Talk:Michael E. Mann/Archive 1

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Biased referee?

William M. Connolley does not want people to know that Michael Mann seems to have been accused of preventing criticism of his work being published. The section he cut out follows. Note that the references are to Michael Mann's own cv and to a direct quote in a magazine. 21:17, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"He has been a referee for Nature, Science, Climatic Change, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Climate, JGR-Oceans, JGR-Atmospheres, Paleoceanography, Climate Dynamics, Eos, Int. J. Climatol., Water Resources Research, Holocene, Atmospheric & Solar-Terrestrial Physics; GSA Today; Earth and Planetary Science Letters; Water Resources Research; Climate Research; NSF, NOAA, DOE grant programs.[1] An author of a paper raising comments about his work noted that it became easy to publish "once we did not have Michael Mann as a referee". [2]"

I can't think of another scientist article that gives any significant amount of space to those journals the scientist has refereed for. For one thing, its almost impossible to know who has ref'd for what. I don't see the statement, above, supported by the ref [3] (are you confusing "published in" with "ref'd for"?). So I don't think that should be in here either. As for the crit by von S: von S and Mann have had disagreements, but I don't see why a dubiously attributed anti-Mann quote from von S belongs here either. William M. Connolley 21:40, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC).

BTW, for the sake of those watching (are there any?) I should point out that I count as a colleague of Manns: that we're both part of RealClimate is probably our closest point of contact. William M. Connolley 22:11, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC).

Other scientists are not usually publicly accused of using their position as referees to prevent criticism being published. The fact that Michael Mann is (or at least claims to be, and he has no reason to lie on that particular point) a referee in so many journals is relevant to that accusation. It is not my problem if you cannot read. Look just above "Public Outreach" (where he mentions RealClimate about a quarter of the way down on his cv.

Its a very long CV. We don't include more than a tiny fraction of it, and refereeing is a minor part. There is no reason for you to be impolite.

The quote was not dubiously attributed. It was published as a direct quotation, so presumably it was said (again there is no reason to lie on this particular point). The link is given to a copy of the article in question. Or are you just protecting your friend again, having earlier moved other criticism of him and his work out of this article? For some strange reason, you do not do that in articles about people you disagree with. 22:21, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well yes it is "dubiously" attributed (dubious isn't a great word: weakly is). von S has his own web page, and makes trenchant comments therein. If he had something to say about Mann, he would say it there. He also has no obvious trouble publishing, which is no surprise, cos he is famous and a good scientist.

And, if you're trying to conduct a serious argument, being a succssion of different anon's isn't good. Getting an account is easy. William M. Connolley 22:30, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC).

I want to be anonymous for a variety of reasons. I can't help the changing IP, largely due to dynamic IP addressing by my ISP every time I log on, which I do frequently for cost reasons. That is why I only sign the date, and all the date alone comments above are me. Incidentally, "anon's" is an example of greengrocer's apostrophe's. 00:31, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Getting account makes you more, not less, anon. If you had an account, I wouldn't know you were from the UK. The answer (of course) is that you have an account, but for some reason don't want to edit this article from it.

So that removes 6000000000 possibilities. You are from the UK too. But I still don't understand why accusations that Mann has used his extensive position as a referee to suppress critics is not relevant. 28 June 2005 23:12 (UTC)

Its gossip. Now, why haven't you got an account - your last excuse doesn't work. William M. Connolley 2005-06-29 08:56:13 (UTC).

Have I put you off apostrophes altogether? (It's, not its). NPOV is about putting both sides of the argument. Let me tell you what gossip is: Mann attacked Engergy and Environment for publishing criticism; he tried to get criticism censored from Geophysical Research Letters; his supporters regularly quote a paper by Wahl and Ammann which has in fact been rejected by Geophysical Research Letters; Mann's semi-corrigendum in Nature was not peer-reviewed. All facts, but the references are not sufficient to go in here. The edits you keep reverting are backed up with proper references and should stay. --30 June 2005 00:08 (UTC)

Your anti-Mann agenda is becoming a bit too obvious. The stuff remains gossip and will keep going. William M. Connolley 2005-06-30 08:35:51 (UTC).

On this page it is supposed to be obvious - I think Mann made some mistakes in a piece of analysis - but that is not bad in itself as he is human, though I do think when overturning accepted wisdom on MWP and LIA he should have checked more - and it is still impossible to tell how serious his errors were. What is bad science is what he has done subsequently, in trying to vilify his critics and to prevent independent reviews of his work. But my comments in the article should be and are restrained compared with my comments here. 30 June 2005 22:33 (UTC)

Gone quiet? Still denying it was said? Any thoughts on this? "Another commentator has accused Mann of trying to prevent or delay publication of criticism of his work by erroneously raising copyright issues see footnote 1 at end of linked article." 2 July 2005 22:17 (UTC)

There is no evidence here of bad faith on Mann's part, and his involvement on the copyright issue seems only to have delayed publication by two and a half weeks. Rd232 07:02, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Which points do you disagree with?

1. His palaeoclimate reconstructions of the past millenia from tree ring, ice core, coral and other data challenged the previous consensus on the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age.
   1. This one is essentially wrong. See MWP and LIA in IPCC reports

      After it has received your attention. So a graph clearly labelled in degrees Celsius (and a descriptive text saying a range of less than 2 degrees) somehow becomes "non-quantative" and "not labelled".

      1. I wrote that page, of course. Its non-quantative because its clearly labelled as "schematic". And there are no numbers on the vertical axis. But don't take my word for it... check in your own copy of the '90 report.
2. He acted as lead author of the "Observed Climate Variability and Change" chapter of the IPCC Third Assessment Report.
   1. Of course he did
3. The TAR make his "Hockey Stick graph" the new consensus.
   1. Wrong. What you (and so many other skeptics) appear to miss is that the language in the TAR used to describe the MBH reconstruction applies to all the other ones too: see the nice pic over at Temperature record of the past 1000 years.

      I don't agree, but in the spirit of compromise I will change "his" to "the".

      1. 1. Thats not a compromise, its a tedious joke. But, you said "I don't agree". Excellent: do please tell me which piece of IPCC langauge you think doesn't apply to, say, the Moberg reconstruction?
4. He has been a referee on a large number of journals related to climate change.
   1. Of course
5. An author of a paper raising comments about his work noted that it became easy to publish "once we did not have Michael Mann as a referee".
   1. This is gossip

      It is a direct published quote.

      1. 1. Which is gossip.
6. Another commentator has accused Mann of trying to prevent or delay publication of criticism of his work by erroneously raising copyright issues.
   1. Ditto. TCS is a junk source. Soon is very close to a junk climatologist (saved only by not being a climatologist). The report there is very clearly gossip. Fig 1 on the TCS is particularly egregious nonsense. The assertion (fig 2) that trends are calculated with padding out to 2020 is twaddle. But if you're interested in temperature trends, then global warming is the place to look.

      Again, it is based on a quote. I am not commenting on Soon's paper, though it seems to have been published in a peer reviewed journal. You have already taken the actual climate variations out of this article. That leaves Michael Mann the person/scientist, and his behaviour. My edits describe some of his actions. You do not want people to know this.

      1. 1. You referred to the TCS article. I've pointed out some reasons why its junk. Now you won't defend it.

As far as I am concerned, they are all true, and easily verifiable. So what is the problem? 7 July 2005 18:07 (UTC)

As noted above, you are quite wrong on a number of important points. William M. Connolley 2005-07-07 19:20:29 (UTC).

I maintain my position (see above). Quotes do not make gossip. I see you have brought your "Co-ordination" friends in to do your reverts for you with the same thoughtless comments. 8 July 2005 20:25 (UTC)

It was difficult to spot your responses in there but I will do my best to respond.

