ClimateBites Tom Smerling writes:
…I would have preferred that Mann had stopped with the quote above, but he added
“I will call people who deny the science ‘deniers.’ I won’t be deterred by the fact that they don’t like the use of that term and no doubt that just endears me to them further. It’s frustrating of course because a lot of us would like to get past this nonsensical debate and on to the real debate to be had about what to do.”
And he adds his own opinion:
While sharing Mann’s frustration, we now avoid using the term “denier” at ClimateBites. Though accurate and concise, labeling people “deniers” simply shuts many more doors — and minds — than it opens. I have heard several anecdotes about partially open-minded skeptics, including meteorologists, taking offense at the label, which they associated with Holocaust denial. No doubt, at least some undecided onlookers feel the same way, and that’s our real audience. Bottom line: In most situations, the costs of branding people “deniers” simply outweighs the benefits.
He’s right, the label is offensive, and I believe Dr. Mann uses it for spite and to denigrate his opponents. Dr. Mann doesn’t want debate at all, and that’s not the behavior of a scientist, but rather, an advocate.
h/t to Tom Nelson
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The believers tossed civility out the window along with their credibility a long time ago.
When his models and interpreted data match what is currently happening he might have a case, but there can be no consensus when the models and data are clearly not following the current trend and he has no explanation for why.
Right now he is just an arrogant writer of fiction.
Get back to doing science Michael and figure it out!
As time passes, and more data rolls in, Mann looks ever more foolish and desparate; as do his followers. Even the politicians realise they are now flogging a dead horse. Hitting people in their pockets makes them take notice and what they notice is the utter b*lls**t that makes up the claims of cAGW. I look forward to laughing at the contortions that Mann, Hansen et al are going to be performing in the future.
Dr. Mann (or anyone using the term “deniers”) needs to stipulate just what he thinks people are denying.
Kurt in Switzerland
Next, Mann needs to agree to remove the term climate scientist to describe himself and replace it with ‘climate scientist’.
“Nonsensical debate?” First of all, we need an actual debate with well-informed sceptics, but that will never happen because all the ‘climate scientists’ like Mann are rightly scared of having the logic and procedures behind their distorted version of ‘science’ shredded in public. At the end of such a debate, it would be clear to all who advocates nonsense and that is something the CAGW cult, led by the Team, would never allow. So, that means no debate.
“Get back to doing science Michael and figure it out!”
Didn’t know he’d ever done any, Goldie! Do you have a citation?
“I will call people who deny the science ‘deniers.’ ” – then Mann is a denier. There is a circulus in probando there, they failed to prove that their pseudo-science is a science. They deny physics with the ‘global temperature’ which is no temperature, according to physics.
Hey, Mr. Mann: There’s absolutely no justification to pursue any engineered solution if the problem is so ill-defined or fictitious that those proposing it hide their work.
There’s no straight-thinking engineer that would even get near such a task. (There is this little matter of liability, you know–something you apparently don’t understand.)
So whatever you’ve got in all your emails, your algorithms, your playbook–whatever; divulge it all first and we’ll see whether it even warrants a solution.
Or just keep quiet and go away.
Quite simply; Mann can’t accept that he could be wrong.
His is certainly not the position of a scientist.
The important debate is not with the scientists, but with the general population who have only a passing interest in the detail. They hear the big picture stories and decide how much to complain about energy bills and transport costs. Having a nice benign scare story is as good for politicians as it is for the researchers.
Demonstrating how these researchers are engineering themselves out of an open debate is the first step to showing how they are denying the relevance of the new science which is starting to emerge.
‘taking offense at the label, which they associated with Holocaust denial.’
True but he should also have said that some heaters are now publicly linking the two in their writing !no doubt to cause offence.
The lesson here is: when you have the high ground, don’t give it away.
Smerling is correct in that the undecided onlookers make up the audience that needs to be convinced.
It won’t matter how good the realists’ arguments are, if they’re lathered with mud slinging they’ll be ignored.
When I first came across this debate it was the absolute certainty, religious in its righteousness, of the warmists’ beliefs and the contempt they showed toward their opponents, firebrands-and-pitchfork strength, that made me take pause. Add in their complete lack of a sense of humour and I wanted no truck with them. When a bit of study showed them to also be wrong, I was elated.
