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Michael E. Mann Sues For Defamation Over Comparison To Jerry Sandusky
eldavojohn writes "The global warming debate has left much to be desired in the realm of logic and rationale. One particular researcher, Michael E. Mann, has been repeatedly attacked for his now infamous (and peer reviewed/independently verified) hockey stick graph. It has come to the point where he is now suing for defamation over being compared to convicted serial child molester Jerry Sandusky. Articles hosted by defendants and written by defendant Rand Simberg and defendant Mark Steyn utilize questionable logic for implicating Michael E. Mann alongside Jerry Sandusky with the original piece, concluding, 'Michael Mann, like Joe Paterno, was a rock star in the context of Penn State University, bringing in millions in research funding. The same university president who resigned in the wake of the Sandusky scandal was also the president when Mann was being (whitewashed) investigated. We saw what the university administration was willing to do to cover up heinous crimes, and even let them continue, rather than expose them. Should we suppose, in light of what we now know, they would do any less to hide academic and scientific misconduct, with so much at stake?' Additionally, sentences were stylized to blend the two people together: 'He has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science that could have dire economic consequences for the nation and planet.' One of the defendants admits to removing 'a sentence or two' of questionable wording. Still, as a public figure, Michael E. Mann has an uphill battle to prove defamation in court."
It sounds like their argument is that the Penn State administration has a tendency to cover-up embarrassing stuff and protect their own. I would think they would have more a case for defamation than this guy (assuming it's not true, of course). Not that I would expect them to bring it, since at this point they're mostly just hiding in a foxhole somewhere praying that CNN goes away soon.
Mann himself should probably just accept that this is a downside to climate research (since it's become hopelessly politicized). On the upside, there's a lot of grant money to be had, though, and the potential to change the world and all that. Trade-offs, you know.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Dr. Mann complains about two statements: 1) that as "the man behind the fraudulent climate-change 'hockey-stick' graph," he is "the very ringmaster of the three ring circus" on climate change; and 2) that he "could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science that could have dire economic consequences for the nation and planet." Neither of these statements is actionable. Moreover, if Dr. Mann decides to pursue this matter, he and his research would be subjected to a very extensive discovery of materials that he has fought so hard to protect in other proceedings. Such materials would be required for National Review to defend itself.
My work here is dung.
While the imaginatively twisted likenesses are obviously meant to irritate Michael Mann, they are in no way defamation of character and I suggest a counter-suit for harassment!
Publishing peer reviewed science is almost the exact same thing as child molestation. How can anyone not see that?
On a different note, is anyone else having problems getting Slashdot to load in a usable way? It's like I'm being dared to take my nerd traffic elsewhere.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
At the same time, Steyn has flown awfully close at times to libel, and this comes as close to crossing the line as I've seen. Whether it crosses the line or not will be up to a court to decide, unless Steyn backs downs. My opinion is that while it is an obnoxious, immoral piece of trash piece that shows Steyn and Simberg to be dishonorable disreputable shitbags, it's not truly libelous.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Hockey stick is proven fabrication.
The studies approving Vioxx were "peer reviewed" as well...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
FTFS:
'He has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science that could have dire economic consequences for the nation and planet.'
But it looks like they'll have to show this is so in a court of law.
Given absolutely no evidence of that, they're fucked.
As someone who has been on both sides as both an author and reviewer of scientific papers, "peer reviewed" doen't not mean something is automatically correct, simply that it is worthy of publication. It's closer to saying it's plausible, and should be out there for the scientific community to discuss. Correctness is more judged by reproducability over a timescale of decades, but even that is not definative.
Science is a lot more messy that a lot of people would like to believe...
OH IT'S PEER REVIEWED!?!?!?!? Well then never mind, he's obviously 100% legit and his opponents are scurrilous dogs.
Whatever you do, don't read these critical Slashdot articles about the noble, impeachable peer review process.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/09/17/1529245/inspector-general-investigated-for-muzzling-inconvenient-science
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/09/17/1416201/peer-review-highly-sensitive-to-poor-refereeing
First sentence is a lie.
Second sentence is a red herring that has absolutely nothing to do with first sentence.
Conclusion: Poster is likely a sociopath or retard, possibly both.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I love how industry likes to twist science to their whim, and the rats squirm when they exposed and affiliated with scum.
It happens in the sludge indstry too.
The defendants are much more creative than that. They are going to use discovery in this case to gain access to documents that Michael Mann has very strenuously fought to keep out of the public eye. There may be nothing in those documents relevant to either this case or to the AGW debate, but the fact that Michael Mann has fought so hard to keep them private suggests that there is something in them he would rather the public not know (it may be on a completely unrelated topic).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Also, discovery should be ... interesting.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. I was thinking of the children.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
It sounds like their argument is that the Penn State administration has a tendency to cover-up embarrassing stuff and protect their own.
The Penn State Hershey Medical Center brings in over a billion dollars a year in revenue to Penn State. The same university president who resigned in the wake of the Sandusky scandal also presided over said medical center with obvious financial interests that were easily orders of magnitudes higher than the football program. When will we re-investigate all of their malpractice suits? When will we bring their alleged (just now) organ trafficking ring from China to justice? Should we suppose, in light of what we now know, they would do any less to hide treatment and medical misconduct, with so much at stake?
My work here is dung.
Someone could push a big red button and change the world that doesn't necessarily make it a good thing. I'm all for real science based on repeatable, and objective analysis, but it's very rare to see that in science now days. Everyone has an agenda, and politics and money are far more important than truthful discovery.
Simberg is best known for a fabricated "Reuters" article allegedly from 1945 which, unbelievably, was taken seriously and cited by both Condoleeza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld. Basically, it was a lame satire about the Iraqi resistance which (falsely) claimed that similar things had happened in Germany after WWII.
"Any intentional false communication, either written or spoken, that harms a person's reputation; decreases the respect, regard, or confidence in which a person is held; or induces disparaging, hostile, or disagreeable opinions or feelings against a person." From: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Defamation+of+character
It really is a slimy piece of shit move to compare someone to Sandusky because they were at Penn under the same umbrella. This definitely harms his reputation and if you believe it then certainly you will have disagreeable opinions and feelings towards him. He's a scientist who interpreted data in a controversial way that is argued among academics, he certainly didn't rape innocent children in the showers.
The people who continue to try to derail any efforts to stop climate change amaze me.
As more and more weather disasters rack up, and as the climate actually does change, it would seem their misinformation would fall on deaf ears. But I think there is also a want on the part of a lot of people to not believe what is going on, what they are doing to their children's future, and even what they are doing to their own futures.
Not that it really matters at this point. We are ~12 years to the 2 degree C mark over average global temperature from the last century - and climbing. The 2 degrees C mark is considered kind of a line in the sand. Once we cross that, it will be especially hard to recover.
PBS Frontline is running a very topical show this week: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/climate-of-doubt/
The "Writing In the Sciences" online course over at Coursera says to distinguish between "compare to" and "compare with".
"Compare to" is used to find similarities, as in "shall I compare thee to a summer's day?". "Compare with" is used to find differences, as in "His time was 2:11:10 compared with 2:14 for his closest competitor." (Many sources on the net.)
So I have to ask, was he being compared to Jerry Sandusky, or compared with Jerry Sandusky?
Inquiring [Scientific writing] minds want to know :-)
Mann is not suing for libel, he's suing for defamation. They're not the same thing legally speaking.
you know, this is the best use of logic ive seen all day. you win the internets
So they made these comparisons and wrote all of these inflammatory things betting on the HOPE that Mann would sue them for defamation so they could drag all of these documents Mann's been alegedly hiding out into court? Is that what your saying? That seems like a bit of a stretch to me.
One way to give your detractors more attention than they otherwise would have gotten is to attack them (this article is a case in point.) Worse is that if he loses the case (which given his public figure status, is easily possible) he'll just add to their credibility.
Disclaimer: I myself generally distrust climate alarmists. The earth has had periods of MUCH warmer climates, and life thrived in all of them. Hell, lets even look at more recent history: some archeologists have found evidence that during the medieval warm period, there were farms in areas that are now considered far too inhospitable for agriculture due to the cold climate. Further, what we're seeing now may very well be yet another temperate anomaly, only now our measurements are more accurate so it seems different.
And yes, I do believe in global warming.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Seems like you never heard about the null hypothesis. Weather disasters rack up no matter what and none of what we have seen is in the least out of line with what has happened in history.
If you ignore history, however, you'll always think things are going to hell in a handbasket ... as people have done all the time in history.
Ah, but Mann's Hockey Stick is repeatable. A number of other studies since the original was published have shown substantially the same thing as Mann's work using different proxy datasets. Here's a number of them plotted along with the Hockey Stick Graph. See if you can figure out which is which.
Hockey stick is proven fabrication.
Well, if you desire a citation for my claims of independent verification, check out Richard Muller who previously attacked said graph and consequent IPCC claims (the results of which earned them the 2007 Nobel Prize). Pay attention to these first three paragraphs. That 2007 IPCC report is important because that is what Mann contributed to.
If I'm not mistaken, Muller tackled the same problem from a as different an approach as possible and came to the same conclusion.
The studies approving Vioxx were "peer reviewed" as well...
Sure, just because something is peer reviewed doesn't mean it is without fault but it sure is a good deliminator between a crackpot on the internet and someone trying very hard to participate in a community that also tries to hold itself to a higher standard than baseless claims and unreproducible results, wouldn't you agree?
My work here is dung.
Mark Steyn on the freedom of speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH70VHZ857M Mark Steyn is known for intelligent and cutting right wing satire. He is also known for being prosecuted in various courts for his writings. As such, he is one of strongest defenders of the freedom of speech today. Everyone needs to remember that freedom of speech is not for those you agree with, it is for those you don't agree with.
Defamation is a broad category that includes libel and slander. Libel is defamation that occurs in a persistent form; slander is defamation that occurs in a transitory form.
According to the complaint, Mann is suing for five counts of libel and one count of intentional infliction of emotional distress.
That even if Mann had engaged in scientific fraud, which is questionable considering that his accusers are known liars and can barely spell "science", they're stiill equating the violation of scientific integrity with the RAPING OF CHILDREN. .
Fuck these guys hard.
You know, I don't think Mann is afraid of discovery at all. As far as I can tell his work has always been honest. The reason he's fought it is that a scientists work should be judged by the science they produce, the published results of their work, not some gotcha quote mining of working papers and communications with peers.
The whitewashes explicity decided not to invetigate Mann's "hide the decline" because he did it and it couldn't be denied. Hiding contrary evidence is a no no in science, Especially after your opponents have made it clear that they think that contrary evidence is significant. You have to include it in your graph and explain it, not leave it out. Worse, nearly the entire climate science community has defended this unscientific conduct, destroying the credibility of the entire community. And they continue to put forth the deception that he was exonerated from this misconduct. One of their leaders was quoted by Discover magazine as saying that they had to choose between honesty and effectiveness. We now know what they chose. It was not defamation because it was an opinion based on at least arguable, if not obviously true evidence. Remember it is against the moderation rules to mod somebody down just because you think they are wrong. It is also not flamebait if it is a sincerely held belief put forward for honest discussion.
