Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

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I'll try.

1) Climate science has gotten very emotional -- both for those who think the planet's climate is in danger of spinning out of control and for those who do not.

2) For years the critics/deniers/skeptics have argued that the scientists in the field of climatology have not been working on the up and up. In other words, that there was a conspiracy to prevent the truth from getting out. These people were laughed at.

3) Somebody illegally broke into one place that does climate research and stole a bunch of emails

4) These emails show frustrated scientists who are trying to stack the deck in web forums, trying to prevent people with opposing views from being published, deleting critical data, fudging the numbers, lying to the press, and admitting to each other privately that something is very wrong

5) All hell breaks loose. Those on the side of the "end is coming" take to the web and print media with robust defenses of the scientists in question, pointing out how stressed out they are, how emails can be taken out of context, how the skeptics are mostly morons, how there's much more data than just being produced by this unit, etc. Detractors (so far) are mostly just countering by quoting the scientists themselves and demanding that if the research isn't totally open and reproducible, it's not science. Some have also demanded that the scientists in question step down (I count myself as one of these)

That's as unbiased as I can get. As for my own bias, I have no idea what the earth's climate is doing, but I know a rigged game when I see one, and the nature of the debate on climate science has been in the toliet for a long time. It's good to see a little sunshine getting in. I hope it leads to better standards and higher ethical guidelines. If this is as serious as folks make out, it's even more critical that every little piece of research is beyond reproach. We have a long ways to go before we get there, unfortunately.

Point 4 of your summary is not entirely unbiased -- it's still not clear whether the emails show that numbers are truly being fudged or that truly critical data has been deleted on purpose. Because the meaning of the emails is unclear, it is what's being debated in all of these articles. Do the mails indeed show manipulation, lying and a consensus that "something is very wrong"? That's not a closed question.

I consider that part of the argument that emails can be taken out of context

Like I said, it was the best I could come up with. Prima facie, something is wrong somewhere.

That's exactly why #4 is not unbiased. You say in point #5 that those who seek more context prior to judgement are from the end-is-nigh camp. Reasonable people who are not in that camp also think the emails may have a very different meaning in their true context. Otherwise, great summary.

Thanks.

I used the term "prima facie" on purpose, because it's very apt here.

It roughly means "on first glance" or "on the surface". IANAL, but as I understand it, it's a way of saying "just glancing at the evidence here, it certainly looks like X"

The interesting part about this term is that it's all subjective. So as soon as one lawyer uses it, the appropriate response is to say, "but wait a minute! You're taking this out of context, words have more than one meaning, there was nuance involved, you're twisting what was actually said, etc."

I provided #4 the way I would provide it to anybody on any side of the discussion. I understand the appropriate reply is to get into meanings and nuance -- and I don't mean that as a slam. At some point it gets silly, such as in the famous "it depends on what you mean by the word 'is'" but we're nowhere near there yet.

The problem is that the requester asked somebody to explain it to him. As "somebody", I felt it appropriate to explain what I found prima facie and also my bias.

In highly emotional environments I've found that it's impossible to strike the right tone. Apologies if I could have done better.

Pretty good summary. I would add that there's a summary and references of some of the emails here: http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/11/climategate-executi...

For point #3 - there is speculation that the emails were leaked (and not "illegally hacked") not only because it would seem a correspondent saw a number of the emails prior to their release to the general public but because it only contained emails that would be gathered as if in preparation to meet a FOIA request. If they were leaked, the person(s) who did so could be protected under whistleblower legislation and would have done so legally.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/24/taking_liberties/ent... "It's not clear how the files were leaked. One theory says that a malicious hacker slipped into East Anglia's network and snatched thousands of documents. Another says that the files had already been assembled in response to a Freedom of Information request and, immediately after it was denied, a whistleblower decided to disclose them. (Lending credence to that theory is the fact that no personal e-mail messages unrelated to climate change appear to have been leaked.)"

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

Thanks, now I at least sort of know what the hell is going on.

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