by Judith Curry
Some interesting developments and rhetoric in the Mann versus Steyn lawsuit.
A number of articles have been written on the Mann vs (Steyn, The National Review, Competitive Enterprise Institute) lawsuits. I have mostly followed the postings by Climate Science Watch and the Volokh Conspiracy:
- Defendant’s appeal in Michael Mann defamation case further delays discover process (Climate Science Watch)
- Mann v Steyn: Mann wins round one (Volokh)
- Mann v Steyn: Mann wins round two (Volokh)
Volokh provides the following summary of the most recent development:
On Wednesday, Judge Frederick Weisberg handed climate scientist Michael Mann a potentially significant victory in his defamation suit against Mark Steyn, National Review, Rand Simberg, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. In a relatively brief order, Judge Weisberg denied the defendants’ motions to dismiss and lifted the stay on discovery in the suit. He explained:
Opinions and rhetorical hyperbole are protected speech under the First Amendment. Arguably, several of defendants’ statements fall into these protected categories. Some of defendants’ statements, however, contain what could reasonably be understood as assertions of fact. Accusing a scientist of conducting his research fraudulently, manipulating his data to achieve a predetermined or political outcome, or purposefully distorting the scientific truth are factual allegations. They go to the heart of scientific integrity. They can be proven true or false. If false, they are defamatory. If made with actual malice, they are actionable. Viewing the allegations of the amended complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, a reasonable finder of fact is likely to find in favor of the plaintiff
Mark Steyn’s perspective
In an article Trial and Error, Mark Steyn writes:
I’m not the first to discover too late that the American court system is no place for wee unsuspecting foreigners. Although I was the only one on the NR side who’s actually won a free-speech battle (and so decisively that the law was eventually repealed), I was prevailed upon through the course of last year to leave it to the experts. The result is that we blew through half a million bucks, and have nothing to show for it – other than what even Judge Weisberg calls a “convoluted procedural history” that utterly buried the real issues at the heart of the case.
Many “climate skeptics” wonder why the defendants would want to get the complaint dismissed rather than put Mann through a trial in which he would have to take the witness stand and discuss his work under oath. I can understand their enthusiasm for this but for me the priority has always been the broader cause of free speech:
However, as a noted human-rights activist in Canada and elsewhere, he believes that the cause of freedom of expression in the United States would best be served by dismissing the amended complaint, and that a trial would have a significant “chilling effect” in America of the kind the Anti-SLAPP laws are specifically designed to prevent.
The “chilling effect” is a bigger threat to civilized society than all Dr Mann’s warming. But the judge chose instead to put us on the road to a full-scale trial. So be it.
As readers may have deduced from my absence at National Review Online and my termination of our joint representation, there have been a few differences between me and the rest of the team. The lesson of the last year is that you win a free-speech case not by adopting a don’t-rock-the-boat, keep-mum, narrow procedural posture but by fighting it in the open, in the bracing air and cleansing sunlight of truth and justice.
In an article Slappstick farce, Steyn writes:
NATIONAL REVIEW is in the midst of a big free-speech battle on one of the critical public-policy issues of our time. There have been no cover stories, no investigative journalism, no eviscerating editorials. NR runs specialized blogs on both legal matters and climate change, yet they too have been all but entirely silent. I assume, from this lonely outpost on NR’s wilder shores, that back at head office they take the view that it’s best not to say anything while this matter works its way through the courts. In other words, a law explicitly intended to prevent litigious bullies from forcing their victims to withdraw from “public participation” has resulted in the defendants themselves voluntarily withdrawing from “public participation.” That’s nuts.
Meanwhile, in the same period, Dr. Mann has been brandishing his hockey stick out on the campaign trail against Republican candidates. But it’s not much of a First Amendment that requires a bazillion dollars in legal fees and a half-decade vow of silence to enjoy the security thereof — all while the plaintiff’s using his freedom of speech to knock off your political allies.
As a practical matter, it’s simply not feasible in a global media market to tailor one’s freedom of expression to the varying local bylaws. So I take the view that I’m entitled to say the same thing in Seattle as I would in Sydney or Stockholm, Sofia or Suva. But, were Dr. Mann to prevail, it would nevertheless be the case that his peculiarly thin skin and insecurities would enjoy greater protection under U.S. law than they do in Britain, Canada, Australia, and other jurisdictions. It would thus be a major setback for the First Amendment.
Free speech is about the right to thrash out ideas — on climate change, gay marriage, or anything else — in the public square, in bright sunlight. And you win a free-speech case by shining that sunlight on it, relentlessly. As we embark on our second year in the hell of the D.C. court system, that’s what I intend to do.
Steyn sums it up in this post:
My old boss Conrad Black, who spent the last decade on the receiving end of the US justice system, wraps it up this way:
The US has 5 percent of the world’s population, 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated people, and 50 percent of the world’s lawyers, who invoice almost 10 percent of US GDP (around $1.4 trillion annually).
I regret having been put in the position of having to add to that ten per cent of GDP. But I promise that the financial support of readers will not be wasted, and that Dr Mann’s Big Tobacco lawyers will rue the day they dragged me into a DC courtroom, and allowed their highly problematic client to take the witness stand.
Pot versus kettle
In addition to suing Mark Steyn for libel, Mann is also suing, or has threatened to sue, The National Review, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Tim Ball, Minnesotans for Global Warming, the Attorney General of Virginia (I’m not sure who is suing whom on that one), and there may be others that I don’t know about.
You would think that someone who is so sensitive about people criticizing or defaming himself, that he would be very careful about defaming and insulting others. Sometimes it seems like Mann spends half his day suing people for defaming him, and then the other half of his day defaming others on twitter.
I’ve written previously about Mann’s defaming me as a ‘serial climate misinformer‘ and ‘anti-science.’ In recent weeks he has gone after Anthony Watts, Patrick Moore (founder of Greenpeace) and Bill Gates:
All of these insults are mud slinging without being accompanied by any substantive argument. Mann’s defamation of me (a climate scientist) is of particular relevance in context of Mann’s case against Steyn, in light of the recent ruling:
Accusing a scientist of conducting his research fraudulently, manipulating his data to achieve a predetermined or political outcome, or purposefully distorting the scientific truth are factual allegations. They go to the heart of scientific integrity. They can be proven true or false. If false, they are defamatory. If made with actual malice, they are actionable.
Seems to me that ‘serial climate misinformer’ and ‘anti-science’ qualify as defamatory, and its difficult to imagine that the statements were not made with malice.
If you see something, say something
Mann’s recent op-ed If you see something, say something argued for scientists to speak up and speak out. Someone tweeted (can’t find the original tweet): Does this mean that Pat Michaels, Judith Curry, Anthony Watts etc. should speak out more? Hmm . . .
But Mann’s apparent interpretation of speaking out = slinging mud at other people sends us down the following rabbit hole, as per this piece in the American Thinker:
McKitrick, an econometrician at Guelph University in Canada, has a pungent comment on Mann’s op-ed, which was titled “If you see something, say something.”
“OK, I see a second-rate scientist carrying on like a jackass and making a public nuisance of himself.”
Not to be outdone, Fred Singer says: “OK, I want to say something too: I see an ideologue, desperately trying to support a hypothesis that’s been falsified by observations. While the majority of climate alarmists are trying to discover a physical reason that might just save the AGW hypothesis, Mann simply ignores the ‘inconvenient truth’ that the global climate has not warmed significantly for at least the past 15 years — while emissions of greenhouse gases have surged globally.”
Can lawsuits against McKitrick and Singer be far behind?
We really don’t want to go down that particular rabbit hole.
The point for a scientist speaking out is this: If you say something, DEFEND it. Attack the argument, not the person.
Criticizing arguments versus smearing scientists
I have tried to understand Michael Mann’s perspective in suing so so many people, while at the same time so freely throwing insults at others and even defaming other scientists. My understanding is this. Michael Mann does not seem to understand the difference between criticizing a scientific argument versus smearing a scientist.
I landed on Mann’s ‘hit list’ after publishing a post at Climate Etc. entitled Hiding the Decline. This post took a careful look at the hiding the decline issue, citing arguments/defense from both sides of the question Is hiding the decline dishonest and/or bad science? I decided to speak up on this issue after this statement was made by Sir John Beddington and highlighted by Bishop Hill:
It is time the scientific community became proactive in challenging misuse of scientific evidence.
Sort of the same rationale as ‘if you see something, say something.’
My summary statement was this:
McIntyre’s analysis is sufficiently well documented that it is difficult to imagine that his analysis is incorrect in any significant way. If his analysis is incorrect, it should be refuted. I would like to know what the heck Mann, Briffa, Jones et al. were thinking when they did this [hide the decline] and why they did this, and how they can defend this, although the emails provide pretty strong clues. Does the IPCC regard this as acceptable? I sure don’t. Can anyone defend “hide the decline”? I would much prefer to be wrong in my interpretation, but I fear that I am not.
As a result of this and other criticisms of scientific arguments, I have been accused by Mann of ‘smearing climate scientists.’
And then if someone disagrees with Mann or criticizes his work, they are called ‘anti-science’, ‘serial climate misinformer’, ‘denier’, etc. Mann referred to me in context of my recent Senate testimony as anti-science; I challenged him in this post and on twitter:
JC challenge to MM: Since you have publicly accused my Congressional testimony of being ‘anti-science,’ I expect you to (publicly) document and rebut any statement in my testimony that is factually inaccurate or where my conclusions are not supported by the evidence that I provide.
He has not responded to my challenge, other than to retweet some rather dubious blog posts.
Ironically, this kind of behavior typifies ‘anti-science’ – insult the scientist, not their argument.
JC conclusions
What to make of all this? I side with Mark Steyn regarding concern for the rather frightening implications of this case for free speech, and the attempted intimidation reflected by this and Mann’s other lawsuits. It is difficult for me to imagine how throw away one-liners such as used by Mark Steyn and Tim Ball have done harm to Mann’s reputation, which is a legal requirement for defamation (the more prolonged attention to Mann provided by the CEI may be in a different category). By the same token, Mann’s tweets arguably do not damage my reputation (or the reputation of others that he insults on twitter). If such one-liners are judged to damage the reputation of a scientist, then I have at least as good a case against Michael Mann for defamation as he has against Steyn; a scientist saying such things about another scientist is arguably more damaging to a scientist’s reputation than a journalist saying such things.
Many people have urged me to sue Mann; I can’t be bothered and I don’t have money to throw away on such stuff (The National Review has spent a half million already on this case?). Further, I would like to stand up for Michael Mann’s right to make insulting and defamatory tweets, statements in op-eds, etc. As an American, I am pretty attached to the right to free speech.
On a complex political and scientific subject like climate change that is hotly debated, of course the rhetoric will get heated. But if climate scientists participate in insulting scientists and other public persons in the climate debate, then this drags climate science into the mud. If mud must be slung, leave the mud slinging to journalists and advocacy groups. Michael Mann is the chief climate science practitioner of insulting and making personal attacks on other scientists that disagree with him. As such he has polluted the atmosphere of climate science and brought notoriety and dishonor to climate science.
Does the world really need another spectacle of climate scientists behaving badly? Wasn’t Climategate enough? It appears that some climate scientists (notably Mann) did not learn anything from Climategate.
Imagine a court trial on the issue of whether Mann’s hockey stick research was fraudulent. Picture the witnesses on both sides, and also Michael Mann under oath. Well this will be entertaining for some (popcorn futures explode at WUWT), but we do not need another national and international spectacle of climate scientists behaving badly. Maybe we need to lance this boil once and for all, but the path that has led us here reflects a very sad state of affairs for climate science.
Thank you, Professor.
A couple clarifying comments. The “Volokh” posts were actually by Professor Jonathan Adler, I believe, not Eugene Volokh.
In this context, defamation of a public figure “with malice” has a very specific legal meaning. It means that the statement was made with a “reckless disregard for the truth.” That is it was made either knowing that it was false, or with indifference as to whether or not it was false. So you’d have to judge Professor Mann’s supposed defamation of you in that light. For reasons that should be obvious, (and sadly) am not at liberty to comment on the specifics of what that means in my own case, for reasons you state.
Rand, do you feel a bit invisible since your words usually get taken as Steyn’s? Steyn repeated them, but then immediately qualified his agreement with them.
If one reads Steyn’s article, about the only thing that Steyn himself says that could be objectionable was one use of the word ‘fraudulent’. That might not be the best word to use about the creation of the hockey stick, but it may be appropriate about how others have knowingly used it to misrepresent past climate to further their own goals.
I also think it odd that Steyn’s article is more about whitewash investigations than about the crime itself — did no one bother to read Steyn’s article?
Steyn’s adventure threatens to become as long as its Les Mis precedent.
Steven Mosher:
The word “fraud” is not the end all and be all for libel.
If I said “in my opinion OJ got away with murder”, this would not be libel (or slander).
If I said “in my opinion Mann got away with fraud”, this would not be libel or slander.
The only bodies that can actually rule that Mann committed fraud are the Universities and/or the journals – so most statements of fraud regarding Mann are understood to be opinions.
It is the word “fraud” used in a non-opinion that can be libel or slander.
That is a question for the jury ultimately.
You make it sound like Steyn is 100% sure to lose, which is what the jury trial will is for, and in my opinion is far from a forgone conclusion.
Here are a couple posts I wrote discussing this case, including Judith’s spirited defense of a clear case of defamation.
http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2014/01/26/how-to-manipulate-rubes-into-covering-your-legal-bills-mark-steyn-edition/
http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2014/01/27/free-speech-101-for-sulky-teenagers/
…Imagine a court trial on the issue of whether Mann’s hockey stick research was fraudulent. Picture the witnesses on both sides, and also Michael Mann under oath…
If only we were we so lucky.
Mann would win. That’s the fact you numbnuts don’t seem to be able to get through your think skulls.
“think skulls”
maybe I let slip that you are smarter than I let on..
If Mann would win, so would Curry. She, however defends free speech, however repulsive and repugnant it is, something that Mann will not or cannot comprehend.
This is the comedy of it; if Mann were to win against Steyn, imagine the number of people that could join a class action suit against Mann and PSU?
Steyn should call Steve McIntyre as a hostile witness – McIntyre, I think, doesn’t, or at least won’t state, that he believes Mann has acted fraudulently. But I’m not convinced of this. In my opinion, there is such a long and well-documented history of novel and inexplicable statistical manipulation, obfuscation and wilful concealment of data and methods, to avoid basic scientific procedures, eg: replication that it defies an innocent explanation.
On learning the complete history, I’m convinced that no reasonable person could conclude that the errors in Mann’s work, his actions to defend it then or since, or the incessant bullying of his perceived opponents is innocent. It is nefarious, and I feel sure that it can be shown to be so, beyond reasonable doubt.
“McIntyre and McKitrick 2005 (GRL, EE) did not make allegations of misconduct and fraud….”
— Steve McIntyre, Jan 16 2014, comment at Nature magazine
http://www.nature.com/news/researchers-question-rescued-polar-expedition-1.14510#comment-1204277838
Your link does not work. Not surprising since it does nothing for the conversation.
In response to SImon’s speculation, I don’t see how SImon can deduce my opinion about potential fraud from my silence on the matter. I don’t feel obliged to publicly disclose all my opinions. I try to be careful in what I say publicly and have opinions on a variety of matters that I don’t express publicly.
I speculate that Simon’s speculation is more about the average juror than about you, Steve. My take.
====================
look you bozos.
on several occasions those of us who have actually read the papers and read the mails have WARNED YOU about using the fraud word.
Steve Mc has explicitly disavowed this word as have I.
But you morons refused to listen.
You wont be able to prove that Mann manipulated data or committed fraud.
He made suspect and questionable choices. he overstated the robustness of his case. He’s stupid, not nefarious.
now I grant you that making a nuanced case against Mann’s science is not
a headline grabber. So you guys used the word fraud. bad fricken move.
Steven Mosher, “You wont be able to prove that Mann manipulated data or committed fraud.
He made suspect and questionable choices. he overstated the robustness of his case. He’s stupid, not nefarious. ”
He is lettered though, so one should assume he is a cunning fraud before labeling him as stupid. It is the benefit of the doubt thing. A compliment really.
“He’s stupid, not nefarious.”
Mosher, Look, I respect what seems to be your general view that evil motives should not be imputed to people who absent clear evidence to the contrary, might simply be “mistaken.” “Evil” isn’t a very useful term in any case.
Personally, I think there’s ample evidence that Mann is character disordered, which is to say he’s clearly got a narcissistic personality with what the shrinks might call “paranoid features.” Whatever you want to call him instead of evil, “nut job,” “narcissist.” “fraud,” “hypocrite,” (one can go on and one) one thing is eminently clear:
He continues to do great damage to his own cause. I wish we had a couple hundred just like him
Steven Mosher:
I replied to your statement below in the subthread above by mistake.
sorry about that.
If McIntyre testifies will Mann leave the courtroom like Gavin did in a televised debate with Spencer?
The position Mann places himself in is as being uniquely at the forefront of receiving attacks.
I would say he has actually suffered no real world discomfort.
There is strange possibility that Mann, the climate scientist, will help shut down mainstream conservative publications with his successful complaint.
When you realise victim-hood is the main currency in some debates – which side of the climate bit coin will become more valuable after that hypothetical? ;)
It should be pointed out that at the start of this, Michael Mann, through his lawyers, asked NRO and the CEI to withdraw the charges published by them. They did not, in a fairly obstreperous manner. (Details at the link on the CEI site) Only after that did Michael Mann sue.
“Meanwhile, in the same period, Dr. Mann has been brandishing his hockey stick out on the campaign trail against Republican candidates.”
Whaa?
*it’s not fair NR won’t print anything about the court case*
*BUT Mann is allowed to brandish his hockey stick on the campaign trail!*
LOL LOGIC FAIL.
How are those two possibly related?
lol so much spin. going to take a few hours to digest it all.
Mann typifies the greenie man’s inhumanity to man. Perhaps it’s inevitable. Thank goodness Ehrlich theorized many years ago against violent revolution.
i am expecting an avalanche of nutjob comments on this thread
lolwot – you posted 4 times in 9 minutes. That’s an avalanche, alright.
i’ll take being right even if it does make me the nutjob
lolwot,
I am sure you would take being right. A novel feeling for sure with you.
“.. this will be entertaining for some (popcorn futures explode at WUWT), but we do not need another national and international spectacle of climate scientists behaving badly. “
You had me right up until this sentence, Judith. Yes, this is exactly what the world needs imvho. I’ve been saying for years that the warmists are their own worst enemies by far.. Skeptics couldn’t possibly do more damage to the alarmist ..than they do themselves. We can’t expose them effectively enough it seems; therefore they have to do it themselves.
I respect Steyn, but he all but dared Mann to sue him. Someone has to stand up to these intellectual bullies. I’m happy to dig deep to lend whatever financial support I can. I’m sure that’s the case for thousands of skeptics who are fairly salivating at the prospect of Mann being cross examined by a talented, savvy attorney. .
Dig deep Pokerguy. Please tell how much you are contributing to the defense, so I will know how hard to laugh if your money ends up in Mann’s pocket.
McKitrick says:
I figured McKitrick was an economist, but I couldn’t find him rated in the top 1931 of economists listed here worldwide.
McKitrick is the scientist who called the global temperature record T-Rex.
http://www.amazon.com/Taken-Storm-Troubled-Science-Politics/dp/1552639460
He never lived that one down.
Buy his book for the low price of $2,592.20
Didn’t he confuse degrees and radians too?
Re RB’s post on January 26, 2014 at 6:46 pm
McKitrick says:
“OK, I see a second-rate scientist carrying on like a jackass and making a public nuisance of himself.”
I figured McKitrick was an economist, but I couldn’t find him rated in the top 1931 of economists listed here worldwide.
__________
Are you suggesting McKitrick was looking in a mirror?
That McKitrick book is filled with many comic moments.
At one point he said “A laser pointer is a good example. Its temperature is in the tens of millions of degrees. “
Another line is ” Everyone agrees that some kind of averaging may help, but this idea is in itself not very helpful, even though unchaperoned averaging has been going on in the back allies (sic) for decades.”
Plenty more where that came from.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he confused degrees and radians — yup, Deltoid’s Lambert nailed him
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2004/08/26/mckitrick6/
Wow, those Deltoid links are quite something. Meanwhile I confirmed that McKitrick is indeed listed under economists with an h-index of 7 . What to make of that?
Wikipedia says:
Presumably the averages include economists of all years of experience.
RB, one which list will we not find you?
James, this one where ME Mann is in the top 300.
Sorry RB, that does not address the issue. It is “top authors” and is merely a preening list of who is most verbose. It says nothing of quality or competency.
RB, nice list. So Vincent E. Courtillot should be one of our geosciences go to guys right?
Capt, his field is rating him as a top scientist. He is described as a member of the French academy of sciences, so he certainly seems to be well credentialed (like Ivar Giaever).
I figured McKitrick was an economist
What thought defect caused that to happen?
This is a sideshow, but since it’s here I will comment.
Yes, there is a lot of mudslinging and people’s opinions of other people are defended by free speech, but there is a line. Steyn crossed that line by asserting fraudulent behavior of a type that could cause a loss of a tenured position. First of all, it would have been stupid for Mann to risk his job by doing what Steyn accused him of, and second he has to fight arguments that are trying to raise the bar to this level. It is no longer a frivolous claim or name-calling.
JimD, Didn’t Mann leave his position at State Penn… er Penn State?
Help me out here Jim.
How exactly is a charge by Mark Steyn likely to “cause a loss of a tenured position”? If Penn State or any other University were to take to drastic a step, you can be absolutely sure that they would do so only after a thorough and extensive investigatory process. The words of Mark Steyn would play absolutely ZERO part in that process.
If Mark Steyn could work this magic, who else must be silenced by the state. Could I. for instance, call Michael Mann a disgusting fraud? Should I be stripped of my 1st Amendment liberties and thrown in jail for saying so?
The obvious fact here is that liberals have simply become fascists. They are prepared to use the guns and jails of the state to inflict their views on the rest of us. The 1st Amendment means nothing to our contemporary McCarthyites.
Perhaps I should start building my bunker sooner than thought?
Grab the women and children and head for the hills, the fascist/liberals are gathering their guns to destroy the 1rst amendment and inflict their views!!!!!1!!!!!!!111.
And don’t forget to bring the keys to your bunker if you already have one built!!!!1!!!!1
Tom, yes, to be more clear, if what Steyn said was proved true, it would probably result in an internal investigation and loss of job, but since those internal investigations have already taken place (unless Steyn has new evidence for what he said about fraudulence), this is moot. Fraud is probably a zero-tolerance thing in the academic community, which is why this rose to the level of being a serious statement by Steyn far beyond name-calling.
Joshua in reply to Tom Yoke,
Translation: “I am on the state protected side of this issue, so the concerns of those not on the state protected side are hilarious to me.”
Tell me again Josh, was the blacklisting of the Hollywood Ten a bad thing? Were the McCarthyite tactics of intimidation in the early 1950s a bad thing? Those tactics may not have meant that liberals had to “head to their bunkers”, but it still stifled free expression, correct? People still lost their livelihoods and faced state imposed penalties, correct?
Where is Mann getting all this money to sue people? That would make for some good investigative reporting, I’m betting!
Well I assure you it can’t be the CSLDF “Climate Science Legal Defense Fund”.
I mean can it?
Last I heard they were only funded and set up to defend suits not create ones.
Well, the best defense is a good offense I have heard. Perhaps Napoleon said it?
Time to go over and donate to Steyn again.
Probably the same sort of place ATI does,
“Truth” in scientific matters is properly decided by reproducible experimental data and observations.
Unfortunately “consensus science,” “standard models,” “settled science,” etc. have recently been decided by the flow of public funds instead.
My first impulse is to urge you, Judith, to sue Mann’s sorry ass. But you are absolutely right: it would be a colossal waste of your precious talent, money, time, and energy, all better spent on doing actual climate research. Besides, in my opinion, Mann is doing a perfectly good job of discrediting himself all on his own. Not the least bit of help required.
The very act of bringing a law suit for libel is diminishing to a certain extent of one’s public image. JUdith is right not to sue, though God knows I can’t imagine a more entertaining spectacle.
“Since you have publicly accused my Congressional testimony of being ‘anti-science,’ I expect you to (publicly) document and rebut any statement in my testimony that is factually inaccurate or where my conclusions are not supported by the evidence that I provide.”
One of your major points:
“Lack of warming since 1998”
“the warming over the past 15 years is only ~0.05”
Is inconsistent with surface air temperature datasets that have more complete coverage of the Arctic (e.g. Cowtan and Way; GISS). We have done many more further tests which strengthen this result. If you believe that the rate of warming is only 0.05 then I ask that you prove it and provide your code and rationale for how you deal with the missing coverage areas. Remember leaving a region out treats it the same as the global average.
A second major point:
“Further, Arctic surface temperature anomalies in the 1930’s were as large as the recent temperature anomalies”
Your statement (and the IPCC one you referenced) regarding the early century Arctic warming being of comparable magnitude to the recent Arctic warming is incorrect. Once again I ask that you provide the analysis to prove this erroneous statement. Myself and Kevin have already verified based on all available land, and land+ocean datasets even including the NansenSAT dataset that the IPCC referenced for this statement.
Robert Way,
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/show_station.cgi?id=634010050010&dt=1&ds=14
Robert,
Besides poor coverage over the Arctic areas by HadCrut as your research demonstrated, the other element to the “pause” is the coincidental way that an aggregation of natural variations can compensate for the global warming rise.
Consider this a maturing work in progress but it is fairly obvious that we can pull together a limited set of thermodynamic forcing terms to predict the pause based on a training set of data ending in 1950 :
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/22/projection-training-intervals-for-csalt-model/
What’s more, we can account for all the so-called “missing heat” by properly doing the accounting of energy transferred from ocean to land:
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/25/what-missing-heat/
Keep digging ! This is fun stuff, not boring.
Robert Way, While we are at it, “Is inconsistent with surface air temperature datasets that have more complete coverage of the Arctic (e.g. Cowtan and Way; GISS). ”
Interpolation at high latitudes and lower energy per degree C can get entertaining.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-InRzTrJd89w/UsGyQtSHaZI/AAAAAAAAK3Q/RdHviDsvh30/w740-h343-no/GISS+artifact.png
Since the Arctic can get out of phase with the globe especially in winter where the lowest temperatures have the largest swings during Arctic Winter Warming and various disruptions of the Polar Vortex, the utility of temperature anomaly starts getting a bit questionable. The smearing, er… interpolating the anomalies can be a bit misleading.
On your bike,Robert and pedal off. Kevin who?
Look, there are thousands of other scientists out there besides yourself, with impressive resumes, also collecting and interpreting data and not one of them said anything about the Arctic and its possible warming until you came along with a little computer program with a fancy name [Cringing wasn’t it, if not, I am, at the name], stuck in a lot of extrapolated data [?] all of which went up mega degrees [could you care/dare/ show one arctic area that went down].
This then resulted in a one off, one only data set that you trumpet as being up to date and better than all the older, well tested, well researched surface air temperature datasets of mostly real data.
Have you looked at it in the light of day. How could the rest of the world have paused for 17 years while sitting next to this Northern exponentially increasing fortress of warmth. Where is the heating in the rest of the world that must have occurred for the coldest area on the to have been able to heat up so much.
When something looks and sounds too good to be true ….
Caveat Emptor.
Capt, a rookie ‘scientist’ schooled at the sketicalscience blog should not be expected to get everything right on his first try. But the self-promotion is hilarious and unseemly.
Just what the world needs, another Climate Drama Queen.
Remember leaving a region out treats it the same as the global average.
Hadcru used a spherical cow ie it reduced the surface area of the earth by 1% (500 mkm^2) in the ocean areas of the international date line.Surprisingly enough in the SH it is also an area where the cold polar currents upwell (east of NZ) and it is an area 70s-30 s with a neutral to negative trend >40 yrs.
I’m going to “borrow” that, Howard. Thanks.
Cappy,
Energy is not conserved at a regional level. Strange that you still have not figured that out.
“Remember leaving a region out treats it the same as the global average.”
Including it with interpolated data can only lead to confirmation bias. What you’re going to find Robert is that outside climate science, where every paper that supports the “mainstream” position is feted as the final paper on the subject, most papers are accepted pending verification, and then more verification, and then more verification.
Two rookie scientists, with an agenda, don’t cut it anywhere outside climate science. I strongly suggest your paper is wrong and will be proved wrong with the passing of time.
Robert:
On your first point – if any of the major scientifically used temperature record sets support Judith then her testimony was accurate.
On your second point – you should check out pg. 29 of the report “Impacts of a Warming Arctic” (2004). This report shows a graph of observed arctic temperature 1900 to present. The temperatures of the 30’s sure look as high as the temperatures through 2004.
I would have to say that you have not demonstrated any factually inaccurate statements yet.
I think Judith’s claim that “the warming over the past 15 years is only ~0.05″ is wrong by at least a factor of 2.
If you take the linear trend * 15 years you get
GISS: 0.13 C
HadCRUT4: 0.11 C
NCDC: 0.10 C
with all having a 95% C.L. of 0.06 C.
Then there is what Tamino has written about the sea level claims in Judith’s testimony.
RickA,
The dataset used for that report is available up to 2008 now and shows the same as every other dataset – that the Arctic is warmer than it was then averaged across the whole region. You can check this for yourself if you prefer. This interpretation is also supported by ice cap melt records as well (see Fisher et al. 2012; Sharp et al. 2012 for example).
As for the comments on interpolation: interpolation is fine as long as you validate it. We chose two methods to do so – cross-validation and comparison with the Arctic buoy dataset.
geronimo,
If you so clearly feel that paper is wrong then it is worthwhile to show how. You must have run the analysis to prove it if you would make such a strong statement. So let us in on this secret analysis that proves the Arctic isn’t warming faster then the rest of the world?
As an Inuit from northern Canada I am eager to hear all the ways that my eyes deceive me ;)
Angech, you are completely wrong, amplified polar warming has been a major area of study for at least twenty years as all the IPCC reports show
How many interpolation schemes did you try, before you got the right answer, junior?
Don Montford,
First of all I have no idea who Junior is – perhaps you’re referring to some other commenter?
Second,
The data and code are available at the project website. I’m sure if you’re capable of implying scientific malfeasance then you’re certainly capable of running the code and testing simpler interpolation schemes such as nearest neighbor, inverse distance weighting, splines etc… But here’s a hint for you to save time – they all give virtually the same result (we tested it). Its very hard to fool cross-validation. The only way to show the Arctic hasn’t warmed over the past 15 years is to ignore the data itself.
You know who I am talking to, junior. I am not impressed with your effort to conjure up data by mixing and matching from different data sets. You can’t strap two sparrows together and make a hawk. RSS covers up to 82.5N. That’s close enough. Let’s go with RSS. Of course, you are welcome to interpolate or extrapolate to your little heart’s delight. There could be seven or eight more papers in it for you.
I’ll give you a break, junior. Your methods are plausible, if one must play the infilled data game. But all you have is another data set, cobbled together from the same old data. Did you try cobbling with HadCRUT3 and RSS? There’s another paper. I see tenure in some climate science shop for you, junior. And all expense paid junkets to exotic destinations.
“provide your code and rationale for how you deal with the missing coverage areas”
Yes by all means adjust for the missing coverage. But it is interesting that every single retroactive adjustment to observed temperatures always seem to bolster the Warmist case. Probably just a coincidence…
Webster, “Cappy,
Energy is not conserved at a regional level. Strange that you still have not figured that out.”
Of course it is not conserved regionally, neither is mass, that is why you have anti-phase warming/cooling at the poles and the lower stratosphere. That is also why you should allow for the actual energy that a temperature reading indicates. When you interpolate temperature over large temperature ranges and phase changes without considering energy you are losing sight of the basic thermodynamics. That I believe is the point Dr. Curry was trying to make re: Cowtan and Way.
Eli Rabett | January 26, 2014 at 9:48 pm |
“Angech, you are completely wrong, amplified polar warming has been a major area of study for at least twenty years as all the IPCC reports show”
Yes it has been a major area of study, especially in the Antarctic where is doesn’t exist. Then it was repackaged as Arctic Polar Polar amplification after the creative attempt to interpolate temperatures sort of failed. Recently with BEST it appears that it might need to be repackaged as Land Amplification since 30-60N is amplified more than 60-90N unless you elect to use “novel” methods to interpolate across long distances and phase changes.
After 30 years of study the modeling of the soon to be repackaged amplification is not much better than it was at the start.
Sorry Guys, but Robert is correct.
The only way you get a cooler arctic is by pretending that it warms as fast as the global average,
In general lat 10-20 warms more than 0-10, and 30 -20 warms more than
1-20, and 40-30 warms more than 30-20, and 50 -40 more than 40-30
and 60-50 more than 50-40 and 70-60 more than 60-50 and 80-70 more than 70-60.
Question: does 80-90 warm
A) the same as 70-80?
B) more than 70-80?
C) less than 70-80.
When you dont interpolate you are stating that 80-90 warms at the
same rate as 0-80. option C. There is no evidence to suggest this is correct. none. zero.
When you smooth 80 to 90, as GISS does, you are picking option A
Theres no evidence for this.
Look at it this way. CRU made one assumption (C) GISS made another assumption (A) NEITHER GROUP tested that assumption.
Robert used other information (UAH) to inform his choice. The missing temps are estimated using UAH information.
He then tested that assumption by checking bouy data. His assumptions were supported by the validation exercise.
On the evidence his estimation is best. Best because its the only one that is tested and validated.
Perhaps it will be improved upon. But you cannot suggest that the CRU method or the GISS method is better without checking those answers against the data (albeit sparse) that we have from bouys.
If you don’t like UAH, you could use AVHRR data or AIRS data (for 2002-2013) but on the evidence as it stands his work is the only work that has been tested and validated.
next post is on the Arctic, hopefully up tomorrow some time
Steven Mosher, “When you dont interpolate you are stating that 80-90 warms at the same rate as 0-80.”
That is incorrect. You are only stating that 80-90 is warming as fast as 0-80 if you actually make that statement. If you say that the “globe” from 0-80 is warming at this rate and we have no clue how much it is warming from 80-90 you are being factual. Since you “know” 80-90 “should be” warming faster than 0-80 and then imput” data for 80-90 where there is none, you are leaving yourself open serious criticism.
If you don’t have data, you don’t have data.
Now if you want to create data where there is none, kriging like to like is probably the best. Kriging across phase changes, i.e. that nasty anti-phase relationship that crops up due to latent heat and poleward advection poses a different problem. Since they “knew” the Antarctic had to be warming, Steig et al. with guess statistician Micheal E. Mann “found” what they were looking for.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-InRzTrJd89w/UsGyQtSHaZI/AAAAAAAAK3Q/RdHviDsvh30/w740-h343-no/GISS+artifact.png
Now based on your warming by latitude what does that tell ya?
I recall reading that the GCMs project Arctic warming of 4C by 2100. How we doing on that? Will we have to start interpolating from Bermuda to reach our goal?
Bob Tisdale has done a thorough analysis of cowtan and junior:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/on-cowtan-and-ray-2013-coverage-bias-in-the-hadcrut4-temperature-series-and-its-impact-on-recent-temperature-trends/
The punchline:
“The datasets produced by Cowtan and Way (2013) do not appear to provide polar amplification for the period of 1979 to 2004, because the HADCRUT4 data warmed faster than the Cowtan and Way (2013) data before 2005. See the discussions of Figures 3, 4 and 5.
Increasing polar-amplified warming in the Arctic does not help climate models, which show poor polar amplification results. Refer to the discussions of Figures 7, 8 and 9.
And due to the differences in the spatial patterns of warming and cooling, using lower troposphere temperatures to infill surface temperature data appears questionable.”
Mosher, are you ever going to give a detailed response to Fank Lansner’s criticisms of the BEST data and methods? Your response on that thread were meek and unsubstantive. Unlike your detailed and plausible defense of junior:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/on-cowtan-and-ray-2013-coverage-bias-in-the-hadcrut4-temperature-series-and-its-impact-on-recent-temperature-trends/
‘Climate forcing results in an imbalance in the TOA radiation budget that has direct implications for global climate, but the large natural variability in the Earth’s radiation budget due to fluctuations in atmospheric and ocean dynamics complicates this picture.’ http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~jnorris/reprints/Loeb_et_al_ISSI_Surv_Geophys_2012.pdf
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/HadCRUT4vCERES_zpse5107cfd.png.html?sort=3&o=27
And there appears to be larger variability earlier in the 1998/2001 climate shift – captured by a couple of methods. Unless the modes and variability of TOA flux is understood – it all seems a colossal waste of time.
Indeed surface temperature seems a colossal waste of time in itself in understanding climate. Important only in terms of local weather and complicated by differing lapse rates over land and oceans. What would seem to matter more – wrt climate and not weather – is the total energy content of the oceans and atmosphere. The former is fragmentary prior to ARGO and the latter is assessable only with satellites.
The available ARGO record to June 2013 is showing annual and interannual variability but it would seem vain to make much of it.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/237f9f0f-7543-40dc-bec5-ead3859d7758_zpse9c0cb59.jpg.html?state=copy
I doubt that much should be made of the satellite record either.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_December_2013_v5.6.png
What seems more interesting is the change in ocean and atmospheric circulation that occurred in the 1998/2001 climate shift – climate shifts are a relatively new concept but one that is central to understanding climate. The presumption is that this contributed to warming between 1976 and 1998 and is counteracting warming influences now. These patterns persist for 20 to 40 years in the long proxy records.
The changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation are associated with changes in cloud cover and therefore the global energy budget and the complications that Loeb et al 2012 discuss in their paper.
Just because you are some sort of New-Age *Intuit* doesn’t mean you see all that clearly. In any event, your one recent paper does not constitute settled science. It might end up being A#1 correct, but you can’t expect people (other than your sick-o-fants at SkepSci) to serve it up to Congress as gospel before it’s been fully vetted.
I left off self-adsorbed from Drama Queen… sorry about that, Chief.
Robert, the problem is without actual measurements, you can’t show it was warming, we don’t actually know what the temperatures are. What I find most interesting is how few stations there are (at least in the NCDC GSoD) that aren’t on the coastal regions north of 60 Lat. All of those will be biased by surface water temps.
While this is true, leaving out regions that are not measured will allow you to see what the actual measured temperatures are.
GAT series are nothing more than a model of supposed surface temps, as the vast majority of the Earths surface isn’t actually measured.
Robert, cross-validation is not a measurement.
What data? There are no measurements, there is no data!
“JC challenge to MM: Since you have publicly accused my Congressional testimony of being ‘anti-science,’ I expect you to (publicly) document and rebut any statement in my testimony that is factually inaccurate or where my conclusions are not supported by the evidence that I provide.”
Robert Way:
“As an Inuit from northern Canada I am eager to hear all the ways that my eyes deceive me ;)”
Perhaps the fact that you seem to have missed this part in your copy/paste;
“JC challenge to MM”
NOT challenge to RW
Direct quote from Robert Way in a post on CA, discussing Cowtan & Way:
“What is shown in this post is that the regions which are the most sparse were most susceptible to losing values during rebaselining – an unfortunate but difficult to avoid problem”
Robert Way a set of one, from Mosher. means a lot??
Eli Rabett | January 26, 2014 at 9:48 pm | Angech, you are completely wrong, amplified polar warming has been a major area of study for at least twenty years as all the IPCC reports show
Steven Mosher | January 27, 2014 at 1:52 pm |
Sorry Guys, but Robert is correct.The only way you get a cooler arctic is by pretending that it warms as fast as the global average,
Anyone else see a dichotomy here
both say the arctic warming has been known for years. Yet not one of the brilliant NOAH/NASA / whoever factored it into their programs..
Until along came Robert
with surface air temperature datasets that have more complete coverage of the Arctic (e.g. Cowtan and Way; GISS).
Please it is not a data set
it is not a data set
it is not a data set
it is not a data set
It is an exercise in cringing
Please do not call it a data set Mosher and say that it is the best we have because it is the only one we have.
You cannot validate yourself you need data.
Josh,
You don’t need to borrow it. You’ve owned it for some time.
In Oz this observation in defence of free speech by Senator
Brandis referring to the Gillard Government’s attempt to
introduce a new regulatory body funded by government, to
oversee the news media with power to enforce decisions and
enforce severe sanctions:
‘The practitioners of political correctness have grasped the close connection between language and thought, so that by limiting that
which may be said, they seek to limit what may be thought … As
Winston Smith discovered, there is hardly any distance between
speech crime and thought crime. So the attack upon freedom of
speech is not merely about the cennsorship of language which the
Left finds objectionable. At a deeper level it is an attack upon
intellectual freedom itself.’
Referring to Winston Smith again, Michael Mann’s direction,
‘If yer see something … say something’ applies only ter his
own tribe and their publicationss. In regard ter free speech,
some are more equal than others.
jest-a-serf.
Dr. Curry ==> Does Dr. Mann have a right to be publicly rude to colleagues? Does Dr. Gavin Schmidt have the right to sneeringly publicly dismiss as “those who don’t know” colleagues whose professional opinions he disagrees? How many of your colleagues coerced Rasmussen into closing the journal “Pattern Recognition in Physics”?
When will these things end if their peers don’t stand up and speak out, or at least take the offenders by the arm and speak to them in the hallways of academia and counsel them in a better way. They are leading the reputation of the science to its own destruction.
What a joke –
So he’s going to protect free speech by bringing a case where it is being infringed to the light of day in a courtroom.
Yeah. That’s the ticket. If he weren’t married to Morgan Fairchild, I might not believe him.
Nobody really cares which way you meant it, joshie. It’s just another lame attack on a person of substance , by a little anonymous nobody.
“So he’s going to protect free speech by bringing a case where it is being infringed to the light of day in a courtroom.”
A model of syntactic clarity as usual.
oops. ….by not bringing a case where is being infringed to the light of day in a courtroom.
Hate it when that happens.
Still makes no sense.
we have our own Michael Mann’s and Mark Steyn’s in this blog post every day Judith, that is why your article on decorum was so well received.
Most of us have a reasonable amount of hide and the odd bit of derogatory comment is fun at times, until some get too personal or acerbic.
Most of us are fairly sure that something is right or wrong from our perspective although there is the odd lukewarmer around.
There are a number of commentators who are obviously quite bright scientific and have the resources on tap, but they seem to be on both sides and the more they know the more upset they get.
Mr Mann is a bit like me, happy to chuck out derogatory comments not expecting people to get too upset by them , after all, he gets a lot more back than he gives. [ I would laugh at him, not sue him, if I were you on the present comments]
But he is also very thin skinned like myself and takes the more hurtful comments a bit too seriously.
I did not appreciate Mark Steyn’s humor reporting which would, I hope, have been censored on this post. Amazingly it seems to come under free speech in USA.
But I do think it is fair to ask if his work, which came out at a politically convenient time was done robustly, and if so why has not all the data and codes been released for reproducibility in the scientific world. For doing this in too blunt a way Mark gets sued ?
Finally the anti-SLAPP ? seems to be failing in one of it’s first real tests.
If Steyn wins does he get his money back?
Big boy pants, Judith. Big boy pants.
Looks like someone misplaced her big boy pants.
Burn her. She’s a witch, Joshua. Never has the phrase ‘words fail’ had so many different and appropriate connotations. Never let up, Joshua. Never give in.
one could assume that by refusing to sue Judith is pulling on her big boy pants.
big boy: sticks and stones may break my bones.
wimp: take it back or I’ll sue
That’s just an interpretation. Seems to me the kid in the skirt is the last one to have an opinion on what constitutes pulling on ones pants
Again, fairly or not, filing a law suit for libel is not good for one’s public image. Judith has done a superb job of protecting her image as an eminently sane and reasonable person. A “nice” person if you will. This is particularly important for those with unpopular views. I would never advise her to step into that 3 ring Michael Mann circus by suing him.
Says the guy who acts like a junior high school kid around Judith.
This post may be your best one yet, Judith. It just keeps getting better and better the more I read:
I asked you, repeatedly, to comment when McKitrick called a journal editor a “groveling, terrified coward,” yet you refused to criticize McKitrick.
It seems that your concern on these issues is quite selective, Judith. Why would that be?
“I asked you repeatedly…and yet you refused…”
Wow, the nerve of Professor Curry, Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, failing to jump to the commands of some anonymous Internet troll. Hard to believe.
She responded, but refused to criticize McKitrick.
Her concern is….er…..selective
Joshua –
Amazingly enough, there is a distinction here that you fail to grasp. McKitrick spoke thusly of the editor because of his political machinations, not his scientific opinions. Mann says much worse about his colleagues when they differ with his scientific opinions.
And speaking of being selective, Joshua, can you point me to any comments you have left on warmist blogs upbraiding them for tribalism, motivated reasoning? Or are you the referee/scourge of only the skeptics?
The first rule of literary criticism is ‘grant the artist his choice of subject.’ Joshua, Judith is free to write about subjects she chooses. To criticize her for something she hasn’t written is as absurd as the rest of your petulant whining about her. But at least it’s good to know that your criticism isn’t literary.
Tom –
What brilliant insight, Tom. I never realized that before. You see, I thought that I had the right to determine what she can and can’t write about. Thanks for filling me in.
I’m not so much criticizing her for what she hasn’t written*, but for the ….er….selectivity in what she does write.
* Well, in this situation, anyway. With her testimony about “the pause in global warming” I was critical for her w/r/t what she hadn’t written. Remember….
One of the more amusing aspects of the climate wars is the ….er….selective lip service “skeptics” pay to Feynman.
Tom C –
Just to be be clear, I’m in no way defending Mann. I think that his nonsense is just as bad as McKitrick calling that editor a “terrified, lying coward.” And Steyn’s nonsense is no better. It’s all worthless shi** as far as I’m concerned (and I don’t agree that the distinction you’re making is one of significance).
No Joshua –
The distinction I raise makes all the difference in the world. He was accusing the editor of moral failings as evidenced by his behavior. There is a world of difference between that and name calling because someone does not agree with statistical practices. You don’t accept it because it is devastating to your talking point which you hammer on ad nauseum
Joshua –
Kindly supply a link to one of your comments on a well-know warmist site which demonstrates your commitment to evenhandedness in this deabate.
Joshua.
She has to be selective. Note, she rarely stoops to call out your idiocy.
on occassions yes. But normally she lets us have the fun of that.
Mosher,
It used to be fun, but as poor Josh has shown no growth or ability to mature, it is starting to feel like kicking around some retarded puppy.
I’ve recently done three blog posts about your senate testimony. In addition to offering my opinions, I have also taken the time to “(publicly) document and rebut” statements in your testimony that are “factually inaccurate or … not supported by the evidence” that you provide.
If you think my efforts are “dubious,” then I invite you to publicly support that contention. Be sure to provide scientific evidence, and rest assured that those (including me) who will place whatever you provide under the microscope will be far better prepared to evaluate it than members of a senate committee.
As for the legal case between Steyn and Mann, I suggest that the judge who will decide the case has at least as much reverence for our constitution’s free-speech guarantee, and a far better understading of the issues, than you and others who talk of “rather frightening implications of this case for free speech.” Or have you spent enough time on google and wikipedia to launch a “21st century democratization of expertise” when it comes to the law?
Another water carrier for Mikey Mann.
I will be responding to your critiques to my testimony, the 1930’s Arctic one should be coming in a few days. I have been extremely busy, and will continue to be very busy until after Feb 7.
Judith is right to characterize your posts, tamino, as dubious. Sea level is a complex subject and your post seems very superficial and dare I say it a little simplistic. Wunsch has a more scientific take on it.
What a load of self-righteous nonsense about the American legal system and who is more of an expert on the issues. This reverence of the legal system and judges is certainly an odd thing.
Judith argues that the Mann’s case is overtly weak. If our court system is so bad that such overtly weak cases threaten it, then there are far bigger problems than the implications from just this one case.
If she finds this one case “frightening” in terms of implications to our free speech (I still can’t stop laughing at the drama-queening), then she clearly has no reverence for our legal system.
Perhaps what’s most amusing is that apparently she thinks this kind of hyperbole will build bridges.
Tamino, note that your post appears here, quite unlike your own site where you censor almost all opposing opinions and ban those who posted them.
“rest assured that those (including me) who will place whatever you provide under the microscope will be far better prepared to evaluate it”
Yes, and if that doesn’t frighten you, we’ll send Vito and Rocco around to help fix your computer.
Tamino,
You should look into the Stadium Wave theory. It helps to understand the “pause”, while reducing the uncertainty about the attribution of the global temperature rise to CO2.
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/22/projection-training-intervals-for-csalt-model/
This knowledge is also useful for explaining why the heat has not gone “missing” :
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/25/what-missing-heat/
Tamino,
Judith would NEVER comment on issues outside her expertise – that threatens the very foundations of science,didn’t you know?
@curryja…
Prof. Curry, I posted set of comments in the Ocean heat content thread that may be relevant, although I’m guessing it just reinvents a wheel already obvious to anyone studied in the subject.
Carrying it farther, I found Quantifying the seasonal “breathing” of the Antarctic ice sheet by S. R. M. Ligtenberg, M. Horwath, M. R. van den Broeke, and B. Legrésy GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 39, L23501, doi:10.1029/2012GL053628, 2012. You may already be familiar with it, but just in case…
Tamino, as I am in China I cannot access your weblog.Would you care to post your specific criticisms here, rather than linking to them? I would greatly appreciate it.
Michael –
Indeed. It could reverse the enlightenment!!!1!!1!1!!1
The day Judith comments on something beyond her expertise is the day to start building your bunker.
Tamino,
Remember this? (you were wrong)
I must have really hit the bulls-eye with this post, because now I can *smell* the desperation.
No matter how often, brashly, or rudely you repeat the assertion that “you loose [sic] meaning,” it won’t make it true. Your own words are unambiguous: you assert that non-centering itself is not valid (there’s no other interpretation of “by not centering, you loose [sic] all your theoretical properties…” etc.). But Jolliffe flatly contradicts you (that’s what his presentation is about), so you brush that off with the pathetic statement that he doesn’t specifically mention using a partial average.
Jolliffe’s entire presentation is about the fact that centering is not an essential aspect of PCA. But because he doesn’t specifically mention choosing a partial average, you feel free to ignore his point. That of course enables you to repeat the crap about non-centered PCA being invalid. Now *that* is rubbish, and particularly stinky rubbish to boot.
I suspect that you *know* your amateurish claim is bull**, but you’re *counting* on readers not having the expertise to catch your lie.
Tamino
Judith Curry
Look forward to new 1930s Arctic post.
Should be enlightening.
Max
Well, well, yet another alarmist at Climate Etc.
Why so little trust in our court system, Judith. If Mann’s case is as weak as you argue it is, he will lose the case and if anything, out freedom of speech will be strengthened.
Why all the drama-queening?
Don M. experiences Fremdschämen.
Joshua just made Lolwot’s 6:34 pm prediction come true- his first, I believe. Heck, it may even be the first successful prediction by the any of the warm.
I’m taking bets on whether he retroactively adjusts the definition of “avalanche” or “nut job” first. Line is even money on the former.
Are you the Joshua who on another blog claimed to have heard climate deniers saying that all climate science was wrong? If not there must be something about the pseudonum “Josua” that’s attractive to people who are “economic with the truth”.
I don’t know about that “Josua” but this is the one who hectors us constantly about tribal and cognitive biases we have, but now seems to think the people inhabiting institutions of Western jurisprudence can be counted on to behave like models of rationality all the time.
NW –
Good point. Yes, no doubt, I think Western jurisprudence can be counted on to behave like models of rationality all the time.
What gave it away? The fact that I said that if a case is to so obviously unsupported, as Judith concludes that the Mann case is, then it doesn’t present some existential threat to our freedom of speech?
Your powers of deduction are really quite amazing.
The problem, as Steyn alluded to in one of Judith’s quotes of him, is that our legal system only reaches the right decision (if it does), after spending a fortune on discovery. Being told that what you said was ok, after all, only after you have spent $500,00 on lawyers is not a meaningful vindication of free speech. You don’t get the money back after you win, you know.
Dr. Curry,
You say “The New Republic has spent a half million already on this case?”
You meant “The National Review,” right? They’re a bit different. ;)
yikes, let me fix
Dr Curry … no one actually forced the National Review to post the commentary in question.
On a factual note … do you agree with Steyn that Mann is guilty of scientific fraud? If so, on what basis?
Here, the link you want to read is cited in this post above, but here it is…
http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/22/hiding-the-decline/
And here’s an extended quote…
“There is no question that the diagrams and accompanying text in the IPCC TAR, AR4 and WMO 1999 are misleading. I was misled… It is obvious that there has been deletion of adverse data in figures shown IPCC AR3 and AR4, and the 1999 WMO document. Not only is this misleading, but it is dishonest (I agree with Muller on this one)… I would like to know what the heck Mann, Briffa, Jones et al. were thinking when they did this and why they did this, and how they can defend this, although the emails provide pretty strong clues. Does the IPCC regard this as acceptable? I sure don’t… Can anyone defend ‘hide the decline’? I would much prefer to be wrong in my interpretation, but I fear that I am not.”
Of course maybe you’re after a yes or no answer, but Dr. Curry doesn’t seem to have been sworn in today.
Oh, no! Doghoser in da house! They must really be desperate. Do you rally think that you are going to get Judith to say that mikey is guilty of scientific fraud? You little clown.
I don’t know about “fraud”. Maybe Mann is so dumb he actually believes his own nonsense. If he believes it it isn’t “fraud”. It still is nonsense.
Don,
I believe you owe dhogaza an apology.
He’s for sure a big clown, not a little one.
This is hilarious:
“I’ve written previously about Mann’s defaming me as a ‘serial climate misinformer‘ and ‘anti-science.’ ”
This is not defamation – it is exactly what you have become. Sad but true.
The stadium wave is a perfect example – bad statistical claptrap.
Oh great, the Portuguese translator lends her statistical expertise to the discussion. How many peer-reviewed climate papers have you had published? Oh that’s right, none.
Demean Tenney’s expertise?
=========================
Sounds a bit over the top……until you look up some definitions of ‘anti-science’ and then you can see that some what Judith has been doing is just that.
Sad but true.
kim, seriously, what are you still doing amongst these people?
The Stadium Wave is actually a useful model (via the LOD measure) and allows us to reduce the uncertainty in the attribution of the atmospheric CO2 concentration to the current global temperature rise.
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/22/projection-training-intervals-for-csalt-model/
“amongst these people”
Attention Joshua, clean up on aisle Tenney Naumer
Worst words ever overheard in a laundromat: ‘Scottie’s in a foul mood this morning; he was up all night with that beam thingie’.
======================
Then why is it “hilarious”? What exactly is a “serial climate misinformer”? or even more opaquely “anti-science”? If you want to insult someone then it’s probably best to do it in your mother tongue rather than take words and phrases and translate them from Inuit, or whichever language you’re using. It doesn’t make sense to English speakers.
“What is kim doing here?” Keeping me amused, at the very least. If you think so little of this site, Tenney, you should surely regard kim’s contributions as raising the standard.
Tenney – Last year humans emitted 790,066,915,314 bushels of corn in CO2. Great news!
Is it just me, or has the frequency of meanness, snark and put-downs aimed at the hostess increased recently, as if it is deemed urgent to do so?
It would perhaps be in proportion to her Senate testimony obfuscation.
Perhaps? Do enlighten us. We’re all ears.
If I can conjure up sufficient English for a reply:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/one-of-the-problems-with-judith-curry/
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/true-lies/
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/the-rise-and-fall-of-judith-curry/
Crickets. Did you say something you weren’t supposed to?
It does appear so – the Mannians have their marching orders.
Obviously, she has hit several major nerves. Raining on the “green” parade – and I’m not talking energy here.
@Tenney Naumer | January 26, 2014 at 11:22 pm |
That’s some really nice speculation Tenney. Kind of like the IPCC reports.
AGW hack Tenney Naumer showed us she knows how to post links to Tamino’s website. Maybe she can translate to Portuguese.
hmm, in fact, “mentiras verdadeiras” has an excellent ring to it in Portuguese, much better than “true lies” does in English.
Maybe you could display less intellectual laziness by reading tamino’s posts and actually learning something, but you don’t really seem up to it.
And perhaps you could actually get some reputable sources that support your opinion instead of using Grant Fosters site where censoring is the key word, and facts are even more rare.
Clearly you live in your own bubble with Morton’s Demon.
Clearly you have no point to make other than pathetic childish insults.
Try research. You might even get an education out of it.
hmm, lemme c, I have over 350 semester hours at uni, obtaining 4 degrees with credits left over for nearly two more, took 24 hours of stats, some at the 500 level, and my last degree was obtained in one year with a 4.0, so I suppose I have been educated enough in a classroom setting, although if I were younger I might consider more. This time round I think I’ll just stick to the free online MIT courses in climate science.
So what you are saying is you are over educated to the point you no longer are capable of learning?
If you are a historian, I am sure your education does you well. All other fields have to continue to learn. If they want to stay competent.
The key words are “in a classroom.”
Congratulations – you are in a classroom.
Seems much more like Bethlem Royal Hospital to those not living in this bubble.
I cringe every time I read anyone say “these people.” Perhaps Tenney doesn’t know the background of the expression – but sure, even if not, it reflects “skepticism.”
NW –
Well, no doubt. “The team” has send out their orders.
Conspiracy ideation? What conspiracy ideation?
Conspiracy? Perhaps your ideation is all about conspiracy. But following orders is not a conspiracy, just mindless endeavors.
“Well, no doubt. “The team” has send out their orders.” – Joshua
I’m on the payroll!
I know who is in the Team – they have all blocked me on twitter, even if I am a total nobody.
It’s actually quite interesting to see them move in formation.
Logic Fallacy again. You do not have to be paid to follow orders.
Many people block an annoying tweep and it’s evidence of a conspiracy. Too funny.
Don’t be silly, whoever you are under the ‘me’ pseudonym. I have been blocked by a very limited number of people, that is two or three crazy types and a small troop of climate communicators
There are many climate scientists and communicators who do not have blocked me. There is none else who’s blocked me really.
Well, no doubt. “The team” has send out their orders.
Conspiracy ideation? What conspiracy ideation?
################
Their coms are not secure. CRU wasnt secure. The treehouse wasnt secure. Gleick wasnt secure.
They might never learn.
Dear Mr. Mosher,
Was that a reply? What exactly were you trying to say?
Just to point out –
I doubt that conspiracy ideation is any more prevalent on the “skeptic” side of the debate than it is on the “realist” side. I find such arguments (coming from either side) to be quite implausible.
That doesn’t mean, however, that NW’s comment (of the sort that I often see here at Climate Etc. coming from my much beloved “skeptics” that fantasize some larger context to explain the individual comments of individual commenters) was not conspiratorial ideation.
I doubt that he really believes that anyone’s comments here follow from what was “deemed urgent” – but he clearly likes to dip into hyperbole and has shown an unwillingness to hold himself accountable for such when called on it.
This is an example of a larger phenomenon that I see: people who are obviously extremely capable of cogent analysis willing to jettison their skills and abilities due to some emotional investment in the climate wars.
It’s quite fascinating, really.
As you know, Lewandowsky has done research on this and the results strongly suggest that conspiracy ideation is more prevalent among certain groups than it is among others, although it appears that hardly any group is completely immune.
And Lewandowksy’s work has been thoroughly discredited. He derived conclusions from sample sizes of 0.
Tenney –
As far as I am familiar with Lewandowsky’s work, which isn’t very far, it seems to me that it shows that there is some association of conspiratorial ideation and climate “skepticism,” but fails to address in a scientific manner the question of whether it predominates, relatively in “skeptics” as compared to “realists.”
I see conspiratorial ideation expressed quite often by my much beloved “skeptics” here at Climate Etc. – so I don’t really feel like I need Lewandowsky’s evidence to support such a conclusion, but: (1) I think that while it is often expressed, it is likely that such expressions of conspiratorial ideation are often only skin deep – and that if you probed more deeply, you’d find that it was mostly back-slapping, yuk-it-up rhetorical hyperbole of the sort we saw from NW in this thread. Although his comment suggested such, I doubt that he really believes that individual commenters here were responding because something had been “deemed urgent” by some unspecified “deemers,” and, (2) it seems to me that you might be drawing conclusions from Lewandowsky’s research that (assuming you find his research methodology to be valid – which some seem to question) are not supported by the evidence he offered: Evidence that informs the question of whether conspiracy ideation is relatively more prevalent on the “skeptical” side than the “realist” side.
My own personal bias is that conspiracy ideation, and offering hyperbolic rhetoric is not disproporationate on one side of the climate wars compared to the other, and further, that what we know about human psychology and cognition would make such an outcome implausible.
Conspiracy ideation? What conspiracy ideation?
Logical fallacy. You can scream “conspiracy” every time a statement is made. But that shows your lack of reading comprehension.
Tenney
I wasnt trying to say anything. I was saying something.
you read english. put 2 and 2 together and try not to come up with a fraction in your answer.
philjourdan | January 27, 2014 at 4:36 pm |
And Lewandowksy’s work has been thoroughly discredited. He derived conclusions from sample sizes of 0.
It is published though in a peer reviewed journal and cited by presidents. Since the vast majority of scientists haven’t said anything, they must not see anything wrong with the quality of the work. And you know, a smart president would never hire yes men as science advisers.
The fact it is peer reviewed speaks large volumes for the incompetence of the reviewers as well. Even a 2nd grade child would question a conclusion with a 0 population. As for politicians and presidents, brains are not a requirement for either job. Just a fast tongue.
Being a ‘serial climate misinformer’ consists of suggesting that natural variability added to warming in the 1976 to 1998 period and is constraining warming currently and for another decade to three. Complicated by the idea of climate shifts – a relatively new idea but key to understanding climate.
e.g. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130822105042.htm
This is leading edge climate science.