The reason Mann has fought all of that discovery is because he's standing up for other scientists. The discovery is not after anything relevant to anything. What's relevant is his published work.
Attempting to discredit Prof. Mann's scientific thesis is acceptable and hardly defamation. However, attempting to tie Dr. Mann to a serial child molestor is grounds for defamation. The defendants better have a good lawyer. People have been sued for less and won handily. As for the correctness of the "hockey stick", it has been demonstrated independently using entirely different methods and Mann's celebrated conclusion is still as valid as it was when it was first proposed.
If I were on the jury, a few tens or hundreds of millions of dollars would seem a fair price for a man's reputation. Corporations, which are now people have paid much more in similar cases.
Mark Steyn is the author of this pile horse crap.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Mikes-Nature-trick-hide-the-decline-advanced.htm
Mods, feel free to mod parent down not because you think he's wrong, but because he is wrong.
:(){
And the null hypothesis (there is no warming trend) has been refuted.
Weather disasters are racking up at rates higher than the null hypothesis ("there is no increase in weather disasters") can accept, so that is refuted.
What we have seen IS out of line with what has happened in history. Two 150-year events in the same year worldwide is no proof of a change in the climate. over 30 is.
IANAL, nor are most of the other posters apparently.
By all accounts, it is pretty difficult for public figures to successfully bring defamation claims, which is probably why folks generally don't bother(which is why the tabloids survive presumably). Well, that and the fact that bringing it to court airs the claims so thoroughly as to further trash their names above and beyond the original "offending" material. And it isn't clear that a court victory, if such comes, helps all that much to rectify the damage to their reputation, though a big settlement may soften the blow...
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#Public_figure_doctrine_.28absence_of_malice.29
Public figure doctrine (absence of malice)
Special rules apply in the case of statements made in the press concerning public figures, which can be used as a defence. A series of court rulings led by New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964) established that for a public official (or other legitimate public figure) to win a libel case, the statement must have been published knowing it to be false or with reckless disregard to its truth, (also known as actual malice).[32]
The reason he's fought it is that a scientists work should be judged by the science they produce, the published results of their work, not some gotcha quote mining of working papers and communications with peers.
The reason he fights it is clearer to me. It's the same reason why, if a law enforcement officer showed up at my house and demanded to rifle through all of my blongings looking for anything that might be illegal I would tell him to go pound sand. Not because I'm guilty, not because I hate the police but because he has no right to without a warrant! Furthermore, if 90% of people in our society allowed this and it became expected or, worse yet, legal then you would have effectively forfeited your right to privacy.
Scientists are human beings that work long hours at their jobs. Demanding the publication of everything is a bit dehumanizing and Mann is correct to fight it lest other scientists find themselves under the same expectations after it has been established as the norm. I think it will be acceptable to release it during the discovery phase of a case like this but it should not be given up lightly.
This is a clear attempt to intimidate and repress scientists and researchers.
My work here is dung.
The discovery is not after anything relevant to anything. What's relevant is his published work.
In a defamation case involving allegations that his emails and professional correspondence showed he was intentionally lying about his findings, I imagine said emails and correspondence would be VERY relevant.
So if you're a mentally retarded gullible twit who posts falsehoods because you're too fucking stupid to know they're falsehoods, you can be downmodded?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Mann has very likely just made a very big mistake. In the legal proceedings, something called "discovery" will allow the defendants to get all the access they can eat to Mann's records, including all those emails that he fought to keep secret. I expect that the fraud will be proven in a court of law.
Heh.
Now superimpose it, with normalized axes, on the recent Norwegian tree ring data: http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/ideas/climate/fraud/climategate/.images/00-both2.png
Need Mercedes parts ?
Second sentence is also a lie. The "hockey stick graph" was not "independently verified" unless you mean proven to be false. Wiped out were the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. If one feeds white noise into the program used to generate the graph, one still gets a hockey stick. This was all done by weighting the data samples he liked (showing AGW) higher than the data samples he did not like (those not showing AGW).
I don't think the GP meant to imply that this outcome was planned; merely that the opportunistic liars who wrote the piece would not pass up such a maneuver.
Case dismissed
The beauty of science is that some one else can reproduce the work and evaluate how good it is. Mann's Hockey Stick has been supported by a number of other researchers using different proxy data who come up with similar results to Mann. I'm not aware of any peer reviewed published work that contradicts Mann's work.
So even if hypothetically Mann were to be found intentionally lying it's irrelevant. The actual published work is what matters.
"because he did it "
No, he did not. It was about TREE GROWTH decline at certain latitudes.. But please, keep being News Corps bitch. IT deals with the divergence problem. I could go into detail, but your heads is so far up your ass I doubt it's worth it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Remember it is against the moderation rules to mod somebody down just because you think they are wrong
No, it is not. If you get a +5 Insightful, and you are absolutely incorrect in even your basis premise, you can get modded "Overrated". Which I have done. You are taking words out of context and fail to understand what he was trying to hide. Please read, do your research and inform yourself before repeating this non-scandal.
Michael Mann has been repeatedly exposed for manipulating data to support his preconceived conclusions.
So they repeat the offensive statements, say he won't win, then threaten him with a "very extensive" invasion of his privacy. National Review is shit.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
As DeadCatX2's post explained "hide the decline" simply refers to a technique to make the graphs look cleaner by removing irrelevant data. The decline is hidden in plain sight since the reasons for not using the data are fully explained in the published work. Problem is that those sorts of details seldom make it out to news reports on the work.
It's the same reason why, if a law enforcement officer showed up at my house and demanded to rifle through all of my blongings looking for anything that might be illegal I would tell him to go pound sand. Not because I'm guilty, not because I hate the police but because he has no right to without a warrant!
Dr. Mann and his university accept public funds from the federal government and that subjects him to FOIA requests. And frankly, I see nothing wrong with examining relevant email communications from Dr. Mann on that basis. If he doesn't like it, then he can always refuse federal funding for his research projects.
Anybody who would say what you just said is worse than Hitler. (It's Slashdot, I have to mention Hitler!)
But seriously? People are inciting to have you killed and you're supposed to say, "Oh well, it's part of the job"? If we let that stand, American science doesn't have much of a future.
It's the same reason why, if a law enforcement officer showed up at my house and demanded to rifle through all of my blongings looking for anything that might be illegal I would tell him to go pound sand. Not because I'm guilty, not because I hate the police but because he has no right to without a warrant!
Dr. Mann and his university accept public funds from the federal government and that subjects him to FOIA requests. And frankly, I see nothing wrong with examining relevant email communications from Dr. Mann on that basis. If he doesn't like it, then he can always refuse federal funding for his research projects.
Are you serious? You want e-mails when most projects in medicine and physics that are federally funded don't even release their raw data?! Why aren't you clamoring for the DNA and raw collider data that has been built with your taxpaying dollars? Or should they just refuse federal funding as well?
the null hypothesis has been refuted in this issue. IT's in all the expert scientific journals.
What we have seen is out of line with the overall history trend. That, along with mountains of other data clearly indicate AGW is really. External sources have been eliminated. The current shape of the earths orbit* doesn't account for the change. So, it' internal.
Yes, looking at one set of data, say 2 years' in and of itself doesn't mean the planet is warming, nor would it mean it's not warming. To isolate one piece of data, then use that one tiny pieces in an argument ignoring the rest of the relevant data it really fucking shitty.
*it goes between phases of round to more oval; which causes 'ages' This is a quick laymans explanation, you can find the data online.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A hypothetical scenario:
If all that Simberg, Steyn et. al. wanted to do was have a look at Mann's data, this is how they might be going about it:
W: Simberg, Steyn write inflammatory articles about Mann and his hockey stick graph, hoping Mann tries to sue their asses.
B: Mann tries to sue their asses.
W: Simberg & Steyn subpoena data out of Mann's ass.
B: Mann must choose which is more important, the anonymity of his data or realizing the slim possibility of owning S & S's asses but still being more likely to lose.
W: S & S smile.
It's called Zugzwang, baby!
I'd say 8 or 9 other graphs that show substantially the same thing using different proxy data provide independent verification of the Hockey Stick Graph.
The only one to claim the science is settled as a "climate expert" is Christopher Monckton.
Meanwhile the ACTUAL climate scientists say this about "the science is settled":
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/unsettled-science/
The whitewashes explicity decided not to invetigate Mann's "hide the decline" because he did it and it couldn't be denied.
This is materially false. You are living in a fantasy world. Go read one of the many independent investigations on this, or better yet, read the original email yourself.
Talk about cherry-picking.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
CERN willfully discards 90% of it's data. But if you have High Speed Internet (and most Americans do, unless CERN has insane bandwidth requirement that I don't know about) , you can get access to the other 10 percent.
Emails, even those of federal agents, can only subpoenaed if there is a criminal investigation going on. They are discoverable, but they are not public.
Read the FOIA law - access to emails is part of the law, its how we citizens and our free press can force the government to open up. And re-read what that poster was saying: *relevant* emails. On top of this, it is a legal case, and they are the defendant, so they have a right to ask a judge to see these things that may help them defend themselves. Its the same right that helps you if you get sued.
CERN willfully discards 90% of it's data.
What are they hiding?!
And? What is ti with you single minded blinder wearing fools?Why do you think there is only one reason for warming? Why are you applying one localized study to the whole world? why do you bring up the graph, but not the authors explaining why it die snot run counter to AGW?
oh, right, your actually stupid.
"Our study doesn't go against anthropogenic global warming in any way," said Robert Wilson, a paleoclimatologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and a co-author of the study,"
"None of this changes the fact that the current warming can't be modeled based on natural forces alone," Robert Wilson
"Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climate scientist, the tree rings show what mounds of other data have shown as well: For the past few millennia, Earth's northern latitudes had been cooling down overall. "Similarly, we expect that over the same period the tropics should have warmed slightly," Schmidt said in an email. These trends resulted from shifts in the Earth's orbit on thousand-year-long time-scales."
"Wilson, Schmidt and the vast majority of climate scientists agree: human-caused warming of the entire globe now overwhelms those subtle, regional heat redistributions"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Seems like you never heard about the null hypothesis. Weather disasters rack up no matter what and none of what we have seen is in the least out of line with what has happened in history.
oOOooOOoo the "null hypothesis". You must think that 1000s of scientists don't know something about elementary experimental design! That MUST be it! Gee, you could use statistics and evidence to draw conclusions as to the likelihood of various hypotheses. Mmm, let me see... that EXACTLY what that IPCC did!!
Sorry, it might not mean shit to you, but null hypothesis (as you put it) was rejected in a 1979 NAS report (30 years ago). Today, the evidence is just stronger.
If you ignore history, however, you'll always think things are going to hell in a handbasket ... as people have done all the time in history.
Like the history of increasing weather disasters!
Of course I'm wrong, along with the scientific community. You just gotta find the logic to connect the dots.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
I can't believe how many denier trolls have got mod points today.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
The hockey stick graph was independently validated by nearly a dozen different reconstructions.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
He is both. He is the most extremist fascist socialist ever -- destroying america with his nefarious plans. He is also a pathetic weak leader who cannot get anything done.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Muller has been outed as a long-time warmist, his claims otherwise notwithstanding.
