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.
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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.
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Do not under estimate the dollar power of businesses that depend on the future of the hockey stick. It’s the foundation of Al Gore’s entire sales pitch. Anyone who’s interested can check the connections from Waste Management to Harvest Power to David Blood to Generation Investment Management.
“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.”
Last Mann standing…
You’ll see. When CO2 concentrations hit critical mass, the resulting
Pole-Shifts and their seismic eco-sequellae will demonstrate the prescience that only the titanic intellects possessed by Dr. Michael Mann and a very few of his peers could deduce.
You’ll see…
You mean just like what happened the other times CO2 was much higher than it is today?
NikFromNYC
September 18, 2014 at 5:07 am
“…if Mann were really scientifically supported by so many scientific bodies, for real, it wouldn’t be a free speech issue at all, just libel.”
To extend the point, any scientific (or pseudoscientific) organization around is free to file an amicus dealing only with the science aspects of the case. They can state, “We take no position on the First Amendment implications as it is not our area of expertise. Regarding the relevant questions of science, however, we support Michael Mann’s position for the following reasons…”
This sort of narrowly focused amicus brief is filed all the time, since amici tend to be specialists, not generalists. (Just like ACLU, etc. focused not on the science but on their expertise – the First Amendment.) Yet in this case we have nothing but crickets, and this communicates volumes as to what the scientific community – even the climate subset, even the CAGW subset! – thinks about Michael Mann’s version of science. By implication of course, it also says much about the community itself, since despite seeing Mannian pseudoscience as just that, it has every step of the way honored omerta über alles, on an issue which so many claim to be the most deadly and urgent Planet Earth has ever faced. Moral cowards up and down the line.
“Doctor Fraudpants”? Disappointed a bit that you are stooping to their level and using Middle School name-calling tactics. Loved the rest of the information, though, and hope it does indeed mean the tide is turning.
Babette,
You don’t like “Dr. Fraudpants”?? That is Mark Steyn’s label [not Anthony’s], and I don’t blame Steyn one bit. Mann is the one who is suing him over hurt feelings. Personally, that one made me LOL.
If you have seen even a small part of the really terrible things written about Anthony Watts on some other blogs, you would see what a mild and playful poke Steyn is taking at Mann.
If Mann can’t take it, too bad. He has caused immense damage to science with his repeatedly debunked hockey stick chart, and his underhanded gaming of the climate peer review system. Anything that takes him down a notch is welcome, IMHO.
Meanwhile, Michael Mann took time out from his busy legal schedule to defend the hockey stick from a local chemistry professor in the local op-ed page.
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2014/09/14/letters/828940.txt
In response to this column.
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2014/09/18/commentary/828276.txt
Mann wrote:
Jim Brock, among others, who has been disillusioned by University English departments, may be interested in this (“off topic”) site: http://www.shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/
There is life in some English departments, but there’s also a whole lot a denying going on. : )
It’s welcome news, yet the chosen quote rankles. To people unfamiliar with the case (i.e. to most people), a lead-in that refers to “defending Mann” gives the impression that Mann is under attack. Which is precisely the impression Mann wishes to convey. It’s false of course; Mann is the one mounting this legal attack, Styn is the defendant, and freedom of the press is what’s under attack.
The PR attempt to equate supporting Mann’s lawsuit with defending science, has failed. Very welcome news.