AFAIK no hacker could screen out that stuff and certainly not going across 10 years worth of inbox content. Which strongly suggests the emails have indeed been culled. Given the exquisite timing of this issue, days out from Copenhagen, it’s not beyond reason to further assume that what has been published has also been confected, either wholly or in part.

The contentious issue is Phil Jones and the FOI matter,but the reality is still unclear. His reluctance to be diverted by McI’s demands is well known. I’m not surprised at the concern these guys show towards a hostile,unaccountable and collusive group of contrarians who don’t collect the data or produce any science of note,but pump a pliant political and media base for maximum spoilage. I’d even go so far as to suggest some opinion writers are willing to sacrifice public trust in science to further their aims.These people,such as George Will and Andrew Bolt,are not accountable to or restrained by the standards of proof that scientists are,make no mistake. If you find it remarkable that scientists show private or public concern about ‘mob/blog science’ I’d have to think you naive. Or bunging it on.

What depresses me is the hypocrisy and scientific illiteracy of those anxious to spin these communications into yet another ‘nail in the coffin’ of climate science. Most comments I have seen have been sad and deluded;there is a fearful,aggressive mob out there,being enabled by the Watts’ of this world. Watts is notorious for aggressively defending many items of unreviewed junk analysis that pass for content on his blog. in calling for standards, he is the worst kind of hypocrite,and McIntyre reveals his true colors by actively linking him. I’m horrified that people like this should be trying to influence public policy.

Gavin Schmidt is settling the misconstructions with his customary pith and economy,as,clearly, someone has to counter the confusion.You can’t claim to have posed your question without hostility,what with your faux-intimate opening and bristling attitude. I also think that the context of many of the emails is pretty clear,but calls of conspiracy to manipulate data are dumb and hypocritical;I have rarely encountered a denialist ’study’ that isn’t built on bad maths and manipulated information.

All you have managed to thieve is the startling insight that climate scientists hold you in deep contempt and that in a presentation to a conference one climate scientist did not want to highlight some dodgy tree-ring data. As pissweak as everything you saucer people do…

Second, I saw the ‘argument’ yesterday that this must be true and damaging, because the organisation involved had not said anything. Today I see the ‘argument’ that this must be true and damaging, because they’re busy explaining the contents. Heads I win, Tails you lose. Have you stopped beating your wife, yes or no? This doesn’t bode well for a fair hearing.

Actually, what you have is a scientist, Dr. Jones, talking candidly about sexing up a graph to make his conclusions more persuasive. This is not a good thing thing to do -- I'd go so far as to call it unethical -- and Jones deserves some of the loss of face that he will suffer. Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing that happens all the time in both academia and the private sector -- have you ever looked at the graphs in the annual report of a company which had a bad year? And it seems to happen all too often on both sides of the global warming debate (I'd include some of the graphics from An Inconvenient Truth in this category, FWIW.)

But let's be clear: Jones is talking to his colleagues about making a prettier picture out of his data, and not about manipulating the data itself. Again, I'm not trying to excuse what he did -- we make a lot of charts here and 538 and make every effort to ensure that they fairly and accurately reflect the underlying data (in addition to being aesthetically appealing.) I wish everybody would abide by that standard.

Still: I don't know how you get from some scientist having sexed up a graph in East Anglia ten years ago to The Final Nail In The Coffin of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Anyone who comes to that connection has more screws loose than the Space Shuttle Challenger. And yet that's literally what some of these bloggers are saying!

As I suspected: a beat up by the desperate denialists, who don’t understand the scientific process, yet just blurt out the first crap that enters their heads.

Just another day in the far Right blogosphere.

The logic why Gavin is trying to address pasted emails at the RC site is obvious to anyone. It really is that simple… if they were fake, even one of them, he would be saying it. Arguing the point any other way really makes one look stupid… sorry, but it does. Anyway, I won’t dwelll here, because I know from previous experience the abuse that gets piled on people like myself for not slavishly towing the AGW line with blinkers affixed.

All I ask is that you folks read a few of the emails yourselves and think about what the mean and imply about the authors’ predisposition. The context in so many of them is clear as day.

As for those that say the emails are fake… I give that a less than 1% chance. The originals had incredible detail (email headers that were trace routable etc). Besides, they have already admitted the hack and verified the data were a true copy… only remains to be seen if by data they mean the emails as well or only the numerical data.

McIntyre’s achievements as a silver-tongued dog-whistler more than outweigh his slim data-tidying contributions,and he claimed victory over Yamal despite reality. Who would be privately tolerant of that pattern of behavior?

And Schmidt makes clear in his reply to you about why he is not well disposed towards McIntyre’s approach; it’s cart before horse,and calculated to antagonise.

But regardless, so far I have seen nothing that would considered damning at all.

That Gavin Schmidt is “trying to douse and explain every single quoted email at Real Climate” is not evidence they are real, you just assume he “would be vehemently denying the fact and shouting that they are faked”, because that’s what you would expect someone to do in such a situation, or because it is how you yourself would act in such a situation. It that doesn’t at all mean they are real, it is just a conclusion you have drawn based on your opinion of how you think he should be acting.

I’m guessing you are one of the “where there’s smoke there’s fire” types, well be aware that sometimes what you are seeing is not smoke at all, but steam. You and the skeptics claim to be “skeptics”, so be skeptical and ascertain the truth about this hack, which means verifying the source of these emails before jumping to conclusions. I’m watching this with great interest, but unlike some, with a skeptical approach

I’m still not sure what is actually damning about these emails even if they are all real, but if you could explain it to me that would be great. .

Just so you know.