You make it sound like he is homosexual, and not a scientists who followed the data where it lead him. The fact that he reached a conclusions that you don't like is PROOF he is BIASED, right? Either that, or you can't handle the truth.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Defamation has a three point test, the most important of which is "painting a portrait of the defamed in a false light", that is, making a person out to be something they are not. Libel and slander (written vs verbal) involve a more stringent test of claiming that the slandered acted or committed an act of a criminal nature or gross indecency. Mann might have a case here, he has to prove the defendant knowingly and maliciously slandered him.
That they aren't competent to design a simple 25 GB/s storage array?
Two huge problems with this argument:
+ That tree ring data is for summer temperatures only -- not all year around.
+ Scandinavia (what you call norway) is a poor proxy for the entire world.
This is obviously cherry-picking. See the full story here.
Also, click on the parents link, and note that it fails to offer an explanation.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
And frankly, I see nothing wrong with examining relevant email communications from Dr. Mann on that basis.
You get a bunch of Koch funded "do-gooders" who do nothing all day but file FOIAs to make a nuisance of themselves. And maybe some mud will stick!
It's pretty pathetic.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Michael Mann has fought so hard to keep them private suggests that there is something in them he would rather the public not know
Not at all. It's simply a natural reaction to a precedent of harassment. It's not just Mann who gets hassled. It is any scientist who publishes anything on paleoclimate, or gives a quote to a newspaper or such.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
professional correspondence showed he was intentionally lying about his findings
Yet numerous independent investigations have rifled through his emails and found nothing. This is just about mud slinging, 'cause Mann's science doesn't jive with your politics.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Am looking forward to warmer weather and ocean front property here in Colorado :)
It's the same reason why, if a law enforcement officer showed up at my house and demanded to rifle through all of my blongings looking for anything that might be illegal I would tell him to go pound sand. Not because I'm guilty, not because I hate the police but because he has no right to without a warrant!
Dr. Mann and his university accept public funds from the federal government and that subjects him to FOIA requests. And frankly, I see nothing wrong with examining relevant email communications from Dr. Mann on that basis. If he doesn't like it, then he can always refuse federal funding for his research projects.
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
- reportedly said by Cardinal Richelieu
There's good reason to want to keep your communications private, personal relationships you don't want cross examined in public, small mistakes that could be mischaracterized, or things you can't even imagine. Just consider writing an email that you know will be seen only by 1 person you trust, or writing an email that will probably be seen by a thousand people who are out to get you. Don't you think that's going to harm your work?
I stole this Sig
CERN willfully discards 90% of it's data. But if you have High Speed Internet (and most Americans do, unless CERN has insane bandwidth requirement that I don't know about) , you can get access to the other 10 percent.
Actually, CERN has insane bandwidth requirements that required significant new research into distributed computer systems to realise. For the LHC, they created the LHC Grid, with the 11 tier 1 institutions being connected to CERN via dedicated 10 GBit/s links (and they receive only part of the data each).
Stephan
If an oil company had did this "hide the decline" then the climate science community would have said it was obviously unscientific behavior. But climate scientists are so biased they cant even admit the rules of good science. If your oppinents say the data is not irrelevant, then you are not supposed to leave it out of the graph to make it cleaner. If the trees are giving falsely low temperatures then that is important information about their credibility. If his opponents say contray data is not fully explained then a scientist is not supposed to decide for himself that contrary data is fully explained. He is supposed to include it and explain it. If the trees weren't giving falsely low temperatures then there would have been nothing for Phil Jones to hide in his own words. The decline wasn't in plain sight or he wouldn't have used the word hide. He left it out of the graph for a reason. He hid it because people would realize his tree rings were unreliable. He hid it because he knew many people wouldn't dig in far enough to realize what he had hidden.
Which is of course the goal, to intimidate people into not doing politically contested science.
Yes! Ship me the petabytes! Somewhere in there is a steganographic message from space aliens, or God. Or maybe the message is God is a Space Alien!
;-) rgb
Lessee, 20 megabits per second (except when we're watching netflix) 2 times ten to the seventh divided into 2 times ten to the fifteenth is ten to the eighth, where a year is pi times ten to the seventh seconds and -- oops, a byte is eight bits, damn, call it ten to the ninth seconds, pi squared is ten, so it would take, lessee, pi times ten -- only 31 years give or take a bit to download the missing data to my house!
Well heck, that's not so long! Time to go out and buy a thousand 2 terabyte drives! With luck I'll live to 88 and hence still be here to receive the message!
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Are you serious? You want e-mails when most projects in medicine and physics that are federally funded don't even release their raw data?! Why aren't you clamoring for the DNA and raw collider data that has been built with your taxpaying dollars? Or should they just refuse federal funding as well?
Maybe this is off-topic, but I (and many others) believe that publicly funded research should be freely available to the public.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Problem is that those sorts of details seldom make it out to news reports on the work.
Because they are inconvenient details for that comfortable little bubble of denial.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
If you organised your data properly, the only "nuisance" would be that you'd have to put an order through to a printer to print whatever documents they'd want.
"You want that data, ok, it'll take the part time staff your requests are paying for 20 seconds to filter out the date range and types of data you want, after that it'll just cost you $54 to cover the cost of printing 953 A4 pages and shipping it to you."
I have seen business presentation after business presentation where their great idea had a hockey stick. This hockey stick was always just a few years away. The other half of the pattern was that they spent all the investment money around the same time the graph was about to turn up. So for me hockey stick graphs are usually a huge bad smell. If you look at the past you can find all kinds of hockey sticks. But I find that most were not predictable that far in the future. So take the number of European soldiers killed in either World War and you have hockey sticks. But few predicted either war say a decade before they happened. Another hockey stick would be the number of mortgage defaults in the US. Again a few predicted it but the vast majority didn't.
So when someone calls bullshit on anyone waving a hockey stick graph and saying the sky is falling; give me money. I support anyone who calls Bullshit on them.
The decline is not hidden from anyone who has enough scientific background to go read the original papers. The "hidden" data is included in the paper and it is explained why they are not used. The words "hide the decline" refer explicitly to not using the data since it was shown to be wrong by other measurements. To quote the scientists over at RealClimate:
As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.
Thanks, I was gearing up to reply to the guy but you did it for me.
Emails, even those of federal agents, can only subpoenaed if there is a criminal investigation going on.
By my understanding, information relevant to a criminal investigation is one of the categories that is explicitly excluded by the FOIA.
For the amount of data they can collect they'd probably need a 25 zettabyte storage array.
The original Hockey Stick chart ended in 2004 and showed a trend line nearly vertical. Fortunately, the Hockey Stick chart was wrong.
It will be interesting to see if this ever makes it to court. Then, the defendants can feed random data into Mann's model and show how it always results in a hockey stick. This highlights the main problem with Climate Science. The result is a foregone conclusion. It is only a matter of fitting the data.
Can someone post Mann's Hockey Stick (which ends around 2004 going straight up) and the actual temperature charts? Or just go look at them yourself. I'll give you a hint, one looks like a hockey stick and the other looks like a stick.
You are either speaking from experience, or through your ass.
Again, this is just a consequence of Dr. Mann receiving federal funding and in effect acting as a agent of the US government (in particular in furthering certain environmental policies). I don't believe in innocent until proven guilty when it comes to government activities.
IIRC, it's 25 Petabytes per year. But bandwidth was CERN's biggest challenge-- engineering something fast enough to record all of the data.
If you were proposing high levels of taxation on the public at large and all the "stuff" in your house was paid for by the public, for the sole purpose of providing public research, you shouldn't be allowed to keep the cops out. Its not "your" stuff, it belongs to the government. That would be like me going to work as a programmer and when I'm done working not allowing my employer to even see the source code, and me taking my work provided computer home with me.
You have no argument here.
Lets add to the fact that Phil Jones at the CRU deliberately deleted DATA (not just emails) after years and years of FOI requests came in. Where I work, had I done that, I would now be in jail. In your world he is not only still free, but you hold him up as a hero for denying peer review of what he knew to be bogus science.
You AGW people are off your rockers completely.
Give up, your troll leaders had a senate inquisition, even they couldn't burn him. Here's the testimony submitted by the National Academies. Note the NAS were asked by the senatorial trolls to verify the statistics, (a subject you and they seem to have a poor grasp on). Note NAS did find some minor problems with the strength of Mann's claims but did not find anything to refute the claims. Note that Mann addressed those CONSTRUCTIVE criticisms in a subsequent paper published by NAS in the journal Science.
Attacking the science does not work for trolls, at the end of the day you are just plain wrong. However the attacks strengthen the science and swell the ranks of your opposition. In the late 90's when I started posting about this stuff on slashdot, I was consistently attacked and down modded, most of my attackers have now realized (as I did about 15yrs ago) that they were being lied to for political reasons and have quietly swapped to the rational side. I'm certainly no climate scientists but I have been following the subject since reading a book about it in 1980, being a young 20yo geek at the time it took me at least 10yrs before I realized some people were being paid to be dumb.
Assassinating the character of individual scientists is also the hallmark of AGW trolls and FF shills, it's basically all you guys have left as an argument. Your noise is just making more people aware of that fact, the last thing you want is an informed electorate and yet your once respected front men are being openly mocked. So go ahead and troll, spew your unoriginal lies all over the place, they are easily refutable by an 8yo and as such will encourage rational people to turn their back on you. So thanks to all the trolls "teaching the controversy" most people now know how to easily debunk the controversy, and a lot of those people are about to get angry, just like they did when they caught your mob lying for the tobacco industry.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
A assertions made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. And there is zero evidence supporting your statement.
Mann was "hiding the decline" in tree ring size during a period when the correlation of tree ring size to temperature divergered from the actual temperates. He was not "hiding the decline" in actual temperatures. There is no controversy here, no matter how much Fox News wishes you to believe there is.
I'd love to be put in the same sentence as any serial killer. Mainly that Ed Gein guy, dude had fashion sense.
What is that childhood saying? Sticks (hockey) and stones may break my bones, but names will cause me to cry and sue? Wait, that isn't it. Damn it.
but seriously, when someone compares you to a serial killer, you just say, "Thank you." and "I'll be seeing you later.". Nothing else is needed.
Be seeing you...
I get the feeling you wouldn't feel as strongly about that principal if your project was funded by the government and suddenly a bunch of people wanted to look through all your emails with the sole purpose of discrediting you.
Should those records be made available if there is a real cause for investigation? Of course. But currently it's just a witch hunt and a blatant attempt to intimidate scientists, this is exactly one of the scenarios for which we have innocent until proven guilty.
I stole this Sig
Maybe this is off-topic, but I (and many others) believe that publicly funded research should be freely available to the public.
Yes, obviously. That means data sets, methods, apparatus, experiment outcomes, results, conclusions, papers (which shouldn't be limited to paywalled journals I.M.O.), and intellectual property (though these currently go to the university). I'm sure it means other things as well, such as transparency on funding.
That doesn't mean that you can record every aspect of one's job and hand it over to people on a witchhunt. The whole CRU email thingy itself shows why this is the case: it's easy to pick a few lines out of complex scientific dialog and distort them with a quick media blitz designed to portray someone as dishonest, or crooked, or biased, or incompetent, or silly. (As the saying goes, a lie gets half way around the world before the truth can get its shoes on.)
