Brilliant essay. It’s sad that so many subscribe to hostility instead of hospitality. Michael Manns actions toward his peers is embarrassing. I can not imagine such open hostility being tolerated in a real professional organization. I hate being wrong, and having my ideas challenged but I welcomed it since providing incorrect or incomplete advice in my profession got me fired. Perhaps there needs to be a total rethink of how academic work is rewarded over the term.
I grew up playing for the Fort Collins Arsenal. I was surprised to learn at a young age that they had named a team in London after us! How could I not support them? ;-)
As a typical North American I didn’t get football until I started working with some British ex-pats who pulled me in and explained the nuances (I kept looking for the lines on the turf when offside was called 😀😀).
Man U became my team when the first Champions League game I watched saw them score two in extra time to beat Bayern in the final.
My wife bought me a Ryan Giggs #11 jersey, XXXL but was made in Vietnam, still couldn’t wear it. 😀
Dear Roger, this is a profound essay. I have found in life that I do not learn anything by talking only to people who agree with me. I have to seek out and listen to people who disagree with me in order to learn the flaws in the things I think I know. Such exchanges require a high degree of civility and humility on both sides. One of the things I loved most about studying at Cambridge in the UK back in the 2000's was the marvelous talent the British academics had for disagreeing without being disagreeable. Someone would make a statement, then someone else would gently say, without heat or rancor, "I disagree", and state his reasons in a restrained, lucid, logical way. Sadly, I hear that, lately,
cancel culture and scorched-earth rhetoric have found their way into Cambridge as well as so many other formerly venerable institutions. I fear the real search for truth will suffer as a result.
I share your fears. Part of the pedagogy at Cambridge and Oxford is the tutorial system. In my day, if the students did not push each other, then your tutors would play the devil's advocate. But my experience in the US at the graduate level in the social sciences is that it very much depended on the mix of students - they as much as the professors imposed a uniformity of thought. I was very fortunate and had professors who pushed back against such mind-sets.
As I suspected Michael Mann avoids debate like it was the plague, even when challenged. Sounds a lot like the Covid "We Are The Science" autocrats.
However, believe it or not, I did find one debate with Michael Mann, Judith Curry, Michael Moore and David Titley on Youtube, from almost 6 yrs ago, when science had not yet been captured by the ruling Psychopaths:
Here, once again, Michael Mann, is challenged to a debate during his visit to Australia, by one of the most rational politicians on Earth, Malcom Roberts:
Or, some quotes from better people than I in reference to the subject.
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” Bertrand Russell
“Keep the company of those who seek the truth- run from those who have found it”
― Vaclav Havel
“If you thought that science was certain – well, that is just an error on your part.” — Richard Feynman
And to go with your thesis Roger;
“Always hear others out and remain open-minded; the day you think you know everything is the day you have the most yet to learn.” — A.J. Darkholme
For those interested in additional reading, I recommend Richard Haas' book " Bill of Obligations." A great discussion of the factors we need for intellectual hospitality and honesty.
Speaking of Intellectual Honesty, this Climate Science Physicist has taken to Youtube to critique some of the low grade Michael Mann style Climate Science frequently pushed by the popular Youtube channel of Sabine Hossenfelder, Particle Physicist. And has challenged her to a debate:
Comments on Sabine Hossenfelder's Talks on Climate by a Physicist | ICR 240129, Dr. Yong Tuition:
Dr. Pielke ==> Was the email the last you heard from Heartland on the issue, or did they later contact you with the information on how your name erroneously had gotten onto the list of contributors in the first place?
While using the words "claimed falsely" may be factually correct -- the fact was you were not a contributor nor a member of some committee -- wouldn't it have been more "intellectually hospitable" to use language such as "erroneously listed"?
Their email states so explicitly -- that your name was included in error rather than by some design or intention to deceive?
Yours does come across to the reader as an accusation of malfeasance, especially coupled with the characterization of Heartland as "a conservative group much-hated among climate activists". You probably don't read my work, but my readers can be scathing when they disagree or have "mis-read" what I have written. At first blush, I try to assume that they have misunderstood something, that I haven't been clear enough, and try to restate my point.
You should know that Heartland treats your work with a great deal of respect and, if one is generous, their climate work is very much in line with yours.
