Last I heard they'd abandoned the raw data at some point in the '80s during an office move. Which is obviously less than ideal with hindsight but doesn't strike me as suspicious, as some seem to be suggesting.
Losing data is rather suspicious when your private conversations include many direct mentions of how you would prefer to delete data rather than give it up to your opponents.
The email you're referring to is fairly embarrassing, but not being able to supply some source data from ~25 years ago still doesn't exactly look like a smoking gun to me. Storage was much more expensive and unwieldy back then.
Professor Jones: Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents everything better this time ! And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites - you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs [Patrick notes: he is referring to McIntyre and McKitrick] have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone.
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"Fairly Embarassing" doesn't cut it.
Jones announces his intention to delete data in response to FoI requests rather than hand it over. An FoI request was indeed made. The data are discovered to be missing and cannot be recovered. Losing your data is a career-ender in any other scientific field. When you lost the data is irrelevant.
In the context of the other emails, which reveal collusion to control the peer review process, marginalize critics, and censor comments on the very website linked in the original post, it's very clear they were trying to manipulate the scientific process.
Right. He didn't lose the data himself. He just conspired with his fellow scientists for 20 years to frustrate all attempts to bring that fact to light. In light of the malfeasance documented in those emails -- packing review boards, intimidating journals, marginalizing critics, etc. -- we have to wonder why.
You would think that a scientist who worked in an especially contentious field, with well-funded political enemies and huge amounts of money at stake, would have taken extraordinary measures to establish his bona fides. That would include making his work especially open and accessible, and being at pains to document every single step in his research. That is the scientific ideal, after all.
> He just conspired with his fellow scientists for 20 years to frustrate all attempts to bring that fact to light.
Not as far as I know. My recollection is that CRU responded to requests for raw data in the past by saying they didn't have it anymore. Happy to be corrected though.
> You would think that a scientist who worked in an especially contentious field, with well-funded political enemies and huge amounts of money at stake, would have taken extraordinary measures to establish his bona fides. That would include making his work especially open and accessible, and being at pains to document every single step in his research. That is the scientific ideal, after all.
I basically agree, with the caveats that a) climate change theory was actually a fairly marginal concern in the '80s and b) I don't equate failure to live up to the scientific ideal to gross misconduct, as you seem to.
Furthermore, why did Jones, Mann, et. al. spend so much time talking about "hiding from" (their words) FoI requests if the data being requested were lost?
I don't equate failure to live up to the scientific ideal to gross misconduct...
Misconduct is peripheral. The scientific ideal is to approach every situation with reasoned skepticism, and then to use experiments to collect evidence that removes as much doubt as possible.
We have just discovered that we have less evidence, and more doubt, than we thought we did. The proper response is to re-establish those results as quickly and conclusively as possible. Lepidopterists do that much, even knowing that their papers will only be read by a handfull of colleagues.
Global warming is a historic issue and requires a historic response, but it seems there are some who want conclusive proof that their is a problem before they will publicly acknowledge that there might be a problem. I can't imagine why. But considering how virulent an argument about "Science" global warming has become, I think we would do well to remember that science is a method, not a set of conclusions.
> Furthermore, why did Jones, Mann, et. al. spend so much time talking about "hiding from" (their words) FoI requests if the data being requested were lost?
Presumably they were talking about different data.
> The proper response is to re-establish those results as quickly and conclusively as possible.
If this debacle leads to that happening then that would be a great outcome. I don't get the impression that's mostly what CRU's critics want though.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article693...