Congressman Seeks Scientists' Personal Data 632
jfengel writes "The Washington Post reports that House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX) has requested raw data and personal financial information on three scientists who published a paper which claimed that temperatures rose precipitously in the 20th century. Colleagues (including other Republicans) are calling the investigation 'misguided and illegitimate.' Barton has long been an opponent of government action on global warming."
Not black and white. (Score:5, Insightful)
Based solely on the editorial, it looks like in this case it is more the latter than the former. But we don't know the whole picture. In fact that one-sided editorial is an excellent example of bias; nowhere does it even outline the Chairman's view.
It comes down to an interesting question. If personal and professional finances are off-limits, how else can politicians determine whether a complex statistical report has been "paid for" by an interested party?
Re:Not black and white. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not black and white. (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed - the kind of stuff Barton is asking for is way above and beyond the kind of information that required by campaign finance reporting laws.
Additionally, and this is key here - scientists, by definition, work via the scientific method and thus bogus conclusions will be challenged and repudiated.
Politicians, by definition work by demagoguery and hot air and thus bogus claims will often go unchallenged and even supported by specious argument and distraction.
Barton is using the later to try to attack the former, which to anyone with even a hint of scientific training, is ridiculous.
Re:Not black and white. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not black and white. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not black and white. (Score:5, Insightful)
If it wasn't too easy to introduce bias into the scientific method, I'd say our government should be more meritocratic.
The Age of Reason ... (Score:3, Funny)
That is unless your some kind of knuckle dragging creationist.
Land of the free (Score:5, Insightful)
Not with a straight face.
Re:Not black and white. (Score:3, Insightful)
If scientists use the scientific method "by definition," as you assert, then one-third of the published authors are not scientists. This throws the whole "peer review" process into question.
When the challenges to conclusions are themselves repudiated without argument (that is, simply dismissed out-of-hand), as politicians and other egoists-in-white-coats attempted with Bjorn Lomborg [lomborg.com], the god-like stature of "scientists" loses its credibility with the people who ha
Re:Not black and white. (Score:3, Insightful)
A couple of points:
Re:Not black and white. (Score:4, Insightful)
Science *should* be objective, but then again, so should journalism.
Re:And of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
So what exactly do you put your faith in? Religion? I'll take science any day of the week. Scientists findings are peer reviewed, scrutinized, and sometimes even found flawed. That's ok though because that is how the process works. Science gives us the best possible picture of the world that we have at our disposal. Anything else is just guessing.
What makes no sense to me is that global warming is accepted by the majority of scientists in the world. Only a few crack pot scientists debate it, well, a few crack pot scientists and and few crack pot politicians.
Re:And of course... (Score:3, Informative)
I'll take Sci Method over Senate Any Day (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, I will, and the debate over Global Warming is one of the reasons.
Scientists didn't suddenly all decide that the Earth was heating up. The first ones to do so were roundly criticized. It took years and many more studies to confirm their initial findings and still there were far more skeptics than supporters.
The idea that the world has been heating up has been around for almost 20 years now, maybe longer. It wasn't until the last ten years that the majority of scientists started to say they believed that the Earth really is warming up and that the warming we're seeing is caused by human activities.
The scientists who opposed the Global Warming theory were far more qualified to do so than Senator Barton from Texas. Many of them fought with every weapon at their disposal to disprove the theory. Now most of them support it.
Very few new radical ideas get accepted by the scientific community without being thoroughly tested. Look at what happened with cold fusion. There is always some scientist whose work is going to be called into question by any new theory or revision of an old theory. Like any other person, those that are threatened are going to fight back and challenge the upstarts. That's the reason the scientific method works so well.
The scientific method is not the fastest way to learn about the universe, but it is the one that is capable of convincing even the most skeptical of the conclusions that are reached.
Re:I'll take Sci Method over Senate Any Day (Score:3, Insightful)
What's interesting is that your timelin
Re:Any other way... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not black and white. (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/indus.asp?
