[mechanical_fish]

I believe in the free availability of all publicly-funded research papers.

And I'd be prepared to argue for the free availability of raw data as well, if we lived in a world where it wouldn't be cherry-picked by axe-grinders and used for character assassination. I don't think we live in that world. Maybe someday.

[gvb]

"[...] if we lived in a world where it wouldn't be cherry-picked by axe-grinders and used for character assassination."

Unfortunately, that is exactly the current problem as well, without the data being available.

The article this discussion is keyed off of Flawed climate data (http://www.financialpost.com) which argues pretty convincingly that the AGW researchers cherry-picked their data to show the "hockey stick."

The article The Economics of Climate Change http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870349940457455... argues very convincingly that the AGW promoters in question had a financial axe to grind.

The purloined emails (disclaimer, I only read the commonly reported quotes) were replete with character assassination.

Between my assertions and mechanical_fish's assertions, releasing and hiding both lead to nastiness. IMHO, hiding the data caused as much or more nastiness as releasing it. Given that Good Science is verifiable, that argues strongly that the data must be released.

There's an old legal aphorism that goes, "If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table." -- http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pound_the_table

There is a lot of table pounding going on, and it sounds like it started with the AGW researchers not having quality data that could be pounded on, so they hid the data and pounded the table.

[thaumaturgy]

I would rather see raw data released, too. However, mechanical_fish certainly has a valid point.

For example, there's currently a bit of a tiff among some climate scientists over whether the statistical methods used to produce the "hockey stick" graphs are mathematically valid. These other scientists use different statistical methods which produce a different graph, and they argue that there's no intrinsic reason why the "hockey stick" method is better.

However, the "hockey stick" graphs correlate much more closely with CO2 measurements. If this other method is valid, then there needs to be an explanation of the divergence between temperature and CO2, which otherwise has been assumed to be closely related.

Given this disagreement among actual scientists, I can imagine the raucous noise produced when a whole bunch of armchair scientists get ahold of "raw" data and say, "Aha! Your data doesn't match your graphs! We're yanking your funding!"

[thaumaturgy]

I'm with you. I really really wanted to read (for example) "An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950". However, all of the references to it that I can find are stuck behind paywalls, despite the paper having been authored primarily by NOAA scientists.

I fully support spending tax dollars on scientific research. That said, I think that the results of this particular bit of research have already been paid for.

I'm considering paying the nine bucks and putting it up for download. Any takers?

[grandalf]

I'd download it. I think the idea of a "napster of academic research" is a great idea, fwiw :)

[wlievens]

An academic friend of mine pitched that to me as a product idea (for me to develop; not him), but I chickened out thinking of the legal issues.

Also: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/25/mendeley-snags-2-millio...

[Locke1689]

I downloaded it for you. Give me an email address to send it to you.

[thaumaturgy]

Email is now in my profile. Thanks!