This just in. Here’s a potential bombshell for the Mann:
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Popcorn futures* continue their unprecedented climb:
UPDATE: Sunday 10/28 Mark Steyn writes an uproariously funny but at the same time stinging evisceration of Dr. Mann on his private website titled The fraudulent Nobel Laureate
This part says it all, I’d make it “Quote of the Week”, but then I don’t want to fragment this thread:
When a man sues for damage to his reputation and grossly inflates that reputation in the very court filings, that says something about his credibility.
He also links to this thoughtful essay by Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.
Mann’s embellishment has placed him in a situation where his claims are being countered by the Nobel organization itself.
*There are no popcorn futures markets, the graph is based on a corn future market graph, just for fun
Read Steyn’s latest here: The fraudulent Nobel Laureate
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Mark Steyn takes note of the airbrushing going on in Mike’s Nobel Trick:
A week ago, Michael Mann accused us of damaging his reputation – and seems to have made it a self-fulfilling prophecy. A week ago, he was a “Nobel prize recipient”. Now he’s not. Great work, Mike!
Dr. Judith Curry sends some advice in her week in review:
“JC message to Michael Mann: Mark Steyn is [a] formidable opponent. I suspect that this is not going to turn out well for you.”
Read more at JudithCurry.com
————————————————————–
FLASH: 10/26 7:30AM The Nobel committee responds to Mann’s “certificate”, says he can’t claim he won it (the Nobel prize itself).
See below. – ALSO National Review makes phone call to Nobel committee, audio and transcript below.
NOTE: This is a top sticky post for awhile since the interest is high. New stories appear below this one. UPDATE – legal complaint added, plus a new opinion piece by Chris Horner regarding claims of exoneration has been added – see below the “continue reading” line. UPDATE2: Steyn responds, see below.
UPDATE 3: Steyn responds even further, saying:
“Over the years, I’ve been sued and threatened with suits in various countries around the world but I’ve never before seen a plaintiff make such a transparently false assertion right up front in the biographical resumé.”
Details (and a photo to back up Steyn) below.
UPDATE4: CEI officially responds to the lawsuit, and Steyn mocks Mann even more with a priceless zinger, see below.
In related news, popcorn futures explode go nuclear.
More details to follow.
From Michael Mann’s Facebook page.
Lawsuit filed against The National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute 10/22/12
Today, the case of Dr. Michael E. Mann vs. The National Review and The Competitive Enterprise Institute was filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Dr. Mann, a Professor and Director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, has instituted this lawsuit against the two organizations, along with two of their authors, based upon their false and defamatory statements accusing him of academic fraud and comparing him to a convicted child molester, Jerry Sandusky. Dr. Mann is being represented by John B. Williams of the law firm of Cozen O’Connor in Washington, D.C. (http://www.cozen.com/attorney_detail.asp?d=1&atid=1406).
Dr. Mann is a climate scientist whose research has focused on global warming. In 2007, along with Vice President Al Gore and his colleagues of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for having “created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming.”
Nevertheless, the defendants assert that global warming is a “hoax,” and have accused Dr. Mann of improperly manipulating the data to reach his conclusions.
In response to these types of accusations, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation and seven other organizations have conducted investigations into Dr. Mann’s work, finding any and all allegations of academic fraud to be baseless. Every investigation—and every replication of Mann’s work—has concluded that his research and conclusions were properly conducted and fairly presented.
Despite their knowledge of the results of these many investigations, the defendants have nevertheless accused Dr. Mann of academic fraud and have maliciously attacked his personal reputation with the knowingly false comparison to a child molester. The conduct of the defendants is outrageous, and Dr. Mann will be seeking judgment for both compensatory and punitive damages.
Journalists interested in further information regarding the filing of this lawsuit may contact Dr. Mann’s attorney at 202-912-4848, or jbwilliams@cozen.com.
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I’m sure Mark Steyn is thrilled with the prospect of now being able to do additional commentary on this side show. I can’t wait for depositions and discovery.
UPDATES:
Here is the legal complaint: http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/michael-mann-complaint.pdf
Chris Horner has this opinion piece now which explains his opinion on why Dr. Michael Mann was never fully investigated and thus never exonerated.
Mark Steyn responds with: I’ll have more to say about this when I’ve stopped laughing.
