11/22/2009 (5:21 pm)
Email From the Emporer’s Tailors
Thursday we saw a flood of private email from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University in the UK dumped into the public view, (dis)courtesy of an unnamed hacker. The CRU, and specifically a scientist there named Dr. Phil Jones, is apparently at the hub of communication between scientists who have been defending the thesis, touted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC,) that human activity is severely altering the climate. Emails were directed to and from the authors of the original Mann Hockey Stick study (Mann, Bradley, and Hughes) and to and from the authors of the Yamal tree ring series (Osborn and Briffa) that were embarrassed so recently when the release of their raw data made it seem likely that they cherry-picked their data to manufacture the appearance of a late-20th-century upward temperature swing.
The publisher of the hacked emails observed:
We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps.
We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents
There’s dirt here for both sides. Hacking is criminal, and I deplore it. I am deeply disappointed in several of the climate skeptic web sites for having posted examples from the stolen emails; they should have been kept private. I have not linked to the sites that have published the emails, nor will I. I sincerely hope that the police catch the individual(s) who stole the emails and published them, and I hope they are prosecuted and punished.
At the same time, the progress of climate science has been crippled by the practice of these very scientists of publishing their results without making their data available to the public for the sake of peer review. At the very least, this practice saddles the scientists with the appearance that they have something to hide. If the research had been performed in a transparent fashion, with appropriate publication of data and welcoming critical review, it seems unlikely that any hacker would have bothered with their emails — or that any part of the public would read them so eagerly.
Having said that, it’s impossible at this point for the horse simply to be returned to the barn, so I’ve read a few of the emails, and I’ve read some analyses of them by skeptics who have browsed more or less the entire set. I’ve also read RealClimate.org’s denunciation of the whole affair, in which they basically say “See, there’s no smoking gun, no worldwide conspiracy, no Soros-funded monstrosity, no plot to erase the Medieval Warm Period, basically nothing to see.”
I’m sure RealClimate wishes this were true, but it’s not. The emails show a remarkably smug group of partisans who were clear about what results they wanted the public to see, who were willing to manipulate the peer-review and publication process in such a way as to exclude any serious alternative points of view, who were willing to delete email rather than comply with Freedom of Information requests in the UK (they have a law there similar to ours), and so forth. Most emphatically, what emerges is elitism — an attitude that says that a few people know how everybody else ought to live, and the rest need to be told how and made to shut up.
Of course, at its best, the process of science is far from… well, a science. It’s messy. It’s inexact. The results are frequently debatable. There are lots of different ways to view a data set, and they don’t all support the same conclusions. Hostility and competition are common. So, any set of emails among any set of researchers might expose discussions regarding how small adjustments to techniques might produce different outcomes.
But that’s just it. What’s evident here is a pattern. They want the outcomes they’re angling toward. These outcomes comport well with their politics and their attitudes. The question becomes, which is leading, and which is following? As Dr. Roy Spencer observed, some in the field work very hard to make sure their responses to research are fair and objective, because it is so very easy to fall into partisanship:
The defense posted at RealClimate.org actually reinforces my point. Do the IPCC scientists assume that this is how all climate scientists behave? If it really was how the rest of us behave, why would our eyebrows be raised up to our hairlines as we read the e-mails?
If all of this sounds incompatible with the process of scientific investigation, it shouldn’t. One of the biggest misconceptions the public has about science is that research is a straightforward process of making measurements, and then seeing whether the data support hypothesis A or B. The truth is that the interpretation of data is seldom that simple.
There are all kinds of subjective decisions that must be made along the way, and the scientist must remain vigilant that he or she is not making those decisions based upon preconceived notions. Data are almost always dirty, with errors of various kinds. Which data will be ignored? Which data will be emphasized? How will the data be processed to tease out the signal we think we see?
Hopefully, the scientist is more interested in discovering how nature really works, rather than twisting the data to support some other agenda. It took me years to develop the discipline to question every research result I got. It is really easy to be wrong in this business, and very difficult to be right.
Skepticism really is at the core of scientific progress. I’m willing to admit that I could be wrong about all my views on manmade global warming. Can the IPCC scientists admit the same thing?
It takes discipline to approach scientific data without letting preconceptions dictate the outcomes, and it appears that the authors of the now-public emails lack that discipline. The boys at Power Line attend to specific emails with lawyerly precision, and decide “Politics, not science.” Ed Morrissey at Hot Air says the same. I’m inclined to agree.
The scientific basis of the IPCC’s claim of anthropogenic climate change has been called into question. Economy-altering decisions are being made on the basis of a process with no appropriate peer accountability; this must stop. The IPCC process must become totally transparent; publication of papers without publication of the data on which the paper rests cannot be accepted.
