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Climategate and the Need For Greater Scientific Openness

Posted by Soulskill on from the protecting-the-wrong-data dept.

The Guardian follows up on the recent news that CRU climate scientists were cleared of scientific misconduct with an article that focuses on how the controversy could have been avoided, and public trust retained, had the scientists made more of an effort to be open about their research. You may recall our discussion of a report from Pennsylvania State University; that was followed by another review with similar conclusions. Quoting: "The review, led by Sir Muir Russell, does not mention the media. Instead, it examines the reaction of the scientists at the UEA's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) to the pressure exerted by bloggers: 'An important feature of the blogosphere is the extent to which it demands openness and access to data. A failure to recognize this and to act appropriately can lead to immense reputational damage by feeding allegations of cover-up.' The review adds: 'We found a lack of recognition of the extent to which earlier action to release information might have minimized the problems.' Pressure on the scientists, whose once esoteric work creating records of past temperatures had gained global significance, was intense. In 2005, CRU head Phil Jones replied to a request: 'We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?' But, the review implies, the more they blocked, the more the Freedom of Information requests flooded in."

13 of 701 comments (clear)

  1. Impressive by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?

    I think this demonstrates that the idealized version of the scientific method isn't always followed.

    1. Re:Impressive by SQL+Error · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We know that. Scientists are people.

      Of course, Jones neatly answers his own question there - that's the very best reason to make your data available. Is he so incurious that he doesn't even want to know if he's made a mistake?

    2. Re:Impressive by Kohath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      His real concern is legitimate research being lambasted as a cover up precisely aided by openness. The kind of people who make that kind of accusations so easily are not the kind of people to be calmed down by reasoned debate.

      But the people on the sidelines can learn. (Unless you've arrogantly decided that everyone except you is hopelessly benighted.)

      His contention was not that data should be closed. He shared one of the problems with releasing data.

      Why is this problem relevant? For sympathy?

      Lots of things that honest people have to do are problematic in some way. But they still do it because it's the right thing to do, regardless.

      The issue he brings up goes well beyond his personal frustration and I find it puzzling how you can... this is the point where I realized you were a troll (yep, as I was writing it). Good one - got me going for a bit.

      I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Anyone who doesn't sympathize is a troll maybe?

      If it's easy to draw incorrect conclusions from raw data, then it's important to point out how to tell the difference between the correct conclusions and the incorrect ones.

    3. Re:Impressive by h4rm0ny · · Score: 5, Insightful


      I suggest you try being a public skeptic of AGW and see which side really controls the media and squashes dissent. The Independent, a major British newspaper, published a big opinion piece by their columnist Johan Hari, which basically boiled down to "we don't need evidence of AGW because we know it's real and you hate the world and all life upon it if you ask for any". When comments on the story were pointing out flaws in what he said (he's not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination) and politely making intelligent points against AGW, the newspaper deleted everyone's comments. Try being skeptical here on /. about AGW. You'll get a smattering of people that will actually engage what you say and a whole load of downmods, strawmen and personal attacks.

      You and others keep saying that proponents of AGW are fighting some battle against media conspiracy and underhand tactics. The reality is that anyone publically skeptical of AGW gets viciously hammered. I might be able to get away with this post because of the irony factor, but the general case is that AGW proponents have an overwhelming influence in the media, in government and in academia. They ain't the underdogs. They're the Establishment.

      --

      Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
    4. Re:Impressive by SpeZek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I believe the catholic church held a similar view when the Gutenburg press came out. They argued that the general public would not understand the scriptures and would take parts of it out of context.

      I'd say that's exactly what's happened for a large percentage of Christians.

    5. Re:Impressive by Xonstantine · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seriously, the meat of climatology is pure statistics, you touch a few other fields just barely in the collection of the data, but the heart and soul of climatology is statistics and there very few climatologists with statistics degrees of any kind.

      That should kind of scare you.

      Why? The conclusions were reached a long time ago. All they are doing now is fitting the data to match the conclusions.

  2. That's how science works... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?"

    Because that is how science works. Any decent scientist would rather say "here is my data, please help me find something wrong with it."

    1. Re:That's how science works... by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?"

      Because that is how science works. Any decent scientist would rather say "here is my data, please help me find something wrong with it."

      Well, except that it isn't how science actually works; it's an idealized view of how science "ought" to work, by non-scientists. Right from the very beginning, Galileo first published many of his results in the form of cryptograms, claiming the priority of the discovery, but holding back on the details until he could analyze and confirm his results. As a general thing, no, scientists don't make the details of their data available until they're done analyzing it and have published.

