Dec 03 2009
An Open Letter to Dr. Mann
Dr. Michael E Mann,
I can only hope the readers of this letter are as outraged as I am at Dr. Michael E Mann. First things first: Dr. Mann demands that his papers be discussed in only the most positive light. To ensure that this demand is met, he sends his Praetorian Guard after anyone who fails to show the utmost deference when planting big, wet, sloppy kisses on Dr. Mann’s behind. Every time he tells his minions that his subliminal psywar campaigns can give us deeper insights into the nature of reality, their eyes roll into the backs of their heads as they become mindless receptacles of unsubstantiated information, which they accept without question.
There are lots of weepy, wimpy flower children out there who are always whining that we’ve being too harsh in our criticisms of Dr. Mann. I wish such people would wake up and realize that Dr. Mann intends to create a new social class. Macabre dolts, odious wastrels, and sinful, garrulous blusterers will be given aristocratic status. The rest of us will be forced into serving as their vassals. He plans to tell everyone else what to do. What can you do about that? Start by reading about how Dr. Mann makes so many laughably wrongheaded statements, it boggles the mind to think about them. Become informed about the deceit, lies, and propaganda surrounding his promotion of “Mann-darinism”. Tell everyone you know that you’d think that someone would have done something by now to thwart Dr. Mann’s plans to have a serious destabilizing effect on our economy. Unfortunately, most people are quite happy to “go along to get along” and are rather reluctant to communicate. It is imperative that we inform such people that the best thing about Dr. Mann is the way that he encourages us to search for solutions that are more creative and constructive than the typically polyloquent ones championed by peevish muttonheads. No, wait; Dr. Mann doesn’t encourage that. On the contrary, he discourages us from admitting that some of us have an opportunity to come in contact with the worst kinds of lousy pop scientists there are on a regular basis. We, therefore, may be able to gain some insight into the way they think, into their values; we may be able to understand why they want to spawn a society in which those with the most deviant lifestyle, self-pitying behavior, or personal failures are given the most by the government.
Just because scientific McCarthyism exists and has for a long time, there is no reason for us to accept it from Dr. Mann. His most dissolute tactic is to fabricate “scientific” data from phony treemometers. This way, Dr. Mann can subjugate everyone into helping him make my worst nightmares come true. I really don’t want that to happen, which is why I’m telling you that Dr. Mann says that he values our perspectives. What balderdash! What impudence! What treachery!
Dr. Mann ought to unstop his ears and uncover his eyes. Only then will he hear that to which he has been too long heedless. Only then will Dr. Mann see that his treemometers are a logical absurdity, a series of deductions from a premise that has long been denied. Speaking of absurdities, I unequivocally believe that Dr. Mann is completely full of it. We can therefore extrapolate that we must establish beyond a shred of doubt that Dr. Mann’s peons are blissfully ignorant of his truculent, tasteless propositions. If we don’t, future generations will not know freedom. Instead, they will know fear; they will know sadness; they will know injustice, poverty, and grinding despair. Most of all, they will realize, albeit far too late, that Dr. Mann has been trying to trick people into believing that all literature that opposes his hockey stick was forged by the most jackbooted dingbats you’ll ever see. Apparently, he has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams with gloomy kooks; they’re unable to be convinced that there is an international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
Many people who follow Dr. Mann’s work have come to the erroneous conclusion that Dr. Mann’s rodomontades are our final line of defense against tyrrany. The truth of the matter is that his views have caused widespread social alienation and from this alienation a thousand social pathologies have sprung. Believe it or not, I really want to believe that Dr. Mann is a decent, honest person. Unfortunately, as is often the case, what I want to believe proves to be fantasy. The truth is that if the past is any indication of the future, Dr. Mann will once again attempt to lead me down a path of pain and suffering. Anyway, I hope I’ve made my point, which is that the acquisition and consolidation of wealth and power are the motivating forces that drive all of Dr. Michael E Mann’s selfish decisions.
– A troubled skeptic
With thanks to Scott Pakin, it’s only been modified a little.
And apologies to Dr. Mann. I needed a name, and you’re was the first to pop in my head. Dunno why.
(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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12 Responses to “An Open Letter to Dr. Mann”
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It was rather amazing today to hear Dr. Mann rhetorically throw Phil Jones under the bus when he said that he would never, never have agreed to delete e-mails in the way that Phil Jones apparently asked people to.
Mann, on BBC 4, went on to say “I can’t justify the action, I can only speculate that he was feeling so under attack that he made some poor decisions frankly and I think that’s clear.”
Pretty uncharitable treatment from an old friend and colleague.
Yes, many of the attacks are personal and baseless and unpleasant and tin-hatted and should stop. Reading private emails is wrong. Get that out of the way.
Now.
Was Tijlander used upside down, and what was the justification if so?
Where is the algorithm that generated MBH98?
Do you believe that PCA was properly done in that study? Has the method ever appeared in a peer reviewed journal of statistics? Been endorsed by any statistics professional?
Do you think it was legitimate to do end point padding on temps derived from proxies with data from a temperature series?
Just asking….
I looked up your comment policy. Except for “blatant spam” and “off-topic” [sic], your post seems to violate everything else.
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[Reply: Dunno if you're Dr. Mann or not, but I thought it would be obvious that this post was in jest.]
So where’s the apology to Dr Mann? You must surely know by now that the tree ring data row has nothing at all to do with him.
[Reply: It's in the last sentence. This post was almost directly taken from that link above with very few words changed and has nothing to do with Dr Mann.]
Funny.
I have enjoyed playing with the complaint generator too but don’t be surprised to find your ‘complaint’ quoted approvingly on some ’science’ web sites. Many do not have the attention span to read through to the last line.
@K: I know. Sadly, that’s kind of the point of the post. (Plus I got to say [[treemometer]].)
And tell us, one more time, whether it is right to use Tijlander upside down? And the other stuff?
Not all criticism of Dr Mann and his methods is silly and abusive to the extent that your parody suggests. Some of it is very pertinent and based on the science, and a that stuff, which you are avoiding covering, is a lot more damning than the silliness you parody.
Do you believe that PCA was properly done in that study? Has the method ever appeared in a peer reviewed journal of statistics? Been endorsed by any statistics professional?
This would be a much more important issue if the standard (centered) PCA produced different results from Mann’s non-centered PCA method. But it didn’t.
Here’s a fun little exercise (and yes, I’ve done it). Generate an ensemble of “red noise” (with a reasonable autocorrelation factor) time series. Compute the principal components via Mann’s “non-centered” PCA algorithm.
Yes, the leading PC (eigenvector) will often look “hockey-stick-ish”. But what about the eigenvalues? How do the red-noise eigenvalues compare with Mann’s hockey-stick eigenvalues?
How do you think that Mann would have proceeded with his hockey-stick computations if his data produced eigenvalues that looked like those “red-noise” eigenvalues?
I rode a montade once,strictly with consent of course. Most enjoyable.
Dr. Mann, I suppose is a great scientist. I only suppose that because I still have that “hide the decline” youtube video song ringing in my ears and I’m sure I’ve been affected by the bad publicity.
So I must insist that Mann and all other climate scientists remain strictly apolitical from this point on. Leave politics and advocacy to the loudmouth bloggers, politicians and opinion spewers.
Because as scientists descend into the dark world of politics they lose something in the public view. They become diminished as advocates to be shot down by the political opposition.
Sorry, but it’s the only way.
Dr. Mann must not write anymore op eds with the name “Sarah Palin” in them.
I liked it! Couln’t understand at first why atmoz was so irritated. It later occured to me that he was kidding around when “Mann-darinism” was mentioned. However I would like also to take into account that this is what happens when you are over educated. Ment only as a complement atmoz.
Happy new year!
The NEW YORK TIMES finally calls a spade a spade.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/01/opinion/01dutton.html?ref=opinion
…but only in the graphic art.
Yet they coin the phrase “Y2K deniers”.
Ouch.