Readers surely recall the review I gave of Mark Steyn’s new book A Disgrace To The Profession on Michael E. Mann’s science as told by other climate scientists around the world.
On August 11th, when I ran my review, this was the ranking for the book in Amazon – #12,246:
Today, two days later, the ranking is #539, an over 22 fold increase!
And this is without the paperback even being able to ship yet! It is due to ship on August 15th. You can check the number yourself, here midway down the page. Lower numbers are better, i.e. the best selling book is #1.
Compare that to Mann’s recent book release Dire Predictions, 2nd edition: Understanding Climate Change at #6,579:
Or Dana Nuccitelli’s Climatology versus Pseudoscience: Exposing the Failed Predictions of Global Warming Skeptics at #849,477:
It seems they aren’t getting much traction.
You can pre-order Steyn’s book A Disgrace To The Profession on Amazon here, Shipping starts August 15th. Note that it is now available on Kindle for immediate reading as well as paperback.
Maybe if enough people pre-order, it will hit the best-sellers list before it even ships. That would be something, wouldn’t it?
UPDATE: Steyn writes about our favorite climate wackadoodle, “Sou” aka Miriam O’Brien and her fanboying the flames:
It all sounds quite exciting from that opening. But, alas, Sou is one almighty snoozeroo. Still, she does lay it on with a trowel. I enjoyed this bit:
Unlike the other defendents, Mark Steyn seems intent on adding to his own destruction. He is undoubtedly adding ammunition for Michael Mann’s lawyers to fire. Even the title of his book shrieks of unfettered malice toward Professor Mann and could be viewed as explicitly libelous: “A Disgrace to the Profession: the world’s scientists in their own words on Michael Mann, his hockey stick, and their damage to science.”
Actually, it’s A Disgrace to the Profession: the world’s scientists – in their own words – on Michael E Mann, his hockey stick, and their damage to science. Volume One. But close enough. At any rate, Sou now urges Doctor Fraudpants to sue again, and this time not just me and not just our illustrator Josh but, in a spectacular reverse class-action suit (as Anthony Watts called it), all the scientists I quote in the book:
What would be great would be to see some of the other defamers sued. Now that Josh has involved himself formally, will he also be sued? Anthony Watts has highlighted a section in Mark Steyn’s book where he quotes Judith Curry – who appears to have a personal grudge against Professor Mann. Is she happy to open up the possibility of her being sued? She is a supporter of Mark Steyn so probably yes. I doubt she’d get the support of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund. She’d be on her own.
No, she wouldn’t. She’d be one of hundreds of “defamers” – because Sioux City Sou says sue ’em all, Mikey. Sue everyone! And then sue ’em again! Sue early, sue often. Because “scientist” is, as everyone knows, a derivation of the Olde English word for plaintiff (“suentist”). Which reminds me: that “Climate Science Legal Defense Fund” that’s backing Mann is somewhat misnamed. He’s never the defendant; he’s always the guy that sues. So it ought to be the Climate Science Serial Litigants’ Fund.
As for Steyn:
He’s also setting out to make himself an enemy of the court and the entire US judicial system, calling it a “septic tank”.
Actually I think I called it a “choked septic tank“. A non-choked one would be a great improvement.
But fortunately even the grimmest tale has a hero:
The personal cost to Professor Mann is great. He is undeterred. He knows that he is not just standing up for himself, he has become a symbol of climate scientists and science everywhere. A true hero.
Did you ever know that you’re her he-e-e-e-e-ro? Brings a tear to your eye. Meanwhile, back in the real world: Opposing Mann and his attempt to slice’n’dice the First Amendment are, among others, the American Civil Liberties Union and almost every major media organization from The Washington Post to NBC News. Whereas not a single amicus brief was filed in support of Mann by any scientist or any scientific body. As I say in the book, Mann claims to be taking a stand for science, but science is disinclined to take a stand for him. A handful of impressionable rubes like Sou may regard Mann as “a symbol of climate scientists and science everywhere”, but most scientists want to steer well clear.
Who again was this comic/”news” guy that had his last show a what? 2 weeks ago? His departure from MSM? john somebody or another, I just can’t remember his name , you know the guy that had the ear of Obama? Was it Michael Mann ??
I think you are referring to John Stewart.
‘The personal cost to Professor Mann is great. He is undeterred.’
Under what? Are you sure of the spelling?
Pre-ordered my copy today… old-fashioned recyclable ex-trees version.
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-A-N-N
Mickey Mann!
Mickey Mann!
Forever let us hold our hockey sticks high,
High, high, high!
(Yes I know the syllables don’t align with the music, but his whole shtick is so juvenile, I couldn’t resist.)
Great news. Love to see the surge in the rankings!
I’ve just placed my order with Amazon.com for both this and “Climate Change The Facts”, in hard copy.
Number One in its category already, in UK:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bestsellers/digital-text/5435488031/ref=sr_bs_1
Does anyone care to compare what the readers think of either Styne’s or Mann’s. Styne’s book is pure trash. Full of innuendo and anecdotal nonsense. He makes a nice living from fools who want to believe in the tooth fairy. All of you need a course in probabilities. Then you just might be able to figure out why Climate Change is worth studying.
Climate change has always been worth studying as it has affected human civilization since homo sapiens emerged from Africa. Without climate change there would be little life in North America or Northern Europe as it its hard eking out a living under miles of ice sheets. Until a few years ago the standard description used for the Mediaeval warm period was The Mediaeval Climate Optimum. In modern times we are just starting to get back there.
The trouble is the Michael Mann’s of this world want us to believe that climate change only started when humans started burning coal and that any and all change occurs because of human action. This is of course provably incorrect.
Steyn is an able and rather controversial writer who’s views I don’t fully support but like Voltaire I defend to the death his right to express them. You may have heard of the idea, its called free speech.
Keith, I didn’t say anything about smothering free speech. I agree, all of us are entitled to express our opinions, as you and I have done. I can still criticize who I disagree with, and I certainly disagree with Mr. Styne. I still recommend a course in probabilities. Then right and wrong fade into the distance. Really, what are the odds of one thing or another happening and what are the consequences of inaction.
Most people here know that the probability of the very small temp rise over the last 125 years being the harbinger of thermaggedon is next to 0.
Calm down Bob. Enjoy the warmth while it lasts.
David,
You’re being too kind. BobTheBore is full of shit, and quite possibly a complete innumerate.
You correctly quoted him as saying: “All of you need a course in probabilities.”
But just look at that quote. In particular, note “probabilities” and not “probability“. And it’s no typo — he goes on to repeat the same thing in his response to Keith Willshaw: “I still recommend a course in probabilities.”
Now I’ve read that you teach mathematics, so doesn’t that quote tell you something?
It spoke volumes to me. And I bet it did to you too, at least at a subconscious level.
QED 😉
First of all, it is very fair minded of you to buy and read a book with which you so strongly disagree. You did didn’t you? Because you seem familiar enough with it’s contents to pass a fairly scathing judgement.
I have not read it yet. My kindle version will be delivered on 1st September, then I will tell you whether my opinion is similar to yours.
Good question about why climate change is worth studying. Especially as the science is unquestionably settled, probably. Perhaps we need to follow the money. And the power.
Thank you for your comment.
Follow the money and power. Just like in the 70’s; if one followed the money and power, the cigarette companies were the criminals. An amusing incident at the time was Boehner went to floor of the House of Representatives and gave out $5,000 checks to everyone. The checks were from Marlboro (Phillip Morris). Very similar to what the oil and coal companies are doing now. I believe that they’ve spent $62,000,000 so far in this 2016 race. BTW, the cigarette lobby had plenty of paid scientists to write papers that said cigarettes didn’t cause cancer. Hummm.
Seems to be the words of someone who didn’t even get a lousy sou and is really frustrated about it. But when you think that slander helps you with the issues you have, Sou is said to have a large skirt you can seek refuge under.
Who is Styne?
From Muslims to Mann, Mark Steyn knows wear to rub his words.
I’ll grab a copy at my local bookstore this weekend.
I stopped using Amazon after they refused to post a product review; Amazon’s “mods” are not interested in truthful reviews.
You stay up too late, it make the brain a little fuzzy. ;-])
I have to read Sou’s posts with an Edna Everidge voice in my head. It seems to fit.
‘he has become a symbol of climate scientists’ oddly the this is true , he does typify the poor professional and personal pratice that seems to be required to succeed in climate ‘science’ this however ‘and science everywhere’.’ is still thankfully untrue although there is danger that through silence it may become true, the last part and the idea of him being ‘A true hero’ is simply delusion .
Frankly when he falls I think we will see the true value of the Mann , in the number and type of people who line up to throw him under the bus to try and save themselves, and that cannot come soon enough .
Amen!
Nice to see you supporting knr in what he said
That’s according to Merriam-Webster.
You ought to know that if you had been attentive in sunday school, but I suppose you spent too much time in Dunce’s corner.
The book is currently No. 1 bestseller in Popular Science Weather on Amazon.co.uk
I just preordered the kindle version. Looking forward to 1 September.
Over 97% of the scientists in Steyn’s book agree with Steyn’s book.
