Kos asks about Michael Mann – hero or zero?

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:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/09/1072828/-Michael-Mann-is-a-Modern-Hero-and-we-need-to-acknowledge-that-

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