Reply: Mr Aardvark received no compensation for the above post~charles the moderator aka jeez

[edit] Politics
Monckton was born on 14 February 1952, the eldest son of the 2nd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley. He was educated at Harrow School, Churchill College, Cambridge where he read classics and University College, Cardiff, where he obtained a diploma in journalism.[1]
…

He returned to Conservative Central Office in late 1982, this time as a policy advisor for Margaret Thatcher.[2] In 1986, he became assistant editor of the newly established, and now defunct, newspaper Today. He was a consulting editor for the Evening Standard from 1987 to 1992 and was its chief leader-writer from 1990 to 1992.[1]

Monckton was an unsuccessful candidate for a Conservative seat in the House of Lords in a March 2007 by-election caused by the death of Lord Mowbray and Stourton. He had been highly critical of the way that the Lords has been reformed, describing the by-election procedure, with 43 candidates and 47 electors, as “a bizarre constitutional abortion.”[3]“

Tamino’s criticisms make the most sense if you look at Spencer’s full presentation given at Colorado State University: http://climatesci.org/wp-content/uploads/spencer-ppt.pdf rather than just the abbreviated version presented in this post.

Yes, thanks. The requirement by Science does not seem to be an absolute one. Many others do not even have a policy. The most detailed policy is, as you pointed out, by the Royal Society publications. We will see what happens with McIntyre’s request, whether they will consider that as a reasonable request.

More than ever I am so convinced that each side has taken a hard line position, and wants to keep it that way to the end. I am so glad I am not in climate science, if I were, after seeing all these intense scrutiny on scientific and personal matters, I would have changed my field quickly. It is not worth the trouble. It is disappointing to see comments by Hansen about trials, but it is more disappointing to see how critics are making trivialities (not the raw data requests, but other things I posted earlier) as issues to discredit AGW. In my view it affects the credibility. I hope it will change and only real issues will be used for discussions and debate. We will see.

http://publishing.royalsociety.org/index.cfm?page=1595#question6

Access to data policy

As a condition of acceptance authors agree to honour any reasonable request by other researchers for materials, methods, or data necessary to verify the conclusion of the article.

Supplementary data up to 10Mb is placed on the Society’s website free of charge and is publicly accessible.

Large datasets must be deposited in a recognised public domain database by the author prior to submission. The accession number should be provided for inclusion in the published article.

http://www.sciencemag.org/about/authors/prep/gen_info.dtl#datadep

Data availability After publication, all data necessary to understand, assess, and extend the conclusions of the manuscript must be available to any reader of Science. We recognize that discipline-specific conventions or special circumstances may occasionally apply, and we will consider these in negotiating compliance with requests. Any concerns about your ability to meet Science’s requirements must be disclosed and discussed with an editor. For further information about accessibility of data and materials, see the following resources.

“Scientist do not have to “trust” to behave like scientists. If they don’t disclose they are not scientists. Period. End of story. That’s all she wrote. The fat lady has sung.”

No no, don’t make her sing too fast!

I was talking about the general environment (in which case my previous post is fully valid), but I understand your position is a narrower one regarding raw data disclosure alone. For one thing, we cannot take the narrower view without putting it within the general context. But for argument sake let us move on.

I was looking at few journals, for example “Climate”, “geophysical research letters” etc. and I cannot find a raw data disclosure policy. I am not even aware of such policies in journals I deal with in my field. All data must be provided with patents for someone to duplicate the invention. But for scientific papers I am not aware of a requirement that all data must be provided, without probable cause for further investigation. Apart from the Royal Society Journals (where there is a clear policy for reasonable requests), I really cannot find such policy statements where I looked. You think I am not looking at the right place?

Many journals do have disclosure policies. These are not enforced against the players. The IPCC has archiving and disclosure policies. These are not enforced against the players. Any insults they incur as a result of not behaving as scientists they have brought upon themselves. This needs to stop. Transparency is the only path to resolution.

