Bishop Hill Sheep or shepherd?
Jun 8, 2013 Climate: Mann Climate: other I had an interesting exchange with Marshall Shepherd, President of the American Meteorological Society today. Marshall had tweeted as follows:
Marshall: learned n strange emails/blogs some disagree with my #Tedx Talk, @MichaelEMann HockeyStick discredited (hasn't), & wx varies-gee "who knew"
In my usual polite way, I responded as follows:
Me: I attended a debate with a paleoclimate guy a few months ago. In q&a he was asked about hockey stick. He said "it's broken".
To which Marshall's response was this:
Marshall: @aDissentient why don't you ask @MichaelEMann
Marshall: @aDissentient and fyi, I generally don't debate anything that isn't published in the peer-review lit, best regards
Hardly a meeting of minds but it was all going rather well. Unfortunately at this point Mann himself joined in:
MichaelEMann @DrShepherd2013 Marshall, I don't engage disinformation-spewing trolls. It just encourages them...
Moments later, Shepherd blocked me.
Hmm.
Reader Comments (62)
"Sheep or Shepherd!"
Brilliant!
https://twitter.com/DrShepherd2013/status/343361603615481857
'nuff said. The guys makes Chris Rapley look like a being of supreme intelligence.
@MichaelEMann I am loving the block function immensely...
@DrShepherd2013 You and me both ;-)
Looks like Michael Mann has found himself a peer.
Shepherd blocked myself and Tom Nelson too. This, even though I only used peer reviewed references.
Apparently an echo chamber is the chambre du jour for warmists.
I would never engage with a climate scientist. This is a good repost.
James Lovelock's excoriating view of the lying little oinks who do climate science.
on CRU scientists
I was utterly disgusted. My second thought was that it was inevitable. It was bound to happen. Science, not so very long ago, pre-1960s, was largely vocational. Back when I was young, I didn't want to do anything else other than be a scientist.
They're not like that nowadays. They don't give a damn. They go to these massive, mass-produced universities and churn them out. They say: "Science is a good career. You can get a job for life doing government work." That's no way to do science.
I have seen this happen before, of course. We should have been warned by the CFC/ozone affair because the corruption of science in that was so bad that something like 80% of the measurements being made during that time were either faked, or incompetently done
on computer models
I remember when the Americans sent up a satellite to measure ozone and it started saying that a hole was developing over the South Pole. But the damn fool scientists were so mad on the models that they said the satellite must have a fault. We tend to now get carried away by our giant computer models. But they're not complete models.
They're based more or less entirely on geophysics. They don't take into account the climate of the oceans to any great extent, or the responses of the living stuff on the planet. So I don't see how they can accurately predict the climate.
on predicting temperatures
If you look back on climate history it sometimes took anything up to 1,000 years before a change in one of the variables kicked in and had an effect. And during those 1,000 years the temperature could have gone in the other direction to what you thought it should have done. What right have the scientists with their models to say that in 2100 the temperature will have risen by 5C?
The great climate science centres around the world are more than well aware how weak their science is. If you talk to them privately they're scared stiff of the fact that they don't really know what the clouds and the aerosols are doing. They could be absolutely running the show.
We haven't got the physics worked out yet. One of the chiefs once said to me that he agreed that they should include the biology in their models, but he said they hadn't got the physics right yet and it would be five years before they do. So why on earth are the politicians spending a fortune of our money when we can least afford it on doing things to prevent events 50 years from now? They've employed scientists to tell them what they want to hear.
on scientists
Sometimes their view might be quite right, but it might also be pure propaganda. This is wrong. They should ask the scientists, but the problem is scientists won't speak. If we had some really good scientists it wouldn't be a problem, but we've got so many dumbos who just can't say anything, or who are afraid to say anything. They're not free agents.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock
MS: "...fyi, I generally don't debate anything that isn't published in the peer-review lit... - but I don't mind praying in aid the odd disaster movie...
Lovelock desperately wants to believe in climate change, but the science is so corrupt and pathetic that even he, a leading figure in the 'deep ecology' movement is deeply embarrassed by it.
Marshall Shepherd @DrShepherd2013 7 Jun
So agree @bud_ward, "Time for Scientists to Tweet" Nice analysis. I am so over just communicating in the ivory tower. http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2013/06/its-time-for-scientists-to-tweet-reprint/ …
Capital Climate @capital_climate 1h
@DrShepherd2013 Top 3 challenges: communication, communication, communication
Retweeted by Marshall Shepherd
Marshall Shepherd @DrShepherd2013 1h
@MichaelEMann I am loving the block function immensely...
Marshall Shepherd @DrShepherd2013 1h
@MichaelEMann @skepticscience unfortunately already blocked the folks that need to see this :)
So now your blog will be:- 'BISHOP HILL - A disinformation-spewing troll afflicted with the malady of thought'.
Joe Public
I have copyrighted 'disinformation-spewing troll'. My wife calls me that when we discuss Nietzsche. She takes herself FAR too seriously for a traffic warden.
My problem with Mann isn't that he lied, but it is my view that he may have been put up to it to promote Kyoto. The previous IPCC report had a prominent MWP.
Does that make Marshall Shepherd Michael Mann's poodle?
They still like that "hockey stick" paper?
bwahahahahahaha!!!
Does that make Marshall Shepherd Michael Mann's poodle?
Jun 8, 2013 at 4:44 PM | Unregistered CommenterConfusedPhoton
No, his sheep :) The shepterd has become the sheeple.
Do you think any of Mann's friends tell him how he comes across when writing thinks like that? It really is just like being back at school when I was about 13....
Andrew, very sorry to hear that you're a disinformation-spewing troll but if Nobel-prizewinner Professor Mann says it we know it must be true.
Let me instead point to my favourite of your Twitter rejoinders noticed this week:
The quote from CS Lewis earlier in the exchange was also greatly appreciated:
That was all kicked off by Chris Hope on Wednesday. Enjoy, those who haven't seen it already.
Reminds me of the silly tiffs in a primary school playground. They need a stern dinner lady to send them to the naughty children's corner.
Michael E. Mann. As restrained and lucid as we have come to expect.
Michael Mann, "I don't engage disinformation-spewing trolls." Terrified of competition?
Bish I dont know why you give any time to complete losers like Mann. You are fanning his already overinflated ego. He is a waste of space and does not deserve any column inches. See recent comments from Pointman as to why this is counterproductive.
Dr. Shepard's behavior is going to become the impetus for a whole new meteorological society
A Case for Playing it Straight
I have just participated in a lengthy Twitter exchange with Marshall Shepherd (@DrShephard2013), a professor at the University of Georgia and President of the American Meteorological Society. The occasion for the exchange was Dr. Shepherd's presentation yesterday at a Congressional Briefing sponsored by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (his prepared remarks can be found here in PDF). The briefing focused on "the latest trends and scientific evidence related to the growing impacts associated with climate change."
Three other scientists testified at the briefing, but I am not interested in what they had to say. Shepherd's remarks are of interest because he is the President of a major scientific society. He was not at the briefing to present his personal opinions, but rather in his role as a leader and representative of the scientific community. Thus, in my view of the obligations of such a role, he had a duty to play it straight.
Unfortunately, as is so often a case when leaders in the climate science community find themselves before an audience of policy makers, on extreme events they go rogue, saying all sorts of things with little or no scientific basis. Even if the scientist includes many accurate statements in his/her remarks (such as the reality of significant risks of human-caused climate change), the presence of horsemeat ruins the lasagne.
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/a-case-for-playing-it-straight.html
Mann's proof the hockey stick isn't broken, retweeted by Shepherd, was the PAGES2K article. Complete with multiple non hockey sticks and the flawed Gergis recon. But it was pal ... sorry peer reviewed. As much as a progress article can be.
Dr. Shepard's behavior is going to become the impetus for a whole new meteorological society
Jun 8, 2013 at 7:23 PM | Unregistered CommenterAnthony Watts
INTRIGUING !!!
Mann is endlessly entertaining. It was him, no less, feted by the IPCC and Gore for his hockey stick, who, head swollen, ego exploding, who came up with the three golden rules of denier-bashing truth from which he has never deviated.
1) I am a climate scientist, you are not.
2) My work is peer reviewed, yours is not.
3) You are a fossil-fuel-funded troll.
And that's it. It worked once when we were all being encouraged to take his bettled-browed pronoucements seriously. But never since.
He is the epitome of the over-promoted, one-trick pony who had his sudden moment in the sun and assumes that this can be endlessly recycled if only he keeps on repeating the same tired old tosh.
Seriously, does anyone take this clapped-out old fraud seriously today?
I have to say that I admire his persistence. But he more and more resembles a dog we once had who, elderly, nearly blind and increasingly bad tempered, kept walking into the same bit of furniture presumably on the basis that if he had done it once, twice, three times, four times, etc, perhaps on some unspecified moment in the future it wouldn't be there and his obstinacy would be rewarded.
It never was of course.
Mann, preposterous to the last, is guaranteed to suffer the same sad end.
To steal a comment on WUWT which some may have missed, it is surprising Marshall & Mann are sniffy about "debating" anything "non-peer-reviewed".
After all, you'd go a long way to find a bigger pair of mass-debaters.
Michael has a little lamb,
who fleeced the AMS .
And everything that Michael said,
the lamb was sure to acquiesce.
...............Also see THIS
By the way, how do you know that you've been blocked by someone?
Jun 8, 2013 at 8:29 PM | Unregistered Commenter martin brumby
Sounds more like they are a pair of mutual mass-debaters. How long do think they can run and hide from the hard questions?
So. Dr Shepherd only debates peer-review literature, interesting then that he's willing to go in front a Congressional Briefing to the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works making an assertion based on statements from a Guardian environmental blog.
Apparently he doesn't debate anything that is published in the peer reviewed literature either.
The Hockey Stick is the Turin Shroud of cimate science.
@ Bishop Hill.
Mann refuses to engage you because, quite simply, he is terrified of your ability to surgically dissect his bullshit and leave him - and his IPCC / HadCrut / GISS / IPCC pals, looking very, very silly indeed.
Your HSI book shredded his Pride and Joy. His single reason for being famous was brutally exposed by you. You think he's going to let that slide without recourse? Take his refusal to debate for what it is - the ultimate back-handed compliment, the final confirmation regarding the overwhelming triumph of your devastating book over his humiliated, busted theory.
You won. This is the price you pay.
Sounds a bit like M.E.Mann is his de facto boss ?
IIRC my favourite Bishop tweet to Michael Mann that springs to mind from ages ago.
It said, simply, 'Yawn'.
Michael Mann is the Jay Gatsby of modern science. A big man with a dirty little secret that will one day break him in pieces. You won't see Gore or Soros at his funeral. Just petty crooks like himself.
You missed the most ironic part, where M.E.Mann refers to "myth 16" on a "strange blog" called Scepticalcience. Marshall did not block Mann for that though.
I think the sceptical community needs to destill answer to these so called myth busters in a similar form which then can be as easy referred to in a Twitter message.
I mean, these people still live in a hockey stick world, they still ignore long term effects of AMO/PDO/ENSO, their solar model is reduced to TSI, they regard the best constrained observational based climate sensitivity as an outlier, they think models match with observations, they ignore missing hotspots, they think climate gate has been properly investigated....
Marshall Shepard? But?!
"One of the things I'm really interested in is helping make sure that the public has a clear understanding of how weather and climate affects their day-to-day lives-beyond questions like whether it's going to rain tomorrow," Shepherd said. "Weather and climate can impact the stock market, crop yields and public health, and I'm really passionate about trying to get that message across."
http://news.uga.edu/releases/article/marshall-shepherd-voted-president-elect-of-american-meteorological-society/
Manfred
And the strangest thing is, Mann wrote that article, more or less, himself! He was in touch with John Cook who rewrote the entire article to Mann's specifications, which was then mailed to someone who passed it on to Richard Muller just before a Congressional hearing he was due to attend. "Hey, look. See what Skepticalscience has written about the hockey stick. What do you have to say about this?"
How does this guy do it? I mean, he goes around, handing out Skepticalscience articles as a reference, when he knows he had a major hand in getting it written the way he wanted.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/9/7/michael-mann-and-skepticalscience-well-orchestrated.html
Gleick tweet to Shepherd and Mann
'I thought the talk was great.'