Thanks Kip … appreciated. I am happy to letter water under the bridge be water under the bridge. I’ve got a short memory, probably a relic of poor shooting in HS hoops;-)
Roger, your Substack is so critical to scientific discourse and it is encouraging that the Substack platform has emerged, helping to further intellectual hospitality that is sorely missing in academia, the government, and corporate media. As a retired scientist with the Department of Interior, I started out, like you, sharing the political views of most of my colleagues. But like the great Thomas Sowell, working for the federal government made me realize why limited government is necessary. The government and academia are incapable of solving most problems, and usually contribute to, magnify, or even create the problems that then require massive spending of taxpayer money (or even worse, massive debt) to "solve." Washington DC is clearly broken, and I am watching in horror as Colorado is on track to overtake California in government overreach, justified, in part, by the intellectual elite and self-proclaimed experts like Michael Mann pushing their ego fueled agendas. Mann is just a particularly egregious example because he is such a despicable and dishonest bully. By following Roger Pielke Sr and Judith Curry's blogs, and more recently Roger Jr's work, I came to better understand the assumptions, competing hypotheses, and weaknesses in so much of the climate science (especially Mann's hockey stick) that so many of my former colleagues ignored because they were blinded by their ideology and ignorance of the limitations of the prevailing climate change paradigm. I did not feel safe fully sharing my scientific perspective on climate science with my colleagues, or I would have been ostracized as a denier. How sad is that. I am simply a sceptic as all scientists should be. Now that I am retired, I finally feel free to express my ideas. We all have biases and blinders, which is why it is so important to get out of the echo chamber and challenge your own paradigms! The general lack of intellectual hospitality has led the general public to believe that we understand much more than we think about a very complicated and highly dynamic system that is operating across multiple time scales greater than just the last half century or so.
I recently discovered Thomas Sowell. I have already read a number of his books, and I am currently reading Intellectuals and Society. In that book, he talks about the “vision of the anointed”. The anointed are those that feel they are so much smarter than the combined rest of us, and therefore they should dictate what society does. The vision of the left tries to use government to help individuals and to make society better. That vision, has always appealed to me. The problem is, it usually doesn’t work. We end up with results that make the initial problem worse, or we create new problems we never thought of. Sowell calls it “thinking beyond stage one”. I see Michael Mann as falling into the vision of the anointed. He feels that anything he does is acceptable because his vision and his values are so much better than the rest of us. His thinking is stage one thinking. He does not consider what extreme cuts to energy use would do to our society or to the poor around the world. He feels that harming others is acceptable if it furthers his noble cause. Mann, like other people, who feel themselves anointed, ignores all evidence that is contrary to his beliefs. His vision makes any reasonable dialogue with him impossible.
Roger, your attitude and approach to science is probably the biggest reason why your readers enjoy reading and following your work. Keep it up and never waver from it!
I personally dislike the terminology of “intellectual hospitality”. To me it connotes a willingness to accept any and all intellectual challenges in a polite, friendly manner, something that I disagree with. The patently absurd or dictatorial aspects of disagreement should serve to undermine any challenge and should be settled before a discussion can even take place.
By that I mean, those who claim authority to dictate rather than inform and respectfully influence others with logic and clarity aka Michael Mann, do not merit standing on the podium with someone as yourself.
Exactly. You can only study the charade that was Medical Science during the Covid Plandemic. Scientists and medical doctors at the very top of the field engaged in decimating propaganda that would make Herr Goebbels blush. These people are corrupt scoundrels and deserve nothing but disdain. But for legitimate, intellectually honest scientists & medical doctors to frequently challenge them to debate is always welcome. And of course, so far, to a man they have refused to do so. That tells you who the real truth tellers are.
And now it is blatantly obvious that the same bunch that pushed the anti-science Covid Debacle have stolen Climate Change as their next big crisis to exploit for their own personal gain. With their unlimited wealth and power, control over our governments and media, sadly, you can only expect more of the same. And likely Roger's appeal to hospitality will fall upon deaf ears.