1. On the 1990 IPCC graph, it does say "schematic" and does not put numbers next to the tick marks. But you failed to comment on my points, "labelled in degrees Celsius (and a descriptive text saying a range of less than 2 degrees)". Suffering from a selective vision POV?

   The '90 graph was a schematic: ie, it wasn't a quantitative reconstruction. In fact its exact source is quite unclear. The point of the MWP an LIA in IPCC page (which you are missing) is that your version of history is wrong: there never was a consensus on these being global; their probable non-globality was evident from the first, and certainly by 1995, which pre-dates the Mann work,... and if you had anything valuable to say you wouldn't be saying it here, you'd be over at the t records page.

2. On the Moberg reconstruction, I was not aware that Mann had tried to interfere with that too. But since you ask, it suggests that MWP and LIA were identifiable hemispheric effects, the shape is broadly similar to the 1990 IPCC graph (except for the choice of a different year for the basis of the horizontal line, and the inclusion of recent decades and pre-1000 data by Moberg) and that the TAR may have been wrong to concentrate on evidence which suggested the variation in the centuries up to the 19th century so small. Do you think that the "Hockey Stick graph" [4] can still be justified?

   Sigh. The MBH work can still be fully justified. our challenge, which you've ducked, is do please tell me which piece of IPCC langauge you think doesn't apply to, say, the Moberg reconstruction?

3. You are challenging the contents of Soon's paper - but that is not an issue for this page. I am using comments about Mann's behaviour - which is. Apart from an ad hominem attack on Soon, are you saying his comments on Mann's behaviour are factually untrue?

   Soon is an strong opponent of Mann, and has produed junk work to try to push his POV. His comments on Mann are gossip.

I see you have added a graph and a list of papers to the article. I am not worried about that, though it might suggest that comments on the graph should go here too. But that is for another day. 9 July 2005 01:21 (UTC)

More hidden questions, but no answers. For the third time: Is the 1990 IPCC graph labelled in degrees Celsius?

No of course it isn't. I said so above: it has no labels on the y axis. William M. Connolley 2005-07-09 19:15:19 (UTC).

IPCC graph

IPCC graph

So I am blind when I see something after the words "Temperature change"? 21:52, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

It has no *numeric* labels. The tick marks may or may not be in oC - we really don't know. If they had wanted to label the y-axis, they would have. And all of this is pintless, since that graph wasnt the consensus then anyway. William M. Connolley 22:10:11, 2005-07-09 (UTC).

I will take that as a "yes it does say degrees Celsius" in the face of the evidence - after your firm denial. Note that I said earlier "it does say schematic and does not put numbers next to the tick marks" so I seem to have less selective reading than you. 03:50, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Does the text give a range of less than 2 degrees?

If you were to interpret the tick marks on the y-axis as being degree divisions, then the figure suggests that the MWP was about 0.5 oC warmer, and the LIA about 0.5 oC cooler, than the 1000-y median. The text makes no quantitative statments about the last 1000 y that I can see: the 2 oC text relates to "since the end of the last galciation", not the last 1000y. William M. Connolley 2005-07-09 19:15:19 (UTC).

IPCC graph

IPCC graph

You have to look at the last 10,000 years to understand this. The uptick at the start is the end of the last glaciation (sp.), and the final 1,000 years correspond to the 1,000 year graph. So the tick marks are presumably the same, since the dispersion in the last 1000 years is similar to the dispersion in the last 8000 years. 21:52, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Does Moberg have anything to do with my edits to this article? Though while on the subject, is the shape of Moberg's closer to the 1990 IPCC graph or to the TAR graph linked above? Given this article is about Mann, why are any comments about his behaviour towards his critics mere gossip? Why are you trying to censor it?

Yes yes, your valuable insights are being censored by a cabal of evildoers, its the same old story. William M. Connolley 2005-07-09 19:15:19 (UTC).

Thank you for the confirmation. You still have not mentioned why you raised Moberg. You might note that sarcasm does not work well written down. 21:52, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

In answer to your remaining questions, my edits here are not challenging Mann's research - they are reporting how his critics are describing his behaviour towards them. And to repeat what I said above on Moberg's reconstruction (not relevant to this article), it seems to challenge the Hockey Stick graph used in TAR and the phrase "current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this timeframe" unless this is supposed to mean that temperatures rose and fell absolutely everywhere at exactly the same time, in which case the debate becomes meaningless (the instrument record does not meet this criterion for the past century). 9 July 2005 13:37 (UTC)

The Moberg graph doesn't tell you about globally sync changes. Looking at the individual areas does. Which is what the research the IPCC was reporting did. William M. Connolley 2005-07-09 19:15:19 (UTC).

Moberg's graph was designed to "reconstruct Northern Hemisphere temperatures for the past 2,000 years". The IPCC TAR "Hockey Stick" graph was described as a "Millennial Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperature reconstruction". Apart from covering twice as long a period, I do not see a difference. You still have not explained why you raised Moberg. 21:52, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

You seem to think that the MBH graph is some sort of outlier. I'm pointing out that it isn't - that the IPCC text that described the MBH graph could have been used, unchanged, to describe any of the others - one example of which is Moberg. William M. Connolley 22:10:11, 2005-07-09 (UTC).

Except of course that the MBH graph is fundamentally different in shape to both Moberg and the 1990 graph. To be honest, I still don't see any subastantial difference between those latter two. If the IPCC TAR had shown a graph like Moberg there would be less controversy. But Mann (and others, including yourself) have defended to death a "Hockey Stick" graph which made a substantial impression on others, and have attacked those who sought to question it. 03:50, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

• Referencing the graph-discussing text some distance above: Not having numbers does not mean the graph is not marked in degrees. The Y-axis is clearly labeled as °C. The mark scaling changes with graph scaling. The 1990 text around the graph also refers to degrees C. [5] (SEWilco 07:40, 12 July 2005 (UTC))

Not having numbers does not mean the graph is not marked in degrees of course not. But it might not be. Its speculation. What is obvious is that if they wanted to mark it in dgrees, they would have done so. What is also obvious is that this is nothing more than a schematic, because it explicitly states it is. As for climateaudit... they're pretty keen on audit trails, or so they say. But what do they say about the total lack of attribution of the '90 graph? They say Lots of sensible material here.. Because... it fits their biases. If they were being honest and consistent, they would be *attacking* this '90 report for using some hand-drawn sourceless schematic. William M. Connolley 13:17:27, 2005-07-12 (UTC).

So your POV is that the marking °C does not mean it is marked in °C. (SEWilco 17:06, 12 July 2005 (UTC))

Da da da... stop dragging POV into it. I've just has a quick flip through IPCC 90: why not look at your copy? All the graphs have numeric labels on their axis, except this one. So one presumes they had a good reason for that. And the reason is the word you can't speak: "schematic". Now, why do you think CA are avoiding this obvious fact? Why you think these people, so keen on audit trails, are overlooking the glaring lack of audit trail - even any basic reference - in this case? William M. Connolley 18:42:31, 2005-07-12 (UTC).

I am amused to see that you are seeking to have the charts above removed (I don't know about IPCC, but UNFCC material is public domain bar the logo).

Look more closely. I've identified it as a probable copyvio, but said that it would be nice if it could stay. William M. Connolley 08:40:09, 2005-07-13 (UTC).

How unfortunate that most people will be unable to see what the IPCC were then trying to tell people. So just for the record, here is a chart which combines three lines discussed above: the IPCC 1990 line in green, MBH 1999 reconstruction 40 year average in red (as in the shaft of the Hockey Stick publish in IPCC TAR 2005) and Moberg et al 2005 low frequency signal in blue. The degree Celsius tick marks in the IPCC chart have been matched to +1, 0 and -1 degree Celsius points for the two anomaly lines. No doubt you will comment, but I feel that the points I have made earlier are enough. But do note that if I had a serious POV, I would have redrawn the charts starting in 1400 and used MBH 1998. 01:13, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

IPPC 1990, MBH 1999, Moberg 2005

Well, the IPCC says "The period since the end of the last glaciation has been characterized by small changes in global average temperature with a range of probably less than 2 deg C (Figure 7.1)". 2 deg C is what 7.1b shows, and the above chart stays within 2 deg C. OK. (SEWilco 06:31, 13 July 2005 (UTC))

I suppose I could comment, but since I can't work out what you're trying to say here, I won't. William M. Connolley 08:40:09, 2005-07-13 (UTC).

Seeking consensus

I'd say this article has several problems, but the current conflict appears to be over the following words:

(WMC pro-, anon anti-)

1. He was a Lead Author on the “Observed Climate Variability and Change” chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report.

I assume that the removal has to do with this being duplicated further down the page.

(WMC anti-, anon pro-)

1. where he challenged the previous consensus on the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age and then acted as lead author of the "Observed Climate Variability and Change" chapter of the IPCC Third Assessment Report to make the "Hockey Stick graph" the new consensus.
2. He has been a referee for Nature, Science, Climatic Change, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Climate, JGR-Oceans, JGR-Atmospheres, Paleoceanography, Climate Dynamics, Eos, Int. J. Climatol., Water Resources Research, Holocene, Atmospheric & Solar-Terrestrial Physics; GSA Today; Earth and Planetary Science Letters; Water Resources Research; Climate Research; NSF, NOAA, DOE grant programs.[6]
3. An author of a paper raising comments about his work noted that it became easy to publish "once we did not have Michael Mann as a referee". [7]
4. Another commentator has accused Mann of trying to prevent or delay publication of criticism of his work by erroneously raising copyright issues [8].

No. 1 imputes motive - that, as lead author of the report Mann "changed" the consensus. This should be easy to source - scientists aren't sheep, this would have been challenged by climate scientists. This needs a reputable source.

No. 2 seems unusual - I have not seen other articles where a scientist's role as reviewer is given such a prominent role. That's the kind of thing brand new PhDs stress because they don't have pubs. Can you explain why this information is important in this article.

No. 3 has a problem - "This time it was easy because for once we didn't have Mann as a referee" means something difference from "once we did not have Mann as a referee". There is no way to distinguish from the quote whether the ease of publication was related to Mann blocking the paper or whether it was due to other reviewers being less rigorous. It is impossible to determine which meaning von Storch means.

No. 4 - again, the article makes the two statements together, but does not actually connect them, and only quotes an anonymous source. I don't really think that we can use an oblique implication from an anonymous source as a factual statement. Sounds libelous to me - I don't think it should be in a Wikipedia article. I am removing this one part up front, the rest need to be discussed. Guettarda 01:48, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

On your initial point - yes, the move was to avoid duplication, and put the lead author part with a consequence. On your other four:

1. Mann and his colleagues believe(d) that their work showed there was no global phenomenon such as the Medieval Warm Period and that the Little Ice Age was much less significant than previously thought, contrary to general perceptions. Mann was then lead author or the relevant chapter and included their work and in particular the chart - this lead to widespread adoption of the "Hockey Stick" - basically flat for centuries and then a leap up at the end. So the consensus changed, and Mann made it happen. Mann's motive was to get people to agree with him - fairly typical human behaviour - his behaviour since then (and that of WMC) has been to prevent too many people from disagreeing. WMC may say that not everybody believed in the previous consensus; I would say that not everybody believes in the new one. But consensus does not require unanimity.
2. The list of Mann's ereeing activities explain the significance of von Storch's comment. Mann is extremely active as a referee, and in an area which depends largely on the publication of peer reviewed articles, has had a substantial opportunity to influence what gets published and what does not. The real question is how he has used that. We will never know, because of the anonimity of the process. But we have some clues.
3. The sensible way to interpret von Storch's comment is that on this paper he thinks he did not have Mann as a reviewer, and that on other papers he thinks he did, making publication of those other papers unjustifiably harder. I doubt "rigorous" is the word von Storch would use.
4. Again this is a problem with the peer review process. Soon's paper seems to have been accepted but not published when expected, so he tried to find out why not. And this is the reason he says he was given. I am not aware of any denials - instead the attacks have been on the content of Soon's paper.

There are public issues over Mann's behaviour (his science can be discussed on other pages) - others include delaying provision of input data, and refusing to provide source code for calculations, so his work can be checked and understood by other people. In my view, an article which fails to mention commentators' views on Mann is unbalanced and POV. 03:50, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

• It really doesn't matter what you or William think about consensus - the article needs to make explicitly verifable statements, or not make them at all. The statement suggests that Mann exerted undue influence on the conclusion of the IPCC chapter. That needs to be sourced, it cannot simply be implied.
• Can you establish that Mann is a more active reviewer than other people? Most prominent scientists get a lot of peer-review requests. While some journals list their reviewers, not all of them do. If you can source that statement, then source it. But to list the journals for which he is a reviewer without context is simply confusing.
• It's obvious that Crok wants the statment interpreted in that way, but he doesn't make the explicit statement, and quite honestly there is no way to know what von Storch is saying without context. A pair of statments are juxtaposed by Crok, unfortunately if even he doesn't explicitly tie them together we cannot do the job for him.
• Again, in the fourth case, Soon quotes an anonymous source, and does not explicitly tie the two event together.

You say that: "In my view, an article which fails to mention commentators' views on Mann is unbalanced and POV." This isn't about what Mann's critics are saying about him - this is about what Mann's critics are insinuating. If Crok and Soon won't put two and two together, neither can we. This is not an advocacy site. Verifiability is absolutely important. Can you find some verifiable sources. (This would be much easier if you would register a user name - I hate talking to string of numbers. It would also do much more to protect your privacy). Guettarda 04:18, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

You seem to be deliberately asking me to prove a negative. The IPCC is supposed to represent the consensus: the charts (widely quoted) changed, so the consensus changed. Nobody was taling about a Hockey Stick shape before Mann; they were afterwards. Mann was responsible for that, first with colleagues in producing the Hockey Stick graph, then as lead author on the chapter getting it included in the IPCC report. Einstein changed the consensus on the wave/particle nature of light - nobody would say he exerted "undue" influence.

Nobody know how much reviewing Mann does compares with other people, not even Mann himself. But he does referee extensively and is proud of that. Earlier you questioned why "a scientist's role as reviewer is given such a prominent role"; now you question whether he is indeed active but find a long list of journals "confusing". You ask for verifiable information, but then question its inclusion. I don't know if Mann really has refereed for all these journals, but I doubt you would be happy with "He claims to have refereed for ...".

Again you ask the impossible. Von Storch made the statement. My edits to the article do not draw conclusions, but they do provide a link so readers can see what some of the fuss is about. WMC wants to stop that being visible.

Again on Soon, the accusation has been made. My edits did not state they were admitted by Mann - see earlier on degrees celsius as to how difficult it is to get an admission of something.

The fact is that Mann's science is controversial and that is dealt with elsewhere. His behaviour is also controversial, and this needs to be reflected in this article. If you are really aiming for consensus, then try to find a way of describing that which enables readers to see what the debate is. 14:21, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

• If Mann inserted the hockey stick into the IPCC report without consensus if would have ignited a firestorm. So there should be lots of evidence of this assertion. It isn't like it was first published in the IPCC report, is it? The wording, as it standsm implies undue influence. Is anyone asserting that the hockey stick would never have made it to the point of "consensus" if Mann had not been lead author on the chapter? If so, it's a citable issue. If not, then the wording is misleading. Simple enough. The Einstein issue is irrelevent - the only question is whether Mann's actions were improper (as the article implies) or not. Asking for evidence of improper behaviour is not "proving a negative".
• You have not answered my question on the reviewing. While there is no standard format for academic biographies (AFAIK), but I have never seen an article that gives such a prominent role to the subject's role as a reviewer. Since this article does, there must be some reason for it. There's an awful lot of stuff in Mann's CV which is not in this article. If everything was, there would be no need to justify this. But the simple matter is that what is generally seen as a very minor thing, one's role as a reviewer, is given prominence. So, there must be a reason. I assume that the reason it is included is to suggest that he, as such a prominent reviewer (what Crok calls a "Pope") allows him to assert undue influence on climate publications. If that is the case, work that statement into the article. If that is not your intention, then explain the imbalance. It's a trivial piece of info in an academic biography. So why put it?
• You say: "Von Storch made the statement." Actually you only have a quote from Crok. You don't have (and thus, we cannot know) what the context of the quote may be. It is a rather curious statement inasmuch as reviewers are anonymous. How does von Storch know that Mann was not a reviewer? Juxtaposed as it is, there is no way of knowing what von Storch meant. If asking for verification is asking "the impossible" then the statement needs to be deleted immediately, because it is unverifiable. If it is unverifiable then it cannot be in a Wikipedia article.
• The Soon paper does not say that Mann raised the copyright issue. It sticks two statement together, that and an anonymous statement from a GRL person, in the same paragraph. That is called innuendo. We cannot take innuendo and turn it into factual statement.
• If you want readers to see what the debate is about, you need to source the debate. If someone is saying that Mann's behaviour is out of line, quote that person, reference a statement, not hearsay and innuendo. Simple enough.

So what's up with the user name (or at least signing your posts)? Guettarda 15:03, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Since my edits are sourced and you find those sources unnacceptable, you really need to make an effort to show that you are not just taking WMC's censorship side. You came in at his invitation and you have nominated him as an administrator. Then you repeat his points. 23:09, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Your point being? I asked you to provide sources for your assertions. Your refs do not say what you claim they do. Sure, William invited me, quite openly (he could have used email if he had anything to hide). It was the right thing to do - if you are to close to an issue to ask someone who is less detached. I did not take a side - if I had come in here to take a side I could have just reverted your edits. It's easy enough to tag-team someone. Instead, I tried to find consensus - I don't have an opinion of Mann, I am only going by what was available in the article and the sources. Your sources do not say what you claim they do. I have seen the debate on the hockey stick. You obviously think it important to criticise Mann's behaviour. I am simply asking that you attribute your statements. You are free to see Wikipedia as a joke. I take it very seriously. I see no place for innuendo and potential libel. In my opinion, you are putting us at legal risk. All I am asking is that you make verifiable statements. You seem to have no interest in doing so. You appear to be acting in bad faith. Guettarda 23:37, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

You called this section "seeking consensus" but you have not done so. Indeed you reverted my latest edit (using WMC's comment). But my edit was merely a reversion to one you had done. [9]. So you are tag-teaming. Who is showing bad faith? 20:59, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Since you made it abundantly clear that you have no interest in consensus, I reverted your POV pushing. Simple enough. Who is showing bad faith? You - by POV pushing, by continuing to revert to statements which could not be supported, even by youir rather dodgy sources. You who refuses to edit using your user name despite the fact that you registered one, but then try to claim that you should be given credit for anonymous edits. If you want to blog, go to blogger or livejournal or somewhere like that where no one cares whether you write truth or fantasy. Guettarda 23:10, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Except of course I have never said that I "have no interest in consensus". The problem seems to be that you claimed to, but made no effort to do so. When you made a partial edit, I did not revert you. When you took WMC's side completely, I reverted back to your own edit. --81.131.38.18 01:53, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Was I a asshole to you when your country got bombed? I acted in good faith, I looked at the edits and the sources, and when they did not say what you alleged, I asked you to find sources that said what you alleged, or to adjust your statements to match what could be sourced. Instead you did your best to push your own agenda, and accused me of doing what you were doing. At least I didn't sit around insulting you when you had real tragedy to deal with. But you seem not to have any interests beyond your own agenda. You seem to take pleasure in insulting people at times of real tragedy. But that's what the right-wing agenda is all about, isn't it? Get mine and screw everyone else. Guettarda 02:32, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Keep cool, please, while discussing edits please. "a**h****" and references to whose country got bombed are not germane to this article, since it is neither about scatalogical slang, nor military science. Stirling Newberry 14:06, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

My apologies to the anon. I should have stopped editing as soon as I learned about the bombing in Trinidad. Guettarda 14:17, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Apology accepted in the spirit it is offered.20:06, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Completely unacceptable

Anon added (bold):

He is best known for his palaeoclimate reconstructions of the past millenia from tree ring, ice core, coral and other data, where he challenged the previous consensus on the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age and then acted as lead author of the "Observed Climate Variability and Change" chapter of the IPCC Third Assessment Report to make the "Hockey Stick graph" the new consensus.

This is completely unacceptable POV pushing. Its not supported by anything; its a-historical (ignoring the vast bulk of non-MBH work that had already noted the probablility of the LIA/MWP being non-global) and its probably libellous. I supose we can thank our anon for going beyond mere gossip peddling to obvious POV pushing, thus revealing themselves rather more fully. William M. Connolley 14:28:41, 2005-07-10 (UTC).

So you have spotted that edit at last (you have been reverting it for days). Why is changing the consensus such a bad thing to do? Many scientists who do so are seen as heroes. Where is the potential libel? Or are you just repeating your friend's point becuase it gives you another excuse to censor? 23:09, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

You have your history wrong. It wasn't MBH that changed the consensus: it had already happened. The libel is the assertion that he abused his position to force his views in. For which you have no support at all. Adding unsupported views is POV pushing, and in your case it appears to be simple malice. William M. Connolley 23:30:16, 2005-07-10 (UTC).

I have never said he abused his position in the IPCC. That interpretation has come solely from you and your copycat friends. Why is any comment by anyone who is not a colleague of Mann automatically malicious? Are you going to damn 'Scientific Scientific American magazine described him as the "Man behind the Hockey Stick"' as malicious name calling? If anyone points out that some of his forthcoming bunch papers in Journal of Climate (which he used to edit) have been rejected elsewhere, will you call that innuendo or libel? 20:59, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

The standard is noteworthy and encyclopediac. Serious questions are worthy of inclusion, innuendo is not. I've included the attack by Senator James Inhofe because it is on the record and the person doing it is notable, as I have included Mann's on the record comments about those who attack his work. Were there serious questions raised by neutral parties about Dr. Mann's status as a reviewer or biases, then those would be worthy of inclusion. If journals had publically severed their ties with him over questions about his reviewing, that would be notable. There is enough critical about Dr. Mann and his work on the record - indeed he has been subjected to numerous personal attacks - that there is no need to include the anonymous fulminations of people who are not willing to come out and state that there is something wrong with his work and professional conduct. As for papers being rejected - it happens all the time, and for any number of reasons. Even in papers that are accepted or rejected there are dissenting views. Dr.Mann continues to publish widely, and there has been no indication that he has been shown any special favoritism at JoC, or any other journal. The bottom line is that reporting what the anonymice say is not encyclopediac, reporting what critics on the record or in published papers/letters/ articles is encyclopediac. Stirling Newberry 22:59, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't actually have a problem with your edits. But this started when WMC refused to allow a link to a published article and an quotation from the article which is attributed within the article. Would it have made any difference if I had said here: Hans von Storch, an author of a paper raising comments about his work noted that it became easy to publish "once we did not have Michael Mann as a referee"? I only mentioned the rejection because WMC and his friends make such an issue of it in relation M&M's to Mann's Nature corrigendum. --81.131.38.18 01:53, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks to SN, then, who has made us both happy. Some reference should also be made to the developing Barton controversy. William M. Connolley 18:45:33, 2005-07-12 (UTC).

Cosine

I see von Storch has discovered that Mann did not use cosines properly in PCA - he failed to take a square root. A human slip, not worth noting perhaps. Except that when Ross McKitrick also made a slip with cosines - by assuming that a computer function was defined on degrees not radians - this deserves a whole section. NPOV requires that we mention both or neither. Which should it be? 22:35, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

No response? That leaves a choice - introduce a section here about taking square roots of cosines or remove the section from Ross McKitrick's article. I'll go with the second, but I would be happy with the first. 00:37, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't like your two choices. Can you think of a third? William M. Connolley 10:02, 9 October 2005 (UTC).

Well I could, but you may not like that either. How about including in this article Some supporters of Mann such as William M. Connolley regularly supress or divert any criticism of Mann and his work, and to denigrate his critics. For example when one of Mann's critics Ross McKitrick made a programming error using cosines (when taking the cosines of latitudes he assumed the program worked in degrees), Connolley sought to highlight this, while when Mann made a programming error using cosines (he failed to take a necessary square root when using cosines of latitudes as weights in principal components analysis), Connolley argued against publicising this information. Other supporters of Mann such as Tim Lambert have been slightly more even handed. 00:46, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Ignoring that fairly aggressive personal attack, let's focus on the substance. The basic issue is this: McKitrick has no credentials relevant to climate science, and therefore his credibility rests primarily on statistical analysis and methodology (as acquired as part of his economics career). Therefore if he makes mistakes, this is more likely to be notable, especially given the prominence attached to his allegations of mistakes by others. Given that the section ends with the sourced assertion that the conclusion is stronger after fixing the error, it's hardly an unfounded personal attack - it's useful information about scientific process. On the other hand, Mann's "hockey-stick" work is significant scientifically (though not as much as it is politically), and it is discussed in Temperature record of the past 1000 years. Rd232 06:08, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems difficult to believe that you are saying we should hold climate scientists to weaker standards than economics - this really is showing a POV, as well as damaging the credibility of climate science. Remember that Mann regularly attacks the work of other scientists; he also has a dgree in Applied Math. Let's see what really happened:

• both Mann and McKitrick were trying to manipulate geographical information
• both made an adjustment to their data because the Earth is round and so points nearer the Poles are closer together than points on the same longitude near the Equator; a cosine function of the latitude closely expresses this relationship; in my view they both get a plus point for this;
• Mann seems to have forgotten that PCA is based on variances (i.e. squares of differences), and so the square-root of the cosine should be taken of weights going into the calculation
• McKitrick seems to have forgotten that mathematical programs treat angles in radians while GIS programs treat latitude in degrees

It seems to me that they both made minor and similar errors, and so the errors require mention or non-mention together. 23:56, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

If you want to add more detail to the Criticism section of Temperature record of the past 1000 years, which is where Mann's work is discussed (to avoid excessive duplication), then propose on the talk page there, or just add it and see what people think. So far your only concrete action has been to remove information (from McKitrick article) - maybe try something else (rewriting it, for instance). Also, if you intend to stick around, you can get yourself a username at Special:userlogin. Rd232 00:19, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

The trade off you suggest is not acceptable. If you have some text you want added to this page, then the thing to do is add it: it will judged in the usual way. William M. Connolley 09:29, 14 October 2005 (UTC).

Why is it not acceptable to treat the similar issues in similar ways? I would say that was one of the keys to an NPOV approach. Do you deny my description of the position? --81.131.79.138 23:16, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Neither of you are answering my questions:

• Do you accept my description of what happened?
• Do you agree that mentioning one without the other is POV?
• Do you think these errors are encyclopedic? I don't - I think they are both minor.

Until you respond to these questions properly you are stuck with demonstrating your bias. Since I don't think either point should be included, the onus is on you to find an NPOV way of presenting the information. 18:24, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

We've made it quite clear that we don't think deleting the info from McK is acceptable. You can, if you like, propose adding some text to the Mann article, if you think you have something interesting to add. It will then be subject to the std editing procedures. William M. Connolley 18:50, 15 October 2005 (UTC).

I am trying to have a discussion here. You have not answered my questions. Do you have something to hide? Your POV perhaps? 21:36, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry guv. Your questions are doubtless fascinating to you. Perhaps try the newsgroup sci.environment? But what you are proposing is quite unclear. William M. Connolley 21:48, 16 October 2005 (UTC).

I recognise the problem is your understanding and I appreciate that you may have difficulties with some techical terms (above you took several days to understand that °C might possibly mean degree Celsius). But do not worry, I am quite happy to walk you through this and explain things you do not understand. Lesson one:

Michael Mann (scientist) used cosines as a weight function in his principal components analysis

If you think you understand that then we can move on to lesson two which will be

He should have used square roots of cosines instead

If you have any problems understanding either of these, then note it here and I would be happy to explain in simpler terms. 18:52, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

If you patronize people, refuse to engage with their suggestions and views, and refuse to get a username, you will ensure that people will struggle to take you seriously. Rd232 21:18, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll take that as a patronising comment and a refusal to engage with my sugestion. Neither you nor Dr Connolley have even tried to answer any of my questions - so clearly neither facts not NPOV matter to either of you. But you still have the chance to reconsider. 23:37, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

And when I offer some balancing text it just gets deleted as "irrelevant". So the issue turns out to be too easy to understand, but since it disrupts POV pushing it is unnacceptable. No real surprise there, which is why I did not produce text before. 20:33, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

The point you seem to be missing is that discussing McK on the Mann talk page, or vice versa, is not sensible. William M. Connolley 21:49, 18 October 2005 (UTC).

You may not have spotted that Mann is already discussed on the McKitrick page. Given that both minor errors have the coincidence of being about the use of cosine weights, my view is that if either apperas then they should both appear together; my preference is that neither does. From past experience, I take it from your failure to challenge the facts of what I have written, you now both understand it and accept it as true, even if you think it is wrongly placed. 22:43, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

POV pushing

The article is slanted toward the point of view that Michael Mann is correct about his hockey stick graph and so on:

• that temperatures have been gradually and steadily declining until a sharp, unprecedented increase beginning late 19th century
• that there was no Medieval Warm Period
• that one of the last dozen years was "the warmest temperature in 1,000 years"

All of these points are used by advocates to garner political support for the global warming theory, and in turn, for the Kyoto Protocol.

I would like to see this article follow the Wikipedia:NPOV policy on the 3 points mentioned above.

Specifically, I would like to see a balance between Mann's claims, and the critique of M&M. (I have no objection if it's 90% Mann, 10% McK, as long as all their main points are included.)

The statisticians claimed that putting random data into Mann's graph-producing computer program creates a hockey stick graph! If their claim is true, it's a devastating blow to the GW-Kyoto argument. I daresay that makes the claim significant. (Whether their claim is true or not might be above the heads of most readers, but it's still their POV and deserves to be in the article.) --Uncle Ed 17:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually Mann's many errors are not a blow to the GW-Kyoto argument. They are a blow to Mann's credibility as a scientist and to those who have defended him and published him uncritically, including the IPCC. His behaviour has probably set back paleoclimatology by about 10 years, but probably has little impact on understanding of what has happened in the last 100 years and may or may not happen in the next 100. The POV on this article and related ones is indeed a serious issue and the inability of Wikipedia to deal with it reflects badly on the project as a whole. 21:37, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Sigh... this is nowt put POV from the skeptic side. Ed, go off and read the urban heat island article properly before scattering POV labels elsewhere. No, this article isn't pro-Mann, its just about Mann William M. Connolley 21:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The last few graphs I've seen on urban heat island effects show that Atlanta and New York City have gotten up to 8 degrees (F) hotter in a century and a half. Our readers will want to know why urban areas are warming much faster than the rest of the world. Does it have something to do with land use? --Uncle Ed 19:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

The best thing to do would be to actually produce said graphs, rather than just assert them. And probably, to disucss them on the UHI page. If you did read the UHI page, you'd discover that the data indicate that urban areas are *not* warming faster than rural ones. But I've pointed that out to you before... William M. Connolley 19:18, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

You have better access to the data than I do, and you know that Atlanta and NYC have heated up FIVE times faster than the surrounding rural areas. Why do you pretend to have pointed out the opposite of this?

