NOAA busted over 'climate haitus':

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444668/whistle-blower-scientist-exposes-shoddy-climate-science-noaa

Originally posted by sonhouse
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444668/whistle-blower-scientist-exposes-shoddy-climate-science-noaa

I fear one terrible consequence of that is that it would give that moron Trump an 'excuse' (but not a valid one) to stop valid climate science and destroy data on global warming to cover it up.

Originally posted by humy
I fear one terrible consequence of that is that it would give that moron Trump an excuse to stop valid climate science and destroy data on global warming to cover it up.

Oh yeah. They will jump on that one. And all the other climate deniers to boot. Think how metalhead will love this one.

Originally posted by sonhouse
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444668/whistle-blower-scientist-exposes-shoddy-climate-science-noaa

In reality, nothing more than overblown journalistic licence making up stuff. But it sure will be taken the wrong way by people who can't read or don't want to read.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Oh yeah. They will jump on that one. And all the other climate deniers to boot. Think how metalhead will love this one.

It is ironic that biased journalists publish biased articles about scientific bias. According to this article, losing your data is "the most Obama-esque move" (whatever that means). Also they state that the purpose of the study was for "a team of scientists to challenge the IPCC findings and prove that the [global warming] hiatus did not exist" but they don't have evidence for that. The whistle-blower did not even participate in the study. Rather, these scientists were testing a specific hypothesis to explain why there was a global warming hiatus. The bias is assumed. Furthermore, many studies have since confirmed the results (with the requisite data intact). Tragically, well meaning but conservative-leaning folks who read the National Review just believe the headline, instead of doing their homework:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/no-u-climate-scientists-didnt-011425965.html
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601207

That said, given that the lead author of the study in question lost the data, the paper probably should be retracted. If you're publishing in the journal Science, you have to expect that someone's going to scrutinize every detail of the raw data.

Originally posted by wildgrass
It is ironic that biased journalists publish biased articles about scientific bias. According to this article, losing your data is "the most Obama-esque move" (whatever that means). Also they state that the purpose of the study was for "a team of scientists to challenge the IPCC findings and prove that the [global warming] hiatus did not exist" but they do ...[text shortened]... nal Science, you have to expect that someone's going to scrutinize every detail of the raw data.

I don't want to be seen as jumping on the bandwagon but it seems convenient the actual data was lost. That is not professional at the very least.

Funny how it gets lost after Trump comes to town.

Originally posted by sonhouse
I don't want to be seen as jumping on the bandwagon but it seems convenient the actual data was lost. That is not professional at the very least.

I agree that it is very suspicious, and no doubt unprofessional, that there was no data backup. I imagine it would have been more convenient, however, to have the data available. I'm sure the researchers spent a lot of time scrambling over this.

But a failure to produce the data does not necessarily imply fraud. Things like this do happen. We had one student who left our lab on bad terms and contaminated everyone's cells on her way out, including cell lines which we had generated and published with (so they are no longer available upon request). Freezers can also fail and ruin archived samples.

And it appears the findings in this study weren't wrong. The results are sound, and they've since been replicated and confirmed. They were not falsifying data. The whistle-blower made no such claim. His beef was that the archiving and data processing procedures were not appropriately followed prior to this paper's publication.

It sure has ignited a political firestorm though. I just saw a Washington Post article on this subject.

Originally posted by wildgrass
The whistle-blower made no such claim. His beef was that the archiving and data processing procedures were not appropriately followed prior to this paper's publication.

I find it hilarious that he is even called a 'whistle-blower'. It really isn't that much that he had to say, yet to look at the headlines you would think the whole of climate science has been upended. Modern reporting is sadly dishonest and/or uneducated and will do anything for a headline. The reason for this is simple: almost all modern media is for profit and thus the primary motivator is getting the story out there. The truth is often secondary and just as often irrelevant.

It now seems to me from the link below that this whole accusation is just hot air and the 'climate haitus' claim was well busted after all;

https://phys.org/news/2017-02-major-global-defended.html
"...
Marcia McNutt, who was editor of Science at the time the paper was published and is now president of the National Academy of Sciences, praised Bates for wanting to highlight the importance of data archiving, but said his criticisms have little to do with the main part of the paper and chastised the House for using issues of data archiving to try to discredit the 2015 study.

