Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
With Dr. Michael Mann out on the hustings selling his innocence, as I discussed a few days ago, I was pleased when I came across this clear explanation of some major issues in the so-called inquiry by Penn State into the Mann’s actions. I urge everyone to read it, and follow up on the citations therein. There are numerous other problems with the inquiry, but that hit the high points.
Figure 1. The effect of Michael Mann, as seen by Chris Bok. But I digress.
Here was the mind-boggling part to me. To my astonishment, other than Michael Mann, the people running the investigation of Michael Mann reported interviewing exactly TWO PEOPLE besides Mann himself. I was, as the lovely English expression has it, “Gob-smacked”.
Remember that Dr. Mann recently said:
My employer, Penn State University, exonerated me after a thorough investigation of my e-mails in the East Anglia archive.
I knew it was bad, but interviewing two people now constitutes a “thorough investigation” of alleged serious scientific malfeasance? The investigators didn’t even understand that the famous “Mike’s Nature trick“was a clever way of hiding adverse data, a big scientific no-no. They didn’t interview anyone who actually understood the issues.
Two interviews and close the books? That is a pathetic joke. Penn State was my father’s alma mater, Class of ’26, I’m glad he didn’t live to see how far they have fallen. Penn State should demand that its name be taken off the document.
However, because this is a story involving Dr. Mann, you know there’s gotta be more to it than that they just interviewed two people, there’s bound to be a further twist to the story.
Here’s the inside joke. The two people interviewed were Gerry North of the “North Report” and Donald Kennedy, the editor of Science Magazine.
Gerry North I can kinda understand, because he chaired an earlier (and also widely criticized) enquiry into Dr. Mann’s hijinks. So he was a friend of Manns, and he’d covered up for Mann before, keeping his committee from even looking for scientific malfeasance, much less finding any. So I can understand them interviewing North, makes perfect sense.
But why did they pick Donald Kennedy, Editor of Science Magazine, as the other person to interview? I have no idea. By a curious coincidence, however, there’s a back-story here. Donald Kennedy was the first scientific figure I ever emailed to try to get something done.
I regret that I didn’t understand the importance of saving these documents at the time. In any event, my email to Kennedy has not survived my numerous computer changes and crashes since then, or it’s there and I can’t find it. But I recall it well, it was my first appeal.
In it I pointed out that science depends on the data being archived to allow for replication. I noted the efforts by Michael Mann to conceal the data used in his infamous “HockeyStick” paper. So I appealed to Kennedy to actually use the policies and power of his journal, Science Magazine, and ask Mann to archive the data used in his studies.
See, at that time, I was kinda naive … ya think?
I got blown off totally. Not even the courtesy of a reply. Which I later found out was no surprise. Kennedy, as editor of Science Magazine, has often allowed the publication of pro-AGW articles without requiring that they archive their data.
However, you don’t have to take my word for the abuse that Kennedy has done to the scientific process. He is noted for saying on PBS:
… the journal has to trust its reviewers; it has to trust the source. It can’t go in and demand the data books.
Look, with all due respect, Kennedy may be the editor of Science Magazine, but that is absolutely untrue, and Kennedy knows it. Most journals have policies that require, not recommend but require, that data used in published papers must be archived by the time of publication. Kennedy simply has not wanted Science to uniformly enforce that policy.
The crazy part is, there’s no wriggle room. Science Magazine’s instructions for authors say:
Data and materials availability All data necessary to understand, assess, and extend the conclusions of the manuscript must be available to any reader of Science. After publication, all reasonable requests for materials must be fulfilled. Any restrictions on the availability of data or materials, including fees and original data obtained from other sources (Materials Transfer Agreements), must be disclosed to the editors upon submission. Fossils or other rare specimens must be deposited in a public museum or repository and available for research.
That’s totally clear. Data must be archived. So when Kennedy says Science Magazine “can’t go in and demand the data books”, he’s just blowing in your ear and tickling your tummy. Not only can they do so, it is their stated policy to do so.
Kennedy is also the man who refused to publish Benny Peiser’s devastating response to Naomi Oreske’s laughable claim of a “scientific consensus” based on her simplistic analysis of climate papers. Typical for the man. Steve McIntyre has an interesting look at Kennedy here.
In any case, there you have it, folks. The “thorough investigation” into Michael Mann talked to three people including Mann. One, Gerry North, had covered up for Mann before, as cited above. The other, Kennedy, had refused to ask him for his data, despite magazine policies requiring just that. Both Steve McIntyre and I wrote to Kennedy asking him to enforce his own magazine’s policies. He refused.
And after all of that, are you ready for the icing on the cake, the final twist in the tale? As you would expect, Dr. Michael Mann was one of the three people interviewed in the “thorough investigation”. Mann agreed to the publication of the Report of the “thorough investigation”. The Report Guidelines state:
A written report shall be prepared that states what evidence was reviewed, a copy of all interview transcripts and/or summaries, and includes the conclusions of the inquiry.
But oops … there’s no transcipt of what Mann said. Not only do we not have his answers, we don’t even know what questions he was asked. That is pathetic bumbling, take the investigators out and fire them, I want my money back.
…
And Michael Mann has the ineffable effrontery to declare himself “exonerated” by that grade-school quality report? Dr. Mann, you have not been “exonerated”. You have not even been investigated, and you are pulling all of the political levers you can reach, and making all the public appeals you can squeeze in, to ensure that you are never investigated. Like I said, I understand your actions, they make sense to me. In certain other lights, I have more skeletons than available closet space myself, so I understand why you are on the campaign trail.
I just want people to understand you for what you are, and to see what you are trying to do, which is evade investigation of your actions. It has nothing to do with “anti-science” on either side of the political aisle. It has nothing to do with politics. It’s all about you avoiding responsibility for what you have done.
I call again for an independent scientific inquiry into Dr. Mann’s activities. Yes, I know that may be fantasy. And I know that many people think the legal route, a la Cuccinelli, remains the only hope. But I’m opposed to that. I’ve been thinking about why I oppose it, and here’s why I don’t like Cuccinelli’s approach.
I grew up on a cattle ranch, some miles away from a small Western US town. In our world, there were certain unwritten Rules. Oh, yeah, we had the Ten Commandments, but these were the real rules, the iron of the social order. Breaking them meant that people would cut you dead socially, not invite you, not talk to you … and in a tiny town that cut deep. The four Rules were:
You could cheat at business, people did. Folks didn’t like it, but it didn’t put you outside the pale. You could cheat on your husband or wife, folks figured man is born a sinner, people didn’t like it but understood the human urge. You could cheat in a horse deal, that was almost respected in a strange way if it was outrageous enough and the purchaser was what we called a city slicker. But a man who would cheat at cards was a social outcast ever after.
You could steal, particularly from the Government, and still get talked to. People didn’t like a thief, but a man could be a good man and not always scrupulously return what he’d borrowed, as we used to say. But if you stole one head of livestock, you were a damned low-down rustler, and you might as well just move out of town.
Cowboys punched each other sometimes, that was so common it was called a “dustup”. But you couldn’t hit a woman. Likely leftover from the 1800s when there were few women on cattle ranches. Probably some men beat their wives, but if so, it was never admitted, and it was seen as a grave moral failing to hit a woman. Paradox, but go figure.
And finally, you couldn’t call the Sheriff to settle your differences. When my dad found out someone from a neighboring ranch was bonking my mom whenever the constellations chanced to align, he and the guy met in the middle of the only street in town, in front of the combination store/bar/post office/gas station, and they definitely had a “dustup” … but nobody ever heard of a “restraining order”, and nobody ever, ever called the Sheriff. Except maybe to arrest a rustler. If he wasn’t caught in the act …
I have (mostly) held to those rules without much change for a lifetime, which is why I hate to call the Sheriff on Michael Mann. I’d prefer that the scientific community would be in charge, rather than lawyers and Attorneys General and their ilk. I wish Penn State hadn’t folded like a frat party card table holding too many kegs. I have been saying for years that I wish someone with some weight in the climate science community would take up the slack, and call out the egregious malfeasance, including the malfeasance of Penn State’s “thorough investigation”.
