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.
delingpole on BEST and Curry:
30 Oct: UK Telegraph: James Delingpole: Lying, cheating climate scientists caught lying, cheating again
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100114292/lying-cheating-climate-scientists-caught-lying-cheating-again/
Yea, I’m sorry… It’s all my fault.
For record keeping, here’s a wayback machine copy of that same faq in July
http://web.archive.org/web/20110720061513/http://www.berkeleyearth.org/FAQ.php
The paragraph in question does not yet exist.
Remember those days when peer review was so important to global warming believers? It was such along time ago. Why, it was in those long ago days that ended when this BEST paper was plastered all over the media.
barry says:
October 30, 2011 at 9:31 pm
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.
barry, your “imagination” has betrayed you yet again – see your net glacier retreat confabulations where you totally missed the problems with your assertions. Once again, because:
1] In the practice of post-Enlightenment science, Peer review was never warranted to ensure that the publication of a “peer reviewed” study thereby made the study’s conclusions the “given truth”; that is, until the advent of the obviously regressive and indeed “throw-back” nature of the Climate Science “method”. As proven again by the “method” used by Climate Science, in the practice of real science the real Peer Review starts after a paper’s publication, or at least is never completed without that opportunity.
And, 2] the big problem with Climate Science’s peer review is that the author “Scientists” and the Publications did not heel to the practices of real science – and to the very rules the Publications have stated as conditions for publication in/by their own Journals and Assessment Reports – by not releasing the “materials and methods”, which are the “science” of the studies, so that real peer review of the studies simply didn’t occur in those cases for some time.
In some celebrated instances, it also appears fairly certain that the Peer Reviewers did not even look at the materials and methods involved in the studies they were reviewing – for instance, concerning Mann’s Hockey Stick paper as included in the TAR and published in Nature [MBH98] and GRL [MBH99], Steig’s Antarctic Warming paper published in Nature, and Briffa’s Yamal paper published in Science, or else they didn’t understand at all what they were looking at. They didn’t understand “the science”.
But, therefore, no one else outside of the self-annointed Climate Science Community could get the “materials and methods” without being either very persistent or lucky while also being demonized simply for being sceptical, which led to the FOIA dust up and to Climategate!
Attn., barry, such scepticism is at the very heart of the practice of real scientific method and principle science. On the other hand, you trust your own imagination at your peril, but it shouldn’t seek to involve the rest of the world in its ultimate personal disaster.
You have a choice, barry.
I just feel sorry for Dr Curry she really did believe there was a middle ground.
I’m sorry Dr Curry but the corruption of science happened years ago in the climate science world when the first hockey stick was produced and not one climate scientist stood up and questioned it.
I’m guessing BEST followed the path of countless failed startups:
1. Administrator/Scientist Identifies opportunity (new per reviewed temperature record in time for AR5 inclusion)
2. Secure funding
3. Assemble team. Appoint family member to important role
4. Buy new computers, office furniture, lease vehicles and attend conferences in pleasant places (aka team building)
5. Do some work.
6. Realize time is running out, the money is gone and the product is incomplete. Need more money and time.
7. Administrator/Scientist decides to make the best of his/her FAIL by tossing a Hail Mary pass down field without peer review blockers. Why bother telling the front line what the last play is?
8.
9. Profit!!
JC has a new post up in which she explains she has spoken to muller and basically agrees with him on everything.
JC is not the new messiah, she is what could be termed a loose cannon imho.
barry says:
October 30, 2011 at 9:31 pm
Noting the email from Nature
I was going to pile on, Anthony, but your reply says it all. Idiot. This from a pinhead with 2 physics degrees.
1. This isn’t how they represented things would be done to Anthony.
2. They didn’t incorporate Anthony’s typo-fixes into the documents they released, indicating a propagandistic desire to hit a certain date for a coordinated media-impact.
3. They didn’t inform co-author Curry. (They must have realized she’d object.)
4. Muller published an op-ed in the WSJ and an interview with the BBC. This goes beyond pre-emptive cautioning. It amounts to a pre-emptive spin, or “talking his book.” This cast the conclusions in concrete and conflicts with the purpose of circulating a draft preprint for comment. If Muller wanted to caution the press against jumping to a hasty and/or extreme conclusion, he should have included such cautions, with specifics, as introductory sections in his drafts.
