[ale] Disappointed in the recent climate research hack

[Jim Kinney]

I have a bit of insight into the research data issue (brother-in-law
works in the field that had the data loss):

The data when first generated/collected is held in an embargo for a
period of time. This time period varies but is often for 6 months to
one year. This is done to allow time for the research team who did the
work to collect it to also do the work to to write it up and present
it. It's pretty much a "geek cred" thing. It also allows time to do a
proper analysis to make sure that the data is not flawed in some way
_before_ it's made public.

During the embargo time, the researches with access to the data are
not allowed to discuss the initial findings or disperse data copies.

Once the embargo period is over, the data is made fully available
along with the research findings and all the supporting papers.

Science does not (and probably should not) work on a release early,
release often process.

So the unauthorized data access was of embargo'ed data. Without having
the details of the collection methodology, it is not possible to draw
any valid conclusions from. That's why the researchers spend so long
to do the writeups. They have to explain why certain data is not valid
(hard) and other data is valid (very hard) and why their conclusion is
what it is (extremely hard).

The schmuck who broke in had an agenda. He (most likely "he") has an
axe to grind and no understanding of the research process or why it is
done the way it is. So now that incomplete data set will be "outed"
and be used to "justify" his cause. It will have little impact on the
actual research but will likely have great influence on the
scientifically illiterate congress critters.


On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 1:25 PM, Greg Freemyer <greg.freemyer at gmail.com> wrote:
> All,
>
> Not sure everyone knows but a major climate research center was hacked
> recently and in addition to 1000 emails or so, some of their source
> code was published!
>
> In this age of OPEN research and government funding, why wasn't that
> code OPEN in the first place?
>
> I don't care which side of the Global Warming debate you sit on, we
> should all feel it is to important to have the modeling code be
> published under a GPL (or similar license) and available for peer
> review.
>
> If one of you knows of the "best' license for this kind of use I want
> to contact my senator and congressman and tell them we need
> legislation that all federally funded climate change research should
> have both the data and the software models released to the public!
>
> I encourage all OSS advocates to do the same.  This seems like an
> issue the requires a OSS philosophy more that any other I can think
> of.
>
> After all, if the government thinks climate change is worth
> implementing cap and trade over, then it is important enough to let
> the public know how the models work.
>
> Thanks
> Greg
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>



-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
Actively in pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness