Let me first say that my goal in writing this is neither to support nor refute global warming.
I am not trying to push a pro-con global warming agenda, and I am not interested in trying to prove whether it is man-made or natural. Rather, I intend to use global warming as a case study and show how, through the global-warming issue, science has become convoluted, controversial, confusing and, ultimately, bastardized.
My aim is to encourage scientists and those concerned about the world (most specifically current students) to produce good science and encourage others to produce good science.
As a whole, science has been hurt by the global-warming issue, because when society sees the faults in a minority of scientists, they arrive at the conclusion that all scientists (and thus all science) could be equally flawed. I am not picking out global warming scientists as a homogenous organization, but instead picking one small group that I fault.
The University of East Anglia issue is a chief example.
In November 2009, thousands of e-mails and documents were hacked and released on the Internet. These documents concerned matters that took place within UEA’s Climate Research Unit (CRU). They covered topics from mundane chit-chat to questionable actions. The specific questionable actions included: destruction of data, how to avoid Freedom of Information requests, suppression of other scientists in the scientific community, and ways of manipulating data in order to make it return specific results.
Any good scientist understands that good data is fundamental to science. Without data, science can go nowhere.
The leaked documents painted a picture of UEA scientists avoiding Freedom of Information requests and, if need be, resorting to data destruction rather than allowing other scientists to see it.
UEA scientists did this to avoid allowing other scientists to view UEA’s data and peer review its scientific methods.
Other questionable actions also included UEA scientists conversing about how to discredit scientists who they disagreed with and discussion of excluding anti-global warming articles from specific scientific journals. Finally, the leaked documents showed how certain UEA scientists cherry-picked data from different sources in order to obtain desired results.
For example, when the temperature data from one set of records appeared to contradict their hypothesis, they mixed in data from another set of records that closely resembled their preconceived notions of what the data should look like.
In an attempt to prove global warming, these scientists have put a stumbling block in the path of good science. The UEA scientists made fundamental operating mistakes.
The first problem within UEA is the lack of transparency within the CRU. The ideal goal of science should be to search for refutability within itself and its own ideas. Science operates best by offering an idea that is initially deemed true.
This idea is true only until it can be refuted.
Once that idea is refuted, then a new idea can take its place and must stand up to testing until it also can be refuted and replaced by a newer idea. This process functions best when other scientists are able to peer review data and ideas.
Collaboration furthers science.
Thus, through lack of transparency and willingness to cooperate, UEA scientists negatively affect the idea that they are struggling to prove, and they hamper the scientific cycle.
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Through the UEA incident, skeptics have questioned global warming. That’s good because it continues the scientific cycle, but the problem is that scientific flaws should not be revealed by hacked e-mails and leaked documents.
By placing science in this opaque shroud of secrecy, UEA scientists have convoluted science’s nature. They have confused the public, and they work against the clarity that science is meant to offer.
Their actions are not un-scientific, but rather anti-scientific. Science should be based on hard facts and not controversial data. Instead of pursuing new ideas, these scientists have created an air of suspicion and debased science’s good name.
These issues are not specific to global warming.
Many other scientific groups are at fault for one or more of the problems. However, UEA is an example of what can go wrong when problems occur.
How can scientists create “good” science? Scientists need to be averse to politics and instead committed to humility, discovery and transparency.
There should be no politicking, but humility is necessary so scientists can admit when they’ve made mistakes.
Admitting mistakes allows scientists to consider and form new hypotheses. Scientists need to be committed to discovery and transparency in order to allow a scientific audience to view their ideas and reinforce or refute them.
For the sake of humanity, we should demand and expect better science. We need to stop trying to use science to prove ourselves correct, and instead, use science to become correct.
