Dr. Mann’s lawsuit against National Review and Mark Steyn continues. National Review, while having walked back some of the early claims to square one, failed to get the suit dismissed. But Steyn is going on his own path and says he will fight in court for a verdict.
Anyone so inclined can help at: http://steynonline.com
[Note: I’ve removed the direct email address and most of the original comment, as it is creating an overwhelming response.
It seems that that best way to support Steyn’s effort is with a donation, see this:
Some readers have asked about that, Steyn says
As I’ve said, in previous battles I’ve never asked for money, and always responded simply by asking supporters to buy a book or a subscription to Maclean’s or whatever. But the scale of things is different down here: Michael Mann has Big Tobacco lawyer John Williams (before the hockey stick, his previous fictional client was Joe Camel) and at least three other named attorneys working on his case. So, for the moment, we’re asking those who “don’t need a coffee mug” to consider buying one of our new SteynOnline gift certificates either for a friend or for yourself, to be redeemed down the line in the event that we improve our mug designs. I’ve been heartened to see they’re being bought in places where I was barely aware I had readers, including the remoter Indonesian provinces, a couple of Central Asian stans, and dear old Vanuatu (for fellow old-school imperialists, that was pre-1980 the Anglo-French condominium of the New Hebrides). They never expire, so you can put it to one side and redeem it when my new book comes out later this year.
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I’d suggest NOT leaving your questions in comments, since that may provide an unfair preparation advantage to the plaintiff. – Anthony
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davidmhoffer says:
February 5, 2014 at 11:14 am
Phil.
The so called “Mike’s Nature trick” was to….
>>>>>>>>>
Dodge! Weave! Anything but answer the question. Change the subject all you want, that you are twisting and turning to avoid answering the question is obvious to everyone. Your deliberate evasion says much about you.
No evasion, I answered the question, apparently you don’t know what you’re talking about!
Suggesting that Steyn use the Muller video and its criticism of the Jones/Briffa “hide the decline” as evidence against Mann would be laughed out of court since he had nothing to do with it. Perhaps you should tell us what you believe the connection is, you appear to be the one evading or perhaps you’re just confused?
Phil.
No evasion, I answered the question, apparently you don’t know what you’re talking about!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Apparently I missed it my apologies. Could you restate the answer? If not Mann then Mike who?
Phil.:
At February 5, 2014 at 12:08 pm you assert to davidmhoffer
NO! That is two blatant falsehoods in one sentence!
davidmhoffer clearly DOES know what he is talking about and it is the question I asked at February 5, 2014 at 7:15 am which you have NOT answered and still is
Enough if your prevarication!
You claimed “Mike’s Nature trick” “has nothing to do with Michael Mann” so which “Mike” are you claiming did?
Richard
davidmhoffer says:
February 5, 2014 at 12:24 pm
Phil.
No evasion, I answered the question, apparently you don’t know what you’re talking about!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Apparently I missed it my apologies. Could you restate the answer? If not Mann then Mike who?
Perhaps you should explain what Michael Mann has to do with ‘Hide the decline’, which was what I was referring to. You brought up Mann in that connection with no justification, perhaps you could explain why?
richardscourtney says:
February 5, 2014 at 12:27 pm
Phil.:
At February 5, 2014 at 12:08 pm you assert to davidmhoffer
No evasion, I answered the question, apparently you don’t know what you’re talking about!
NO! That is two blatant falsehoods in one sentence!
davidmhoffer clearly DOES know what he is talking about and it is the question I asked at February 5, 2014 at 7:15 am which you have NOT answered and still is
Which has nothing to do with Michael Mann so why bring it up?
Really, “Mike’s Nature trick” “has nothing to do with Michael Mann”?
Which “Mike” was it then?
Enough if your prevarication!
You claimed “Mike’s Nature trick” “has nothing to do with Michael Mann” so which “Mike” are you claiming did?
No I said that Michael Mann had nothing to do with ‘Hide the decline’, davidmhoffer brought up “Mike’s Nature trick” which is a complete red herring.
Phil.
You brought up Mann in that connection with no justification, perhaps you could explain why?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You already used that excuse.
Phil.,
Say hi to your pal Kyle. He needs all the support he can get on the Josh cartoon article!☺
Phil.:
In your post at February 5, 2014 at 12:34 pm you quote me then say
NO! That is yet two more falsehoods from you!