Naive … ya think?
Anyhow, mostly I wish Michael Mann would summon the nerve to stand up and produce the evidence. Instead, he’s all about poor me, he’s exonerated, those mean politicians are picking on him, it’s an attack on science, we misunderstand him … bad news, Dr. Mann. It’s not science that people want to investigate. It’s you.
Anyhow, here’s a protip for whoever is involved with Mann’s ongoing PR campaign — an innocent man welcomes and even invites an investigation. He knows he is innocent and has nothing to hide. Pre-emptively fighting against the investigations makes it look like you have a guilty conscience …
I reiterate the offer that Dr. Mann can publish his defense and evidence and present his ideas here on Watts Up With That.
To pyromancer76:
Sorry about the price! The publisher works the academic market, so the target is institutions who will buy hardcovers. I think you can read bits of it at Google Books, and it is available as an e-book from the publisher.
Unfortunately, the book was published a couple of years prior to Climategate, although much of its argument anticipates that episiode. I focus on the way in which electronic communication has undermined the usual QA processes like peer review by putting potential reviewers in touch with each other, so that they either collaborate as authors or come together in conferences or in processes such as the OECD, often acting as gatekeepers of knowledge in a ‘good cause’. While I used the Hockeystick as a case study, I just underestimated the extent to which the Hockey Team were engaging in these practices.
You should actually read the entire interview. We know that scientists are required to submit all the SI for each submission, that is standard practice. What Kennedy is talking about is that they can only go with the information given to the magazine and cannot expect peer-reviewers to be so skeptical of data that they have to go over every piece of information used while the study was done. In other words, the magazine needs to trust that the information given to the magazine is the actually unadulterated data. That snippet is incredibly misleading.
Here is the clarification:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/july-dec05/scandal_12-27.html
Are you insinuating that Kennedy is breaking standard rules for his publication to distort the science for some reason? Do you have actual proof of that?
North just told Barton the findings of his report. Barton no longer has any excuse for his nosestretchers.
We now have Hal Lewis admitting he destroyed data: no pressure just nuclear stuff, and this post’s typist who has deleted and lost emails. Where is the Beckian false outrage?
John McManus,
Attacking the messenger, just as Saul Alinsky instructed you people to do.
It’s clear why you are making your red herring argument: because the charges
Dr Lewis makes are not defensible.
gryposaurus:
“You should actually read the entire interview.”
Another red herring argument. The central point is the fact that Science neglects to follow its own written Policy:
Get back on point, and explain why you think it’s OK for Kennedy to ignore Policy in order to protect his pal Michael Mann.
gryposaurus:
As Donald Kennedy knows only too well, there are areas of science where the labs are actually subject to audit: drug and chemical research.
Much of the data collected for regulatory approval (for efficacy and risk) are collected by the corporation that developed the drug/chemical. Much additional research is conducted under research contracts by labs at universities. How do we guard against corruption? We subject the labs themselves to audit. This is crucial for the reliability of science that must inform public policy – especially as the data must ideally be accepted internationally (so it must comply with OECD guidelines on Good Laboratory Practice and Mutual Acceptance of Data).
In addition, research protocols for drug trials require different teams to prepare doses and placebos, administer the doses and placebos, diagnose the patients, and perform the statistical analysis. The point made by the late Michael Crichton is that none of this applies with the science of global climate disruption.
IN contrast, Michael Mann selected his own data (collected by others, but he selected the series he used), subjected it to analysis, interpreted the results, then wrote the IPCC chapter that connected it with the policy process, and then engaged in the political discourse surrounding it. Not only is his lab not audited, but he refused to reveal how he reached his results when asked for data and code. Steve McIntyre has performed that audit function.