Moreover, doing so destroys the ability of people and organizations to think and act creatively. If this hasn't happened to you already, I am sure that one day you will be in a meeting, get-together, or other discussion where the team needs to figure out a difficult problem, and you'll see the entire conversation shut down by the negative attitude and comments of one person. That's why the first rule of any brainstorming session is to save critique until brainstorming is finished. It's also why the FOIA protects (under exemption 5) what the courts term "deliberative processes" so as to "prevent injury to the quality of agency decisions."
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
You are forgetting about borderlines, who are prone to jump to extreme conclusions based on little information and copious amounts of unregulated and violent emotions. Also, histrionics, who crave unlimited attention, even if it means behaving foolishly. ...Paranoids, who believe everyone outside of their circle is out to get them. ...Obsessives that consider changes in order of things to be a fundamental act of treason, etc...
I get the feeling you wouldn't feel as strongly about that principal if your project was funded by the government and suddenly a bunch of people wanted to look through all your emails with the sole purpose of discrediting you.
I don't have this feeling. IMHO, there are certain sacrifices you make when you take public funding. This sort of thing is one of the strings attached.
Should those records be made available if there is a real cause for investigation? Of course. But currently it's just a witch hunt and a blatant attempt to intimidate scientists, this is exactly one of the scenarios for which we have innocent until proven guilty.
Then that'll come out in court. The "intimidation" goes both ways. Mann and his legal team will be able to subpoena financial records and see who is paying for what.
Posting this to clear all the mod points I've assigned to this thread. After reading the back and forth on what constitutes legitimate up and down modding, I am completely confused and would rather spend my points elsewhere.
I get the feeling you wouldn't feel as strongly about that principal if your project was funded by the government and suddenly a bunch of people wanted to look through all your emails with the sole purpose of discrediting you.
I don't have this feeling. IMHO, there are certain sacrifices you make when you take public funding. This sort of thing is one of the strings attached.
I just think that sacrifice is larger than you realize while the benefits are smaller than you realize (maybe even negative since actual wrong-doers will use other methods of communication to do their ill deeds).
Should those records be made available if there is a real cause for investigation? Of course. But currently it's just a witch hunt and a blatant attempt to intimidate scientists, this is exactly one of the scenarios for which we have innocent until proven guilty.
Then that'll come out in court. The "intimidation" goes both ways. Mann and his legal team will be able to subpoena financial records and see who is paying for what.
So? Knowing who is intimidating you doesn't stop them from doing so, nor does it give you the right to go digging through their emails to intimidate back (assuming you too lacked scruples).
I stole this Sig
That's convincing. I'm sure Dr. Mann will give up now.
sPh
That's really rich... Mann will sue for somebody causing "emotional distress"...
And just how much distress has Mann caused over the years in the mush-headed fools who fell for his "hockey stick" graph and started worrying that the world was coming to an end??? hmmmm????
And, please, drop the "peer reviewed" crap on AGW... The e-mail dump proved that these clowns rigged the peer review process. Peer review in the field of climate change is now about as legitimate as peer review of white supremacy claims at a KKK rally (which is to say that when a small group of group-thinkers control the peer review process, only accepting fellow group-thinkers as reviewers, only accepting papers by group-thinkers, etc then you can predict the conclusions they will arrive at) And while we're on the subject... it's nice that the investigation found Mann not guilty of academic misdeeds.... it was also nice when Richard Nixon's inquiries found no problems with his campaign's "plumbers"... yup... ya gotta love the "independent investigation" PR maneuver.
Steyn was right to question whether a bunch of administrators who cover up misdeeds to protect the reputation of their institution might... well ... cover up misdeeds to protect the reputation of their institution. Particularly on a subject so near-and-dear to not only their administration but also to the political ideology of so many of their staff
In the wake of the Italian seismologists who were recently convicted of manslaughter, Mann could easily be accused of scientific misconduct if his predictions turn out to be wrong. Personally, I find people's panic over the hockey stick graph to be akin to people getting excited over Facebook's recent stock jump. http://consumerist.com/2012/10/24/facebook-stock-price-soars-to-about-half-of-what-it-was-worth-at-ipo/ That graph says a lot about having tunnel vision. But let's assume that Mann turns out to be not just a little bit wrong but a whole lot wrong. How many billions of dollars were wasted on schemes like carbon trading? Can the people and businesses who got screwed as a result potentially sue for damages? Who would they sue?
If the email is intended for only 1 person he trusts, then something fishy is going on. Did the email say "Lets just make up numbers to show AGW exists and delete anything that proves otherwise". Don't you think that would fit in your 1 person you trust and should be shown to everyone?
Thats basically what Phil Jones at the CRU was doing before someone released his emails. And now instead of reading what was going on there AGW people ignore facts because their idea of growing government by taxing based on false science is more important than the truth.
It sounds like he's comparing Mann to Paterno, not to Sandusky.
You have to field the requests, figure out or clarify what data is being requested (which can be from any number of different sources, and across millions of years), collate the data, print it out, bundle it, and mail it. That isn't a trivial thing to do, and I have no idea how you can expect it to be as simple as you portray it.
It's not that American science doesn't have a chance, it's that people who want ot use it to take away freedoms of American citizens and increase their costs of living and so on doesn't have much of a future.
When they cross the line from science to politics, they are in fact in the political world no matter how much science is involved.
If the email is intended for only 1 person he trusts, then something fishy is going on. Did the email say "Lets just make up numbers to show AGW exists and delete anything that proves otherwise". Don't you think that would fit in your 1 person you trust and should be shown to everyone?
Thats basically what Phil Jones at the CRU was doing before someone released his emails. And now instead of reading what was going on there AGW people ignore facts because their idea of growing government by taxing based on false science is more important than the truth.
WTF?? It's easier to write an email for only one person you trust because you know that person isn't going to bend over backwards to interpret your words as "Lets just make up numbers to show AGW exists and delete anything that proves otherwise". You are exactly the reason these emails should be private!
I stole this Sig
It is unknown which, if any, of these reconstructions is an accurate representation of climate history
Your link says something quite different than what you said.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You pay someone to do it for you. You are allowed to charge the costs for FOIA requests.
This 'climate change' bullshit has become the distraction of the century. We should be discussing the best methods of reducing man made contamination instead of bitching about its obvious effects on our health and that of the planet's.
And, in the US, we have a law that should put all defamation and libel lawsuits straight into the dumpster. It's long past time that we start enforcing it with real teeth, instead of turning it into a paper tiger.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
That complaint is a good summary of this dispute. For Mann to win a libel case, he has to show that they wrote things that were false and defamatory, and (since he's a public figure) that they published it with knowledge that it was false or with disregard of whether it was false. It's libelous to accuse somebody of "fraud" or "deception." It's libelous to accuse someone of practicing his profession incompetently. Libel law protects opinions, as opposed to fact, but I think they've crossed the line. I think a jury could decide that they've met that test.
This isn't William Buckley's National Review. I'm familiar with right-wing crackpots from reading the Wall Street Journal comments pages. One of their problems is that they don't particularly concern themselves with facts. They don't even seem to understand what a fact is, or what the difference is between a fact and an opinon. They think that if somebody disagrees with them, he's a "liar." You see people calling Obama a "socialist," a "Kenyan," etc. These are words without meaning. It's like football hooligans screaming insults at Manchester United. Chris Mooney has written about this in his books and articles starting with "The Republican War on Science." I've often reflected on how much of it was actually libelous, if anybody bothered to sue. Now somebody did bother to sue.
Rand Simberg, as quoted starting in paragraph 26 of the complaint, said that Mann was "behaving in a most unscientific manner", "engaging in data manipulation", is hiding "academic and scientific misconduct." In paragraph 28, he called Mann's hockey-stick curve "deceptions" "in the service of politicized science." Steyn called Mann "the man behind the fraudulent climate-change 'hockey-stick' graph."
In paragraph 31, the complaint says that "their allegations of misconduct and data manipulation were false and were clearly made with the knowledge that they were false." If they can convince the jury of that, they've won the case.
In paragraph 32, the complaint says that Rich Lowry, the editor of NRO, said that Mann's research was "intellectually bogus."
In paragraph 35, the complaint says that the statements "are defamatory per se and tend to injure Dr. Mann in his profession because they falsely impute to Dr. Mann academic corruption, fraud, and deceit as well as the commission of a criminal offense, in a manner injurous tot he reputation and esteem of Dr. Mann professionally, locally, nationally, and globally."
The delicious irony is that in a libel suit, both sides have to disclose huge amounts of documents relating to the case in discovery. Mann's emails were already exposed. Now Simberg and Steyn's correspondence will probably be exposed. If they were taking money from the energy industry, that will be exposed. They'll get the same treatment Mann did.
Should the same apply to banks that accepted bailouts? Oil companies that get tax breaks? (just asking)
I don't think too many people here are actually going to read both letters, but saying that somebody committed "fraud" is libel per se, as the complaint charged. It's also libelous to say that a professional acted in a deceptive, incompetent manner.
They said that Mann was "behaving in a most unscientific manner", "engaging in data manipulation", hiding "academic and scientific misconduct." Steyn called Mann "the man behind the fraudulent climate-change 'hockey-stick' graph."
Yes, Mann would be subject to discovery. So would Simberg, Steyn and the National Review, for all documents relating to their charges against Mann. If any of them had any financial relations with the energy industry, that would come out. If they cut corners anywhere, as they accused Mann of doing, that would come out.
I've made FOIA requests and I've argued over deletions. There are huge classes of documents that are exempt from disclosure. When I read an accident report for a medical device, they don't disclose the name of the people who filed the report (so I can't call them to check the facts, or see whether I'm reading two reports of two incidents or two reports of the same incident).
Why don't you make a FOIA request for Sara Palin's emails as Alaska governor? Including her "personal" emails in her AOL account?
Steyn and National Review will also have to disclose documents in discovery. We'll see how they like getting all the facts out.
They can be subpoenaed in civil cases too.
Method A + Data 1 = Result A ... = Result A
Method A + Data 2 = Result A
Method A + Data 3 = Result A
Method A + Data
Method A + Data n = Result A
It is depressing to be reminded of just how many people (still) think the above validates or otherwise supports Result A and/or Method A and/or Data "?", it does not.
Climatology is a fraudulent pseudo-science and human is just another synonym for idiot.
Well done on the quoting sir!
>not some gotcha quote mining of working papers and communications with peers.
God this is as stupid as it was when people first started this stupid rumor: why would you need to "hide the decline" of climate in recent years when we have reliable meteorological data as to that? The question is NOT whether or not climate has been getting warmer: it has. The question is whether or not this correlates with human activity. The "decline" refers to the fact that pattern of tree-ring growth used to determine historical climate diverges from the actual meteorological data hat we have collected. While tree rings indicate a decline, there is in fact, NOT a decline, as indicated by about every meteorological authority ever. If a person says that climate is NOT increasing, they are lying. If they say that climate is not increasing because of human activity, that is a little less crazy.
