I was over at Judy Curry’s place, reading her update to the Mail on Sunday story, and noticed she referenced URLs to the updated FAQs at the BEST website. I followed and was totally shocked to read this FAQ: (bold mine)
Why didn’t Berkeley Earth wait for peer review?
Some people think that peer review consists of submitting a paper to a journal and waiting for the anonymous comments of referees. Traditional peer review is much broader than that and much more open. In science, when you have a new result, your first step is to present it to your colleagues by giving presentations, talks at local and international conferences, colloquia, and by sending out “preprints.” In fact, every academic department in the sciences had a preprint library where people would read up on the latest results. If they found something to disagree with, they would talk to or write the authors. Preprint libraries were so popular that, if you found someone was not in the office or lab, the first place you would search would be in the preprint library. Recently these rooms have disappeared, their place taken over by the internet. The biggest preprint library in the world now is a website, arXiv.org.
Such traditional and open peer review has many advantages. It usually results in better papers in the archival journals, because the papers are widely examined prior to publication. It does have a disadvantage, however, that journalists can also pick up preprints and report on them before the traditional peer-review process is finished.
Perhaps because of the media picking up on talks and preprints, a few journals made a new rule: they will not publish anything that is distributed as a preprint or that is discussed openly in a meeting or colloquium. This policy has resulted in more attention to several journals, but the restrictive approach had a detrimental effect on the traditional peer review system. Some fields of science, for example String Theory, objected so strongly that they refuse to publish in these journals, and they put all their papers online immediately.
The best alternative would be to have the media hold back and not report preprint material. Unfortunately they refuse to do that. The situation is made more difficult by the fact that many of the media misreport the content of the preprints. For that reason Berkeley Earth has tried to answer the questions given to us by the media, in hopes that our work will be more accurately reported. The two page summary of findings is also meant to help ensure that the media reports accurately reflect the content of our papers.
==============================================================
I call absolute total BS on that. Why?
Because BEST contacted media in advance of the release of their papers and provided preprints. The October 20th release by BEST was planned and coordinated with media, such as the Economist, Guardian, NYT, New Scientist, and Nature, all of which contacted me before the release on October 20th. This FAQ on peer review was added sometime after that date, I don’t know when, but the FAQ headline obviously refers to past tense.
Remember the ethical quandary I wrote about on October 15th? I wrote then:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Imagine, if you will, that you are given a complete draft copy of a new paper that has just been submitted to a journal, and that paper cites your work, and it was provided as a professional courtesy before it has been peer-reviewed and accepted.
There’s a caveat attached to the email with the paper which says:
“Please keep it confidential until we post it ourselves.”
OK, fine and dandy, no problem there. Happy to oblige. I sent along a couple of small corrections and thanked the author.
Imagine my surprise when I get this email Friday from a reporter at a major global media outlet. I’ve redacted the names.
Dear Mr Watts
I’m the [media name redacted] new environment editor. I’m planning to write a pretty big piece next week on the [paper preprint name redacted], and wondered whether you might be able to give me your view of it. I think you’ve been sent the [paper preprint name redacted] paper… If you did happen to be able and interested, I’d be enormously grateful for a word about this on Monday. Might that be possible?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I objected to being put in an untenable position with confidentiality on the paper. I was asked for my confidentiality about one of the papers, but then they gave the paper to media, and the media came calling me asking me to comment on it. I had no warning they would do so.
The Economist was first and that’s the email from reporter James Astill above, and I had to ask permission from Dr. Richard Muller before I spoke with Astill, as I mentioned in my report on October 20th.
Elizabeth Muller told me herself that “this is coordinated for October 20th”. Dr. Richard Muller says he sent it to one outlet, but I got requests from other media outlets before October 20th release. How did that happen?
—–Original Message—–
From: Richard A Muller
Date: Friday, October 14, 2011 3:35 PM
To: Anthony Watts- ItWorks
Subject: Re: Our paper is attached
Anthony,
We sent a copy to only one media person, from The Economist, whom we trust to keep it confidential. I sent a copy to you because I knew you would also keep it confidential.
I apologize for not having gotten back to you about your comments. I particularly like your suggestion about the title; that is an improvement.
