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Scientists Step Down After CRU Hack Fallout
An anonymous reader writes "In the wake of the recent release of thousands of private files and emails after a server of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia was hacked, Prof. Phil Jones is stepping down as head of the CRU. Prof. Michael Mann, another prominent climate scientist, is also under inquiry by Penn State University."
I'll probably get called a nazi for saying this ... but it should really have been filed under "Religion", as well.
>>>Those big money scientists are faking the whole global warming thing so they can rake in the big bucks.
You were modded funny, but this sentence is insightful.
As my professor was just telling me a few months ago: For every 3 physicists, there's only enough grants to keep 1 employed. That's a lot of pressure to produce the desired results so you can keep getting handed "big bucks" aka grants. If I was in that position, rather than lose my job or research grant, I might fudge the data too and keep the dollars rolling in. Apparently these people managed to do it for ~15 years before finally getting caught. That's billions of dollars they would not have been given, if they had not fudged the data.
Meanwhile those who are honest, and didn't hide the temperature decline, well they are "paupers" in comparison since nobody wants to fund them. They were also shut-out from publishing papers or reviewing data. Go read "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", aka Paradigm Shifts, by Thomas S. Kuhn
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Which one? The free market religion or the church of global warming? Most of these debates seem to devolve into people from each camp hurling insults at each other.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
As opposed to climatologists, whose suddenly improved livelihood does depend on a big climate scare.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
>>>>The plain fact is that the emails revealed the extent to which the "Hockey Team" were prepared to pervert data, methods, peer review and the scientific method in order to get the result they wanted.
>>I'm really hoping that slashdot gets rid of the politics section. I hate having the scientific illiteracy of my country rubbed in my face every other day.
What on earth does the GP post have to do with scientific illiteracy? There's no unscientific statements in that post... instead the GP was making a criticism of the CRU emails based on an understanding of how the scientific process works, which they did their best to pervert, by refusing to expose their data for review.
By itself the use of "Trick" wouldn't be too alarming, just suggestive of a laps in their ethical education. Mildly inappropriate at worst. However, in the context of other poor word and phrase choices such as using the trick to "Hide" something instead of correct, the expressed willingness to destroy data to avoid sharing it, and to redefine the concept of peer review in order to silence those with opposing view points collectively cross the line between mildly inappropriate into the range of ethical misconduct.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde