UPDATE: Lubos Motl has a poll running on whether this is the right stance to take or not. Feel free to take it here – Anthony
This is an editorial that I never thought I’d be writing and I expect readers are also surprised to see it. Before you come to a conclusion about my decision, please read the entire essay – there’s a good reason for me to take this position in this particular case. See the event below.
There’s an organization called choosecommonsense.org that is running a letter writing campaign to Penn State to prevent Dr.Mann from speaking. In my opinion, this is the wrong thing to do and the wrong message to send. Let me explain.
First, here is the message the group is pushing:
On February 9th, the Penn State Forum Speaker’s Series is featuring Professor Michael Mann in a speech regarding global warming. This is the same professor who is at the center of the ‘Climategate’ controversy for allegedly manipulating scientific data to align with his extreme political views on global warming.
Join us in calling on the administrators of Penn State to end its support of Michael Mann and his radical agenda.
Now let me be the first to say that I don’t respect Dr. Michael Mann nor do I respect his paleoclimatic work, which I consider to be borderline fraudulent, as do many others. Others have even stronger opinions about the work, especially about the long maligned “hockey stick” and all of its problems.
And, in reading through the Climategate emails, we can see examples where Dr. Mann himself tries to stifle debate. From Tom Nelson:
Email 1335, Nov 2005, Michael “Robust Debate” Mann on the prospect of attending a workshop also attended by a guy who disagrees with him: “If Zorita is in, I am out!’
cc: Phil Jones
, Keith Briffa , Heinz Wanner date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 10:26:33 -0500 from: “Michael E. Mann” subject: Re: Workshop: Participants/ 1. Circular to: Christoph Kull
Christoph,
Can I please have an explanation of what happened here???? You sent out a list yesterday of partipipants that we had all agreed upon. Today, you sent out emails to a DIFFERENT list, inviting an additional participant (Zorita) who we SPECIFICALLY DISCUSSED and decided (as I understood it) would not be invited because of personality conflict issues. At the very least, this needed further discussion, not unilateral overruling without notice.
I’d like an explanation of what happened here. I do not believe that this event will be constructive and amicable with Zorita’s participation. If the recommendaitons of the organizers are not going to be followed, I am unsure I can participate in or endorse this event. If Zorita is in, I am out!
Mike
Email 4862, Keith Briffa to the whining Mann
We simply will not allow you to withdraw . You know perfectly well that you are too important in all this to take such action. If it requires my talking to Eduardo and getting him to withdraw , then so be it.
Of course, skeptics are the complete opposite of Dr. Mann, we wish to engage debate where he does not. He wants to be the only voice in the room.
Therefore, I think the approach of choosecommonsense.org is absolutely wrong. They shouldn’t be trying to muzzle Dr. Mann, but instead should be pushing for open debate in our land of free speech. They should be pushing Penn State to allow a point-counterpoint dialog in the Penn State Forum Speaker Series instead of trying to muzzle him.
Dr. Mann himself supports “robust debate” when he’s tweeting to his friends:
Twitter / @MichaelEMann: Good editorial on #CRUHack …
Good editorial on #CRUHack2 in The Economist: emails actually show science working as it should (robust debate, etc.) econ.st/tteL8L
Though, I suspect that if presented with an open debate in the Penn State Forum Speaker Series, Dr. Mann would say “…if so and so is in, I am OUT!”.
neill says:
February 5, 2012 at 8:01 am
“I don’t find smearing one’s opposition as ‘evil’, nor cooking data, to achieve one’s political aims to be “equally noble”. But you do.”
____
First, that is your perception of what they did, and so of course you can’t find anything they did “noble”, yet everything skeptics do is noble. The other side can never be seen in such light. To warmists, it is the skeptics who have acted immorally, and by delaying action, using emails out of context and the rest of it.