Thanks for pointing that out, though I hold a different view on the climate debacle. I see warmer activist Zealots with their screams of 'DENIER' at every challenger of the orthodoxy, as having been the foot soldiers of the Corvid plagists. For the past 35 years the general public has been browbeaten into self-censorship on multiple front with the climate activists being the most strident. They stand to lose so very much if their hollow argument is successfully exposed.
Back to intellectual consideration ... those who happen to welcome a path to uncovering truth deserve to have every challenge discussed in a polite, persuasive manner. Those who have rejected their own intellect, warrant no hospitable seat in a reasoning individual's mind.
No doubt about it. Just look at the attacks by Antifa "brown shirts" against Climate Change Realists. Marxists have traditionally been pro-industrialization. It was the Nazis who promoted environmental fanaticism.
So the entire state/CIA/FBI apparatus had been turned against those who don't embrace the Climate Change Alarmism & Fear Porn. They are even demanding censorship, not just for those who deny the Alarmist narrative, but for those that dispute the nutty scams they are promoting as "solutions", namely Wind, Solar, Utility Battery Storage, Hydrogen, Agrofuels, BEV Light Vehicles and Biomass burning.
Folta's lawsuit was dismissed.
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/03/01/court-sides-new-york-times-professors-defamation-case
Thanks
Excellent, Roger. We give you high marks for taking the high road in the face of some of the accusations thrown at you over a long period of time.
Brilliant essay. It’s sad that so many subscribe to hostility instead of hospitality. Michael Manns actions toward his peers is embarrassing. I can not imagine such open hostility being tolerated in a real professional organization. I hate being wrong, and having my ideas challenged but I welcomed it since providing incorrect or incomplete advice in my profession got me fired. Perhaps there needs to be a total rethink of how academic work is rewarded over the term.
Huge Arsenal win over Liverpool, Roger probably dancing a little jig.
Big jig!
For someone with such a penetrating mind, I do not understand your support for Arsenal! ;) Must be based on emotion!
I grew up playing for the Fort Collins Arsenal. I was surprised to learn at a young age that they had named a team in London after us! How could I not support them? ;-)
I grew up near Woolwich Arsenal. Fort Collins is far more picturesque. The Germans bombed the hell out of the place - slightly improving it! ;)
As a typical North American I didn’t get football until I started working with some British ex-pats who pulled me in and explained the nuances (I kept looking for the lines on the turf when offside was called 😀😀).
Man U became my team when the first Champions League game I watched saw them score two in extra time to beat Bayern in the final.
My wife bought me a Ryan Giggs #11 jersey, XXXL but was made in Vietnam, still couldn’t wear it. 😀
Need to make my way to Emirates one day.
Dear Roger, this is a profound essay. I have found in life that I do not learn anything by talking only to people who agree with me. I have to seek out and listen to people who disagree with me in order to learn the flaws in the things I think I know. Such exchanges require a high degree of civility and humility on both sides. One of the things I loved most about studying at Cambridge in the UK back in the 2000's was the marvelous talent the British academics had for disagreeing without being disagreeable. Someone would make a statement, then someone else would gently say, without heat or rancor, "I disagree", and state his reasons in a restrained, lucid, logical way. Sadly, I hear that, lately,
cancel culture and scorched-earth rhetoric have found their way into Cambridge as well as so many other formerly venerable institutions. I fear the real search for truth will suffer as a result.
I share your fears. Part of the pedagogy at Cambridge and Oxford is the tutorial system. In my day, if the students did not push each other, then your tutors would play the devil's advocate. But my experience in the US at the graduate level in the social sciences is that it very much depended on the mix of students - they as much as the professors imposed a uniformity of thought. I was very fortunate and had professors who pushed back against such mind-sets.
As I suspected Michael Mann avoids debate like it was the plague, even when challenged. Sounds a lot like the Covid "We Are The Science" autocrats.
However, believe it or not, I did find one debate with Michael Mann, Judith Curry, Michael Moore and David Titley on Youtube, from almost 6 yrs ago, when science had not yet been captured by the ruling Psychopaths:
Climate Debate - Mann vs Curry & Moore June 2018:
youtube.com/watch?v=pVXHaSqpsVg
Here Judith Curry, Michael Mann and Roger Pielke, jr present their views to Congress, in March 2017:
Curry Christy Mann & Pielke go at it:
youtube.com/watch?v=_3_sHu34imQ
Here, once again, Michael Mann, is challenged to a debate during his visit to Australia, by one of the most rational politicians on Earth, Malcom Roberts:
How dare you, Michael Mann.:
youtube.com/watch?v=trywf_p-lgs
Or, some quotes from better people than I in reference to the subject.
