Posted by
BLOGASSAULT on Saturday, January 09, 2010 1:23:12 PM
In the article, writer Michael Walsh, breaks down the story and gets to the real point: peer review. I have posted many times on this issue and how this was the issue that most disturbed me. But Walsh brings the point out clear and precise by highlighting a new and important process that is catching fire.
Not entirely the “death of global warming” as many have claimed – what happened with Climategate is much more nuanced and exponentially more interesting than the headlines convey. What was triggered at this blog was the death of unconditional trust in the scientific peer review process, and the maturing of a new movement – that of peer-to-peer review.
This development may horrify the old guard, but peer-to-peer review was just what forced the release of the Climategate files – and as a consequence revealed the uncertainty of the science and the co-opting of the process that legitimizes global warming research. It was a collective of climate blogs, centered on the work of Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, which applied the pressure. With moderators and blog commenters that include engineers, PhDs, statistics whizzes, mathematic experts, software developers, and weather specialists – the label flat-earthers, as many of their opponents have attempted to brand them, seems as fitting as tagging Lady Gaga with the label demure.
This peer-to-peer review network is the group that applied the pressure and then helped authenticate and proliferate the story.
Peer-to-peer review will hopefully be the new process in all climate work. But it should not stop there. This should be the standard for all scientific work, especially those that will influence public matters.
Will it happen? Doubtful. The govenment is shoving a health care bill that no one wants down our throats. So, can we hope for a new process for sciencitfic research out of our gevernment? As I said...doubtful.