From reading the letter, it appears that this is an attempt at using burdensome requests to prevent the researchers from doing any more research. Either that or there is an assumption (perhaps correctly) that these reearchers have a large enough staff to handle these requests easily.

Additionally, as far as I know, most researchers do not share their exact computer code, although I think it’s great when researchers do.

On the other hand, the letter (at least to Dr. Mann – I didn’t read all of the letters) does raise some conflict of interest questions that do deserve to be addressed.

In your interpretation that this request may be an attempt to create a burden which prevents further research you missed a detail: the deadline. The request was for an answer within two weeks. Even if all the questions require full-time effort during that time, doesn’t it seem that an attempt to stop research should have an effect lasting longer than two weeks?

I’m obviously biased and that influenced my interpretation of these letters. However, I still feel that the motives behind these letters are malicious. Perhaps it’s as simple as a politician attempting to grandstand to his constituency.

I’m a math guy, we implement the scientific method. It’s understood, until you can defend your proof against all comers, it’s not a proof. Consensus isn’t proof or science, it’s just rewarding when it comes from your opponents and there are numerous cases of it in the math world. There are cases in physics and other sciences too. Further there are numerous cases of proof failing to stand up, other works coming from the defending proofs and flawed proofs being corrected during defense. It’s science. It can suck but it’s not personal, it’s about science, you are either correct or you are not.

While I don’t think that this inquery is completely on the up and up, I think that the suggestion that defending the research is taking away from new research is worse. If it cannot be defended, then they shouldn’t waste their time on further research. It’s not valid until it has been defended, regardless of consensus. There are numerous examples of consensus around flawed ideas through out history.

This letter back peddles, says that their work isn’t essential but simply an illustration of consensus. Now, just being critical, I’m inclined to ask what was it that was to be proven? What were the assumptions and then when does the data suggest? Was it proven what was intended? The resistence makes me think that it’s not defendable or the assumptions far out weigh the conclusions. I’m not in favor of intimidation but the response to the inquery is a little shocking, it’s protectionist. If the science is good then it should withstand this, they should even welcome this as a chance to get it out to a broader audience and silence their detractors, it will be stronger. Even is it is weak science that cannot be defended, this potentially sets the stage and will establish the areas of weakness for future research rather than just continuing to build upon weak ideas.

It may not be sexy but if it’s sound, then it will stand up to political cross examination. If it’s science then it’s science, if it’s riddled with weak assumptions and lacking evidence then it should be thrown out or fixed.

I don’t think that letter back pedals as much as it disputes the original implied claim that these 3 scientists are the reason that the current scientific position on global warming is where it is. Clearly that (strongly implied) claim is bizarre, at best. I enjoyed reading the letters from the 3 scientists themselves as they very eloquently explained their position without being unnecessarily condescending.

Math has proofs: things we know without a doubt that are true. There’s no such thing in the rest of science; rather confidence in our understanding of nature rests on an interconnected web of evidence; each research paper is a piece of this, but none can stand alone as providing “proof”.

Unfortunately there are probably a lot of people who confuse mathematical proof with the way normal science works. Good mathematics is critically important to science of course – it provides the logical foundation of any theory to explain the world. But the actual translation between the elements of a mathematical model of the world and reality is always subject to uncertainty, and just as many mathematical proofs are very difficult for a non-expert to follow, the confidence of the experienced scientist in those interconnections can be hard for the non-expert to understand.

On the subject of distracting from real science – there are analogies in mathematics too. Prominent mathematicians frequently receive “proofs” of things (like the trisecting angles problem) that are well-known by mathematicians to be impossible; nevertheless it can take a lot of effort to find the flaws. The paper by the non-climate-scientists in this case that’s causing the scientists to be questioned is a similar case, though not quite as extreme, and the scientists in question HAVE put a lot of effort into showing why they were wrong. But they didn’t expect to have to continue that effort in front of a congressional committee.

The scientists explained some things, but it seems odd that the source code does not match the data and although the program calculated R2 statistics they were not published along with an explanation of why they were not important so others would learn from their wisdom.