UPDATES below – some confusion afoot by differing newspaper versions has been discovered. The print version appears to be online.
=================================
Letters to the editor are one of the oldest free speech venues for public opinion in the United States. They go back to the times of the revolutionary war. The Chicago Tribune aptly calls Letters to the Editor “Voice of the people“.
This morning my interest in a letter to the editor was piqued when I read at Tom Nelson’s website, this headline: Remember when it was really important to leave Michael Mann alone to concentrate on his climate hoax research? Now he’s got time to write a rant for the Vail Daily
Dr. Michael Mann’s letter to the editor, a response to a previous letter by Dr. Martin Hertzberg, at the Vail Daily is online here. Excerpts:
It’s hard to imagine anyone packing more lies and distortions into a single commentary. Mr. Hertzberg uses libelous language in characterizing the so-called “hockey stick” — work of my own published more than a decade ago showing that recent warming is unusual over at least the past 1,000 years — as “fraudulent,” and claiming that it “it was fabricated from carefully selected tree-ring measurements with a phony computer program.”
…
Mr. Hertzberg then continues the smear by lying again about my work, claiming that “when those same tree-ring data actually showed a decline in temperature for the past several decades, Mann and his co-authors simply ‘hid the decline’ by grafting direct measurements (inadequately corrected for the urban heat island and other effects) to his flat tree-ring line.”
So I wanted to see what got Dr. Mann into such a tizzy, because sentences like the ones quoted in the paragraphs above are all over the Internet, especially after Climategate broke. I wanted to see the full context in Dr. Hertzberg’s letter.
So I Googled the offending phrase Dr. Mann cites, and got this result:
Imagine my shock when I discovered that the Google link goes nowhere. Dr. Hertzberg’s letter has been deleted from the newspaper.
Wow.
Dr. Hertzberg’s letter appeared on Friday, September 30th, and Dr. Mann’s letter appeared the next day, quite a turnaround:
One wonders if the address given for Dr. Mann is a typo, or a geographic misrepresentation to help get the letter published. Either way, the Vail Daily editor looks pretty darn sloppy since this appears in the last line of Dr. Mann’s letter:
Michael E. Mann is a professor in the Department of Meterology at Penn State University and director of Penn State Earth System Science Center.
Dr. Hertzberg does in fact live near Vail, in Copper Mountain, CO. and he would presumably be served by the newspaper of record for that area, which is why the letter appeared in that newspaper. As far as we know, Dr. Mann does not live in Vail or nearby.
The policy and online form for submission and publication of Letters to the Editor at the Vail Daily is worth noting:
Letter to the Editor
Guidelines
Before you use the online form below to submit a letter or guest column to the editor, please read the guidelines below.
The decision to print any submission is completely at the discretion of the Vail Daily editor. Letters and columns must include the author’s name, hometown, affiliation (if any) and phone number (for verification of authorship only). Form letters and letters considered libelous, obscene or in bad taste will not be printed. Anonymous letters will not be printed. The Vail Daily reserves the right to edit all letters. Because of space constraints, please limit your letters to 500 words. Thank you/kudos letters are limited to 150 words and letters containing long lists of names will not be printed.
So, apparently, the letter from Dr. Hertzberg passed the newspaper’s tests for “letters considered libelous, obscene or in bad taste” and was in fact printed, but when Dr. Mann sends a rebuttal, all of the sudden Dr. Hertzberg’s letter no longer passes those tests? I suspect that maybe Dr. Mann may have offered some legalese in some form to go with that letter, and the editor caved to censorship demands rather than upholding free speech.
The Wikipedia definition for freedom of speech:
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is commonly subject to limitations, such as on libel, slander, obscenity, incitement to commit a crime, etc.
It may be possible that libel was committed by Dr. Hertzberg (whose credential Dr. Mann doesn’t even acknowledge in his rebuttal letter), but without the original letter from Dr. Hertzberg, how would any independent observer be able to judge?
And, in choosing the headline for the rebuttal: Vail Valley Voices: Global warming denier’s claims are falsehoods did the Vail Daily in turn libel Dr. Hertzberg by labeling him a “global warming denier”?
Clearly then, this is a matter best settled by the courts.
I encourage Dr. Mann to file a lawsuit, so that we can finally get complete discovery (something not done by the “independent reviews” Dr. Mann cites frequently) and find out once and for all if Dr. Mann’s work holds up when all of the data, math, methods, and correspondence are laid bare for scrutiny.
