“There is a lot of evidence that the activity often called science, and the scientists who practice this activity (as opposed to those few who have a monk-like dedication to the scientific method), are not trustworthy. Peer review is a bankrupt process, for example. It is lousy at detecting fraud but very good at suppressing innovative thought. Financial conflicts of interest are frequent and rarely disclosed. Scientists often fall into the trap of focusing on their next grant rather than what important questions need to be asked (including questioning their own assumptions and biases). The prejudices of the system are amplified in this way. Those who conform are rewarded with grants which inform the granters that this is a subject of great interest.
“The proof of this is that there have been many scientific errors that have survived for decades – Piltdown Man, Radical Mastectomy, (opposition to) continental drift, irradiation of the thymus, the germ theories of scurvy, pellagra and SMON. We, like all generations before us, falsely believe that all false beliefs lie in the past.
“The ClimateGate scandal illustrated this problem well. Without access to data scientists cannot fully evaluate the work of others. Phil Jones, the head of the CRU, at the center of this scandal, said, Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?” That is exactly why the data should be released. If it can pass scrutiny from a skeptical, critical, cynical scientist then our confidence in the data and interpretations drawn from it will be much higher. It is a waste of time to give data to a scientist whose intention is to prove that previous interpretations are correct.”