I don’t have a lot to say about this, but I would suggest reading the comments over at the Climate Audit thread on the subject.
The acount of Richard Lindzen’s testimony in the report is interesting.
~ charles the moderator
UPDATE: Dr. Mann responds to the news in a video interview below.
H/t to Luboš Motl
“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
And what did Bismarck say?
‘Das ist der Mann!’
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/07/01/climategates-death-rattle/
“Hear that choking sound? That’s the dying gasps of Climategate.”
Yeah right Phil, that’s why my rating of Awe for your site dropped to well below zero.
Fascinating comments at Climate Audit. Sooner or later Doctor Mann is going to be nailed.
I’m particularly intrigued by the inclusion of the particular response by Richard Lindzen. There are a couple of theories at CA about it. One was that the blatancy of the putdown is chilling and threatening, the other that the inclusion of his comment was an indirect dig at the first part of the inquiry which dismissed the first three allegations.
I don’t know. It is very odd that it is there. A chunk of grime thrusting through the whitewash.
Next step is Piccola starting an investigation in the state legislature. I can’t wait for the cries of ‘witch hunt’ from the usual suspects.
But wow is the alarmosphere dancing the night away with tom toms, and frenzied dances.
=============
Mann was judged by a “jury of his peers”.
I find this type of protectionism through out our higher education system of protecting the “old boys club” no matter how terrible the science is.
Science is a joke and only hurting the furtile minds that are absorbing this garbage.
Actual physical evidence is put aside for the current theories that protect the current system. What should be classed as actual science is in a class of psuedo-science and fiction is what we are left with.
Gravity should be classed as a psuedo-science as it is theories with a proxy for an outcome.
Meanwhile centrifigal force is classed as psuedo-science even though actual physical evidence can recreate and measure this.
Is it any wonder science knowledge is limited proxies and models that are incorrect?
Having read the Penn State report, I am left with severe nausea.
Is there any whitewash left for my fence? The pejorative word “stolen” with regard to the CRU emails gives the whole thing away. Sorry Charlie, Mann was a conclusions first, supporting data and manipulation of that data, and analysis of that data using methods to produce his conclusions scientist. I would not trust him to mow my lawn.
I am not at all surprised at Dr Mann being totally exonerated in this report. That is exactly what whitewashes do.
His statistical analysis which came up with the hockey-stick was still rubbish, the hockey stick is nonsense and there is still no empirical evidence that the earth is about to fry to a crisp.
The people at CRU and IPCC and Penn State still acted very unscientifically and they are all covering up their own failures and complicity in wilfully manipulating “evidence” to fit their theory.
This is no big surprise. Keep reporting on the truth and the earth’s natural cooling phase over the next 30 years will finish off these warmists. Mind you, they will probably drag out the next ice age scare thing again…
I am waiting patiently for our litigious friends in the US to take Mann et al to court.
In the meantime, why not a sort of “Scope’s” trial for AGW? It would make for thought-provoking TV and would help clarify the issues for the soap-opera crowd.
The foxes assigned to investigate henhouse violence found no cause for alarm. What a surprise.
Awesome!!!!! A great day for science. 🙂
Ape shall not kill Ape!
The bar for “fraud” is high. The bar for sound science is low. Peer review is pal review. Diogenes is still looking for an honest man…
dorlomin says:
“Awesome!!!!! A great day for
sciencewhitewash. :)”Fixed.
I wonder when the public (typically referred to in the Real Climate blog as “uneducated trolls”) will finally make a logical leap to the only one possible conclusion that all the system for funding the sciences is rigged. Asking committee comprised of academics, this is like asking a peer reviewers selected from the mafia if this particular drug dealer’s activity was in the range of typically accepted practices. Of course, it was from their point of view! All Mr.Mann’s activities were exactly what is accepted and required for generating funding, making publications and receiving tenure. Now, if you ask outside of the mafia, i.e. among layman, then you might get a different answer. However, fist, someone should really explain to the public in all the details of how carriers in modern academia are made. My favorite choice for such alternative review panel comprised of “ordinary” public would be Leo Szilard… Oh shoot, he’s dead! May be Richard Feynman… Also dead! Ok, how about Jerome Ravetz and more people like him. May be then the public will become aware of the fact of how our sciences and engineering academia is misusing enormous amount of funding coming from our tax dollars and of how the education of American students is ignored and of how they are substituted with the students from “third world” who are much more complaint. Well, may be you, Mr. McIntyre, should create a think tank for the sake of public education in this matter. I’ll be willing to help you.
If people like Joe Bastardi and Piers Corbyn are right- The planet is about to have
its way with US-and not warming BTW..
Judith Curry posted over at CA:
“In terms of (internal) process and documentation, this report scores much higher than the UK reports. But the internal committee probably won’t satisfy people in the state of PA, we’ll see. In any event, in terms of formal research misconduct as defined by Penn State (which is a fairly common definition), I don’t think Mann is guilty, particularly during the time period he has been at Penn State (which is relatively short). Issues related to standards of ethics and professional behavior can be discussed, but I am not seeing evidence of any formal research misconduct. Back to a point i’ve made earlier, the real issue is the shenanigans that took place in the preparation and response to reviewers in the IPCC reports. IMO, the blame is on the system and people higher up in that food chain than Mann.”
Well, that just further tars my opinion of “academic research.” So they found him not guilty based on how popular he is (read: how much grant money he brings to Penn State), and worse, based on “a definition that is fairly common”. That leaves me to conclude that they’re saying his conduct is just fine because everyone does it. That’s an argument your kids use when trying to get out of trouble! It’s also fallacious–argumentum ad populum AKA appeal to consensus, which is what the entire AGW house of cards is based on.
Not very stringent codes of conduct then. In other words, they can pretty much do whatever they want and still get away with it.
This is why Mann’s actions at UVA need to be investigated. Most of the really nefarious stuff with the hockey stick took place when he was at UVA and even UMass. He got to Penn State when he was already at the top of the food chain.
After reading the report, I am astounded that the committee wouldn’t allow Lindzen to comment on the first three points, nor does it appear they even bothered to talk to Steve McIntyre. That tells you all you need to know.
“Dr. Mann responds to the news in a video interview”
What an appallingly smug little man. And this is one the best that climate science has to offer, one of its rock stars? Embarrassing.
To Jerry Mead:
No this one isn’t the best. Gavin Schmidt from NASA GISS is the best. In my humble opinion, the second best is Ken Caldeira from Carnegie Institution for Science’s Department of Global Ecology (spreading the sulphuf oxide particles in upper atmosphere to cool down the planet supported by Gates and Bono). Those two are the rock stars. The funny coincidence (?) is that KC was a post-doc at Penn State.
My take: you don’t wait to release something on the Friday before a holiday weekend if you are proud of it and believe it can stand up to scrutiny. Such release timing is usually reserved for something which you hope will draw as little attention as possible and will “go away” quickly.
Mann’s video:
What an unbiased interviewer … “misuse of stolen emails”
We’ve got the egregious Fortran77 error. We have the provable lie about the Excel files. We have the backhanded, but erroneous, defense of the hockey stick(Principal Component standard method and validation of the stick by subsequent studies). We have these five stars on the sidewalk of scientific shame saying that Mann’s funding proves his worth and his popularity proves his ethics. It’s a travesty that we can’t find the missing honesty.
=============
I found this segment particularly jaw dropping (aside from the overall pat on the head result) – from Dr. Easterling’s testimony:
Emphasis mine – basically, I read this as his position is “we’re special, the regular rules really don’t apply to us, so it’s fine if we make stuff up as we go along, and that’s just fine”.
