ClimateGate Scientists’ Conduct: Unethical and Illegal

[paulsby]

http://volokh.com/2010/01/30/climategate-scientists-conduct-unethical-and-illegal/#comments

(note: i believe in anthropogenic global warming. clearly, misconduct like this HURTS the cause.)

The UK Daily Mail reports:

Scientist at the heart of the ‘Climategate’ email scandal broke the law when they refused to give raw data to the public, the privacy watchdog has ruled.

The Information Commissioner’s office said University of East Anglia researchers breached the Freedom of Information Act when handling requests from climate change sceptics.

But the scientists will escape prosecution because the offences took place more than six months ago.

The London Times has more.

A spokesman for the ICO said: “The legislation prevents us from taking any action but from looking at the emails it’s clear to us a breach has occurred.” Breaches of the act are punishable by an unlimited fine.

The complaint to the ICO was made by David Holland, a retired engineer from Northampton. He had been seeking information to support his theory that the unit broke the IPCC’s rules to discredit sceptic scientists.

In a statement, Graham Smith, Deputy Commissioner at the ICO, said: “The e-mails which are now public reveal that Mr Holland’s requests under the Freedom of Information Act were not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation. Section 77 of the Act makes it an offence for public authorities to act so as to prevent intentionally the disclosure of requested information.”

He added: “The ICO is gathering evidence from this and other time-barred cases to support the case for a change in the law. We will be advising the university about the importance of effective records management and their legal obligations in respect of future requests for information.”

[existentialist]

1. OK, I can accept that.

I also believe that climate change is accelerated by human activity, and that at present climate change includes significant net global warming although "global warming" is a misleading name for what is going on, and a name that--among other defects--creates the perception that climate change is not occurring when we get winters like the one we are experiencing.

There is also the matter that the emails that broke this"climate gate" scandal open were stolen--also in violation of the law. Any discussion of anybody doing anything about that?

[paulsby]

2. i haven't heard anything about what, if anythin

is to be done about the stolen emails. not familiar with england's laws, but at least in the US, public agency emails are generally subject to disclosure and are not considered "private", so it's not going to be viewed the same as stealing "private" emails, although in the US, computer trespass laws would apply, even to retrieve disclosable emails

[renegade000]

3. Maybe the scientists weren't saints...

and I have no idea about the UK's laws, but using FOIA laws to demand to see a scientist's data is ridiculous.

Would you want creationists flooding universities with FOIA requests demanding to see the raw data of evolutionary biologists? Why should the scientists release their hard-earned findings to groups who ill-trained to interpret them and will exploit any facet of the data to propagandize their cause?

"Look, the data is MESSY! I thought evolution was supposed to be 100% obvious to people...the scientists are lying to you!!"

[dems_rightnow]

5. Absolutely they should

Because "We can prove it, but we're not going to show it to you" just isn't acceptable.

[renegade000]

7. the whole point of science is:

"We can prove it: if you follow the instructions in our publish papers you can duplicate the results for yourself..."

To my knowledge, most of the instances of scientific fraud have been caught not by demanding to see the original raw data, but when other reputable scientists in the field tried duplicating the experiment and saw that it didn't work at all.

[paulsby]

6. it;'s not ridiculous

it's the essence of open govt. and credibility.

they are getting PAID to collect and interpret this data.

they work for the taxpayer.

and their work is subject to whomever wishes to see it.

much like cops, i might add (police reports being subject to public disclosure)

public scientists are not a cloistered group of clerics whose machinations are beyond the common man.

your attitude is EXACTLY the type of attitude that these scientists had, and exactly the sort of stuff that creates the appearance of chicanery, even when none is present.

also, being subject to disclosure disincentivizes falsifying data.