I think you are paraphrasing a study which said globally urban areas aren't warming faster. But I was referring to TWO specific metro areas in the US. Please don't mix up apples and oranges. --Uncle Ed 20:57, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Errrm... that might well be of some relevance on a page entitled "UHI in two specific metro areas in the US". But why its here... I'm baffled William M. Connolley 21:18, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

Representative Joe Barton (R-TX-06) has requested information from Mann and co-authors about his work [10]; this has been widely seen [11] as "a search for some basis on which to discredit these particular scientists and findings, rather than a search for understanding" [12]. It was later discovered that the whole controversy was based upon the research of Stephen McIntyre.

This wording implies that Barton was wrong to try to discredit Mann. And the smoking gun phrase It was later discovered implies, "See? We caught him! That nasty dishonest congressman..." --Uncle Ed 18:00, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

POV, NPOV, and actually writing a good encyclopedia article

I agree with Uncle Ed. I do so reluctantlyl! I personally hold the view that Barton's investigation was a transparent attempt to hamstring a scientist's work. HOWEVER, we are trying to create an encylopedia here.

The question is this: Does this article provide enough information to enable reflective readers to make their own judgments? What would be needed to provide this information without violating NPOV? Taking Barton's action as an example:

• How often do Congressional representatives make such demands of scientists?
• Why are scientists reluctant to release their data sets to others? What has happened in the past that justifies this reluctance, in their view?
• Is this action unprecedented?
• What are its practical implications? How much time does it take to comply with a request like this?
• Why would Rep. Barton do this? What does he say about it?
• Who has criticized Rep. Barton's actions? Why?

On this score, for all the verbiage expended in this Talk page, the article itself is quite thin and devoid of facts. What, exactly, did Mann argue? How has his argument been received by the scientific community? Have flaws been found in Mann's analysis? If so, has Mann conceded that there were limitations to his analysis? Are these limitations sufficient to raise questions about his work's overall credibility, or are they minor?

So get to work! Best wishes Bryan 21:40, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

According to Mann's critics, it's unusual for scientists to reject scrutiny on their work. Generally they welcome it, because "many eyes" will confirm their findings (if correct).

Mann is happy with scrutiny. What he isn't happy with is politically motivated attacks William M. Connolley 19:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

However, in environmental sciences, many examples of scientific misconduct exist. According to Michael Crichton, Ann Coulter and others, the basis of the environmental movement is anti-scientific.

I can't think of any, unless you're referring to Bartons committee? Note quick shift from from env sci to env mov. Mann isn't part of env mov. MC and AC have nothing to say of any use on this issue William M. Connolley 19:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

The question, of course, is how to describe these criticisms fairly without actually endorsing or dismissing them. --Uncle Ed 19:07, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah... good, we can agree on that at least. Hopefully, we can start by not dragging in MC or AC William M. Connolley 19:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

www.climateaudit.org has plenty of information about Mann his work and his behaviour. Saying it is "anti-Mann" is not a reason for removing the link.19:33, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that to simply place a link to climateaudit is irresponsible. The average reader will be misinformed. The methodology used by M&M has been questioned so many tiems and by many different people. Their responses do not make much sense simply because they are made to make no sense, I honestly think they are just buying time. So, placing that would make the article a bit POV. I think if you want to place it to illustrate criticism to Mann, you should also show that that particular criticism has many problems. Brusegadi 21:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

The same could be said of the link to realclimate; both are polemical blogs with some science thrown in. Note that when Wegman reviewed what M&M had done, he basically endorsed their comments about Mann's work, without significant reservation. For this he was accused of uncritically parroting claims. So climateaudit cannot win either way. Readers of this article have the right to see both sides; they are told McIntyre criticises Mann. 23:54, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a biographical article, as such a link to Realclimate to which Mann posts regularly is relevant. The Climate audit blog is simply a blog with much criticism of Mann's work. The published criticism bits are already in the article - sufficiently covered. No need to add external link to another blog. Again, this article is a biographical article and not the place to post detailed arguements about global warming or to be overly negative regarding Mann's work. There are other articles for the disagreements. Vsmith 00:21, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. The Climate audit blog is a blog with much criticism of Mann's work and his behaviour. So it is relevant in an article about Mann. Neutral Point of View (NPOV) is a fundamental Wikipedia principle which states that all articles must be written from a neutral point of view, that is, they must represent all significant views fairly and without bias. There is no bias in including the link; there is a bias in removing it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.74.238 (talk • contribs) 00:35, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

The published criticsm is included in the article - so much for your POV preaching. The inclusion of an unpublished blog as an external link is irrelevant in a biographical article. As for Realclimate, it is relevant because Mann is a contributor and this is his biography. This is an article about the scientist, not a detailed article about the science and the debates therein. If the POV pushing anon stops reverting the blog back in there will be no reason for the POV tag he keeps adding. Now, it appears that we have an anon editor posting from three different IP addresses (all from the same place) who has reverted four times. Seems to be a potential 3rr violation to me. Will the anon please sign up for a username and cease hiding behind a variety of IPs? Vsmith 01:12, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

1. The real point: The Climateaudit link has been in this article for over a year. There is a realclimate link in the Stephen McIntyre article. Climateaudit actually says more about Mann than any other source; it may not be balanced in itself, but then nor are any of the other links. Wikipedia calls balance having both sides of the case.
2. The pedantic point: I am not sure it is physically possible to link to an "unpublished" blog.
3. The procedural point: Three editors not only remove the link almost simultaneously, but also each remove the POV tag that indicates there is a dispute. Seems to be a team working together to avoid a 3rr violation to me. Will the team cease hiding behind various user names? 01:32, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

It does not matter if it has been there over a year. This article is very much a current event and something that was relevant before may be shown to be irrelevant today. The criticisms have been shown to be wastes of time. They are properly mentioned in the article. Adding an external link to a piece of propaganda is not responsable. -On the different users, many disputes in wiki are solved by many users working together. Finally, let me add that the anon has also been accusing users of vandalism. I find that disturbing. Are they trying to intimidate new users into not editing articles? Look on my talk page. The comment was not even signed! I hope someone deletes that.Brusegadi 01:47, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to weigh in on the climateaudit dispute (and I'm NOT anonymous). Climateaudit is now a work of years' standing with contributions from hundreds of people (including some highly qualified people) and a vast amount of material, ALL on the subject of Mann's very influential work. Even I published an opinion piece on Mann's work on www.mises.org in 2005, when I was introduced to the subject by a Wall Street Journal article (not among the citations of the article on Mann). In the course of writing this piece, I subjected climateaudit (and realclimate, and other sources) to as close scrutiny as I (see my User profile) could given my background (and that was extensive, by the way - energy and persistence CAN substitute for prior training). McIntyre and McKitrick's conclusions have since been confirmed by the Wegner report, again some very-difficult-to-refute criticisms, and serious ones.