The sad thing about the affair is that nothing that has been revealed is the least bit surprising to those of us who have been skeptical all along. It’s been plain from the outset that the goals of this effort were political rather than scientific. And let’s be candid; how can anybody expect real science to trump sycophancy when there’s a river of financial gravy running through every government-funded research lab in the world, and all one has to do to get on the gravy boat is to make one’s findings comport well with the Official Government Narrative? The leftist talk about a few thousand dollars of “Corporate Social Responsibility” donations from oil companies (who are far from being the only companies making such donations) has always been laughable; the donors have no connection to the researchers in such instances, whereas the influence of government expectations on the allocation of tens of billions of research dollars is direct and obvious.
Progressives routinely hijack science to make the case for their next aberrant social experiment, playing with the numbers improperly in order to give their social experiments a scientific patina. They’ve done it with DDT, with homosexuality, with smoking, with domestic violence, with child-rearing, with abortion, and with any number of other topics. Their goal is always to make individuals among the general public think they’re being “unscientific” if they disagree with progressive dogma. They hit the Million-Dollar-Jackpot with climate change, and have been angling full-tilt toward global progressive governance since they managed to convince a sizable percentage of the public that giving away their liberties to progressive Science Gods is the only way to prevent a global disaster. It never made sense, and it makes even less sense today. The emails make it appear that some scientists who are true believers in the progressive agenda, can no longer distinguish the difference between a search for truth and the pursuit of their partisan political goals.
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18 Comments »
Comment by Dale
Phil, I don’t say this often but I think you’re wrong. You said:
“There’s dirt here for both sides. Hacking is criminal, and I deplore it. I am deeply disappointed in several of the climate skeptic web sites for having posted examples from the stolen emails; they should have been kept private.”
This is war; if these people succeed in what they are trying to do we are all going to lose a lot of our freedoms. If this person helps to expose what these “scientists” are up to, then I say God Bless him or her. I have no problems with the idea that enemy communications have been intercepted.
Comment by Dr.D
I’m with Dale here. This is most definitely a war, and these people were entirely willing to see the whole world plunged into chaos just for their own amusement. I’m most pleased that someone has found a way to blow their slimy operation open.
If their personal careers are ruined, that will not trouble me in the least. Think of the untold suffering that they were willing to bring on the whole world! Bring Them Down! Let them be shown to be the unreliable, nonobjective, frauds that they are, rather than the vaunted scientists they have pretended to be.
Comment by John Cooper
Count me on the side of Dale and Dr.D here. Exposing this criminal gang was the moral choice here.
Morality does not operate in a vacuum; Men don’t make choices between good and evil in the abstract, they make choices between good and evil in a particular situation confronting them.
In my book, whoever published these E-mails did good.
Comment by Dan Shannon
Phil – Agreed that crime is crime. History is not especially kind to our ability to apply justice; we still make folklore of evident applications of justice w impartiality. Given the argumnets above I am inclined to “wannt” it to be ok under the guise of our being at war – a war for the continuing of our civilization. For now, I will side with you, the hacking is an act of civil disobedience in a path of civil discourse which appears to be running toward global revolution – but is not yet there.
I understand the pressures – science is business. When you are dependent upon and measured by the grants you win – you are beholden to the agenda of party awarding the grant. That is old news in academia – what has changed is the lack of material representation of opposing perspectives within the academic community; a (historically speaking) natural evolution from creative competitivenss to tyranny.
I guess what is or will be (once those of good conscience have the benefit of hindsight) another example of how well meaning, socially conscious people build upon a dishonest foundation of social welfare only to become the evil they had thought they were foiling in the process.
I am gently reminded of marx who I am sure meant well.
The whole in the foundation? The belief that people are inherently good and left to themselves will pursue the good of others on at least an equal plane with their own. Communism and Socialism might be really cool if people were good.
People are not good and with only a few notable exceptions (those folkloric attributes) will pursue their own interests to the detriment of others…The evolution of the general recognition of equality, culminating in the US Constitution, I believ was greatly accerlated by Calvin and Luther and the like – preaching that salvation was by Grace and Grace alone…that makes everyone truly equal.
What is the done in the name of “right” will continue to to be a metric of human behavior – the victory determining whether the action was a crime, an act of civil disobedience of a justifiable action during a time of war (declared or undeclared).
As it has been said elsewhere and by “better” people than me, “The victors write the history.”
Comment by Phil
Phil, I don’t say this often but I think you’re wrong… This is war; if these people succeed in what they are trying to do we are all going to lose a lot of our freedoms. If this person helps to expose what these “scientists” are up to, then I say God Bless him or her.