Being a Borg collective cult of AGW groupthink space cadet on the other hand means never having to question your assumptions – feeling supreme overconfidence that only the Borg collective can bring – having complete faith in your moral and intellectual superiority – self censoring doubts and uncertainties – indulging in the illusion of unanimity and kowtowing to self appointed mind guards.
Have I missed anything?
Cite, site, sight, sighed.
There’s a good one in there, somewhere.
=====================
Tenney,
Are you going to try for a hat trick?
First Grant Foster and then Lewandowski. One more and you’ve got it. (Though sweet Lew should probably count for 2.)
Perhaps one can see a pattern of too much (recognition) too soon.— As in a Nobel Peace Prize before one has done anything (yes, I am talking about our Chief Executive) or the IPCC showing a graph done by a pre-doctorate in the background of the third Report.
Mann never had adequate training in statistics to present such a report.
When one who did have adequate training challenged him his ego had become so inflated that he simply could not respond in a mature manner.
He still cannot respond in a mature manner, and unfortunately for him, he probably never will. It just does not occur to him that it is about the science, not him.
We, all of us, need to be humbled now and then. When humbling happens in an early stage of our lives it can make us better and more balanced in all that we do.
“I believe, it is much easier to make good men wise, than to make bad men good.”
— Henry Fielding
Pingback: Judith Curry « Newsbeat1
“You would think that someone who is so sensitive about people criticizing or defaming himself, that he would be very careful about defaming and insulting others. ” – JC
Judith, like Steyn, sems to struggle with distuinguishng opinion from fact.
Mann has voiced his opinion of Judith.
Judith eschews the ‘big boy pants’ she advocates for others.
Come on Michael, she has invited Dr. Mann to refute anything she stated
by presenting observations or studies to the contrary.
This would be a great opportunity for you to categorically do the same, statement by statement.
I would like to learn from you that which I might be missing at this point.
I expect other readers would also.
darylb,
The yawning chasm between her testimony on Antarctic sea-ice and her own peer-reviewed publication on the topic might be an obvious starting-point.
Judith has been challenged on this, in this post and and others – crickets.
Judith Curry,
“Maybe we need to lance this boil once and for all”
To me, it all depends upon where the boil is located, on an extremity, or internally. Different approaches are needed to address the cesspool of disinformation infection: a home practitioner or a sophisticated surgeon. Seeking simple solutions for complex problems (scalpel and a bit of iodine) we have been warned against by HL Mencken, simple solutions are almost always wrong. Employing lawyers is the simple solution. Going to the heart of disinformation is where a measured (preparation, sterile technique, good visualization of the lesion, and accomplished practice skill) approach is necessary. Your current strategy of data driven dialogue, expressing your opinion on the content of the pieces you present, and allowing a cacophony of denizens to comment makes your approach grindingly effective and appropriate. Hence you are a target of the underclass of climate scientists. You have gathered a cadre about you who will expand and articulate your message. Persistence is the answer. The boil of disinformation is already succumbing to the antiseptic of observation, disgorging the puss, and sun light.
“disgorging the puss ..” One “s” too many there, although my daughter did “disgorge a puss” this morning, when she inexplicably heard a distressed kitten mewling in the wall between her kitchen and bathroom. The 10-week-old kitten had managed to get into the wall system through under-bath access in a higher flat, and somehow got trapped in Lauren’s wall. She had to break three holes in the wall before locating it. Hopefully she has an understanding landlord.
Faustino aka Gehghis Cunn
“One too many” seems an apt metaphor, whether it be “s” or inflections in a global temperature graph. Be that as it may, critiques of proposals, especially those that have articulated the dreaded CO2 thermageddon, are altogether necessary and proper, to be carried out in an orderly and persistent manner.
You don’t want to put much faith in the American judicial system. It’s a crapshoot. Only a brain-dead juror wouldn’t already know the ‘hockey stick,’ is the symbol for global warming, which is hoax and scare tactic. And no Leftist will ever admit that the ‘hockey stick’ is a fraud but they will never tell the truth about that. So, that’s your potential jury: brain-dead idiots and ideologically motivated liars. Even so, Mann is a public figure so freedom of the press wins. It just costs way to much to get to the end result.
Steyn just can’t control himself and continues to misrepresent his case.
Conservative Republican geochemist Barry Bickmore has a lovely explanation of Steyn’s follies:
http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2014/01/26/how-to-manipulate-rubes-into-covering-your-legal-bills-mark-steyn-edition/
In your conclusion, you start to swerve into a very deep insight, but then stop short. And that is, the more that Mann insults everyone, the less his insults mean. He has become so abusive that his abusiveness is both as predictable and frequent as the sun rising.
He is damaging his own reputation, no one else’s. Other than the idiots who defend his behavior.
Dr Curry: I hope you know that every post that folks like you and Lucia and McIntyre and Watts do about the esteemed Nobel Prize winner are like his favorite p0rn stash. You might consider radio silence unless you enjoy helping him get off.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
—Edmund Burke
“Time wounds all heels”
– Groucho Marx
What I’m finding interesting is that the Mann vs. Steyn case is about freedom of speech, hyperbole and what constitutes opinion of public figures. Yet, the battle lines appear to falling exactly along the same ones as the scientific divide.
This would imply that people are gravitating toward the side of this case based on their belief in AGW. How very odd!
“Well this will be entertaining for some (popcorn futures explode at WUWT), but we do not need another national and international spectacle of climate scientists behaving badly. Maybe we need to lance this boil once and for all, but the path that has led us here reflects a very sad state of affairs for climate science.” – JC
And Judith, you’re in the thick of it, have been for a decade re: “fossilised brains”.
If the shoe fits….
Ok, I think Mann is the most appalling narcissisti and the hockeystick is a joke. Mark Steyn is an amusing and valuable commentator whose opinions on the climatariat I share.
That said, calling someone anti-science is not the same as saying they have wilfully falsified data. I see the judges position: he has to determine whether there has, in fact, been defamation. Make all the lawyer jokes you like – they deserve it – but there is a difference between trading insults and defaming.
I’m not saying that Mann can prove defamation or that Steyn won’t be able to show that Mann is guilty of serious tampering. But if you can’t prove someone has committed an illegal act you can’t accuse them of it. The judge has to determine if Steyn has made an accusation of illegal behaviour which cannot be proven. (And I’m not saying he has, okay?)
This is a bit like Climategate emails. I don’t accept it was okay to pilfer and use the emails. My being a skeptic in sympathy with skeptics can’t change that. Sometimes being a skeptic means forgetting what “side” one is on and just being skeptical.
Call me all the names you like, but don’t accuse me of a crime if you can’t prove it. I can go to jail for a crime. I can’t go to jail on the specific charge of being “anti-science” or even a “serial misinformer”. The specifics matter here. Defamation is real and distinct – just like the MWP all over Europe and Asia which got squashed flat on that ridiculous hockey stick!
“Ok, I think Mann is the most appalling narcissisti and the hockeystick is a joke. Mark Steyn is an amusing and valuable commentator whose opinions on the climatariat I share.” – mosomoso
If only eveyone could be as even-handed and rational as your good self….
mosomoso, you are so sensible! Are you sure that you are keeping the right company here? :-)
Mosomoso,
I agree with Faustino’s implied point: your comment is excellent. It’s valuable to have contributions that raise the quality of the debate on CE,
+1
As one of my favorite characters from literature says, “You may be right, and I cannot go so far as to say you are wrong, but still at the same time–!”
The way I see it is like this. The US already locks up way too many people. Probably a lot of them are douchebags. But the thing is, about half the blogger population is also douchebags. Yes they use fraud, lie, cheat and steal the way decent people use run, walk, jump and swim, but their penchant for dramatic hyperbole is no reason to add to our already-burgeoning prison population. What I mean is, if your going to lock up Steyn for calling someone a fraud (liar, creep, nimrod, sex offender), consistency will require that most of the staff at the Daily Kos follow him into the slammer.
And don’t get all legal-technical on me either. As Mr. Bumble said, “The law is a Ass! A Ass, sir!”
I hope it’s not too techo to point out that Steyn is being sued by Mann, not arrested by legal authorities and threatened with imprisonment.
NW, if someone publishes material accusing you of a specific crime I’d like you to have some definite recourse. Too tech?
If you have a restaurant and I say in a well circulated review that your food sucks and you smell bad, I am protected by free speech. If I say you do not use refrigeration and bribe health authorities that goes beyond free speech. I have facts relating to a crime which I must now prove. Too tech?
I realised when all the luvvies of the planet rushed to the defense of the utterly fiendish Roman Polanski that tribal divisions have begun to matter more than right and wrong. While I’d love to see Mann humiliated, it is not impossible for him to be in the right and for Steyn to be in the wrong in this single matter. Rushing to Steyn’s defense because of who he is and who Mann is means I am doing what the luvvies did for Polanski, though on a much milder level.
I have to ask myself how I would feel if the Daily Kos accused Freeman Dyson of criminal fraud involving scientific data. I think I’d like Dyson to have his day in court if he wants it.
Sorry if it’s all too tech!
moso, no that’s not too tech, but in what sense did Steyn accuse Mann of something illegal? Here is the original Steyn post:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/26/mann-versus-steyn/#comment-443082
Let me ask you, does a judge or jury have to be convinced that when Steyn describes Mann’s work as “Fraudulent” that any reasonable person would take that as an accusation that Mann committed a crime? I ask this because journalists use words like this every day and are not sued every day. What gives? I suspect that there are “man in the street” meanings of “Fraud” (e.g. “You’re a fraud!” does not mean “You have committed the legal definition of Fraud.”) Law has a specialized jargon, but its jargon words also have layman’s meanings, right?
So where do things stand in light of that distinction? I would insist that if The Law insists that the distinction between lay categories, rhetorical usage and legal usage doesn’t matter, then Dickens has it right.
But maybe you have something else in mind.
NW, Mann has to prove his case against Steyn, and I hope Mann loses. That’s the only “something else” I have in mind. But if Steyn has to pay a price for going too far, he will not be sitting in a jail cell and he does have the wit to avoid such litigation in the future while continuing to slice and dice the climatariat.
Remember, we’re not concerned here with what’s legal for Steyn, but with what is actionable for Mann. The judge may be a lawyer but he has to do a job like the rest of us. Steyn wrote one overblown article with too little of his usual wit and very little caution. He MAY have to pay a price, though I hope not.
You and I are still free to call Mann a blustering fop. (Ah. That feels good.)
NW, I believe this is a civil case.
Your knowledge of the law is superficial. Look up “libel per se”. Labeling a scientist anti-science and a serial misinformer is arguably libel.
Don, you are quite right that my knowledge of the law is superficial. And I dare say those labels are “arguably” libel. But some things are more clearly libel, such as the accusation of a crime. Mann is a pretty awful guy who smears and distorts like the proper little dweeb he is…but the dweeb is entitled to defend himself against the accusation of criminal behaviour. (Btw, it would delight me if the case against Steyn collapsed.)
Max_OK, I believe my use of incarceration metaphors was, uh, metaphorical.
mosomoso
From a legal perspective, it’s slightly more nuanced than you have stated – the issue is not simply whether Steyn has defamed Mann, but whether he either knew what he said was untrue or showed a wilful disregard for the truth (at least on the assumption that Mann counts as a public figure on the subject of climate science in Law).
As for accusation of ‘fraud’, look at the definition. Dictionary definition of ‘fraud’:
”wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain:”
Clearly, the definition allows for fraud to be wrongful without rising to the level of criminal, so Steyn’s lawyers can argue that he used the word based on the first definition. .
Ignoring whether the hockey stick is in fact accurate or not, Steyn’s defence is that there are reasonable, credible arguments that the hockey stick is a product of ‘data torturing’ and manipulation, based on McIntyre’s dissection of the data, the Wegman Report and McShane and Wyner’s paper.
Just for the record, I have copied the 2nd paragraph of the M&S 2011 abstract:
“In this paper, we assess the reliability of such reconstructions and their statistical significance against various null models. We find that the proxies do not predict temperature significantly better than random series generated independently of temperature. Furthermore, various model specifications that perform similarly at predicting temperature produce extremely different historical backcasts. Finally, the proxies seem unable to forecast the high levels of and sharp run-up in temperature in the 1990s either in-sample or from contiguous holdout blocks, thus casting doubt on their ability to predict such phenomena if in fact they occurred several hundred years ago.”
Surely a reasonable person can read this and conclude that there are doubts as to the reliability of the MBH98 hockey stick, at least sufficiently to defend that Steyn was not knowingly lying or acting with wilful disregard for the truth.
It’s one occasion where the high burden of proof in US libel suits is protecting the defendant(s) much more than would be the case in UK law
Not disputing the legal nuances or Steyn’s room to move in his own defense. That’s why there are courts. I thought his article was a bit of a careless rant and he may to pay a price, but obviously Mann has to prove a case involving several layers of proof. I should add that I don’t object to lay people having an opinion on the case nor am I saying that the court finding will be the right one.
My point is that skeptics and conservatives (in my case) should not be rushing to Steyn’s defense because he is Mark Steyn. I always thought the pilfering and quoting of the Climategate emails was wrong, though I’ve heard most of the arguments why that was okay. Surely we don’t need to side with our own guys all the time, like that great Herd of Independent Minds who defended the monstrous Polanski.
Really, I don’t need Mark Steyn’s judicial martyrdom, the Pause or the East Anglia emails to know that the hockey stick is a joke and that the “stable” or less “extreme” era of climate has not been named because it has never existed.
Good lord, the drama-queening on this issue is really out of control.
What was that Howard said?
Oh, here it is:
+ 0.5 to mosomoso
“But if you can’t prove someone has committed an illegal act you can’t accuse them of it.”
That is incorrect. The 1st Amendment guarantees us the right to express our beliefs without interference from the government. The Supreme Court explicitly held, in NYT v. Sulliven, that this guarantee is inconsistent with a libel law that requires proving a statement to be true as a defense. Thus, they expanded the defense to “absence of malice.” Under the new standard, one need only prove that one did not proceed with reckless disregard for the truth.
Note that this means that one can successfully prove they are not guilty of defamation by proving that (1) the statement they made was false, but (2) they didn’t know it was false, and (3) they would have known it was false had they acted reasonably, but their negligence resulted in them not knowing it was false. Negligence is a lower standard of mens rea than recklessness–that is, to be reckless, one has to have behaved worse than merely being negligent.
Okay, I’ll rephrase. If you can’t prove it please don’t say it in print, regardless of whether it’s litigious. I’m aware of the absence of malice defense, and if such can be established in Steyn’s case then all is well. (Truth would be tops!) But truth or absence of malice are not proven by the fact that it is Mark Steyn who wrote the piece. It will be proven by legal examination of what he wrote and referred to.
People of my kind are concerned for Steyn just as a very different set of people were concerned for Polanski: not because of the case in point, but because of what each man represents. (Steyn represents conservatism and climate skepticism, positions which appeal to me greatly – but too bad for me.)
Sorry, but skepticism means no herd thinking. I didn’t like the pilfering and quoting of the East Anglia emails and I hope but do not know that Mark Steyn has no case to answer.
Mann’s highly unprofessional behaviours strongly suggest that he seems to be intent on diminishing any claim he might once have had to being a respected scientist (of any kind)!
As I have noted in the past, ironically, Mann’s choice of actions appear to be modelled on those of David <I see you, I sue you> Irving.
Irving, a faux historian (while Mann is a faux Nobel laureate), is probably the most prolific and prominent Holocaust denier in the English speaking world. His favourite mode of “doing history” includes “add a word here, change a word there”, citing sources (in the hope that few, if any, will bother to check) which completely fail to substantiate his assertions – along with manipulation of data and obfuscation in presentation.
And those are the least of his “scholarship” sins. Mann also seems to share with Irving an arrogant – and unwarranted – high opinion of himself. Just as he seems to share Irving’s penchant for bullying and “free speech for me, but not for thee” philosophy.
To my mind, at this point, the only difference I can see between Irving and Mann is that while Irving chose a fool for his lawyer (by representing himself in his spectacularly failed libel suit against historian, Deborah Lipstadt), Mann’s lawyers appear have saddled themselves with a fool for a client.
Nice conclusion.
Any scientist who has to sue everyone in sight surely has hockey stick envy.
“while Irving chose a fool for his lawyer (by representing himself in his spectacularly failed libel suit against historian, Deborah Lipstadt), Mann’s lawyers appear have saddled themselves with a fool for a client.”
Mann and his lawyers seem to be doing just fine. It is Steyn who is representing himself.
@Nick Stokes
Your uncanny ability to spin a tale based on your misreading of partial information never ceases to amaze me.
What is it that you do not understand about the words contained in:
Source
With the above in mind, perhaps you could provide some evidence that somewhat more substantive than your own say so which would support your contention re the lawyers in question and the fool for a client with which they appear to have saddled themselves.
Hillary, it may mean Steyn needs money for a lawyer. If you like Steyn, be generous with your contribution to his defense. Don’t think about the possibility your money may end up in Mann’s pocket.
I recommend silly attempts at gotchas at every opportunity – just like Maxy.
Let’s waste more time and space and distract from any attempt at serious discourse – just like Maxy.
Hilary,
You left off the first part of that quote:
“Further to Messrs Steptoe and Johnson’s withdrawal as my counsel, I wish to notify…”
Yes, he has the right to retain new counsel, if only he can retain them.
Contrast with the headlines in this post:
“Mann v Steyn: Mann wins round one (Volokh)
Mann v Steyn: Mann wins round two (Volokh)”
The Court Jester proclaims the Wizard a fool and a charlatan on the public square. The Wizard pouts and pleads to the King for redress. The Wizard should have the wisdom to understand that the Court Jester’s product is not perishable even if proven false. The Wizard’s most definitely is.
Mann should have let the Steyn rant pass without comment, it really should be beneath him in the big picture of the Wizard he tries to portray.
Penn State has the unfortunate reputation of circling the wagons to protect its own no matter how despicable their acts. Steyn brought that to light in an article. That supposedly is what energized Mann to prove how big an idiot he really is in bringing a lawsuit. But now, the lawsuit has morphed into whether he’s a fraud? The guy who divines ‘hockey sticks’ from white noise and then prevents others from replicating his results?
Wag, the accusations of “fraud” and data tampering have ALWAYS been what the case has been about. Pay attention. Like Mosomoso said above, trading insults isn’t the same thing as accusing someone of a crime, or anything else that might get one fired from one’s job.
Perhaps Mann should also sue John O’Sullivan for questioning his motivations?
“Temperatures boiled over when Ball fearlessly declared that Mann belongs “in the state pen, not Penn. State.” That quip incensed the thin-skinned Mann into filing a libel suit against Ball in the British Columbia Supreme Court, Canada.
“Hard to believe that was almost 18 months ago! But now the tables have turned and last Friday Mann was exposed for the crime of perjury. It transpired that he lied when making sworn statements under oath that he was a co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize alongside former Vice President, Al Gore and the UN’s IPCC.” ~John O’Sullivan
Waggy, in O’Sullivan’s case he could argue that at least Mann’s statement turned out to be false, even though it’s understandable that Mann would think it was true at the time. (The Nobel Committee gave him a copy of the Nobel Prize diploma with a certificate acknowledging his contribution to the award-winning work.) Personally, I don’t think Mann would have a case, there. And that’s the point. Several people here, including Judith and you, can’t seem to grasp the difference between run-of-the-mill “heated rhetoric” and “actionable” rhetoric. The fact is that the judges’ rulings on the Mann case are not some Liberal grab at your precious freedoms. They are standard American jurisprudence in defamation cases. The statements in question are clearly actionable, and it’s up to a jury to decide whether Mann’s legal team can prove this to a degree warranting a judgement against the defendant.
I can believe a moron would think he won the lottery. I find it very hard to believe a supposed learned man (or Mann) would believe he won anything when he was never mentioned on the prize.
So what is he? A moron or a liar? Your choice.
Barry Bickmore, The State Penn versus Penn State joke has been around for a long time. That could make for an amusing legal precedent if it turns out to be actionable. Most of the Big Ten will be jailed :)
Capt. Dallas,
Read the documents. Mann is not suing over the Penn State/Jerry Sandusky comment. He is suing over the false accusation that he fraudulently manipulated his data for political ends. Quit changing the subject.
Philjourdan,
If you can’t understand why someone who was given a Nobel Prize diploma by the Nobel committee would think they shared in the prize, you aren’t worth talking to.
“Disgraced Penn State University (PSU) climatologist, Michael Mann, concedes defeat in his bogus claims to be a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Mann’s employer this weekend began the shameful task of divesting itself of all inflated claims on university websites and official documentation that Mann was ever a Peace Prize recipient with Al Gore and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“…No one is buying any of the apologists’ assertions that the affidavit slip up was a trifling one off “mistake.” Retrieval of third party archives of PSU web pages proves Mann has plied his fraudulent claims for years. So how many more times will Mann’s climate cronies seek absolution for His Phoniness?”
~John O’Sullivan, “Michael Mann Retracts False Nobel Prize Claims in Humiliating Climbdown,” October 28, 2012
Barry Bickmore, Yes, Steyn did say the hockey stick was fraudulent which was a poor choice of wording. He should have used a more academically acceptable “Crock of $hit”.
Capt., that would have been a great way for Steyn to hold onto is ignorance, while letting go of a tiny bit of his stupidity. You see, it wouldn’t have been so hard for Steyn and Simberg to keep from getting sued, would it?
Waggy,
I don’t understand your point in posting that stuff by O’Sullivan. Since the Nobel Committee clarified, nobody disagrees about whether Mike Mann is a Nobel Laureate. And both Mann and Penn State were conscientious about removing all claims to that effect, so what is there to complain about?
And if this is the same John O’Sullivan I’m thinking of, I guess we should listen to him about legal matters. He is a fake lawyer, after all.
http://www.desmogblog.com/affidavits-michael-mann-libel-suit-reveal-astonishing-facts-about-tim-ball-associate-john-o-sullivan
Not complaining but to pretend it took years to figure you he wasn’t really a Nobel laureate is ludicrous.
Barry Bickmore, ” You see, it wouldn’t have been so hard for Steyn and Simberg to keep from getting sued, would it?”
No, but getting sued and having to pay anyone other than the lawyers, is not the same. If it does go to discovery, Ian Jollife refuting Mann’s choice after Mann used Ian Jollife as a reference will be interesting. “Mike’s Nature Trick” is not going to help him much either. In any case, the victors will be lawyers.
Barry Bickmore | January 27, 2014 at 4:57 pm
I’ve no idea what you do for a living, Mr. Bickmore; but I certainly hope, for your sake, that it has nothing to do with basic research. You see the reality is that neither Mann nor any of his fellow faux Nobel Laureates were given a “diploma” – or any facsimile thereof – by the “Nobel committee”.
If you believe in truth in posting, Mr. Bickmore, rather than continuing to repeat this particular Mannian myth™, you would do well to arm yourself with some facts. Here’s a good place to start:
http://fakenobellaureates.com/important-documents/
Notwithstanding the above, I do appreciate the possibility that, to the detriment of your own credibility which is obviously suffering from your failure to conduct any due diligence on this matter, Mann may well have convinced you that the case was otherwise.
Economy with the truth seems to be Mann’s stock-in-trade when rallying his little army of acolytes and lesser lights to the defense of his “cause” – i.e. the self-glorification of Michael E. Mann and/or his pseudo-auto-bio which would more realistically have been entitled, Portrait of the Artist as an Aggrieved Mann: A Novel.
Hilary,
You are right, and I was wrong. It was the IPCC that handed out the copies of the Nobel diploma to the main contributors. Does that take away from my point that it would be understandable for some of those contributors to think they shared in the prize? I think not.
Normal people (i.e., people who aren’t conspiracy theorists) could see that, I think. But Steyn and co, when they found out the mistake, jumped all over it, making it out to be some sinister plot. Plot for what? And so, after wasting a bunch of time with motions to dismiss the case on the basis of this mistake, Mann’s lawyers filed an amended complaint, Steyn’s and the other defendants’ lawyers got paid even more, and the case ended up exactly where it was before, except that now the defendants are whining even more about how much the procedural stuff is costing them.
Mann is look like Ward Churchill here and by defending him Penn State is looking like… Penn state protecting Sandusky. Steyn said as much and now he is being sued. Simple as that.
No one has argued that “some” might not think they won something when they did not. Many morons do. However, I am hard pressed to find a similar episode with such a high profile post in the past that was not then found to be outright fraud and deceit. But being the fair minded person I am, I gave Mann the benefit of the doubt. He could have believed it – as previous morons have. Or he is not a moron.
As I said, I will not judge which he is. I only laid out the possibilities for others to pick and chose from.
Barry Bickman, “But Steyn and co, when they found out the mistake, jumped all over it, making it out to be some sinister plot. ”
I really don’t think “sinister plot” was what they had in mind, more like dumba$$ of the millennium.
Steyn calls it “a fraudulent complaint falsely representing his client as a Nobel Laureate, and accusing us of the hitherto unknown crime of defaming a Nobel Laureate.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/367069/mumbo-jumbo-beginners-mark-steyn#comment-1203459532
bickermore, bickermore
Mikey still thinks he shared the Nobel prize. He is threatening to sue to get his share of the money.
Can you furnish a reference for your claim that Steyn et al’s appeal was based on Mikey’s dumb stupid little Nobel faux pas? That would be some interesting lawyering. Do you have any freaking clue at all, bickerstuff?
It like, when it comes to questioning the statistical expertise and scientific bona fides of Mann and his sycophants and their apocryphal ‘hockey stick,’ the Left demands that skeptics should employ the principles of the scientific method before they are even entitled to an opinion about whether rotten fish really do stink. Scientists are not supposed to leave their common sense at the door. If you don’t have a BS detector that doesn’t make you an egghead… just a dumbass.
Michael Mann is rapidly becoming a symbol of a fringe group–the activist community in the climate debate. He embodies many of the characteristics of that group. He is mean spirited, pugnacious and litigious. A real jerk.
He is also a climate scientist who tried to advance our knowledge of the subject. Even the Hockey Stick was an attempt at honest science. It was riddled with errors and pointed to a wrong conclusion and he promoted it in ways that I find repugnant. But it was an honest attempt at honest science and those of us who really don’t like the guy need to keep that in mind.
I must say that I find it somewhat ironic that a jerk who claims he is continually attacked should be the plaintiff in six actions before the court and the defendant in none.
Remember, Tom, honest mistakes are easily admitted.
==============
What reason do you have for believing that a mean spirited, pugnacious and litigious jerk is honest? That seems out of character. Is that his one redeeming quality? Is it honest for him to pretend that he made no errors?
No, Tom, sorry. His behavior was prima facie evidence of his being caught red-handed.
“It was riddled with errors and pointed to a wrong conclusion and he promoted it in ways that I find repugnant” – Fuller
Yeah, that’s why so many subsequent studies have confirmed the finding.
“I must say that I find it somewhat ironic that a jerk who claims he is continually attacked should be the plaintiff in six actions before the court and the defendant in none.” – Fuller,
Yeah, the plaintiff in cases claiming defamation.
Just how thick are you Fuller????
“I must say that I find it somewhat ironic that a jerk who claims he is continually attacked should be the plaintiff in six actions before the court and the defendant in none.”
No marks for accuracy there Tom. Mann is the plaintiff in two actions before the court – one against CEI/Simberg/NR/Steyn and one against Tim Ball.
Michael, I wish I could sing my answer to you… ‘Really don’t mind if you sit this one out. My word’s but a whisper, your deafness a shout. I may make you feel, but I can’t make you think…”e cosi via
Hi Nick, happy New Year! I find that you are correct. He only threatened to sue over the parody song ‘Hide the Decline’ and inserted himself into the case on the defendant’s side post facto in ATI vs. UVA.
That’s a total of one threat, one joining a lawsuit in progress and two civil suits filed. Not six. He’s still a litigious sonuvabitch.
And Tom’s still thick.
“But it was an honest attempt at honest science”
It was an honest (and successful) attempt to ride the fashion-wave and propel oneself to fame.
as a brick, Michael. As a brick. Sigh. Ian Anderson forgotten so soon?
I haven’t forgotten him Tom.
Michael on the other hand, gets forgotten as soon as I leave the site.
Where I have a problem with the standard that the judge has espoused is that it accords comments which consist of empty rhetoric higher protection under the first amendment than comments of substance.
For example if I were to say “Mann is just an alarmist attack poodle” then according to the standard esposed by the judge, that would be a clear case of protected free speech which need not even go to court. But if I were to make a more substantive and reasoned comment about the quality of Mann’s research then according to the judge that would be an allegation of fact that must be scrutinuized in a half million dollar judicial circus with almost no chance of recovering costs.
This accords gratuitous insults greater protection under the first amendments than reasoned commentary. I see the judges point. However something is needed to restore the balance.
In my opinion that something would be an award of costs against Mann should he lose the case. Otherwise there is nothing to stop him from
preventing people from talking abotu the errors in his research by threatening to drag them into court and subject them to intolerable legal bills.
If you made a reasoned and substantive comment, that too would be protected. Neither Steyn nor Simberg did that
It really doesn’t matter. At the end of the day by his own admission, Mann is a ‘public figure’ and the bar is set far too high with regards to comments about him for this case to end in anything other than a judgment for the defendant. Or so my lawyer friends have told me. All this is posturing for position in the wider court of public opinion.
Mann will win, because the legal expenses he has forced Steyn to incur will intimidate other would-be critics. The rest of us lose, but that won’t bother Mann.
Mann prevailed in a Summary Judgment motion filed by the defense. In deciding the motion, the judge assumes that every fact and allegation made by the plaintiff is true. If under that circumstance the judge determines that the defendant is nonetheless entitled to judgment as a matter of law, the defendant would have prevail on the motion. It is a high bar to achieve, which is why the vast majority of summary judgment motions are denied. The bald truth is that only very tough, close cases fail to settle prior to trial.
Substantively, you are precisely correct… except for your attribution. This standard is not “espoused by the judge”–it was pronounced, by the the Supreme Court, and he is obligated to obey. (Though, as a practical matter, the only consequence for disobedience is that he will be reversed by the Court of Appeals.)
Such are the peculiarities of libel law the the U.S., since 1964.
I’ve never understood why Mann has fought to keep his UVA emails private. This indicates to me that he might have something he wants to keep hidden.
I also like how UVA let greenpeace have access to some other professor’s emails but are helping Mann keep his private.
Gotta love how the left circles the wagons…
Not really, they told GP what it would cost them and GP went away. ATI ponied up the money, or at least some of it.
Is there reason to believe the judicial system has retained its founding integrity better or worse than the scientific community?
Well, just to set the record straight
Michael Mann is suing Mark Steyn, Rand Simberg, the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute in DC Court for libel.
The former Atty Gen of Virginia was suing the University of Virginia for access to some of Michael Mann’s Emails while he was at UVa. The AG lost in the VA Supreme Court, and his pursuit of the case may have cost him crucial votes in the Governor’s race
The American Traditions Institute (Chris Horner) now called the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute has sued UVa for release of Michael Mann’s Emails. The case was decided against them and is now on appeal, Michael Mann is a recognized intevenor because of his status in the matter.
Tim Ball, ain’t he the guy who sued Dan Johnson??
Glad to be of service
The AG suit had nothing to do with the Governor’s race, and Mann wasted his money (or I should say our money). You can blame global warming on the crucifixion of Christ, but that does not make it so.
Stick to science and leave politics to the ones involved.
BTW: The suit was lost not based upon merits, but because the Va Supreme court ruled the AG lacked standing to bring it.
It was close enough that anything on the margins made a difference and Cuccinelli’s pursuit of Mann was no secret.
Prof. Curry, perhaps you would be kind enough to reconcile the claim in your written testimony that increasing Antarctic sea ice extent as reported in the AR5 WGI report weakens the case for attributing most of the warming to human influences can be reconciled with your 2010 PNAS paper, Accelerated warming of the Southern Ocean and its impacts on the hydrological cycle and sea ice the abstract of which reads:
Dumb Rabett,
It’s called rhetoric.
Your confusing Curry with someone who does science.
We all know Eli sprang from the Brow of Zeus and has never changed his mind about anything since.
Hiya Michael
What’s your last name? We all know who Josh Halpern is–who are you to play stupid bunny here? At least you learned from the master…
Now go back home and light your incense and finger your saffron robes. You have fought the good fight for your alarmist religion today.
Tom,
Thought you might enlighten us re: Eli’s question.
Asking too much, really.
Wow, Rabett. A scientist writes a paper in 2010 but then subsequent data shows that the paper’s hypothesis may not be correct or is surrounded by uncertainty so she modifies her hypothesis in subsequent papers based on the new data. That is actually the scientific method; not the posturing, politicking, insulting or demeaning of those with opposing views practiced by the Mann’s, Romm’s, and Tamino’s of the world, or useful idiots like Naumer or “Michael.”
And those subsequent papers are submitted/in press/published where exactly?
Eli,
what part of two hemispheres do you not get?
Prof. Curry, perhaps you would be kind enough to reconcile the claim in your written testimony that increasing Antarctic sea ice extent as reported in the AR5 WGI report weakens the case for attributing most of the warming to human influences….with your 2010 PNAS paper
Well, it strikes me that a scientist would make a hypothesis and write a paper based on current knowledge and when new information emerges that disagree with the hypothesis they would change their mind. I suspect she might say that at the time 2010 PNAS paper was written (probably 2008-09 or earlier) she expected Antarctic sea ice to decrease due to anthropogenic forcing, and in light of the fact that has instead increased, changed her view.
Is that not reasonable?
Eli, I will eventually respond to all the critiques of my testimony, probably not before the weekend tho
Apologees for being off topic.
Hey eli,
I’m having an exchange with caerbannog on your blog in this thread:
http://rabett.blogspot.ca/2014/01/mann-vs-steyn-lurches-forward.html
I can’t get this comment to show up:
—————————–
caerbannog,
I believe you asked me how to tell the results apart from a hockey stick data
set and a random data set that both yield hockeysticks when run through the mannomatic. Are you telling me that the answer is that the nonrandom data set will have its hockey stick be contained in a combination of PC’s? If I understand correctly, thats what non-mannomatic PCA is supposed to do. The mannomatic puts its Hockey stick in the first PC.
If I have this wrong, please enlighten me. Considering what blog this is, I’m all ears.
—————————–
Any chance you could intervene? Thanks.
Nada in the spam bucket. Curse the INTERNET gods.
Eli,
My mistake! Didn’t see the older 201-2xx of 2xx buttons. I apologize for any embarrassment.
Mann does not enter the courtroom with clean hands.
As detailed by McIntrye and Susan Crockford, Mann has claimed Hansen’s 1988 temperature prediction was correct by presenting misleading information.
” To my disbelief, Mann tried to argue that global temperatures predicted by NASA scientist James Hansen in 1988 have “closely resembled” actual temperatures since then – by presenting a graph of actual temperatures (observations) that ended in 2005, despite the fact that recent temperatures have not risen at the rate depicted in his graph (see previous post, #8). He did say, as an aside, that “you could argue that if the data were extended out to the present, the line might more closely resemble scenario C [a flat line]” but then continued with his story that observations were matching the ever-rising-temperatures of Hansen’s scenario B (see Figure 2 below).”
http://polarbearscience.com/2013/03/06/stirling-and-derochers-sea-ice-trick-omitting-facts-to-make-polar-bears-appear-endangered/
McIntyre: Mike’s AGU Trick
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/02/mikes-agu-trick/
Any climate scientist – can you explain why climate models aren’t showing the pause, even though your theory states that climate will get hotter as CO2 in the atmosphere increases? Well? CO2 is increasing.
The GCM fabricators forgot to factor nature into their models. That has been corrected and guess what? Humanity is still guilty of causing global warming and their models prove it.
Any halfway decent climate model will show the pause.
One based merely on thermodynamic energy balance could predict it from way back in 1950:
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/22/projection-training-intervals-for-csalt-model/
We skeptics prefer Dr. Curry over the other so-called climate “scientists” because she’s never wrong.
speak for yourself.
Me, I prefer Judith over Gavin et al because, unlike others, she:
a) is not afraid to say “I don’t know”;
b) is not afraid to show uncertainty and how high it is;
c) admits to and corrects mistakes;
d) is prepared to investigate strong claims made by “laymen”;
e) allows dissenting opinion on her blog.
That’s a good start on reasons to trust J Curry, anyways.
All those things indicate to this intersted observer that she is more concerned with understanding than grandstanding; that to her, the truth is more important than “the cause”. In short, she appears – based on her actions – to deserve trust.
Meanwhile, the RC crew and supporters continue to ignore those who disagree with them – and when they can’t be ignored, to disparage their intelligence and integrity with low tricks like editing comments, calling them “anti-science” etc, rather than argue the science like a genuine scientist should.
Says lots to me about who is a “real scientist” – to me, when someone uses personal insults, rhetoric and manipulation of the other party’s view to “win” the argument, they just shot themselves in the foot. When you talk about how “big oil” is buying people rather than citing the refuting evidence and then have the gaul to publish a rubbish paper on how the other side is fixated on conspiracy theories, you didn’t just shoot yourself in the foot, you managed it while that foot was in your mouth – amazing you survived, really.
So, who’s right on the science? Damned if I know – I don’t think anyone can make the case that either side is definately right at this point in time. I feel confident JC would agree. I also feel confident others would disgree. Time will tell.
Yes, well, virtually none of that is true.
Nope,
Because, as Kneel points out, she is willing to acknowledge she doesn’t know everything and because she doesn’t go in for the disappearing of comments as certain other sites.
Disgraced Penn State University is mired deeper in scandal as eerie parallels are drawn with their cover up of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal and their apparent whitewash investigation of climate professor, Michael Mann.
After a week when the Attorney General brands Penn State’s former in house attorney a liar and two university officials are indicted on cover up crimes, calls are being made for the re-opening of the university’s investigation that cleared global warming doomsayer, Dr. Michael Mann of any misconduct in the Climategate scandal.
~John O’Sullivan LLB, BA, PGCE, “Uncanny Parallels Connect the Jerry Sandusky & Michael Mann Cover Ups”
http://www.webcommentary.com/docs/johnosullivan-111117.pdf
This appears to be from around 2011 or so.
Waggy attempts credibility suicide.
Western academia is are engaged in simple advertising of the government’s global warming product. But, not even Febreze can cover up the odor. If business did what Mann did they’d be sued for false advertising.
Nice own-goal there, jim2. That John O’Sullivan is leader of the physics-denying SkyDragon team.
webby, webby
Shouldn’t you go over to your own little blog and say goodnight to your audience. Dennis must be getting sleepy.
Yet, this is the place where I get all my ideas from. You see, the more that the deniers squeal about something, the more likely there is a nugget of wisdom in there that they are trying to hide or exploit. If you haven’t picked up on that you haven’t been paying attention.
Kick some rocks and you will be surprised what crawls out.
Does Dennis know that there are other blogs, webby?
@WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | January 27, 2014 at 2:21 am |
Nice own-goal there, jim2. That John O’Sullivan is leader of the physics-denying SkyDragon team.
*****
Wrong. I’m not on anyone’s hockey team. I just looking for nuggets of truth, wherever that may lead. (And the Sky Dragon’s turn yields only black sand.)
”Two incompetent whitewash investigations by Penn State (Mann & Sandusky) is perfectly valid evidence to support my inference Penn State is corrupt.” ~Dr. Pierre Latour (See John O’Sullivanarticle, Ibid.)
Waggy makes another attempt at credibility suicide.
Stop doing that to yourself, Waggy.
Says someone with zilch credibility?
“When a person cannot deceive himself, the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.” – Mark Twain
+1
Thought some might find this interesting:
Amicus brief of the ACLU in Support of CEI, NR, Steyn and a (soon to be) cast of thousands. Ok I added that last bit…
http://cei.org/legal-briefs/amicus-brief-aclu-support-cei-and-nr
Funny that the Global Warming Fan Club that just flew in to defend Mann relentlessly around here doesn’t appear to want to touch this development with a ten foot pole.
That slow realization that you’re on the side against free speech must be a tough pill to swallow. Never too late to realign your position!
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lot of them will start spiting the dummy, soon
All of them are working on atmosphere without oxygen & nitrogen; as if the earth’s atmosphere is made exclusively from CO2 & methane
O2&N2 the horizontal and vertical winds are cooling from midday to midnight the temp by 10-15-20C, in 12h – they ”pretend” to believe that: those winds / made of O2&N2 cannot cool 2C extra in 100 years, shame to all!!!
Rent a Clue is open at 12.
Judith, I see that you have attracted the usual attention from the usual suspects. Stick to your guns.
Mcintyre has an excellent analysis of the Styne/Mann case at Lucia’s. Basically, torturing data is a term of art and commonly used in statistics and does not imply fraud as generally used. But some may actually want Mann to be cross-examined under oath, which for a Mann who is quick of tongue and slow of mind might be a dangerous undertaking.
I continue to be amazed that anyone with an ounce of honesty continues to defend the Mann. It’s a very sad commentary on climate science.
I’m amazed anyone with an ounce of decency would continue to malign Michael Mann.
I am surprised that anyone with an ounce of integrity would continue to defend Mann.
Max,
No one with an ounce of deceny does.
Haven’t noticed either of you behaving decently. Surprise me sometime.
@David Young +1
I hope that Dr. Curry can extract a bit of entertainment value from the sight of so many children behaving badly. As has been said before, the Alarmists’ behavior does more to harm their own cause than the skeptics ever have.
