Mar
How to avoid your own Climategate scandal
What are the lessons of Climategate? More honesty and transparency in science? Not according to attorney Alan Nelson in the Guardian UK today. To him, the lesson is how not to get caught next time.
So how do universities and academics ensure that their correspondence does not become the “smoking gun” that turns a simple FoI request into an international scandal?
It is not inconceivable that where a university is working on some research that has a commercial sponsor, pressure could be exerted on researchers to reach a certain conclusion, or to portray the results in a way that would be helpful to the sponsor. Where that is the case, do you really want email correspondence going on record about the way in which the results are portrayed? Careful consideration needs to be given to the tone of any email exchange, so the university's position is clear. The best advice is: think twice before you hit the send button.
Remember, informal email discussions that you have with a close colleague are no longer private and could be disclosed in the future. Will the possibly uninformed reader who asked for the emails be aware of the context in which they were written? Do you really want people to know the nicknames you have given to some of your collaborators?
For sensitive information that you would not want in the public domain, rather than putting it in email or in a document, it may be better to discuss it face-to-face or on the phone.
Careful consideration should also be given to how long emails are saved and when they are deleted. In some fields of work, there will be regulatory reasons for keeping emails (clinical work, for example) but do they all need to be retained and archived? A periodic review should be performed to ensure that, wherever possible and lawful, emails that could be that smoking gun are deleted.
When making handwritten notes or comments on documents, staff need to be aware that those scribbles could enter the public domain in response to a FoI request. Do you really want someone to see your exclamations of “Idiot!!!” or “Rubbish!!!” on a note? Probably not, so take care – and shred your notes once they have served their useful purpose. Imagine your embarrassment when comments about how doddery your head of department is, or how pompous your vice-chancellor is, or how adorable he or she is, come out in the open.
Another thing to consider is the evolution of a document from first draft to final agreed version. No doubt, along the way there will have been discussions that may mean the final version is very different from the first draft. Is it helpful to retain every draft and set of comments? What message do they give to the uninformed reader with a particular agenda?
Ah, those brilliant lawyers, always looking out for our best interest.
Full story: The Guardian
Possibly related posts:
- BREAKING! Penn State finds Michael Mann innocent of suppressing or falsifying data
- United Nations backtracks on Climategate email scandal, will not investigate
- UK Freedom of Information Act “flaw” prohibits prosecution in Climategate scandal
- Climategate: U.S. Lawyers to the rescue!
- Climategate II: The coverup!
Sounds like great advice to assure your words are not taken out of context and twisted by fringe ideologues.
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
“[Climategate] has done for the climate change debate what the Pentagon Papers did for the Vietnam war debate 40 years ago–changed the narrative decisively.” 31,000 US scientists think it’s a crock – so now it’s just you Ed, Al Gore, Obama, Gordon Brown and a few other Druids. Have you ever considered taking up Morris Dancing Ed?
Always making things more complicated than they need to… which is the reason the problems exist.
Graham, Graham, Graham:
So gullible. You fell for the Petition Project scam. You can be come an instant PhD by filling our their form, conveniently at http://www.petitionproject.org/instructions_for_signing_petition.php,
check the PhD box and you’re in. You don’t even have to say what fictitious school you attended. I did it. I didn’t think I could get away with Ronald MacDonald, so I entered “Robert MacDonald.”
Simple check: pick 10 “signers” at random and Google them. Bet they each have one hit: the Petition Project page.
Terrific, professional debunking of the history of this at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py2XVILHUjQ
Did you know the last one of these this crowd did were “scientists” who said there was no scientific evidence that smoking was harmful.
Okay so it’s using the same basis as the IPCC who double counted and deleted contrary views from their report, yet still ocunted them as having peer reviewed grey literature. You can’t peer review grey literature.
If it were all made up it would still only leave it on a par with the IPCC fantasy report. I must have posted about 10 negative global warming articles in two days and the whole mess is sliding into the trash by its own volition. The only bit still alive is the money go round.
Graham:
Morris dancing? I suspect you’d be far more suited to it than I given your obsession with spinning.
I totally agree with Mr Nelson regarding the informal stuff.
Now, can he tell me how it applies to the climategate emails, of which most, if not all, were directly related to their activities in the CRU etc, and directly to their publicly paid professions?
I’m sure the Team will be more careful about what they say in their professional capacities now, although with Phil Jones lately that’s been hard to tell.
Although the climategate emails did contain offhand comments regarding people they liked and disliked, these comments were not by far the most embarrassing part.
Comments about deliberately manipulating the peer review process are where the real embarrassment comes in. Comments like “cut the last few points off the filtered curve before I give the talk” give the impression of deliberate misrepresentation.
Keith Briffa keeps trying to tell the embarrassing truth like this:
And Mann gets up and stomps Keith down every time. Make sure the truth never comes out… but it has come out now.
Sounds like Alan Nelson is teaching people how to destroy evidence.