Not via libel laws, you're not. And that's what this discussion is about. In the U.S., truth is often described as an "absolute defense" against libel.

Ooh... there are so many errors here I'd really love to take it all on. But I said I wouldn't.

However, I find this one just a little bit too juicy to resist. It's an excellent example of the tendency of Khayman80 (aka DumbScientist aka Bryan Killett) to just spout made-up bullshit when he gets angry.

This is such a gross misrepresentation of anything I actually said I'll count it as a lie in its entirety. First, I didn't at any time say I was talking about statistics actually involving "young earthers" per se. I was simply speaking of statistics, as a field, in a completely general sense. The science of statistics. Which has NOTHING to do specifically with young-earthers. They just happened to be topic under discussion, but my comment was about the nature of evidence, not about young-earthers.

It's a fact of life that if you hunt long and hard enough, you can find evidence for just about anything. It may not be very good evidence, and it may be shown to be false later, but evidence nevertheless. And simple statistics suggests this is also true of the young-earthers, as it is of just about anything else.

This guy has flatly disputed this nearly-invariate fact of life. They may not have any good evidence. But the notion that they have found some kind of evidence -- not proof mind you, but evidence, no matter how thin or tiny -- is strongly supported by a smidgen of statistical thinking. He flatly denies the idea that they could have any evidence at all, even though I've explained to him repeatedly that he appears to be conflating evidence with proof. Or even possibly just degrees of evidence.

As he states above, he has had some kind of personal issue with the young-earthers, so apparently -- this is as close as I can figure but it's only a guess -- if anybody says anything even in the same paragraph where they are mentioned, of which he disapproves, that must somehow equal "support" for their ideas. What utter garbage.

Interpreting my comment, after I explained it to him several times just as I have here, as any kind of support for young earthers or their ideas, is just lunacy. I have told him in so many words that I have never subscribed to the views of young-earthers, and I have denounced them here on Slashdot to him and others.

So for him to imply, as he does above, that I my comment in any way "treats creationism as a scientific hypothesis", is just crazy. Plain and simple. There is zero truth to it.

My comment to him was a simple statement about statistics and evidence. He insists on interpreting my comments somehow (very clearly incorrectly) as some kind of "defense" of the young Earth idea as a "scientific" idea, when I have repeatedly EXPLAINED to him that he's wrong. It's 100% nonsense. But that he does think it (or pretend to think it) is right there in his words above. But has so often happened in the past, I don't think most other people -- rational people -- will have any trouble understanding my explanation. I don't understand why he doesn't.

And THAT, in a nutshell, is how this guy argues. Solid evidence that he is some kind of nut. He conflates completely separate out-of-context comments and ideas into a third idea of his own custom design and imagination, divorced from any reality, and presents it to the public here as though it were the truth.

I don't have to address the rest of his statements above. It's all just more of the same.

Oh... except that I will point out that this is obviously an attempt at a personal "smear". There is no attempt to prove his actual, original accusations here... he's just blurting out many of the same negative things he's said about me in the past, true or (quite often) not.

This isn't a scientific or logical argument. And it has nothing to do with the original assertions he made a few days ago.

This is a blatant attempt to make me look bad. Nothing more.

About what I expected.

That looks like it must have been a lot of work.

As I have already stated: I will not be replying to it here, no matter how distorted and inaccurate it may be.

No, that's not what I did. There was nothing "circular" about it. The logic goes this way: (A) The standard requires a showing of malice. (B) The court stated that the necessary standard had been met. Therefore, (C) Absent any other evidence, it is reasonable to presume that the court wasn't lying about it. There is absolutely nothing circular about that.

Yes, and that's the thing. That's why I "presume" without making a definite statement about it. The case references at least two other cases (which I did look up), which in turn reference other precedents, etc. I'm only going to take the time to trace the references back so far.

But this is what I have already said several times: anonymous criticism IS perfectly legal. It's anonymous LIBEL that is not. Criticize all you want, as long as you are telling the truth. But you don't get to legally call somebody a murderer, or a pedophile, or even a thief if you know it isn't true. You keep failing to make the distinction between real criticism and lies.

The fact is, unless it's a head crash, recovering data from hard drive failures my not be easy but is usually not impossible. Usually all you'll lose is a file or two. I've even recovered data from hard drives in which the spindle seized.

The worst "hard drive failure" I had was an old PATA drive, on which the majority of files were corrupted. For all practical purposes it looked like a mysteriously scrambled FAT. I could copy them off with recovery software, but they usually contained spurious blocks of data appended to the end. It was very frustrating.

In the end, though, it turned out that the hard drive was actually fine. A cable connector had an intermittent open fault on one pin, which was why changing cables did not help.

In any case, having said all that, I agree Backblaze's data is useful as real-world data. On the other hand, after reading their reports, a couple of points really stand out:

[1] One of their primary goals is to get the best storage at the least cost. So many of their drives have been consumer versions, not "enterprise" versions.

[2] "Failures per quarter", or failures per month, etc., are really not all that useful, because we don't know when the drives were put in service. Failures versus active lifetime would be vastly more informative.

More about this:

But again, why should you be able to tell lies about people anonymously? What is the reason?

You should be able to tell the truth anonymously, all you like, with no repercussions. And guess what? Legally, you are. But you still haven't explained to me why you should be able to lie.

Why should there be a different standard for anonymous speech than there is for any other speech? Why should you be given a pass for dishonestly damaging someone's reputation? What possible societal benefit is there to that? I don't see one.

If you tell lies about other people publicly, no matter how much you may dislike them, you should fear retaliation. You have injured that person. And that injury can sometimes be very severe.

But again, as long as you stick to the truth, you are covered. The truth is a defense against libel.

IANAL. But I did have some law at University, and I did pretty well at it. To the best of my understanding, that isn't the "standard", and a subpoena should not have been issued unless there was evidence of malice. Courts make mistakes too.

But I see you missed this part in para. 26:

As I have already explained, in order for libel of a "public figure" to NOT be Constitutionally protected, malice must be shown. So this paragraph implies that the plaintiff had sufficient evidence of malice.

In fact, here is a better way to explain it, unambiguously.

While libel laws vary a bit from state to state, there is a great deal of agreement among them. That reference says:

In practical terms, that means they must convince the court that they are likely to prevail in a libel case, before the anonymity can be broken.

And as I stated before, if you are a public figure, in order to "prevail" in a defamation case, the injured party must show malice.

Therefore, we may safely presume that Hadley had convinced the court he could show malice.

See? The law isn't as bad as you seemed to think it is. People don't get to break another's anonymity in court for no reason. They first have to show that they would likely prevail in their defamation suit first.

That's the law's way of ensuring that anonymous speech is legitimate, but only to the same legal extent that any other speech is legitimate.

Of course it is. But so are automobiles and guns. You can make all kinds of arguments about guns (and many people do), but that doesn't change the fact. If you're an American, you have a right to free speech, and a right to transportation, and a right to bear arms.

No disagreement here. But I don't see where it fits in to your argument about libel. Libel isn't just "offensive" speech. It's lying about other people. The lies might be offensive, but they aren't illegal because they're offensive. They're illegal because they're false damaging statements about somebody.

Does libeling your next-door neighbor protect you from tyranny? I don't think so. And there are ALREADY exceptions in the law for "public figures", so you are actually freer to be loose in your speech about them.

The Supreme Court has acknowledged that anonymous speech is essential to a democracy. And I agree with them. But again, there are exceptions. Your freedom of speech (anonymous or otherwise) does not go so far as to allow you to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Similarly, your freedom of speech does not go so far as to allow you to intentionally damage another person via false accusations.

Basically what the law actually says, is that you have the right to make the same speech anonymously as you would openly. I don't see any problem with that.

That's not necessarily true. It depends very much on the language used.

But that's not how it works. There has to be evidence.

Look... there have been many legal cases over this issue. Let's say you're a public figure. If the circumstances amount to strong evidence that there is actual malice involved (which does happen sometimes), then the injured party can get information subpoenaed in order to find out who said it. Legally, it's all based on reasonable levels of evidence, not just some ability to willy-nilly subpoena anyone you want.

There was a case in the news not long ago, in fact it was mentioned here on Slashdot. (I'm not going to take the time to look it up, though.) After seeing the evidence, the judge ruled that the plaintiff was likely able to show genuine malice, and so agreed to issue a subpoena for information about who the individual was. If the judge had found insufficient evidence of malice, he would not have issued the subpoena.

Here's a hypothetical example: the writer says, "I'm doing this because I think you're a low-life hateful/awful/dangerous person." (As opposed to, say, "I have evidence you've actually done something wrong.") Or "I'm doing this because you seduced my wife", etc. So for this example, a personal vendetta of some kind. If the statements are false, and the writer admitted that it was done for personal reasons, or personal gain of some kind, that's generally evidence of malice.

But again the point is: there has to be evidence before a subpoena my be legally issued.

They can. The law allows them to. What the law does not allow, is malicious, defamatory speech. As long as you're telling the truth, there is generally nothing to fear: truth is a near-absolute defense against libel. But if you're lying, and especially you're lying for opinion-based or selfish reasons, you'd better watch out.

That's the way it is. And frankly, that's the way it should be.

You distorted again right there. Where was there any indication in the actual sentence that was written, that anybody was "fantasizing" about anything? Nothing of the sort exists, nor would a reasonable person think it was even implied.

You just demonstrated clearly, once again, how you make defamatory statements up as you go, out of nothing that existed before. That's distortion and misreprentation. Rather egregious distortion and misrepresentation at that, and quite dishonest. But again, I've come to expect that kind of behavior from you.

Why should you be allowed to intentionally make false, damaging statements about somebody? Anonymously or otherwise? Current law says you don't have the right to do that, and I agree with the law.

Do you think it's okay to "anonymously" shoot somebody with a gun, or "anonymously" run over them with a car? If not, why should you be allowed to injure them any other way anonymously? It makes no sense.

As for "the powerful", if you are a "public figure" you have to show actual malice before you may demand reparations. Because as a public figure, there must be room for the public to comment about your actions.

But that's already the law.

Again with the distortions. You haven't demonstrated anything about provocation, in either direction. You've just kept making the same bald assertions with nothing to back them up, as though repeating them might make them true. You cite your own old out-of-context distortions as though they might make a new one true. This is really quite amusing, but it's wasting too much of my time.

You made the claim, and you haven't backed it up. At all. And all these other straw-man arguments you've been making are attempts to pull the discussion in a different direction, to hide that fact. That's a variant of "moving the goalposts".

I've demonstrated your abuse of these logical fallacies so many times now, I really wonder why I bother to feed the troll. Even when it is just in self-defense against false accusations.

I have little doubt that it is. So what? It is also INconsistent with even the IPCC's early temperature reconstructions. It also "conveniently" leaves out the MWP and the Little Ice Age, and is cherry-picked to evade discussion the Holocene Optimum. As I understand it, even Young Earthers are willing to accept that the Earth might be as much as 10,000 years old. So why leave out those 4,000 years? The answer is obvious: to avoid having to discuss periods of the past that don't fit her thesis. That's called cherry-picking.

I don't know why that would be "apparent" to anybody. And your implication that you "taught" me Young Earthers are wrong is another example of your subtle distortions. I've known they were wrong since I was in grade school. And I have never (except perhaps in jest, but I don't even recall that) claimed their view was correct. In fact I've publicly denounced it many times in many places, including here earlier. It's really quite fascinating to see you distort things so far that you're actually defending someone who caters to young-earthers, then try to imply that somehow I might be defending them. I'm not and I haven't.

The rest is just more of your particular brand of verbal nonsense. Like this:

Of course they do. To the best of my knowledge, it isn't good evidence, and I am pretty sure most if it is quite invalid. But even very poor-quality evidence is still evidence. You might be surprised learn that the "moon landing is a fake" crowd also have some evidence. Again, it isn't good evidence but some of it took quite a bit of effort to successfully refute. And no, I don't subscribe to their view either. But neither am I a reality denier who claims there is NO such evidence. Even a very basic knowledge of statistics (as I explained to you a long time ago) argues against you.

And you didn't show I was wrong about that, you just refuted a couple of hypothetical examples I pulled out of thin air. You've hardly rigorously addressed the issue. Again, you've just kept repeating your bald unsupported assertions to that effect until, it seems, you believe them yourself.

Again, I'm done here. I'm sick and tired of your distorted-out-of-contexting and straw-manning and attempts at other verbal trickery.

