Science vs. Politics: Tipping Points in Climate Change Communication

[Evo]

That no deletions occurred seems a natural conclusion, given that the email actually suggesting this was not deleted! And note... we have only been able to see the emails that the hacker decided to show. It is, explicitly according to comment given with the file by the unknown hacker, a selection.

That's what they need to prove right now, that they did not delete those e-mails. The e-mails in question appear to be missing. Hopefully they intend to produce the e-mails they were told to delete and clear this up.

When you know that you may have to release information and you intentionally delete the information, it's certainly not looking good, even if they can say that it's not illegal if there is no court order, it is definitely unethical. I know that I get notifications from our legal department that information is going to be requested and to not delete any e-mails I find on my computer that relates to the pending request. We have to adhere to government oversight, shareholders, etc... I have had to furnish e-mail correspondence and files and testify in court before on behalf of my former employer.

 

[seycyrus]

In kind refers to the hostility of the posts not the same subject matter of the posts...

There was no hostility in *my* post. Therefore you cannot be responding *in kind*.

As well I was mistaken it was sylas that posted, it jumped to his post when it showed the last poster was turbo-1 so I assumed that was turbo's post.

So... you attacked me personally because I responded to turbo's post and not to some other post that you thought he made, but he never did. Got it.

My post is not a strawman

It's the definitions of a strawman.

So again, point out, how this is a strawman fallacy, using logic this time.

I used logic last time. You used a strawman. The fact that you used it to argue a moot point does not make it not less so.

 

[seycyrus]

See seycyrus, this is a strawman fallacy. The post has 3 different strawman fallacies in one. Is based on no facts about climate change and is merely speculation/personal opinion on the matter.

You don't know what a strawman fallacy is, apparently.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

You don't know what a strawman fallacy is, apparently.

From what I can tell Sorry was using his 'strawman' to communicate a point and not to actually refute an argument. If he is not refuting anything then it is not a fallacious argument.

Now if we could please discuss the topic and stop discussing the discussion it would be helpful to not have to sift through the noise.

 

[Coldcall]

Count Iblis,

"I don't think so, given the fact how the sceptics are regarded within the climate science community. No reputable scientist would want their data to be reviewed by people who they regard as completely incompetent."

Steve Macintyre is no incompetent. He has forced numerous corrections to climate data inaccuracies and mistakes. So if you are claiming he is incompetent then what does it make Mann, and Hansen whose errors he corrected?

Just because Macintyre is critical of the methods used by the warming alarmists is no excuse to withold publicly funded climate measurements.

Oh please don't compare a genius like Einstein to people like Mann and Hansen, that is really a joke.

 

[Count Iblis]

Count Iblis,

"I don't think so, given the fact how the sceptics are regarded within the climate science community. No reputable scientist would want their data to be reviewed by people who they regard as completely incompetent."

Steve Macintyre is no incompetent. He has forced numerous corrections to climate data inaccuracies and mistakes. So if you are claiming he is incompetent then what does it make Mann, and Hansen whose errors he corrected?

Just because Macintyre is critical of the methods used by the warming alarmists is no excuse to withold publicly funded climate measurements.

Oh please don't compare a genius like Einstein to people like Mann and Hansen, that is really a joke.

Macintyre did not really correct a major eror, the hockey stick is still an accepted fact. All he did is point out that the result may be less statistically significant as proof that GW exists based only on the data that went into the hockey stick.

It is similar to astrophysicists doing loads of data processing on the shapes of far away galaxies in a cluster to extract the dark matter signal (dark matter would warp the apparent shape of galaxies via weak gravitational lensing). If some dark matter skeptic comes along and criticizes some statement by these astrophysicists on this being proof that dark matter really exists, because this is not 8 sigma proof but only 4 sigma, so be it.

 

[Evo]

Macintyre did not really correct a major eror, the hockey stick is still an accepted fact. All he did is point out that the result may be less statistically significant as proof that GW exists based only on the data that went into the hockey stick.