TL;DR the "Stick" part of the hockey stick graph is up for debate, NOT the blade
Um. No.
the temperatures over the summer being a prime example. If there were hotter climates in earth's history, they were long before we arrived, and mostly speculative in the first place. In recent human history, the climate is unprecedented.
And there are very sound theories which say that the null hypothesis is not an effective response to what may be an immediate threat. Would you invoke the "null hypothesis" to dismiss concerns about a ballistic missile heading your way? The consequences of too much caution here are completely outstripped by the consequences of too little.
Reading the original mails is exactly what brought many people to conclude that the whole discipline is full of shit.
Reading snippits of emails embedded in partisan blogs you mean. Pathetic.
Such graphs miss the point; the problem with the hockey stick wasn't the data (or not just the data). The problem was the technique which produced the hockey stick from the data has a tendency to produce hockey sticks, even from other data which is known (because it was constructed that way -- red noise, where each data point is produced by adding a random offset to the previous one) not to contain an actual hockey stick.
The reason he fights it is clearer to me. It's the same reason why, if a law enforcement officer showed up at my house and demanded to rifle through all of my blongings looking for anything that might be illegal I would tell him to go pound sand.
Attributed to the (In)famous Cardinal Richelieu, and especially relevant in this whole "climate papers" business:
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
The whole CRU email thingy itself shows why this is the case: it's easy to pick a few lines out of complex scientific dialog and distort them with a quick media blitz designed to portray someone as dishonest, or crooked, or biased, or incompetent, or silly. (As the saying goes, a lie gets half way around the world before the truth can get its shoes on.)
Yup, we don't want email where Phil Jones lays out his intention to deceive, or his intention and requests to erase data, to get around and be misinterpreted, now do we?
So, it's clear that you haven't read any of the mails then.
I find it ironic that the Commun^H^H^H^H^H^H Democrats don't receive your scorn too.
This is not a matter of scientists crossing the line from science to politics, this is politics (of the worst kind) trying to stop people from doing science.
If you don't like the science, find a scientific way to refute it. But formenting violence against scientists because you don't like their results? That rolls things back about 400 years.
This is shit science. You don't just chop out data post 1960 without knowing what is wrong with it. Yes, it was discussed in the literature. No, they had no definitive answer, only speculation.
Even worse, what Phil Jones did was chop out the data and replace it with thermometer data so that three separate data sets rose up in striking agreement in a hockey stick fashion.
You see though, it's not "science" when the data is made up and then destroyed. It's undercover political activism. This much is clear if you read the Climategate mails.
When you attempt to subvert the system and then have the audacity to call the general public morons for not buying into a faked science, they have a right to be angry. Maybe they even kill you. To me, this is just amusing and it should be a lesson to future Communistic scientists who think they have the right to deceive everybody in order to push their agenda at the taxpayers' expense.
In any event, "science" is mainly just a tool to confirm the plans that have been in place at higher levels for decades.
What? This comparison seems laughable at best. How could this Mann fellow take this seriously? He sounds like a wimp.
Stop wasting the courts time with your garbage.
I bet you a dollar that this gets settled out of court so those emails don't have to come to light. If necessary, the libelers' financial backers will intervene to make this so.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
WTF?? It's easier to write an email for only one person you trust because you know that person isn't going to bend over backwards to interpret your words as "Lets just make up numbers to show AGW exists and delete anything that proves otherwise". You are exactly the reason these emails should be private!
Ok, how does that work? If I wave an email and say we're being taken over by aliens, you'll automatically believe it because I performed the ritual of credibility?
This has been a political issue since 1988 when the democrat staffers turned the AC off in the capitol building claiming it was broken on the day that was cherry picked to be historically one of the hottest of the year in Washington D.C. when the Mann graph was first used by the exaggerator James Hansen in his claiming of global warming to a sitting group of politicians.
If your heroes do not live up to your standards, deal with them, not me or anyone who points it out. Global warming was introduced to the public as a political venture. Scientists claim political solutions are needed and they typically claim only certain ones which don't seem to work outside of giving the government more power and spreading wealth around.
Mann has so far proven himself to be a very able social engineer.
He engineered the IPCC AR4 [and a lot to do with the AR3. X)].
He engineered the reviews of Book about "Climate Wars". 8O
He engineered acceptance of his Ph.D. thesis ... OOOOOPPPPPPSSSSSS! OH SHIT! I just let the cat out of the bag! XD ~~~~
Oh dear dear dear dear.
Ahmmm ... Ahmmmm ... Ahmmm...
There.
Much better now.
Where were we?!
XD [Hay Mikey Mann ... Ever see a bird in ascii?
Answer: No. Why? You never programmed! Never Programmed Anything!]
The proxy records they were using go back more than 1000 years. Since 1850 or so they have actual temperature measurements to compare the proxy data to. Up until 1960 the proxy data closely matched the actual temperature data that was available to compare to. After 1960 the proxy data showed a drop that wasn't reflected in the actual temperature data. There are other tree ring data series from other locations that do not show the same decline. So obviously something besides temperature caused the decline after 1960 in that particular proxy series. The speculation is that it had to do with industrial pollution.
So, the graph is just a pretty picture and it's the underlying data that matters. The full data series is available so nobody is hiding anything, just reducing the noise level.
BTW, it wasn't Phil Jones but Michael Mann who decided not to use the proxy after 1960. That you got such a straightforward point wrong doesn't give me confidence in the rest of what you say.
This is along the same reasons Italy is now going to lose all its scientists, and maybe doctors. After all, if my doc tells me I have a my tumor returning is extremely unlikely but it returns and I die, he should now be charged with manslaughter. I mean that is what the Italian gov't said to the seismic scientists. As a scientist I simply would do anything if I had to let people go through all my emails, notebooks, etc.
I'm sorry but I honestly have no idea what point or argument you're trying to make.
I stole this Sig
Actually McIntyre and McKitrick (and Wegman) cherry picked the top 100 out of 10,000 runs of the code to show that it always produces a hockey stick. There's a good discussion of it here.
That sounds to me like a standard scientific disclaimer. It doesn't mean they are wrong. I don't think anyone has anything better to offer so you go with what you have.
That sounds to me like a standard scientific disclaimer.
What exactly is a standard scientific disclaimer? I've never heard that.
I don't think anyone has anything better to offer so you go with what you have.
No you don't, you say, "we don't know." You don't pretend you know if your data isn't so good. To say you know when you don't is plain unscientific, and any scientist who does that should be punched in the balls.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Huh? Somebody turned off the A/C, and entitles you to ignore science?
If you think the Science is bad, tell us why. Any other measure puts you with all the other antiscientific assholes.
Sigh. I can't even try to argue with that. If everything that proves you wrong is part of a vast conspiracy, then you can't be proven wrong — I won't even try. Just consider that the kind of conspiracy you contemplate is usually only apparent to the insane.
And meanwhile, if you incite violence, expect to be smacked down. It's called terrorism, even when you're not wearing a head scarf.
Oh indeed Mann is far more intelligent than the highly paid Exxon spokesman. The discovery process works both ways. Yes, they CEI and the National Review will get access to Mann emails, but then Mann gets access to CEI and ALL OF CEI FUNDING SOURCES email and documents. The discovery process allows you to follow down every rabbit hole there is.Think every internal document that might possibly be related to a campaign against Mann and climate scientists from Exxon/BP/Constellation/Koch/Heartland/Cato. If you thought the tobacco document dump was damaging, just imagine the damage done by that kind of document dump
and repeated on random data hockey stick graph.
It is. Go read the papers. The problem is that you don't have the knowledge to understand them and judge if they are correct. Of course the same applies to the private email between colaborators, but you just hope that there will be something that sounds inappropriate. Or you are trying to substitute a judgement of character for a judgement on merit. Not a good idea either way.
The science does not say the world is going to end. The science does not say unless we tax everyone's energy use, the world is going to end. The science does not say we have to implement changes that restrict the freedoms of people while granting the government increasing power over people's lives. The science does not say that we cannot live through any changes. The science does not say we cannot question the motives and the work of people making those claims. Global warming is in the realm of politics whether you think it is or not and being part science does not shield it or the people backing it from criticism no matter how religious you are about science.
Science is not some irreproachable god that a group of people organize around and claim it is written in order to get the masses to do things that everyone else sees as wrong.
For public figures, the standard is "reckless disregard for the truth". "Reckless" is a technical legal term which is harder to prove than you might think.
It's also easy to defend against a claim that someone made a knowingly false statement. All the defendant has to do is make a case that he's so stupid he actually believed what he was saying.
It looks like a denier has come through and marked the insightful criticism as a troll.
I think this might have had something to do with it.
mentally retarded gullible twit who posts falsehoods because you're too fucking stupid
A class act all the way.
Your estimating ability is admirable; however, I wondered if you were cognizant of Google Calculator's prowess?
Cf. 2 petabytes/(20 Mbps) = 27.2204416 years
Just two seconds of effort, and it is incredibly versatile with unit manipulation & conversion. Try tacking on "in fortnights" to that query.
Interesting idea. Under that scenario, in order to settle, they would have to give Mann whatever he demands -- cash damages, a retraction, a groveling apology.
Mann could still insist that they disclose their documents as a condition of the settlement. That was one of the conditions of the tobacco industry settlement. http://www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco
Go read the papers. The problem is that you don't have the knowledge to understand them and judge if they are correct.
Then there's not much point to reading the papers, is there? "Go do X. But you can't do X."
Of course the same applies to the private email between colaborators
That depends what the emails are about, doesn't it? My experience with the "climategate" emails (and programming code releases!) has been that the private emails have been quite enlightening with declarations of uncertainty, disagreement, bug-ridden databases, and other such things that somehow never make it to the research papers or the IPCC executive summaries. I think what is most damaging is that the climate research in question was cleansed of all uncertainty and risk prior to public consumption. There was two faces, the public one above and the private one where researchers kept their disagreements, doubts, errors, and in general hid their human nature.
There's also the matter of control over bottlenecks in the process. The summary article claims that Mann's "hockey stick" has been "independently verified". It has been independently shown to be based on flawed method. That's not in doubt. But aggregation of paleoclimate data was controlled by allies of Mann, Phil Jones and James Hansen.
Or you are trying to substitute a judgement of character for a judgement on merit.
Character is part of merit. And in a field where the right determination has low hundreds of billions of dollars per year in value (both for fossil fuel-derived companies and climate change-related technologies and regulation, such as renewable energy companies and environmental regulators), there is a vast amount of temptation out there for the person of dubious character.
I just think that sacrifice is larger than you realize while the benefits are smaller than you realize (maybe even negative since actual wrong-doers will use other methods of communication to do their ill deeds).
Then you'll be able to come up with an example of your concerns. Mann certainly has done well by his affiliation with the side of climate change with tenure, impressive reputation, and ample research grants.
I've made FOIA requests and I've argued over deletions. There are huge classes of documents that are exempt from disclosure. When I read an accident report for a medical device, they don't disclose the name of the people who filed the report (so I can't call them to check the facts, or see whether I'm reading two reports of two incidents or two reports of the same incident).
The excuse there is that they're allegedly protecting medical information, something which isn't at stake with Dr. Mann's emails. And if you disagree with that assessment, you can always bring it to court to try to get that withheld information. You might win.
