michael mann now bankrupt....along with global warming

On Saturday, 22 February 2014 14:17:07 UTC+11, snipped-for-privacy@columbus.rr.com wro te:

Michael Mann was mad to take his detractors to court - the fossil carbon ex traction industry has got a lot more money than he has (or his supporters h ave), and that translates into a lot of very shifty lawyers and thoroughly rabid publicists.

John O'Sullivan does seem to be part of the very best defense that money ca n buy.

"In short, Mann failed to show he did not fake his tree ring proxy data for the past 1,000 years, so Ball's assessment stands as fair comment. Moreove r, many hundreds of papers in the field of paleoclimate temperature reconst ructions that cite Mann's work are likewise tainted, heaping more misery on the discredited UN's Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) whi ch has a knack of relying on such sub prime science."

The fact that Mann "failed to show that he did not fake his tree ring proxy data" falls a long way short of proving that he did fake it. And the many hundreds of papers that cite Mann's work are scarcely "tainted" by the foss il carbon circus - they've gone on to find other, better proxies for global temperatures over the past few million years, and the new data (and there' s a lot of it) all confirms the broad-brush conclusions of Mann's pioneerin g paper.

John O'Sullivan would have to be quite ignorant of the science involved to think he could get away with such half-baked logic (which happens to ignore all the real-world facts). In reality he probably isn't quite that ignoran t, but knows that he can put together a story that he can sell to enough ig norant suckers to fool enough of the people enough of the time to serve the fossil carbon extraction industry's interest.

I was charmed to note an approving reference to Australia's very own Joanne Nova who did a very respectable first degree in microbiology and molecular biolo gy (as Joanne Codling), before moving sideways into presenting science on c hildren's television as JoNova, which made her an obvious recruit for the d enialist propaganda machine.

Not a long way short. More like close enough. Anyone who refuses to allow other scientists to review their work is suspect. Especially when others have research that refutes it.

Dan

s >have), and that translates into a lot of very shifty lawyers and thoroug hly >rabid publicists.

I think Dr. Ball funded his own defense. His defense appears to be pretty simple: Simply force Mann to present his (scientifically reviewed and agre ed upon by consensus by >97% of all scientists) theory and data to the cour t so that the court could determine if there was basis to the slander charg e or not. Once Mann was taking Ball to court for slandering him for being a shoddy scientist, then he was under obligation to put everything to the c ourt to allow Ball to show where the data was shoddy. Mann never presented his data to the court for three years, which demonstrates that he took Bal l to court to intimidate him, not to have a fair trial and get his name bac k.

This is very similar to what Lance Armstrong did when anyone questioned his doping.

How so? Armstrong couldn't prove the negative. It was up to his accusers to prove their claim. Likewise, in the case of slander/libel, it's up to the accuser to prove the slander/libel is untrue.

In this case Mann had to demonstrate his findings passed "scientific" muster, in order to prove Ball said something untrue (it's not up to ball to prove the positive). Then he (Mann) would have to prove he was damaged and that the damage was intentional (but that's a different discussion).

The difference is in who *can* have the evidence. All evidence must be disclosed, on both sides. In Armstrong's case, the only possible evidence is on the accusers' side (the impossibility of proving the negative). After all, he passed all doping tests, at the time. In the Mann/Ball case, the evidence is in Mann's work. ...at least that's what I get from the above comparison.

The comparison to armstrong is that he used the threat of lawsuits to shut people up.

The issue is quite different, though. Mann obviously had the proof that he was a crook and still sued. Did Armstrong?

You must have been buried in your circuits too much over the past year:

You must be a lefty.

...and that has to do with the thread exactly how?

n >extraction industry has got a lot more money than he has (or his support ers >have), and that translates into a lot of very shifty lawyers and thoro ughly >rabid publicists.

y simple: Simply force Mann to present his (scientifically reviewed and ag reed upon by consensus by >97% of all scientists) theory and data to the co urt so that the court could determine if there was basis to the slander cha rge or not. Once Mann was taking Ball to court for slandering him for bein g a shoddy scientist, then he was under obligation to put everything to the court to allow Ball to show where the data was shoddy. Mann never present ed his data to the court for three years, which demonstrates that he took B all to court to intimidate him, not to have a fair trial and get his name b ack.

How are lawyers going to make the scientific judgements involved? They simp ly don't have the background knowledge. And how on earth is Mann going to f ind the now twenty-year-old data and get it into a form that the lawyers mi ght have a hope of understanding?

The process is simply too messy to be practical, and with the defense lawye rs being deliberately obstructive - as they are obviously going to be - the re's no way that Mann could have satisfied the court that he had - in fact

- put "everything to the court".

I'd be very surprised if Dr. Ball actually did fund his own defense. The de nialist propaganda machine would have an interest in making sure that it lo oked as if he did.

is doping.

Lawyers do tend to behave in predictable ways. Since Mann's original hockey stick curve has been replicated - as well as fairly imprecise data could be expected to be replicated - by independent studies looking at different proxies, it seems unlikely that Mann did fake his data.

Lance Armstrong did actually take performance-enhancing medication.

ut people up.

Krw is stupid enough to think that it is "obvious" that Mann was a crook - that he faked the evidence on which the 1999 "hockey stick curve" paper is based.

In fact, since other independent researchers using other - different - temp erature proxies, have come up with essentially the same result, it's very u nlikely that Mann did anything improper with his evidence. McIntyre doesn't like his statistical techniques, but McIntyre does seem to act as if he is a part of the denialist propaganda machine, though he does claim to be ent irely independent.

roxy data" falls a long way short of proving that he did fake it.

ow other scientists to review their work is suspect. Especially when other s have research that refutes it.

The people to whom he is "refusing access" aren't other scientists. They ar e global warming denialists, who have only one interest - creating as much doubt about anthropogenic global warming as possible. The process of assemb ling the proxy data for the original "hockey stick" curve involved a lot of scientific judgement, and documenting precisely what influenced particular choices after an interval of twenty years is going to be a time-consuming waste of time.

The denialists are as interested in wasting him time and making his life un pleasant as they are in generating more fear, uncertainty and doubt.

The book "Merchants of Doubt" documents another case of their persecution.

And do cite the "other research" that refutes it. There isn't any. The deni alist web-sites do put up duff papers that they interpret as refuting Mann, but they don't put up the less duff papers that refuted the publications th ey chose to cite. There's no doubt that we've got better and more detailed data now than Mann had in 1999, and that there are differences in the minor detail, but the original hockey stick curve is still essentially correct.

are global warming denialists, who have only one interest - creating as muc h doubt about anthropogenic global warming as possible. The process of asse mbling the proxy data for the original "hockey stick" curve involved a lot of scientific judgement, and documenting precisely what influenced particul ar choices after an interval of twenty years is going to be a time-consumin g waste of time.

Actually he refused access to everyone, other scientists included. And whi le the courts may or may not be able to make sense of the date, they are ab le to find people that can.

nialist web-sites do put up duff papers that they interpret as refuting Man n,

I trust you do not read the Wall Street Journal on a regular basis. There was an piece recently on why Kerry is wrong along with graphs that showed n o hockey stick shapes.

but the original hockey stick curve is still essentially correct.

Wrong again. Now back to electronics.

Dan

y are global warming denialists, who have only one interest - creating as m uch doubt about anthropogenic global warming as possible. The process of as sembling the proxy data for the original "hockey stick" curve involved a lo t of scientific judgement, and documenting precisely what influenced partic ular choices after an interval of twenty years is going to be a time-consum ing waste of time.

hile the courts may or may not be able to make sense of the date, they are able to find people that can.

People who will claim they can. He's not shared his detailed data with "oth er scientist" because it's his stock in trade, and wasn't set up to be shar ed - back in 1999 nobody did it. Nowadays it has become more common to give access to experimental data on a generally accessible web-site, but the da ta has to be collected and structure in a way that makes this practical. Cl aiming that Mann is a crook because he hasn't done what nobody else did at the time is scarcely plausible.

And I note that you snipped my reference to "Merchants of Doubt" which give s a very clear picture of what's actually going on

though not one that you want to think about, since it reveals you to have b een suckered by them.

denialist web-sites do put up duff papers that they interpret as refuting M ann,

e was an piece recently on why Kerry is wrong along with graphs that showed no hockey stick shapes.

There's a reason for not reading the Wall Street Journal on the subject - o r any of the other Murdoch publications.

We had noticed that here rather earlier - John Larkin kept on posting refer ences to scientifically dodgy articles in the Wall Street Journal.

If you are relying on their output, you've just failed critical thinking 10

2. And referring me to the "Wall Street Journal" falls a long way short of cit ing research that supports your - manufactured - point of view. All you've done is to tell me who brain-washed you.

Pity about that. All you've proved is that you trust the Wall Street Journa l, which isn't exactly confidence-inspiring.

Interview with Dr Tim Ball in 2011:

JOS: Who is paying your legal bills?

TB: I am. I have paid out about $10,000 so far and am rapidly depleting my savings...

Please note that the suit was tried in Canada, where the tort system requires that the loser pays.

There's a donate via PayPal link on Dr Ball's web page, but it doesn't seem to work right now.

denialist propaganda machine would have an interest in making sure that it looked as if he did.

