https://tnc.news/2024/02/08/mann-defamation-lawsuit-steyn-simberg2/
By Andrew Lawton
A Washington, D.C. jury has found that conservative writers Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg defamed climate scientist Michael Mann.
The jury deliberated for close to a full day before reaching its decision.
At issue were two blog posts, one by Steyn and one by Simberg, comparing the investigation into alleged academic misconduct by Mann, then a Penn State professor, to Penn State’s handling of Jerry Sandusky, the school’s former head of athletics who raped and molested children.
“If an institution is prepared to cover up systemic statutory rape of minors, what won’t it cover up?” Steyn wrote in his post, which quoted Simberg’s.
The jury awarded Mann $1 in compensatory damages from each plaintiff. It also awarded $1,000 in punitive damages from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn.
The jury found that the statements at issue were defamatory and published with reckless disregard for the truth. They also found that Mann suffered actual injury from the statements’ publication.
Mann sued Steyn and Simberg, along with their respective publishers National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Group in 2012, claiming the posts damaged his reputation as a climate scientist.
In a trial that stretched on for three-and-a-half weeks, Mann claimed he felt like a pariah in his community, noting he once received a dirty look from someone in a grocery store. He said he lost significant grant funding after the blog posts were published, but was not able to produce any evidence linking this to the posts.
Steyn and Simberg argued that Mann’s stature, earnings and reputation have only improved since 2012, meaning that even if he had been defamed, he had suffered no damages, which the plaintiff in a defamation suit must prove.
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I presume there’s a right of appeal?
Most folks get a bit confused over the right of appeal in this country. Appeals based on how a jury rules on the “facts” are extremely limited. In other words the juries ruling on the fact of defamation is very hard to overturn. Appeals are on the law, standing and numerous other esoteric points of law. I am not an attorney so everything I say is hokum. The main understanding to take from this is that the left has now learned how to capture juries and this is a sad day for freedom of speech and america and the world. Once juries rule like dictators we be in trouble.
Story Tip:
https://thecountersignal.com/socialist-mp-wants-to-imprison-pro-oil-and-gas-canadians/
“this is a sad day for freedom of speech and america and the world.”
Sad day, indeed.
Charlie Angus is a mentally retarded NDP mp whose policy will never become law.
What “facts” did the jury decide on when awarding 1,000 times as much against Steyn as against Simberg? Hatred is not a fact. It remains a mystery to me why juries are even entrusted with such calculations.
They just made it up, Brad.
No facts involved, that is for sure.
But, the SCOTUS has previously ruled that punitive damages that are more than 10x the actual damages are unconstitutional.
And the trial judge can still vacate this award.
In fact, most jury awards of magnitude are greatly reduced upon appeal.
There is no evidence given that Steyn even has a million dollars to pay such damages, which would make such an award unlawful and unenforceable if it turns out Steyn has no ability to pay such an amount.
One dollar actual and a million punitive sounds ridiculous, and may be unprecedented. Juries cannot just do whatever they want and have it stick, so I am hopeful this travesty will not stand.
As Mann’s attorney requested, they were sending a message that disagreeing with the climate alarmists will no longer be tolerated.
Facts can be and are routinely disputed in appeals. For example, if a judge does not allow certain evidence or testimony to be considered by the jury, the respondent can appeal such judgments, which are matters of fact. If the appellant wins, then the case can be remanded back to trial with a directive to allow the disputed evidence or testimony to be considered.
It’s probably not worth throwing good money after bad.
I take that back based on, “The U.S. Supreme Court has indicated that punitive damages awards 10 times greater than compensatory damages awards are generally unconstitutional.”
I hope our local legal experts will weigh in.
DC appellate courts have a long history of NOT limiting the ration of punitive to compensatory damages.
https://www.jordancoyne.com/district-of-columbia/2012/03/06/defendants-still-need-beware-punitive-damages-district-columbia/
Add to that the fact that Mann committed a clear act of perjury in his grant statements and his lawyers knowingly entered false documents into the record? Does that not factor into it?
Not necessarily into the decision.
As for Mann and his lawyers – they were not on trial and the questions given to the jury were solely based on defamation by Steyn and Simberg.
Is there any truth in my theory that punitive damages are the equivalent of “killing the odds” by a significant raise in poker, such that the opponent doesn’t have value in “seeing cards”?
You never kill the odds by overbetting thousand times!
You are correct. i assume the trial judge will remit most of the Punitive award before entering judgment.
There always is. Unfortunately, what likely can’t be appealed successfully is the finding itself.
Mann is free (as he lives in a country that offers Constitutional rights to those who toe the party line) to award this jury the Nobel Prize for Climate Doom and Gloom.
It’s a DC jury after all. Consider how MD, DC and NoVA vote and remember that almost all of the influential federal employees live in those three areas no matter who is president.
“This guy used to fill in for Rush Limbaugh?”
“Make him pay!”
I think karl needed to add a sarcasm tag, since he earned three down votes.
Yeah it’s a definite sarc post.
Heh — either they missed the quote marks or they just hate me.
Some who comment often forget that others, even those who also post often, aren’t familiar enough with them to “fill in the blanks” and realize where they were coming from.
I remember when I first found WUWT that someone made a comment that I came down hard on. Another commenter me told me that he was “one of the good guys”.
(Of course, back then, if he’d added a “/sarc” tag, I likely wouldn’t known what it meant. 😎
PS In those days, there was no “Up or Down” voting. No “reply”. Just a comment. (Though you could “copy/paste” what you the part to which you were replying.)
PS I’m guilty of forgetting the sarc tag or the “8-)” when my comment is not meant to be taken to seriously.
I would like to see an appeal but prior to any appeal there needs to be funding from a kind and sympathetic benefactor to take financial pressure off of the defendants. Any one wish to put their hand up?
I assume that the punitive awards will be cut way way back based on Supreme Court cases by the trial judge before he enters the judgment.
So no justice then. So sad.
Mann has gone to the toilet on the US constitution and wiped his behind on the US 1st amendment. And that’s me restraining myself after getting a previous comment deleted.
It was and is the corrupt DC federal judges. Why else would Mann and his backers sue in the DC district?
There are Anti-Slapp laws on the books in DC that the original Obama judge ignored when she did not dismiss the case at the very beginning.
There was a reason that Harry Reid changed the rules for Judge appointments from 60% to 50 + 1, which was to stack the DC district, and it has worked brilliantly for the Dems.
Anyone who expects justice from a jury, especially one in D.C. is a fool.
‘DC’ jury?
Someone once said “A ham sandwich could get convicted by a jury in DC”. Or something to that affect.
Unfortunately, Steyn gets fed a shit sandwich and Mann is taking his bread.
No, the classic line refers to getting an indictment from a grand jury, not a conviction.
This is a good day for science – it’s difficult to overstate how damaging these kinds of false and vile attacks against scientist’s personal character has been. It probably didn’t help Steyn’s defense that he spent much of his closing argument doubling down on the nasty personal attacks on Mann that got him into court in the first place.
I’ll be curious to see how this is going to be spun by the contrarian set.
As always in AnalJ-World, white is black and black is gray.
Very little gray area in this case. Steyn believed he could brazenly commit whatever acts of libel against scientists he pleased, confident that he would not face any resistance from scientists afraid to stick their necks out into a politically heated space. He learned differently today. Hopefully it’s a lesson for anyone who thinks that vile personal attacks based on egregious falsehoods are the best way to win their war against science.
“ vile personal attacks based on egregious falsehoods are the best way to win their war against science.”
Yet it was all Mann has… vile falsehoods about anyone that disagrees with him, and no science to back up his own statistical maleficence..
It is all the climate cabal have.
Mann had no science.. YOU have no science.
There is no science supporting the fabrication of the AGW scam.
Always projecting.
Science has been coopted just as Eisenhauer warned against. Mann is but a dweeb soldier in the climate change Trojan horse.
And always prevaricating.
Heh, you don’t know the first thing about case law. Why do you think Mann was awarded only $1 in damages? He couldn’t prove any damage. His case was that bad. And why do you think Steyn was fined $1 million when there clearly was no damage to Mann? A majority of the jury are leftists who believe that climate “denialism” should be punished. It’s the most ridiculous award for a crime that doesn’t exist.
The defense’s argument that Mann managed to withstand their very best efforts to use contemptuous lies to destroy him professionally may indeed mean that the jury found the material damages were limited, but I’m not sure that that’s a compelling vindication of Steyn’s heinous actions, moreso a tribute to Mann’s resilience.
It seems utterly impossible that anyone could be such an incredibly obsequious brownnoser. All evidence points to you being a paid shill or a Mann sock puppet.
But everyone here knows full well what the judgement of history will be. It will not be kind to the thieving liars who foisted this scam on the world, and you know it.