Legally yes a much more representative name for the “Climate Science Defend Fund”. But in this era where your free speech rights stop where someones feelings are nudged, what they are doing is defending the feelings of climate scientists. Maybe Mann is as sensitive to criticism as apparently climate is to CO2. In that case the name should be,
“Climate Science Shut-Up I Don’t Like What You Are Saying Fund”.
In reality though Mann is a narcissistic bully and so the organization I think should be called the
“Climate Science Bully Fund”
There’s no way I’m going to read Steyn’s book, but one can make an educated guess as to the content – a hit piece worked up from mined quotes shorn of all context. As noted above Greg Laden has already eviscerated the three quotes Steyn used for promotional purposes.
Steyn says his book is the view of ‘the world’s scientists’. He seems to have excluded the scientists of the European Geophysical Union who in 2014 honoured Dr Mann with the Hans Oeschger medal for
“his significant contributions to understanding decadal-centennial scale climate change over the last two millennia and for pioneering techniques to synthesize patterns and northern hemispheric time series of past climate using proxy data reconstructions.”
You may hate him, his peers don’t. Oh, and the Mann’s book you’re using for comparison is a second edition. Most of the target audience will already own the first edition. Apples and Oranges.
Keep it up! 🙂
“There’s no way I’m going to read Steyn’s book…”
Of course not, your mind is already made up. But we already knew that.
Keep it closed! 🙂
“There’s no way I’m going to read Steyn’s book”
There’s none so blind…
I see his peers all rushed to his defence, not.
“…You may hate him, his peers don’t…”
In public, they don’t usually say such things. In private, the so-called Climategate emails revealed otherwise.
This is the entire email, so there’s nothing to take out of context. This is just one of many examples…you can use the first few paragraphs for context, then focus on the final paragraph. “Serious enemy,” “vindictive,” “crazy”…yeah, I can just feel the love.
cc: k.briffa@uea.xx.xx
date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 23:56:46 -0500
from: “drdendro@ldeo.columbia.edu”
subject: RE: CCDD
to: p.jones@uea.xx.xx
Hi Phil,
Thanks for the added info. If Mike said that my calibration procedure is
“flawed”, I will be extremely pissed off. His grad student just submitted a
paper to The Holocene, with Mike and I as co-authors, that compares my
point-by-point method with his RegEM method (Keith should have received the
paper by now). There are “modest” improvements in some areas using RegEM,
but overall the two methods produce statistically identical results on a
regional basis.
Indeed, it is mentioned in the paper that the P-B-P method
could be improved by adding a dynamic search radius for each grid point,
thus making it even closer to RegEM and maybe even better. Indeed, the
P-B-P method produces classical calibration period information and
estimates that are very useful in understanding the fitted models. In
contrast, RegEM does not produce any such useful information and thus
operates much more as a “black box”.
Re standardization and low-frequency stuff, the vast majority of the
tree-ring chronologies have been standardized to preserve variance at least
up to 100 years (and generally more). I also agree with you that PDSI ought
not to have a great deal of multi-centennial variability because it is
dominated by precipitation, which is dominated by high-frequency, nearly
white, variance. I am surprised that Tom Karl does not seem to understand
that.
In all candor now, I think that Mike is becoming a serious enemy in the way
that he bends the ears of people like Tom with words like “flawed” when
describing my work and probably your and Keith’s as well. This is in part a
vindictive response to the Esper et al. paper. He also went crazy over my
recent NZ paper describing evidence for a MWP there because he sees it as
another attack on him. Maybe I am over-reacting to this, but I don’t think
so.
Cheers,
Ed
If you’ve ever worked in a University environment you’ll know that this is mild compared to some of the fallings-out, grudges and feuds that go on in academia. I note that Cook and Mann both collaborated on the PAGES 2 Consortium, so (a) they were able to resolve their differences to the extent of working together and (b) the Hockey Stick was vindicated (again).
Cheers.
Phil Clarke says:
… the Hockey Stick was vindicated (again).
Phil, you’re no different from one of the Rev. Harold Camping’s followers. Despite being proven 100% wrong time after time, they just double down on their belief system. Reality doesn’t matter, only their belief matters to them.
This was explained in the 1950’s by Dr. Leon Festinger, who wrote his famous paper on the ‘Seekers’. After being proven flat wrong, instead of accepting reality, Mrs. Keech’s followers doubled down on their belief that the flying saucer was still coming to save them. It had only been delayed, just like Camping’s end of the world was merely ‘delayed’.
Dr. Festinger writes:
“A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point. We have all experienced the futility of trying to change a strong conviction, especially if the convinced person has some investment in his belief. We are familiar with the variety of ingenious defenses with which people protect their convictions, managing to keep them unscathed through the most devastating attacks. But man’s resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a belief. Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view.”