Whether the "hockey stick" has since been "confirmed" by von Storch or others is irrelevant to issues bearing on the quality of Mann's work. If he got the right results by doing the wrong things, this should be noted in Mann's article. A link to climateaudit is essential to balance in this article, and/or a link to the Wegman report, which is provided on the Web site of Cong. Barton's subcommittee.--Joe 02:55, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Errrm, have you read the page? There is a link to Wegman. cIntyre and McKitrick's conclusions have since been confirmed by the Wegner report - no, more like parrotted. Meanwhile, Wegman is refusing to answer Norths questions about his methods... err... you'll be condemning that, of course? William M. Connolley 08:52, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

So, M&M were "parrotted" by Wegman? Since this is pretty much what Mann said, I guess it's OK to parrot. --Spiffy sperry 01:50, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Errrm, have you read my comment? I didn't say a link to Wegman. I said a link to Wegman's REPORT. I haven't heard about any refusals by Wegman, but I'll run them down, and... err... I will most definitely condemn it. If you care to help with a link, I'll get straightened out that much faster.Joe 23:08, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh good grief, please read the page, there is already a link to the Wegman report in the text. As to the refusals... there was me thinking you were up to date on all this: http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/house06/RitsonWegmanRequests.pdf William M. Connolley 08:44, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, I followed your (graciously specified) link, and it turns out to be questions from one David Ritson, Physicist at Stanford, rather than North. This link is posted on Michael Mann's Web site, not quite what I'd call the mainstream media, so pardon my having missed it. You also indicate that Wegman has refused to answer the questions. I find no evidence of this, nor of any response from Wegman of any kind. In fact, the evidence that anyone actually sent the inquiries to Wegman isn't quite conclusive, but I'll accept that they were sent, and that no answer was received.

Wegman's nonresponse isn't pretty, but Ritson's protestation that he's never experienced any such thing in his long (he's emeritus) academic career strikes me as hyperbolic. I'm growing used to hyperbole on this subject. Wegman rendered a report to Congress. Possibly he wishes to restrict his responses to inquiries, to inquiries from Congress. The report itself notes that he rendered this report pro bono, a circumstance that took me by surprise (I rather thought Congress was quite full of all the money we taxpayers send them).

In any case, Ritson's applying to a report to Congress, standards that he's accustomed to for articles in the academic literature may be presumptuous. Would I like accountability in such reports? Sure. I'd like our tax moneys to be disbursed wisely and honestly, too.

I've inquired of Wegman myself (by e-mail) about Ritson's inquiries and copied you (William M. Connolley) my inquiry. Let's see if he replies to me (I expect he won't - being no one, I usually don't get replies to such e-mails). I'll certainly get back on here with a report if I do get a reply. Joe 03:37, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Have you read the problems? "One of the major claims that deniers (specifically McIntyre and McKitrick -- M&M) have been making against the MBH "hockey-stick" is that MBH specifically set up their principal component analysis to "mine" a hockey-stick shape from data where no "hockey-stick" temperature trend actually exists. And to back up this claim, M&M generated a bunch of band-limited ("red") noise data sets and performed eigenvector (aka principal component) decompositions. They demonstrated that "hockey-stick" shapes can often appear in the leading principal components even if the input is just random noise.

However, there is a major problem with their claims. And it has to do with the fact that the "hockey-stick" principal components that M&M generated from random noise had associated eigenvalues that were *much* smaller than the eigenvalue associated with the leading principal component of MBH's "hockey-stick" data. To determine how important a particalular "principal component" is, one must first scale it appropriately with its associated eigenvalue. You can see this problem in M&M's own work by looking at figure 1 in http://www.climate2003.com/pdfs/2004GL012750.pdf

Figure 1 shows two time-series. The upper time-series is a "hockey-stick" shaped principal component that M&M generated from random noise. The lower time-series is the leading principal component that MBH generated from their "hockey-stick" data. A cursory look at the figure shows that the two "hockey-sticks" are remarkably similar, and that MBH's hockey-stick could very well have just been fished out of data with no real temperature trends.

But take a closer look -- look at the Y-axis scales of the two time-series! The MBH "hockey-stick" Y-axis scale (lower plot in figure 1) has a range of roughly -0.5 to +0.3. The Y-axis range of M&M's "random-noise" hockey stick (uppr plot) has a range of about -0.08 to +0.025 or so. There is nearly an order of magnitude of difference in the two plot scales! That is, M&M exaggerated the "significance" of their random-noise "hockey-stick" by nearly a factor of 10! If both plots were properly scaled, it would become painfully clear that M&M's random-noise "hockey-stick" would be completely insignificant in comparison with MBH's hockey-stick data plot."

Concerning Wegeman:

http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/house06/ read the bottom two pdf documents. So, these guys made claims, but failed to back them up. Their claims are properly mentioned in the article, so there is no need to add a link to propaganda that will skew the neutrality of the article. Brusegadi 04:04, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be assuming anything Mann says is true and anything against him is propaganda thus justifying your censorship. That is not true and it is not how Wikipedia works. --Facethefacts 08:09, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia's official definition of its "neutrality policy" requires articles about disputes to include "fair treatment" of all major sides. Here are the major sides of the Hockey Stick dispute:

1. Mann discovered a hockey-stick shape in existing proxy data; and,
2. Mann's methodology massages data into a hockey-stick shape

The overwhelming consensus of the English-language mainstream on this dispute is to support side #1. A minority supports side #2.

Questions:

• Is the minority viewpoint significant or considerable enough to warrant inclusion at all?
  • Or is this like adding flat earth to articles on how Galileo and Kepler and Newton discovered the movements of the planets around the sun?
• Is it Undue Weight to link to a web site which expresses the minority point of view in the hockey stick dispute?

As the first step in dispute resolution, I suggest the contributor's to Michael Mann (scientist) conduct a straw poll. --Uncle Ed 11:39, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Even if the criticisms are based on politics rather than science, they are still notable enought to warrent inclusion as they are a major shaper of US policy. Undue weight does have to be avoided though. Jefffire 12:03, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Um. This discussion has actually got a bit confused. If you look at temperature record of the past 1000 years you'll find that the issue is considered notable, and is covered there extensively. Its *also* already covered in this page. So the issue is not at all "should it be covered", because it is, and everyone seems happy with that. We seem to be arguing about the inclusion of CA in the ext links section, which is a relatively minor issue - ext links should be minimised anyway. William M. Connolley 13:28, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Covering that there is a hostile POV is best done in the articles on subject matter, and in those cases cited as POVs, not as a neutral link uncommented in a list. And it certainly should not be used as the basis for a "POV" tag. It is exactly this tactic that editors are worried about in the Reliable Sources discussion - linking to a marginally reliable source, and then leveraging that as a means of trying to slant an article based on the claims in that source. There are also living persons standards to adhere to. The current approach to including criticisms has been far too clumsy and obviously with a POV agenda. The criticisms mentioned in the link were unpeer reviewed and funded by interested parties (including Rep. Joe Barton), where as they debunking of those criticisms were refutted, not merely rebutted, in peer reviewed literature. If we must cite junk science as an important POV, then it must be with a clear note that it is junk science and not reliable, and that it is being reported solely because of the political or economic pull of the people who are pushing it. Stirling Newberry 14:27, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. But people disagree as to which is junk science. (SEWilco 14:58, 7 September 2006 (UTC))

Non-peer reviewed material self-published by interested parties has a high degree of correlation to being junk science. Stirling Newberry 15:36, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

So let's take out the quotes from RealClimate. Otherwise we are applying POV standards. Facethefacts 15:58, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Real Climate is providing links to peer reviewed sources. Climateaudit is not. There's no difference in standard here. There aren't links to purely popularizing sources on climate change. Stirling Newberry 16:42, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