So, how do you feel about me getting a sniper rifle and taking down Dr. Keith Briffa? Can I shoot him?
No, I don’t intend to do that, and I’m not trying to be either flip or unfriendly. But the point you’re raising is a very sticky one. Granted, the stakes are incredibly high, and all of us who discuss things here recognize that there can come a time when the rules of maintaining a civilization no longer apply, and we need to engage in real warfare. There’s established philosophy around the concept of “a just war,” and we all need to read up on it and make solemn decisions for ourselves.
However, what you’re saying, Dale, is that we’ve reached that point over climate change. If so, and if Briffa, Mann, et al are really the enemy, then I repeat the question: is it morally ok to take them out? And if not, what is the difference between breaking the law against murder to prevent them from performing dishonest research aimed at removing our liberties, and breaking the law against hacking? Is it just a tactical consideration? Hacking doesn’t harm our public image nearly so much? Or is there some other subtle line that makes it morally acceptable to break some laws but not others? And what might that line be?
My concern, Dale, is that we have to do a lot more than merely protect our liberties from vicious scavengers. We have to do it in such a way that we still have them when we’re done. That’s why I’m concerned over developing an attitude that says “Crime is acceptable when it’s performed by the Good Guys.” We may be approaching a point of all-out war, but I don’t think we’re there yet. When we have to fight, we should do it effectively. In the meantime, I think it’s important to defend the law, on advice that John Cooper quoted us a while back from A Man For All Seasons. If you cut down all the laws to get at the devil, what will you hide behind when he wheels around and attacks you, all the laws being flat?
That being said, I do intend to start reading about the theory of just war and developing my own thoughts. It’s overdue. I may not agree that we’re at war with these men just now, but I agree that we may be someday soon.
Comment by suek
>>I may not agree that we’re at war with these men just now, but I agree that we may be someday soon.>>
It’s a new kind of war.
We were discussing last week (or so) the idea of whether we were at war with Al Qaeda, islam, jihadists or who – if at all.
If there is a group that intends to undermine the present government by means of deception, it seems to me that it’s a form of war. No bullets, if they have their way, but if our only weapon is the ballot box, and somehow they’ve stuffed the ballot box at least in a sense, what should it be called, if not war? What is that expression… “War is politics to the extreme”? or some such?
I’m with the others. Granted someone didn’t have a warrant, but there is clearly the indication that if subjected to a warrant, they intended not to comply. Pre-emption was the only option that would lead to success. In this case, hacking was FOIA pre-emption.
Comment by suek
Suppose it turns out that the “leaker” was an inside job instead of a hacker? Does that change your view?
If so, what about “whistle blowers” – don’t they fall into the same category?
Comment by Phil
suek,
The inside vs outside swap changes the moral calculus. If it was an insider, then the “hack” may not have been strictly illegal, although I think we can take it for granted that everybody working for the Univ of East Anglia has signed some sort of non-disclosure agreement. The person in question very likely violated that agreement, and may be subject to disciplinary action from his employer.
Here’s my take on civil disobedience in general: it may be called for out of moral necessity, but if you break laws in order to obey your conscience, you’d better be prepared to accept whatever punishment that violation earns, without complaint. The fellow in question seems in his own mind to have been serving the higher moral necessity of Honest Science. Fair enough; but if he (or she) broke the law in that service, he (she) ought to be willing to face the consequences. Whistle blowers, same thing.
It’s also the case that if your employer is violating the law, and you go to the police or the FBI or Scotland Yard, whatever non-disclosure agreement you might have signed is unenforceable, I think. I don’t see that anyone in the East Anglia bunch is violating any laws, but they certainly seem to be engaged in dishonest science, so the moral imperative attached to violating non-disclosures in order to report criminal activity to the police applies halfway, sort of. We’re leaning in that direction, but haven’t quite reached it. So it’s a morally fuzzy area.
I think I would have had a lot less trouble with the incident if the hacker had published the emails, spread them around, and then announced his or her identity along with an explanation why they did what they did.
Comment by John Cooper
Phil writes:
So, how do you feel about me getting a sniper rifle and taking down Dr. Keith Briffa? Can I shoot him?
It’s a good morality question to which I reply with more questions: “Would it have been moral for someone to murder Adolph Hitler in 1936?” What about Joseph Stalin? What about Rachael Carson, who’s book Silent Spring eventually caused hundreds of millions of deaths due to Malaria?
If morality consists of making choices to maintain one’s life, then I would answer that any of the potential victims of the above people would be justified in killing a mass murderer.
Here in America, we delegated the power to our government to protect us from mass murders. But what happens when the government itself become complicit in the crime like the EPA did in 1972, or is trying to do right now by banning the use of fossil fuels?
