One of the hurdles Michael Mann has to overcome in his lawsuit against NRO/Steyn is the tenet that public figures are expected to have a higher level of tolerance when it comes to ridicule, satire, and defamation. For that reason, because I myself am a public figure in the climate debate, I’d have little success in prosecuting a defamation claim over an article that says I have sex with farm animals (see “corrections” at bottom of linked article).
After Mann’s libel case against the National Review Online and Mark Steyn was filed, he’s recently been whining that he’s a “reluctant public figure“, perhaps to somehow shift the lawsuit in his favor.
Now, thanks to an opinion piece by Mann in the Guardian, he’s pretty much blown his own argument out of the water while managing to make a ridiculous and easily falsifiable claim about typewriter technology in an analogy on “path dependency”.
Here, Mann uses his familiarity with what “the science tells us” to effect change in public and political policy, going even so far as to challenge president Obama:
If the president won’t protect us, who is he protecting?
That challenge pretty much places him in the realm of public debate, and being a “public figure”, even if he claims it was reluctant or involuntary:
A person can become an “involuntary public figure” as the result of publicity, even though that person did not want or invite the public attention. For example, people accused of high profile crimes may be unable to pursue actions for defamation even after their innocence is established…
Source: Aaron Larson: Defamation, Libel and Slander Law. Expertlaw.com, August 2003
Mann often claims he’s been “cleared” of any wrongdoing related to his world famous “hockey stick” in later investigations. So, like “people accused of high profile crimes may be unable to pursue actions for defamation even after their innocence is established” he may be unable to make any viable defamation argument after his hockey stick became a sensation not only for the initial press, but the questions and ridicule that followed.
As a humorous aside, Mann really doesn’t know what he’s talking about with this analogy in the same Guardian article, bold mine:
A classic example is the “qwerty” keyboard layout. Even though this layout may not be the most efficient, it was the first one, and so it became the standard.
The omniscient Dr. Mann, who often positions himself as an expert in everything, botched this example badly. The QWERTY keyboard was not the first keyboard layout, and it was designed on purpose to be inefficient, to prevent a mechanical jam that frustrated early experienced typists:
The first model constructed by Sholes [4]used a piano-like keyboard with two rows of characters arranged alphabetically as follows:
- 3 5 7 9 N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
2 4 6 8 . A B C D E F G H I J K L M
The construction of the “Type Writer” had two flaws that made the product susceptible to jams. Firstly, characters were mounted on metal arms or typebars, which would clash and jam if neighboring arms were pressed at the same time or in rapid succession.[1] Secondly, its printing point was located beneath the paper carriage, invisible to the operator, a so-called “up-stroke” design. Consequently, jams were especially serious, because the typist could only discover the mishap by raising the carriage to inspect what he had typed. The solution was to place commonly used letter-pairs (like “th” or “st”) so that their typebars were not neighboring, avoiding jams. Contrary to popular belief,[2] the QWERTY layout was not designed to slow the typist down,[3] but rather to speed up typing by preventing jams.
- Rehr, Darryl, Why QWERTY was Invented
- http://www.maltron.com/media/lillian_kditee_001.pdf
- http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/221/was-the-qwerty-keyboard-purposely-designed-to-slow-typists “…at least one study indicates that placing commonly used keys far apart, as with the QWERTY, actually speeds typing, since you frequently alternate hands”
- US 79868, Sholes, C. Latham; Carlos Glidden & Samuel W. Soule, “Improvement in Type-writing Machines”, patent issued July 14, 1868
A few seconds with Google and Wikipedia as I did to verify what I believed I knew, would have helped him avoid this silly blunder, but he comes across almost always so full sure of himself, he probably thought he didn’t need to.
Dr. Mann now can add “failed typewriter expert” to his long list of curriculum vitae claims, along with being a “reluctant public figure” and Nobel Prize Winner.
h/t to Barry Woods for the Guardian link
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From Ric Werme on February 1, 2014 at 2:19 pm:
That’s a “queer property”.
Somewhere around here is my first real computer, an Apple IIc. Too bad I doubt the built-in 5-1/4 drive can still load off the original O/S disks. It has an actual push button switch above the built-in keyboard to switch between QWERTY and DVORAK. I also had a small tool that lifts the key caps right off so you can put them in the correct order when you switch.
I wonder who else copied such a great Apple innovation.
Climate alarmist are not any different than the old “crazies”, with a sandwich board, proclaiming that the end is near! To pay them any mind, is just a waste of time!
I think the fact that Mann and his “research” has had such an impact on public policy and the beliefs of common people shows that “science” is truly not to ever be trusted. We must ever be the skeptic and demand overwhelming evidence for whatever new thing that scientists claim they have found. If “Dr.” Mann claimed the sun rose in the east and set in the west I would not believe it until I could get up at dawn to observe for myself.
I am still in hopes that the discovery process will bring interesting things to light.
Mr. Mann needs to read up on some issues that makes his “position on the Keystone XL pipeline” COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT.
Michael Mann is not a “reluctant public figure“ but an “activist public midget”.
If Michael Mann wants to see more co2 output then let us hope he is successful in blocking the Keystone XL pipeline. Ships to China with oil, railroads are still here dontcha know. As long as Canada wants to sell the oil it will. There are no shortage of buyers, it will just have to emit more co2 to get to the demanding customers.
If nothing else, publishing The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines made him a “public figure” and not a particularly reluctant one at that.
