UPDATE: it seems the language was lifted from a “Skeptical Science” web page, see below.
Steve McIntyre had a busy day yesterday. While yesterday there was an incorrect story called “Michael Mann Faces Bankruptcy as his Courtroom Climate Capers Collapse“ being pushed by John O’Sullivan at Principia Scientific International (aka PSI and The Slayers) claiming Dr. Tim Ball had defeated Mann’s lawsuit, Ball confirms through communications with McIntyre yesterday that while stalled, Mann’s lawsuit is still very much on. Also, for those who don’t know, we’ve heard that Dr. Mann’s legal bills are being paid by the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, where we’ve been told there are some deep green pockets contributing, so he isn’t facing bankruptcy, at least not yet.
I find the name a bit of a misnomer, since AFAIK, no climate skeptic scientists are suing alarmist climate scientists, We have only Dr. Mann’s and Dr. Weaver’s lawsuit (also against Tim Ball). Perhaps it should be named the Climate Science Legal Offense Fund.
In a parallel Mann legal arena, Steve McIntyre now shows that in his legal reply to the NRO/Steyn lawsuit, Dr. Mann or his attorneys altered a quote from the Muir Russell inquiry that didn’t exist. Add this to the fake “Nobel Laureate” claim in Mann’s original lawsuit (a claim which he eventually removed in an amended complaint, on Facebook (before and after), and at RC without notice), and a pattern begins to emerge that might not be looked on too kindly by a presiding judge.
He writes:
In my most recent post, I showed that Mann’s claim to have been “exonerated” by the Oxburgh inquiry had no more validity than Mann’s claim to have won a Nobel prize. In today’s post, I’ll continue my series on the “investigations” by showing that Mann’s claim to have been “exonerated” by the Muir Russell inquiry is equally invalid.
In their memoranda supporting their original motions to dismiss, both National Review and CEI had observed (correctly) that the Muir Russell panel had limited their findings to “CRU scientists” and contested Mann’s assertion that the Muir Russell panel had made any findings regarding Mann himself, let alone “exonerated” him.
In Mann’s Reply Memorandum, he vociferously rejected the (correct) assertion that the Muir Russell had not exonerated Mann himself, describing such assertion as merely an attempt to “obfuscate and misrepresent”. Mann supported this bluster with an apparent quotation from the Muir Russell report, but the phrase within the quotation marks does not actually occur within the Muir Russell report. As shown below, Mann and/or his lawyers subtly altered the quotation to more supportive language.
Full story: http://climateaudit.org/2014/02/21/mann-and-the-muir-russell-inquiry-1/
Manwhile: Steyn countersues Mann for 10 millon dollars (hilarious reading, highly recommended)
UPDATE: Shub Niggurath finds the apparent source of the language, he writes:
The doctored quote in Michael Mann’s legal reply brought to attention by Climateaudit is doing its rounds now.
Doctored quotes? Guess where my first reaction was to look.
Sure enough, this is what one finds on Skepticalscience:
See his post here: http://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2014/02/22/the-michael-mann-scientists-rigor-and-honesty-quote/
UPDATE2: Some language was updated and added in the Nobel Laureate paragraph for accuracy and broader citation.
There’s a certain irony in ⚡.⚡.’s putative involvement in this gaffe. The wheels may not be quite coming off the CAGW vehicle, but there are toadstools in the back seat and moths in the mohair.
Dear all;
I found the following video:
At the beginning of it, the newscaster and Mann talk explicitly about the exoneration he allegedly received from five different inquiries, “two out Penn State” and “three separate ones out of the UK”. The following text accompanies the video:
“Michael Mann, Penn State professor and climate scientists talks with Susan McGinnis about the investigations that have cleared his name in the “Climategate” scandal. The latest U.K. investigation says Mann’s science is good, and the U.N. global warming report is sound”.
Perhaps it’d be a good idea to save a copy of the video before it “mysteriously” disappears.