Rich
I have all my notes and emails from these exchange with BEST and media outlets who made request, so this isn’t a matter of recollection.
For example this from the WUWT contact form:
Jeff Tollefson
xxxxxxx@us.nature.com
http://www.nature.com/news
http://wattsupwiththat.com/about-wuwt/contact-2/
[Watts Up With That?] Contact
Subject interview query from Nature magazine
2011-10-18 @ 12:05:13 PM
Hello Mr. Watts, I’m preparing a story about the formal release of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature analysis on Thursday, and I was hoping to get your thoughts. Their embargoed release says they specifically looked at the temperature stations you flagged as suspect (as well as the urban heat island effect), and they say the trends hold true. Of course they already reported much of this unofficially back in May, but there you go. Would you have a moment to chat? My number is 212-451-xxxx. If I don’t hear back, I’ll see if I can’t track down your address through other means. Best, Jeff Tollefson US Correspondent Nature magazine
I wrote October 20th when the media blitz happened:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Readers may recall this post last week where I complained about being put in a uncomfortable quandary by an author of a new paper. Despite that, I chose to honor the confidentiality request of the author Dr. Richard Muller, even though I knew that behind the scenes, they were planning a media blitz to MSM outlets. In the past few days I have been contacted by James Astill of the Economist, Ian Sample of the Guardian, and Leslie Kaufman of the New York Times. They have all contacted me regarding the release of papers from BEST today.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now BEST is telling us it is the media who refuses to hold back on reporting preprints? Give me a freaking break.
Either the Muller team is grossly incompetent at public relations, or they are playing a unbelievably stupid game of CYA after the fact due to the negative reactions they are getting to the “press before peer review” fiasco they brought on themselves.
Either way, it’s gobsmackingly unscrupulous of them to now blame the media.
Muller’s alleged “open preprint peer review” shtick is something I’ve never heard of as “traditional”. Usually real scientists should already know how to do a study, have the right professionals available as needed – instead of having to rely on “open preprint peer review” – then submit the study for possible publication, right?
So what were/are Muller’s alleged “open preprint peers” doing, anyway, voting on the “new result” or something? Climate Science often doesn’t even use professional statisticians, much less reveal their data and methods after publication. [It sounds like Muller is projecting by telling us about the way Climate Science often develops its not so open “preprints”.]
But moving on, why did “open preprint peer review” cease to exist in Climate Science? Too hard to keep a big scoop like BEST’s from the Press with its ‘misinterpretations’, eh?
So in order to prevent the defects of “open preprint peer review”, Muller decides to replicate them again, by doing exactly what the ipcc does in publishing its pre-AR Press Releases with all of their “smoking guns”, prior to releasing the AR’s, then not delivering? Which has always instead been a smoking gun actually pointing back at them, insofar as not following the practices of real science where the conclusions of a study are almost never published before the science behind the conclusions are published.
So Muller’s “narrative” stinks and even worse than usual, as Anthony and Dr. Curry, and others, have shown.
But on the bright side, if “open preprint peer review” was allegedly a big part of the past standard for practicing real science, why doesn’t Climate Science resume “post-publication peer review” involving anyone who wants the data and methods, just like the good old days of real science since that’s just about what Muller is claiming used to happen in the good old days of “open preprint peer review”.
Good Stuff Anthony!!!!! Muller V Curry. This will be interesting.
The BEST spin is burning out my gyros.
If they wanted to go the pre-print route and send the papers to interested scientists for comment – fine. If they wanted to put the papers and all supporting data up on the website – also, fine. They should also have placed a caveat on those papers that they were very rough drafts subject to major revision. They should have just left it at that and said nothing to the media. Only if members of the media start showing up at your doorstep should you then respond by cautioning them that the work is very raw and could yet see major changes. Going to the media in advance of having a fully peer-reviewed paper is an invitation to disaster, as Dr. Muller is now finding out.
Now let’s see how his meeting with Dr. Curry goes.
“How’s the weather in Chile?”
Interesting question. Why do you ask?
REPLY: If you have to ask, well then you don’t get it. No comment then on the duplicity from BEST, blaming the media for their own PR disaster? Instead just blame me for being “vituperative” because you are incapable of assimilating the DK moment?
