Scholars and Rogues imagine that they have a useful critique of our latest filings in the MannSuit, but they completely misunderstand the situation:

These examples demonstrate that both NR and Steyn were aware of ongoing investigations, and that NR was certainly aware of the results of at least one of those investigations. Furthermore, it is not realistic to imagine that NR cultivated a culture where authors writing about the same subject (climate change/global warming) were so isolated from each other that they never discussed the results of the various investigations among themselves. As such, it is virtually certain that NR and Steyn were aware of the investigations’ results and thus cannot credibly claim ignorance of those same results. [Emphasis in original]

This, with all respect, is stupid. Or it’s smart, but a complete straw man. None of the defendants have claimed that they were unaware of the results of the investigations. In fact, the original blog post that I wrote was all about the results of those investigations, and why we and others disagreed with them. They (and Mann) are attempting to claim that the investigations a) properly investigated all accusations of malfeasance against him and b) exonerated him of all such claims. Both are (in our opinions) untrue. The investigations, to the degree that they happened, were limited in their scope, and for the most part cursory (e.g., the Penn State “investigation” basically consisted of asking Mann if he did anything wrong, without questioning anyone else, and when he replied in the negative, “exonerated” him). That is what the entire dispute is about, so it’s obtuse and pointless to claim that we claim that we were unaware of the investigation results.