Steve McIntyre writes:
The Mann libel case has been attracting increasing commentary, including from people outside the climate community. Integral to Mann’s litigation are representations that he was “investigated” by 6-9 investigations, all of which supposedly gave him “exonerations” on wide-ranging counts, including “scientific misconduct”, “fraud”, “academic fraud”, “data falsification”, “statistical manipulation”, “manipulation of data” and even supposed findings that his work was “properly conducted an fairly presented”. Mann also represented that these investigations were widely covered in international and national media and thus known to Steyn and the other defendants.
In today’s post, I’ll look closely at the Oxburgh panel, one of the investigations cited in Mann’s pleadings. However, contrary to the claims in Mann’s litigation, not only did the Oxburgh panel not exonerate Mann, at their press conference, Oxburgh panelist David Hand, then President of the Royal Statistical Society, made very disparaging and critical comments about Mann’s work, describing it as based on “inappropriate” statistics that led to “exaggerated” results. These comments were widely reported in international media, later covered in a CEI article that, in turn, was reported by National Review. Moreover, information obtained from FOI in the UK a couple of years ago shows that Mann objected vehemently to criticism from an Oxburgh panelist, which he characterized as a “rogue opinion” and unsuccessfully sought a public apology.
Mann’s claim that the Oxburgh panel “exonerated” Mann on counts ranging from scientific misconduct to statistical manipulation to proper conduct and fair presentation of results has no more validity than his claim to have been awarded a Nobel prize for his supposedly seminal work “document[ing] the steady rise in surface temperatures during the 20th Century and the steep increase in measured temperatures since the 1950s.”
Read it all here:
I wish that Mann would disappear quietly, and hang his head in shame.
“However, contrary to the claims in Mann’s litigation, not only did the Oxburgh panel not exonerate Mann, at their press conference, Oxburgh panelist David Hand, then President of the Royal Statistical Society, made very disparaging and critical comments about Mann’s work, describing it as based on “inappropriate” statistics that led to “exaggerated” results.”
Oops.
I finally figured out what CAGW stands for: Climate Activist, Global Windbag, and a leading emitter of hot CO2.
I just bought 3 of Steyn’s books in support of his side in this dispute. Mark Steyn is a funny and insightful writer. Mann’s attempt to muzzle him is an assault that any thinking person should recognize and help to repel. Free speech is the prerequisite to all freedoms.
I hope Mann loses decisively. But it’s the courts, isn’t it, and nothing is a given.
What we are seeing here is the meaninglessness of anti-SLAPP. All the plaintiff has to do is make things up and the judge has to take them as fact.
bushbunny says: @ur momisugly February 17, 2014 at 6:27 pm
I wish that Mann would disappear quietly, and hang his head in shame.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Bullies don’t go away, they just get nastier.
“independent investigations” like Penn State, an employer, which already trashed its credibility with the Other Diddler and has an inherent conflict of interests ?!? UEA, a major source of the CAGW advocacy whose funding has been a sizable fraction of the budget with an even larger conflict of interest ? Just a bunch of bull from the Piltdowners.
I used to be surprised at the vitriol Piltdown’s targets have had to endure with his attacks and personal remarks. I think anyone would be within their rights to engage in open mockery of these actors at this point.
None of Mann has been exonerated. If it does come to trial, I think Steyn will. get costs. Mann is hoping against that and that is what his money bags are counting on.
In their 2010 addendum to their findings the Oxburgh Panel provided the following clarification to their report:
Addendum to report, 19 April 2010
For the avoidance of misunderstanding in the light of various press stories, it is
important to be clear that the neither the panel report nor the press briefing intended to
imply that any research group in the field of climate change had been deliberately
misleading in any of their analyses or intentionally exaggerated their findings.
Rather, the aim was to draw attention to the complexity of statistics in this field, and
the need to use the best possible methods.
–It seems clear that this is the complete exoneration that Michael Mann was looking for.
not to mention the plethora of subsequent studies using a multiplicity of other proxy sources and data that all reproduce the hockey stick curve.
philjourdan says: @ur momisugly February 17, 2014 at 7:37 pm
What they are counting on is a corrupt legal system and given my recent experience I am afraid the word corrupt is a very accurate description.
The best bit is the postscript.
Can you imagine Mann’s reaction if that happened? It might be like Krakatoa 2.0
Dr. Mann may regret this yet.