Scientist do not have to “trust” to behave like scientists. If they don’t disclose they are not scientists. Period. End of story. That’s all she wrote. The fat lady has sung.

I am all for complete disclosure. But let us look the situation from the other side. Occasional demands on raw data seem fine. But the context in which such requests are made is important. Systematic requests, particularly targeting at IPCC editors, appear suspicious. Most often complete raw data is requested only when there is a suspicion of fraud, or other consistency problems. These requests are generally made by other scientists actively working in the area, not by outsiders with a pre-established and well publicized view on the topic whose main objective, as it appears to any reasonable person, is nothing but to look for mistakes so that they could make a disproportional case out of the smallest mistakes.

Many journals do not have a clear raw data disclosure policy, although if there are suspicions of fraud they all will require raw data. Even for Royal Society journals, the requirement is not without boundaries (“As a condition of acceptance authors agree to honour any reasonable request by other researchers for materials, methods, or data necessary to verify the conclusion of the article.” Any REASONBLE request by other RESEARCHERS).

But requesting data is not the main problem. In my opinion, some of the articles here and in other blogs appear to criticize scientists based on trivial reasons, and it is with this background such raw data requests are made: (1) Hansen refusing to accept the debate organized by a unofficial student organization, (2) now we have the two quotes from the IPCC Chair, who was actually installed there by President Bush because he wanted to remove the previous IPCC Chair Watson, to make him look stupid with a picture to portray him as a caveman (it was changed now to invoke another repulsive feeling among the followers – association with Gore) (3) Monckton’s intense claim that an unreviewed publication was indeed peer-reviewed and APS should somehow acknowledge that “at once”, (4) McIntyre’s comments like “Hansen bulldog Gavin Schmidt” and his private time “flexibly includes 9 to 5” “has provided bulldog services on behalf of his boss”, in his blog, etc. creates a perception of unreasonableness and personality interest from the side of AGW critics. When we look at such rhetoric from AGW critics, it is clear the relationship is adversarial. I am unhappy about this, because it is undermining the credibility of blogs critical of AGW. It also gives the perception that these inquiries are not about scientific integrity or curiosity, rather they are a means to further the preconceived beliefs held by those who are requesting those data.

Now, I have not gone to the AGW believers’ side to see what tactics they use, I assume the AGW endorsers’ blogs by non-scientists may contain such problems. But whatever the AGW people are saying, it is not going to change what we see with the critics’ side. The thing that distresses me the most is the determination of AGW critics to keep it that way. I wish the situation was different.

What is adversarial about insisting that journals and organizations enforce disclosure standards they already have in place?

What is adversarial about pointing out a lack of disclosure currently occurring?

Absolutely.

I must agree though I have (to my shame) anticipated with glee the revenge of watching others eat crow. But our real enemies are not flesh and blood as the Good Book says.

May be, but not necessarily. It took Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev, with more trust and respect between each other, to end the cold war. Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are great friends, which takes away lots of the cynical interpretations about their opinions, even though ideologically they are poles apart. William F. Buckley, Jr. and long time ACLU Director Ira Glasser were great friends, which brought a sense of sincerity and openness to their discussions. I can go on….

Someone must work hard to remove the adversarial relationship between AGW supporters and critics, and if they can establish a level of trust between each other through this effort, it can bring a fresh more beneficial atmosphere for an open discussion.

Perhaps “Nature” is waiting to see who else will climb out on that tree limb called “AGW” or to give others time to reconsider before the “cold” facts of reality cause that limb to break off.

Trouble is that some likely think that death and misery are a necessary evil, to prevent more further down the road, even to human extinction. I don’t believe this far off the mark with the public that has bought into these dire predictions from the scientific community, UN, federal governments, and movies, be it hothouse or iceage.
If it were so, so be it. But as you say, let’s base our actions on good science and good planning. But from what I’ve seen, it’s all a sham, and way out of hand, and we may really have reached a tipping point of no return. I don’t see how this unscientific and irresponsible behavior is going to stop now or later.

