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EDIT: I want to add that man made climate change needs to be addressed and the defendant is objectively opposing this. That said, the great HL Menchin once said

EDIT: I want to add that man made climate change needs to be addressed and the defendant is objectively opposing this. That said, the great HL Menchin once said “The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels.” Concluding that scientific research is fraudulent because you have you own reasons to believe its conclusions are false can’t be defamation without compromising free scientific inquiry. Even if your reason for concluding its fraudulent is because you believe in a flat Earth, courts are not the venue to resolve questions of scientific debate. That is a can of worms that should never be opened lest we find ourselves in a new Lysenkoism.

dysfunction 3y ago
There's a difference between concluding that scientific research is wrong and concluding that it is fraudulent. The latter is a claim about the character of the scientist involved, alleging them to have taken unethical if not illegal action. If that is provably false then it can certainly rise to the level of defamation.
- graphe 3y ago
  What's illegal about torturing data?
  - mjhay 3y ago
    It may or may not be illegal (it probably would be in the case of fraudulently obtained grant funding), but academic fraud is career-ending. It is a very serious accusation. Besides, you are completely misunderstanding how defamation works. Defamation does not require that an allegation of a crime. Heck, there's even a term for this kind of thing: defamation of character. https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/civil-litigation/defamation-character.html https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/civil-litigation/defama... Another term you might want to look up is "Dunning-Kruger."
    - graphe 3y ago
      Really? What about Francesca Gino who is at Harvard https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=271812 https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=271812 and has even fraud and retractions on her Wikipedia? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Gino https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Gino Still a teacher at Harvard and filed a frivolous suit of defamation to the detriment of data conda. I see no evidence that data fraud is "career ending" and the snark about dunning Kruger is fitting for your comment.
      - linuxftw 3y ago
        Indeed. It seems fraud is table stakes at this point. Typically however, climate 'scientists' abstract their fraud. They take raw data, fit it to their 'model', and then produce a conclusion. Sometimes they get over zealous, and manipulate the raw data, like the NOAA was caught doing.
bluish29 3y ago
There is two problems here : 1- there is a difference between being wrong and being fraud. Einstein was wrong in a paper claiming that gravitational waves are not real (he was convinced later it is). He did not fabricate anything in this work. He did not invent equations, made up observation data ...etc. 2- You are talking about conclusions and belief. Here is the problem, there is a scientific method. If you want to draw conclusions, then you have to follow that. You provide evidence. If you think this is fraud because the conclusion doesn't fit then you need to argue with better models/data or interpretation but not just based on final result that you don't like. If you believe that everything contradicts flat earth is fraudulent then you are basically making up stuff and you don't have proof and this is defamation not science.
- goodSteveramos 3y ago
  If you criminalize people’s incorrect beliefs then you are doing politics and not science.
  - thinkingtoilet 3y ago
    Correct. And 99% of climate change denial is politics and not science.
    - goodSteveramos 3y ago
      Right, as is fining them millions of dollars for disagreeing with you. I’m honestly fine with that, my complaint is the hypocrisy of conflating political actions with science.
      - bluish29 3y ago
        I really wonder if you read the article or not. This is not about disagreement or opinions. This is about fraud claims > with skeptics claiming Mann manipulated data. Investigations by Penn State and others found no misuse of data by Mann, but his work continued to draw attacks, particularly from conservatives. As an example. You solved a problem and I see that you solution is wrong (whether I am correct or not ia irrelevant) I would say you are wrong because you did this and that. I will not say that you are wrong because you have cheated unless I have a proof that you actually cheated (i.e data manipulation)

dysfunction 3y ago

There's a difference between concluding that scientific research is wrong and concluding that it is fraudulent. The latter is a claim about the character of the scientist involved, alleging them to have taken unethical if not illegal action. If that is provably false then it can certainly rise to the level of defamation.

graphe 3y ago
What's illegal about torturing data?
- mjhay 3y ago
  It may or may not be illegal (it probably would be in the case of fraudulently obtained grant funding), but academic fraud is career-ending. It is a very serious accusation. Besides, you are completely misunderstanding how defamation works. Defamation does not require that an allegation of a crime. Heck, there's even a term for this kind of thing: defamation of character. https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/civil-litigation/defamation-character.html https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/civil-litigation/defama... Another term you might want to look up is "Dunning-Kruger."
  - graphe 3y ago
    Really? What about Francesca Gino who is at Harvard https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=271812 https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=271812 and has even fraud and retractions on her Wikipedia? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Gino https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Gino Still a teacher at Harvard and filed a frivolous suit of defamation to the detriment of data conda. I see no evidence that data fraud is "career ending" and the snark about dunning Kruger is fitting for your comment.
    - linuxftw 3y ago
      Indeed. It seems fraud is table stakes at this point. Typically however, climate 'scientists' abstract their fraud. They take raw data, fit it to their 'model', and then produce a conclusion. Sometimes they get over zealous, and manipulate the raw data, like the NOAA was caught doing.

bluish29 3y ago

There is two problems here : 1- there is a difference between being wrong and being fraud. Einstein was wrong in a paper claiming that gravitational waves are not real (he was convinced later it is). He did not fabricate anything in this work. He did not invent equations, made up observation data ...etc. 2- You are talking about conclusions and belief. Here is the problem, there is a scientific method. If you want to draw conclusions, then you have to follow that. You provide evidence. If you think this is fraud because the conclusion doesn't fit then you need to argue with better models/data or interpretation but not just based on final result that you don't like. If you believe that everything contradicts flat earth is fraudulent then you are basically making up stuff and you don't have proof and this is defamation not science.

goodSteveramos 3y ago
If you criminalize people’s incorrect beliefs then you are doing politics and not science.
- thinkingtoilet 3y ago
  Correct. And 99% of climate change denial is politics and not science.
  - goodSteveramos 3y ago
    Right, as is fining them millions of dollars for disagreeing with you. I’m honestly fine with that, my complaint is the hypocrisy of conflating political actions with science.
    - bluish29 3y ago
      I really wonder if you read the article or not. This is not about disagreement or opinions. This is about fraud claims > with skeptics claiming Mann manipulated data. Investigations by Penn State and others found no misuse of data by Mann, but his work continued to draw attacks, particularly from conservatives. As an example. You solved a problem and I see that you solution is wrong (whether I am correct or not ia irrelevant) I would say you are wrong because you did this and that. I will not say that you are wrong because you have cheated unless I have a proof that you actually cheated (i.e data manipulation)