Monday
Mar012010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Interview with Michael Mann
Mar 1, 2010 Climate: Mann Thanks to reader Kevin for pointing out Chris Mooney's interview of Michael Mann. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but feel free to tell me whether I should invest the time.
Reader Comments (10)
I did listen to it. It was disappointing. Mooney essentially asked no tough questions and did not follow up on some of the more egregious statements by Mann. In fairness he did ask whether Mann had any evidence that bloggers were linked to the fossil fuel indistry but let it go when Mann waffled.
Mann asserted that his HS research remains uncompromised and unrefuted and even if it was it wouldn't change the basic aspect of the science.
Bottom-line, Mann struck me as a "true believer" tyoe who was not open to contrary viewpoints.
There was one good question about findings that would force a reconsideration of the existing CAGW position. It was not answered.
That is my take. I will be interested to see if others extracted something different.
I am sorry I could only stomach 10 minutes or so.
The introduction was like a People's Daily commentary.
This is so encouraging that Mann felt that he should conduct this interview. If this was the best he could come up with, then they are on the back foot.
Also interesting were the comments. A more one-sided, fawning interview it would be difficult to imagine (realclimate as THE web site on climate change). Yet many of the comments were saying how fair and balanced was the interview. Amazing.
It was so biased as to be laughable. Please more of this, because even people sitting on the fence will realise something is up listening to this rubbish.
The tide is turning.
It's sad with the amount of spin that is happening in this interview and with the Gore piece in the NYT. I don't get it. POI and the Centers for Inquiry are all about debunking pseudo-science and para-normal, etc. All of a sudden, climate skeptics are thrown into the same camp as science deniers, spin-doctors, evil trolls, etc. Very strange. I care a lot about science...science done properly.
This interview paints with a broad brush. It paints people who ask for data via FOI requests as harassers. FOI request have become FOI demands. Very strange. People who care enough to check out the details themselves are accused of harassment, yet the host has a book entitled Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future. So which is it? Harassment or illiteracy?
The Climate Spin Machine is revving up.
@Kevin
As I said the opening comments were like a People's Daily commentary ("Down with the Imperialists") because the tone was set by the use of the term "Denial Machine", with all the connotations that implies.
This was not spin, it was pure propaganda. What they fail to realise is the phrase, "there is not such thing as bad publicity". For true believers this interview was a security blanket. For anyone with a slightly open mind it raised more questions than it answered.
I have no problem with more of this rubbish being produced. And any journalist listening to this, irrespective of AGW leaning, will think "Hmmm, you only give interviews like this when subject is on weak ground."
I just do not think the public are as stupid as this interview makes them out to be...
@ Jiminy Cricket
Good points...propaganda.
For anyone with a slightly open mind it raised more questions than it answered.
I agree 100%.
"glitches in a couple of sentences in a 3000 page report"
Sorry mate, we're not talking about spelling mistakes or bad grammar.
No - we are talking major blunders and made-up chapters. Things that were known to be wrong even as the IPCC report was published.
Mooney is an hysterical climate alarmist. He is author of "unscientific america" where he explains that Americans are largely climate skeptics because... they are scientific illiterates!
No wonder why he was accepted by Mann for an interview (spinterview would be a more accurate word) : both of them won't let any ugly fact sneak in their beautiful AGW theory.
The interview is well worth listening to. It's psychologically revealing. Many sceptics assume that there's a wicked conspiracy; that the AGW industry is knowingly corrupt; that it witholds data in order to keep the gravy train rolling.
Wrong! Mann genuinely believes the AGW case; reckons that sceptics have access to vast funding; thinks that he has integrity; is being subjected to unfair attack by vested interests which are undermining his science and the reputation of science in general.
There's a name for this: "noble cause corruption". Author Stephen Mosher has written on this topic: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-not-fraud-but-noble-cause-corruption/
These are exciting times! History is being made. Four short months ago it seemed that the sheer momentum of the AGW religion would keep it alive for possibly decades. A visit to the Royal Society website at that time was a bleak experience: reading there that "the science is settled", I feared that pseudoscience had secured the beachhead.
How refreshing to now see the IoP, the Chemists and the Statisticians weighing in so mightily, and reminding us all of Scientific Method.
So the Mann interview is well worth a listen. To destroy one's enemy, one must first understand him.
My comments have been removed from Mooney's Discover Blog. Is this what they are resorting to? Becoming like RealClimate....
Absolutely unbelievable. I was on a train listening to it via a stored copy on my laptop, otherwise I would never have got to the end of it. Quite astonishingly arrogant, even more closed minded than I thought he might be, and levels of paranoia quite off the scale.
To describe this man as a scientist is a complete insult to the scientific community.