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Michael Mann: Swiftboating Comes To Science
Lasrick writes: Michael Mann writes about the ad hominem attacks on scientists, especially climate scientists, that have become much more frequent over the last few decades. Mann should know: his work as a postdoc on the famed "hockey stick" graph led him to be vilified by Fox News and in the Wall Street Journal. Wealthy interests such as the Scaife Foundation and Koch Industries pressured Penn State University to fire him (they didn't). Right-wing elected officials attempted to have Mann's personal records and emails (and those of other climate scientists) subpoenaed and tried to have the "hockey stick" discredited in the media, despite the fact that the National Academy of Sciences reaffirmed the work, and that subsequent reports of the IPCC and the most recent peerreviewed research corroborates it.
Even worse, Mann and his family were targets of death threats. Despite (or perhaps because of) the well-funded and ubiquitous attacks, Mann believes that flat-out climate change denialism is losing favor with the public, and he lays out how and why scientists should engage and not retreat to their labs to conduct research far from the public eye. "We scientists must hold ourselves to a higher standard than the deniers-for-hire. We must be honest as we convey the threat posed by climate change to the public. But we must also be effective. The stakes are simply too great for us to fail to communicate the risks of inaction. The good news is that scientists have truth on their side, and truth will ultimately win out."
Even worse, Mann and his family were targets of death threats. Despite (or perhaps because of) the well-funded and ubiquitous attacks, Mann believes that flat-out climate change denialism is losing favor with the public, and he lays out how and why scientists should engage and not retreat to their labs to conduct research far from the public eye. "We scientists must hold ourselves to a higher standard than the deniers-for-hire. We must be honest as we convey the threat posed by climate change to the public. But we must also be effective. The stakes are simply too great for us to fail to communicate the risks of inaction. The good news is that scientists have truth on their side, and truth will ultimately win out."
If Global Warming is a science issue then stop trying to make political arguments.
Global warming is a science issue and is argued by scientists in papers. The problem is that convincing everyone to do something about global warming is a political issue, and politicians aren't above discrediting anyone who opposes them to get their way.
Society is not governed by science. We've made it to democracy and capitalism in which vote count and bank account reign supreme. And in our society, science is still poor and a minority. The truth does not ultimately win in a democracy. "It's about votes, not truth, dumb ass." And it's easier to buy votes than to inspire them with education.
Scientists completely underestimate the opposition. And the worst part is, the science doesn't even matter. It matters to scientists of course, but it doesn't matter to the deniers. They are on a mission to make money and serve their cause. And all they really need is to buy time. That is all they want. As long as they can postpone action, the more money they make. So even if they believed in the inevitability of scientific conclusion and of actual global warming, they aren't even concerned about those outcomes until they happen. All they have in mind is immediate gratification. So they've already won, and they keep winning. The battle scientists are fighting over "minds" is moot. There are no minds to find. They need to fight the money.
True scientists only echo the voice of nature. Today, nature is our slave. And nature has no voice. Global warming is inevitable. It's nature's revenge. I'd invest in a post warm economy than any attempts in saving it. Science will never have enough money to win the war on global warming.
Whether global warming is happening and what the effects will be is a scientific issue. But what we need to do to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is to change energy policies, so that is a political issue. It's just the same as with CFCs eating away the ozone layer and sufur emissions causing acid rain. If no political action had been taken, those would still be problems.
Ironically, most of the people who argue against the science of global warming are opposed to what to do about it. They argue we should not destroy the economy and go back to an agrarian lifestyle. But using LED light bulbs (and doing other things to use energy more efficiently) and generating power from solar, wind, and nuclear are the actual proposed solutions, not lifestyle changes. In effect they're taking a politcal issue and trying to argue it in the scientific arena, which will never work.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Only about 20% of scholarly papers that are cutting edge science are still corroborated 5 years later.
One example of research that has been particularly well corroborated by later papers is the temperature reconstructions by Mann, Bradley and Hughes.
There is no higher standard of affirmation than reproduction by independent lines of evidence.
How can this possibly be fraud?
Neither is he self-promoting. He is science promoting. That is to be admired. Even if you're a Bush or Murdoch, so that you've an interest in not promoting it.
and the religion of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change is alive and well... unfortunately
Ahh, the anti-science movement calling the pro-scientific movement a "religion".
This is one of the lies that the anti-science's PR movement pays people to tell. If you have a fault, it is a good idea to accuse the other side of that fault so that the perception develops that both sides are as bad as each other.
How's that working out for you with the audience of http://science.slashdot.org/ ?
That's because it doesn't work on people who are actually following what's going on.
You think Fox news is crap only if you're on the left of politics?
The thing you seem to have failed to grasp is "Truth is objective."
Anyone who is denounced so loudly by Koch Industries, the Scaife Foundation, and so many others probably has a story worth telling.
Well, considering that the word "swiftboating" is derived from accusations against John Kerry that were true. when someone says they are being "swiftboated" they are admitting that the attacks against them are based in truth.
You're missing the point entirely.
