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.
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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.
The real problem is that the only ones aware of the Muller’s “blunder” are those thoughtful people who already fall into the category of skeptics or to use Muller’s phrase “doubters”.
I opened my newspaper today and an AP story next to the OpEd section was headlined “Skeptic now agrees global Warming is real” touting his skeptic credentials and the fact that he proved “temperatures are rising rapidly” and that they carefully examined the contention that “weather stations are unreliable”. The story includes a long paragraph documenting the role of the evil Koch brothers whose companies “produce sizable greenhouse gas emissions”. Lo and behold, the exact same story is the lead in the home page of AOL (Huffington Post).
Unless there is a credible platform to broadcast the other side of the story, I’m afraid the Muller charlatans will have gotten away with their brazen plan.
“Acceptable disingenuousness ends where implausible deniability begins” ?
“…where implausible deniability begins”
The above is just a “rule of thumb”, for the BEST team – in future
So no one else thought it was hysterical that a bunch of glorified weather men compared themselves to String Theory?
Contrary to preconceptions, “peer review” is not meant to address whether a given hypothesis is true or false, but to ensure that data as submitted enable replication of the original experiment; alternatively, the reconstruction of a submission’s consistent, viable, math/statistical analytical approach amenable to falsification.
To say that “peer review” establishes the validity of a hypothesis is prima facie erroneous: Only scientific evidence in form of careful measurement ever can do that, subject to all manner of precautionary caveats. If an experiment cannot be replicated, or observations verified by independent third-party experts in a field, you’re left with Rene Blondlot, J.B. Rhine, Trofim Lysenko, Immanuel Velikovsky and so on, and on.
From c. 1988 if not before, AGW’s Green Gang of Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann. Trenberth et al. –now welcoming BEST’s Muller to their company– is as far-removed from rational scientific discourse via Peer Review as it is possible to get.
John Brookes says:
October 31, 2011 at 4:01 am
You are just making a fuss because their results didn’t come out ho you wanted them.
Naaa naa naa naa naaa, “I know you are but what am I?” In other words, Brookes, as usual, in the face of objective reality all you are doing is repeating infantile groupthink memes, also a rather pathetic form of “bullying”. So go look in the mirror, John. Are you wearing diapers?
If not, you might soon be…that is, if you insist on remaining a simple tool for the current crop of Totalitarian “redistributionist” dead-enders, whose experimental results include the conditions displayed by North Korea vs South Korea – and, btw, whose Alinskyite “rules” seem to fit your mentality like a key to Pandora’s box – and their similarly parasitic looting cronies. Or are you one of them or think you will be? “All hail Kim Jong Brookes”?
Of course it’s beginning to look like you, John, having already experienced many teachable moments here at WUWT and elsewhere, are simply incapable of doing anything else and will therefore fall prey to your own Totalitarian Cult’s Malthusian worry…one way or another! No one ever said that a progressing Evolution would produce instantaneous “change” within the whole human species itself – see pre-Postmodern Anthropology, that is, after you finally master the basics of “The Three Little Pigs” and “The Emperor With No Clothes”.
Naaa naa naa naa naaa!The normal peer review DOES NOT involve sending out preprints. Normally there are 2 or 3 anonymous reviewers who comment and may even recommend to publish or not to the journal. Preprints are not required at all. It would be untenable from an author’s point of view for all of one’s colleagues to be having input while also handling the anonymous input.
Having a few close colleagues comment is more inhouse than anything else, but it is not the norm and, for that matter, such consultation might warrant pitting them on a co-authors. I disagree that scientists go around the country lecturing on unpublished, unvetted results and conclusions. I have never seen that except at inhouse department seminars.
I edit science research papers professionally and only deal with reviewers comment, not those from preprint input.
In the real world, if I find a paper with a problem in a journal, write a rebuttal or a letter to the editor, pointing out the problem. If I have the time, I might even write a whole paper countering or correcting the error through my own work.
BEST is writing a chapter or two for Donna Laframboise’s next book.
I do not see any issue with the BEST Project posting preliminary results or draft pre-review papers or data online on their website. Nor if they did that, would I find any issues if they notified everyone (including MSM) to look at their websites. Nor with Q&A at their website. Openness and transparency would be served.
If doing the above violates an agreement they had/have with a scientific journal which is in process of BEST paper review then I see that as only a problem between BEST and the journal. I do not see that as a scientific process violation issue per se.
