Jan
Michael Mann on government funding, intellectual property rights and transparency
Michael Mann thanks us for paying for his tree ring studies.
As we reported last week the discredited Penn. State University climatologist Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann is still milking the government cash cow with impunity. The timing of Mann’s last half million-dollar windfall couldn’t have been better. Cynics will say his newest largess is big government’s nod of approval for feeding them the spin that bolsters their cap and trade tax hike. Clearly, the Obama Administration is giving this controversial climatologist a nod and a wink while also raising the fickle middle finger of fate to Mann’s critics. The Democrats are now hoping that few insiders will pay much heed to Senator Piccola’s Letter on the upcoming disciplinary hearing of Penn’s pernicious professor
As the rest of the scientific community recoils in dismay at the shenanigans of those climatologists exposed in the Climategate scandal, it’s clearly now down to the politicians to keep alive the burning embers of the man made global warming theory. As Mann’s recent admissions prove, he’s feeling very much on his own: “I haven’t had all that many other scientists helping in that effort.”
In the wake of Obama’s pat on the back to corruption comes the backlash in the blogosphere. Climate skeptics are seething at the U.S. administration’s show of support to the discredited tree-ring counter.
Our little Mann is known for his brash and arrogance among colleagues, so ex-CIA agent Kent Clizbe and I are confident his co-workers will turn on him once prompted to tell the truth at any public inquiry.
When under scrutiny in 2006 our Mann revealed the contempt he feels for investigators when he let slip that he didn’t even consider the National Academy of Science to be scary enough to worry about: “it’s not the US Senate,” he said.
Mendacious Mann will continue to sit tight unless the panel of Penn State University’s internal investigation do their part to help taxpayers reclaim those bags of ill-gotten gain. So with Mikey wiling away his time pondering his fate, I thought it the opportune moment to draw our readers’ attention to some pertinent leaked Climategate emails that provide a true insight into the thought processes of a successful snake oil salesman. (Hat tip to Dr. John Costello)
On February 13, 2006 when the National Research Council of the National Academies of the United States invited British climatologist Keith Briffa to appear before its enquiry in Washington, D.C., Briffa wrote Mike Mann. In CRU leaked email 1139835663 we see how Mann leans on Briffa to attend:
Briffa: “IN STRICT CONFIDENCE I am sending this for your opinion. To be frank, I am inclined to decline. What do think? Presumably you and others are already in the frame?”
Mann remains keen for his co-conspirators to be in the frame. He responds:
Mann: “ I think you really should do this if you possibly can. The panel is entirely legitimate, and the report was requested by Sherwood Boehlert, who as you probably know has been very supportive of us in the whole Barton affair. … Especially, with the new Science article by you and Tim I think its really important that one of you attend, if at all possible.”
If one is wondering about Mann’s definition of “legitimate,” he quickly erases any doubt:
Mann: “The panel is solid. Gerry North should do a good job in chairing this, and the other members are all solid. Christy is the token skeptic, but there are many others to keep him in check: So I would encourage you to strongly reconsider!”
So, it seems Mann is implying that “solid” means “alarmist friendly” and so there is little risk for Briffa in appearing before it. However, Briffa’s lack of confidence is manifest:
Briffa: “Thanks for this, but after a lot of soul-searching this weekend, I have decided to decline the invitation.”
Keith Briffa won’t come to the States to testify for Mann because Briffa fears Mann’s tree-ring “trick” to erase past warming would be exposed. If this happens then the comparatively moderate warming of the late 20th century will be interpreted as yet another natural episode of natural climatic variation. Here’s Briffa’s take on it:
Briffa: “I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago.“
This is a remarkable admission that undermines the entire argument propounded publicly by Briffa, Mann and their colleagues that global warming was “unprecedented.”
Good ol’ Mike responds to this catastrophic development:
“I walked into this hornet’s nest this morning! Keith and Phil Jones have both raised some very good points. And I should point out that Chris Folland, through no fault of his own, but probably through me not conveying my thoughts very clearly to the others, definitely overstates any singular confidence I have in my own [Mann and co-workers’] results.”
In other words, Mann, too, privately admits he has no confidence in his own conclusions! While no one knows Mann’s weasel propensities to fiddle the numbers better than respected Canadian climate analyst and statistician, Steve McIntyre.
