Sunday
May182014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill The wisdom of Michael Mann
May 18, 2014 Climate: Mann Climate: Sceptics Michael Mann thinks Richard Lindzen, Matt Ridley, Steve McIntyre, Ross McKitrick, Richard Tol, Roy Spencer, John Christy, Judith Curry, Richard Muller, the Koch brothers, Ken Cuccinelli, Mark Steyn, Rand Simberg, Nate Silver, David Rose, Marc Morano, Christopher Booker and Anthony Watts are poo heads. He also thinks that Fox News, the Mail on Sunday, the Telegraph, the National Review, the GWPF, and the Heartland Institute are a bunch of poo heads.
I don't think he's keen on me either.
In his latest article in the Huffington Post we learn, among other things, that he thinks that Mike Hulme and Lennart Bengtsson are poo heads too.
Wouldn't it be easier if he wrote his article like this?
Hulme and Bengtsson too.
Reader Comments (67)
That is quite a list. One might ask if it would be more interesting to spend a pub evening with the "poo heads" or with his gang.
How a guy of such limited intelligence has managed to get to the position he holds is a mystery???
The sooner he fades in to obscurity the better for climate science as he has, almost, single handedly ensured that over the last decade his science has NOT advanced at all.
Regards
Mailman
What's he got against Nate Sliver? I read Silver's book with interest. It seemed generally convincing, so I was disappointed to find him somewhat conformist on climate change. Has he backslid?
I only got as far as the first four words of the subhead:
I think they lost it there. What people will remember, what will stick, is McCarthyism. And, as Nigel Lawson said earlier, that label is fully deserved
I’m sorry, but I could not read the article in depth; what little I saw was enough to convince me that the author is beginning to lose all touch with reality, arguing the case in a petty, petulant manner. It comes over as the manner of a small child that, realising it has lost the argument, resorts to spouting words meant to offend the target, yet not upset the overseeing parent (“contrarian” being a good example).
Are you sure this has been written by a world-class scientist?
Most entertaining. I particularly enjoyed the list of celebrities he called in support of the completely unscientific assertion that climate change, whatever that is, was causing wildfires. He is certainly a distinguished professor, distinguished, that is, from other professors who do honest science.
Are you sure this has been written by a world-class scientist?
May 18, 2014 at 10:31 PM | Registered CommenterRadical Rodent
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No, it was written by Michael Mann.
"Distinguished Professor"
Is that really a title? I'd like to think he cringes a tad when it is used.
Does Mann have any actual evidence to show that the recent effusion of celebrity gossip and rehashed reports he cites have succeeded to any verifiable extent in "raising public awareness"??
Seems more likely to be wishful thinking at this point in the climate wars..... not a very scientific claim, unless he does have evidence.
He wrote,
[emphasis added]
p.s. I think Mann is a doo-doo head...... watch for my forthcoming article asserting this view with no argument or evidence provided..... unfortunately, I may not be able to cite Hollywood supporters for my position just now.
Why would anybody be so stupid as to start an article about science and scientists by listing Arnie, Matt Damon, Harrison Ford?
No wonder if that's Distinguished in climate circles, the science has not progressed for the past twenty years.
Gary Turner: But isn't he...?
...but I thought he... everyone says he....
I'm sure some say he is, and I am pretty sure that he says he is... Obviously, some of us are wrong - but which of us?
"It's normal. Part of science is recognizing your own errors"
The irony!
ERL is now a "somewhat obscure scientific journal". I can feel the consensus building up around that concept.
osseo, Nate Silver had the temerity to associate with Pielke Fils.
==============
The psychological phenomenon of projection continues unabated.
Mann overboard!
Dr Mann wrote: "Part of science is recognizing your own errors"
Has he ever recognized one of his own errors?
He doesn't make any. Did you not get the memo climatebegle?
Regards
Mailman
I'm not believing anything he says until he can get at least one Kardashian to endorse his ideas.
So Mann sees himself as one of those "committed to the goals of true science".
Yeah, right, Mikey.
In fact you are one of the major players in a scam whose take on "true science" has ended up costing the inhabitants of this world many lives and a fortune in unnecessary taxes.
You're lucky not to have been jailed. Yet. In the meantime may I request that you kindly STFU.
Darn, I must have missed it when the good Doctor claimed John Cooks 97% paper was published in a "somewhat obscure journal".
Speaking of journals, when is ANY respectable journalist going to make him put up or shut up regarding the claim that any critique or investigation of him is done only by "fronts for fossil fuel interests"?
@ Selgovae at 10:47 PM
What, with his ego+vanity?
Diagnosis - Paranoid.
I can hardly wait for Mark Steyn's take on this.
Hmm, I said he the hirsute, bearded wise one and self styled "climate guru of disaster" - was ever so slightly, a tad unhinged.
Without doubt, he was bullied from junior grade and all through his high school years - certainly no 'jock' was he. His tenuous grasp on reality is lapsing towards the stratosphere. While he rages at the vicissitudes of his existence and no doubt blaming everyone and his dog and even probably the cat.
Everyone that is, except, the one who he knows full well is actually responsible.
Thus, he has developed a skittering psychosis which is now exhibiting coprophiliac association - it's all getting a bit smelly.
It is odd, but the ratings for "Years of Living Dangerously" have been described by at least one reporter as "dismal".
But then, when Mann recalculates the ratings using his decentred PCA trick, he discovers that actually the show is incredibly popular, with a statistically significant RE score.
How lucky is that.
Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest from the Church of Climate Doom?
He mentions McCarthy or some derivation thereof nine times by my count. That means he knows this issue is damaging to the Cause.
Billy Liar
Careful now, careful...
He really is a lousy polemicist. That is why he made the biggest mistake of his life by taking on Mark Steyn.
I don't know if Steyn will get damages from Mann in his countersuit, but he's going to get his pound of flesh one way or another. His column the other day inflicted cruel and unusual punishment on Mann:
http://www.steynonline.com/6347/the-descent-of-mann
The tragedy is that because of the way search engines work the names Michael Mann and Jerry Sandusky will be linked forever. I made my concern clear in the Puffington site. Others might like to also add their concerns about this matter....
Mann is a shill for big oil. Creating fraudulent science to promoting their multi trillion dollar carbon trading scam. There, I said it.
James Hansen in the Guardian.
Governments today, instead, talk of "cap-and-trade with offsets", a system rigged by big banks and fossil fuel interests. Cap-and-trade invites corruption. Worse, it is ineffectual, assuring continued fossil fuel addiction to the last drop and environmental catastrophe.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/aug/26/james-hansen-climate-change
Spence:
Lol. Another one from the damned lies department.
The Wisdom of Michael Mann
I've received news about some follow-up articles scheduled for the Puffington Host:
The Protestantism of Pope Francis
The Humor of Idi Amin
The Ungainliness of Fred Astaire
The Kindliness of Josef Stalin
The Humility of Donald Trump
The Intellect of Prince Charles
and finally
The Majesty of Rajendra Pachauri
Methinks Mann doth protest much too loudly over a rejected manuscript for a "somewhat obscure scientific journal". Why????? You don't suppose that Mann was actually the referee for this "somewhat obscure scientific journal" who rejected the Bengtsson manuscript...
Not saying, just wondering...
Skiphil, of course there is evidence.
You take the ratings of the "Year of Living Dangerously" and turn them upside down...There you go.
Glad to help.
As a poo-head, I'm able to spot complete disconnects with reality. When I see Mann utter phrases like this:
"a popular new cable television series The Years of Living Dangerously produced by James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger and featuring prominent figures like Harrison Ford, Leslie Stahl, Matt Damon and Jessica Alba,"
And, being in the TV business my self for over 25 years, and knowing that "Years" got a 0.04 rating...
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/22/multi-million-dollar-global-warming-disaster-epic-years-of-living-dangerously-beaten-in-tv-ratings-by-bobs-burgers-reruns/
...which was called "microscopic" by a TV news pundit, I'll have to say that Dr. Mann is like the Iraqi Information Minister of Climate Science.
What a feckless narcissist.
A TV show is rated by the percentage of its target-demographic group watching the show – most often, adults 18-49 years old.[23] The four Sunday evening episodes of Years of Living Dangerously had ratings of 0.07%, 0.04%, 0.04% and 0.04% in that demographic. (From Wikipedia)
Apparently, according to Michael Mann's HuffPo Article, this makes Years of Living Dangerously "a popular new cable television series".
