Anybody paying any attention to the world of science, particularly where it meets the world of politics, will not have failed to notice the disclosures and scandal revolving around the Hadley CRU, dumped data, scandalous emails, and all the rest. It's abominable. It's really brought to the fore the question of ethics in science. In short, here we had people willing to scuttle the entire world economy on the basis of a pet theory for which they had rigged the numbers.

This is ridiculous, and further disclosures now show that they have dumped the original data, so that no other scientist can go back and re-check the original numbers, nor even evaluate the methods by which those numbers were mangled.

In short, the whole thing has turned into an unverified hodge-podge.

Combined with Dr. James Hansen's ridiculous rigging of numbers last year, and what you get is a sense that the scientific world, at least that segment of it looking at 'climate change', is overrun with agenda-driven zealots who wish to serve a political agenda, whilst having the popular political and economic agenda serving them.

In earlier times on this site, I had long sometimes heated skirmishes with a few members of the scientific community, and I insisted, much to their angst and general consternation, that some scientists are unethical, and would pursue any end that furthered their personal scientific agenda even at the expense of the globe.

I feel, I must admit, somewhat vindicated in my argument, and while having no intention of casting aspersions on scientists working at the LHC, I think it is fair to say that science must clean up its own house. There should be a solid purge of the sorts of unethical practices now so clearly highlighted in the entire climate change boondoggle.

I said then, and I repeat it now, that in any endeavor of such bureaucratic mass, it is inevitable that the mass begins to serve itself rather than the end for which it was first established. Clearly, that is part of what went wrong in the whole Hadley CRU scandal, a scandal that clearly extends outward through the entire scientific community in many sad ways.

I am here now, posting this, because I see today where yet another lawsuit has been put in the path of LHC operations. I think the purveyors of that suit, seeing the environment brewing in which science is generally taking a big fat black eye, are leaping at the opportunity with respect to attacking the LHC by general association, as in: "See, the so-called experts at Hadley CRU have been lying to us and fudging the numbers, and so now we have to wonder if the same isn't true of the folks at the LHC."

This sort of scandal is a death-knell for science, and it is sad and disappointing in every conceivable way. Scientists wonder why there is sometimes a kind of vague distrust of their profession, and I think this incident goes a long, long way in making the source of the distrust clear: Scientists are humans, with all the same virtues and vices as the rest of us. They are vulnerable to all the same unpleasant motives as any of us. They are of course capable of heroic and grand behavior, just like the rest of us. Yet this incident, and now a similar scandal brewing in New Zealand, urge the rest of us to caution.

I hope, quite sincerely, that this latest black eye for science is not used unjustly to tar and feather the lot, but I also call on science, all of science, to take a moment to evaluate their own ethics and their own processes. Are they eligible for the same sorts of failures?

It's time that what remains of the reputable science community steps in and cleans this mess up. Phil Jones and his band of climate fear-mongers have made quite a mess, and it's time for those scientists, assuredly most all of them, to step up and say "enough," and to insist that this mess be cleaned up immediately.

I surely hope those scientists of good will, who occasionally visit this site, will understand how such incidents, while not in their particular field, ravage the credibility of all science, and therefore act accordingly in pursuit of cleaning this up.

Here's hoping!!!

Mark