from the BBC
Sir Muir, a former civil servant, will look into allegations that have arisen from the security breach.
[As a measure of how out of touch UEA is, they apparently have little idea that the title “former civil servant” does not inspire much confidence from skeptics, since it has been “civil servants” who have been blocking access to the data and procedures all along. Here is Sir Muir’s Wikipedia page and his biography page on the University of Glasgow web site – Anthony]
The review will examine whether there is evidence of manipulation or suppression of data “at odds with acceptable scientific practice”.
The CRU is based at the University of East Anglia (UEA).
The e-mails issue arose two weeks ago when hundreds of messages between scientists at the CRU and their peers around the world were posted on the world wide web, along with other documents.
It appears that the material was hacked or leaked; a police investigation has yet to reveal which.
CRU maintains one of the world’s most important datasets on how global temperatures have changed.
Professor Phil Jones, director of the unit, has stepped down pending the review, and has said he stands by his data.
At the time that the theft of the data was revealed, some climate sceptic websites picked up on the word “trick” in one e-mail from 1999 and talk of “hiding the decline”.
Professor Jones said the e-mail was genuine but taken “completely out of context”.
He added: “The first thing to point out is that this refers to one diagram – not a scientific paper.
“The word ‘trick’ was used here colloquially as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward.”
UEA has said the review will:
- Examine e-mail exchanges to determine whether there is evidence of suppression or manipulation of data at odds with acceptable scientific practice which “may therefore call into question any of the research outcomes”.
- Review CRU’s policies and practices for acquiring, assembling, subjecting to peer review and disseminating data and research findings, and “their compliance or otherwise with best scientific practice”.
- Review CRU’s compliance or otherwise with the UEA’s policies and practices regarding requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) for the release of data.
- Review and make recommendations about the management, governance and security structures for CRU and the security, integrity and release of the data it holds.
Sir Muir commented: “Given the nature of the allegations it is right that someone who has no links to either the university or the climate science community looks at the evidence and makes recommendations based on what they find.
Read the complet article here
h/t to Leif Svalgaard
Phil Jones: “The word ‘trick’ was used here colloquially as in a clever thing to do.”
Definitions of trick on the Web:
* a cunning or deceitful action or device; “he played a trick on me”; “he pulled a fast one and got away with it”
* a period of work or duty
* an attempt to get you to do something foolish or imprudent; “that offer was a dirty trick”
* antic: a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement
* magic trick: an illusory feat; considered magical by naive observers
* whoremaster: a prostitute’s customer
* flim-flam: deceive somebody; “We tricked the teacher into thinking that class would be cancelled next week”
* (card games) in a single round, the sequence of cards played by all the players; the high card is the winner
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
* This is a glossary of nautical terms; some remain current, many date from the 17th-19th century. See also and .
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick_(nautrical_term)
* A Trick-taking game is any one of a class of card games where play centers around a series of finite rounds or units of play, called tricks. The object of such games is then closely tied to the winning, or “taking”, of these tricks, or of the cards played in taken tricks. …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick_(cards)
* Trick is a 1999 American independent gay-themed romantic comedy directed by Jim Fall.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick_(film)
* Trick is the seventh studio album released by J-Urban singer Kumi Koda. It was released on January 28, 2009 in Japan and is in CD and CD+2DVD format. The CD contains ten brand new songs as well as the single releases: Moon Crying, That Ain’t Cool, Taboo, and Stay With Me. …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick_(album)
* TRICK is an album released by Panic Channel on March 24, 2005.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRICK
* Trick was a comedic Japanese television dorama and movie series (three seasons, two movies, and a feature-length special), as well as associated …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick_(TV_series)
* Something designed to fool or swindle; A single piece (or business) of a magician’s (or any variety entertainer’s) act; A sequence in which each player plays a card and a winning play is determined; An act of prostitution. …
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trick
Dave (10:09:49) :
You do know that “Yes [Prime] Minister!” was a comedy series and not actual fact I hope.
I wonder what the terms of reference are for the inquiry
@ur momisugly John Luft,
You know, I should say up front that I tend to agree there will be a whitewash, it has already begun and it will succeed unless the “people” maintain their attention on this issue.
However, it is always going to be easy to dismiss the person leading the investigation on the basis of his credentials.
The problem is that when it is complex and scientific issues that are to be investigated you need someone who has some suitable history that suggests he might understand the issues and be less easy to fool.
Naturally enough there may therefore be some areas where his interests will be associated with various aspects of that which he is to investigate.
If, on the other hand, the only way to find a totally independent chairman, we exclude any and all possible areas of possible conflict of interest, we may find the selected candidate has insufficient understanding of the issues to be able to chair the investigation properly.
