Mann: "Now ve vill torture you!"

Co-Authors: "But Michael! This is literally the same result you would get anyway!"

Mann: "But ve like to torture... Zat is vhy ve became mad scientist..."

I'm having real trouble following this twisted plot. I can see his coauthors objecting: "But Michael, we get the same answer even if you don't torture the data!" Mann: "Everysings vorking according to plan!"

And your contribution addressed this how?

Were you trying to illustrate my point about bullshit?

Mod this guy up! Great example of tortured logic. Your narrative must really need an antagonist.

Wow! Thanks for dialing down the hyperbole and coming back down to Earth!

Conspiracy narratives are always the fallback of the deniers. I gave you the code and the data and you still want to claim that "Mann has a record of being evasive about the data and methods used." Let's not let the facts get in the way of a good yarn.

So your logic is that because there was a rape scandal at the school, therefor climate change is bogus? Good job. And in order to show that Styrn didn't accuse Mann of fraud you include a quote that says: "Michael Mann was the man behind the fraudulent climate-change “hockey-stick” graph"? Interesting argument.

Nope. This isn't about whether there are better methods. Dozens of other papers get the same hockey stick with different methods and different proxies. They would all argue that their methods are better. That is science, not law. At issue here are the allegations of fraud. Here is what the most recent judge has said:

A reasonable reader, both within and outside the scientific community, would understand that a scientist who molests or tortures his data is acting far outside the bounds of any acceptable scientific method. In context, it would not be unreasonable for a reader to interpret the comment, and the republication in National Review, as an allegation that Dr. Mann had committed scientific fraud, which Penn State University then covered up, just as some had accused the University of covering up the Sandusky scandal. For many of the reasons discussed in Judge Combs Greene’s July 19 orders, to state as a fact that a scientist dishonestly molests or tortures data to serve a political agenda would have a strong likelihood of damaging his reputation within his profession, which is the very essence of defamation.

Right. We have to do a rational cost/benefit/risk analysis and take reasonable steps. The only thing standing in the way of rational policies is the hyperbole from the political ideologs.

Sigh....

You should check out http://climatechangenationalfo...

One of the key features of the Climate Change National Forum is the comment section. Below each entry, and above the general comment section, will be comments made by other contributors. Rather than presenting a unified face to the outside world, contributors are encouraged to question, debate, dispute, expand, and otherwise discuss other contributions. The public rarely gets to see scientists debating each other, outside of the fake debates that are set up by news shows. As scientists know, what scientists eventually tell the outside world in publications, presentations, and committee reports gives little or no clue (or even the wrong impressions) about how scientists judge scientific claims, evaluate evidence, develop hypotheses, and reach conclusions. I know of no web site, inside or outside of climate science, that allows the public to experience true scientific discussions on a regular basis.

- http://blog.chron.com/climatea...

Those who can't perform a simple Google search would be hard pressed to debate the science in any meaningful way (and should probably cease spewing BS to score political points). I found the code and data with a two minute search. - http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holoc...

Initially the defendants were pretty cocky. Perhaps not so much now that this just got real. Here is what they originally published in an article titled "Get Lost":

"If Mann sues us, the materials we will need to mount a full defense will be extremely wide-ranging. So if he files a complaint, we will be doing more than fighting a nuisance lawsuit; we will be embarking on a journalistic project of great interest to us and our readers.

My advice to poor Michael is to go away and bother someone else. If he doesn't have the good sense to do that, we look forward to teaching him a thing or two about the law and about how free debate works in a free country."

- http://climatecrocks.com/2014/...

This review of scientific literature found that 97% of papers that took a position agree that warming is man made: http://skepticalscience.com/97...

Nope. They would be the ones out of business instead of the insurance companies that bet against the science.