McFreedom

You may have read a year ago about the controversy surrounding the global warming "hockey stick" graph. This graph purports to show the "temperature anomaly" from about 1100 AD to the present, with a sharp spike in the past hundred years. This clearly shows sudden global warming, presumably from man's polluting activities:

It's the product of one Dr. Mann, climatologist at the University of Virginia. Its production was no doubt a complex enterprise, but it was peer-reviewed and published in Nature, so it clearly isn't just the work of a lone crackpot. As we read two Decembers ago, a nonscientist (i.e., someone who isn't employed by a Univeristy) questioned Dr. Mann's methods. He'd been trying to get at the original data, and trying to reproduce the Doctor's results. Dr. Mann, while initially cooperative, had stopped helping not far into the enterprise.

Unfortunately, I didn't pay much more attention. The math both of these gentlemen were slinging around was far more than I was willing to devote the time necessary to understand (if I'm capable of understanding it at all). It was a classic case where one person says one thing, another says something else, and the layman has no way to choose between competing claims.

In these cases, my tendency is to side with the scientist. At least 90% of the people who attack mainstream science are, after all, wrong. I've spent time debating evolution with creationists and I can certainly attest that there are a lot of people out there who think they know something about a field while really just not getting it. I thought Dr. Mann's critic - Mr. McIntyre - had what seemed like interesting points, but, let's face it, Dr. Mann is peer-reviewed and Mr. McIntyre isn't. That's not a guarantee of rightness, but it's a good rule of thumb for following disciplines you don't personally understand - relying on the professionalism of those in the discipline to root out those who are wrong. That's how science works.

In the intervening time, they've set up dueling websites to explain their positions. Dr. Mann's is at RealClimate, Mr. McIntyre's is at Climate Audit. I know of these new developments because the Wall Street Journal had a front-page article (sadly, subscription only) this morning on the topic. It's lengthy, and mostly provides an overview of the controversy, but makes no assertions about who is right. I thus read most of it, thinking, "it'll be really interesting to see who's right here," because there just isn't enough information for a layman to make a decision. We just have to wait for the people who understand this stuff to come to a consensus.

Then, I got to the paragraph describing Mr. McIntyre's continuing relationship with Dr. Mann:

Mr. McIntyre thinks there are more errors but says his audit is limited because he still doesn't know the exact computer code Dr. Mann used to generate the graph. Dr. Mann refuses to release it. "Giving them the algorithm would be giving in to the intimidation tactics that these people are engaged in," he says.

What!? Dr. Mann, you lose. "My critics are intimidating me and I refuse to release my methodology" is never the refuge of good science. If Dr. Mann refuses to make public the way he makes his graphs, his graphs should be rejected out of hand by the scientific community until they're reproducible. In science, the way you shut people up is by proving them wrong, not by withholding your method so that they can't reproduce your results. Frankly, it calls into question not just Dr. Mann but the entire field of climate research that he can say this in public and not be hounded until he releases his methodology. This should increase our skepticism not just of Dr. Mann but any expert in the field that doesn't call for him to release his data.

As of now, I'm no longer predisposed to think Dr. Mann correct. He's not behaving like a scientist and does not deserve the benefit of the doubt I'd been giving him under the assumption that he was working out in the open. Kudos to Mr. McIntyre for continuing his fight. Even if he's wrong, we shouldn't be making society-reworking changes based upon secret research methodologies. Dr. Mann should open-source his product and let the sun shine in.