Freedom of information laws are used to harass scientists, says Nobel laureate

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

Freedom of information laws are being misused to harass scientists and should be re-examined by the government, according to the president of the Royal Society.

Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse told the Guardian that some climate scientists were being targeted by organised campaigns of requests for data and other research materials, aimed at intimidating them and slowing down research. He said the behaviour was turning freedom of information laws into a way to intimidate some scientists.

Nurse's comments follow the launch of a major Royal Society study into how scientists' work can be made more open and better used to inform policy in society. The review – expected to be published next year – will examine ways of improving access to scientific data and research papers and how "digital media offer a powerful means for the public to interrogate, question and re-analyse scientific priorities, evidence and conclusions".

Nurse said that, in principle, scientific information should be made available as widely as possible as a matter of course, a practice common in biological research where gene sequences are routinely published in public databases. But he said freedom of information had "opened a Pandora's box. It's released something that we hadn't imagined ... there have been cases of it being misused in the climate change debate to intimidate scientists.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/25/freedom-information-laws-harass-scientists

[bongbong]

1. Prevention

Scientists could prevent this kind of thing, at least in the USA, by calling their papers "trade secrets" like the electronic vote-switching companies do to prevent inspection of their alter 10% of Dem votes into the repig column vote tallying software.

[naaman fletcher]

2. I disagree completly

Any research funded by the taxpayer should be available to the public. Particularly if such research is used in public policy. Secret science = bad science. The whole point of the scientific method is to have repeatable results that others can test.

[Hestia]

3. Further down in the article

He added: "I can see what someone with a very specific political comment might gain from an unguarded comment, but it's very hard to see how science or public understanding of science gains from every exchange between scientists being made public. No other discipline operates in that way. The net effect of this, incidentally, is that senior people in government and senior scientists close to government are basically just using the telephone again. Which is very bad for science because email exchanges are an extremely useful record."

[naaman fletcher]

4. Why

are "email exchanges a useful record" if nobody is allowed to see them"

What are the scientists saying about their research that they don't want others to see?

[applegrove]

5. There are liberal professors at Ottawa University that were being harrassed by

conservative access to information requests. What a bunch of asshole/bullies.

[applegrove]

6. There is a Thursday night panel on CBC that now faces 'access to information' request for how much

money is spend or getting the three politicos to a CBC studio to tape the show. It is the most informative political spot on Canadian tv. And now the neocons are going after it using canadian 'access to information requests' to get information on how much it costs the public broadcaster to get them in the studio. Those neocons truly hate good information making it to the general public. They truly want the general public, be it in canada or the USA, to be ill informed. ASSHOLES!!