Steve McIntyre is back blogging and writes (links mine):
I had also spent some time considering a response to Mann’s book. It amazes me that a reputable scientific community would take this sort of diatribe seriously. Mann’s world is populated by demons and bogey-men. People like Anthony Watts, Jeff Id, Lucia, Andrew Montford and myself are believed to be instruments of a massive fossil fuel disinformation campaign and our readers are said to be “ground troops” of disinformation. The book is an extended ad hominem attack, culminating in salivation in the trumped up plagiarism campaign against Wegman, arising out of copying of trivial “boilerplate” by students (not Wegman himself). Wegman’s name appears nearly 200 times in the book (more, I think, than anyone else’s).
Virtually nothing in its discussion of our criticism can be taken at face value. Mann begins his account by re-cycling his original outright lie that we had asked him for an “excel spreadsheet”. Mann’s lies on this point had been a controversy back in November 2003. The incident was revived by the Penn State Investigation Committee, which had (anomalously on this point) asked Mann about an actual incident. Instead of “forgetting”, as any prudent person would have done, Mann brazenly repeated his earlier lie to the Penn State Investigation Committee. Needless to say, the “Investigation” Committee didn’t actually investigate the lie by crosschecking evidence, but accepted Mann’s testimony as ending the matter. In the book, instead of leaving well enough alone, Mann once again re-iterated the lie.
Steve’s full essay is here.
One only has to read Mann’s latest whine over at Climate Progress to know that Steve McIntyre is spot on.
Related articles
- Jolis Reviews Mann (climateaudit.org)
- Mann of the people (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Ambler’s rebuttal to Mann in the Wall Street Journal (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Booker mentions Mann – Mann has a Twitter tantrum (wattsupwiththat.com)
Nature’s review of Mann’s book is as sickening as the latest fawning post on ‘Skeptical Science’
Their total misperception of reality would be comical if it wasn’t so prevalent in Big Govt.
Steve’s last sentence ‘I’m starting to feel a little better now that spring is coming. I’ll start posting again in a couple of weeks, but doubt that I’ll ever post as much as I have in the past.’ is sad…but really, inevitable. Where would we be if Steve and Barton hadn’t both stood up and said we need to examine this stuff.
I’m sure the left/catastrophist are cheered by the thought, but fortunately we have a stable of people, including this site, who will carry on…so don’t cheer too loudly Dr. Mann et al. Remember, you lost Lovelock today
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
I would have at least some respect for Dr. Mann if he didn’t whine so much. I mean, really… does he think that after so many “guest posts” and letters to the editor [of whichever publication published something that might have called his work into question – please fill in the blanks] that he would be taken as anything other than a pre-pubescent teenager having a hissy fit?
Good grief, doctor, grow a set, and stop taking legitimate criticism so personally. And, if you’re going go on the offensive, use facts rather than mewling. You’re up against some of the sharpest minds around. Ones who remember stuff, and can string together coherent sentences. Ones who really aren’t bothered if you call them bad names. Good grief.
Mann’s audience is growing smaller. Lovelock’s admission he extrapolated too far and therefore too alarmingly also sinks the warmist’s alrms. All they are good for now is scaring politicians. However, politicians want the power and the tax, so continual feeding of the CAGW frenzy is a symbiotic relationship.
It will take massive votes denying the acquiescent politicians power and revenues to stop this self perpetuating cycle. Obama, who stood to gain millions from the CCX, must be voted out decisively. Gillard in Australia must be sent to electoral oblivion along with her party and the greens.
I guess Britain is still deep in the maw of political correctness, so it will take some doing to oust the greens from all sides of parliament. However the signs are there with voters protesting the cost of electricity and the flagrant anti environment of building wind farms.
Don’t think Spain will ever take the road to green ruin again. What the dropkick greens cannot imagine , is that when you have ruined business, then the tax revenue drops. Too simple for them to comprehend.
Worse than a shrill small child … ‘those mean boys are picking on me…’
Remember in “Manns World” … “skeptic” = OK … but we are all “denier’s” and are the scourge of the Earth in the Gospel According to Mann ….
Wegman is being dragged through the mud because he was spot on. Most importantly on the incestuous pal-review.
Mann once again exposes himself as a mental and moral midget. McIntyre the opposite.
Having read a bit of Manns little hissyfit all I can say is that the burning stick figure in the yellow picture above looks positively calm and composed by comparison.
“Nature’s review of Mann’s book is as sickening as the latest fawning post on ‘Skeptical Science’”
True enough, but “Mother Nature” in review, just took a dump on Mann’s latest alarmism. 😉
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/24/uk-usa-weather-northeast-idUSLNE83M00N20120424
Gore effect?
…and our readers are said to be “ground troops” of disinformation.
That implies that we’re in lock-step with everything. The only military organization I can think of that would be analogous to the multidisciplinary skills and knowledge WUWT readers bring to the fight is a Special Ops regiment.
” Mann’s lies on this”; ” his earlier lie”; ” investigate the lie”; “re-iterated the lie.”
Steve is obviously not worried about a libel suit against him.
“Libel is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, a negative image. “
I suppose I should see if I can borrow a copy of Mann’s book somewhere.
If I’m going to have to step in to his reality-distortion field, I’d prefer to do so in a way that funds its continued existence as little as possible.
Truth is the best defense against chages of libel – I doubt that Dr. Mann would submit himself to the discovery process that bringing suit against Steve would expose him to.
From one of Romm’s followers who comments in response to Mann’s whine at Climate Progress:
” PBS News Hour is also reporting on anthropogenic climate change and interviewing Richard Alley, Penn State geoscientist, about the two-part documentary, “Earth: The Operators’ Manual,” which PBS will air this week”
With a link to the PBS Interview:
Geoscientist Bungee Jumps to Imitate Shifting Climate
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/04/documentary-series-leaps-into-sustainability.html
Richard Alley has taken an extreme leap — off a really high bridge — to demonstrate how drastically the Earth’s climate is shifting.
In two installments of the PBS series “Earth: The Operators’ Manual,”Alley, the film’s host and a Penn State University geoscientist, bungee jumps from a platform in Queenstown, New Zealand, while visiting communities around the world that are finding new ways to harness renewable energy resources and reduce their carbon footprint.
Dr Burns: “Libel is the communication of a statement … that may give an individual, a negative image.“
Given that definition, Libel would not be applicable, since a prerequisite would be a non-negative image.
Glad to read Steve McIntyre back blogging again. I’d begun to wonder “What’s up with that?”
I hope he will continue. He really is one of the “Fifty People Who Matter”
Michael Mann is such a pathetic, sniveling little twit and a complete embarassment to establishment “Climate Science”. He has never directly answered a question about his research, nor has he responded to rational criticism with facts, logic, or independent corroboration. He’s a prissy bully and an intellectual lightweight.
One day, history will record the shriveling departure of this deceptive stick-maker whose main contribution to science will be as the prime example of its corruption for political purposes.
Good riddance.
Mann? Is that Quinn E. Mann? The dummy?
Just visited Climate Progress and glanced at Mann’s piece…heard the lonesome whining of the wind and saw tumbleweeds blowing through the ‘ghost town’ that is their comments section.
Must be a bad feeling for the Warmists…the way it is ending. Not with a bang…but a whimper.
Thanks for deleting my string of faux pas…some days I just don’t get it! 🙂
Dr Burns,
I suspect the reason Steve is so relaxed about his statements or to be precise his ‘accusations’ is that an actual court of law (with powers to call witnesses and subpoena evidence)is the very last place on earth Michael Mann wants to find himself. Maybe Steve is taunting him with this very outcome in mind, let’s not forget that famous case, where it was Oscar Wilde who initiated the legal proceedings that led to his own downfall.
Well, its a good thing nobody pays much attention to the discredited Dr. Mann these days anyway.
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,077 in Books
I think the above tells all we need to know about his influence on the public.
Just think, Mann and Phil Jones represents the types of University Professors teaching our children….
McIntye is still whining about the format of a file sent a decade ago? And the inconsequential Tiljander kerfuffle? Is that it? Hardly the stuff of scandal. Or indeed ‘rebuttal’.
Meanwhile, back in the reality-based community, the EGU have awarded Professor Mann the well-deserved Oeschger medal and later this year he is to be made a Fellow of the AGU.
Compare and Contrast.
@ Phi Clarke,
I can’t tell if you are being sarcastic, or are you under the impression that the awarding of medals by the EU and AGU has any basis other than pure politics?
Phil Clarke says:
April 24, 2012 at 12:17 am
‘Compare and Contrast.’
McIntyre: Honesty and integrity
Mann: Manipulation and self-interest.
How’s that Phil?
As a reader of thinkprogress who does end up arguing with some of the excessive liberals I must say that I’ve mostly avoided the climateprogress section because there are some real loons there. Some of those folks are crazy.
Brian,
If by “some of those folks” you mean “most all of those folks”, I agree. They are truly nuts.
To JEM:
You could try an Inter Library Loan (ILL) if you have access to a local public or college-level library that participates. Often, there is no charge, and if there is one, it is used by your local facility to cover the costs of shipping the book to-and-fro.
That keeps any profit out of Mikey’s grubby-little hands, and accomplishes your goal.
Hope that helps,
Mark H.
@Phil Clarke
Why is McIntyre mentioning this episode at all? It isn’t apropos of nothing, it’s apropos of Mann’s extensive whining on that specific point in his own book. Who’s obsessed again?
From a part of Mann’s response on CP: (emphasis mine)
“Using what we call proxy data – information gathered from records in nature, like tree rings, corals, and ice cores – my co-authors and I pieced together the puzzle of climate variability over the past 1,000 years.”
I think that says it all. take a little from here, take some from there and make it all fit together nicely to show the fantasy of CAGW.
And get this comment:
“2.prokaryotes says:
April 23, 2012 at 3:25 pm
Also relevant
Climate deniers should be TRACKED and made to pay ‘when the famine comes’, says inflammatory climate columnist http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2133771/Columnist-says-global-warming-skeptics-houses-burnt-down.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
The Daily Mail seriously has a hard time keeping a balanced coverage. However, the paid deniers really play a risky game, when putting us literally all in harms way.”
These people are really wacked, the paid deniers are putting us in harms way? Alarmists want to track us down.
First and last article I’ll read on CP, the only thing boiling is my blood!
Michael Mann says:
Enough said, I think.
Phil Clarke says:
April 24, 2012 at 12:17 am
Meanwhile, back in the reality-based community, the EGU have awarded Professor Mann the well-deserved Oeschger medal and later this year he is to be made a Fellow of the AGU.
Well there exist metaphysical theories that say “you create your own reality” . In my reality the prestige of EGU and AGU bottomed. People who give prizes and distinctions to Mann show their ignorance of the scientific method and of physics and statistics in particular. If the G is for Geological, I hope the young ones dethrone the pals who distribute favours to pals.
Last line in the 10th paragraph in Mann’s ” whine over at Climate Progress”:
” Those gases are acting like a heat-trapping blanket around the planet.”
How can a supposed climate scientist still make this silly analogy.
Compare and contrast Mann with McKintyre….
Well whatever the local dislike of Mann the reality is he is a leading scientists with over 50 peer reviewed scientific papers to his name, wide acclaim in the field and highly cited.
Whatever the local support for McKintyre he has … One paper to his name, highly cited, but mainly to dispute its findings. He is not regarded as a scientist in the field, just a mathematician who made some criticisms of a new methodology of climate reconstruction. It is notable that he has never contributed, or participated in any constructive research, his contribution has not been to expand the horizons of human knowledge…
In reference to Wegman, it was the publishers who retracted his paper, mainly for the Wiki plagiarism, the block (mis)quotes from Bradley and the inadequacy of the social network analysis.
What is often forgotten is that while Wegman repeated the criticism that McKintyre had made of the PCA method (with some of the same mistakes) he did acknowledge that the statistical methodology makes no difference to the validity of the paleoclimate reconstruction. All other reconstructions since (there have been many) confirm the original MBH98 work, I don’t think any have returned results outside the error range found in the original Mann reconstruction.
This sample of Mann’s book reminds me of what one expects to find from the Marxist world view when confronting intellectual opponents.
Mann has been called a liar by McIntyre. I recall the Mann said he is ready to take people to court. I await Mann’s response to being called a liar.
As for:
Has Michael Mann ever come over to WUWT? If he has he will notice a couple of ‘red flags’.
*Google Ads
*Shameless Plug Donations accepted: fling funds
*Wordpress
*Donate to help keep the http://www.surfacestations.org project going
*WUWT Stuff
and other revenue generating items
Does this sound like a fossil fuel, well funded climate denialist machine? You can have a PHD but it doesn’t stop you deluding yourself. 🙂 As for ‘disinformation’ all I read is about actual observations and a sceptical look at Warmists claims. I thought that’s how science kinda worked. Silly me.
“our readers are said to be “ground troops” of disinformation”
Well, I was an Marine Infantry Officer when I was a younger man. I think that qualifies me to be a ‘ground troop’, doesn’t it?
“Why is McIntyre mentioning this episode at all? It isn’t apropos of nothing, it’s apropos of Mann’s extensive whining on that specific point in his own book. Who’s obsessed again?”
Hardly. It is a single footnote on page 263 (Kindle edition). It is not even a good whine – Mann said the data was supplied in ‘a spreadsheet version’, in fact it was a csv file. Click on a csv file on most PCs and it will open in Excel. This does not even rise to the level of a nitpick. I ask again – is that it?
Icarus62 says: April 24, 2012 at 4:00 am
Michael Mann says:
“As a climate scientist, I have seen my integrity perniciously attacked, politicians have demanded I be fired from my job, and I’ve been subject to congressional and criminal investigations. I’ve even had death threats made against me. And why? Because I study climate science and some people don’t like what my colleagues and I have discovered.”
Enough said, I think.
To a thinking person, he has no integrity, there is none be attacked, and he should be fired. The man is delusional about the tide of a funded conspiracy against him.
Thank you, Steve McIntyre and Anthony for all you have done to expose this charlatin.
@Phil Clarke
You left out that Yassir Arafat and Barack Obama have Nobel Peace Prizes and all the children in Lake Woebegone are above average.
/How’s the weather in your echo chamber?
Mann’s book is a must-buy for psychology students, at least. What a case-study.
izen said
What have you been smoking?”
Jimbo says:
April 24, 2012 at 4:30 am
> Mann has been called a liar by McIntyre. I recall the Mann said he is ready to take people to court. I await Mann’s response to being called a liar.
I doubt that’s going to happen. He may have expected Tim Ball to roll over and pay the fine, but with financial support from the skeptic community, Mann is discovering he may have to turn over important Email during discovery.
He won’t sue McIntyre – discovery should destroy Mann’s claims.
It would be entertaining, though!
Phil Clarke says:
April 24, 2012 at 12:17 am
“Meanwhile, back in the reality-based community, the EGU have awarded Professor Mann the well-deserved Oeschger medal and later this year he is to be made a Fellow of the AGU.
Compare and Contrast.”
No doubt he will be selected as the new Chairman for the Task Force on Scientific Ethics.
Bernie Madoff at one time was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of NASD.
Compare.
Michael Mann is not a scientist because he fails to follow the scientific method. He doesn’t analyze data and draw a conclusion, he adjusts the data to fit his hypothesis. Likewise the other alarmists who are trying to drag this world back into the dark ages.
Image: Mann is holding a flaming hockey stick, the stick is burning from both ends.
Dilemma, Mann is thinking: -“Should I let go of the stick or keep holding it?”
Bill Tuttle says:
April 23, 2012 at 9:36 pm
…and our readers are said to be “ground troops” of disinformation.
That implies that we’re in lock-step with everything. The only military organization I can think of that would be analogous to the multidisciplinary skills and knowledge WUWT readers bring to the fight is a Special Ops regiment.
————————————–
I’ll second that. Whoops…
Mann is to science what Steve’s home town Leafs are to hockey.
@- DR
Do you have an example of a paleoclimate reconstruction that gives results outside the error bars of the MBH original work, or are you just sneering at the claim that none have without justification?
The truth of the statement is easily testable because it is so specific. There’s not a lot of wiggle room for a lawyer to work with. My guess is that Mann won’t sue.
I suspect that Mann is [SNIP: Speculatively over-the-top and defamatory. Let’s not do this. -REP] scientific objectivity is impossible.
In Mann’s case, “Piled higher and Deeper” is the most appropriate example of PhD I’ve ever witnessed. He is beyond delusional–I believe his behavior is criminal.
There has been no statistical warming in 12 years. so….
I have not yet read Mann’s book, but I expect much of his book consists of psychological projection.
For Steve McIntyre to post such inflammatory content, the book must be trash! I have been censored on his site for merely carping at the press (it was warranted). He is the model of civility when it comes to discussion.
izen says:
April 24, 2012 at 5:55 am
@- DR
Do you have an example of a paleoclimate reconstruction that gives results outside the error bars of the MBH original work, or are you just sneering at the claim that none have without justification?
>>>>>>>
Wow. How many red herrings can you stuff into a single sentence?
1. The error bars are so big that you could stuff the titanic, the iceberg it hit, and two copies of the tiljander data series (one right side up and the other upside down) and still be between the error bars.
2. I’ve personaly read over 50 peer reviewed paleo reconstructions confirming the existance of the MWP and LIA, directly refuting Mann’s work. I’d supply links but my laptop expired on the weeken and I haven’t recovered my backup data yet. Smokey has a pretty good list too.
3. Mann’s own peers are revealed in the ClimateGateII emails as calling his work everything from shoddy to indefensible, despite which they continue to support him and his work publicly. In other words, the peers lied too, have admitted it to each other (call the emails stolen if you want, the fact is, they lied and they admitted it to each other). The peer review process is demonstrably corrupt, and quoting it as supporting evidence is just sad. Sad that you think you can still use it as a cover for bad science, and sad that the science community, climate science in particular, has failed to even try to clean up their act.
COMPLETELY O/T:
Mods and Anthony, forgive the off-topic (“Tips and Notes” does not seem to be working very well in my Mozilla; not sure why):
I just went to JoNova’s site, and she has a video posted that bears everyone here either watching, or maybe Jo will let Anthony & Co. post here.
“If I Wanted America To Fail” DO NOT MISS IT!!!!
Mark H.
“Mann begins his account by re-cycling his original outright lie that we had asked him for an “excel spreadsheet”.
The truth of the statement is easily testable because it is so specific. There’s not a lot of wiggle room for a lawyer to work with. ”
Well, the phrase ‘Excel Spreadsheet’ does not anywhere occur in the book so one could just as justifiably – and just as pointlessly – accuse McIntyre of dishonesty. As frank O Dwyer points out “Mann’s point was that they were requesting data that were already available in a different format, and that the spreadsheet format that they actually received had errors. The whole thing hinges on what data they requested, what data were already available, and what data they got. Nothing of any importance depends on what format they requested, and in any case what format did they expect to get it in if not spreadsheet format?”
Talk of ‘getting the lawyers in’ over this pettifogging is pathetic. It merely demonstrates the lack of actual hard evidence to back up the rhetoric.
See http://frankodwyer.com/blog/2012/03/11/yet-more-shollenberger/ Point 13.
If Lovejoy has joined the ground troops, we welcome him.
Phil Clarke,
Thank you for Frank O’Dwyer’s completely personal opinion. In my opinion, O’Dwyer is simply running interference for the alarmist crowd. One personal opinion cancels another, no?
Now, let’s get back to facts, OK? The fact is that Mann is still stonewalling, thirteen years after MBH97/98. How does hiding his data, methods, code and methodologies fit in with the scientific method? Mann needs to quit hiding out. But he won’t, because if he provided transparency he would be promptly falsified. So he obfuscates. Despicable.
Note: This comment was also posted @ CA.
I have read Mann’s book twice now. I had to really force myself, but did it because I thought it is good to know more about his thought patterns and it is good to know the substance of his fundamental worldview.
The two seemingly contradictory impressions of mine are:
1. He is adopting a kind of scorched earth strategy; sort of an approach where, if he goes down (intellectually), he will take everyone with him including both skeptical critics and his previous allies. He projects the image that he will never accept being a martyr.
2. He is myth building on a grand scale. He is creating the kind of mythology that is a theatrical production; one which dramatically shows himself as the main heroic player leading his worthy fellow IPCC supporters against the critics of both himself and of the IPCC. In the process he depicts critics as lesser/inferior beings both morally and intellectually. His myth building skills could use some additional professional PR help.
John
From Steve’s Post:
^^^ I’ve been feeling the same way about the climate community for a few months now. This community is science turned into trench political warfare. The alarmists are surrounded, they’ve circled the wagons good, but they won’t give up. They concede nothing even if it’s shoved in their faces. It’s boring to watch them act this oh-so-predictable way each time they are requested to respond, and it does nothing to advance knowledge.
The extreme hatred of Michael Mann being exhibited by so many posters here is awesome to behold. So much negative emotion directed at a once obscure scientist, who pioneered in paleo-climate reconstruction using proxies seems at first unreal. The work of Mann and his colleagues has clearly hit a vital nerve among the posters here, and it should make the more curious and scientific to analyze why this is so. It is especially so because basically his work has been confirmed by subsequent research..
I believe that this reaction comes about because the haters cannot bear to entertain the prospect that his pioneering work is basically correct. Validation of his work, would cause some things to happen that the Michael Mann haters seem to fear the most. Government would be forced to regulate GHG emissions, changes in life style would result, and international treaties would require cooperation with foreign countries. This prospect has caused political conservative bloggers to go on the attack against scientists who have done work that supported AGW most strongly, James Hanson, and Michael Mann. It should be understandable that scientists who have been subjected to such attacks would push back.
Many posters believe, that Mann, and his colleagues, have cooked this work up as part of a political takeover of world government by Socialists. Indeed the history of the global warming controversy shows that much of the opposition to the idea in the US, has come from the extreme right – i.e. Marshall Institute, Cato, Heritage, Heartland Institute etc.
To me this hatred is an ugly thing to look at, and has certainly detracted from the haters’ ability to contemplate and analyze the scientific aspects in a clear fashion. Of course since political conservatism in a statistical sense seems to be strongly dependent on biology and brain physiology, this is nothing new or unexpected. The same kind of dynamic is at work around the theory of evolution, which is seeing pushback from political conservatives, and interestingly enough dates from the same year 1859,
REPLY: Don’t talk to me about “haters” here, you myopic apologist, until you walk a mile in my shoes. Take another time out, say a week this time, before I write something I’ll regret.- Anthony
SPreserv says:
April 24, 2012 at 5:45 am
Image: Mann is holding a flaming hockey stick, the stick is burning from both ends.
Dilemma, Mann is thinking: -”Should I let go of the stick or keep holding it?”
******************
maybe he should “hide” it ? 🙂 🙂
In response to Frank O’Dwyer, the spreadsheet story is symptomatic of much that is wrong with Mann’s responses. Mann claims that errors were introduced when preparing a spreadsheet for McIntyre and that these errors were responsible for McIntyre’s inability to reproduced the Mann results. But this whole story is nonsense. McIntyre did not request the data in a spreadsheet,just a ,
location for the data; the data McIntyre was given was clearly prepared about a year before and not in response to the McIntyre request; and the admitted errors in the data were not what was primarily responsible for the failure of reproduction, which was instead caused by Mann’s failure to disclose his eccentric version of principal component analysis and the way he had treated the problem of there being very few proxies which actually went back to medieval times. This is the context in which this controversy ought to be viewed. And McIntyre published all the email correspondence years ago, yet Mann repeats his misleading account…
Reblogged this on TaJnB | TheAverageJoeNewsBlogg and commented:
Numerous rebuttals continue to surface due to Dr. Michael Mann’s vicious attacks on random scientists.
@-davidmhoffer says: April 24, 2012
“1. The error bars are so big that you could stuff the titanic, the iceberg it hit, and two copies of the tiljander data series (one right side up and the other upside down) and still be between the error bars.”
It was the first paleoclimate reconstruction ever done with enough rigour to provide error bars. If you think they are too wide then I presume you have a method for reducing the range of uncertainty in the data that Mann failed to use. I await your explanation with interest.