It is similar to astrophysicists doing loads of data processing on the shapes of far away galaxies in a cluster to extract the dark matter signal (dark matter would warp the apparent shape of galaxies via weak gravitational lensing). If some dark matter skeptic comes along and criticizes some statement by these astrophysicists on this being proof that dark matter really exists, because this is not 8 sigma proof but only 4 sigma, so be it.

No, that's really not the same. Obvbiously we're not going to get into a discussion of everything that was found wrong with Mann's hockey stick here, that's been discussed in other threads.

I'm really amazed to find people on here saying that "hey everyone intentionally skews their data, it's ok". Even if that were true, it does not make the presented skewed results correct, does it? I believe that's the point, the data should not be intentionally skewed and presented to the public or to governments to push their agenda.

How does one interpret the intentions of the following e-mail?

At 09:41 AM 2/2/2005, Phil Jones wrote:

Mike,
I presume congratulations are in order - so congrats etc! Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents everything better this time ! And don't leave stuff lying around on ftp sites - you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs [McKitrick, McIntyre] have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? - our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it - thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who'll say we must adhere to it ! ...

 

[Evo]

One of the released e-mails

From: Mick Kelly (mick.tiempo@gxxxxxxxx.com)
To: (P.Jones@uxxxxx.uk)
Subject: RE: Global temperature
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2008 09:02:00 +1300

Yeah, it wasn't so much 1998 and all that that I was concerned about, used to dealing with that, but the possibility that we might be going through a longer - 10 year - period of relatively stable temperatures beyond what you might expect from La Nina etc.

Speculation, but if I see this as a possibility then others might also. Anyway, I'll maybe cut the last few points off the filtered curve before I give the talk again as that's trending down as a result of the end effects and the recent cold-ish years.

Enjoy Iceland and pass on my best wishes to Astrid.

Mick

On the subject of integrity in Science

This is a quote from Feynman's famous 1974 commencement speech at Caltech:

It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty – a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid–not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked – to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can – if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong – to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.

In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

 

[Sorry!]

Evo you just don't give up huh? Selecting proper data to represent your theory based on the fact that other data you do not believe to be correct is not 'skewing' results. That's what science is all about, you may not agree with it and think that a scientists has to accept all results from all tests no matter what happens but I highly doubt we would have come as far scientifically as we have. If you knew ANYTHING about McIntyre then I doubt you would be posting on here that because the climate scientists want to not give information to him would strike you as 'skewing data' (which you make it seem like because you post reference in the same post as the one you talk about them skewing data). Just because you never paid attention to the side-details (the parts where they pointed out they had extra data that showed confunding results) they include in their reports, lectures, etc. etc. where they show why they believe that data is invalid doesn't mean they never did that... because they did.

 

[mheslep]

... There is no indication of any actual fraud, hoax or public deception...

Whether or not there's any actual misconduct, there's every indication that the authors and subjects of those emails would gladly entertain obscuring results contradictory to their hypothesis. They fall well short of the standard set by Feynman, posted by Evo in https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2461921&postcount=105".

 

[Evo]

Evo you just don't give up huh? Selecting proper data to represent your theory based on the fact that other data you do not believe to be correct is not 'skewing' results. That's what science is all about, you may not agree with it and think that a scientists has to accept all results from all tests no matter what happens but I highly doubt we would have come as far scientifically as we have. If you knew ANYTHING about McIntyre then I doubt you would be posting on here that because the climate scientists want to not give information to him would strike you as 'skewing data' (which you make it seem like because you post reference in the same post as the one you talk about them skewing data). Just because you never paid attention to the side-details (the parts where they pointed out they had extra data that showed confunding results) they include in their reports, lectures, etc. etc. where they show why they believe that data is invalid doesn't mean they never did that... because they did.

Heh, you didn't read my post quoting Feynman. Perhaps after you read it you will understand how proper science is conducted.

 

[Sorry!]

I think it is clear that the people who support climate scientists and the people who do not support them and the people who support the skeptics will probably not change who they support regardless of which direction this thread takes.

