Guest post by Brandon Shollenberger
Words cannot describe the humor of Michael Mann’s latest post:
As professional climate change deniers become increasingly irrelevant and desperate, so do their distraction and smear efforts. These are mostly just noise in the background these days, as the media increasingly appears to be recognizing the intellectual bankruptcy of the industry-funded climate change denial effort and those who do its bidding. Occasionally, though, I will debunk the most egregious of the smears and falsehoods, both to set the record straight, and to arm readers w/ the information necessary to evaluate the credibility of the various actors in the climate change denial campaign…At that point I will be updating my lecture slides, many of which are indeed somewhat out of date.
Thus starts the latest crazy posting in the climate blog world, unsurprisingly written by Michael Mann. Snickers abound when Mann talks about “credibility,” but no words exist for the reaction this post should garner. Specifically, Michael Mann refers to a recent posting from (the long missed) Steve McIntyre, saying:
…it seems remarkable that Mr. McIntyre couldn’t figure this out, and instead chose to invent an entire conspiracy theory involving not just me, but multiple scientists, the AGU, IPCC, etc.
Steve McIntyre has gathered a great deal of respect, including respect from people who don’t agree with him. He has made many points even his critics accept are true. How can anyone believe he is some conspiracy nut? I don’t know, but it can’t be because of anything he wrote in that post.
The term AGU is used approximately 30 times in McIntyre’s post. In every case, it is used in a sense like “Mann at AGU,” “Mann’s AGU graphic” or “the AGU audience.” Not a single case of McIntyre saying the AGU did anything exists. The same is true for the term IPCC, which gets used 10 times. In fact, the only person (other than Mann) the post refers to as doing anything is Naomi Oreskes, who McIntyre says “appears to have [been] wrongfooted” by Mann.
Put simply, Steve McIntyre blamed everything in this post on Michael Mann. Mann interprets this as:
…an apparent effort to manufacture a nefarious plot out of whole cloth [where] Mr. McIntyre (parroted by Mr. Watts) imagines a great conspiracy.
While this is arguably a new low for Michael Mann, many people won’t be surprised at him saying things that make him appear delusional. However, some may be surprised to see John Cook, proprietor of Skeptical Science, agreed, saying (in a comment):
I find it interesting that Steve McIntyre automatically lunges towards a conspiratorial explanation of events. Stephan Lewandowsky published a paper last year showing a significant association between climate denial and conspiratorial thinking. The response to the research from climate deniers was a host of new conspiracy theories. We document the originators of these conspiracy theories in the paper Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation: http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/Lewandowsky_2013_Recursive_Fury.pdf. The chief originator of conspiracy theories? Steve McIntyre.
That’s right, the founder of Skeptical Science, a man who works with people like Stephan Lewandowsky to claim skeptics are conspiracy nuts, promotes this as an example of their conspiratorial ideation. A man who publishes papers claiming to find conspiracy theorists finds blaming everything on Mann to be a conspiracy theory involving an unknown number of people.
Be careful folks. Blame Michael Mann for anything, and you may be fabricating a conspiracy involving intergovernmental bodies, scientific communities and “multiple scientists.”
Or so global warming advocates will say.
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See Steve McIntyre’s observations on Dr. Mann’s graphic shortcomings here
Related articles
- Mike’s AGU Trick (climateaudit.org)
- Michael Mann’s new ‘trick’, pulled off at the American Geophysical Union Convention – exposed by McIntyre (wattsupwiththat.com)
- John Cook: Conspiracy Theorists Respond to Evidence They’re Conspiracy Theorists With More Conspiracy Theories (huffingtonpost.com)
- Friday Funny – John Cook’s withdrawal symptoms (wattsupwiththat.com)
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Classic ad hominem!
Brandon,
You’ll recall Steve McIntyre’s discussion of dehumanizing language. We are all conspiracists, denialists and thespians, no doubt.
Being a conspiracist I’m waiting for super Mandia’s tweet defending Michael Mann in 5…4…3….2…1….
“…intellectual bankruptcy of the industry-funded climate change denial…”
…intellectual bankruptcy of the oil industry-funded (BP, Shell, Al Gore and Oxy etc) climate change alarmist centres such as the UEA CRU…
There Mann, fixed it for ya!
From Michael Mann’s latest post:
He wrote:
As professional climate change deniers become increasingly irrelevant and desperate, so do their distraction and smear efforts. These are mostly just noise in the background these days, as the media increasingly appears to be recognizing the intellectual bankruptcy of the industry-funded climate change denial effort and those who do its bidding.
Little Mickey meant to write:
As professional climate change doomsayers become increasingly irrelevant and desperate, so do their distraction and smear efforts. These are mostly just noise in the background these days, as the media increasingly appears to be recognizing the intellectual bankruptcy of the taxpayers-funded climate change fear spreading effort and those who do its bidding
Wearing a hockey stick just seems awkward.
http://i47.tinypic.com/2i7mfex.jpg
Nothing about Mann using the land-only surface data then. Just my slides are “somewhat out of date” (8 years).
Words fail me. About as badly as charts fail Mann.
Using the phrase “climate denier” puts any following arguments beyond reason and into the realm of politics and/or religion. If you disagree with them or don’t follow the dogma fully you are a “climate denier.” These folks seem to believe they can control the climate if they can only control all our activities. I’m more than willing to deny them the latter. Climate control used to be on the dash of some cars.
McIntyre did not accuse the AGU of being part of a conspiracy. That is clear from the posts.
But Michael Mann and John Cook have accused McIntyre of believing in a conspiracy.
Why?
Just to disparage McIntyre’s work? It can’t be that. His work is too technical for anyone to follow unless they already have basic English comprehension.
To promote the SkS created paper that claims everyone who disagrees with the authors is crazy? It can’t be that. The paper is self-published, unable to legitimately pass peer review and is an embarrasment to Australian academia.
Or maybe it is because both Mann and Cook want people to know about a conspiracy in the AGU? It could be that. But it seems unlikely. What evidence can they have?
The AGU should ask both Mann and Cook to be clear. What evidence for a conspiracy have they found. And if none they should be forced to agree with McIntyre that it is Mann who is responsible for the misrepresentation. Mann alone
It is time for the AGU to stand up for its own good reputation while it may still have one.
Mann has either bought his own snake oil pitch, or is intentionally lying. Which is not mine to say. But when he claims his lies are facts, and that facts are lies, he is creating a new form of deception for the willing dupes. They are not to look at the data, but rather, just believe the sermons from his mount.
Sad really. I expect to see some of his acolytes defending him shortly using his own delusional data. The fun part will be in how they deny reality – the reality of their OWN data.
Ha ha… they are getting a bit desperate now…
For a long time the default fall-back position in the face of facts has been “… yeah, well, anyway you think it is all a great conspiracy…. ” which eventually fades away to an angry muttering once it is shown that a whole bunch of people making the same errors of logical thinking in pursuing their own particular interests does not necessarily take or make a conspiracy.
Of course, Lewandowsky jumped on the bandwagon, and in spite of producing nothing of substance, he and his words were embraced very enthusiastically by the believers… and now Mann and Cook are showing a disturbingly Orwellian tendency to not even care about paying lip service to the truth or the details of the original debate, but could think of only this old fall-back line.
But, in these times of ubiquitous communication, the old tactics of deflection and distraction don’t work so well any more, and they are instead immediately exposed.
Maybe Mann is right and he’s just 7 years out of date like he says…
Unreality Mannifest…
Prof. Mann never misses an opportunity to beclown himself. And boy, does he deliver.
Mann seems to be descending into delusion. Lets not forget the (albeit tired and hackneyed) stereotype of the ‘mad scientist’.
I see little to gain from engaging in a shouting contest with the likes of Michael Mann and John Cook. When your critics are screaming like fools, best not try to drown them out.
The funny part about this whole ordeal is that Mann hasn’t once refuted the claim that McIntyer’s article is hitting on: That Mann’s argument that the observations are close to the models is completely wrong and deceptive.
Who’s going to call him out? There are no mainstream reporters or journalists who will. The AGU will do nothing. A cursory glance at their website shows them to be completely in agreement with the CAGW orthodoxy. Penn State hierarchy is unperturbed. It’s not Mann’s chicanery and buffoonery that’s the story here, it’s that he can engage in it with impunity. Skeptical websites have little power. Who is supposed to be the check and balance in this situation??
“A man who publishes papers…”, I can’t help but think of Cook as a boy cartoonist.
Conspiracy? None mentioned or implied. Mann has gone well off the rails with his commentary.
What this whole affair does indicate is a shocking level of “Groupthink”. No one else, as far as anyone knows, looked at this graphic critically. This was presented to a room full of scientists who appear to have simply nodded their heads in agreement.
I wonder…if this was an investment that carried with it a promise of rapid growth, would these people be as quick to accept assurances that the projections were correct and that things were on track? Would they be mollified by the insistence that this investment could only be measured over a 30 year period? Would they focus exclusively on the trend and ignore the decline in that trend, or might they notice the fact that their stake is worth less now than it was 15 years ago?
If it was their money involved I’d like to think that they’d be going for the torches and pitchforks right about now, but maybe not. I’ve been to a few gatherings where folks talked about their participation in MLM schemes, and they remained staunchly optimistic even when there was clear evidence that they had been scammed. Groupthink is a powerful thing and no conspiracy is required.
“As professional climate change deniers become increasingly irrelevant and desperate, so do their distraction and smear efforts”
Shouldn’t that be read :
“As professional “CAGWers” become increasingly irrelevant and desperate, so do their distraction and smear efforts. ”
Any public opinion poll will show you who is irrelevant & who is relevant,
Also, any look traffic poll of any climate blog & you will see who is irrelevant & who is relevant.
His continued use of ad homs & labeling skeptics the the “d” word shows who uses smear & distraction efforts. How about some data for a change, Mike?
Wow.simply wow…
Captain Queeg? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AznmrRZsRQ
“At that point I will be updating my lecture slides, many of which are indeed somewhat out of date.”
Indeed, Dr Mann has a gift for understatement. Imagine an accounting firm showing up with slides about your firm that stop reflecting financial information almost 8 years previously and tries to make recommendations about your firms current financial strategy based on them. I’d wager that the slides would not be considered ‘somewhat out of date’.
Michael Mann – a short, balding, physically unnatractive man thrust into the limelight discovered just how much he likes being an important person and is now desperately trying to extend his 15 minutes.
While his behavior is repugnant I can’t actually harbor any ill will to this man. If you read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie it would be apparent that Mann isn’t doing anything that any other person would do, most everyone would like to be considered important and he probably truly believes every word of his BS because of the need to be important. The harder people push and tell him he’s wrong the more determined he’ll become in his efforts; it’s what led Max Planck to say “Science advances one funeral at a time”. Mann will never change is his mind because his ego is too caught up in his standing within the AGW community, to admit he was wrong would destroy him and he will never do that.
We can laugh and shake our heads and ridicule him (something I’m guilty of doing myself) but at the end of the day this approach will just cause him and his supporters to dig their heels in even further. I’m not sure what the answer is, human nature rarely allows us to see our own failings. It’s the rare person who can do so and Mann has proven incapable many times over.
LOL, I like how he also worked in a plug for his book into his rant. Nice touch.
“Deniers” are so irrelevant that Mann has to expend a great deal of verbiage trying to dismiss them in the usual tired old ways.
It’s a pity that he lacks self-awareness as much as he lacks statistical competence.