But, the issues I see is the apparent fumbling by BEST of a self-advocating PR campaign with glaring inconsistencies does cause some valid concerns over the credibility/integrity of the BEST Project’s management process itself.
BEST should, in my view, stop looking like amateurs and get some rational resources involved in its general management.
Adice toward BEST => JC could lend a guiding hand to get BEST focused on better project management resources.
John
NOTE #1 – above also posted on BH
NOTE #2 – Also, in addition, maybe Moshpit could give BEST some management consultancy from the overall climate project management perspective. I trust Moshpit not to let his ‘lukewarmism’ bias his managment. : )
“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.”
Loose.
Now she will have an extremely difficult time to go back to criticizing Mullins, no matter if what he tells/told her, is false.
Make that “Muggins”. err..”Muller”.
My simple solution:
Ask the media person if they can send you an ‘open’ copy of the paper. One free of confidentiality requirements. IFF they can, you have a ‘non-confidential source’ on which you can comment. IFF they can not, you (and they) are still bound to confidence. Just be sure to cite the ‘open source’ version in any comments. Oh, and watch out for entrapment attempts. Someone SAYING they have an unencumbered copy as a phish… Get them to send the copy with a statement that it is not confidential, then you can comment on THEIR sourced paper…
Otherwise, a secret is a secret…
The FAQ entry about preprints is a lie. In the late 1990s, just as the WWW started to become populated – and before any media presence, I was in graduate school. My department had a library, but it contained no preprints. There was no such thing as a preprint room. Preprints no doubt were circulated among faculty and their friends at other institutions, but only as a courtesy among friends. The internet did not change anything. That was in a Genetics department, and last time I checked, genetics was still science.
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.”
Golly! By that standard, all of the publications of the Flat Earth Society have been cleared through “traditional peer review” …
Here’s my theory on the charade of climate ‘science’, which for me is the only remaining logical option:
This whole bunch of research isn’t actually about monitoring the boring old climate & weather (only the british are interested in that); it is acttually a big experiment on the wider public as a longitudinal study of gullability.
Its’ objectives are to see how far it can stretch logic and reason to encourage people to part with their cash, and what the tipping point is for public trust in pseudo-science and being told ‘facts’ secondhand without bothering to spend 10 mins looking for themselves.
Derren Brown showed this with his recent episode of ‘The Experiments’, where we are the duped audience and the climate is the story which we are made to believe we control.
Here’s an article by Joe Romm on this subject
http://www.nationofchange.org/koch-funded-study-finds-recent-warming-high-end-and-speeding-curry-frags-herself-1320068149
There is one problem with BEST, it has the name Bezerkly in it. The only good thing come out of that campus in recent years is Aaron Rogers, and I say that with some trepedation as a fan of the 49ers.
Earth temperature went up consistently all along the period? Fluctuations (rises, falls and flats) occurring during that positive slope have no meaning at all? How about the rise until the forties (after the end of little ice age, no antropogenic CO2), the fall until the seventies (in spite of antropogenic CO2 rise), the rise until late nineties (why? CO2 reborn?) and the flattning during the last decade (in spite of antropogenic CO2 rising)? No meaning at all?
Besides a failed atempt to suppress the flattning over the last decade, the released information brought a hand full of nothing to the debate.
Natural climate variation continues to be the BEST answer we have.
Skeptics generally maintain that global warming in the past decade has been scant. BEST’s contention is that warming has not stopped, producing a graph up through 2006 in which it continues to rise. However, what rises is not global temperature itself but the 10-year running average.
Many learned but long-winded arguments have been produced against using smoothed graphs, but here’s one specifically tuned to the decadal question. Anyone with a PC with spreadsheet software can reproduce it. Start a column with the years 1990 through 2010. In the next column, start at zero and add two until you reach 2000, then hold at 20 through 2010.
In the third column, compute the running average of the closest eleven numbers to the left, going back five years and ahead five years. I’m using an 11-year average to simplify the central point. You can only do this from 1995 through 2005, but note what happens. The data rises through 2000 and then stalls. The average, however, continues to climb for as long as it can be calculated.
Responsible skeptics do not deny that warming has occurred since 1975, but note that the data shows a difficult-to-explain decade-long pause. It is not a rebuttal to show that a ten-year smoothing fails to reproduce a ten-year phenomenon. Fairly steady temperatures have coincided with steadily rising CO2. Until that is adequately explained, the science is not settled.