So enjoy your moments of unearned triumph while you can.
The truth always prevails in the end.
AlanJ,
Did you not learn of the insults from Mann to Curry before Simberg and Steyn wrote the words? Given in evidence?
Yet the jury verdict might indicate that the only words that mattered were those of the defendants.
Geoff S
Plaintiffs.
Mike,
I mean that Judith Curry was badly described by Mann before the Defendants words (Simberg and Steyn) but the jury chose not to listen to earlier stuff. Geoff S
I don’t recall Mann being on trial in this case. If Curry feels that she was defamed by Mann she should feel empowered to seek restitution through the court.
Shuttup.
Truth is not defamation Mann is a fraud.
I am not sure Mr Mann is a fraud. I am quite certain that his hockey stick chart is fraudulent. I think this, because I read MBH 98 and the papers written analyzing it by M &M. The fraudulent analysis and report on temperatures was covered up by the university as they claimed, and still claim, that they investigated his methods and results and, inexplicably, found no errors. It means they cannot possibly teach physics and statistics there. It is either that or they lied.
That jury is laughable. The punitive damages are a million times the damage? That is a farce, like the claim there was no Middle Ages Warm Period.
Read the post at DesMogBlog on this matter. It is full end to end with lies, misquotes and misrepresentations. Why do they do it? Because that’s all they’ve got.
I think the witness of the university investigation said it didn’t have the powers to do a full investigation of fraud. Before the Uni President (Spanier) was contacted with a draft (not for Spanier to edit) but Spanier replied with what I call “advice” in 10 bullet points, the investigation committee were going to say they couldn’t determine Mann’s guilt either way (Yes or No). Spanier then told Mann it would be OK, don’t worry (or something like that). It’s not a glowing endorsement of Mann & still very questionable.
Correct, very little grey in this case because the trial evidence — which I have seen and you have not — clearly illustrates Simberg and Steyn were indeed accurate in their portrayals of Penn State’s coverups for both Sandusky and Mann. Not only were they not guilty of egregious falsehoods, but the evidence actually showed Mann was even worse than Simberg and Steyn actually portrayed. Again, the jury simply chose to ignore the evidence.
Didn’t realise there was a scientist involved.
Like I actually care what your ill-informed opinion is on this, or any other subject, frankly. You are a waste of space and you would be best served never posting anything and giving that space to someone actually worthwhile to state their views.
So much for the ‘freedom of speech‘ champions, lol!
This place really is an echo chamber.
If this place was an echo chamber, then you, AJ, Simon, TFN and many others would have been banned.
What is it about you climate alarmists and your inability to state anything accurately?
Could it because of the fact that you are lashing out at others simply for holding opinions divergent from your own?
This place really is an echo chamber.
Did anyone state that AJ should be banned? AJ is still free to post here if he wants, so there is no free speech infringement.
Are you always this clueless?
Nothing has been imposed on AlanJ – I have the freedom of speech (for now) to make a suggestion as to what I think is a more worthwhile use of the space on WUWT, and he has the freedom to ignore or uphold my suggestion. You may not like it but that is freedom of speech. Now why don’t you assume that you and ghastly are included in the comment and vanish back under your rocks?
A lot of people attacked Albert Einstein- his work, his race, his lifestyle, his hair- and he never sued anyone because he had class as a human being.
Yes, you are vile.
And that’s on his good days.
It is not libel since he said nothing that was not 100% true.
Unlike you.
The truth used to be an absolute defense against libel.
Today, that’s only true for the party faithful.
As always in conservative world, should anyone dare to hold an opposing view, they predictably cry foul, accusing others of suppressing free speech!
Free-speech cannot exist in the totalitarian marxist world that leftist scum want to see.
Only what the far-left say, can be allowed. !
What you wrote just confirmed what I wrote, and I get it. The government’s grand plan: turn us into a real-life Soviet Union! Apparently, they’re itching to scrutinize every little option and inspect every word that escapes our mouths!
That is the marxist way.. total control.
You have just proven that is what you want.
Can you prove that that is what I want? Point which words specifically, please.
“As always in conservative world, should anyone dare to hold an opposing view, they predictably cry foul, accusing others of suppressing free speech!“. ‘Conservative’ sites regularly defend the right to be heard of those they oppose. Here’s one example, but there is any number of them if you take the time to look: “It’s a depressing scene. The establishment seems to have abandoned any pretence of caring about the right to free speech. It is a right that desperately needs defending, even in cases like Sam Melia’s, where the opinions being expressed are genuinely abhorrent.“.- Spiked
And you think that conservatives or this site is a banner for speech? It’s definitely not. Jim Steele called a person in one of his recent threads with an opposing view a ‘Sky Dragon.’ The only way for extremism to rise is with extremism. Conservatives can play innocent all they want – that’s just the law of politics and human nature. They can’t be completely innocent.
You seem to be trying to attack conservatives, but you are not doing a very good job of it with your disjointed statements.
In another post he declared that WUWT is an echo chamber.
If WUWT really was an echo chamber, he and AJ would have been banned long ago. That’s what almost all climate alarmist sites do. They ban everyone who doesn’t agree with the narrative.
Indeed you are right, he called me a Sky Dragon when I pointed out his fake physics. He had no science (or humility), only name-calling. Willis is the same. However, I would not go so far as to say that that disqualifies either of them as a “conservative”, or an opponent of free speech. Remember, conservatives can be idiots too, just like anyone else.
But the difference is that at WUWT, you can post any fake science you like, and even insult people who clearly know better than you, and you will not be censored. Try posting real science (politely) somewhere like The Conversation or Skeptical Science, though. Good luck! You will be censored and banned faster than you can say “Jiminy Cricket”!
He called me an ignorant troll and retard because I pointed out that his own reference disagreed with his claims that IR cannot warm water.
Even so I will always defend his (and others) right to call me whatever he wants regardless of how inflammatory it is without fear of reciprocation. I don’t think it is reasonable to hold WUWT article authors or other bloggers to the same standard of decorum that others should be held to.
I still have no idea what a ‘Sky Dragon’ is or even if it is an insult or a compliment. I do, however know what an ignorant troll and a retard is, bdgwx.
Richard, I think the “Sky Dragon” term comes from the group calling themselves the “Sky Dragon Slayers”, who I believe are the ones calling CO2 itself the supposed “Sky Dragon”, in honour of its putative role in roasting the planet. So the “Slayers” are the ones who point out that CO2 is not, in fact, doing that. I would judge this term a compliment, because it requires knowing more about physics than the so-called “climate scientists” do, but that’s a fairly low bar.
Un-demonizing (or un-dragonizing) CO2 comes in at least two flavours: 1) pointing out that there is no obvious correlation between CO2 levels and atmospheric or surface temperatures, and to the extent that there is any detectable causation, it goes the other way; and 2) pointing out that there is no detectable radiant power at the surface being delivered by atmospheric CO2 (or any other gas for that matter).
I think the “Dragon Slayers” are more focused on the second point, since the first one is more easily accepted by non-physics-trained skeptics. The second one is harder to grasp if you are immersed in the fake physics of the climate scientists, and have no physics training yourself.
Therefore I think Jim either did, or should have, referred to me as a “Sky Dragon Slayer“, not a “Sky Dragon”. I don’t recall exactly what term he used, or whether he even knows the difference himself. However, all I was doing was pointing out his fake physics. I made no reference to “dragons” at all; but I can see why the “Dragon Slayers” do it.
Wow, what a little baby you are.
Insulting someone means you are against free speech?
(MarkW):
(Also MarkW):
Trying to hide after the fact, will not help your totalitarian tendencies.
Oh look, there are 2 of ghastly now – gh()stly and gh(0stly.
“this is a sad day for freedom of speech and america and the world.”
https://thecountersignal.com/socialist-mp-wants-to-imprison-pro-oil-and-gas-canadians/
Let me see if I have the left wing logic down.
Insulting someone who disagrees with you means you are opposed to free speech.
Wanting to jail those who disagree with you means you are a supporter of free speech.
I would call it “outrageous/totalitarian. “Sad” implies acceptance.
You celebrate when people you disagree with are punished.
lol in your little mind.
Didn’t Biden try to set up a Dept of Misinformation, in order to go after anyone who says, posts or prints something the government disagrees with?
LOLOL . . . says the guy that supports a movement that actively uses terms such as ‘climate deniers,’ evoking images of Catholic clerics putting ‘heretics’ to death during Inquisition and confiscating their private property. The Mann trial was little more than an Inquisition.
So a request that the jury award punitive damages to punish “climate denialism”, doesn’t suppress free speech?
Do you really believe that words mean whatever you want them to mean?
Agreed. Now for the chorus of pseudo-skeptics wailing about how science has supposedly been hijacked, free speech is under attack, and the usual blah, blah, blah!