Max_OK
Agree that this is no longer necessary. He took care of all that himself.
Max_CH
Max,
Decency is not a trait Dr Mann exhibits on a regular basis. By his words you can judge him.
I Never took Mann’s hockey stick graph seriously. As a scientist I knew you could get any shape you wanted by altering the horizontal and vertical ordinates In any case I knew of the 1910 to 1940 temperature rise and subsequent fall.were much more significant, even if you accepted the IPCC’s ‘greenhouse gas’ theory.
Again this illustrates the gullibility of the non scientist public and I would expect the academic establishment to protect us against such ruses.
“Again this illustrates the gullibility of the non scientist public and I would expect the academic establishment to protect us against such ruses.”
Absolutely.
Mann doesn’t matter.
And the academic establishment wasn’t just “gullible”.
The remarkable and telling fact is how eagerly the whole warmist team and the IPCC (same thing) have embraced this piece of rubbish and made it the emblem and poster of climate “science”.
The “fraud” accusation should have been addressed at them, not Mann. It is impossible to imagine that all the climate scientists were so blinded by their biases that they could not see that the hockey-stick is bogus.
Judith Curry said
“It is difficult for me to imagine how throw away one-liners such as used by Mark Steyn and Tim Ball have done harm to Mann’s reputation, which is a legal requirement for defamation (the more prolonged attention to Mann provided by the CEI may be in a different category). By the same token, Mann’s tweets arguably do not damage my reputation (or the reputation of others that he insults on twitter). If such one-liners are judged to damage the reputation of a scientist, then I have at least as good a case against Michael Mann for defamation as he has against Steyn; a scientist saying such things about another scientist is arguably more damaging to a scientist’s reputation than a journalist saying such things.”
______-
Judith, after reading what Judge Weisberg said, I’m not sure you are right. Mann saying you were anti-science could arguably be opinion and rhetorical hyperbole.
“Opinions and rhetorical hyperbole are protected speech under the First Amendment. Arguably, several of defendants’ statements fall into these protected categories. Some of defendants’ statements, however, contain what could reasonably be understood as assertions of fact. Accusing a scientist of conducting his research fraudulently, manipulating his data to achieve a predetermined or political outcome, or purposefully distorting the scientific truth are factual allegations. They go to the heart of scientific integrity. They can be proven true or false. If false, they are defamatory. If made with actual malice, they are actionable.”
It could be worse: you could have a degree from Penn.
Mann is from Penn State, not Penn (University of Pennsylvania) which is an Ivy League school.
Wagathon
Penn State today
State pen tomorrow?
Max
Regarding where does Mann get the funds for legal endeavors? Here is a tiny bit of the answer it looks like.
http://climatesciencedefensefund.org/support-mike-manns-legal-defense/
Hypothetically, one may ponder how does money spent on legal fees turn into a charitable donation? The linked site implies something in the neighborhood of that, but perhaps I am mistaken. (Last line of the linked page.)
There is a line, sometimes hard to see, between charity and litigation. To be cautious, that line may not always be there as some charities do litigate, and they hire people smarter than I to tell them they can do that, and how to do that.
If the question is politics and charities that line that might be there, is more likely to be there and easier to see. So when we look at charities, litigation, and politics, the correct approach is to proceed cautiously, and hire a number of lawyers and CPAs, and then hire some more.
Any 501(c)(3) does proceed cautiously around politics. They at times call it education.
One way to define a 501(c)(3) charity is as the gold standard of charities. They offer tax write offs for donations. They generally don’t pay income taxes on their revenues unless they have unrelated business income.
Also hypothetically, do we want tax write offs granted to assist people engaging in similar behavior?
Another thing to ponder is, should a charity assist one particular individual? Using the gold standard, we might argue that our highest level charities should assist kids, animals, trees, coral reefs, world peace. They can assist victims sure. Someone with cancer perhaps. Not all their limbs. Victims of a hurricane.
Here’s a prediction.
If Mann were to win the case, many “skeptics” in their completely unskeptical fashion, and likely in identity protection mode in light of their ridiculous hyperbole prior to the case, will hand-wring while pearl-clutching from their fainting couches about how it marks the end of society as we know it.
And the vast, vast majority (h/t NW) of the American public will live their lives w/o skipping a beat.
IMO – The US legal system is rarely about truth and more about procedure. The lawyer who lays an argument which follows the procedure the judge finds acceptable, will win. It is just another money game.
Just like you’re wringing your hands over all those nasty sceptics out there who are affecting your life so badly?
phatboy –
The only effect that “skeptics” have on my life is to provide some amusement.
Unlike Josh whose trivial posturing merely wastes our time.
Indeed. I force you to read my comments.
I love how some people approach accountability and personal responsibility.
Well now there’s a good point. Yes, indeed. “Rarely about truth.”
How I yearn for the good ol’ days when we just apportioned justice based on who carried a bigger club. Now that was when people understood truth.
Oh, and when we had incandescent light bulbs.
I want my light bulbs back!
You really should get out more
Here’s a clue. Predictions do not start with “if”. Learn the language.
Stolen from somewhere….but from my layman’s point of view, fits a few folks in the CS Industry. The best liars don’t show any shame or remorse because they don’t feel it. They get a thrill out of actively misleading others. They’re good at it, and they enjoy the challenge. They tell half truths and are master manipulators.
Dr. Curry gets blasted for keeping an open mind. MM gets defended for being close minded and petty. I think that is sad commentary on how some folks just need to feel like a winner in life. They idolize people with similar ideals who have gained success and then get bitter at others when their “winner” turns out to be something less.
I have zero respect for MM. Anyone who attempts to hide as much as he does, has something seriously insidious to hide. His verbal attacks just show his true character and also support my own opinion that he is something less. He may be aggravated by all the questions around his work but he could solve the entire problem by simply opening up & laying it all bare. If the science is good then sure some might find items to critique but the whole question would become mute. Instead, he slithers and slides while berating others. IMO – Supporting his science is one thing, supporting the Mann himself – then I question what kind of person are you?
Bella, I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to see another person maligned and slandered. Mann didn’t start the mud slinging, and while turning the other cheek might have been the best response, I can understand why he chose to fight back.
Yet you try so very hard at maligning and slandering that you have no time for anything else Maxy.
Actually, Mann has been publicly maligning opponents such as McIntyre for a very long time, way before Tim Ball, Minnesotans for Global Warming, etc. If you look at the Climategate emails he was libeling and insulting McIntyre a decade ago.
Mann’s behavior speaks for itself.
“Actually, Mann has been publicly maligning opponents such as McIntyre for a very long time, way before Tim Ball, Minnesotans for Global Warming, etc. If you look at the Climategate emails he was libeling and insulting McIntyre a decade ago.”
More accuracy troubles, Tom. Those emails did not constitute “publicly maligning”.
Generalissimo Skippy said onJanuary 27, 2014 at 12:55 am
Yet you try so very hard at maligning and slandering that you have no time for anything else Maxy.
________
Nah, what I do is just opinion and rhetorical hyperbole.
If I said Generalissimo Skippy is a low-down dirty skunk, that wouldn’t be slander because everyone knows you aren’t actually a skunk.
BUT, if I said Generalissimo Skippy is a horse thief, that would be OK only if I know you steal horses. If I just made it up, you could sue me.
Actually, I do think you are a low-down dirty skunk, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you frighten horses.
Your logic is of course completely false. It would only be libel (or slander if you spoke it) if you KNEW he was not a horse thief. You do not have to prove you KNOW a fact, the opposition has to prove you KNEW it to be false. So until you can provide proof you are not a horse thief, AND provide that proof to the person calling you a horse thief, they can call you one with no worry about losing a slander or libel case.
Hiya Nick,
Mann was insulting and maligning McIntyre on Real Climate long before the Climategate emails were published.
Tom,
Examples would be more helpful than your unreliable memory.
A funny exchange:
Tom Fuller:
> If you look at the Climategate emails he was libeling and insulting McIntyre a decade ago.
Nick:
> More accuracy troubles, Tom. Those emails did not constitute “publicly maligning”.
Tom Fuller:
> Hiya Nick,
Mann was insulting and maligning McIntyre on Real Climate long before the Climategate emails were published.
——————————–
I wonder if some team is telling Tom what he should be saying?
Do you see a host of Toms? Perhaps you are just seeing things.
JC SNIP
Skippy said:
“What you do Maxy is uninformed claptrap and school yard level banter. It is all so astonishingly juvenile that I assume that you really are 15 years old and incapable of any depth in discourse.”
—-
So Judith, does “Skippy” get a free pass for ad Homs?
I delete them as i spot them; i don’t spot everything. If you see anything really objectionable, send me an email.
If I said Generalissimo Skippy is a low-down dirty skunk, that wouldn’t be slander because everyone knows you aren’t actually a skunk.
BUT, if I said Generalissimo Skippy is a horse thief, that would be OK only if I know you steal horses. If I just made it up, you could sue me.
Actually, I do think you are a low-down dirty skunk, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you frighten horses.
Seriously?
What I said in response to this was – “What you do Maxy is uninformed claptrap and school yard level banter. It is all so astonishingly juvenile that I assume that you really are 15 years old and incapable of any depth in discourse.”
This Is not ad hom but a considered opinion based on a plethora of pointless and content less comments from Maxy. If you want to raise the standard I suggest that you put this person into permanent moderation and ignore the one eyed whines from gatesy.
Gates, don’t worry, I’m Skippy proof. I don’t think JC is soft on Skippy.
But you bring down the tone of the neighborhood Maxy. Your irrelevant, ill educated and content free comments – school yard level chatter – seriously detract from civil discourse. It is far from a matter of being immune to considered opinion on your behavior – but of reveling in it and thereby distracting from serious discourse.
You can’t possibly imagine that I would give a rat’s arse about your nonsense otherwise. I simply have a bit of time on my hands – still off my feet and this posts is predictably tedious tribalism – and am signposting your abusive trivialities. Gatesy’s one eyed complaints notwithstanding.
I find it astonishing that Judith snipped my measured and considered comment without the context of your earlier rabid drivel. I can only assume that she ignores your comments and didn’t notice it. I tend to do the same generally.
The Climategate emails revealed that other scientists regarded Mann as a bit of a hothead, and some didn’t think much of his tree-ring work either.
Nevertheless they adopted the hockey-stick as their emblem and defended it to their last bullet.
There were a lot of skeptics in the community. Tree rings never give clean answers, and they know it. Some of the emails were worry about how to convince NAS and Richard Alley that these results were good enough to show. Later it got better with more studies, but this was the first of its kind, so there would be skepticism because it was unconfirmed independently at that point.
Mann does not do climate models or tree rings. He uses the results of both.
Uh, yes Mann does Eli – his Hockey stick is a model. A very bad one, but a model none the less.
Imagine a court trial on the issue of whether Mann’s hockey stick research was fraudulent. Picture the witnesses on both sides, and also Michael Mann under oath. Well this will be entertaining for some (popcorn futures explode at WUWT), but we do not need another national and international spectacle of climate scientists behaving badly.
I think what you really want is to get back to reasoned discussions. Too much is at stake, in my view. Isn’t that ironic?
I believe Mann is what we call here in New Zealand a “muppet”.
So that makes him a muppet of a Mann. Or possibly a very Mannly muppet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8EURqoKLY8
Sorry – couldn’t resist.
Well numbnut did predict the wackos would be come out of the woodwork on this one. Wackos rallying to the defense of wackos seems the order of the day.
Of course we could always try hiding the decline in standards on CE.
Wow. I adore this intelligent, gutsy woman. Maggie Thatcher comes to mind.
I think you are on the right side Prof. Curry. And it seems to be the same side as the ACLU and some journos…like The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, i.e.: Advance Publications, Inc., Allbritton Communications Company, American Society of News Editors, Association of Alternative Newsmedia, Dow Jones & Company, Inc., The E.W, Scripps Company, First Amendment Coalition, The McClatchy Company, The National Press Club, NJational Press Photographers Association, NBC Universal Media, LLC, News Corp, Newspaper Association of America, Online News Association, POLITICO LLC, Society of Professional Journalists, Time Inc., Tribune Company, and The Washington Post.
Perhaps all of Mann’s defenders can tell us 1. who the amici for Mann are?…..and 2. if they regard the foregoing list as denier wacko tobacco stained cranks who serve the interests of Big Oil and Anti-Science.
Everyone ought to go and read the original Steyn post “Football and Hockey” here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/309442/football-and-hockey-mark-steyn
My impression on re-reading it: It’s a decidedly tame catch from the snark-filled internet ocean we swim in every day. Is this really especially egregious? Sheeesh. Paul Krugman says worse about other scholars every other day.
What with Hewitt, John Eastman, and NW and probably scores of other Chapman University faculty going to bat for Steyn, he should slide through unscathed.
Yes, I have listened to Hewitt for years, morning glory and evening grace.
Web… All I have to say to you is this. (And I will preface it by saying this to Dr. Curry: This–like the great majority of WHUT commentary, is plain ad hom and yet you let this douche get away with it over, and over, and over again.) YOU ARE A DOUCHEBAG.
Nothing but abuse and insult – laced with endless prattling and preening about his simplistic blog science.
I’ve re-read the offending article by Steyn and agree that Mann will have a hard time showing that the remarks were defamatory with malice.
The comparison of Mann’s work with a child molester was done by someone else and Steyn himself said that this particular remark was over the top.
The other big problem that Mann has is his status as a public figure in the field of climate science.
Given Steyn’s usual, malice is the easy part.
Mann’s case is based on the article in the National Review. There certainly may be times when all of us have been malicious but in the case of Steyn, he does not show malice with respect to Mann on that occasion.
Very sensible conclusions Judith.
Mann’s tweets don’t damage those he abuses, but they do damage himself and his “cause”.
On Jan 23rd he called Patrick Moore a ‘garden troll’ and Glen Beck an ‘all-purpose science denier’. But the day before, he accused someone of childish namecalling:
@GarthLChapman @stevebloom55 @BillGates W/ your childish name calling, you’ve sadly revealed yourself to be no more than a troll. Bye.
somebody nailed Mann’s hypocrisy on twitter
https://twitter.com/AndyMeanie/status/426747843932848128
Michael Mann seems top want to have his free speech cake and to eat it..
https://twitter.com/MichaelEMann/status/406803596181659648
he can’t keep pulling I’m just a climate scientist, not a public figure, can he..
Michael publically going after congressman here:
https://twitter.com/MichaelEMann/status/413901968122187776
so pulling, I’m being attacked, when he attacks politicians publically seems… silly?
I wonder what his lawyers think of his Twitter account..?
An essay by the always-entertaining linguist Geoffrey Pullum, titled “The Linguistics of Defamation,” on how easy it was (at the time of his writing) to win defamation cases in the UK (or, rather, what a hash the common law made of common sense on the matter)…
http://books.google.com/books?id=Tahaz-0F6zMC&pg=PA92&lpg=PA92&dq=%22linguistics+of+defamation%22+pullum&source=bl&ots=FRVeKWYwQi&sig=H5kQ9w-dptD9nQxpLIP-qcxFfQA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=EyLmUpKaBqvksATdmYGABQ&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22linguistics%20of%20defamation%22%20pullum&f=false
This thread is delightfully bizarre.
Climategate has been investigated, to my knowledge, five times and in each investigation the scientists involved were exonerated.
However it seems that for many people (and Prof Curry seems amongst them) the only acceptable verdict is guilty. Oh did I just see someone toss natural justice out the ninth floor window? Of course not, because Michael Mann is a fraud and he has been rude to our hostess and who can trust enquiries set up by warmistas. Very good point hmm what should we do?
I have an idea, its not perfect but why don’t we allow a jury of peers to adjudicate Mann’s alleged fraud in an open court. But you can’t do that, that would be an offense against Free Speech…oh I give up.
My darlings can we have an argument a little more convincing than ‘Michael Mann can be very rude, he’s bald and I don’t like proxies but I do love the, …cough…, 1965 proxy based MWP’.
You keep using this word ‘exonerated’.
==================
Seems a lot of people, and you are one of them, cannot read. The article is not about CGI, CGII or CGIII. The article is about a petulant child using juvenile pejoratives to rant against anyone who disagree with him.
RIF – Reading really is fundamental.
You might want to think about why 5 investigations were needed. Perhaps it was because the problem couldn’t be covered with only one coat of whitewash.
philjourdan
I think RIF is quite right.
Notice my comments addressed the thread. That’s what ‘This thread is delightfully bizarre’ refers to. Now you may like to insist that the thread includes the article, I have no real objection to that, actually the wider definition allows me greater liberty.
Indeed the article is in part about a petulant child but only in part, it touches on other things such as freedom of speech as well.
Ian H
I don’t have to think about reason for a white wash. That was not my argument. My argument was that given all the enquiries have been judged unsatisfactory then why wouldn’t people welcome Mann’ s fraudulent behaviour being tested in court?
So I don’t see how your comment is relevant.
Still having problems with that Rif, hey Bonza? I guess you missed the point. Let me highlight it again:
Mann v. Steyn.
Do you see a CGI 2 or 3 there? If so, please highlight it! There are many bizarre comments – there usually are in an open forum. Yours is of course right there at the top with them.
Bonza confuses quantity with quality. Five piles of poop are better than one pile of gold.
Jim2
?
Go ahead, Bonza, pretend confusion. I bet there are a lot of people around who can help you interpret my comment.
jim2, “Bonza confuses quantity with quality. Five piles of poop are better than one pile of gold.”
Then Mann wins hands down, Rob Wilson thinks he is the grand poopbah of dendro.
There was no pretence at confusion. I find your comment confusing. But I will look forward to the aid of others as you can not or perhaps will not provide elucidation.
However I can be clearer about what confuses me.
You assert that I prefer quantity over quality. I don’t see how those comments are relevant to my original argument which can be basically boiled down to:
Given that the enquiries to date are unsatisfactory wouldn’t a trial be helpful in putting the issue of fraud to bed one way or the other?
How a preference for poop or gold enters into this genuinely confuses me.
If you are bored with my argument fair enough, no one here is compelled to reply, but if you do reply then I don’t think a request for clarity is overly burdensome.
Suit yourself.
B, the Piltdown Mann has already lost, and he knows it.
================
Philjourdan
And you seem to have missed my point as well.
This seems wilful so I’ll leave it at that.
Perhaps you merely failed to make a point, and that is why everyone missed it.
‘No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, “grafted the thermometer record onto” any reconstruction. It is somewhat disappointing to find this specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation websites) appearing in this forum.’ Michael Mann
http://www.justfacts.com/globalwarming.hidethedecline.asp
Nor – apparently – did they ever delete modern proxy data that didn’t go in the right direction? It was just a justifiable statistical manipulation to incorporate modern data. Whoops.
And they don’t any problem at all with satire – as long as it is in a good cause.
Mann couldn’t be more of a pontificator if he took to wearing a funny red had and slippers.
Spot the ‘irony fail’ ref Michael ‘pontificating’ about Myles Allen
https://twitter.com/MichaelEMann/status/411598974064144385
Oh man that’s funny, Barry.
The tweets read like some climategate emails, more and more.
Generalissimo,
I assume that your above post was in response to mine but I may be mistaken for I cannot grasp its relevance.
That there were allegations arising from the emails is hardly in dispute. That the allegations still have currency after they have been refuted is the problem.
I don’t see how your post addresses that.
I am not sure what problem you have with either splicing or hiding the decline. One of which was denied in the quote and the other which was explained away as a statistical treatment.
I am not sure either why you might imagine that your comment rose above the level of the trivial and derivative and required a response..
You keep using this word ‘refuted’.
===================
I didn’t think my reply required a response but you obviously did as you went to the trouble of replying.
I didn’t understand your reply. I asked for a clarification.
No problems for me at all if this exchange ends here.
You are fantasizing that I replied to you – I thought I made that clear.
Well no, obviously you didn’t.
But no harm done.
Obviously trivial and derivative and not requiring a response was too subtle.
Bonza, I can only assume you read neither the emails nor the reports of the investigations into the matter. We’ll wait for you to catch up if you like…
Tom Fuller
The problem is not what I have read or haven’t read or what I need to do to catch up.
The problem as I see it is that Mann is actually being asked to prove his innocence rather than other’s prove his guilt.
For many on this thread the enquiries have been found wanting, I don’t agree but that is another argument. I suspect that no amount of enquiries, however constituted will be satisfying if they arrive at a verdict in Mann’s favour, yes this is speculative but on the evidence not entirely unreasonable.
Now Mann is attempting to clear his name via a defamation suit. As we know there is no defamation if the alleged defamation is true i.e. that Mann is indeed a fraud.
I would have thought that everyone who had been critical of the enquiries
would appreciate an opportunity to put this question to bed via a court of peers in an open trial.
But no, now people are characterising this step as an attack on free speech with, as Prof Curry has it, frightening implications. That adjudicating the limits of free speech is seen as essentially an attack on free speech is peculiar.
