The Statistics of Mann’s Grant Damages
6th April 2025
If you don’t know who Michael Mann is, you’re luckier than some. Read on.
A year ago, I was a witness in the Mann v Steyn-Simberg libel trial. It was an extremely frustrating experience. Mann’s lawyers tried to block McKitrick and I from giving evidence against Mann. The judge ruled against them, saying that our evidence was relevant to the defense. However, the judge then prevented either of us from presenting evidence on Mann’s concealment of failed verification statistics or even on the verification failure of Mann’s statistical model. The judge didn’t even allow the presentation of a table published in Geophysical Research Letters. In mid-trial, the judge also reduced the time available for the defense by about 40% from the original allocation; the time available for McKitrick and myself was almost chewed up by defense objections.
The Crust takes care of their own.
Because Steyn was so weak, nearly all of the defense was taken up by Simberg’s lawyers. They were highly professional, but their strategy was focused almost entirely on the lack of damages to Mann, and, in particular, to Mann’s claims about lost grants. In my opinion, the issues about, for example, Mann’s concealment of adverse verification statistics were issues that ought to have been raised in cross-examination of Mann (rather than late in the day in direct examination of McKitrick or me), but none of this took place. Instead, the cross-examination went on and on about Mann’s grants – an issue which seemed far less important to me than putting Mann on the spot about his concealment of adverse verification statistics,