Oil&Gas as expected.
Re:Not black and white. (Score:5, Informative)
http://opensecrets.org/races/indus.asp?ID=TX06&cy
Re:Not black and white. (Score:3, Insightful)
Top Metro Areas
2004 RACE: TEXAS DISTRICT 6
Joe Barton (R)*
DALLAS $213,805
WASHINGTON, DC-MD-VA-WV $133,649
FORT WORTH-ARLINGTON $120,032
HOUSTON $110,500
SAN ANTONIO $30,500
Re:Not black and white. (Score:5, Informative)
"Maybe the congressman should disclose in who's pocket he is."
He's a Republican from Texas, and is the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. For Timo and our other friends in the UK: put together "Texas" and "Energy" and you have "oil." He worked in the oil industry before he was elected to congress. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the oil industry is his top contributor [crp.org] -- they gave him nearly a quarter million bucks in 2004.
In an interview on NPR, he stated that he wanted to collect the raw data so that he could pass it along to his own "experts" -- that is, scientists in the employ of oil companies. In other words, he wants to use the scientists' own data against them.
Re:Not black and white. (Score:5, Insightful)
The paper was published in the Nature magazine. It doesnot matter who funded the studies, it has been peer reviewed and the results agreed upon by a majority of the author's peers who know the subject matter best. The day Microsoft comes out with a clear test methodology and peer reviewed comparision analysis, which is not likely, is the day slashdotters would stop asking the question.
Mod parent up! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mod parent up! (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the things I love about the scientific method (I consider myself an engineer, not a scientist) is how it is based on a know
Re:Mod parent up! (Score:3, Informative)
Rejecting the null hypothesis is a method for gaining confidence that something interesting is happening. If there are other competing hypotheses, you test those too.
I suppose that your characterization of perception is true, but that doesn't mean that scienc
Bayes' Theorem supplants positivism (Score:3, Informative)
Where p(A|X) is "the probability of A given X" and ~A means "not A"
p(A|X) = [ p(X|A)*p(A) ] / [ p(X|A)*p(A) + p(X|~A)*p(~A) ]
Much knowledge can be derived from applying that: quantum mechanics, statistics, AI theory, the scientific method and more.
This article is long, so here's the relevant bit
from "An Intuitive Explanation of Bayesian Reasoning" by Eliezer Yudkowsky
http://yudkowsky.net/bayes/bayes.html [yudkowsky.net]
Previously, the most popular
Re:Not black and white. (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, Nature requires that you disclose financial interest when you publish. http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/policy/compe
Re:Not black and white. (Score:3, Insightful)
The only real test (Score:5, Insightful)
Passing publication review is important. But it is not meant to be a judgement about the correctness of the paper's results -- instead, it is about whether the paper ought to be published or not.
In science, the only real test is reproducibility.
For example, the paper "Observation of Cold Nuclear Fusion in Condensed Matter" [1] passed peer review, as it should have. But its results could not be reproduced reliably, so as of this moment its authors' conclusions are considered to be (at best) flawed.
Or for another example, take pentaquarks. Some experiments claim to have unambiguous evidence of their creation in certain production channels. Other experiments claim to unambgiously show that they are not produced in similar -- often, nearly identical -- production channels.
The research on pentaquarks, from both sides, is quality work and certainly worthy of publication. But it is almost certain that someone's experimental methodology is flawed. So the status of pentaquarks remains controversial, as it should.
The ultimate scientific test is to continue trying to reproduce results with improved methods, and to see what nature tells us. This is the essence of peer review.
Publication review is an important part of this mechanism, but it is only one part of the entire cycle of peer review.
[1] S.E. Jones et al., "Observation of Cold Nuclear Fusion in Condensed Matter," Nature 338: 737-740 (1989).