LF
Has anyone thought if the IPCC took Mann’s and Gore’s research as gospel, how this leaves them and all the EU’s carbon hating governments, somewhat without cause to keep bulsshing about AGW. Maybe they will sue them both and withdraw their nobel prizes. All those trillions of dollars now wasted when actual prevention of environmental damage could have been used positively. Building sea walls and levies against floods, more bush fire prevention, building earthquake and cyclone proof buildings, helping impoverished countries change their agricultural methodology. We can’t change weather patterns but we can adapt to prevent extreme weather events from damaging a lot of regions. Look at the Thames flooding. One crucial pump station was not servicable and was not functioning. Or the overflow of the dam in County Cork, Eire. They released water without warning, same with the Brisbane floods. There will be a lot of people who genuinely believe in AGW that will have some questions and they will feel deceived.
I have no doubt sensible thinking individuals know full well Michael Mann’s hockey stick graph is highly suspect. It’s not because of his tree rings, or his coding, or whatever else was involved in creating his graph. It’s really all about pride and confidence in one’s work.
If Mann had pride and confidence in his work, surely he’d be proud to let others examine his data and methodology in order to confirm his confidence in his research.
So why won’t Mann let others have access to his data? He’s a scientist, isn’t he? What has he got to hide? What has he got to lose? And why is it so difficult for him to produce his data in a court of law that could readily allow him to win his defamation cases?
Anyone who has been following the Ball and the Steyn cases would know that Mann could easily win his cases if he simply presented his work before a judge. To do so would immediately blow away Tim Ball, and blow away Steyn.
Well, there can only be two reasons why Mann has still failed to submit his data before the court. Either the data no longer exists and so it cannot be presented before the court, or the data exists but Mann is not presenting it before a court because the truth about his work might be revealed… that as suspected he has perhaps been engaged in scientific fraud, and as the graph was prominent in the IPCC AR3, that he was engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct.
Altering what someone said, and submitting it to the court as direct quotation … isn’t that the sort of thing that might cause one to go from Penn State to the State Pen?
Truncating what someone said, to hide the part that proves your case is false – isn’t that the very same fashion of deceit known as “Mike’s Nature trick”?
Altering and truncating the same poor quote, to subvert its meaning in an effort to mislead the court – isn’t that the kind of molesting and torturing of data that might draw rhetorical comparisons to the moral turpitude of Jerry Sandusky?
It would seem that Steyn could simply submit the Plaintiff’s case filings as “Exhibit A” for the defense…
The “climate science legal defense fund” link brings up a strong warning from my anti-virus protection: you don’t really want to go there.
It appears they can’t even organize a piss up in a brewery.
Done a WHOIS on the “Climate Science Legal Defense Fund”.
The whole enterprise is run by “big oil” so its the poor schmuck who pay to heat and light their homes has to foot Manns bill.
So I suggest check who your supplier is and move your money elsewhere.
Mark Wolfe is the chief money spinner of Manns legal charity.
http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Mark-Wolfe/23857274
At Realclimate Michael Mann (and Gavin) got the quote right! so a big mess up on somebodies part….
July 7th 2010 – Realclimate:
“The main issue is that they conclude that the rigour and honesty of the CRU scientists is not in doubt. For anyone who knows Phil Jones and his colleagues this comes as no surprise, and we are very pleased to have this proclaimed so vigorously.” Mike & Gavin
– See more at:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-muir-russell-report/
h/t @intrepidwanders via twitter
JJ:
At February 22, 2014 at 9:33 pm you ask
I answer, in principle it is, and it also pertains to the ‘hockey stick’ graph which is the subject of the words of Steyn which lead to the discussed Court case. I explain this answer as follows.
The 1998 paper by Mann, Bradley and Hughes (MBH98) introduced ‘Mike’s Nature Trick’ which was subsequently also used by others.
MBH98 can be read and seen here.
The so-called ‘hockey stick’ graph is its Figure 5b.
In that paper Figure 5b is monochrome although other Figures in the paper are in colour. Importantly, the error limits of the deduced proxy data and the indication of the thermometer data are both indicated by broken lines which are indistinguishable.
They are both “clearly labelled” but so what?
The divergence of the proxy data is hidden by splicing the thermometer data on the end with a line which is indistinguishable from the proxy data.