5. His spin is unjustified in certain respects by his findings, or by other considerations, as posters here have pointed out.
Should we now anticipate a redefinition of peer review by the IPCC as well to support their use of less than rigorous sources of “proof”?
So much for gold standards!
>>Cecil Coupe says: October 31, 2011 at 1:19 am
Thanks, Cecil – I think you have the whole scam in a nutshell there….
Thanks. 😉
.
I have not followed this closely. But I suspect that the FAQ is part of the post-crisis cover-up. It suits Muller if this all looks like a normal academic brawl. But it looks more like a conspiracy. Muller looks like the front for conspirators wanting to mislead public opinion before a critical international conference. Who organised the money? Who planned the media blitz (Muller & Company mis-managed the media blitz; but who planned it?) Who commissioned Muller? The conspirators’ mistake was to expect Dr Curry (the only climatologist on the author list, apparently) to go quietly.
This does not look to me like something most IPCC scientists could have arranged. It needs to be someone with a critical interest in maintaining public belief in a warming temperature data series for, without that, the game and careers are over. And it must be someone who can quietly influence public funding. Someone at the heart of the AGW movement. Given that the offence was committed in the US with public money this may be criminal rather than just professional misconduct. There are few protagonists with audacious form in this field. They are easy to guess although probably hard to prove — unless they are “grassed up”.
With enough pressure (including calls for an FBI or IG investigation), I doubt that Muller and colleagues will “carry the can”. Can the climate blogs expose the conspirators? That’s what needs to happen now!
From the same FAQ
>>
Has Global Warming Stopped?
…Some people draw a line segment covering the period 1998 to 2010 and argue that we confirm no temperature change in that period.
>>
Yet the accompanying graph which selects to show 1950-2009 does not show that at all . It shows continual rise behind the ENSO or whatever cyclic behaviour. So the graph plainly contradicts what they are saying. No one could argue there was no rise if that is what their data showed.
So what are they plotting here. More shenanigans.
A preprint is not a press release. A preprint is a copy of a satisfactorily reviewed paper in the process of publication, after which it becomes an offprint. Muller et al submitted an unqualified technical “press release” to the media, nothing more, nothing less. Prostituting the science, as it were. Stems from a psychological disorder in which scientists believes their opinions are more important than their findings.
After having whitnessed the massive hiding of data and adjustments from GISS, Hadcrut etc. then the only thing that would make me trust any new source of temperature data is, total openness with respect to temperatures stations, their adjustments and arguments for specific adjustments done.
If such data is available AND arguments + procedures appears sound, then i would trust the results. BEST is FAR from this kind of openness.
All the issues with GISS/Hadcrut makes demands high for openness to any one producing temperature data in the future.
K.R. Frank
It always seems to me that there is eventually a point where the scales fall from ones eyes and suddenly everything you knew and trusted is then seen in a different light. Suddenly someone gets it and the world seems a different place. Maybe Judith Curry is going through this at the moment. Let’s face it she’s been a big gun luke warm sceptic for sometime but recent shenanigans must make her increasingly sensitive to motives and an eagerness to push an agenda. But what do I know. Seriously though this whole debate has been obscured by the massive ideological battle ground between it would seem left and right. Yes I know it should be about the science and Judith is obviously a very prestigious scientist who seems now to be thinking WTF is going on here.
Odd is it not that in Australia the slang for filthy lucre is mullah pronounced the same as this mans name. The total disregard of real principles in both the treatment of Anthony and Dr Curry from this mob at B.E.S.T. is reprehensible.
The attempt at hiding the decline for fame or monetary gain is disgraceful, this I would imagine is the last hurrah for the catastrophic warmists. The stench from this will slowly stem the life blood [ public money] as people and politicians slowly awaken.
Oh go on. Their confirmation of the validity of the major terrestrial temperature records is a great story. It answers “skeptical” questions very nicely. There is no way they should have waited until it was peer reviewed.
You are just making a fuss because their results didn’t come out ho you wanted them.
judith Curry has a post up about this here:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/30/discussion-with-rich-muller/
It explains quite a lot about these shenanigans.
Once again it also shows climate science in bad light.
Kindest Regards.
The warmists lost all strands of credibility years ago. Now in their efforts to rebuild this charade in the face of people simply no longer accepting their twisted claims at face value, they are exposing themselves instead as liars.
In any case, they are simply Mullered!
