One last attempt then. Peter, the companies I work for generally are privately owned corporations, and I provide a form of consultancy. They pay me for the work I do, and they, as a result, have a right to examine that work at whatever level of detail is necessary. If one of those companies was in fact, say, a government agency, then that agency, and by extension the executive branch of government, could examine my work if they chose. They could ask questions however, only with regard to the work that they had paid for, they have no rights to examine other work unless under specific legislation or as a, say, criminal investigation, which is an entirely different situation.

Are you suggesting that Michael Mann has the right, when taking money from the government, to produce results and yet to conceal from the funders how he arrived at those results ? If you do NOT believe that, then you must support the right of a qualified government agency (and Rep Barton’s committe is one such) to ask for the details of the research.

Frankly Peter, I don’t care about the state of M, B, or H’s underwear, although I reckon it must be under threat with the focus that is on them. However, if they produce their data, their methods, and their code, AND, people work through it and the result is just what they say (or close enough, anyone can make small mistakes), then contrary to your assertion, I for one would accept their conclusions and at least reconsider my position vis-a-vis AGW. As for the comment about fiddling, there is a simple and direct answer, release the data & code, now.

The problem is Peter, that I am at least capable of following the arguements made on this site. I don’t accept what Steve says uncritically, but it is striking to me that despite the enormous quantities of bile and bombast thrown at Steve’s work, there have been no substantive refutations of his main points. No one at Realclimate or elsewhere has successfully challenged the three key assertions: That the MBH method “mines” for “hockeysticks” in any kind of data (supported by Cubasch and von Storch); that the BCP records are NOT temperature proxies (original research, GBraybill & Idso 1993) and their inclusion is the primary cause of the hockeystick shape; and that the MBH reconstruction anyway lacks statistical significance to support its conclusions (where are their r2 statistics). None, and W&A (unpublished) undermines none of these either. If you think you can challenge any of the above, feel free to try, but as your posts are always data free, I doubt that even if you understand what any of them mean, that you can cogently consider what is involved.

Yep it would be nice to implement Google AdSense and make some serious money from this weblog rather than just getting a lousy check in the post from Exxon, but nooo Steve knows best…

Cheaper than implimenting Kyoto!

When the IPCC responds to the Barton inquiry we will have better idea about their reasoning. I predict the IPCC sees the writing on the wall and will junp out ahead of the problem by appointing a blue ribbon commission to study the issue and issue a report. The commission will conclude that Mann’s numbers were wrong but it was an honest mistake. The report will add that the controversy should serve as an example of why much more research must be undertaken and the budget for climate science should be doubled immediately. The NY Times will then headline the report on their frontpage above the fold, “Future in doubt unless climate science budget doubled”.

I don’t think so

Do you think that MBH decided that they could get away without R2. Thinking, we have spend X years and X money to get this far, the statistics are not 100% but they are near enough. Perhaps also feeling confident that the hockey stick was correct and others would also find it, so not being too concerned if the bent the data a bit? If so, then that is even more of an embarrassment for them than the rush to publish and got it wrong theory. No wonder they are worried.

Do you have any inkling whether Mann is being pressured not to give in by the IPCC because the TAR rests so strongly on that piece of work?