Governments should require that funded climate data be posted
I am having trouble figuring out what Con is claiming with respect to the contentions.
He says "By refuting the negative results that most likely would result were the resolution
be adopted, I have refuted the entire premise of the resolution and have thus responded
to the debate challenge." But "refuting the negative results" of the resolution amounts
to affirming the resolution. Surely Con doesn't want to affirm the resolution, so
what I am supposed to make of what he says? He leaves my contentions largely unrefuted.
Con understands correctly that the resolution requires that raw data be published
within one month within the results of analysis. He asks, "wouldn't analyzed data
also have to have been collected?" Analyzed data is what is published, so it is always
disclosed. Thus for example, the raw historical temperature data showing the existence
of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) would be required to be posted on the Internet along
with the processing software that removed the MWP to yield the hockey stick graph
in which there was no climate change prior to the last few decades. Under the current rules, only the result in which
past climate change was removed is revealed, and it took scientists a decade to dig out the steps by which the MWP was
made to disappear. Con claims that, "To assume this would eliminate (or even curtail)
errors and/or ambiguous data or skewed results is pure conjecture and unsupported." Con's clam is false because (a) I gave an important example, the hockey stick controversy, in which
a serious error was revealed once the requirements of the resolution were met, and
(b) the peer review process, long the basis for scientific publication, is enabled by the resolution. The resolution requires that information available under
the Freedom of Information Act in the US and Britain be produced on a timely basis,
rather than be subject to indefinite delay. It is not unsupported conjecture that peer review uncovers errors in general, nor is it conjecture that the process embodied in the resolution uncovered the major error
in the hockey stick graph, with the result that the hockey graph was removed from
the 2007 IPCC report. It is also not conjecture that CRU, perhaps innocently, erased the climate source data requested under a British FIA request, and that after nearly three years
NASA has not responded to a FIA request for source data. If the method of the resolution
is put into effect, the data disappearances and indefinite delays will be ended. Con
suggests that the data and software only be given only to "bona fide investigators"
rather than to "pundits." This suggestion does not respond to the history I have cited
in which CRU and NASA did not in fact provide the data for review by bona fide climate scientists, claiming they lost the data or that they are unable to reconstruct the
analysis or using various other excuses. In the Climategate e-mails, CRU scientists
speak directly of subverting the peer review process so that their work will not be
subject to scrutiny. The CRU and NASA scientists have no worries whatsoever about
the general public or "pundits" receiving the data, because only scientists are capable
of unraveling what CRU referred to as "tricks" used in processing the data. finally, there is nothing that prevents a scientist from also being a pundit. CO2 crisis advocates are often prominent pundits. Just produce the data for all to
see, without a bunch of nonsense obstacles. The Medieval Warm Period was about as
warm as the present, but it was made to disappear entirely from the historical record
of climate through the the use of mathematical techniques claimed to be good science. It took
substantial expertise to discover the errors. Every effort was made to keep the hockey
stick data from qualified scientists. (The history of the hockey stick and it's unraveling
is well covered in Plimer's book. http://www.amazon.com... ) The way that peer review
is currently avoided, as it was avoided in the case of the hockey stick graph, is to provide the papers and the data only to believers in climate crisis, who then provide only a cursory review. The work is not made available to review by skeptics prior to publication, and after publication
the data is not produced voluntarily for review. FIA requests must be formally filed, and those
are often ignored or resisted. Con implies that there is some threat to national security involved if data is published. There is none. For example, there are currently about 770 scientific papers supporting the
existence of the Medieval Warm period, and they include work form Russia, China, and
every corner of the earth. Con cannot site a single matter of national security involved.
Con claims, "If all communications between parties engaged in climate-change research were to be made public, free and uninhibited discourse between these parties
would be severely curtailed." The resolution does not require the publication of any
e-mail or correspondence. It does not require disclosure of preliminary results of
any kind. The resolution requires on that when results of climate analysis are published voluntarily by scientists, that the supporting raw data and
processing software be posted within one month of publication. CRU wanted to keep
their e-mail about subverting peer review secret for fear a hacker or whistleblower
would reveal it, but the present resolution would not affect private e-mail. The resolution
only concerns data and software, and then only when results are announced. Con argues
"One has to duplicate perfectly the entry of that data and the parameters surrounding
the software within the specific computer as well as being equally conversant in the
operation of the software as its creator." Yes, that is why software configuration control systems are used. http://en.wikipedia.org... It
is a solved problem. There is no version of good science that does not require reproducing results. There is no concern that unqualified people in the general public will critique climate research software. The general public cannot comprehend it. What CRU and NASA are
worried about are the critiques of well-qualified climate scientists. And they should be worried, because in the past they have been caught
cooking the books. Con concludes, "But to insist upon public disclosure of every keystroke
and instance of data falling outside of the standard deviation model is to invite equally public defamation of the publishing party ..." But, of course,
the resolution does not come close to requiring every keystroke. Rather, climate scientists advocating crisis theory made the Medieval Warm Period and the Little
Ice Age disappear from climate history. During the Medieval Warm period, grapes were grown in Scotland and Greenland
was named for its greenery. During the Little Ice Age, the Thames froze over every
year and winter festivals were held on the ice. But after processing by "sound scientific
methods" a graph was produced that showed nothing happening with global climate until the last few decades. The data and methods were withheld from skeptical scientists
and from the public who paid for the bogus research. The resolution only requires
that scientists paid by the government to perform climate research disclose what raw data they started with, and how they process it to get
the results they voluntarily choose to publish. I'm sorry if they don't like to show
their work, but most of us had to do that starting in grade school. climate research is too important to let it be concealed, only to have it ultimately drawn out by lawsuits
under the Freedom of Information Act. Let's do it up front and get on with it. The resolution is affirmed.
Pro vs. con view
Topic space view