SuspiciousOz says:
October 31, 2011 at 2:58 am
I have not followed this closely. But I suspect that the FAQ is part of the post-crisis cover-up. It suits Muller if this all looks like a normal academic brawl. But it looks more like a conspiracy. Muller looks like the front for conspirators wanting to mislead public opinion before a critical international conference. Who organised the money? Who planned the media blitz (Muller & Company mis-managed the media blitz; but who planned it?) Who commissioned Muller? …..
______________________________
“Who organized the money?” It is not a small time group.
From Muller & Assoc.:
“…Muller & Associates provides expertise for energy challenges that deserve the best minds in the world. Our senior-level team includes Nobel Laureates, MacArthur Geniuses, and recognized global leaders with experience in over 30 countries. We integrate science with business acumen, economics, and long-term trends to ensure that our clients are making the right investments for their organization.
We know that in order to be effective, solutions must be sustainable…
and we know that for businesses, sustainable solutions must be profitable as well.
GreenGov™ is a service offered by Muller & Associates for Governments, International Organizations, non profits, and other organizations that work with Government. The aim is to provide politically-neutral counsel that is broad in scope while rooted in the hard facts of state-of-the-art science and engineering. The key is to make the right patch between the best technologies and the strengths of the government. We know that to be effective the political dimension must be integrated into the technical plan from the start. “
A key word is SUSTAINABLE This ties to the UN Agenda 21, Ged Davis, Shell Oil and the IPCC.
Climategate e-mail on Sustainable Development (B1) Ged Davis wrote Sustainable Development (B1) scenario is mentioned.
Here is more on the (B1) scenario IPCC Emissions Scenarios
Here is who Ged Davis is (Shell Oil executive with IPCC connection)
If you then go to the listing of the TEAM at Muller Assoc. you find. Arthur Rosenfeld, Former California Energy Commissioner among others.
Further down you find Marlan Downey
Click on Marlan Downey, Oil and Gas Executive
And guess what ? We are BACK TO SHELL OIL!
“Marlan Downey, Oil and Gas Executive
….. Former President of the international subsidiary of Shell Oil…..”
If we follow the Shell Oil connection, we find Queen Beatrix of the Dutch House of Orange and Lord Victor Rothschild are the two largest shareholders of RD/Shell. (I read some where the Dutch Royal family owns about 25%)
Prince Bernhard of the Dutch Royal Family is heavily tied to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Gets positively incestuous doesn’t it?
What many are missing is a privately held company is an excellent way to hide BRIBES AS CONSULTING FEES!
FOR EXAMPLE:
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro allegedly went from poor as a church mouse to #48 on the Richest lCongressman list–getting her wealth from her husband– (campaign strategist Stan Greenberg for global warming, globalisation…). According to Roll Call, DeLauro’s primary asset is a 67-percent stake in Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Inc
DeLauro has push for years to get a new Food “Safety” bill passed that turns control of the US food supply over to the World Trade Organization where Monsanto has a major presence.
Greenpeace found the Greenburg Monsanto connection Monsanto passed it off as being “Ten Years ago” of course that is about when DeLauro started her never ending stream of Food “Safety” bills….
DeLauro started out poor from “To Rich to be Republican” comment # 325 by exnfl20
And then of course there is Patchy and his romance novel….
John Brookes says:
October 31, 2011 at 4:01 am
Gee John, do you think that “results” in the BEST papers are quality results? Why is the period 60 years, rather than 30 for which there is accurate data? If 60 is good, why not 100, or 150, or 200 years? Mostly, the answer is that within extended data, there is that inconvenient truth. We aren’t seeing runaway warming, we’re seeing recovery from cold, at least until the Sun got quiet.
Now, you should hope the warming doesn’t stop. Many more people will die as a result of the cold, than would ever die due to a 3 deg C warming. The problem with real scientists is that they try to discuss their findings with other scientists, amateur or not. People who dodge scientific give and take, are not scientists, they are poseurs.
Several decades ago at the end of his career, legendary film director Orson Wells shilled for Paul Masson wine makers with the tag line, “We sell no wine before its time.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpj0t2ozPWY
BEST would have been smart to take this simple advice.
Gail Combs says:
October 31, 2011 at 5:56 am
…and the Koch brothers, don’t forget the Koch brothers.
What a fricking mess, LOL!