As someone said, this is not science as we know it, because science is quintessentially about replication.
Here is the fundamental question: How can we have sufficient confidence in climate science to base costly public policy upon it if its practitioners will not adhere to the basic tenets of scientific practice?
For as long as Michael Mann (and Donald Kennedy et al) seek to avoid that basic requirement they have no credibility. And for those of us who are ‘lukewarmers’, they stand in the way of developing sensible policy that responds to the (probably modest) risks of anthropogenic climate change (sorry, climate disruption), without actually driving more radical policy because (as Roger Peilke Jr has pointed out) there is not the linear relationship between science and policy they assume. The public is smart enough to comply with what ‘The Science’ tells us – they (quite rightly) recognise it as a technocratic grab for power.
Donald Kennedy wrote an editorial in Science saying “the science is settled” on climate change. Shortly after, he gave a talk to that effect to the Ecological Society of America annual meeting. After his talk, I spoke to him. I introduced myself and said I wasn’t someone famous…at which point the President of the Ecol. Soc. (the only other person present at that moment) piped in and said that in fact I had quite a reputation in Ecology (at that point it was already clear I was in the process of giving Kennedy hell). I continued that no person in such a position of power as Kennedy should try to stifle discussion and research on such an important topic. I laid it on. He seemed quite startled to have anyone disagree with him, but then claimed he didn’t mean to stifle dissent–yeah right. It was a useless gesture, but it felt good.
No, it is not a red herring. I am asking for proof of this. So far, all we have is quote that has nothing to do with author’s submitting SI to the publisher. It gets the SI from the authors. This is standard. If you have proof that they don’t ask for this from some people for nefarious reasons, please provide that proof. Kennedy, in the interview, is clearly saying that there are limits to what a peer-reviewers can do. Like, they cannot demand a scientist give up any original notebooks to make sure the data has not been doctored. They trust that the data they receive is valid, just like any other publication that doesn’t hire its own police force. This web of conspiracy is out of control and people think nothing of blindly accusing people of wrong-doing, attempting to destroy careers, without a shred of evidence. Is there an end to this? How far from Mann does it extend? Let’s see, HadCRT, NAS, Penn State (or all of academia), RealClimate, NASA GISS, the Wegman “social network” etc, etc and now, the major publications’ editors. And all this for a twelve year old paper that doesn’t even matter very much. Christ. Enough already.
Thank you for mentioning that article by Naomi Oreskes. For a long time, I’ve had a nagging urge to go back and find the Science magazine article that convinced me to end my membership in the AAAS. You saved me the trouble: that was the article. The proposition that one could settle a scientific dispute by counting votes is so outrageous that one could only conclude that Science magazine had been hijacked by zealots.
gryposaurus says:
October 17, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Sure, glad to, I don’t make this stuff up. See here for an example. This habit of Science Magazine is so well known as to not excite comment in the field, Kennedy is a true AGW believer who figures the ends justify the means …
Also, you say:
The issue is not peer review. The Journals have archiving policies to ensure that a study can be replicated, not to accommodate the reviewers. And it is not true that the magazine “can only go with the information given to the reviewers”. They can and do require archiving all necessary data, they don’t just go with the flow as you claim. They can ask the author to provide further information if they have not archived sufficient data to allow for replication.
Criminalizing policy differences has become a national (OK international) political pass time on the left, and that is a shame. It would be a bigger shame if conservatives were to take up the sport when (and if) they take control of the House or Senate in the US. Patience and a modicum of civility would go a long way after the next election.
I think I am as conservative as the next guy, and a skeptic, but I think the inquiry by Cuccinelli is a mistake. A state attorney general in the US in most cases is seen as a “governor wannabe in waiting.” Any findings by Cuccinelli will thus be viewed at least in part as politically motivated.
The climate wars are not over, but the CAGW side is in retreat, with signs of mass desertions looming. A primary reason for that is the climate activists’ over reaching and damage to their own credibility. Conservatives should avoid damaging their own hard won credibility by similar zealotry.
