A curious article in the NY Times concerning hacked email messages among climate scientists. The email server that was hacked is located at the University of East Anglia (a British university) and the emails apparently reveal discussion among a number of American and British climate researchers on what seems to be a closed mailing list (in contrast, TiPS is publicly available on the mail archive site). See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/science/earth/21climate.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
The main point of the article can be summarized with the phrase "scientists behaving badly" as the climate researchers badmouth global warming deniers/"skeptics" and appear to engage in some potentially questionable activities. The hacker(s) apparently released the email to show the "bad faith" which proponents of global warming have and the rudeness/contempt they have for their opponents. What initially caught my attention to this article is a "Quote of the Day" in the NY Times news summary email: |- QUOTATION OF THE DAY - | |"Science doesn't work because we're all nice. Newton may have |been an ass, but the theory of gravity still works." |- GAVIN A. SCHMIDT, a NASA climatologist whose e-mail |messages were hacked by global warming skeptics, contending the |stolen data proves little except that scientists are human. Another statement at the end of the article also was noteworthy: |Spencer R. Weart, a physicist and historian who is charting the |course of research on global warming, said the hacked material |would serve as “great material for historians.” This made me wonder about how discussions on other email lists, such as TiPS, might be reviewed by historians and sociologists of science and teaching. Does one ever think that their posts to TiPS or elsewhere might become someone else's data? -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
