There is a great editorial in the Columbus Dispatch by Jay Amrose about the abuse of the legal system by Michael E. Mann and his legal actions to try to stifle debate. More on that below, but first, the history of Mann in the context of debate.
Michael Mann once famously said that ‘robust debate’ was a good thing in science:
Source: [ https://twitter.com/MichaelEMann/status/139734953742188546 ]
Also from Dr. Mann’s Twitter feed, he declares that ‘robust debate’ is only good when it’s not with a “denier” scientist or on a network he doesn’t like.
Source: [ http://twitter.com/MichaelEMann/status/316260453770723328 ]
And Mann himself is no stranger to libelous speech in the context of “honest debate”, as the climategate emails show: (bold mine)
From: “Michael E. Mann” <mann@virginia.edu>
Subject: Re: Fw: Rutherford et al. [2004]
X-UEA-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information
X-UEA-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-UEA-MailScanner-SpamScore: s
Phil, I would immediately delete anything you receive from this fraud. You’ve probably seen now the paper by Wahl and Ammann which independently exposes McIntyre and McKitrick for what it is–pure crap. Of course, we’ve already done this on “RealClimate”, but Wahl and Ammann is peer-reviewed and independent of us. I’ve attached it in case you haven’t seen (please don’t pass it along to others yet). It should be in press shortly. Meanwhile, I would NOT RESPOND to this guy. As you know, only bad things can come of that. The last thing this guy cares about is honest debate–he is funded by the same people as Singer, Michaels, etc… Other than this distraction, I hope you’re enjoying the holidays too… talk to you soon, mike
Jay Ambrose at the Columbus dispatch writes of the latest episode from “robust debate” Mann:
[Libel] is hard to prove, which is how the court wanted it. In the written decision, Justice William J. Brennan observed, first, that error is inevitable in broad-based argumentation, and then, employing eloquence, made it clear we don’t want the fear of courtroom retaliation to rob us of the kind of public debate we need: “uninhibited, robust and wide open.”
Now come those who would render it a meek whisper. Supported by errant judges, Michael Mann, a climate scientist, is pursuing a libel suit with targets including Mark Steyn, an unbelievably talented and thoughtful writer, and National Review, a terrific magazine.
Mann is well-known for his “hockey stick” graph maintaining that temperatures on this earth were roughly level for eons and then shot up dramatically because of greenhouse gas emissions. Although his graph came in for some lambasting criticism, a significant number of researchers have agreed with his results, even if some questioned aspects of his methodology. He himself has been fiercely antagonistic toward scientists on different pages, referring to the exceptional Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology as a “serial climate misinformer.”
You would think someone dishing it out that way could take it, but a chief thrust of the Mann suit is that Steyn, in a blog for National Review, used the word fraudulent to describe some of Mann’s work. There are lots of researchers backing Mann up, one judge says, as if that legitimizes the suit. There are also researchers who seriously question his work, and the law says the suit can go on only if Steyn was in doubt. Why would anyone assume he was?
There is a ton more here there’s not space to explore, but the short of it is that a vital principle has as much as been ignored and what’s at risk is conceivable ruination of a superb journalist, the demise of a fine magazine and a major deterrence to uninhibited, wide-open speech. Even if Mann should lose the suit, the expensive defense process is itself punishment, as Steyn has written.
Read it all here, and props to Jay Ambrose for making himself the next target of the wrath of Mann.
Let us hope that Steyn prevails, and that his victory comes with a nice big fat legal bill that the loser (Mann) has to pay. Though, I doubt that Mann himself will be financially damaged, as he has the full backing of the Climate Science Legal Offense Defense Fund.
If that gets tapped out, he can always ask Tom Steyer for money.
Mark Luhman says some stuff revealing he’s a leftwinger in rightwinger cloak. Way too many instances of “we” give away your true colors. It is the secret handshake of Groupthink.
“The problem with evolution is how do we get from amino acids to DNA.”
One-A-Day Multiple Vitamins work pretty well 😉
“As far as I know, no one has a clue or even a good guess.”
