People send me stuff. Readers will surely recall ‘I’m Michael E. Mann, Distinguished Professor of Meteorology at Penn State, Ask Me Almost Anything!’. A reader who does not wish to be named writes about the questions he posed. Readers probably won’t be surprised at the outcome. – Anthony
============================================================
I gave it quite a lot of thought, and asked three questions of Michael Mann during his Ask Me Anything on Reddit:
- Given the Oxburgh Panel’s criticism on your use of statistical methods and McShane and Wyner 2010 finding significant statistical lapses in Mann et al 2008, do you foresee consulting with statisticians before publishing future papers?
- Do you regret the splicing of instrumental data with proxy data in your Nature study, something that Phil Jones referred to as “Mike’s Nature trick?”
- Darrell Kaufman issued a correction after he discovered that your orientation of the Tiljander data set was upside down in Mann et al 2008. Do you regret reversing this orientation, and why have you not issued a similar correction?
Unfortunately, Michael Mann saw none of these questions.
And it’s not that that the questions showed up but were down-voted into oblivion by the users (seems to be a safe zone for alarmists). I half-expected that! What transpired instead was that the moderator blocked my comments from appearing entirely. Which was weird, because the only reason they should not have shown up is if I was posting spam.
The questions: (click to enlarge)
I contacted the moderator to inquire and his response was that my questions were “inappropriate” for Michael Mann.
The moderator action: (click to enlarge)
So when the moderator specified that “hard questions are allowed” for Dr. Mann, I guess what he really meant was that “hard questions are definitely not allowed”. And as to “inappropriate”, I can hardly imagine more appropriate questions!
What Michael Mann took part in was more along the lines of a puff piece or a public relations show than anything like an “Ask Me Anything.” I’m disappointed, but not surprised. And if Dr. Mann ever reads this, I imagine there are a lot of us who would love the answers to those 3 questions. And about a hundred others after that.
No surprise here.
Ask me ‘Almost anything’ clearly limits the questions to the immaterial.
I suggest you send these questions to the new President at Penn State and demand answers or the resignation of Dr Mann. If you won’t, I will.
Bill Yarber
PSU – AeroSp Engr
BS – ’69
MS – ’71
Some other questions that I know were deleted:
You have said that some unknown phenomenon kept the Medieval Warm Period from being global in scope. Do you think there are any similar or other negative feedbacks unaccounted for or not accounted for properly by climate models?
What is the status of your lawsuit against Tim Ball? Has he paid up yet?
If you wanted to get thru to Mann you should have asked:
1. Are you the smartest man ever to win the Nobel Prize or just one of the smartest?
2. Among oil company stooges like Anthony Watts, Judith Curry and Steve McIntyre, which one do you think is most likely a child molester?
3. Is that Wegman guy crazy or what?
I think that the Reddit effort was a probe. Bang the system and see how it rattles so to speak.
He was digging. He never intended to answer anything of substance, he just wanted to know the scope and depth of the questions so he could see what people actually know in advance of his legal pursuits.
The moderation here is light years ahead of blogs like Reddit. WUWT posts comments that conform to this site’s Policy, even when they are derogatory. That makes for heavy site traffic, because readers like to see a back-and-forth discussion with all sides presented.
Reddit needs to rein in it’s moderators. The questions Anthony asked were straightforward and pertinent. Readers would very much like to see Mann’s response. Running interference for Michael Mann only makes Reddit an enabler, like buying another drink for an alcoholic.
You misunderstood the moderator by focusing on the wrong part. He didn’t say the questions are ‘inappropriate’, but that they are inappropriate for Michael Mann. He is too thin-skinned to see such questions. To question his intellect is tantamount to an accusation of fraud.
Hard is merely another word for difficult or tricky, and does not include attacking questions here.
By hard questions are allowed, they meant something like
“Can you give us a complete list of all your awards and commendations?”
“What is the full form of (x-a)(x-b)(x-c)…(x-z)?”
@ “reader who does not wish to be named”
Good move. Good questions. And transparency here at WUWT.
There is a full blown rout occurring.
“So when the moderator specified that “hard questions are allowed” for Dr. Mann…”
The questions would not be hard for Dr Mann. An academic of his calibre would be able to answer them easily.
It is interesting that the mods blocked his polite, thoughtful questions entirely, but just let the users down-vote my question, which wasn’t as thoughtful, and wasn’t as tactful, into oblivion. This was my question:
I wouldn’t mind if some folks here would up-vote my question, so that it reappears. It’s currently at -6. I think it has to be -4 or higher to be visible. (Note: I went through the comments, ctrl-F searching for “comment score below threshold” and up-voting most of those comments.)
To: the Distinguished Nobel Laureate, Dr. Mann,
Is it Ok to use the phrase: “State Pen, not Penn State” in any context?
Happened to me, too. I signed up specifically to ask a question. However, my first comment was an on-topic, point-by-point rebuttal of some nonsense someone had said. My stuff was factual and impossible to refute – it wasn’t even particularly controversial. My comment appeared briefly and then disappeared for good. The moderators are scared of tough questions which just shows how confident they are in the strength of their argument re global warming. Climate Nazis indeed.
Mann orchestrated a sing-a-long complete with a bouncing ball and backup singers. Nothing more, nothing less.
Of course a caveat like “almost anything can mean…… almost anything.
Clearly he had no intention of answering any real questions, just puffing himself up a bit by choosing some topics he felt confident about answering.
A really hard question like “how many Nobel prizes have you won?” is obviously not going to get answered because it would require working out the difference between one and zero.
The fact that he has trouble with that sort of thing may tell us how much use he is going to be at working out whether we have AGW or not AGW.
To be fair, he did say ‘ask me anything’ not that he would answer any question.
The problem isn’t protecting Mann from the questions – the problem is making sure Reddit users only see what’s allowed.
Imagine what hell the life of a alarmist propagandist, constantly on the lookout for the information that can’t be dared to appear, and feeling surrounded by the Dark Dastardly Forces of Denial .
To be a climate change alarmist is its own punishment.
The email address for President-elect Dr. Eric Barron is “president@psu.edu”. Address it to President-elect Barron, so that it gets to him and not outgoing President Ericson.
As the father of a current PSU freshman and an incoming freshman, I’m formulating my letter now.
There is a forum for AMA called appropriately enough reddit.com/r/IAmA
Mann’s AMA was NOT in that subreddit. The reasons are quite apparent.
The /r/science folder on reddit was altered some 2 months ago to allow the moderators to squash any and all comments against the alarmist rhetoric. This was done because the /r/science group has formally aligned itself with the journal Nature.
http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1s6410/subreddit_announcement_nature_partnership_with/
If Mann had held his AMA in /r/IAmA, your comments and questions would probably not have been banned.
First rate questions. They were polite, pertinent, and of probative value. No wonder they went unanswered.
I think the dodgy doctor is great.
He has set the bar for ethics in ‘climate science’ so low that his very existence serves to continually undermine the alarmist cause.
Your questions weren’t too hard, they were disrespectful. You should know that you should preface your questions with a eulogy to his esteemed body of work, and then toss in a softball question about being burdened by noxious skeptics.
Does Mann deserve the implicit respect that use of the title “Dr” implies. perhaps he should be referred to simply by his surname.
see www,theeuroprobe.org 2014 -015
The Green Party wants to sack all MPs and civil servants who disagree with them
Mick G
Well – what else would one expect from the Womann-named-Sue? Now, now, we musn’t disturb her equilibrium – she is so delicate.
Put these guys on a late night talk show!
Kurt in Switzerland
I mused proposing something like “Are you the anchor in this cartoon that’s going to drag the entire alarmist ship to the bottom of the ocean, and if so will Trenberth be on deck holding a thermometer yelling ‘Eureka!’?”
But the idea that something like that would ever get to Mann’s eyes…you must be kidding…
@J Martin –
No, I think “Womann-named-Sue” is sufficient.
I believe his name will on forever in Science.
Wikapedia 2050
The MANN solution.
Definition – Attempts by a scientist to manipulate any data by hiding the source code.
The MANN solution was named after Michael Mann back in 2014 after he went to court and was found guilty of manipulation of data that lead to his arrest and banishment from the scientific field. Later in life he was found wandering forest and talking to the trees, comments heard were
” tell me how much warming has there been” whilst hugging trees, many a time he had to be stopped from chainsawing ancient trees.
My question was also deleted. Paraphrasing, I asked:
“In light of Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman’s description of scientific integrity, do you have any comments on your 1998 “hockey stick” paper?”
See Richard Feynman 1974 Caltech
life on forever
oh lordy – live on forever!
Yeah big surprise, I asked several questions that were deleted also. Why be nice? After 2 of my questions were deleted, I just started taking shots at the moderator.
I’m pretty sure Eli Rabbett was a moderator, normally he is pretty good about allowing tough questions, but my suspicion is that heavy handed orders were given out, probably by Mann himself. It is actually quite comical,
Paul Westhaver says:February 25, 2014 at 9:13 am
I think Paul’s dead right: It was a fishing expedition to find out what people might use to oppose him (Mann). There was no intention to engage. Mann’s a poltroon!
You can pitch any fast ball you want, so long as it doesn’t go over 40 mph.
If you want to speak freely in the era of open mindedness then you have to show that you are open minded. Otherwise no one wants to hear you and your speaking rights will be taken away. Don’t waste the time of busy, enlightened open minded people.
You have to be open minded.
Same goes for science. If you want to discuss something about a theory, you have to demonstrate that you understand that theory. Questioning the basis of a body of theory obviously shows that you don’t understand that theory. It is only rational that any questions you may have that show such ignorance should be discarded outright, and that you should be socially sanctioned as an example to others.
Only in this environment can open minded scientific inquiry occur.
(do I need to put the sarc tag here?)
And another thing …
Isn’t it about time we improved science?
This stodgy reliance on ‘observation’ weighs down the beautiful thoughts and ambitions of so many enlightened people who can imagine a better reality.
Let’s do the brave, bold thing that people in the climate ‘debate’ (there is no debate) keep talking around – time to discard the burdensome thermometer reading and record keeping that takes valuable resources away from TRUE SCIENCE where models are made that show the world just how bad we really are and in how much need we are of having decisions made for us be beautiful, enlightened people with degrees that rely on essay writing and impassioned statement-making rather than dull, unimaginative fields like engineering and “hard sciences.”
Let’s free humanity and explicitly do away with “hard science” and replace it with “easy science” where everyone gets a Nobel Prize!
Like John said one morning after rolling over and looking at Yoko for the umpteenth time: Imagine!
I once posted a very politely phrased question on RealClimate about how come we were supposed to believe tree rings were good proxies for historical temperatures when we knew they did such a lousy job of tracking 1980s and 1990s temps, a fact which had made necessary “Mike’s Nature trick” in the first place. I even prefaced it with some gratuitous comment in praise of Gavin Schmidt (probably an example of my loose adherence to moral standards, but nevertheless).
My question was removed with impressive speed and efficiency for a bunch of guys that cannot manage to secure either the CRU e-mails or SkS forum from hackers.
to be fair muller did change his mind
That key word means hard questions are disqualified. This is why they cannot and will not allow any debate. They would be pulverized.
If I could be bothered jumping through the hoops to join reddit I would have asked him where all the money went that I am supposed to have received as a “climate sceptic”.
Well, it says to ask him anything.
And J. Martin, no matter what you think of his views, M. Mann has a PhD from Yale so he is entitled to the honorific title “Dr.” If there is a problem then perhaps it should be taken up with the department that awarded the PhD.
OK – I submitted a question via Twitter:
https://twitter.com/SemperBanU/status/438399949244334080
We’ll see if it gets a response.
It brings us another question – Is there a way to exhume long dead academics and study their layers of skin so as to determine thickness in prior epochs? Would that be Dermochronology?
We already know that Reddit has a policy that bans CAGW skeptics from posting:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/20/discussion-thread-reddit-bans-climate-change-skeptics/
It’s much simpler to be a denier, after all. To deny there is uncertainty, to deny debate, to deny freedom of thought, enquiry and speech, to deny the right of scientists that don’t toe the line to publish papers in the journals, to deny error or doubt even when people like Steve McIntyre have demonstrated that there are bits of your graph that are upside down, to take to the courts to deny the right of people like Mark Steyn to criticise and so on.
I did a search for certain words and variations thereof and none of the following appear in Mann’s question and answer piece.
• McIntyre
• Steve McIntyre
• statistician
• graft
• nature trick
• Medieval
• Little Ice Age
• Oxburgh
• enquiry
• climate research unit
• CRU
• Phil Jones
• Nature trick
• Darrell Kaufman
• Tiljander
I guess the gate keepers have some kind of keyword filter which banishes such questions straight into spam.
You can bet your bottom Dollar that questions with some of the keywords I have listed above were asked.
‘What Michael Mann took part in was more along the lines of a puff piece or a public relations show’
That is the only type of show he will take part in…until his ego gets the better of him and he does end up in court, what a day that will be.
From a non-climate-qualified person, keen on exposing anti-corruption aspects of life in general…..isn’t it wonderful for those of us similar types, that Blogs like this, are, in the ‘digital age’, able to expose these…….(fill in your own description)….types of people, hell bent on self promotion at what ever the cost to the truth. Long may it last!
If you were actually looking for a response, a better question for Dr Mann would be
The 1993 Graybill-Idso tree ring study that you used in MBH98 was undertaken by its authors to find evidence of CO2 fertilization. What techniques or methods did you use to separate out the temperature component from the effects of precipitation variation and increasing CO2?
Obviously, *real* science is about not asking difficult questions, and only about confirming your own biases.
So we need a new name for that thing where you use techniques and processes designed to test your ideas against reality, because that’s not “science” anymore.
And Mann has the temerity to label Judith Curry as “anti-science.” Oh, the projection. It burns.
So much for scientific transparency and “peer review”. It’s more like “peer ignore”.
“I contacted the moderator to inquire and his response was that my questions were “inappropriate” for Michael Mann.
Wow! They usally don’t bother to respond …
I asked this question:
[-]Tunderbar
In 2012 there was a scandal of sorts at the UVA between board members and the President of the University. I believe she resigned and was later re-instated. It made the news but a lot of the details, especially as to what caused the problems in the first place, were never reported. It was later alleged that this was all about you being considered for a position at the UVA and in which board members objected to and, in the end, you were not given the position. Do you care to comment? Were you in discussions to take a position at the UVA at this time?
***
The result? 1) Mann did not answer the question, 2) The question disappeared and 3) My reddit account appears to have been silently disabled. I cannot log on and I clicked on the “send me my password” link and two days later, I still haven;t heard from them. No password for me! I guess.
Shades of 1984 or what?
I’d like to ask, “Because warming since 1950 is only noticeable at the poles and many regions have experienced little to no warming in modern times would you conclude that modern global warming is exactly like that during the MWP?”
And they’re firmly convinced that they’re “open minded” people…
Is the moderator aware of where the questions came from? If not before, I’ll bet now they wished they did.
Dr. Mann, do you regret promoting an implied vindication of your hockey sticks that a contained no blade in the input data but relied on a data re-dating artifact to afford the blade, seen here in a single glance?:
http://s6.postimg.org/jb6qe15rl/Marcott_2013_Eye_Candy.jpg
I once posted a comment on Reddit on a thread about “Climate Change”. It wasn’t negative at all, it just showed I wasn’t a AGW fanatic and had some questions.
Boy, I was attacked by dozens of “redditors”. No answers to my questions, just insults.
Not surprising that Mann got such a gentle handling.
Dear Dr. Mann: when the airline charges you for extra baggage because they have to carry your ego, do you get a grant to cover that?
A minor grammar correction to a contributor:
The word “lead” when pronounced “leed” is (usually) a verb meaning to guide, etc.
When pronounced “led”, it is the metal, a noun.
The past tense of the verb “to lead” is “led”.
I see this all the time and am trying to correct it politely. I hope I have succeeded.
Ian M
Dr. Mann:
1. If you had a do-over and were once again asked to erase the MWP from climate history, what would you do differently?
2. How do those Bristlecone pinecones taste now? Umm, a little bitter?
Paul Westhaver says:
February 25, 2014 at 9:13 am
“I think that the Reddit effort was a probe. Bang the system and see how it rattles so to speak.
He was digging. He never intended to answer anything of substance, he just wanted to know the scope and depth of the questions so he could see what people actually know in advance of his legal pursuits.”
Its a two-edged sword. There is lots in this thread that would be useful to Steyn. I knew about the upside down Tiljander series in Mann’s paper but wasn’t aware that a subsequent author who had used the series, emended his article when he learned it was upside down. Meanwhile Mann did not change his construction. I think this is a good piece of intelligence for the case.
Reddit is the front page of the internet for statists. Post anything remotely “Constitutionalist” or scientific (requiring empirical evidence), and you’ll be downvoted or reported as a spammer. From the day I created an account I’m often limited to 1 comment per 10 minutes. This is a common tactic used by redditors for anyone who holds an opposing view point.
“And if Dr. Mann ever reads this,..”
He never will. His moderator will deem WUWT ‘inappropriate’ and it will go on a list of things from which Dr Mann needs to be protected.
WUWT
Reality
Scrutiny
…
Too bad he didn’t do this…
http://dailybail.com/home/want-to-talk-to-vikram-pandit-ceo-of-citigroup-heres-his-cel.html
Michael Mann calls himself “Distinguished… “? That’s very humbling don’t ya think?
A hard question is an oxymoron. There are NO hard questions.
It is the answers that can be hard.
just took a look at
http://www.reddit.com/wiki/mediakit
judging by the numbers visiting this site the alarmist acolytes are going to be out in swarms to keep any skeptic views at bay.
I’m guessing that Mr. Mann had list of keywords that if included in a question should be deemed inappropriate.
This is all set up ahead of time and agreed to by all parties. Any deviation would have allowed Mr. Mann to refuse future collaborations and/or legal remedies.
Reddit sold out for the notoriety and Mr. Mann already was compromised.
Good to have that on record for those who still have stars in their eyes as to his claimed stellar scientific reputation and abilities.
Liars usually are all eventually uncovered and shamed. It’s unfortunate that it takes some time and they can do a lot of damage.
OldHoya says:
February 25, 2014 at 9:12 am
ROFLMAO.
Why are we so surprised? This movement is a political one. Science is simply used as a means to a political end. Don’t try and muddy the waters with real questions; just those approved by the apparatchik moderators to further their agenda.
Mann is an distinguished coward.
Reddit is a thoroughly censored website. I was there for a few months and left for that reason, even though I had thousands of their “karma” points. They have no interest at all in free discussions of any topic. I’m not one bit surprised that you were blocked, Mt. Watts. You should consider it a badge of honor.
Dr. Mann,
I am an undergrad climate scientist in the making and was recently asked this question on a Climate Science Ethics test. Could you spare me some of your near-infinite wisdom and help me out?
A train named “Hockey” leaves State Penn traveling 50mph towards Penn State. At the same time another train, named “Stick” leaves Penn State traveling 60MPH in the opposite direction on the same track.
Part 1) How long will it take, and where will the “Hockey” “Stick” train wreck occur?
Part 2) In that same time period, how many megabytes of raw climate data could be deleted from University servers via a remote laptop with a dial-up speed of 32,000 baud?
KRJ Pietersen says:
February 25, 2014 at 11:34 am
I once posted a very politely phrased question on RealClimate
===============
You are simply not trying hard enough. At one time I held a record for postings to the RC Borehole. The Borehole is the only spot on RC worth reading. It is the only science discussion RC allows.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/the-bore-hole/comment-page-1/#comments
What about duplicate grants?
Duplicate-grant case puts funders under pressure
Critics call for tighter checks to stop researchers being funded twice for the same work.
http://www.nature.com/news/duplicate-grant-case-puts-funders-under-pressure-1.9984
excerpt:
It sounds like every researcher’s dream: two or more agencies are falling over each other to fund your grant proposal.
But for those tempted to accept funding for the same piece of research from more than one agency, grant fraud charges brought by the US authorities on 31 January are a sober warning. The incident has also sparked renewed calls for funding agencies to work harder to avoid grant duplication.
The recent charges were brought against Craig Grimes, who until 2010 was a professor of electrical engineering at Pennsylvania State University. Last month, he pleaded guilty to charges that included accepting grants from the Department of Energy (DOE) and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) to fund the same research on solar conversion of carbon dioxide into hydrocarbons. “It is not a problem to apply for funds for the same research at different funding agencies, but it is illegal to accept and use the funding,” says Christine Boesz, a former inspector-general for the NSF. Such duplicate funding is banned in many leading scientific nations. Boesz says that there is no way of knowing how prevalent the problem is, but that cases tend to come to light only if peer reviewers spot similarities in grant applications.
It boggles my mind that apparently intelligent individuals keep proffering opportunities for ridicule and derision on the twit…I guess it’s called hubris.
Mike McMillan says:
February 25, 2014 at 12:11 pm
What techniques or methods did you use to separate out the temperature component from the effects of precipitation variation and increasing CO2?
===========
The technique used is called “selection on the dependent variable”. Look for it on google.
What he did is select trees (dependent) based on temperature (independent). He called this calibration, and to those without a statistics background (read climate scientists) it all sounds perfectly reasonable.
However, if you have a mathematics background, which as I recall Mann does, then there is no mystery at all as to what the results will be. You are cooking the books in a fashion that the layman will not see. To the layman it looks perfectly reasonable. But to a statistician it is forbidden practice.
For the layman, the problem is best described as circular reasoning. If you give medicine to sick people and they get better, did the medicine cure them? You cannot be sure. The same problem with calibrating tree rings. The trees you didn’t study tell you more than the ones you did.
There’s nothing surprising here. nallen has no objectivity on this or any related issue and he’s the pawn of whatever instrument guides and pays frequent poster “pnewell”. The moderators in the science reddit are supposed to keep out stuff that isn’t directly related to new, peer-reviewed publications, but pnewell repeatedly violates these rules, and nallen lets him get away with it.
Maybe someone can explain to me why tree rings are significant proof. They use it in archaeological research, but it indicates the growth pattern of a tree it doesn’t predict climate forecasts. And it can’t be used as a generalization of all tree species growth around the world.
A tree will not grow if the temperatures and/or rain fall are not sufficient to maintain growth, like for deciduous trees in winter during a dormant state. Pines are evergreen of course, but they don’t grow in winter either. The mind boggles. Where did he conduct his research, in California, why not Alaska, ha, ha.
Courtesy of taxpayer funding, Mann has conspired to subvert FOIA requests & peer review. He hides, deletes and splices data/proxies that falsify his theories. His models contrast with reality to a degree that is breathtaking and are easily falsified by observation as well as historical records. There is nothing about this charlatan that bears a remote resemblance to science.