Typical political attacks aim for an opponent's weaknesses, broken campaign promises, personal indiscretions, etc.
Swiftboating is the opposite, it attacks an opponent's strengths and tries to turn them into vulnerabilities. With Kerry a big selling point was his war service and purple hearts, swiftboating created a second narrative where he was unpatriotic and a bad soldier.
The same thing happened in '12 where Romney's business experience was turned into a negative by associating him with layoffs and the rich people who broke the economy. And to a lesser extent in '08 with Obama and his academic credentials and intellectual reputation, many people started implying that his academic career was the result of affirmative action.
What's happening to scientists is the same idea. There's three big reasons to believe scientists.
1) They have a ton of integrity.
2) They're succeed by finding new things and changing the established thinking.
3) They use the peer review system to enforce rigorous standards.
Climate change opponents attack all of these qualities. They attack scientists' integrity by alleging mass fraud. They deny the revolutionary aspect by claiming scientists don't want to point out problems with climate change. And finally they claim the peer review system is used to stifle dissent and create a false consensus.
The plan is to discredit climate change by discrediting science itself, the opponents can't gain credibility, but if they discredit scientists they don't have to, it just becomes a case of he-said she-said.
I stole this Sig
as soon as he returned he began vilifying the people he served with. The only people who thought Kerry's war service was a strength were people who were as anti-military as John Kerry.
Why does opposition to war automatically mean you're anti-military and vilifying soldiers?
Have you considered that people who oppose war simply want to minimize the number of people who are killed, and to avoid putting soldiers in the kind of situations that lead to people committing atrocities?
I stole this Sig
1) They have a ton of integrity.
Scientists have as much (or as little) integrity as the next guy. Fortunately the scientific method yields tools for outing the ones who acted with little integrity. Unfortunately, scientists with little integrity tend to move the discussion into into politics before the integrity problem can catch up with them, after which science kinda goes out the window.
Manning stands accused of the latter. Some of his emails focused on how to discredit folks who dispute his findings suggest those accusations have some merit. If you want to keep politics out of science, you simply can't engage on a political level.
2) They're succeed by finding new things and changing the established thinking.
No. Just no. Finding a new way to confirm an old theory is just as successful science as testing a new theory. Finding a way to refute an established theory is highly successful science which rarely happens, and finding the new theory that fits all the data -and- whose predictions survive the test of time is rare genius.
Test of time is important. If you have to incrementally revise the theory as new data comes in, it's not a very solid theory.
3) They use the peer review system to enforce rigorous standards.
A theory which, sadly, has been discredited in the past decade or so.
http://science.slashdot.org/st...
http://science.slashdot.org/st...
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Do you have a better term for people who continue to vociferously claim that warming is not happening? They're not just doubters or skeptics or merely asking questions. Personally, I think denial is the most accurate term for these people, but I'm open to other suggestions.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
When Canadian columnist Mark Steyn questioned Church of Warminetics doctrine, Mann took the unusual step of filing a suit:
http://www.steynonline.com/656...
I never knew that hiring lawyers was such a crucial element of the scientific method.
"Climate change denier" is merely descriptive and accurate as such. Any negative connotations are purely the fault of those following this "school of though". Above some level of utter stupidity, any descriptive term automatically acquires negative meaning.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
OTOH this is a USA phenomena and not worldwide. It's generally only in the US that there is such a schmozzle over this. The standard right wing response "The evidence isn't in yet." is still being used, or it's some kind of hoax. The right wing is making (or has made) world perception of the USA's public attitude as a bunch of morons willing to believe non-fact checked science. All the Koch bros/Fox are doing is discrediting the intelligence of the general US public. The impression is that the general US public is listening to them and believing them is so real that whether it is true or not, it really doesn't matter.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
The movement in religion seems to be towards the extremes. Fundamentalism and atheism are both on the rise - it's the middle that is in decline, the people who profess belief but only go to church for weddings and funerals, and who never actually read their bible. There's a contradiction in such people - they openly profess a belief which should define their lives, but ignore it in all their actions. So it's easy to confront them with this and force them to either turn devout and practice what they claim, or admit they were lying to themselves about believing all along and abandon their religion altogether.
From your link:
Recent observed global warming is significantly less than that simulated by climate models. This difference might be explained by some combination of errors in external forcing, model response and
Ginternal climate variability.
In other words, the models don't work at all, what is the excuse that the rubes will buy so we can keep draining science funds for a few more years?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The political argument is choking on its own blood with crushed internal organs.
Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn.
1. In my estimation, it doesn't matter all that much what we do at this point. I believe we've put enough energy into the atmosphere that we're going to go for a big roller coaster ride in the future. Heat equals energy, and it must be spent down to reach a new equalibrium.
But as my car hurtles out of control, I'll probably try the brakes to see if they help. 2. The political argument? Doesn't matter. We're going to do this thing. Rub the pumps kick it in the ass and see what happens. Any reductions we make in my country will just be taken up in others. The coal trains running out of my area are long and full, even if that coal is going to China.
