[jacoblyles]

How dare he ask for data series and attempt to reproduce analyses on his blog! How dare he uncover faults and discrepancies which are subsequently acknowledged in published research! If science and data are not interpreted by the right people, how can we be sure that the world is getting the right message?

I can't believe people would defend deleting data rather than responding to a FOI request. Well, actually, I can. You just did. Which is sad.

[antonovka]

He has a clear political agenda. He's not an independent scientist (he's not even a scientist).

What possible good can come of interacting with someone who -- in addition to being grossly underqualified -- has a consistent history of applying a political agenda without fail to their "science"?

This is the equivalent of Fox News factual reporting. Sometimes they get the facts right, but that doesn't mean they aren't twisting them.

[jacoblyles]

So who does have a right to look at the data, assuming we first disqualify anyone that antonovka thinks has the wrong political opinions? Isn't the scientific ideal all about openness and reproducible analyses? These emails make it look like the new ideal is supporting the "correct" political agenda.

[antonovka]

If Stephen McIntyre is all about openness and taking advantage of the abhorrent disclosure of internal communications, why doesn't he follow suite by posting all of his personal e-mail correspondence, unedited for external review?

I'm sure there are more than a few gems.

Isn't the scientific ideal all about openness and reproducible analyses?

Yes, but when someone applies such a strong political ideology to twisting those analyses, how do you propose scientists respond?

Climate change has been so politicized by unqualified ideologues that I can hardly blame scientists for wishing to defend themselves from the worst of them.

If anything, these e-mails demonstrate that the data IS shared independently evaluated, but that the community has established political defenses to deal with political -- not scientific -- opponents.

To do otherwise would be naive. Complex topics fall easily to those who would politicize them.

These emails make it look like the new ideal is supporting the "correct" political agenda.

No, they demonstrate a clear interest in defending against the attacks of a very specific set of ideologues.

As someone who has had to defend engineering projects and people from angry corporate politics, I don't envy these climate change scientists in the least, and I certainly don't begrudge them their defensive positions.

[earl]

I can too. Once you have people acting in bad faith (see, climate change denial community), combined with the subtleties of statistics, I totally understand not wanting to release your data.

[camccann]

Okay, the whole "I'd rather delete data" thing sounds really sketchy, but...

If science and data are not interpreted by the right people, how can we be sure that the world is getting the right message?

You know, I suppose you're trying to be sarcastic here, but this is actually a valid point. Analyzing scientific data is not something that most people can do properly without a lot of training and education. When the "wrong people" interpret the data and publicize their "results" it absolutely can and will mislead people, which is kind of counterproductive to the whole purpose of this "science" thing.

To my mind, a responsible scientist has an obligation to promote understanding, not follow some notion of proper behavior. So, yeah, if someone with a fairly large audience, a lack of relevant expertise, and an apparent vested interest in interpreting results in a predetermined way asks for huge volumes of data the correct response is probably somewhere between ignoring them completely and telling them to fuck off.

It sounds like these people were dramatically overreacting (Deleting the data? Really, guys?), but after seeing how well it worked when the biologists tried to engage in a civilized scientific discussion about evolution, I can at least sympathize.

[ramanujan]

Biologists have NCBI, which is completely open. It would be a colossal fail to try to hide data, because even the most basic multiple sequence alignment shows that evolution is real.

[camccann]

And yet rejection of evolution remains widespread, around 30%-60% of the population in most first-world nations, and evidence that demonstrates evolution's reality is still twisted and misused by those with ideological objections to it.

Of course, the core of the climate change premise is also pretty well established (the extreme alarmism and many proposed solutions, not so much), and plenty of evidence is out there, but unfortunately HN continues to disappoint me whenever the subject comes up.

The political groupthink around here is pretty strong and it's starting to sour me on the whole site. I know complaining about HN turning into reddit is cliche but seriously, all the threads about this story (how many have there been by now?) have been worse than reddit.