Re:The only real test (Score:5, Informative)
-Stephen Jay Gould [stephenjaygould.org]
Re:The only real test (Score:4, Insightful)
Regarding the much-covered by Slashdot proposal to add "evolution is only a theory" sticker to science textbooks, I would much rather the judge added a "1+1 = 2 is only a theory" sticker to the textbook instead of removing the sticker (which is what he actually did).
Re:Not black and white. (Score:3, Insightful)
Science can be wrong, but there are methods to recreate the experiments and review the hypotheses in order to establish the correct findings. Religion is "always" right, and anything that challenges it is "always" wrong. Which one is more rational?
Re:Not black and white. (Score:3, Informative)
I wouldn't say that religion is solely defined by fundamental freaks just as science is not defined by only one set of
Re:Not black and white. (Score:3, Insightful)
What if that interested party is the Federal government's current ruling group is financially tied to the results of these negative studies and the results of their own "studies"?
Re:Not black and white. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no "if" about it. There is no need for a congressman to have the personal financial data of these people. There is no investigation of a crime and there is no court order. It's a 4th amendment violation.
Re:Not black and white. (Score:2, Funny)
Bad analogy (Score:3, Insightful)
No, a slashdotter asking such a question is more like a working stiff asking who contributed to the congressman's campaign. What the congressman is doing is more like a Microsoft executive asking who funded a study favorable to Linux.
These days, a republican supporting this Administration'
Re:Not black and white. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not black and white. (Score:4, Insightful)
Simply stated, the newspaper article and the Slashdot summary are wrong. But since when has this been a surprise to anyone?
And yet, it moves (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically, we are looking at an inquisition. We have them every so often. The catholics (and most Christians) had theirs against science.
We had it during the 50's with the red scare. And yet, we do not learn our lessons. So, as was muttered "And yet, it moves"
The strength of science (Score:4, Insightful)
See, this is the key fact of science-- research is not certified until it has been confirmed by outside sources. Publication and transparency are the norm, not the exception.
The do not ask us to take their word on it. They present the research methods and results, and are peer-reviewed. Sometimes, they are proven incorrect. Sometimes, it takes a while to disprove an hypothesis.
In stark contrast, the results of politicians are based on rhetoric, not reason. Even peer review is based on influence, funding, and more rhetoric. There is no transparency.
In this situation, I'm on the side of the scientists. If they are wrong, it will be proven out. If they are right, we should be listening.
If the politician succeeds in silencing the discussion, we all lose, whether he is right or not.
Re:And yet, it moves (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Those accused (by anyone) of being witches are assumed to be witches unless they can prove otherwise.
2) An
Re:And yet, it moves (Score:3, Informative)
The truth is more complex
In this case, the truth is perfectly simple.
McCarthy wasn't censured by colleagues in the U.S. senate for claiming there were Communists in the U.S. government, he was censured [historicaldocuments.com] because he "acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute, to obstruct the constitutional processes of the Senate, and to impair its dignity".
McCarthy's supporters seem to think the Communist threat justified that behavior.
Re:Not black and white. (Score:4, Insightful)
The scientists, co-authors of an influential 1999 study showing a dramatic increase in global warming over the past millennium, were told to hand over not only raw data but personal financial information, information on grants received and distributed, and computer codes.
This absolutely outrageous. Congressman Joe Barton is trying to destroy scientists who are practicing good science (getting published in Nature is incredibly prestigeous), not even because he has reason to disagree with the results, but because it's good for his campaign fund to do so.
Joe Barton should be ashamed of himself, and his constituents should demand that he be removed from office.
There is a big difference between calling a study garbage, especially when it's only credentials come from the company that both funded and benefits from it, and this.
This is more like the FSF funding raids on the houses of Microsoft employees, because they don't like that Windows has more users.
Re:Not black and white. (Score:3, Informative)
Who funds who? (Score:3, Informative)
Scientists funding history is detailed in thier individual responses to Barton [realclimate.org]. (not to mention 'Nature' requires this info before publication).