– Anthony
I agree with JPeden, I worked as a researcher in one of the UKs leading research Universities for 8 years and we never had open preprint Peer review. To be sure we discussed the results with others in the field to make sure they were “comfortable” that the results could be explained, but our expectation was that the Peer Review Journal system would identify any whoppers in our results. As for conferences, we generally considered them to be a second level means of review.
Gee, physicists with the CERN neutrino experiment get a result that was unexpected so they ask the community to help them figure out what they may have missed. Climate science blast their results all over the place and don’t even inform the other authors (Curry for example). You would at least think their would be an internal review before they started blabbing all over the place. Whether their results are accurate or not, their professionalism stinks.
In the hip new academic world we have this:
http://www.clim-past.net/volumes_and_issues.html
Post-peer review papers posted for online discussion. After this cycle we have such papers as this:
http://www.clim-past.net/6/131/2010/cp-6-131-2010.pdf
just sayin.
it was all preplanned. if they were really concerned about Journalists writing things up out of context – a ‘conditions of usage or reprint’ could be plastered across the top of the preprints putting conditions on publication that would require explicit notification in print of the preliminary and therefore unverified nature of the research.
But of course if you do that – such publication would have no media value what so ever,,,
“An unverified, none peer reviewed and preliminary preprint discussion paper by the BEST team says global warming is continuing…”
Sort of ranks in significance with ‘dog bites man’ in news value…
stevo says:
October 30, 2011 at 5:49 pm
Your vituperative backlash continues. A far cry from “I’ll accept whatever result they produce”.
You mean the result which shows no land warming over the past 10 years? And, stevo, do you accept that result? Which Dr. Curry has dubbed another “hide the decline”?
stevo said on October 30, 2011 at 5:49 pm:
I’m glad you’re enjoying your new career threadbombing, using any post on this site mentioning BEST in any way whatsoever, or even just mentioning any old temperature record, as an opportunity to throw Anthony Watts’ naive initial statement back at his face. It must be very rewarding to you, and quite demanding with the many hours you devote to constantly searching this site every day. Hopefully the pay is commensurate with the dedication required and the effort exerted. You deserve to to receive the rewards you have rightfully earned in this endeavor.
Best of luck, glad to see you here.
Let’s not forget that the State of California Air Resources Board was scheduled, that’s right scheduled, to announce their “vote” on the cap and trade law on Oct 20.
See WUWT report here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/21/california-commits-business-suicide/
How convenient that the Best media blitz was scheduled for the same day. Could if be a feeble attempt to help justify the Air Resources Board decision?
@stevo
You are fooling no one, big boy. “Vituperative”??? You are sounding desperate in your lame attempts to divert attention from the weaselly Muller to Anthony. It is amazing to see the academic squirming about pre-print and media and all that jazz, really epic stuff, and you are still trying to blame the victims (don’t forget to blame Dr Curry too – she is not a warmist either). With talent like that you should consider running for public office.
Tom in Florida says:
October 30, 2011 at 7:00 pm
No, we, apparently in California, took the AB-32 exit 5 years ago…….
When did “preprint libraries” become “popular”??? That sounds like science by Penthouse Magazine (the former Omni). Peer review was ALWAYS “submitting a paper to a journal and waiting for the anonymous [sic] comments of referees” where I came from…where you sweated bullets until the review comments came back, then you addressed them, resubmitted, and sweated bullets again. Having a klatsch of merry commentors lining up at the check-out desk sounds, well, like members of an “Occupy” protest reading the Village Voice over Starbuck’s latte. Whopper indeed.
Bill Hutto says:
October 30, 2011 at 5:03 pm
I think it was a brilliant sting to expose the gullible media!
…or maybe Dr. Muller is an incompetent boob.
OK, still laughing over that :). As long as the last sentence was delivered in the voice of Hedley Lamarr…
maybe polygraph tests of the whole CAGW team, incuding their MSM ennablers, are in order:
28 Oct: UK Independent: Michael McCarthy: Climate change scientist faces lie detector test
This week Mr Gleason was interviewed intensively by investigators and asked if he would take a polygraph (lie detector) test; he responded that he would only take such a test if the agent interviewing him took one as well.
