Arguments
Mann Fights Back Against Denialist Abuse
Posted on 28 July 2012 by dana1981
At Skeptical Science, we prefer to stick to discussions of the scientific literature and body of evidence. However, for the long time there has been a systematic abuse of climate scientists from climate denialists, and from time to time this reprehensible behavior becomes so widespread that we feel the need to comment on it, for example in the cases of Katharine Hayhoe and Phil Jones.
Most recently, Michael Mann, who himself has a long history being on the receiving end of abusive letters and death threats, as he detailed in his book, has been rather viciously defamed by the Competetive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and National Review. CEI is a right-wing think tank with a long history of denying the health effects of smoking and human-caused climate change, having received major funding from the tobacco and oil industries (i.e. over $2 million from ExxonMobil, and more recently funding from the Koch Brothers and other groups whose wealth is based in fossil fuels like the Scaife Foundations).
Recently, Ryan Simberg published a post on CEI's blog accusing Mann of
"engaging in data manipulation to keep the blade on his famous hockey-stick graph"
The CEI blog post proceded to compare Mann to Jerry Sandusky, a convicted serial child molester. This extraordinarily inappropriate and offensive comparison has been removed from the CEI blog, but it remains in a National Review article written by Mark Steyn, which quotes Simberg's post. We will not reproduce this reprehensible quote here.
Libelous Accusations of Fraud
The accusations of fraud are of course entirely baseless, but stem from the "Mike's Nature trick" email which was made public during the Climategate theft. "Mike's Nature trick" referred to the technique of plotting recent instrumental temperature data along with historical reconstructed data. This places recent global warming trends in the context of temperature changes over longer time scales. This graph is commonly known as the "hockey stick."
There is of course nothing 'fraudulent' about plotting instrumental temperatures on the same graph as reconstructed temperatures. Both the instrumental (red) and reconstructed temperature (blue) are clearly labelled in Mann's 1998 Nature article, the follow-up Mann et al. 1999, and the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Northern Hemisphere mean temperature anomaly in °C (IPCC TAR).
There has been subsequent scientific debate regarding the statistical methods used in Mann et al. 1999. It was after all a groundbreaking study - one of the first northern hemisphere millennial temperature reconstructions, so of course subsequent research has resulted in improved methodologies, even by Mann himself in Mann et al. 2008 (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Composite Northern Hemisphere land and land plus ocean temperature reconstructions and estimated 95% confidence intervals. Shown for comparison are published Northern Hemisphere reconstructions (Mann 2008).
However, there is zero evidence that there was any fraudulent behavior whatsoever Mann et. al 1999, and in fact every subsequent millennial northern hemisphere temperature reconstruction has confirmed the general 'hockey stick' shape. For example, see the summary of subsequent research on the subject in the 2007 IPCC report.
Additionally, every investigation into the Climategate emails found that the scientists whose emails were stolen, including Michael Mann, were not guilty of any wrongdoing. Quite simply, any accusations of fraud are entirely without merit, and qualify as defamation and libel.
Sandusky Comparison Beyond the Pale
It should go without saying that comparing anyone - particularly an honest scientist - to a convicted serial child molester is simply reprehensible and should be universally condemned. We would hope that CEI and National Review would acknowledge their writers' blatant lapses in judgment, retract the articles, and issue a profound apology to Mann for their defamation and libel. As noted above, CEI has taken the small step of removing what they call the "Two inappropriate sentences."
So far National Review has taken no action, and Mann has retained legal counsel who has issued a letter to National Review stating:
"Needless to say, we intend to pursue all appropriate legal remedies on behalf of Dr. Mann...we reiterate our demand that this defamatory article be immediately removed from further publication, and that you issue a retraction of this article and an apology to Dr. Mann."
The letter also used the Skeptical Science Climategate rebuttal to illustrate why the accusations of fraud are entirely baseless and without merit - we are pleased to have been a useful resource in Dr. Mann's endeavors on this matter.
Comments from the Peanut Gallery
Mann's move onto the offensive has generated widespread commentary from the blogosphere. For the most part there has been a great deal of support, for example on AGU blogs, Climate Crocks, Discover Magazine's Bad Astronomy, and many others, including comments on Mann's Facebook Page. However, a number of climate denialists have inexplicably sided with CEI and National Review's defamatory attack, for example Andrew Montford and WattsUpWithThat, among others.