7 billion people on Earth and you are reasonably sure no one has a clue or a good guess. I have both (and I’m still religious). It has to do with polar molecules that naturally stick together. When you unzip DNA into strands in a soup of suitable molecules, the right ones — and only the right ones that are complementary — will attach thus reconstituting the double strand.
DNA and its simpler cousins are polymers, more or less, long chain molecules. Their assembly is inevitable and the simpler the assembly the more frequent will be the experimental assembly. Eventually an assembly exists that can replicate. Strictly speaking it won’t be alive, but then, neither is a cell — a little chemical laboratory doing many chemical reactions.
“Once we have DNA evolution works rather well.”
Well then it’s a good thing I have DNA so that I can evolve. But you have it backwards. DNA slows down evolution because it is resistant to mutation. What stimulated evolution is sexual reproduction, not DNA per se.
“One big question with DNA is why do we have a digital storage in an analog world?”
I have no idea why _you_ have it. All of my storage is analog. Consider my disk drive – the magnetic domains are “analog”. In my high school days using a NAND gate as a cheap, extremely high gain amplifier was popular. It’s all analog. The reason for using digital is “noise immunity” and it is sort of the same with DNA.
“Presently, the belief of evolution and/or intelligent design are religions”
Your mileage obviously depends on your definitions. Doubtless many people accept scientific proclamation in the same blind obedience way as they receive religious proclamations (witness mild hysteria over global warming that hardly anyone has the resources to replicate for themselves).
“We do know…”
I *wish* you would QUIT saying “we”. It is already clear that what I know differs from what you know.
“We are still searching for a bridge species which we have not found yet!”
I suspect you need to try a bit harder, but what if you do? You’ll just move the fence.
Some things are not going to be found and yet are true. You seek to prove God, or at least place it on the same level as evolution. Don’t do that. Self-willed things can choose to be proven but of course there’s a catch-22.
“We have no examples of pre-DNA life”
Nor will there be. It decomposed a few hundred million years ago.
“I will not concede that it has been proven by any standard.”
Hooray for the First Amendment. I am free to believe or disbelieve what I choose and so are you.
“We also know intelligent design works”
No, WE do not. If I asked 100 people how intelligent design works, will I get 100 identical answers? Unlikely. There is no WE.
“Its biggest problem is who created the creator?”
Thomas. But I think a line from “Time Bandits” may be surprisingly relevant — “I created myself”. Circular. Eternity in a circle.
“do not think you are not touting a religion.”
I’m not sure how to parse this but fortunately I don’t need to. I will think whatever I want. There is a God, AND there is evolution, the details of which are being worked out. The bible says the EARTH brought forth every living thing. Yep, right there in black and white. NO “ex-nihilo” poof magical creation. God saw that it was good. That’s about it for direct participation.
There is a natural force or the natural order of things that defy definition, but let’s face it, the ancient homo sapiens including us, changed religious beliefs to suit their social/economic/political conditions. One of the main sources of their beliefs was that some unknown power say ‘God or Allah’ was capable of raining down wrath on those disbelievers. If they followed the path of enlightenment or pious belief, they could blame a lot of our human weaknesses on an unknown invisible power over our welfare generally. They missed the point while controlling the masses, we have no control over the weather and climate, we can’t stop volcanoes or earthquakes, hurricanes, cyclones or typhoons,tsunamis, the sun’s orbit, and it is weather than kills us. Including many natural events that we can say fall into the realm of mother nature or father nature. I believe that an understanding of physics can dispel a lot of silly nonsense about AGW.
But we can work with nature, not try to change it. And improve fertility for growing crops etc. With a growing population our food sources are becoming strained, and if it gets colder it will get worse. As one of my late lecturers once repeated Prof.Mike Morwood. “humans propose but nature deposes” Unfortunately we humans have been able to overcome this by sensible adaptation but some third world countries are wondering why they are not as rich as industrialized countries. We are running scared at the present time of what the future holds if a cold period happens again.