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” Bertrand Russell
“Keep the company of those who seek the truth- run from those who have found it”
― Vaclav Havel
“If you thought that science was certain – well, that is just an error on your part.” — Richard Feynman
And to go with your thesis Roger;
“Always hear others out and remain open-minded; the day you think you know everything is the day you have the most yet to learn.” — A.J. Darkholme
The old saying goes “if you have nothing good to say about someone then best to say nothing at all”.
So all I have to say about Mann is
Thanks Roger ! When travelling it is best to make small course corrections rather than overcorrecting and losing control. Same in politics!
For those interested in additional reading, I recommend Richard Haas' book " Bill of Obligations." A great discussion of the factors we need for intellectual hospitality and honesty.
Speaking of Intellectual Honesty, this Climate Science Physicist has taken to Youtube to critique some of the low grade Michael Mann style Climate Science frequently pushed by the popular Youtube channel of Sabine Hossenfelder, Particle Physicist. And has challenged her to a debate:
Comments on Sabine Hossenfelder's Talks on Climate by a Physicist | ICR 240129, Dr. Yong Tuition:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWyxfmHJcd0
What Sabine Didn't Tell You about Climate Sensitivity | Comments on Hossenfelder Part 2 | ICR 240131 Yong Tuition:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jDMDn7u-dw
Comments on Sabine Hossenfelder's Magical Greenhouse Effect | Independent Climate Research 230209 Yong Tuition:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY2xHk0ThJ8
Dr. Pielke ==> Was the email the last you heard from Heartland on the issue, or did they later contact you with the information on how your name erroneously had gotten onto the list of contributors in the first place?
While using the words "claimed falsely" may be factually correct -- the fact was you were not a contributor nor a member of some committee -- wouldn't it have been more "intellectually hospitable" to use language such as "erroneously listed"?
Their email states so explicitly -- that your name was included in error rather than by some design or intention to deceive?
Hi Kip,
I’m not sure how someone gets mistakenly listed as an author of a report, complete with webpage etc.
And at this point it is all water under the bridge. Just one anecdote among many!
Dr. Pielke;
Yours does come across to the reader as an accusation of malfeasance, especially coupled with the characterization of Heartland as "a conservative group much-hated among climate activists". You probably don't read my work, but my readers can be scathing when they disagree or have "mis-read" what I have written. At first blush, I try to assume that they have misunderstood something, that I haven't been clear enough, and try to restate my point.
You should know that Heartland treats your work with a great deal of respect and, if one is generous, their climate work is very much in line with yours.
Thanks Kip … appreciated. I am happy to letter water under the bridge be water under the bridge. I’ve got a short memory, probably a relic of poor shooting in HS hoops;-)
Roger, your Substack is so critical to scientific discourse and it is encouraging that the Substack platform has emerged, helping to further intellectual hospitality that is sorely missing in academia, the government, and corporate media. As a retired scientist with the Department of Interior, I started out, like you, sharing the political views of most of my colleagues. But like the great Thomas Sowell, working for the federal government made me realize why limited government is necessary. The government and academia are incapable of solving most problems, and usually contribute to, magnify, or even create the problems that then require massive spending of taxpayer money (or even worse, massive debt) to "solve." Washington DC is clearly broken, and I am watching in horror as Colorado is on track to overtake California in government overreach, justified, in part, by the intellectual elite and self-proclaimed experts like Michael Mann pushing their ego fueled agendas. Mann is just a particularly egregious example because he is such a despicable and dishonest bully. By following Roger Pielke Sr and Judith Curry's blogs, and more recently Roger Jr's work, I came to better understand the assumptions, competing hypotheses, and weaknesses in so much of the climate science (especially Mann's hockey stick) that so many of my former colleagues ignored because they were blinded by their ideology and ignorance of the limitations of the prevailing climate change paradigm. I did not feel safe fully sharing my scientific perspective on climate science with my colleagues, or I would have been ostracized as a denier. How sad is that. I am simply a sceptic as all scientists should be. Now that I am retired, I finally feel free to express my ideas. We all have biases and blinders, which is why it is so important to get out of the echo chamber and challenge your own paradigms! The general lack of intellectual hospitality has led the general public to believe that we understand much more than we think about a very complicated and highly dynamic system that is operating across multiple time scales greater than just the last half century or so.
