From the dialog of the ongoing Mann vs Steyn trial, Steyn says:
I am not a lawyer, but I assumed in covering a defamation trial I might be exposed to something resembling evidence of defamation. How naïve I was.
Virtually every aspect of Mann’s career is better now than it was before Steyn’s and Simberg’s blog posts were published. His salary is higher. He hangs out with celebrities such as Bill Clinton and Leonardo DiCaprio, with whom Mann testified to having a “bromance.” He was then working at Penn State but is now at the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania. He is making more in book royalties.
If this is what harm looks like, I welcome defamation by Steyn and Simberg any day.
More here.
It gets worse, Steyn writes in another post:
In the heat of ClimateGate, Dr. Curry called on her colleagues to employ restraint. This resulted in her being called by the Plaintiff in the then-widely read Huffington Post a “serial climate disinformer.” Being labeled a “disinformer” didn’t work though, so it was time to play the Scarlett Letter card. Before the #MeToo era, that accusation sadly worked all too well, and at the time the good doctor spread those rumors — the aughts — it might as well have been 1642.
The following literally had to be stated and asked in Court today:
Dr. Judith Curry: Michael Mann knew who I was. My name appeared in one of the ClimateGate emails that Mann sent. He knew who I was. I mean, when this story was changed or altered to portray me as a graduate student, to my mind, the implication that I was, you know, just a woman sleeping my way to the top. And if you’re a professional woman, this is about the worst thing that anyone can say about you. It discredits your accomplishments and it gives people permission to ignore you.
Defense Counsel: Dr. Curry, did you ever get any of your tenured faculty positions or department chairs or awards or publications or anything else because you slept with somebody?
Dr. Judith Curry: No.
Let that sink in: “If you’re a professional woman, this is about the worst thing that anyone can say about you. It discredits your accomplishments and it gives people permission to ignore you.”
This is what Dr. Curry described today as “Hockey Stick Warfare.”
Watch the ongoing trial live here:
Courtroom 132
https://dccourts.webex.com/webappng/sites/dccourts/dashboard/pmr/ctb132
Meeting number/passcode: 2343 119 3793
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Sounds like Dr Curry has a Defamation Law Suit against Dr Mann. Since the accusations brought the question into court.
Why didn’t they ask Mann if he slept with anyone to further his career??
Michael Mann does not have any children, so there is no evidence that he has ever slept with any woman.
That wasn’t the question.
The question was… “if he slept with anyone“
[this hugely offensive comment was deleted by Anthony Watts]
[this hugely offensive comment was deleted by Anthony Watts]
Yeah, I probably went a bit too far with that – by all means let’s keep it less specific and less offensive.
You Baaaad boy
Did it involve a kangaroo by chance?
Probably a good thing I didn’t see the comment or my reply might also have been deleted. 😎
But I do trust Anthony’s judgement that they belonged in Josh’s previous cartoon even though I doubt they meant any real harm.
Clearly, these comments were of the “ad hominem” variety and were potentially libellous, so well done, Anthony, for deleting them.
To those who posted them I wouId say that I thought we were better than that on WUWT. Shame on you!
I suspect they went beyond “ad hominem” and into, perhaps, graphic details along the lines of what Mann could do with a hockey stick?
But worse.
They were directed at Mann.
So no “hominem” (= “a man”) in play here.
It was all Richard’s fault Sir, he started it!
🙂
(but Anthony, I do understand the approach you have to take on this matter in particular)
That’s why I posted an admission that I went too far. 😊
Actually, probably my fault for giving the lead-in !
Sorry Anthony
too bad, I would have loved to read it 🙂
[this hugely offensive comment was deleted Don Graham]
I think I recall that Mann “was in the supermarket with his wife and daughter”…… Is that incorrect?
yes, you heard correctly.
There’s also no evidence that any woman would want to sleep with him. Or any one, for that matter.
After all, the wouldn’t be room in the bed for a “third” next to Mann and his ego.
He does, apparently, have a daughter, or at least he testified so in court.
re: “Michael Mann does not have any…”
A really rookie mistake (and fallacy); Must one remind another that “Absence of proof is not proof of absence” (or, pardon this: abstinence‘ in this case?
Hopefully this comment is not over the line …
Mann has one daughter.
Oddly enough Mann also married an already qualified colleague, similarly to Judith Curry and Peter Webster. You’d have thought he’d be more sensitive considering the similarities but, apparently, not.
Maybe a little psychological transference going on there?
Mann makes me sick to my stomach. Dr. Curry is a paragon of what a scientist should be.
When she was a warmist early on she was subject to criticism from the skeptical side in which over time moderated her positions while being a pleasant person the entire time while she went through her realization period that she was being misled by the warmist/alarmists thus has learned to be more careful with whom she works with and that includes the abrasive, hostile Mann who mistreated her a woman who was always civil and professional the entire time.
I loved when, during a Congressional hearing, Mann claimed he never called her a “Denialist” (or something very similar) and she laughed and responded that it was in his written deposition!
Agreed.
If they post videos of the trial watching Mann get cross-examined by counsel about his commentary towards Dr. Curry is delightful. A little long perhaps in that manniacal frequently gave long semi-nonsensical answers in his attempt to not answer the question.
A liar should have a good memory.
-Quintillian.
Mann isn’t even any good at lying.
In person. He’s slightly better on paper, witness MBH98 & MBH99.
One of her faults back then was that Dr. Curry held discussions with sceptics on the sceptic blogs.
Dr, Curry was/is a communicator. She put her arguments forth and read our responses. True discussion.
Manniacal was vicious towards Dr. Curry and to anyone who dared speak with critics.
If I recall, her early point of contention with her former colleagues concerned the need to be explicit about uncertainty in their reports.
Apparently the “hockey team” preferred to take Stephen Schneider’s warning about balancing truth regarding uncertainty with the promotion of the narrative.
What a despicable excuse for a human being Michael E. Mann is. Dr. Curry should have sued Mann for defamation. There was certainly harm done to her career by Mann and his cronies relentless and baseless attacks.
There’s always the problem about descending to Mann’s level – when you choose to wrestle a pig, you get covered in shit. Dr. Curry has stayed above such petty, spiteful and vindictive behaviour such as Mann, etc. exhibit and has proved herself the better person, better scientist, by doing so.
That’s not Mark Steyn writing that. Although it’s from the Steynonline site, I believe it’s actually from the daily court report by Amy K Mitchell?
Now, perhaps, you should amend the article to show that it isn’t Mark Steyn but Amy K Mitchell that you are quoting?
From Steynonline
Mann is not paying for his legal counsel. It appears he got his money’s worth.
No evidence what Steyn said was not true—truth being an absolute defamation defense. No evidence of damages—only that Mann’s submissions about same were untrue. Evidence now that Mann defamed others like Curry and McIntyre.
Don’t think the judge will let this mess go to the jury. As a matter of law, there are no facts to decide.
Actually the opposite – away from the jury the judge has stated that Steyn’s view of the hockey stick as fraud appears to have been made in good faith. This may not go to the jury, or if it does the judge may overrule, or give strict instructions to focus them on one outcome. Frankly I think the case is done and dusted – if Steyn and Simberg don’t win then it will be a damning indictment of DC ‘justice’.
Is that one of the criteria where Stein can be considered wholly incocent. (” Steyn’s view of the hockey stick as fraud appears to have been made in good faith.”)
So the court can come to that conclusion, and Steyn is innocent, and Mann can claim the court found no fraud? (Sounds like a likey road for the court to walk), perhaps payment of legal fees will be the real issue that stings one way, or the other.
The finale sting against Mann may be one some talented wealthy realist makes a movie of the whole thing with name actors and actresses.
US Rep. Nadler can play Mann.
Ah like the BBC did with Phil Jones – except theirs portrayed him as a victim of Russian hackers and unwarranted allegations!
The whole issue has not been an absolute fraud or not regarding the hockey stick but whether Steyn believed it was true and so written in good faith. If the court rules that Steyn acted in good faith then the hockey stick will be tainted as fraud by all except ardent climate enthusiasts, political opportunists and alarmists. There will always be a get out clause for Mann to claim his hockey stick is still legit but who will believe him?
who will belive him? After 20 years of closely watching the CAGW PTB operate, and seeing the very same power mad folk propogate the Covid virus, the vaccines, and the social response, on a global scale, I would be, unfortunately, not at all surprised if he is belived by 90 plus percent of the same folk that belive him now.
WUWT resident trolls Simon and BigOilyBlob are still convinced of the validity of the Hockey Stick.
That is already the case.
As I recall, Steyn filed a counter suit. Is that case still pending!
I read a comment, maybe in this thread, where that case was not allowed by some likely biased judge.
Uh, no.
Several of the witnesses have testified about Mann’s fraud, Dr. Wyner, Steve McIntyre, Ross McKitrick, along with a host of climategate emails from Mann’s peers.
That Mann’s hockeystick is bad science has been definitely displayed and that Mann knew it as he went to great lengths over many years to vilify anyone who pointed out the truth.
The real question is whether the jury understands that message.
DC ‘justice’. You got that right.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I seem to recall from the ClimateGate emails that Mann’s colleagues criticized splicing of the hockeyschtik graph so he should be aware that it was not “made in good faith”.
see below… https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/02/06/quote-of-the-week-manntastic-claims/#comment-3862047
I’d like to think you’re right, Rud. But I would have thought this would be resolved on summary judgment, and it wasn’t. While damages were still being alleged, the basic facts about the alleged libel were pretty well established before trial started.
I was hoping we’d see sanctions for Mann and/or his attorney based on his clear misrepresentations regarding damages, but haven’t so far. That makes me think the judge might let the jury get this. I hope not.
I feel for Steyn and how he’s been abused. This shouldn’t have gone to trial. But the transcript of this trial could offer gold.
In my opinion (as a licensed lawyer) the motion for summary judgement was properly denied because all the relevant facts were not yet on the table. It is a routine trial maneuver that most often fails.
Here, the correct move (after both sides rest) is a Rule 50(a) motion, formerly called a motion for a directed verdict, asking the judge to decide as a matter of law that there is nothing for the jury to decide as a matter of fact.
I said that much more simply without the legalese in my initial comment.
There is already a Rule 50 motion; so, perhaps after listening to both sides, perhaps the judge can simply rule without sending it to the jury.
This is the DC Circuit and even the 9th is not a liberal dominated as the DC courts.
All bets are off when it comes to justice in DC.
I knew for several years that he was never defamed as he is fully employed, gets plenty of fawning interviews, published books and able to publish papers, doesn’t a pay a penny for his lawsuits there is no identifiable loss to be had.
Yet we see a lot of addled people defending this badly flawed mann who has few friends and is unpleasant to mild criticism offered because he is a classic case of the Huerta god incarnate syndrome.
The evidence is there that Mann’s career has been protected, nurtured and carefully defended. Evidence that Spanier intervened to overturn what would have been censure by Penn State, evidence that Mann’s work is misleading, manipulative and possibly fraudulent – this has all been presented to the jury. I think Mann will come out of this looking like a complete liability.
Mann ‘lost’ when Steyn cleverly published “A Disgrace to the Profession”. Clever, because none of the 100 cites used was from Steyn—rather from Mann’s colleagues and peers.
Mann will lose again now in court via a legal smack down delivered by Steyn in person.
Did not one of Manns colleagues state something to the effect that “defending Manns work was defending the indefensible.”?
I assume that was one of the 100 citations.
Indeed. I’ve just ordered a copy of the book as I’m anticipating a rush when Mann loses.
Inshallah!
From your lips to God’s ears!
What I have not heard discussed was in my memory a major issue in the Penn State investigation was whether Mann told another colleague to lie. Did I “mis-remember”?
I read down further and saw that the issue was not asking someone to “lie” specifically but rather to delete e-mails. Sorry.
It was Eugene Wall, from the Amman and Wall paper fame. Mann forwarded an email from Phil Jones, without comment, asking Mann and Wall to delete all emails from and to, or cc’d with him and Keith Briffa, which he subsequently did. This was the time when Jones was being investigated for his part of the climategate email release.
I have just reread the 2010 letter of resignation from the American Physical Society written by the late Prof. Hal Lewis. Mann is explicitly mentioned towards the end. He was called out for fraud in this widely distributed letter.
Here are some selected abstracts:
From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara
To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society
6 October 2010
Dear Curt:
When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). …….
……It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist……
…..I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.
Very insightful.
Interesting backstory. This resignation letter, plus Geivar’s, eventually led the APS to commission a review of ‘climate facts’ in light of their previous climate policy statement. The review was handed to Steven Koonin. When APS ignored his findings, he wrote the book Unsettled in protest. APS shot themselves in the foot, twice.
Very cogent comment. However there is an insidious ‘presence’ below the radar that is in evidence in the verbiage of the Society’s “official” statement of its position on climate change.
This was drafted by a wokey functionary who has been insinuated into the business management of the Society.
Pretty well every important institution (all Universities for example) has been quietly innoculated in this way over several decades. It has recently been sardonically observed that the real power in modern large corporations is not to be found in the executive suite, but rather in the human resources department.
The well known social psychologist, Jordan Peterson, who speaks out against the war on free speech that is being waged by wokey ideologues and the multiplicity genders and sex change grooming of 6 year old children without informing parents and the rest of the extreme left campaigns to destroy civilization economies, fossil fuels, nuclear energy, agriculture….
He has been ordered by his licensing society to undergo retraining by specialists in the ‘genders’, hate speech specialists, etc. none of whom are psychologists. This arose from a dozen complaints of anonymous people from US, Canada and a few other countries. He has podcasts with individual ones receiving millions of ‘hits’. He had written self help books with multi million sales. He has filled large venues in a dozen countries to hear his talks. The new world order goons managed only a dozen complaints. Brilliant folk like Hal Lewis will eventually be ordered to leave the APS before too long
Courts are run by lawyers for lawyers. A non-lawyer would cut through this BS and get to the heart of the matter.
Charles Dickens on English law and by extension US law:
“Let them [the laity] but once clearly perceive that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their expense, and surely they will cease to grumble” (Bleak House).
I have long had a saying: “A trial lawyer’s primary job is to make the untrue sound plausible.”
Piltdown Mann made a grave error taking this to trial, having all of his greatest low life hits spread across the public record.
Steyn’s opening statement is a magnum opus.
I suspect the reason for the lawsuit taking 12 years to get to court is Mann’s attorneys’ lawfare tactics to avoid the public dissemination of discovery and rack up legal fees on the part of Simberg and Steyn.
Actually it the deliberate Mann slow role plus something else.
The original defendants filed a SLAPP motion to dismiss under DC law. The trial judge made a hash of it, and the appeals judge took over 2.5 years to write an opinion because the DC SLAPP statue is itself a mess. The SLAPP motion eventually got National Review off the hook, but not Simberg and Steyn. So here we now are.
Steyn has written many times over the years about the incompetent ‘sewer’ of the DC judiciary concerning Mann’s lawsuit.
DC is not the only federal judiciary to be an incompetent mess.
The big-shot lawyers (i.e. judges) protect each other.
State and local courts in most Democrat dominated areas are getting to be equally bad.
Corrections welcome but, if I’m not mistaken Steyn counter sued which prevents Mann from dropping the case when it get tough?
(He can’t avoid “discovery”?)
Steyn did, but his countersuit was later rejected by the DC judiciary.
Surprising, eh?
Thanks for the correction/clarification.
Having watched the evidence presented thus far today (2pm MDT, 06 Feb 24) with Rand Simberg on the witness stand, I can’t imagine the jury deciding in Mann’s favor. The evidence against Mann is overwhelming and Simberg’s attorney is doing a masterful job presenting the evidence.
And Mann’s attorneys are completely ignoring the damning email evidence presented by Simberg’s attorney.
I haven’t seen anything of that yet – I’m a day behind working from Amy K Mitchell’s court reports and the McAleer and McElhinney podcasts. Care to share what was in the damning email evidence?
Primarily Climategate emails in which Mann clearly engages in illegal (deletion of emails) as well as unprofessional behavior, as well as Mann’s own colleagues warning him that his hockey stick data does not actually portray what he claimed. There were also articles by other authors not party to the suit criticizing Mann’s hockey stick data and Penn State whitewashing their investigation of Mann. And Mann’s attorneys were astonishingly incompetent in cross-examination.
Right, got it. Those emails.
Mann’s legal team have been noticeably slack at times throughout this hearing. I’m wondering if they actually thought they’d be facing little or no opposition at all? It’s all very odd.
It is difficut to, as one of Mann’s colleagues stated, “defend the indefensible”. Even the usuall trolls have left this discussion.
My experience with trolls is they seldom have an interest in detail.
As the evidence is being presented, Mann’s own words — in the Climategate emails, especially — are his own worst enemies. It is hard to imagine more disparaging evidence against Mann than that which he provides himself in those emails. They paint an image of a man desperate to hide fraud, utterly unprofessional and willing to go to almost any length to protect himself.
That’s the problem with juries though. You never know what they will decide. Probably any lawyer can tell you examples of cases that were a slam-dunk where the jury decided the exact opposite of what every observer thought.
All you need is one silver tongued advocate in the jury room to get the jury to ignore the evidence.
Unfortunately for Mann, all the ‘silver tongued advocates’ appear for the defendants. Manns lawyer, Mark Williams, will get the last word in his summing up but he has a monumental mountain to climb.
None of those people will be in the jury room.
Having been party to several suits and serving on civil juries, I would have to agree with you that we can’t know what a jury will decide. That said, the common interest factor for judges and juries I have observed in the courtroom is ‘intent.’ And I think there was plenty of evidence presented in this case to show ill intent on the part of Michael Mann, but we’ll see how the jury views it.
In any normal court, I would agree with you.
However this is the DC court.
The neutral as ever NPR ran a piece around the trial as an attack on science:
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/06/1228720142/michael-mann-climate-scientist-in-court-suing-for-defamation
If the trial was about an attack on science, wouldn’t that require, oh nevermind, the stick falls on it’s own merit anyway…
Likely because it is “bent”, and it is obvious.
The court presented the information that only two minor ‘principle components’ of the twenty two used by Mann showed any indication of a hockey stick.
Hell, even the judge read Mann and his attorneys the riot act for not answering questions directly, not presenting facts that proved damages and wasting the court’s time with witnesses that gave irrelevant testimony. The jury wasn’t present, but I’d be surprised if they had not read about it.
“The jury wasn’t present, but I’d be surprised if they had not read about it.”
I would be surprised if they had. They certainly have been directed not to try, but even if they did, it’s highly unlikely that any DC media would ever cover negative information about Mann.
And if Mann’s own words in his Climategate emails aren’t a direct assault on science, I don’t know what would be. Instructing scientific colleagues to delete emails related to FOI data requests is not only unprofessional, I suspect it may be illegal. But the evidence is there for anyone that bothers to look.
When I read the emails of their collusion to obstruct FOIA requests and then learned they had been “exonerated” through investigations, it was blatantly obvious those investigations were a sham. That one email alone should have been grounds for finding misconduct or censure. Today’s testimony proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Penn State’s investigation was a sham and worthless.
Simberg lawyers deposed the investigator(s) and Spanier the president then of Penn State.
The investigators leaned towards censuring Mann, but didn’t after receiving commentary about their report from Spanier.
The investigator(s) also testified to their not interviewing anybody except Mann, though they did claim to have read 307 climategate emails.
They took the investigation to be solely about Penn State and Mann and that anything beyond that, e.g., verifying that Mann didn’t delete emails or interviewing McIntyre, was not in their scope.
The court was also presented a lot of evidence that many people considered this to be a whitewashed investigation.
jcd,
After Climategate, there were some investigations that sought comments from the public. I wrote to one to suggest that police be involved to look at acts like advice to not use FOIA as the law required, was told that the inquiry people did not want to take matters that far because it might shift the level to one where a punishment was involved, and we do not want that, do we?
These investigations were not sincere.
Geoff S
It is illegal. Though we are likely far past the legal requirement date for keeping the data or prosecuting the crime.
The court was presented evidence about Mann forwarding the email to Wall who did delete emails.
Mann claimed he didn’t delete emails.
I sort of believe that Mann might still have the emails. Narcissist types have great difficulty thinking anything they do, say or print is wrong.
If a court subpoenaed Mann for his data, then he might accidently leave his flash drive on a neodymium magnet overnight.
That’s essentially what the trial is, yes? Whether you personally like him or not, what Mann is attempting to do is push back against the growing din of defamatory attacks against climate scientists. There is no question that these attacks, intentional, targeted, and malicious, are having a considerable impact on public trust in science. Special interest groups have realized that when the science is against them, their best strategy is to turn the public against the science. And they’ve been nowhere more successful than in the climate change discourse.
Most scientists seem to have adopted a, “it’s not our place to fight back, we should just sit here and take it” attitude, but to his credit, Mann has recognized a severe need to actually push back. Unfortunately, it’s made him an even bigger target for the people trying to defame climate scientists.
You really consider that pointing out and publicising the fraud committed by Mann constitutes defamation?
What do you have to say about Mann’s vile slander of Judith Curry?
He has not committed fraud, so of course it does.
Spreading rumors via work email seems a little distasteful.
Mann accusing Professor Judith Curry of sleeping her way to the top isn’t defamation in your book, then?
Well, no, first because he didn’t accuse her of any such thing, he said in a private email that she had an affair with someone, and second because she was no longer in academia when he sent the email so it is impossible to see how such a thing could have damaged her career even if true, and even if the email had been sent to or seen by people with influence of Curry’s career, which it wasn’t. It seems like a distasteful thing to send from one’s work email, but has no bearing whatsoever on the case against Steyn.
You lot are just a tad bit overly credulous when it comes to lapping up whatever slop Steyn throws out in his legal defense.
Judith Curry was still in academia when Michael Mann spread that vile rumour. That rumour, with it’s disgusting implication, and Mann’s slander of her as a source of disinformation finished her career in academia. Clear defamation.
I confess the timeline isn’t clear – I can’t find any information on when Mann is supposed to have sent the email. Steyn’s website only selectively quotes parts of it. Curry willingly retired at age 63 from a tenured position, so it is more than a little specious to suggest that a private email Mann sent some unknown person at some unknown date, which has only surfaced during discovery for this trail, had anything to do with Curry retiring from her career at retirement age.
Well. as you all are so fond of saying, truth is the ultimate defense against defamation 😉 Curry has unquestionably proliferated a lot of disinformation from her popular blog.
“Curry has unquestionably proliferated a lot of disinformation”
Utter BS.. you know you cannot back that up with anything.
You mean FACTS that you can’t counter and go against your child-like brain-washing ??
“…he said in a private email that she had an affair with someone…”
“…and second because she was no longer in academia when he sent the email…”
And neither of these comments as stated are accurate according to the evidence presented in court, including Judith Curry’s testimony.
The gulf between you and truth is wide and deep.
Yet another climate scientist who does violence to the data.
Clearly, you have not seen the evidence of this case because the evidence presented by Simberg’s attorney absolutely shows Mann committed fraud via the manipulation of data in the hockey stick. Aside from Mann committing illegal acts by instructing his colleagues to destroy emails requesting data under FOI requests, the Climategate emails show Mann’s colleagues warning him that his manipulation of the hockey stick data was not an accurate reflection of what the data actually show.
Steve McIntyre’s testimony specifically showed how Mann manipulated the data to achieve a hockey stick “over 90% of the time.” McIntyre was one of the first scientists to discover how Mann had manipulated the data and reported it widely. So, yes, Mann’s hockey stick IS fraud.
I can guess what “evidence” Steyn is presenting in his defense.
You’ve got things a bit confused, here. The request to delete emails came from Phil Jones, head of the CRU at the University of East Anglia. The FOIA request was being made to his research unit, not to Mike Mann. Mann forwarded the email request he received from Jones to a colleague, who later said he did delete some emails following that.
I’m not sure how the legalities shake out here, but this does not remotely constitute scientific fraud. At most it is casual noncompliance of UK FOIA laws by an American citizen? I’m not even sure that’s a legal matter.
But context also matters, though it doesn’t absolve Phil Jones for flaunting UK FOIA law. The CRU is a small research unit run by a handful of scientists (at the time it was fewer than 5 people). They were being bombarded by FOIA requests as part of a coordinate campaign by ClimateAudit readers, who were demanding enormous amounts of information, much of which the CRU didn’t have, couldn’t get, or had already made available, or even completely irrelevant emails stretching back many years. Fulfilling these requests would have meant stopping the unit’s research activities for months or years. It was essentially an attempted live-action DDOS attack, meant to weaponize FOIA. That’s why scientists at the CRU perceived that they were not genuine requests.
Oh, well the testimony is false, in that case, since McIntyre’s work showed no such thing. Quite a bold move for McIntyre to perjure himself if that’s what he said on the stand.
Your hero welched on his debts to Tim Ball. What a guy, eh?
I’ll look forward to the documentary evidence substantiating this claim. All that Google turns up is Mark Steyn (surprise, surprise!) making the claim, and credulous goobers quoting him as though it were fact. The summary judgement awards Ball costs, but does not describe what they will be (I think it literally would have been the cost of the application and some small administrative fees, since this case never went to trial).
Mann was ordered to pay full court costs, so 9 years of retaining legal counsel, costs of legal counsel preparing filings, searches, court documents, etc plus accomodation and travel to the few appearances that occurred in that 9 years. It all adds up – as far as I’m aware it’s a considerable sum although I couldn’t give you the exact figure.
AJ has always been one of those people who actually believe that if it wasn’t in the NYT, it didn’t happen.
Right, no figures, no documented evidence of Mann not paying, etc. You’re probably only just now realizing you’ve been basing your entire understanding of these details on pure unsubstantiated rumors.
No surprise really – the exact figures are likely only known to Mann, Dr Ball’s estate, the lawyers and the court. Although the court would likely announce the full payment as part of the case and, as no such announcement has ever been made, no payment has ever been made.
Right, I’m glad we both agree that there is no documentary evidence supporting the claim that Mann has refused to pay costs to Ball or his estate. Or what those costs might actually be.
