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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Nigelj (talk | contribs) at 21:37, 14 February 2010 (→Code and documentation broken: here's the prob). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Source contributions

This page is split from Climatic Research Unit hacking incident, incorporating text from 28 January 2010 updated in certain sections to 14-53, 3 February 2010, before the "documents" section of that article was drastically reduced. . dave souza, talk 13:30, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Clarification: the parent article was drastically shortened in Hipocrite's edit of 6 February which omitted significant details and sources. After this sub-article was created, Hipocrite shortened the main article section to one brief paragraph per summary style. The latter change was subsequently largely reverted, with relatively minor differences from the 6 February version. See also Talk:Climatic Research Unit hacking incident#Discussion of splitting article. . dave souza, talk 13:26, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Speedy

I'm going to ask that this article be speedied, as it mostly duplicates a section of the parent article that is being revert-warred back in. Sorry. Hipocrite (talk) 20:20, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

It has a lot more worthwhile information that was removed in your earlier bold trimming, and as such stands as a self-sustained detailed article which is useful in documenting this issue. Object, no good case for speedy. . . dave souza, talk 20:29, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

A10. Recently created article that duplicates an existing topic. This article is completely covered by the parent article. Hipocrite (talk) 20:30, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The parent article still includes a concise summary of this larger article. The way forward is to agree a better summary on the main article. . . dave souza, talk 20:36, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Note that A10 only applies to a new article that "does not expand upon, detail or improve information within any existing article(s) on the subject, and where the title is not a plausible redirect. This does not include split pages or any article that expands or reorganizes an existing one or that contains referenced, mergeable material." Splits with more info are ok. . . dave souza, talk 20:42, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Surely that's right - keep duplication out of the parent article, and allow this one to build, as more *notable* detail about specific documents comes out (there will likely be plenty of that when the inquiries begin to report) --Nigelj (talk) 20:45, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't be silly, there is no duplication here. The CRU hacking incident page does not have any of the emails or any of the discussion of them. This page covers a related but separate topic. --Jfraatz

Quick question. If we were to delete this page I would like to ask all those in favor of doing so, which page they would prefer having the emails displayed on? I mean they obviously have to go somewhere. It would be silly to delete substantial stuff like this from a comprehensive encyclopedia. --Jfraatz —Preceding undated comment added 21:45, 13 February 2010 (UTC).

Removed material

I have just removed the following material from the 'Code and documentation' section. First it is far too quote-heavy, but secondly and more importantly it is irrelevant to the code obtained from CRU. The Guardian author is quoting results from a paper by Les Hatton published in 1997. This is not about this code in particular, but code in general. If the contributor of this material would like to start an article like Computer programming in scientific research, then this might be relevant there, but here it is confusing, as this distinction is not explicit, and it is undue WP:WEIGHT --Nigelj (talk) 11:23, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

<snip>

The Guardian has Darrel Ince commenting on programming code used in science, both commercial origin and in-house. His analysis is scathing.

" that interface inconsistencies between software modules which pass data from one part of a program to another occurred at the rate of one in every seven interfaces on average in the programming language Fortran, and one in every 37 interfaces in the language C. This is hugely worrying when you realise that just one error — just one — will usually invalidate a computer program. What he also discovered, even more worryingly, is that the accuracy of results declined from six significant figures to one significant figure during the running of programs.

Hatton and other researchers' work indicates that scientific software is often of poor quality. What is staggering about the research that has been done is that it examines commercial scientific software – produced by software engineers who have to undergo a regime of thorough testing, quality assurance and a change control discipline known as configuration management.

By contrast scientific software developed in our universities and research institutes is often produced by scientists with no training in software engineering and with no quality mechanisms in place. Computer code is also at the heart of a scientific issue. One of the key features of science is deniability: if you erect a theory and someone produces evidence that it is wrong, then it falls. This is how science works: by openness, by publishing minute details of an experiment, some mathematical equations or a simulation; by doing this you embrace deniability. This does not seem to have happened in climate research. Many researchers have refused to release their computer programs — even though they are still in existence and not subject to commercial agreements. An example is Professor Mann's initial refusal to give up the code that was used to construct the 1999 "hockey stick" model that demonstrated that human-made global warming is a unique artefact of the last few decades. (He did finally release it in 2005.)"

His bottom line is:

"So, if you are publishing research articles that use computer programs, if you want to claim that you are engaging in science, the programs are in your possession and you will not release them then I would not regard you as a scientist; I would also regard any papers based on the software as null and void.

