There is so little about climategate that relates to the science it really makes deniers look desperate.

I haven’t read the emails, although I may yet, but the concerns about suppression of publications are valid. The scientific process depends on peer review and open discussion. To say that the attempt to block publication in journals is not an attempt to suppress information, as the article does, seems inaccurate.

I’m guessing the reason the scientists don’t want those studies published in the journals is because they don’t want those studies to have the validity of the journal’s credibility behind the studies. This credibility associated with publication is as much content as the content of the studies. It provides validity on a brand-name basis.

Journals have impact factors (an actual number based on citations), and the scientists in the emails also discussed manipulating these, through not citing the journals, to drive the journals’ impact factors lowers. The replacement of denier-sympathetic editors is likewise an attempt to suppress debate, not resolve debate.

Scientists should seek to resolve debate. Not suppress it.

Publication bias DOES exist in the scientific community, and should largely be seen as a tampering with the structures of science on which we depend. Science doesn’t always have the right answer at any one moment, but the procedures of science are designed to provide it over time in an open environment.

There is no evidence that the scientists succeeded in these manipulations, but we should still acknowledge that such actions would not be correct.

(commence downvoting in 3…2…)