“Mann has refused to pay costs to Ball.” Oh, I wasn’t commenting on that, I was trying to comment on the evidence of Mann not paying after the court ordered him to. If you want evidence of that then Mann put up a twitter post stating that he would appeal (which he never did) and he wouldn’t be paying the costs (which he has also never done). I thought you were after evidence, not Mann being his typical self.
What Mann tweeted is that being ordered to pay costs didn’t mean he was ordered to pay Ball’s legal costs, he also did not state that he would appeal, only that his lawyers would review the judgement.
Your ability to only see what you want to see, seems to be the only talent you have mastered.
From Mann’s Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/MichaelMannScientist/posts/2470358663020321/
“The provision in the Court’s order relating to costs does NOT mean that I will pay Ball’s legal fees.”
Correct, you’ve cited a quote stating that the order relating to costs does not mean Mann is on the hook for Ball’s legal fees, exactly as I said. Thanks for confirming.
But the ‘Manhattan Contrarian’ website has estimated those costs at over $1 million, so make of that what you will.
The Manhattan Contrarian is one of the primary sources of made up stuff about any of these trials, whose misinformation gets repeated ad nauseam on forums like this one, so I don’t make much of it.
Do you have any evidence to support your libelous statements?
We both know you don’t, otherwise you would have presented it long ago.
I need to correct the record on that front, from web searches, it seems that the website “Principia Scientific International” originated the lie that Mann refused to comply with court ordered discovery. Menton’s Manhattan Contrarian website repeated the falsehood a couple of days later. So the roots of the lie do go a bit deeper, perhaps Menton was just as misled as all of the WUWT readers blithely repeating the lie.
^^^^ LOLOL ^^^^ Ideologues are rarely interested in facts. I read the Contrarian on a regular basis. Clearly, you do not.
And the Contrarian is an active attorney.
The CRU doesn’t exist in isolation, but is part of the University of East Anglia.
The bulk of the work of complying with FOI requests, particularly electronic documents, would have been handled by UEA’s legal and IT sections, then possibly run by the CRU staff to allow redaction of sensitive information.
The first “Climategate” release looks very much as though UEA had done quite a good job of collecting the relevant emails to comply with an FOI request.
Uh-HUH
I’m certain that this is untrue, since the bulk of the requests were for data, computer codes, and data sharing or confidentiality agreements. It would be entirely on CRU staff to compile it all. I think the CRU received around 70 FOIA requests over a three week period (most over just four days).
“Incorrect” is a less loaded term than “untrue”. You may be certain that it was incorrect, but you are not correct in that opinion.
Stored on the servers and backed up.
Held by Legal.
Once the FOI officer had performed the initial analysis, there would be requests to the CRU staff to provide the locations of the relevant information. The bulk of the work would still be performed by IT and Legal.
There undoubtedly would be additional (unwelcome) work for the CRU staff, but they wouldn’t do the grunt work.
That is quite a lot, and it would be a lot of work for the FOI officer to collate and review, and to sort them by commonality.
Without having the details of the requests, I can still assume there was a high degree of commonality, and it would boil down to a handful of categories.
You seem to be very tuned in to UEA’s FOIA office. The point is that the requests were excessive and presumed to be a malicious attempt to swamp the unit’s research activities, which they were. This doesn’t excuse Jones for flaunting the requests, but does shed light on the thought process. Jones wasn’t trying to hide research from legitimate inquiries, he thought he was dealing with an army of organized internet trolls, which was exactly the case.
Not UEA specifically.
As noted, in a properly organised system, impact on individual researchers would have been as little as possible.
It wouldn’t have been zero, but it shouldn’t have caused a major disruption.
If the requests were triggered by a common thought, the requests would have been almost identical. 1, 10, 100, 1000 would have caused the same amount of work for everybody apart from those dealing directly with the requestors. Part of the vetting process should be to find as much commonality as possible, then get in touch with the requestors to clarify and standardise as far as possible.
I don’t think anyone believes the UEA had a properly organized system at this time. Speculating about how things might have been in a perfect world isn’t a productive exercise.
That may or may not be the case.
Nevertheless, lay people (the CRU researchers) wouldn’t have the foggiest notion what was required to comply, so the primary burden would lie with the Legal department.
At worst, they would provide detailed requirements to the Head of Department, who would then break these down to sub-tasks for individual staff members.
Considering the information you stated was requested, that would boil down to “Hey, Fred. What directories are your sea surface temperature work in? When did you start on it?”
Then some poor sod in IT would take a copy of the current directory, and restore a boringly large set of backups of that directory. The same or another poor sod in IT would then diff the files to weed out duplicates.
The agreements and contracts would be held by Legal or Commercial, and most of the researchers would be barely aware of their existence.
The bottom line is that some other poor sods would be doing the bulk of the work, and Phil Jones would have had even more interminably boring meetings and paperwork to deal with. Those are some of the joys of being Middle Management 🙁
The statistics are held online. There were 27 FOIA requests made to the University of East Anglia over a 2 year period 2009-2010, 19 regarding CRU, 8 which were refused, 3 which were partially completed and 8 which were fully completed. All FOIA requests are handled by staff of the Learning and Resources Centre under direction from Administrative staff and the specific team head.
I think you are making stuff up Alan – not a good look, is it?
Thank you, Richard. I was working from the general, so the specifics should be of great help to all
Perhaps the final paragraph could have been phrased in a more neutral manner 🙂
It was the most neutral manner I could muster, under the circumstances.
Can you cite the source of these statistics? My source is from a report from the UK Parliament Science and Technology Committee:
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/387/38706.htm
which states:
“You’ve got things a bit confused, here. The request to delete emails came from Phil Jones, head of the CRU at the University of East Anglia.”
Clearly, you are not familiar with these emails. The email presented in evidence — which I have seen and you have not — is an email from Mann specifically directing colleagues to delete emails.
Ah, so you’ll very easily be able to quote that email exactly for us all, then. Or did your dog eat it?
Any evidence today? Or just another of your lies?
This clown Mann defames himself, he is a disgrace to the profession.
Accusing climate scientists of committing fraud has been the modus operandi of the contrarian set for decades.
Here’s a piece in the New York Times describing this tactic and how it has increasingly become the focus of denialist groups:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/06/climate/climate-michael-mann-defamation-trial.html
New York Slimes? No wonder your brain is damaged.
Email correspondence between Mann and Revkin at the NYT has already been entered as evidence of unethical behaviour in the case.
You’ve got to be kidding?
Why don’t you try finding something in an honest rag.
Accusing climate scientists of committing fraud has been the modus operandi of the contrarian set for decades.
What will you say if the court finds that Steyn’s accusations are rooted in fact?
I doubt that that will be the case, since Steyn’s primary defense isn’t that the things he said are true, but that he reasonably believed them to be true when he said them. I doubt the jury is going to consider whether the things were in fact true. But even if they do, the jury is not a panel of experts who are actually competent to critically evaluate the scientific claims being made, so their position on the truth or falsity of Mann’s scientific work is going to be wholly irrelevant, except it might provide ammo for the denialists.
No Alan, the jury are not experts, that is why there are ‘expert witnesses’ brought in to explain these things to the jury so that they may make an informed judgement. It’s an established part of the legal process.
The “expert witnesses” are just adhering to the narrative of whichever party brought them in and coached their testimony. Understanding the particulars of the scientific issues at question requires deep understanding of esoteric topics and mathematical concepts like principal components analysis and a deep knowledge of paleoclimate/dendrochronology literature, among many other things. There is zero chance of the jury grasping all of these concepts and being able to accurately assess the robustness of the science underpinning Mann’s work. The thought that anyone could seriously think this is laughable. Steyn’s claimed “truth defense” is just part of his strategy of promoting the idea that he reasonably believed his defamatory language to be correct at the time he said it, he has no genuine intention of actually providing a robust truth defense (he’s also probably gaming for some post-trial content to feed into his misinformation engine).
That isn’t to say the jury mightn’t be stupid enough to think they’ve figured it all out. But I have a bit more faith in them than that.
Are you sure you want to go on record as libelling Dr. Abraham Wyner, a premier analytical statistician at one of the best statistical schools in the world? Mann is not a statistician, not a climate scientist – he knows geology and physics yet when brilliant statisticians, the experts, call the MBH98 & 99 reconstructions misleading and manipulative then they must be wrong and Mann, the amateur, is right? Wake up Alan, you’re bloody dreaming, mate.
I haven’t heard or read Wyner’s testimony, but if he is accusing Mann of fraud I would be happy to go on the record stating that such an accusation is false, and that Wyner is knowingly making false accusations. Your desperate attempt to paint Mann as an amateur climate scientist is weird and sad and laughable. He has more than 48,000 citations for his climate papers. Wyner is actually, in the truest sense of the word, an amateur paleoclimatologist, who I believe has authored a singular paper on the subject, and that paper did little more than confirm Mann’s hockey stick while making a few errors arising from Wyner’s unfamiliarity with climate science that were quickly called out (although I happily admit that Wyner’s paper actually did bring some interesting insights to the discussion, which is a rarity for skeptical papers).
Wyner is not nor has he ever pretended to be, a climate scientist or a dendrochronologist. What he is, what he submitted the papers as and what his evidence was based on, was that he is an expert statistician which is the only part of the MBH98 & 99 papers that Mann was involved in – Bradley and Hughes did the fieldwork and scientific analysis of the tree samples, Mann did the statistical analysis (by Mann’s own testimony in court). Wyner is, as an expert statistician, more than qualified to comment on Mann’s statistical analysis, to which the court also agreed.
Wyner is indeed “qualified” to comment on Mann’s analysis, that doesn’t mean that what he says about it is correct or truthful. As I said earlier, Wyner wrote a paper that attempted to criticize MBH98, but Wyner ended up producing his own hockey stick, and after correcting his errors (which, again, he made not because he didn’t understand the statistics, but because he didn’t understand the paleoclimate stuff, having no experience or expertise in that area), his hockey stick was identical to Mann’s (even with his errors, he confirmed that the first decade of the 21st century was almost certainly warmer than any decade in the previous 1000 years).
Pointing out the fraud being committed by climate scientists, is not an assault.
It is, since they haven’t committed fraud.
You are in deep DELUSIONAL DENIAL if you think Mann’s hockey stick isn’t massive and deliberate statistical malpractice.
But then, we already know you are utterly clueless when it comes to anything to do with maths or statistics.
It would only be denial if he actually believes the nonsense he pushes.
Can you never stop lying?
If he did, he would have to stop posting.
AJ is here to defend the orthodoxy. Truth is not relevant to his goals.
The evidence proves otherwise.
I suggest you peruse Mark Steyn’s book, ‘A Disgrace to the Profession,’ in which Steyn quotes 120 different scientists’ opinions that the science behind Mann’s hockey stick ranges from shoddy to fraudulent. These aren’t Steyn’s opinons, these are quotes from Mann’s scientific colleagues.
Furthermore, Mann has refused to provide his input data and source code as a means for other scientists to replicate his results, a cornerstone of scientific method and peer review. This was reviewed over and over in court.
Mann’s lawsuit against Dr Tim Ball in Canada was dismissed because Mann refused to comply with discovery requesting this input data and source code. This is not the behavior of a scientist, this is the behavior of a man with something to hide.
I’ve read the book, though it seems few of the people touting its virtues have read it themselves, it’s a really weird book that mainly seems like Steyn thumbing his nose at the defamation lawsuit for… no particular reason except to get a rise out of people. It’s filled with irrelevancies, out of context quotes, and the usual boring stuff from the deniers.
Of course, as always, you can’t provide a single primary citation for this. No court document, no charges of contempt against Mann. Just rumors you heard from a guy who heard from his friend who knows a guy.
Ah, the old reliable lie. The summary judgement is public. The case was dismissed because of delay, not because Mann refused with court ordered discovery. This is again one of those lies you’re repeating that I guarantee you can’t scrounge up any primary documentation of.
And now more lies, is your nose growing Pinoccio?
What is the lie? That the book is weird? That it has no reason for existing? Please expound.
Tell you what, somewhat belatedly, I’ve ordered my copy. After it arrives and I’ve had a chance to read it, why don’t we organise a WUWT book club to discuss it? That’s fair, don’t you think?
I would be thrilled to do that. Give me details and I’ll be there.
Liar.
I take it you won’t be joining the book club?
Then please provide more cases where these ‘climate scientists’ have had unwarranted claims of fraud made against them. You are very keen for others to provide evidence, now you do the same.
Why don’t you start by scanning this comment thread and we will go from there?
No, not this case, other cases – you mentioned that several scientists, or their work, had been called fraudulent so let’s see your evidence that you prize so highly? These other cases, not Mann, who are they?
Mike Mann, Keith Briffa, Phil Jones, Gavin Schmidt, James Hansen, everyone at NOAA/NCEI, everyone at UEA CRU, everyone at NASA GISS, anyone involved in the IPCC, all of them face frequent and malicious accusations of fraud, in conservative media and on forums like this one. To pretend otherwise is an exercise in self-delusion. Just search this site for “climate fraud” and you’ll get dozens and dozens of hits.
And your job is to gaslight people into believing anything except the truth.
Whoever is paying AJ, isn’t getting their money’s worth.
Pushing fake science is a fraud.
Claiming that models can accurately forecast climate is a fraud.
Claiming that there is anything at all unusual regarding current weather is a fraud.
Why are you so desperate to defend these frauds?
That would be a first for AJ.
No. From the very start, Mann has been the attacker – he’s the one that had abused the scientific process, abused the peer review process and, in turn, corrupted climate science. Don’t buy into Mann’s self-serving lies and obfuscations, look at the evidence being presented in court as objectively as you can – be a scientist for once. The evidence, contrary to the lies you have been told, shows Mann as the perpetrator, not the victim.
Mann has been a target for denialist groups since his early career, it’s not surprising that he has a pretty contentious relationship with those people. What he’s done that is different than most other scientists is that he doesn’t just sit quietly and take the abuse, which makes people on WUWT hate him all the more, for having the audacity to stand up for himself and other scientists.
The fact that you believe all of this nonsense is the result of the defamatory lies being intentionally spread about Mann and other climate scientists. I am not the one failing to be objective, here.
No such thing as a “denialist” .. It is a made up term used by the climate scum as a work to attack realists.
They know they have lost big time when it comes to the actual science.
It is actually the AGW cultists that the climate deniers.
Yes, that is EXACTLY what the trial is about.
And please remember, TRUTH is not defamation.
As Steyn said in his opining, Mann can dish it out but he can’t take it!”
I mean, that’s certainly part of the narrative Steyn is hoping to sell the jury, it might work. I personally liken it to the bully telling bystanders that his victim punching back is a sign of weakness.
Mann is the only bully here – read his emails, online messages – they are all about supressing people he disagrees with, often in the most vile and disgusting manner.
They’re about pushing back against people maliciously trying to attack and defame him and other scientists. Again, Mann has essentially spent most of his career under fire from bad actors, so all the hand wringing over him not speaking courteously about them in private correspondence is a bit precious.
Again, the reality is that Mann saw what was happening early on – he knew these attacks were part of an intentional effort to erode public trust in science by nefarious groups, and he chose to speak out about it and to push back. Whether he’s been successful in his efforts I don’t know – these groups are extremely good at what they do, but I think it’s commendable.
You are a deluded fool, Alan – Mann is the one doing the malicious attacking, not others. The corruption of Climate Science as part of making it a political tool is what has eroded public trust in science, nothing else. And for that, amongst many others, Mann is guilty as charged.
Given the basis of this very trial, this statement is so beyond asinine that I genuinely don’t know who you think you’re selling this nonsense to.
Again, this hasn’t happened. The fact that you think it has it because of the intentional efforts of people like Steyn to mislead and deceive the public. Thus, the need for more people like Mann to stand up in the defense of science.
He has been charged with nothing so… not guilty?
At this point, my only question is “Are you deluded or paid?”
Again, it seems you have not actually read any of the Climategate emails or seen any of the evidence in court, but your use of the term ‘denialist’ is an istant indicator you have no interest in scientific method.
As someone that regularly looks at data, the fact that Mann’s hockey stick eliminated warming and cooling periods that are indicated in 100% of ice core proxies representing over 800,000 years of climate history was the first red flag for me. These ice core data also show significant warming and cooling periods over the past 10,000 years, all occuring while CO2 was hovering around 280ppm, evidence that indicates CO2 does not ‘drive’ temperature, per se. Take your pick, GISP2, Vostok, Epica Dome, they ALL show these periods Mann ‘magically’ removed. Yes, the hockey stick is fraud.
Mann’s 1998 study is a global climate reconstruction, the individual ice core records you cite strongly reflect local conditions over the area where the ice core was collected in addition to any broader signal. That is why you see so much variance in the ice core, and less in global reconstructions. In fact, MBH98 includes this very same ice core data. It is just layered with other proxies collected from many other regions, so the local signals fade and the global signal emerges.
You really do believe the lies you push. First off, even if you add up all the studies, it comes nowhere close to total global coverage. Secondly, the few studies it does select are scattered throughout time. making them even less global for the periods they covered.
Heck, for 1 400 year period, he used a single tree to represent the entire world.
Let’s agree that a reconstruction consisting of proxies distributed all over the world is at least more representative than a reconstruction using a single ice core.
Temperature is not climate, you fool.
It’s far more than a single ice core, and the ice cores cover 10’s of thousands of years.
BTW, I love the way you reject “a single ice core”, yet you defend “a single tree”. I guess it really is the case that you decide validity based solely on whether it supports what you have been paid to believe.
