- Banned
- #1
The New Scientist is a warmist centric magazine and they are apalled at the lack of scientific candor. I told you old fraud and konrad, the avalanche is moving and I believe it is now unstoppable. I suggest you jump ship while you can...
Without candour, we can't trust climate science - opinion - 14 July 2010 - New Scientist
I highlighted the most important sentence (IMO) of the whole article.
Without candour, we can't trust climate science
14 July 2010
Magazine issue 2769. Subscribe and save
For similar stories, visit the Editorials Topic Guide
IS CLIMATEGATE finally over? It ought to be, with the publication of the third UK report into the emails leaked from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). Incredibly, none looked at the quality of the science itself.
The MPs' inquiry - rushed out before the UK general election on 6 May - ducked the science because the university said it was setting up an "independent scientific assessment panel" chaired by geologist Ron Oxburgh.
After publishing his five-page epistle, Oxburgh declared "the science was not the subject of our study". Finally, last week came former civil servant Muir Russell's 150-page report. Like the others, he lambasted the CRU for its secrecy but upheld its integrity - despite declaring his study "was not about... the content or quality of [CRU's] scientific work" (see "Scientists respond to Muir Russell report").
Though the case for action to cut greenhouse gases remains strong, this omission matters. How can we know whether CRU researchers were properly exercising their judgment? Without dipping his toes into the science, how could Russell tell whether they were misusing their power as peer reviewers to reject papers critical of their own research, or keep sceptical research out of reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?
Russell's report was much tougher on data secrecy, finding a "consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness". Key data on matters of public importance - like CRU's assembly of 160 years of global thermometer data - cannot be regarded as private property. Even so, he ought to have joined Oxburgh in calling for greater documentation of the "judgmental decisions" that turned raw data into the graphs of global average temperatures. Data manipulation is the stuff of science, but that manipulation has to be as open and transparent as the data itself.
Global thermometer data going back 160 years cannot be regarded as private property
Russell's team left other stones unturned. They decided against detailed analysis of all the emails in the public domain. They examined just three instances of possible abuse of peer review, and just two cases when CRU researchers may have abused their roles as authors of IPCC reports. There were others. They have not studied hundreds of thousands more unpublished emails from the CRU. Surely openness would require their release.
All this, plus the failure to investigate whether emails were deleted to prevent their release under freedom of information laws, makes it harder to accept Russell's conclusion that the "rigour and honesty" of the scientists concerned "are not in doubt".
Some will argue it is time to leave climategate behind. But it is difficult to justify the conclusion of Edward Acton, University of East Anglia vice-chancellor, that the CRU has been "completely exonerated". Openness in sharing data, even with your critics, is a legal requirement.
But what happened to intellectual candour - especially in conceding the shortcomings of these inquiries and discussing the way that science is done. Without candour, public trust in climate science cannot be restored, nor should it be.
Without candour, we can't trust climate science - opinion - 14 July 2010 - New Scientist
I highlighted the most important sentence (IMO) of the whole article.
Without candour, we can't trust climate science
14 July 2010
Magazine issue 2769. Subscribe and save
For similar stories, visit the Editorials Topic Guide
IS CLIMATEGATE finally over? It ought to be, with the publication of the third UK report into the emails leaked from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). Incredibly, none looked at the quality of the science itself.
The MPs' inquiry - rushed out before the UK general election on 6 May - ducked the science because the university said it was setting up an "independent scientific assessment panel" chaired by geologist Ron Oxburgh.
After publishing his five-page epistle, Oxburgh declared "the science was not the subject of our study". Finally, last week came former civil servant Muir Russell's 150-page report. Like the others, he lambasted the CRU for its secrecy but upheld its integrity - despite declaring his study "was not about... the content or quality of [CRU's] scientific work" (see "Scientists respond to Muir Russell report").
Though the case for action to cut greenhouse gases remains strong, this omission matters. How can we know whether CRU researchers were properly exercising their judgment? Without dipping his toes into the science, how could Russell tell whether they were misusing their power as peer reviewers to reject papers critical of their own research, or keep sceptical research out of reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?
Russell's report was much tougher on data secrecy, finding a "consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness". Key data on matters of public importance - like CRU's assembly of 160 years of global thermometer data - cannot be regarded as private property. Even so, he ought to have joined Oxburgh in calling for greater documentation of the "judgmental decisions" that turned raw data into the graphs of global average temperatures. Data manipulation is the stuff of science, but that manipulation has to be as open and transparent as the data itself.
Global thermometer data going back 160 years cannot be regarded as private property
Russell's team left other stones unturned. They decided against detailed analysis of all the emails in the public domain. They examined just three instances of possible abuse of peer review, and just two cases when CRU researchers may have abused their roles as authors of IPCC reports. There were others. They have not studied hundreds of thousands more unpublished emails from the CRU. Surely openness would require their release.
All this, plus the failure to investigate whether emails were deleted to prevent their release under freedom of information laws, makes it harder to accept Russell's conclusion that the "rigour and honesty" of the scientists concerned "are not in doubt".
Some will argue it is time to leave climategate behind. But it is difficult to justify the conclusion of Edward Acton, University of East Anglia vice-chancellor, that the CRU has been "completely exonerated". Openness in sharing data, even with your critics, is a legal requirement.
But what happened to intellectual candour - especially in conceding the shortcomings of these inquiries and discussing the way that science is done. Without candour, public trust in climate science cannot be restored, nor should it be.