Yeah. These alarmists predicted an end to “fee speech” just because this lawsuit was even started. Imagine how shrill they’ll get now that Steyn has lost. No one will ever be able to utter a word on public again!
Grab the women and children and head for the hills. The end is nigh.
Joshua,
Are you trying to beat me in a downvote contest? LOL
I think you are winning that contest.
I think you are an idiot.
You have already proven yourself to be an idiot.
Tut, tut – you defamed him with your comment. He is now perfectly within his rights, as defined by this case, to sue you for damages and expect at least $1 million to be awarded. I think you should be more careful now – ALL negative comments are now defamatory, irrespective of whether that can be proven.
You don’t like hearing the truth, I see. That’s too bad. You won’t be too happy around here.
Free speech is under attack. Why do you think the ACLU, a very left-leaning group, and two dozen mostly left-leaning organization representing the press, filed amicus briefs in support of Steyn urging the case be dismissed before it even went to trial? Read the list yourself.
https://www.steynonline.com/documents/6515.pdf
This is a very bad decision, legally.
The brief states, “The District of Columbia enacted the anti-SLAPP statute, D.C. Code §§ 16-5501 et seq. (2011), to prevent claims based on speech about matters of public interest from advancing past the initial stages of litigation unless the plaintiff can demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits.”
Well, here we are. The case was allowed to proceed and the appeal rejected because two judges believed a reasonable jury might find for the plaintiff, so the challenge for the plaintiff to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits was met.
The brief also states, “The challenged statements were made in settings and using language that conveyed they were opinions.” Steyn then spent months and months going around insisting that everything he said was factually accurate that his defense would prevail on truth. Oops.
You didn’t address the question, which was a rebuttal to your dismissal of our legitimate claims of “free speech under attack”. Here it is again:
Why do you think the ACLU, a very left-leaning group, and two dozen mostly left-leaning organization representing the press, filed amicus briefs in support of Steyn urging the case be dismissed before it even went to trial?
Answer: because it’s an attack on free speech as those organizations recognize. Most of those that filed an amicus brief normally normally side with climate alarmists like Michael Mann because it’s their orthodoxy, too, but in this case they decided free speech was more important than blindly siding with one of their own.
They filed the brief because:
a. They thought the condition of the plaintiff demonstrating a likelihood of success on the merits was not met, which was disagreed with by two separate judges, who both found that a reasonable jury could find for the plaintiff (as they did), and
b. because it was reasonable to assume, at the time, that Steyn would endorse the idea of his defamatory remarks as being nothing more than unsubstantiated opinion. But Steyn doubled down and insisted that they were not opinion but verifiable fact, and that he wanted a trial on the merits.
One can imagine that the ACLU might take a different stance in light of these facts, which are known to us only in retrospect. The ACLU does not endorse defamation.
AJ is very good at not answering the question asked.
Indeed it seems to be the only mental skill he has mastered.
The actual damages were deemed to be $1 from each by the Jury, which are $1 away from nothing each. That would imply Mann didn’t present a strong case regarding proof of actual damage needing to be compensated for. This happens when the prosecution shouldn’t win but the Jury doesn’t want the defendants to be exonerated.
A really bad day for science.
It means any clown can publish any garbage that supports the mythical “CO2 warming” and nobody is allowed to question or counter it with facts and the truth.
Just the totalitarian way the far-left marxist SCUM like AlanJ want it.
Science is a MASSIVE LOSER from this far-leftist anti-fact decision.
But then, AlJ doesn’t have any actual science to LOSE.
He will remain, as he always has been, a mathematical and scientific illiterate.
What damage, just $1 actual damage awarded from each?
And $1,000 more from Simberg and $1,000,000 from Steyn.
The punitive damages are punishment & also based on capacity to pay. They are not an indication of actual harm. These punitive damages can easily be reduced to probably 4x to maximum 10x the compensatory damages as is the precedents (standard guidelines from higher court of appeal). So that’s $10 & $10 added to the $1 each.
While man was offended, he had no loss of reputation & no loss of income that the Jury could find from these comments. The impact of other comments, video, leaked emails & his own behaviour probably had much greater negative impact on his reputation but even then, Mann showed no financial damage & unlikely to in any other case.
You’re rather generous to call Mann a scientist. He is at the center of the cabal that has perverted science by knowing, purposeful manipulation of data to support a pet theory that has not been validated to date because, well, they molested the data. And tortured it. They tacitly admitted it in the leaked climategate emails. This isn’t science. It’s religious orthodoxy with a veneer of scienceyness applied to try to make it look legitimate. Mann is one of the worst of the Climate Inquisitors as his self-serving, ridiculous lawsuit demonstrated. Everything about the way he did this reveals his petty, self-righteous, and vile character.
Sue me, Mann. I live in a state that wouldn’t put up with your nonsense lawsuit for one minute. It would get tossed out of court, as this one should have.
You provide a striking example of just why such defamatory attacks are so damaging. You are repeating the very same attacks based on the very same falsehoods that Steyn proliferated and invented, likely only partly aware of the fact.
I think it reveals commendable character. Mann has been the denier’s punching bag for years and years, a thankless position he willingly assumed because he understood the importance of standing up against these vile attacks on science.
LMAO, 47 downvotes on your original post! In one hour! New record?
Not even close to the record, sockpuppet-breath.
“Mann has been the denier’s punching bag for years and years, a thankless position…”
A “thankless position”? Mann is a rockstar at any accumulation of Lefties. You have written an obviously false statement.
What color is the sky in your world?
I think it reveals commendable character.
petty, self-righteous, and vile character…
Must feel like you are looking in a mirror, hey AlanJ !
Ha ha ha! You keep using that word: science. I do not think it means what you think it means.
The thing you call “science” is a religious orthodoxy about the causes of global warming, er, “climate change”: that it’s the CO2, the whole CO2, and nothing but the CO2, a fact that not only has never been proved, and in fact has been refuted repeatedly by observations, by paleoclimate data, and by actual science. These aren’t vile attacks on “science”. They are factual statements about the lack of supporting evidence for the widespread myth of catastrophic man-made global warming, er, “climate change”.
Mann attacks others on X, All. The. Time.
He uses generalisations too. He’s just a straight out insecure, immature, nasty piece of work.
Underneath, in his heart of hearts, Mann knows he is a fraud. That’s why he is so vicious in defaming his critics.
The sole consolation is that he will never, ever experience the immense joy and satisfaction from accomplishing a real discovery. That’s worth far more than all the adulation and wealth he has received.
To AJ and other alarmists, it’s OK when “climate deniers” are being attacked. After all, they view themselves as the good guys, which means that anything they do is justified.
“The ends justify any means…”
Where have I heard this before?
“Denier”
You defame the people who disagree with climate doomsday and yet play the victim 😞 just sad and pathetic.
Mann’s junk science has been known for years thanks to McKitrik and McIntyre. Perhaps you should actually read some of it which, clearly, you have not:
https://www.rossmckitrick.com/paleoclimatehockey-stick.html
Statisticians Blast Hockey Stick, By 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.”
Excerpts form the Wegman report:
“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.”
“I think it reveals commendable character. Mann has been the denier’s punching bag for years and years,”
And rightfully so, and he will continue to be a punching bag because the truth didn’t change with this ruling.
Mann’s bogus Hockey Stick is still BS (Bad Science). It still misleads the public into believing things that are just not true.
Who do you call a scientist? Tony Heller? Ed Barry? Steve Milloy? Your cat?
Someone that follows the scientific method. Which excludes Mike Mann and Phil Jones, just for starters.
Based on what? Stolen private emails?
You must be 12 years old since there were many exposes of his garbage paper that were played out in several published papers and in numerous blog exposes.
There were also several, upon several studies that went in favor of the hockey stick.
Name one.
See my post below.
Same cherry picked data, same disproven methods. Hardly surprising that they came to same fraudulent results.
What is the physical meaning of a principal component?
What is the resolution of a 1C/division mercury LiG thermometer?
Pat Frank,
Red herring? But I’ll play your game.
A principal component, in this context, represents modes of temperature variation. The first principle component is the correspondent to the dominant trend in the data – long term temperature increase.
Each division on the LiG thermometer scale represents a temperature change of 1 degree Celsius. It’s kind of self-explanatory.
gh()stly,
You fail. The correct term is “Principal” that you got wrong second time around.
In statistics, if you have a bundle of numbers representing what you think is cause and effect, you can derive a number (the first pc) from them that identifies which causes are most involved in explaining the effect.
The second pc shows the next most explanatory number for the. And so on.
The pc is not a measurement with physical meaning. It is more like a probability of cause. The various pcs in an exercise have meaning mainly relative to each other. Which pc or combination of pcs to use for further analysis and understanding is subjective. The first pc need not be the best to use for understanding the cause. As soon as subjectivity enters the thinking, uncertainty rises as Prof Wyner related so explicity in his evidence.