EDIT:
@Evo, Yeah I did read it. Not the first time I've read it in my lifetime either. Are you angry that the scientists 'hide behind' laws protecting their data and information? Is this why you think they are not conducting 'proper' science? I think some secondary research into these skeptics is necessary in this case...

 

[Evo]

I think it is clear that the people who support climate scientists and the people who do not support them and the people who support the skeptics will probably not change who they support regardless of which direction this thread takes.

This thread isn't about "climate scientists", it's about unethical scientists. I support ethics in science.

EDIT:
@Evo, Yeah I did read it. Not the first time I've read it in my lifetime either.

So, based on your posts supporting omitting and skewing data in order to make the results 'appear" to support their work, would it be safe to say that you completely disagree with Feynman?

 

[mheslep]

I think it is clear that the people who support climate scientists and the people who do not support them and the people who support the skeptics will probably not change who they support regardless of which direction this thread takes.

EDIT:
@Evo, Yeah I did read it. Not the first time I've read it in my lifetime either. Are you angry that the scientists 'hide behind' laws protecting their data and information? ...

There are no such laws protecting 'their' (Hadley) data. Some of the ground station is owned by other meteorology organizations and they don't want it freely released, they want to be able to charge for it. Frankly such data should either be bought up by governments and placed in the public domain, or otherwise considered unacceptable for scientific use.

...I think some secondary research into these skeptics is necessary in this case...

Investigate all you want. All MM data is openly available on the web. And BTW, there'd by nothing scientific about such an investigation.

 

[Sorry!]

This thread isn't about "climate scientists", it's about unethical scientists. I support ethics in science.



So, based on your posts supporting omitting and skewing data in order to make the results 'appear" to support their work, would it be safe to say that you completely disagree with Feynman?

No, but we have to look at the circumstances which is what I said. Feynman says that you shouldn't omit information/data from reports unless you explain why (which they do) and I still have yet to see the climate scientists skew any data... I've read every e-mail you've posted to seemingly prove this point and I'm not convinced yet. Especially when all the points you've posted have been covered by the scientists themselves (sure maybe they are trying to save their asses but when I already had similar thoughts prior to reading their response it just makes it more inforced in my mind.)

This thread is about climate scientists and you seem to think that they are unethical, well the ones at the CRU anyways. No one here is talking about nuclear scientists are they? It's only about the climate science realm we are discussing so I don't see what your point is. In fact I'm sure what you said is a logical fallacy anyways but I'm not bothered to see which one.

Edit: link remioved - off topic for this thread.

Here is an interesting 'brochure' style information package released on climate change recently. It's interesting to note how they've decided to bundle this information together. Makes it very clear that politics has a huge hand climate science and that their goal is to try and sway the common people of the world. (The usage of words and lots of pictures, easy lay-out etc.) What does everyone make of this?

 

[Sorry!]

There are no such laws protecting 'their' (Hadley) data. Some of the ground station is owned by other meteorology organizations and they don't want it freely released, they want to be able to charge for it. Frankly such data should either be bought up by governments and placed in the public domain, or otherwise considered unacceptable for scientific use.

Investigate all you want. All MM data is openly available on the web. And BTW, there'd by nothing scientific about such an investigation.

Well I was responding to Evo and I wanted to know her position and reasoning for it. She posted for some reason a part of one of the e-mails that included this:

We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind.

That's where my post comes from. I wanted to know if this was what she was referring to by her post.

This is not a science forum so who cares if looking into the skeptics will be scientific, what's your point?

 

[Evo]

Here is an interesting 'brochure' style information package released on climate change recently. It's interesting to note how they've decided to bundle this information together. Makes it very clear that politics has a huge hand climate science and that their goal is to try and sway the common people of the world. (The usage of words and lots of pictures, easy lay-out etc.) What does everyone make of this?

That was posted in the Earth forum and apparently people don't think much of it. It's reads like a sensationalist ad, and errors have already been pointed out. You can discuss it over there.