@-“2. I’ve personaly read over 50 peer reviewed paleo reconstructions confirming the existance of the MWP and LIA, directly refuting Mann’s work. ”
There is no claim or implication in the MBH reconstruction that the MWP or the LIA do not exist. In fact it confirms their existence and for the first time gives a range of values that they might have had. You cannot ‘refute’ a claim that was never made….
Having read over 50 paleo reconstructions you will be aware that as I said they all fall within the range delimited by Mann et al’s first paleo reconstruction – pretty good record for a first paleo attempt!
If you really think that the MBH98 was too generous in its assessment of the uncertainty then presumably you have an alternative that did better you can present?
My message at CP is still awaiting moderation after 3 hours but I suspect it’s been reviewed and will be unceremoniously deleted. This was my first and last trip to that site.
izen says:
April 24, 2012 at 8:28 am
@-davidmhoffer says: April 24, 2012
“1. The error bars are so big that you could stuff the titanic, the iceberg it hit, and two copies of the tiljander data series (one right side up and the other upside down) and still be between the error bars.”
It was the first paleoclimate reconstruction ever done with enough rigour to provide error bars. If you think they are too wide then I presume you have a method for reducing the range of uncertainty in the data that Mann failed to use. I await your explanation with interest
>>>>>>>>>
You said that all other studies fit within the error bars of mbh98 and I pointed out that the error bars are so large that the statement is meaningless. I matters not in the least if I have a method for reducing it or not, the point is that the statement is meaningless.
izen says:
@-”2. I’ve personaly read over 50 peer reviewed paleo reconstructions confirming the existance of the MWP and LIA, directly refuting Mann’s work. ”
There is no claim or implication in the MBH reconstruction that the MWP or the LIA do not exist. In fact it confirms their existence and for the first time gives a range of values that they might have had. You cannot ‘refute’ a claim that was never made….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
Yes it does, and yes I can. MBH98 is pretty much a straight line with a sharp uptick at the end. No rise and fall of the MWP, no fall and subsequent rise of the LIA. Just a straight line. Afterward, when confronted with clear evidence of same from Europe and Greenland, Mann argued that these events were “local” and not global. Now confronted with study after study, from all over the world, using a wide variety ot techniques showing that a straight line is utter nonsense, the excuse is that these fit within the error bars? Can you remind me who said, in the ClimateGate emails, “we have to get rid of the MWP”? Why would ANYONE say that? And now you want to claim that this wasn’t his intent? Funny…. but oh so sad.
Izen:
Having read over 50 paleo reconstructions you will be aware that as I said they all fall within the range delimited by Mann et al’s first paleo reconstruction – pretty good record for a first paleo attempt!
If you really think that the MBH98 was too generous in its assessment of the uncertainty then presumably you have an alternative that did better you can present?
>>>>>>>>>>>
I need not present an alternative to show that something is garbage. The “oh, so you can do better?” sneer is nothing but an attempt to change the subject.
On that note, I’d like to add that you’ve managed to hijack the discussion of the problems with Mann’s work by sniping about data formats, supposed plagiarism, pca, and so on. The central facts are that:
1. MBH98 was demonstrated to be the result of computer code that produced a hockey stick graph from virtually ANY climate data. The rest of the issues you raise are irrelevant and a deliberate attempt to distract the reader from this central point.
2. Phil Jones and Michael Mann have both admitted to dropping substantive data from the paleo record and substituting in temperature data for the graphic that was supposed to grace the front cover of IPCC AR4. Review of what they did shows conclusivley, and by their own admission, that they did so because the paleo data from 1950 on showed a decline rather than a hockey stick rise.
Putting aside for a moment the shear audacity of doing this while “neglecting” to explain what they did, might you be able to resolve the obvious conundrum this raises?
If the paleo data and techniques that Mann used in MBH98 are valid, how is it that the paleo data and techniques that he used for the AR4 report, not to mention his submission to Nature, showed the exact opposite? His OWN work refutes MBH98!
Mann plays the victim card well, and throws in the de rigeur “I’m doing this for my daughter/grandchildren/future generations” schtick for good measure. One wonders if his 6-year-old daughter has watched this “enlightening” Warmist propaganda video yet:
[snip – see Anthony’s note above ~mod]
Dear Anthony: I teach mostly ninth graders. They whine. A lot. Please don’t ask me to click over to listen to a grown man whine, I get enough of it at work. Sincerely, a long-suffering California schoolteacher
I knew of Al Gore (Remember, “There’s no controlling legal authority.”?) before I ever heard of Michael Mann. Frankly, if either one of them told me, “The sky is blue.”, I’d be inclined to look out the window before I believed them. They ruined their own credibility. (And if I did look out the window, I’d probably find out it was night and they were selling flashlights.)
Can you remind me who said, in the ClimateGate emails, “we have to get rid of the MWP”? Why would ANYONE say that? And now you want to claim that this wasn’t his intent? Funny…. but oh so sad.
There is not a shred of hard evidence that anyone ever said or wrote that. The eccentric David Deming claims it was said in an email sent to him by a prominent but unnamed climate researcher, but curiously did not retain the actual mail. We all know that memory can play tricks. The phrase was later attributed to Jon Overpeck, who in one of the illegitimately obtained mails says
“> > Hi Phil, Kevin, Mike, Susan and Ben – I’m looking
> > for some IPCC-related advice, so thanks in
> > advance. The email below recently came in and I
> > googled “We have to get rid of the warm medieval
> > period” and “Overpeck” and indeed, there is a
> > person David Deeming that attributes the quote to
> > an email from me. He apparently did mention the
> > quote (but I don’t think me) in a Senate hearing.
> > His “news” (often with attribution to me) appears
> > to be getting widespread coverage on the
> > internet. It is upsetting.
> >
> > I have no memory of emailing w/ him, nor any
> > record of doing so (I need to do an exhaustive
> > search I guess), nor any memory of him period. I
> > assume it is possible that I emailed w/ him long
> > ago, and that he’s taking the quote out of
> > context, since know I would never have said what
> > he’s saying I would have, at least in the context
> > he is implying.”
In other words the alleged quotee denies the words were ever used.
Glad to clear that up.
1. MBH98 was demonstrated to be the result of computer code that produced a hockey stick graph from virtually ANY climate data.
Oh dear. No such thing has been demonstrated. The algorithm does produce hockey sticks from ‘red noise’. But some of them slope down at the end. And others don’t slope at all. And the magnitude of all is tiny compared to the actual HS.
What was done was to run the code hundreds of times and select those plots most ‘hockey-stick’-like for presentation, see here:-
http://deepclimate.org/2010/11/16/replication-and-due-diligence-wegman-style/
Phil Jones and Michael Mann have both admitted to dropping substantive data from the paleo record and substituting in temperature data for the graphic that was supposed to grace the front cover of IPCC AR4
Not even close. It was the cover art for an obscure WMO pamphlet, edited for clarity. And anyone interested could have checked the sources of the data from the references on the inside cover.
Phil Clarke,
Not even close. It was the cover art for an obscure WMO pamphlet, edited for clarity.
>>>>>>>>>>
Yup. It was cover art, and then they covered up the decline (as in hide the decline using Mike’s “Nature trick”) and then when they got caught they claimed it was something they “forgot” to document, and then after they documented it, the “cover art” was changed to something else since it had been exposed that the graphs as submitted where bull sh*t.
Nice side step by the way. With only the paleo data used instead of the last 60 years or so being temperature data, the graphs by Jones and Mann both show a DECLINE ACCORDING TO THE PALEO DATA.
So, which of Mann’s paleo data was right? The declining paleo data that he hid from the AR4 graphic? Or the inclining data from the paleo data that he won’t show us, graphed by a program he won’t show us?
I’m going with the declining data that he got caught hiding and which makes a mockery of paleo data in general, Mann’s bull fart in particular.
The rest of your responses are similarly just spin. Either you don’t have all the facts or you should be ashamed of yourself.
PS – it wasn’t for an “obscure” article either. The original purpose was for the front page of AR4.
Keep spinning.
Heh, ‘reality based’ people defending the hockey stick. James Lovelock may not have the wherewithal to understand that it is the shaft of the stick which is so perverted, but he can see that the blade looks sort of stubbed, now.
