Ahem...
Posted on 03/02/2010 12:18:05 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
So much for transparency in science! Dr. Phil Jones, the former chief of the East Anglia CRU, testified yesterday before the British Parliament’s committee on Science and Technology to defend himself after the exposure of e-mails from the climate-research team reaching back a decade. Jones admitted sending the “pretty awful e-mails,” but insisted that the MPs didn’t realize that secrecy is a critical part of the scientific method:
But yesterday Professor Jones – in his first public appearance since the scandal broke – denied manipulating the figures.
Looking pale and clasping his shaking hands in front of him, he told MPs: ‘I have obviously written some pretty awful emails.’
He admitted withholding data about global temperatures but said the information was publicly available from American websites.
And he claimed it was not ’standard practice’ to release data and computer models so other scientists could check and challenge research.
‘I don’t think there is anything in those emails that really supports any view that I, or the CRU, have been trying to pervert the peer review process in any way,’ he said.
And down the rabbit hole we go. The peer-review process refers to the very mechanism where scientists release data and computer models so other scientists can check and challenge research. If that isn’t what happens in peer review, then what are scientific peers reviewing? Page numbers? Grammar? If Jones blocked other scientists from seeing his data and his methodology, then he’s not just perverting the peer-review process, he’s killing it entirely.
The scientific method requires data sets to be available for full review and a complete disclosure of methodology. Without that, other researchers cannot duplicate results in independent studies, which is what scientists in every other field require before accepting conclusions in any degree, let alone to the point of making them “settled science.” Jones knows that — and his attempts to hide his data and methodology strongly implies that he knew that his results were fraudulent.
Last week, the Institute of Physics wrote to the Science and Technology Committee that if the East Anglia CRU e-mails were not forgeries, it would have dire implications for the entire field of climate science, emphases mine:
2. The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner. This extends well beyond the CRU itself – most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC’s conclusions on climate change. …
4. The second category relating to proxy reconstructions are the basis for the conclusion that 20th century warming is unprecedented. Published reconstructions may represent only a part of the raw data available and may be sensitive to the choices made and the statistical techniques used. Different choices, omissions or statistical processes may lead to different conclusions. This possibility was evidently the reason behind some of the (rejected) requests for further information.
Now we have prima facie evidence that Jones wasn’t conducting science at all. He was generating propaganda and a self-perpetuating industry dependent on government action.
Bottom line, lying is good science, trust me.
fyi
LOL...amazing chutzpah to lie so blatantly. And here I thought part of science was to present one's theories and the data and then have peers attempt to reproduce results and test hypotheses.
How are Al Gore, James Hanson and this guy any better than Bernie Madoff?
Certain types of secrecy are often part of legitimate scientific research, especially temporary secrecy, to prevent competitors from stealing information that was expensive to compile or discover and rushing to publish research on it, patent it, and commercialize it, leaving the team which may have done 90% of the work high and dry. And obviously secrecy about individual patient identities is the norm, meaning that raw data (i.e. patient files) from which data was complied for analysis, must be kept secret, and not available for direct review. But none of this has anything to do with Mr. Jones and his pathetic excuses. He’ll be lucky if he can get a job teaching elementary school science at this point. He is now a former scientist.
They aren't. This really is just like putting a stop to any other scam. Some brave jurisdiction or public-minded prosecutor, somewhere, just has to file fraud charges and you can bet others will pile on. The trouble is finding that brave jurisdiction or prosecutor.
There are at least several dozen “scientists” that should follow him into the category of “Former Scientists”
Yep. He gambled, lost, and now will pay a price. Hopefully for him he kept some of the illicit grant-money he sold his soul for.
Whatever university gave this man his diploma should demand he give it back! What a disgraceful thing to say. All science is supposed to depend on honesty and peer review to try to disprove it, that is what makes it science.
But Gore, et al conspired to fool the people not just for money, but to seize their very liberty and freedoms using the force of government.
May they rot in Hell.
Why do we care if he is left penniless?
True. I should have said "Hopefully, for him he kept some he blew all of the illicit grant-money he sold his soul for.
VIDEO: Phil Jones at the UK Parliamentary Select Committee
I also posted a FR Thread for comments....:
Video: Dr. Phil Jones Climategate testimony at the British House of Commons
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bump
“
And he claimed it was not ’standard practice’ to release data and
computer models so other scientists could check and challenge research.
“
So at least some major academic scientists no longer believe in
the cardinal principals of “falsify-ability” or “free exchange of data”
so that models can be either proven or dis-proven.
It’s sad to NOT see other academic scientists falling on the neck
of “Professor” Phil Jones.
And denouncing his Bill-Clintonesque view of how to get ahead in academia.
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