The 97% Thunderdome is revving up! Brandon Shollenberger has issued a direct challenge to Cook and UQ, and has published the threatening letter about that “secret” data for Cook’s “97% consensus” study that was published under an “open” Creative Commons License. From that “openness” Jo Nova made the hilarious graphic at left for her essay on the fiasco. Send her chocolate.
Shollenberger writes:
As most of you know, I recently received a threatening letter from the University of Queensland. This letter made a variety of threats and demands. The the strangest one was it suggested I’d be sued if I showed anyone the letter. Today, I intend to challenge that claim.
Some people suggested I should have immediately published the letter. I understand that view. It was my immediate reaction upon receiving the letter. The idea of a university from another country suing me because I published a letter in which they threatened to sue me was laughable. It was as empty a threat as I could imagine.
Still, I’ve been told I let myself get baited too easily. It seemed unwise to act hastily rashly when the issue of a lawsuit was at hand. I thought taking a few days to think about matters was sensible.
I have now, and I’ve talked to a number of people about this. Everything I’ve seen and heard agrees: The threat against me publishing the letter was bogus and pathetic. It might have even been unethical.
…
Until I do, I want to challenge the University of Queensland to stand by what it has said. I’m calling their bluff. I’ve published their letter, and I await the legal proceedings we all know will never come.
…So here’s the challenge I want to propose to the Skeptical Science team, to the University of Queensland, and to anyone else who thinks I shouldn’t release the data I possess:
Tell me what material I possess could cause harm if disseminated. Tell me what agreements or contractual obligations would be impinged upon if that material were released to the public.
If you are unable or unwilling to meet such a simple challenge, I’ll release the data and you can bite me. I mean, sue me.
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Read it all here as well as see the letter: http://hiizuru.wordpress.com/2014/05/18/a-direct-challenge/
In other news: Popcorn futures are expected to open at record highs tomorrow at the Chicago Board of Trade. Here’s last week’s closing numbers:
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I have mirrored the letter here. And in a few other places that are less findable.
Better put me on the list for takedown notices…
…good luck with that.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23753334/Shollenberger.pdf
tonyb, I didn’t discount the idea, but I’m still not convinced the University of Queensland actually owns this data. I know they’re acting as though they do, but I can’t see a reason to trust them on that point when they’re wrong on basically every other point. I’m going to remain skeptical until there’s something more than people waving their hands on the point.
As for something being hidden, I get the impression there is no “smoking gun” here. At most, I think some people just don’t want everyone to know how poorly done the study was.
Brandon,
As I wrote on your blog, the UQ is really stretching it by claiming that the raters are research participants that need to be protected due to ethics approval. Why would they need ethics approval for rating scientific papers, unless the raters themselves were the object of the research? There is something very rotten about this. I assume that they are trying to use the alleged ethics approval in order to block attempts for falsification of their ratings. All the more reason to react since otherwise this will be the start of a new trick to keep climate science immune against falsification. Someone needs to dig up the ethics approval…
Brandon said
‘At most, I think some people just don’t want everyone to know how poorly done the study was.’
I am not suggesting a smoking gun but something very much along the lines of what you suggest, with the added possibility that therefore IF they had something to do with the survey, at the least it shows them up as slip shod and at worst as not following any scientific method and trying to obscure the facts..
tonyb
{just posted this comment at Brandon Shollenberger’s blog}
– – – – – – – – –
Alastair McEwan,
Then perhaps you should talk to the ‘Concensus’ paper authors John Cook et al about their violation of the University ethics approval for their paper, because they identified some “individual research participants” (the raters) in their paper. Here is a quote from the paper identifying some raters by name.
John
A couple commenters at my blog noticed something that had escaped my attention while writing my last blog post. The University of Queensland’s recent press release says certain data was hidden in accord with ethics approvals of the paper.
As far as I know, that’s the first anyone has heard of the John Cook getting an ethics approval from the university. It’d be interesting to see the documentation for it.
Brandon, wish you had a PR person to help set up interviews with Australian press. Maybe someone on the side from Heartland or JoNova?
“John Cook .. ethics”
Rarely seen in the same sentence!
william says:
May 19, 2014 at 7:30 am
==========
yes, if you have copies of the the simpson’s tapes you can’t publish them, but you certainly can publish a report on why you found them good or bad.
why assume that Brandon can’t publish a report on what he learned from viewing the data? So long as Brandon takes steps to not name names, this would appear to satisfy ethical concerns.