SIR - What is it about climate change that makes apparently well-educated people so readily abandon their powers of independent thought? Christopher Booker's claim (December 6) that "the world's weightiest climate data has been distorted" is dangerous nonsense that must not be allowed to go unchallenged. Does Mr Booker not question why the people behind these claims choose to publish their findings on blogs, rather than in the peer-reviewed international journals of climate science? The democratisation of science is very welcome, but only if the debate is prevented from drifting unrecognisably away from the underpinning consensus provided by expert peer review. Dr Paul Williams Royal Society Research Fellow University of Reading, Reading