Well I was responding to Evo and I wanted to know her position and reasoning for it. She posted for some reason a part of one of the e-mails that included this:


That's where my post comes from. I wanted to know if this was what she was referring to by her post.

No clue what you're talking about. Go back and read what I said about that e-mail.

 

[Sorry!]

That was posted in the Earth forum and apparently people don't think much of it. It's reads like a sensationalist ad, and errors have already been pointed out. You can discuss it over there.

Yes, to discuss the scientific aspect of it. Obviously, in a science forum with many scientists they do not care to discuss the science that politics portrays to society all that much until they find errors in it which they try to correct... I was posting about the political aspect to the whole brochue but apparently that's off topic for a thread about the political aspect of climate change. Who would have guessed? (In fact I think that the continual posting of e-mails and how science skewing of data is off-topic considering Andre's OP had to do with: What's the relation between science and politics propaganda?)

No clue what you're talking about. Go back and read what I said about that e-mail

I did read it the first time so no need to go back and re-read it. You asked for an interpretation of the following e-mail. I'm posting in reference to your question to see if that's what is off-putting to you because you keep going on about unethical science etc. etc. It's really not that hard to understand. At all.

 

[Evo]

Yes, to discuss the scientific aspect of it. Obviously, in a science forum with many scientists they do not care to discuss the science that politics portrays to society all that much until they find errors in it which they try to correct... I was posting about the political aspect to the whole brochue but apparently that's off topic for a thread about the political aspect of climate change. Who would have guessed? (In fact I think that the continual posting of e-mails and how science skewing of data is off-topic considering Andre's OP had to do with: What's the relation between science and politics propaganda?)

Sure, if you want to discuss why someone would create such an elaborate "infomercial" that's ok, discussing the content needs to go in the Earth forum.

http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/Copenhagen/Copenhagen_Diagnosis_LOW.pdf

I did read it the first time so no need to go back and re-read it. You asked for an interpretation of the following e-mail. I'm posting in reference to your question to see if that's what is off-putting to you because you keep going on about unethical science etc. etc. It's really not that hard to understand. At all.

If it's not that hard to understand, what is it that you don't understand?"

 

[arildno]

While Frank J.Tipler, the cosmologist at Tulane U. is quite a bit of a maverick with his Omega Point theory and all that, he has quite a few interesting comments concerning how easily scientists will lead themselves astray and fudge away "anomalies" that can't "possibly" be right because their pet theory "must" be right:

I am automatically skeptical of any claim that by its very nature cannot be replicated by other scientists. What keeps scientists honest is not that scientists are more honest than other people — we aren’t — but that we know our colleagues are looking over our shoulders. Everyone is honest when he knows he is being watched.

We must seriously question whether climate “science” is, or even can be, a true science if skeptics cannot check its experimental claims. The only way climate “science” can approach being a real science is for all of its raw data to be made available. Only then is it possible for outsiders to check, at least partially, the claims of the insiders.

The second reason this conspiracy has been able to survive so long is simply that climatologists are now trained to believe in global warming theory. Remember the overwhelming urge of scientists to believe in their own pet theory, to believe that the data simply must confirm the theory, to believe that the only valid data points are those which confirm the theory? Data that are inconsistent with the theory are not recorded by believers, or not published. To true believers, such data are obviously due to an error in making the measurements, and so need not be recorded.

This human failing is why we need outside non-believers to check the theory against all the data — not just the data selected by the believers.

Scientific conspiracies like the global warming conspiracy are actually quite common. They occur whenever it is difficult for outsiders to check the claims and whenever a pet theory is involved.[/size]

The late Harvard paleontologist Stephen J. Gould has pointed out that punctuated equilibrium — the fact that species are typically not replaced by other species gradually, but “instantaneously” — was for centuries seen by professional paleontologists in the fossil record. But before Gould, such observations were considered inconsistent with Darwin’s theory of evolution. Thus the observations were not recorded. All paleontologists were trained to believe in Darwin, and so they adjusted the data to confirm Darwin, or did not record data “refuting” Darwin. Only after Gould showed that such data did not refute Darwin did paleontologists cease to adjust the data and start recording what they had been actually seeing.

