Bishop Hill On Nature's data policy
Nov 19, 2010 Climate: Jones FOI Eli Rabett has challenged my post about Phil Jones claim that publication of his data was prevented by confidentiality agreements. I said that Nature requires authors to make their data available on request.
Eli's says that Nature only instituted this policy in 1997, and that previously the policy was only that:
Nature requests authors to deposit sequence and x-ray crystallography data in the databases that exist for this purpose.
If so then I stand corrected. I'm not sure that it changes anything very much though, because, as we know, CRU have been unable to produce any agreements that would prevent publication, we know that release would have been required under both FOI and EIR, and we know that they distributed data quite happily to scientists who they saw as onside.
Reader Comments (173)
ZBD Said:
I won't be able to answer ZBD but I can pass on my interpretation of what went on after quoting these pre-FOI2009 items from Nature.
http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2009/08/mcintyre_versus_jones_climate_1.html
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090812/full/460787a.html
The articles quote Jones as saying there have been NDAs which prevent non-academics getting the raw data, while implying, and I think adequately shown by others here, that "proper" academics did get the raw data. But Jones says that the evidence for the existence of the NDAs is not available because it was verbal or it was mislaid (lost). I can't see how anyone would deny me the position of thinking that the 3rd party NDA excuse was weak.
I think it is agood point that sceptics should be able to provide the proof of their worst case interpretations of the CRUs position, and I read CA about the discussion of Webster and Jones and FOIs at the time pre-climategate, and all I can say now is that at the time it convinced me the NDA argument was an easy arrogant dismissive dog ate my homework bull**** excuse.
It all looks different now, and not much clearer; but I think if any one wants clarification, then it is obvious the place where the definitive answer lies, for the genuinely curious, is not places like this blog.
It all depends where the onus should lie. No real answers have been offered by any of the investigations.
That is why this doubt will stay around for all sides.
Bad Andrew lives up to his name:
Science is human; humanity isn't perfect. So neither is 'science'.
But that doesn't make AGW parrot droppings.
Some of the tactics used to promote the hypothesis are ill-founded. The Hockey Stick is the Big One.
It is vital to distinguish between the ill-founded studies (however game-changing they were) and the broader picture afforded by climate science as a whole.
I am not endorsing a catastrophic position, just trying to establish a reasonable one.
BBD,
I'm Bad, I'm Bad. Ya know it. Ya know. ;)
Anyway, we can disagree on how good climate science as a whole is (I think it's weak, in more diplomatic phraseology). Although I'm interested on which parts of the broader picture you think are good, if you are inclined to elaborate.
Andrew
BBD
It is best to distinguish between AGW and CAGW.
1. The jury is out on AGW. The 0.7C global warming over the past 160 years is well within natural variablity in overall magnitude and cyclic rates of increase.
2. CAGW is cack.
Bad Andrew
Indeed :-)
The good bit is:
Radiative physics
The questionable bit is:
Assumptions about the climate system in response to CO2 radiative forcing
The statement (entirely out of context) that
@ Mac
Ach! Sorry, forgot to close the HTML flag. The statement referred to, of course, is
"Nature requests authors to deposit sequence and x-ray crystallography data in the databases that exist for this purpose."
Which does not prove (nor excuse) the lack of databases for other fields, such as climatology. It seems to show that authors were loading such data into the wrong databases. Further investigation of this claim seems warranted.
BBD
What CO2 radiative forcing?
Lab experiments show conclusively that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
However, the greenhouse signature of increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 is missing. No HOT SPOT has ever been detected, never mind measured. If there is no cause how can there ever be an effect?
The only catastrophic aspect of AGW is the lack of robust data.
Andrew has suggested that I might be able to comment on the question of the data sent to Peter Webster, and I am happy to do so briefly. I suspect that the comments I am prepared to make at this stage will not satisfy ZDB, but they may be of interest to others. I will eventually be happy to make a more complete comment with supporting evidence.
Many readers of this blog will be aware of the various attempts to obtain from CRU a copy of the dataset sent to Peter Webster using FOI and EIR. There is a widespread misapprehension that these FOI requests are now over. In fact my request for "a copy of any digital version of the CRUTEM station data set that has been sent from CRU to Peter Webster and/or any other person at Georgia Tech between January 1, 2007 and Jun 25, 2009" is now in the final stages of an appeal to the ICO. I am aware of at least one other request which is still running; there may be other requests in play, but if so I am not aware of them.