Re:Not black and white. (Score:3, Informative)
There's nothing wrong with asking for the raw data, and who funded the study. Many times the funding of papers are included in the acknowledgements section. The abuse of power comes from asking for the personal financial records of the scientists. Unless a corruption (i.e. bribery) or some crime is suspected, which none is, then the move is nothing more than harasment.
It comes down to an interesting question. If personal and profession
Re:Not black and white. (Score:4, Interesting)
"Hockey stick not real", I call bullshit !!!!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not black and white. (Score:3, Interesting)
Could you cite a reference on that because I've never heard any such thing. Not even the current round of complaints about the paper are making such dramatic claims. Rather the current claims seem to be centering on how certain proxy d
Global Warming Confirmed. (Score:3, Insightful)
By using such despicable harassment techniques against these scientists, all Joe Barton has managed to accomplish here is to certify their findings.
After all, if their results could be disputed rationally, there would be no need for such underhanded tactics.
Re:Global Warming Confirmed. (Score:2)
Scientists have responsed to Braton. (Score:3, Interesting)
"The real question we are faced with is not whether humans are changing climate. The science on this is clear, and decades of research have culminated in a scientific consensus on this point. The real question now is what we need to do about it. A Congressional committee concerned with energy could be - and indeed should be - a key player in exploring policy options to deal w
Re:How do you tell if a scientist is a crackpot? (Score:3, Informative)
I research global warming (interrelationship of Paleogene temperature and sea-level and how that translates to the present day).
Global warming is real.
The CAUSE is uncertain.
Re:How do you tell if a scientist is a crackpot? (Score:3, Insightful)
PROOF?
Re:How do you tell if a scientist is a crackpot? (Score:3, Informative)
I wasn't implying that you should take MY word for it...just that I have experience in this topic and that my (informed) opinion is that GW is underway. Denying global warming is about as futile as denying evolution (I'm also a paleontologist). As I mentioned in the previous post, however, the causes of global warming are stil
Re:How do you tell if a scientist is a crackpot? (Score:3, Insightful)
You can say the same thing about relativity, quantum physics, evolution, atomic theory, and the earth being round. What's your point?
Al Gore's presentation... (Score:5, Insightful)
I was lucky to recently attend Al Gore's presentation [startribune.com] on Global Climate Change [lazylightning.org]. While I don't care about Global Warming at all (I see it as an eventual end of society and part of the Earth's history) but I did find that Al Gore's excellent multimedia presentation to be full of the very evidence that proves Global Climate Change is occurring and increasing in speed.
Why are these leaders creating issues for scientists unless they are trying to strongarm them? Were they seriously thinking that this data was created from false research? Antarctica is losing large slabs of ice at an alarming rate but it has nothing to do w/temperatures rising?
Again, Global Warming is something that's going to happen and it's inevitable, but we don't need to be harassing science because our political survival depends on it.
Re:Al Gore's presentation... (Score:4, Informative)
HJ
Re:Al Gore's presentation... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Al Gore's presentation... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Al Gore's presentation... (Score:4, Informative)
No, global warming was initially a prediction based on observation "Hmmm - if this effect we're observing in the lab holds true to the wider atmosphere, current artificial gas emissions would affect the global climate".
Then more research followed, and the conclusion was reached. The conclusion predicted climate change. At that point, it was announced. (Not only does this follow "postulate-research-announce", but it would be wrong to not announce the results, since the results predict problems ahead, potentially big ones.
"Judging from our models and lab work (and we may be wrong) climate changes will happen and we would expect to see them start to become noticeable in ten to fifty years, and continue to get worse, becoming problematic or even disasterious"
Fast forward ten to fifteen years, and the predicted effects are appearing as predicted.
You seem to be confusing individual scientific studies with a branch of science. Saying climate science announced before researching is like saying Edison announced (and unveiled) a working lightbulb before making it, since subsequent people are still building better and more definitive lightbulbs. The Final Lightbulb does not yet exist. And if Edison wated until a hundred years from now to announce, he would have still jumped the gun because two hundred years from now, the definitive lightbulb will still not exist. Improvements will be ongoing.