My own field of general relativity, which is Einstein’s theory of gravity, was initially “confirmed” by “fudged” — I would say “fraudulent” — data. Einstein had predicted that stars near the Sun would appear displaced in their positions due to the Sun’s gravity, and the English astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington, a fervent believer in Einstein, set out to confirm Einstein’s theory. And confirm Einstein he did, although Eddington’s equipment was too inaccurate to confirm or reject Einstein. Eddington “showed” that Einstein was right by appropriate weighing of data points, and by throwing out observations inconsistent with Einstein’s prediction. In 1919, Eddington announced his “confirmation” at a media circus that made Einstein a world celebrity. Eddington’s experiment could only be conducted during a total eclipse of the Sun, a rare event, and so Eddington’s claim could not be checked for years.

But no experienced scientist at the time believed in Eddington’s “confirmation.” Rather, what convinced most real scientists — including Einstein — that general relativity was correct was another prediction: The planet Mercury would deviate from its path as predicted by Newton’s theory. This deviation had been observed before Einstein was born, and agreed exactly with Einstein. Since general relativity was a theory with no adjustable constants, the observation had to be a true confirmation. Since the astronomers who observed Mercury’s deviation were dead before Einstein proposed his theory, there was no chance that they had fudged their observations to agree with Einstein.

One can always trust experimenters who get the right answer when they do not know what the right answer is. One can never trust experimenters who know what the right answer is (human-caused global warming), and who have total control of the only data that can confirm or reject the theory, and whose jobs depend on confirming it.[/size]

His article at Pajamasmedia:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-the-skeptical-scientist’s-view/

 

[mheslep]

Along those same lines see Millikan's Oil Drop experiment, related by Feynman:

[...]We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of
the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the
charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and
got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a
little bit off, because he had the incorrect value for the
viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of
measurements of the charge of the electron, after Millikan. If you
plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little
bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than
that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until
finally they settle down to a number which is higher.

Why didn't they discover that the new number was higher right away?
It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of--this history--because
it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a
number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something
must be wrong--and they would look for and find a reason why
something might be wrong. When they got a number closer to
Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated
the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that.

http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm

 

[Sorry!]

Some more politicalization?:
New Zealand
http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the...-accused-of-cru-style-temperature-faking.html
(This site shows the response to the allegations and portrays how the scientists must all feel about the skeptics and why they do not feel obligated to release information to them)

There's also something going on in Japan at this same time; it's weird how it's happening all at once.

 

[sylas]

That was posted in the Earth forum and apparently people don't think much of it. It's reads like a sensationalist ad, and errors have already been pointed out. You can discuss it over there.

Here's a link to the thread: [thread=358328]Climate Science Update[/thread]. Further discussion belongs over there, for those interested. So far no error has been pointed out; only an apparent misunderstanding of a graph by one poster who thought it was inconsistent with numbers in the text. It will all get sorted out in the other thread as discussion proceeds.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[skypunter]

I don't know whether this site would permit linking or posting of the emails, considering they were stolen, but you can find them on wikileaks, as well as many other sites.

It's also quite blatant—there is even at least one email from one scientist saying that he was extremely uncomfortable with the censorship of data that was going on. If these emails are real, every scientist involved should be out of work on Monday. I know I wouldn't trust anything told to me by an organization that employed them.

Honestly, I don't really care all that much about climate change—I've always felt that humanity would adapt and survive whatever consequences were likely to occur.

I shudder to even think about what creationists are going to do with this scandal. They'll go right to the American people and say "Look! You were wrong to trust the Climate Scientists, so why should you trust Biologists?"

There is a good article in Wired Magazine this month related to our ability to adapt to change, and how we should be directed toward better adaptation methods (through technology and strong economy) rather than by "cutting back".