I am not willing to comment in detail on my appeal until it is completed. However I am happy to confirm that the CRU did indeed send data to Peter Webster in the period covered by my request, that this data is indeed a subset of the raw dataset from which CRUTEM is generated, and that they have refused to send me a copy of this data citing confidentiality among other reasons. It may, perhaps, simplify things if I quote from a letter sent to me by Jonathan Colam-French, Director of Information Services at UEA:
If it is accepted that this letter is genuine, then I think most people's questions have been answered.
You will, of course, have to accept that my quotation is accurate, and I suspect that many readers will not be prepared to do so. For the moment I simply repeat that I will be happy to release all the details of my appeal once it is completed.
Mac
The apparent absence of the tropical tropospheric hot spot is a fine example of the 'questionable bits'.
I repeat, I am not claiming that the sky is falling.
Oh for gawds sake, all these trolls and whatnot deflecting for Phil & the Team.
What really matters is the weather forecast for East Anglia COLD & SNOWY
Hope Phil enjoys it.
"UK Outlook for Wednesday 24 Nov 2010 to Friday 3 Dec 2010:
The period will begin cold, with many central and western areas having some bright or sunny spells. Wintry showers will affect eastern areas, particularly along the coast but these will extend inland at times. The showers will start turning to snow even at lower levels at times. During the first weekend, there is a risk of more widespread sleet and snow for a time, with the possibility of some significant accumulations in places. The cold or very cold conditions are likely to continue into the second week, with widespread overnight frosts and the risk of icy surfaces. There is a chance as we move into December that southern and southwestern parts will become more unsettled as rain, sleet and snow try to push up from the south.
What a thread! Eli Rabbett will have been pleased to see it diverted away from the original query.
Have Nature or Eli passed critical comment on the actions of Rosalind Cotter and Nature in the attempts by M&M to publish rebuttals to the Hockey Stick?
I have emailed you twice so far about the UEA (response to ICO- Climategate) letter.
No response from you to date.
If you want me to send you a copy, please contact me at my email address
I don't feel the diversion has been totally worthless, gc, because of what Jonathan has been able to divulge: UEA admitting that Jones did break confidentiality in what he passed on to Webster. And that is only really important I think because of the hypocrisy regarding what he said to Steve McIntyre. It was a drastic error of judgement for CRU not to be helpful to Steve, a mistake they have compounded in almost every way since.
Meanwhile I'm mulling over where Professor Kealey's erudite historical perspective leaves me on all this. I agree with Arthur Dent that lots of the emails represent 'science as usual' but not all - as Lindzen say real cheating was revealed too, of a kind he would never have been part of. I agree with AD that the emails broke the spell for the public. And climate science, being strongly aligned with green issues, had I think received even more, entirely irrational, adulation from some quarters than other areas of science. They've too often been seen as the good guys who can do no wrong. Or were.
Anyhow, time for bed, as ZBD might say.
Don't forget the conditions attached to the confidential or proprietary data shared with insiders. Webster was expected to cite Jones for providing the data, thus boosting his academic kudos and Schneider rating. If the great unwashed wanted to understand CRU magic, that wouldn't happen.
Lets be clear if the rules of a journal state that the data should be made available and researcher is not able to meet these rules because of confidential agreements. Then their articles should not appear in that journal. It is Nature that is trying to play fast and lose by claiming its rules do not apply to those it likes and its CRU that is playing the 'no data for you, expect if we like you ', game.
A game that has brought them a whole heap of problems , for which they deserve no sympathy.
Where is that pesky wabbit anyway?
Probably back over at the Daily Mail where he usually trolls Jimmy. I said years ago that Truro should not be connected to the Internet! He is a legend in his own dinnertime.
Right here. First, thanks for the post. Second, Eli will donate a carrot. Georgia has an FOI law.
Guys and gals
Have they produced the confidentiality agreements for all 201 (or however many it was) countries yet? Or can they still only come up with 4 or 5?