The proper target audience now is not the media, not the scientists, and not the blogging community. The only audience that matters is the one who will make the ultimate decision. The voting public. You know, the ones the activists hold in such contempt. Forget settling scores – concentrate on winning votes. All the rest will follow.
Sorry – that should read ‘The public is smart enough to NOT comply with what ‘The Science’ tells us – they (quite rightly) recognise it as a technocratic grab for power.’
And you’ve yet to prove any of this with that link. How does this from Steve McIntyre show that Kennedy isn’t getting SI from authors.
I’m asking for proof as to the accusations you are making that Kennedy is purposefully hiding data for nefarious purposes. Please provide it. Inadequate archiving is inadequate archiving, it does not equal
I thought the four rules were commandments 11-14? Naive, eh?
The strawman argument comes so naturally to the CAGW appologist.
gryposaurus says:
October 17, 2010 at 2:07 pm
… the journal has to trust its reviewers; it has to trust the source. It can’t go in and demand the data books.
“Data books?” He’s being asked to insist that the data used in support of the publication be achived, as is the journal’s policy. He should have said
“It can’t go in and demand the data be achived.” But no, he doesn’t say that because it is contrary to policy.
LOL!
This is a large part of the motivation of science’s “gatekeepers” and fanboys: They have a “Science To The Rescue” mindset that is ultimately based on a will-to-power and that makes them promote bandwagons that offer to raise their social and political standing.
Kennedy lost all credibility with me when he “resigned gracefully” from Stanford over the Federal Research Over-billing scandal that apparently went on during most of the 1980s. Among the items billed to the U.S. Government was operation and maintenance of the president’s yacht.
From Time Magazine 1991…
No he simply stepped to a better job and left someone else to clean the mess.
This thread is an enigma wrapped in a conspiracy, wrapped in nonsense. I asked for proof of Kennedy hiding data, and I get the quote from the interview in which he was clearly discussing the limits of peer-review and had nothing to do with the SI or archived data received from authors, which he correctly states that magazines editors and reviewers have to trust.
And I get a link to a blog post where Steve McI blames poor archiving for not being able to get certain proxies.
Craig Loehle publicly accuses him of using his power to stifle debate and then seems confused as to why Kennedy would “seem quite startled”.
And then the 1991 TIME article, which, if you read on states:
Is TIME in on this too?
No, as I’ve stated several times, Kennedy was talking about the limits of demanding personal data records of it’s authors for peer-review, in a study that had nothing to do with climate science. As for the archiving, Steve McI blamed it on poor archiving, not nefarious conspiratorial nonsense.
But everyone keep on with this baseless character assassination of anyone who was involved with the publication of the Mann “Hockey Stick” paper in 1998. Make sure to weave the web tightly enough and don’t leave any loose ends, God forbid anyone gets off. I’m sure there’s a secretary at the AAAS who knows where those missing proxies are.
I’ll just take other’s peoples advice and forget about this place.
[Snip. How many times do you have to be told to not call others “deniers”? ~dbs, mod]
gryposaurus says:
October 17, 2010 at 7:14 pm
If you cannot find anything wrong with Kennedy at all, despite the host of citations that you have been given, perhaps you have inadvertently wandered into the wrong thread. Or perhaps into an alternate universe.
Here’s the issue. Two people were interviewed in the Mann Penn State “thorough inquiry”. One was Kennedy, who is a doomsday merchant with a long history of problematic behaviour (that is mysteriously invisible to you), and no connection to Manns work. Why would they even ask Kennedy about Mann? Obviously, because he is Mann’s friend, why else pick a man who has no involvement with the scientific issues at hand?
But let’s set all of Kennedy’s history aside. Even if Kennedy’s reputation were spotless, he is still a very odd choice to interview in this case. I mean, if I had to make a report and could only interview two people regarding Mann, Kennedy would never cross my mind. I’d probably pick Gavin Schmidt and Stephen McIntyre, but never Kennedy.