Many climate science studies are complete, and announcement of the results of a study only follows once the study is complete. The fact that the studies so far all paint a pretty comprehensive picture is evidence that they're probably somewhat accurate and should be taken notice of, not that they've jumped the gun because entirely seperate lines of research are ongoing.
global temperature fluctuation is natural.
Uh... that makes everything worse, not better. Remember - climate change didn't come from observing climate change, it was predicted from gas experiments long before any change was expected to be observable, and subsequent studies confirmed man-made gas quanitites were almost certain to be more than sufficient. It is known that man-made changes are going to happen (barring some massive intervention), which means any natural temperature fluctuation on top of our changes just means any problems are likely to be that much worse.
Doesn't Mean He'll Get It... (Score:4, Insightful)
They gave it to him... (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Typical Republicans (Score:3, Funny)
Republicans have perfected the strategy that if you don't like the message, seek to discredit the messenger.
Apparently the Republican party was in charge when Jesus was on earth because that was the same strategy the local political powers pursued against Him.
Re:Typical Republicans (Score:2)
Debatists have a term for that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Professional debatists and philosophers have a term for that: ad hominem attacks.
Indeed, due to the declining education standards in most of the Western world, many younger people are not aware of such a concept. That is why those politicians, regardless of their political affiliation, who resort to the use of such logical fallacies are not held responsible for their faulty debatery.
Re:Debatists have a term for that. (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, take the case of the original post. In an ideal world, we'd have the time to investigate the claims and arguments of everyone. But really we have to be selective because we just can't afford to dedicate a lifetime of research into every claim someone makes. Thus, we really benefit from having a fast way of deciding who's worth paying serious attention to and who's not.
An ad hominem attack is valid in the sense that is says, "Joe Schmo isn't worth your time to consider. He's biased, so you can't take his claims as automatically true, and so you shouln't waste your time on them. Save your time for source of information that are less biased." The problem is, ad hominem is rarely described in this way because the real argument is different than the alleged argument.
And in this sense, ad hominem's tacit logic regards a 2nd order issue (the nature of a debate) than a 1st order one the content of the debate). So it makes for a lousy sound bite, regardless of how valid an argument it is.
Re:Typical Republicans (Score:5, Interesting)
What's in Irving, why the headquarters of Exxon Mobile, one of the corporations most rabidly fighting any suggestion their products might be wrecking the climate. I doubt you are going to find many politicians from Texas, including the President, who are going to give global warming a fair hearing if they value there political careers and their power base in Texas.
Exxon is the one who hired Philip Cooney, Bush's chief of staff of the Council on Environmental Quality the day after he quit amid controversy. The irony of a former and now once again oil man heading anything on enviromental quality. He resigned when it was exposed that he had been repeatedly altering, or maybe doctoring is a better word, government reports on global warming to downplay it, to suppress data showing it might be happening and that burning fossil fuels might be contributing to it.
Re:Typical Republicans (Score:3, Insightful)
Putting a person who works for polluters in charge of environmental concerns is like putting a fox in charge of a chicken coop. He is inevitably going to relax pollution control at every turn because it saves his masters money.
In this he is working for an industry that is rabidly trying to deny global warming is reality, and his government duty apparently involved handling and approving reports and scientific data on global warming. He apparently altered the studies to reflect the desires of his masters
That's Fine. (Score:4, Interesting)
Here you are (Score:5, Insightful)
*cough,cough*
perhaps a climatologist can help me (Score:2)
I'm aware of many publications that show the opposite.
Re:perhaps a climatologist can help me (Score:5, Insightful)
Then, once it becomes accepted that there is "no consensus" you split the difference, and find some even more extreme whackos to skew the "middle ground" even further. Eventually those with well-considered opinion are completely marginalized.
