Some days you have to wonder how supposedly rational and intelligent people who are considered professional scientists allow themselves to behave like this.
From Dr. Mann’s Twitter feed:
Source: http://twitter.com/MichaelEMann/status/316260453770723328
A simple “no” would suffice, but Dr. Mann seems determined to denigrate people that have different views than him such as Dr. Spencer’s Christian faith. How unprofessional.
It is yet another example of Climate Ugliness that pervades the mindset of AGW proponents.
UPDATE: In comments, “Jimbo” shows how Dr. Mann can easily accept the opinion of one person of faith, while denigrating another.
“Jimbo” Submitted on 2013/03/25 at 3:00 pm
Let me demonstrate now easy it is to denigrate. Care for an ad hominem dessert?
EXHIBIT 1
We have Dr. Spencer’s Christian faith. (A climatologist, Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He has served as Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. He is known for his satellite-based temperature monitoring work, for which he was awarded the American Meteorological Society’s Special Award.)
EXHIBIT 2
We have John Cook’s Christian faith. (Cartoonist & part time fairytale proponent who tinkers with physics. “The second reason is my faith. I’m a Christian and find myself strongly challenged by passages in the Bible like Amos 5 and Matthew 25. I believe in a God who has a heart for the poor and expects Christians to feel the same way”).
I wonder, what would Dr. Mann say about Sir Issac Newton’s religious views were he alive today and question the AGW narrative?
“My one question about intelligent design is why there seem to be no scientific papers about it in the reviewed literature. I should be grateful if anyone can help here.”
Because it’s crap. Or because no credible scientist would want to embarrass himself that way. Or because there’s no chance of demonstrating intelligent design in all but the most speculative way, just as there’s no chance in demonstrating the existence of God. Take your pick.
Climate skeptics do themselves no favors when they leave themselves open, however unfairly, to charges of being sympathetic to fundamentalist beliefs.
I don’t understand why creationism seems to be the one tenet of religion that draws derision. Why not all the other beliefs uncorroborated by science, such as divinity, heaven, soul, etc.? Is Mann saying that he won’t debate with anyone of religious faith or just not those with faith who also believe in creationism? I could understand the logic with the former position but not the latter. Of course, Mann wouldn’t dare say he wiil only debate with atheists.
Greg House says:
March 25, 2013 at 3:52 pm
“I do not understand why Michael did not want debate Roy, he could easily win.
He could successfully challenge Roy’s fictional “Virginia” story by pointing out that he can not prove that colder bodies can warm warmer bodies just by claiming that they can or by drawing a picture where they do.”
Greg, perhaps you meant to put “sarc” after your contribution. Roy doesn’t have to do any of this. All he has to do is ask Mike to explain why temps have flattened out for 16-17 years despite CO2. Why the stick is broken off? Why HadCrut and IPCC are even backpedaling on CO2 as the most significant player and, “…okay, yeah, there was a MWP and LIA and for good measure, 1936 was the record warm year so far….and hey we don’t have a clue about the effect of clouds…and er,,, we think it will be cold until 2017, so it will be a 20 year pause in warming…. and gee your colleagues in the tree ring circus are now saying your work was crap..,.,,”
“Here is a list of Nobel Laureates, all of whom are quoted to believe in God.
Note: Michael Mann is neither a Nobel Laureate (snicker) nor is he quoted to have said that he believes in God.”
So what’s your point? That there’s something about believing in God that leads to doing good science? I’m beginning to wish Anthony hadn’t put up this post. It’s getting nuttier and nuttier.
Michael Mann does not realise the amount of suffering he has helped to cause with his FABRICATED hockey stick. He thinks he is really clever but he is not. In the decades ahead his children and grandchildren will hang their heads in shame at the mere mention of his name. Shame too on Dr. James Runaway Venus Warming Hansen. I guess they are just after money and fame.
Religion has at least taught us one thing: money is the root of all evil. May God have mercy on their souls. 🙁 /sarc
Actually, the question for Mike Mann should be:
‘Ok, won’t debate Spencer. Will you debate Richard Lindzen?’.
It really shouldn’t be necessary to get all worked up about an innocuous tweet from an obviously thin-skinned individual. Mann would not be at ease in a debate forum, as this would be well outside his comfort zone, which is speaking to compliant audiences in an echo chamber. His behavior is merely demonstrating solidarity with “the team”. The ad hominem comments are merely echoes from the likes of Joe Romm’s blog; they are petulant & trivial, thus they will eventually backfire.