So what avenue is open to Mann to prove his innocence?
If you put anyone else’s name in the above question the repugnance of the question is obvious.
I don’t think what I have proposed is, as Gen Skippy has termed it, trivial or derivative. I think it quite important.
The “Censored” folder of non-Hockey Stick reconstructions that was found on a publicly accessible folder at Penn State is enough to prove Mann knew his work was fraudulent. Mann not only knew he had to manipulate the data to get his Hockey Stick, he even left the evidence laying around.
The CENSORED directory most likely didn’t come about until after MBH98. Michael Mann admits he knew his MBH98 reconstruction was sensitive to the inclusion of certain tree ring proxies (he says so in his book page 51).
In other words, Mann published a paper in 1998 which got a reconstruction back to 1400 AD. He then did tests which showed that reconstruction was dependent upon bristlecones. After those tests, he did some manipulation and decided his results could be extended back to 1000 AD.
The reality is without a small set of tree ring data, Michael Mann could not have gotten his results. He didn’t know this right away (prior to MBH98), but he actively attempted to keep people from learning it once he found out.
There’s irony in imagining if Mann had not been such a young fool as to leave the CENSORED bit in view rather than hidden in his conscience. And yet, and yet, Nemesis slavers at the sound of young fools tripping gaily along.
================
There’s a backstory to the discovery of the CENSORED directory (which was at U Virginia, not Penn State.) Prior to the publication of McIntyre and McKitrick 2003, the directory appears to have been in a private non-searchable area. When I had asked Mann for MBH98 data, I had been referred to a different URL. I had carefully examined Mann’s FTP site trying to locate data, a process that Mann described in a CG email as me trying to “break into” his site. When we published MM2003, Mann said that we had used the “wrong” data and pointed to a different directory. Mann said that it had been public all the time and that we should have used it. Mann then deleted the “wrong” data that we had actually been pointed to. Mann then lied about the purpose of the “wrong” data to reporters, dishonestly saying that we had requested the data as an excel spreadsheet. David Appell disseminated the lie. I politely asked Appell to correct the record at the time, but he refused. Mann repeated this lie to the Penn State investigation, who accepted the lie without crosschecking.
I was really quite shocked by Mann’s dishonesty about the excel spreadsheets on a couple of counts. First, I was then very new to academic controversy and it was completely unexpected to me at the time that a prominent scientist would make a baldfaced lie. It very much increased my interest in the topic. Second, it seemed irrational for someone to lie about something where the lie could be readily demonstrated by our simply producing our correspondence, as we did. However, Phil Jones and others in the climate “community” accepted Mann’s lie as evidence of our incompetence, without paying any attention to its untruth. In a CG letter a year later, Jones sneered at my supposed incompetence for supposedly wanting data as an excel spreadsheet,
Back to the CENSORED directory. My own take on this incident is that Mann panicked after our 2003 paper – the CG emails say that he was up for 48 hours straight. I believe that he moved the MBH98 directories from private to public permissions, but didn’t check what was in them. In addition to the CENSORED directories, there was information on his biased PC algorithm that was not the sort of thing that would normally have been available. The CENSORED directories are no longer available at Mann’s FTP site, but obviously I took copies at the time.
As to Brandon’s take on the timing of the CENSORED directories, there’s some evidence that the calculations were done between MBH98 and MBH99. MBH99 contains allusions to the dependence of AD1000 results on “high-altitude” sites. However, MBH99 also denied any such dependence in the AD1400 and later steps covered in MBH98. The CENSORED directories show that Mann knew that the opposite was the case.
@Steve McIntyre | January 28, 2014 at 9:47 am |
You used the word “lie” 8 times in that post. Aren’t you worried Mann will sue you? [/sarc]
Your story is very interesting. And kind of ironic. Mann’s inability to be honest is the root of his downfall.
Thank you, Steve. I particularly like: ‘It very much increased my interest in the topic.’
=============
It will be interesting to see what mikey has to say about that under oath, if it gets that far. He will be a witness against himself, through the Climategate emails. What a maroon.
From “The Hockey Stick Illusion”, It’s surprising how unreproducable his code was. There was also a stepwise sequence. If that scrap of FORTRAN code was never found, I wonder how different things would have turned out. Would Mann have eventually agreed to release his code?
Opines Judith;
“But if climate scientists participate in insulting scientists and other public persons in the climate debate, then this drags climate science into the mud. If mud must be slung, leave the mud slinging to journalists and advocacy groups. Michael Mann is the chief climate science practitioner of insulting and making personal attacks on other scientists that disagree with him. As such he has polluted the atmosphere of climate science and brought notoriety and dishonor to climate science.”
“Attack the argument, not the person.
Criticizing arguments versus smearing scientists”
Says Judith;
” the heart of the IPCC is a cadre of scientists whose careers have been made by the IPCC. These scientists have used the IPCC to jump the normal meritocracy process by which scientists achieve influence over the politics of science and policy. Not only has this brought some relatively unknown, inexperienced and possibly dubious people into positions of influence, but these people become vested in protecting the IPCC, which has become central to their own career and legitimizes playing power politics with their expertise.
When I refer to the IPCC dogma, it is the religious importance that the IPCC holds for this cadre of scientists; they will tolerate no dissent, and seek to trample and discredit anyone who challenges the IPCC. Who are these priests of the IPCC? Some are mid to late career middle ranking scientists who have done ok in terms of the academic meritocracy”
Judith Curry – polluting climate science.
Michael –
It isn’t like she wants to insult climate scientists and other public persons in the climate debate…
She only does it because it’s the only way to “build bridges.”
Plus, she ran out of big boy pants that day.
We had to destroy the village to save it?
Science will save itself, the village is destroying itself.
================
Heh, I see the advocating against Judith is all the rage again today.
getting to be Same ol same ol
John –
Has been so for a long time, actually.
Yes we know Joshie – the usage was sarcasm aimed at you and the ‘unintentional irony’ is that you missed it entirely. Pretty funny really.
Theodore
So shouldn’t people welcome this trial as that no doubt damning evidence will feature as an exhibit?
‘Unlike Josh whose trivial posturing merely wastes our time.
Indeed. I force you to read my comments.
I love how some people approach accountability and personal responsibility.’
Yes – I read 1 in 20 maybe just to confirm that it is the same trivial posturing every time. I think I have said that several times before.
It’s what you get when you go down the rabbit hole with these … (expletive deleted)
I have been reviewing generally the comments in this post. What we have of course is the very unedifying spectacle of intellectual under achievers pontificating about departures from their groupthink memes.
It seems a common pattern. For instance – I have been wondering lately about the temerity of this uncommon twit in lecturing a distinguished professor of atmospheric physics.
‘We have exchanged a few emails and I must say I am very disappointed by your evasion. A couple fundamental questions regarding the general scientific understanding of Earth’s geophysical processes and you turn silent as a salt pillar.
While our email exchange has taught me nothing about global warming, it has given me another insight into the perplexing mind of your typical denialist type.’
http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/open-let-to-prof-anastasios-tsonis-are.html
The simple minded imaging that they have a profound insight into climate based on a set of simplistic notions – and anyone who disagrees no matter how distinguished in the field is simply a denialist scumbag. Did someone say death of expertise? Or at least the ones that aren’t groupthink gatekeepers like Michael Mann. .
On a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is least respect and 10 is most respect please rate your level of respect for the following employees of Pennsylvania State University:
1. Jerry Sandusky
2. Michael Mann
The numberings in the my previous are also my ratings.
Are eco-celebrities buying ridiculousness-emissions credits from exhausted run-of-the-mill celebrities like Paris, Britney and Anna Nicole? Ah, well. The Eco-Messiah sternly talks up the old Nazi comparisons: What we’re facing is an “ecological Holocaust, and “the evidence of an ecological Kristallnacht is as clear as the sound of glass shattering in Berlin.” That 221,000 kilowatt-hours might suggest that, if this is the ecological Holocaust, Gore’s pad is Auschwitz. But, as his spokesperson would no doubt argue, when you’re faced with ecological Holocausts and ecological Kristallnachts, sometimes the only way to bring it to an end is with an ecological Hiroshima. The Gore electric bill is the eco-atom bomb: You have to light up the world in order to save it. (See Mark Steyn, Ibid.)
My friend Peter Bocking once said that if Al Gore’s hair caught on fire, that he would provide enough heat and light for a small English village.
His pants on fire are melting the ski slopes at Davos. There, he recently said that the incidence of extreme weather events had increased a hundred times in the last 30 years. Not 100%, but 100X. Some of those smart people believed him.
===============
His daily food bill would feed every starving polar bear for a month…
“Local Appearance” has nothing to do with “reality”
How much more evidence do we need that Western civilization is corrupt? For example: Chemist Tom Kondis, a consultant with practical experience in absorption and emission spectroscopy, dissented in 2008. “To support their argument, advocates of manmade global warming have intermingled elements of greenhouse activity and infrared absorption to promote the image that carbon dioxide traps heat near earth’s surface like molecular greenhouses insulating our atmosphere. Their imagery, however, is seriously flawed,” Kondis wrote in a May 21, 2008, essay titled “Greenhouse Gas Facts and Fantasies.” “The fictitious ‘trapped heat’ property, which they aggressively promote with a dishonest ‘greenhouse gas’ metaphor, is based on their misrepresentation of natural absorption and emission energy transfer processes and disregard of two fundamental laws of physics. Their promotional embellishments have also corrupted the meaning of ‘greenhouse effect,’ a term originally relating the loose confinement of warm nighttime air near ground level by cloud cover, to hot air trapped inside a greenhouse,” Kondis explained..
(See, U. S. Senate Minority Report: More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims Scientists Continue to Debunk “Consensus” in 2008 & 2009)
Kim,
Check out this chart showing the relative performance to the stock market of companies that regularly attend Davos. I am doubting here that you will be surprised.
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/chart-of-the-da.html
My weight has also increased more than a hundred times in the past 30 years, as attested by my bathroom scales.
The only defense for such a statement by Gore I can think of is that insurance payouts for disasters in the US are up by that amount. But, if so, that wouldn’t necessarily indicate that the “incidence of extreme weather events” had increased by that factor.
Cowtan and Way(2013)
Off topic I know (Mann and Steyn seem to deserve each other), but the second author of this paper has been commenting.
I feel the referees of this paper should have sought further clarification of why the interpolated ‘anomalies’ (kriging & hybrid) deviate so sharply (upwards of course) from 2008 onwards (figure 5 of the paper). By definition, interpolation over a large area is being driven by a relatively small number of actual observations around the Arctic. The data for these stations could usefully be highlighted and presented/studied in more detail. Otherwise there is the risk of simply ‘smearing’ outliers over a large region through these kind of interpolation techniques. This is not a problem which can be addressed by cross validation where data is relatively plentiful. It is an issue of robustness/sensitivity of estimation to a small proportion of the observations. Are interpolated Arctic temperatures being driven by a small number of sites (post-2008 in particular)? If so (and I think it must be the case), then how informative are those sites?
Data sparsity is of course an issue. If it weren’t the standard HadCRUT4 product would already cover the Arctic. However, the Hybrid method uses satellite data alongside surface stations so that should provide greater confidence.
Also, note the huge changes in Central Arctic sea ice minima which occurred at the same time as this temperature deviation. Given this quite spectacular shift it doesn’t seem at all odd to me that something big happened to Arctic temperatures over the past several years.
It’s more than that G Skippy. There’s a high degree of fraud and political advocacy posing as science.
Well if the justice system was predictable there would be fewer lawyers but I’m won’t to think that all they have to do is repeat Mann’s tweets in court and it should be the end of any case and possibly the start of retaliatory action. Clearly Mann thinks his side has deep pockets but what happens if they go belly-up?
“Penn State’s phony ‘exoneration’ of Michael Mann has far more vast societal implications, and is massively more destructive.”
===============
Righty-roo Miss Kim. You’d think people would have caught on by now, to the obvious farce of letting institutions investigate themselves. How well does that generally work?
I have an idea, why didn’t we just convene a panel of fellow pedophiles to investigate Sandusky, instead of needlessly clogging up the court system?
Yep, pg, and functionally that was what was done. At bottom, the rationale for ‘exonerating’ Michael Mann was that he couldn’t be wrong or dishonest because of all the grants and awards he gets. Suss it out, suss it out, way out.
=====================
Importantly, the urge to ‘exoneration’ was nearly the same in both cases, protection of the reputation of the institution. They’ve already paid the price for the first ‘exoneration’; the bill for the second is in the mail, perhaps better ‘in the email’.
==============
Kim
I have used ‘exonerated’ once in this post…your point?
The point? The point? You can’t handle the point.
=================
Irony – the point was he was a guilty son of a bitch.
ahh…even after he was exon…oops, mustn’t use the e word…even after the allegations were found wanting.
‘What is going on here?’
H/t Lindzen.
========
I have no idea, I was actually hoping that you could enlighten me on that?
By the way I don’t understand h/t Lindzen.
At the risk of damaging the aura of crypticism, I’ll explain, just for you, dearie. That is a quote from Richard Lindzen, appalled at the course of Penn States ‘exoneration’ of the Piltdown Mann. It’s worth sussing out the details.
Personally, I believe that the egregiousness of their inquiry makes it the most susceptible of the five so-called ‘exonerations’. I don’t expect much from the British about the whitewashes over there, though I may be surprised.
There are good reasons that comparisons are made between Penn State’s ‘exoneration’ of Jerry Sandusky and their ‘exoneration’ of Michael Mann. Ironically, and even though I have vast sympathy for the victims of Jerry Sandusky, Penn State’s phony ‘exoneration’ of Michael Mann has far more vast societal implications, and is massively more destructive.
===============
@ Kiim…oops, sorry. Reply to your excellent comment at 10:29 just above.
Common-sense Proposition 1 There is a reasonable likelihood — many would say a near-certainty — based upon the case-evidence as judicially reviewed, that a jury will decide that Michael Mann’s charges are proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Common-sense Proposition 2 The cause of conservatism in general, and the journalistic reputation of National Review in particular, have been substantially harmed by the publication of Mark Steyn’s ill-considered charges.
Common-sense Proposition 3 National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute have acted prudently and responsibly in redacting Mark Steyn’s statements from their web sites.
Common-sense Proposition 4 National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute would further have acted prudently and responsibly, and in particular an expensive, distracting, time-wasting lawsuit might reasonably have been averted, had Mark Steyn personally apologized Michael Mann for his imprudent statements.
Common-sense Proposition 5 Multiple independent scientific studies have affirmed the existence of multiple Mann-style “hockey sticks”; thus the scientific issue that the National Review, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Mark Steyn sought to address is moot.
Conclusions
C1 The National Review, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Mark Steyn should apologize to Michael Mann, by reason of the common-sense likelihood that a jury will affirm that their criticisms were factually wrong, maliciously intended, and irresponsibly published.
C3 Both juries and the public are likely to take a dim view of the long-continuing lack of any admission of irresponsibility by the National Review, and/or the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and/or Mark Steyn. Can’t these NR/CEI folks admit that they were wrong? Wrong scientifically and wrong journalistically?
C3 Multiple independent studies affirm Nature’s ruling: Michael Mann was right-on-the-science. Which in the long run, is the main point at-issue.
Followup The Competive Enterprise Institute’s website has redacted the offending assertions, which were written by the CEI’s Rand Simberg, but the Mark Steyn/NR website (apparently) has not.
Oh, yes, but the discovery process is going to be so delicious!
Delicious for Michael Mann, whose legal game-plan embraces evidence-discovery.
Not-so-delicious for National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, whose lawyers are fighting hard to avoid it.
Meanwhile, in the court of Nature — the only court that really matters in the long-run — fresh evidence that Michael Mann’s “hockey-stick” is real keeps on piling up.
Conclusion National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute are fighting a lost cause, both legally *and* scientifically. It’s time for CEI and NR to swallow their pride, retract their claims, and seek a settlement.
fan,
looks like you haven’t experienced the courtroom.
There is a reason we hold trials before juries, instead of just hasing them out in the public sphere. And thinking you have a good sense of how this will turn out is foolish. Why do you think so many attorneys prefer cases to settle before getting to court?
I’m afraid history will not be kind to Michael Mann with his blatant ‘cut and paste’ method of melding of figures to support some preconceived agenda.
To ‘hide the decline’ for personal reasons or for some ‘cause’ is not acceptable in science.
Lysenko faked results to prove that recent environmentally inherited characteristics were very important in genetics.
Sir Cyril Burt faked the results of his identical twins investigation to prove the opposite.
It’s not the conclusion that offends science but the faked approach to results.
Lysenko!!!
Everybody drink!’
Bryan wins the thread.
I think an honorable mention has to go to commenter who compared Mann to the historian who denies the holocaust: David Irving.
ROFL – two words: “Wegman Report.”
‘Modre will out, that se we day by day …’
Chaucer ‘Nonne’s Priest’s Tale.’
“inarguable” Ha ha ha ha ha!
What is climate change? It’s inarguable: It’s politics!
Who is this Michael Mann and why is he so controversial?
He is a climate scientist. Anything but CO2.
He interviews trees, and one of them apparently told him something that other scientists have been unable to authenticate.
I would like to see more law suits like this one because I believe they would help restore civility to public discourse.
Fear of costly legal defense would make mud slingers think twice about slandering people. A litigation fearing society would be a more polite society.
Actually, it might not make much difference, since it still would be easy to use insults legally. Professional insulters would just learn to avoid saying things that could result in them being sued. For example, you could risk being sued by saying a foe is a child molester if you knew he wasn’t or didn’t know whether he was or not, but you wouldn’t risk being sued if you just said you wouldn’t want him around your children.
I’m sorry Fernando. posted my comments in the wrong place.
Of course these lawsuits do no such thing. They are merely a tool for a well funded stooge to silence critics while he continues his own defamatory attacks unabated.
Not that there’s any risk of them catching on to any degree. The vast majority of society couldn’t afford to be on either side of a suit like this. So far, only lawyers have seen much benefit.
Ever since character assassination replaced the scientific method in Western academia, the Left — and only the Left — could and did say anything it wanted say and get away with it, no matter how outrageous.
Max_OK, Citizen Scientist | January 27, 2014 at 10:02 am | Reply
“you wouldn’t want him around your children.”
No that’s Sandusky. I wouldn’t want Mann around adults.
Max_callow, Cub Reporter opines: A litigation fearing society would be a more polite society.
Maxy, I don’t believe you ever quite hear yourself. Yes, by all means, let’s sue each other into quivering, cowering submission. That without doubt is one of your best ideas yet.
pokerguy (aka al neipris) | said on January 27, 2014 at 5:23 pm
“Maxy, I don’t believe you ever quite hear yourself. Yes, by all means, let’s sue each other into quivering, cowering submission. That without doubt is one of your best ideas yet.”
_________
An armed society is a polite society.
A litigious society is a polite society.
But if some low-down polecat tries to defame you with lies, it’s better to sue than shoot.
Some people use a hammer to drive a screw. They are the very poor craftsmen.
You use the tools for the job, not anything you happen to grab in the heat of the moment. That is why an armed society is polite. A litigious one is cowed.
Steyn is guilty of letting the truth be known–i.e., there’s not one wit of difference between these global warming alarmists, whether there wearing a sheepskin for a frock or a lifetime Leftist politician. They’re all hypocrites–e.g.,
“Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the other day the Rev. Al Gore declared that “climate change” was “the most important moral, ethical, spiritual and political issue humankind has ever faced.” Ever. I believe that was the same day it was revealed that George W. Bush’s ranch in Texas is more environmentally friendly than the Gore mansion in Tennessee. According to the Nashville Electric Service, the Eco-Messiah’s house uses 20 times more electricity than the average American home. The average household consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours. In 2006, the Gores wolfed down nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours.”
~Mark Steyn, “How Gore’s massive energy consumption saves the world,” 04/01/2007
In climategate email 110789905, Michael E Mann accuses McIntyre of “scientific fraud” to no less a person than Andy Revkin of the NY Times. The email found its way into the mailbox of Keith Briffa, Phil Jones and many others. I find that far more damaging than Steyn’s one-liner on a conservative. Should McIntyre ever decide to seek employment with the NY Times or suckle at the climate alarmism teat, he will surely find it difficult at best thanks to Mann’s slander. As for proving Mannian malice of McIntyre, that wouldn’t prove to be too much of a stretch. What exactly did Steyn say? He quoted Simberg’s article, remarked that he wouldn’t have taken it into the shower with Sandusky, and agreed with the gist of Simberg’s post, namely that if Penn State will exonerate Sandusky, what won’t they exonerate. He also used the F-word (as if that’s never been said about Michael Hide-The-Decline Mann’s hockey stick – surely a disinterested third party couldn’t come to that opinion without malice). I’m really shocked by the libs on this one. All this time, I thought they really had this thing for freedom of speech. Turns out, all they really wanted was an unfettered look at female genitalia.
