I see the term “Piltdown Man” being raised in relation to the leak of information from the East Anglia AGW proponents’ web servers. I agree that what’s been revealed thus far strongly suggests a similar hoax, and that the revelation similarly damages the reputation of science. It is a violation of a social contract. There is at least one gargantuan difference, however.
The Piltdown hoax may have been intended to increase the fame and fortune of the perpetrators, but unlike the AGW puffery was not concocted in order to force the redirection of trillions of dollars and the reorganization of human society.
The strategy of AGW proponents has been to challenge the credentials, ethics and integrity of their critics – in synergy with with a continuing refusal to submit AGW evidence to scrutiny. AGW proponents regularly call skeptics “deniers” in order to connect them with those who deny the Holocaust; certainly suggesting that the “deniers” are willing to let millions die to defend not just the indefensible, but evil.
AGW proponents practiced a coordinated ad hominem effort to suppress debate. They pushed to define allowable debate as about integrity, not science. They are hoist on their own petard. These East Anglia narcissists and their fellow travelers put their own theories before their Muse, and serious doubt has now been cast on their character for:
- manipulating data – directly and through compromised computer programming
- subverting the peer review process – both to deny their opponents access to any debate and to denigrate them for lacking such access
- refusing to comply with Freedom of Information requests for the data and algorithms they used, and conspiring to delete material covered under such requests
Today’s worthwhile read on this topic:
ClimateGate: The Fix is In
PS – Phil Jones comment, in the above link, that “the warmest year currently on record, [is] 1998!” is known to be untrue. He was repeting an error by NASA’s James Hansen that has since been admitted. See James Hansen.