These are true believers and true authoritarians with a sophisticated rationale for dwelling in their own reality, But all your base are belong to us.
=================
Phil Clarke says: April 24, 2012 at 11:59 am
Oh dear. No such thing has been demonstrated…
Not even close. It was the cover art for an obscure WMO pamphlet…
Clever old obscurantist, aren’t you?
The TP comments are a hoot. “You and Dr. Hansen are not public figures…” Hansen is the guy who makes about $1M/year doing public appearances, while getting arrested outside coal plants.
The WMO report that Jones was discussing when he used the innocuous word ‘trick’ is <a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:S8suFMZAIzsJ:www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcdmp/statemnt/wmo913.pdf+WMO+1999&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShdKQ5IsSbetSURTtqrOW5Xl4L1xAVpJseWRFQGfk5J6RMv8DhPiy9WwUmIDKKzdAuK-OdjG9QyEnkkPB2K4TFS8IdmomCqC1eyrkTSfa18FYd8tQ1ZCZ7-aQF2n63k1V4NiS40&sig=AHIEtbSScQsWNfqJXbYM6m5kLBBfKi0DXQhere.
As you can see the full data sources are documented on page 2 as I stated. Before the ‘ClimateGate’ faux controversy it was not mentioned on a single blog or news article ever, so it’s hard to claim anyone was substantially misled. It was never used in AR4, never intended for AR4, it was never amended, nor was anyone ‘found out’.
You’re just makin’ stuff up.
Steven McIntyre says:
Why is it amazing to believe that there are people motivated by political / ideological / financial reasons to challenge the science of climate change? It is not amazing to believe this…It is common sense and if there is any doubt that this sort of thing happens, one only need look to the case of evolution to see how science gets challenged when it conflicts with what some people strongly want to believe. (I’ll cast the net wider than saying it is part of a “massive fossil fuel disinformation campaign” because I think many of the people involved are motivated by ideology, not any connection or funding to fossil fuels, although there is obviously some of that too.)
No, what is amazing is believing that the entire scientific community has been corrupted or duped so that the expressed scientific opinions of organizations like the IPCC, the NAS, the AGU, the APS, and the AMS should all be discounted in favor of the expressed scientific opinions of the Heartland Institute, the Cato Institute, the George C Marshall Institute, etc.
Phil, phil, phil…
The documentation was added AFTER they got caught. I don’t make this stuff up, I am no where NEAR that creative. And just because you point to an email where a WMO document was discussed does NOT mean that the graphic wasn’t intended for the front of AR4. In fact, the initial copies were exactly that, they were quickly withdrawn when the subterfuge was discovered.
Can you answer my earlier question? Which of Michael Mann’s paleo data should we accept? The paleo data from MBH98 that he won’t show us and which he claims shows a steep incline? Or the paleo data from the graphic for WMO/AR4 that was deleted because it showed a decline?
Why do the warmists keep side stepping that question?
joeldshore says:
April 24, 2012 at 2:15 pm
No, what is amazing is believing that the entire scientific community has been corrupted or duped so that the expressed scientific opinions of organizations like the IPCC, the NAS, the AGU, the APS, and the AMS should all be discounted in favor of the expressed scientific opinions of the Heartland Institute, the Cato Institute, the George C Marshall Institute, etc
Uhhh … There are quite a few of the “scientific community” that have threads and comments here and on other sites that have reasoned arguments and evidence that disagree with the mythical “consenus”. So, “the entire scientific community” has not been corrupted.
Can you answer my earlier question? Which of Michael Mann’s paleo data should we accept? The paleo data from MBH98 that he won’t show us
There is no such data. You invented it. But my advice would be to accept the data from Mann et al 2008. It is more complete and up to date that the stuff from a decade earlier and freely downloadable.
Or the paleo data from the graphic for WMO/AR4 that was deleted because it showed a decline?
That was nothing to do with Mann. CRU published an updated figure showing the proxy and instrumental data here:- http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/nov/CRUupdate
Only one series – Briffa 1999 suffers from ‘the Divergence problem’, and he cleverly hid the problem by erm, publishing a paper about it in the academic literature. Sneaky!
Why do the warmists keep side stepping that question?
Dunno, perhaps because they would first have to correct a raft of factual errors before dealing with your Straw Man?
joeldshore says:
April 24, 2012 at 2:15 pm
what is amazing is believing that the entire scientific community has been corrupted or duped so that the expressed scientific opinions of organizations like the IPCC, the NAS, the AGU, the APS, and the AMS should all be discounted in favor of the expressed scientific opinions of the Heartland Institute, the Cato Institute, the George C Marshall Institute, etc.
Fortunately, rational, thinking human beings don’t have to simply believe what they’re told to believe. Rational, thinking human beings can and do check things out for themselves. I know this is a difficult concept for unthinking, irrational climate bedwetters.
Phil Clarke says:
“There is no such data. You invented it.”
Sorry Phil, your lies and/or ignorance don’t get you very far here. When Steve McIntyre states that Mann has produced all the data, methodologies, code and metadata that Steve has requested, I will accept that Mann has finally provided transparency — after fourteen years. But to the best of my knowledge, Steve has still not received what he’s asked Mann for.
Phil Clarke says:
“…my advice would be to accept the data from Mann et al 2008.”
Why? Mann08 is totally debunked crap. Mann used a corrupted proxy, and when caught by McIntyre, he pretended that it didn’t matter. What?! Why use something that doesn’t matter? In reality Mann used the upside-down Tiljander sediment proxy, KNOWING before he published that it was corrupted. He knew, because Ms Tiljander told him. How does that fit in with the scientific method, where the one making the hypothesis has the first duty to try and falsify it?
Michael Mann is a dishonest scounderel. Why are you carrying water for a proven liar?
Phil,
This is starting to get comical.
Phil says;
Can you answer my earlier question? Which of Michael Mann’s paleo data should we accept? The paleo data from MBH98 that he won’t show us
There is no such data. You invented it. But my advice would be to accept the data from Mann et al 2008.
>>>>>
First you say there is no such data then you say what amounts to “but don’t look any closer at that, look at this other thing instead”. Why is that?
I read the climategate emails on this matter, the back and forth between Mann and Jones and the rest of the team is pretty clear. There were two reconstructions that rested upon paleo data that diverged sharply from the temperature record. These were Mann and Jones. Jones writes about completing “Mike’s Nature trick” which is a clear reference to the original paper submitted by Mann to Nature in which he ALSO did not disclose until exposed by climategate that he had substituted temperature data for proxy data. So, Mann is guilty of pulling that stunt not once but TWICE. Jones then confirms that he has done the exact same thing to “hide the decline” showing that they BOTH used data that declined since 1950 and both hid that fact by substituting temperature readings instead. Which gets us full circle. They had data proxy data which showed a decline in opposition to proxy data in 98 (and 08 too for that matter). The 98 data remains unreleased, if you claim otherwise, then post a link to the actual data and the actual code. If you can’t do that, then STFU. The 08 data uses proxies that are discredited, and the tiljander data is in BACKWARDS.
Phil says;
That was nothing to do with Mann. CRU published an updated figure showing the proxy and instrumental data here:-
>>>>>
That has EVERYTHING to do with Mann. They had to publish the updated figure BECAUSE MANN GOT CAUGHT!
Phil says;
Only one series – Briffa 1999 suffers from ‘the Divergence problem’,
>>>>>>
Yeah right. That’s why there’s all those emails between Jones and Mann and the others talking about how to hide the divergence problem using Mike’s “Nature trick” and Jones saying that he had done the same with his own data. Not Briffa’s data, his own. And he referenced using the same approach that Mann had used on his data. Nice try. Actually, for anyone that bothered to read the emails and look at the before and after graphs in both Nature and the various AR4 versions, that was a pathetic try.
Phil says;
Why do the warmists keep side stepping that question?
Dunno, perhaps because they would first have to correct a raft of factual errors before dealing with your Straw Man?
>>>>>>>>>
And once again…. a step sideways pretending that the issue has been dealt with when all that has been presented is misdirection.
izen says:
April 24, 2012 at 4:21 am
Compare and contrast Mann with McKintyre….
Well whatever the local dislike of Mann the reality is he is a leading scientists with over 50 peer reviewed scientific papers to his name, wide acclaim in the field and highly cited.
