Thursday
Aug042011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Mashive attack
Aug 4, 2011 Climate: other John Mashey and friend have been given space in the Chronicle of Higher Education to respond to Peter Wood's articles about Mashey's antics.
Reader Comments (300)
In case Michael missed it, Mashey and Coleman's article exactly re-inforced Wood's comments about the behaviour of the AGW supporting clique and validated Wood's article. Of course, that irony is lost on people like Michael as they are so caught up in their trolling and obfuscations.
Michael, in his eagerness to portray Dr. Trenberth as expert in hurricanes, now has himself in a bit of a pickle. Two experts (I assume he'll grant Dr. Emmanuel that distinction) have contrary opinions on the scienciness of CO2-induced hurricane activity. He needs no expertise to recite the IPCC message on hurricanes. But how on earth can he discern the one true science on hurricanes? Such a dilemma!
Anybody who calls Trenberth as an expert in hurricanes is either ill informed or deliberatey disinforming. Just as a small piece of information, read the below link about Treberth, hurricane predictions, IPCC et. al. and Chris Landsea's experience
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/07/07/chris-landsea-and-the-moral-midgets/
JonasN @2.30AM made the point, I think.
By the by: what do you mean by post-modern? I thought I was being quite traditional in asking those qualified in the relevant field to provide the information I was looking for.
As Peter Woods original article was about higher education, and the problems of higher education (which is, after all, the primary focus of the publication), the comments on the original article and this 'right of reply' article would all seem hugely misdirected?
Just to make sure I wasn't making a total fool of myself (no, don't bother!) I went back and read all the relevant articles, including comments, with as open a mind as possible.
One could be really unpleasant and suggest "a plague on both your houses" but that would be cowardly and dishonest.
I really, honestly, cannot get to grips with the idea that climate scientists are a persecuted species. It may be something to do with not having access to the US media but certainly what is produced in the UK, in reportage, comment, and advertising, has for years been so unremittingly pro-AGW that it is unsurprising that a complaisant electorate (aka the Man in the Clapham Omnibus that I referred to earlier) has happily gone along with it and that anyone with an enquiring mind has been more than a little suspicious.
After all, nothing in life is that obvious or that clear-cut.
I understand confirmation bias and accept that all of us, being fallible, suffer from it most of the time (or at least need to be on guard against it). However, reading the comments under Wood's article and Mashey's there surely is no doubt which "side" is resorting to invective, insult and (in one or two cases) distortion of what other commenters have written and the thrust of the articles themselves.
Much of the criticism directed at Wood does not even attempt to address the subject of his article.
Try reading the comments first and then go back and read the article and you'll see what I mean.
We allow ourselves to be suckered into a similar trap here.
Michael, like Mashey's "supporters" demands "factual rebuttals", but factual rebuttals of what? Where does one start with providing evidence that the "pro-AGW camp" refuses to engage in debate, insults its opponents and denigrates their qualifications and their competence, persistently "plays the man, not the ball"? Pick up any publication or blog that expresses even the mildest reservation about the science, starting with the subject of this thread and it becomes self-evident.
I would especially draw your attention to the contributions by arthurpsmith!
Oh, and this beauty from TenneyNaumer
No further questions, m'lud!
Venter,
rer: Hurricanes and Landsea.
Hot on the heels of that (ie. within months) came several papers pointing out that increased hurricane intensity was expected under AGW, and one that found both an increase in severity and intensity of hurricanes since 1970.
This later paper was by a scientist who seems to be quite popular with the 'skeptics' these days. What's her name.....oh, that's right.....Judith Curry.
The subsequent 6 years of published research has further confirmed these trends. ie backing Trenberths initial statement.
Oh, and guess who authored a paper last year showing a significant increase in hurricane intensity under AGW? - Chris Landersea. Hmmmm.
All of the above might tell you something about the quality of 'nofrakkingconsensus' in that reviewing the story 6 years later it failed to note any of these later developments that might have allowed a re-evaluation of that initial incident. Let me - Trenberth was on the money and Landersea showed himself to be not quite as up on the latest reserch as he though he was.
A true sceptic might have checked all this first and not posted a link to such an appallingly stupid piece of blogging.
Sceptic is as sceptic does, Venter.
Chuckles,
Are you reading the same thing?
Wood used the pages of CHE to take exception to someone exposing academic misconduct.
Let that sink in for a minute - not the misconduct itself..... but the person uncovering it.
Bizarre.
Mike,
"I really, honestly, cannot get to grips with the idea that climate scientists are a persecuted species."
In Australia they get death threats. Does that count??
And yes, I too am clutching my pearls at such awful words - "scum", "lies", "slander" etc.
Now people here don't like Mashey and Coleman taking a blowtorch to Wood. That's fine.
But the continued implication is that their critique is wrong or mistaken. Though still no one seems able to argue any specifics.
Michael
Wang, B., Y. Yang, Q.‐H. Ding, H. Murakami, and F. Huang, 2010. Climate control of the global tropical storm days (1965–2008). Geophysical Research Letters, 37, L07704, doi:10.1029/2010GL042487.
The last few years have been among the quietest for hurricane activity in well over 30 years.
Don't exaggerate. You can point to one example which the recipient didn't take seriously enough to report to the police.
Presumably the implication behind the 10:10 video or Santer's expressed wish to beat the crap out of Pat Michaels or any of the other varied suggestions about what ought to be done to sceptics are not relevant.
Including you, Michael Like identifying sources for "scum", "lies", "slander". I've seen plenty of that addressed to sceptics. Have you missed out on those or do you just not want to see them.
Unless you can produce something better in the way of cogent and coherent argument I shall join Aynsley Kellow and just refuse to engage. Life really is too short to attempt communication with the deaf and blind, not to mention the closed mind.
PS If you want to stick it to Chris Landsea, the least you can do is get his name right.
Thanks Mike Jackson, you gave the same reply I was about go give. Obviously Michael has no clue or knowledge about there being no linked established between increasing temperatures and hurricanes and also no such link between increasing temperatures ad extreme weather events. Trenberth's unsupported statements remain unsupported and even the climate establishment have acknowledged the absence of such links.
Michal has been doing similar trolling at Judith Curry's blog with the same poliovirus arguments and got spanked by specialist doctors and other knowledgeable posters there.
I agree with you that it is best to ignore such trolls and not feed them.
Mike,
That paper only deals with days, not intensities, which is where most of the increase is being found (though some research is even pointing to fewer, but more intense cyclones).
"Don't exaggerate. You can point to one example which the recipient didn't take seriously enough to report to the police."
Which is it? An exaggeration or it doesn't matter unless it's reported to police?
This is a not terribly clever evasion.
"Including you, Michael "
Hey, I'm not the one saying that Mashey and Coleman are "throwing only insults" or "trying to create a commonality of criminality".
I've just asked for someone to step up to the plate and demostrate any of this rather than merely asserting it - so far, no takers.
Venter,
You'd better get in touch with Chris Landsea and tell him his latest paper is wrong!
Let us know how you get on with that.
Michael:
You really are a prolific little troll, aren’t you? Like a good little troll you obfuscate, erect strawmen and shift ground…. and post anonymously out of fear of retribution. Pathetic.
You have failed to grasp (or chose not to grasp) a number of things:
First: Mashey’s magnum opus, though technically correct in many areas, is not concerned with the preservation of academic integrity, it is a mean-spirited effort to advance a political agenda. The point you missed is that Mashey has nothing to say about the substance of Wegman’s report. That still stands. Mann’s statistical treatments are badly flawed and the “independence” of other hockey-stick reconstructions, to put it charitably, is a myth.
Second: You’ve put a lot of effort into the Trenberth-as-hurricane-sage image and are rather dismissive of Donna LaFrambois’s reconstruction of events. Funny, though, how she documents everything, whereas you don’t. What you’ve chosen to ignore is that the issue was Trenberth’s 2004 statement linking hurricane activity to global warming. Trenberth had published nothing on hurricanes up until that time: in fact, his first article was published a year after Chris Landsea tweaked him for not having published in the area.
The article reads like a summary I would write explaining what the state of a field I’m not really familiar with looks like. It contained nothing new. Trenberth’s remaining publications all had co-authors (in each case a member of the writing team was someone he supervised at NCAR). Most of those publications added nothing new. This looks a lot like an attempt to run up a publication total. It seems Dr. Trenberth lost interest in hurricanes in 2008 and has published nothing since.
Third: Like Dr. Kellow, I don’t have much time for cowardly trolls. His name is on his posts, as my name is on mine. Some warmists have the integrity to put their name on their posts: Scott Mandia, for example, lives just across the sound from me but I’ve never had the urge to seek him out and do him harm. On the contrary, there is a standing invitation to lunch, dinner, drinks if he finds himself out my way. You however.... well, I'm done with you.
That's some masterful trolling
You have been repeatedly asked - "what specifics?" You have no answer.
Monckton compared Stern's actions to those under a Nazi regime. Can you prove that it is not so? Would you care to show how, putting a tax on a basic constituent of life, is not a sign of totalitarianism?
Mashey says: " I know too many people who get death threats or dead rats". Where are his citations for that? I thought Ben Santer got a single dead rat, about 5 years back. Is he still milking that?
basic structure, is to take a up-front denunciation of his ratf**king, as a sign of a denunciation of his ratf**king activities. How do you think the pages swell up?
Say, you take person John Smith. Let us say Smith is like Mashey - in his 'rebuttal' style. Say, the local newspapers declares: "Smith is a village idiot, not unlike Quasimodo". And then, Smith gets his chance for a rebuttal. This is what he would say:
All one can to Mr Smith is: no s**t Sherlock. The paper called you an idiot. Get to their reasons and try to counter them.
Again, you may look at Mr. Smith's stuff, and you may call this type of a thing - 'analysis', or 'critique'. If I may speak for more than myself, - we don't. Because we are not idiots.
If people like Wood decry Mashey's low tactics, he should perhaps stop to think: why is it that I am having to stoop down to such a low standard of argument - criticizing Wegman for 'plagiarism', in order to strike it off the Congressional record - in order to support Mann? Why isn't a higher vantage available for me to stand on, in my efforts?
Consider Mashey's worldview: in it, funding is an all-important talisman of righteousness, or villainy. For any mature individual, and a scholar, that is so juvenile a view. Everyone in the world has money - everyone pays for their favourite causes. Anyone who's grown up in the real world should know this by now. In what view, is funding by private individuals and corporations an outrageous evil, but funding of causes and individuals by government a noble endevaour? And the base level - both are money. If one can corrupt, so can the other.
'Follow the money' can serve as the starting point for an investigation, but the final argument cannot be made on that basis. But Mashey, does that. For Mashey, and his coterie, 'money', 'Nazism', 'plagiarism' and sundry other evils weave in and out seamlessly, popping in to hold up the bottoms of various half-baked arguments which would, in their own eyes, topple otherwise.
As an example, consider this passage:
This comes right at the tail of, this offering:
Any reasonable individual would only conclude, that Mr Mashey, in order to hold up the bottom of his own analysis of the Wegman report, has to resort to pointing out the financials of presumed Wegman supporters. In case, you fail to realize this: this approach destroys the credibility of Mashey's analysis, if any, rather than strengthening, as he surely believes it does.
Mashey's 34-page diatribe, unfortunately however, consists of pages and pages of details about the N.A.S' funding. Who gives a rat's ass? Surely, all that money did not confer on Peter Wood the intelligence and insight that he evinced in his two articles. It is their substance that Mashey ought to have addressed.
And then, of course, the strange scholarship of Mashey. Go to page 5. Look at the references. One to Deltoid, three to DeepClimate, one to USA Today, five, to Desmogblog, three to Wikipedia.
If Mashey was an erudite critic, vastly knowledgeable and well-read, but outraged at the 'attacks on climate scientists' who one day emerged from his library basement to enlighten the world about the scholarly wisdom that has been buried under funded propaganda, do you think he would been quoting Deltoid, Deepclimate and Desmogblog as sources?
It rather looks more like, Mashey, keeps hanging around the Internet reading up and collecting stuff that he likes, and strings them up together, than any scholarly activity from him. Deltoid as a reference? I am sure Tim Lambert is blushing. Only Mashey knows perfectly well, how to create a ruckus, tease open an avenue, where he can peddle his favorite collected website links.
Robert,
"Mashey’s magnum opus, though technically correct in many areas"
Very true.
But, the topic here is meant to be his further work on Wood.
"You’ve put a lot of effort into the Trenberth-as-hurricane-sage image and are rather dismissive of Donna LaFrambois’s reconstruction of events. Funny, though, how she documents everything, whereas you don’t..."
Donna's was just a re-print from 6 years ago - there's not a single reference to any subsequent events, most of which are highly damning to the narrative she presents. For instance - papers coming out soon after Landsea's exit confirming increased hurricane intensity, and Landsea's own later acceptance of that. How did she manage to miss such vital developments?
I think Michael is trying to demonstrate how he needs "zero expertise [him]self to accurately repeat the overall findings of any group of" experts, including determining who those are and what their expertise actually is, or at least claims to be and based on what.
His repeated demand that somebody argues 'the specifics' of what Mashey brings to the table demonstrate the same abilities. As does his hang-up regarding Monckton, whose specifics incidentally neither were presetned correctly nor did he "check [Moncktons] .. cliams, very very carefully".
Well, he didn't, and neither was his counterpart Dr. Richard Denniss nor his claims and 'specifics' checked very very carefully. It is as he says: "The credulous believe it all in an instant because they wish it to be true"
But hey, we all know that the internet is littered with backseat-expert-&even-science-endorsers of his ilk, whose main and often only thrust is:
'Someone else is more knowledgeble than you, to convince me you must forst go and convince them instead. I'm just the messanger" [meaning 'follower']
And we also know that they rarely have anything more of substance (or even own conviction) to say or contribute. And how could they?
Well done Jonas.
Your contribution makes 117 posts and still nothing substantial pointing out the flaws/errors/mistakes in Mashey and Coleman.
Is that because there are none?
Here is material from a thread in which Mashey participates. It is from the Shewonk blog - how to talk to skeptic thread
View #1
View #2
Both these posters, I am sure, do not realize that this is the very definition of demagoguery - using your turn as a bully pulpit to preach and hector, rather than answer a question that has been posed.
Mashey's efforts fall in the same category.
Somewhere deep in the 34 pages is this small tidbit from Mashey, referring to a book on Canadian libel law:
At once, this lays bare the man's oeuvre, self-perception, and projection: 'take me seriously because I read big fat books. Some of them have a thousand pages.'
Moving on, Mashey unveils that the CHE and the NAS may be sued for libel, if not in the United States but in Canada surely - as he attests his knowledge of Canadian libel law from reading those fat books, have revealed to him:
Wood, of course, did not hesitate to make his grounds clear:
And what is Mashey's response?
That's it. Threat after threat of lawsuit, under the libel-tourist friendly Canadian law is what Mashey offers. This is the band-aid holdup Mann's scientific offerings, even in the eyes of his own supporters.
One wonders who gave Mann the idea to sue Tim Ball for his humorous-yet-true observations.
Michael
I have now trawled through all your posts on here and the (almost 100% polite and considerate) replies to them.
You have ducked and dived and weaved. You have moved the goalposts at every opportunity. Like ZDB (who you may be for all I know) you persistently make demands of those posting here while skilfully ignoring any request made to you.
Your standard of debate is puerile; your knowledge of your subject is about that of a reasonably well-educated 13-year-old as the way in which you quote sources demonstrates. Your technical contributions give every appearance of being reasonably well crafted but of not having passed through your brain in the process.
In short, you are a troll and, like so many of your breed, not a very good one.
I shall now take two aspirin and lie down for a couple of hours to recover, hoping (no doubt against hope) that when I come back you will have left.
RayG/Anysley Kellow/Venter/Robert E. Phelan
I was interested in a certain element of some of your comments on this thread. Below I have listed the comments on this thread so far that I think are partly concerned with the issues of communications with a certain genre of commenters. I would say that genre of commenters can be called the auto-aggressive anonymous authoritarian (AAAA).
Like me, maybe you have a very individualized/ personalized decision process for deciding on the worthiness level of AAAA genre commenters within the group of all genres of commenters. I would call the result of my process a personalized comment worthiness hierarchy (PCWH).
I think we may all have our very personalized thresholds of minimum commenter worthiness within our individual PCWHs, below which we individually/personally choose an alternate strategy for dealing with AAAAs compared to a normal way of dealing with other comment genres. There are interesting alternate strategies for addressing AAAA’s.
I suggest we share possible alternate strategies for dealing with the AAAA genre of commenters.
This is fun. N’est ce pas?
John
Michael, I have no idea if we read the same thing, but I presume you are questioning whether we understood the same thing from the article?
Your further statements suggest that no, the subjective truths we took from the article differ markedly.
To summarise my understanding -
The article is published in 'Innovations' a blog of the Chronicle of Higher Education, purporting to present 'Insights and Commentary on Higher Education.'
It starts by discussing P.T Barnum, and notes that despite achieving fame and fortune and devoting much time and money to philanthropic acts, Barnum never achieved what he most desired - the approbation and approval of the public. 'They loved the spectacle but deplored his ethics'
It suggests that contemporary Higher Ed might claim him as a progenitor (presumably because it suffers from a similar problem?).
It then switches to the present, and notes that Science (magazine) reports on John Masheys approach to criticism of contemporary Climate Science, and Dr. M. Mann in particular. It notes that his approach consists of examining and critiquing such material in minute detail, in order to refute or discredit it.
It also notes Sciences description of his critics response to his approach. 'His critics say Mashey is more interested in destroying his foes than in debating the issues.'
It then switches to Bruno latour, and notes that when he faced a dilemna in his approach to science, he rapidly adapted his methods to compensate for this, and to avoid giving ammunition to his critics. 'it now struck him as crucial to combat “excessive distrust of good matters of fact.”'
Next it notes the problem of how this is to be done, this 'walking of the fine line' if you will.
It notes that John Masheys approach certainly seems effective, but might it not fall prey to Barnum's problem?
That, while it achieves it's short-term ends, it falls foul of the public's sense of fair play or similar, and in so doing fails to achieve it's ultimate goal, that of effectively presenting the larger issue?
It ends by again noting that it's subject and concerns are in the domain of Higher Education, not the examples used -
'Of course, man-made global warming is just one exhibit in the contemporary higher-education circus. If it grows stale, we have others.'
'higher-education circus', not 'climate science circus'
Michael, seriously!?
Do you think you can fool anybody here that you are actually interested in engaging in any sort of debate or even discussion about anything of substance?
As so many trolls you try to change the subject to something utterly meaningless and without any merits of its own nor pertaing to any relevant questions. I've read him, both the reports, and his CHE-post, and my impression is: The guy's slighty of the rocker ..
Yes, a nuissance, pestering various bodies, demanding that this and that should be retracted. An internet stalker-wannabe, maybe? But be taken serilously? No way!
And despite you claiming the opposite, the issues of his contents have been addressed repeatedly in the comments above. I can repeat it again: There is no beef! Word-counting, phrase-comparing, line-drawing and dot-connecting. Yes, loads of it. But no beef! Worth a shouder-shrug, but hardly more.
So now, that that's settled, lets get back yo you. You claimed above that: "I'll stick to science as the pursuit of the understanding of physical reality, the truth" although you engaged in exactly the opposite. So what are you hoping to accomplish here? Whom are you hoping to impress or convince, and of what? And if so, what would be your best argument be for every particular position. You have spent many words and letters, but (appart from trolling and baiting) I see no substansive and falsifiable (claims or) positions you are putting forward and prepared to argue for and defend (*)
Or are you just airing your frustration about the erroding baseis and appearance of a belief-system you've held dearly?
(*) OK, you briefly maintained that Trenberth was a hurricane-expert (again without 'checking neither claimant nor claims very, very carefully') but it seems you retreated from that view. And I still fail to see what you wanted to prove had he been one ....
John Whitman -
Would an AAAA drive one to drink?
HaroldW,
: ) good one : )
humor(humour)/on
Ahhh, the conspiracy of the consensus AAAAs revealed, to weaken skeptics by driving them to substance abuse.
humor(humour)/off
or maybe not funny . . .
John
"strategies for addressing AAAA’s"
Ignore them, however strong the temptation. They are not, to borrow a phrase from Hotel California, 'programmed to receive'.
John Mashey just informed us of that he now, in order solicit support from( or to discourage any more) NAS-members in the discussion at hand. He "sent email to everyone listed on the NAS Affiliates web pages, to call this discussion to their attention. 52 names were listed (44 M, 8 F (AR, AK, GA, KS, KY, MO, NY, SC, VT))"
And his letter read:
Surely a bit over the top, the poor fellow ...
is that really the best that the "orthodoxy" can do? At least the Roman Catholic church used robust intellects in the counter-reformation. Mann, Schmidt, Trenberth, Santer, Burse, Beddington, Amman, Connolley et al pale in comparison...are these leading scientists? Should they influence governements?
This might be of interest to readers here:
Charles Finkl, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Coastal Research:
'Studying the climate? Then get out of the lab'
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/studying-the-climate-then-get-out-of-the-lab/story-fn59niix-1226110506742
It certainly interests me, since I've been banging on about 'virtual science'. Nice to see an editor piling on, however, with the point that model results are not data.
The alleged Mashey email to the 'Dear heads of NAS Affiliates' shown in a previous comment refers to his 34 pages of rambling intolerance of any skeptical (a.k.a. independent) thinking.
If there really is such an email from him then I could not have imagined he could initiate such a PR disaster for himself and his associated anti-skeptic crusaders. They are starting to look not just irrationally intolerant of any opposing views, they are starting to look fanatically imbalanced.
? Mashey => AAAA^2 ?
Woods was right in his CHE article about the Mashey et al behaviors. This proves it.
John
Anna Haynes - in lightning speed, has updated her Sourcewatch page on the National Association of Scholars:
There, we learn that NAS members, not surprisingly, agree with Peter Wood:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Association_of_Scholars
John Whitman, here is the link to Mashey's letter
Aug 8, 2011 at 12:41 AM | Jonas N said,
""""John Whitman, here is the link to Mashey's letter""""
---------------
Jonas N,
Thanks for the link to the Mashey letter.
I see now that it is established fact. And all can see the proof of Wood's CHE article by Mashey's behavior in response.
Might we see a MSM newpaper story on the front page titled "Loose Cannon Mashey Sinks Ship Named 'Scientific Trust' ."
John
Mike,
"I have now trawled through all your posts on here and the (almost 100% polite and considerate) replies to them.
You have ducked and dived and weaved. You have moved the goalposts at every opportunity. Like ZDB (who you may be for all I know) you persistently make demands of those posting here while skilfully ignoring any request made to you."
Any examples.
All I've done is ask for some backup of the wide ranging assertions made in relation to Mashey. So far, Shrub is the only one to make any effort to come up with something. But yes, thre'sd ben an awful lot of "ducking and weaving".
And where people had specific challanges (eg Venter) I've responded by referring to the latest scientific knowledge on the topic.
I'd like to see your example of where I "move the goalposts" given the flocks penchant for assertion over demonstration.
John W, others and particularly Michael
I just revisisted Mashey's 34p piece on NAS/Wood, and it is simply astounding what a load of nonsensical irrelevant drivel and BS it is. Completely and utterly flabbergasting!
Among many many other things he tries to establish that
1) Mann was not involved in 'hide the decline' (since these were P.Jones words when repeating the trick)
2) That in neither instance, anyone was hiding anything
3) That removing 'known bad data' (disqualifying/weakening something as a proxy) is quite appropirate
4) If anything, such practices may qualify as 'anti-science' which is Mashey's favourite 'argument' as everythings he dislikes is labelled anti-science:
Persons, conferences, arguments, criticism, a Princton and other professors, reactions to ClimateGate, political leanings, think tanks, Woods writing and personality, a publishing house.
Another strong argument is:
5) That Wood "includ[ed] a few measured caveats, while using semantically-loaded words to support a particular viewpoint"
Wow, just wow! It is so unbelievably stupid and laughable, why would anyone take this seriously? Why!?
Michael
More treatment for ignorance:
Shub, as in Shub Niggurath, the black goat of the woods.
You asked, you've gotten a lot in return. It is time for you to reciprocate.
Which of the specific observations, made by Peter Wood in his Climate Thuggery article, do you object to? Presumably you have the interests of climate science, and science in general, at heart. So you should be able to lay out, in brief detail (no 34-page magnum opus please), your, independent observations, and reservations to Peter Wood's second article, in your own words.
Let us see it.
Asking trolling questions and dancing around is easy. Parasitizing on the 'expertise' of others is easy. Formulating one's one opinion is not. >130 comments have passed. We are waiting to hear your vision of why opinions such as Wood's, damage science.
Do you suppose Mashey has just suffered a core breach?
Jonas
So, Wood was using "semantically-loaded words" was he? The swine!
:-)
"I am not an academic and had never heard of NAS before"
I'm sure that will win them round....
Jonas,
So you've only just read it.
At least that explains why you've been unable to provide any factual rebuttal till now
But congrats on giving it a go.....lamentable effort though it is.
The first 4 points - all hopelessly wrong.
5th - could be a reasonable criticism....if that was all Mashey did - lay out the charge. But he provided a bunch of quotes to back this claim, which you ignore, so your criticism is itself very weak.
Utter nonsense, Michael ..
But thanx for reminding us to what levels you die-hard activits and trolls can stoop to:
You 'rebutt' my point 5) by countering that Wood indeed "includ[ed] a few measured caveats, while using semantically-loaded words to support a particular viewpoint"
Did I claim the opposite? Did you not read what i said? Or did you just not understand its meaning:
Mashey used this as an argument! You seem to agree with him. That, we already knew.
So where is the beef?
"Which of the specific observations, made by Peter Wood in his Climate Thuggery article, do you object to" - Shub.
With pleasure.
Oh boy.
Our anthropologist can't even get to the third sentance before screwing up.
"Is it well supported by the empirical data or is it mostly an artifact of computer modeling?"
Thermometer measurements aren't computer modelling. Is he confusing models of future temp with historical measures which are the empirical basis of AGW??
"I don't have answers to these questions"
Well, I don't expect you to, you're an anthropologist. But surely have access to an online library where you can look up books and journal articles and stuff?
"Dr. John Mashey, who has taken a no-holds-barred approach to silencing Mann’s critics..."
'No holds barred' - does he mean to say what this actualy means? Mashey will do anything? - death threats?? If not, then Mashey has not taken a "no-holds-barred" approach. Don't say things you can't back up Peter. "Silencing" - evidence provided? No. Just a more usefully pejorative word than 'criticise'. And purely for rhetorical effect. But I guess it makes a much bigger splash than '..who has taken a highly detailed approach to criticising Mann's critics'.
And does Peter have a problem with criticism? Clearly not, as he's happy laying into Mashey. This is a clear case of 'what's good for the goose is not good for the gander'. Mann can be criticised - no problem, but how dare Mashey critique that criticism, that's "silencing"!! So criticises Wood. Oops.
A very clear pattern here. Criticise Mann - OK. Criticise the critics of Mann - no fair!. Criticise Mashey - OK. Criticise the critic of Mashey - no fair!
"He has sued Tim Ball—a Canadian global-warming skeptic, an environmentalist, and former professor of geography—for libel for writing that Mann “should be in the State Pen, not Penn State,” for his role in Climategate"
So Peter is OK with libel, and would be OK with say, John Mashey writing in a newspaper that Peter Wood is a criminal who should be in jail?? BTW the paper had to retract and Ball got a great kick up the arse - for being wrong and maliciously so.
"The tactic of suing critics of AGW theory to silence them isn’t Mann’s alone, and it isn’t the only extracurricular means the global warmists use in attempts to shut up dissenters"
Weblink on 'extracurrilar means' takes you to a dreadfully paranoid little website. It's catalogue of heinous activities including Prince Charles saying something. WTF! Wood can't be serious with this.
And that takes us to the first sentance of the 4th para.
On and on it goes in the same vein, with the same weak arguments, special pleading and rhetorical tricks to gloss over the lack of substance of most of the criticisms.
Yet, all this pales in comparison to the major flaw in Wood's piece, and it's obviously the one that got Mashey interested in the first place. Wood, president of a 'scholars' association was writing to attack someone who exposed serious academic misconduct....and here he continues to be offended by the exposure of academic fraud. Surely he should be applauding?
That just has to floor anyone with any sense of academic integrity.
Jonas,
You seem to have disconnected the specifc point from what Masheys overall thesis is - that Wood has taken NAS down an unscholarly 'climate skeptic' route which is in fact flouting normal academic standards in his writing on AGW.
If your point was to critique this part of Masheys work, just saying 'hey look at this' doesn't cut it, you have to demonstrate how Mashey is wrong (my point all along). Just like Mashey doesn't only write that Wood used "semantically-loaded words to support a particular viewpoint", he then quotes Wood extensively to try and demonstate this.
Not at all, Michael. It is perfectly clear that if fringe-borderline-Mashey had gotten his way, Wood an other non-subscribers to his beliefs shoudn't be allowed any plattform where they could voice their opinion. Fact is that that was also Wood's point.
But the thing is (and this is your disconnect), Mashey's shouting is completely irrelevant. No one argues that people 'do not use words to support their views'. The argument is the opposite! Nobody argues without using words, or without supporting their own viewpoints.
Mashey, for instance feels he has to use the term 'anti-science' more than 20 times. Never giving proper references, and misrepresenting those he desicribes in every instance ... (*)
Someone could write a 175-page heavily footnoted pdf about that, quoiting him, his posts, commenters there, the document it self, and numerous bloggers etc while incessantly crying 'Foul! Foul!' And sending it to everyone one feels matters or just should be aware of this ...
Or one could just notice how stupid it is and leave it at that.
(*) in case you missed it, that was sarcasm poking fun at Masheys owngoals ...
Michael
With regard to "no holds barred", I draw your attention to blogger RomanM's analysis of Mashey's (and others) work on plagiarism in the Wegman report. Mashey seems to believe that he won a victory and discredited the whole report. If this piece of work by Mashey does not count as a "no holds barred" raction, then you have no concept of what the phrase means to most people. His work was on a stand-alone 15 page section of a 92 page report. This is thuggery pure and simple.
"http://statpad.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/wegman-and-the-ankle-biters/"
Let’s think of the positive side for independent thinkers of Mashey’s PR debacle.
The greatest asset to independent thinkers (a.k.a. skeptics) is that Mashey (et al) creates weakened apologists for the so-called consensus climate science by their compulsion to defend Mashey. Certain AAAAs (*), acting as apologists of Mashey on this thread have the failing strategy of dancing with the devil; where the independent thinkers are believed by them to be the devil. Bad Mashey apologist strategy. Good for independents.
Out of my sense of benevolence, I suggest a better strategy for the weakened Mashey apologists represented by the AAAAs on this blog. I encourage those apologists to say something like,
That will resonate with the public as observably true; thus strengthening the now weakened apologists of Mashey in the public eye. Good luck and you are welcome in advance.
(*) AAAA = auto-aggressive anonymous authoritarians
John
Michael,
Before everyone's brains melt:
You don't take someone's sentences, from a paragraph, and argue against the words. You understand the meaning and try to reason against/for it.
The core of your argument is, simply put, just an assertion that anyone who carries out activities that can be classified as "exposing serious academic misconduct", ought not to be criticized. Not by Wood, not by anybody else as well, presumably.
You characterize Wood's arguments as "same weak arguments, special pleading and rhetorical tricks". Anyone wallowing in self-blinding, self-righteous climate anger - even if you hit them with the right arguments like a tonne of bricks - they won't get it. Wood's words ring true and clear in constructive advice and suggestion - only to those open to receive it.
Your lack of an ability to percieve it does not disqualify it in any way.
More importantly, Mashey's characterization that his activities constitute an "exposing of serious academic misconduct" - should be accepted, first. It is not. If you travel back a couple of posts back, you'll find, for one, what I characterized it as. Again, I was one of the commenters who repeatedly questioned Mashey when he came out with his other magnum-opus of a 250 page 'report'.
"Wich part, of your analysis, specifically invalidates Wegman's work?" - that was the question. Mashey had, and still has not answer. From his own efforts, he cannot put down in simple words, what specific serious misconduct was it, that he discovered. Mashey's efforts, exclusively, fall in the domain of trying to raise the hackles of the reader and appealing to their sense of outrage, by a veritable barrage of obfuscations.
And lastly, if "exposing serious academic misconduct" was what Mashey performed - what is your opinion of the work of an individual where the whole thing started - that of McIntyre? We can close up this thread if you express a smidgen of recognition, that Steve McIntyre exposed serious misconduct in Mann's work.
If, for some reason, you believe that that is open to question, and interpretation, and Mann is an angel - then (for pete's sake) - open your eyes to the fact that the same holds good for the puerile content that Mashey has put out.
"But the thing is (and this is your disconnect), Mashey's shouting is completely irrelevant. No one argues that people 'do not use words to support their views'. The argument is the opposite! Nobody argues without using words, or without supporting their own viewpoints. " - Jonas.
Arguing against a parody of someone's position isn't clever, it's bad faith.
Clearly Mashey's argument is not that Wood "used words".
Be serious.
Diogenes,
No holds barred has clear menaing - there's nothing in Wood's article or the one you link to, that demonstrates any such thing, other than Mashey critiquing Wegman in some detail.
'No-holds-barred' was a just an empty rhetorical flouish.
"You don't take someone's sentences, from a paragraph, and argue against the words." - Shub.
When they are wrong, you certainly do. Just as you did earlier.
"The core of your argument is, simply put, just an assertion that anyone who carries out activities that can be classified as "exposing serious academic misconduct", ought not to be criticized" - Shub.
Impressive - I argued exactly the opposite. Crticism is good - but its merit needs to be evaluated on the substance of it's arguments.
"And lastly, if "exposing serious academic misconduct" was what Mashey performed - what is your opinion of the work of an individual where the whole thing started - that of McIntyre?"
My opinion is based on the results - Wegman has already had a journal paper retracted. Likely more will follow, and possibly even some PhDs. Real academic fraud was found and it was acted on. Well done Mashey. If the Wegman Report had been a journal article, it would have been retracted too.
Mann - his paper is widely cited. Has not and wil never be retracted. It's excellent work. Fits into that category of breakthrough papers - does something new and innovative that sets the direction for others to follow. And that's what happended - other saw Mann's paper and followed it up with their own, improving the approach and confirming the results with their own datasets.
That's how science works.
Steve McIntryre (AKA 'The Tiresome Quibbler')? - ah, poor Steve. Screwing around on his blog years after the event, trying to turn molehills into mountains while the real scientists had done the real work and moved on. It speaks volumes of the 'climate skeptics' that they remain so fixated on something of so little consequence so long after the event.
And getting back to the topic -highly instructive that Wood is so agitated over the exposure of proven academic fraud.
Why do you think this is?