“There appears to be kind of a desperate, almost fierce nature to pursue this until they find something,” said Mr Gleason’s lawyer, Jeff Ruch, of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Mr Ruch accuses the investigators of taking issues raised during the normal scientific peer-review process and acting as though they constitute evidence of wrongdoing…
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-change-scientist-faces-lie-detector-test-2376762.html
Wonderful article, Anthony. You nailed them totally.
A “preprint” is not something that one would submit to a journal and, conversely, something that one submits to a journal is never offered as a preprint.
Peer review exists to serve journal editors and for no other reason. Peer reviewers are volunteers who give freely of their time and genius to support a journal and an editor. Just think what such a volunteer would think if he were sent a “preprint” to review? He would ask the journal editor why the editor wants him/her to do a careful analysis of a paper that has been talked to death for weeks. The very idea is preposterous.
Stevo doesn’t get it…
Try Chilly in Chile
stevo says:
October 30, 2011 at 6:40 pm
“How’s the weather in Chile?”
Interesting question. Why do you ask?
Obviously because he’ll accept any answer you produce? Stay on message, stevo, repeat, repeat, repeat!
These peers who review AGW papers are peers in the formal sense of the word. Something of equal quality. They all believe in the same thing. Usually the politics of having too many people consuming too many goods that the peers reckon is a bit too presumptuous.
There are too many peasants in the world for their taste.
The weather at Chile is quite cold. Based on my records it had been the coldest year in the past 10 years. The La Niña effect will be quite interesting to watch. If the forecast are correct we are going to face a very dry summer.
The central part of the country is already facing a 50% precipitation deficit, and from now on the southern part will start to feel the effect of the current La Niña.
I just can not help thinking that the whole thing is intentional; first one author gets media attention by giving pro-warmist opinions, then the co-author gives an opposite opinion of the results.
Media attention is guaranteed, and ,if everything goes as planned, the final result is pro-sceptical.
Brilliant, if that is(was) the original idea.Media was just too eager, now we will see if they can (dare)publish the correction.At least The Mail did.
Noting the email from Nature,
What does ’embargoed’ mean in this context?
Trying to imagine this without personalities being involved…
Scenario:
BEST is going to release pre-reviewed work to the public, on the premise of transparency, and also to garner comments and criticisms that might help alter/improve their final submission (who knows, they may include the 30-year analysis that has been called for in line with surfacestations.org data). This is completely in line with Muller’s stated preference for how work progresses, and is not far off how I imagine skeptics would like things to be, not completely trusting peer-review. (Let’s see what you came up with before anonymous pinheads decide to give their imprimatur, demand alterations, or reject it. The logical conclusion of this position is that all peer-review should no longer be anonymous, to remove the taint of potential ‘pal-review’. We have seen this scenario clearly stated by skeptics in very recent history.)
So BEST will release their papers prior to peer-review. nothing wrong with that per se, but what about the news media? If BEST do nothing, the news media will report the results however they want. And the news media are not known for reporting the science accurately, which anyone who knows anything about the subject can attest. Everyone complains about media distortion of the science. So BEST decide they will try to ensure accurate media reports by sending embargoed pre-release copies of the papers and having a conversation. They don’t want the work going online and being misrepresented by the media eager for an angle to make a juicy scoop. So they have to walk a journo or two through the science.
This all seems like a reasonable sequence of events to me. Where did BEST go wrong?
REPLY:What a humorous rationalization. I love the “anonymous pinheads” description, which coming from you, one who demands anonymity so you can diss from the shadows, while at the same time ignoring the simple fact that Dr. Muller lied to me in saying “I sent it to one media outlet”, is quite telling about you. FAIL – Anthony
step 1 make press releases with misleading conclusions
step 2 complain the media reports what you’ve told them
step 3 earn every bit of humilation you’ve sown
The puppeteer in this crazy play seems to be Liz Muller. Her manipulations have created a circle of discontent across the climate scam community, sucking in all sides from Anthony, Judith, and the Boyz from GISS, to the blogosphere regulars, all now finger pointing in time to Team Berkeley’s fiddlers. Liz seems to be the real brains in Berkeley’s BEST where no publicity is bad publicity. I have no doubt the IPCC is watching and rolling their eyes. Who will be first to issue a primal scream heard ’round the cooling troposphere?