Stigma wrote on 12/07/09 at 15:27:12:
To return to topic, of what little I've read what I found most disturbing in this is the idea of "private" data that people (Phil Jones / the CRU) use for publicly funded research but are unwilling to share with colleagues and critics. It's similar to the horrible idea spreading from the USA of patents on life.
Data should be openly available on request, this is a main barrier against cheating and absolutely fundamental for the credibility of the scientific community as a whole. If you can't/won't share your data, you shouldn't publish anything based on them either. Scientific knowledge is by definition replicable.
I see that some climate researchers (Schlesinger etc.) maintain that the three other major research centres, two in the US and one in Japan, still have a similar surface temperature curve to the CRU, so even if there has been some monkey business at East Anglia that doesn't necessarily incriminate the whole field. Anyway I don't have nearly enough knowledge of the field to evalute the science.
What disturbed me most, was not some of the stuff people are yelling about right now (like the one you mention or the alleged doctoring of temperatures), but the atmosphere which comes from the whole lot. These arent scientists doing independent research, but scientists with an agenda doing research. You would expect this sphere at research funded by Philip Morris, but not at such a center. I found it particularly ironic that a guy who is described as a nutter is taken far more seriously by them than they would let know.
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At least, let's await the independent investigation before hanging anyone.
What?? No hanging????
Really, I dont find anything in these emails to hang anyone. I do find that my distrust of independent research has hit another low, though.