Mark Steyn writes in a further update:
Actually, it’s worse than that. I’ve just read the official indictment or whatever you call it against NR, and he makes the claim that he has been “awarded the Nobel Peace Prize” in the complaint itself (page 2, paragraph 2).
Over the years, I’ve been sued and threatened with suits in various countries around the world but I’ve never before seen a plaintiff make such a transparently false assertion right up front in the biographical resumé.
And I’ve got the photo of Dr. Mann’s award (shown from his office window) to back up what Steyn says here.
Note it says “for contributing to” not awarded to.
Be careful, don’t choke on your popcorn while laughing.
UPDATE4:
CEI has released it’s official statement on the lawsuit on their website here: http://cei.org/news-releases/climate-scientist-sues-cei
The say:
One of our attorneys, Bruce D. Brown of Baker Hostetler, expertly laid out the legal arguments against Mann’s defamation claim. In short, Dr. Mann is a public figure, and under libel law he would need to meet an exceedingly high standard to prevail. Given the support that Simberg’s criticisms rest on, that standard simply can’t be met. As for Simberg’s Sandusky metaphor, it was purely that—a metaphor.
They are also inviting readers to comment on the CEI Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CompetitiveEnterpriseInstitute/posts/428205930566869
Meanwhile, Mark Steyn whips out an example of his rapier wit over Mann’s “Nobel Prize” claims (see photo above) writing:
On the one hand, Michael Mann’s own web page:
He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with other IPCC authors in 2007.
On the other, the Nobel committee:
Only persons named explicitly in the citation may claim to share a Nobel Prize.
So we’re being sued for loss of reputation by a fake Nobel laureate. Hilarious.
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FLASH The Nobel committee responds to Mann’s “certificate” From Tom Richard at Climate Change Dispatch and at The Examiner
I contacted the The Norwegian Nobel Institute to find out if Mann was indeed a Nobel Laureate, winner, etc…
…snip…
Geir Lundestad, Director, Professor, or The Norwegian Nobel Institute emailed me back with the following:
1) Michael Mann has never been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
2) He did not receive any personal certificate. He has taken the diploma awarded in 2007 to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (and to Al Gore) and made his own text underneath this authentic-looking diploma.
3) The text underneath the diploma is entirely his own. We issued only the diploma to the IPCC as such. No individuals on the IPCC side received anything in 2007.
(NOTE: on point 3, another example here (PDF) suggests that the IPCC added that text, not Mann – Anthony)
Lundestad goes on to say that, “Unfortunately we often experience that members of organizations that have indeed been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize issue various forms of personal diplomas to indicate that they personally have received the Nobel Peace Prize. They have not.”
Full story at Climate Change Dispatch and at The Examiner
=================================================================
ALSO: From NRO’s “The Corner” a call to the Nobel committee by Charles C. W. Cooke:
TRANSCRIPT
Cooke: Hello there, do you speak English?
Nobel Committee: Yes, can I help you?
Cooke: I’m a writer. I’m wondering if I could ask you about previous winners of the Nobel Peace Prize?
Nobel Committee: Oh, could you speak a little bit louder. It’s difficult for me to hear.
Cooke: Sorry. I’m trying to look for some information about previous winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Nobel Committee: Which one?
Cooke: I was wondering, has Dr. Michael Mann ever won the Nobel Peace Prize?
Nobel Committee: No, no. He has never won the Nobel prize.
Cooke: He’s never won it?
Nobel Committee: No.
Cooke: Oh, it says on his-
Nobel Committee: The organization won it. It’s not a personal prize to people belonging to an organization.
Cooke: Okay. So if I were to write that he’d won it, that would be incorrect?
Nobel Committee: That is incorrect, yes. Is it you that sent me an email today? I got an e-mail from our Stockholm office regarding Michael Mann.
Cooke: Oh. No, I didn’t send you an e-mail.
Nobel Committee: Oh. So what’s your name?
Cooke: My name is Charles Cooke.
Nobel Committee: And you work for?
Cooke: I write for National Review.
Nobel Committee: Okay, because I’ve got something from Boston and NY Mental Examiner that asked about the same thing.
Cooke: Oh, okay. Well maybe this is a big question. Okay, but he hasn’t won it. That is the answer.
Nobel Committee: No, he has not won it at all.
Cooke: Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much.
Nobel Committee: Thank you. You’re welcome. Bye bye.
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Further trawling of the link above shows that our Michael still says he shared the Nobel Peace Prize all over the Penn State website. Not much of a clean up job.