Why don't you make a FOIA request for Sara Palin's emails as Alaska governor? Including her "personal" emails in her AOL account?
That's an Alaska issue. It's like demanding FOIA requests from French government officials.
Steyn and National Review will also have to disclose documents in discovery. We'll see how they like getting all the facts out.
Of course. They seem pretty confident in their side as well. I imagine we'll find a number of incidents of name-calling by agitated readers of the National Review that make the subject of Mann's lawsuit appear tame.
Since 1850 or so they have actual temperature measurements to compare the proxy data to. Up until 1960 the proxy data closely matched the actual temperature data that was available to compare to.
What is "closely matched"? If you compare the individual graphs with each other for the Jones WMO graph in question, there's plenty of variation where the data hasn't been artificially spliced into agreement. Tree ring data is too messy and easy to fool yourself with to chop decades off arbitrarily, especially when the window for comparison with instrumental data is so small.
So, the graph is just a pretty picture and it's the underlying data that matters.
No, this is complete bullshit. Such graphs are meant to convey information and are used by scientists all the time. That you would say such a thing gives me very little confidence that you have any scientific integrity.
BTW, it wasn't Phil Jones but Michael Mann who decided not to use the proxy after 1960. That you got such a straightforward point wrong doesn't give me confidence in the rest of what you say.
It was Phil Jones who prepared the graph that dropped the 1960 data and spliced in instrumental data: "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."
That Mann may have dropped data too doesn't excuse Jones, nor does it change the fact that Jones upped the ante by splicing on instrumental data, something that Mann has a juicy quote about:
"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."
This quote is from 2004, years before Climategate.
If the temperatures in summer were a prime example, then please tell me why 33 out of 51 of the hottest temperatures on record in the US are from the 1930ies or earlier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_temperature_extremes
This statistic also favours more recent dates. When a record temperature has not been surpassed,but merely reached, only the most recent date is mentioned. So it's already biased towards a warming trend.
Mann is a top scientist, the only thing he would have gained with climate science that he couldn't get in other fields is the fame, but he may not consider that a positive, and he certainly doesn't consider the witch hunt a positive. (and I'm sure someone of his calibre would have got tenure in whatever research he pursued)
As for my concerns it's one facet of a larger pattern of political intimidation.
I stole this Sig
This is the most idiotic article I've had the displeasure to read on slashdot. Mann's graph has not been independently verified, unless you are refering to replications that used the same erroneous mathematical "tricks".
I can hardly believe what I'm reading.
Yes, and the fact that you're hiding behind a pseudonym suggests that you are hiding that you are a paedophile.
Don't like the comparison? Too bad. You make your bed, you lie in it.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
I realize I'm late to the party, but this still may be useful. A respected legal blogger explains why Michael Mann's lawsuit is hopeless.
Quick summary: Comparing Mann to Sandusky and accusing him of sexually abusing his data is hyperbole, i.e., an expression of opinion not meant to be taken literally. To be guilty of libel, you have to present something false, that is meant to be taken as a fact. Other accusations in Mann's suit are similar - all are protected expressions of opinion, not libel. Worse, his suit appears to be meant primarily as a way of shutting down continued discussion of this time, which means that he is likely to be nailed with a SLAPP suit.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
The question isn't even if all of this correlates with human activity. Even though I consider a great deal of what the climate scientists are doing is psuedoscience that borders on the realm of astrologers and psychics (perhaps charitably more with cold fusion researchers and ufologists), I think it would take somebody incredibly dense to flat out deny that human civilization has had an impact upon the greater overall global climate. The degree that the impact of human activity has had can be questioned though, and it is the political questions that are much more troubling to me.
In other words, it isn't so much the studies themselves, but rather the political questions that are raised from those studies where the politics of the whole issue of anthropogenic climate change are going back into the science itself and influencing both the kinds of studies being investigated as well as even the skewing of the data to fit political philosophies and to make a political point. The stick part of the hockey graph may be legitimate....but why is the stick there? Is it being added so climate researchers can boost their funding from political agencies? Are there "green energy companies" who are making a profit off of this fear of "global warming"? Who stands to gain and who stands to lose as a result of these studies?
It is the mixing of politics and science which is the real problem here. Political policy is being made off of what seems to me as psuedoscience due to the politicization of the science, where the scientists have become advocates of a particular political philosophy rather than dispassionate reporters of facts and trying to find legitimate explanations for the data being discovered. Furthermore, legitimate scientific investigations which produce contrary results won't get funding and will be discredited on a political basis that has absolutely nothing to do with the science itself being presented.
Some of this is the politicians who are pressing the red panic button and are sensationalizing climate studies for their own political purposes. Some of this is also folks like Al Gore who are involved with economic projects like the carbon credit trading which he and his children will personally benefit financially if it becomes enacted as a policy. I think it is very much proper to question the political motives of those who are wrapping themselves in the mantel of science when they have the chance to become millionaires as a result of advocating a certain course of action.
Suggesting that there are other political philosophies at stake and I dare say even religion is being injected into this discussion. As can be seen here in this Slashdot discussion, it is nearly a religious devotion that some people have toward climate change complete with prophets, sacred scripture, temples (aka "houses of worship"), orthodoxy and heretics. I'll even go so far as to suggest that this has become a religion in all but name, even if many of those practicing don't recognize it as such. Communism/Marxism in particular (a religion unto itself after a fashion) is something that has also crept into climate science through a sort of "redistribution of the wealth" and a general attitude that the rich are the ones screwing over the poor through "evil pollution" causing all of these problems. It doesn't matter if it is true or not, the raw belief is in place and taints the research and even the politics of what political conclusions should be made from this scientific inquiry.
I'll note that Mann is one of these "prophets", and depending on who is writing about him will be in a reverent attitude or reviled as the anti-messiah.
So, from when there are actual temperature records (which are a much lower quality than those post 1960) two thirds of the data lines up, I guess we should just sweep the other third under the rug like good science calls for?
Mann is a top scientist, the only thing he would have gained with climate science that he couldn't get in other fields is the fame
And the money. And tenure. You might be sure someone of his caliber would get tenure. I'm not so confident.
With Mann being a public figure, it will certainly be an uphill battle for him to require anything from Simberg or Styne. 1st amendment protections of freedom of speech may be enough to protect them from even bothering to disclose anything at all, particularly if all they are stating is personal opinion.
Furthermore, you are presuming that there is some kind of connection to the energy industry when you have absolutely no idea what they do and who they are. Mark Steyn is a conservative commentator who has occasionally filled in for Rush Limbaugh as a guest host on Limbaugh's show, and writes his own blog as well as participates in on-line discussions of various kinds.
Rand Simberg is really more along the same line as Mark Steyn and Rush Limbaugh as he has been making generally conservative POV commentary with his blog, Transterrestrial Musings. It has become increasingly political although much of his earlier commentary had little to do with politics but rather with space policy and following things like the Ansari X-Prize or talking about NASA. He used to work for Rockwell International and did some engineering work on the Space Shuttle, as well as other similar kinds of projects. Climate science and discussions are just a very minor part of his commentary, but he certainly has been vocal about the issues surrounding climate science. At best, you can call him a skeptic. Rand Simberg has written quite a bit in magazines like Popular Science or Wired recently, and has pretty much become a full time freelance writer.
For those two, I think you would be very hard pressed to see them taking any money from the energy industry, except for perhaps some modest advertising revenue for their websites that is not aimed specifically at influencing their opinions. Neither one is really anything more than spouting off what other conservative political pundits like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Glenn Beck have been saying for years as well. They are perhaps a little more vulnerable because they are not as widely published as those major pundits and don't have nearly so much money, but that doesn't change who they are. It certainly is disingenuous to claim that there is a connection of these guys to "big oil" or other "energy producing companies" without any sort of evidence to back up the assertion.
Well, projection is an amazing thing. Of course, the people that Michael Mann is suing never even implied that he was a pedophile. What they said was, if the then President of Penn State was willing to cover up for a pedophile, would it be a surprise to anybody to discover that he was willing to cover up scientific misconduct?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I've made FOIA requests and I've argued over deletions. There are huge classes of documents that are exempt from disclosure. When I read an accident report for a medical device, they don't disclose the name of the people who filed the report (so I can't call them to check the facts, or see whether I'm reading two reports of two incidents or two reports of the same incident).
The excuse there is that they're allegedly protecting medical information, something which isn't at stake with Dr. Mann's emails. And if you disagree with that assessment, you can always bring it to court to try to get that withheld information. You might win.
The "medical information" they were protecting didn't involve any confidential patient information. It included the location of the accident, and the reporting institution.
Just because someone's research is funded in part by the government, it doesn't follow that he has an obligation to disclose all his email. The FDA reviews drugs and medical devices all the time. They don't have to disclose all their internal emails. The companies that submit drugs and devices to the FDA don't have to disclose all their emails.
Scientists draw a line between what they're required to disclose in order to support their published conclusions, and internal or private documents that shouldn't be disclosed.
If you run a pizzaria, and a government agency orders a pizza from you, you're a government contractor. But you don't have to disclose your internal email to the world just because you got $15 from the government for a pizza. Same with Mann.
I've talked to lawyers about discovery, I've read trial transcripts and I've sat in court during trials. So I know something about discovery.
In one patent case, the lawyers had subpoenaed a chemist's entire 4-drawer file cabinet, digitized it, put it in a database, indexed and reviewed the whole thing, and projected pages in the courtroom.
The First Amendment doesn't protect you from disclosure in a libel suit.
Lawyers tell me that the judge can order both parties -- and people who have nothing to do with the litigation -- to supply them with any information that's "in the interests of justice."
As the Mann complaint details, they were doing more than just stating personal opinion. This is what the libel lawyers call "personal opinion based on underlying facts." People have lost libel suits for saying things like, "In my opinion X is a Communist," even when the person was a public figure. "Communist" is libelous per se.
Steyn and Simberg crossed the line when they accused Mann of "fraud." That's libelous per se.
"Academic and scientific misconduct," if it is an opinion, is an opinion based on claims of underlying fact. "Misconduct" is libelous.
That's libelous even if Mann is a public figure.
After discovery, Mann's lawyers will look through the documents to see if they demonstrate reckless disregard for the truth.
I'd like to see Simberg on the witness stand explain how he came to the conclusion that Mann was guilty of "academic and scientific misconduct."
I know a bit about the writing business that these guys are in. Lots of people in their position take money from industries that are affected by their work. They might get paid $10,000 from the industry to fly out to Nevada to give a speech. A freelance writer might get paid travel expenses to attend a meeting. They're getting money from somewhere, and it would be interesting to know where it is.
Yeah, it's a fishing expedition. Their demand for Mann's documents was a fishing expedition.
A big problem though is there's now and there's then. Now, we have around 400ppm CO2 in the atmosphere. Keep burning oil and that number goes up. Then what? Natural gas. Then what? The methane at the bottom of the ocean, which is a LOT more hydrocarbon fuel mass than oil and natural gas. So maybe we can hit 450ppm, which is the upper edge of variation for earth-normal atmosphere in recent (current biology relevant, measured in tens or hundreds of thousands of years) history... and then we whip out ocean methane, and it's 1000ppm, 1400ppm, 2000ppm, which actually yes IS BAD.