And of course, Mann now claims (correctly) that Kennedy found nothing wrong with Mann’s actions … I’m shocked by that, I tell you, shocked.
Another great post, Willis.
While I admire your ability to analyse data and write with simplicity, wit and clarity, you are right on the button in thinking you are something of an innocent, but that is actually a wonderful asset that most of us who were bought up in the world of farming share. The code of ‘proper’ behaviour was ingrained in us by example and experience early in our formative years and became a part of us we cannot shed. We always look for the good in people we deal with and are willing to give them second chances, but with those such as Mann, Kennedy and those of their stripe, they are genuine outlaws who usually operate under a cloak of respectability conferred by their education, position, inherited wealth, charm or whatever, but they are outlaws just the same. Dealing with them in terms of our code is largely a waste of time as they understand the words we use but feel the underlying concepts don’t apply to them as they are ‘special’. When they persist in ignoring our code, we have no recourse left but to call in the sherrif.
grypo, dude, who is saying that Kennedy asked Mann not to give the data? If anything, what can be said is that Science magazine, under Kennedy’s watch, did not ask Mann to give the data.
It is you who has been trying to equate the two and polarize the debate by using words like “nefarious”.
You are certainly right about this – but in a practical sense of how things get done everyday,… but definitely not on how things ought to get done.
It is a bit of a Catch-22. Reviewers in most circumstances, can take authors on their word and proceed, but they can, and they certainly do ask for original data, lab notes and readouts if the conclusions are dramatic, or sometimes even otherwise. Because the reviewer will only pass on his requests via the journal, it is the responsibility of the editor to fulfill the reviewers’ requests.
The catch of course is that, in order to find flaws or check for major errors in a study, a reviewer would have use the methods and data in a paper, replicate the calculation and see if the same results are arrived at. Meaning – he or she would have to have access to the original data, something Kennedy is providing excuses against.
Playing devil’s advocate for a minute, I can kind of see (possibly) partly where gryposaurus is coming from. It’s clear that Kennedy deliberately didn’t enforce the rules of his own journal in Mann’s case, but action doesn’t prove intent.
If Mann went to Kennedy and said: “Sorry mate, I’ve lost some of the data and to be honest it’s all a bit of mess anyway, can you help me out of a hole by not insisting on getting it?”, that’s contemptible, and well against what I would expect of reasonable standards of scientific publication, but it’s not exactly nefarious, just helping a friend.
Whereas if Mann said: “Look, the data and code I used were carefully picked and fiddled to get the results I wanted, the full data doesn’t actually show anything, and there’s no way I’m letting anyone outside the Hockey Team get any sight of it. So I’m not supplying it and will you agree to help by not demanding it and suppressing any request for it?”, then it is definitely nefarious.
Without actually knowing where on that spectrum Kennedy’s reason falls, however obviously suspicious it might be, he shouldn’t be accused of nefarious intent.
Willis and Aynsley,
Donald Kennedy is a biologist and was chair of the Department of Biology at Stanford from 1964-1972. From 1980 to 1992 he served as President of Stanford University, and 1992 was the year that Stephen Schneider came to Stanford – to the Department of Biology (despite the fact that his Ph.D. was in Mechanical Engineering and Plasma Physics). Paul Ehrlich came to the Stanford Department of Biology (after his PhD thesis on butterflies) as an Assistant Professor in 1959, becoming a full professor in 1966. Since Prof. Kennedy was chair of the department at that time no doubt he would have personally approved the progression of Dr. Ehrlich to full professor.
Donald Kennedy was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1972, Paul Ehrlich in 1985, and Stephen Schneider in 2002. It has been reported that Paul Ehrlich and Stephen Schneider were nominated to the NAS via the “Temporary Nominating Group for the Global Environment” which avoided the usual requirement of 85% support of the members of the relevant NAS section. (Others reportedly elected to the NAS in this way are James Hansen, John Holdren, Susan Solomon, and Ralph Cicerone).
