"What you do, if you are a serious scientist operating according to the established method, is attempt to falsify your hypothesis. Test it to destruction; carry out serious attacks on its weakest points to see if they hold up. If they do... then you have a theory that can be published, and tested, and verified by other scientists. If you don't, you throw it out."
Global Warming Fraud and the Future of Science - J. R. Dunn
The "scientists" who perpetrated the global warming fraud approached their science in exactly the opposite manner as the approach described above. They formulated a theory based on political ideology (as well as the path of least resistance to "grant" money) and then did whatever they had to do with their data to "prove" it.
What the world has now seen with the expose of the "global warming" scam through the leaked email dumps of November 2009 and now again in November 2011 puts a new spin on the old saying: "Figures can lie and liars can figure." The discipline of science has taken a massive hit over the past three-plus years and it could take decades for science - - and scientists - - to regain any credibility with the public. A lot of that burden must fall on honest scientists, and the first and most important thing they must do is scream for the heads of Michael Mann, Phil Jones, and the rest of the "climategate" fraudsters. I guess we'll see if they have the integrity to do it. (No, I am not holding my breath.)