The people -vs- the CRU: Freedom of information, my okole… « Watts Up With That?

Foreword: Willis asked me to carry this post here. What follows is a long and detailed series of email exchanges that outline the difficult task of getting data so that scientific replication/reproduction can be done by people external to the tight knit group of scientists that make up climate science today. This is a must read for anyone trying to understand the issue and the dodges of the UK FOIA that CRU has been doing.

Climategate — the Real War on Science? | GlobalWarming.org

This means, says Eschenbach, that researchers who hide their data and computer codes to prevent others from replicating/invalidating their results “attack . . . the heart of science.” Such behavior is unethical and, as Eschenbach notes, likely illegal as well.

Hans von Storch

# 24. November 2009 - The scandal around the stolen CRU-mails is rolling on; the interest, as documented by traffic on the internet is enormeous - and likely the damage done to the credibility of climate science by the unfortunate writing by Phil Jones and others as well. But inspite of this, one can interpret the whole affair also in positive way - namely that science was strong enough to overcome the various gatekeeping efforts, even it may take a few years. The self-correcting dynamics in science is robust and kicking. And the practice of allowing our adversaries to use our data (after a certain grace period) will become finally common.

Why Hiding Computer Code Is Lethal to Climate Science | GlobalWarming.org

This is why the insistence of scientists that their computer codes are sacrosanct private secret documents best kept under Hermetic seal in a clandestine vault is lethal to good science. Without the codes, we can’t tell if what has been done is correct and free from hidden mathematical error. Of course, this may be unconnected with the reason that Jones et. al are hiding their codes …