Nature: "That a study has been through peer review is used too often as a universal defence of its quality"

Closing the Climategate : Nature : Nature Publishing Group

The official inquiry into the e-mail affair concluded that such robust exchanges were typical in science. But many non-scientists were still unconvinced. They hold peer review as a revered gold standard of scientific excellence, not to be questioned or used as an opportunity to be rude about academic rivals, even in private. Why? Researchers may routinely complain about the shortcomings of peer review to other scientists, but they often unite behind it in the face of criticism from outside the scientific sphere. That a study has been through peer review is used too often as a universal defence of its quality. If more scientists were more forthcoming about the flaws in their quality-control system, then commentators and the wider public may have been more willing to accept that scientists engaged in it do not always act as the public would expect.

With the official inquiry clearing the CRU scientists of fudging data and of abusing the peer-review process, most of the more informed criticism has now settled on the fuzzy notion of the need for greater transparency and openness. Calls for full release of computer code written by climate researchers seem driven more by the fact that it is not routinely made available rather than because it is particularly useful, [So we're supposed to spend $45 trillion based on the output of computer models, but we can't look at the source code of those models?] but it is clear that the CRU scientists did not cooperate fully with all requests for data and other information.
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Just as scientists cannot choose the name of future scandals, they cannot choose where allegations will appear. The UEA has taken some justified heavy fire for its handling of the crisis, which was crippled by the enforced absence on medical grounds of Jones, its chief defence witness. Had Jones been strong enough to face the media at the beginning, and say many of the things he says now, the crisis may have blown itself out. The UEA hierarchy misjudged the need to respond and the role that Internet blogs now play in seeding stories for the mainstream media. “I won't worry about it until I hear it on the [BBC Radio] Today programme,” one university official said when pointed to early online coverage at the time. He got his wish a few days later. By then, the Climategate was already swinging off its hinges.