Denialists Frothing Up the Abusers
There is a clear connection between the behavior at climate denialist blogs and the abuse directed towards climate scientists. Denialist blog posts constantly leap from their own flawed scientific analyses to the conclusion that climate scientists must be guilty of fraud, data manipulation, and other immoral behavior. The letters received by climate scientists contain this same sort of language, with baseless accusations of fraud and data manipulation, followed by abusive language and often death threats.
Climate denialist blogs are also the source of the CEI and National Review accusations of fraud, which soon warped into a denigrating comparison betwen an honest climate scientist and a serial child molester. Instead of condemning this reprehensible behavior, climate denialist ringleader WattsUpWithThat in particular appears to encourage it.
This sort of behavior must stop, especially if these climate denialists wish to be taken seriously as real 'skeptics'. It is completely unacceptable that honest climate scientists like Mann, Jones, and Hayhoe - who are just trying to do their jobs and further the collective human understanding of the inner workings of our climate - are being subjected to abusive attacks and death threats as a reward for their efforts.
We call on all climate 'skeptic' blogs to condemn the defamatory language from CEI and National Review, and the abuse directed towards climate scientists in general, and we wish Dr. Mann well in his efforts to hold National Review liable for its defamation of his character.
For those who wish to support Dr. Mann in this matter, donating to the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund is one option.
Last year Wood tried false association against {climate science, Mann} last year, with a reply by me and Rob Coleman.
'How does CHE support open discussion and still maintain civility? Is the blog section an open free-for-all where people may write anything at all, or should it be moderated?
People should be free to express their opinions, but not all opinions are equal, especially about science. Is it acceptable in CHE to state as fact that cigarettes cause no disease? ...
Is there a dividing line between legitimate academic controversy and libel? If so, where is that line and who draws it? Academic controversy is not characterized by use of Nazi labels or exhortations that scientists be physically harmed. It is not characterized by baseless, wacky conspiracy theories about worldwide plots by mainstream science. Academic discussions involve data, facts, and justifiable, soundly crafted theories.'
Hence, issues were raised with CHE, but they didn't get the message or this message.
By the way Richard Mellon Scaife is one of the main funders of:
CEI
GMI (George Marshall Institute)
NAS
CFACT (often involving Viscount Monckton)
Commonwealth Foundation (Pennsylvania) - which among other things ran attack ads against Mann in Penn State student newspaper
See CCC, pp.93-94: ExxonMobil, Scaife, L&H Bradley ... EM F has since dropped out.
I didn't know about NAS then, but Scaife & Bradley have been the prime funders for years.
CEI and GMI were the 2 main thinktanks in recruiting McIntyre and McKitrick and managing the attack on the hockey stick, and setting up the Wegman Report.
See
With the Public now beginning to see the link between greenhouse gases and extreme weather (specially after the hellish summer in the US Heartland) The Denial stormtroopers are become excitingly worried. And their first line of attack is against Mann.
Now, however, it has all turned against the US based deniers. Public support is dropping like a rock and a major fraction of the MSN is all of a sudden very science friendly. CNN even stopped calling them skeptics, and started calling them by their real name.
This has had a predictable effect: Desperation. It shows.
(-Snip-)? And will we also see, ( -Snip-)?
The correct, honest and noble path, something most decent, honest individuals with any level of self-respect for them selves and others would do without question.
Don't hold your breath waiting for "climate 'skeptic' blogs to condemn the defamatory language from CEI and National Review" you will simply go blue and look like a Smurf.
The silence of these so called "climate 'skeptic' blogs" and their outright refusal to condemn actions of this type speaks volumes as to their integrity (or lack there of) and to the sort of individuals who frequent these blogs and perpetuate this kind of nonsense.
Simply put hell will freeze over (and Greenland will melt) before these blogs and associated individuals who frequent them will give any kind of condemnation or apology or admit they were then and are now totally and utterly wrong.
There's a lot of money being applied to denying science, and the attacks on Mann and others are just one part of it.
Remember how the CRU was inundated with FOI demands related to the raw station data in its possession? Remember this FOI storm?
Well, as of today, it's been exactly a year since the CRU released all of the raw data that the "skeptics" had been demanding (and at the risk of violating nondisclosure agreements with supplers).
So, what has happened in the year since? Do you hear crickets chirping?
With only one exception that I know of (and that exception's results confirmed the CRU's work), not a single "skeptic" has done a lick of work with the data.
Listen skeptics -- you've had the CRU's raw data in your hot little hands for a whole year. How about showing us some results? Or at least how about acknowledging that your FOI antics were intended to harass scientists and waste their time, and that you never intended to do any real work with the data?