I recently discovered Thomas Sowell. I have already read a number of his books, and I am currently reading Intellectuals and Society. In that book, he talks about the “vision of the anointed”. The anointed are those that feel they are so much smarter than the combined rest of us, and therefore they should dictate what society does. The vision of the left tries to use government to help individuals and to make society better. That vision, has always appealed to me. The problem is, it usually doesn’t work. We end up with results that make the initial problem worse, or we create new problems we never thought of. Sowell calls it “thinking beyond stage one”. I see Michael Mann as falling into the vision of the anointed. He feels that anything he does is acceptable because his vision and his values are so much better than the rest of us. His thinking is stage one thinking. He does not consider what extreme cuts to energy use would do to our society or to the poor around the world. He feels that harming others is acceptable if it furthers his noble cause. Mann, like other people, who feel themselves anointed, ignores all evidence that is contrary to his beliefs. His vision makes any reasonable dialogue with him impossible.
Why not just say he has religious dogma?
Arguing AGW with Piltdown Mann is like trying to have a rational discussion on Israel or LGBTQ issues with the supreme leader of Iran.
Asssuming they even let you speak you can see the wall behind their eyes and they are simply waiting for a quiet moment to chop you
Roger, your attitude and approach to science is probably the biggest reason why your readers enjoy reading and following your work. Keep it up and never waver from it!
I personally dislike the terminology of “intellectual hospitality”. To me it connotes a willingness to accept any and all intellectual challenges in a polite, friendly manner, something that I disagree with. The patently absurd or dictatorial aspects of disagreement should serve to undermine any challenge and should be settled before a discussion can even take place.
By that I mean, those who claim authority to dictate rather than inform and respectfully influence others with logic and clarity aka Michael Mann, do not merit standing on the podium with someone as yourself.
Intellectual honesty is my preferred standard.
Exactly. You can only study the charade that was Medical Science during the Covid Plandemic. Scientists and medical doctors at the very top of the field engaged in decimating propaganda that would make Herr Goebbels blush. These people are corrupt scoundrels and deserve nothing but disdain. But for legitimate, intellectually honest scientists & medical doctors to frequently challenge them to debate is always welcome. And of course, so far, to a man they have refused to do so. That tells you who the real truth tellers are.
And now it is blatantly obvious that the same bunch that pushed the anti-science Covid Debacle have stolen Climate Change as their next big crisis to exploit for their own personal gain. With their unlimited wealth and power, control over our governments and media, sadly, you can only expect more of the same. And likely Roger's appeal to hospitality will fall upon deaf ears.
Thanks for pointing that out, though I hold a different view on the climate debacle. I see warmer activist Zealots with their screams of 'DENIER' at every challenger of the orthodoxy, as having been the foot soldiers of the Corvid plagists. For the past 35 years the general public has been browbeaten into self-censorship on multiple front with the climate activists being the most strident. They stand to lose so very much if their hollow argument is successfully exposed.
Back to intellectual consideration ... those who happen to welcome a path to uncovering truth deserve to have every challenge discussed in a polite, persuasive manner. Those who have rejected their own intellect, warrant no hospitable seat in a reasoning individual's mind.
No doubt about it. Just look at the attacks by Antifa "brown shirts" against Climate Change Realists. Marxists have traditionally been pro-industrialization. It was the Nazis who promoted environmental fanaticism.
So the entire state/CIA/FBI apparatus had been turned against those who don't embrace the Climate Change Alarmism & Fear Porn. They are even demanding censorship, not just for those who deny the Alarmist narrative, but for those that dispute the nutty scams they are promoting as "solutions", namely Wind, Solar, Utility Battery Storage, Hydrogen, Agrofuels, BEV Light Vehicles and Biomass burning.
Thanks for your courageous defense of intellectual tolerance.