No, but what Professor Mann did is. An illogical, misinformed editorial at Science.
[Update a while later]
A few more thoughts on the case from Will Bates.
[Friday-morning update]
The latest over at Mark Steyn’s place: “So the net result of Mann vs Simberg is that Mann owes Simberg $8,587.64. Pay up, you deadbeat.”
Well, he actually owes it to both me and CEI, and we have to split it, so he only owes me a little over four times the (soon to be likely reduced) judgment. Here is our latest filing.
[Late-morning update]
The battle between skeptics and climate “dictators“: “Skepticism is a necessary aspect of the scientific discovery process. During the trial, however, skeptics such as Curry were not allowed to testify, despite her having prepared a 54-page report for the court on the hockey stick science, which was highly critical of Mann’s work.”
Judy did testify, but only as a fact witness, not an expert witness.
[Early-afternoon update]
And I thought you were writing about the prosecuting attorneys in the Trump trial in Georgia?
From the article:
A lesson of the verdict is that despite its flaws, the process for vetting, publishing, and curating scientific findings in the literature is still the best game in town. Although some free speech advocates warn that the verdict will have a chilling effect on the criticism of scientific findings, perhaps the verdict can be viewed more optimistically as appropriately directing matters of opinion to blogs and opinion columns while matters of scientific disagreement are handled in the literature of scientific record.
Pay no attention to the fact that evidence was brought forward in this trial showing that “the best game in town”, the peer review process, the vaunted method for “handling in the literature [matters of dispute] of scientific record” was also attacked by the plaintiff in this case.
In a completely self-serving summation, according to Science, the lesson learned is to stay in your lane even if the road goes over a cliff.
“perhaps the verdict can be viewed more optimistically as appropriately directing matters of opinion to blogs and opinion columns”
Professor, I’m confused!
Professor, I’m confused!
Yes my good fellow, you certainly are! – G. Marx
I was thinking of the fictional “QB-VII”, where a Nazi hunter is dragged into a courtroom in England (Queen’s Bench, number seven) for libeling a physician with a dodgy past.
Didn’t read the novel, but I saw the movie version on TV, or at least I tuned into the dramatic finale, where the Nazi hunter stands for the reading of the verdict, and the jury indeed finds that the Nazi hunter libeled the dodgy doctor for getting some of the details of his past wrong.
This is followed by the announcement of the jury’s finding of monetary damages, where the dodgy doctor is award “one half-penny, the smallest coin in the realm, for the value of his ‘reputation’.”
Consider that since the time this fictional trial had taken place, the cost-of-living has gone up by many multiples?
I was taking your statement at face value. Based on the contradiction that our two venerable defendants were found guilty after essentially adhering to Sciencey magazine’s op-ed advice!
The closest analogy to this trial’s outcome I can come up with, that was ever presented on TV, was an advertisement with the tag line: Where’s the beef?
The opinion expressed in the Science article is laughably stupid.
The author is former UNC chancellor Holden Thorpe, whose wiki is quite amusing.
Everywhere you look in academia you just see more wokeness and fraud.
Years ago Steyn wrote at length about the malicious prosecution of Conrad Black in a Federal court. I am surprised that he wanted a trial in his own case, especially without being represented by a lawyer.