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?
DUDES!
Seriously, given the sate of the economy, education, science and the media… i’m inclined to think Devolution is the only real science left (and evolution is the undocumented instruction manual of how to avoid it.)
Nigeria called, you can have the manual if you deposit 1,000,000 Mexi-Canadian peso-euro’s into a charity bank account @ur momisugly 760 United Nations Plaza, New York, New York 10017, formerly United States.
Its not the transition fossils absence that irks, its the standard ones we have are so boring, wheres the fish with helicopter wings, or the elephant trunked tree shrews, and nothing has two heads neither.
Just throwing it out there Nature, if you’re gonna practice with biology, why not a dodecapus?, or a magnetic cat?, seriously Gaia call marvel comics, they have great ideas for one off, bespoke biology.
As above; belief in God and rejection of evolution are not analogous, the former does not require the rejection of a vast body of evidence.
Evolution is to biology as the Newtonian Universe is to physics. The Newtonian view was not entirely ‘wrong’, just insufficient. New evidence in cell biology and in quantum physics indicates that the Darwinian world view is also insufficient, and that there is much more to understand on the subject.
I find it interesting that so many WUWT readers defend evolution like Christians defend the Bible (or at least their interpretation of it). Why would anyone with an inquisitive mind believe that a 19th Century Naturalist discovered all that can be known about the development of life on this planet? Closing the book on the science of biological growth and change is a great disservice to the science.
Mann is at least being consistent with his ‘head in the sand’ perspective on both climate change and Evolution. I expect more from WUWT readers.
My votes go with Monckton of Brenchley and Scarface:
Who knows, about evolution? Darwin’s the beginning, and the end of the answer? I don’t think so…
Sad Michael Mann does not debate because he cannot, is too stupid, intellectually flat-footed. He knows it, as do we all. “Religion” or “Darwin’s evolution” is a red herring.
….Lady in Red
PS: Although I’ll be damned if I’ve an answer, the older I get the more I believe that Darwin’s got only a small piece of the puzzle.
And here is a list of Michael Mann’s tweets where he denigrated a belief in God:
Graeme Wayne asks:
Wayne apparently has swallowed this liberal meme without question.
Nancy Pearcey documents the history of this fallacy in Total Truth.
Wayne appears ignorant of the historical evidence that Christianity was based on first person eye witness evidence of Jesus’ resurrection. E.g., see:
Gary R. Habermas, Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus
For the exhaustive analysis, see William Craig Lane’s dissertation Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus, Mellen, 1989 – 442 pages
Comments like those of Mann and Wayne evidence a lack of understanding of the evidence, the science and the logic underlying the issues they pontificate on.
All fossils are transitional, evolution is constant and ongoing. The reason there are so many gaps in the fossil record is because fossilisation is a very rare occurrence.
” My reading is that Dr Spencer doesn’t “deny” evolution, he “questions” it.
This is the absolute correct position for any real scientist. ”
Anyone using the ‘denier’ word is demeaning the argument to the level of a personal attack of the lowest kind, and leaves himself open to contempt. It’s really time for the sceptic faction to go on the attack about this. Any true scientist is by definition a sceptic, whatever his or her field.
To accuse any scientist – indeed, any thinking person – of being a ‘denier’ in any context is worse than childish, worse than grossly offensive: it’s libellous.
To call climate modellers who fudge the data to get a pre-determined result ‘scientists’ is to mangle the language.
It’s time we took the reclamation of language in this debate seriously.
Its misuse is seriously degrading the debate, and obfuscating the issues
McComber Boy says:
March 25, 2013 at 3:03 pm
**********************
Thank you so very much, McComber Boy. So many commenters need to be reminded to mind their manners. And, of course, to open their minds. So arrogant seeming in their ever-so-modish atheism, denying the great and deep oceans of thought, faith, and fancy that have preceded them and still surround them, unaware as they are.
Perhaps there is no God, but the greatest experiences of my life tell me otherwise, just as similar ones have done for so many billions, in so many places, and at so many times. Yet, I don’t condemn those who lack my belief, nor do I despise their efforts in other fields merely because their theology is so deficient.
