I was surprised to see this essay and poll on the Daily Kos tonight.
Don Mikulecky writes:
Michael Mann is a Modern Hero and we need to acknowledge that!
I have been both a scientist and a political activist for most of my 76 years. But the situation regarding Michael Mann is very different. I just finished a very moving experience reading The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines and I have lots more to say than I can fit in a single diary. So I will devote this diary to trying to convince you that this Mann is a hero. There are too few heroes among the scientific community because of the nature of what we do.
Michael Mann was not someone who chose his role. Military persons can anticipate the possibility of being in situations where acts of heroism are called for. Scientists are certainly not in the same situation. Or at least, they have not been for a long time. Galileo comes to mind and it was the Church then that made his life one of great sacrifice. In these times the situation has deteriorated so rapidly that few of us have had a chance to evaluate the impact of what is going on. Science is a threat to the dark forces that are moving to control us all. People like Carl Sagan and Stephen jay Gould were out there early on fighting against these dark forces. They did a lot for us. Rachael Carlson and many others were on the front lines.
Yet the situation with Professor Mann is something beyond all that. He has become a symbol for what our future is all about and he did not chose his role. No sane person would have. Read on below and I will try to paint a broad picture of how much is at stake and give you a perspective on how this one Mann has focused on the threat to all of us.
…
The full essay is here:
And, there is a poll at the end which has some surprising choices.
Update 3/14: One of the comments there is by somebody who posts here regularly, John Sully. He writes:
Anthony Watts posted about this over at his site and told the trolls to come and freep the poll. This is why year after year his site gets voted “Best Science Blog” or whatever.
Mr. Sully please point out exactly where in the 35 words I wrote (the rest are from Kos) in this essay I have “…told the trolls to come and freep the poll.” Otherwise sir, you are a liar. – Anthony
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They shouldn’t have asked me.
Michael Mann is a hero the same way Bernie Madoff is a hero.
Madoff was great until they found out what he was doing.
Link is broken without the last “-” that didn’t make it from the text to HTML
Thanks for pointing this out. Went over there to vote…. Please do the same.
Link not working – the hyphen at the end must be made part of the url.
Link fixed, – thanks -A
“You can see from the poll that we have some trolls….” Heh
is this serious? n i can only conclude that this 76 year old is a senile fool/….
The only way anyone could believe that Michael Mann is a hero, is if they can rationalize the use of deception in science because the end justifies the means.
link blocked when referred from WUWT (I think)
Whenever I select the link above I get a Dailykos blank page. If I copy the url and paste it, It loads fine. I suspect the daily kos wankers don’t really want a link from Anthony Watts. Or maybe they are desperate for the click revenues but don’t want votes for the options we will likely choose.
Anyway,I chose “is distorting evidence to prove his point” as did the majority so far.
Dumb poll…populism proves nothing.
This link works : http://tinyurl.com/7t49zkr
Already not many people who think much of Mann.
Anthony, how could you, I just lost my breakfast!
Poll results after I voted:
“Get fired” would be an excellent choice for those wanting to enhance his climate martyrdom. I am glad to help.
LOL the poll results would suggest Don has got that one wrong.
Poll
Michael Mann
did not choose to became a symbol
1%
2 votes
has been attacked in many of the same ways that the President and John Kerry were
0%
0 votes
Is an outstanding scientist and human being
2%
4 votes
all of the above
8%
12 votes
is distorting evidence to prove his point
61%
89 votes
should be fired from the university
26%
38 votes
| 145 votes | Results
Going by the results of the poll, and what comments actually appear, it seems likely that any negative comments are censored. Either that, or the people who disagree haven’t bothered to comment, possibly indicating that they think they’ll be censored anyway.
Access from the link on your blog now seems to be blocked…
I think I’m dreaming. Or this is simply the most satisfying poll I will ever be allowed to be part of.
Galileo?
I threw up a bit in my throat.
The last two poll questions are intended to split the vote. They should have been combined into one question: “Should Michael Mann be fired for distorting evidence?”
I voted for firing him, because it is an indisputable fact that he distorted evidence, cherry-picked proxies, and hid evidence that would have falsified his hockey stick in a file labeled “Censored”.
All polls about Michael Mann should include the option:
Should abandon failing career in climate science and return to producing TV shows.
WTF. A hero, well really now; what do you expect? These watermelons have all sorts of Heroes, Michael Mann has a hero you know, who it is?; wait for it?; yes: Paul Ehrlich, Mr Population Bomb, and the everything I say, write and think is wrong lunatic man. And lets kill 95% of people as people are maggots man.
How do I know this about Mann, because he said so in his so called book. The book that had me howling with laughter; really my wife thought I was going to die laughing.
I have a hero too: His name is Stephen McIntyre. No wonder I despise Mann so much.
“This is but one example of the lies and deceit out there on the web. These blogs and postings are part of a coordinated effort financed by the oils and coal industries,… ”
I had no idea what ‘kos was about , but I’m quickly getting the picture.
Whoever, wrote this about having an “emotional” experience reading the book is probably telling the truth. Fiction can be very moving. I’m sure I cried the first I read Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
He probably thought “The Titanic” was historically accurate as well. 🙄
Get a grip!
Don is not liking the “trolls”.
Mind you, troll is not liking Don, although I suspect Don is right when he asserts that no one sane would choose Mann’s “role”.
170 votes for distortion, 57 to remove of 247 votes. Lol.
I wonder how long it will take for them to nix the poll?
At the rate that Mann is getting “zeroed”, it shouldn’t be too long.
[snip – over the top – Anthony]