I was surprised to see this essay and poll on the Daily Kos tonight.
Don Mikulecky writes:
Michael Mann is a Modern Hero and we need to acknowledge that!
I have been both a scientist and a political activist for most of my 76 years. But the situation regarding Michael Mann is very different. I just finished a very moving experience reading The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines and I have lots more to say than I can fit in a single diary. So I will devote this diary to trying to convince you that this Mann is a hero. There are too few heroes among the scientific community because of the nature of what we do.
Michael Mann was not someone who chose his role. Military persons can anticipate the possibility of being in situations where acts of heroism are called for. Scientists are certainly not in the same situation. Or at least, they have not been for a long time. Galileo comes to mind and it was the Church then that made his life one of great sacrifice. In these times the situation has deteriorated so rapidly that few of us have had a chance to evaluate the impact of what is going on. Science is a threat to the dark forces that are moving to control us all. People like Carl Sagan and Stephen jay Gould were out there early on fighting against these dark forces. They did a lot for us. Rachael Carlson and many others were on the front lines.
Yet the situation with Professor Mann is something beyond all that. He has become a symbol for what our future is all about and he did not chose his role. No sane person would have. Read on below and I will try to paint a broad picture of how much is at stake and give you a perspective on how this one Mann has focused on the threat to all of us.
…
The full essay is here:
And, there is a poll at the end which has some surprising choices.
Update 3/14: One of the comments there is by somebody who posts here regularly, John Sully. He writes:
Anthony Watts posted about this over at his site and told the trolls to come and freep the poll. This is why year after year his site gets voted “Best Science Blog” or whatever.
Mr. Sully please point out exactly where in the 35 words I wrote (the rest are from Kos) in this essay I have “…told the trolls to come and freep the poll.” Otherwise sir, you are a liar. – Anthony
Not to many people agree with the essay’s premise that Mann is a hero…… about one percent think so…. the rest think he distorts evidence or should be fired.
His “hockey stick” graph was the worst piece of science in the modern era…. certainly in light of the politics that surrounds the whole issue of the AGW hypothesis.
I have been both a scientist and a political activist for most of my 76 years.
Really! Sounds like a conflict of interest. I don’t think you can be both.
Science is a threat to the dark forces that are moving to control us all.
Is he kidding?! It’s people like him who are looking to control us all, not the “dark forces” of climate skepticism.
Amazing survey choices. Especially following a story such as that.
I think someone has not too subtly set Mann up for a fall! 🙂
On my 9:53 comment above the CBC’s URL was dropped. I’ll spell it out:
www dot cbc dot ca slash thecurrent where it is currently the third-listed past program item
At 1900hrs GMT on 12 March:-
Poll
Michael Mann
did not choose to became a symbol
0% 10 votes
has been attacked in many of the same ways that the President and John Kerry were
0% 3 votes
Is an outstanding scientist and human being
0% 5 votes
all of the above
1% 32 votes
is distorting evidence to prove his point
73% 2135 votes
should be fired from the university
25% 736 votes
| 2922 votes | Results
I held my nose and voted in the Daily Kos’ ridiculous poll.
I am not much younger than the author of the article extolling Mann, but I suspect he has slipped over the edge of reason.
Mann is a legend and hero in his own mind. Reality and a careful examination of his alternative reality says otherwise.
OK, at this point the votes are roughly 2900 negative to 50 positive.
This would appear to reflect the relative popularity of WUWT and Kos. It may also reflect the fact that Mann’s hockey stick is the most comprehensively discredited object in modern science since Piltdown Man(n?).
And, as we have come to expect, the Left is once again comforting itself with its smugly complacent sense of moral superiority — which, after all, is the whole point of Leftist ideology…
I thought the article was a spoof. I was waiting for the punchline, the sudden turn as he pounces for the kill. But having read the comments, I realise it wasn’t a spoof at all.
It would be as if Monty Python’s Holy Grail – exactly as we remember it with knights on imaginary horses, knights that say “nik”, a killer rabbit, etc – was intended not as a comedy, but as a period drama to be viewed as a factual representation of the medieval period.
Shocking.
Phil Clarke says:
March 14, 2012 at 4:17 am
Yes, the “he should be roasted until well done” numbers are high.
But on the Daily Kos, which is an uber-leftist site, you’d expect a number of his supporters to have shown up. Let me take a look … yep, you are right that the number of “hold his feet to the fire” votes have risen. And someone else is right that they’d close the poll. They did, with about 3000 votes compared to the 1900 I’d reported on above.
But in all of that, out of about 3,000, Mann got a total of 50 votes in his favor, even including the fact that four out of the six questions were of the “he’s a great guy, give him a Nobel prize” variety.
So Phil, I’d say Daily Kos readers ain’t buyin’ it either … which was my point. What was surprising was not the number of votes against him, but the amazing scarcity of votes for him.
w.
98% of the votes are against Mann. Amazing on the Daily Kos. Only 51 of almost 3000 votes in favor of him. I voted against after years of research on my own. Now where is my big oil check.
I have no strong position on this man one way or the other, but I felt I had to comment on the atrocious grammar in the poll.