Results: 16-30 of about 138 for “michael mann nobel”
Conversations from Penn State Episode #405: Michael Mann …
SATALIA: Michael Mann is one of the nation’s leading climatologists. … shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. … Here’s our conversation with Michael Mann…
Research|Penn State: Dire Predictions
… are among the predictions made by the Nobel-Prize winning Intergovernmental … Now, in a new book, Penn State climate scientists Michael E. Mann and Lee …
Dispatches from the Front Lines
Michael E. Mann, lead author of the original paper … MICHAEL E. MANN is a member of the Penn State … aries in science, and in 2007 shared the Nobel Peace …
ESSC: Earth System Science Center – News and Events
The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to former Vice President Al Gore … Dr. Richard Alley, Dr. Michael Mann, and Dr. Klaus Keller all comment on …
Student Nobel Laureates
Alley is one of five Penn State scientists who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize … professor of meteorology; Michael Mann, associate professor of meteorology …
and so on…
@tbear you become increasingly insulting ( it’s not my place to say but trust me, I expect it won’t be tolerated much further ) You don’t appear to have addressed the two previous posts I made to you ( quite politely ). Perhaps you missed them? There does appear to be a touch of the myopic about your demeanour.
In the fifties there was a war movie about how the Graf Spee was tracked down, damaged, and driven into harbor in Uruguay (then scuttled) by a squadron of three British cruisers. When the cruisers were sighted, the Graf Spee’s captain turned and charged them, thinking they were destroyers, that being the preferred method of coping with such a threat. On the bridge of the British flagship, the captain or admiral exclaimed in delight, “He’s coming right at us!” as that gave the advantage to the cruisers.
Mann’s coming right at us.
Keith says:
October 29, 2012 at 1:06 pm
thanks for answering my query !
Mann was found “guilty” by the Wegman inquiry. The NAS inquiry absolved him on some counts but convicted him on others, luke-warmly endorsing the Wegman report. The UK inquiries didn’t touch on Mann’s behavior–they were restricted to looking at UK nationals. The PSU inquiry was a joke.
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Mann’s Nobel prize claim was, in itself, a minor stretcher. What will make it deadly for him is if it turns out to be true, as a commenter upthread claimed, that he and all other IPCC-ers, were sent an e-mail from either the Nobel Committee or the IPCC a year ago telling them not to claim to be Nobel recipients. If he persisted despite being warned, he’s a “meat-eater,” not a “grass-eater.”
Oops–NSF, not NAS.
“>Am I right to think that in the USA court system, for this case, the burden of proof is low, in effect just the same as ‘balance of probablilities’ we have over here in UK. i.e. one side just needs 51% to the others 49%? If it is a jury ‘vote’ decision, would that be a 7:5 requirement for a 12 man jury?. Or do you have the possibility for a casting vote by the judge if its 6:6?
The standard of proof in a civil trial is preponderance of the evidence (51-49). Each state has its own rules with respect to the size of juries in civil trial. In California, civil juries usually have 12 members and a valid verdict must be by a 9-3 or better (75%) margin. Judges don’t cast tie breaking votes. I don’t know how many jurors are used in Washington D. C. A Manuel on Jury Trial Procedures, 2004 edition, prepared by The Jury Instructions Committee for the 9th Circuit states that for civil trials between 6 and 12 jurors must be used. I hope this case does make it into a courtroom.”
The burden of proof in a civil trial is on the plaintiff by preponderance of evidince. But remember this is a US libel trial where NYT vs Sullivan 376 U.S. 254 applies. As such there is a positive burden of proof laid on *the plaintiff* to prove actual malice, If I may quote directly from the judgement in question:
“(c) Factual error, content defamatory of official reputation, or both, are insufficient to warrant an award of damages for false statements unless “actual malice” — knowledge that statements are false or in reckless disregard of the truth — is alleged and proved. Pp. 279-283.”
Any credible evidence that the defendant had reasonable grounds for holding the expressed opinion will give the case to the defence even if they were mistaken.
Civil trials in DC require a Jury of between 6 and 12, majority verdicts are not allowed
http://www.dccourts.gov/internet/documents/civil_actions_handbook.pdf
http://www.dccourts.gov/internet/documents/Civil-Rules.pdf
I hope Mann gets his desserts. Or should I deserts, LOL