Oh... and by the way: while you may dislike the Cornwall Alliance for whatever reasons of your own, the only "religion" in their actual position, as stated in their "what we believe" section, is here:

Now, other than the stated belief that God created the world -- which, again, is central to all Christian belief -- I see nothing in that statement which is radical or unreasonable, or which actually mixes science with religion. Nor do I see such in the rest of their "What We Believe" or "What We Deny" sections. I see no evidence in those passages that the religious beliefs and the science are getting crossed up at all in the way Hayhoe garbles them together.

Now, to be clear, I'm only going by that page you linked to. I know nothing else about them. Nor do I really care, since I've seen nothing to indicate the scientific position is being driven by the religious position.

As for the rest: you've wasted far too much of my time, and you still haven't proved any of your original accusations. I think by now it is more than reasonable to conclude that the reason is that you are simply incapable of doing so. And you've shown us absolutely no -- not one word -- of actual evidence that any of my comments were "unprovoked".

So I do not plan to respond further, even if you do make more false accusations. You have demonstrated many times that I'm wasting my time trying to have anything resembling a reasonable discussion with you. If you reply here, I'm just going to record it for posterity. (I suspect that you will reply, and I even strongly suspect I know pretty much what you'll write. So be it.)

Have a day.

Addendum:

Interesting. I read a bit more about Spencer and I see that indeed, he believes in a form of creationism that does contradict evolution. Go figure.

But again: to the best of my knowledge, he doesn't let such things leak into his climate science. Which is all I really care about.

Hayhoe, on the other hand, DOES mix her religion with her science, and gives presentations based on that mixture. As far as I am concerned, that's much more cause for alarm.

As for Booker, I repeat that I do not reference him as any sort of expert on science, so the point is moot.

More of your distortions:

You're inappropriately nitpicking over verbiage. You claim that figure was NOT made from a subset of the available data?

I know what you told me, and you didn't "debunk" much of anything. I will say this again: claiming that even the young-earthers have NO evidence to support their position, is just false. It might be sparse, and it might be bad evidence, but even bad evidence is still evidence. And I will once again (because you like to distort so much) make it clear that I am not one of them and I do not share their position. I think they're a bit crazy.

Which is why I wonder why Hayhoe is tailoring presentations precisely for that crowd. "Mainstream"? Not much.

There are various versions if the "intelligent design" idea, and not all of them contradict the theory of evolution. Which is rather in contrast to the Young Earthers. In any case, I'm not particularly alarmed, because unlike Hayhoe, Spencer does not try to mix his science and religion. (As far as I know. I'm not going to watch your almost-4-hour video just to see if your assertion is correct.)

Your apparent assumption that belief in some form of "Intelligent Design" (which includes ALL Christians, scientists or not) is some kind of prima facie evidence of quackery is not supported by the facts. Young Earthers, on the other hand, are denialists par excellence.

I do reference Christopher Booker occasionally, about political issues. I do not now nor have I ever considered him an authority on science.

So once again, you're just pulling in a little from here, a little from there, mashing them together, and implying things from the result. And as I have said about some of your other meanderings: that's not logical argument. Or even truth.

I find this all rather hilarious after you so vilified Young Earthers in some of our earlier exchanges. Now you're defending a scientist who is tailoring her presentations just for them.

Nonsense. I'm the one who pointed out that Hayhoe was consorting with Young Earthers. I'm not the one defending them. Or her. Nor have I been spreading "creationist misinformation" of any kind. Another of your lies.

You're really a loon if you actually believe some of the things you say. You've been given plenty of reason to believe they aren't true. I can only conclude, then, that either you really have gone of the deep end some time ago, or that it is your purpose here to intentionally spread malicious lies.

And I didn't claim she did. Try going back and reading again.

What I wrote was that she created that dataset for presentation to young-earthers. And I linked to the interview where she said that, herself.

Stop trying to distort other people's meanings. It's dishonest.

"Mainstream science"? By intentionally cherry-picking a young-earther-friendly dataset? And then making false statements about it like

??? In her "factual" presentation called "A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions"? Tailored (she said herself) for young-earthers?

You sure do like to argue against the plain facts that are right in your face. You've done it many times.

But put the goalposts back where they belong, eh? You still haven't shown us where I made "unprovoked" false or insulting statements about your list of people.

And you won't, because I didn't. I predict you'll just keep trying to straw-man and out-of-context me until I throw up.