YOU raised the issue and I quoted you having done it. You quoted those YOUR WORDS in your post I am answering.
I raised the question of who you were claiming did “Mike’s Nature trick” (n.b. NOT davidmhoffer) and you quoted my having done it in the post I am answering.
So, either answer the question or admit you were wrong and Michael Mann is the Mike of “Mike’s Nature trick”.
Richard
jeremyp99 says:
February 5, 2014 at 3:32 am
That short video is pretty damning for Mann, IMHO.
Clever argument, but it is rather mincing words to claim that the creator of a fraudulent work is not a fraud himself.
I haven’t been following this intensely, but my recollection was that Mann (and Penn State) were most aggrieved by the comparison with the Sandusky scandal, and Penn’s whitewash of that. The issue of scientific fraud is rather secondary. Though neither rises to the level of libel or defamation in my view, especially of a public figure.
I agree with others that Mark Steyn should have good legal counsel. Surely amongst the readers of WUWT there is a trial attorney of standing who would be willing to donate his services to the cause of free speech and good science. Where’s our Clarence Darrow?
/Mr Lynn
Phil.: The so called “Mike’s Nature trick” was to plot his reconstruction data on the same graph with current instrumental data with both clearly indicated on the graph legend.
Yes, because plotting two sets of data on the same graph is such a clever idea it deserves being referred to as a “trick.”
richardscourtney says:
February 5, 2014 at 12:59 pm
Phil.:
In your post at February 5, 2014 at 12:34 pm you quote me then say
No I said that Michael Mann had nothing to do with ‘Hide the decline’, davidmhoffer brought up “Mike’s Nature trick” which is a complete red herring.
NO! That is yet two more falsehoods from you!
YOU raised the issue and I quoted you having done it. You quoted those YOUR WORDS in your post I am answering.
As shown below I did not raise the subject of “Mike’s Nature trick”, you did.
I raised the question of who you were claiming did “Mike’s Nature trick” (n.b. NOT davidmhoffer) and you quoted my having done it in the post I am answering.
Yes you originally raised the subject of “Mike’s Nature trick” and hoffer followed it up, my original post which I repeat below said nothing about “Mike’s Nature trick”, hence my reply.
Phil. says:
February 5, 2014 at 7:03 am
kramer says:
February 4, 2014 at 6:57 pm
Seems to me that Steyn has *some* resources. For example, Muller’s video where he slams “hide the decline”,
Bart says:
February 5, 2014 at 12:12 am
kramer says:
February 4, 2014 at 6:57 pm
“For example, Muller’s video where he slams “hide the decline”…”
Link to the video. Pretty damning stuff. Go to 33:35 for the good bit.
Which has nothing to do with Michael Mann so why bring it up?
So I repeat what Muller criticizes in the video is not due to Mann, if you think it is please explain how.
Phil.:
In your post at February 5, 2014 at 1:51 pm you ask me
Say what!?
Having failed to avoid answering the question in every other way, you now pretend to be an idiot!
OK. Back to square 1.
At February 5, 2014 at 7:15 am I quoted you and asked
I suggest that you now either answer the question or admit you were wrong and Michael Mann is the Mike of “Mike’s Nature trick”.
And I point out that your prevarication about this is making you a laughing stock.
Richard
Phil. says:
February 5, 2014 at 1:51 pm
“So I repeat what Muller criticizes in the video is not due to Mann, if you think it is please explain how.”
I’d like to take a shot at this one. Steyn’s original one-liner that got him into so much trouble is, “Michael Mann was the man behind the fraudulent climate-change “hockey-stick” graph, the very ringmaster of the tree-ring circus.” Notice Steyn never said which hockey-stick was fraudulent, just that somewhere out there in the world is a fraudulent hockey-stick and Mann was behind it. As Muller pointed out, Briffa hid the decline of his proxy series by dipping into Mann’s bag of tricks. Did Mann know that Briffa was using his trick? He should have since the offending email was also addressed to him. So, that opens up a nice line of discovery for Mr Steyn: Dr Mann please provide us with all emails in your possession where you tell Dr Briffa in no uncertain terms to keep his stinking decline away from your tricks. If Dr Mann fails to do that, then he is at a minimum involved in the creation of a fraudulent hockey-stick – working behind the scenes as it were to pull yet another fast one on the rube politicians who can hardly be expected to read legends when they don’t even read the bills. It’s his trick and he didn’t try to stop Briffa and Jones from using it in a really disingenuous fashion. I’ll bet he’s also one of the co-authors of that particular stick. What do you think? Would that stick?