Mann is only symptomatic of a much, much larger problem if this is the widespread viewpoint amongst the ivory tower set.
The stated logic in the last part of the Mann investigative report is simply stunning. It basically concludes that if Mann had been guilty of misconduct, he wouldn’t have been able to bring in all that research money, received all those prizes and been held in such high professional regard. Therefore, he must be innocent. That brings me to a monumental question:
“Why is Bernie Madoff in prison?”
CH
Penn State, you failed.
Michael Mann’s problem is now YOUR problem.
I feel bad for all holders of any science degree from Penn State – such degrees have now been depreciated.
Best of luck with the PA legislature.
Penn State defines Research Misconduct as:
(1) fabrication, falsification, plagiarism or other practices that seriously deviate from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities;
Notice it states “academic community” as a whole. It doesn’t use the term “specific field.”
Yet they never justify comparing Mann’s practices to other practices within his field instead of Mann’s practices to other practices within the academic community as a whole.
I hope this committee legally gets called on their blatant divergence from procedure.
OK, I’ve got to give you this, from the marvelous ‘n’ at a general interest blog:
remarkable, Kim, they cherry picked the sample of emails, in order to show there was no cherry picking involved, and “now for my next trick”.
==================
“blue ribon panel”
OJ was found not guilty and his “panel of jurors” earned blue ribbon label.
“criminal hack”
How does he know? Whether it was hack or leak hasn’t been proven
“Fossil fuel funded”
Another strawman.
I can follow his fortran and saw what he modified. “Fudging data” it was done using the Fortran program.
Follow the money. This whitewash is done to preserve the funding at PSU. The “peers” have a vested interest in not tarnishing the name of the school.
CPA’s laugh at calling this exam independent.
You know, when I was an M.Sc. student in biology back in the 1980’s, I used to go up to the department library and read through the weekly issues of Science and Nature. I was struck by the number of high flying researchers, particularly those with large amounts of funding, that kept getting nailed for fraudulent medical research. These people were investigated by independent committees that had no ties to the institutions where the research was being conducted. Why can’t we have that sort of thing here?
I mean, Mx2 turned the data upside down, for crying out loud! Children are more sophisticated than that.
By the way, anything new from the coppers on those “stolen emails” or did I miss that?
Mike ‘Nature Trick’ Mann…
….’has done his best to clarify the uncertainties’, or so he claimed to the BBC….
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/6/24/bad-boys-exaggerated-my-graph-and-ran-away.html
Shame the BBC took the opportunity to splice together proxy and instrument records (always best to repeat the big lies), and cite Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1999 (IPCC 2001).
…such high standards at Penn.
The Emperor has no clothes. Now, all his courtiers are undressing in an insane attempt to cover his shame. How amusing!
On January 12,2010, the Inquiry Committee (Foley, Yekel, Scaroni) and Dr. Brune met
with Dr. Mann. Dr. Mann was asked to address the four allegations leveled against him
and to provide answers to the fifteen additional questions that the Inquiry Committee had
compiled. In an interview lasting nearly two hours, Dr. Mann addressed each of the
questions and follow-up questions. A recording was made of the interview and was later
transcribed. The Inquiry Committee members asked occasional follow-up questions.
He denied, denied, denied . . . . is that the behaviour of a denier? : )
Does anyone know if the 2 hr Mann questioning transcript was made available online?
John
Come on folks, are you really surprised that “frat boys” all stick together? My dad would say “One lies and the other swears by it”. But don’t worry, these type of people get it in the end. Their smugness prevents them from much needed corrective action. Look at OJ for example.
Kim,
I was quite surprised to learn that my Fortran 77 code isn’t portable… And all this time I thought I was moving my code back and forth between Dos(/Windows) and Linux (and curiously the same code I used under SunOS), and using it on all systems…
I guess that I was mistaken in thinking that I had a functioning G77 for Dos…
And the committee’s comment about Excel spreadsheets…what a hoot. Clearly they are people who have limited experience in data analysis…
Follow the stimulus money.
Don’t have a lot of time to analyze this but the first thing that stood out was the implied permission to share in press work with a third party. In the journals where my colleagues and I publish, this is NOT standard practice. Perhaps we’re not such a tight group.
Also, a different computer producing different results with his program? It’s MATH! That’s what computers do. Was the forcing (fudge) factor his computer’s motherboard serial number?
To Chas the Physicist
It is really surprising statement. I do all my modeling in FORTRAN and the computation accuracy is one of the issues that we deal for our particular applications. The physical and numerical models are the main sources of inaccuracy followed by the lack or inaccuracy of the input physical data (like material properties). I have never noticed accuracy dependence on the type of platform; however, I ran same codes on various platforms. Seems like either lie or incompetence.
I feel bad for all holders of any science degree from Penn State – such degrees have now been depreciated.
We never had these problems when Dr. Dutton was in charge of the College. Dr. Barron had potential, but the huge vacuum that was left in ESSC combined with the belief that I don’t think his attention was ever 100% on the College really hurt EMS. Don’t get me started on Easterling.
There appears to be a misunderstanding here of how seriously Penn State must take allegations of research misconduct. Between 2006 and 2009, when Mann joined the PSU faculty, PSU earned $2.8 billion in research grants. Over that same period, Mann brought in $1.8 million. That’s 0.06% of the total research grants. Does anyone here seriously believe that PSU would risk the other 99.94% of research grants to protect ANY single researcher, no matter how respectable they’re perceived to be?
PSU is a tier-one research university. That means that their reputation is everything, and if they hadn’t been completely certain that Mann’s behavior was within acceptable norms for his field, he would have been tossed to the wolves to protect the university.
I recommend the following for a longer discussion of just how seriously any university takes allegations of research misconduct and why it wouldn’t make sense for PSU to conduct a whitewash on behalf of Mann: http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2010/02/15/psu-cover-up-extremely-unlikely/
Brian Angliss,
After waiting 2 1/2 months to finally receive A.W. Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion, from Amazon, I can state that it was well worth the wait.
Rather than making vague assumptions, I really recommend the book to you. It will open your eyes. If there are any doubts regarding the question of Michael Mann’s deliberate scientific misconduct, those doubts will be laid to rest.
You also seem to have a somewhat limited, naive view of the situation. It is not the amount of the grant money that is at risk. Rather, it is the system — the gravy train that would be put at great risk by finding Mann guilty of misconduct. The taxpaying public would demand much closer scrutiny of the billions in federal grants handed out every year. And the climate scare industry can not withstand such scrutiny. Thus, the whitewash.
Sorry, Smokey, but the “gravy train” argument doesn’t make sense either. Annually, all climate research amounts to about $3.8 billion globally, most of which is in the US and is invested in remote-sensing satellites. In contrast, fossil fuel-related industries make up a minimum of 15% of the entire global economy, or a minimum of $9 trillion (that’s $9000 billion for anyone not familiar with the units). If scientists in general were interested only in money, then why wouldn’t the work in fossil fuel-related industries instead of science, where there’s thousands of times more money available?
http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2010/05/05/industry-scientists-climate-profits/
Scientists as a rule are really smart people that could do almost anything with their intellect that they wanted, and yet they go into fields that don’t pay well. Clearly they must be motivated by something other than the “gravy train.”
To Brian Angliss:
Let’s suppose for the sake of the argument that the major fraction of the PSU funding is received for the research similar to M2 research, i.e. not honest by a layman standards. Then the university will defend to the end one specific researcher in order to avoid precedent opening the rest of the research funding to the investigations. Another thought: Promotion and Tenure requirements are so stringent that only extraordinary and geniuses can meet them. Thus, just here in the US we have many thousands of geniuses… But of course, this is nonsense. However, those Profs either truly believe that they are extraordinary able or pretend and lie. Do you think that such people would have a hesitation and second thought of validity of their science and even remote desire to determine true value of their research? Perhaps MM case is not just a particular researcher mishap but rather a demonstration of the deep sickness of academia and the system that funds it.