I think it well to be anticipatory, but let’s let the actions speak for themselves.
By the way, as Michael Man and J Hansen go into CYA mode, and many others as well, it may just be that this investigation will find it convenient to come down very hard on Professor Jones as he would seem the ideal scapegoat.
But I guess if we are expected to settle for him and him alone then that too is a whitewash.
If the focus of this review is on the emails it will be a white-wash. The true fraud, clear to anyone who has done any type of scientific computer programming, is in the software and in the programmer’s comments. Notice that this is not within the scope of any of the four points of investigation listed above.
Regarding Wikipedia, the Climategate article there (rather clumsily entitled “Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident”) has been locked down since Monday.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident
An admin inserted brief information about Jones stepping aside today, but other than that no one is allowed to edit it.
It seems to me that someone is afraid of a little discussion, or that Wikipedia readers might learn of something beyond the party line. A sad day for Wikipedia.
Notice how it is only the emails he will be looking at. Not the code, graphs, etc.
“Examine e-mail exchanges to determine whether there is evidence of suppression or manipulation of data at odds with acceptable scientific practice which may therefore call into question any of the research outcomes”.
So nothing about examining the code/data/comments to determine if there is evidence of manipulation of data at odds with acceptable scientific practice…
“Review CRU’s policies and practices for acquiring, assembling, subjecting to peer review and disseminating data and research findings, and their compliance or otherwise with best scientific practice”.
So nothing about people at CRU interfering with the peer review of data and research findings that other people are trying to disseminate.
Perhaps I’m overly suspicious. Then again, their head was on British radio tonight saying that “95% of the data we use is available on the internet”. Which given that they don’t “use” the raw data which they’ve been refusing to release for years strikes me as a singularly carefully-worded true yet utterly dishonest phrase. These terms of reference strike me as similarly weaselly-worded.
UAE missed one area of investigation: bullying and coercing editors to not accept contradictory papers, i.e. subversion of the peer-review process.
breaking news!
At 1816 on the BBC 1 national tv news they finally told their viewers that the UEA had it computer “hacked” and emails published.
The Saudi Arabian chief IPCC negotiator told the BBC that this would have serious consequences for the Copenhagen climate change meeting and needed to be investigated.
All in about 15seconds – obviously hoping that most viewers would miss the item.
Wonders will never cease.
*sigh*
We need more than one person to chair this commission…we need not politicians but ENGINEERS…people who can read the frickin’ code and know what it means.
bill (10:21:12) : Yes, Minister may well have been a comedy series, but it was uncannily close to the truth….
Well, I wouldn’t be too worried about Sir Muir himself. This guy is basically a bureaucrat, and bureaucrats, especially the British sort, follow rules to the letter.
Where public enquiries in the past have failed to reveal the truth it is because of the deliberately restrictive terms of their remits. Sir Muir’s remits appear a little suspicious in that although it includes investigation of whether the books have been cooked, it does not appear to include an investigation of whether there has been collusion to pervert the course of science by attempting to manipulate the peer review process. If that is the case, then this would constitute a serious omission and be a cause for worry.
The inquiry should proceed by calling expert witnesses. This is another area for worry, since he may allow himself to be “guided” by UAE to select “friendly” witnesses. We shall see.
Don’t rule out a “it started in America” conclusion (our dear leader’s favourite excuse for Britain’s financial meltdown caused by his own recklessness and inattention to that of British banks).
At least that might give Mann et al some awkward questions to answer.
“You do know that ‘Yes [Prime] Minister!’ was a comedy series and not actual fact I hope.”
I guess you missed I was responding regarding the public perception of civil servants, which was what I was talking about. That show by the way was a fictionalization of many things that have gone on in government as the creators of the show used to work in government (having done so, they knew first hand that it was rife for comedy) and they consulted others who used to work in the government.
There is no way to prop up the fraud, what is done is done, and tossing the raw surface temperature data nullifys all research done using the “fixed up fudged data”.
The only thing valid man has is the satellite data since 1979 or so, providing that hasn’t been ‘fixed up’ as well.
Assigning blame is easy, just look at who was in charge.
[snip]
As far as Muir Russell is concerned – those who do not live in the UK have no idea how efficient the British establishment is at creating ‘investigations’ which always get the accused off the hook. There have been no less than FIVE official enquiries into WHY Tony Blair declared war on Iraq illegally – and nothing has ever been allowed into the light of day. The ‘suicide’ of Dr Kelly was investigated – and nothing was found.
Muir Russell is as cheesy as they come. The Enquiry into why the Scottish Parliament (the ugliest building in the entire world) was planned to cost £15 million but ended up costing £450 million -was a complete waste of money. The ‘judgement’ was that ‘nobody was responsible’ . .and everybody got promoted!! Muir Russell was the top civil servant at that time and was supposed to be controlling costs – so he allowed a budget of £15 million to be overspent by a factor of 3000% – but he got a nice job running Glasgow University.
