
Climategate Inquiry Clearly Ignores Wrongdoing - jacoblyles
http://climateaudit.org/2010/07/07/you-cant-be-serious/
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jgrahamc
Suppose these guys conspired to delete email and not handle FoI requests
properly. Any change to the science? Any change to the conclusion that global
warming is man made?

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DanielBMarkham
John I'm not going to down vote you, although I wanted to. Instead I'll just
reply.

I'd love to talk about the science behind climate change. All kinds of
technical goodness in there: modeling, thousands of interlocked complex
systems, biomass, cloud cover -- the geek factor just goes on and on.

But that's not what this story (or the larger story) is about. It's about
scientists who become activists and the politicization of science. This has
consequences in all sorts of areas besides Global Warming.

So nope, doesn't impact the science at all. And while people may use this as a
club to stereotype all scientists, if you do that you're taking a cheap shot.
Lots of folks using all sorts of rhetorical tricks -- that's what political
discussions look like.

I'd like to see this entire issue move towards more open accessible, and
accountable scientific practices. I'd like to see a code of conduct enacted,
putting up some kind of Chinese wall between people lobbying for money and
people reporting science. I'd like to see more public involvement, a greater
understanding of how real science works, etc.

But this particular article isn't about any of that. If anything, it's just a
warning that nothing much has changed, and we're still going to have highly
dysfunctional discussions around GW for some time to come. And that sucks.

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abstractbill
_It's about scientists who become activists and the politicization of
science._

I agree this is a bad thing, but it's not like they did that in a vacuum. It
was quite clearly in reaction to activists who were already operating in the
opposite direction (e.g. American politically-right-leaning Christians, for
reasons I really don't understand, suddenly became very interested in _climate
change_ of all things).

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yummyfajitas
McIntyre and McKitrick, two of the more prominent people that data was hidden
from, are both Canadians. What makes you believe they are politically right
leaning Christians?

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abstractbill
_What makes you believe they are politically right leaning Christians?_

Point to the place in my comment where I said that.

I specifically said "e.g". This means "for example". Nowhere in my comment did
I make the claim that _all_ people requesting data were American politically
right leaning Christians. I simply observed that they had been involved for a
long time.

~~~
yummyfajitas
You said that the CRU folks withholding data "...was quite clearly in reaction
to activists who were already operating in the opposite direction (e.g.
American politically-right-leaning Christians...". The hacked emails suggest
it was quite clearly in reaction to McIntyre and McKitrick (MM, as the CRU
folks called them).

Are you suggesting that the CRU folks withheld data from two Canadians because
they were afraid that some right wing American Christians might, in the
future, also request data? You didn't clarify in your previous post that the
activists operating in the opposite direction were hypothetical.

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abstractbill
_You said that the CRU folks withheld data in reaction to activists._

No, I did not say that. I should have known better than to participate on this
thread - I'm going to stop now. I really don't enjoy being called a _bigot_.

[Edit: You edited your comment after I replied - my original quoting is
correct. Ok, I'm _really_ stopping now].

~~~
Calamitous
Frankly, if you don't enjoy being called one, you shouldn't talk like one.

If I started talking like a racist, I think I'd have to expect some people to
make assumptions about me, regardless of my actual feelings on the matter.

[Edit: grammar goofball]

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jacoblyles
Anthony Watts' comment :

"The investigations thus far are much like having a trial with judge, jury,
reporters, spectators, and defendant, but no plaintiff. The plaintiff is
locked outside the courtroom sitting in the hall hollering and hoping the jury
hears some of what he has to say. Is it any wonder the verdicts keep coming up
“not guilty”?"

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eli
IANAL, but I didn't think there really was a plaintiff in criminal court.
Isn't it e.g. "The United States Government" or "The State of New York" (not
just whoever has beef with the defendant)?

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hugh3
You're right; perhaps it should say "with no prosecutors".

In other words, this inquiry had nobody there to aggressively put forth the
case that the defendant was guilty.

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kevinh
I'm not sure if it's just me, but I get annoyed and look more skeptically at a
person's point of view when they call it *gate. They're admitting their bias
right in the title.

~~~
jacoblyles
I used the title so people would know that the article refers to the recent
Muir Russel report that was in the (Hacker) News over the last few days, since
the article itself does not provide extensive background information. I can't
control the cultural lexicon, I can only attempt to communicate as clearly as
possible.

