As I have pointed out a number of times, Mann doesn’t even need discovery to show reckless disregard for truth/falsity in Steyn’s case. Steyn went on record recently calling the Hockey Stick a “climate model” whose “predictions” had failed. What possible defense can he have against the claim that he showed reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of claims that Mann’s work was “fraudulent”, when he didn’t even know what the %$@! that work was?
His only real defense is what the Catholics call “invincible ignorance”. That is, he will have to claim that he is too stupid to understand the issue at hand, so no amount of study would have led him to a different conclusion, no matter how obvious.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Can Mark Steyn Claim "Invincible Ignorance?"
Barry Bickmore:
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13 comments:
I don't see why Barry keeps flogging this dead horse. The hockey stick is an obvious case of modeling.
It took hundreds of years of proxy data and used equations to synthesize an estimated historical temperature record, based on theoretical assumptions about proxy equivalence to temperature.
Sounds like a textbook case of modeling to me!
Surely Barry is educated enough to know that.
It's not a "climate model" as the phrase is customarily used. And it doesn't make predictions about future temperatures.
a purist might split that hair, but a trial court and 12 people aren't going to care.
it's a dead issue. on the other hand, if the defendants show this video, mann is royally screwed and the trial ends instantly:
Richard Mueller shows the jury how mann committed fraud
that's an undeniable case of fraud.
I think juries will be able to easily distinguish between a large computer program run on supercomputers to a small calculation done on Mann's laptop.
This video simply shows Muller’s ignorance about (1) the divergence problem with tree ring density proxies, and (2) the immense amount of work that has gone into finding the relationships between proxy data and temperatures.
Saying “Is this reliable? Well, we don’t know” is a laugh line that is really a slap in the face of all dendrochronologists and paleoclimatologists who have done hard, honorable work in this field for decades. Muller here is just another scientist (albeit a bombastic one) talking outside his field of expertise, on something he understands little about.
Muller used to make similar dismissals of warming temperatures. Then he actually bothered to analyze the data for himself and found the same result as everyone else (but couldn’t resist writing an NY Times op-ed about it).
Go ahead and show this video in court. There are dozens of experts who could be called to slice it, and him, up, all before lunch.
are you serious? number one, models don't have specific sizes. every high school in the country runs modeling programs on laptops.
secondly, the video clearly shows how proxies DO NOT match actual temperature records. if there was a direct correlation, there would have been no need to splice temperature data at the end of hundreds of years of proxy data. there would have been no significant different between the two versions Mueller showed in the video.
no offense, but what you are suggesting is laughable.
Yes, I'm serious -- anyone can understand the difference between a "climate model" and a calculation.
Clear, neither you nor Muller understands the divergence problem, and where it applies and where it doesn't, and why. Let me suggest this:
"On the ‘Divergence Problem’ in Northern Forests: A review of the
tree-ring evidence and possible causes," Rosanne D'Arrigo et al,
Global and Planetary Change 60 (2008) 289–305.
One more comment about climate models and then I want to switch subjects- those climate models you refer to failed to predict the current ~17 year pause in average global temperature rise. So it is pointless to bring up the subject of defining climate models during the trial, because they are hopelessly inaccurate. It is a sideshow that goes nowhere and proves nothing.
Moving on... Do you recognize the burden of proof that applies in this trial?
Mann doesn't have to prove Mueller was mistaken. Mann has to prove Mueller was mistaken AND Steyn KNOWS Mueller was mistaken.
That's why all this back-and-forth about what a climate model is and isn't is completely irrelevant. And that's why bringing in witnesses to argue with Mueller is also irrelevant.
Unless Mann can produce witnesses that testify Steyn KNOWS Mueller is wrong (and Steyn KNOWS Jones was wrong when he said Mann used "a trick to hide the decline"), Mann has no hope of winning.
There's a reason why public figures almost never win defamation trials. The burden of proof is simply too high.
Anyway, I will leave you to have the last word. A resolution of this issue is, unfortunately, at least a year away and I don't want to dwell too much on that stuff now. It's kind of pointless to get too invested in the subject with so much time left to before the conclusion.
rspung: Your last comment is far, far off topic.
Mann doesn't have to prove Mueller was mistaken. Mann has to prove Mueller was mistaken AND Steyn KNOWS Mueller was mistaken.
So I can say you're a child molester, as long as I pretend not to know that others have said you are not.
Mann doesn't have to prove Mueller was mistaken. Mann has to prove Mueller was mistaken AND Steyn KNOWS Mueller was mistaken.
So Steyn can claim ignorance about everything -- EVERYTHING -- and that gets him off.
That's really your position?
it's not my position. it's the legal standard.
and his ignorance has to be believable to a jury. and not contradicted by evidence. like...
witnesses that testify Steyn KNOWS Mueller is wrong (and Steyn KNOWS Jones was wrong when he said Mann used "a trick to hide the decline")
Mann filed the suit. Mann has the burden of proof. He knew what he was getting into before he pulled the trigger. Ignorance of the legal standard, that has he has to reach, is no excuse.
Darn it! I thought I was out but you pulled me back in again.
Flypaper for shills.
Best,
D
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