By the way I should add that co2 reduction is not their main aim. Their main aim is the DE-INDUSTRIALIZATION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. If you can’t see this now no problem for me, I don’t live in the USA, maybe you will see it one day.
Jimbo
De-Powering the U.S.A.
“State pen, not Penn State”
it’s a dirty job…
One of the questions is who is paying Michael Mann’s legal bills.
I think that would make for an interesting story.
It is clear he is not paying for this using his own personal funds. Perhaps some is pro bono and some is described as pro bono with someone else secretly footing the bill but it might make for interesting tie-ins.
Mark G. says at February 1, 2014 at 2:41 pm…
Legally that seems very useful.
If I were a lawyer I would use that.
It is very smart for the guardian to put “jump to comments” at the very beginning of Michael E. Mann’s articles.
Thanks to Sam Grove for the link to an interesting article:
http://reason.com/archives/1996/06/01/typing-errors
Apparently, the QWERTY myth is a morality tale for proponents of a centrally-planned economy.
Public figure? Mann gave a talk at James Randi’s The Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas, in 2013.
On Saturday July 13 Mann spoke about a book he had written . Other talks that day included, ‘the incompatibility of science and religion’, ‘credulity and its consequences’, ‘looking into the mind of true believers’, ‘credit the conman’ and ‘fighting the fakers’. The day concluded with an evening show called ‘magic, mayhem and mentalism’.
http://www.amazingmeeting.com/tam2013/schedule/
I once wrote some software to test the theory that Dvorak keyboard layouts were faster than Qwerty. I used weighted values for keys based on factors such as being on the home row or not, which finger was required, even capitalizing was taken into consideration.
I then took random text passages from the internet and ran the comparisons. My admittedly crude experiment showed that indeed Dvorak was close to the claimed 10% faster system.
I wanted to take this experiment further by improving the weighting factors, perhaps even coding the physics of the hand, but alas I had a rare triple point of failure due to a combination of using soft raid, too poorly ventilated hard drives and something else that I seemed to have blanked from my memory, and I lost billions.. of bits that day, including most of the code I had written for everything I had ever coded, and I have moved on… to climate science research.
If the Guardian told me that cloudless daytime sky was blue and grass was green, I would look outside to check. It has the most self serving, self obsessed and deluded journalists, so Mann fits in quite well. The only surprise about his article is that he knows that a standard keyboard is qwerty, whether he has worked out that characters in a keyboard are different depending on where in the world you are actually typing, is probably debatable!
Crikey! Now look what you’ve done. You’ve libeled his typewriter expertise!
Sam Grove says:
More on the story of competing keyboard layouts.
Guess who ran the trials indicating that the Dvorak layout was more efficient?
http://reason.com/archives/1996/06/01/typing-errors
Great link Sam. The conclusion of the article states:
The false history of the QUERTY keyboard is an example used to promote the theory of “Path Dependence”, which basically states consumers are poor at choosing superior products. It is an argument against the free market economy. I suppose some group of elite government experts in a citadel somewhere should decide for us what products to buy.
I was surprised by the many examples in progressive literature that rely on the QUERTY example to prop up government intervention. Even though the real history of the QUERTY keyboard is known, documented and published, supporters of interventionist government like Paul Krugman continue to use rewritten history to promote their ideology.
It really is much the same as GAGW, a false theory used to promote government intervention. Regardless of the scientific evidence, CAGW will continue to be used until the cost of giving up the theory is greater than the moral discomfort in using it.
There were numerous other further earlier typewriters.
On QWERTY see The Fable of the Keys and Its Critics Twenty Years On
It is so hard to decide which mistake is President Obama’s biggest. Dr. Mann’s coming out as anti Keystone puts him firmly in the kook corner. But he gets to hang out with Hollywood kooks. And that is more fun than the academic milieu that is probably getting very used to Dr. Mann’s obvious social skills.
And being on stage with lefty political figures, where gets to tell his tale of Koch brother funded anti-science conspiracies. And give up all pretense of not being a public figure. As to Dr. Mann being onstage with illusionists, I think that is the perfect venue for him, and suggest he talk to a Las Vegas booking agent for a new way to communicate his special contributions to science even more effectively. And make even more money to boot!
I once learned the Dvorak keyboard layout and could type without looking at the keys, though that wouldn’t do much good because the keys were labeled with the qwerty layout (you can change the layout in settings of the operating system).
Today I couldn’t tell you were one single key is on the Dvorak layout, but I do remember that the vowels are on the home row.
Back in high school in the 1970’s, I once hit 85 word per minute in a test using a electric type writer.
Back in my high school days, the only reason you would learn to type was if you planned on being a secretary or if you planned to go on to university, and you would be writing a lot of essay’s. My how the world has changed.
Lots of assertions based on presumed authority in the article.
No science.
Lindzen didn’t refer specifically to Michael Mann in his testimony before the UK climate committee this Tuesday,, but I don’t think anyone who has followed his (Mann’s) trajectory could avoid it…
Scientists should be given the freedom to pursue their scientific research without public or government interference (with a few exceptions). But when they step out of the lab and into public policy they are fair game. Mann has stepped out even farther onto the highway. He publicly criticised his President on policy.
One quibble. The QWERTY keyboard wasn’t “designed” to be inefficient. It was designed to allow typewriters to work by moving the most often used letters away from each other to reduce jamming. This may have resulted in a less efficient design by words per minute but resulted in a much more reliable typewriter. Competitions (in typing words per minute) have shown it is not as inefficient as one would think.