Shepherd reply
'Thanks Peter, most have been very positive, but when you dip in this pool, will have usual suspect stuff....'
Gleick
'Ah, someone is always peeing in the pool. Ignoring them is the right thing to do and drives them nuts. DNFTT'
Such is the the profundity of earnest academic discourse, climate science style.
http://order-order.com/2013/06/08/sunday-sleaze-tim-yeo-stung-by-sunday-times-offered-to-sell-legislation-and-access-7000-a-day/
As a professional scientist, it certainly works for me Zeddy, but what would you know?
Yeah sheep definitely. Looking at that twitter flow the guy couldn't even muster the pretense of an original independent position or an independent backbone. Once he got the word of Mann he just chickened out and ran away, throwing the peer review excuse over his fleeing shoulder. They're so creepy cliquey and spineless with it aren't they?
Z,
My conscience requires that I seek the truth. Am I good at seeking the truth? Better than you, it seems. Overwhelming evidence comes from observations, not models. It isn't warming. This is very bad indeed bad for people who use models to tell lies.
The truth will also set you free one day.
"ZedsDeadBed" posts as "oneworldnet" on WUWT. Most of his comments have been snipped there, for the kind of pejorative language he uses here.
When a commentator believes he must insult everyone with a different point of view, he has already lost the argument. That applies to Michael Mann, too.
I hope that one day you read this comment Dr. Marshall Shepherd:
You are so down from "boy" it doesn't even begin to address the issue. I watched your TEDx video. It was hard to find the link to it, so either TEDx has a poorly designed website or they are trolling for links.
But you Sir, withdrawing from a twitter exchange as Prof. Mann "recommended"? Tell your son and daughter about that one some day. Show them how much you truly care about them. Or can you guarantee that they somehow get govt. jobs or cushy tenure as "qualified" academics? (Well, if they spout the right propaganda, maybe.)
I can accurately predict your political affiliation by a few demographics: Your race: black. Your profession: Tenured professor. Political affiliation? Chances are that it is 99.5% Democrat, with an 82% chance that you made financial contributions to the cause. Starting to feel like a man yet?
Jun 8, 2013 at 5:19 PM | Rob Burton
I find it difficult to imagine that (at this point, considering the irreversible damage he's inflicted on "climate science") Mann actually has many "friends". Sycophants a-plenty in his hallowed echo-chamber, perhaps; but the evidence suggests that Mann's "friends" - as few and far between as they might be - are far more likely to adopt his "communication" trick™ than to recognize its glaringly obvious counter-productivity and tell it like it is!
One of the "early adopters" among his adulating audience was fellow climate modeller, Andrew <we are the vote> Weaver who, during the course of his (ultimately successful and wildly cheered by the CBC) election campaign as a Green party candidate for the BC legislature, decided to "block" me on twitter. A sure-fire way to win friends and influence prospective voters, eh?! One can hardly wait to see if he will also slam the door in the face of any constituents who have the temerity to question Weaver's sermons from the mount in the years ahead!
[See: IPCC’s Andrew Weaver can’t stand the heat in his tweet kitchen ... which transpired shortly after a visit to Weaver territory, Victoria, BC by Michael #greensgobyair Mann]
Gleick and Greg Laden are two such "friends" whose names come to mind (now along with Shepherd) who were also "early adopters" of Mann's latest and greatest "communication" trick™.
I wonder if Mann will include this particular "novel" trick™ during the course of his June 9 presentation to the AGU's Colorado confab on "communicating" CliSci?! Communicating Climate Science: A Historic Look to the Future:
But, all of the above aside ...
Bish, I'm not sure you're being entirely fair to sheep, here ... My guess would be that many (if not most) could well be far smarter than Shepherd ;-)
"
Jun 9, 2013 at 12:16 AM | SayNoToFearmongers
Try as I may , I can find no scientific publications listed under ' Saynotofearmongers' or Saynotofearmongers et al. , just a lot of bloggeral.
Aha Russell - a brilliant gotcha. I'm in awe of your research skills. Pick up a gold star on your way out of class.
Dr. Shepard, just one of the herded flock. Get a pair!