There is a great editorial in the Columbus Dispatch by Jay Amrose about the abuse of the legal system by Michael E. Mann and his legal actions to try to stifle debate. More on that below, but first, the history of Mann in the context of debate.
Michael Mann once famously said that ‘robust debate’ was a good thing in science:
Source: [ https://twitter.com/MichaelEMann/status/139734953742188546 ]
Also from Dr. Mann’s Twitter feed, he declares that ‘robust debate’ is only good when it’s not with a “denier” scientist or on a network he doesn’t like.
Source: [ http://twitter.com/MichaelEMann/status/316260453770723328 ]
And Mann himself is no stranger to libelous speech in the context of “honest debate”, as the climategate emails show: (bold mine)
From: “Michael E. Mann” <mann@virginia.edu>
Subject: Re: Fw: Rutherford et al. [2004]
X-UEA-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information
X-UEA-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-UEA-MailScanner-SpamScore: s
Phil, I would immediately delete anything you receive from this fraud. You’ve probably seen now the paper by Wahl and Ammann which independently exposes McIntyre and McKitrick for what it is–pure crap. Of course, we’ve already done this on “RealClimate”, but Wahl and Ammann is peer-reviewed and independent of us. I’ve attached it in case you haven’t seen (please don’t pass it along to others yet). It should be in press shortly. Meanwhile, I would NOT RESPOND to this guy. As you know, only bad things can come of that. The last thing this guy cares about is honest debate–he is funded by the same people as Singer, Michaels, etc… Other than this distraction, I hope you’re enjoying the holidays too… talk to you soon, mike
Jay Ambrose at the Columbus dispatch writes of the latest episode from “robust debate” Mann:
[Libel] is hard to prove, which is how the court wanted it. In the written decision, Justice William J. Brennan observed, first, that error is inevitable in broad-based argumentation, and then, employing eloquence, made it clear we don’t want the fear of courtroom retaliation to rob us of the kind of public debate we need: “uninhibited, robust and wide open.”
Now come those who would render it a meek whisper. Supported by errant judges, Michael Mann, a climate scientist, is pursuing a libel suit with targets including Mark Steyn, an unbelievably talented and thoughtful writer, and National Review, a terrific magazine.
Mann is well-known for his “hockey stick” graph maintaining that temperatures on this earth were roughly level for eons and then shot up dramatically because of greenhouse gas emissions. Although his graph came in for some lambasting criticism, a significant number of researchers have agreed with his results, even if some questioned aspects of his methodology. He himself has been fiercely antagonistic toward scientists on different pages, referring to the exceptional Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology as a “serial climate misinformer.”
You would think someone dishing it out that way could take it, but a chief thrust of the Mann suit is that Steyn, in a blog for National Review, used the word fraudulent to describe some of Mann’s work. There are lots of researchers backing Mann up, one judge says, as if that legitimizes the suit. There are also researchers who seriously question his work, and the law says the suit can go on only if Steyn was in doubt. Why would anyone assume he was?
There is a ton more here there’s not space to explore, but the short of it is that a vital principle has as much as been ignored and what’s at risk is conceivable ruination of a superb journalist, the demise of a fine magazine and a major deterrence to uninhibited, wide-open speech. Even if Mann should lose the suit, the expensive defense process is itself punishment, as Steyn has written.
Read it all here, and props to Jay Ambrose for making himself the next target of the wrath of Mann.
Let us hope that Steyn prevails, and that his victory comes with a nice big fat legal bill that the loser (Mann) has to pay. Though, I doubt that Mann himself will be financially damaged, as he has the full backing of the Climate Science Legal Offense Defense Fund.
If that gets tapped out, he can always ask Tom Steyer for money.
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‘Steyer made his fortune as managing partner of Farallon Capital, a San Francisco-based hedge fund that has invested in companies developing tar oil sands in Canada, as well as an oil pipeline company. When he departed Farrallon in 2012, Steyer said he asked his former hedge fund to “green” his investments by segregating his money into a separate fund “free of ecologically unsound investments.” ‘
Par. For. The. Course.
Has Roy Spencer ever said he denies evolution? If not, doesn’t he have a libel case. I don’t think he does, but a person like Mann would think so.
An opportunity for the judiciary to show it’s independence from the executive. One can but hope.