Whatever the local support for McKintyre he has … One paper to his name, highly cited, but mainly to dispute its findings. He is not regarded as a scientist in the field, just a mathematician who made some criticisms of a new methodology of climate reconstruction. It is notable that he has never contributed, or participated in any constructive research, his contribution has not been to expand the horizons of human knowledge…
———————————————————————————–
So, putting up false theories based on cooked data is ‘expanding the horizons of human knowledge’? Demanding that the world’s economy and governance be restructured in line with the aforementioned nonsense is laudable?
Whereas, pointing out that the theory is based on flawed (at best) data and methodology is a lesser form of life called ‘just a mathematician who made some criticisms …’? Truly, I feel as though I just stepped through Alice’s mirror.
Your lack of regard for the virtue of accuracy is underlined by the fact that you can’t even be bothered checking the spelling of McIntyre. Or, perhaps you are unconsciously inserting a reference to McKitrick, his co-conspirator in narrowing the horizons of dishonest junk science.
Smokey says:
You know what they say about people who live in glass houses. The truth of the matter is that Mann know there was some concern about this proxy so he did what any reasonable scientist would do in such a situation and showed the results both with and without it.
Bruce Cobb says:
And, coincidently, most of them come to the conclusion that the science says what their ideology wants it to say. This is why we have had scientific policy set by having scientists advise on scientific matters rather than turning scientific matters into political footballs that ideologues use to advance their own agendas.
johanna,
It is also noteworthy that in the Climategate emails, Mann is conspiring to artificially inflate the number of Phil Jones’ papers. If he did that with Jones, is there much doubt that does it for himself, too? And with climate pal review saying “How high?” when Mann says “Jump!”, everything he writes, no matter how crappy, gets hand-waved through.
So Mann has 50 papers. Big deal. Prof Richard Lindzen’s CV shows several times as many — and Lindzen’s papers generally dispute Mann’s CAGW nonsense. Question for izen: given their diametrically opposed conclusions, which one are you gonna believe?
And there’s Joel Shore with his “ideology” blinkers on. He can’t see how lame Michael Mann’s papers are. They’re bunk, pure and simple.
Joel Shore says:
“The truth of the matter is that Mann know there was some concern about this proxy so he did what any reasonable scientist would do in such a situation and showed the results both with and without it.”
Yes, Mann showed the with/without results AFTER he was caught by Steve McIntyre using the upside-down Tiljander proxy. Joel Shore just left out the word “after”. That’s what any ideological propagandist would do in such a situation.
Smokey says:
That is because Lindzen got his PhD more than 30 years before Mann did.
Actually, Lindzen’s papers generally have nothing to do with CAGW…and the few that do haven’t fared very well.
One should never believe one individual scientist. The NAS was set up to provide the best scientific information to the public and policymakers for a reason and that reason is to prevent ideologues like Smokey from trying to make science into a political football.
Another falsehood that Smokey has repeated before and has never been able to back up. To do so, he would have to show that the supplementary materials submitted with the paper were later altered (but with no change in the publication date attached to them).
Like I say, people who live in glass houses…
Smokey,
“Michael Mann is a dishonest scounderel.”
Mann stated in his paper that the Tijander proxy was problematic. As a result he gave it very little weight. If you remove the Tijander proxy from his data, it makes almost no difference in the result, and doesn’t change any of the conclusions of the paper. It really is an insignificant point.
It may have been poor judgement to use it, but it hardly shows that he is a dishonest scoundrel. I think that claiming the Tijander proxy invalidates the paper is mistaken. If I thought like you, I might claim that you and McI are dishonest in making that claim.
Here, by the way, is a link to the Mann 2008 paper from the Proceedings of the NAS website, from which one can see both the paper and the supporting materials. Particular note this discussion inf the supporting materials:
Eric Adler,
You gloss over the fact that Mann was informed before he published that the Tiljander proxy was completely corrupted. It was totally worthless as a proxy, and it skewed the results the way Mann wanted. Thus, Mann was being his typical devious self. Ever since, Mann has been backing and filling, trying to explain why he used a proxy that was never any good.
Also, I never said the Tiljander proxy invalidates Mann08, as Eric Adler mendaciously implies. I said that Mann is a dishonest scoundrel, and I stand by that opinion.
And Joel Shore says: “Another falsehood that Smokey has repeated before and has never been able to back up”.
But I did back it up, with the citation I linked to. There are several similar citations showing the same thing. Shore’s carping is just more evidence of his blinkered ‘ideology’ pathology. Or in his case, the curse of popular idiocracy.
BTW, thanx for Mann’s weasel words. They change nothing.
joeldshore says:
.
No. Any reasonable scientist who knew there was some concern about this proxy WOULD NOT USE IT!
When Steve McIntyre states that Mann has produced all the data, methodologies, code and metadata that Steve has requested, … …
Sorry, that’s not how it works. Any researcher is only obliged to make enough of his suporting material available to enable others to reproduce his results – which the NAS panel, Wahl and Annan, von Storch etc were clearly able to do without having their hands held by Professor Mann, not pander to the neverending demands of every last blogger.
McIntyre has at least once made a fuss about ‘stonewalling’ when he already had the data he was asking for. (And btw in the years after the publication of MBH98/99 this ‘man of integrity’ was in the habit of logging onto Usenet sci.environment discussions using the fake identity of ‘Nigel Persuaud’, and attacking Mann while promoting his own dubious claims.)
Smokey 4:50: “Mann08 is totally debunked crap. Mann used a corrupted proxy, and when caught by McIntyre, he pretended that it didn’t matter. “
Smokey 8:05 “I never said the Tiljander proxy invalidates Mann08”
You really ought to leave longer gaps before self-falsifying if you want to be taken seriously. But then anyone who asserts that a 2009 blog post occurred AFTER a 2008 paper clearly has certain temporal challenges [say what? . . kbmod] ….
Oops clearly I have ‘typographical challenges’. Should be BEFORE, as actually reading the assertions makes clear.
Smokey says:
I suppose for someone who doesn’t care whether what he says is truth or falsehoods, it would make little difference. For someone who does, it would.
joeldshore says:
April 24, 2012 at 6:46 pm
“Fortunately, rational, thinking human beings don’t have to simply believe what they’re told to believe. Rational, thinking human beings can and do check things out for themselves.”
And, coincidently, most of them come to the conclusion that the science says what their ideology wants it to say. This is why we have had scientific policy set by having scientists advise on scientific matters rather than turning scientific matters into political footballs that ideologues use to advance their own agendas.
In addition to a pathetic use of the logical fallacy of Appeal to Authority, that’s a total lie, joel, but pretty much what one expects from a CAGW ideologue. Skeptics/climate realists come from all political persuasions. We are driven by one thing, and one thing only; a passion for truth and for truth-telling. Most of us, to one degree or another used to believe the hype about manmade warming, but for whatever reason, began to look into it further. My own reason for delving into it a little over four years ago was to be able to counter what I viewed at the time as “climate cranks”, with their occasional (somewhat poorly-written) letters-to-the editor. The more I looked, the more problems I found with the whole CAGW argument, not least of which was their claim that “the debate is over”. Debate? I didn’t even know there was one, much less that it was “over”. Something seemed very much amiss. And, indeed, it was.
davidmhoffer says
Jones writes about completing “Mike’s Nature trick” which is a clear reference to the original paper submitted by Mann to Nature in which he ALSO did not disclose until exposed by climategate that he had substituted temperature data for proxy data.
—————-
I keep on telling myself to go find and read this Nature paper you guys keep on referring to. Because if that paper describes the splicing of the data in black and white, it would makes liars out of an awful lot of people.
@LazyTeenager – Go see Steve McIntyre’s explanation for starters:
http://climateaudit.org/2009/11/20/mike%E2%80%99s-nature-trick/
Bruce Cobb says:
(1) While “appeal to authority” may be a logical fallacy in the sense of rigorously proving something, in the civiized world we have generally acknowledged that scientists are the best ones to evaluate the current state of the science for the purpose of informing the public and policymakers. One of the notable features of pseudoscience, whether it be related to climate, creationism, or other such things are claims that the entire scientific community / process has basically been corrupted to the point that we can’t trust the usual scientific authorities and must instead believe a few scientists and many more non-scientists whose opinions are being suppressed..