Walt The Physicist says:
As do I… Spreadsheets are real dogs, when your data stack gets large (e.g. the 1961-1990 NCDC US set is about 8 or 9 GB, decompressed — for my data-mining, I can rip through it in a few minutes).
Certainly not at any level that would matter… And if it is critical (e.g. computational round-offs), you use real*8. Not that any of the data justifies that sort of resolution.
Or both. With a heaping pile of arrogance, hoping that no-one will notice the flaws in the statement.
More evidence that The Auditor did the math and found out Mann was right all along.
Brian Angliss,
Your linked source [Scholars & Rogues] appears to be as heavily biased as Media Matters. They interviewed many university types who all gave Mann a free pass — while not even picking up the phone and calling Steve McIntyre.
Also, you stated that Mann snared $1.8 million for the university, when your source says: Mann has brought in a total of $4.2 million since he joined PSU in 2006. Other than that, it appears that you got all your talking points from that highly questionable and certainly biased link, which states:
Again, why was McIntyre not asked to respond to that self-serving load of hogwash? And as we know, RealClimate is an incredible echo chamber of true believers.
Your second posted link is even more ludicrous, comparing energy companies’ total earned income with federal handouts for “climate disruption.” [<– no kidding, that's the term she used.] Biased, much? That is an apples and oranges comparison if there ever was one.
For a much needed reality check, read the Penn State Report and the Climate Audit thread, both linked at the top of this page. Unless, of course, you don't want both sides of the story. In that case, stick with the Scholars & Rogues propaganda.
So, Smokey, you’re saying that a university vice provost and the heads of several different academic research groups aren’t experts on how critical a university’s reputation is, but McIntyre is an expert on that particular subject?
Neither post addresses any of the points of science, just the secondary arguments like those you’re making – would a university whitewash to protect itself, and is grant money a sufficient motivator for scientists. Answering those two questions didn’t need input from McIntyre, as he’s not an expert on either subject so far as I’m aware.
You misread the numbers, BTW – the $4.2 million applies to grants that are spread out over a period that includes 2010 through 2014, while the $1.8 million applies to what was given to PSU between 2006 and 2009.
Walt – First, I didn’t say “geniuses,” only “really smart.” Second, look at the annual report for PSU research here: http://www.research.psu.edu/about/annrep09.pdf The single largest grant source was the Deparment of Defense, which was 23% of all funding, and all that money went into applied research and electro-optics. Another 14% of research money was from Health and Human Services. You’re willing to accept that PSU would risk their DoD and medical research funds on behalf of Mann?
Let’s look at the numbers a different way. 9.5% of all the research money went into the college of Earth and Mineral Sciences, where Mann is a member of the faculty. Compare that to 24% for defense-related (not all DoD funded), 13.5% into Engineering, 12.7% into Agricultural Sciences, 12% into the college of Medicine. Do you think that PSU’s engineering, medicine, agriculture, and defense-related schools (who represented 62% of research expenditures in 2009) and labs would sit on their hands and let the university screw them over by hosing PSU’s reputation?
Penn State also was third in the country for total industry research grants in 2009. The federal government may not give a damn about their reputation, but companies sure do, and if PSU looked like they were flushing their reputation down the toilet to protect Mann, companies would stop bringing research money to the university. There’s no reason for Penn State to risk that.
My complaint to a self regulating “professional” association about a member a few years ago was handled almost identically.
1. Boil it down to four complaints.
2. Throw out the three most egregious, provable offenses.
3. Appear to ponder long and hard about the least provable and egregious offense.
4. Find the accused “not guilty”.
The process cannot involve cross examination and must rely heavily on the verbal testimony of the member of the association to determine culpability.
ie Examiner: “Did you commit the offense?”
Offender: “No.”
Examiner: “OK, not guilty.”
What a waste of time.
At least Lindzen got to verbalize his incredulity.
Is it standard procedure for the entire “investigating committee” to be “unavailable” for the expert witness testimony? There appear to be five members of the investigating committee, but for each of the outside expert witnesses, only the facilitator was present for the questioning, even though the scheduled dates were posted. If this is a measure of how seriously they took the issues involved, why should we be surprised at the outcome?
Much to my shock and disgust, it seems climate science isn’t the only science where politics is influencing decisions of both individuals and professional groups. The following story was in the news yesterday: Peer-Reviewed Science is Politically-Revised
http://townhall.com/columnists/JaniceShawCrouse/2010/06/30/peer-reviewed_science_is_politically-revised
Brian Angliss,
Let me put this investigation whitewash in a context that is understandable. Assume for a moment that Mann got his just desserts:
Now millions of hard-bitten taxpayers demand that Penn State and Michael Mann refund all climate related grants back to the U.S. Treasury. Furthermore, the whole climate scam would be understood by a public that is weary of the rampant corruption they see everywhere. By putting a spotlight on one of the perps, the public would have another Bernie Madoff to go after, and politicians fearing for their jobs would jump in front of that parade with alacrity.
See? That’s what could easily happen. Even Nature has been forced to admit that Mann’s Hokey Stick chart was debunked.
Now do you understand why Penn State whitewashed Mann? ☹ They really didn’t have a choice, so they arranged an internal investigation along the lines of the CRU investigation. Both were shams.
Next, I did not misread the numbers as you state; you chose to use an artificially low number for a contractual payoff of $4.2 million, because that made the ratio you were trying to construct more lopsided. In fact, Mann was the rainmaker who generated millions for the university. Even your ridiculously biased blog Scholars & Rogues noted the $4.2 million. The money has been agreed to by all parties. You simply parsed the time frame.
Also, I dispute your denigrating of Steve McIntyre, who is more up to speed on climatology than Michael Mann is. McIntyre forced Nature to report that Mann’s work was debunked. McIntyre reverse engineered Mann’s hokey stick chart and showed the world that it was bunk. McIntyre forced the UN/IPCC to stop using Mann’s Hockey Stick chart in its Assessment Reports. Now they can only use pale imitations — which are still fraudulent, but charts are easy to construct, while reverse engineering the secret methodologies used is time consuming and difficult.
Steve McIntyre has run rings around Michael Mann, and everyone knows it. That’s why they shy away from interviewing McIntyre. It is too dangerous to those with a climate alarmist agenda to ask him questions. He knows too much.
Finally, your understanding of human nature appears to be deficient. It doesn’t take more than one individual in the right position to turn a university department or a government bureaucracy like NASA into an organization advocating CAGW — and every employee understands that their continued pay raises and job security depend on their not rocking the boat. So all the talk about how ‘seriously’ the university takes its investigation is just so much hogwash. They are doing what is in their best interest, and that includes whitewashing scientific misconduct by only calling friendly witnesses and restricting the investigation to a few carefully crafted questions.
Read The Hockey Stick Illusion by A.W. Montford. It will force you to accept the conclusion, laid out in detailed chapter and verse, that Michael Mann and others engaged in scientific misconduct for money and status.
The PSU Final Report on MM is the strong evidence that it was primarily protecting itself from immediate loss of reputation. In the long run, though, they seem to be making their reputation suffer more severely by their protectionist actions. What happened in ‘Climategate’ will continue to be talked about critically by independent thinkers who are unaffected the bias of the ‘consensus’ bureaucrats, scientists, environmentalists, and politicians.
Mann is exonerated by this investigation and is also damaged goods.
Lindzen’s testimony is strong leverage for another investigation of MM.
