Comment on Peer review is f***ed up by RiHo08

There can be no “objective” peer-review in a politically intensive topic like climate science. There is just too much to loose by climate scientists; talk about seeing one’s life flash before one’s eyes. This baby is going down. If Penn State made a series of conscious mistakes to preserve the University’s reputation re its football scandal, such mechanisms were in place to save Michael Mann’s bacon as well. If climate science is perceived as distorting the peer-review process to “keep on message”, it is unlikely that any assessment of research, grant process is safe. As politics has escalated the science validity and process, so the stakes the people who contribute to such escalation place themselves are at risk. Hansen, Mann, Schmidt & others risk the ruination of their reputations, livelihood, and their old age benefits. The political game is an all or nothing game. You are in or out after election day. You are in or out after a game changing scandal. High stakes.
The answer of course is to avoid elevating one’s science into the political arena. At the current state, with so many billions/trillions at stake there is no way the current group of visible climate scientists can do anything other than continue to manipulate peer-review, trumpet minuscule positives, debase people announcing glaring negatives, and hoping that they will outlast the naysayers or a conference (like Durban) or some other conference can “score a home run.” Their hope springs eternal. Ain’t going to happen. The blogosphere has peer-reviewed the peer-reviewers, and found them wanting. No one will want their name attached to a review that will subsequently be demonstrate their ineptitude and conformational bias. There are many in the climate science industry, academia, who would suffer greatly if they were found to display misconduct. What does one do with a degree in climate science when your reputation is trashed. Teach in a community college?
I believe in the peer review process except when it becomes a high stakes game. Slow and steady ultimately wins most races to tenure, grantsmanship, and productive, believable research. Don’t engage reporters. They are seductive, splashy, flashy, and fast out the door looking for the next “Watergate” expose. An academic researcher is best soft peddling their findings to whomever they encounter. And for God’s sake, don’t testify to Congress, it distorts your own self image, which in turn distorts how one reviews manuscripts, which in turn distorts the emphasis one places upon a piece of research which in turn…… When the weather is stormy, retreat to your lab and studying what is most likely.