Yes, if they are necessary. Now, the reason I say yes is that the large-scale process of scientific peer-review, i.e., publishing new analyses, is ponderously self-correcting. If the time-series was used (or constructed) erroneously, and this bears out under scrutiny, then there will be new analyses that update and improve the old incorrect analyses.
Be that as it may, McIntyre has a specialty. I think he's doing a good job of keeping the practitioners on their toes and accelerating some necessary introspection. If he's finding errors that need to be corrected, I hope to h*ll they are corrected, ASAP.
Quoting Robert Procter: "The tobacco industry started responding particularly in the 1950s with propaganda. That’s when they started their doubt campaign—the manufacturing of doubt, the manufacturing of ignorance. It was really rather new, certainly on the scale at which they pursued it. It was a new way of using science as an instrument of deception. And that’s become important recently. Franchised down into the global warming issue are the same techniques. Demanding ever-greater precision, invoking doubt, questioning the physical methods. Raising alternate possibilities. The whole realm of smoke screens and distractions."
Now, I am not quoting Procter to indicate that legitimate scientific concerns about data accuracy, interpretational bias, methodological misapplication, experimental cross-checking, instrumental calibration (et cetera, et cetera, et cetera) should not be entertained. They should be; and as I said, science is ponderously self-correcting, it takes time to move a heavy weight if a heavy weight needs to be moved. What I am saying is that the "throw everything against the wall without applying cognitive or quality filters to see if anything sticks", just to create a perception of doubt, IS disreputable.
Good statement. As I see it, there are three issues that need to be resolved. The first was the subject of this thread, the statistics that included an approx 1900 center for PCA causing the effect that any set of red noise time series would produce a hockey stick. I think that has been beaten to death. Second is the whether the data represents temperature. I think the key is that the ability of proxies to represent temperature is not a constant. Third is public access to all the data. There was data that was ignored and data that was discarded, but all of it needs to be made available.
Are they going to go back and correct the truncation of Briffa's reconstruction at 1960? Is Briffa going to explain what he meant by
"For the record, I do believe that the proxy data do show unusually warm conditions in recent decades. I am not sure that this unusual warming is so clear in the summer responsive data. I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago. I do not believe that global mean annual temperatures have simply cooled progressively over thousands of years as Mike appears to and I contend that that there is strong evidence for major changes in climate over the Holocene (not Milankovich) that require explanation and that could represent part of the current or future background variability of our climate. (Briffa, Sep 22, 1999, 0938031546.txt)"http://climateaudit.org/2009/12/10/ipcc-and-the-trick/#more-9483
Simple question: is truncating Briffa's reconstruction at 1960 propaganda (albeit a small example) or not? No need for a PhD in paleoclimatology, just read the emails and give your answer.