That’s you, Phil. Mann’s Hockey Stick was never “vindicated”. Rather, it has been thoroughly debunked. The IPCC cannot even publish it any more, because it has been so discredited. But after telling people for many years that it was correct, you have such a large investment in your belief that you are doubling down, trying to keep your belief on track. But it’s only that; your belief. It has no connection with reality.
That was just one example, Phil. I worked in a University environment for 5 years and never came across such things.
Of course, if that is so “mild” when it comes to academia, which is full of fallings-out, grudges, and fueds, then why is Mann so thin-skinned when it comes to people like Steyn and suing him?
So Cook and Mann collaborated on the PAGES 2…big whoop. I’ve collaborated with people I didn’t like or think highly of as well.
[Snip. Fake email address. ~mod.]
Loehle and McCulloch, Energy and Environment, Volume 19, 93-100, 2008, using non-tree ring proxies from all over the world, shows the MWP from 820 to 1040, and the LIA from 1440 to 1740, quite clearly, while Mann denies their existence.
[Snip. Fake email address. ~mod.]
You don’t need late 20th. century data to confirm the existence of the MWP and the LIA, which Mann denies.
[Snip. Fake email address. ~mod.]
So Mann’s reconstruction of the MWP and the LIA is not supported by Loehle, who shows a range of +0.558 C in AD 858 to -0.605 C in 1591. That’s a range of 1.163 degrees.
[Snip. Fake email address. ~mod.]
Please tell me where I can obtain the data for the six sources that support Mann.
If your six sources that support Mann’s denial of the MWP an the LIA are those given in your graph, then two are by Mann, and two don’t go back far enough to show the MWP and LIA, and one only covers the NH.
[Snip. Fake email address. ~mod.]
Which of those support Mann’s denial of the MWP and the LIA ?
[Snip. Fake email address. ~mod.]
Vinther et al, Holocene thinning of the Greenland ice sheet, Nature 461, 385-388, 17th. September 2009.
[Snip. Fake email address. ~mod.]
Nevertheless it’s interesting that it also shows the range of warming and cooling that Mann denies. That’s the point. We see these warming and cooling periods wherever we look. There is nothing unusual about them.
[Snip. Fake email address. ~mod.]
Well, I’m sure you will appreciate that it will take me some time to get data for all (or any) of these; remember that it took years for McIntyre and McKitrick to get the data that Mann used to deny the MWP and LIA.
Like others I’ve ordered both the paperback and Kindle versions as a modest gesture of support for Mark from a pensioner.
On pre-ordering the Kindle edition just now was presented with:
No idea how these are calculated but for a title only available (on Kindle) on 1st September doesn’t seem too bad.
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,574 in Books
And only 3 customer reviews ….
Anthony, bought one to stick a needle in Mann.
I ordered mine back on June 21. Came in a couple of days ago. I know what I’m reading over Saturday brunch.
“Of course, if that is so “mild” when it comes to academia, which is full of fallings-out, grudges, and fueds, then why is Mann so thin-skinned when it comes to people like Steyn and suing him?”
Dr Mann has been on the receiving end of so many smears and ad hominem attacks over the years a better question would be …. Why has he launched so few actions? You think he should allow people publicly to liken him to a child molester and describe his work as fraudulent? That’s Ok?
Freaky.
Mann has also been the originator of so many smears and ad hominem attacks over the years a better question would be…why do you keep defending him?
Steyn didn’t liken him to a child molester. Commenting on the quote (by Rand Simberg), “Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science that could have dire economic consequences for the nation and planet,” Steyn said, “Not sure I’d have extended that metaphor all the way into the locker-room showers with quite the zeal Mr Simberg does” and “Whether or not he’s ‘the Jerry Sandusky of climate change’, he remains the Michael Mann of climate change, in part because his ‘investigation’ by a deeply corrupt administration was a joke.”
Yes, Steyn referenced the hockey stick as being “fraudulent.” I think quite the case can be made for that. You and I know that Mann has made many claims that are “fraudulent.” The shoe fits.
Interesting to note that Mann’s book has had 54 reviews and rates a 9 out of 10 (4.5 stars). Must be a good read.
I liked the review that called Mann a “weather scientist.” He may have enjoyed reading the book, but he clearly didn’t gain much understanding.
Bought the e-book but won’t receive it from Amazon until September 1st.
Throughout the whole ghastly climate wars, it seems to me that the warmist/alarmist ad hominem attacks are marginally nastier than the coolists. It pays to be polite, guys.
Mann is an outlier, and as any good statistician knows, outliers should be examined carefully.
Bonjour! Excuses my french. J’ai commencé à lire attentivement ce livre. Il est fascinant, très instructf et rigoueusement documenté – plus documenté que ça tu meur!. M. Mann n’a qu’à bien se tenir. A+