Climate skeptics / realists really can and should take the higher ground on this one. Eventually the general public will wake up and the mainstream media will follow. Keep the offers going for an informed debate.
Regarding his outright rejection of a debate with Roy Spencer, Mann has set his criteria: he refuses to debate Roy Spencer, whom he labels a denier of climate change and a denier of evolution, nor does he plan to debate the matter on Fox News. So use this!
He should therefore be approached by another broadcaster wherein MANN himself can set the minimum standards for his debate opponent (and/or list a few names). If he can only come up with a softball “adversary”, he would run the risk of being roasted for not being Mann enough.
The other alternative would be for Fox News and Timothy Ball to approach another mainstream climate scientist to debate. Keep trying! There are plenty of worthy adversaries. Each and every rejection can and should be broadcast loud and clear (together with the ostensible “justification”).
Eventually this will become embarrassing to the Warmist Camp and a debate will happen. Seriously.
Kurt in Switzerland
Dr. Mann is one of the “High Priests” of the CAGW movement having help write and canonize the IPPC bible. We should expect him to declare anyone that isn’t a “true believer” and writes and preaches otherwise, to be an heretic. So he is really not much different from “fundamentalist” Christians that take the Biblical story of creation literally.
Smart for a bunch of sceptics, making fun of Mann not having a Nobel. With the way that organization has behaved lately, we may be tempting fate to grant him one.
A bit of personal history.
When I was about ten, I was getting really wound up about infinity, curved Universes & the like don’t address this, it’s still infinite, there is no end. What’s outside the curve etc.? My father told me it was probably best not to dwell too closely on this.
This is fifty years ago.
For a while, I got into Christianity, my father was an excommunicated Catholic & non-believer.
I got into the same sort of recursive thinking. OK, so God created everything but what created God?
Somewhere along the line you have to just believe, it’s currently beyond us.
Creative design makes as much sense as infinity or random evolution.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to find out just we’re nowhere near yet.
DaveE.
“the film based on Charles Darwin’s life not being released in the US as it wouldn’t have gained an audience!”
And yet US troops are going to be stationed near a city named after him. The city has a university named after him. http://www.cdu.edu.au/ How will the poor things manage?
I am stunned at the sheer number of people posting here in acceptance of Mr. Mann’s red herring~ logical fallacy over the religious views of Dr. Spencer. It is just a cheap shot meant to distract and detract from the real issue at hand- and for those who are mulling it over as some sort of legitimate argument I am a bit disappointed. Dr.Spencer’s Christian views are irrelevant in the context of the science of climate.
Mr.Mann is a child trapped in an adults body, like most narcissistic folks with a tyrannical bent, ie progressive liberals. And like most of them he is a spoiled brat, with no regard for honesty or accountability. He will lie whenever he feels like it and he will engage in other unethical behavior whenever he feels like it because that is who he is. Nothing new.
SteveB. says:
March 25, 2013 at 2:16 pm
You can sum Mann up in two words. No class.
——-
Steve, I was thinking similar two words. Class Less
cn
I’ve skimmed down through the comments, and would like to thank all the people who expressed their views. I was feeling grey and dull, like the local weather, but you’ve all got me thinking.
I would like to add one somewhat funny personal story, to jar the thinking of those who do not feel we were created by a Creator. It won’t convince them, but might strike them as an interesting thought.
Years ago I’d been through a string of bad days, and it made me ugly. I knew I was behaving badly, but was pissed off at everyone. I was disagreeable, so of course no one would agree. I had even managed to offend my best friend, (my wife,) and was receiving a well-earned cold shoulder. However I knew I was right, and everyone else was wrong, ( in a way.) However being right was just getting me in trouble, which made my mood worse.
To top it off, we were in a drought, quite unusual for New England, so I had to water the garden. To have this extra chore on top of everything else seemed really unfair. Here I was, growing all this excellent food, but did I get a lick of thanks? Why the bleep bother?
I must have looked really funny, glowering at my flourishing garden with a pout. I was thinking that my garden was an expression of love for others, (because I grew food for others besides myself,) and the fact I made an extra effort for others made even vegetation teased upwards from dirt and manure like a symbolic kiss. But what did I get for my kiss? Just a slap in the face! Never any sort of kiss in return! (I know these are melodramatic thoughts, but I get that way when I’m in a foul mood,)
Right as I was thinking this a bright orange, passing Monarch Butterfly paused before my face, kissed me, and continued on.