My question is where is Michael Mann getting the money to pay for this most expensive lawyer?
From: “Michael E. Mann”
To: Keith Briffa
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: NEED HELP!
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 07:21:55 -0400
Hi Keith,
Thanks–yes, we seem to back in the days of McCarthyism in the States. Fortunately, we have
some good people who will represent us legally pro bono, and in the best case scenario,
this backfires on these thugs…
The response of the wording is likely to change dramatically after consulation w/ lawyers,
etc. but any feedback on the substance would nonetheless be very helpful…
thanks for both your help and your support,
mike
Poor little Mikey. Can’t catch a break. Always sitting on the courthouse steps waiting for his pro bono attorney to begin yet another gov’t assault on liberty. Is it possible John B. Williams, Joe Camel apologist, is feeling guilty for past discretions? Is he Michael Mann’s sugar daddy mentioned in the above email? Could he possibly be stupid enough to choose defending pure evil twice in one lifetime? Mark Steyn’s attorney should ask little Mikey that on cross. Not for any particular reason. Just cuz we’re all curious.
ferdberple says:
For more on one famous example of this, see this book by Malcolm Gladwell:
http://www.amazon.com/David-Goliath-Underdogs-Misfits-Battling/dp/0316204366/
Mann vs Steyn is certainly a David vs Goliath case, but as Gladwell takes pains to show, some advantages are disadvantages and vice versa.
Steyn needs to discover exactly how the hockey stick was produced. Mann has kept important details secret. If those details are as bad as we expect, this case will never proceed beyond discovery.
Since Mann is by all reports a born liar, I would hope that some of Mann’s academic qualifications were examined too.
Details aside, it’s pretty f*cking hilarious watching Phil dot’s progression over the last five years, since I found this site.
He used to argue spectroscopy (and I believe that spectroscopy is his profession).
He wouldn’t listen to me when I told him that conclusion-based conclusion-drawing was the mark of a sh!t scientist, while he blithely continued with it.
…. and now, after a few crap conclusion-based conclusion-drawing arguments on Arctic ice, here we have him standing up for some English language-based argument to support the science of anthropogenic carbon dioxide BS.
Time to give up Phil, although I know you won’t.
Richard, if you know where he lives, I’ll pay for the mirror and the petrol for the delivery ….
(Interesting fact: Commenter “Kyle” posts from the same computer as “Phil.” does, in the Josh cartoon article. ~ mod.)
Perhaps I can trigger my own lawsuit from Michael: Science is not rhetoric. Mike is not a scientist. He long since abandoned science in favor of rhetoric. He does not compare his predictions with the experimental results. He holds up pictures of hurricanes. He plays to the normal human interest and fear of weather. His rhetoric places him well beyond any protection. To him it is crystal clear that the weather has gone crazy, but what he is actually seeing is the inside of his own propensity to hunt witches.
Am I mistaken or did not Mann in one of his infamous emails suggest that perhaps he and his fellow fraudsters should coordinate an effort to oust a journal editor who did not go along with the AGW hysteria? Would such a contrived personal attack not necessarily be based on contrived (which is to say fraudulent) “evidence” against a fellow scientist as a basis to have him dismissed? The utterance conveys motive, even if it was not carried forward to action.
The problem with fraud, of course, is that it’s often obvious when exposed, but may be difficult to prove in court without a clear showing of motive to defraud. On the other hand, defamation of character of a well known person whose name appears repeatedly in the press can also be difficult to prove unlesss — likewise — there is a clearly established motive to defame. That will be Mann’s difficult chore. And rather a great risk to his already diminishing cred, perhaps.
Even if Mann prevails, but with only a symbolic jury award of one dollar, it will be a Pyrrhic victory for him to be damned by such faint praise. Props to Steyn for refusing to recant.
ttfn says:
February 5, 2014 at 2:58 pm
Phil. says:
February 5, 2014 at 1:51 pm
“So I repeat what Muller criticizes in the video is not due to Mann, if you think it is please explain how.”