Why say anything about a show that almost nobody watched. I am sure Mark Steyn and his lawyers will jump on this grossly inaccurate interpretation of these numbers. If he can't read and report TV Rating numbers accurately, why would anyone believe he could interpret PCA output accurately.
Mann says that instead of listening to the list of "contrarians" we should listen to
So, instead of listening to people who have studied and thought about the subject, we should heed the work of the most successful producer of science fiction movies of all time, including Avatar, Aliens and Terminator.
Michael Mann is the Forrest Gump of the Twitter generation. He got famous for doing something really stoopid. Now he is a guru.
Anthony Watts
Ahh... I'd heard James "Walk on Water" Cameron was brewing something up. Joe Romm as a chief scientific advisor? (Way to go Jim!)
Tanking and desperate for some positive spin - Mann is in there...
Looking at the Wikipedia entry the procession of familiar and names to look out for in future is considerable - although Mister Mann mysteriously doesn't figure - how so?
Also amazing that they didn't manage to get some funding from our state broadcaster - or did they? - I haven't found the full credits...
Hoping to channel the apparent success of the cheery "Life After People" ?
I might watch it - but I'll have I suspect to get a riot shield in front of the
TV set.display device.p.s. for those feeling a bit slothful today - if you want to get your blood pressure up - the first episode is generously provided free by the catastrophe junkie crew.
One thing that marks Mann out is his scale of nastiness to others , but to fair he does the same to others on 'the Team ' if they dare not to agree with him . That is why when he falls its going to fun to see who lines up to kick him on the way down.
"distinguished professor" may (?) ultimately derive from some university honorific or title, but it is how he describes himself!
Check out his Facebook page. It also how he posted to social network reddit ("I am distinguished professor Michael Mann , ask me anything...").
I imagine he introduces himself at parties (assuming he gets invited to any), in this way.
Mann says: “As you might expect, an academic like Bengtsson joining a group like GWPF doesn't elicit a pleasant reaction from the scientific community.”
That may be what Mann expects, but it's not the way most people act. It says a lot about the little world of climate scientists.
May 19, 2014 at 6:08 AM | Anthony Watts
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Rating of 0.04 ? LOL ... clearly these 'celebrities' are not held in much esteem when it comes to science and barely so in entertainment. Goes to show that the public in the USA is quite capable of separating fact from fiction.
Just throw the feckless Arnie a chambermaid to chase after.
“It is very often by Princes rather than by their own merits that men are brought to the greatness that they desire.” – Giorgio Vasari (Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, 1568)
“Today art is only a cut above being an ordinary commodity and close to being manipulated as any compliant commodity should be.” – Donald Judd (In Art in America, 1984)
“The contemporary art world, with its hierarchy of curators, critics, art dealers and collectors is like the mafia. It is a club controlled by a small group of powerful people who dole out money, fame and power to the members of their choice. Their minds operate at a low level of consciousness where the only motive is profit. Due to this system the greatest artists of our time will die unrecognized; after death, their artwork will be given away or taken to the local dump. There it will be entombed with mountains of tires, plastics, and assorted toxic wastes, preserved for future archeologists as the legacy of out time.” – Tim Slowinsky (New Art International, 1996)
“A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.” – Al Capp, on abstract art (National Observer ,1 July 1963)
“People who are lost in their lives tend to follow people who are lost in their teachings.” – Jack White (The Mystery of Making It, 2001)
“Those who wish to seem learned to fools, seem fools to the learned.” – Quintilian
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” – Alexander Pope (An Essay on Criticism, 1711)
“The impulse of the habit of reason almost pushed her to speak, to argue, to demonstrate the self-evident but she looked at their faces and she saw that they knew it. In some terms different from hers, in some inconceivable manner of consciousness, they knew all that she could tell them, it was useless to prove to them the irrational horror of their course and of its consequences.” – Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged, 1957)
NikFromNYC wrote "“The contemporary art world, with its hierarchy of curators, critics, art dealers and collectors is like the mafia."
In the manner of a Renaissance prince - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html
Mafia, CIA, basically the same thing. Perhaps the CIA had a hand in sculpting the imaginary hockey stick ?
I think Mann senses that the "denier" label is starting to unravel, and "anti-science" is its replacement. Personally, I consider myself somewhat honoured to be placed in the same circle of Mann's hell as Mike Hulme, though I don't how he would feel about it.