"The study has been reproduced independently of Karl et al—that's the ultimate platinum test of whether a study is to be believed or not," McNutt said. "And this study has passed."
...
As far as the study being rushed, the journal says its records show otherwise. Science's new editor-in-chief Jeremy Berg said it usually takes 109 days between a paper's submission and its publication. The Karl study was received by the journal on Dec. 23, 2014 and published 185 days later, on June 26, 2015.

"The paper was not rushed in any way," McNutt said. "It had an exceptional number of reviewers, many more than average because we knew it was on a controversial topic. It had a lot of data analysis."

..."

Note the words "The study has been reproduced independently" and then passed.
So what we have here is a false and fabricated 'whistle-blower' although I bet he didn't intentionally want to be this and he is just being used as a political propaganda pawn by some highly dishonest people who lack moral scruples and DON'T CARE if it is a load of lying crap they just made up.

Originally posted by wildgrass
I agree that it is very suspicious, and no doubt unprofessional, that there was no data backup. I imagine it would have been more convenient, however, to have the data available. I'm sure the researchers spent a lot of time scrambling over this.

But a failure to produce the data does not necessarily imply fraud. Things like this do happen. We had one s ...[text shortened]... has ignited a political firestorm though. I just saw a Washington Post article on this subject.

I read the original blog post, available here [1]. The difficulty is that while the result may be correct the method has relatively little credibility, or so Bates claims. Although Bates does not go so far as to accuse them of actually faking data because the data hasn't been archived properly it could have been. Science is all about method, knowledge is justified belief that is true, and because we are stuck with imperfect truth tests the justificatory process needs to be reliable or we are liable to get wrong answers. If I guess then I might be right, but I can't claim knowledge because there is no justification for my guess, my future guesses may not be right so the method is unreliable, science relies on reliability.

The maintainer of the blog has written several posts critical of method in climate science. I think that the things she is complaining about are general throughout science, but climate science is such a hot potatoe. What scientists have a habit of doing is believing the paradigm theory and in climate science the paradigm is anthropogenic greenhouse heating. The effect is to create a climate 😞 within the field where people feel obliged to "stick with the programme". This problem is magnified by the current tendency of university departments to hand out jobs based around the number of citations a candidate's paper's have. There is pressure to produce results consistent with what everyone else in the field is saying, independently of whether the actual results indicate that or not.

[1] https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/

Originally posted by DeepThought
I read the original blog post, available here [1]. The difficulty is that while the result may be correct the method has relatively little credibility, or so Bates claims. Although Bates does not go so far as to accuse them of actually faking data because the data hasn't been archived properly it could have been. Science is all about method, knowledge ...[text shortened]... e that or not.

[1] https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/

I agree, mostly. The rat race towards publication is potentially concerning in academia. But it is also a pretty good measure of productivity. And since your scientific reputation depends on the validity of your published results, it tends to discourage fraud and data manipulation. I don't know that a better system is available, but reform is probably necessary.

In terms of the paradigm and what-not, there is some necessity to build a consensus opinion, and then move forward from that platform to address new and interesting questions. Without the paradigm, there would be little progress. However, at least in my field, there are ample opportunities to disrupt the platform within that system. True, it isn't enough to say "I don't believe the paradigm" and then get a tenured faculty position. Maybe I'm naive, but if you could frame an alternate hypothesis to explain the warming, do some experiments and find an answer, it might be the launching point of a great career. I don't think you get published anywhere only by doing work that's already been done. If you had the data, I don't think that you would be laughed out of the room.

Originally posted by wildgrass
I agree that it is very suspicious, and no doubt unprofessional, that there was no data backup. I imagine it would have been more convenient, however, to have the data available. I'm sure the researchers spent a lot of time scrambling over this.

But a failure to produce the data does not necessarily imply fraud. Things like this do happen. We had one s ...[text shortened]... has ignited a political firestorm though. I just saw a Washington Post article on this subject.

Was the student who compromised the cells held accountable in a legal sense?

Originally posted by sonhouse
Was the student who compromised the cells held accountable in a legal sense?

No. I wasn't privy to the decision making on that front, but I think it would have been unproductive and distracting. It's hard to prove intent and time-consuming and does not benefit the lab.

Originally posted by wildgrass
No. I wasn't privy to the decision making on that front, but I think it would have been unproductive and distracting. It's hard to prove intent and time-consuming and does not benefit the lab.

How far back did she set the research?