And don't even try to use the "scientists didn't disclose their methods/code, so we couldn't replicate their work" excuse. Don't even think about going there. Because on July 30 of last year (3 days after the CRU released all that data), I downloaded the CRU raw data, crunched it, and posted my results right here. Total turn-around time? A few hours.
In that July 30 post, I made this bold prediction:
Now, it remains to be seen what (if anything) the deniers who have been demanding access to this complete data-set will actually do with it. Based on what I've seen of their past performance (or lack thereof), I'd be willing to wager that they will produce absolutely nothing meaningful.
Am I psychic or what?
One has to wonder why Dr. Mann's lawyers have not yet sent a similar letter to Mr. McIntyre? Such a letter id long overdue in my opinion. And this OP once again clearly demonstrates why the the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund is (unfortunately) so badly needed.
Thanks for that link to your calculations.
Your honnest expectation (or maybe rhetoric sarcasm) is that deniers act logically. Nope. Your case proves again that in their actions, there is no place for any logic.
What's the logic in this defamatory nonsense against Mike Mann? What are the motives of this individual called Ryan Simberg and CEI supporting him? I would call it the "final stage of denialism" - an attitude of a man who becomes so obsessed as to be detached from reality. He still has a chance to go back to reality by retraction and appology, otherwise he faces a certain defeat in the court case that would follow.
In short, McIntyre is behaving very Watts-like, throwing chum to his denialist readers without actually coming out and making specific accusations. This follows the behavior discussed in the final section of the post above, with denialist blogs frothing up their readers with these sorts of baseless accusations.
As long as we're comparing the two investigations, it's worth noting that the Penn State football program brings in $60 million in annual revenue to the college, whereas Mann clearly does not. Thus there is no basis to infer that one coverup is evidence of another, since the underlying motivation of the former does not apply to the latter.
To cut straight to the point, as noted in the above post, there is zero evidence that Mann did anything wrong. Even if the Penn State inquiry hadn't been 100% thorough, frankly the inquiry should not have been conducted to begin with. The McIntyres and Wattses of the world need to take their tinfoil hats off and stop with the baseless accusations which lead to abuse and death threats towards honest climate scientists. If you want to dispute the science, then do so, but stop attacking the messengers.
That entire line of attack simply reveals the paucity of the skeptic arguments. Argument ad hominem rather than discussing the facts, the science.
Re: Mann's Law
I also wonder how Brandon would feel had made similar false accusations against Mr. McIntyre of the same falsehoods in a newspaper?
I hope that we can receive an unambiguous and unequivocal answer from Brandon.
I also think you need a graphic of the hockey stick graph with a big arrow pointing to the blade with the caption "This is the problem," and another arrow pointing to the handle with the caption "this is what we are arguing about." In my mind, we could throw out Mann's entire body of work and it would not change the climate narrative one iota - we are still facing dangerous warming.
That said, I can give a general view. If the article compares Michael Mann to someone guilty of child molestation, I think that's completely unacceptable. I have no problem with people drawing parallels between how incidents were handled (as in, whether or not investigations were adequate), but it is inexcusable to compare anyone to a child molester.
I don't know why my views on the subject should matter to anyone, but hopefully that clarifies things.
Thanks for your response, although it is unfortunate that your reprehension of Mr. Steyn's slander and falsehoods had to be solicited.
As for your claim that you have not attempted to obfuscate, I think readers of this thread and the Muller thread will see it very differently.
As for your claim that the main post contains a factual error, I'm afraid that you have not made a compelling case in that regard, as has also been noted by other commentators. Regardless, for argument's sake even if the main post does contain a factual error, it does not make the actions of Mr. Steyn (which were likely inspired by Mr. McIntyre's musings) or the repeated attacks on scientists by Mr. McIntyre and his ilk any less reprehensible or defensible.
"but it is inexcusable to compare anyone to a child molester"
Then I hope you will join me in condemning the following comments and innuendo made at ClimateAudit following a post by Mr. McIntyre (posts which were not moderated):
"Posted Nov 15, 2011 at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Reply
A month or so ago, Judy Curry had a thread on a study of Jungian psychological profiles of climate scientists vs other physical scientists, and the results were quite striking. They are indeed, very, very different. It isn’t just your imagination."
"Posted Nov 15, 2011 at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Reply
.....Steve, thank you for once more drawing attention to the strange personal properties that can be acquired by some scientists. The one that bothers me most is the departure from the generally accepted “scientific method” in the loose sense. It seems that it is often accompanied by departure from the norms of general social conduct, such as a reticence to conduct an honest inquiry, a dogged defence of inventive methodology that is plausibly flawed and so on to areas seldom discussed."