IOW, what should a moral person do when faced with a murderous government? Protect his life, or lay down and die?
Comment by John Cooper
Fox News Glenn Beck on Climategate and some good comments from mostly scientists. I admire this one by player:
Beck is a sensationalist – but that being said, if anyone is waiting for the sensible, objective MSM to break this story in an unbiased way, that’s waiting for Godot. Controversial as Beck is, his audience is is in the 10’s of millions. This is news that the general public has to see. About time!I believe this is an internal whistle blower, not a hacker. If this was a real breach, CRU would have locked down the site when it occured, not 3-4 days later, when the files became public on tAV. So I see no illegality in discussion the emails – all we have is CRUs statement that these were hacked, and I certainly do not expect they would say anything otherwise, and I definitely will not believe that unless they can produce evidence to that effect.
With the years of suppression of data and debate and foiling of FOIA attempts behind us, the ends here justify the means. I am happy Beck reported on this – this information would never get out of the blogs without it.
I am a scientist by training – and am revolted by the contents of [the] zip file. Enough of playing nice and fair with crooks like this. They have destroyed the fundamentals of ethics in science.
The consensus on that blog is that these documents weren’t ‘hacked’, but rather taken by a whistle-blower who worked at the CRU. If so, would that change the debate on whether releasing these documents was moral?
Comment by suek
>>If so, would that change the debate on whether releasing these documents was moral?>>
And if so, should it?
It does make me think of homeowners in England who are convicted of some sort of crime if they use _any_ weapon to defend themselves in their own homes. Somehow, their government has become completely non-responsive to the needs of its citizens, and protects the criminals – especially if they’re “immigrants” (code name for muslims). I’m thinking in particular of the man who, this last week or so, found a gun of some sort that had apparently been thrown into his yard. He picked it up, put it into some kind of container, and turned it into the police. He was then arrested and will now stand trial for possession of a weapon. Apparently, he wasn’t supposed to touch it – just call the police.
The man might be guilty of technically breaking the law, but he certainly isn’t morally guilty. In other words, we’re coming to a point where the law makes it illegal to act against criminals – and I do consider these lying scientists to be in that category – and the law seems either incapable or unwilling to act against them. If the law and moral right are in conflict, I’ll choose moral right.
Comment by suek
I don’t know if you follow the Wattsup blog, but if not, you might find this posting with its video to be of interest…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/22/video-dr-tim-ball-on-the-cru-emails/
Comment by Dale
So, how do you feel about me getting a sniper rifle and taking down Dr. Keith Briffa? Can I shoot him?
Phil, my objection to this compression is that it’s too much of an extreme. Also, the emails and documents that were released were not private in the sense of love letters or private communications between family members, but rather professional communications that may well have been subject to Freedom of Information requests, IF THE LAWS WERE BEING OBYED. You also said that you think the person should have made his identity known, however I remember from the bible that the early Christians used the symbol of a fish to keep their identities secret from people who would prosecute them. What I’m trying to say is that maybe people don’t always have to martyr themselves to maintain their moral integrity.
I think your right about needing to take a hard look at what conditions need to be present for a just war.
Comment by suek
New site for me…but it’s an indication of how seemingly “good” laws are being used to hem us in so that eventually nothing will be legal except things we’re specifically “permitted”. We are approaching a point where we will need a restatement of the Declaration of Independence. Our lawmakers are using “good” causes to promote bad ends.
This particular article has nothing to do with global warming, but it’s the kind of hidden legislature that we have to be aware of.
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2009/10/where_were_you_2.html
Comment by Phil
Yeah, I routinely check with Watts on topics like this.
Comment by John Cooper
Phil–
You can sleep a little more soundly now. Steve Milloy: Climategate’s Perry Mason Moment (PJM Exclusive)
Since news of embarrassing, if not incriminating emails broke last Friday, it has become clear that the CRU computer system was not “hacked” and the emails were not stolen. In fact, the file containing the emails had been assembled by CRU staff in preparation for compliance with a Freedom of Information request. The file was then stored in a publicly accessible portion of the CRU computer network — making it just a matter of time before someone discovered it. Why the file was so stored may never be known, but that’s not really what’s important.Nothing illegal or unethical was done to affect the file’s release.
The rest of the article is good, too.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Comment by Phil
Nothing illegal or unethical was done to affect the file’s release.
Thanks, John. I’m relieved, and puzzled. They have nobody to blame but themselves, apparently.
Comment by John Cooper
More evidence for the “inside job” or “inadvertent release” theories: Comprehensive network analysis shows Climategate likely to be a leak posted at Watts Up With That.
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