This splicing of selected parts of two items is “Mike’s Nature trick” and it is exactly the same malpractice as the Piltdown Man misrepresentation: i.e. parts of two different items were spliced to provide a misleading indication and then presented as a scientific indication.
Richard
@ur momisugly Admad says:
February 22, 2014 at 1:15 pm
Hahaha! Thanks for posting the YouTube, Admad, it gave me a real chuckle!
Mann is a bully with delusions of “Einsteinhood.” One of the commentators above remarked that if Mann’s work is beyond reproach, why not submit it into evidence in his lawsuits? Excellent question! Instead, he hides behind “academic freedom” to shield his work from unfavorable and critical eyes. Ironic, using “freedom” as an excuse to shut down free speech.
re: Taphonomic and “preponderance of evidence” vs “beyond reasonable doubt”.
Thank you. I had a brain cramp yesterday and misspoke. You are of course correct.
I wonder though if there is any evidence of Mann’s legal offense receiving funds from the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund.
If he was receiving funds and it was the majority of the fund’s expense then it might threaten the PEER’s 501 c(3) standing. I don’t believe you ran run a 501 c(3) for the benefit of a single entity.
I’m coming in late on this thread. I was hoping to find an answer to one question. Is principia-scientific.org’s claim that “Mann refused to disclose his ‘hockey stick’ graph metadata in the British Columbia Supreme Court” accurate?
I will also add that Mark Wolfe who is funding the climate science legal offensive is qualified as a political scientist who hopes to recieve $3Bn to aupposedly give to help poor people to keep their homes warm in these cold winters. He has also wrote a climate whatever with Gavin Smidt(?)
So there you have it. His income derived from the taxpayer and spent as he wishes to fund Manns offence fund instead of keeping the poor, old and weak alive.
He ought to be in prison.
Anthony helpfully calls out SS as “unreliable” in the WUWT blogroll sidebar. Mann should have paid attention. Or perhaps that would not have helped. An alternate explanation for the fact that Mann’s court filings match SS postings is that Mann is the original author of those SS postings. Ghost writing by Mann would also go a long ways toward explaining SS’s “unreliability”.
Commenter “Sven” over at the Blackboard notes that SS has already revised history by replacing their misquote in the offending post with a corrected version. Without notice of course. Lies and cover ups.
Does this mean that Tim Ball might be able to turn Mann’s financial supporters into Canada Revenue given that Canada Revenue frowns on “Lobbyists” claiming tax free status as “charities” intervening in Canadian affairs such as the Tides Foundation?
Mann is behaving like a guilty person already, how will he respond to Steyn’s team. It reminds me of Eddi Obeid up on fraud charges, screaming it was untrue and he would sue anyone who said so. I have only learned from Hollywood, but didn’t the Chicago mafia behave like this instead they bribed and killed people with bullets to silence them. Go Mark! Mann is using the legal system to hide behind. He’ll get his deserts what goes around comes around, all so true.
Richard S Courtney…..
The UK Institute of Physics , commissioned by the House of commons to write a report for them on the CRU emails, was damning in its 13 [ now pretty much disappeared ] findings ..
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc3902.htm
Eg: some of their conclusions…
1.The Institute is concerned that, unless the disclosed e-mails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context.
2. The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner. This extends well beyond the CRU itself – most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC’s conclusions on climate change.
3. It is important to recognise that there are two completely different categories of data set that are involved in the CRU e-mail exchanges:
· those compiled from direct instrumental measurements of land and ocean surface temperatures such as the CRU, GISS and NOAA data sets; and
· historic temperature reconstructions from measurements of ‘proxies’, for example, tree-rings.
4. The second category relating to proxy reconstructions are the basis for the conclusion that 20th century warming is unprecedented. Published reconstructions may represent only a part of the raw data available and may be sensitive to the choices made and the statistical techniques used. Different choices, omissions or statistical processes may lead to different conclusions. This possibility was evidently the reason behind some of the (rejected) requests for further information.
5. The e-mails reveal doubts as to the reliability of some of the reconstructions and raise questions as to the way in which they have been represented; for example, the apparent suppression, in graphics widely used by the IPCC, of proxy results for recent decades that do not agree with contemporary instrumental temperature measurements.
