to: Alun Anderson, former editor-in-chief, New Scientist and author of: After The Ice: Life, Death and Politics in the New Arctic .Hello Mr. Anderson, saw your brilliant response to the Climategate question in The Ecologist:
There is one wonderful project I mention in the book - the SEARCH programme for sea ice in which every year scientists say at the beginning of the year how much sea ice they think will be left at the end of the summer. Month by month they revise their predictions, they explain why they're revising them.
All the discussion is on a website open to the public - transparent, how scientists think, when they get things wrong, how they deal with error. That's the way to go and not more and more exchanges of emails between people who think they're battling the world. I think that's completely wrong.
and thought you might be interested in a similar means of innovating science process somewhere between the Climate Collaboratorium and iPhone App: Science vs Scepticism:
Climate Change: Get Smarter: Turbocharging Democracy Online
Thanks for your insight, going to get your book and thanks for your time,
Bill, Gibsons, BC
1 comments:
Thanks Bill. Glad you picked up on that comment about transparency in science which I also briefly mention in the book. I'll look at the sources you mention. THANK YOU. My worry is that an investigation of "climategate" and of the IPCC will all pass without asking more fudnamental questions about the open-ness of science. There are other disciplines in science (notably physics community)that are more willing to share and discuss as theri work develops: the curse of the "citation and impact factor" way of assessing climate and biological scientists means that secrecy and competitiveness that is not in the wider public interest is encouraged. Best, Alun
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