Mark Steyn writes:
[Tuesday] marked a not unimportant court deadline in the upcoming Mann vs Steyn trial of the century, and I wouldn’t want to let it pass without comment. Ever since this tedious suit was launched by Doctor Fraudpants in defense of his global-warming hockey stick, Michael Mann’s supporters have insisted that it’s not, as I and my fellow defendants have insisted, about free speech. Instead, as they see it, it’s about science finally fighting back against a sustained assault by Koch-funded “denialists”. This sub-headline encapsulates the general line:
Michael Mann is taking a stand for science.
Gotcha. Michael Mann is not doing this for Michael Mann, or even for Michael Mann’s science, or even for climate science. He’s doing it for science. Mann is science and science is Mann.
A few weeks ago, you’ll recall, the ACLU, The Washington Post, NBC News, The Los Angeles Times and various other notorious right-wing deniers all filed amici briefs opposed to Michael Mann and his assault on free speech. They did this not because they have any great love for me, but because their antipathy to wackjob foreign blowhards is outweighed by their appreciation of the First Amendment – and an understanding of the damage a Mann victory would inflict on it. After noting the upsurge of opposition to Mann, Reuters enquired of Catherine Reilly (one of his vast legal team) whether there would be any amici filing pro-Mann briefs:
I asked Reilly if the professor would have any supporting briefs next month when he responds to the defendants in the D.C. appeals court.
“At this point, we don’t know,” she said.
Ms Reilly was a pleasant sort when I met her in court over a year ago, but she struck me as a formidable opponent. So I naturally assumed that the above was what what the political types call “lowering expectations”. As I wrote:
I would be surprised if Mann didn’t have any supporting briefs. I was in court when Ms Reilly’s genial co-counsel made his argument for Mann, which was a straightforward appeal to authority: Why, all these eminent acronymic bodies, from the EPA and NSF and NOAA even unto HMG in London, have proved that all criticisms of Mann are false and without merit. So I would certainly expect them to file briefs – and, given that Mann sees this as part of a broader “war on science” by well-funded “deniers”, I would also expect briefs from the various professional bodies: the National Academy of Sciences, the American Physical Society, etc. As pleasant as it is to find my side of the court suddenly so crowded, I’m confident Mann will be able to even up the numbers.
Well, yesterday was the deadline, and not a single amicus brief was filed on behalf of Mann. Not one. So Michael Mann is taking a stand for science. But evidently science is disinclined to take a stand for Michael Mann. The self-appointed captain of the hockey team is playing solo. As Judith Curry wrote last month:
The link between ‘defending Michael Mann is defending climate science’ seems to have been broken.
As yesterday’s deafening silence confirms. If you’re defending Michael Mann, you’re not defending science, or defending climate science, or theories on global warming or anything else. Defending Michael Mann means defending Michael Mann – and it turns out not many people are willing to go there.
===========================================
More here: http://www.steynonline.com/6565/the-lonesomest-mann-in-town
This development is very telling, and is the moment that the tide of consensus receded and left Mann out standing in his field.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
This makes me smile 🙂
Mark Steyn is a truly brilliant man with a ferocious interest in truth and freedom. The world will owe him glory when this is over, although he is well-admired by many already.
Even rats know when to jump off a sinking ship.
That’s because rats are a higher order rodent compared to cagw alarmists. They are less of a pest generally and even likeable ( cunning as an outhouse rat etc). Hopefully the alarmists will all just go quietly and commit mass cultural suicide a la Disney Lemmings and just go get real jobs cleaning dishes and wiping geratiric arses in old folks homes or something closer to (but still way above) their true standing in the community. (apologies to dish washers and arse wipers everywhere).
I read a sci fi book recently which referred to a class of its characters as being educated above their IQ. Doesn’t that say it all about Dr Strangecurve and the rest of the alarmoswarm?
Historically speaking, they don’t kill as many either.
Historically speaking, they don’t kill as many either.
Of course you forget about the plague then?
My dad used to refer to them as “educated fools”. My association with many PhDs in science (let alone in English departments) confirms his diagnosis. Some fellow JDs also qualify!
Would the EDs also qualify? But the “educated” part may not for them.
Nope. Just included charlatans of all stripes. They’re always the same type.
Every rat has its Fleas
Observation from one who would know (not me):
Will everybody stop blaming the rats for the Black Death that killed untold millions in Europe and Asia. Firstly, the Black Death was not bubonic plague. This is a 20th century myth devised after an outbreak in Hong Kong circa 1900. The description bore a superficial similarity to those given by 14th century eyewitnesses. Other than that, the epidemiologies are totally different – the gestation periods, the fatality rate, the geographical distribution, the available vectors, etc. The Black death was a hemorrhagic virus that left its mark on our DNA. It was humans who spread it to each other, not rattus rattus.
Especially rats know when to jump off a sinking ship.
They get a tingly feeling in their tails.
That causes them to go hockey stick in structure.
(Well that’s what the rat told Dr. Dolittle.)
People talk about canaries in coal mines, but not many know that in underground mines, rats are the first to leave when the ground starts to become unstable, and moreover, miners are told to follow them because they always know the quickest way out.
Let us hope the judge is as intelligent as the defendant 🙂
That is GREAT news!
Me too!
