The Catholic Cricket

I like science.  I’ve always liked science.  I have great respect for the scientific process.  Which is why I find the “stolen” CRU documents to be so disturbing.  It’s not just the fact that scientists appear to have cooked the data to fit their preconceived notions, as bad as that is.  It’s not just that those same scientists appear to have put pressure on scientific journals to not publish opposing work.  Nor that they used the lack of published work to detract from the weight of anti-AGW arguments.  All of that is bad, and I think it hurts all of science.

What bothers me the most is the lack of outrage among other scientists.  There should be all sorts of complaints out there about how the scientific process has been undermined.  There should be people calling for the resignation or suspension of involved scientists pending review.  Scientists, corrupting science to drive a policy agenda?  It strikes at the very heart of what’s supposed to make science such a good tool: objective evaluation of collected data to explain what is observed and predict, again objectively, what will happen.

Good science relies on quite a few important legs.  One is objectivity.  Others include openness and repeatability.  The processes involved in adjusting the raw data to account for various factors (urban heat islands, movement of surface stations, etc.) should be clear and understandable.  It must be repeatable and reasonable.  Quality controls need to exist for any algorithms used to make those adjustments.  All of these things seem to be lacking in the case of AGW.

Without those things in place, it’s not science.  It’s just a bunch of self-proclaimed experts saying “trust us”.  Why should we trust them?  They’re not acting as scientists, they’re acting like magicians.  Their incantations are secret, not meant for the ears of mere mortals.  We are supposed to just accept their declarations without question.

And while I’m upset with the media’s poor coverage of this, and with the scientists involved, I’m even more upset with other scientists who should be raising integrity issues instead of defending this as “normal”.  They should be defending science, not scientists.  They should expect and demand that all scientists who put forth hypotheses give full disclosure of all relevant data needed to reproduce the results.

Where is the integrity in science?