The votes are still being counted. And I still smell a rat.
Good for Daily Kos, probably their best day ever for hits.
When I read what seemed to me to be a poorly researched, ill-considered opinion piece by someone with a CV like Don Mikulecy’s, I worry. Did I miss his point?
It’s amazing that he is willing to go to press with so little knowledge of Mann’s work. There must be more to being admirable than being dedicated, which Mann certainly is.
I wonder why it may never have occurred to Mikulecy that there might be something to the well constructed careful analyses of his work which tend to show it at best weak, and at worst …
William Martin in NZ says:
March 13, 2012 at 8:46 pm
I’m sure with the poll results,we could make a TRUE hockey stick.LOL
William. That is a true classic, it would make a great cartoon Idea for JOSH. I laughed till I cried.
I first thought the poll had closed. Then I read above that only if you link from WUWT is it closed. So pasted the link in and voila the poll was OPEN!. There were an additional 10 votes from when I tried before. I voted Fire the bastard! since that seemed the worst you can do to manny boy in that poll.
I took a screenshot as Mr. Courtney suggested above, just in case.
If WUWT’s mighty armada of heathen infidels are to blame for all of those negative votes, I would definitely be surprised. Especially since anything posted on WUWT is often very quickly mirrored on other sites, both CAGW alarmist and CAGW unbelievers.
As Willis points out, not only are the pro-votes scarce given the KOS members voting pro, but it is incredibly low when one considers that other pro-CAGW sites surely must be encouraging readers to vote.
One also wonders if all of mann boy’s very pro five star A____ reviewers have also voted for him, and are helping to drive up manny’s numbers.
My vote brings the percentage total up to 98.27% AGAINST, with 25% to can the bum! Is this poll admissable in Canadian courts for use by defendants?
I think Dave A came close. It doesn’t matter if ALL these votes came from WUWT readers, it’s a statistical probe into the “influence” of the Daily KOS.
GUYS, we are WINNING! They are merely WHINING (what a difference two letters can make.)
HAHAHA! They don’t even have MINIONS any more. They are dropping by the wayside.
I’m stunned. NOW next fall, AT THE BALLOT BOX!
Max H.
Here is a classic warmist Idea of the Hockeystick over at Daily Kos.
The denialist industry has seized on the hockeysti (2+ / 0-)
Recommended by:Portlaw, don mikulecky
like a dog on a chew toy. And the industry is big. Forbes and Wall Street Journal regularly run denialist pap. When they bring up the hockeystick (which is a reconstruction of climate up to 2000 years ago, expressed as a graph) the default assumption is that Mann “manipulated data.” He is often called a fraud or charlatan or worse. Often, commenters express a desire that he be jailed.
Mann’s research, data, algorithms and code are all online.
Anybody can check his work. But nobody has come up with a climate reconstruction that differs substantially from Mann’s studies.
And he is studying climates of the past. It baffles me that he has become the Immanuel Goldstein of the fossil fueled delusionists.
******************************************************************************************************
And here is Don Mikulecky pathetic excuse. Hey Don how many warmers does it take to make your article of faith true??:
Don Mikulecky: You can see from the poll that we have some trolls (0+ / 0-)
from the deniers here
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the moment. It stands or falls on its own merits.
Yeah Don, Mann and his fraudulent reconstruction MWP/ LIA failed the scientific stink test a long time ago!!!
It’s a Pity Don Mikulecky doesn’t take this seriously or he would reexamine his belief in Mann and the his and all alarmist fraudulent reconstruction of climate data and science.
Poll results so far shows that it’s a travesty. It’s worse than we thought! They lose debates and votes. They must now realise that they are a small minority of deluded Warmists.
Michael Mann:
0% – did not choose to became a symbol
0% – has been attacked in many of the same ways that the President and John Kerry were
0% – Is an outstanding scientist and human being
1% – all of the above
72% – is distorting evidence to prove his point
25% – should be fired from the university
3,048 Total votes cast
“I have been both a scientist and a political activist for most of my 76 years.”
I don’t see how one could be both…
Hmmm, maybe the next time they run a poll, the need to institute a voter ID system. That way, they can control the outcome better.
If they really do it right, they might even be able to get a 97% in agreement result.
It is surprising though the low number of votes Mann got. Where are the 97% of climate scientists? Where is the IPCC, team, CRU, Greenpeace supporters, WWF supporter et al. to lend support? Are these people slow off the mark? I thought they wanted action now so why not demonstrate it?
John M says: “Hmmm, maybe the next time they run a poll, the need to institute a voter ID system. That way, they can control the outcome better.”
What makes you think they didn’t?
So the Kos has a juicy dilemma on their hands–do they show Mann the results of this poll, or tell him they lost their data? (Phil Jones would be proud.)
I suppose they could always pull a Gleick and blame somebody else–especially those nasty “deniers”.
You can still vote here [scroll down to the poll].
Poll option:
“Is an outstanding scientist and human being” Only NINE votes out of 3,000+.
Sheesh! Adolf would get more than that in a synagogue.