Yet not only is manbearpig still feeding from the trough supplied by US families, he remains a cudgel used to extract 10’s of billions of bucks a year to fight something that has not occurred for decades and, more ominously, to define breathing as pollution.
Not only has Mann et al severely damaged the credibility of any science related to climate, they have cast doubt on the motivations of any scientist that quietly sits back and allows this to occur.
Still waiting for the list of scientists that have NOT received taxpayer funding that DO believe in CAGW…
@bushbunny,
It’s even worse than you think. If your theory is that CO2 levels drive temperatures and you are using tree rings or any other plant based proxy to measure temperatures how do you get passed the fact that C02 directly affects plant growth?
Bill Yarber
Do you know how Master Graham Spanier is doing these days ? He was the “head” resident of my dorm house at Iowa State University back in the early 70s. The circumstances of his departure from PSU are no surprise.
Reddit’s so-called science forum has banned the anti-AGW viewpoint.
I think it’s time for reddit participants to look for a more honest forum, at least on science topics.
CO2 is a gas that trees transpire, and most living organism like human require too to live, the more plant life and humans we need nitrogen, water as well as oxygen and CO2. So how can he judge whether this relates to low atmospheric temperatures and during dormancy. Generally this is done at night time anyway regarding plants. As I asked where did he conduct his research? Where did the trees come from and what species was chosen, if they were Bristle cone pines, well (?) There was good research done years ago as These trees registered an influx of C.14 and C.13 (at times) that throws out Carbon dating so that’s why we have + and – on reports. Also there was an increase when they conducted atmospheric atom bomb blasts. It does not relate to CO2. Correct me if I am wrong assuming this.
@psion: …nallen has no objectivity on this or any related issue and he’s the pawn of whatever instrument guides and pays frequent poster “pnewell”…
Well, r/science mod Nathan Allen works for Dow Chemical, while AGW-spammer Philip Newell works for Climate Nexus (a Rockefeller-funded NGO).
Funny: On his Facebook page he’s complaining
“There appears to be a coordinated attack right now to bring down the rating (like vs dislike) of my recent @Reddit AMA:”
He doesn’t like to be disliked.
Michael “Porkroll” Mann is on the morning menu. Would you like fries with that?
Read much? Anth_ny reported questions posed by an unnamed reader.
Bill Yarber says:
February 25, 2014 at 9:11 am
I suggest you send these questions to the new President at Penn State and demand answers or the resignation of Dr Mann. If you won’t, I will.
Bill Yarber
PSU – AeroSp Engr
BS – ’69
MS – ’71
===========================================================================
Love that attitude from a Penn Stater. Right now, they can quietly count the grant money Mann has brought them. A little more transparency is in order, starting with publicly addressing legitimate questions affecting the University that Mann won’t address.
Reddit, L.A. Times – Is anyone, anywhere, keeping a running list of newspapers, bulletin boards, and blogs where “deniers” cannot post their stupid, inconvenient questions? This would seem to be a LINK worthy item for the side-bar for WUWT, among many other blogs.
“CENSORSED” AGW queries? Both anti-rational and anti-science entertainment for all!
We all ought to know that the Nazi’s policy of “Gleichschaltung” – or forced conformity of beliefs – has been resurrected by political correctness in today’s Institute of State “Science” policy.
richard says:
February 25, 2014 at 4:06 pm “”””
Damn!
However…..
AUDIENCE
Median Age: 31.2
Media HHI: $71,432
M/F: 55/45
(Source: Nielsen @plan rel 3 2011)
smells like fish (I also like the typo)
The skeptics from reddit are essentially blocked by nallen (Nathan Allan) and his band of echo-chronies from posting anything in the science subreddit. Anything that goes against the party line is removed ESPECIALLY if it has devastating evidence. Someone claims “superstorm” sandy’s storm surge was made much worse by sea level rise…they’ll delete your post showing the relevant tide gage. They specifically forbid any mention of “the pause” unless the article is specifically about the pause…so if someone claims warming over the last 10 years did X, the paper stands even though it is a verifiable fact that there has been no surface warming.
Originally nallen lied, saying there was no plot to remove all skeptical posts…but later he admitted in an op-ed piece that they had been systematically censoring skeptics for years. Oh, and one of the most prolific posters of climate alarmism is a self identified mouthpiece for a green propaganda group, climate nexus…with the blessing of nallen of course.
[snip – nope. The story is about Michael Mann and the questions posed by a person that got deleted. Your comments isn’t about those questions or situation, but snarky insults of our host – mod]
Let’s see if this gets through.
To the person who asked the questions: Good questions. But don’t ask Dr. Mann what he regrets. Clearly he has megalomaniacal tendencies, and appears to regret nothing.
Instead, ask him “can you scientifically defend the making of statistical claims based on the reverse Tiljander data?”, and “can you scientifically defend the grafting of actual temperature data onto proxy reconstructions while omitting contradictory proxy data for the instrument period?”
Your questions will sound less polemical and less emotionally challenging, and put the burden of science back onto the alleged scientist.
Hmm–I’m seeing a pattern here.
Mann oh Mann.
Is it just me? Or does this character and his sycophants seem to have emerged, whole cloth, from a Gilbert & Sullivan musical?
“i am the very model of a modern major mumbler?”
Like I keep snickering, flatter this mann, keep him talking, lights camera, blather on…
Is he really on side with the Great Cause?
Or is he ours?
As Pointman insinuates.
“Well, r/science mod Nathan Allen works for Dow Chemical.”
The leftist, progressive, Obama type response would be to hit up the various Dow Chemical websites and facebook pages asking if Dow Chemical does science the say way Nathan Allen does. Not that us super well funded skeptics would ever stoop that low.
This phenomenon of selectively answering questions has been around for eons. Most who don’t attend events such as this regularly won’t see it or understand how it happens.
We’re taught to believe that people in general are fair and even handed. That’s a nice grade school notion but hardly the truth as we age. I believed that until I attended university and went to sessions with various “famous” people. The question and answer sessions at the end were heavily moderated and questions were all pre-screened. There were and are never any hard questions. There are never any questions allowed that might diminish the appearance of intelligence and integrity of the speaker.
The funny thing about the internet is that it’s supposed to be a place of free exchange of ideas, seemingly unburdened by the biases of “those in power”. Nothing could be further from the truth. It appears Reddit is nothing more than a place for dissemination of “fun” ideas. Anything that is complex or could prove controversial will be sanitized. And that’s pretty terrifying in its own right.
I just sent my letter to the President-Elect Dr Barrow containing these three questions and wishing him good luck in his new position. I encourage everyone on this board to do the same.
Bill
jauntycyclist linked to a “Democracy Now” video and wrote, “to be fair muller did change his mind.”
Not really, JC.
Democracy Now is an openly “progressive” channel, and Amy Goodman slavishly toes the Party Line. She begins that report with a whopper of a lie: at seven seconds into the video she calls Muller “one of the country’s most prominent global warming skeptics.”
But Muller was never a global warming skeptic at all, let along one of the most prominent. In fact, in his lecture about Mann’s fraud Muller says Mann’s was the group he (Muller) “trusted the most” (until the Climategate revelations). Those are not the words of a “global warming skeptic.”
The only “global warming skeptical” thing Muller that ever did was denounce Michael Mann’s fraud, and to my knowledge Muller has never retracted that denouncement.
Even after learning of Mann’s fraud, Muller didn’t say that he believed that the alarmists conclusions were wrong, only that he was appalled at Mann’s scientific misconduct, and didn’t trust their work.