Mark my words – if he wasn’t going to protect the guilty he would never have been chosen. Which raises a more fundamental point: ‘Why was the University of East Anglia allowed to choose the investigator in this case? This is the greatest case of scientific corruption in the history of British science – so why is the university that allowed it to happen being allowed to choose the investigator. Should it not be a truly independent panel setting up the enquiry?
Preferably an international scientific body?
The sceptics should set up their own parallel enquiry and hold public hearings at the same time – to show how they are going to bury the evidence.
Can anyone tell me where I can find the source code for the computer programs? I used to be fairly good with FORTRAN, I have some simulation and control-system experience, and I’d like to do my part. If anyone knows about any organized groups working on this (like the Open Source folks), that would be great, too.
It’s not all that often that an ordinary computer engineer has the opportunity to help save the world from dictatorial autocrats.
Comments on the UAE’s “review” announcement
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/dec/homepagenews/CRUreview
Appointing tame insiders to head “inquiries” has been standard (though not, it should be stressed, the invariable) practice for the British political establishment since at least the time of the Napoleonic wars. Little in Muir Russells’ biography leads one to hope that this is an exception to that rule.
As it suggests, he is tainted with a more than a whiff of scandal, has a reputation (which may well be unjustified) for greed and remains close to Scotland’s political, legal and academic elites. A few weeks ago, he ended an at times controversial six-year term as a university chancellor.
He is, if ever there was one, an insider. Many will feel that this makes him the ideal person to head the UAE’s “review”. Should fraud be proven, the political consequences for the reputation of the university, the government and sections of the civil service could be devastating. It is reasonable to assume that Russell will be sensitive to that difficulty.
The UAE’s announcement stresses that it has organised an “Independent Review”. It is not an “Inquiry”. The legal differences (if a “review” even has a legal status) will elude many but the clear implication is that it is to be a low-key affair held entirely behind closed doors.
It seems that it can submit its report either in the run up to next year’s General Election or its immediate aftermath.
The UAE’s remit includes examination of “the hacked e-mail exchanges . . . and any other information held at CRU to determine whether there is any evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice”.
This could also give grounds for concern. Although the statement’s “Notes to Editors” confirm that “A police investigation is currently underway into the source of the theft”, it has not been established that the documents were stolen.
“Hacking” is an illegal act though in this case one with a potential public-interest defence. (By a curious irony, the grounds on which would-be saboteurs of the Kingsnorth coal-fired power station avoided punishment in a recent case might also be invoked.)
However, many believe that the documents were “leaked” by an insider. Such conduct is almost certainly covered by the UK’s 1998 Public Interest Disclosure Act. It is disingenuous to describe that as “theft”.
It is not the first time this has happened. Last Tuesday, a statement from Professor Trevor Davies, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research noted that:
“The publication of a selection of stolen data is the latest example of a sustained and, in some instances, a vexatious campaign which may have been designed to distract from reasoned debate about the nature of the urgent action which world governments must consider to mitigate, and adapt to, climate change. We are committed to furthering this debate despite being faced with difficult circumstances related to a criminal breach of our security systems and our concern to protect colleagues from the more extreme behaviour of some who have responded in irrational and unpleasant ways to the publication of personal information.”
Some may feel that the UAE is attempting to restrict the remit of the “review” with the effect of downplaying the value of critical evidence and of seeking to prejudice elements in the press against certain witnesses and of picturing the university not as the perpetrator of fraud but as the victim of a criminal act.
Reports in today’s Times and elsewhere suggest that the tactic may have already been effective.
We’ll learn precisely how “independent” Sir Muir Russell is when we discover who hired/recommended him for this job. Anyone know who it was?
Google “bob ward grantham research institute” – they are really beginning to panic reading his hysteria – berhaps a touch of PMT.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/28/hadley-cru-discovers-the-mole/ ???
The remit does say :
Examine e-mail exchanges to determine whether there is evidence of suppression or manipulation of data at odds with acceptable scientific practice which “may therefore call into question any of the research outcomes”.
Rather than: ‘Accepted scientific practice’
His job is to stonewall this and take as long as possible to reach anything. That’s the left’s method of suppressing this.
We need to do a FOIA request of Mr Muir’s emails as they relate to this matter. I would bet he has dirty laundry as well based on his bio of being a warmer advocate. Now that would be a surprise to the other side now wouldn’t it.
About wikipedia entry for “Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident”.
The talk section is an absolutely fascinating engaged debate – with point and counter point. Well worth a look.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident