There has been quite a bit of comment on this web-blog about the importance of peer review (e.g. see comments following my post of 29th April 2005, titled What do Geologists Know about Climate?).
Peer review refers to a researcher's work being vetted by his/her colleagues as part of the publication process. The idea is that the non-expert can have a high level of confidence in articles, reports, reviews, papers in 'reputable'journals because the work has been thoroughly 'checked' by others with expertise in the field.
I generally believe in peer review as a process.
I greatly appreciated the constructive criticisms I received from anonymous expert reviewers when I published as a research entomologist. Indeed at that time I mostly only read the peer reviewed literature in my areas of expertise and interest.
However, once one moves from the relatively mundane-type of research I was undertaking in the 1980s to mid 1990s, into politically sensitive research on big ticket environmental icons like the Great Barrier Reef and Murray Darling Basin ... well, I have discovered the peer review process just doesn't seem to work.
Indeed it has been my observation that many research 'managers'are being paid very high salaries to virtually ensure the research from their 'research team' actually confirms policy decisions that governments have already more-or-less made, often as election commitments, often as a consequence of intense environmental campaigning from organisations like the WWF.
It seems certain assumptions are just not allowed to be challenged!
I will use my work on the Murray River as an example to illustrate this point - perhaps in my next blog-post which will probably be tomorrow.
Louis - you comments regarding the mining industry are valid however this is because there is less pure science here and more applied science. A geologist with a new theory of metamorphic rock formation would not expect to have his/her theory debated in the stock market unless it had specific relationship to a company looking for valuable ore in a novel place based on the theory. Indeed if a company was doing such exploration then this would be applied science/engineering not pure science.
Climate scientists doing pure research into the Earths atmosphere have a duty to speculate and dicuss the theories. If they are sufficiently assured that some of their conclusions are correct then it is also their duty to try and recommend that changes are made to mitigate what they see as a problem.
Now if you bring in this regime you are suggesting then it works both ways. You are a scientist giving his professional opinion that Global Warming will not happen and/or will not produce any Climate Change effects. You would therfore be held legally liable for this opinion.
If in the future the climate did in fact change and I lost property or business then I and others in a class action, having copied this converstation and other evidence, could sue you and all people publically preventing action on climate change. This could be billions of dollars. If there is loss of life from this opionion then you and others could be up on criminal negligence causing death charges.
So have a think about whether you really want climate scientists held totally accountable for every opinion. In the words if Salvor Hardin "The atom blaster points both ways"