Latimer Alder said:
There will come a time when that question will look strange ;-)
Meanwhile most sceptics naively today think "why don't they have this at a push of a button" and against them are most sophisticated "science" minded believers who think "Gee! let them bumble around like Wallace and Gromit, they're sweet and lovely Gaia guardians"
I think people should look at the Human Genome Project as a (unfair?) comparison.
The HGP is an endeavour that may really excersise real peoples interest.
Unlike climate, a category that both sides, deniers and believers, overestimate the day to day "in-yer-face" relevance and importance to the general public, the HGP is really interesting.
Like most people, I fit into the way broader category of anyone; who wants to live forever, or have/had cancer, or knows someone with cancer, AIDS etc, etc, etc, etc, etc... .
Today if you ask for the data on the pancreas the Wellcome foundation will probably send you the disk (talking bollox here but bear with me)
Maybe Craig Ventner will object because of some NDA?
Anyhoo, the fact that the Human Genes can be explored by using computers means that World climate can and should be too, is the lesson here.
And it will.
It will happen inevitably, the worlds land/sea thermometer network will be linked into a real time computer network for all to see - with movement/ time and thermocouple change histories. Anyone will be able to process it for whatever reason.
If they want look for UHI, go ahead and shock us, if they want to look for evidence of Alien intervention even better - who knows ;-)
The days of Phil Jones "You only want to make us look bad" will look like the dark ages.
And some of the most "tea-potty" idiotics denier/sceptics today are on the right side of the historic hindsight revisionism that will see all this.
I think some are just realising this already - no names.
I guess this is how Kuhns paradigm shift works, get on the right side before you look really stone age stupid.
The confidentiality agreement excuse is just that an excuse. It is convenient, it's plausible, but it is an excuse, a very flimsy excuse. It makes CRU, UEA and Nature look bad, evasive, in denial about what had gone before.
For Nature to take the position that it is perfectly correct for scientists to evade their obligations on releasing data on published science is catastrophic. Nature has abandoned science and common sense in favour of a flawed ideology - GAGW.
For sceptics everywhere this is a godsend. What arguements do we need when we can just point to the behaviour of Nature. They were tricked once, they are tricking themselves again. Superstition and dogma has comeback big style in science.
Eli
Thank you for your earlier comment. This thread was an acknowledgement by Andrew Montford of a possible over assumpton, raised by your good self.
Are you, here or on your own blog, prepared to pass critical comment on the tactics/actions of Nature when dealing with queries raised by M&M over the Hockey Stick, as set out in the Hockey Stick Illusion?
Steve2 - As a distant observer I don't follow the "wink" subtext of your post but I do agree progress towards a proper, open, high quality instrumented temperature sensing network would be welcome. I think this is what the Argo bouy network is working towards on sea temperature monitioring.
However, even if we built and achieved the calibrated realtime system you describe (with a sufficient global resolution) it will not be capable of looking into the past, so I do not see the need for a complete, open and proper audit of existing datasets, including proper meta data, becoming redundant. Maybe this complete dataset implementation is what you are suggesting but I thought a clarification worthwhile.
Mac - "It is convenient, it's plausible, but it is an excuse, a very flimsy excuse." Sorry but I disgree, yes, it is an excuse but it is not "plausible". IMO this plausibility has been tested by the questioning of FOI requests and has been shown to be nonsense. It is a pretty damning indictment on the current state of journalism that this pathetic refrain has been oft repeated without any questioning or quantification of its validity. There are several CA threads which expose its lack of substance.
@Hunter
"Answer the question, troll."
Won't happen.
ZDB hates to be proved to be wrong. Just look at the venom she displayed when someone queried her interpretation of something as trivial as the BBC's licensing requirements. ZDB is committed to the 'fact' that CAGW is real and dangerous, but will never tell you why because by doing so she risks being shown that she is misguided / wrong / stupid. Her general pathology can never allow that, so you will never get a straight answer to your question for that reason.
That very fact disqualifies her from popping up here and alternating between demanding answers to her questions (albeit with faux humility) and sniping at "you deniers". She is irritating, she is rude, and all her involvement here can achieve is to detract from the comments of those with something worthwhile to contribute.
I don't include myself in that latter category, other than to petition His Grace to please ban ZDB from this place. She is as an annoying distraction whose behavior and intentions are 100% dishonourable.