Likewise, Dr. Hertzberg may have a court case for denial of free speech, along with libel by the use of “global warming denier”.
The questions of “who libeled who?”, and “was free speech denied?”, can only be answered in a court of law.
UPDATE: As we all know from vast experience, the Internet has a memory. I’ve discovered what appears to be Dr. Hertzberg’s letter to the editor on a website called “pastebin” which you can see and read here. Dr. Hertzberg’s letter was apparently a response to a previous letter, five days earlier:
Since I am a long-time denier of human-caused global warming and have been described as an “inaccurate” and “irresponsible” “fool” by Scott Glasser’s commentary in Monday’s Vail Daily, I feel compelled to respond.
Since Dr. Hertzberg describes himself as a “doubter” (in the original I saw) it seems the bias of the Vail Daily editor in choosing “denier” for the headline was in fact an editorial decision.
I wonder how long the letter will exist on “pastebin”.
UPDATE#2: It appears that at the same time as I was writing this essay, the Vail Daily decided to reinstate the letter from Dr. Hertzberg. Note the out of sequence date at time for the title:
From this page: http://www.vaildaily.com/SECTION/&profile=1065
Before I made this story I did quite a bit of checking, and the removal was also noted by other websites, for example:
Rabbet Run: Ethon flew in from Colorado with news from one of the bunnies. It appears that the Vail Valley Daily had published a now defunct letter from one Dr. Martin Hertzberg, who appears to live thereabouts. The article which, as the saying goes is no longer to be found, must have been a doozy,
And I looked for it myself by searching the Vail Daily website. I could not find it. For example, it does not show up in search:
UPDATE3: The plot thickens. It appears the restored version on Vail Daily here:
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20110930/EDITS/111009984/1021&parentprofile=1065
Is missing some key sentences found in the version on pastebin here:
The name of Dr. Mann has been scrubbed from the letter as are the sentences Dr. Mann objected to in his rebuttal letter.
There’s no mention of this edit in the restored version of the letter. It is still dated Sept 30th. Perhaps Dr. Hertzberg was told to revise it?
Now he claims he’s a “denier” where before he says doubter? Strange things going on.
UPDATE4: Larry (Hotrod) points out in comments that the original print version is still archived by the newspaper here.
UPDATE5: It appears we are witnessing the real time editing of this article in online archives. The original with the phrases Dr. Mannobjected to are disappearing from the main web page and archives and are being replaced with edited versions.
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Laurie says:
October 2, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Laurie: “he’s never received a dime from “Big Oil”.” Yes, I guess preempting has become a necessary evil.
Here’s an interesting link from a grade 12 student who was selected to cruise the Arctic on a scientific program. I find the following paragraph typical.
“The fact that the Amundsen [a Canadian ice-breaker] requires oil industry funding for climate change research suggests how little our society understands the value of the irreplaceable gem that comprises nearly one-third of our country [Canada] — a gem that is in danger of disappearing.”
Link here: http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1062941
Perhaps he should return to the Arctic in February for a follow-up article on the disappearing gem. He’s a pretty good writer though.
pokerguy said “if this really violated the “2nd law of thermodynamics” the whole ridiculous AGW hypothesis would have been discredited long ago”
True. As I understand it:-
The 2nd law of thermodynamics says there cannot be a net flow of heat from a cooler object to a hotter object, without work.
AGW says that a greater amount of CO2 in the atmosphere causes a greater proportion of outgoing IR to be sent back in.
Since the net flow out is always positive, the 2nd law of thermodynamics is not violated.
Funny thing is, I don’t think I have ever seen it explained like this anywhere – just a lot of ’tis!, tisn’t! stuff.
Lucy Skywalker says:
“I got the impression that Dr Wakefield suffered grievous misrepresentation.”
CNN says:
“Wakefield has been unable to reproduce his results in the face of criticism, and other researchers have been unable to match them. Most of his co-authors withdrew their names from the study in 2004 after learning he had had been paid by a law firm that intended to sue vaccine manufacturers — a serious conflict of interest he failed to disclose. After years on controversy, the Lancet, the prestigious journal that originally published the research, retracted Wakefield’s paper last February.”
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/index.html
Unless CNN got the facts wrong, I find it impossible to conclude that “Dr Wakefield suffered grievous misrepresentation”. To the contrary, I have to agree with the CNN headline (which contains an “F” word (used by the British Medical Journal) which — “per site policy” — I dare not mention in this comment).
(Anthony — just a little friendly ribbing about the “F” word.)