I immediately got all scientific, and decided it saw a reflection of itself in my eyeglasses, and then had been attracted to the moisture on my pouting lip because of the drought. The fact it “kissed” me just as I was griping that nobody kissed me was sheer coincidence.
I think that response is the best and most scientific attitude to have, when confronted by an outrageous coincidence. I can’t imagine being any more scientific, because I can’t imagine replicating such a coincidental event, in a scientific experiment.
I was detached and objective, like Dr. Spock on “Star Trek,” as I noted that butterfly had done a damn fine job of utterly smashing a carefully cultivated bad mood. My mood was as big as the dinosaurs, but that little butterfly was like an asteroid paying a visit.
Science will never be truly scientific until it respects the “butterfly effect.”
Mann will never comprehend the butterfly effect, because to comprehend involves having a sense of humor about yourself and your own misconceptions
“Professional?” “Scientist?”
Really?
How about “Grownup?”
Hey pokerguy! (March 25, 2013 at 2:27 pm )
“But to deny overwhelming scientific evidence on the basis of nothing but fundamentalist theology does not look good for a scientist.”
I call that bluff. Show us that “overwhelming scientific evidence” of evolution.
MoBr, “My one question about intelligent design is why there seem to be no scientific papers about it in the reviewed literature. I should be grateful if anyone can help here.”
I wrote a peer-reviewed paper assessing “Intelligent Design Theory,” published in 2004 in the journal “Theology and Science.” The online abstract is here. Anyone wanting a pdf reprint can email me at pfrank_eight_three_zero AT earth_link_dot_net.
Others have also written science-based papers critical of the notion of intelligent design. One need only search for them, for example in Google Scholar. Alternatively, try Talk Origins. There is zero science in the assumption of intelligent design.
Don’t be so hard on Micky Boy. Arrogant and obnoxious personalities on their side are our recruiting seargeants.
Pointman
Although I’m a staunch atheist I have lots of friends who have religious beliefs based on many faiths.
That doesn’t give me any problems just like the fact that some of them like different things to me. To despise someone who has different beliefs marks out the fanatic.
To denigrate all aspects of another person because they are not like you is the hallmark of a bigotted, fundamentalist zealot.
To shove your opinions down somebody elses throat and preach Hellfire and Damnation is not a trait that I admire in anyone.
I find it hard to warm to Dr Mann; I have no such difficulty with liking Dr Spencer.
[snip]
@ur momisugly Paul Westhaver
You forgot Francis Collins….
: > )
“Dr.” Mann, “Wisdom is what you acquire after you know everything” – John Wooden
You sir, have a lot left to learn.
I believe that Dr Mann has finally shown his true stripes. He is of the MSNBC/Occupy/leftist/atheist variety. I have no issues with most atheists, some are my friends. I have been agnostic in my life. When you mix progressivism and atheism you get a very dangerous political animal. I now understand where his lies come from.
I’m thinking Mann never met Will Rodgers.
Peter Miller says:
“As a professional scientist, I take offense that anyone could consider Michael Mann a professional scientist. “
Amen! (no sarcasm intended) Scientists follow the scientific method. To my knowledge, Michael Mann has NEVER followed the scientific method. He is NOT a scientist and no one should ever mistake him for one. He’s simply an illusionist skilled at performing magic tricks with climate data. His algorithm in MBH 98, creates indistinguishable paleo-temperature reconstructions from both tree ring data and random phone numbers. His algorithm in Steig, et al., 2009, spreads warming across West Antarctica, when Antarctic peninsula weather data are warmed AND cooled. In his GSA presentation: “Relationships Between Basin-Wide and Landfalling Atlantic Tropical Cyclones: Comparing Long-Term Simulations with Paleoevidence”, Mann generates 1000 years worth of artificial climate model data, plugs that into a into a hurricane model to generate ‘double artificial’ hurricane data, then uses that to assess the actual stratigraphic record.
Got it? The fact that his papers are “as clear as mud” is a testament to Dr. Mann’s skill as a climastrology illusionist.
Dr. Roy Spencer on the other hand, is a true climatologist (not to be confused with a ‘Real Climastrologist’), who lets data speak for itself. My firm belief in evolution is based on what I observe in both the fossil record and living organisms. However, I’m fairly certain I would enjoy discussing evolution / intelligent design with Dr. Spencer. I believe a similar discussion with Dr. Mann on Climatology would be as enjoyable as a hemorrhoidectomy sans anesthesia.