6 ms·

A Summary of the Great CRU Data Hack Emails

24 points by miked 17y ago

patio11 17y ago
A reoccurring them seems to be "I would rather delete this data than let it be publicized due to a [Freedom of Information Act] request." If I had an abundance of charity in me, I would say he's a pompous git who can't stand the thought of The Enemy winning even a single centimeter against him. The uncharitable explanations all rhyme with fraud.
- antonovka 17y ago
  If I had a persistent gadfly like Stephen McIntyre who would use every opportunity to twist my data and words to his own political ends -- and the media accordingly -- I might also behave in such an untoward manner regarding the release of data and internal communications. I find the theft of internal communications abhorrent, the politicalization of the issue uninteresting, and I seriously doubt there's any real science to be gleaned from this entire sophomoric debacle.
  - mru 17y ago
    That's the point. It's not science.
    - skorgu 17y ago
      It's not just science. There is science being done but the shouting^Wpolitics more than drowns it out.
  - efaith 17y ago
    "If I had a persistent gadfly like Stephen McIntyre..." ...or Socrates... You do realize that "gadfly" is how Plato described his beloved teacher Socrates. "Gadfly" has a two thousand year old positive connotation. Is that the word you want to use? Though, granted, gadfly he is. And persistent, too, like Socrates. "...who would use every opportunity to twist my data and words to his own political ends" This, at any rate, is the view taken by those upon which McIntyre is a gadfly. It's completely understandable: the Athenians felt approximately the same way about Socrates, so strongly that in the end they executed Socrates. There are emails in which these guys express similar attitudes - at least one in which one of these guys wishes he could punch out the lights of one of the gadflies (not sure if it referred to McIntyre). But as third parties, onlookers, we need not adopt the attitude of the Athenians/climate scientists toward their respective gadflies.
  - arvinjoar 17y ago
    Well, what this showed us is that some respected climate researchers are just making shit up. So it's not science, no.
    - antonovka 17y ago
      Well, what this showed us is that some respected climate researchers are just making shit up. What proof?
  - jacoblyles 17y ago
    How dare he ask for data series and attempt to reproduce analyses on his blog! How dare he uncover faults and discrepancies which are subsequently acknowledged in published research! If science and data are not interpreted by the right people, how can we be sure that the world is getting the right message? I can't believe people would defend deleting data rather than responding to a FOI request. Well, actually, I can. You just did. Which is sad.
    - antonovka 17y ago
      He has a clear political agenda. He's not an independent scientist (he's not even a scientist). What possible good can come of interacting with someone who -- in addition to being grossly underqualified -- has a consistent history of applying a political agenda without fail to their "science"? This is the equivalent of Fox News factual reporting. Sometimes they get the facts right, but that doesn't mean they aren't twisting them.
      - jacoblyles 17y ago
        So who does have a right to look at the data, assuming we first disqualify anyone that antonovka thinks has the wrong political opinions? Isn't the scientific ideal all about openness and reproducible analyses? These emails make it look like the new ideal is supporting the "correct" political agenda.
        antonovka 17y ago
        If Stephen McIntyre is all about openness and taking advantage of the abhorrent disclosure of internal communications, why doesn't he follow suite by posting all of his personal e-mail correspondence, unedited for external review? I'm sure there are more than a few gems. Isn't the scientific ideal all about openness and reproducible analyses? Yes, but when someone applies such a strong political ideology to twisting those analyses, how do you propose scientists respond? Climate change has been so politicized by unqualified ideologues that I can hardly blame scientists for wishing to defend themselves from the worst of them. If anything, these e-mails demonstrate that the data IS shared independently evaluated, but that the community has established political defenses to deal with political -- not scientific -- opponents. To do otherwise would be naive. Complex topics fall easily to those who would politicize them. These emails make it look like the new ideal is supporting the "correct" political agenda. No, they demonstrate a clear interest in defending against the attacks of a very specific set of ideologues. As someone who has had to defend engineering projects and people from angry corporate politics, I don't envy these climate change scientists in the least, and I certainly don't begrudge them their defensive positions.
  - nkurz 17y ago
    Stephen McIntyre who would use every opportunity to twist my data and words to his own political ends I read McIntyre's site regularly, and find very little evidence of this. His 'political ends'? By design, there's very little political discussion on his site. But one of few times this veil was dropped was after Obama's election, where he allowed it to be known that he was rooting for Obama: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4265 http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4265 "I don't often talk about my political views - though I've sometimes taken pains to point out that I do not share the political views of many readers. In American terms, Canada would be a blue state along the lines of Massachusetts; Toronto would be a liberal city in a blue state; and I live downtown in one of the most liberal constituencies in the city. None of this is unrelated to my political views. I realize that many Climate Audit readers have opposite political views, but we try to get along." "I think that Obama's election is also very healthy for the U.S. in world terms. The U.S. stands for both good and bad in world terms. While U.S. economic dominance has faded, it is still the leading world nation and leadership from the U.S. is important. Obama is in a position to provide such leadership in a way that would have been impossible for McCain." You might argue successfully that his pedantic insistence on sources, data, and algorithms gets in the way of 'progress', but to say that this is because of his political views is a gross error. Like most of the 'skeptics' on his site, his goal is to insure that we are basing our decisions (whatever they may be) on sound science rather than on propaganda. Certainly he has some readers who do not share this goal, but I feel very certain that his personal goal is good science.
