Just finished reading Feynman's classic talk on Cargo-Cult Science. It seems to me that the information and data hiding that has plagued global warming "science" out of purely financial and personal interest is an absolutely perfect fit for what Feynman calls "Cargo-Cult Science."
Here's a few excerpts:
... if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid - not only what you think is right about it...
Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can - if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong - to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it...
In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another...
We've learned from experience that the truth will out. Other experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right. Nature's phenomena will agree or they'll disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven't tried to be very careful in this kind of work.
And it's this type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the research in Cargo Cult Science...
And his parting words:
I wish to you... the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain this kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom.
Reading his talk has actually made me feel sad for the global warming scientists. They have fooled themselves into believing that hiding the measurement data is a good idea. They were probably originally motivated by greed (for nice government funds) and/or personal recognition (published papers and Nobel "Prizes"), so they established complete control over all the measured data.
However, they are now trapped in their own webs of deceit; as more and more scientists are turning against their cargo cult practices, they are starting to feel desparate. When the truth comes out (and the actual data is finally published), they'll lose their entire careers, so it's only natural for them to continue the ruse and delay the inevitable.
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