Hockey Puck - Sleazy Lies

It's all about taxes, power, control and, especially, stifling free speech! It adds up to bigger government grants and bigger lefty bureaucracies. m/r

A Serial Transgressor of Scientific Norms

by Mark Steyn Mann vs Free Speech  January 31, 2017

In the glacial progress of the defamation suit against me by Big Climate huckster Michael E Mann, there has been a most interesting development: a fellow scientist, Dr Judith Curry, has now filed an amicus brief against Mann. As the inventor of the global-warming "hockey stick" promoted worldwide by the UN and governments from Canada to New Zealand, Mann is undoubtedly one of the most famous climate "scientists" on the planet. But, if you want to know what a real scientist thinks of him, then don't miss Dr Curry's blistering indictment:

Dr. Mann has transgressed scientific norms and offended First Amendment principles by bringing a defamation claim against Appellants for their pointed criticism of his scientific methodology. Dr. Mann's suit is unsupportable both because of his behavior toward his critics, particularly amicus curiae Dr. Curry, which demonstrates that the debate over climate science is often contentious and because Dr. Mann engages in the debate often to silence rather than to illuminate. The Court ought not be party to stifling debate.

One of the many ways Mann "transgresses scientific norms" is in his sleazy and contemptible campaign against Judith Curry: for example, he links approvingly to anonymous bloggers who accuse her of having "literally gotten into bed with slime like Steyn". As Dr Curry's counsel explains at the start of the brief, this gives her a very real interest in the case:

As it relates to this case, Dr. Curry has been critical of Appellee Michael Mann's methodological approach to climate science and the conclusions he has reached. Dr. Curry has experienced personal and professional attacks from Dr. Mann for her criticisms of his work. Dr. Mann has a pattern of attacking those who disagree with him and this case is another in a long line of tactics to silence debate over the science of global warming. Dr. Curry is a stalwart supporter of free speech and believes it plays a crucial role in the advancement of scientific debate. She has an acute interest in the outcome of this case because should Dr. Mann prevail, he would be emboldened to continue his pattern of attacks against Dr. Curry and others like her, and others would be emboldened to do so. She also has an interest in robust debate on climate science in keeping with the scientific principles she espouses.

For those who want to know the difference between Mann's sue-you-into-silence approach and genuine "robust debate" in keeping with "scientific principles", Dr Curry's brief lays them out:

In his landmark 1973 work The Sociology of Science , Robert Merton established norms upon which scientists should rely . These Mertonian norms include: communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, originalism, and organized skepticism...

-go to links-