
US science agency refuses request for climate records - fraqed
http://www.nature.com/news/us-science-agency-refuses-request-for-climate-records-1.18660
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daughart
To be fair, they're refusing to turn over scientists' communications, not the
data itself. This is absolutely the right move, because scientists are people,
not politicians. If any scientist has at any point said something that isn't
politically expedient it is guaranteed to be used against them in a political
attack which will ignore and supersede any fact-based discussion of the (peer
reviewed) data/analysis. Basically, politicians who disagree with the science
now want to comb over emails to find ways to politically discredit the
science.

It's easy to say that the scientists should be more political in their
communications, but that doesn't really make sense. Many many people work on
this type of project and it only takes one person to communicate something
controversial. Moreover, the ability of the scientists to internally disagree
about things like the method and degree of data normalization or
homogenization is essential to producing high quality results. In fact if the
science is done well someone at some point in the process _should_ communicate
doubts or counterpoints to proposed data handling strategies. Those kinds of
internal disagreement strengthen the scientific result, but weaken it
politically. Congress should not be given additional tools to conflate and
confuse science and politics.

