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So they need to form an ethics committee, do they?
O! The Irony!
Oy.
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From: Tom Wigley
To: André Berger
Subject: Re: FW: Shaviv & Veizer in GSA Today
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 09:00:33 -0600
Cc: Mike MacCracken , Martin Hoffert , Karl Taylor , Ken Caldiera , Curt Covey , Stefan Rahmstorf , “Michael E. Mann” , Raymond Bradley , Malcolm Hughes , Phil Jones

, Kevin Trenberth , Tom Crowley , Scott Rutherford , Caspar Ammann , Keith Briffa , Tim Osborn , Michael Oppenheimer , Steve Schneider , Gabi Hegerl , Ellen Mosley-Thompson , Eric Steig , jmahlman@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, wuebbles@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, jto@u.arizona.edu, stocker@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Urs Neu , Jürg Beer
Andre,
I have been closely involved in the CR fiasco. I have had papers that I
refereed (and soundly rejected), under De Freitas’s editorship, appear
later in the journal — without me seeing any response from the authors.
As I have said before to others, his strategy is first to use mainly
referees that are in the anti-greenhouse community, and second, if a
paper is rejected, to ignore that review and seek another more
‘sympathic’ reviewer. In the second case he can then (with enough
reviews) claim that the honest review was an outlier.
I agree that an ethics committee is needed and I would be happy to serve
on such a committee. It would have to have endorsement by international
societies, like Roy. Soc., US Nat. Acad., Acad. Europ., plus RMS, AMS,
AGU, etc.
Jim Titus mentioned to me that in the legal profession here people are
disbarred for behavior like that of De Freitas (and even John Christy —
although this is a more subtle case). We cannot do that of course, but
we can alert the community of honest scientists to such behavior and
formally discredit these people.
The Danish Acad. did something like this recently, but were not entirely
successful.
In the meantime, I urge people to dissociate themselves from Climate
Research. The residual ‘editorial’ (a word I use almost tongue in cheek)
board is looking like a rogues’ gallery of skeptics. Those remaining who
are credible scientists should resign.
Tom.

Ho-Ho!
DARN that “due diligence” thing. The NERVE!
(And love that last paragraph.)
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From: Stephen H Schneider
To: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Re: [Fwd: data request]
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 10:50:56 -0800 (PST)
Cc: “David C. Bader” , Bill Goldstein , Pat Berge , Cherry Murray , George Miller , Anjuli Bamzai , Tomas Diaz De La Rubia , Doug Rotman , Peter Thorne , Leopold Haimberger , Karl Taylor , Tom Wigley , John Lanzante , Susan Solomon , Melissa Free , peter gleckler , “Philip D. Jones”

, Thomas R Karl , Steve Klein , carl mears , Doug Nychka , Gavin Schmidt , Steven Sherwood , Frank Wentz
“Thanks” Ben for this, hi all and happy new year. I had a similar experience–but not FOIA since we at Climatic Change are a private institution–with Stephen McIntyre demanding that I have the Mann et al cohort publish all their computer codes for papers published in Climatic Change. I put the question to the editorial board who debated it for weeks. The vast majority opinion was that scientists should give enough information on their data sources and methods so others who are scientifically capable can do their own brand of replication work, but that this does not extend to personal computer codes with all their undocumented sub routines etc. It would be odious requirement to have scientists document every line of code so outsiders could then just apply them instantly. Not only is this an intellectual property issue, but it would dramatically reduce our productivity since we are not in the business of producing software products for general consumption and have no resources to do so. The NSF, which funded the studies I published, concurred–so that ended that issue with Climatic Change at the time a few years ago.
This continuing pattern of harassment, as Ben rightly puts it in my opinion, in the name of due diligence is in my view an attempt to create a fishing expedition to find minor glitches or unexplained bits of code–which exist in nearly all our kinds of complex work–and then assert that the entire result is thus suspect. Our best way to deal with this issue of replication is to have multiple independent author teams, with their own codes and data sets, publishing independent work on the same topics–like has been done on the “hockey stick”. That is how credible scientific replication should proceed.
Let the lawyers figure this out, but be sure that, like Ben is doing now, you disclose the maximum reasonable amount of information so competent scientists can do replication work, but short of publishing undocumented personalized codes etc. The end of the email Ben attached shows their intent–to discredit papers so they have no “evidentiary value in public policy”–what you resort to when you can’t win the intellectual battle scientifically at IPCC or NAS.
Good luck with this, and expect more of it as we get closer to international climate policy actions, We are witnessing the “contrarian battle of the bulge” now, and expect that all weapons will be used.
Cheers, Steve
PS Please do not copy or forward this email.
Stephen H. Schneider
Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies,
Professor, Department of Biology and
Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment