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
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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.
“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
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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.