John
Smokey said: “Read The Hockey Stick Illusion by A.W. Montford. It will force you to accept the conclusion, laid out in detailed chapter and verse, that Michael Mann and others engaged in scientific misconduct for money and status.”
Heh.
If your criterium is based on buying into somebody else’s ability to construct a narrative aimed at motivating you for their own purposes, you already richly deserve every political misfortune that overtakes you.
“Give me six sentences written by the most innocent of men and I will hang him with them” was said by Cardinal de Richelieu 400 years ago – yet you’re unaware of it and its implications. Why am I not surprised, given the state of the American body politic these days.
[snip – reference to sex act]
Curious.
Did all of the “peer” investigation jury members also hold large government grants or funding (included in the report was projects from DOE, NOAA, ONR, USAID), or prominent positions, and therefore surely guarded? That is, could there have been some conflict of interest involved? Seems they all came from the same university, namely PSU. Sure can’t call this an impartial investigation. This makes this whole hearing rather meaningless.
I hate the investigators labeling Dr. Mann as “outstanding” in the summary, I mean, even Capone was “outstanding”, though in a slightly different way, they both stand out and one killed people through tommyguns, the other by a hockey stick graph (and yes, people have already died because of this CAGW scare and others making devastating incorrect decisions based upon this CAGW conjecture with all of its scaremongering).
The investigators also seemed to awe at Dr. Mann’s ability to obtain large amounts of funding on so many different research projects from the government. And, solely because of the amount of money involved, the investigators see him as “exceeding the highest standards of his profession” and on that matter of obtaining funds I seem to lean toward dishonest, the smirks in his video says it all. I wish we could get him and many others behind an actual jury, one with real peers (“peers” properly means of equal age, education or social class, not of same profession, organization, group, or family), maybe one day.
I’m not trying to judge Dr. Mann, that is for others, but I personally don’t like what his involvement in the AGW fiasco has done and I have a deep gut feeling that he is but a puppet of some others much higher up the chain, but, that still doesn’t absolve him.
Bottom line, tenths-of-a-degree or millimeters-of-sea-rise doesn’t kill, other sometimes subtle things really do. That may be something for you AGW horn blowers to ponder from a contrarian view.
And Dr. Mann, I have zero funds from anyone, unlike you, no association to any group of any kind, unlike you. How dare you tack that on the end of your video!
Smokey, I pulled my numbers from the S&R post, not just out of the air.
You can’t accurately compare $4.2 million between 2006 and 2014 to the $2.8 billion between 2006 and 2009, because that $4.2 million is paid out in annual chunks, not all at the time the grant is awarded.
If you want to use the $4.2 million number, then you would have to estimate the amount of research dollars that Penn State will bring in in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014. If we assume no growth in grant value, then we should use the 2009 grant number of $765 million for the next 5 years and add that to the $2.8 billion from 2006 through 2009. That’s a total of about $6.6 billion. $4.2 million divided by $6.6 billion is 0.06% again. It’s easier, more accurate, and less misleading to just look at the $4.2 million and determine how much of it was spent between 2006 and 2009.
Even if multi-year research grants were paid 100% at the time of award (and again, they’re not), then Mann would have brought in only 0.15% instead of 0.06%. That doesn’t change the overall conclusion – that PSU has no monetary incentive to whitewash their investigation and every monetary incentive to make sure that the investigation is real – in any way.
I didn’t denigrate McIntyre at all. I said he wasn’t an expert in university policy, reputation, or funding, and given that his background is from industry and not academia, that’s an entirely reasonable thing to say. He isn’t an expert on everything, Smokey, and I have a hard time believing that he’d claim to be an expert on university reputations.
Your hypothetical isn’t logical – Penn State having to pay back $4.2 million would be a drop in the bucket – 0.06%. They’d make that up just in good press for the university, never mind additional research from companies and the federal government who were appreciative of how seriously Penn State took their duty to look at Mann.
I’m unwilling to ascribe Penn State’s behavior to some conspiracy when a simpler and more logical conclusion is available – that Penn State’s investigation was honest and no attempted whitewash took place.
Ron P: Where did you get your “only the facilitator was present” information? It’s not in the PSU investigation report, which says:
“On April 14, 2010, the RA-10 Investigatory Committee (Assmann, Castleman, Irwin, Jablonski, and Vondracek) and Candice Yekel interviewed Dr. Michael Mann.” (p7)
“On April 12, 2010, the RA-10 Investigatory Committee (Assmann, Castleman, Irwin, Jablonski, and Vondracek) and Candice Yekel interviewed Dr. William Easterling, Dean of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, Penn State University.” (p9)
“On April 20, 2010, the RA-10 Investigatory Committee (Assmann, Castleman, Irwin, Jablonski, and Vondracek) and Candice Yekel interviewed Dr. William Curry, Senior Scientist, Geology and Geophysics Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.” (p10)
“On April 20, 2010, the RA-10 Investigatory Committee (Assmann, Castleman, Irwin, Jablonski, and Vondracek) and Candice Yekel interviewed Dr. Jerry McManus, Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University.” (p12)
“On May 5, 2010, the RA-10 Investigatory Committee (Assmann, Irwin, Jablonski, Vondracek; Dr. Castleman was not available) and Candice Yekel interviewed Dr. Richard Lindzen, Professor, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.” (p13)
Only once was any one of the investigators missing, and that was Castleman regarding the testimony of Lindzen.
chek @ 2:49.
Ooh, a good one for my museum of ironies: “somebody else’s ability to construct a narrative aimed at motivating you for their own purposes.” The unconscious ironies are the best. Finger lickin’ good.
=============
Einstein said: “No amount of experimentation can prove me right; only one experiment can prove me wrong”.
There isn’t one experiment proving agw doesn’t exist; there are many. Miskolczi. Gerlich and Tscheuschner. Ernst-Georg Beck. Landscheidt.
But, the irony is the ice core data showing that temperature increases happen about 800 years before the CO2 increases. Game. Set. Match.
to Brian Angliss
Yes, thank you. I appear to have misread the listing of attendees by 180 degrees. Since I’m old, I’ll claim a senior moment (but the truth is I goofed).
Brian @ 3:12
OK, I’ll take Richard Lindzen over Steve McIntyre on ‘university policy, reputation, or funding”: ‘I’m wondering what is going on here’.
Brian, yet another irony for my museum. I need a new wing. Laugh busters.
==================
kim said:”Ooh, a good one for my museum of ironies: “somebody else’s ability to construct a narrative aimed at motivating you for their own purposes.” The unconscious ironies are the best. Finger lickin’ good”.
Yep you may think so, except Montford et all don’t have a narrative for the disappearing arctic ice and other salient facts and depredations in their accountant’s worlds. Which kinda skewers them.
chek,
Credibility question: Have you read The Hockey Stick Illusion ?
Brian Angliss,
Did you follow the Muir Russell investigation? It was almost identical in form to Penn State’s: the fix was in before it started, and most everyone knew it.
Internal investigations are always a sham; either used to get rid of undesirables, or to exonerate wrongdoers. True justice requires a jury, cross examination, and each side calling their own witnesses.
None of that took place in either of these internal investigations, and the outcomes were never in doubt. But I forgive you for believing otherwise, because you’re hopelessly naive about human nature. ☺
Not that it is a surprise to anyone, but it still makes me want to puke.
As a student, this intentional coverup of a man who has led students astray and lied to the US Government and stolen tax payers money for nothing should be going to prison, however he and his cronies continue in their smug ways.
chek @ 3:52.
More amusement: “salient facts and depredations’.
Sure it’s been warming. What’s that got to do with CO2? Prove it.