I find it sobering to realise that a slip of a keyboard could create an error in programs that will be used to make financial decisions which involve billions of pounds and, moreover, that the probability of such errors is quite high. But of course the algorithms (known as Gaussian copula functions) that the banks used to assume that they could create risk-free bonds from sub-prime loans has now been published (http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-03/wp_quant?currentPage=all). That was pretty expensive. Climate change is expensive too. We really do need to be sure that we're not getting any of our sums wrong - whether too big or small - there as well."] Darrel Ince is professor of computing at the Open University.

</snip>

Last sentence of the code section

"Similarly, the quality of code he uses to put together problems for physics undergraduates does not reflect the quality of results from the Large Hadron Collider."

This is poorly worded. Similar to what? Also since Meyer's is criticizing Graham-Cummings in the previous sentence, I mistook the "he" as a reference to GC and not to Meyers. Had to read through the ref to find the quote, which is a nonsequitor anyway. There is no RS evidence that the code was for educational purposes. JPatterson (talk) 17:25, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

See WP:TPG# re using ppl's names in headings. I think that since Myles Allen is the subject of the previous sentence, and he is the subject of this, its meaning is clear. As you say, the words here are almost all in the ref, so the statement is reliably sourced (and attributed) to its author. Similarly refers to the fact that we are talking in this sentence about physics undergrad teaching vs LHC results rather than (possible) climate science teaching vs the HadCRUT temperature record. Originally I had 'By analogy' in that place before changing it just before committing it to the page. Feel free to change it to that if you think it will be clearer. Any more, and I'd wonder what other readers think. --Nigelj (talk) 19:18, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the bad form, I wasn't aware it was a no-no. I'm afraid your explanation didn't help though. "Similarly" would normally be used to add a related by slightly different point to the one made in the previous sentence. The point in the previous sentence is the contention that the code was not related to HadCrut. The point of the last sentence relates to the difference in code quality one might expect in different contexts. These tow points are in no way similar. My rule for "he, it, this etc." is when in doubt be explicit. BTW, I have self-imposed an extension of my main article topic ban to this spin-off so for another week I am unable to edit the article itself. JPatterson (talk) 19:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Code and documentation broken

This section remains as broken as it ever was. Who likes it, and do we need to go back through the whole why-it-is-broken argument all over again? William M. Connolley (talk) 11:28, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

We need something there. Personally I'm reasonably happy with the current form, but I know opinions vary. If I recall correctly most of the arguments about this are now stored in archived versions of a different talk page? Perhaps you could provide a link to these? Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 11:36, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I think it's probably broken, but at least it balances two published opinions and doesn't give undue weight to the issue. There does appear to be an issue here which needs a good secondary analysis aa a source. Maybe this will just act as a placeholder until the independent investigations are published. . . dave souza, talk 13:18, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

WMC: You say that the section is "broken". What's wrong with it? Please be specific. The last time I examined it, it was fine. Generalities don't help. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:11, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Some stuff has been put back in that I don't think belongs. The Wash Times article is really poor, none of it has to do with the code although there's an oblique reference to harry readme file. The source they quote (using quotes no less) is not even named. The other reference goes to a broken link. The last sentence in that paragraph is talking about data not code. I would suggest removing "Other investigations posted in various editorials and blogs have stated that the comments and readme files indicate that the temperature reconstructions hide and manipulate data to show a temperature increase and question the accuracy of the instrumental temperature record. In his CBS News blog, columnist Declan McCullagh stated that "East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit might have avoided this snafu by publicly disclosing as much as possible at every step of the way."". I also think "He commented that on the same basis the quality of code he put together for students could be used to discredit other research code." is a non sequitur ans should be removed. JPatterson (talk) 21:24, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) It's easy to see what is wrong with this section. It has been extensively discussed in various places. After the first sentence, which introduces the code, the rest of the first paragraph (6 lines on my current display) describes details of the code on the assumption that it is important software. The next paragraph roundly debunks that assumption as no one knows what the code analysed was written for. This paragraph is only 4 lines long and one and a half of those lines are given over to Newsnight's lame defence of their unfounded assumption. So we have 7.5 lines about a false assumption (that is actually completely non-notable now that we know that they never checked what the code is for) and only 2.5 lines on the reality, which is that you can't judge research code quality on the basis of two randomly chosen snippets of code of unknown purpose and provenance that you find on a research dept's email server. The latter point needs more emphasis and the former point should be expunged or reduced to a short mention just to state the erroneous assumption. --Nigelj (talk) 21:37, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

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