Slashdot Mirror
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."
http://climateaudit.org/2012/03/15/jolis-reviews-mann/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/26/sticking-it-to-the-mann/
http://judithcurry.com/2014/10/01/steyn-versus-mann-norms-of-behavior/
If you prefer to study his science, good luck finding some.
http://climateaudit.org/
Isn't the warming, sea level rise, and melting of ice verification? If not, what evidence could posisbly convince you?
Since it is a political fight, not a science fight, nothing will convince the deniers. Denialism is stronger thn anything you can imagine. Just like the AntiVaxxer denialists who declared that vaccines caused autism because of the mercury in the preservatives in some vaccines did not change their belief after the mercury was removed, and the autism rates remained the same, and padded the epidemic of autism by incorporation of the "autism spectrum" and were really pissed when researchers removed some people from that spectrum - they have no intention of ever changing their mind, which has been made up bsed on the collaboration od a long discredited corrupt researcher and a lawyer he was working with to make a money grab.
I only bring that up because of the similarity in modus.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.