    - antonovka 17y ago
      I read McIntyre's site regularly, and find very little evidence of this. His 'political ends'? McIntyre spent 30 years in the oil/gas exploration business ("mineral exploration"). You don't think there are some vested politics here? You might argue successfully that his pedantic insistence on sources, data, and algorithms gets in the way of 'progress', but to say that this is because of his political views is a gross error. There's plenty of room to distort the facts while reporting them. Fox News consistently claims to present "the facts" in a "fair and balanced" manner.
      - nkurz 17y ago
- nkurz 17y ago
  In the same way that one shouldn't tar the 'skeptics' with the same brush used for Big Oil, one should be cautious about 'recurring themes' based on excerpts. There are some messages where the real scientists distinguish themselves nicely from the scoundrels. Take this one for example: http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=1010&filename=1252154659.txt http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=1010&fi... I'm sure it's not perfect, but it looks like a good example of scientific progress being made: Nonetheless, it's unfortunate that I flipped the Korttajarvi data. We used the density data as the temperature proxy, as recommended to me by Antii Ojala (co-author of the original work). It's weakly inversely related to organic matter content. I should have used the inverse of density as the temperature proxy. I probably got confused by the fact that the 20th century shows very high density values and I inadvertently equated that directly with temperature. This is new territory for me, but not acknowledging an error might come back to bite us. I suggest that we nip it in the bud and write a brief update showing the corrected composite(Nick's graph) and post it to RealClimate. Do you all agree? Be cautious on generalizing across all the emails as a single corpus. Throw the book at the scoundrels, but don't lose sight of the good science being done in the background. This message would make me tend to trust what Darrell Kaufmann has to say in the future.
jacoblyles 17y ago
Is this evidence that Global Warming is a Hoax? No. And commentators that are attempting to respond to that point are obviously setting up a straw man for political purposes (hi Nate Silver!). What we have here is blatant evidence of scientists behaving in a closed, secretive, political, and unscientific manner. And that ought to worry people. I am frankly shocked that some are trying to brush this away as "boys being boys". In what universe is this acceptable behavior? This is not a call to abandon global warming research. This is a call to shine a little sunlight on it, open up data sets and source code to the public, and get politics the hell out of our science. We need to rethink the standards we hold science to in the modern world.
- Andys 17y ago
  > get politics the hell out of our science. We need to rethink the standards we hold science to in the modern world If only this could also apply to medical research / health science!
- jeremyw 17y ago
  I'm struck that code/data openness is an interesting point in the history of science. On one hand, how can we be in 2009 and still be having this argument? Most fields of science don't require this dissemination. On the other hand, it's amazing the species has progressed to the cusp, where we realize baring your soul to the criticism of all benefits everyone. The transparent society cometh.
crux_ 17y ago
Thought experiment: What would internal correspondence look like in evolutionary biology circles if the intelligent design movement had the resources of those who seek to refute the man-made climate change hypothesis? For a taste of what they already deal with: http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Lenski_affair http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Lenski_affair Thought experiment continued: What if the intelligent design movement is right, and the theory of evolution had subtle flaws that were kept under wraps? Would the hypothetical internal correspondence be different in any way? All this release does is shine the light on the inevitable politicization of the process; it says nothing about the conclusions. (The sausage-making process doesn't necessarily make them wrong -- or right.)
- jeremyw 17y ago
  Point taken. But the opposition (in any game) plays a critical role in disrupting safe methodology and keeping data/rules honest. Note IPCC reports have substantially lowered earlier predictions and findings have more weight. The science is better for the effort to "prove it."
  - crux_ 17y ago
    The issue would be that the intelligent design people are playing the game of politics while evolutionary biologists are playing the game of science. (This should be mostly uncontroversial, I hope ...) This may or may not be the exact same situation with climate science, but I don't think think many would dispute that at least a significant portion the opposition to global warming is purely political. At that point, what paths are left besides losing the game or entering the politics/PR arena as well? The science has suffered as a result, not been strengthened; the most damning excerpts are evidence enough of that.
    - jeremyw 17y ago
      Errors are errors. It doesn't really matter from what source they are discovered. It's important for future work that they be eliminated. The number of times I been able to talk to a climate scientist is few, but always full of hedging. It's a young science and predictions are always difficult (to say the least.) Scientific certainty is a sham. The best bet is to consider near-term action an insurance policy against potential outcomes.
robotrout 17y ago
My favorite comment ... The used car salesmen must be pleased that a lower form of life has been identified.

