[Vision2020] Hacked Climate Reseach Unit E-mails: 1,092 Responses to “The CRU hack”

Wed Nov 25 17:10:43 PST 2009

Ted Moffett wrote:
> Of course you know that unless verified by some means (have you?), the 
> content of these hacked e-mails may have been altered or fabricated.  
> I therefore would not publicly post them with names of authors, given 
> this may be putting false words into someones mouth, as it were.  Your 
> posting of this hacked alleged e-mail and naming an alleged author is 
> ethically questionable.

I don't think it's ethically questionable to post quotes from an alleged 
email that I copied from a news site.  Is the hacking unethical, most 
definitely.  Highly illegal as well.  I don't see how posting a quote 
from it that is publicly available is unethical.

>  
> Your slant on this e-mail does not consider important issues. You did 
> not apparently investigate the facts regarding the Soon and Baliunas 
> paper in "Climate Research," that Mann allegedly referenced, given you 
> wrote "I wonder if what they perceive as a "breakdown in the peer 
> review process" actually means that papers by skeptical authors passed 
> a rigorous scientific review. "

Here's a pop quiz:

You are a leader in the field of climate science, internationally 
respected and at the heart of one of the world's most important 
scientific endeavors.  You discover a paper that was published in a 
reputable journal whose conclusions you disagree with.  Do you:

A. Analyze the paper, carefully noting the potential problems you find.  
Send a letter to the authors detailing the problems with a list of 
questions you would like them to answer about their data collection and 
data processing methodologies.  Await their response.

B. Take the data published with the paper and the descriptions of the 
methodologies used and verify whether or not the conclusions can be 
supported by the evidence.  Write a rebuttal if you find problems and 
get it published.

C. Perfom the experiment using your own considerable resources, 
determine whether or not your conclusions agree with theirs, publish 
your results.

or

D. Use your considerable political clout to stop such papers from being 
published in the first place, including persuading others not to cite 
papers in that journal nor to submit papers to it for review. 

What do you do?

If you choose anything but A through C, you are playing politics, not 
doing science.

>  
> Encouraging scientific journals to follow rigorous review standards 
> for publication of papers is a defense of the scientific method and 
> the credibility of the scientific community.  There were egregious 
> violations of the scientific review process that occurred in the 
> publication of these "junk science" papers in question.  I offer a 
> source lower down to elucidate.  When supposedly reliable scientific 
> journals publish blatantly junk science, it undermines the credibility 
> of the scientific community, just as when the New York Times publishes 
> false facts, it undermines the credibility of journalism.
>  
> I see nothing wrong with a scientist encouraging other scientists to 
> not submit to a journal that has a faulty paper review record. He is 
> possibly doing them a favor!  The papers in question that were 
> published were a "abuse of the peer review system," to quote 
> you, insofar as it failed by publishing them!  Mann was trying to 
> correct an abuse, it seems to me, not engage in one.  But I cannot 
> vouch for his moral integrity.  He may be a scoundrel, even if a well 
> published and brilliant scientist.  I have not investigated his life.

You think it's an abuse because their conclusions disagree with what you 
*know* is correct.  That's not science, it's religion.  The scientific 
method was specifically designed to distinguish between incorrect 
theories and possibly-correct theories.  Stand back and let it work.

I also know nothing about the man.  It shouldn't really matter, because 
science is supposed to be objective.

>  
> Where in this alleged e-mail is their discussion of "talking about 
> arranging things so that "skeptical" authors can't submit papers to 
> peer reviewed journals,..."  Maybe you did not post this content, or I 
> missed it, but after carefully reading the e-mail content you did 
> post I don't find such an assertion; and anyway no one can stop 
> someone from submitting to a journal, unless engaging in criminal acts 
> (extortion, violence, theft).

He suggested that they should encourage others in the climate research 
community not to submit papers to the journal.  You're right that he 
didn't say he'd stop skeptics from submitting papers, just that he would 
"encourage" others that he can have some control over not to do so.  I 
was wrong there, and I apologize.  Considering that he is allegedly 
considering this, though, what choices do you think a 
non-skeptical-but-on-the-fence climate researcher has but to acquiesce?  
You don't want to get on the wrong side of a politically-powerful person 
who is willing to do this.  That's the problem.

>  
> Perhaps you refer to the comment about appealing to the editorial 
> board of the journal in question regarding their review process?  It 
> seems Mann's alleged concern was warranted, even if there are ethical 
> problems with such a suggestion.  The published Soon and Baliunas 
> paper was such a serious breach of the scientific review process, that 
> half the editorial board of the journal "Climate Research" resigned!  
> The managing director of the parent company for the journal in 
> question protested... Read about it in the source quoted below:
>  
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas#Controversy_over_the_2003_Climate_Research_paper
>  
> Shortly thereafter, 13 of the authors of papers cited by Baliunas and 
> Soon refuted her interpretation of their work.^[12] 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas#cite_note-11> There were 
> three main objections: Soon and Baliunas used data reflective of 
> changes in moisture, rather than temperature; they failed to 
> distinguish between regional and hemispheric temperature anomalies; 
> and they reconstructed past temperatures from proxy evidence not 
> capable of resolving decadal trends. More recently, Osborn and Briffa 
> repeated the Baliunas and Soon study but restricted themselves to 
> records that were validated as temperature proxies, and came to a 
> different result.^[13] 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas#cite_note-12>
>
> Half of the editorial board of /Climate Research/, the journal that 
> published the paper, resigned in protest against what they felt was a 
> failure of the peer review process on the part of the journal.^[14] 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas#cite_note-13> ^[15] 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas#cite_note-14> Otto 
> Kinne, managing director of the journal's parent company, stated that 
> "CR [/Climate Research/] should have been more careful and insisted on 
> solid evidence and cautious formulations before publication" and that 
> "CR should have requested appropriate revisions of the manuscript 
> prior to publication."^[16] 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas#cite_note-15>
>

Refuting claims made in papers is good science.  Replicating studies and 
comparing results is also good science.  Analyzing and reporting 
problems found is good science as well.  Attempting to silence the 
journal or to minimize it's influence using political maneuvering is 
not.  The reputation of the journal will stand or fall on it's own.

AGW science is supposed to "settled".  Let the science speak for 
itself.  This includes complete transparency and public access to 
publicly-funded data.

Paul