Brandon "I have little interest in op-eds."
I'd strongly suggest that you read Mr. Steyn's article, you might see some familiar accusations thrown around, some of which appear to have originated at ClimateAudit. His article is also critical to the main post.
So you never read the op-ed by Mr. McIntyre that is demolished by DeepClimate then?
Either way, this will open the door to further lawsuits going the other way; there was the Rahmsdorf case in Germany already. I do wonder whether people want this door open.
(snip)
The simple fact is that the courts in most countries have strict standards on what sort of 'scientific' is admissible... and virtually the entire body of 'climate skepticism' would not qualify. Basically, climate 'skeptics' are even more at a disadvantage in the legal arena than they are in the scientific... and getting trounced in the court-rooms will make it much harder for them to make progress on 'public opinion' - the one area where the facts being against them isn't a major impediment.
There is something interesting going on. Many of the same blogs which condemned the Heartland unabomber poster, and in some cases also the SkS hack, are posting the Mann slanders, or at least posting material which allows the reader to infer them. How can the skeptic community not have learned from Heartland? What is going on?
The easy answers are that they are morally deficient, or maybe saw an expediency in condemning one case but not another. I don't believe either of these. Most people don't do things they recognize to be evil.
I think we are seeing the scapegoat mechanism at work. A community at stress seeks outlets for that stress, frequently through finding a figure to blame: The well known fictional archetype is Emmanuel Goldstein in Orwell's '1984', although there are also obvious historical examples. The scapegoat becomes an archetype, a dehumanised recipient for all of the frustrations of the community.
This explains why the targeting seems so arbitrary. Why a palaeoclimatologist, when there are much more obvious targets? It was chance, but once established in the role, the myth takes over. It also explains the apparent double standards, condemning some outrages but turning a blind eye to anything concerning Mann.
If correct, this analysis gives some pointers in responding:
1) Whether Mann is a public figure, a limited public figure or not,
2) The extra bar for such is *not* that someone knew it was false, but that it was malice or reckless disregard for the truth. Of course, for such, past history can be *extremely* useful in showing malice.
Google: libel reckless disregard OR libel malice
3) In any case, Mann's suit against Tim Ball in Canada is being handled by Roger McConchie, who wrote *the* book on Canadian libel law (1000 pages, I own a well-marked copy).
The National Review complaint is being handled at Cozen O'Connor, by John B. Williams.
I would suggest that people might want to do 2 things:
a) Take a look at these lawyers and see if it sounds like they might know what they are doing.
b) Study up a bit on libel law. See CCC p.184, for a few starting points, for example.
I just found Dr. Mann's facebook page. Already I'm finding it a good resource as he links to new material and articles on climate change that are on sites I either don't frequent often or haven't even heard of.
Not true. In 1964, the US Supreme Court decision in NY Times vs. Sullivan established the current law regarding "public figures." To win a libel suit in US courts, a public figure like Prof. Mann is required to prove the defendant published or broadcast the defamatory speech with "malice" -- which means either knowing that the speech was false or acting with "reckless disregard as to whether the speech was true or false."
That's obviously a MUCH lower bar to clear than proving the party deliberately lied -- which usually requires "smoking gun" evidence (ie. email between the defendants bragging how they got away with a real big whopper.)
Simply showing that the reporter made NO effort to verify the defamatory statement and gave the defamed person no chance to respond, is often enough to allow a public figure to win a libel suit.
In this case, Prof. Mann should have no trouble clearing the public figure hurdle.
Generally speaking, all elected officials and people running for public office are. Movie stars and other celebrities usually are (with certain possible restrictions involving invasion of privacy ie. reporting medications and health records, etc.) And parties involved in any "news event," such as crime victims and criminal suspects. They are at least temporarily "public figures." (A person who served time for robbing a candy store 30 years ago when he was 21 years old is NOT a public figure based on that long-ago event.)
In addition, people who "thrust themselves into the public limelight" -- those who willingly become a public figure by participating in matters of public concern are public figures.
So certainly a scientist like Prof. Mann, who is involved in such a vitally important public debate, would be considered a public figure by any US court judge. To win a suit against his defamers, he would need to prove they knowingly lied or acted with reckless disregard as to the falseness of their accusation that Dr. Mann had committed fraud when he published his "hockey-stick deceptions."