(2) While it may be technically true that one can find “AGW skeptics” from all political persuasions, in my experience the overwhelming majority of them come from the conservative or libertarian political persuasion. (This is particularly so in the U.S.; it may be a little less overwhelmingly so in Europe.) The only really notable person on the Left who I can think of who is an AGW skeptic is Alexander Cockburn, a columnist for The Nation who seems to enjoy being a gadfly and believing in big conspiratorial theories.
I see that Troll Day is progressing nicely. Amazing set of snide trolls, countered initially by calm responses. But, as the thread progresses, the snideness ramps up, and the calm responses begin to rumble. Typical outcome. Snide wins in its own mind by exasperating the calm. So listen, trolls, please: what are you trying to prove? That your champ, Mike Mann, is some kind of hero? The tone of his book is a rambling whine. The tone of your defending posts is a similar symphony of moral-high-ground posturing and smoke screening. Stick with the facts, please, and stop snivelling. It’s getting to be a kindergarten sandbox in here. Akin to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, where the best team is the one who pisses off the other team to the point that they begin drawing penalties, and lose by never touching the puck. Hockey. Hockey Schtick.
Stick with the facts, please,
Facts: Michael Mann has authored >150 scientific papers, was named by Scientific American as one of the fifty leading visionaries in science and technology in 2002, he has an ISI “H Index” of 40 (40 of his papers have been cited at least 40 times), more than twenty of his papers have over 100 citations each, and two have over 700. Now he is recognised by his peers – the EGU awarding him the prestigious Oeschger medal for ‘his significant contributions to understanding decadal-centennial scale climate change over the last two millennia and for pioneering techniques to synthesize patterns and northern hemispheric time series of past climate using proxy data reconstructions.’ He has also been made a Fellow of the AGU.
Compare with McIntyre’s relatively tiny contribution and recognition. Populist blogs are one thing, however the debate that matters and the one that advances scientific understanding is the one that occurs in academia, primarily in the scientific literature and scientific associations. Witness the recognition and kudos granted to Mann in that arena, survey the number of such associations that endorse the IPCC (I’ll save you some time, it is all of them) and review the literature for studies that give evidential backing for doubting AGW (Oreskes found none).
Those are some facts. Get back to me when you’ve come up with the killer argument that proves that so many scientists have all got it so wrong.
Mike Bromley,
Mention a troll and *poof!* ^it^ appears.
Climate charlatan Michael Mann admits in the Climategae emails to rigging the pal review system, so Phil Clarke is appealing to a corrupted authority… not to mention another appeal to a complete non-authority, Naomi Oreskes. I know more about the subject than she does, and so do plenty of other commenters. Therefore, by Clarke’s twisted logic, our authority trumps hers.
Steve McIntyre is ethical and honest, whereas Michalel Mann is dishonest. McIntyre is the David to Mann’s Goliath, hitting Goliath right between the eyes: Mann will never be seen as honest again. His reputation is in tatters, and bogus awards will never be enough to resurrect it.
The question is, why are Clarke and Shore carrying water for a known liar, who hides inconvenient data in an ftp file labeled “Censored”, and who knowingly uses corrupted data in Mann08 to fabricate yet another fake hokey stick? What are they getting out of it, besides personally identifying with a provable climate charlatan?
Phil Clarke says:
April 25, 2012 at 10:40 am
Stick with the facts, please,
Facts: Michael Mann has authored >150 scientific papers, was named by Scientific American as one of the fifty leading visionaries in science and technology in 2002,
———————-
So all it takes to be a leading visionary in science is to keep other scientist in the dark regarding your data and methods?
I’m not a scientist, let alone a “Climate” scientist. (Go ahead, say “That’s obvious.) I’m not a farmer either. I couldn’t tell you if that pile came from a horse or a cow, but I can recognize what it is.
Naomi Oreskes. I know more about the subject than she does, and so do plenty of other commenters.
Wow. Naomi Oreskes is Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego, and Adjunct Professor of Geosciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, A Fellow of the AAAS, author of many acclaimed books on the history and philosophy of science and was invited to deliver the George Sarton Award Lecture on the exact topic of Proof and Concensus in science.
I had no idea we were in such exalted company.
Oh, and by the way, in statistics it is quite common to perform an analysis several times with a subset of the data withheld. This is known by people with a working knowledge of stats as ‘censoring’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censoring_%28statistics%29
Storing such data in a folder named ‘censored’ is a completely mundane, ordinary, logical and innocuous act.
I bet Naomi wouldn’t make such a blunder.
REPLY: Having watched one of her book tour talks, I’m in agreement that many people here know more than she does about climate science. She’s an historian with a political axe to grind in the CA university system, not a hard sciences person. Dime a dozen here in CA.
Also, you might want to learn to spell “consensus”. And Phil, I keep wondering, since you spend so much time defending these clowns like Oreskes (and she us a hateful political one), what do you do with your “consulting” business? Are you one of those paid commenters we keep hearing so much about? It would seem so given your track record. Greenpeace or WWF payroll perhaps? – Anthony
I hope Phil is a paid lobbyist because if he’s spending this amount of time winding up looking foolish in his defense of Michael Mann for free, that would be just sad.
Really? Geology is no longer a hard science? Who knew?
“Having started her career as a geologist, received her B.S. (1st class Honours) from the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College London, and then worked for three years as an exploration geologist in the Australian outback. She returned to the United States to receive an inter-disciplinary Ph.D. in geological research and history of science from Stanford University, in 1990.”
My day job is at a complete tangent to posting on climate blogs – nothing to do with paid lobbying of any type.
REPLY: Hmmm. She no longer practices that “hard science” of geology but instead, as Steve McIntyre pointed out with Mann, [Oreske’s] ..world is populated by demons and bogey-men. She’s [looking for people like me]…believed to be instruments of a massive fossil fuel disinformation campaign and our readers are said to be “ground troops” of disinformation.
Having seen her talks, I’d say Steve’s description on Mann is also an accurate assessment of Oreskes. I actually have more respect for you than I do her, and that’s saying something. She’s out for damaging anyone any way she can, while selling tickets and books in the process. – Anthony
Mike Lewis says:——-
April 25, 2012 at 8:22 am
@LazyTeenager – Go see Steve McIntyre’s explanation for starters:
http://climateaudit.org/2009/11/20/mike%E2%80%99s-nature-trick/
—————
Sorry, didnt answer the question. Answered some other question. But looking at the graph it seems that
1. it is a number of reconstructions that agree vaguely with each other.
2. In the region of overlap reconstructions and actual temps agree. It’s not clear if the reconstructions are calibrated to actual temps. It would be an impressive match if they were not.
3. The reconstructions and the actual temps are significantly above the medieval warm period even in the overlap region.
Obscuring the splicing would be bad in a paper. Not so bad for a bit of obscure cover art since no one takes cover art seriously.
Judging from the tone it appears Steve is really keen to shove one up Michael, so I am not going to take Steve too seriously.
Looks like I need to look elsewhere for a proper cite of Michaels paper.
I am astounded at the “it was only cover art” excuse. The cover art wasn’t art, it was a reproduction of the graphs from actual studies that turned out to be comprised of two data sets for the express purpose of hiding the results of one by substituting the other. Suddenly claiming it was only “cover art” is a whole new level of “cover @ss”.
Remember, only skeptics can have financial motivations. Any link to funding from an energy company invalidates the science, however indirect or insignificant. Heck, if a connection is merely imagined the findings can be disregarded.
Funding directly from a political organization that is seeking to justify HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars in transfer payments is above reproach. After all, the integrity of politicians at the UN is beyond question.
Why, I’m sure that if AGW turns out to be nothing we’ll hear from the UN right away. They’ll say, “Hang on to that check! It turns out you might not have to send us billions and billions of dollars after all!”
Phil Clarke says:
“I had no idea we were in such exalted company.”
You are. Oreske’s problem is that what she ‘knows’ ain’t necessarily so. In fact, it is flat wrong. That explains why lots of WUWT readers know more than she does.