===========
That’s Dr. McIntyre to you and Penn State’s “expert” inquiry.
Hu,
As I said at CA the most damning aspect of this report it what it does to the credibility of academic research.
However, your joke is also telling. How could they have possibly performed a complete investigation without knowing the credentials of the players involved?
Just me, or is Mr Mann paranoid much? I am still waiting for my Big Oil paycheque… been waiting a while now.
I must say the overall impression of the guy is that I would not buy a used car from him… heck even a used pencil…
Phrasing my questions so that folk don’t simply accuse me of appealing to authority…
How many commenters on this thread have completed the work to earn a PhD in climatology?
How many commenters on this thread have completed the work to earn a PhD in any science discipline?
How many commenters on this thread have completed the work to earn a Masters in climatology?
How many commenters on this thread have completed the work to earn a Masters in any science discipline?
If the commenters on this thread cannot answer at least on of the above questions in the affirmative, what makes them believe that they have sufficient exposure to or understanding of the processes of analysis employed by Mann, and indeed by the PSU investigation, that they are able to claim that there has been a covering up of inappropriate behaviour?
Heck, putting educational acheivement aside for a moment:
How many commenters on this thread have ever worked professionally in climatology?
How many commenters on this thread have ever worked professionally in any science discipline?
If folk cannot even answer the last question in the affirmative, how is it that they believe that they have the facility to understand anything of the science involved? This last is itself a serious question, because it is folk such as would have to respond negatively to all of the previous questions that are most likely to exhibit the oft-cited Dunning-Kruger effect, and in their ignorance not comprehend that they have completely the wrong end of the stick.
As someone who is able to respond in the affirmative to three of the questions I posed, I see a lot of people here who are grasping the wrong end of the stick, and who are prepared to beat others with their woody bits without any real understanding of why they are completely in error in so doing.
Angliss,
Congratulations on your quantitative analysis for what the truth is.
Bernard J.,
Mr. Steve McIntyre has shown that he is more knowledgeable regarding climatology than Dr Michael Mann. That is true whether you like it or not.
So much for your little chest thumping polemic.
Based on a quick “Climategate” Google News search, it appears that many in the elite news media are now celebrating the ‘exoneration’ of the climate scientists. I note one headline of the day reads: “If Only Oil Spills Would Evaporate Like Climategate.” They only seem to be lamenting that it has taken so long for the ‘truth’ to come out.
I personally feel these ‘exonerations’ were the predictable as the only politically correct outcome allowed.
Bernard J,
Your arguments are an appeal to authority.
I have one simple question, although you may be as technical as you like in your answer. What evidence causes you to believe that the majority of recent warming is anthropogenic? No where that I have looked has this question been answered except in the BBC interview with Dr Jones. Let’s just say that his answer, that we can’t think of any other reason, was unconvincing.
Smokey says:
July 2, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Internal investigations are always a sham; either used to get rid of undesirables, or to exonerate wrongdoers. True justice requires a jury, cross examination, and each side calling their own witnesses.
VILLABOLO RESPONDS:
Does that apply to Lord Monckton? You know, the Skeptic who:
1) Cut up a temperature chart, the UAH Globally Averaged Satellite Based Temperature . . ., right on 1998 in order to give the impression of Global Cooling?
If you want to look at this chart and figure how ingenious his TRICK to ALTER the chart and create a false DECLINE is, please see the chart duplicated by Roy Spencer at the beginning of Anthony’s article: “June 2010 Temperature, cooling a bit as El Nino fades.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/02/june-2010-temperature-cooling-a-bit-as-el-nino-fades/
2) Consistent misquotation, distortion and fabrication of scientist’s statements in order to give the impression that they support his views.
3) Outright falsehoods that are the photographic negative inversion of the facts, such as stating that the 5 major global temperature data sets prove his claim of Global Cooling when the exact opposite is true. (statement located at 1:23 on the following video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne-X_vFWMlw&feature=related
It hardly matters what one believes about Global Warming or Cooling. What matters is that he is stating the exact reverse of what those data sets, like the one posted on the El Nino thread, states.
If this is the “science” by which one makes decisions of major importance (and please don’t bore me with “Cap and Trade” which many educated “AGW” do not support) then who is calling for the imprisonment of people like Lord Monckton who are the ones supported by the Oil Companies such as Exxon Mobil and the Koch brothers?
You are always projecting what you are guilty of unto others. Slandering an entire scientific profession of being in it just for the money when there are many other ways of making more money is a measure of moral torpidity. Do you even know that only 34% of Climatologists are employed by the Federal Government (Bureau of Labor Statistics: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos051.htm#emply)?
Why not go ahead and declare the Moon landing a fraud based on this “Government Employees and Administrations are faking things to get funds” logic.
You want to talk about the REAL MONEY? Look at those who deal in hundreds of billions of dollars instead.
Bernard J. says:
How many commenters on this thread have completed the work to earn a PhD in climatology?
Um, I’m sure lots of other folks will point out the LACK of PhD Climatology among the major “climate researchers” such as Hansen… So I’ll just point out that it is considered “Age Discrimination” to demand a degree in a relatively new field from folks when attempting to hire for a position.
In Computer Science, we must advertise for “or equivalent” since most folks my age can not have such a degree. They did not exist then.
Similarly, I would expect that “Climate Science” as a distinct field is fairly new (having largely been part of Geology, Meteorology, et.al. prior to becoming a fad.) It would be very interesting to find out just WHEN the first “Climate Science” degree was handed out by that name.
So if you want to be an age discriminator, go right ahead.
BTW, it is typical in most fields to have a LOT of interdisciplinary folks looking at complex systems problems as each helps fill in holes in the other specialists knowledge. In my case, I’m a “computer guy”, so I’m fully qualified to critique the computer skills applied in, for example, GIStemp. And they are pretty poor.
How many commenters on this thread have completed the work to earn a PhD in any science discipline?
Quite a high percentage, from what I know of the biographies of commenters here.
How many commenters on this thread have completed the work to earn a Masters in climatology?
Again with the age discrimination and too narrow focus thing. You really need to work on that.
How many commenters on this thread have completed the work to earn a Masters in any science discipline?
Well, a heck of a lot. Now if you allow the “or equivalent” you get even more folks. Like me. I ‘tested out’ for an ICCP certification that is treated by the State of Washington as the equivalent of a masters. Oh, and there is that small matter of about 25 years of professional experience in the field of computing… Oh, and my college level teaching credential in Data Processing and Related Technologies.
How many “climate scientists” have a masters level in computer science and a teaching credential in it? None? A couple? GEE, maybe we ought not to let them use computer models then…
If the commenters on this thread cannot answer at least on of the above questions in the affirmative, what makes them believe that they have sufficient exposure to or understanding of the processes of analysis employed by Mann, and indeed by the PSU investigation, that they are able to claim that there has been a covering up of inappropriate behaviour?
Oh, now we’re back to the Appeal to Authority thing.
It’s called a Jury of Peers. You grab 12 folks off the street and they get educated about what is going on in a case and render a verdict. The lawyers typically are not specialists in what the Perp did either.
Look, all it takes is a working brain and a willingness to work at it a bit.
Get over it.
How many commenters on this thread have ever worked professionally in climatology?
Oh come off it. “Climatology” only became a gravy train recently. Take a look at the papers being published. Loads of folks with Biology and Econ degrees hopping on the bandwagon too. Even failed railroad engineers.
This stuff isn’t brain surgery. Frankly, it’s a heck of a lot easier than many of the database systems I’ve had to design and vastly easier than compiler development. ( I ran the QA department for a compiler tool chain… FWIW, these “climate scientists” could use A LOT of help in the whole QA process department. They are rank amateurs when it comes to professional grade archives, QA suites, and code validation procedures).