Geoff S
Aside from your strict preference over terminology, I’m not sure what you consider a fail, Geoff. Nothing in your word salad doesn’t deviate from what I wrote.
“Nothing in your word salad doesn’t deviate from what I wrote.”
This does: “The pc is not a measurement with physical meaning.” It utterly exposes the falsehood.
From your double negative, I take it you agree.
gh()stly,
You see my comment on principal components as “word salad”.
Maybe, likewise, you also see principal component analysis as word salad.
Here is a test.
My preference is to learn from comments by people who have actually conducted PCR. I have.
Have you?
Geoff S
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/02/08/jury-finds-in-favor-of-michael-mann-in-defamation-lawsuit-against-mark-steyn-rand-simberg/#comment-3864261
Geoff, you just added additional context to what I said. PCAs are simply mathematical constructs that represent patterns of variation in the original data. Do you pseudo-skeptics enjoy constructing straw men and arguing against them?
Red herring just means you’ve got no idea.
Principal components are numerical constructs. They have no distinct physical meaning.
Mann assigned temperature by statistical fiat
The 2σ measurement resolution of high quality 1C/division LiG thermometers is about ±0.2 C.
The air temperature record is reported with an uncertainty smaller than the thermometers could measure.
Courtesy of Phil Jones.
Both of your heroes magicked data our of thin air.
You forget that it was you who brought principal component analysis into the discussion – a red herring. Short-term memory loss, or just selective amnesia?
I never claimed they were my heroes, Pat. Tommy here introduced an Appeal to Authority, and I merely countered with one.
The difference is that I have READ them, and you obviously have not as you show how little you understand what happened.
They actually published in 2003 and 2005 exposing the problems of the Dr. Mann 1998 paper.
The defense of his paper was using the same crap he was using, and they are his fellow supporters thus NO independent verification.
Climate Audit is the blog I referred to by the same man who exposed the shoddy H.S. paper in the first place when he published in 2005.
You brought up the Hockey Stick.
Mann’s 1998/1999 Hockey Stick is PC1. Evidently you didn’t know that. It’s physically meaningless.
Replicated pseudo-science is still pseudo-science.
Why isn’t citing the Hockey Stick and its replications, which you clearly didn’t understand, an appeal to authority?
No, I didn’t. Tommy did.
What do I not understand, Pat? Do you think that Geoff’s word salad refuted anything I said?
Sunsettommy commented on his garbage. You brought up the hockey stick in response.
“word salad”
I already pointed out that Geoff’s “The pc is not a measurement with physical meaning.” utterly exposed the falsehood of your “principal component, in this context, represents modes of temperature variation.”
Mann’s PC1 didn’t have any distinct physical meaning.
A salad was present in the exchange, but it wasn’t Geoff’s.
The markings may be 1 degree Celsius apart, but the resolution would be 0.5 degree Celsius as the human reading the thermometer could see the mercury level lying between two markings. I was taught that the resolution of any analogue device was half of the difference between two adjacent markings.
There’s also the intrinsic resolution of the LiG thermometer itself — the minimum movement of the mercury that provides a reliable indication of a temperature change.
For a 1C/division, LiG thermometer, that’s ±0.2 C (2σ). Granting your 0.5 C visual limit, the total uncertainty in any visual reading would be the root-sum-square = ±0.54 C.
Those emails were generate by employees of publicly financed institutions using the work accounts and were, therefore, properly in the public domain and subject to FoI disclosure requests. They were clearly leaked by an insider, not stolen, after the authors and their institutions improperly refused FOIA requests for data used in the production of the Hockey Stick paper. It was the publication of the Climategate emails, after all, that lead to the accusations of fraud and misconduct and the resultant Penn State sham investigation and Whitewash that precipitated Simberg and Steyn’s comments. This entire law suit was a farce and should have been dismissed as a SLAPP lawsuit at the outset. Justice in the US is dying a gruesome death in the hands of progressive politicians masquerading as judges.
I’m not sure they were leaked, nor if it was some form of intrusion.
They may have even been stored in a publicly accessible location which somebody stumbled upon.
The actual emails and files released have the distinct appearance of having been collated in response to an FOI request.
One other theory that was advanced was that they were an archive in a backup storage file. The only people that can answer that haven’t.
That’s certainly possible. The contents were an odd mix for just being an archive, though.
The contents were carefully selected. Entire threads of conversation with context, not just a complete email backup.
If it was a complete email backup, I’d support the idea it was stolen or found, but in this case the person behind it had clearly done a lot of work in producing it.
Hence leaked is the best explanation.
There was also code and the README file.
It was a very specific extract, and a very competent piece of work.
On that basis, it appears to be work done in response to an FOI request, along the lines of “provide all emails, code and data related to X”.
My assumption is that UEA decided quite late in the piece to reject this particular request after much of the work had been completed.
Not based on stolen private emails. Based on a junk science paper MBH 98 and the much admired exposure of its gross flaws. At present I believe Mann was unaware of how amateurish his recentring and PCA work was. He actually thought he did it in a valid manner. Don’t assume conspiracy about things which can be explained by arrogance, ignorance and stupidity.
In an email to Gavin Schmidt, Mann referred to his “back to 1400 CENSORED” folder as “dirty laundry.”
Steve McIntyre recovered that folder from Mann’s ftp site. It contained evidence of Mann’s statistical misdoings.
Mann regretted to Gavin having left his dirty laundry where someone could find it. Evidence is that Mann knew exactly what he was doing, when he produced his hockey stick.
There is no evidence that they were stolen. The evidence points to it being leaked by an insider.
Regardless, the emails have been verified as accurate.
The LEAKED e-mails proved the intent to deceive.
But even if they were “stolen” they revealed TRUTH.
A monkey would be a better scientist than Mickey Mann ever can be.
Wanna bet?
So you admit it is a possibility. OK !!
Mann is actually the negative of a scientist…
Everything he does is anti-science.
So yes a monkey will always be a better real scientist than Mickey Mann, because it would not make garbage up, twist data, use unviable statistical methods etc etc… just to support some crazy anti-human ideology.
No, I’m just responding to what you said. I’m willing to bet that Michael Mann would be a better scientist than a monkey. Monkeys don’t know how to read or write.
Writing nothing, vs writing lies.
How about Professor Edward Wegman, 2006 chairman of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences committee on theoretical and applied statistics:
https://www.rossmckitrick.com/paleoclimatehockey-stick.html
Statisticians Blast Hockey Stick, By 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.”
Excerpts from the Wegman report:
“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.”
Let me know when you can produce the input data and source code for the Hockey Stick graph because no one else can. Why is that? Because Mann refuses to provide it and that is blatantly anti-science.
“Because Mann refuses to provide it and that is blatantly anti-science.”
Completely untrue. McIntyre had it, and rproduced the results. He ran a long series of posts about it, eg here. And in fact his results, with and without the famous short centering, agreed with Mann’s. Here is Fig 1 of McIntyre’s 2005 paper.
No, he didn’t. He used what he thought was Mann’s original data – turns out it wasn’t and Mann’s work cannot be replicated with the data that Mann grudgingly supplied. After an analysis by another scientist showed an accurate replication, they determined that Mann had supplied false information about his data and proxies – lying about ones he’d ommitted and used. He still refuses to hand over the actual material, 25 years after the work. Anti-Science.
The claim was that Mann hid the data and code. Just a lie. Man posted the data and code, and McIntyre (among others) used it to successfully emulate his result. McIntyre did some nitpicking, as he always does. The data came from other sources, which are also publicly available. That is where Mann got it.
Here are MM2005 describing where they found the decentering, that so much was made of, and which had no actual effect:
“Instead, MBH98 Fortran code (ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/ MBH98/TREE/ITRDB/NOAMER/pca-noamer) contains an unusual data transformation prior to PC calculation that has never been reported in print. Each tree ring series was transformed by subtracting the 1902–1980 mean, then dividing by the 1902–1980 standard deviation and dividing again by the standard deviation of the residuals from fitting a linear trend in the 1902–1980 period.”
And here is Mann reporting the step (Corrigendum SI, 2004)
“All predictors (proxy and long instrumental and historical/instrumental records) and predictand (20th century instrumental record) were standardized, prior to the analysis, through removal of the calibration period (1902-1980) mean and normalization by the calibration period standard deviation. Standard deviations e calculated from the linearly detrended gridpoint series, to avoid leverage by non-stationary 20th century trends. The results are not sensitive to this step (Mann et al, in review).”
WEell, OK, you have to parse McI carefully. That isn’t “in print”, but is in a clearly marked explanation of the algorithm in the SI files posted.
Where are the uncertainty limits on your hockey sticks, Nitpick?
Trendology is such a joke.