But had they, in Maxwell Smart’s words, used niceness, I’d have probably shrugged my shoulders, not become involved . . . and the good guys would have lost a soldier, however puny my efforts.
Seeing as the subject is Dr mann I wonder if anyone would care to comment on the post I made elsewhere yesterday?
“.I have been looking at the 13th and 14th Century records in the archives of Exeter Cathedral today and came across a tree ring study made by English Heritage (a Govt Body) of the timbers of this thousand year old building. The study was from around 1999. It said that tree rings were good for approximate dating (which I accept and was the prime purpose of the study) and that it could tell us years that were worse or better than average climatically (moisture etc during the growing season) but cautioned against trying to determine any more precise details than that.
Somewhere between today and 12 years ago the study of tree rings became highly elevated in importance and scope and diverged from its original purpose of dating. I can only think it was Dr Mann who gave it the undeserved celebrity it enjoys today.Tree rings are not a precise science however much they are promoted as being so.Tree rings can not give us the means to calculate precise temperatures.’
I can well imagine that many tree ring practitioners like the additional Kudos that elevating the importance of their activity has provided them, but equally there must be some that secretly think its importance in climate science has been over promoted. Believing this sort of stuff to be ‘data’ that is accurate enough to affect the thinking of gullible Western Govts is a relatively recent development which I can only assume happened when the hockey stick took pride of place in the IPCC assessment. To me it appears to be cappucino science-more froth than substance.
tonyb
Mann denies that the climate changed between 1000 Ad and 1900 AD. If that’s not a “head in the sand” climate change denier, I do not know what is!
As for Tom Sterling, he is correct that we need to get away from petty name calling and return to respectful debate about the science and the data.(I make a special exception for Michael Mann and Dr “death train” Hansen, as I do not consider them to be scientists in ANY meaningful interpretation of the word).
I suspect the reason that Mann et al do not want to debate the science and the data, but only enforce their narrow and incomplete dogma, is because they do not accept any scientific study, or data, which happens to challenge their beliefs. The hockey team have been shown to be cherry-pickers and deceivers. Their side of the debate descended into lawless fraud (fakegate) bullying, harassment and lying to several public inquiries (who were rigged to allow such lies to go unchallenged) and have lead to grotesque propaganda in the form of shock videos which do not tell the truth, but instead have polar bears falling from the skies into bloody messes on city streets and of children being blown to pieces.
Perhaps, a good and responsible and rational idea would be for them to stick . to . the . science! IF they fully, openly and honestly stuck to the scientific method, then they would have a lot more credibility. However, if they stuck to the scientific method, they would also be forced, by that strict scientific discipline, to acknowledge a total lack of evidence of runaway global warming and that there is no cause for undue alarm.
I have never had an issue with being called a denier. The word existed a long time before the holocaust and I don’t feel offended by it’s use now, even when the likes of Mann try to conflate two seperate issues. What does annoy me is that while Mann might call me a denier of science, it is he whose abuse of the scientific method has done more to cause this whole stinking situation than anyone else on earth.
At 12:22 AM on 18 May, Kurt in Switzerland observes:
Why, didn’t you read what Dr. Mann had written? We’re denying “the science.”
Of course, that begs the question: “What ‘science,’ Mikey?”
When a warmista declares all exchanges with skeptics of the crippled conjecture that is the AGW contention to be “nonsensical debates” while such discussions are flop-sweatily evaded, there’s the undeniable manifest of intellectual duplicity on the part of Dr. Mann and his correspondents such that my personal opinion inclines toward a cessation of all efforts to enter “debates” with Dr. Mann and his ilk in favor of pursuing ever more vigorously investigations of apparent theft of value through the deliberate utterance of falsehoods in their government grant funding applications.
If he lacks confidence in his ability to debate “the science” (whatever in hell anyone is supposed to think his “science” actually is) with those of us genuinely critical of his methodology, observational data, and professional integrity, then perhaps we should oblige him and leave the matter entirely to prosecuting attorneys and the plaintiff’s bar.
“Kurt in Switzerland says:
May 18, 2012 at 12:22 am”
In debate with many here in Aus…we apparent deny climate. It’s one of the funniest terms I see used constantly by alarmists here when talking about climate *change*.
