c) Data obtained with public money is considered non-proprietary.
I have spoken with several people who read about climate scientists seeming to hide or be reluctant to share information collected with public money interpret this as the scientist being evasive or untruthful. They are always surprised when I tell them that project scientist, particularly on large space and earth science projects, usually have proprietary access to the data for some number of years as payment for involvement in support of the project.
a) A peer reviewed paper is very close to fact.
b) Scientists are essentially free from backbiting, tribalism and empire-building. They dispassionately rely on provable data.
Modify slightly to ignore any scientist funded by the wrong people.