A Summary of the Great CRU Data Hack Emails

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html

by miked • 17 years ago

24 33 17 years ago

bishophill.squarespace.com

patio11• 17 years ago

A reoccurring them seems to be "I would rather delete this data than let it be publicized due to a [Freedom of Information Act] request."

If I had an abundance of charity in me, I would say he's a pompous git who can't stand the thought of The Enemy winning even a single centimeter against him. The uncharitable explanations all rhyme with fraud.

antonovka5• 17 years ago

If I had a persistent gadfly like Stephen McIntyre who would use every opportunity to twist my data and words to his own political ends -- and the media accordingly -- I might also behave in such an untoward manner regarding the release of data and internal communications.

I find the theft of internal communications abhorrent, the politicalization of the issue uninteresting, and I seriously doubt there's any real science to be gleaned from this entire sophomoric debacle.

mru• 17 years ago

That's the point. It's not science.

arvinjoar• 17 years ago

Well, what this showed us is that some respected climate researchers are just making shit up. So it's not science, no.

jacoblyles3• 17 years ago

How dare he ask for data series and attempt to reproduce analyses on his blog! How dare he uncover faults and discrepancies which are subsequently acknowledged in published research! If science and data are not interpreted by the right people, how can we be sure that the world is getting the right message?

I can't believe people would defend deleting data rather than responding to a FOI request. Well, actually, I can. You just did. Which is sad.

nkurz3• 17 years ago

Stephen McIntyre who would use every opportunity to twist my data and words to his own political ends

I read McIntyre's site regularly, and find very little evidence of this. His 'political ends'? By design, there's very little political discussion on his site. But one of few times this veil was dropped was after Obama's election, where he allowed it to be known that he was rooting for Obama: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4265

"I don't often talk about my political views - though I've sometimes taken pains to point out that I do not share the political views of many readers. In American terms, Canada would be a blue state along the lines of Massachusetts; Toronto would be a liberal city in a blue state; and I live downtown in one of the most liberal constituencies in the city. None of this is unrelated to my political views. I realize that many Climate Audit readers have opposite political views, but we try to get along."

"I think that Obama's election is also very healthy for the U.S. in world terms. The U.S. stands for both good and bad in world terms. While U.S. economic dominance has faded, it is still the leading world nation and leadership from the U.S. is important. Obama is in a position to provide such leadership in a way that would have been impossible for McCain."

You might argue successfully that his pedantic insistence on sources, data, and algorithms gets in the way of 'progress', but to say that this is because of his political views is a gross error. Like most of the 'skeptics' on his site, his goal is to insure that we are basing our decisions (whatever they may be) on sound science rather than on propaganda. Certainly he has some readers who do not share this goal, but I feel very certain that his personal goal is good science.

nkurz3• 17 years ago

In the same way that one shouldn't tar the 'skeptics' with the same brush used for Big Oil, one should be cautious about 'recurring themes' based on excerpts. There are some messages where the real scientists distinguish themselves nicely from the scoundrels. Take this one for example: http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=1010&fi...

I'm sure it's not perfect, but it looks like a good example of scientific progress being made:

  Nonetheless, it's unfortunate that I flipped 
  the Korttajarvi data. We used the density data as the
  temperature proxy, as recommended to me by Antii Ojala
  (co-author of the original work). It's weakly inversely 
  related to organic matter content. I should have 
  used the inverse of density as the temperature proxy. I 
  probably got confused by the fact that the 20th century 
  shows very high density values and I inadvertently  
  equated that directly with temperature.

  This is new territory for me, but not acknowledging an 
  error might come back to bite us. I suggest that we nip 
  it in the bud and write a brief update showing the
  corrected composite(Nick's graph) and post it to 
  RealClimate. Do you all agree?

Be cautious on generalizing across all the emails as a single corpus. Throw the book at the scoundrels, but don't lose sight of the good science being done in the background. This message would make me tend to trust what Darrell Kaufmann has to say in the future.

jacoblyles3• 17 years ago

Is this evidence that Global Warming is a Hoax? No. And commentators that are attempting to respond to that point are obviously setting up a straw man for political purposes (hi Nate Silver!). What we have here is blatant evidence of scientists behaving in a closed, secretive, political, and unscientific manner. And that ought to worry people. I am frankly shocked that some are trying to brush this away as "boys being boys". In what universe is this acceptable behavior?

This is not a call to abandon global warming research. This is a call to shine a little sunlight on it, open up data sets and source code to the public, and get politics the hell out of our science. We need to rethink the standards we hold science to in the modern world.

Andys• 17 years ago

> get politics the hell out of our science. We need to rethink the standards we hold science to in the modern world

If only this could also apply to medical research / health science!

jeremyw4• 17 years ago

I'm struck that code/data openness is an interesting point in the history of science. On one hand, how can we be in 2009 and still be having this argument? Most fields of science don't require this dissemination. On the other hand, it's amazing the species has progressed to the cusp, where we realize baring your soul to the criticism of all benefits everyone. The transparent society cometh.

crux_5• 17 years ago

Thought experiment: What would internal correspondence look like in evolutionary biology circles if the intelligent design movement had the resources of those who seek to refute the man-made climate change hypothesis?

For a taste of what they already deal with: http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Lenski_affair

Thought experiment continued: What if the intelligent design movement is right, and the theory of evolution had subtle flaws that were kept under wraps? Would the hypothetical internal correspondence be different in any way?

All this release does is shine the light on the inevitable politicization of the process; it says nothing about the conclusions. (The sausage-making process doesn't necessarily make them wrong -- or right.)

jeremyw4• 17 years ago

Point taken. But the opposition (in any game) plays a critical role in disrupting safe methodology and keeping data/rules honest.

Note IPCC reports have substantially lowered earlier predictions and findings have more weight. The science is better for the effort to "prove it."

crux_5• 17 years ago

The issue would be that the intelligent design people are playing the game of politics while evolutionary biologists are playing the game of science. (This should be mostly uncontroversial, I hope ...)

This may or may not be the exact same situation with climate science, but I don't think think many would dispute that at least a significant portion the opposition to global warming is purely political.

At that point, what paths are left besides losing the game or entering the politics/PR arena as well? The science has suffered as a result, not been strengthened; the most damning excerpts are evidence enough of that.

jbellis2• 17 years ago

Once you start playing "the ends justify the means," you're not doing science anymore.

crux_5• 17 years ago

I'm not sure where means/ends comes from.

My point was that politicization alone accounts for the tone and content of the internal correspondence on display, regardless of the soundness of the actual science.

spamizbad• 17 years ago

If the evolution had the same impact shaping economic policy (or any policy for that matter) as global warming, I could guarantee you a similar scenario as to what we have before us. It does not, and humans place way more value on money than they do dogma, so evolution is safe and global warming will be controversial regardless of our ultimate findings.

Climate data does not make global warming a lightening-rod issue. What makes it such a controversial issue is that, if true, it would require dramatic changes to the way the First World operates.

robotrout• 17 years ago

My favorite comment ...

    The used car salesmen must be pleased that a 
    lower form of life has been identified.

A Summary of the Great CRU Data Hack Emails

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