Category Archives: Science And Society

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

A Clash Of Sticks

6 Comments

“…were [Mann] to prevail in the upcoming Mann vs Steyn trial of the century at the DC Superior Court, it would be the biggest setback for the First Amendment in the half-century since New York Times vs Sullivan.”

A brief history of the case to date, from Mark Steyn.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court of Virginia upheld the university, Mann, and secrecy.

[Update a while later]

“Don’t start deleting those emails just yet, Mikey“:

One thing the order does is give the green light to the University of Virginia to crank up the incinerator for the biggest destruction of research material in a critical area of public policy – not to mention what my old colleague at the Telegraph in London, Christopher Booker, called the other day “the worst scientific scandal of our generation”. Before they grab the matches and gasoline, however, please note that my lawyers have requested a lot of the same material for Mann’s defamation suit against me. I’ll have more to say about this later today.

We’ll see.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

More On The One-Way Discovery

1 Comment

Mark writes about the judge’s latest order:

…some climate alarmist was in a bit of hurry with his rewriting and those “seven other organizations” became “seven organizations”. But, whether seven or nine, they have all “proved Mann innocent”. In fact, there has only been one investigation of Michael E Mann – the one that was the subject of my original “defamatory” post; the joke investigation by Penn State set up by a now disgraced college president currently facing 30 years in the slammer for obstruction of justice. That’s the only investigation. Yet somewhere along the way Mann grasped that, as with his non-existent Nobel Prize, if he simply declared himself “investigated” and “exonerated” by multiple bodies on both sides of the Atlantic, most of the people in his Climate Bubble would never bother checking.

No comment.

Culinary, Health, Media Criticism, Science And Society

Why Do We Eat?

16 Comments

It’s generally not because we’re hungry.

I can generally go all day without eating, and often do. There’s a lot of evidence that fasting has some of the benefits of caloric restriction, in terms of life extension.

I’d note, though, that the article seems to subscribe to the caloric theory of weight gain and loss. It doesn’t say what “high-density” foods are, energetically speaking, but not all are created equal. Eating fat doesn’t make you fat.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

One-Way Discovery Channel

10 Comments

Mark Steyn has an update on his court case:

On Saturday, I noted that Mann had yet to join me in filing an objection to National Review’s Motion to Stay Discovery. He did so today:

Defendant Mark Steyn opted not to appeal the denial of the motions to dismiss the amended complaint. Rather, Mr. Steyn has filed an answer and counterclaims and has expressed his intention to move forward with discovery, regardless of the fact that his co-defendants have opted to appeal.

Indeed, I have. So what’s Dr Mann’s position? Well, it’s a two-part response.

On the one hand, he’s in favor of his proceeding with discovery against me:

The fact that Mr. Steyn has not appealed the denial of the motions to dismiss counsels further against a discovery stay. Mr. Steyn, like Dr. Mann, has made clear his desire to have this Court resolve this lawsuit and to move forward with discovery immediately. As such, there is no reason for this Court to delay discovery further.

On the other hand, he’s totally opposed to my proceeding with discovery against him:

While Dr. Mann agrees with Mr. Steyn that discovery should move forward on Dr. Mann’s claims, discovery cannot move forward on Mr. Steyn’s counterclaims.

Oh, my. You do surprise me.

I am shocked, too, of course.

Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society

What Is A Scientist?

48 Comments

Some thoughts. I may see if there’s some interest at USA Today to run something in response.

[Update a while later]

You know, in rereading, and thinking about it, that lead is quite fascinating in it’s apparent implications:

Keith Baugues is not a scientist, but that didn’t stop him on a recent wintry day from expressing skepticism about global warming — something that is broadly accepted in the scientific community.

Let’s leave aside for a moment the issue of whether or not Baugues actually is a scientist. Should we infer from this that only scientists are allowed to express skepticism about global warming? Or that “true” scientists aren’t skeptics, and therefore no one can be? Or what?

Business, Culinary, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Rethinking Fat

Even NPR is starting to figure it out.

But note, that, as with climate “science,” dissenters have trouble getting published when they have actual science in opposition to the “settled” science in nutrition:

“Fat was really the villain,” says Walter Willett, who is chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. And, by default, people “had to load up on carbohydrates.”

But, by the mid-1990s, Willett says, there were already signs that the high-carb, low-fat approach might not lead to fewer heart attacks and strokes. He had a long-term study underway that was aimed at evaluating the effects of diet and lifestyle on health.

“We were finding that if people seemed to replace saturated fat — the kind of fat found in cheese, eggs, meat, butter — with carbohydrate, there was no reduction in heart disease,” Willett says.

Willett submitted his data to a top medical journal, but he says the editors would not publish his findings. His paper was turned down.

“There was a lot of resistance to anything that would question the low-fat guidelines,” Willett says, especially the guidelines on saturated fat.

Willett’s paper was eventually published by a British medical journal, the BMJ, in 1996.

And that was almost twenty years ago, and the junk-science FDA guidelines that probably killed my father in the seventies remain pretty much in place.