[depakid]

10. Think that's something- try dealing with the academic publishing parasites

[renegade000]

11. yes, and scientists do file reports

they write technical reports and often submit articles documenting their experimental design and results to peer-review journals. these reports are key to detect fraud (see post #7).

would the cops release the raw data from a DNA test (or the DNA sample itself) to anyone with a passing interest in the case? i would hope not...
they should release it to a qualified lab on behalf of a party directly involved in the case, but it would be extremely foolish to fulfill every request from every single armchair CSI in the world.

to illustrate the explain of a creationist decrying the lack of "transparency" from an evolutionary biologist, I would direct you to this blog post containing the scientist's rather cogent explanation of why he was not going to release thousands of samples of e. coli bacteria to a lawyer:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/lenski_gives_conservapdia_a_le.php

[paulsby]

12. those don't apply to this case

(the e coli bacteria).

the data points being requested were basic temperature readings, relied upon in the scientists' reports.

the overseeing agencies correctly determined the scientists violated the law (and good practice) by not releasing them

this is really a very basic question. i want open government, and i want accountable government.

policies like these are part of that. these policies are already iN PLACE and these scientists thwarted the law

they aren't being punished because the statute of limitations (so to speak) has expired.

it doesn't make their actions any less inexcusable

[tularetom]

4. This should have been dealt with quickly and quietly by professional societies

There is more than enough skepticism of global climate change without "respected" scientists adding to it by less than professional conduct.

Professional accreditation means nothing if the professional associations become nothing more than a good old boys club that circles the wagons to protect the miscreants among their ranks.

It's true in the US with lawyers and to a certain extent doctors.

Try getting a lawyer to go after another lawyer for malpractice.

[robdogbucky]

8. Simply an effort to cast doubt where none exists

Leaked emails mark dangerous shift in climate denial strategy

Instead of targeting high-profile science communicators, climate deniers are now encouraging mistrust of those who collect and interpret global warming data. The theft and web publication by climate change deniers of private emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit is an extremely worrying development in the tortured politics of global warming.

Although high-profile individuals have been targeted and unfairly vilified before – Pennsylvania University's Michael Mann comes to mind, with his "hockey stick" palaeoclimate graph – most of the ire of the denial movement has so far been reserved for big-hitters like Al Gore. Gore can take it. Politics is his job.

But the "exposure" of private correspondence from a much larger group of scientists – and the out-of-context quotation of certain sentences as "revealing" some hidden subterfuge – suggests a dangerous shift in strategy. Instead of targeting the science communicators (myself included), the deniers are now declaring war on the scientists themselves. Like the creationists they unconsciously mimic, they make no distinction between the political and the scientific sphere – it is open season in both.

And the strategy is simple. Given that scientists are one of society's most trusted groups (unlike journalists or politicians), the climate denial movement has begun a battle to undermine public trust in climate scientists themselves. No more will the legions of anonymous researchers who collect and interpret data from meteorological stations, satellites and ice cores be considered above the fray – they now run the risk of personal attacks, exposure of their private lives and vilification.

It is important to understand the significance of this. Scientists are not politicians. They are not used to communicating publicly. They trust in their objectivity, the objectivity of their peers, and the rigour of only citing work published in learned journals. They will have private views, but are very used to keeping these out of their work – indeed the entire scientific method is based on conducting research which can be replicated by peers in order to check its accuracy and objectivity.

<snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/no...




Did this "discovery," change the rest of the mountain of data amassed over decades that no one has credibly refuted?
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/politics/08climate.ht...

Does it change the fact that entire industries have spent billions and done everything possible to smear any claims of climate change due to human industrial conduct?
http://motherjones.com/special-reports/2009/12/dirty-do... >



NO



Just my dos centavos

robdogbucky

[paulsby]

13. your points are correct

and if these scientists had done their job and followed the law, "climate gate" would never have happened.

the deniers didn't NEED to discredit THESE scientists. the scientists did it themselves by thwarting the law and not complying with basic freedom of information requests, as they were required to

[timeforpeace]

9. What it discredits is the claim that "the data is there for anyone to see!" It isn't.