The Proper Way To Argue With Heretics

Climate scientist Judith Curry has a few words to say about scientific integrity as it relates to climate science given the recent revelations of Climategate.

At the heart of this issue is how climate researchers deal with skeptics. I have served my time in the “trenches of the climate war” in the context of the debate on hurricanes and global warming. There is no question that there is a political noise machine in existence that feeds on research and statements from climate change skeptics. In grappling with this issue, I would argue that there are three strategies for dealing with skeptics:

And of course there really is only one way forward: open data, open methods.

Despite having doing the right thing as one of strategies, I find her attitude disturbing.

When you start a “reasoned debate” with “You are a bunch of a$%#*!&$ skeptics who will have to be dealt with.” You have poisoned the well. Add that as one more indictment. Along with corrupted data. Bad programming practices. Unwarranted adjustments. And hiding the decline.

And just to continue in the current vein – any one still pounding the AGW drum with Bad Methods and Bad Data unresolved is complicit in fraud.

An honest scientist would say: “we have nothing and until we have sorted this all out I have nothing further to say. And let me add that I may have nothing to say for years or decades.”

It will take a long time to sort this out. First release all the data and methods. Then we go over the papers of those involved in Climategate. If there are serious errors hash that out. Then go after every paper that cited the papers found to be in error. The other alternative is to start from scratch.

Cross Posted at Classical Values