How many commenters on this thread have ever worked professionally in any science discipline?
How many lawyers and judges have? You don’t need to be a con man to judge one. And you don’t need to be employed in a ‘science discipline’ to understand it. (And I’m not real sure what a ‘science discipline’ job would encompass anyway. Would it include the field of economics? All those fantasy predictions of the end of our economy from all sorts of fantasy climate ills? The predictions of a perfect world if only cap and tax were implemented? There is an awful lot of room under that ‘climate science’ tent… So I hope you are willing to accept a B.Arts as a ‘science discipline’ because you have a lot of economic hand waving from about that level being done by the ‘climate scientists’…)
If folk cannot even answer the last question in the affirmative, how is it that they believe that they have the facility to understand anything of the science involved?
It’s called ‘having a brain and using it’. It works rather well.
BTW, you may not realize it, but you are making the same class of argument made by the Popes toward Martin Luther and the Protestants. Everyone can read a Bible and make up their own mind what it says… they don’t need a Pope, a Bishop, or even a Father to tell them what to think.
So you can keep your Climate Popes and Cardinals too. (Take AlGore first, please… before he gets another massage…)
ShrNfr says: July 2, 2010 at 4:28 am
Is there any whitewash left for my fence? The pejorative word “stolen” with regard to the CRU emails gives the whole thing away. Sorry Charlie, Mann was a
You are correct the emails are not stolen. However a google on the British computer misuse act shows that they have been obtained illegally and the people releasing the data are criminals:
1 Unauthorised access to computer material
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if—
(a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer;
(b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorised; and
(c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that that is the case.
(2) The intent a person has to have to commit an offence under this section need not be directed at—
(a)any particular program or data;
(b) a program or data of any particular kind; or
(c) a program or data held in any particular computer.
(3) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or to both
17 Interpretation (1)
The following provisions of this section apply for the interpretation of this Act.
(2) A person secures access to any program or data held in a computer if by causing a computer to perform any function he—
(a) alters or erases the program or data;
(b) copies or moves it to any storage medium other than that in which it is held or to a different location in the storage medium in which it is held;
(c) uses it; or
(d) has it output from the computer in which it is held (whether by having it displayed or in any other manner);
There is no provision for whistle blowing in this act. Unless the owners of the data gave permission for their release this is an illegal act.
Stolen emails is the wrong term but it is a lot shorter than “emails obtained by an unauthorised access offence”
Smokey says:
July 2, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Bernard J.,
Mr. Steve McIntyre has shown that he is more knowledgeable regarding climatology than Dr Michael Mann. That is true whether you like it or not.
So much for your little chest thumping polemic.
VILLABOLO RESPONDS:
Smokey, Bernard’s “chest thumping polemics” would indicate that many people are not in a position to know who a qualified Climatologist is.
villalobo,
Let’s see you reverse engineer secret Mannian algorithms like Mr Steve McIntyre did. Note also that Climatology is a subset of Meteorology. And just so you understand, that doesn’t refer to the study of meteors.
Doug Badgero says:
July 2, 2010 at 7:52 pm
Bernard J,
[–SNIP–]
I have one simple question, although you may be as technical as you like in your answer. What evidence causes you to believe that the majority of recent warming is anthropogenic?
[–SNIP–]
VILLABOLO:
Doug, do you realize how silly it is to ask such a broad and general question? From what I’ve seen Skeptics themselves do not have a coherent answer to how “Nature” is causing Global Warming. Or the fact that there even is Global Warming.
Where are the papers and equations proving Lord Monckton’s claim that CO2 has 1/6 the heat insulating capacity that evil Physicists claim? Where are the actual mathematical equations that disprove what demonic Astrophysicists say, namely that the Sun”s minor fluctuations are incapable of causing Global Warming! They are obviously part of a genocidal, one world Communist conspiracy for disagreeing with his baseless, quack science pretensions.
Like that old lady in the hamburger commercial many years ago said, “Where’s the beef?”.
Walt The Physicist says:
…. the second best is Ken Caldeira from Carnegie Institution for Science’s Department of Global Ecology (spreading the sulphuf oxide particles in upper atmosphere to cool down the planet supported by Gates and Bono).
I’m not sure you understand.
“Gaia” Lovelock, the Greenest Scientist of All, found out a Russian (Buyko) had this idea to Cool the Planet with Sulfur in an Emergency.
Lovelock advocated building it to “keep it in our back Pocket to use in case we were Desperate”.
“Dr. Ozone” (Paul Crutzen) denounced it as dangerous, while support grew (even though the cost started at $200 Billion for Airplanes)
… In 2006 Crutzen CHANGED SIDES, based on studies of Mt. Pinutubo’s 20-million-ton Blast.:
He said something like: ‘GOD HIMSELF has tested Sulfur — through his Mt. Pinatubo’s Volcanic Explosion — & found it both safe & effective’
= an FDA test for SAFETY & EFFICACY, right ?
Meanwhile, PHONY GREENS concocted demonizing CO2 & Sulfur as a Scam to INCREASE PARTICULATES (Diesel Soot) AND POISONS (Mercury in flourescents — they never want to force us to use LED’s, note ) …
While the Copenhagen Consensus of REAL GREENS found a zero-risk Plan for less cost: Spray Sea Water for Cooling via more reflective Clouds ($6-to-9 Billion).
… Between Crutzen finding he could use 1/320th of Pinatubo’s 20 million tons & the use of — instead of expensive planes – – 5 hoses elevated by Baloons to 21 miles high – – the cost dropped to $40 million, plus $15m per year.
>>Ken Caldiera was funded as the Spokesman Against Crutzen
He .. ALSO turned coat after he studied the matter further, a couple years ago – – though green blogs still have his Quotes.
As he says, NASA Greenhouse experiments showed not JUST that it was safe, but that the High Altitude Component was what had increased Plant growth — REDUCING CO2 GROWTH.in the Atmosphere to a fifth of it’s normal gain..
>Super-Freakonomics came out with a $20 million scheme to “just” build the 2 Polar sites,because the Main risks of Warming are from Arctic Ocean Ice Melt-off leading to Ocean Current Shutdown, or the Southern Icecaps Catastrophically SLIDING Off (PS we now know this will happen.only over 1000s of years, a semi-unknown fact because what gets Quoted is a Geologist saying “Catastrophically Fast” when 3000 years is, to them, FAST. Greenland may have actually started this: but the Fastest Model has only 21-to-40 % in 400 years)
>> A year Ago Obama’s Global Warming Advisor signed on to the idea — & was blasted for it.
– – You do realize that $20 million is 20 THOUSAND TIMES cheaper than the $400B/year Cap & Trade Bill ???
Smokey says:
July 2, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Internal investigations are always a sham; either used to get rid of undesirables, or to exonerate wrongdoers. True justice requires a jury, cross examination, and each side calling their own witnesses.
VILLABOLO RESPONDS:
Does that apply to Lord Monckton? You know, the Skeptic who:
1) Cut up a temperature chart, the UAH Globally Averaged Satellite Based Temperature Chart, right on 1998, in order to give the false impression that it supported Global Cooling?
If you want to look at this chart and figure how ingenious his TRICK to ALTER the chart and create a false DECLINE is, please see the chart duplicated by Roy Spencer at the beginning of Anthony’s article: “June 2010 Temperature, cooling a bit as El Nino fades.” Look at the transition between 1979-1997 and
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/02/june-2010-temperature-cooling-a-bit-as-el-nino-fades/
2) Consistent misquotation, distortion and fabrication of scientist’s statements in order to give the impression that they support his views.
