Raw data about CRU and the peer-review process

Most of us think science, its methods and results, are clear-cut and, most important, true. If scientists don’t agree, if their research or theories conflict, then we assume more study is called for. Or we assume that someone is being paid off to produce certain results.

A graduate student in animal husbandry once told me that her professor taught them about the “fudge factor” in experimental data. That is, if you don’t get exactly the results you want, it’s widely accepted that the data will be tweaked. The professor didn’t teach them to never do this. Quite the reverse. She had no objections herself. Her non-student career included stints of prostitution, so ethics wasn’t her strong suit. Certainly not all scientists are so indifferent to the truth, but there was at least one academic who called lying "the fudge factor" and turned it into a cute little foible.

In the last decade or so, we’ve seen the term “global warming” turn into “climate change” because it seemed that the earth was not, in fact, warming, but everyone agrees the weather changes. In fact, an old standby in most comedians’ repertoires, which they customize for every town they work in, is, “Somebody told me that if you don’t like the weather in [your state], just wait ten minutes!”

There were those who persisted in thinking that cold temperatures don’t equal warming; that climate change is not controlled in a major way by humans (more specifically, by Americans driving SUVs); that predictive models of weather for the next few decades are not to be relied on; and that the global warming hoo-hah doesn’t give governments the right to massively interfere with the economies and lives of the people. Those dissidents were considered to be stupid; anti-scientific, even if they were scientists; and probably in the pay of somebody or other. Those who questioned global warming (remember, Al Gore Himself said the discussion is over, the science is settled) became the equivalent of Holocaust deniers (Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe, 2007), i.e. evil heretics. Heretics are to be silenced, even though future predictions cannot yet be called facts.

East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) has been very important in moving the global warming/climate change theory down the track, but last week someone released e-mails between CRU director Phil Jones and Michael Mann of Penn State, which revealed two major breaches in the scientific purity we all admire and trust.

First, they wanted to prevent scientific articles that disagreed with the popular theory of human-caused climate change from being published in peer-reviewed journals. “Peer review” means the articles must be read by equivalent professionals in the field. Ellen Goodman, for instance, could not publish her opinions in a scientific journal because she is not a scientist. But legitimate scientists disagree with each other on new theories, so the scientific tradition and ethics allow those disagreements among scientists to be made public in journals. Scientists write, they read, they reply, they discuss. But not on this subject.

Quote: “Kevin [Trenberth of the International Panel on Climate Change] and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

Second, it turns out the original raw data on global temperatures were disposed of a long time ago, and what remains with the CRU is “value-added” data, which means models of the future, which is manipulated data. Raw data are facts, models are predictions. The raw data possibly remain with the sources from which they were collected.

If you are a climate-change true believer, this fiddling with the peer-review process and the disappearance of the raw data can be satisfactorily explained, and you may concentrate on prosecuting whoever revealed the e-mails and divert attention from their content. If you are not a believer, you will be disillusioned or shocked. If you are no more trusting in what passes for "science" than in any other golden idol, you may ask, Cui bono? Al Gore makes money in the new carbon credit biz, and also made a packet with his movie and his Nobel Prize, but he isn’t the only one to profit. The rewards of riding this horse are not only financial gain, but political power. It's odd that the same people who hate American capitalism are the same ones who don't see it operating here.