Ermmmm, I’m undecided, and I think most people here are actually undecided rather than “denialists”. I think man plays a small part in global warming through deforestation, land change use etc, but I don’t follow the CO2 is evil meme. This doesn’t mean I won’t change my mind if something changes.
According to author Paul O’Shea denialism is “the refusal to accept an empirically verifiable reality. It is an essentially irrational action that withholds validation of a historical experience or event“.
Since the CO2 meme has not been shown empirically to be correct and we are not denying a historical event, how can we be referred to by the derogatory term “denier” and lumped in with the bloody idiots that actually do deny the holocaust?
People interested in honest and open discussion do not “label” others with a term that the interlocutors regard as offensive. “Deniers” is in fact highly offensive, and unquestionably meant to associate challenges to CAGW dogma with “Holocaust Deniers”….
We could term Michale Mann and his ilk “climate change scumbags” and it would be less offensive and more accurate (considering the behaviors displayed in the Climategate emails etc.), but of course it would not be conducive to a constructive discussion. On the other hand, given the scorched earth rhetoric of a lot of the Mannian camp, maybe it is time to fight back…. gee, guess that’s what Heartland was doing! (I still don’t want to emulate the Mannian rhetoric, but I can understand the temptation to reciprocate).
Mann’s Q&A with the Guardian, ten days after the Suzanne Goldenberg article in Slate which ClimateBites links to for the quote, and 3 days after the ClimateBites piece:
27 Feb 2012: Guardian: Live Q&A: Climate scientist Michael Mann on the ‘hockey stick’ controversy
Question:thefandango 28 February 2012 4:47PM
Micheal
Given that the term “denier” has obvious holocaust denial connotations, do you think that your use of that word is:
1. unacceptable for a scientist to use
2. one that could incite certain elements to violence against people who question the concensus
Or do you consider it a reasonable term?
Answer: michaelemann
Frankly, I think those who complain about this are often just producing crocodiles tears. As someone who lost relatives to the religious persecution of the jewish people, I would be as sensitive to anyone if I really though the use of the term has anything whatsoever do do with the holocaust. I find that argument quite disingenuous if not downright dishonest. For those who are denying mainstream science, the logical thing to call them is “deniers”. they are certainly not “skeptics” and even “contrarian” doesn’t always fit the bill. Given that some of the fiercest of our detractors have proudly declared themselves deniers (one such individual even wrote a book “The Deniers”) I find that this argument has no currency at all. I suspect its often used as a somewhat disingenuous ploy to get journalists and other commentators to grant the highly undeserved term of “skeptic” to those who are nothing of the sort.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/feb/27/michael-mann-climate-change-live-q-and-a
“ploy” to get journos to call sceptics “sceptics”? duh!
I am reading Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed at the moment. It was published in 1995, but is valid today. I will forever think of Mann and his ilk as ‘the anointed’ now.
I have formerly used the term AGWer, or CAGWer, which is polite, but I have noticed there are several articles (as mentioned above) that have come flat out and played the holocaust card lately. I believe that ‘the anointed’ is a perfect description for these people. It sums up their hubris nicely.
(Mind you, Sowell says that ‘the anointed’ tend to think of the rest of us as ‘the benighted’!)
The problem is not so much with those who deny science because, in truth, there are not many who knowingly do that. The real problem is with those who corrupt science. Those who forsake the scientific method, hide their data, refuse to disclose their methods and computer code and instead promote their corrupt science by seeking to discredit and abuse any with alternative opinions.
At 1:52 AM on 18 May, MikeB opined:
I believe that those critters warrant the descriptor charlatans, don’t they?
Thoughts of these goniffs gives me much to recall The Flim-Flam Man (1967), in which the title character claimed for himself a constellation of academic degrees I think suit Michael Mann even more appropriately:
(Hrm. Just what kind of “science” is it that they’re supposed to have made “corrupt,” anyway? Only in some kind of duplicitous illusory sense does it even approximate the truthful application of scientific method.)
Sticks and stones will break my bones but a lying man’s words will never hurt me.
A Mickey Mouse view from a Mickey Mouse data handler.
When a scientist emails the suggestion to a colleague to “Hide the decline” something is rotten in the State of Denmark or even Yamal……
Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick is the correct shape for Hockey but sadly/ashamedly not for honest science.
In most situations, the costs of branding people “deniers” simply outweighs the benefits.
BENEFITS??? HMMMM