24 points by miked 17y ago

A reoccurring them seems to be "I would rather delete this data than let it be publicized due to a [Freedom of Information Act] request." If I had an abundance of charity in me, I would say he's a pompous git who can't stand the thought of The Enemy winning even a single centimeter against him. The uncharitable explanations all rhyme with fraud.

antonovka 17y ago
If I had a persistent gadfly like Stephen McIntyre who would use every opportunity to twist my data and words to his own political ends -- and the media accordingly -- I might also behave in such an untoward manner regarding the release of data and internal communications. I find the theft of internal communications abhorrent, the politicalization of the issue uninteresting, and I seriously doubt there's any real science to be gleaned from this entire sophomoric debacle.
- mru 17y ago
  That's the point. It's not science.
  - skorgu 17y ago
    It's not just science. There is science being done but the shouting^Wpolitics more than drowns it out.
- efaith 17y ago
  "If I had a persistent gadfly like Stephen McIntyre..." ...or Socrates... You do realize that "gadfly" is how Plato described his beloved teacher Socrates. "Gadfly" has a two thousand year old positive connotation. Is that the word you want to use? Though, granted, gadfly he is. And persistent, too, like Socrates. "...who would use every opportunity to twist my data and words to his own political ends" This, at any rate, is the view taken by those upon which McIntyre is a gadfly. It's completely understandable: the Athenians felt approximately the same way about Socrates, so strongly that in the end they executed Socrates. There are emails in which these guys express similar attitudes - at least one in which one of these guys wishes he could punch out the lights of one of the gadflies (not sure if it referred to McIntyre). But as third parties, onlookers, we need not adopt the attitude of the Athenians/climate scientists toward their respective gadflies.
- arvinjoar 17y ago
  Well, what this showed us is that some respected climate researchers are just making shit up. So it's not science, no.
  - antonovka 17y ago
    Well, what this showed us is that some respected climate researchers are just making shit up. What proof?
- jacoblyles 17y ago
  How dare he ask for data series and attempt to reproduce analyses on his blog! How dare he uncover faults and discrepancies which are subsequently acknowledged in published research! If science and data are not interpreted by the right people, how can we be sure that the world is getting the right message? I can't believe people would defend deleting data rather than responding to a FOI request. Well, actually, I can. You just did. Which is sad.
  - antonovka 17y ago
    He has a clear political agenda. He's not an independent scientist (he's not even a scientist). What possible good can come of interacting with someone who -- in addition to being grossly underqualified -- has a consistent history of applying a political agenda without fail to their "science"? This is the equivalent of Fox News factual reporting. Sometimes they get the facts right, but that doesn't mean they aren't twisting them.
    - jacoblyles 17y ago
      So who does have a right to look at the data, assuming we first disqualify anyone that antonovka thinks has the wrong political opinions? Isn't the scientific ideal all about openness and reproducible analyses? These emails make it look like the new ideal is supporting the "correct" political agenda.
      - antonovka 17y ago
        If Stephen McIntyre is all about openness and taking advantage of the abhorrent disclosure of internal communications, why doesn't he follow suite by posting all of his personal e-mail correspondence, unedited for external review? I'm sure there are more than a few gems. Isn't the scientific ideal all about openness and reproducible analyses? Yes, but when someone applies such a strong political ideology to twisting those analyses, how do you propose scientists respond? Climate change has been so politicized by unqualified ideologues that I can hardly blame scientists for wishing to defend themselves from the worst of them. If anything, these e-mails demonstrate that the data IS shared independently evaluated, but that the community has established political defenses to deal with political -- not scientific -- opponents. To do otherwise would be naive. Complex topics fall easily to those who would politicize them. These emails make it look like the new ideal is supporting the "correct" political agenda. No, they demonstrate a clear interest in defending against the attacks of a very specific set of ideologues. As someone who has had to defend engineering projects and people from angry corporate politics, I don't envy these climate change scientists in the least, and I certainly don't begrudge them their defensive positions.