An honest scientist cannot win in this environment, because he or she is not willing to take ever-more-extreme positions to maintain "balance".
Joe Barton is a Boob (Score:3, Informative)
At the time, I laughed when he was elected. Now, I'm not laughing anymore.
Big words != Factual Paper (Score:3, Interesting)
Spatially resolved global reconstructions of annual surface temperature patterns over the past six centuries are based on the multivariate calibration of widely distributed high-resolution proxy climate indicators. Time-dependent correlations of the reconstructions with time-series records representing changes in greenhouse-gas concentrations, solar irradiance, and volcanic aerosols suggest that each of these factors has contributed to the climate variability of the past 400 years, with greenhouse gases emerging as the dominant forcing during the twentieth century. Northern Hemisphere mean annual temperatures for three of the past eight years are warmer than any other year since (at least) AD 1400.
While I think asking for personal data and computer codes is pretty far out of line, I think a review of the raw data and a detailed analysis of the "Spatially resolved global reconstructions" may not be asking too much.
A peek at the "multivariate calibrations" might be a good idea as well.
Re:Big words != Factual Paper (Score:4, Interesting)
Furthermore, asking for computer codes is ABSOLUTELY NOT out of line. In fact, there is a small controversy regarding the stability of the SVD routine used to process the data in this paper. All of this has been published and is part of the scientific literature and ongoing research.
And in the other corner ... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=274#more-274/ [climateaudit.org]
The head of the Energy Committee is asking for the source code for the statistical calculations that "prove" we're experiencing global warming. Code that was developed with US Government money.
No more than an open source advocate would expect.
The source has now been released.
Re:And in the other corner ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The source was never "hidded" it's been in the public domain for years, There is a link to it on this page. [realclimate.org]
From the above link- "...A Congressional committee concerned with energy could be - and indeed should be - a key player in exploring policy options to deal with the global warming threat. We hope that after studying the responses by the scientists, they will make a start."
"No more than an open source advocate would expect."
Not everyone who programs a comp
Ignore the Spin; Follow the Money (Score:3, Interesting)
Scientists aren't above bribery. If someone is publishing data and has an axe to grind, thats one thing. If someone is publishing data that is correlary to how much money their getting from someone with an axe to grind, that is another.
Public policy should be based on facts. So before scrubbing some clown, ask yourself: Did they follow the money? Or did they grind their own axe?
Re:Ignore the Spin; Follow the Money (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be really great but I doubt it.
BTW scientists are trained to describe their studies in detail and ensure they are repeatable. The way to check a scientist's veracity is to repeat the study and see if you come up with the same results.
Anti-corporate environmentalists (Score:3, Insightful)
There do exist groups whose primary goals are some sort of reordering of the world society along what are essentially socialist wealth-redistributive lines. These groups use global warming
Re:Ignore the Spin; Follow the Money (Score:3, Insightful)
To be fair. (Score:3, Insightful)
Should scientists who's reports can have a very real effect on policy be so diffrent?
For example we like to know if scientist is working for drug companys while writing reports on those drugs.
Just my 2 cents.
Re:To be fair. (Score:3, Insightful)
Small difference; the request was intended mostly as harassment. The raw data used always was publicly available at a number of websites (including nature.com). The list of grants received is something that every scientist who submits a grant proposal has to compile. The NSF has said as a matter of policy that source codes
3 out of the 4 requests are actually quite normal (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the scientists were mainly incensed over the request of personal financial information and not their funding sources, computer codes, or raw data.
In fact, ANYONE who requests the materials and methods of a published work is usually given them. In order to verify and repeat the results of the work, other scientists need that information.
But, I think the two zany Republicans overstepped their bounds by asking for personal financial information. They're clearly looking for a relationship between the scientists and some environmental organization (the wackier the better). I doubt these guys took personal money from their research grants. But the Republicans seem intent on spinning the published work in any way they can: discredit its authors, its methods, and its funding sources.