Journals are not even enforcing their disclosure standards. The Team has gotten a free pass for the better part of a decade. The IPCC does not enforce its own disclosure standards. This has to stop. It has to stop now.

It will all eventually be sorted out. Nature will be the final arbiter, but it would be nice if we didn’t do stupid things out of misplaced ignorance that leads to death and misery before that happens.

Jeez,

On the lack of data about research papers, methodologies, etc, there are two practical solutions (although I believe in complete disclosure): one is to repeat the experiments from the beginning to end. Instead of just asking for raw data from Keith Briffa and others and then looking for statistical errors in that data, I think the critics should repeat the same experiments by collecting raw data independent of Briffia’s results. This is hard, but that is the only way we can satisfy full repeatability. Checking for statistical errors alone is not going to assure the science. I think similar initiatives could be used for cross-checking methodologies, input parameters, etc., but for some reason the critics are not willing to go that far, although I wish they do. There may be other reasons why researchers may not want to give all the raw data, and in general they may consider asking the raw data in a confrontational way to be offensive. There were only few cases of scientific fraud, like Jan Hendrik Schon and Hwang Woo Suk. But most (by an overwhelming majority) are honest scientists, and in those few cases when they are not honest they were caught by other scientists just by studying their publications (not with the raw data. In fact, people like Schon were asked to submit the raw data only when there was sufficient reason to believe that he had committed fraud). Apart from Wei-Chyung Wang, there are no allegations about any climate scientists. The system works well in the long run. So many scientists may feel personally offended by asking for raw data, when there are no allegations against them.

Also, as in the legal discovery process, where lawyers could exasperate the system by asking for lots and lots of things, or proposing to pack with lots and lots of witness testimonies. If it is not done with proper judgment, asking for raw data for every paper could sound like the defense lawyers’ efforts to derail the court system.

Given this background, the second solution is to help to develop an environment where at least the reasonable people on both sides can trust each other, as I outline in the next part.

Anthony,

Thanks for your comments. As you said, time will tell the truth.

On the second solution, trust is hard to come by in an unnecessarily adversarial environment like this. In this case as Brendan H said earlier (“who goes first”), someone has to reach out first. As you said, we have to develop real courteous communications between these two sides. We all know it is so easy to make someone look very bad; we have seen how Sen./V.P. Dan Quayle, who was an accomplished Senator by all account as even acknowledged by Sen. Kennedy, was portrayed with the “you are no Jack Kennedy” insult and the Potato spelling incident and few other statements he had made. We all make spelling mistakes from time to time but when it is publicized so heavily, it can be used to tarnish someone’s image. In my opinion even the most accomplished scientists are afraid of how they will be portrayed in front of the public if others find even some inconsequential errors. Since even the most trivial errors can be publicized to look them bad, they don’t want to be portrayed as incompetent in algebra or averaging, etc., so they may not want to give that occasion by revealing all the details.

So, here is my suggestion to Anthony. You have a great audience here, and you can lead to change the present climate of distrust. May be you can reach out to Hansen and others, call him or meet him and if you can assure them that you will come to their defense if personal attacks are made against them and if trivial criticisms are made about their work. Then there is a good chance they might open up. I do not know of anyone more suitable than you to do that – you have electric cars, solar power, etc. You are doing what they are preaching others to do, although for different reasons. May be eventually you could post joint (or two parts articles) here addressing various issues with Hansen and others, instead of having all those public debates. I may be naïve, but I have seen people responding much better if they think the other side can be trusted, and that is the environment we have to create. I have not gone through Real Climate to see what kind of personal attacks they use, but comments like “Hansen bulldog Gavin Schmidt” and his private time “flexibly includes 9 to 5” “has provided bulldog services on behalf of his boss”, etc. from McIntyre is not very helpful in fostering collaboration, or even open communication. I hope you can take the initiative to change that.