Emails hacked from Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia show researchers engaged in what may be a suppression of climate skeptics.
At this point I am not well enough up to speed on the specifics of the emails to comment on whether there was any gross misconduct and if so how much. However, I am a bit troubled by the nonchalant attitude that some bloggers have taken about this.
I understand that this does happen in science and it will continue to happen. However, given the gravity of the issue at stake the intellectual community cannot simply take a “boys will be boys” attitude about this. The public must be able to trust that at a bear minimum the scientific community itself believes in its ideals. That if people are caught suppressing important evidence that they will suffer damage to their careers.
We all know that researchers come to the table with bias and prejudice. This is precisely why a quasi-adversarial system, in which the weakness of each side are exposed through open debate, is so important.
I am sure everyone believes that small trends in the data which support their conclusion are important evidence and small trends which undermine their conclusions are anomalies. However, it is precisely because self-delusion is so natural that open debate is so important.
As a note, I have questioned the economic estimates of damage from global warming in the past.
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Tuesday ~ November 24th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Greg Ransom
Cut the spin.
The 800 pound gorilla here is the suppression of _scientific facts_ and the falsification and suppression of _scientific data_.
Back alley knife cutting is a side issue compared to that.
You write:
“what may be a suppression of climate skeptics.”
The crisis of scientific legitimacy here is plate-tectonic.
Tuesday ~ November 24th, 2009 at 4:23 am
RickRussellTX
“The crisis of scientific legitimacy here is plate-tectonic.”
Yes, when some single idiot comes out of the woodwork and admits to fakery, it’s pretty easy to dismiss them. It was secret. It was for personal gain.
But these idiots at East Anglia have put decades of good science in jeopardy with their bad decisions. I’ve met many climate researchers, worked with a few notable people back when I was a meteorology grad student, and I can say without much fear of contradiction that they wouldn’t have taken the first step down the slippery slope. Everyone I knew understood that an appearance of political bias would taint their conclusions and ruin their careers.
Tweaking conclusions to make a “political splash”? Deleting original files for fear that someone else might get hold of them and misuse them? Jesus H. Christ, what were they thinking? They’ve put everybody under suspicion with their actions, at a time when sensible climate change policy was coming into view.
Tuesday ~ November 24th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Curt Doolittle
The public does not trust academia, or the scientific community. IT does trust particular scientists who are also public intellectuals.
But given that, due to current events, we know most mathematical economics since the second world war is faulty, because the logic behind it was faulty.
Given that over nine tenths of research papers contain logic errors that invalidate their conclusions, whether in physical science or social science.
Given that it at least appears that the peer review method of publishing articles is becoming invalidated when compared to the more difficult job of writing books that require broader integration of a paper into a network of theory.
Given that our universities are rated by input rather than output criteria, and that this bias has material impact on society.
Given that it certainly appears that there is a great deal of ‘skewing’ in the community, on top of the pervasive errors in the logic of conclusions.
Given that academic departments are not materially meritocratic, but political – and radically so.
Given that we produce large bodies of research that are faulty and repeatedly proven faulty whenever they aspire to affect the political debate, in order to make it easier to obtain grants.
Given that academia does not separate teachers from researchers, and that students see their best teachers evicted from universities, for what appears to be political interests of intrenched parties, and all of us who are educated walk around with this knowledge and experience.
It becomes somewhat hard to understand why the public should believe in the myth of scientific ethics.
Scientists pursue self interest, just like the rest of us. But there are no checks on that self interest when the testing criteria for that self interest is obscured by all the behaviors above. The rest of us are tested by the market.
And it appears that the market is a much better test.
Scientisim has replaced theology as a means of influencing policy. But I’m not entirely sure it’s all that much better than arguing about angels on the head of a pin. It certainly seems we should be at least as skeptical of our scientists as we were of our theocrats.
And perhaps more so.
Tuesday ~ November 24th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Adam Ozimek
Curt,
The scientific community is a market; a market of ideas. You should not put more stock in individual scientists or “public intellectuals” than in scientific consensus and the market of ideas in which consensus if forged and challenged. The market for ideas is as competitive, self-interested, and as meritocratic as most other free markets- all of which share problems like you cite above.
Wednesday ~ November 25th, 2009 at 12:20 am
Curt Doolittle
@Adam
“The market for ideas is as competitive, self-interested, and as meritocratic as most other free markets- all of which share problems like you cite above.”
That *cannot* be true.
The market has no claim to truth, nor is it a weapon of political coercion. It is ultimately and entirely pragmatic, and the means by which we fill each other’s wants by the pursuit of self interest, at the lowest cost, despite the fact that all people seek to game, or circumvent that market whenever possible.
The moment that ideas are used to influence government policy, they make claims to truth.
In the context of this discussion, which was the public TRUST in the scientific community, trust must imply truth not pragmatism. Otherwise the conversation is meaningless.
Sunday ~ November 29th, 2009 at 5:41 am
Hardworking bloggers are rewarded with clicks, not currency « Entitled to an Opinion
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