I wonder if Judith Curry ever got an answer to her question about why Mann was nominated as an AR3 lead author before he actually completed his doctorate?
One of the many Mannian mysteries in the world!
Who would dare call a man who credits himself with a Nobel Prize a fraud? Oh wait…that claim was fraudulent.
Bloke down the pub says:
the judiciary….independent from the executive,
Don’t hold your breath, I think you’ve been down the pub to long.
If you can not argue the facts then attack the presenter. In other words Mann could not defend his data and methods so he went to court with Steyn but then Steyn fought back and wanted to go to DISCOVERY which meant that Mann would be required to produce his works and evidence – BOOM HE WOULD BE DESTROYED – he then sought a delay in the trial.
Better to be thought a FOOL that to be proved in court that you are one. JMHO
If I hack your computer and read your private emails and find you have called me a fraud then is that defamation? It is a private conversation between friends and should not reach the public domain. So who does the publishing – it is surely the hacker and those that republish the private communications.
If You post that I am a fraud in the publically read blog/tv/papers you have published that defamatory remark to the public. As such my status has been harmed and that IS defamatory
REPLY: Folks, pay him no mind. Mr. Mike Tuppen is just mad because he got outed in the climategate emails (partly because he launched his own FOIA requests), now run along and archive this on that “climate and stuff” blog nobody reads, and please be sure to add your usual derogatory remark. – Anthony
Whoever taught the climate scientists about the word “robust,” should be hung, drawn and quartered.
Don’t forget, you can support Mark Steyn and his fight against the “climate mullahs” by purchasing something or just buying a expire-never gift certificate here .
Keeping Mark free, solvent and able to keep writing is just as important as doing proper science.
There is an abuse that was left out. Mann is trigger-happy about starting suits, but then he prevents them from going to trial. Mann has no risk of losing that way. He wins if there is no trial. He shuts down free speech and he forces the people he sues to pay huge legal bills to prepare for the trial, but the trial never comes. Kafka comes to mind.
This case is a scary test of America’s commitment to free speech. The worry is Mann has found acquiescent jurors, some of questionable ability, stuffed into the court by sinistras. But this isn’t the most troubling aspect. American society has been moved evermore leftward by the constant pressure of a co-opted, PC imbued, K-12-PhD education system, national institutions, immigration policy, immigration non policy…. This has moved the right-wing leftward, too. Is the new electorate prepared to accept a Ronald Regan type president. Not a chance. To get in, the right is going to have to find a “pink” Republican who will determine much of the legislation already enacted is perhaps ‘too big to fail’. This new right-wing will be the equivalent of what once was the Democrat’s part of the spectrum, continuing the slide.
Not only has climate not warmed in the lifetime of those who have just reached voting age, they have been under the constant tutelage of those imbued with PC thinking. Your speech will be free as long as you don’t say anything that’s ‘not nice’ or even controversial. The disciplining of the ‘not nice’ and controversial will be the main work of the SCOTUS if Mann wins this case. Imagine the docket even a few months later.
UnScientist Mann can’t withstand the data, failing both Richard Feynman’s tests of scientific models and integrity in science.
Mann has stated that warming hasn’t ceased, it’s “just slowed down” (as in “stopped”),
which, as I see it means he is a “climate denier.” Time to call the climate alarmists
“deniers of the new reality.” or “deniers time-warped in the 20th century”
I wish a Federal legal complaint would be filed against the AGU in District Court 1 (DC) regarding their use of membership dues to fund the “Climate Legal Defense Fund” i.e. MEM.
thefordprefect says:
June 28, 2014 at 9:41 am
////////////////
My thoughts for what it is worth:
For the purpose of argument lets assume that calling someone a fraud is libelous (it might not be – and it may also be true), it becomes libelous as soon as the thought is uttered. At that stage, it is published. It matters not that you may say it to a friend. Saying something libelous to a friend is publication, in precisely the sme manner as saying something to a stranger.
The hacking of the computer is merely the obtaining of evidence that the libel has taken place. The hacking of the computer does not create the libel, the libel was created by the exchange of ‘private’ emails in which libelous comments were made.
Of course whether evidence obtained by hacking of a computer can be relied upon, is a different issue. Evidence obtained in that manner, may be regarded as illegitimate, and the Court may not entertain it. In these circumstances, the libel has taken place, but there is no probabtive evidence that it took place such that the action for libel would fail due to lack of evidence. .. .
