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climate change denial campaign…At that point I will be updating my lecture slides, many of which are indeed somewhat out of date.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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Mikey Mann . . . The new King Chucklehead.
Upside down Mann upside down.
No surprise.
This wouldn’t be so nuts if Dr. Mann actually had a shred of scientific integrity.
He seems to have caught a really bad case of Skeptical Science Syndrome.
One knows the Steve is 100% correct when instead of explaining why his analysis is wrong, you conjure up all kinds of idiotic assumptions.
But hark, AGW is rife with idiotic assumptions.
Dr. Mann is such wonderful proof of this that I hope he never stops presenting/publishing. He is one of the best examples of Skeptical Science Syndrome I have ever observed. As such, his mistakes will continue, and allow open debate to flourish.
Mannian sophistry from another dimension. None other than that intrepid would-be board member of the Heartland Institute outlines the roots of the rise of this globalised Hot War phenomenon-
“In 1987, the Cold War was starting to warm up, but so was the Earth. The Berlin Wall was starting to come down, but nascent political and ideological threats were emerging. Traditional academic disciplines were searching for new language, tools, and answers to interdisciplinary problems. The concept of sustainability was just being introduced, but there was a growing appreciation that problems of the environment, economy, and society were intricately linked.
This idea drove us to create the Pacific Institute. We believed that global problems and effective solutions in the 21st century would require innovative ways of thinking, seeing, and doing.”
You won’t win a traditional scientific argument with these innovative thinkers, seers[Freudian spelling] and doers responding to all those nascent political and ideological threats emerging everywhere out there, but as Walter Russell Mead knew some time ago, it doesn’t really matter with these noisy alarm clocks-
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2010/07/12/the-big-green-lie-exposed/
Their incessant jangling is falling on ever more deaf ears for a very obvious empirical reason.
I think Dr. Mann sees dead people or something. Where is this “army of deniers” that are “funded by industry”? Are these dead people he sees with a seance? Are they perhaps his imaginary enemies (instead of friends)? I don’t know, but a man that paranoid just need professional help. It would be funny if the man was not taken seriously like he is, so in the end the best we can do is show the world how crazy he really is and perhaps get him the help he so desperatly needs.
Seriously Mike, why did you stop the trend at 2005? When my colleagues or I would present data at a national convention we would use the most up to date data we could. Some people would pride themselves in showing data that their graduate students collected that morning!
Is it laziness, hiding the flat trend since 2005, or you fill in option 3?
Like this exchange, the Lewandowsky (SL)exchange was quite interesting. In the end a blogger with the nom de plume of faustusnotes (FN) published an article which contradicted Lewandowsky though in the beginning he sharply criticized Steve McIntyres (SM) handling of the data.
See here:
Subsequent to the grand cat fight… FN posted this article on Factor Analysis (PC, EV, FA whatever). (It seems to be well written — maybe I don’t know enough though.)
http://faustusnotes.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/are-climate-change-skeptics-more-likely-to-be-conspiracy-theorists/
It arose from a series of Articles — blog posts by Steve McIntyre. This is the one where FN makes a conciliatory offer and then subsequently (link above) shows that SM’s (major)conclusion was correct — though they got there by somewhat different paths.
As someone who does not work in the Social Sciences it seemed to me that the article by FN and subsequent comments shed considerable light on the techniques. It certainly showed who believed in wild theories — and it was not Steve M. If one had to judge “who won” I would say that FN and SM argued to a draw with both having a valid approach to the data and both making some initial errors — with the only real loser being SL.
On this one, I would suggest that Dr. Mann should beware the Stats of March.
My comment simply disappeared for some unknown reason…
[ It was in the spam filer – see it above – mod]
Listen to the bully. You know he is an idiot when he accuses the victim of being stupid. It’s called “projectionism”.
With this in mind, please note what he said, word for word.
Mann is the one being paid, sidelined, more irrelevant as the media is tending to go with hands on ears singing “lalalalalala” to maintain some sort of credibility. The intellectual bankrupcy of choosing a few tree rings then appending modern temperature data. The bebunking of serious questions through deletion.. At this point “I will be updating my lecture slides, many of which are indeed somewhat out of date.”.. i.e. proven to be irrelevant and plain wrong!
Need we say more? I’m listening 😀
The apparent new meaning of a Ph.D.: POWER, higher and deeper.
I remember when it used to mean you now carry an official green card declaring the holder to be representative of a unique group of people defined by their insatiable curiosity of what they do NOT know and were willing to let an amoeba inform them.
”However, some may be surprised to see John Cook, proprietor of Skeptical Science, agreed, saying (in a comment):”
Not in the slightest! It is exactly the kind of narcistic bulldust to be expected from Cook and his ilk.