And it is obvious that Steve McIntyre knows more than Michael Mann about data, code and methodologies. When you look closely, Mann is a charlatan who doesn’t really know all that much. His real expertise is in re-writing climate history.
That is why Mann hides out from the public, and only appears when he totally controls his completely scripted appearances. If he believed what he’s trying to sell, he would not be afraid to answer questions in public.
http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/bradley/mann1998.pdf
Is this the Michael Mann paper you guys have been banging on about.?
There is a hockey stick in there ,but there is also a graph legend that acts as a key to a dashed curve representing actual temperatures. Admittedly the graph reproduction is poor and it’s very hard to distinguish the actual temperature curve.
Seems those climate skeptics who claimed “trick”, meaning an attempt to deceive people, might have some big fat explaining to do.
Let me help. The moving the goal post trick is always helpful in these situations.
P.S. reading the paper it appears the instrumental temps are used to calibrate the reconstruction. So it makes sense that:
1. They match in the overlap region.
2. They are all shown on the same curve.
The trends in the overlap region match, which is good, but it’s not clear if this is a sufficient constraint, considering the statistics, to calibrate the whole time period accurately.
Lazy,
Mann was caught cheating by Steve McIntyre. This time it was Mann hiding a bigger and more relevant data set in an ftp file labeled “censored“. As you can see, if the better data set had been used the temperature trend would have gone in the opposite direction.
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.
Smokey says:
April 25, 2012 at 9:05 pm
Lazy,
Mann was caught cheating by Steve McIntyre. This time it was Mann hiding a bigger and more relevant data set in an ftp file labeled “censored“. As you can see, if the better data set had been used the temperature trend would have gone in the opposite direction.
————–
So you don’t want to run with the splicing is misleading argument. That’s fine. So now the question is; does the file named “censored” actually represent a better data set for a particular reason, or is it only better because you prefer the result of it’s analysis. I assume that it’s the former and so I will go poking around Steve’s site to see what arguments are made there.
One of the lamest, dumbest pro-CAGW arguments I’ve seen yet, given by Shore, above:
“in the civiized world we have generally acknowledged that scientists are the best ones to evaluate the current state of the science for the purpose of informing the public and policymakers.”
By all means, we must be civilized, then, and go along with “the scientists”. My goodness, what will happen to society if we have the audacity to disagree. Yes, that’s what is important. Never mind what is actually true, never mind spending trillions on a non-problem, creating great suffering and hardship worldwide for no reason.
We should be good little sheep. Ba-a-a-a-a-a-a.
Lazy says:
“…I will go poking around Steve’s site to see what arguments are made there.”
The education will do you a world of good, if you keep an open mind. Seriously.
Bruce Cobb says:
What alternative are you seriously proposing? That if the NAS issues conclusions on a subject that agrees with conservative / libertarian ideology then we should make public policy based on these conclusions and ignore the shrill cries of those on the Left who feel the NAS is wrong but if the the NAS issues conclusions on a subject that disagrees with conservative / libertarian ideology, as with climate change, then we should not make public policy based on these conclusions and but should instead listen to the shrill cries of those on the Right who feel the NAS is wrong?
I mean, do you seriously want politicians to draw their own conclusions of what the science says (or choosing their own “pet scientists” who coincidently happen to agree with their ideological point-of-view) rather than listening to the scientific community through the organizations set up to allow the scientific community to give the best scientific input on public policy issues.
I have a definite proposition, which is that the policymakers should use the NAS and other respected scientific bodies convened for this purpose to advise the policymakers on the current state of the science. If scientists or members of the public disagree with these scientific conclusions, then they should be trying to convince the scientists in the field of their point-of-view rather than instead trying to get politicians to abandon the methods that we have of advising public policymakers on the current state of the science.
joeldshore says:
April 26, 2012 at 7:15 am
“If scientists or members of the public disagree with these scientific conclusions, then they should be trying to convince the scientists in the field of their point-of-view rather than instead trying to get politicians to abandon the methods that we have of advising public policymakers on the current state of the science.”
WTF do you think we’ve been doing? Gosh you’re a jackass.
I assume that it’s the former and so I will go poking around Steve’s site to see what arguments are made there.
One thing you will not find there is balance. Blogs have no accountability, and McIntyre is
skilled in finding flaws in analyses, but curiously and consistently fails to point out the impact the flaws have on the overall conclusions. In the case of the MBH studies, the first of their kind, there were indeed flaws, but they turned out to have a negligible impact on the conclusions of the study.
By all means peruse the CA blog, but then also take a look at Wahl and Ammann 2007 and RealClimate, or for a general discussion, Mann’s book.
Robustness of the Mann, Bradley, Hughes reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures:Examination of criticisms based on the nature and processing of proxy climate evidence.
David Ball says:
David: I realize for you in particular, I have a one-name answer, which is “Slaying the SkyDragon”, the book on which your father is a co-author. If you think this is an attempt to convince the scientific community anything other than how ridiculous some “AGW skeptics” are, you are beyond the delusional!
REPLY: Actually, David’s father, Tim Ball, has taken himself out of the “slayers” circle, and has even removed the book from his website.
http://drtimball.com/
He, as many others realize, see the “slayers” as off the rails. For the record, the only coverage I’ve ever given those clowns is a cartoon from Josh. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/01/josh-on-dragon-slaying/ – Anthony
Anthony,
Well…That is comforting to know that Tim Ball can find arguments so silly that he will belatedly disassociate himself from them. However, the question remains why he ever allowed himself to be a co-author of such a book in the first place!
I applaud you for not giving the Slayers coverage beyond that cartoon. However, it is not like the work of people like, say, Lord Monckton is so serious either. It may be better than the Slayer’s work…but that is setting the bar awfully low!
REPLY: Well, I often wonder why I allow you to comment here, with your own “low quality” work, so I guess that makes us even. Your arrogance about people you disagree with is not amusing, so have a nice weekend and we’ll see you on Monday. – Anthony
Joel- I noted that you changed your post (or had it changed for you). never the less, I am curious as to what “99%” of the skeptic arguments they are to abandon, and how ad hominem attacks further the warmists scientific arguments? Please note this is a 2 part question, so an answer to either or both would be appreciated.
joeldshore says: April 25, 2012 at 8:59 am
(2) While it may be technically true that one can find “AGW skeptics” from all political persuasions, in my experience the overwhelming majority of them come from the conservative or libertarian political persuasion.
———————————————–
No surprise there. People who tend to think for themselves (skeptics) and people who need verifiable data before drawing a conclusion, tend to be libertarian and conservative. You seem to be saying that blindly following appeals from authority figures is a *good* thing? I’m sure that the
posters on this website can give a dozen excellent historical examples of authority figures being horribly wrong in politics, science, and economics.
Friends:
I have read the above contributions from warmist trolls with interest and admiration for their gall.
The indisputable facts are as follows.
1.
Michael Mann is famous for only one thing.
He incorrectly used an inappropriate statistical method which he applied to data he selected to generate an apparent climate reconstruction which showed the LIA and MWP did not exist. This remarkable finding refuted much history, archaeology and paleoscience. And the finding is denied by inclusion in the analysis of data which Mann possessed but Mann had hidden in a file which he labelled “censored”. He failed to report the existence and/or the effect of including the “censored” data in his analysis.
2.
Steve McIntyre is also famous for only one thing.
He proved the analysis method invented by Mann is incorrect and cannot provide a reliable indication of past climate as Mann asserted it did.
3.
Mann provided an extreme example of scientific fr@ud in his reports of his remarkable finding. In the emails leaked from CRU, Mann and his colleagues call this fr@ud “Mike’s Nature trick” and “hide the decline”.
It is precisely the same type of scientific fr@ud as the Piltdown Man in that in each case
(a) parts of two different items of scientific information were selected,
(b) the two parts were spliced together to construct an artefact,
and
(c) with an intention to mislead, the constructed artefact was presented to the scientific community as being scientific information.
4.
Mann resents McIntyre having pointed out his analysis method is plain wrong, and he has attempted to smear McIntyre.
5.
Warmist trolls know the reality of the MWP and LIA are an embarrassment to their agenda and they attempt the impossible; i.e. they attempt to defend, Mann, Mann’s work and Mann’s behaviour.
Richard