McIntyre reviewed Mann’s arguments to justify withholding his source code from the House Committee back in 2005. McIntyre exposes Mann for taking a remarkably legalistic point of view about who owned his computer source code. This is the data trickery Mann used for spinning the tree ring poxy (er, proxy) to “magic” away the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). According to Mann, the source code couldn’t possibly belong to those who funded his research, oh no. Those “thieves” from the Universities of Virginia or Massachusetts weren’t going to pry it from his grubby little fingers by claiming it was theirs!
As Steve McIntyre has rightly pointed out, Mann has twisted the truth about the U.S. federal government’s policy on archiving as much, if not more, than he’s knotted the crap out of tree rings. If Mann’s legalistic position is correct under present National Science Foundation (NSF) policy, then McIntyre is right to insist that its high time for a review of NSF policies and procedures. Because, above all else, genuine scientists should be open and frank about all their calculations that support their theories. But Mann stated the following on this issue:
“My computer program is a private piece of intellectual property….whether I make my computer programs publicly available or not is a decision that is mine alone to make….”
That’s the way to screw the Scientific Method, Mike. It’s not like you haven’t been paid enough already from taxpayers! But really, no one is after stealing his tree-ring counting technique–we know it’s bogus anyway. It’s the fact he hides it that proves his evil intent–real scientists just don’t do that, you see. But as anyone can figure out, Mike’s not in it for the science. You see, McIntyre and that other fine analyst, Ross McKitrick (M&M) exposed his shenanigans when Mann purported to use the standard method known as principal component analysis, or PCA. Our famed wood rings counter had inserted (accidentally or intentionally?) a fundamental mathematical flaw into the computer program to produce that now infamous hockey stick graph so promoted by Al Gore, the UN and green tax-hungry politicians. M&M created some meaningless test data that had, on average, no trends. This method of generating random data is called Monte Carlo analysis, after the famous casino. MIT’s Technology Review explains the whole fiasco in detail here.
In his original publications of the hockey stick, Mann purported to use a standard method known as principal component analysis, or PCA, to find the dominant features in a set of more than 70 different climate records. But this wasn’t so. Every time M&M fed random data into the Mann procedure, out popped a hockey stick shape graph! Whatever climate numbers you feed into Mike’s computer you’ll always get dramatic warming for the end of the last century. But, Mann was busted and there were grounds to do a full inventory of his methodologies.
So what does the Penn State professor have to say in answer to his findings?
“…the National Science Foundation confirmed its view that my computer codes are my private property…“
Okay, We hear you. Michael Mann is now spending less of his career as a climatologist and more as self-taught lawyer. So there you have it climate skeptics. But does he stop droning on about his legal rights? Nope – not our Mikey!
“…It is a bedrock principle of American law that the government may not take private property “without [a] public use,” and “without just compensation.”
Stop! Enough, already! Someone put him back in the cupboard with the other lumps of deadwood, please!
Okay, ownership aside, can Mann still prove he is a hard working scientist of principle, and finally let there be open and transparent independent analysis of his number crunching?
“I have made available all of the research data that I am required to under United States policy as set by the National Science Foundation…. I maintain the right to decline to release any computer codes, which are my intellectual property…”
Yes,yes, that’s it, Mike, keep appealing to that “Higher Authority.” Forgive me, Michael, if I’m being too harsh. But millions of people worldwide, as well as a growing number of your peers, want you to fess up, let the world see whether you screwed up accidentally or deliberately in creating the dodgy hockey stick graph. The political wind are changing and if you don’t bend with them, you’ll have no alternative than to plead the Fifth Amendment, right?
America’s mid-term elections will be the turning point when the American people say ‘no’ to President Obama’s unpopular and pointless climate policies premised on the junk science of apparent money-grabbing connivers, and Michael Mann and the others academics on the public global warming dole will see their day of reckoning.
Possibly related posts:
The dominos are picking up speed…
I could suggest where someone should put Mr. Mann’s Hockey Stick.
[...] at Climategate.com Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Climategate – Copenhagen Ends And Discredited [...]
The Climate Bill/Cap and Trade is currently in the Senate. I sure hope they don’t pass it based on the report IPCC AR4.
The must go back to the drawing board and come up with a new climate policy.
It’s a godsend that this guy has the surname Mann.
Mannipulated Data
Mann Made Global Warming
Mannifestly Wrong
Mannchurian Candidate of the IPCC
Any Others?
mannure
Mann or Mann, this could be fun.
All humorous contributions greatly received and much enjoyed!
Anybody else notice the cranking up of the Warming Propoganda.
Yes…and been going on awhile, too.