6. There is also reason for concern at the intolerance to challenge displayed in the e-mails. This impedes the process of scientific ‘self correction’, which is vital to the integrity of the scientific process as a whole, and not just to the research itself. In that context, those CRU e-mails relating to the peer-review process suggest a need for a review of its adequacy and objectivity as practised in this field and its potential vulnerability to bias or manipulation.
9. Where the nature of the study precludes direct replication by experiment, as in the case of time-dependent field measurements, it is important that the requirements include access to all the original raw data and its provenance, together with the criteria used for, and effects of, any subsequent selections, omissions or adjustments. The details of any statistical procedures, necessary for the independent testing and replication, should also be included. In parallel, consideration should be given to the requirements for minimum disclosure in relation to computer modelling.
Did the British people ask their government why they released different , whitewashed , conclusions instead of those scathing criticisms actually in the report that the government had commissioned from the IOP?
Surely an explanation was due to them—and to the rest of us around the world as well.
They certainly don’t appear to me to exonerate the US climate scientists, and Mann—in fact they expressly include them in their criticism.
I was taught archaeology by the late Professor Mike Morwood of the UNE, who later conducted research on the island of Flores in the Indonesian region. I remember back in 1988 he told us at a lecture, there will be more research one day in Indonesia and East Timor, that he felt will through some light and how and where the Australian Aborigines managed to inhabit main land Australia. He discovered the Hobbit a small Homo floresiensis that appears to have branched off from the genetic tree of other Homo sapien sapiens, like us. But survived until a volcanic eruption around 18,000 years ago. Well, not only was his fossil evidence interfered with and changed by an Indonesia academic, but the outrage that appeared in scientific circles disputing his hypothesis. He was proven correct. One of his advocates was Tim Flannery and a very credible American university. Tim had spent sometime with the UNE.
I think it was Harvard. It is the case and quite normal that new evidence in any discipline creates debates between peers, and this is normally welcomed. Annoying as it is, good scientists are open to new theories but have the right to present an alternative case and play devil advocates game. A poor data related thesis will be quickly be found wanting. Why should Mann think his research is absolute. Perhaps he was paid millions to prepare the biased data by interested parties.
metro70 says:
February 23, 2014 at 6:22 pm
————————
Excellent post. Steyn can now depose anyone he wants on this, although I don’t mean that literally. I hope he has enough sense and money to use an attorney (a good one at that) to make sure everything is done with the correct procedure, otherwise it could all get tossed. It’s possible that he could get one on a partial contingency given that Mann would probably rather settle than release his e-mails in discovery (after dragging it out for years). Doing depositions in a foreign land ain’t cheap.
I know some really nasty-ass attorneys who might take this one on.
kim says: February 22, 2014 at 2:41 pm “Baron Mannchausen.”
—————————–
I believe that would be ‘Mannchausen by Proxy’.
metro70:
Sincere thanks for your post at February 23, 2014 at 6:22 pm which is here and concludes
Unfortunately, the imminent General Election caused the pertinent Select Committee to do a ‘rush job’ which provided the “whitewashed conclusions” to which you refer. The General Election provided a new government so Parliament did not consider the Report of that Select Committee because it was reporting on matters pertaining to the previous government.
Hence, “the British people” did NOT “ask their government why they released different , whitewashed , conclusions instead of those scathing criticisms actually in the report that the” PREVIOUS “government had commissioned from the IOP” (i.e. Institute of Physics). This is a failing of our system of government but – in defence – I point out that no government system is perfect and ours is at least as good as the American system.
Importantly, as you say, the IOP Report does seem to expressly include “US climate scientists, and Mann” in “their criticism”. In my non-American and non-lawyer opinion, this would seem to be pertinent to the Mann vs Steyn legal case.
Thankyou for raising the issue.
Richard
TRUTH ABOUT THE IPPC REPORT . http://youtu.be/TYPwPXNazOs A GREAT INVESTIGATION .
“Regarding the tax-exempt status of donations, if they can do it, why can’t Steyn? I am sure he would receive many more contributions if they were deductible. Steyn should look into this, because what is sauce for the goose…”
Well…provided he wasn’t subjected to the IRS “review” machine…