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Judge Quashes Subpoena of UVA Research Records
esocid writes "An Albemarle County Circuit Court judge has set aside a subpoena issued by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to the University of Virginia seeking documents related to the work of climate scientist and former university professor Michael Mann. Judge Paul M. Peatross Jr. ruled that Cuccinelli can investigate whether fraud has occurred in university grants, as the attorney general had contended, but ruled that Cuccinelli's subpoena failed to state a 'reason to believe' that Mann had committed fraud. He also set aside the subpoena without prejudice, meaning Cuccinelli can rewrite it to better explain why he wants to investigate, but seemed skeptical about the underlying claim of fraud. The ruling is a major blow for Cuccinelli, a global warming skeptic who had maintained he was investigating whether Mann committed fraud in seeking government money for research that showed the earth has experienced a rapid, recent warming. Mann, now at Penn State University, worked at U-Va. until 2005. 'The Court has read with care those pages and understands the controversy regarding Dr. Mann's work on the issue of global warming. However, it is not clear what he did was misleading, false or fraudulent in obtaining funds from the Commonwealth of Virginia,' Peatross wrote. The ruling also limited Cuccinelli to asking about only one of the five grants issued, which was the only one using state funds."
It appears that Ken Cuccinelli is a partisan hack who's using his position as Attorney-General primarily to advance right-wing interests, and thus further his own political ambitions.
Last week he was going after abortion clinics.
This week it's Michael Mann.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
It is interesting (and very bigoted of you) to assume anyone who is a AGW skptic is anti-science and pro-intelligent design.
I realize that this isn't universally true, but I've noticed a large overlap - specifically, the vast majority of creationists appear to be "AGW skeptics", and they are certainly anti-science, and very militant about it. When I see the cretins from the Discovery Institute reading from the same script as the anti-AGW crowd, I'm naturally suspicious of the latter. This may seem unfair to you, but it's no more unfair than accusing climate scientists of wanting to force society back to a pre-industrial state.
Which brings up a more accurate point: while the "skeptics" may not all be anti-science, they definitely come across as anti-scientist.
"until something is found or nothing is found."
As you are well aware, Mann has been repeatedly investigated by political hacks and repeatedly cleared. This is just another politically motivated fishing expedition amoungst the constant stream of FOI requests, death threats, and political investigations he and his team are subjected to on a daily basis.
We've talked before and I have a fair idea of your political views, I strongly suspect that if it was not about climate change you would be screaming about government oppression and Mann's right to be left alone.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
People may appoint Judges for political reasons but they should never bow to those reasons.
Yeah, that's why Judges should be appointed. But local ones tend to be elected, so they need to run for office every so often etc.
Actually, you don't. You can get it to turn up a bit at the end, but nobody has managed to reproduce the magnitude of Mann's hockey stick blade with red noise. So if you think that, you have yourself been the victim of a con. Reanalysis using other methods still yields a hockey stick. That's why the 2006 NRC peer review ended up concluding
This is simply untrue. While the original statistical approach that Mann chose was not ideal, and is subject to certain types of error, multiple subsequent studies have shown that his approach did not invalidate his conclusions.
The paper that you cite comes up with larger error bars using a different method of analysis which has not previously been tested or validated for this kind of data, so it logically cannot falsify the hockey stick. The authors do not compare their method to that used Mann or by others who have carried out reproduced his conclusions, and provide no evidence that their approach is in any way superior.
We also cannot say that the MWP was as warm as today, or even that the MWP was a global phenomenon rather than a regional one. It has been known all along that the error bars get large when you try to extend the analysis that far back, and this was acknowledged in Mann's work.