3) Outright falsehoods that are the photographic negative inversion of the facts, such as stating that the 5 major global temperature data sets prove his claim of Global Cooling when the exact opposite is true. (statement located at 1:23 on the following video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne-X_vFWMlw&feature=related
It hardly matters what one believes about Global Warming or Cooling. What matters is that he is stating the exact reverse of what those data sets, like the one posted on the El Nino thread, states.
If this is the “science” by which one makes decisions of major importance (and please don’t bore me with “Cap and Trade” which many educated “AGW” do not support) then who is calling for the imprisonment of people like Lord Monckton who are the ones supported by the Oil Companies such as Exxon Mobil and the Koch brothers?
You are always projecting what you are guilty of unto others. Slandering an entire scientific profession of being in it just for the money when there are many other ways of making more money is a measure of moral torpidity. Do you even know that only 34% of Climatologists are employed by the Federal Government (Bureau of Labor Statistics: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos051.htm#emply)?
Why not go ahead and declare the Moon landing a fraud based on this logic of “Government Employees and Administrations are faking things to get funds”.
You want to talk about the REAL MONEY? Look at those who deal in hundreds of billions of dollars instead.
Smokey – ‘Climate science’ as currently construed is broader than meteorology, there’s a fair amount of physics, organic chemistry, geology, etc.
Not that the practitioners of ‘climate science’ are always well-qualified in those disciplines, or that they wouldn’t be better off having a statistician’s understanding of the limits of data accuracy, an engineer’s training in the technical constraints of data collection equipment, and/or a professional database administrator’s training in data management.
That reminded me of something……now what was it?
Ref – Bernard J. says:
July 2, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Q: How many horse thieves, cattle rustlers, bank robbers, murderers, rapists, child molesters, wife beaters, etc., (to include everyone committing all lesser offenses in the criminal code) have been tried and imprisoned and even executed by their peers?
A: Every one!
Your appeal makes no sense. In fact, it’s an insult to your own intelligence. How many traffic tickets have you received? Did the cop who wrote it have the same specialty and background that you have? Why does that matter one wit? Answer, it doesn’t! The crime we are speaking of is one that we are all familiar with and it has nothing to do with Mann‘s education or profession.
Mann has the integrity of a Wall Street Stock Broker (well, the worst of them:-). And, as one of his peers, I know whereof I speak.
“A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, — a mere heart of stone. ”
— Charles Darwin
Oh dear.
I seem to have upset a number of folk, who mostly do not seem to have been able to parse my previous post.
Please note that I explicitly indicated that I was not appealing to authority, and that I deliberately used terminology to reflect this. For those who need reminding:
I was attempting to determine who, amongst those had posted previous to my first posting, were comptetent – through actual experience – to make the comments that they had on this thread.
It seems that the answer is “not many”, and that of those who do qualify, there has been no commentary by them in the professional area. Why is this, if one is claiming to challenge world authorites?
As to McIntyre’s perceived superiority over Mann with respect to competence in climatology, I have another question – upon what criteria is such a claim made? The claim implies some comparison of each of the two gentlemen’s qualifications, their experience, their professional corpus operis, and the relative correctness of their positions on the disputed matters at hand – and I have seen nothing tested in the professional arena that raises McIntyre over Mann.
Blog Science and protestations of conpiracies to hide the truth are collectively another matter entirely, but as they sit next to conspiracy theories that the British Royal family is actually a group of alien reptilians, they count rather little in the overall scheme of things…
And for what it’s worth, one of my neighbours and good friends is an atmospheric physicist. He himself draws quite a distinction between meteorology, climatology, his branch of atmospheric physics, and other sundry related, but nevertheless distinct, disciplines. A general undergraduate degree alone, in physics or in meteorology, is hardly solid grounds for establishing bona fides in which to claim authority over world-recognised professionals in the field. If one were to presume to do so one would require a very robust and conspicuous body of work with which to make a challenge, and the simple fact is that I have not seen anything that remotely fits that description.
My challenge to those here who disagreed with my first post was essentially aimed at establishing their credentials for making the claims that they do. I see no solid response to that first challenge, and I await with anticipation any response that might succinctly demonstrate the indisputable ‘science’ that those same proponents base their claims upon.
Enough with the sound and fury, gentles all – simply present a case that would actually hold up in a court of law, under the scrutiny of a Supreme Court judge. Humour me on this – a one page opening statement should suffice to capture the jury on the first peak of its retention curve.
Nota bene, I don’t think that the ‘whitewash’ defense would cut it, somehow…
Bernard J,
I enjoy these debates, because you have picked the losing side, so you’re going down with the ship. You say:
Well then, let me enlighten you. By limiting your statement to only ‘professional’ qualifications, and by what you have seen, you are hiding behind the same wall that Michael Mann hides behind. The perfumed denizens in the ivory tower of academia truly live in their own world, insulated by tenure from the precarious situation of ordinary working folks. No wonder you think you’re special.
It is not McIntyre’s ‘perceived’ superiority over Mann; it is real intellectual superiority. Their ‘relative correctness’ has been established, and the doctor has been shown to be fraudulent. Steve McIntyre has conclusively shown that Mann’s work is bogus: the IPCC no longer uses Mann’s original hockey stick chart in any of its publications. And the IPCC absolutely loved Mann’s chart. The pale imitations it now uses do not have nearly the visual impact of Mann’s original — but fraudulent — chart.
The fact that Michael Mann still refuses to engage in any kind of debate with Steve McIntyre says it all. The reason Mann hides out is because McIntyre has forced the IPCC, Nature and everyone else not afflicted by Festinger’s cognitive dissonance to admit that Mann’s hokey stick chart is mendacious, and it also shows how thoroughly insular and corrupt the climate peer review clique is.
If you think that letters after your name immunize you from legitimate criticism, you are living in a pre-internet fantasy world. Your pompous young hero has been thoroughly debunked by a non-PhD. Tough noogies, but the truth has won out over the scam artist, and trying to defend Mann’s scientific misconduct based simply on his doctorate shows how far the mighty have fallen. Michael Mann has done more damage to academic degrees than you realize.
Finally, your allusions to a court of law are laughable. That is the very last place your boy hero wants to be — judged by an impartial jury that has heard opposing witnesses, arguments, and evidence — rather than by Penn State’s internal whitewash of his scientific misconduct.
villabolo,
You, like most warmests, ignore the null hypothesis of natural variability. If you wish to claim that skeptics inability to explain why the earth has warmed naturally is on equal footing with the warmists claim that it is anthropogenic, because they can think of no other cause, I can accept that as a starting point. Then we both must acknowledge that an appeal to authority cannot occur, because no authority exists. The best that can be said about warmist behavior of the last two decades is that they have misrepresented the uncertainties in their science or they have been blinded to those uncertainties by their own arrogance.
And there was nothing silly about my question. If CAGW was strongly supported by the science I would expect perhaps the following:
1. A laundry list of unprecedented events that constitute a large body of circumstantial evidence that something unusual is occurring
2. A basic theory, based on first principals, to support causation due to CO2.
3. Empirical evidence, or a first principal theory, to support the existence of the necessary positive feedbacks.
To date I have seen convincing evidence of only the second item and the existence of the third item seems unlikely.
Bernard J,
What of Edward Wegman, do you place Mann above Wegman? How do you reconcile a disagreement between two people you see as equals?
But…but…he must be guilty! If he’s not guilty, then we’re wrong! But we can’t be wrong, because we’re right–after all, nobody’s proved us wrong, as far as we know or have noticed or are willing to admit, . No, that can’t possibly be true. That in itself is reason enough to propose (then choose, then accept, then repeat, then consider established, then repeatedly cite as settled fact) a nine-step theory to explain a one-step fact. Plus, he said stolen when they were really just, oh, I don’t know, borrowed.
