These findings and proposed hypotheses likely influence policies which financially hit just about everyone. Billions of tax dollars have been diverted on the basis of climate research. Is it really an extravagant demand to know what these scientists' discussions amount to?
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If you want to know what they're up to, read their publications, not their emails.
If they aren't publishing, then that's when things get fishy.
Isn't that a bit like saying, "If you want to know what Monsanto is up to, read their publications"?
Don't get me wrong. I think that Science is the time and again proven method and culture to move society forward. That said, Science has also become very politicized and needs to be scrutinized so that it remains trustworthy and beneficial.
Publications are all well and good, but with all the public money and resources being shifted toward climate study and CO2 remediation policies, I think that we should continue to look behind the curtains wherever we can.
> Isn't that a bit like saying, "If you want to know what Monsanto is up to, read their publications"?
No, it isn't. Scientists are not corporations.
Monsanto is spelled with an "M". There's another difference.
How is being a corporation relevant?
Are you saying that Scientists can't have questionable motives, methods, and data that should be closely examined when what they're both doing has such a big impact on our world, but corporations do?
> Are you saying that Scientists can't have questionable motives, methods, and data that should be closely examined when what they're both doing has such a big impact on our world, but corporations do?
No. I'm saying "Read their papers."
Verifiable and reproducible publications are all the communications you need. The public pays for their research, not their emails.
You and I both know that the most WTF results are not published precisely because you can't write them up in any way that would be reproducible.
But what I am really interested in is reading any and all political stuff in those emails. Global Warming is too hot a political tropic to allow a few percent insiders to stir the pot to take away what little freedom we have left.
I'm glad you agree that a few profit-driven CEOs shouldn't hold more sway over policy than hundreds of hard-working researchers.
I was refering to the leadership of the so called democratic party.
except many of these "scientists" won't release their data sets to allow verifiable and reproducible science.
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/04/oxburgh-re...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-22/climate-change-scie...
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/61233/uk-climategate-inq...
Those are just 3 of the 8 organizations that determined that their findings were not the result of data tampering.
"The individuals concerned had no idea that their work would ever be of such high public profile, and as a result their record keeping wasn't very good," [Ron Oxburgh, formerly of Shell] said. "If I was asked to produce records of all of the research that I did 10 or 12 years ago, I would be hard pushed to do so."
Obviously they could have been more public with their data sets, algorithms, etc. but they're nowhere near alone in that regard.
I think you need to reread your own articles. They don't necessarily agree with your conclusion. Yes, they were all cleared of "wrong-doing" but all of them mention the fact their data is still suspect because of the things you mentioned. In essence, my interpretation is that they didn't necessarily do anything wrong in the legal sense, they just didn't present good science.
And that's the whole point. How can they say that there was no tampering when everyone admits the "record keeping wasn't very good"?
They cannot produce research records from 10 to 12 years ago? Why not? Why would they throw such stuff out? Wouldn't they present all their research data when they submit to peer review? If not, why not?
Your articles mentioned that they did in fact hide their data, deleted emails to prevent going public. Why? If you look around you can find articles where they not only did not present their data for review, they actively prevented people they didn't like from getting access to it. Even after publishing in scientific journals. That's not good science.
Of course they should have been more public with their data, that's the whole point. But saying that, well, those guys over there were bad about it is not an excuse for them to use to refuse to present their data.
So, we can all agree that the findings are suspect because the data appears to be lost and/or incomplete. So I guess we just take their word for it then? I'm not a scientist but that's not how I've understood how science works. If an independent party, or even one that disagrees with them, is unable to recreate their findings then the whole thing is suspect and should be redone. By someone else.
But, this is global warming, where neither side is willing to agree to disagree. It's either you're a true believer or you are not, there's no room for discussion otherwise.
EDIT: typo