You should ask Steve McIntyre that question, they’re his plots.
Thank you, AlanJ. Yes, as I clearly said, it is a plot from McIntyre and McKitrick, 2005.
Nick,
You might have to reconsider your comments in the light of this Climate Audit article by Steve McIntyre. It reports on reverse engineering by Hampus Soderqvist, to identify a long-sought proxy for the HS.
Steve could not have reproduced Mann’s work as you claim this graph to show, because he has never had the complete data.
So, your much-shown graphs above are not final, but more like steps along the way in an effort to understand which proxies really went into the hockey stick data mincer.
It would have been more simple if Michael Mann had:
Many of my own past publications were reports to statutory authorities, where these 3 points were taken as requirements, with penalties for straying. Failure to comply in the global world of science has now been partly responsible for the much-used words “replication crisis”.
Geoff S
…….
“Mann’s Other Nature Trick” Nov 24, 2023.
https://climateaudit.org/2023/11/24/mbh98-new-light-on-the-real-data/
“Steve could not have reproduced Mann’s work as you claim this graph to show, because he has never had the complete data”
OK, tears of digging have found one (out of 100 or so) proxies that he forgot to list. None of the emulations so far have been significantly different from MBH98, and this extra proxy won’t make any difference either.
Name that one proxy.
I’ll let Steve McIntyre explain for himself:
I would take my hypothetical cat over Dr. Mann. Tabby clearly apprehends and responds appropriately to empirical input.
gh(o)stly — whooo, scary! Meet the new troll, same as the old troll.
Looks like the alarmists have gotten some new grants.
The number of trolls that they can afford has gone up.
Though the quality has gone down.
I think it’s pronounced ghastly.
Same way they’ll respond to any jury finding that hurts their feelings. They’ll clutch their pearls and gnash their teeth with a smug sense of superiority and entitlement and say any jury that reaches a finding they don’t like is beneath their contempt.
And they’ll wonder how the founding fathers could have designed a jury system that would allow people so far beneath them to decide guilt or innocence.
Yet YOU and Dr.mann never showed actual damages.
America is in decline as this insane decision is going to further discredit the nation in the eyes of the world.
The comments made by the Defendants were truthful and fair. Mann is not a scientist he is a total fraud. Just remember Mike’s Nature Trick.
Mann is far, far worse than Steyn. If Curry sued him, based on that result, she’d walk in a win. Lomburg, the same.
Depends on where the suit is tried In any city run by Democrats, the chances of her winning are poor at best.
For a balanced account on the legal merits of the case see here:
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-2-8-trial-of-mann-v-steyn-part-v-jury-instructions-and-closing-argument
The earlier installments of this reporting are also very worth reading.
The problem with the case is that it has confused two things. One is the voicing of the opinion that the Hockey Stick was fraudulently put together.
The second is Steyn’s deplorable (and reckless) phrasing in his remarks about the Sandusky abuse affair and the attempt to tar Mann with that brush by association. This was completely unnecessary to criticizing the Hockey Stick, its construction, and the way its been used in policy advocacy.
As a society we lose nothing from having the second eliminated from public discourse. But we lose a great deal from having the first eliminated. You have to ask whether in general you will be comfortable with a whole range of such cases on scientific issues being decided in the same way.
Perhaps an analogical case may make the point clearer. Hans Nieman was suspected by many of having been aided by computer analysis in some recent tournaments. If you went through the analysis by grandmasters of the games on which this accusation rested you would probably end up uncertain. A strong player with no prior view or malice having looked at the evidence might, but would not be compelled to, conclude that there was a case to answer.
So you would see a dialogue going on, perhaps in public, where such a person would argue his case. Would say that some of the evidence was impossible to account for without invoking cheating. Such an argument would be entirely evidence based on the merits, and would not involve any innuendoes or attempts to associate the player with other wrongdoing by other irrelevant individuals. You can imagine similar debates going on in the sciences on current politically contentious issues. One thinks of the debates about trans gender issues, or about some racial issues such as the ‘Bell Curve’, or police killings of different ethnicities. The controversies about Covid and vaccination and lockdowns spring to mind.
Do we really as a society want to end up with a situation where someone having come to the conclusion in good faith and stated publicly that a given paper is wrong in a way that, in his view, can only be accounted for by fraudulent treatment of the raw data, can be successfully sued for defamation. Do we really want the silencing effect that will result? Because it would in effect ban all or most allegations of research fraud. You’d end up with a situation in which people would still talk about it, but in code and with snide asides, but open debate would vanish.
I think we would not want this. And this is why Steyn has done such a disservice to informed debate on climate and energy issues by his distasteful and completely unnecessary attempt to draw Sandusky’s crimes in by association – an individual having nothing to do with climate and guilty of totally irrelevant crimes. Nothing Sandusky or Penn State or Spanier did has any bearing on whether the Hockey Stick was fraudulently constructed.
I don’t know whether an assumption of fraud is required to explain the deficiencies in the Hockey Stick. But I also don’t think that the only way you can come to the conclusion that it is, is by malice or reckless ignorance. We need an understanding that the question is a legitimate one to discuss – but on the evidence, not by innuendo about irrelevancies.
In a way we have all lost here. Mann has lost because of the derisory damage award. Steyn has lost more considerably because of the damages and the findings. We have lost because the important freedom to express a view on a reasonable conclusion has been abridged. There will be a chilling effect, and its as unwarranted as Steyn’s innuendoes were to the merits of the original argument on the Hockey Stick.
AlanJ says I t’s “a good day for science” when a leading AGW crank refuses to pay the widow of Canada’s first PhD degreed climatologist lawfully mandated court costs in Canada…. Right?
Yep.
Honestly, you and Bellarmine had better enjoy your moment of triumph. It probably won’t last.
As someone that watched the entire trial broadcast and saw all of the evidence presented by both sides, I hardly see how this is a great day for science. It’s definitely a dark day for the First Amendment. Simberg and Steyn simply stated the truth in claiming Penn State whitewashed the Mann investigation. The evidence presented from Penn State’s own internal documents show this clearly. The jury simply ignored this evidence, plain-and-simple. Nor did Simberg or Steyn actually imply Mann was a child molester. They did state the processes of Penn State covering up for Jerry Sandusky were similar to the processes used for covering up Mann’s blatant unprofessional and illegal behavior. The evidence indicated that is precisely what occurred. The jury simply chose to ignore this evidence.
That Mann so-called hockey stick data is defective has long been known thanks to Ross McKitrik and Steve McIntyre. Numerous professionals have corroborated their results and you can see all their papers here. The hockey stick is, in fact, fraudulent, but the jury chose to ignore this evidence:
https://www.rossmckitrick.com/paleoclimatehockey-stick.html
I am reminded of another trial many years ago in which a friend of mine was representing a young man whose arm had been torn off by a conveyor at a major paper company because the protective guards around the conveyor had been removed by the company so people clearing the conveyor could knock pieces of wood off the belt. The evidence was plain that the company was responsible and, in fact, the firm my uncle managed (representing the paper company) had already settled, as had other firms.
The closing argument from the attorney representing the paper company’s insurance company was a desperation move, but it was simple and short: “If you give this young man any money, he will go back to [his rural East Texas town] and never hit a lick at a snake.” In fact, the attorney didn’t even show up to hear the jury’s verdict, he told his associate just to tell him how much the insurance company was going to have to pay. I heard all of this first-hand. The jury decided in favor of the paper company and I will never forget that.
I feel the same thing happened in Mann vs Simberg/Steyn when Mann’s attorney compared so-called climate deniers to Trump election deniers. In his desperation, he simply pulled out the emotion card hoping it would overcome the undeniable evidence against Mann, which was considerable.
And I think it worked because the jury certainly didn’t decide this case in a day by examing evidence. That is very clear.
192 thumbs down as of Friday morning at 7:40 EST
must be a record- there should be an award for it
He’s still chasing the record:
Wow, nice going. You did say you’d dig it out. We should have a label placed by someones name, similar to the green ones for editor, author or moderator, but in brown with ‘Troll’ in it. You could earn one for, say, 50 downvotes for a single comment, or possibly 100?
Believe in free speech much?
How dare someone tell the truth about Mann and his fake hockey stick.
Please look up PCA and p-hacking. MM manipulated the data to ensure a predetermined outcome. MM truncated tree-ring data to “hide the decline.” This is not done in science. MM should have consulted a competent statistician. McIntyre? Wyner? The IPCC’s adoption of the Hockey Stick (MBH1998/1999) was politics masquerading as science.
I hope Judith Curry sues old Fraudpants back to the Medieval Warming Period. That’s where Western Civilization is headed if this senseless war against fossil fuels continues.