Not Banned yet
"it will not be capable of looking into the past"
Yes I know. However, according to main issue here, many countries apparently have recent/current, non-proxy historical, temperature readings and histories that are covered by NDAs the final processed homogenised result is what is related to us all as indicative of the reality - Global Warming to some degree.
But it apparently beyond the bounds of sensibility to expect scientists researching the "Greatest problem in the world ever" bigger than the "war on cancer", AIDS - you name it, to have at their fingertips the raw data that proves UHI effect is trivial.
The electronic computer was invented around 1940 and large scale use of the computer for tracking data, outside of academia, started in the mid 1950s.
I think it - and I think this will be seen by many more - as laughable, hence my ;-)
I am guilty of being prolix without getting to my point.
And to be further specific the ;-) is sarcastic. I think Nature, CRU and the apologists for their postion don't back up their moralism by attention to detail.
Just think of the reaction if this laxity was considered acceptable as being applied to any other sphere of science that the public may care about.
For example take the case of Hwang Woo-suk, I don't think anyone really cared where he got his eggs from, it was the fact he over-egged his claims and couldn't live up to his claims of being able to clone humans - with all the promise of health cures that offered - that really sealed his fate.
However, with climate, you can pretty much say what you want to back up your story, and if you point this flaw out, you get the distinguished journal Nature saying "Meh, whatever..."
No matter how much spin you put on it - It was so long ago!, They were tired!, Oh the awful FOIs! - the excuses don't wash, and the lowest layman can see the whole field is full of shit.
JerryM
If you start censoring you end up with an echo-chamber. And surely to God people here aren't frightened of Zed?
Just deal with her, don't get all flustered.
If Nature did not require authors to make data available in 1990, it does not mean authors are exempted to make data available on request later.
You cannot say "when I published my paper, the journal did not require data to be submitted as a pre-condition of publication so I dont have to give it to you now". As DJK points out, Neither Jones nor Nature say that. Only Eli Rabett says that.
The statement Eli Rabett quotes pertains to nucleic acid sequences and protein structure data, specifically with respect to public databases following a standard data repository format, requiring authors to submit data into Pubmed or other public databases using standardized format.
Shub
In other words, a manufactured 'debunking' of nothing, as is so common when 'commentators' attack the HSI.
I wonder if they will ever realise how incredibly damaging it is to mount a spirited, interminable defense of the indefensible?
@BBD Agreed
Censoring is the tactic of the Fascist. It is the tactic used by Nature, the Hockey Team, Al Gore, Hansen etc. It is the tactic that got us into this mess
Joe Romm is doing further damage to his cause, with every rant. Let him continue unabated.
The Trolly Dolly raised a valid point. It was answered in a civil manner. Joe Romm will not alow any criticism. That is the difference
@BBD
Oh, I'm all for the expression of opposing views (from mild to strident & heartfelt). I always felt that this was one place where that was allowed to happen, and from which I coiuld learn.
But ZDB contributes *nothing* beyond rudeness and sniping. Her's are not 'opposing views', that's her taking advantage of the fact that the politeness of this asemblage (and - no doubt - a genuine fear of not wanting to be seen to 'censor') allows her to vent here.
Please check back to any thread where ZDB pops up ... we go from from a cogent exchange of views to hell in a handcart in milliseconds, without ever passing 'Go' or collecting £200.
An interesting opponent I can handle and respect, a misanthropic content-free manipluator I can do without.
And FYIW, the last time I remember getting 'all flustered' was about 47 years ago ... at 16 years old, and in a situation over which we can probably draw a polite veil. ZDB gets nowhere near :-)
"...the lowest layman can see the whole field is full of shit"
Well stated. I couldn't have put it in more aptly descriptive terms. :)
Andrew
@ JerryM
Apologies - I didn't mean to singly you out and 'all flustered' was not a good choice of words. And I thank you for the amusing anecdote.
I've seen a fair sample of ZDB's contributions and agree that she can be irritating and disruptive. Such is life. Free speech and all that. As I say, ideally it's best to take it in one's stride if at all possible.
For what it's worth I was left feeling that I'd been deliberately messed about last night, and I will be less inclined to engage with her in future.
Although I asked her a couple of questions months ago and I'm still waiting for answers, so we shall have to chat again at some point.