- nkurz 17y ago
  Stephen McIntyre who would use every opportunity to twist my data and words to his own political ends I read McIntyre's site regularly, and find very little evidence of this. His 'political ends'? By design, there's very little political discussion on his site. But one of few times this veil was dropped was after Obama's election, where he allowed it to be known that he was rooting for Obama: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4265 http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4265 "I don't often talk about my political views - though I've sometimes taken pains to point out that I do not share the political views of many readers. In American terms, Canada would be a blue state along the lines of Massachusetts; Toronto would be a liberal city in a blue state; and I live downtown in one of the most liberal constituencies in the city. None of this is unrelated to my political views. I realize that many Climate Audit readers have opposite political views, but we try to get along." "I think that Obama's election is also very healthy for the U.S. in world terms. The U.S. stands for both good and bad in world terms. While U.S. economic dominance has faded, it is still the leading world nation and leadership from the U.S. is important. Obama is in a position to provide such leadership in a way that would have been impossible for McCain." You might argue successfully that his pedantic insistence on sources, data, and algorithms gets in the way of 'progress', but to say that this is because of his political views is a gross error. Like most of the 'skeptics' on his site, his goal is to insure that we are basing our decisions (whatever they may be) on sound science rather than on propaganda. Certainly he has some readers who do not share this goal, but I feel very certain that his personal goal is good science.
  - antonovka 17y ago
    I read McIntyre's site regularly, and find very little evidence of this. His 'political ends'? McIntyre spent 30 years in the oil/gas exploration business ("mineral exploration"). You don't think there are some vested politics here? You might argue successfully that his pedantic insistence on sources, data, and algorithms gets in the way of 'progress', but to say that this is because of his political views is a gross error. There's plenty of room to distort the facts while reporting them. Fox News consistently claims to present "the facts" in a "fair and balanced" manner.
    - nkurz 17y ago
nkurz 17y ago
In the same way that one shouldn't tar the 'skeptics' with the same brush used for Big Oil, one should be cautious about 'recurring themes' based on excerpts. There are some messages where the real scientists distinguish themselves nicely from the scoundrels. Take this one for example: http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=1010&filename=1252154659.txt http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=1010&fi... I'm sure it's not perfect, but it looks like a good example of scientific progress being made: Nonetheless, it's unfortunate that I flipped the Korttajarvi data. We used the density data as the temperature proxy, as recommended to me by Antii Ojala (co-author of the original work). It's weakly inversely related to organic matter content. I should have used the inverse of density as the temperature proxy. I probably got confused by the fact that the 20th century shows very high density values and I inadvertently equated that directly with temperature. This is new territory for me, but not acknowledging an error might come back to bite us. I suggest that we nip it in the bud and write a brief update showing the corrected composite(Nick's graph) and post it to RealClimate. Do you all agree? Be cautious on generalizing across all the emails as a single corpus. Throw the book at the scoundrels, but don't lose sight of the good science being done in the background. This message would make me tend to trust what Darrell Kaufmann has to say in the future.