Though, the attempt to discredit their methods is not unusual nor wrong! Science is all about critically questioning the work of others until you are convinced of their correct results.
Wow. Big surprise. (Score:3, Funny)
Rep. Joe Barton financial stats (Score:5, Informative)
Top contributors
Any questions?
Read all about it (Score:5, Informative)
Some main points that don't seem to have come out so far in the Slashdot discussion so far are that
Anyway, follow the link and read what the main scientific institutions think of this episode before you come to your own conclusions please.
Also, if you don't mind signing in, see the recent editorial [nytimes.com] in the New York Times. It includes the following:
Re:Read all about it (Score:3, Interesting)
All that stuff at climateaudit.com is the sort of hairsplitting that actually does go on all the time within science, normally without the sour misanthropic contempt that is being drummed up there.
The attention to this particular paper is obviously politically motivated. The fact that the world is in trouble because of greenhouse emissions is a physical fact. It is not a fragile proposition that f
No personal financial information was requested (Score:5, Informative)
You will see that what was requested was:
That is not personal financial information - that is information that bears directly on his disclosure responsibilities. NSF grants require disclosure of the resultant products (data and algorithms). Asking about funding serves to establish what disclosure obligations result.
Read it again... (Score:3, Insightful)
List all financial support relating to your research, including but not limited to private, state and federal assistance...
They asking for all funding sources, not just public and private which, IANAL, but to my eyes *does* include personal financial information (i.e. that which is not available publically). Furthermore they seem to want information regard
Re:"relating to your research" (Score:3, Informative)
Of course you can (Score:3, Insightful)
It's actually amazing how much information is available on o
Maybe there are good questions worth asking... (Score:3, Insightful)
and followed some links and read some papers (well skimmed).
My understanding is that there is data missing, data that might go against the idea of global warming (something about R2....).
I would imagine that if there is a call on his tax records and financial records and such that maybe what is being looked for is if he took any pay in exchange for making the data work out like it did.
I think it raises an interesting question.
If he produced these results for a private entity with private money I would say that his finances are his business.
But he used public money to produce the data for public use. I want to know if MY DATA can be trusted.
Fair is fair (Score:4, Informative)
But all that was really asked for was the financing of the research. See Skippy's post for details. Whenever someone claims there is no warming, or no human caused warming, there's always questions by the other side about who funded the research.
So now we have someone asking who funded the research that said warming is happening. Is this so unfair? Full disclosure of funding for ANY research should be mandatory.
Along with that, the research itself should receive the most scrutiny. Too often research is dismissed because of the funding source. Well, maybe, just maybe, someone funds research because they are actually right, and wish to prove a point before vast policy decisions get made based on myth and lies.
In the end, the problem is too much politics and ideology in the sciences.
On the other hand, according to a friend in Texas, Barton is a bit of a tube steak.
Texans Will Flee Texas Following Global Warming ?? (Score:4, Funny)
But wait! No one has considered what could be the worst of all possible outcomes from global warming:
TEXANS WILL BE FORCED TO LEAVE TEXAS
When the sh*t really hits the fan, when confonted with regular daily temperatures in the 140 degree range, we will be faced with a massive northern migration of Texans, such as this Joe Barton cracker, throughout the greater continental United States.
Good God, we must to stop global warming now! If we can just make people aware of the dire consequences of having large numbers of Texans living outside of Texas, then surely everyone will come to their senses and start solving this problem.
reps (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Corruption Certain, Only Question is Extent (Score:3, Informative)
There is, to my knowledge (and I am a professional in the field, yes) no such computation. There were a couple of conceptual models bandied about in the 90s, but they didn't pass observational tests, and no one has been able to make them wo
Re:Oh, it was that study ... Good (Score:3, Informative)
This study basically claimed that there was no such thing as the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age.
No, it claimed that thr MWP and LIA were not periods of GLOBAL temperature change - i.e. changes in European temperatures were balanced elsewhere on the globe. This makes the rest of your post pretty misinformed.