Scientists can't win any arguments with politicians, unless it's about blowing things up or making things useful for them. Of what use is a warning, and something unpopular?
3. History is full of failed political systems who have made wrong decisions while being "right" And we are not immune ot that. 4. The Universe simply doesn't care what you or I think. The speed of light is 299,792,458 m / s whether you or I agree, or the creationists try to make it vary so it fits their 4004 b.c.e. creation myth need. Their thoughts, their debates with Bill Nye or Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins, even if they intellectually destroy the atheists, do not make their ideas one bit more true.
Combine all of those, and yeah, I think you "win". Congratulations, would you like a certificate or medal? Now that "winning" might entail some countries failing, and others succeeding. Will your political will be enough to overcome events should the USA take the route of this dude?
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings.
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
We will find out in due time. Perhaps the Greenhouse gas model fails on the global scale, and another effect simulates it. Perhaps God in his infinite wisdom, controls the atmosphere, and would never let anything get in the way of our manifest destiny. Perhaps Politicians know a lot more about science than scientists do. Perhaps.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The right wing is making (or has made) world perception of the USA's public attitude as a bunch of morons willing to believe non-fact checked science. All the Koch bros/Fox are doing is discrediting the intelligence of the general US public.
I disagree. They aren't "discrediting" the intelligence of the general US public, they're showing the world just how stupid the general US public is. We are a bunch of morons.
Nah, the Left supports it because it's the truth. The right believes in whatever's convenient.
Learn to love Alaska
Yeah. Right. Just a blow job.
What I think is a whole lot better is a born again Christian who with his cronies, frittered away our money, lied to us, put us into the longest war in our history, destroyed our reputation around the world, put the world into the great recession.
Because, as you know, Character counts.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If you want to have a reasoned argument and be taken seriously then you shouldn't try to compare people like Soros to socialists. I'm not going to defend everything the guy has ever done but he did play a significant role in Hungary's transition from communism to capitalism. He's done some other very good things like donating $35 million to underprivileged kids in New York. At the same time he is something of a hypocrite, -getting rich off the very things he thinks should be more closely regulated. But he is no socialist.
A socialist believes that the people (or government in actual practice) should own the means of production rather than private companies. We're not talking just about health care, we're talking about all major industries. No current US Democrat supports such a notion. Some Democrats may have been willing to work with socialists back in the 30's but they've grown farther and farther apart since that time. People like Soros want to place greater controls on the markets, but they also want the markets to continue to exist.
So are you saying U.S. soldiers did nothing wrong when they raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires to human genitals, cut off limbs, blew up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages, and poisoned food stocks?
Or are you saying it's wrong, but we shouldn't talk about it?
There are skeptics elsewhere in the world but they are not treated with any reverence because most of the them are non-scientists with an opinion and not a fact. it just seems that the US skeptics, who are just as opinionated without facts, are revered for some reason other than common sense.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
It is hard to tell, since what you describe is not an ad-hominem argument.
The ad-hominem argument is using a trait about a person to imply something about the quality of their argument. What you describe is using the quality of the argument to imply a trait of a person.
Sorry, but you are like the creationist who wants scientists t reprove everything every time a new creationist comes up to bat. You are saying "Prove that the speed of light isn't variable." "Prove that there was no great flood". Prove that your model that I won't accept anyhow is "wrong", or right or whatever.
What's the basis for your claim? Keep in mind that reality itself isn't fitting your models.
So if you cannot provide a model, then you have nothing to contribute
You can't provide a model that fits well enough either. You're still not paying me to do this, so I'm not doing it. Further, I just don't care that you think this isn't a contribution. You are simply wrong here.
In the end, you are not even the target audience oh my part of the discussion. You will never change your mind. There might be some others out there who will decide that perhaps scientists are better sources of science knowledge than politicians.
You are not even trying to convince me. You're just complaining that "I don't contribute". Why should I change my mind? I need actual reasons first not just some annoyed person who can't even start to make coherent arguments in support of their viewpoint.
For me, the problem is not that we have or don't have global warming. I believe we do and that it is in large part caused by humans. Where we diverge is in whether the situation is bad enough that we need to act right now on that.
What gets me is that we're seeing the classic signs of a scam. None of the alleged evidence is accessible to the layman. It's ambiguous data collected by a bunch of near anonymous researchers and then collected and interpreted by the gatekeepers, people like Michael Mann who clearly are acting in an adversarial role, like prosecutor or defender in a court trial. (Note that every bit of research and every public appearance that Mann makes are attempts to portray climate change in the worst possible light. He's not the only one doing this either.) That's fine, but I'm not going to make global economy changing decisions on that basis without something in the way of actual evidence and a sound, independent evaluation of the benefits and costs of the proposed change.
Then when that research is questioned, the critics are portrayed as anti-scientific. That collective, structural argument from authority/ad hominem attack when coupled with the growing disparity between predictive models and reality is a clear warning sign that the proponents of catastrophic AGW can't argue from actual facts, but have to resort to political power and influence to propagandize their side of the argument.