Looking forward to Mann bankrupting Steyn.
If Mann prevails but is awarded by a jury only $1 in “damages”, the effect will be no better than losing outright. Indeed, maybe worse since the implied moral judgement by the jury discrediting his grounds for laying suit would leave Mann with only a cratered-out Pyrrhic victory. That would also pretty much immunize anyone else from any fear to call out Mann as a phony.
Philjourdan
There is virtually no way for steyn to recover costs.
A couple of points to keep in mind. Unless the appeals court steps in and dismisses the case, the case will go likely to trial and which point it will go before a very liberal DC jury and before a new judge (the current one that replaced green-combs) that has shown some sympathy for the claim. Even if the appeals court vacates the jury award in favor of mann, It becomes very difficult to recover costs since you have a judge that rules and the trial court level that there is a case to be decided by the jury. (Mann winning at the trial court level is the likely result – I am being a realist )
I also think the likely result is that the appeals court will vacate any award, post trial.
In my opinion, the case should have been dismissed almost immediately under the anti slapp rules
1) Mann is definitely a public figure
2) there is considerable documentation that Mann both cherrypicked the data sets used and that the statistical methods were suspect and
3) The only moderately investigation of Mann’s work – The NSF acknowledged that statistical methods used were subject to scientific debate.
Remember the Emperor’s new cloths anyone?
I just read most of Mann’s book, ‘The Hockey stick and the climate wars, dispatches from the front lines’.
My opinion is that Mann lives in a dreamworld.
He reminds me a little of those atomic scientists who sold secrets to the Russians, whose understanding of social issues and politics was so bad, someone who dealt with the Fuchs case remarked “I’ve never met someone who was such a good scientist, and so bad at understanding society and politics”.
Mann is terrible at understanding people and politics. There is little hope for him to mellow out. He simply believes that those who agree with him are right, and those who don’t have something wrong with them. He is very much an ‘us and them’ sort of person. Establishment and the rest. He also describes Greenpeace as ‘oft criticised but ever gutsy’, as if what they do and believe doesn’t really matter, its the emotion behind it that counts. ‘The cause’. He frequently can’t relate to what is really going on, and therefore frequently misrepresents what occurs.
This sort of problem occurs in science, people can be reasonable at the science, and terrible at people and politics, which of course can then affect their science. Nothing new. Atomic scientists selling secrets to the Russians on some kind of misguided crusade was a similar sort of issue.
LOL…every time I think of Micky Mann getting mad I picture Yosemite Sam from Bugs Bunny!
@thingadonta Do not forget that the innocence of the atomic spies, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, was an article of faith for American leftists until the collapse of the Soviet Union and the (brief) opening of the archives proving their guilt.
willardgibbs says:
“Looking forward to Mann bankrupting Steyn.”
Why would that be?
Is it because you want pseudo-science to trump honest science? Or are you just bitter because Steyn pointed out the truth?
Anyway, I doubt that anyone is going to be bankrupted. Sorry to spoil your fevered wet dream.
Watch the alarmist conspiracy theories fly, if the Mann lawsuit bounces! 🙂
Does anyone have a link to the original article that provoked the lawsuit?
did Steyn likened Mann to Sandusky, or was it that the PS investigation of Mann was like their investigation of Sundusky, in which case it is the university that is being criticized – but deservedly so.
All of which used either the suspect Bristlecone proxies, the suspect Tiljander proxies, and/or the invalid PCA methods of Mann. See The Hockey Stick Illusion.
Steyn is a folk hero of the highest order, acting upon a sense of high moral principle. It is of greatly pleasant surprise that skeptics now have such a prominent conservative activist dragging Mann into an attempted public defense of his reputation. Mann has a bluff to be called, and any jury seeing the likes of his active promotion of the Marcott 2013 hockey stick as vindication of his own work will plainly understand that there simply is no hockey stick in any of the input data, and thus climate “science” is tainted by fraud.
Mr. McIntyre addressed the addendum of April 19th, 2010 by the Oxburgh panel and notes that subsequent comments by Mann show he expected much more including an apology and concurrence with Mann’s position that Hand was all wrong. That never happened. The addendum by the Oxburgh panel maintains the record that Mann’s use of statistics was inappropriate and that it resulted in exaggerated results.