@davidmhoffer
I wrote:
Actually, the question for Mike Mann should be:
‘Ok, won’t debate Spencer. Will you debate Richard Lindzen?’.
Your comment>>>>>>>>>>>>>>..
I’m not sure what replacing an observant Christian with an observant Jew would accomplish.
>>>>>>>>
Continuing with Mann’s train of thought, I suppose it would replace an observant Jew with a Messiah denier.
I guess the intent of my original comment was to keep eyes on the refusal to debate rather than the ‘denier’ smear.
Oops… typing error
Continuing with Mann’s train of thought, I suppose it would replace an observant Christian with a Messiah denier.
Just in case Mann changes his mind about a debate. The extreme AGW paradigm pushers do not want a debate as analysis and observation does not support the extreme AGW paradigm.
The extreme AGW warming Hot Spot is missing. (There is no hot spot as clouds in the tropics increase or decrease to regulate planetary temperature. i.e. Negative feedback (planet resists forcing changes) as opposed to positive feedback (planet amplifies forcing changes). There has been no warming for roughly 16 years.
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/05/models-get-the-core-assumptions-wrong-the-hot-spot-is-missing/
Roy Spencer: Ocean surface temperature is not warming in the tropics.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/TMI-SST-20N-20S.png
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/TMI-SST-MEI-adj-vs-CMIP5-20N-20S-thru-2015.png
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/02/tropical-ssts-since-1998-latest-climate-models-warm-3x-too-fast/
Lindzen and Choi have again found that the planet resists climate forcing changes
http://www.johnstonanalytics.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/LindzenChoi2011.235213033.pdf
On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications
Richard S. Lindzen1 and Yong-Sang Choi2
We estimate climate sensitivity from observations, using the deseasonalized fluctuations in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and the concurrent fluctuations in the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) outgoing radiation from the ERBE (1985-1999) and CERES (2000- 2008) satellite instruments. Distinct periods of warming and cooling in the SSTs were used to evaluate feedbacks. An earlier study (Lindzen and Choi, 2009) was subject to significant criticisms. The present paper is an expansion of the earlier paper where the various criticisms are taken into account. The present analysis accounts for the 72 day precession period for the ERBE satellite in a more appropriate manner than in the earlier paper…. ….We argue that feedbacks are largely concentrated in the tropics, and the tropical feedbacks can be adjusted to account for their impact on the globe as a whole. Indeed, we show that including all CERES data (not just from the tropics) leads to results similar to what are obtained for the tropics alone – though with more noise. We again find that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST fluctuations exceeds the zerofeedback response thus implying negative feedback. In contrast to this, the calculated TOA outgoing radiation fluxes from 11 atmospheric models forced by the observed SST are less than the zerofeedback response, consistent with the positive feedbacks that characterize these models. ….
…The heart of the global warming issue is so-called greenhouse warming. This refers to the fact that the earth balances the heat received from the sun (mostly in the visible spectrum) by radiating in the infrared portion of the spectrum back to space. Gases that are relatively transparent to visible light but strongly absorbent in the infrared (greenhouse gases) interfere with the cooling of the planet, forcing it to become warmer in order to emit sufficient infrared radiation to balance the net incoming sunlight (Lindzen, 1999). … ….However, warming from a doubling of CO2 would only be about 1C (based on simple calculations where the radiation altitude and the Planck temperature depend on wavelength in accordance with the attenuation coefficients of well mixed CO2 molecules; a doubling of any concentration in ppmv produces the same warming because of the logarithmic dependence of CO2’s absorption on the amount of CO2) (IPCC, 2007). This modest warming is much less than current climate models suggest for a doubling of CO2. Models predict warming of from 1.5C to 5C and even more for a doubling of CO2. Model predictions depend on the ‘feedback’ within models from the more important greenhouse substances, water vapor and clouds. Within all current climate models, water vapor increases with increasing temperature so as to further inhibit infrared cooling. Clouds also change so that their visible reflectivity decreases, causing increased solar absorption and warming of the earth. Cloud feedbacks are still considered to be highly uncertain (IPCC, 2007), but the fact that these feedbacks are strongly positive in most models is considered to be an indication that the result is basically correct. Methodologically, this is unsatisfactory. Ideally, one would seek an observational test of the issue. Here we suggest that it may be possible to test the issue with existing data from satellites.