Neither one of them would likely "bluff" in PUBLIC. When a good lawyer bluffs, it's done privately. You don't rise to the top of your legal field by inviting a major news organization to humiliate you by calling your bluff and showing everyone you've got nothing but an empty hand.
When a lawyer of Mr. Williams stature releases a public statement about an threatened law suit, he's NOT bluffing. If he did, he would not be at the top of libel law practice in the U.S. for long.
Mr. McConchie was NOT bluffing when he demanded a retraction and apology from Tim Ball. When Mr. Williams told the press that he's not bluffing, only a fool would doubt him.
Yes.
#27 ended with suggestions to get people to form opinions.
I've interacted with Cozen O'Connor before, studied Roger's book and then had a 2-hour breakfast with him last year. Hence, from fairly direct experience, I heartily concur with Andrew's opinions in #31.
However, the blogosphere has a lot of Dunning-Kruger-afflictees who have strong opinions on these affairs, as usual without knowing anything.
(I have to wonder whether judges would allow their legal decisions and competence to be officially judged by a panel of appointed climatologists!)
Many judges in the U.S. recognize the inadequacy of the court system for decidng matters of scientific debate. Yet, they are often compelled to reach a decision of fact, based on the persuasive powers of hired-gun scientific witnesses. Clearly, courts are not the place to weigh scientific evidence. Rules of evidence in law courts differ greatly from rules of evidence in the court of science.
The first major investigative news article of my career was about the science fraud Dr. William McBride. McBride was the Australian physician made famous by being the first to report limb malformations occurring in babies born to women taking Thalidomide.
That brought him fame and fortune, which he used to set up a foundation and go around the world testifying in civil suits against all kinds of drugs -- including drugs like Bendectin that are NOT linked to any increase in birth defects risk.
In fact, the removal of this anti-nausea drug due to the cost of fighting almost 2000 bogus law suits enabled by the dubious testimony of "experts" like McBride, resulted in many birth defects caused by uncontrolled maternal nausea during pregnancy!
I wrote about this medical and legal travesty in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1990 ("Key Witness Against Morning Sickness Drug Faces Scientific Fraud Charges" http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=380996).
I reported how McBride was facing 15 charges of scientific fraud for publishing made-up data -- some of which he hurriedly made up to include in testimony in a U.S. court.
McBride was found guilty 3 years later and struck off the medical registry.
What shocked me the most was not his fraud, but that the U.S. Justice Department was not interested in pursuing perjury charges against him despite the compelling evidence he had knowingly provided false testimony and made up data in at least one U.S.court case.
There appears to be little or no risk for scientists willing to lie under oath about scientific fact or opinion -- at least not in the United States.
It's even more inexcusable when the accuser is someone whose teaching career ended after he was arrested and stood trial for sending dozens of obscene messages to a 16-y-o girl, as reported in Brendan Demille's recent HuffPost article, "Affidavits in Michael Mann Libel Suit Reveal Astonishing Facts About Tim Ball Associate John O'Sullivan."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-demelle/affidavits-in-michael-man_b_1711581.html
The example you raise would have been decades ago and thus was probably under a rather slapdash congressional standard that allowed just about anything or the older Frye standard, which was similar to Daubert, but less strict. Indeed, I believe the Daubert Supreme Court case was about Bendectin and thus your example is part of the very reason the rules changed.
Also note that once a Daubert ruling has been made it is usually followed by other courts in subsequent cases... and there has already been some litigation on climate change. Those cases included several attempts to bar testimony by climate scientists (e.g. James Hansen in Green Mountain Chrysler Plymouth Dodge Jeep v. Crombie). In every case I'm aware of these attempts have failed... mainstream climate science has been upheld as passing Daubert. However, I haven't been able to find any attempts to bring in climate change 'skepticism' in any of those trials. My best guess is that this is because the parties involved were corporations (rather than 'true believers') who knew that such nonsense would fail a Daubert challenge and didn't want to get the judge annoyed at them by trying.
For a domain with some useful parallels, study of tobacco litigation can be quite instructive, especially given the wonderful tobacco archives.
My favorite book on this, highly recommended, is Robert Proctor's Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition, see reviews.
The case HS is referring to involved a law suit against Rahmsdorf (SR) by a journalist. SR had pointed out what you may call "bad reporting" (repetition of questionable "skeptic" claims which supposedly let to an earlier retraction by the Sunday Times) by a journalist at a well-respected Frankfurt paper. The "corrections" SR demanded were designed to set the record straight, but the court found he defamed the journalist in his not fact-related choice of words. Not sure the journalist would have had a case in the US; German law gives more leverage to the defamed person, so people usually are much more careful what they say in public.
A related question: Based on the above explanation and descriptions, I wonder whether it would be successful to challenge Governor Perry for his remarks last fall. The problem is that he did not name anyone, just said "... a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data ..."
I'm sorry to be lazy again, but I'm looking for the quickest possible response to the denier claim that Michael Mann "has refused consistently and insistently to supply the basic data used behind these constructions".
I tried phrasing my querry various ways in the search engine, but didn't come up with anything useful.
[JH] Perhaps you need to devote more time to doing your own research. Your stream of apologies for being lazy is beginning to wear thin.
PS The reason my question is relevant to this thread is that deniers are using the recent win of Tim Ball against Mann in Canadian court as evidence that he won't provide his data:
MICHAEL MANN FACES BANKRUPTCY AS HIS COURTROOM CLIMATE CAPERS COLLAPSE
[JH] Please refrain from posting quotes from climate denier websites — especially statements that are patently false.
dvaytw @42, those allegations were made on Feb 21 of this year. On Feb 22, Michael Mann responded by posting a letter from his lawyer on face book:
Tom, as nutty as a lot of denialist blogs are, I'm finding this hard to believe. You mean that website is totally fabricating the claim that Mann's lawsuit has been dismissed?!? (or Ball is, and they are parroting his claim)
That is nuts. Everyone and anyone will be able to check and refute this. Does anyone know more about this? I haven't been able to find a single reputable news source saying anything about it - but of course lots of denialist blogs posted it.
[JH] "Reliable news sources" do not typically pay attention to what is being posted on the websites of known crackpots.
dvaytw. as Tom has pointed out, the entire 'Tim Ball victory' story was a bizarre bit of fiction. I can't believe deniers are still managing to live in that alternate reality months after the fact.
Information about the data for the 'hockey stick' can be found here;
LINK
Of course, the fact that the National Academy of Sciences and numerous individuals (including 'sceptics' like McIntyre) have reviewed this data makes the continued claims that it isn't available right up there with Tim Ball's amazing non-existent court victory in the category of 'evidence that these people are mentally ill'.
[RH] Sorry, your link was breaking the page format by just a smidgen.
Dear JH. Please accept my apologies. I waste a lot of my time trying to slap down denier arguments in various forums and comments sections under articles. In this case everything that came up in Google was mirrored from a denier blog, and noting pertinent was found in your search engine . Usually I can get an answer here in lightning fast time (as with this case). Honestly, if I don't do that, I'll probably just have to concede some points because it certainly isn't worth spending a whole heap of time looking such things up.
If such lazy inquiries aren't welcome here, can anyone recommend another place where they can be made effectively?
Finally, I fully understand if you want to delete my inquiries in this thread, and will try to refrain in the future. Also, point taken about quoting and linking to the article.
[JH] I purposely prodded you to make sure that you were not engaging in an elaborate ruse in order to spread denier poppycock on this site. I am now staisfied that you are not doing so. Please do continue to seek expert advice on this website. However, please do not apologize every time you do so.
Yes it occurred to me that you might think that, and given my experience with such people, I totally understand why you would! And thanks again to the responders above... man did I just make one very smug fellow look bad!
JH, if you want independent confirmation that dvaytw is on the level, you might like his ringing endorsement of SkS at Scientific American. Also, rather than asking him (or others seeking informed advise) not to apologize, it may be better to ask them to link back to the discussion on which they are seeking advice (if it is online). That way we can check the context of the claims, directly participate if we think it would be helpful, and coincidentally confirm for ourselve the bona fides of the person asking questions on SkS.
[JH] Thank you for the reference and your suggestion.
dvaytw - As per earlier discussions where exactly the same thing happened (you presented a denial viewpoint asking for refutation, but did not clearly show that it _wasn't_ concern trolling, leading to predictable reactions from the moderators), it would be exceedingly helpful if you would link where these off SkS discussions were occurring.
Context matters. You are again failing to provide any.
[JH] I concur.
KR @49, please read the comment linked in my post @48. It is very clear from it that dvaytw is exactly as he presents himself, a person who accepts the science and comes to SkS for help with issues he has not seen before. Clearly any misunderstandings in the past were exactly that, and it would behove use to pay more attention to our contribution to such misunderstandings rather than direct the blame solely at dvaytw.
Having said that, I agree with your suggestion of links to off site discussions when advise is being sought.