Both warmists and skeptics view themselves as sort of “heroes” who are saving the world. Warmists see themselves as heroes trying to save the world from the worst effects of anthropogenic climate change, and skeptics see themselves as heroes trying to prevent untold trillions being wasted on something that either isn’t happening, happening to such a small degree that it isn’t important, or is happening and should be allowed to happen because it will possibly forestall the next glacial advance. But each side can never see the enemy camp as acting in other than for selfish, ignorant, or greedy motives.
Stephen, generally I agree with you, but this is a case in which extending the privilege to speak free-of-charge at a forum that costs money, without limit on the subject matter, comes into conflict with the establishment clause. In such cases, the establishment clause is properly seen as being more important to the security of a free people, and thus as prevailing over the free-speech clause. It is a subtle point (the more so since most countries do not have an “establishment clause”), but an important one.
The establishment clause is one which is frequently ignored throughout U.S. history. I have argued simply that the people ignore it at their own peril.
I think most people on the other side of this issue, if they are honest with themselves, can imagine something Mann could say that would be out of bounds given that he is not paying for the forum, and the people are. But whether they will admit it is another question.
I appreciate your reply.
RTF
Let him speak.
With the strict requirement against Penn State, that in exchange for public money going to climate research grants (and eventually percolating to hands of university bureaucracy), the entire presentation be published on a Penn State website and put into the public domain along with all supporting material. At the same time forbid them to issue a press release.
The public (i.e. the blogosphere) can take its sweet time then, take it apart and expose all his slips. Mass media can resist only so far, ratings are ruthless foes.
Richard T. Fowler says:
February 5, 2012 at 12:40 pm
————————————————
I’m not clear on how your questions follow from my two previous comments here, on Penn State’s future reputation and moral presumption regarding other people’s grandchildren. If you are asking about Penn State’s rules for the Forum program, I only know of the program through this WUWT post. Nevertheless, you asked …
I have no idea whether the Forum program would ever invite an expert critic of the work of a high-profile PSU faculty-member to speak. If such an invitation were made, why impose limits on objective criticism of the work?
Of course, any baseless or personal attack on the faculty member should not be acceptable, nor called censorship.
R Taylor,
Sorry if I flustered you. I was using the occasion of your second comment to make a point to my opponents on the PSU issue. It worked too, because you stated something that goes right to the heart of the matter: the issue of “objective” content versus subjective. That is exactly what the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution is all about.
Your last sentence is also relevant, and I agree 100%.
Thank you for your thoughts!
RTF
Gates @2:00 pm:
Gates doesn’t see the difference between good and evil. There is actually good and evil in the world. Scientific skeptics are simply asking climate alarmists to prove their CO2=CAGW conjecture. But alarmists cannot support their conjecture per the scientific method, so they deviously take control of the peer review system, they conspire to get other scientists fired for simply having a different point of view, and they recklessly waste the money taken from hard-bitten taxpayers.
Those with a solid moral compass would label those actions as evil. Carrying water for them is evil, too. But simply asking questions?? Asking for their data, methodology, code and metadata is by Gates’ accounting “evil”?? Is that how his parents raised him, with no moral compass?
Once again, here is Phil Jones, hoping to cause humanity grief just so he could claim he was right:
Email 3408, 2008, Phil Jones: “I’d like the world to warm up quicker, but if it did, I know that the sensitivity is much higher and humanity would be in a real mess!”
Gates, if you had a soul, I would suggest some serious soul-searching. Like Jones, you are promoting a scam. That’s evil, no?
[Don’t answer that, Gates. You are not qualified. Your compass is broken.]
Luboš Motl says:
February 5, 2012 at 10:57 am
—————————————–
Good points, Lubos.
Thirteen years have now passed and not a single paper has been retracted including the ones “officially” proven wrong. Due to this default, papers are still quoted by the uninformed.
Climategate has shown what is going wrong in peer review, team conduct, university life and administration, and media. It is an expression of malfunction that he is still granted the opportunity to speak at such an event and location.
When a robber puts a gun to your head, there is no point to support robber’s freedom of speech.
He already has it. He has a gun.
