Royal Statistical Society backs “models and data in the public domain”. See the submissions by the Royal Chemical Society and Institute of Physics. Same general statement, same biased interpretation by Anthony Watts as damning.

There are, of course, passages in the Royal Statistical Society’s filing that don’t suit Anthony’s bias. This one gets to the nub of things:

The ability to verify models using publicly available data is regarded as being of much greater importance than the specific content of email exchanges between researchers.

The data is almost entirely publicly available already. The whole controversy boils down to quote-mining personal e-mails for rude comments.

This one’s also good, as it addresses denialist harassment:

It is also clearly unreasonable to require that any given scientist having published some research is then condemned to answer each and every question that might possibly arise from it.

Interestingly, the Royal Statistical Society doesn’t seem to have any concerns about the word “trick” that is so angrily discussed in denialist circles.

“Royal Society of Chemistry backs sharing of data in contrast to Jones “standard practice” statement“. The Royal Society of Chemistry makes a general mom-and-apple pie statement in response to a request from the Parliamentary inquiry similar to the Institute of Physics just made. Anthony considers this another damning judgement. My translation: Yes, yes, t’s must be crossed and i’s must be dotted. Now leave us alone, you bitter letter-writing obsessive paranoids!

I do like this bit though (emphasis mine):

Authors generally protect their data until it has been peer-reviewed and published in a formal publication due to the competitive nature of research.

and this bit:

The issue of misinformation in the public domain must also be tackled. Just as the scientific community must be open with regard to their evidence base, those who disagree must also provide a clear and verifiable backing for their argument, if they wish their opinions to be given weight. When disagreements occur, the validity of the analysis must be established before credence can be given to any opinion.

2010-03-07 Update: I missed this enlightening excerpt from the RSC statement, but Rabbet Run didn’t.

Encouraging scientists to openly engage with the public can only be achieved if researchers are given the necessary backing in the face of any unfounded arguments against their work.