This is roughly the kind of story that one would expect to see on Anthony W att's website. He too claims to be a independent expert, but one suspects t hat his independence is about as real as his expertise (he was a TV weather man at one point in his career, but doesn't seem to have complete any kind of tertiary education).

Got it. Only those with a college education are deemed qualified to comment on climate. I have a BSEE, so I guess I'm qualified to have an opinion in the matter.

This might help: "He attended Purdue University." However, I'm unable to determine if he successfully graduated and in what discipline.

Incidentally, his efforts to identify problems with the accuracy of surface weather stations with his Surface Stations Project is quite good. It's used by a local group as a reference guide for locating (or moving) weather monitoring stations.

If so, why is he refusing to release his raw data to literally anyone? He's hiding something, but I can't tell what it might be.

As for replicating the hockey stick curve, I did that years ago. I've posted this before so please forgive the duplication. This spreadsheet generates a dog leg, in either direction, while predicting future rainfall in the San Lorenzo Valley (Boulder Creek, California). If I use an even order polynomial projection, I get an increasing dog leg. If I use odd, it goes down. If nobody is impressed, I just increase the order and make the dog leg more radical: Notice that it doesn't matter what the data was doing in the past. All that's important is the order of the polynomial trend (or regression) line. I can make a collection of random numbers do a dog leg if necessary. If you want to play with to see how it works, here's the original spreadsheet:

here are some more details. The foundation is starting to crumble on Mann

He's a lot better on the kind of paint you ought to use on your "surface we ather station" - specifically on the Stevenson screen (as invented in 1864) than he is on more recent technology.

John Larkin has a similar degree, but was moved to observe that "pressure b roadening" - of infra-red absorption lines - was a crazy idea. He obviousl y hadn't done enough (not very much) on quantum mechanics to know how it wo rks, which left him behind the eight-ball on the detailed explanation of "g reenhouse" warming. The real question is whether you are good enough at cri tical thinking to know when the Wall Street Journal is misleading you, and John fails that test, despite having stayed at university long enough to ge t a first degree.

He doesn't seem to have graduated. In Australia something like 40% of stude nts entering university when I did left without getting a degree, and only

Sure. And my ex-boss at Cambridge Instruments got an obsolete steam-powered pumping station working again. It's called industrial archeology, and it's a perfectly respectable hobby.

Probably because it's a poorly organised mess.

Sloppy work habits could be a plausible hypothesis.

McIntyre did it first, with random noise - though he did cheat a bit, by us ing "pink" rather than "white" noise.

As I understand it, McIntyre thinks that Mann's statistical technique is su sceptible to manipulation that can - to some extent - influence the final o utcome.

He might even be right about the susceptibility. But Mann and his co-author s reduced a lot of data to a more or less coherent whole, and other authors have collected different and quite independent - data - lake and ocean sed iment layers in recent years - and come to essentially the same conclusions .

This wouldn't have happened if Mann had faked his data, or biassed the anal ysis, so McIntyre's claims don't appear to be justified.

It's worth reading "Merchants of Doubt" on the whole climate change issue.

The book is essentially about the technique invented by the tobacco compani es for neutralising inconvenient scientific evidence, which has subsequentl y been applied, sometimes by the same people, to other inconvenient scienti fic evidence.

The fossil carbon extraction industry makes a lot more money than the tobac co companies ever did, so the denialism propaganda machine is a lot better funded than any of it's predecessors, and no less unsavoury.

On Monday, 24 February 2014 08:03:01 UTC+11, snipped-for-privacy@columbus.rr.com wrote :

n.

Those are not "details". That's straight denialist propaganda.

"his "hockey stick" from the bad case of brewer's droop it's acquired over the last 15 years of non-warming: "

should have told you all you needed to know. The last fifteen years haven't been "non-warming" and the search string "multidecadal oscillation" gets y ou this

The latest word seems to be that the deeper water of the Pacific seem to ha ve been doing most of the warming for the last decade. The wind patterns th at have driven this will switch back in due course - the oscillations invol ved aren't all that regular, looking more like chaotic limit cycles than re gular oscillations - and we'll get another dose of more rapid warming.

Mann needed fairly fancy statistics to smooth out that kind of stuff, and M cIntyre is well-known to have reservations about the approach. Since Mann's data has been replicated - as well as such noisy data can be replicated - by independent studies based on completely different proxies, McIntyre's re servations appear to be misplaced.

You won't have read about the confirming data in the Wall Street Journal. T he fossil carbon extraction industry buys quite enough advertising to suppr ess any journalistic independence that might survive within the Murdoch med ia empire.