[Bagor]

Back to the freedom of information thingy and what IMO is abuse of it.

These e-mails do tell their own interesting story of how little actual science the key skeptics do as their main objective/tactics seems to be harassment of other scientists for the sake of harassment for data they can readily acquire themselves.

And also brings up the question of claiming data from competitors where the owner still has an invested interest for future work.

Ben Santer Jan 2009.

I have spent the last two months of my scientific career dealing with multiple requests for these model datasets under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). I have been able to do little or no productive research during this time. This is of deep concern to me.....

.....The bottom line is that any interested scientist has all the scientific information necessary to replicate the calculations performed in our IJoC paper, and to check whether the conclusions reached in that paper were sound.

Neither Mr. Smith nor Mr. Stephen McIntyre (Mr. McIntyre is the initiator of the FOIA requests to the U.S. DOE and NOAA, and the operator of the "ClimateAudit.com" blog) is interested in full replication of our calculations, starting from the primary climate model and observational data. Instead, they are demanding the value-added quantities we have derived from the primary datasets (i.e., the synthetic MSU temperatures).

I would like a clear ruling from DOE lawyers - ideally from both the NNSA and DOE Office of Science branches - on the legality of such data requests. They are troubling, for a number of reasons.

1. In my considered opinion, a very dangerous precedent is set .... The intellectual investment in such calculations is substantial.

2. Can any competitor simply request such datasets via the U.S. FOIA, before we have completed full scientific analysis of these datasets?

3. There is a real danger that such FOIA requests could (and are already) being used as a tool for harassing scientists rather than for valid scientific discovery. Mr. McIntyre's FOIA requests to DOE and NOAA are but the latest in a series of such requests. In the past, Mr. McIntyre has targeted scientists at Penn State University, the U.K. Climatic Research Unit, and the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville. Now he is focusing his attention on me. The common denominator is that Mr. McIntyre's attention is directed towards studies claiming to show evidence of large-scale surface warming, and/or a prominent human "fingerprint" in that warming. These serial FOIA requests interfere with our ability to do our job.

As many of you may know, I have decided to publicly release the synthetic MSU temperatures that were the subject of Mr. McIntyre's FOIA request (together with additional synthetic MSU temperatures which were not requested by Mr. McIntyre)...... I have no desire to be "taken out" as scientist, and to be involved in years of litigation.

Time will tell how many publications Mr McIntyre produces in the future based on this data he so desperately coveted. I'm going to guess ...zero. Or more likely ... how many blogs. Guessing again ... more than 1.

Mann Sept 2009.

Skepticism is essential for the functioning of science. It yields an erratic path towards eventual truth. But legitimate scientific skepticism is exercised through formal scientific circles, in particular the peer review process. A necessary though not in general sufficient condition for taking a scientific criticism seriously is that it has passed through the legitimate scientific peer review process. those such as McIntyre who operate almost entirely outside of this system are not to be trusted.

Andrew Revkin Sept 2009

tom crowley has sent me a direct challenge to mcintyre to start contributing to the reviewed lit or shut up.

I'm eagerly awaiting his publications now that he is in possession of another scientist's data. Half the work (data gathering) is already done so it should be quite easy to do an analysis.

Mann again Sept 2009

I'm sure you are aware that McIntyre and his ilk realize they no longer need to get their crap published in legitimate journals. All they have to do is put it up on their blog, and the contrarian noise machine kicks into gear, pretty soon Druge, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and their ilk (in this case, The Telegraph were already on it this morning) are parroting the claims. And based on what? some guy w/ no credentials, dubious connections with the energy industry, and who hasn't submitted his claims to the scrutiny of peer review.

But then again it's all fixed so McIntyre can't publish. He's forced to blog. That's why he needs all that data .... for his blog. Or ... maybe it is crap?

I'm sure you're aware that you will dozens of bogus, manufactured distortions of the science in the weeks leading up to the vote on cap & trade in the U.S. senate.

^^Looks like Mann's model was fairly accurate there but was missing the hacking variable. If only he knew ......

Basically this thing is one side doing science and another side criticising the science without actually doing much of their own.
Personally I think there is a lot of good that can come out of this. The critics can have all the data they want (not that they haven't already got more than enough) and start producing solid science to refute the claim rather than hiding behind a blog or producing such touted crap (taken from a link in Hoz's article which he has undoubtedly read) hoping for their 15 minutes of media fame and is so bad an editor resigns and the owner of the journal admits that it was rubbish.

One of the most damaging emails was sent by the head of the climatic research unit, Phil Jones. He wrote "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"One of these papers which was published in the journal Climate Research turned out to be so badly flawed that the scandal resulted in the resignation of the editor-in-chief. Jones knew that any incorrect papers by sceptical scientists would be picked up and amplified by climate change deniers funded by the fossil fuel industry, who often use all sorts of dirty tricks to advance their cause.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...risis-response

At the end of the day the character and personal conduct of Jones has been severely and rightly IMO called into question but just as it was before the centre was hacked nothing has changed. The evidence for change is still strong. The evidence against .... blogs, media releases and harassment for data they have no intention of using.