 

[skypunter]

Yes it does need to be interpreted. The RealClimate discussion shows how some of the points are much more innocent than are being claimed.

And it needs to be read in the context that some of these email go back a decade, so had plenty of opportunity to be cherry picked. If you assume from the timing that this attack was designed to disrupt public support for agreement at Copenhagen, then it can be assumed that this is a very biased sample.

So we know from the last 25 years of scholarly research that climate change is real, and is attributable to human activity to a "very likely" confidence. These emails don't show a huge international conspiracy, so that is still the case. We can assume that the missing emails are the ones that show the research to be valid and genuine.

If we needed to. Of course the research at UAE isn't the word of God. It has to be reproduced just like everyone else's. So there's no genuine question that results have been created and sold to the scientific community without their due consideration.

Some people are enjoying mileage out of taking some of them out of context, and pretending "trick" means sneaky thing and not mathematical technique, but that deserves to be flatly denied. Because its wrong.



I think that it is important to understand that the keystone of the denialists position is that the scientists are all lying so that they can get funding.

We have anectodes that this doesn't work, and a scientist will generally quit if asked to do that.

But the broader evidence is important to understand. Governments don't want to have to change an economy. Government don't want to consider the environment. They want a steaming along economy and near full employment, with few companies going bust and being replaced, because this is good for what they want ... re-election.

And in science it is generally never good for one's career to respect the status quo. It is the overturning of paradigms that is most respected, so claiming the tow the line for career purposes is equally crazy.

But certainly Obama is much more pro-science than Bush was ... but Governments come and go. There'll be more Bushes to come.

Bringing up the spectre of a "huge international conspiracy" is a strawman.
Climatology is a relatively young branch of science, with relatively few practitioners. It's more like an old boy network which clings to the thing that makes their practice most important, and most profitable...involvement with politics. It's also supported and encouraged by a fledgeling industry owned in some cases by major corporations (for example GE). Politicians will use whatever means they can find, including, but not limited to a "climate crisis", to extract money from industry on both sides of the issue (petroleum, coal and their alternatives). All of this money they play with originates with our labor and comes from our pockets.

 

[russ_watters]

No, but we have to look at the circumstances which is what I said. Feynman says that you shouldn't omit information/data from reports unless you explain why (which they do) and I still have yet to see the climate scientists skew any data... I've read every e-mail you've posted to seemingly prove this point and I'm not convinced yet.

Not that I want to get too far into this thread, but I don't see any justification given for the removal of data:

Yeah, it wasn't so much 1998 and all that that I was concerned about, used to dealing with that, but the possibility that we might be going through a longer - 10 year - period of relatively stable temperatures beyond what you might expect from La Nina etc.

Speculation, but if I see this as a possibility then others might also.

Anyway, I'll maybe cut the last few points off the filtered curve before I give the talk again as that's trending down as a result of the end effects and the recent cold-ish years.

It sounds to me like he's saying 'this data doesn't support my thesis and I'm not sure why, but I'm removing it to make my thesis stronger.'

Perhaps this is an issue for the thread in Earth Sciences, but it seems to me that if an effect can only be revealed via "corrections" to data, then that means the theory is highly succeptible to bias. I'm not saying that data corrections can't be made, but in that Australian case, all of the effect they are claiming comes from the corrections.

 

[skypunter]

Unpublished data and processing methods should be inadmissable.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Am I mistaken in thinking that it is generally considered unscientific to process information over and over in an attempt to make it fit your theory? If your theory is correct shouldn't the same process be effective every time? Does it make sense scientifically to use which ever process produces results that best fit your theory when processing information from different sources?

Unpublished data and processing methods should be inadmissable.

Why should we not see what they used to come to their conclusions and how they got there? That which they choose to leave out may be at least as important as what is published.

 

[lisab]

Unpublished data and processing methods should be inadmissable.

Hmm...it isn't clear what you mean here. Do you mean there should be a requirement to publish data and reveal analysis methods?

 

[skypunter]

Yes, perhaps I was too concise.