF PEOPLE!

Eeeek!

There are two different issues associated with the two different lots of data. The scientific datasets are bound by various different understandings about confidentiality with the originators of those datasets. On something as big as climate change, this is clearly not a satisfactory situation, but it has arisen as a result of the number of different sources, not as a result of conspiracy. There are moves going on in the scientific community to ease this situation, because it interferes with the ability to do research.

The deletion of email data was a daft response to a flood of vexatious FOI requests for the scientific data, some of which is published and is freely available to anyone who can be bothered to do a simple search anyway. This was the wrong way to deal with this, and those involved will probably get spanked for it. But in the end, it’s a relatively minor offence, and it is mischievous in the extreme to conflate it with the (fictional) deletion of scientific data.

The fact of the matter is that Cory and Boing Boing have been reinforcing the US mainstream media’s position that this leak is a non-issue. In reality this data leak calls into question the spending of trillions of dollars and the emergence of “global governance”. I hope you can see why I wish to draw attention to points not represented widely elsewhere.

Unfortunately, Cory and BB commentors have largely failed to note that the data sets which have “settled” the “science” of AGW switched between two different sets of data! One part of the data, before 1960, includes proxy tree ring data. The other part, with the dangerous looking (and completely fraudulent) “Hockey Stick” graph… that part throws out the tree ring data because it doesn’t agree with actual temperatures. This is part of the code comments I mentioned. Its not so much part of the snarky emails, but rather the rest of the data leak.

If the tree ring data really is so good that the “scientists” at CRU used it legitimately to make up proxy data for the past, why is now so poor that it must be thrown out for the past 4-5 decades? And if there is a reason backed by actual science, why not be upfront about it, rather than silently seeking to “hide the decline”?

This tree-ring proxy data has been used by dozens of, maybe even hundreds of, other studies. Along with the academic disempowerment of those who disagreed with the CRU crew, it is largely this absurd proxy data usage which has “settled the science”.

Perhaps now you can be snarky about my use of quotation marks to signify incredulity towards certain marked terms.

Being successful in ones job is not a sign of blessing, think of a very successful bank robber or, if you a right-wing Christian fundamentalist, a right wing abortion surgeon.

But science usually works better than this. Though it is true that all scientists gossip and complain about peer review, science is usually more cooperative than rugby. Rugby is a zero sum game. Science is usually a positive sum game, where each team’s discovery advances that team’s interest in part and the collective interest of all competing teams in part.

There a couple reasons why the climate scientist’s emails showed more bickering and backstabbing than usual. Climate science is more intertwined with partisan politics than most science is, and the future of civilization is at stake. I think those folks are playing a rougher ballgame than scientists usually play.

In contrast with Peter Watts, with hindsight I think they would all have scored better if they had played a more fastidiously high-minded game.

You’re just a lean, mean meme machine. ALL CAPS, “scare” “quotes” and now the Al Gore’s house meme and the off-the-grid meme in one sentence.

It takes just a few seconds and no money at all to type “glaciers melting” into Google and click the first link. And if you have time to read this blog, then you have the time to read the article that link takes you to.

It’s comfortable to latch onto one factoid and not look any further, but it isn’t skepticism or doubt, it is straight-up denialism. If you refuse to look at the evidence that’s there in the open for anyone to read, then you are denying reality, there’s no way around it. If you aren’t open to anything anyone tells you that might disturb your comfortable existence, then why should anyone not dismiss you? Why should anyone want to talk or listen to you?

What is then astounding is that they can then turn a united face to the rest of the world and say “the science is settled” and “anyone who has doubts is the equivalent of a Holocaust denier”.

I also missed the emails that explained how the scientists tampered with the ice core samples, faked the geologic evidence for more CO2 in the atmosphere now then in the past few , faked the increased methane and C02 and N2O levels, showed how they made it appear that ice caps were melting and ocean levels rising faster than last century, faked the average glaciers shrinking, and the unprecedented low level of snow cover worldwide.
No evidence has come forward to challenge any of the data or conclusions, including the cute emails. Yes, some data is not ready for prime time, and doesn’t make it into every paper. Not fraud, just you can’t always talk every data point in every paper. The phrase “hide the decline” has been explained, if you want to, google for it.
If you think desire for “global governance” is behind it, I have to shake my head. We’re (I’m American) the most powerful country in the world. The US has the most firepower and terrorism as an excuse for kicking ass, taking names. Do you honestly think that a secret conspiracy to rule the world is going to devote energy to making sure kids recycle and turn the water off when brushing teeth, or is it going to do the same damn thing every other would be would conquerer has ever done, rule through fear, thuggery and murder? Going green means ulimately we’ll be more efficient and longer lasting as a nation in power, but short term it’ll mean a large investment of capital in non-warmongering industries. It’d at least delay the expansion of the US empire. How is this going to let Al Gore or Obama rule the world? What’s the model for it happening? The green route is just not a cost effective way to do this. “War on Terror” worked for the last bozo, we could’ve just stuck with that if we were gearing for global governance.

The most damaging parts concern the computer code. Both some code itself that was released, as well as lengthy emails from the programmer “Harry,” talking about the shoddiness of the data and the programming under it used to make the projections, both of which have never been released for public review. Unhandled exceptions, formula results being out of the possible range not stopping the program, commenting indicating falsification of results, duplicate and incomplete data, etc.

The various posts I have read poo-pooing these leaks don’t seem to mention this aspect at all…

If this were to happen in any other field that has such a large effect on our economy and well-being, you would be up in arms about investigating these people. Be it politicians, lawyers, CEO’s, doctors or drug companies.

So, while these emails are relatively benign in the grand scheme of things, they paint a poor picture of a handful of people that seem to be above reproach and wield considerable power. At the VERY LEAST, our world would be made a better place if we shone a light on their work and allay any fears. Otherwise, you merely play into the hands of the hardcore denialists that take doubt and secrecy and twist it into moving minds.

This is scientific tribalism in it’s worst form. What a shame that one of the most important topics of our time has become so poisoned by polarization and politics that we can not even discuss it like adults.

Sen. Inhofe, meanwhile, lauded the timing of the incident.

“The interesting part of this is it’s happening right before Copenhagen. And, so, the timing couldn’t be better. Whoever is on the ball in Great Britain, their timing was good,” he said.

(and why doesn’t the closing tag for blockquote appear to do anything visible?)
Hmm, that looks like the smoking gun of conspiracy to me…. you heard it here – Inhofe is masterminding (err, not really the right word I guess) the whole thing. Criminal activities for political gain.

If it quacks like a duck…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VRBWLpYCPY

i always appreciated that science was based on collaboration and logic, the field you’re describing sounds less secular and more religious. i fell in love with science because it IS so black and white. people may disagree with findings, but the burden of proof has a tendency to smooth these things out.

that’s not to say science is absent from conspiracy and human error, but i believe its less severe than this article paints it. and the last thing people should do (especially the insane religious sects) is suspect scientific findings because it is soo human.

FWIW
I used to be dead set convinced of global warming. Then it stopped warming, they renamed it, they shut “deniers” out of the debate and I learned that the original raw data CRU used had been deleted due supposed lack of hard-drive space- only the “smoothed” data was available. I stopped believing and started noticing the absurd amount of money around AGW and how all other environmental concerns are being thrown out of the window.