DirkH says:
October 2, 2011 at 12:07 pm
I printed and scanned Figure 6 from the report on the peat bog temperature reconstruction.
The raw scan is here http://folc.ca/images/duerres-maar.jpg (at 300 dpi resolution) and http://folc.ca/images/duerres-maar_72dpi.jpg (at 72 dpi resolution)
Figure 6, enhanced a bit and report text cropped, http://folc.ca/images/duerres-maar_e.jpg (at 300 dpi resolution) and http://folc.ca/images/duerres-maar_e_72dpi.jpg (at 72 dpi resolution)
Lucy and Smokey.
See for example, this example of Hertzberg’s ‘science’ : http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/pdf/Greenhouse_Effect_on_the_Moon.pdf
And this demolition : http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/06/03/lunar-madness-and-physics-basics/
Just for the record, [snip – you don’t get to ask others to do things “for the record” on my blog – Anthony]
SBVOR says: October 2, 2011 at 3:44 pm
Sorry, I don’t buy it. We already know from AGW that official science bodies are not trustworthy. I had reason to do a lot of research – because I am, or was, on the spectrum. Plus I care about truth. Thiomersal is a mercury compound. Mercury, as in mad hatters disease and what affected gold prospecters – and there’s serious evidence from dentistry too (also suppressed I believe).
Try this URL compared with yours
I would be interested to find out if that Vail local newpaper was carrying quite a lot of advertising for Solar power/hot water, renewable energy etc?
I have saved the PDF files I down loaded from their archive as of my comment as of 11:19 am mountain time.
Larry
Lucy Skywalker: Dr Herzberg has written one of the most succinct, accurate, clear summaries of the bad science of AGW that I’ve seen.
You can’t be serious.
Lucy Skywalker,
1) “Wakefield has been unable to reproduce his results in the face of criticism, and other researchers have been unable to match them.”
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/index.html
Your citation does not contain the word “reproduce”:
http://www.wesupportandywakefield.com/documents/AutismFile_US31_Wakefield.pdf
Ergo, the advocacy organization which published your citation failed to even attempt to address the single most damning aspect of Wakefield’s paper — a paper which the British Medical Journal described as “fraudulent”:
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452.full
I am not one who is prone to the logical fallacy of appeals to authority. I operate solely upon credible evidence. The credible evidence on this one is very, very clear (and CNN reported it accurately).
2) Again…
A) Just because a vaccine contains a preservative (thimerosal) which, in turn, contains trace amounts of mercury does not necessarily mean mercury at that dosage is harmful. In fact, although unproven in this case, the phenomena of a biphasic dose response (aka Hormesis) demonstrates that small doses of various toxins are proven to be beneficial:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2248601/
B) “Numerous studies have found no association between thimerosal exposure and autism.”
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/thimerosal.htm
3) “All substances are poisons; there is none which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison….” Paracelsus (1493-1541)
Water, oxygen and literally everything else is toxic (and will kill you) at the proper concentration.
Never concern yourself with the chemical, only the dose.
It is next to impossible to undo things on the Internet.
Original version (snapshot of the page as it appeared on 30 Sep 2011 06:14:46 GMT):
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QQSZh0LkkxcJ:www.vaildaily.com/article/20110930/EDITS/110929829/1021
“Improved” version (re-edited on 02 Oct 2011 18:08:00 GMT):
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20110930/EDITS/111009984/1021
There were three edits done to improve quality retrospectively:
1. Title changed from “More hot air than science in global-warming theory” to “Researcher disputes evidence for global warming”.
2. Deleted: “Glasser, who calls me a fool, really tips his hand by defending the notoriously fraudulent “hockey stick” curve of Professor Mann. That curve has the shape of a hockey stick, flat for the past 1,000 years with a sharp rise during the past few decades. It was fabricated from carefully selected tree-ring measurements with a phony computer program”.
3. Deleted: “Every knowledgeable climatologist knows that tree rings are unreliable proxies for temperature because they are also sensitive to moisture, sunlight, pests, competition from adjacent trees, etc. Furthermore, when those same tree-ring data actually showed a decline in temperature for the past several decades, Mann and his co-authors simply “hid the decline” by grafting direct measurements (inadequately corrected for the urban heat island and other effects) to his flat tree-ring line”.
That’s it.
PaulH says:
October 2, 2011 at 11:34 am
“… one has to be very careful when using terms like “fraudulent”. Fraud has a rather exact legal definition, and if you start using such terms you are bound to raise someone’s hackles.”
_______________________________
Is “Balderdash” acceptable?
