I would rather see raw data released, too. However, mechanical_fish certainly has a valid point.
For example, there's currently a bit of a tiff among some climate scientists over whether the statistical methods used to produce the "hockey stick" graphs are mathematically valid. These other scientists use different statistical methods which produce a different graph, and they argue that there's no intrinsic reason why the "hockey stick" method is better.
However, the "hockey stick" graphs correlate much more closely with CO2 measurements. If this other method is valid, then there needs to be an explanation of the divergence between temperature and CO2, which otherwise has been assumed to be closely related.
Given this disagreement among actual scientists, I can imagine the raucous noise produced when a whole bunch of armchair scientists get ahold of "raw" data and say, "Aha! Your data doesn't match your graphs! We're yanking your funding!"
For example, there's currently a bit of a tiff among some climate scientists over whether the statistical methods used to produce the "hockey stick" graphs are mathematically valid. These other scientists use different statistical methods which produce a different graph, and they argue that there's no intrinsic reason why the "hockey stick" method is better.
However, the "hockey stick" graphs correlate much more closely with CO2 measurements. If this other method is valid, then there needs to be an explanation of the divergence between temperature and CO2, which otherwise has been assumed to be closely related.
Given this disagreement among actual scientists, I can imagine the raucous noise produced when a whole bunch of armchair scientists get ahold of "raw" data and say, "Aha! Your data doesn't match your graphs! We're yanking your funding!"