Can Michael Mann now expect to receive an apology from the deniers?

>>>1) Can Mann now expect to receive an apology from his accusers?

2) Will Cuccinelli now prosecute himself for wasting Virginia taxpayer’s money?

3) Will Cuccinelli prosecute the deniers for defamation?<<<

In order: BAHAHAHAHAHAHA*, according to his own logic he should, and of course he won't.

*From precedent. Let's review, shall we?

- Climategate

- Phil Jones' defamation during Climategate

- IPCC's credibility, in regards to the IAC

- Unfounded defamation of Hansen

- Various other smaller false accusations made on here, ranging from calling us "socialists/communists/Marxists" to falsely asserting that there's an agenda to tax people to death.

Bravozulu and BB have answered most eloquently. But even better is the way that the Climate Gate website reports the ruling:

"Albemarle County Circuit Court Judge Paul M. Peatross, Jr., ruled Monday that academic researchers at the University of Virginia are not immune from investigations into the use of state funds under Virginia’s Fraud Against Taxpayers Act."

Unlike the perpetrators of sites like Climate Gate, I couldn't make this kind of thing up if I tried.

For starters Cuccinelli should not have prosecuted Mann. It sets a very bad precedence where politicians can prosecute any scientist they do not agree with.

We know that with the original Mann paper, he behaved very unscholarly by not releasing his data. There could be a couple of reasons for this, he could have known that his paper was fraudulent and did not want people to find out about his fraud, in which case he deserves prosecution, or he may have had another reason. Trying to establish motive is difficult in this situation.

With Mann et al 08 he tried to prove you can get a no dendro hockey stick. But he did so by incorrectly using the Tiljander sediments data even though this was pointed out that in a previous study that the hockey team was incorrectly using it. If he purposely use it in order to get his desired result then it is fraud. But it can be that he is generally incompetent and stupid. Again what is his motive? Hard to prove in a court of law.

But the fact that Mann 08 past peer review, despite the faulty Tilg sediments, their hostility to people who pointed out this mistake to them, the fact that they at first denied it was important and their claim that it did not matter (which they later admitted that it did) is behavior from scientist not interested in the truth (ie science), but are interested in pushing a political agenda.

http://climateaudit.org/2010/08/01/the-no-dendro-i...

Those denying it don't reside in a world where truth is arrived at and demonstrated through experiments, or, as in the present case, trial and error. They already "know" anthropogenic climate change doesn't exist and they will keep looking for promising scraps of 'evidence' to support their a priori conclusion. Scientific proofs, not that a legal trial really counts as one, cannot achieve anything with people who reject the scientific method itself.

Cuccinelli is the worst form of right wing hack nutcase.

Having sworn to show equal protection for all before the law, use your position to further a political agenda and your own self promotion.

The right is so consumed with the correctness of their position they will let the ends justify the means, no matter how corrupt those means are.

As in, use your position as Attorney General to pursue a baseless case for the sole purpose of harassing the opposition and getting publicity.

The right is morally bankrupt and Cuccinelli and his ilk prove it.

Sounds like a cheap way (for Cuccinell anyway) to get the far right wing of the Republican party to dig deep in their pockets for campaign contributions to me. Some of those folks are very easily duped, and proud of it!

No. Deniers rank Mann and Hansen up there with Satan, and fail to recognize Cuccinelli for the political hack that he is, only instigating this investigation to puff up his own career, knowing full well that the investigation would never amount to anything. Deniers look at nothing objectively, only through their ultraconservative political filters. People like Bravozulu, BB and David cannot liberate their minds from their conservative mindset to recognize what is political and what is scientific. If they were at all objective they should be able to see that even if they think that Mann is a crackpot, Cuccinelli's investigation was a pure political farce. That was obvious from the start.

Has any denier ever apologized for their constant baseless slandering of climate scientists?

If deniers won't apologize for their reprehensible Climategate behavior after a half dozen separate independent investigations found the climate scientists did nothing wrong, there's no way they'll apologize for their behavior in response to Cuccinelli's baseless accusations.

As for Cuccinelli himself, he didn't actually attempt to prosecute Mann for any valid legal reason. If his motivations were honest, he would have immediately realized he had no case like everyone else did. The man is a lawyer - he should know better than anyone that he had no case. No, Cuccinelli probably attempted to prosecute Mann for the attention it brought him. Perhaps he has greater political aspirations, and now he's got a well-known name.

At the very least he should apologize to the citizens of Virginia for wasting their tax money. But he won't. He got what he wanted out of the charade - his 15 minutes of fame.

Considering the guy should have got one months, if not years ago, i doubt this will change anyone's mind. Remember, to the Mann is the anti-christ. Also, since when has what the deniers thought had anything remotely to do with reality?

Its a good result though, and at least he can hopefully shake the ridiculous accusations that have followed him for so long. Ive read countless papers by him and have nothing but respect for the contribution he has made to the field.

EDIT: Thanks to BB for making my point quite nicely. I'm guessing you reject the 6 independent climate gate investigations that found no wrong doing too??

EDIT: To Bravozulu. Do you care to back up your claim all his science has been shown false?? Or should we just take your word for it? Better yet, lets see a publication from you that refutes his work??

Dear Dr. Mann,

I apologize for the fact that the judge thinks that academic freedom trumps defrauding the taxpayers.

Respectfully,

A Proud Denier

The tack they will take will be one of three, Andy shows one (alarmists lied first) or BB's it's not over yet, which is much the same line they try with the "we're going to sue Gore" story and two years after the fact nothing ever came of that.

The other old favorite is to pretend they know nothing about it, I've seen a number of deniers try that on silly statements made by Mockingtone, even though a few weeks before they have commented on the statement and supported it.

Denier repeat their little rants so often e.g. "now that the hockey stick graph is shown as a fraud" I think they honestly start to believe their own nonsense, another "all the other planets are warming" there is no evidence to support this statement Mars and Pluto showed signs of warming other Planets didn't.

Cuccinelli will probably join the others linked to the conservative side of politics who briefly made some noise, failed and then weren't heard from again. Has much be heard from the founder of the weather channel since he made his silly claims about suing Gore.

Denier keep re-posting this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3I2ujYgGKQ

on youtube to make it seem like a new story but the video has been around since 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHW7KR33IQ

Like all the noise deniers made about 'Dutchgate' they did the usual "IPCC are liars" rant and even got the Dutch Government believing them, the Dutch stated an investigation and then whoops discovered they themselves had made the mistake in the data they sent to the IPCC.

Or the so called 'Amazongate', again deniers made lots of noise and called the IPCC liars, but this entire story was based on a story in a British newspaper, the same paper quietly retracted the story, but deniers ignore that little fact and continue to reference it as genuine.

http://planetsave.com/2010/06/28/th-sunday-times-a...