That is simply untrue, so blatently so that it is either shameless ignorance or a deliberate lie. Climateaudit is full of links to peer-reviewed sources; even those Mann falsely stated had not been peer reviewed. 20:03, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

No personal attacks please. And it is still not a reliable source, no matter how many anonymous IP addresses want to believe otherwise .Stirling Newberry 22:53, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Which of Realclimate or Climateaudit is more reliable is a point of view. Neither is peer reviewed except to the extent that blog articles have comments. Having one without the other fails Wikipedia's NPOV policy. 23:17, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

This assertion is incorrect. Climateaudit is the mouth piece for the writers of Energy and Environment, a non-scientific journal with a clear axe to grind - the recent articles are all from a very narrow range of politically connected economists who write for groups like the Cato Institute. Realclimate is linking to peer reviews in scientific journals. Climate audit is not a reliable source, but a self published attack site loaded with conspiracy theories about the peer review process. 23:23, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

And strangely we have what Realclimate said about the NRC report, not what the report said itself. 20:27, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

For the sake of the straw poll, I feel that the article is fine without the tag and without the link to climateaudit. What's next, adding a link to the CEI?Brusegadi 20:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Who is/are the CEI? Do they talk about Michael Mann in detail? Or is this another smear and distraction? Even if you go a majority of Wikipedians to say Mann should be declared a prophet, it would not make this article follow Wikipedia's NPOV policy. --81.131.101.173 21:20, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Heat Islands

I'm going to summarize a bit.

Since establishment of Atlanta as a city (less than 400 years ago) its temperature has increased 5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit more than the surrounding rural areas. [13]

That is a relative increase of roughly 1 to 2 degrees F, per century. Dr. C., you can read the NASA reference in the paragraph above. --Uncle Ed 21:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Wonderful. Now, move it over to where it should be - the UHI page - and we can talk about it and why its irrelevant William M. Connolley 21:14, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Biographies of Living Persons and RealClimate.org

Links to RealClimate in this article are a gross violation of WP:LIVING, and should be deleted.

That sets new standards for silliness. Congratulations. I could *almost* understand what you are talking about if this was the McI article, though (but I'd still disagree) William M. Connolley 19:01, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

He does work for the blog! If he did charity we'd mention it too! Brusegadi 21:58, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

While RealClimate (it's a blog for crying out loud) qualifies for inclusion in other articles (e.g., Global warming), it does not even approach the higher standards of objectivity and relevance required for biographies of living persons. I should think any administrator would delete such links on sight, but I am obviously mistaken in that thought. Perhaps I should qualify that as, any administrator not subject to collegial sympathy with Michael Mann and his stated positions.

I think persons in the same or very similar professions as Michael Mann should acknowledge being subject to a conflict of interest and recuse themselves from POV disputes on this subject.Joe 18:38, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Um, why be so restrictive. Better still, anyone who has a clue what they are talking about shouldn't be allowed to edit the article. Don't worry, that still leaves you able to edit ;-) William M. Connolley 19:01, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it does seem like all the administrators in wikipedia are against the type of changes that you want to implement. Are all of them wrong, or are you? Now I see how you relate to McIntyre...Brusegadi 21:58, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Are you disputing the use of Realclimate to support:

• "RealClimate has posted [8] that the panel has found reason to support the key mainstream findings of past research, including points that we have highlighted previously"

or for

• "Mann has said..."?

On what basis do you consider RealClimate an unreliable source for its own words? Do you have some evidence to suggest that they change the posting after the fact and the current version is unreliable? On what basis do you consider RealClimate unreliable as a source for Mann's statement? Do you have some evidence to suggest that Mann's words are being misrepresented at RC, and that he is being blocked from correcting the misrepresentation? If so, please provide some evidence to support the assertion. If not, then on what grounds do you consider it an unreliable source? Guettarda 19:20, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

There does seem to be a particular issue about using RealClimate in this article, given that it is a collection of writers rather than an institution, and those writers include both Dr Mann and Dr Connolley. If this article has "RealClimate has said..." then this might be

• something Mann has said (in which case it would be better attributed directly to Mann)
• something Connolley has said there and then posted here (he is a frequent writer in both places but this may be verging on original research)
• something else

so saying "X has said ... at Real Climate" might be safer as well as being clearer.--Audiovideo 22:01, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

We've got a lot of people responding here who should be able to explain this to me. RealClimate is a blog about Michael Mann's work. The people I have in mind think this blog should be linked to, mentioned, and quoted at length.

ClimateAudit is a blog about Michael Mann's work. The people I have in mind think this blog should be ignored, not mentioned, nor linked to.

Please fill in explanation below. I am, as you've pointed out, quite clueless. Joe 02:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I would say that realclimate.org is a blog to which Mann contributes. climateaudit is a blog to which Mann does not contribute. Thus, realclimate is relevant by default since it is a primary part of the subjct's life (primary being, he is directly involved with it.) Climateaudit is not a primary part of his life, it is merely someone commenting on some primary part of his life. So, the inclusion of climateaudit would warrant inclusion of many other indirect sources. To not allow this to happen, we have created other standards for indirect sources. For example, is this source credible? Is it relevant? Is it merely an unsopported attack? So, if the 5 year old that lives in the corner near my house were to criticize Mann becuase Mann cant fly like Superman does, the criticism may not be included in the article because it is not RELEVANT. There exists reasons like the ones mentioned above for the exclusion of climateaudit. Brusegadi 14:44, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

RC is *not* a blog about Manns work... thats only a bit of it. I think you'll find that on the about-Manns-work-page (or rather, about MBH 98/99) that CA is mentioned William M. Connolley 15:00, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

IMHO, Realclimate is clearly notable because it's part of Dr. Mann's activities wrt climate change. The quoted posting is a little closer, because it's not clear (at least to me) whether the authorship of "group" means that Mann necessarily did or didn't contribute to the post, but it's still a response by Mann's colleagues, which is also relevant. I hope I'm not jumping into the middle of anything, but I'm going to make a couple short additions re: RC for context, which will hopefully help. TheronJ 15:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Realclmate is included because it agrees with Mann. Climateaudit does not, is therefore gossip or nonsense and must be excluded. 10:58, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

rv: why

I reverted SEW's edit [14]. In fact I don't care too much; if it gets re-reverted I won't mind. I'm only doing it to point out that technically "group" does not mean all of RC; its only a generic term for a post by several of the members. Thus there is no way of knowing exactly who contributed to that post, and whether Mann did or not. William M. Connolley 19:00, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I like the pre-SEW version a lot better, although I guess that's not surprising, since WMC reverted to my version.  ;-P Although it's absolutely true that the RealClimate post was at least authored by Mann's colleagues, and possibly in part by Dr. Mann himself, I think that's clear from the note in the main text that Dr. Mann is a contributor to RealClimate. Of course, a better solution would be to replace the whole "hockey stick" discussion on this page with something like:

Dr. Mann has received considerable publicity for his publication of the so-called "hockey stick graph." (For more information, see discussion here).

Thanks, TheronJ 20:01, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

This edit exemplifies the problem with quoting RealClimate. Dr Connolley is part of the RealClimate group in general, so he should know (or easily find out) whether he and/or Dr Mann contributed to any particular group post there which is quoted here. --Audiovideo 22:39, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

IMHO, it doesn't matter - even if he told us, it wouldn't verifiable enough to make it to the main page. I think we're better off sticking with the facts -- it's a "group post" from RealClimate. TheronJ 01:23, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Dead link?

In the snippet "... this has been widely seen [3] as 'a search ...'", the link for 3 (to http://www.chriscmooney.com/blog.asp?Id=1945) is dead (404). Is there an updated link with this information? Lauciusa 00:22, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted the link and left a --Dilaudid 02:25, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Forget the - the letter from Nature will do --Dilaudid 02:31, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

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