Luboš Motl – I think Mann should be defunded first and foremost, but he, and anyone, should be allowed to speak at his own expense. In the US it is a given that we are allowed to speak. What we are not guaranteed is an audience nor free access to any audience we choose. And the audience has choices – the audience is free to get up and leave if they wish not to hear a particular speaker, but that choice should be theirs, not that of some bureaucrat with an agenda. Let the people decide, but don’t make the people pay.
Here’s a good example of someone whose free speech has been limited and curtailed for many years. A documentary made about her work was pulled from the schedule two hours before it was due to go on air. Unfortunately I can’t mention what her area of research is on this forum because discussion of it is not allowed. There is an extensive discussion of the suppression in the piece.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/interview-with-ivanka-charvatova-is-climate-change-caused-by-solar-inertial-motion/
This matter of Mann speaking is secondary – what’s the mechanism by which academia is held accountable for their whitewash and refusal to acknowledge scientific fraud?
For in having aided and abetted scientific fraud, Academic Fraud has been committed by those who have blindly followed whatever these charlatans publish.
When someone has been proven to be a liar and a bully, you do not give them another chance unless they have proven to have changed their ways.
Mann is both and as shown by his and Romm’s behavior this week, has not changed his ways. So I have to respectfully disagree with our host’s position.
Can someone — anyone — tell me exactly what data Mann is accused of manipulating? I don’t mean pointing me to some paper, but exactly what data, in what dataset, and in what way was it manipulated? I’ve seen lots of accusations, but never anything specific….
Erinome,
You are so far from being up to speed it’s pathetic. For one of many examples, Mann deleted contrary proxies by hiding them in an ftp file labeled “censored“.
And do a simple search on the Climate Audit site for “Tiljander”. Mann was informed before he published that the Tiljander proxy was corrupted, and had caused the data to be displayed upside-down. Mann published anyway, because the corrupted data gave him the hockey stick shape he craved.
Quit getting your misinformation from propaganda blogs like Skeptical Pseudo-Science. They’re spoon-feeding you nonsense, and you’re swallowing it. Mann is a climate charlatan – and his chickens are coming home to roost.
Smokey says:
You are so far from being up to speed it’s pathetic. For one of many examples, Mann deleted contrary proxies by hiding them in an ftp file labeled “censored“.
What is this graph supposed to show?
What data is it based on?
What quantity is being plotted on the y-axis?
Where are the error bars?
Who made it?
Who informed Mann of the “Tijander proxy,” and when? How do you know this?
I’d like details, not vague claims.
Erinome,
By asking those questions you make it clear that you’re way behind the learning curve. Ms Tiljander informed Mann of the corrupted proxy as soon as she found out about it.
Mann’s shocking Tiljander fraud, and the answers to all of your posted questions can be found both here and on Climate Audit. Simply use appropriate keywords like “Mann”, “censored”, “Tiljander”, etc. and learn. You will find in excruciating detail well-referenced answers all your questions. And by doing it yourself, you will retain more knowledge than if I do it for you.
Smokey, so you don’t know what Mann allegedly did wrong. You only have general links, a few keywords, and unlabeled graphs, then tell me to go investigate for myself.
That’s what I suspected, and it’s what I always find when I ask this question, here and elsewhere. People think that Climate Audit found that Mann did something wrong, but they never seem to know what it is. It’s a great example of confirmation bias.
Like Smokey said, it is there in “excruciating detail”.
People know that CA found that Mann did things wrong.
Of course, it appears you are trying to take the thread on a tangent which would distract attention from the First Amendment issue that was under discussion. I doubt that anyone would dare to censor you because of your choice of where to post your charge of “confirmation bias” against all who have criticized Mann.
Where would one even begin in giving a complete answer to your question? Many books have been written, each documenting the unique experiences of its respective investigator. And CA is, itself, the size of several books at this point.
But of course, you want it all pasted into this comment thread, or else if not, I suppose that means we are abusing Mann with our “confirmation bias”?
RTF