I guess I have to lean back on the boy who cried wolf for once in my life. This is like that. What's going on now won't kill us. What we have on the horizon actually might be bad, but by then people will have figured out that all this stuff is just bullshit and they won't see the danger when it really does come. Do note that, beyond warming, the amount of CO2 you can dump into the earth's atmosphere (heavier than atmosphere, too, so it stays near the ground) from ocean methane is big enough to toxify the air for humans. We won't get there with oil, coal, and natural gas.
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When the law is in your favor, argue the law.
When the facts are in your favor, argue the facts.
When neither is in your favor, pound on the table and shout.
I'm not saying you can't be worried and you can't work to get changes made. I'm saying that it's political now and it isn't irreproachable because something is connected somehow in some shape to science. In fact, even science is not irreproachable.
You cannot lock out political discourse by claiming science or God or race, or terrorist or anything.
"hide the decline", that is removing the post 1960 data that disagrees with the CAGW thesis and overwriting their intersection and continuing on with cherry picked data that trends up, is clearly a case of visually buggering the data. Party1 "buggering the data" would have no meaningful correspondence to Party2 "buggering young boys" as an accusation, and is merely an uncomfortable play on words. Someone whose correspondence shows repeated misdirection, intimidation tactics and unfounded attacks (everyone is an oil company minion) simply isn't going to prevail.
Likewise comparisons with the "Piltdown Man" are unfortunate. The current scam is far larger.
Yes, projection is an amazing thing. You right-wing nutjobs are very good at it, together with completely missing the point.
Here's a hint, moron: I wasn't referring to the Sandusky affair. I was referring to your 'he must have something to hid' piece of Insane Troll Logic.
But I don't expect you to get what I mean. After all, a complete lobotomy seems to be an entrance requirement for the Right Wing Nut Job Club.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
What's the difference between Santa Claus and Jerry Sandusky?
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Santa only comes in December.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
The defendants in the suit will use discovery to obtain everything under the sun from Mann, depose him about all of it, and then put him on the stand to answer questions publicly about it. Steyn in particular is pugnacious and once embarrassed the Ontario Human Rights Commission when it was considering a complaint that he had violated Muslim's human rights by criticizing Islam. Whatever pound of flesh Mann hopes to obtain from this, he'll find himself on the receiving end of far worse.
It is a fishing trip in the greatest sense. Climate change deniers are all smiling faces and rubbing hands at the chance for pre trial discovery. Its an opportunity
for both sides of the climate debate to "come clean" as it were......show us the goods they have both been hiding.
I can't wait to see how this pans out. minihillfarner
Of course not. The problem is the political insanity is creating a REAL problem. People polarize easily.
Look, I like today's clean vehicles--I like breathing clean air. And converting excess grid energy that usually gets wasted standing idle into petrol by FTP? Efficient, carbon-neutral energy, insanely clean. Roof top solar? PV not great, solar water heat into thermonic heating systems great, energy use reduction on easy-to-make parts. I want cities of houses in trees--not everywhere, just where it makes sense, lower environmental footprint and all (the culture would be different--everything 3 miles from subway-connected public garages so you could mountain bike out to your car in 10 minutes, then hit the state highway and go to work). All that stuff's great.
The problem is people want to force it down our throats because "we're all going to die!" or something insane. So you have people who are enviro-hippies and people who hate the planet, basically; and the people who hate the planet aren't sinister so much as they don't believe (or don't want to believe) you can hurt it AND they don't want to be hippies so they immediately side against anything that looks like hippie bullshit. Houses underground are hippie bullshit--use of the land above is limited, and the houses are expensive and hard to maintain and really they have a shelf life of 10-15 years. Houses in trees? Dude I could design the city PLANNING for houses in trees, the woods are an excellent place to build! I could even fit it in with red-blooded American lifestyle, with some detail modifications but no massive inconveniences. Durable, cost-efficient, comfortable, an attractive lifestyle for MANY... and total hippie bullshit nobody wants.
Nobody's neutral. I like houses in trees because of the scenery, the efficiency, yes the low impact, also the cultural and engineering challenge. You'd span rope and board bridges to walk above the ground. You'd use mountain bikes with hub motors for a boost (check Bionx). Satellite community planning, home engineering (especially fire control), automated fire suppression (because flying helicopters out is the only other way, and THAT sucks). Solving the last mile problem, cars and garages, roads (there aren't any, you have to go to the road). All anybody sees is "let's swim with the dolphins and talk to the flowers!" and all I want is to make a whole freaking community of "cabin in the woods" folk without cutting down the woods or only putting three cabins out there--and let's face it, even folks who (rightly) think environmentalists are nuts love the cabin in the woods thing, half of them have one for when they go hunting.
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But science .... good science that is... is never "settled".... and the comment about Hitler is uncalled for. Seriously....Hitler? Is that all you can come up with?
Can't you discuss the merit of the comment? Or are you perhaps too tired, or strung out you need to resort to adhominum attacks? minihillfarmer
Mann is a top scientist, the only thing he would have gained with climate science that he couldn't get in other fields is the fame
And the money. And tenure. You might be sure someone of his caliber would get tenure. I'm not so confident.
Dude, regardless of whether you think Mann and the rest of the pro-AGW researchers are frauds you at least have to admit that among them he's pretty damn good. I'm sorry but if you're so biased that you can't even admit Mann is a very talented scientist then you've reached the point where you're creating your own realities to back up your views and there's not much point discussing.
I stole this Sig
Yep, and this is the problem with politicising the issue all the way back in 1998 and all through the creation of the Kyoto accords which in the end, only carried the guise of global warming.
And here you lost any credability of having a discussion on this. People who do not believe or do not understand do not by that nature hate the planet. I was skeptical when you started talking about people living in tree house forts but you simply jumped the shark on any credible efforts with ascribing "hate" to anyone who doesn't jump at the end of the world scenarios.
90% of the problem is that people are being forced into something, they aren't free. It costs more then what has worked over the last century or so. If the case was as solid as people pretend, they would move to that conclusion and take steps without being forced. But when the entire movement is politicized from the start, when so called fixes are political wrangling to achieve other rejected political goals like Jubilee2000, don't expect people paying attention to jump on board.
Even though I consider a great deal of what the climate scientists are doing is psuedoscience that borders on the realm of astrologers and psychics (perhaps charitably more with cold fusion researchers and ufologists
Given that you give no indication as to why, it's pretty clear that your reasoning is highly motivated even though you try to sound reasonable. Me, I tend to go with the consensus of climate scientists until I see a good reason not to. I'd prefer to think that climate change isn't true but I'm not prepared to go through the intellectually dishonest mental backflips necessary to bullshit around the subject.
I don't think it's as polarising in the non US world. In the states it seems very much suits against hippies and that's all there is to it.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
You say that you know a bit about the writing business... but do you have any proof? It is an assumption you are making and nothing more. You may be correct about your assumption, but for now it is just a wild ass guess as to any sort of relationship with what you are claiming. You are just as guilty of making up junk about Simberg as you claim he is making up about Mann. You talk about libel yet your are making incredibly libelous accusations here without any shred of evidence yourself.
Since Rand SImberg is an engineer (with credentials and such... literally a rocket scientist in the tradition of Werner Von Braun and Robert Goddard but he considers himself more of an engineer than a scientist) there could be something resembling malpractice in asserting that Mann is not using the scientific method properly and performing "academic and scientific misconduct". There may even be a judicial remedy in terms of losing a professional certification (again... I don't know first hand, but it is a possibility) because of his background. On the other hand, since Mann is claiming scientific credentials going up against Simberg who has engineering credentials, it will be interesting where this will go. Being an engineer, Simberg in particular is in a position to understand this kind of data and certainly can review some scientific reports (particularly in physical science.... something that most engineers have ample training simply to do their job) and can even be considered an "expert witness" in a legal sense.
As for 1st amendment protections, while I will agree that they don't protect you from libel, courts typically have given commentators and pundits a very wide latitude for what they can say about public figures. In regards to climate science and the political ramifications of that science, Michael Mann is very much a public figure where even calling somebody a child molester may not be actionable in a legal sense. Accusations of fraud may simply be considered political speech, and it will take a very high legal threshold to prove that. Courts have been very reluctant to shut down dissent through legal actions like this, and far more often than not it backfires against the person who filed the lawsuit in the first place.
In short, I'd like to see Rand Simberg sit on a witness stand and explain how he came to the conclusion about Mann too, and it may not be pretty for Mann. In a legal sense, Mann has also put himself out on a limb by engaging in this lawsuit as everything Mann has said about climate change including every e-mail on the subject is now subject to discovery.... by the defendants. Judges are much more lenient to granting such discovery motions and Mann has thus opened himself up in a way that other previous "fishing expeditions" would have failed in the past. All Rand Simberg really needs to accomplish here is that he had any sort of reasoning to believe his accusation of fraud was credible, including relying upon public statements by others who have reviewed Mann's data. Since such public statements by other credible reviewers has been made about things like Mann's hockey stick graph (it only takes just one statement by one reviewer to suggest there may be a problem), it seems like Mann is going to try some other legal strategy other than pure libel.
One of the comments I saw on a legal website said it best: Michael Mann is finally going to get the public rectal exam that everybody has been hoping for once and all. Had he simply kept his mouth shut and left these guys alone none of that would happen. In a great many ways, I think Michael Mann has much more to lose here than Rand Simberg or Mark Steyn. Somebody has convinced Mann that this will be successful, but for those who are political opponents to Michael Mann, he has just opened up a Pandora's Box including a counter SLAPP suit possibility even if he immediately drops this lawsuit. If you thought earlier trips to the court room were fishing expeditions, you ain't seen nothing yet. This very well could be like th
It's quite clear that if the "science" was more in line with your political ideology you'd be quite happy with it and wouldn't need to resort to conspiracy mongering.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
And here you lost any credability of having a discussion on this. People who do not believe or do not understand do not by that nature hate the planet. I was skeptical when you started talking about people living in tree house forts but you simply jumped the shark on any credible efforts with ascribing "hate" to anyone who doesn't jump at the end of the world scenarios.
You have these people who immediately side against anything "environmental". A few days ago I brought up the interesting thing about using the excess idling power from hydro plants (they have to open the floodgates to dump excess water if there isn't power demand), wind farms, and solar arrays to generate gasoline, and was immediately gouged at by a huge dissertation about all the methane in the bottom of the ocean. It's like good, clean fuel is evil because we have all this fuel sitting around, and even if it's essentially free fuel it's enviro-hippie garbage. I get this stuff all the time. I have people jaw on about how solar arrays on your house are a great way to save money, but how large-scale solar farms are stupid because we have coal, oil, LP gas, and the like and we shouldn't waste money building unsustainable, unprofitable, expensive bullshit like solar plants. HUH? How are these people on both sides?
They're all over the place. Look around, people polarize like that. They don't want to be "liberals" so they become "anti-liberals." Don't tell me it's not real, 'cause I live in it, I get lectured by these people, and I present perfectly rational arguments and get push-back about stuff that's "a lot easier and cheaper" but "we haven't figured out how to do it yet". ... what?
