Lessons about science from 'Climategate'
Scientists attached to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body charged with assessing the current state of science on global warming, have been quick to declare that the emails do not undermine the broad consensus on the significance of climate change. Nor do they invalidate calls for urgent action.
But such responses have, so far, made little impact on those determined to oppose calls for international action and lifestyle changes to tackle global warming.
There is a strong case now for reassessing how science is presented to the public and policymakers to counter the opposition. And there is no more important field for doing so than climate change as world leaders grapple with the issues at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark this week.
Unsurprisingly, Climategate is a hot topic — both privately and publicly — at the convention.
IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri, for example, emphasised that the broad results published by the East Anglia scientists have been confirmed by tens of thousands of independent climate researchers across the globe. Whatever 'unscientific' views or strategies are discussed in the emails, the resulting papers were rigorously peer reviewed before publication, he stressed.
But Mohammad Al-Sabban, the main negotiator in Copenhagen for Saudi Arabia — a country keen to maintain high oil consumption and long opposed to strong action against climate change — claimed the emails made it clear that "there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change".
This type of reaction has put the IPCC on the defensive, with its officials condemning publication of the emails as an illegal act intended to discredit the panel's work.
The alleged motivation is credible. It is no coincidence that the emails were released shortly before the Copenhagen meeting. Those responsible must be delighted with the extent to which Climategate has boosted opposition to any agreement on firm action.
But dismissing the emails on the grounds that they were obtained illegally misses the important point that they show science to be a more human process than is usually portrayed.
The emails reveal that the scientists who wrote them were frustrated by the attacks of critics and, like Mendel, were anxious to sharpen the strength of their conclusions. Few would challenge the idea that many scientists feel keen to highlight their findings; the researchers' crime seems to have been to express them in print.
To gain public trust, scientists are coming under increasing pressure to be open about how they achieve their results.
However, if researchers are to be more transparent and avoid accusations of tampering with data as being unscientific, the public must also accept how science is actually practised — a point highlighted by researchers Mike Hulme and Jerome Ravetz in a recent BBC commentary.
To achieve this, scientists must do more to present a human face when explaining their processes and practices instead of hiding behind the claim that science is entirely objective.