{"id":14738,"date":"2024-08-11T07:34:46","date_gmt":"2024-08-11T11:34:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/?p=14738"},"modified":"2024-08-11T07:34:46","modified_gmt":"2024-08-11T11:34:46","slug":"how-to-silence-dissent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/?p=14738","title":{"rendered":"how to silence dissent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[From Guest Writer #9 in our annual summer series…]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently there was a trial where the prosecutor didn\u2019t come close to proving his case, but a partisan jury reached a verdict against the defendant anyway because they didn\u2019t like his political beliefs and wanted to send a message.\u00a0 No, I\u2019m not referring to New York vs. Trump.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking about Mann vs. Steyn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story starts with two blog posts from July 2012.  The first<\/a> was written by Rand Simberg, at the time an adjunct fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  The second<\/a> was posted two days later by Mark Steyn, then a writer at National Review.  Simberg connected two scandals both tied to Penn State University.  In June 2012, assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted of showering with and sexually abusing boys over a fifteen-year period.  A month later, former FBI director Louis Freeh released a devastating report<\/a>, showing that the Penn State administration was well aware of Sandusky\u2019s criminal activity and covered it up.  The university\u2019s president was even convicted of child endangerment in 2017 and spent time in prison.  The Freeh report is what prompted Simberg\u2019s blog post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second scandal involved Michael Mann, then a Penn State professor.  Mann was the co-creator of the \u201chockey stick\u201d graph made famous by Al Gore\u2019s 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth<\/em>.  It purported to show global temperatures over the last thousand years, with a gradually cooling for the first 900 years and then a spike the last 100 years correlating with increased burning of fossil fuels.  Obviously, thermometers didn\u2019t exist a thousand years ago, so Mann and his colleagues reconstructed estimated temperatures from tree ring data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2009, there was an e-mail leak from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England with whom Mann regularly corresponded.  One document referenced using Mann\u2019s \u201cnature trick of adding in the real temps to each series\u2026to hide the decline.\u201d  Messages showed Mann intended to \u201cdestroy\u201d skeptics of global warming.  Most concerningly, Mann and others conspired to avoid sharing their source data which had been requested under the Freedom of Information Act.  Penn State conducted an internal investigation of Professor Mann\u2019s role in \u201cClimategate\u201d and in July 2010, cleared him of any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simberg\u2019s point was straightforward.  The Penn State administration was demonstrated to have zero credibility in July 2012.  It stood to reason that its internal investigation from two years prior should not be trusted.  If Penn State would provide cover for a pedophile to protect their reputation, what would stop them from doing the same for another employee who potentially committed the far lesser offense of manipulating temperature data?  The original version of Simberg\u2019s post referred to Mann as the \u201cJerry Sandusky of climate science, but instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data.\u201d  A rhetorical flourish for sure, but it\u2019s clear Simberg was not suggesting Mann was a pedophile.  He was calling for a new independent investigation of Mann\u2019s statistical techniques and unscientific behavior.  Steyn relayed Simberg\u2019s argument to a larger audience and described the hockey stick graph as \u201cfraudulent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mann sued both blog authors for defamation in October 2012.  Years of legal wrangling followed.  The defendants attempted to have the case dismissed.  A number of media companies across the political spectrum in addition to the ACLU filed an amicus brief in support of Simberg and Steyn, understanding the threat to First Amendment rights.  An appeal went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to get involved, meaning the trial could proceed.  A jury trial finally commenced in February 2024, nearly twelve years after the two blog posts at issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To prove defamation, a plaintiff must show that they were injured by the statements made.  Over the past twelve years, Professor Mann left Big Ten Penn State and is now employed at Ivy League Pennsylvania with a higher salary.  Per his bio<\/a>, he has received numerous awards and honors.  His career has clearly advanced considerably.  At trial, Mann\u2019s lawyers tried to show harm from a few denied grant applications, but acknowledged they could not prove the blog posts caused the denials.  Embarrassingly, Mann also claimed that a man in a grocery store gave him a mean look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A plaintiff must also prove that the statements made were false.  However, when the allegedly defamed person is a public figure like Mann, the plaintiff must go further and prove that the person making the statements knew they were false.  The defense called witnesses who spoke to how the hockey stick graph was manipulated<\/a> to show a predetermined result.  Regardless of whether you agree with the statements or not, there is no question that Simberg and Steyn thought them to be true (and still do today).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite no proof that Mann had suffered any injury nor that Simberg and Steyn knowingly made false statements, the jury ruled in favor of Mann.  He was awarded one dollar in compensatory damages from both defendants.  However the jury also awarded punitive damages in the amount of a $1,000 from Simberg and a $1,000,000 (?!?!) from Steyn.  The punitive damages are likely to be reduced on appeal, as precedent dictates a ratio of ten to one is unconstitutional, let alone a million to one.  Nevertheless, Mann\u2019s lawfare tactics were successful.  It was revealed during testimony that Mann has paid nothing for his twelve years of legal representation.  Third-party climate change advocates have likely picked up the tab.  Even if the million dollars in punitive damages are overturned, Simberg and Steyn have had to spend at least that much in attorney fees to defend themselves.  The legal process itself is the punishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If climate change advocates wanted to convince skeptics that fossil fuels are causing the planet to warm, wouldn\u2019t it be more effective to be fully transparent with all data and calculation methods?  The past twelve years would have been more than enough time for an open, collaborative dialogue.  Instead, Mann and others\u2019 message has been, \u201ctrust us, we\u2019re scientists.\u201d  Haven\u2019t I heard that line somewhere before<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Respectfully\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FAH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[From Guest Writer #9 in our annual summer series…] Recently there was a trial where the prosecutor didn\u2019t come close to proving his case, but a partisan jury reached a verdict against the defendant anyway because they didn\u2019t like his political beliefs and wanted to send a message.\u00a0 No, I\u2019m not referring to New York … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “how to silence dissent”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-event"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14738"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14740,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14738\/revisions\/14740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}