And I didn't say tree forts, or tree huts. I said houses in trees. Structurally stable, insulated, powered, plumbed. Think about a cityscape view versus a home with a more rural view with wide, open yards. Waterfront property gives you a harbor view. A few miles from me, there's a community where people have a good several acres of land, mostly wooded and streams--a coworker had a 1 mile driveway to the road, and her house was next to a cliff, there were boulders and trees and shrubs, like living in the woods.
These are all different things that happen when you walk outside your house. The past decade in Maryland and Delaware has seen a lot of housing development, some of which my parents bought into... houses with a solid 2/3 or 3/4 acre of land, nice and flat, where the developers razed down the woods into plains and built homes, roads, ran power line. Well water and septic, no plumbing. That's one particular environment of living, but after five years they started cutting further... the developers promised (on no contract) that they weren't interested in razing the trees around the area, so you look around and see nature. Now they've flattened some lots, but not built anything. Eventually this will look like just flat city, but with rural density--tree line is far away. Then the tree line will go away. This is displeasing the residents.
A lot of people seem to chatter once in a while about the environmental sustainability of underground homes, but the economics aren't there (and really, hobbit huts?). I prefer to intersperse light-medium density houses in trees, so you can have your rural area with the tree line, and the developers just build a six mile wide development *in* *the* *trees*, and some folks move there. This lets people who want to live near trees live near trees, without worrying about developers lopping them down; and it lets people who want to live *in* the trees (traditionally, on the ground, in a small clearing for their cottage, with a small dirt road run up from the main) actually live--almost literally--*in* the trees. It lets the developers pack
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The FDA reviews drugs and medical devices all the time. They don't have to disclose all their internal emails. The companies that submit drugs and devices to the FDA don't have to disclose all their emails.
Because FOIA doesn't cover trade secrets or privileged commercial and/or financial information. That is not a situation which applies to this situation.
True, I haven't given my reasons for thinking this way. My brief experience into working with climate science is two-fold: Working with the data entry of historical climate information (mainly 19th Century and early 20th Century weather station records that were hand written and had to be transcribed and digitized) as well as computer modeling of climate data.
In the case of this historical data, my largest gripe is that the data has been manipulated and modified with the raw data being completely discarded. By discarded I mean that the only record available isn't digital but rather the raw paper data... paper data that in itself is falling apart and fading or even being destroyed by accident or on purpose because the need for preserving that data is not seen as necessary.
While I don't have clinching proof, I did sit down with the state climatologist for the state where I live (I was working with him to digitize this data so it was a mutual working relationship) and discussed the greater issues in climate science. He was deeply concerned that similar data from other states was being manipulated explicitly for political purposes or to prove some sort of working theory (like the Mann hockey stick graph).
Explicitly this climatologist took some of the data that "proved" there was global climate change and compared that to the paper data of his own. There had been some manipulation of the data... some of it legitimate and some very questionable. For instance, since this is hand-entered data on paper forms, ordinary human error can often happen when recording this data or even transcribing the data. Numbers can be inverted (91 degrees might be recorded as 19 degree for a hot summer day) or perhaps even a simple misreading of the instruments. Sometimes a weather station might simply have some problems (almost always recorded in the station logs) where the data would be inaccurate thus ought to be ignored. To try and massage the data for outliers and to remove obviously errors in the data set, the data was sent through "noise filters" and other data processing subroutines.
Here is where the kicker came though. In comparing the "official" data in the archives of the National Weather Service, this state climatologist noted about 20+ changes to the data from what existed on his own records for a random date that he had on his own records. Of those changes, he only agree with about three of those changes. In inquiring about these changes, he ask the National Weather Service for the original raw data set in digital form... since he and other state climatologists had given their data to the NWS in raw form. Their response was that the original data set before processing was simply gone... as they presumed it wasn't necessary.
This state climatologist blew his top upon hearing that, and definitely questioned the scientific integrity of what was being reported. I'd also have to agree that this is a scientific travesty that has largely gone unreported. It has led me to generally suspect almost all data being reported by climate science researchers unless they are being honest about their data sets and show the warts of their data along with data that "proves" their hypothesis.
Getting to the computer climate models, I had the experience of working with a group that was trying to do some climate modeling using a system like the Seti@home project of distributed computing to help improve climate forecasting. I was active (for a brief time) on the forums of that project and generally quite interested in climate research and computer modeling in particular for that activity. Since I'm a software engineer and understand some of the difficulties involved with modeling theories in general, I wanted to learn more about how the models were put together, what algorithms were being applied along with what formulas they were using to derive their climate information.
The largest problem I encountered was a general distrust of anybody not "in the club" with regards to criticism of the meth
The First Amendment doesn't protect you from disclosure in a libel suit.
Freedom of speech is not the right to remain silent. You do have a right to silence that applies to not self-incriminating. A civil suit is not criminal, so you have no right to silence, unless you believe that a criminal case will be brought against you, in which case, the DA will waive the right to file against you, or the court will seal the proceeding, and you then lose the right to silence as it can't be used to incriminate you.
Learn to love Alaska
It sounds like you have a binary view of this. If it isn't completely, provably correct then it must be completely wrong and must be completely rejected. In science generally you work with what you have until something better comes along. The statement you quoted is just a statement that says the uncertainty of the reconstructions is high. It doesn't mean they are wrong.
It sounds like you have a binary view of this
What? Did you read what I wrote? Who are you responding to?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I have a feeling Mann's pugnaciousness will match Steyn's.
This is a pretty standard slander and would probably work with the audience if I was advocating some other position than skepticism of any "science" crafted by shysters.
Sigh. Hum. /kicks clod of dirt.
Of course you can't argue with it. I never implied a vast conspiracy, though. It's pretty clear from the Climategate mails that there are less than a dozen individuals involved in the data faking regime.
Everybody knows who they are at this point.
Anyway, I'm not inciting anything, but just offering some insight as to how the general public will eventually deal with people who subvert science to push their political agendas at the expense of the public.
The kind of conspiracy I am contemplating is very, very evident if you read the Climategate mails. They are very open and honest in private about their plans.
Please, pray tell, explain to me the context of "redefine the meaning of peer review." I could always use a good laugh!
I can't discuss this any further without having the text of the FOIA regulations and rulings in front of me, but FOIA doesn't cover every email and document that a scientist has written, even if he did get federal grants. The courts have realized that scientists need a vigorous, candid internal discussion of their work, and for that reason they've held internal documents confidential and not disclosable under FOIA. Internal discussions are privileged.
Disclosure during a libel suit is much broader than FOIA. The courts can order the parties to disclose anything that will further the interests of justice. Sometimes it's filed under seal, but anything relevant to the case would be disclosed in open court.
This much is clear if you read the Climategate mails.
What, that disregarding erroneous data is a global conspiracy?
Learn to love Alaska
Horseshit. Nobody demands the emails of Pfizer's CEO under FOIA. No, they only whine like a child when the "scientific" conclusion doesn't agree with their uninformed preference. "I'd prefer it if AGW didn't exist, so I'll call anyone who says it does exist a liar."
Learn to love Alaska
I've installed a fibre that's running 4 Tbps (40x100Gbps, DWDM). 25 GB/s shouldn't be that hard. I could probably hack together something for under $5000 that would do it for a week at a time, and commit to tape. With a big enough budget, there's no reason they couldn't get 100% retention. It's not technically hard, it's just financially inconvenient.
Learn to love Alaska
If I email my wife, "who gets to shake the baby tonight" and that gets forwarded to the police, will they take that as a light-hearted question about who's on babysitting duty, or a possible case of child abuse? I know how my wife would take it, I've said worse in emails.
Learn to love Alaska
Are you using 2004 technology?
For many years, industry organizations, like the tobacco industry, the lead industry, and the chemical industry have hired writers to publish attacks on their critics, and to create what are now known as Astroturf organizations. One of the first people they attacked was Rachel Carson.
You can find out more with a search for the book "Toxic Sludge is Good for You," by Sheldon Rampton. They follow these things better than I do.
I don't know if Rand Simberg got paid by industry groups with a financial stake. If he is, it could come out in a libel suit. He works for the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Who funds the Competitive Enterprise Institute?
I've edited aerospace papers. I've dealt with a lot of engineers. I have a lot of respect for them. I like them.
Rand Simberg is an engineer. Engineering is very specialized. An engineer, like a scientist, is an expert in his specialty, but he's not an expert outside his specialty. He may be able to design a rocket engine, but that's a lot different from interpreting tree rings.
If someone writes for a newspaper or magazine, he has an editor reviewing what he writes. Editors say things like, "How do you know it's fraud? What's your evidence? He has a lawyer to fall back on for the same reason. A blogger doesn't have any of that. It's easy to slip into libel, I think that's what Simberg did. When a lawyer asks him on the witness stand, "How do you know it's fraud?" we'll see if he has a good answer.
You keep asserting that Rand SImberg has committed some sort of unethical action by being paid by some group to make these statements... yet in this case just trying to stay right outside of the box by claiming ambivalence. Please just stop, at least without any sort of proof to the contrary. You might just end up on the wrong end of a libel suit yourself. You are at least committing the fallacy of guilt by association when none exists either.
Note also that the article for which Michael Mann is filing the lawsuit over was something that did have editors and outside people doing editorial review. As for why that editor didn't perform the review you are suggesting... I suppose that is why the publication is named in the lawsuit as well (which isn't Rand Simberg's personal blog). I suppose that publication will explain why they chose to publish such a statement as well, and may have even cleared such statements with their own lawyers before publication.
I'm also suggesting that Rand Simberg very well may have a good answer for why he thinks it is a fraud. One of the first rules you should know as a lawyer is to know precisely what a witness will say if you ask a question. I don't think Mann knows what Rand Simberg will say in response to a question like that, or might be surprised when Mr. Simberg responds with an answer that a judge + jury (assuming this becomes a jury trial) thinks is reasonable.
All the principals in the conspiracy detail their own roles in the Climategate mails. Including their conspiratorial efforts to "redefine the meaning of peer review."
They make their own views on science pretty clear in those mails - that it is primarily a tool to implement their own political ideologies.
Oh, I forget, they were "cleared" by some group of supposed experts, none of whom have actually claimed to have read the bulk of the mails themselves.
100 GbE was ratified in 2010. Where are you getting 2004 from? Just lying to try to sound more techie? You should have included an off topic reference to slashdot ID number as well.
Learn to love Alaska
brought many people to conclude
You misspelled "reaffirmed their already decided-upon conclusions".
There's even some dipshit on Slashdot with a .sig saying that he's an AGW denier and that he was proved right by these emails, well after independent investigations have found absolutely no impropriety.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
CERN's data collection system was designed circa 2004, using what was then available, and inventing what was not then available.
Since CERN claims to have invented the World Wide Web, they could have just used the in-production (but not ratified) 100GE equipment, or design their own. 4 Tbps is commonly commercially available now, so why are they still throwing away 90% of their data? Even if they made the best choice then, why are they still 10 years out of date?
Learn to love Alaska
These investigations were hardly independent. They were conducted by people who have everything to gain from the perpetuation of the AGW myth, and the doomy catastrophism predictions that these commies are trying to pass off as science.