We've talked about open source science here on Winds before. Now it's inserting itself into a major scientific controversy. As Slashdot notes:

"The ongoing debate over the 'hockey stick' climate graph has an interesting side note. McKitrick & McIntyre (M&M), the critics [of global warming projections], have published their complete source code and it's written using the well-known R statistics package (covered by the GPL ). Mann, Bradley & Hughes, the defenders [of rapid global warming], described their algorithm but have only released part of their source code, and refuse to divulge the rest, which really makes it look like they have some errors/omissions to hide (they did publish the data they used). There's an issue of open source vs closed source as well as how much publicly-funded researchers should be required to disclose - should they be allowed to generate 'closed-source' solutions at the taxpayers' expense?"

Good questions all. Not only does M&M 'get' the open source concept, they've started a blog at climateaudit.org. Including this post about the latest idiocy from the Canadian government.

Climate change is a real and serious issue. 'Hockey stick' advocates Mann, Bradley & Hughes also have a blog (Hat tip: reader SPQR, who notes a Talkleft-like habit of deleting critical comments from opponents). My post about useful rules for non-experts when evaluating expert debates may help here. Meanwhile, I firmly believe the combination of open-source science and 'open source journalism' (as Jeff Jarvis puts it) will produce both better science and better policy.