It is safe to say that Donald Kennedy, Paul Ehrlich, and the late Stephen Schneider are closely associated.
Until the “white wash” of Dr. Mann, I was proud to tell people the PSU “WAS” my Alma Mater. No more! Like Bastardi, I have totally renounced any affiliation with PSU: no newsletters, no football games, no donations, no kind words, nothing. They are a joke which stinks worst than Dr. Mann’s ethics and “hockey stick” papers. Their current president and the people on the Mann investigation committee should be immediately suspended without pay until a thorough outside investigation can be conducted and fully veted.
An investigation should also be launched into the conduct of Dr. Richard Alley at PSU. He is a leader in ice core research and was instrumental in showing that CO2 has always lagged Earth’s temperature swings, thus it is a lagging indicator and not a forcing! Yet he told me to my face in September ’07* that they can’t think of any other reason for the warming over the past 50 years so “it must be CO2, we can’t think of anything else it could be”. That is not science, that is religion. (no offense intended to people like miself who believe in a Higher Power!) These “scientists” disgust me and they should be made to pay financially and academically (not physically as some AGW proponents want to do to skeptics) for their criminal actions with respect to misleading the public and funding institutions about the causes of Earth’s climate changes over the past 2,000+ years!
I feel sorry of the honest engineers and scientist, like myself, who have gratuated from this once great university. It may never regain its past honor and prestige.
William H Yarber II (BS & MS in Aerospace Engineering)
* Luncheon meeting at the Corner Room in State College, PA attended by Dr. Alley, my wife and myself! Those were his final words to end our 90 minute discussion because he could not refute any of my arguments.
Willis:
You’ve yet to provide any evidence for this. The one link you provided stated the exact opposite conclusion that you are coming to. Another reference to a TIME magazine article, funny enough, when read, actually defends Kennedy. You base your character assassination on innuendo that doesn’t even really tell the story you are trying to disseminate. Kennedy is a target because of his association with the 12 year old study. This is incredibly obvious. I’ll repeat again, “Where is the proof I am asking for?”
Completely erroneous. Let’s check some facts. Your attempt to discredit Penn State in this is just as pathetic as the rest of this post.
Here is the final version of the report.
On page 7, here is a list of people were interviewed. Take a look-see and notice who got one of the the final words on the matter.
April 12, 2010: Dr. William Easterling, Dean, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences,
The PelIDsylvania State University
April 14, 2010: Dr. Michael Mann, Professor, Department of Meteorology, The
Pennsylvania State University
April 20, 2010: Dr. William Curry, Senior Scientist, Geology and Geophysics
Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
April 20, 2010: Dr. Jerry McManus, Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental
Sciences, Columbia University
May 5, 2010: Dr. Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor, Department of Earth,
Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
Please update your post to reflect this, which of course, would mean a complete rewrite. Or just write a new one that discredits all these people as well, whichever is fine.
And I guess we now get to your assassination of North’s credibility, and by extension the National Academy of Sciences. You say that his report was “widely criticized” and you provide a single link to show this. I don’t know how one person is characterized as ‘widely’, but let’s look anyway. How’s does McIntyre conclude?
And how does another critic of MBH 98/99 methodology, Eduardo Zorita, characterize the North report?
Once again your “proof” does not support your extreme, assailant language. Please amend it and at least have it come somewhere close to accurate.
So you have no proof against Kennedy, your characterization of the North (NAS) Report is weak, unspecific, and basically wrong; you don’t seem to know who actually PENN State interviewed for the Mann report; and yet you’ve reached such critical conclusions. Why is that? Should I even ask? Does it it have anything to do with the fact that you cannot let go of hockey stick shaped graph which has been done over
over and
over and
over and over and over and over since 1998?
Can we at least move on to different reconstruction and try and ruin those people too. There’s a list of people you can get It’s easy, as shown by this post, you don’t need any evidence whatsoever!