I’d like to take a shot at this one. Steyn’s original one-liner that got him into so much trouble is, “Michael Mann was the man behind the fraudulent climate-change “hockey-stick” graph, the very ringmaster of the tree-ring circus.” Notice Steyn never said which hockey-stick was fraudulent, just that somewhere out there in the world is a fraudulent hockey-stick and Mann was behind it. As Muller pointed out, Briffa hid the decline of his proxy series by dipping into Mann’s bag of tricks.
Which is not true, Briffa ‘hid the decline’ of his proxy series by truncating it after 1960 to remove what he termed the ‘divergence problem’, this had nothing to do with Mann.
Mann’s ‘trick’ was to plot his reconstruction and the instrument data on the same graph, clearly indicated as different, one red the other black as I recall.
Phil Jones added instrumental data to his truncated data set also, that explains the reference to ‘Mike’s trick’.
When it comes to ‘hiding’ though, the divergence problem and the reason for it was discussed in the paper (et seq) which doesn’t suggest that there was any secrecy. Of course you’re free to discuss the science regarding their decision to truncate the series but not to argue that it was unethically ‘hidden’ from the readers since it was the subject of numerous papers. Mann wasn’t involved with the paper in any case.
http://eas8001.eas.gatech.edu/papers/Briffa_et_al_PTRS_98.pdf
The divergence problem is reviewed in:
http://www.wsl.ch/info/mitarbeitende/cherubin/download/D_ArrigoetalGlobPlanCh2008.pdf
Did Mann know that Briffa was using his trick? He should have since the offending email was also addressed to him. So, that opens up a nice line of discovery for Mr Steyn: Dr Mann please provide us with all emails in your possession where you tell Dr Briffa in no uncertain terms to keep his stinking decline away from your tricks. If Dr Mann fails to do that, then he is at a minimum involved in the creation of a fraudulent hockey-stick – working behind the scenes as it were to pull yet another fast one on the rube politicians who can hardly be expected to read legends when they don’t even read the bills. It’s his trick and he didn’t try to stop Briffa and Jones from using it in a really disingenuous fashion. I’ll bet he’s also one of the co-authors of that particular stick. What do you think? Would that stick?
You’d lose your bet!
philincalifornia says:
February 5, 2014 at 7:46 pm
(Interesting fact: Commenter “Kyle” posts from the same computer as “Phil.” does, in the Josh cartoon article. ~ mod.)
MOD. If this is really from a mod please recheck your data, I am the only one who posts from my computer and I only use one name, Phil. I have no idea who ‘Kyle’ is.
So I would like this incorrect statement removed and an apology for your error would be appreciated.
[Same computer URL was used for posting. ~ mod.]
Phil.
Mann’s ‘trick’ was to plot his reconstruction and the instrument data on the same graph, clearly indicated as different, one red the other black as I recall.
Phil Jones added instrumental data to his truncated data set also, that explains the reference to ‘Mike’s trick’.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
So Phil Jones hid the decline using Mike’s trick and the Mike in question was Mann. Thanks for the clarification.
davidmhoffer says:
February 6, 2014 at 7:11 am
Phil.
Mann’s ‘trick’ was to plot his reconstruction and the instrument data on the same graph, clearly indicated as different, one red the other black as I recall.
Phil Jones added instrumental data to his truncated data set also, that explains the reference to ‘Mike’s trick’.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
So Phil Jones hid the decline using Mike’s trick and the Mike in question was Mann. Thanks for the clarification.
Apparently reading comprehension is not your strong point!
Phil. says:
February 6, 2014 at 6:51 am
So when Mann writes:
From: “Michael E. Mann”
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999
“I am perfectly amenable to keeping Keith’s series in the plot, and can ask
Ian Macadam (Chris?) to add it to the plot he has been preparing (nobody
liked my own color/plotting conventions so I’ve given up doing this myself).
The key thing is making sure the series are vertically aligned in a reasonable
way. I had been using the entire 20th century, but in the case of Keith’s,
we need to align the first half of the 20th century w/ the corresponding mean
values of the other series, due to the late 20th century decline.”
he’s talking about some other hockey stick? Maybe this was one of those independent sticks that verified Mann’s work?