And when you combine them all, instead of looking at them individually, you reduce the noise arising from the local signal.
I’ve not defended anything. You’ve just made the claim, but haven’t provided evidence to substantiate it that we might examine.
So authoring emails about a former colleague, (whose only “sin” was suggesting to fellow climate scientists that they needed to include uncertainty in their technical defenses of the “Hockey Stick”), alleging that “Dr Curry was a grad student [and not actually Head of the Georgia Tech Climate Dept] who slept her way to the top, ignoring reams of Dr. Curry’s articles and books” is a legitimate way of “pushing back” against detractors?!?
In court last week Mann admitted he based this on rumor, but refused to apologize to Dr. Curry who was in the courtroom.
Now this is only MY opinion, but I think Dr. Curry has a much more defendable defamation suit against Mann than Mann has against Steyn. Thankfully Dr Curry was able to land on her feet but there is a case to be made that Mann’s calumny was a least a factor in her decision to leave Georgia Tech.
So just who is “malicious”?
You have passed the line where you are now trying to defend the indefensible.
Why are you presenting a false account of Curry’s testimony and Mann’s email? Is it intentional deceit? Or are you just super misinformed?
You are now completely off the rails.
The account I referenced is part of the documentation of official Congressional records.
in court; Mann admitted he was wrong and that he was only passing on a rumor but then refused to apologize to Dr Curry who was in the courtroom. This is in the court records.
The account you reference is of Mann sending an email stating a rumor he heard that Judith Curry had an affair. The email does not say she “slept her way to the top,” that’s something you’ve made up whole cloth, but enclosed in quotations. Why do you think you’re so uncritically repeating lies? Do you even realize you’re doing it?
It takes a mighty thin skin to interpret someone telling the truth about you, to be an attack.
Amazing how telling the truth about climate science and climate scientists, is always considered “attacking” them.
It is the lies that climate alarmists are telling that is causing the public to distrust science.
Presumably the censure that the Penn State committee were going to give him for his behaviour (as clearly stated by the chair and one other member of that committee in sworn testimony) was also an ‘attack’. That is until Spanier stepped in and ordered the committee to exonerate Mann, again as sworn in the chairs and Spaniers sworn testimonies.
You seem to be whole cloth making up testimony, now. I heard this testimony, and even listened to the weird biased podcast covering the trial, and that is not what happened. Prior to Spanier being informed, the Penn State committee had concluded that there was zero substance to 3 of the 4 accounts they were investigating, but felt that they needed additional review of the 4th count because the members of the committee lacked the requisite experience to evaluate it. And that is exactly what the investigation concluded:
This whole narrative Steyn is carefully weaving with his witness testimony is intended to get him out of his false allegations of misconduct by the university via baselessly suggesting that Spanier engaged in a coverup (without ever outright saying it and perjuring himself, of course). He omits relevant facts and presents out of context information and asks his witnesses leading questions.
I suggest you need to carry on listening. You missed the video testimony of the chair of the Penn state committee, one of the committee members and Spanier himself. The committee, by majority, was agreed to censure Michael Mann for his behaviour (emails and online activities). Then the chair emailed Spanier to inform him where they were, currently, and Spanier emailed a list of 10 bullet pointed instructions and 2 extensive paragraphs of instructions, outlining that Mann be exonerated. The chair then submitted a report exonerating Mann, not censuring him and the committee member had no idea why until he was made aware of the emails. All this has been admitted as true and entered into court records as evidence. This is not spin, bias or one-sided stories, these are the facts as now known about what went on behind the scenes of the Penn State enquiry. You need to carry on listening, mate, you’re missing a lot.
The committee member stated that while he wanted to censure Mann (not for fraud or misconduct, but for being “snarky” in private emails), they were told by council that they could not do so unless they were finding him guilty of any of the counts, which they were not (because there was no evidence for any of them). He said, paraphrasing, they were told they had to “do one or the other.” That’s why the committee did not censure him. The stuff insinuating that Spanier intervened is pure unfounded speculation. There is no evidence anywhere that the committee acted on his recommendations or moved to exonerate Mann because of them. You are a bit gullible if you are just falling for the lawyer’s spin. The committee exonerated him on three counts, and convened a committee comprised of scientists to review the 4th count, and that committee found no evidence of wrongdoing, either.
Steyn presents no documented evidence of there having been anything improper in the committee’s investigation of Mann, he leads entirely by innuendo. We’ll see if the jury falls for it.
And once again AJ declares that reality will never stand against his fantasies.
Apparently you didn’t give Sandusky the benefit of your expert analysis or he’d be a free man today. /sarc (apparently I need that tag for some readers of this blog.)
To make it clear to Leftists; the similarity of the Sandusky and Mann reviews is NOT in the transgressions but in the whitewashes!
Somehow, apparently, we’re to believe that the Penn State whitewashing extended to the EPA, the NSF, and the US Department of Commerce, who all unilaterally exonerated Mann of any scientific misconduct.
There is no similarity, of course, but through the defamatory actions of Steyn and others, you credulous lot have been easily manipulated into believeing that there is. As I’ve said over and again, this is precisely why the defamation is so damaging.
None of these groups ever specifically enonerated Mann or Penn State. You are lying again.
Exonerated – sorry, I must have missed that one, despite the edit function being back.
Rather more insidiously, it’s the lies being told about climate scientists that damage public trust, as you so clearly illustrate here, by repeating those lies as though they were truth. There are few fields I can think of where it is so commonplace to casually accuse researchers of engaging in fraud and vast conspiracies, without a shred of evidence to back it up. Yet here we are, and scientists like Mann are excoriated for calling it out.
Rather more insidious are the LIES and MISINFORMATION spread by the climate grifters.
I can think of no other field where deliberate anti-science is so rampant, and fraudulent and mathematical and statistical malpractice is the NORM
Rather than just a couple of bad apples, the stinking oozing rot has spread to the whole AGW scam.
And gormless, ignorant and gullible twerps like you lap it up thinking it is apple cider. !
Sworn testimony, under oath, Alan, not lies told in the playground. The evidence has been piling up like a tidal wave in a DC courtroom only you’re handwaving the truth away as ‘lies’ and ‘misinformation’. You’re on the wrong side if you want truth and honesty, I’m afraid – Mann only has lies and deceit, as witnessed in court and parroted by you.
AJ doesn’t want to believe it, therefore it isn’t true. It can’t be true.
AJ’s idols are incapable of error or deceit. AJ’s world would absolutely crumble if he ever admitted to the reality of the climate alarmist farce.
Anyone is capable of errors or deceit. The difference between us is that I don’t believe things without evidence.
Yes you do, or you’d not have posted a word.
AJ proclaims that he withholds judgement, until evidence has been presented.
Yet he makes proclamation after proclamation, all the while refusing to provide evidence to support his beliefs.
Yet another lie.
Evidence has been presented.
You don’t believe anything that goes against what you have been told to believe.
Now the truth is a lie, previously you were declaring that the truth was an attack.
How long has it been since you’ve had even a passing relationship with reality?
“Special interest groups have realized that when the science is against them… blah, blah…”
And you are in one of those “special” groups.
“Whether you personally like him or not, what Mann is attempting to do is push back against the growing din of defamatory attacks against climate scientists.”
That is not the nature of this lawsuit and Mann’s attorneys have not portrayed it as such in court, either. The nature of this lawsuit is, specifically, alleged defamation of Michael Mann’s character, not “climate scientists.” That other manmade global warming ideologues have picked up Mann’s mantle for their own purposes really has nothing to do with this lawsuit. The same applies for Simberg’s and Steyn’s proponents.
That is not to say this lawsuit has not become symbolic over 12 years, it most certainly has. But neither party’s cheerleading section is going to decide this case, the jurors are.
That is precisely the nature of the lawsuit, as it has much broader implications than merely this singular case. Climate scientists have faced unprecedented attacks from well-organized efforts to erode public trust in science by various interest groups. If Mann is successful in this case, it will have a chilling effect on people who think they have free reign to baselessly smear the reputation of scientists to achieve political/financial aims. This style of ad hominem assault is only an effective tactic when it faces little resistance.
You’re wrong and you’re right in equal part. This attack by Mann is an attack on free speech and the US 1st amendment to the constitution, in that you are right that it had broader connotations. If Mann is successful it will have a chilling effect on every US citizen’s right to criticise someone in public. If Mann loses, very little will change for climate scientists or any scientists, except they will now have to find evidence to back up their extraordinary claims.
I think that having a chilling of people making false and defamatory accusations against people is a good thing, don’t you? If Mann loses, I expect a big ramp up in attacks on scientists, which I expect will be led by a newly reinvigorated Steyn himself.
Good.
Yet you are still unable to come up with any additional cases of people making these, so-called, ‘false and defamatory allegations’ to use your words. That’s because they don’t exist, do they? You’re lying again to try to deflect away from the climate lies and deceit that’s being exposed for what it is.
I’m still waiting for you to provide evidence that what Steyn wrote was either false or defamatory.
We both know that all you’ve got is a belief that Mann must be right, because his results support what you have been told to believe.
What Steyn wrote is pretty obviously false, but that doesn’t really matter, the issue on trial here is whether he knew it was false when he wrote it. I think that’s a pretty high bar to clear, so we will see what the jury thinks. I personally don’t think Steyn is an idiot, so he probably knew he was lying, but I’d have a hard time convincing a jury of that.
What a load of drivel.
Give it up Alan.
Go peddle that nonsense on an Alarmist blog, like the absurdly named “Skeptical Science” founded and run by the Hockey team.
Your persistence has now convinced me you are a paid troll, milking the last penny from your sponsor.
Dr. Piltdown Mann hasn’t showed any evidence of damages while he is fully employed, sells books and continues to get lots of interview’s while he has been exposed in making probably defamatory statements against McIntire and Dr. Curry in the past.
You are not fooling anyone with your irrational support of a vile mann.
The Climate Change on trial podcasts are brilliant and to me they have been a revelation, Mark Stern’s opening statement was like something out of a 1940’s MGM court room drama with someone like Charles Laughton playing the wile old barrister. Second that the American justice system is akin to a communist state justice system and not to be trusted. Thirdly, I can see why the Climate alarmist scientists don’t want to enter into debate about Climate change because they would be exposed for what they are. And lastly Michael Mann is a piece of sh*t.
I knew that Mann was an exceptionally arrogant person, but having listened to the dramatizations of trial transcripts I am really shocked by what a nasty thing he is — not just in his treatment of Steyn and Simberg, but the genuinely awful, unforgiveable really, treatment of Judith Curry and Steve McIntyre.
I have heard rumors about who is paying Mann’s legal bills, but I’d love to know the truth of the matter. I resigned from AGU and APS over unrelated matters long before this episode, but this would have done it for me.
Chances are we’ll never find out who is bankrolling the case – between the operators of the slush funds and the legal team there are too many layers to get through.
It’d be amusing to think that Leo DiCaprio is behind it – returning the bromance affection.
Pray serious payment is required from Mann. I suspect somebody else paying would require Mann to declared a loan or direct income. Anything forgiven on a loan would also be income. At least it would hit him in taxes.
The money to pay his lawyers is income. Whether he’s paying taxes on it is anyone’s guess.
The IRS is more interested in going after conservatives and gun manufacturers than it is in going after left wing climate alarmists.
I’ve been listening to trial on Webex. The dramatizations and writings of Mann’s arrogance and, on a legal level, ignorance, are understated, for sure. His attorneys are some of the worst trial attorneys I’ve ever heard.
…are they so bad, or is “defending the indefensable” really impossible.
Maybe “6 of one…”
He’s really a piece of garbage – which we all knew, but now at least some of the world gets to see in an unimpeachable manner.
Mann libeled McIntyre just a few days before the trial on twitter, claiming McIntyre is a “white supremacist.”
McIntyre was asked about this on the stand and pointed out his very diverse family along with his being related to Barack Obama as a distant cousin.
The court should have made Mann wear raw egg on his face that day.
Fortunately, Mann is his own worst enemy as he can’t keep his trap shut.
“Thin skinned” and “quick to attack” as was mentioned, under oath, in court.
McIntyre’s testimony was powerful, especially his description of Mann’s manipulation of the hockey stick data.
I’ve just listened to the NPR report of the trial proceedings, seems that they were at a totally different court room as there report has missed all the relevant points.
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/06/1228720142/michael-mann-climate-scientist-in-court-suing-for-defamation
Sounds a lot like AJ.
Steyn’s opening statement reminded me of Howard Roark’s court speech from Ayn Rand’s ‘The Fountainhead.’
The court case has shown that an alleged scientist successfully managed some really tricky data to produce the hookey shtick but in court he shows a complete lack of attention to detail (blamed his lawyers), a total lack of understanding of how numbers “work” and a shameless derision for the legal system including offering false information and yet he thinks other people have somehow defamed him!
The guy is an arrogant prick with no self awareness. But is still a fine example of what a climate scientist is!
He suffers from a god complex which is why he has no true friends and doesn’t have a conscience.
He will be very alone later in life after he burns all of his bridges with people.
What do you mean, ‘later’? I was under the impression he has associates, not friends.
Mann’s friend, Bill Nye has been in attendance during at least part of the trial and Mann on the stand claimed “Bromance” with Leonardo DiCaprio.
They may not be as friendly after the trial.
They may not be seen for dust after the trial!
In fact, there may be a few people blocking his contact details and number after the trial!
Mann was directly admonished by the judge for not answering questions directly. His own testimony validates your comment about ‘no self-awareness.’ The guy has none, whatsoever.
Yep, apparently the man literally and fradulantly presented damage claims, in his own trial, defending being accused of fraud.
Mann’s damage claims were insufficient, written on a piece of paper without supporting evidence and presented and corrected during redirect, not direct examination.
Shouldn’t that be “errogant pruck”, as per Jacinda?
Anthony says he thought that Mann would actually present a case, but in my somewhat limited experience, if one side isn’t paying for all the lawyering, then that side may go to trial with “no case to answer”. I was involved in two trials where money was not an object for my opponent and they went all they way to trial without anything at all to talk about.
In one case the judge was not happy about wasting the court’s time.
Mann is being completely deligitamised at this trial . .
One of the things I like about this site is that they delete content when deemed necessary and not the entire comment. The problem with Mr. McIntyre’s site is that he would delete entire comments. Back then, his comments were numbered, and when he deleted a comment, it would change the numbering. As people were responding to comments by number, you’d never know who was responding to whom.
I trust very little that comes out of DC, so that I am not holding my breath on the verdict going either way. We are at the mercy of a jury who may already have made up their minds . .
Being a UFO enthusiast – I’m beginning to think Mann might be an alien- of the outer space variety. 🙂
I was thinking more along the lines of a squamous cell carcinoma.
Joseph, I’ve already had one comment on this thread deleted for saying what I think of Mann, some of his associates and what he might do. I’m not going for a second one, despite the fact that he and his corrupt practices make me so angry.
story tip
Wow, MSN has a unique view of events. This is the worst whitewash I think I have ever read. It is linked out of Drudge @ur momisugly 9:25AM 2/7/24
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/after-online-attacks-prominent-climate-scientist-gets-his-day-in-court/ar-BB1hUXjW
I can’t wait to see how the MSM covers the outcome of the trial if Mann loses.
Christopher Monckton expands this acronym as “Marx-Stream Media”.
They haven’t been covering the trial. I’m sure they will just continue to pretend the whole thing doesn’t exist when Mann loses.
Not quite true – their climate reporter turned up in court for one day last week.
Did anything make it into print?
Just wow. If you turned the truth 180° you might end up with something like this. But you would have to know what the truth is to corrupt it like this article does. Deliberate attempts to mislead and disinformation tactics.
It’s a WaPo ideologue. No big surprise.
Iirc, the Washington Post signed on to a general amicus brief supporting the CEI (before they extricated themselves) and freedom of speech against Mann’s case, whilst still supporting Mann in his case against their own amicus brief? That is the epitome of the current MSM.
In reality, Mann has suffered no damages, but has profited from millions of dollars for malicious legal attacks on his enemies that he could not otherwise have funded. I would ask for that in recompense if I were Steyn and Simberg.
Doesn’t mean Mann would pay it. Mann was ordered to pay Dr Tim Ball’s legal expenses after Mann’s case was dismissed and Mann still hasn’t paid those expenses to Dr Ball’s estate since Dr Ball passed away.
Different country though. He can’t really move away from the USA to avoid payment.
Yes, and I think he’s using the inability of the Canadian court system to enforce a judgment.
Mann’s attorneys are engaged in their closing arguments and are just droning on-and-on-and-on, ignoring the stark evidence that Penn State whitewashed their investigation and the Climategate emails in which Mann instructs fellow scientists to delete emails related to FOI requests for Mann’s data and source code for the Hockey Stick. Not to mention the emails in which Mann’s colleagues warn him his data manipulation methods were suspect, methods that Steve McIntyre specifically testified were meant to create a hockey stick over 90% of the time. Can’t wait to hear Simberg and Steyn’s closing arguments.
Simberg’s attorney has closed and Steyn is closing. Both are focusing on the fact that Mann has not provided any evidence of damages. Neither Mann nor his attorneys have provided a scintilla of evidence of damages.
I’m still a day behind so you’ll have to give some details to whet my appetite. Mark Williams, Manns lawyer, not really raised his game?
Mann’s attorneys are the worst trial attorneys I have ever seen and I have a family full of trial lawyers. They have yet to provide evidence of damages. Amazing, really.
