Maggie's Farm

"And he claimed it was not 'standard practice' to release data and computer models so other scientists could check and challenge research. "

It all depends on what Jones meant by "release." Open any professional science journal and look for raw data and model code. Will you find them? No you won't. What you will find are summaries and tables and graphs of data and descriptions of methodology.

In many fields, data acquired at national research facilities are archived and released after a brief proprietary period to anyone who wants to do an independent analysis. In fact, that is what the CRU was PAID to do: gather the data and archive them so they could be analyzed by climate scientists, i.e., by the CRU staff and their collaborators and also by independent researchers.

Ask an author for his model code so you can use it for your own research? Generally it doesn't happen. Your chances are better at getting access to the code if you offer to collaborate with those who wrote the original code. That's the way it's done. Just imagine some lazy SOB hanging around and systematically taking advantage of the tools developed by other people to further his own career without ever doing any of the hard work himself. It happens in science as in every other endeavor.

Finally, in some fields of experimental science where there is a high barrier to getting the chance to duplicate the same experiment being performed by another group, the data resulting from that experiment may be archived and released to the public. In other fields, where the barrier is not so high and several groups have access to similar equipment or facilities, they both (or all) may do the same experiment, which serves as a consistency check. If the results of the different groups disagree, then the race to get the answer really heats up. This makes the science self-correcting. And it's a lot of fun, too.