Use this term and no one can use you for there are fakirs
http://www.paranormality.com/fakir_magic.shtml
Can anyone else find anything accurate in thefordprefect’s post? I can not.
At least one case of fraudulent research has led to federal prosecutors filing charges against a scientist who falsified data leading to millions in grants. The A.P. story, by Ryan J. Foley, appeared in June 25, 2014 Bay Area News Group’s San Jose Mercury News. Although this involved National Institute of Health (NIH) grants, it should serve as a warning to researchers in other fields [such as climate research]. The article states:
“It’s an important case because it is extremely rare for scientists found to have committed fraud to be held accountable by the criminal justice system,” said Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch, which tracks research misconduct.
“It’s a pretty extraordinary case involving clear, intentional falsification,” added Mike Carome, a consumer advocate and director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group. “The wool was pulled over many people’s eyes.” Carome noted that [the researcher’s] misconduct wasted tax dollars and led to researchers chasing a false lead. He said such cases also undermine the public’s trust in researchers.
Iowa State has agreed to pay back NIH nearly $500,000 for the cost of [the researcher’s] salary.
Investigators say former Iowa State University laboratory manager Dong-Pyou Han has confessed to spiking samples of rabbit blood with human antibodies to make an experimental HIV vaccine appear to have great promise. After years of work and millions in NIH grants, another laboratory uncovered irregularities that suggested the results–once hailed as groundbreaking–were bogus.
[Han] is facing four counts of making false statements, each of which carries up to five years in prison.
What you’ve written and discribed Gary is exactly what Australia is wrestling with right now.
After removing the socialist left government, we are now struggling to undo the damage they have done.
The further advancement they have made into our lives in six short years of government is truly frightening.
They had so integrated themselves into all bodys of “control” before they acheived government.
I might add stealing goverment on promises of an ongoing “utopia”.
Once in, it was oh so simple to ramp up the spending on their ideology.
From universitys to government and its accompanying public service.
To state funded media which is little more than a propoganda arm for the socialist left.
None of this happened over night.
All that was in place before they launched their “assault” on the people.
Once they had hold of the purse strings, all hell broke loose.
The pace with which they plunged this country into debt when we had none and tieing us to future debt is staggering.
Your Obama government is running down the very same road.
America should be very afraid.
Ken White at Popehat has been following the Mann case for some time. His most recent post is from May 2, 2014 and has links back to earlier writings. Ken writes in a clear, informative and entertaining style from the point of view of a practicing defense attorney.
http://www.popehat.com/2014/05/02/d-c-court-of-appeals-agrees-to-hear-merits-of-anti-slapp-appeal-in-michael-manns-defamation-case/
“[W]inning in court generally requires competent representation, which is ruinously expensive for normal people. It’s not fair, it’s not right, but it’s true.” ~ Ken
In this context, Michael Mann is not “normal people.”
“It is a private conversation between friends and should not reach the public domain. ”
Looks like the imperfect ford is F.O.R.D.
http://communications-media.lawyers.com/libel-slander-defamation/email-defamation.html
Nice try, but no matter who else might or might not be liable, the original sender most certainly is. And who’s going to sue the re-printers of the e-mail?
re: post by: thefordprefect says: June 28, 2014 at 9:41 am
There is no evidence that anyone “hacked” a personal computer with the ClimateGate emails. What’s more, I believe that emails written on public university computers during working hours are NOT “private” and are in fact subject to FOIA laws. Whistleblowers are also protected.
Toto says:
June 28, 2014 at 9:53 am
===========================================
Steyn has counter sued, and Mann cannot dismiss that.
BTW in Australia me thinks Palmer has really done the dirty on Gore et al. It seems he has completely fooled the whole AGW industry there.They have no carbon tax and no ETS smart move. NO wonder he made millions… NOT a dunce as it appears. He was always either a denier or skeptic of AGW. It seems the AGW scam may actually tumble before we thought it would (years)
” Although his graph came in for some lambasting criticism, a significant number of researchers have agreed with his results, even if some questioned aspects of his methodology.”
What is the serious, scientific defence of the graph which leads a significant number of researchers to agree with his results? I’ve only ever see defence based on character assassination of critics. I really want to see the scientifically rigorous defence.