Frankly my biggest problem with her is her incessant use of the term 'denier', which I find fantastically offensive. In my case it's inappropriate too, but that's not why I wish she would find another term, at least while commenting here. Common courtesy, Zed, if you are reading this.
@ golf charley
'Trolly Dolly' is, I have to confess, very funny. But I'm breaking my own rules here... common courtesy.
Joe Romm worries me. Or rather I worry for him and his general health. It is, I understand, very dangerous to maintain a high pitch of aggression and anxiety for prolonged periods. Bad for the heart.
Your point about censorship, Nature and the Team is so good I am irritated that I didn't think of it myself.
@ Bad Andrew: actually I thought your effort last night was much more creative ;-)
ZDB is more or less following the CAGW attack manual, which goes something like this:
- insist the science agrees with you
- if challenged, cite science that supports AGW rather than CAGW, necessarily
- if the science itself is challenged, argue that you aren't equipped / allowed / qualified to do so
- conclude that the only permissible position is agreement to the consensus
- if that doesn't work, obfuscate.
This worked fine on most people until M & M came along and exposed it for the argument from bogus authority that it is.
As a movement, CAGW alarmism is now stuck on the last above.
JerryM,
It was a rhetorical question.
;^)
In the early days of internet blog wars, I cut my teeth on UFOologists promoting abduction books and assorted similar crap.
ZDB would have fit right in on the UFOol believer side: same poor level of analysis, same style of trolling, same reliance on conspiratorial magical thinking, same appeals to authorities.
Except that the particular social madness of AGW has gotten some serious money and social power behind it, it is not really any different from UFO crap. If the AGW community was not demanding to be put in charge, it would all be hilarious, and ZDB would just be another buffoon dressed up as a troll.
Justice4Rinka,
Great summary.
Hello Justice
Yes, Zed lost me the minute she started on about that effing awful Anderegg paper. Argument from (bogus) authority is a terrible stance. Reminds me of 'nine out of ten cats expressed a preference'. I mean, FFS.
Also, I scent fraud. I bet she hasn't even read it.
From Nature, October, 1990
For those following Nature's Nature trick:
Justice4Rinka
I think that the attribution of use of manuals or instructions as an interpretation of any contibutors positions "nature/nurture/oilshill" trichotomy needs busting ;-)
Could it be they were born that way, or really believe that, or are lying for a cause, and finally really following a boring manual. But in the unholy, God almighty, Turing wonderfulness of the ascii realisations that we all see here, can't we can fight and show otherwise? :-)
That, Shub, is disturbing.
@Hunter
" UFO crap. "
Oh, great. NOW you're going to tell me that Santa is made up, too ;)
Shub
Was that before or after Jones 1990 paper that ruled out UHI as the cause of rising temperatures in China without any supporting evidence?
Which one of Nature's scheming tricksters wrote it?
Thanks gc
Come on someone tell us all about UHI. My understanding is that if Chinese/Australian cities don't expand then there is no distortion of the max/minimum daily temperature then so Phil et al 1990 is brilliant and should be carved in stone. But it seems that with the people in the know the answer is.
- No One Really Thinks That
That is before any questions of fraud ;-(
When - No One Really Thinks That - you can be sure clever people are trying to find a way to subvert the idiocy of layman knowing that No One Really Thinks That, and so while they finalise their proof, make you be sure of it, even if they don't know it ;-)
Lying never looked so stupid.
As I said above there is a limited self-contained audience for this kind of debate. And the Too-and-fros are regular and easy.
Just plug this debate into a really observable general public who sees the cost, to see it resolved once and for all.
No one dares.
The doi for the article is 10.1038/347601a0
It is an unatrributed opinion piece, titled "How to organize for the greenhouse". The thrust of the article was that a premature and too-hard a push for CO2 regulation might backfire. It had be done slowly, with suitable justifications which governments could fall back on.
This appeared in Oct 1990. Jones' letter appeared in Sept 1990. A lot of policy-driven global warming papers came out in the same period.
The UNFCC was agreed upon in 1992. The trick had worked in 2 years flat. :)
But it didn't quite get off the pad at COP15...
@ Steve2
I'm finding your points hard to follow. Your style is oddly reminiscent of 'phinniethewoo', whose arguments are also sometimes difficult to decipher.
I -think- you may be making an interesting and valid point, but...?