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/02/who-actually-took-notice-of-the-kyoto-protocol-coal-fired-plants-going-up-everywhere/
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,662092,00.html
“Even though the temperature standstill probably has no effect on the long-term warming trend, it does raise doubts about the predictive value of climate models, and it is also a political issue. For months, climate change skeptics have been gloating over the findings on their Internet forums. This has prompted many a climatologist to treat the temperature data in public with a sense of shame, thereby damaging their own credibility.
“It cannot be denied that this is one of the hottest issues in the scientific community,” says Jochem Marotzke, director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. “We don’t really know why this stagnation is taking place at this point.” … ….Just a few weeks ago, Britain’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research added more fuel to the fire with its latest calculations of global average temperatures. According to the Hadley figures, the world grew warmer by 0.07 degrees Celsius from 1999 to 2008 and not by the 0.2 degrees Celsius assumed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And, say the British experts, when their figure is adjusted for two naturally occurring climate phenomena, El Niño and La Niña, the resulting temperature trend is reduced to 0.0 degrees Celsius — in other words, a standstill.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
This is the only science website blog thingie I know of where people can actually have a respectful, civil discussion of theism.
“Divinity, heaven, the soul are absolute articles of faith with no analogue in science, creationism and intelligent design contradict a rather large body of evidence.”
Good point. If only we could find where this body is buried.
Mann is not a scientist. He’s a propagandist.
“Would a professional scientist behave this way?”
No! they would not…………….
Interesting all this religious talk. Frankly, if human apes were not so extremely gullible as to believe all kinds of nonsense then perhaps we would never have fallen for CAGW in the first place!
Anyone who thinks rationally about it should easily conclude that “God” is just a word or “moniker” for all that what we don’t understand and cannot explain. It isn’t a tangible thing but just a concept or a place holder.
The simplified “God” as described and marketed by various competing religions is complete hogwash and only provides a psychological crutch for those who are (understandably) quite terrified by both the reality of an infinite unknown and their own finite mortality.
Everyone needs something to believe in.
…I believe I’ll have another beer.
[snip – waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy off topic, in another universe – Anthony]
The climate is changing has always changed and will always change. It is a driver for evolution.
Creationists droan on ad nauseam about Darwinian evolution merely being a “theory” and therefore lacking credibility.
This simply due to them being unable to draw the distinction between theory and conjecture and conflating the meaning of one with the other.
The Higgs Boson was conjectural until one turned up and the God of the gaps was left with nowhere to hide.
Electro-magnetism is a “theory” in precisely the same, tight scientific contextural meaning as evolution, but try stuffing your pudgy little fingers in a light socket and then telling me that it doesnt exist.
Can anyone explain to me why insulting people of faith is somehow necessary to the discussion at hand?
As a person of faith, I readily admit there are many questions I cannot answer. That’s why we call it faith, right?
However, for those of you who contend the current working theories of our origins are fully proven and settled science, I respectfully submit the following two questions:
1. Can you describe the nature and origin of the primordial singularity that theoretically existed just prior to the big bang? Just where did that bad boy come from and why was it there?
2. Can you point me to the compelling scientific evidence that the first living, reproducing cell spontaneously came to exist out of that famous primordial stew? (Sorry, but the argument “since we know there is not a creator, it had to happen that way” is not proof – its just argument.)
Can you offer me anything more than pure speculation? Anyone? Take your time…
I ask because the above events are necessary in explaining the origin of our natural world in the absence of an intelligent creator. These questions cannot be answered, much less proven, so they must be assumed. And that, my friend, requires faith.
Neither creationism nor evolution have all the answers. So everyone can just get on down off their high horses and relax, OK?
Perhaps Michael Mann is expressing what has been a common practice in “science” and academia for many decades now, and that is to use a litmus test which can systematically exclude or greatly inhibit some people (non progressives) from participating in the scientific process or in the Universities.