The following statements were found by the Jury to NOT meet the requirements to be defamatory & not caused harm. I can easily repeat them as is or as my opinion. Maybe the Jury felt they were just opinion OR not harmful enough OR was enough truth/doubt to be unable to say they were likely false etc. (see trial documents regarding the instruction to the Jury & the verdict reading of what is required to be libel).
By Simberg:
a) “[M]any of the luminaries of the ‘climate science’ community were shown to have been behaving in a most unscientific manner. Among them were Michael Mann, Professor of Meteorology at Penn State, whom the emails revealed had been engaging in data manipulation to keep the blade on his famous hockey-stick graph, which had become an icon for those determined to reduce human carbon emissions by any means necessary.”
b) Simberg’s quotation of the words “Mann has become the posterboy of the corrupt and disgraced climate science echo chamber. No university whitewash investigation will change that simple reality.”
By Steyn:
b) “Not sure I’d have extended that metaphor all the way into the locker-room showers with quite the zeal Mr. Simberg does, but he has a point.”
If Simberg comments (a) & (b) are OK it doesn’t seem much of a stretch for Steyn (c) comment to be allowable. It would be interesting to know the Jurors interpretation & explanation. Has anyone else been found claims dismissed/libel for disagreeing with the inflammatory wording of someone elses statement like Steyn (b) after Steyn quoted Simberg (d)?
DC is a banana republic, as far as getting a neutral jury. How, pray tell, was the case brought there? Mann lives in Pennsylvania, and Steyn in upstate New York, or did when he was guest hosting Rush Limbaugh. Venue shopping?
I think its because the publication National Review & Competitive Enterprise Institute where the remarks were made is based in DC
Yes, both are based in DC.
From https://www.nationalreview.com/contact-us/ :
Write Us
Correspondence can be sent to:
National Review
19 West 44th Street
Suite 1701
New York, N.Y. 10036
Indeed so.
It means you are wrong.
Indeed so.
This case began 12 years back, although NR has been in Manhattan a long time
CEI is 1310 L Street NW, Washington, DC 20036
Its clear that this case was combined at some stage to DC only
If you look at the average intelligence and political persuasion of the people who actually live in DC, you understand why they chose it. Contrary to popular belief, politicians don’t live in DC. They live in Virginia and Maryland. There’s a reason DC consistently has one of the highest crime rates in the country. I was about to write that this wasn’t a jury of Mann’s peers, but in fact, it was. Very much so.
It was too crucial a decision for the climate mafia to lose.
And the climate mafia funded this lawsuit. Mann testified under oath has was not paying for the legal fees.
Damn shame!
Mark Steyn repeated the phrase “no case to answer” numerous times during his closing. It was presumptive and the jury showed him they held the upper hand.
In the end, It was an anti Trump vote by the jury. A point made by Mann’s lawyer in closing. They showed the deniers Steyn and Simberg that they have no place in DC; how dare these upstarts demean The Science™.
From the bits and pieces that I read, I was under the impression that the case was NOT about the ‘hockey-stick’, like many people assumed or hyped, it was about defamation.
The warming thesis is NOT de-railed, by assuming like many do, that the world is warming somewhat, or that Micky Mann is wrong, but sitting down with a bunch of data, analysing them using physically-based,independent, un-corruptible protocols and methods, then determining if the hypothesis is true or false at some level of statistical confidence.
This is what have been doing for over a decade and I can find no warming in any of Australia’s long and medium -term maximum temperature datasets.
My recent series on homogenisation has uncovered numerous examples of how the Bureau of Meteorology creates trends in homogenised data that have nothing to do with the climate (https://www.bomwatch.com.au/data-homogenisation/).
In a different court, this is the type of evidence that may have disrupted Mann’s hockey game.
All the best,
Dr Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
That was the mistake many people made. It would have been about defamation if there was no DC jury involved. It was supposed to be a case about defamation but when it comes to a jury they are all individuals living in DC with livelihoods to protect. So it was about Trump and The Science™.
I expect Mark Steyn underestimated how important those factors are to people in DC. I admit to making the same mistake but the verdict proves me wrong.
The case boiled down to two deniers challenging The Science. They were put in the same category as Trump. And everyone knows how much Trump is despised in DC. He managed to get 5% of the vote there in 2020.
Thanks Rick,
It was still about defamation, not the ‘hockey-stick’.
In some respects commentators were hung on their own petard – it was about defamation, not whether the hockey-stick was crap.
While I am not a lawyer (or a statistician), that is a different argument that probably needs to be had in a different court. Donald Trump anyone?
All the best,
Dr Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
What you may not know is that it is a matter of law that the truth is a 100% ironclad defense against charges of such things as malice.
It is impossible to defame someone, as a matter of law, by saying something that is true.
So you are incorrect, it is about the fraudulent graph.
OK, so the court found it is not fraudulent.
Thanks Nicholas,
To be clear, I am not discussing whether the graph is fraudulent or not. And given the evidence, and instructions by the Judge, the jury is also probably not able to evaluate whether the graph and the data on which is based is fraudulent.
As far as I can determine, and I did not sit around listening to the case but read selected summaries of it (and I am not a lawyer), the case was not about the graph, but it was about defamation. Being awarded $1 in damages for defamation says it all in my book. However, I don’t understand why the other $1M was ordered to be paid. Neither do I know if there are grounds to appeal. I also made the point earlier, that the outcome for Styne may have been different had he hired Counsel.
Considering my own situation regarding http://www.bomwatch.com.au, I have been strongly advised to not use the word ‘fraudulent’ or fraud when discussing somebody’s motives for their work. There are many motives aside from fraud as an intent. For example, someone could be instructed to do something that based on some other published paper, sounds reasonable to them. However, that does not mean their methodology cannot be challenged scientifically, that is using transparent, carefully thought-through protocols and methods.
Fraud as I understand it, implies a deliberate scheme to derive personal gain (of some kind) by misrepresentation. It involves deliberate intent, a deed (that of producing a misrepresentation) and a reward. I have taken advice about this in an Australian context.
I can point to temperature data homogenisation as misrepresenting the climate (and show how that misrepresentation happens), but aside from criticising aspects of their published works (or commentary) like anyone can do, I cannot know their motives or if they receive a reward (actual or in-kind). I can present my evidence, but I leave it to others to comment on intent and possible reward.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
Dear Nicholas,
As far as Australian defamation laws are concerned, from the advice I have received, stating the truth of the matter is different to calling people names, especially names like fraud and fraudulent, which according to my advice, implies an intent, an act and a reward.
One example I can give is that of the weather station at Townsville airport (known as Garbutt).
The Garbutt instrument file available online from the National Archives of Australia, shows unequivocally that the Bureau of Meteorology negotiated with the Royal Australian Air Force about re-locating the site at least as early as 1965. Submissions were signed-off, recommendations were made and money was allocated/spent for example.
The site moved to a mound on the western side of the runway in 1970, before moving again closer to a new office, then to another mound in 1994. (APs show the whole place is a reclaimed coastal swamp).
In homogenising the data, the Bureau said “There are no documented moves until one of 200 m northeast on 8 December 1994, at which time an automatic weather station was installed” Quote from the ACORN-SAT Catalogue. However, the site 200m southwest from where the site allegedly moved, was not the 1970 mound.
However, even if it (the intent to miss-inform) was true, I could not claim or show anyone acted fraudulently. For people who run or contribute to websites, including WUWT, this is a pretty important issue. (Anthony may like to comment.)
(The post is here: https://www.bomwatch.com.au/data-quality/climate-of-the-great-barrier-reef-queensland-climate-change-at-townsville-abstract-and-case-study/; and the full report is here: https://www.bomwatch.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Townsville-full-paper.pdf)
Yours sincerely,
Dr Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
I agree, it was the desperation emotional appeal that the jury remembered comparing ‘climate deniers’ to Trump ‘election deniers.’ They certainly didn’t consider the evidence.
Since Mann never coughed up damages to the late Tim Ball or his estate in Canada, presumably this also applies to Mark when he returns to the UK. I thought Judith Curry’s deputation was very well written and convincing and should have nailed the case. The trouble with juries (and politicians, and now it seems many medical doctors) is that they are scientifically and numerically illiterate. They wouldn’t know an infrared from a red rose, and two plus two is not equal to four.
“this also applies to Mark when he returns to the UK”
He lives in New Hampshire, not the UK and despite the accent he’s a Canadian citizen.
I hope the Tim Ball Estate filed a garnishment action in the DC court, so these damages awards go straight to the estate!
Now that would be somewhat palatable.
How much was awarded to Ball?
Whatever, I don’t know if the concept could have legs, but it’s a good idea to research it.
The case against Ball was dismissed because Mann refused to provide the input data and source code for the hockey stick graph and Ball was awarded legal fees and expenses.
Dr Ball was awarded full costs which has been estimated at just over $1 million for the 9 year case.
Judith Curry and Roger Pielke Jr both made very strong cases that they were defamed by Mann, and that Mann is a jerk, but Mann was not on trial. Apparently Mann had to be a bigger jerk for his stench to reach this courtroom.
That’s an excellent point. Of course, they would have to file suit, but can Curry and Pielke now use this new case law to collect under the doctrine of:
Stare decisis means “to stand by things decided” in Latin. When a court faces a legal argument, if a previous court has ruled on the same or a closely related issue, then the court will make their decision in alignment with the previous court’s decision.
The Climategate emails submitted into evidence are the real ‘pieces of work’ that show Mann as the human filth he referred to in his emails.
It’s my recollection that there’s a limit on punitive damages. They can only be a certain multiple of actual damages. It certainly isn’t a ratio of 1 million to one. I wonder if an appeals court won’t strike down that punitive award.
I believe you are correct.
However, Mann will probably then file a defamation claim against the appeals court … and win that case in front of a partisan DC jury regardless of that clear violation of law!
Steyn’s much-celebrated opening statement could have poisoned the well for any juror that followed the Sandusky case. The press coverage and the trial evidence there were in stark contrast. Instead of the University shielding Sandusky from outside investigation, the trial showed that both the police and Child Protective Services repeatedly told the community at large that Sandusky was safe to foster children and run camps through his charity. Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts, but found ‘not guilty’ of charges connected with the school, as each of the victims that testified said the crimes occurred off-campus and none of the people that had previously been cited as witnesses to crimes at the school repeated those details under oath.
Instead of doing his research, Steyn decided to take sensationalism from the press as fact and go for salacious style points. If Steyn was willing to play fast and loose with the facts on a topic as serious as child molestation, then a juror might see he would be willing to lie about the weather.
Not sure which trial you were watching, but I’ve seen all of the evidence presented in this trial. Simberg’s attorney deftly presented defintive evidence of Penn State’s coverup of Mann’s malfeasance utilizing Penn State’s own internal documents describing the processes used to investigate Mann. In fact, Dr Richard Lindzen called them out on the procedures when he was asked to opine in the investigation.
At no point did Steyn compare Mann to a child molester, nor has he ever. What both Simberg and Steyn do say is the Penn State coverup of Mann’s malfeasnace was similar to Penn State’s coverup of child molester Jerry Sandusky, which is absolutely the truth and the evidence presented at trial shows this. Stating that Mann ‘molested data’ is NOT the same as saying he molested children.
You misread my post. My comments about evidence referred to Sandusky’s trial. Steyn presented evidence that Penn State covered up for Mann. The issue is that Steyn falsely claimed that Penn State covered for Sandusky the same way they covered for Mann. The problem is that Penn State did not cover for Sandusky, and the evidence at Sandusky’s trial showed this.
Steyn thought he was making a clever turn of phrase when what he really did was reveal that he didn’t care about the truth of what happened to Sandusky’s victims.
Given where the trial was held and the jury pre-primed with the usual propaganda it was a slap on the wrist with awards. What happens if Steyn slips back across the border into Canada and doesn’t pay up?
It might still be worth it in the broader sweep of history to have all those questions to Mann and his answers firmly on record.
Steyn can appeal – remittur
Plus the comment about the 1:10 ratio is true.
There is also precedents for punitive damages to not exceed 15% to 30% of their net worth.
It ain’t over yet…
Exactly.
Reality must prevail. But in the process, the USA is becoming a laughing stock.
Mann can destroy the academic career of Judith Curry without harmful consequence but anyone making factual statements about him torturing data gets the ire of his paid for legal system. Clearly Judith’s move out of academia has served climate science better than singing from the The Climate Science™ hymn book so not all bad.
The POTUS has been deemed too old and forgetful to be held accountable for keeping classified documents:
https://news.yahoo.com/biden-too-old-forgetful-prosecuted-234439277.html
The world can only hope there are appropriate safeguards against Biden pushing the wrong button.
Where else in the world could you find any jurisdiction that votes 95% for a senile career politician. Even Putin cannot muster those numbers under threat of life imprisonment.
The Government Class has won a solid victory for The Science.
In most countries, this travesty would never have gone to jury – it would’ve been thrown out after the first couple of weeks, if not before; Mann would’ve faced charges for perjury and his lawyers would’ve faced their bar association for breach of ethics. I cannot understand how this is allowed to happen.
If the US had the same sort of “loser pays” rules for tort cases, Mann would have never dared bring this suit.
But it is far too much to hope for that we will ever have tort reform in the US that will bring us into line with the rest of the civilized world.
As bad as what’s been released sounds, there’s a Biden coverup going on.
PANIC IN DC
This is just a tactic to help the Democrats. Normally a prosecution would force the defense to make its own claims, or at least have independent doctors evaluate the capacity of a defendant. Because the prosecution just assumed the defense tactic, Biden’s supporters can just say the DOJ was mistaken. Alternatively, it gives the DNC an excuse to install a candidate at the last minute and just run a one week campaign of “Trump evil, other random person decent”.
It’s likely that juries award these astronomical awards as a statement, believing that the amount will probably be reduced by a later appeal.
Crap.
It’s a ridiculous verdict by a majority of jurors that came to a ridiculous conclusion. Note that they awarded Mann a token $1 because even they could tell he couldn’t prove any actual damage. Then they fined Steyn $1 million for what? Not libel. You have to prove malice which is a notoriously difficult bar in the United States because of the broad protection of speech by the First Amendment. Malice means that you know you’re lying and you want to harm the defendant, which usually requires proving that you intended to, for example, financially harm the defendant. Clearly, the jury didn’t buy that argument. But it looks like the jury majority decided that Mann should be punished to set an example to others who might deride the “climate science” orthodoxy about manmade catastrophic warming. For a better legal analysis, see:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/02/a-bitterly-disappointing-verdict.php
Remember, this was such a ridiculous case and such an infringement on free speech that the ACLU and a couple dozen other mostly left-leaning organizations representing the press filed amicus briefs to have the case dismissed.
https://www.steynonline.com/documents/6515.pdf
Watch for legal analysis in the coming days shredding this decision.
“Clearly, the jury didn’t buy that argument.”
No, they clearly did. It would have been explained to them by the judge that a finding of actual malice was part of a finding of defamation.
The defrence had three (rational) parts
Only one had to succeed, but they all failed, although 3 only just.
Your knowledge of American civil jurisprudence is abysmal, Nitpick.
Nick,
That might be your opinion, but why do you go to the bother of subjective opinion in public?
Geoff S
Geoff,
Not mine. Here is Francis Menton’s summary of the judges instruction to the jury
“In short summary, the judge instructed that there are four elements of defamation in this case: (1) publication by the defendant of a false statement of fact, (2) the false statement is defamatory, (3) actual damages, and (4) the defendant knew that the statement was false or recklessly disregarded its truth or falsity. The judge further instructed that the plaintiff had the burden of proof as to all four elements.”
I left out 2) because there was no serious argument from the defence that calling Mann a fraud was not defamatory.
Given that the way of working out what is legal defamation is to show evidence of actual loss or harm, calling Mann a fraud in 2012 resulted in no loss or harm to Mann other than 1 mean look and a hypothetical loss of grant funding, neither of which was evidenced by Mann. Don’t forget that the burden of proof lay with Mann and, in any other country, his flimsy tissue of opinions with no evidence would have been laughed out of court. Only in America and, possibly, only in DC.
Here in the US, in such cases, the jury can do whatever the hell they want.
It does not mean that anyone proved or failed to prove anything in particular.
But the jury returning such an award, does not mean it will stand.
Exactly. In a civil trial, you don’t have to prove “beyond reasonable doubt” and you don’t have to convince everyone on the jury. You just have to convince a majority of jurors to side with you. Evidence and truth are often not as important as making sure you have a jury that you think will buy your arguments. Shopping for the venue and picking the jury is a big part of winning a case. The judge still has the option of overriding the jury. It’s extremely unusual, but so was everything about this case including the awarding of $1 “damages” and $1 million fine.
More proof that science doesn’t matter…
It is possible that the jury was playing the person, rather then the law.
Simberg was the first to make the words public.
Steyn followed, with a rider that me might not stretch it as far as Simberg did.
Simberg sets $1,000 punitive damages against him., Steyn gets $1,000,000.
What is the logic? What am I missing?
Is it perhaps time that jury room deliberations are recorded and can be checked for whether they follow the directions to the jury by the Judge?
Geoff S
Steyn ran his own case. He did not have a lawyer and under the circumstances, he may be regretting that.
I still think people are conflating the ‘hockey-stick’ issue with defamation – the words used by Steyn to denigrate Mann.
I still think it is remarkable that on ‘our’ side of the fence, influential players still say the world is warming, when in fact ex- their use of off-the-shelf or other designer data, most have never shown that it is. Tacitly agreeing with the Mann team is not the way to dispute the argument.
(And I don’t get principal components either!)
Cheers,
Dr Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
Not having a lawyer was a very bad mistake.
He did have a legal team, necessitated by his parlous health.
Perhaps that’s true but he would have had plenty of legal advice as to the correct approach to his defence. In that respect Bill is right that he was always vulnerable with the specific words he’d used and decided what the heck if I’m facing a loaded jury at least I’ll enjoy Mann squirming and with my knowledge I’m as good as any to do that. He may yet have the last laugh travelling back to Canada with come and get Tim Ball’s money ahole.
Dear Phil,
I spent much of the last week kinda debating about errors associated with temperature data with someone who has never been trained in, or undertaken weather observations himself (my last interaction is here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/01/31/spencer-vs-schmidt-spencer-responds-to-realclimate-org-criticisms/#comment-3863258 ).
While everyone is entitled to their point of view, enlightened debate does not arise from batting the ball away, and using that tactic to confuse or fog the focus of the discussion. If that is the tactical objective, nobody learns and nobody wins.
I spent this morning (in Oz-time) with my woodworking mates where I discussed with a friend how to improve sharpness in photographs taken with my reasonably new Pentax. We had a “TOM” (tool of the month) about turning pens (which I am proficient at). This afternoon I listened intently to Tucker Carlson’s interview with Putin (allow 2+ hours). And yes, I do have a lovely wife and other things happening in my life.
So, what is the story?
I will send some pics to my photographic mate to further the discussion and we will probably do a photo-shoot in the next few weeks. I also learnt a few tips about preparing blanks for pen-turning, and I also contributed a few ideas. I learnt that Putin is as much a knowledgeable historian about his country, as he is the leader of Russia. He also made it clear that he is open to finding solutions that would end the war with Ukraine. As a result of the interview, I am of the mind that it is up to the US, EU and NATO to force resolution of the issue, and I believe that denying further US aid for the war is a step in that direction.
In contrast, while I read much of the documentation proffered by Tom Gorman (to the extent that I picked up mistakes and made and admitted one of my own), as a former weather observer and scientist, while I learnt a few interesting things about instrument calibration methods and error estimation I learnt nothing of substance to the way I handle data. I finally rejected Gorman’s argument and invited him not to comment further. It is simply not possible to argue with a an unbending branch or a brick wall.
Now we have this Mann case, which was NOT about Mann’s ‘hockey-stick’. It was about defamation – the words used to degenerate Mann as a person. I am no lawyer, but whatever people think as a tribe, the case was about defamation (the words) not about the ‘hockey-stick’. Consequently, the case was never likely to settle the ‘hockey-stick’ debate.
While the ‘hockey-stick’ may be totally wrong, fudged, and Mann may be a totalitarian rat or whatever … exposing that the methods used to homogenise temperature records are mischievous (and in naming those who did that, by referencing their publications) is different to calling them names and laying-in the boot.
All the very best,
Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
Poor Bill, he don’t get the respect he demands.
I’m not after respect kalomonte, I’m after clarity.
b
All you managed to accomplish is to demonstrate without doubt that you don’t understand how uncertainty is not error.
Thank you Bill, and observa for your thoughtful responses to my one-liner. I was the corporate representative in a case that dragged out for almost ten years, across 5 or 6 US States (I lost count). My point was that, although Mark Steyn is an incredibly articulate and very smart man, good attorneys know from experience when to butt in with objections and the like. I suspect that Mr Steyn lacked that training and experience.
I didn’t have time to watch the case (thankfully), so I don’t know if anything was missed in that regard, but I bet it was. It could have made the difference.
Again, I might be wrong, but the judge might have looked at this unfavorably. As my many attorneys kept reminding me, there are protocols that are followed in court.
I think you are wrong Bill. Dead wrong. The hockey stick is the heart of the case, not the form of words that Steyn chose to use when he talked about it. Steyn said the stick was fraudulent, thereby implying that hockey stick choices had been made with the intent to deceive. He dressed his claim in a 270-word blog post in which he compared the investigation into Mann with the investigation into Sandusky. But none of that matters. The investigators were not the plaintiffs. And the fight also wasn’t about whether Steyn called Mann a child molester. He clearly did not.
The key issues were (1) whether Mann had in fact made hockey stick choices with the intent to deceive or (2) whether instead Mann had not done so and Steyn secretly knew that he had not done so or that there was at least a high degree of probability that he had not done so.
Amongst the evidence offered were statements by McIntyre and McKittrick to the effect that they believed that proper practice would have been to report an alternative construction that they said had been done without bristlecones (that did not yield a hockey stick) and to have calculated and then reported the terrible R2 result that they had calculated. It’s a subjective test. It is not what Steyn should have believed. It is whether Steyn in fact secretly believed that such choices (as he honestly believed had been made) were at least highly probable to have been made for legitimate scientific reasons rather than with the intent to overstate the reliability of the reconstruction and thereby mislead people. It’s a science case through and through and it’s a massive blow to free speech.
What if someone believes that the choice of IPCC authors to present model spread as a measure of model reliability is intentionally misleading, can they safely say publicly that the choice to do so is “fraudulent”? What if one believes that authors of the UN’s latest disaster report intentionally conflated the number of reported disasters with the number of actual disasters in order to give the appearance of a rising trend. Can that be called fraudulent, after the Mann case? Where is the line? It’s a scary case in my view, given the evidence offered and the fact that Steyn appeared very clearly to believe what he had asserted. He challenged the jury to say he had been acting for 20-some-odd years as he stuck to his guns. The jury apparently either misunderstood their instructions, believed that he had in fact been acting, or just didn’t care.
Careful, Bill is the world’s foremost expert on looking at thermometers, and he’ll make sure you know this.
You can do better than that karlo, You could learn to read thermometers all by yourself, for instance, and thereby contribute usefully to a discussion.
b.
When will you be heeding your own admonition?
Dear gc,
My reply above (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/02/08/jury-finds-in-favor-of-michael-mann-in-defamation-lawsuit-against-mark-steyn-rand-simberg/#comment-3863956) covers much I how I would respond to your comment.
In my view, the problem lies in implying intent, which may not be the actual provable intent. Arguments with the IPCC are best fought on scientific grounds, not emotive ones, which takes a lot of skill and effort.
I stick to stuff that I can defend and I have been advised to not use words like fraud in my postings.
All the best,
Bill
Simberg was a relatively unknown figure, Steyn was known – many may have seen him on tv or heard of him appearing on tv fairly recently. Many of the Democrat persuasion wouldn’t have liked his politics or the people he appeared with – he was a bigger target, hence the bigger punishment. This had nothing to do with law, evidence or who was in the right – this jury saw a chance to put the boot in against someone they were told to dislike so did it with glee.
It would seem that Mr Steyn and Mr Simberg have failed to take into account the degree to which the cultural relativists have displaced what were once serious crimes including perjury, academic fraud and deception with the intent to financially defraud by the over-arching crime of the post-modern world, that of causing offence. Clearly the DC jury had no option but to find for Mr Mann as he testified that he had been offended. Any deficiencies in evidence or even serious academic misdemeanours on the part of Mr Mann brought to the attention of court by the defence necessarily had to be taken in context.
We in Australia could help Mr Mann find a derelict chateaux in France where he could continue in comfort his campaigns of ad hominem vilification and career destruction. Let’s not unreasonably expect any scientific output from him.
He’ll probably be able to afford one himself now.
Don’t count those chickens just yet. The judge still has to decide what he’ll do next. Even if he lets the damages stand – Manns backers are out of pocket to the tune of a dozen strong legal team over 12 years – Mann isn’t likely to see a penny.
D.C.’s feces by any other name would smell as sweet.
Let’s just call it jury vilification, when a politically biased jury (this time in D.C.) ignores the evidence and the law to find against a disfavored party. It’s just like E. Jean Carroll.
Yes compared to the Carroll award that’s what I meant above that the result could be viewed as a slap on the wrist given the jury could easily view Steyn as a wealthy man with his fame. In that sense US jury damages awards often bear no connection to real hurt/loss but more about well X is loaded so what the Hell! Hence the Simberg vs Steyn outcome and as such they’re a slap on the wrist.
PS: Or in other words you guys of differing means need to be more careful tossing around peddo slurs but we get the picture Mann’s a sleazebag.
DC jury is all you need to know.
Sadly, when a jury in a place like NYC or DC rules on political biases the country is done. There is no rule of law. I do not want to be associated with them in any way, shape or form. Either we get more federalism and less big DC or a split is inevitable. It’s not even state by state, only big cities and college towns vote blue. Downstate Illiinois wants nothing to do with Cook County. The fundamental value systems are not compatible. Hopefully it can be amicable, it is inevitable.