You get what you pay for…
Mann’s initial claim of grants lost of $9-million was reduced IN COURT to $112K. Ridiculous. Blamed it on his attorneys…
OMG . . . Mann’s attorneys are comparing ‘climate deniers’ to Trump ‘election deniers.’ The desperation is obvious.
It may be desperation, but given the jury pool in DC, it might work.
This is a real concern. We’ve seen juries in the UK return not guilty verdicts for activists who engaged in wanton vandalism. Such activists are now choosing jury trial rather than the magistrate’s court in the hope of getting a jury sympathetic to whatever cause they are using to justify what are clearly criminal actions.
The judge has read instructions to the jury describing the elements of defamation and the jury has been sent to deliberate the case.
The following is from Mark Steyn’s opening trial statement, which encapsulates this entire trial’s direction. Mann makes unsubstantiated claim after unsubstantiated claim and Simberg and Steyn rebut them:
[Quote from From Mann’s original petition]
“It is one thing to engage in discussion about debatable topics. It is quite another to attempt to discredit consistently validated scientific research through the professional and personal defamation of a Nobel prize recipient.”
[From Steyn’s opening statement]
“As you will hear in the coming days, Michael E. Mann is the only scientist on the planet for whom the director of the Nobel Institute has had to issue a statement explaining that he has not and never has been a, Nobel prize recipient: ‘Nobel committee rebukes Michael Mann for falsely claiming he was ‘awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.” Michael Mann has never been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”
And this shill/troll AlanJ is going head-over-heels on WUWT to defend poor oppressed Mann, incredible.
Religious faith. No amount of evidence will ever cause AnalJ to change his opinion.
However, a change in paymasters just might.
I find ideologues are rarely interested in facts.
I was just watching a show on the Piltdown Man hoax.
The more they talked about Charles Dawson, the man at the center of that hoax, the more he reminded me of Michael Mann.
Both were men desperate for attention.
They both set out to present the intellectuals of their days, what these intellectuals most wanted to see.
Piltdown Man, The British intellectuals wanted prove that homo sapien originated in Europe, preferably in Britain. Dawson wanted to be considered as one of the great archaeologists of his time. After his death, when outsiders were allowed to examine his finds, many of them were found to be hoaxes.
The intellectuals were so desperate to believe in Piltdown Man, that they refused to look closely and they refused to let anyone else look closely, for decades.
The climate alarmists were desperate to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age to go away. Lo and behold, Mann pops up with a study that shows exactly what they wanted to see.
Mann himself is lauded and honored by many of the leading lights of the climate alarmist industry. At the same time, these leading lights protect Mann and his work from any and all scrutiny by anyone who is not already a part of the scam.
Since 2003, Ross McKitrick and Steve McIntyre have presented papers questioning the methodology utilized by Mann to create his hockey stick graph. Below is a link to McKitrick’s website that contains links to all of the documents they have presented. This is a real gem and here are some excerpts:
Statisticians blast Hockey Stick, Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick
Financial Post, Wednesday, August 23, 2006
“The recently released final report of a panel of three independent statisticians,
chaired by an eminent statistics professor, Edward Wegman, chairman of the
U.S. National Academy of Sciences committee on theoretical and applied
statistics, has resoundingly upheld criticisms of the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph
of Michael Mann and associates.
The Wegman report, which was submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives
energy and commerce committee in July, stated that our published criticisms of
Mann’s methodology were ‘valid and compelling,’ and concluded that ‘Mann’s
assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the
millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be
supported by his analysis.’
This comes on the heels of an earlier report in June by a National Research
Council (NRC) panel chaired by Gerald North, of Texas A&M University, which
also endorsed specific criticisms of Mann’s methodology and which concluded
that no statistical confidence could be placed in his claims that temperatures in
the 1990s exceeded those in the medieval warm period.”
=============================================================
Wegman Report Highlights:
“While the work of Michael Mann and colleagues presents what appears to be
compelling evidence of global temperature change, the criticisms of McIntyre
and McKitrick, as well as those of other authors mentioned are indeed valid.
– – –
Where we have commonality, I believe our report and the NRC panel essentially
agree. …We believe that our discussion together with the discussion from the
NRC report should take the ‘centering’ issue off the table. [Mann’s] decentred
methodology is simply incorrect mathematics … I am baffled by the claim that
the incorrect method doesn’t matter because the answer is correct anyway.
Method Wrong Answer Correct = Bad Science.
– – –
The papers of Mann et al. in themselves are written in a confusing manner,
making it difficult for the reader to discern the actual methodology and what
uncertainty is actually associated with these reconstructions.
– – –
It is not clear that Dr. Mann and his associates even realized that their
methodology was faulty at the time of writing the MBH paper.
– – –
We found MBH98 and MBH99 to be somewhat obscure and incomplete and the
criticisms of MM03/05a/05b to be valid and compelling.
– – –
Overall, our committee believes that Mann’s assessments that the decade of
the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the
hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.”
https://www.rossmckitrick.com/paleoclimatehockey-stick.html
The jury just awarded Mann $1,000,000. Hard to believe consdering the tsunami of evidence plainly showing Penn State whitewashed the Mann investigation just as they protected Sandusky. Incredible. I also consider this a blow against free speech, maybe even more damaging than the Pentagon Papers had the Supreme Court not intervened in favor of the newspapers printing those documents.
Oh, this should be interesting. That’s a great win for science and scientists if so.
Great win for science? Not sure how you see that since the hockey stick science has long been rendered erroneous and the evidence in thios trial did absolutely nothing to disprove that. But perhaps you were never exposed to the scientists that reached those conclusions in the early-to-mid 2000s. Let me refresh your memory:
Statisticians blast Hockey Stick, Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick
Financial Post, Wednesday, August 23, 2006
“The recently released final report of a panel of three independent statisticians,
chaired by an eminent statistics professor, Edward Wegman, chairman of the
U.S. National Academy of Sciences committee on theoretical and applied
statistics, has resoundingly upheld criticisms of the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph
of Michael Mann and associates.
The Wegman report, which was submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives
energy and commerce committee in July, stated that our published criticisms of
Mann’s methodology were ‘valid and compelling,’ and concluded that ‘Mann’s
assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the
millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be
supported by his analysis.’
This comes on the heels of an earlier report in June by a National Research
Council (NRC) panel chaired by Gerald North, of Texas A&M University, which
also endorsed specific criticisms of Mann’s methodology and which concluded
that no statistical confidence could be placed in his claims that temperatures in
the 1990s exceeded those in the medieval warm period.”
=============================================================
Wegman Report Highlights:
“While the work of Michael Mann and colleagues presents what appears to be
compelling evidence of global temperature change, the criticisms of McIntyre
and McKitrick, as well as those of other authors mentioned are indeed valid.
– – –
Where we have commonality, I believe our report and the NRC panel essentially
agree. …We believe that our discussion together with the discussion from the
NRC report should take the ‘centering’ issue off the table. [Mann’s] decentred
methodology is simply incorrect mathematics … I am baffled by the claim that
the incorrect method doesn’t matter because the answer is correct anyway.
Method Wrong Answer Correct = Bad Science.
– – –
The papers of Mann et al. in themselves are written in a confusing manner,
making it difficult for the reader to discern the actual methodology and what
uncertainty is actually associated with these reconstructions.
– – –
It is not clear that Dr. Mann and his associates even realized that their
methodology was faulty at the time of writing the MBH paper.
– – –
We found MBH98 and MBH99 to be somewhat obscure and incomplete and the
criticisms of MM03/05a/05b to be valid and compelling.
– – –
Overall, our committee believes that Mann’s assessments that the decade of
the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the
hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.”
https://www.rossmckitrick.com/paleoclimatehockey-stick.html
You mean this Wegman report?
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wegman_Report
Yeah, not sure that’s a banner you want to be waving too proudly. Wegman failed to show that any of the criticisms of MBH actually materially affected the results, in addition to being beset by plagiarism and goofy errors (like blithely repeating the M&M claim that red noise produced hockey sticks by pulling the top of a sample of red noise series M&M had sorted by how “hockey-sickish” they were).
The bottom line is that Mann’s approach was sound, and his results have been reproduced and confirmed in the 25+ years since by multitudes of independent studies.
AlanJ,
Your hero clearly is a bad player. Here’s an email that shows that he and his peers thought a journal was hijacked simply due to one singular skeptic paper that made it through. Tim Osborn even admitted that he didn’t read the paper, but it still ‘spoiled his day.’ It was actually them that did the hijacking, and they thought their tribalist fortifications ensured their ‘club’ was safe.
Having read the Soon and Baliunas paper, I wholeheartedly agree with Mann’s assessment. So did two of the journal’s editors, who resigned in protest at what they believed to be an abject failure of the journal’s review process. It really is impossible to believe that the publication of a paper as bad as this one was an accident.
The MannEgo could very well explode.