As noted previously, the Climategate letters and documents show Jones and the Team using the peer review process to prevent publication of adverse papers, while giving softball reviews to friends and associates in situations fraught with conflict of interest. Today I’ll report on the spectacle of Jones reviewing a submission by Mann et al.

Let’s recall some of the reviews of articles daring to criticize CRU or dendro:

I am really sorry but I have to nag about that review – Confidentially I now need a hard and if required extensive case for rejecting (Briffa to Cook)

…

If published as is, this paper could really do some damage. It is also an ugly paper to review because it is rather mathematical, with a lot of Box-Jenkins stuff in it. It won’t be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct theoretically, (Cook to Briffa)

…

Recently rejected two papers (one for JGR and for GRL) from people saying CRU has it wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. (Jones to Mann)

Previously we also looked at Jones’ soft review of Schmidt (2009) and looked at his attempts to keep Michaels and McKitrick (2004) out of IJC and IPCC AR4.

Here is Jones’ review of Mann et al dated November 1, 2008 (I can’t tell if this refers to an article in print or not – the review mentions pages ranging from 85 to 247 which seems to be too long for any Mann papers published since Nov 1, 2008.)

The paper is generally well written. I recommend acceptance subject to minor revisions. I will leave it to the editor to check that most of my comments have been responded to. Minor Comments

… [17 “minor comments” referring passim to pages ranging from 85 to 247]

That’s it. No “going to town”. Lucky, I guess, that there was apparently none of that “math stuff” to worry about. Lucky that they didn’t have to worry about a paper that might do “damage”. Or about how to reject a paper that might do “damage” when the math was “correct theoretically”. Lucky that no editor wrote to Jones asking him to provide a “hard and if required extensive case for rejecting”. Nope, none of that.

Between the Team, a few words sufficed:

The paper is generally well written. I recommend acceptance subject to minor revisions. I will leave it to the editor to check that most of my comments have been responded to.

Readers need to take care neither to overstate nor understate what these reviews show. Obviously there’s something fundamentally wrong with the behavior evidenced in these reviews – something that most readers of the Climategate Letters understand. (The only people who seem not to be troubled are the majority of climate scientists.) To go beyond that requires some reflection on what the purposes of “peer review” are.

Because I’ve encountering journal peer review systems rather late in my life, I tend to view journal peer review merely as a form of due diligence (realizing that there are other forms of due diligence); I sometimes feel a bit like an anthropologist studying a tribe (of academics) who do not realize that their customs (for due diligence) are only customs.