(To the tune of “Brother Can You Spare a Dime”)
They used to tell me I was building a dream
And so I followed the mob
When there were graphs to fake or bucks to take
I was always there, right on the job
They used to tell me I was building a dream
Saving the Earth just ahead
Why is everyone telling me
My theory is dead?
Once I built a model, ignored the sun
Showed heat was going to climb
It failed outside the computer run
Brother, can you paradigm?
Once I saw it coming all undone
Colleagues said it’s a crime
Since loss of funding is no fun
I need a new paradigm
Once before the cameras, we looked swell
Full of that AG Warming shtick
There wasn’t a thing we couldn’t sell
And I was the kid with the Stick
Say don’t you remember? They called me ‘Man’
It was ‘Man’ all the time
I’m a believer, I’m still a fan
Say Buddy, can you paradigm?
Man oh man, inMAGICn what a quick study you are!! bravo!
The graft of grafting trees into graphs.
inMagic, thanks for a moment of laughter. Way to go!
For those unfamiliar with the original…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eih67rlGNhU
popcorn anyone?
comes to mind.
Although there appears to be no one willing to stand with Mann in this xase, there were so many climateers who were very quiet during the height of Mann’s version of science and through his smears. There were so many who sat back knowing what was going on and said nothing!
Thankfully, the internet has a long memory, despite attempts to change this.
“Thankfully, the internet has a long memory, despite attempts to change this.”
I wonder how many climate scientists will be making applications to Google, in order to have their climate histories removed?
Brings to mind the old saying, “To make a friend you have to be a friend.”
It seems suing the pants off anyone with the slightest of rise of an eyebrow at your work is not a successful strategy for making friends.
I don’t recall McIntyre or McKitrick being sued.
They might just be his buds, then.
But they spotted the cracks in the hockey stick before it became an established political lever, before Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global WARMING was fully used used as a PR tool.
Now Mann and his lawsuits are cannon fodder used to silence the science.
I do not recall who posted the link first – But whoever you are, thank you! It was well worth the read. (I read it earlier when someone posted a link in a comment).
Later in the column Steyn notes:
He adds further that no matter what the outcome of the above legal argument, his countersuit will still be in effect.
Is Mann losing his resolve?
At 1:52 PM on 17 September, pottereaton had asked:
Why not? And it’s about time he did. After all, it’s been more than seventeen years since he lost his scientific integrity.
Sold his birthright for a pot of “message.”
Sold his birthright for a pot of “message.”
Har! Har!
Perhaps his supporters forget to set their alarm clocks?
Or maybe all the other alarms they’ve got going drowned it out and that’s why he’s now adrift?
In my best Don Rickles voice:
“First you destroyed the hockey stick and now you go after the hockey puck!”
____________________
Friends of Science are no friends of Mann.
Bully for Mr. Steyn.
Mann has been conspicuous in the many tells of his behavior.
Winding his version of climate science-as-political hardball will be a tough. His suit should have been tossed from day one, and the fat lady has certainly not started singing. But maybe she is warming up.
Here is a chance for all the do-gooder scientist types and organizations to finally come out and destroy all of us “d” words with their sciency stuff ! Bring it!!!!
(crickets)
When does he try on the bloody glove?
If Obama had a son, he would look like little man?
But I thought there was a consensus. I wonder why Al Gore didn’t file an amicus brief.
I sang along! Badly…but I did it. Graduated from HS in the early 70’s so you must be patient. It was hard not to say “sleepy Jean”. Don’t even try to write a song and replace the lyrics in “Yellow Submarine”.
In the town where I was born
Lived a Mann who wailed at seas
And he told us of his life
In the land of climate dreams
So we wailed for the UN
Till we swelled the ranks of Greens
And we lived above the plebes
With our green tambourines
Listen while we flay
Our green tambourines!
Climate change, song change, course change!
Whence this antarctic ice?
Where’s that confounded warmth?
Nice! But Mark Steyn rhymes with wine (as the WSJ informed an inquiring mind many years ago).
Will no one stand with Piltdown Mann?
I almost feel sorry for Mann.
Oh wait, he’s 100% responsible for bring this grief down upon himself. On reflection I don’t feel sorry for him at all.
For people as malicious, dishonest and self-serving as Mann is, it is impossible to feel sorry for. It would be like feeling sorry for rats that carried plague.
In defense of the rats, it was not their intention to harm to the vast majority mankind.
Not even Nick Stokes?
Nope, not even Nick Stokes. Seems that our former poster-boy is a lost cause (which would not deter our good friend Nick but there are simply too many lost causes to pursue)
Hmm. He is no worse than most, and better than some.
He still post over at Climate Ect. Seems a lot more reasonable the he was a few years ago. More willing to hear other peoples arguments and better at making his own from scientific facts rather then appeals to authority. Certainly better then many of the ‘climate faithful’.
There is plenty of data available to generate amicus briefs in support of Mann using RegEM.
The fact that Mann is not in jail for the great harm to science and people that he has done makes me very sad and disappointed. But this suit gives me a little hope. (yes I know it is only a civil case — but still)
~Mark
He should be in jail for misappropriation of public funds – for producing fraudulent science.
You’d like to see him in Mannicles?
One day Dr. Mann will vanish into the obscurity he so richly deserves … meanwhile, we’re still stuck with his wit and wisdom …
http://rockyriver4.wikispaces.com/file/view/yawn.jpg/161548609/yawn.jpg