Mann is foolishness wrapped in idiocy covered by delusion and dipped in a rich dark covering of psycho.
Too funny.
Q: How will Mikey explain using land only temperature records to 2005 in comparison to Hansen’s Land and Ocean Scenario B?
A: He won’t. Instead, he’ll holler “persecute the heretic” and then duck and run.
More ‘hide the decline’ shenanigans.
Up until now, I thought the Mann was just another Alarmist, out to cash in on Gore’s Global Warming. However…
After the latest missive by the Mann, I am wondering if he has a psychological problem. Possibly an issue with separating fantasy world from reality or perhaps an obsessive problem where he just can’t come to grips with facts or a combination of both?
Mann’s made up Nobel Peace Prize, along with his claim of having received the Prize indicates some problem with reality. When coupled with his latest twisted lecture, the above missive from the Mann where there is a mixing of real world with a made-up world, and that even Gore has given up his crusade of Global Warming – it does make one ponder if the Mann needs professional help.
I am vastly amused to find a Specsavers ad. at the head of the comments inviting me to book an eye test now! Hmmm…ask M.Mann!
Here it is,
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/3/21/mann-overboard-josh-157.html
Josh can recycle this cartoon for this episode, same pose was struck I’m sure.
Mann makes James “they tried to gag me” Hansen sound like the embodiment of calm, dispassionate, sage-like wisdom.
One wonders on the hubris of a man (Mann) who asserts to remain “aloof”, like God in Heaven, only to incarnate himself when forced to intervene in the most egregious protestations of climate “denialism”, that His Word is enough to reveal climate Truth and uncover Error.
It makes me wanna puke!
I think the proper technical qualifier for this post is: “WTF?”
Which post are you talking about? Because in the one I read, there’s a whole section on “wingman” Naomi Oreskes, among others, and all-too-predictable swipes at the supposedly evil “AGU of Oreskes, Gleick, Lewandowsky and Mann”.
I have know idea where to begin with this so I think I’ll write about a wedding instead. My niece’s first name begins with ‘M’. Her spouse’s first name begins with ‘M’ as well. So the upcoming wedding will be ‘MM’. Michael Mann’s name is sometimes shortened to MM. See, I guess I started down the right path after all.
Anyway, my sister’s working overtime on this wedding. She desperately wants to get my niece out of the house. Anyway, she went to a wedding invitation place (wip) to have invitations designed. She didn’t invite me despite the fact that I’m on permanent disability (therefore with lots of free time) and, most importantly, I worked as a commercial artist for over 30 years. She did, however, show me the designs and ask for my opinion. I told her they sucked and that the wip was clueless about design but tried to act professional while they just moved design elements around on a computer screen. Unbeknownst to me, my sister designed them. Whoops.
It’s just dawned on me that the foregoing story is exactly about Michael Mann. Consider my sister as the government. She can do some things very well. But she cannot design things. Consider Michael Mann as the wip. He doesn’t know any more about design than my sister so he will give her exactly what she wants so long as she pays him thinking he knows what he’s doing, and best of all, he’s doing exactly what she wants. Consider me as the voter. Neither of them listen to me.
P.S. Don’t worry about my sister. She’s an older sister. Believe me, I get it worse than I give it.
I discovered the questionable scientific standards in climate science through the statistics abuse of mr. Mann as exposed by mr. McIntyre. It doesn’t really surprise me that he thinks he can get away with (or just thinks it’s fine, I don’t really know if he’s genuinely dishonest or just a bad scientist) using outdated misguiding charts – the simplest form of statistics abuse.
Mr. Mann, the shoddy science of you and some of your team companions combined with the over-the-top marketing of mr. Gore were the reasons I, after having had confidence in the CAGW theory for almost 30 years, became a “skeptic” (or “lukewarmer”, some would say), but it’s extremely difficult to explain why and how your hockey science was bad to people that are less knowledgable in math than I am (unless they’re open-minded enough to read Montford’s book). But now your statistics is wrong at such a basic level that I think everyone can understand it. Bravo! Bring it on!
Scientists like Michael Mann remain dangerous directly in proportion to the influence he/they wield in places where big, relevant decisions are made. These associations must be eroded. I do hope this thread and McIntyre’s work make it into the hands of the powerful people who are (still) listening/supporting.
I wonder just how much damage that Mann and Gore have done to the world with their fabracated lies……Gore has switched over to Jihad.
Mann, the gift that keeps on giving…..who needs data,prove,when they have a clown like this..priceless.thank you MM
It will end badly for these people. Very, very badly. Honestly, I can’t wait.
You know what’s really weird?
Someone out there must read the BS that Mann writes and believes it. I wonder who that someone is?