      You apparently have a view of scientists that does not accept the fact that they are actually human beings. Let me suggest that if somebody who has already convincingly demonstrated to you (from blog postings) that they do not have a very good understanding of work that you have devoted twenty-five years of your life to comes to you and says "You're wrong, give me your data so I can prove it," your first instinct probably would not be to say "sure, here's all my unpublished work, go wild."

      In general, scientists are happy to share their data (after they've finished analyzing it and have published) with other scientists who they believe might have some competence in understanding it.

      --
      http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    2. Re:That's how science works... by Kreigaffe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What we have here is a neat little conundrum.
      They're not making the details of their data available because they're not done analyzing it, you say? Great for them, but the rest of us are dealing with climate change and climate change legislation *right now*. That means the whole damn issue is polarized. They're worried about people using their data to prove they're wrong? They're acting like petty assholes in private emails, they're talking about tricks to make graphs display their data in the specific way they want it displayed? I can think of no better way to get the public at large to become distrustful of everything you've been saying than that sort of confluence of events. All they're missing is being on video laughing like a villain and maybe slapping an orphan and kicking a puppy.

      And you act like these guys had any intention of ever releasing their data.... don't be silly, that was never on their agenda anyway. Ever. Their data. It was going to be the source for many, many papers, for the rest of their careers, and to hell with any good any other person or people could have potentially done with that data; they've figured out job security, humanity be damned.

      --
      ... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about. :|
  3. Re:Response by Compholio · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They aren't politicians -- they aren't accountable to the public, though they often do perform public services.

    If they are using MY tax dollars then they damn well ARE accountable to the public.

    So all of their private conversations are suddenly public record because they get paid with tax dollars? I'm sorry, but you have no right to take away our privacy just because you are the source of our paychecks.

  4. Re:Response by dfetter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You will, of course, be demanding accountability in military spending that's equal to what scientist using public funds have now, right? How about starting with the total decommissioning of our nuclear weapons? We spend about 8 billion dollars on each nuclear submarine. Has anyone been asked to present a post-Cold War case for ever having one of those?

    --
    What part of "A well regulated militia" do you not understand?
  5. false by Jeek+Elemental · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It was only a big deal to the paid US shills, there was no "loss of public trust".
    Reasonable people listen to scientific consensus.

  6. And they dont' need to be experts either by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Science isn't a priesthood where you must reach a certain level of trust, experience, or whatever to be allowed in. It is open to all, and all have the potential to contribute. My favorite story along those lines is a 9 year old girl that debunked aura readers. The people said "I can feel your aura!" She said "Ok then you stuck your hands through this partition and I'll put my hand over one of yours, you tell me which." Results were taken and tabulated, readers couldn't do it (did a bit worse than chance actually). It was a complete, valid, experiment, has been referenced later and retested, and an elementary student came up with it.

    Now that doesn't mean anyone will have USEFUL commentary, but it doesn't mean that people should be excluded just because they aren't an "expert".

    In particular, someone may not be an expert at the given science, but might be an expert at something related that is important. So you have a document on climate and a mathematician wants to examine it. He knows jack and shit about climate, he usually doesn't even know what the weather is. However he knows math inside and out. He goes, examines your research and says "Wait a sec, this is wrong. The math here doesn't work. These numbers do not come out right." He can't analyze the climactic theories, but found out that the conclusion was incorrect because the data had been processed wrong. Or perhaps a philosopher who is very skilled at formal logic and analyzing arguments reads the research and says "Ok hang on, you have a gap in your logic. The conclusion does not follow the premises as stated here." Again he not an expert in the field, but he's an expert in logic.

    It is highly important that people of different disciplines be allowed to look at research, in particular when said research is very complex. When you are talking about something that is based off of a lot of math conducted on thousands of points of raw data, that is the sort of thing that is ideal to being in "non-experts" on. Get mathematicians, statisticians, probably some cryptography experts (recognizing patterns in randomness is their thing) to look at the data. They might not be able to understand the climate science, but they can analyze the data and the math and say "This calculation is solid," or "This calculation is incorrect." Looking at the parts of the whose with their given expertise can be as or more valuable than trying to look at the whole thing. The climate scientist might look at the whole thing and say "Ya, all the science fits," but only because they assume all the math is right. If the math is wrong then they might say "Oh, well this no longer shows what it says it does."