Well now, there’s an interesting comment. Yet another “skeptic” focused laser-like on the science and carefully validating precise opinions about climate change.
As I said earlier, this may be Judith’s best post, ever. No question that it’s in the top 10.
“I’m really shocked by the libs on this one. All this time, I thought they really had this thing for freedom of speech.”
I’ve thought about this quite a lot. The left has completely lost its bearings. Freedom of speech is now fine and dandy, as long as you don’t stray from the party line.
Ultimately the lesson to me is that irrespective of ideology, the human tendency to be, well human in all the worst ways will always manifest itself. The danger for real damage to our democracy is in proportion to the conviction of intellectual and moral superiority. Those who insist that they are better human beings than those “others” are always the ones to watch…
I think it was Henry Adams who said : “It’s always the good men who do the most harm in the world.”.
I think it would be really cool to find out Andy Revkin’s opinion of Michael Mann.
=========================
“I think it would be really cool to find out Andy Revkin’s opinion of Michael Mann.”
Well, he put up a post on Mann’s recent masturbatory piece in the NYT’s. I didn’t have the stomach to read much of it, but from what I could glean he’s treating him as a credible source.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/fresh-views-on-climate-scientists-as-advocates/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
Not as cool as finding out my opinion of you, kim.
But I fear JC wouldn’t allow it
OK, I’ll give you a hint. What rhymes with “muck” ?
I have a great deal of respect for Andy Revkin’s curiosity and intellectual honesty. Tenney is expert witness to that.
============
Mark, you mentioned Mann’s defamatory accusation in the CG emails that our academic articles were “scientific fraud”. Interestingly, this email was discussed in the EPA’s response to the Petition for Reconsideration, but the EPA discussion has never been considered in blog commentary.
I recently noticed this discussion when I was trying to examine Mann’s shall-we-say “tortured” claim that the EPA response to the Petition for Reconsideration was an “investigation” of his alleged misconduct. I’ll write this up as it’s pretty ironic.
Max_OK, Citizen Scientist | January 27, 2014 at 7:20 pm |
Why that would be “Puck”! I used to think taking Shakespeare’s Theater in college was a waste of time but I learned to appreciate it in later years.
I’m sure Kim will be flattered. It’s rather fitting methinks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puck_(A_Midsummer_Night's_Dream)
Puck is a clever, mischievous elf or sprite that personifies the trickster or the wise knave.
Hopefully Steyn’s lawyers will take statements from JC and others that Mann has gone after in slanderous, offensive terms. His own record of being an aggressive willing combatant in the slur wars will work against him should this case actually get in front of a jury and the jury hears the available evidence (which is pretty conclusive) on that point.
I’m not sure ‘two wrongs make a right’ is a valid legal defense.
Maybe it is not a “valid legal defense” but it might work with a jury.
Yeah, good point. An maybe Steyn will get Atticus Finch to win the day an really get the evildoer to sweat like a stuck pig cornered in his own filth. Oh man oh man, I just love all the really super great revenge fantasies spinning in my head. he he he. The team is going to rouge the day they messed with us teabagger don’t tread on me patriots.
Yeesh David. That is some pretty caustic rhetoric there. It will be forgotten within seconds by the readers of it, but it lives in your head, just sayin’.
You know, I think maybe it is you who is having the “revenge fantasies.” Look at your post again and consider your intemperate language.
Tim | January 27, 2014 at 1:24 pm |
“Maybe it is not a “valid legal defense” but it might work with a jury.”
Judge won’t let them hear it.
“My understanding is this. Michael Mann does not seem to understand the difference between criticizing a scientific argument versus smearing a scientist.”
My personal takeaway from the Steyn case is the polar opposite; Michael Mann does understand the difference, and knows when the smearing has crossed a line such that it deserves courtroom attention.
I think it was Henry Adams who said : “It’s always the good men who do the most harm in the world.”
“Pathological altruism” hasn’t it been called recently?
Wise words by JC: “If you say something, DEFEND it. Attack the argument, not the person”.
On one hand, I do not agree 100% with neither of the arguments usually held in RealClimate or in Climate Etc blogs.
My view is sumarized in:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4r_7eooq1u2VHpYemRBV3FQRjA/
On the other hand, I am also a bald man like Mann but: Who cares?. The important thing is what I can argument, not if I am bald or not. Don’t you think?.
I hope that all this suing thing decreases, and that we could enjoy ourselves with productive scientific debates. Because, at the end of the day, we are not living in Cuba or in N.Corea, so: YES, WE CAN debate.
BREAKING NEWS
An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science
An epic saga of secretly funded climate denial
and harassment of scientists
End Result A New Zealand denialist front-organization declared insolvency rather than pay a court-judgment.
Hmmmm … looks like New Zealand’s experience of denialism is repeating itself in the United States.
Steyn’s use of the adjective “fraudulent” is actually pretty vague. It doesn’t give a clue as to what is specifically fraudulent about the hockey stick. It is used in an opinion peice, on blog, for an opinion magazine. This was not a piece of investigative journalism. It also wasn’t just pulled out of the blue. The hockey stick has long been an object of controversy. There is plenty of well documented reasons to be skeptical of it. I think it is perfectly reasonable hyperbole. Mann deserves to lose. I don’t know why his supporters aren’t cringing with embarrassment instead of cheering him on.
At the climate crock of the week site they’re having a popcorn and coolaid party!
http://climatecrocks.com/2014/01/23/michael-mann-closing-in-on-deniers-in-court/
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“Seems to me that ‘serial climate misinformer’ and ‘anti-science’ qualify as defamatory, and its difficult to imagine that the statements were not made with malice”.
Indeed. But suing people for defamation is a fools game, as I expect Mann will soon discover. Your approach is the right one.
As he’ll discover when he wins?
Prof Curry, this was a good post.
“Many “climate skeptics” wonder why the defendants would want to get the complaint dismissed rather than put Mann through a trial in which he would have to take the witness stand and discuss his work under oath. I can understand their enthusiasm for this but for me the priority has always been the broader cause of free speech”
LOL
sorry I forgot to LOL earlier at that paragraph
carry on
The Shtick
(a saga in seven verses)
A young climate guru named Mick
Developed a neat hockey shtick
Using bristlecone pine
And hiding decline
In a really bizzare “Nature trick”
The beauty about his new chart
Was the warning it meant to impart
That it really had not
Ever been quite so hot
(It was truly a real work of art)
“This is great!” said the I-P-C-C
And then stuck it on page one with glee
Without verification
In their new publication
For policymakers to see
But soon two intrepid Canucks
Started digging into Mickey’s books
They found errors galore
Phony math and what’s more
A conclusion that basically sucks
While poor Mick was unhappy, indeed
Other experts were now all agreed
The conclusion’s baloney
The science is phony
And statistically not up to speed
Mickey’s shtick is now long dead and gone
But its memory still lingers on
With some doomsday believers
And green eager beavers
Who still haven’t really caught on
As a scientist Mick’s defamation
Has caused him immense consternation
So to salvage his name
And win back his fame
He’s now trying it with litigation.
+1
You shouldn’t need to sue?
In the uk if a doctor, architect solicitor or professional engineer were to make derogatory remarks about a fellow professional then that person could be brought before their professional body and either censured or struck off.
Maybe you and our Mikey are members of a professional body where similar rules apply :-)
One things for sure our Mikey is not professional statistician?
FLASH!
Swiss winter resort regions concerned about recent massive snow melt.
A recent massive snow melt in the Swiss Alps has local meteorologists and businessmen puzzled and concerned.
The epicenter of the massive melt appears to be in Davos, in the eastern Swiss Canton of Grisons.
Experts have attributed the melt to the influx of hot air from “climate change and sustainability” delegates to the World Economic Forum talks there.
One observer estimated that the hot air released by two speakers alone, Lord Nicholas Stern and former US VP Al Gore, could well have been directly responsible for around half of the massive melt.
This has been fun. Thank you all. Please keep it up.
A Republican in Iowa just won a libel judgement against his Democrat opponent and the Democrat party.
It’s great to know the reputation of the Republican went into the crapper and that the Democrat opponent now has mighty esteem along with his party.
Up with the libel spewing Democrats! They’re wicked! They smeared and did not get away with it. In America, it just doesn’t get better.
Like all bedrock, reversible on appeal.
Mark Steyn on the hockey stick and hiding the decline:
“Michael Mann was the man behind the fraudulent climate-change ‘hockey-stick’ graph, the very ringmaster of the tree-ring circus.”
Dr. Curry on the hockey stick and hiding the decline:
“There is no question that the diagrams and accompanying text in the IPCC TAR, AR4 and WMO 1999 are misleading. I was misled.
…
It is obvious that there has been deletion of adverse data in figures shown IPCC AR3 and AR4, and the 1999 WMO document. Not only is this misleading, but it is dishonest (I agree with Muller on this one).”
Steve McIntyre on the hockey stick and hiding the decline:
“Indeed, they did not simply ‘hide the decline’, their ‘hide the decline’ was worse than we thought. Mann et al did not merely delete data after 1960, they deleted data from 1940 on,”
And the inimitable Phil Jones on the hockey stick – giving rise to the very phrase “hide the decline”:
“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature [the science journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”
Two climate scientists (Curry and Muller) call the “iconic” hockey stick graph, with hide the decline, “dishonest” – not mistaken mind you, but dishonest. A statistician details the deletion of data. And a third climate scientist privately brags of using Mann’s “trick” in his own work.
There is no practical difference, for defamation purposes, between calling someone’s work “dishonest” and “fraudulent”. Both imply the same wrongful intent.
To prove malice, Mann will ultimately have to prove Steyn had no right to believe the statements of climate scientists regarding the honesty of the graph in question.
There has never been a question that Mann will never win a trial in this case. The point was always to punish the defendants with exorbitant legal fees. NRO, becoming capitulationist on so many political issues, has already rewarded Mann by self censoring themselves.
So Mann has won in part by effectively silencing National Review, which is nothing like it was when William F. Buckley ran the publication. But Steyn is another matter entirely.
For my own selfish reasons, there is a part of me that would like to see this case go through discovery and to trial. But I hope for Steyn’s sake they appeal the adverse ruling on the anti-SLAPP motion and win. He is right that a trial, even if he wins, is a loss for free speech.
(Though I still would love to see Dr. Curry and Muller called as witnesses on the issue of malice.)
Ah, were it only contained to Mann, climate science would be in a better place. There is far too much support of Mann’s science, politics and behavior from his peers and the media. He feels quite comfortable and sure of himself with all of his support group and much of the same behavior is exhibited by his closest confidants. This is especially true WRT the politics so there is plenty of left-wing government money to be spent on his defense. Sorry if that doesn’t fit with the blog theme but a duck is a duck in my world.
Blog participants should remember John Milton in 1640 daid
“Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinions in good men is but knowledge in the making.” Women as well.
Thanks Dr Judith Curry for all you have done to open the information flow.
Scott
In considering what’s protected opinion and what’s defamatory, it’s interesting to compare the Mann case to a recent 9th circuit case that also attracted a lot of attention, OBSIDIAN FINANCE GROUP, LLC. v. Cox. The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s ruling that accusation that seem considerably more specific that the disparaging comments about Mann were not actionable:
Only one accusation could be considered as possibly defamatory:
I think it’s clear that if the same standard were applied in the Mann case, none of the allegedly defamatory statements are specific enough to be considered factual accusations rather than mere opinions.
Anyone taking on Mann in court simply has to discuss Tiljander.
“Seems to me that ‘serial climate misinformer’ and ‘anti-science’ qualify as defamatory, and its difficult to imagine that the statements were not made with malice.”
For the sake of those who don’t know, the term “malice,” as used by the U.S.S.Ct. in NY Times v. Sullivan (et seq.), bears almost no resemblance to the term as it is commonly used. In concrete terms, in order for a putatively defamatory statement to have been made “with malice,” it must have been made knowing that it was false, or with reckless disregard to the possibility that it was false. Ironically, the Supreme Court invented this rule precisely in order to vindicate the 1st Amendment, in view of the tension between it and defamation law.
“All of these insults are mud slinging without being accompanied by any substantive argument. Mann’s defamation of me (a climate scientist) is of particular relevance in context of Mann’s case against Steyn, in light of the recent ruling: …”
One consequence of the Supreme Court’s invention of the absence of malice standard is the fact that only substantive factual assertions (such as those identified by the judge (fraudulent research, manipulating data), can be defamatory. This is because obvious characterizations, e.g., “X is a slimeball,” are understood by the courts as not-objectively-testable factual assertions, and, therefore, they cannot be “true” or “false.” (I’m oversimplifying, but that’s the gist.) As long as Mann sticks to substance-less smearing, he cannot be guilty of defamation (in the U.S., anyway).
It amuses me that he has adapted his speech in such a hypocritical way, to optimize his position with respect to litigation, rather than actually persuading people on the strength of his arguments.
“It is difficult for me to imagine how throw away one-liners such as used by Mark Steyn and Tim Ball have done harm to Mann’s reputation, which is a legal requirement for defamation …”
As a practical matter, the “harmful” requirement is a dead letter in defamation law, since NYT and its progeny. The entire analysis centers on the absence of “malice.” (Well, there is another line of cases analyzing whether the speech relates to a public person or subject of public interest–conditions theoretically necessary for the application of the absence of malice standard. Practically speaking, though, that, too, is a non-issue…if people are talking about you, it’s because either you’re a public figure or the subject matter is of public interest).
After having read the judge’s decision on the anti-SLAPP act, I’m reasonably confident (well, reasonably confident for having only read the decision once) that she would be reversed by the Supreme Court–but that would require the Supreme Court to grant cert. (I’m much less sanguine about the D.C. Cir.–recall the D’s recent court-packing scheme).
The chief defect that I detect (regarding the libel issues, i.e., leaving aside issues specific to the anti-SLAPP statute) is that she finds actual malice based purely on the two investigations of Mann’s work which found nothing wrong. She comments that they were launched, in part, due to NR’s egging, and, therefore, that NR/Steyn were likely to be more aware of their conclusions than anyone, and, in her opinion, that is sufficient to conclude that Steyn and NR were reckless. In the first place this is merely begging the question, since Steyn and NR question the, ah, sincerity of those investigations. I don’t know if Steyn has ever used the term “whitewash,” but it’s clear enough from this blog that that is a characterization NR/Steyn would not be alone in voicing. And in the second place, whatever the findings of those tribunals, they cannot establish the fact that Mann did not commit a fraud; they are inadmissible hearsay, for that purpose. (And to suggest that, rather than actually proving there was no fraud, they merely show that NR/Steyn had reason to think there wasn’t, and, therefore, were reckless when they said there was, is truly perverse.)
Now, stop to think what this means about how the court will actually resolve whether Mann’s hockey stick was a fraud, and you begin to see why the Supreme Court decided to clip the wings of libel law. Down this path madness lies. I don’t doubt they’ll quash this case, too, when given a chance, albeit I’d expect another 5-4 decision. The SCOTUS is a lot more partisan than it was in 1964, but Kennedy is nothing if not a solid champion of free speech.
Michael Mann needs to apply his pseudo-scientific style to end the argument for any who might question his “authority.”
Michael Mann, suffering from secondary incapacity resulting from associated delusions of grandeur {Valentine, 2014} has involuntarily placed himself in a position of vulnerability {Valentine, 2013} that resulted from unexpected weather changes {Washington Post, January, 2014} that led some unenlightened to believe {Washington Post, Ibid.} that anthropogenic influences upon global climactic understanding {Mann, 2010} could be disregarded {Mann, 2009] within the hegemony of evidence [Mann, 2008] that such conclusions have remained equivocal {IPCC IV, 5] since the dawn of civilization
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I’m obviously late to the party but I see my name has come up. In response to the points (way) above: I coauthored Taken By Storm with a physicist, Chris Essex; the discussion seems to imply that I ventured into the thermodynamics topics alone. Regarding the temperature of laser radiation, WHUT, do you disagree that it’s in the hundreds of millions of degrees? You didn’t mention the citation in TBS to the source article from the American Journal of Physics (“How hot is radiation?” http://scitation.aip.org/content/aapt/journal/ajp/71/10/10.1119/1.1603268.) Take it up with them if you think it’s wrong.
On the cosine error, talk about slow on the uptake. That paper was published in 2004. Blogger Tim Lambert found an error, in which I didn’t realize the software default took degrees in radians rather than degrees. That led to a lot of wild excitement among the anklebiters at the Deltoid blog. It is telling that people who rely on his blog even 10 years later do not learn about the correction notice we published in the same journal immediately thereafter, see: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/gdptemp.html showing results before and after the correction, notably showing that the original conclusions all stood; not to mention the series of papers I’ve published since then on the same topic without the cosine issue arising, because it was always irrelevant to the actual issues (see http://www.rossmckitrick.com/temperature-data-quality.html).
Yes, RB, I am an economist, though the list you show is only the top 5%-cited authors on RePEc, and I am not on that list (only 69 Canadians are). But apparently I am in the top 5% ranked based on strength of students: http://ideas.repec.org/top/top.person.students.html#pmc85. Also note that the RePEc publication listing for me is incomplete (my fault) and their h-index calculation is not accurate (the software used at my college puts it at 17, fwiw).
Ross –
What do you have to say about people who call scientists, that presumably they’ve never met, “groveling, terrified cowards?”
McK.
Thanks for publishing that book. It served as a precursor to the insane ramblings of deniers yet to come.
And you still don’t understand the difference between temperature and color temperature obviously:
http://www.3drender.com/glossary/colortemp.htm
“However, the color temperatures attributed to different types of lights are correlated based on visible colors matching a standard black body, and are not the actual temperature at which a filament burns.”
‘Radiative energy transport, on the other hand, depends only on the difference of the local matter and radiation temperatures at a single point in space. Even a low-power laser is very effective at transferring energy, because its radiation temperature is so large.
Energy transfer dominated by radiative processes is minimally
affected by convection and conduction if the matter
temperature is much smaller than the radiation temperature.
Practical consequences of these results include the following.
Because of the high beam temperature, radiative transfer
dominates over the other, more destructive and undesirable
heat transfer processes of convection and conduction, making
lasers effective tools for surgery.’
Wouldn’t worry about it Ross. These two are simply appalling cases of misguided zeal. Basically – say anything at all to score a point for their side. Usually it is the same point over and over again. An odd way to behave but such is the climate war.
Anyone who thinks Mann will win this case is crazy. I know the warmists are so desperate for any kind of victory that Michael Mann winning a simple procedural decision in court is somehow now some giant victory portending imminent defeat for all “deniers,” but that’s ridiculous. The case will likely get thrown out when appealed, if not Mann will lose in court. There is such a thing as freedom of speech and Mann is a PUBLIC FIGURE by his own choice. He is the one who injects himself into political debates and writes in national newspapers. Could the President or a Senator or a Governor sue someone if they called them a fraud or a liar or something, even if it weren’t true? Of course, not. Warmists need to stop acting dumb.
This discussion walked into a slough of denigration: neck-deep. So let us use our heads to walk out to firmer ground. Let me suggest a remedy: loser pays.
Denigration is a form of punishment. It is an attack. It may damage reputation, particularly out of context. Legal defense of reputation is costly; a gaggle of lawyers is not free.
denigration ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/denigration )
Synonyms: belittlement, denigration, deprecation, derogation, detraction, diminishment, disparagement, put-down
Related Words: aspersion, backbiting, calumny, defamation, libel, slander, vilification; derision, mockery, ridicule; abuse, invective, vituperation; censure, condemnation, criticism, denouncement, denunciation; de-emphasis, minimization, soft-pedaling
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Robert Way-“If you believe that the rate of warming is only 0.05 then I ask that you prove it and provide your code and rationale for how you deal with the missing coverage areas. Remember leaving a region out treats it the same as the global average. ”
What kind of antiscience rant is this? If you don’t have data in the arctic you can’t use it in a global average. Lack of data is just that. We don’t know. Not having data is no reason to impute data to the area just so you can make a global average. The raw temperture data is filled with examples of measurements as close as a few hundred feet showing temperatures varying 10deg C.
Saul Alinsky put forth 13 rules for radicals ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals#The_rules ). #5 is “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” #8 is “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.”
#13 is “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
Whether intentionally or not, Mann is following these rules as he seeks to stifle any and all opposition to him and his point of view.
Additionally, he will remain emboldened because the majority of the news media sides with him. A new media practicing ethical journalism would be subjecting Mann to intense scrutiny and would not let him hide behind is ridicule and personal attacks.
Some time one must draw a line in the sand to stop endless prevarication.
Steyn has done that. Fairly placing the hockey stick graph in the context of the climatological record will be worth all the support I can give him.
We need to change the focus to climate triage, for crop failures are before us!
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