If you need to capture a web page for future reference (before it gets “disappeared”), consider using the following:
http://www.webcitation.org/
[REPLY: Ahh, then you agree then? WUWT has no obligation to allow comments referring to “deniers”.
-REP]
Fred Berple: Mann did act on purpose when he created his hockey stick graph. Steve McIntyre pointed out some years ago that Mann did a run of his data without bristle cone pines and the MWP reappeared. Then he deliberately “censored” this finding and did not report it, and he never has.
Well, all I can say is that with his letter (and his website at http://www.climate4you.com) Dr Hertzberg has won a fan. For those who have not visited it, I suggest it is a good one for Anthony to add to his blogroll, even if it is not a blog, per se. It is full of data, charts, and maps.
Dr Hertzberg also refers to Dr Syun-Ichi Akasofu, who did a paper or two with Dr Pielke. Dr Akasofu’s 2009 paper, Two Natural Components of the Recent Climate Change, at http://tiny.cc/j84ft is worth a read. In it Dr Akasofu proposes the upward trending oscillation that has been discussed here on WUWT in recent months, but he proposes it as the natural rebound from the Little Ice Age and shows that if we take out the effects of the trend line (which he shows is only 0.5°C/C), there is very little effect man can have made on the climate. The paper is a good read, though long.
“You can say whatever you want in America, as long as it has no effect.” – Lenny Bruce
GAAK… shades of 1984 and thoughts of Stalin era air-brushing come to mind. Fortunately (a fact that the editors of this newpaper have failed to grasp) the internet does indeed have a memory. Once your site has been crawled trying to make changes will be noticed and pointed out.
Why not simply contact Dr. Hertzberg to request the initial version of his letter, plus his overview of conflicted developments to date? As for AGW gauleiters such as Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenberth et al. the sooner and more definitively their serial excretions are exposed, the better.
[Snip. ~dbs, mod. Read the site Policy.]
> Just for the record, are you prepared to assert in public that Micheal Mann has committed scientific fraud, and if so, what is your evidence?
Evidence is Mann’s Hockeystick was and still is wrong; Otherwise we would be seeing serious increases in global temperatures, as indicated by his Hockeystick chart and testified too by Mann.
As before, the burden of proof is on Micheal Mann. Thus far he has refused to provide proof (his data, his work, and his method); which points to Mann having something to hide, like fraud.
31.The open-armed embrace of Dr Hertzberg over at WUWT is something to behold. One hopes we are witnessing a defining moment. As I write the Wattbots are searching the internet’s various caches for the original text with a view to reproducing it in full, complete with violations of the second law of thermodynamics and the defamatory codicils. Go for it, Anthony.
Comment by pjclarke — 2 Oct 2011 @ur momisugly 6:07 PM
Philip Clarke makes a comment acceptable to Real Climate. Why am I surprised they find snark more postable than a reminder about professional courtesy?
Technically speaking, unless the Vail Colorado newspaper is an official organ of the state, deleting a previously published letter to the editor is not legally “censorship.” They are certainly entitled to be unfair, unbalanced, bigoted, gutless wonders–after all truth is still a defense against threatened libel in the US–and otherwise scientifically challenged, and still apparently get intelligent people to buy their product. Such is life.
I don’t know about fraud, but the Wakefield/autism argument is not the best one to choose from, unless you consider its entire history. Before Wakefield, and before the internet boards, we had forced institutionalization due to a scientific consensus that autism was caused by “cold mothering”. Children were removed from their mothers, and siblings as well, while the mother underwent wilting scrutiny and in some cases, even endured charges of child abuse. Those few that attempted to raise scientific doubt were vilified. When doubt turned into new understanding, those that continued to hold onto their cold mother consensus eventually payed a heavy price. Historical biographies do not paint a pretty picture.
Climate scientists would do well to study the entire history of autism’s checkered scientific consensus. Wakefield’s hypothesis (and damage done scaring parents away from vaccines) pales in comparison to what came before his rise and fall.
The hockey stick and its rabid defence by Mann and many others, proves prima facie:
– that we cannot trust climate science to be objective and self-correcting.
Why didn’t Mann just give up on this charade long ago? He and they could have just let it die like so many other wrongly done statistical/math models of which there are thousands and thousands of examples. It would be been easy enough and Mann could have continued publishing his version of cimate science.
It doesn’t make sense. But then who said this science does. That in itself says something important. We are not dealing with sensible, logical group here.
When will they admit they were wrong about something? NEVER is the answer.