And so it drags on
UVa has responded yet again to the VA Attorney General, who wants to go rooting around in Michael Mann's sock draw
The Attorney General's Opposition itself makes clear that the Attorney General did not issue civil investigative demands under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act to investigate fraud on Commonwealth taxpayers. Rather, the CIDs were issued in an unprecedented attempt to challenge a university professor's peer reviewed data, methodologies and conclusions. But FATA does not authorize the Attorney General to police academic debate - and it certainly does not authorize the Attorney General to target for government investigation those who conduct scientific research with which the Attorney General disagrees.and they get a bit bloggish
The Attorney General complains that in the graph accompanying Dr. Mann's conclusions, the "Medieval Warm Period" and the "Little Ice Age disappeared". FATA does not authorize an investigation into the disappearance of the "Medieval Warm Period" and the "Little Ice Age" from the presentation of Dr. Mann's research conclusions.Whatever. Oral arguments August 20
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9 comments:
My guess is that Coochie gets tossed on his ear (sorry about that, Eli). He might be granted access to the bookeeping, PO's, pay records, etc., but that is about the most I can see a court giving him.
BTW, I've been reading "The Hockey Stick Illusion" by A.W. Montford (someone sent it to me gratis). It should have been called "The Hockey Stick Illusion" by Steve McIntyre as told to A.W. Montford. It is nothing more than a rehash, amply sourced to CA, of McIntyre's many fold whinges over the years. It is also a wonderful record of McIntyre's incompetence. His method of falsifying seems to be: "look! if I remove all the data I don't like, it doesn't work!". Yeah, right.
Rattus Norvegicus
You have been reading "The Hockey Stick Illusion" otherwise known as "The Montford Delusion". A most excellent guest commentary by Tamino on said work of fiction has just been posted up on real climate...
Try this http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delusion/#more-4431
Sliced and diced enjoy.
It's true that they get a bit bloggish in their filing at points, but they also raise a number of truly devastating legal critiques. Among them is the fact that Cuccinelli has failed to link his ramblings about global warming with any allegation of fraud or specific fraud involving the grants that Michael Mann had while at UVa.
There is further hope in that this has happened before and the courts totally shot down the request. One of the cases cited by UVa is Dow Chemical Company v. R Allen P (1982). In that case, Dow Chemical sued for all of the research notes of certain scientists that were studying the effects of one of its chemicals. From the decision telling Dow to go take a hike:
More important, enforcement of the subpoenas would leave the researchers with the knowledge throughout continuation of their studies that the fruits of their labors had been appropriated by and were being scrutinized by a not-unbiased third party whose interests were arguably antithetical to theirs. It is not difficult to imagine that that realization might well be both unnerving and discouraging. Indeed, it is probably fair to say that the character and extent of intervention would be such that, regardless of its purpose, it would "inevitably tend( ) to check the ardor and fearlessness of scholars, qualities at once so fragile and so indispensable for fruitful academic labor." Sweezy, supra, 354 U.S. at 262, 77 S.Ct. at 1217-18 (Frankfurter, J., concurring in result)
Makes one think there is some hope for the future after all....
Snow Bunny says:
Cuccinelli's legal brief in response is here:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/AG%20Mann%20file%20July%2013.pdf
Cooch is very knowledgeable on climate science. He quotes Soon & Balinas, the Wegner report, McIntire & McKitrick, etc., ad nausea, ad vomit. He quotes Post Normal Science (jeez, I never heard of it) and suggest Mann is using it's jargon and thus practicing fraud by talking to the public. (p12, you have to read this).
Cooch's search is not "over-broad" because he confines his requests for emails to 39 scientists because "it is reasonable to believe that, if there are emails showing fraud or knowledge of fraud, one of the listed people would have been a recipient or sender".
"Cooch is very knowledgeable on climate science. He quotes Soon & Balinas, the Wegner report, McIntire & McKitrick, etc., ad nausea, ad vomit."
You mean that Cooch is good at quoting people. Heck, I can quote people too. In fact, I can even quote Stephen Hawking. So what?
"He quotes Post Normal Science (jeez, I never heard of it) and suggest Mann is using it's jargon and thus practicing fraud by talking to the public."
Is 'suggests' here an euphemism for 'insinuates'?
"because 'it is reasonable to believe that [...]'"
'It is reasonable' is not an argument, it's just handwaving. You need to, um, actually give a reason why he absolutely must go after 39 scientists, and not 38. Or 37. Or 36. Or 35. etc. Why?
In other words, the only argument you have for defending Cooch is that he knows how to cut-and-paste quotes.
-- frank
Snow Bunny says:
Dear frank,
I was being completely sarcastic. I'm sorry I lost you.
I am also being sarcastic
Snow Bunny:
Oops. OK.
snow bunny wrote: "Dear frank,
"I was being completely sarcastic. I'm sorry I lost you."
Oh, Poe' little old misunderstood you...
Poe's Law: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."
Actually when I first showed up at DebunkCreation, an email list devoted to debunking the claim that creationism (or for that matter intelligent design) can be scientific I tried for the sake of humor doing an over-the-top performance as a young earth creationist using the Omphalosian argument.
Taken to absurdity, it roughly states that everything which suggests the world is older than five minutes may have simply been put there to establish the orderly, lawful nature of our world -- like Adam being given a belly button. Since there is no evidence that science can or ever will be able to point to that can be used to prove this view wrong they couldn't possibly prove young earth creationism wrong, either.
Nearly everyone thought that I was for real. And some were still suspicious several hours later.
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