Hack, hack, hackity-hack. Rave and burn. Repeat if necessary.
ice9
ice9
ice9,
As I stated above: “Internal investigations are always a sham; either used to get rid of undesirables, or to exonerate wrongdoers. True justice requires a jury, cross examination, and each side calling their own witnesses.”
I have been involved in many internal investigations as a part of my carreer. I have never seen nor heard of a single exception to what I stated above. Justice requires an adversarial setting, and internal investigations such as Penn State’s and Muir Russell’s kangaroo court are all simply exercises controlling the P.R. spin. Internal investigations are always used to either exonerate wrongdoers, or to jettison undesirables who may be a problem to the organization or to those in power. Feel free to ask anyone who is involved in similar internal investigations. An adversarial setting is the only way to separate truth from fiction and internal politics. As has been pointed out here, there is no way these sham investigations would ever dare to call McIntyre, McKitrick, Wegman, or anyone else as witnesses who understand the shenanigans that Mann used. They do not want the truth. They want a pre-ordained result exonerating their rainmaker, and that’s exactly what they got.
The same complaints about a stacked deck would have been made by the alarmist contingent if Mann was an undesirable who had to go. The real problem is that internal investigations have zero to do with right or wrong.
In my own casual investigation in this thread I note that chek went missing as soon as I asked him the credibility question, and our other dense friend constructed an elaborate strawman argument trying to attack his superior, Lord Monckton. This discussion and article is about an internal investigation, but when a strawman is all you’ve got, then that’s what you use. Lord Monckton had nothing whatever to do with these internal investigations, and bringing his name up is simply a red herring argument. It is interesting to note, though, that some ankle biters are so fixated on the man who rubs their noses in the playground sand in every debate. ☺
Then there is Bernard J, who apparently believes that simply because the conniving Michael Mann has letters after his name, then his version of events must be accepted over everyone else. Note to Bernard: unquestioningly accepting Mann’s version of events is what happens only in an internal investigation. Rather, Bernard should be up in arms regarding the devious doctor Mann — who has done more to bring disrepute on science and to sully academic achievement than almost anyone else.
“Michelmann thinks he’s so smart
Totally inventing the hockeystick chart
Ignoring the snow and the cold and a downward line;
Hide the decline, hide the decline….
Hide the decline, hide the decline”
Once he’s been convicted and jailed, perhaps that video will be resurrected.
Warmist sourpusses simply have no sense of humor.
“Saving the planet” is such a burden, after all.
The Score
Mann 2
Mann’s critics 0
Wren says:
The Score
MannWhitewash 2Mann’s criticsImpartial Justice 0.
There. Fixed.
Smokey says:
July 3, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Wren says:
The Score
Mann Whitewash 2
Mann’s critics Impartial Justice 0
.
There. Fixed.
—-
Wishful thinking is comforting, but doesn’t change outcomes.
My guess is after the Virginia thing is over, it will be …..
Mann 3
Mann’s critics 0
Predictably, the WUWT choir is in perfect congruence with the 9/11 Truthers.
Multiple investigations find no wrongdoing?
THAT PROVES THE CONSPIRACY!!!!
This would be funny if the witch hunt weren’t so cruel.
[REPLY – Seeing as how you are your own worst enemy, I will be even more cruel — by letting this post stand as it is. ~ Evan]
Ref – Wren says:
July 3, 2010 at 7:43 pm
“A pyrrhic victory is a victory with devastating cost to the victor..”
As an academic, Mann is a has-been with a whitewashed record. How proud his parents must be. Don Quixote was a piker compared Herr Dokter Mann, just look as the size of their windmills.
Adam R. says:
“This would be funny if the
witch huntWhitewash weren’t so cruel.”Fixed.
A question for all those defending the actions of Mann. Do any of you have the capability to articulate a cogent argument as to why you believe humans are causing significant changes to the earth’s climate. It seems the warmist argument has become nothing but an appeal to authority and attempts to impugn the qualifications and motives of those that disagree with you.
With regard to Mann’s actions, I personally believe they speak more to arrogance than they do to fraud. His repeated verifiable lies about his communications with Steve Mc indicates to me that he now knows that no one on his side of the issue cares if he lies or not. How do you defend that?
I received the following email from Nature about a post (included in their email) I made on their web site concerning Dr Mann and the PSU whitewash.
Dear William Yarber,
The following post you wrote on the Nature News website has been hidden by the moderator in accordance with our terms and conditions.
As a graduate of PSU in AeroSp Eng, I am disgusted with Dr Mann, his fraudulent “hockey stick” graphs, his blatant refusal to admit his crimes and the shame he, and the current University President, have brought to this great university.
He knew that the tree ring data from 1960 on indicated cooling when thermometer data indicated warming. So he manipulated the data by replacing the tree ring data with thermometer data to “hide the decline”! This is fraud. It also questions the accuracy of the tree ring data prior to 1960 and the validity of tree rings as a temperature proxy. Plus, he did not address the “divergence” issue, or his inability to resolve the decline, in his first paper. This failure is equally suspect and damning.
The worst crime is that he did it twice. When his ’97 “hocket stick” graph was debunked by McIntyre, he used different (also suspect) proxies to make another “hockey stick” graph.
This isn’t slander, this is the truth and Dr Mann apparently can’t handle the truth.
Bill Yarber
BS ’69, MS ’71
Contains unproven allegations.
-Nature News editors
It is not an allegation but a fact that Dr Mann replaced data from his tree rings with thermometer from roughtly 1960 on for his first “hockey stick” graph published in ’97 or ’98 (date seems to vary by source). Steve McIntyre proved that when he was finally able to obtain and analyzed Dr Mann’s tree ring data and computer code. It was also confirmed by Dr Jones in one of the “climategate” emails where he mentioned that he has used Dr. Mann’s trick top hide the decline.
It is also obvious that if the tree ring data diverged from thermometer data from 1960 on, that the entire data set for the tree rings prior to thermometer data is now suspect due to the unexplained divergence. Since trees respond to variable other than tmeperature (sunlight, humidity, rainfall, etc) then it is vital to have very close correllation between tree ring data and thermometer data to have any confidence in using tree ring data for a temperature proxy prior to thermometer data.
Finally, Dr Mann did not address or explain the “divergence” of the data or mention in his paper that he simply replaced tree ring data after 1960 with thermometer data. This is data manipulation since Steve McIntyre showed that the tree ring data from 1960 on, if used in Dr Mann’s computer program, whould have resulted in a downward trend, the infamous decline.
So these are all facts, not allegations, bu they don’ agree with Nature’s preconcieved notions so it is necessary to remove my comments from their blog. That should tell you all you need to know about the veracity of Nature and their various publications and opinions.
As to Dr Mann, my initial post on Nature says it all!
Bill Yarber
wobble says:
I feel bad for all holders of any science degree from Penn State – such degrees have now been depreciated.
I fear not Penn State only.
I know of only one situation in which the platform of a computer matters. This is when the floating point representation is used and the round-off handling is different on the different machines (ie: the infamous 1+1=1.9999999). In iterative calculations, these differences can build up to significance. However, if this occurs, it means that the calculation is sensitive to data variances six to sixteen orders of magnitude (depending on the data type used) smaller than the 1 or 2 significant-digit precision of the input data. If this is true, then Mr. Mann is unworthy of the title Doctor, and his data is not worth the electrons used to display it. My undergraduate numerical methods professor would have failed me for such an elementary error.
That’s right.
Penn State has shielded Mann. THEY OWN THIS NOW!