Definition of shibboleth (n)
bing.com · Bing Dictionary
shib·bo·leth
[ shíbbə lèth ]
catchword or slogan: a word or phrase frequently used, or a belief strongly held, by members of a group that is usually regarded by outsiders as meaningless, unimportant, or misguided
common saying or belief: a saying that is widely used or a belief that is widely held, especially one that interferes with somebody’s ability to speak or think about things without preconception
identifying word or custom: a unique pronunciation, word, behavior, or practice used to distinguish one group of people from another and to identify somebody as either a member of the group or an outsider
Shibboleth – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth
A shibboleth is a word, sound, or custom that a person unfamiliar with its significance may not pronounce or perform correctly relative to those who are familiar with it.
Anthony,
Is there a reason why you would permit another comment containing the phrase “Intelligent Design” on here?
4.5 billion years is longer than any of us could possibly imagine with any sort of intuition, so, let us not speculate about the veracity of the gigantic fossil record. We should just observe it, appreciate it for what it is.
None of this concerns CO2…
Greg House says:
March 25, 2013 at 6:00 pm
Much to my dismay, I DID understand what you wrote, and I “get” your evil hypocricy, Mr. House. But really, you crack me up! To think anybody believes a single thermometer in Central England represents the global average is really stretching it–the importance of that record is that it’s pretty much flat-lining over a period of time Earth is supposed to be warming up–or at least that’s what the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Genocidal Warmistas would want/force us to believe.
But to think you can get a global average temperature from trees is simply ludicrous–since they only grow part of the year. Or do you have any idea why trees are no longer the preferred “indicator” for the past several decades, as in “Hide the Decline”? The divergence demonstrates why you might be confused about things being “not so very different” whereas they certainly are, Mr. House.
But let me further clarify so even YOU can understand something very simple: I step outside into my own yard and read the thermometer posted there accurately to within a tenth of a degree, or I can look at the dozen or so trees in the same yard and even with the most sophisticated Mannian cogitations, agitations and speculations, guess what the temperature is or was.
Furthermore, have you never heard of Yamal?? You’re not saying you prefer a different tree or perhaps set of trees to approximate which global temperature you wish to believe? Of course you do; it’s all so cut and dried; those tree-mometers have been all the rage!
That you can claim to get a global temperature from a bunch of trees and prefer that over a very lengthy thermometer record of (admittedly) a single location shows you’re not thinking straight, Mr. House, unless you believe for some strange reason that the trend in Central England wouldn’t indicate global trends (not averages). Maybe you’re confused; maybe you’re misaligned. But then, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt (and this should be easy if you’re right):
Based only on tree rings (with global distribution, of course), pray tell, what has been the global annual average temperatures for each of the past 30 years? Could you please include a link or two so we can see what you use as references? And to make it more interesting, compare your tree-mometer numbers to the global temp measurement based on annual satellite and thermometer averages just for kicks and grins.
Thanks!
Oh, and if you can’t do it or if you come up with something less than convincing, I win the argument–hands down. This should be fun! Humbling a member of the CAGW is always a pleasure!
I suspect that many of my Christian brothers and sisters who read this blog, maybe Dr. Spencer as well, would generally agree with the great Christian apologist William Lane Craig quoted below:
“Why is the theory of evolution so widely accepted in mainstream science? I think the short answer is that it’s the best naturalistic theory we’ve got. If, as a result of methodological naturalism, the pool of live explanatory options is limited to naturalistic hypotheses, then, at least until recently, the neo-Darwinian theory of biological evolution driven by the mechanisms of genetic mutation and natural selection was, as Alvin Plantinga puts it, the only game in town. Rival naturalistic hypotheses could not equal its explanatory power, scope, and plausibility. No matter how improbable it seems, no matter how enormously far the explanatory power of its mechanisms must be extrapolated beyond the testable evidence, no matter the lack of evidence for many of its tenets, it has to be true because there isn’t any other naturalistic theory that comes close.”
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/why-is-evolution-so-widely-believed#ixzz2ObhOB1rN