jacoblyles 17y ago

Is this evidence that Global Warming is a Hoax? No. And commentators that are attempting to respond to that point are obviously setting up a straw man for political purposes (hi Nate Silver!). What we have here is blatant evidence of scientists behaving in a closed, secretive, political, and unscientific manner. And that ought to worry people. I am frankly shocked that some are trying to brush this away as "boys being boys". In what universe is this acceptable behavior? This is not a call to abandon global warming research. This is a call to shine a little sunlight on it, open up data sets and source code to the public, and get politics the hell out of our science. We need to rethink the standards we hold science to in the modern world.

Andys 17y ago
> get politics the hell out of our science. We need to rethink the standards we hold science to in the modern world If only this could also apply to medical research / health science!
jeremyw 17y ago
I'm struck that code/data openness is an interesting point in the history of science. On one hand, how can we be in 2009 and still be having this argument? Most fields of science don't require this dissemination. On the other hand, it's amazing the species has progressed to the cusp, where we realize baring your soul to the criticism of all benefits everyone. The transparent society cometh.

crux_ 17y ago

Thought experiment: What would internal correspondence look like in evolutionary biology circles if the intelligent design movement had the resources of those who seek to refute the man-made climate change hypothesis? For a taste of what they already deal with: http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Lenski_affair http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Lenski_affair Thought experiment continued: What if the intelligent design movement is right, and the theory of evolution had subtle flaws that were kept under wraps? Would the hypothetical internal correspondence be different in any way? All this release does is shine the light on the inevitable politicization of the process; it says nothing about the conclusions. (The sausage-making process doesn't necessarily make them wrong -- or right.)

jeremyw 17y ago
Point taken. But the opposition (in any game) plays a critical role in disrupting safe methodology and keeping data/rules honest. Note IPCC reports have substantially lowered earlier predictions and findings have more weight. The science is better for the effort to "prove it."
- crux_ 17y ago
  The issue would be that the intelligent design people are playing the game of politics while evolutionary biologists are playing the game of science. (This should be mostly uncontroversial, I hope ...) This may or may not be the exact same situation with climate science, but I don't think think many would dispute that at least a significant portion the opposition to global warming is purely political. At that point, what paths are left besides losing the game or entering the politics/PR arena as well? The science has suffered as a result, not been strengthened; the most damning excerpts are evidence enough of that.
  - jeremyw 17y ago
    Errors are errors. It doesn't really matter from what source they are discovered. It's important for future work that they be eliminated. The number of times I been able to talk to a climate scientist is few, but always full of hedging. It's a young science and predictions are always difficult (to say the least.) Scientific certainty is a sham. The best bet is to consider near-term action an insurance policy against potential outcomes.

robotrout 17y ago

My favorite comment ... The used car salesmen must be pleased that a lower form of life has been identified.