‘Trial Of The Century’ Just Poured Cold Water On ‘Hockey Stick’ Legend

Almost 100 years ago the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, went into legend as the “trial of the century” and defined where we stood as a nation.

Substitute teacher John T. Scopes was prosecuted for teaching the theory of evolution contrary to Tennessee’s Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school.

Science and religion are still at war. Isn’t that ridiculous? Real science can never conflict with legitimate religion – they both come from the same source! But America is divided today in the global warming debate.

So, as in 1925, so in 2019 a “science trial of the century” comes to define us.

In 1925, William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate, argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow, the famous defense attorney, spoke for Scopes.

Scopes was found guilty and fined $100 (equivalent to $1,400 in 2019) for teaching evolution vs. creation in schools. But the verdict was overturned on a technicality – and evolution has replaced biblical creation in our schools. Now any mention of the Bible is usually prohibited.

The Scopes case was both a theological contest and a trial on whether modern science should be taught in schools. And the result has been disastrous. The “theory of evolution” has replaced the 6,000-year veracity of the Bible and its proven benefits to mankind. Friend, if we are to progress as a free and vibrant nation that strikes a balance between individual freedoms and societal responsibilities, preserving the right of our personal and religious beliefs – openness and transparency and proven facts in this big debate are essential. Prudence demands an evidentiary basis for trillion-dollar policy decisions that impact such freedoms.

So now here we go today – “back to the future.” Our collective history and our future!

I’ve just read an astonishing story from John O’Sullivan of Principia Scientific International.

It involves the downfall, the outright repudiation, of the scientist most credited with showing that global temperatures in the last 100 years are supposedly “unprecedented.”

The loser in this trial is Dr. Michael Mann, the creator of the world-famous “hockey stick” graph.

Let me be clear on this: Of course, I want to see a cleaner environment – who doesn’t?

But “cleaner air” relates to pollution, which is fixable by man. “Global warming” and “climate change” are totally beyond the abilities of human institutions. Only the Creator can change the equation. That’s where science must bow to religion.

On Aug. 22, 2019, the Supreme Court of British Columbia handed down a ruling that settled the longest, most costly legal battle fought between two scientists. Alarmist versus skeptic, the god of Gaia (Mother Earth) versus the true scientific method of openness and transparency.

As in 1925, the outcome twisted on a technicality! In the aftermath, we as a nation can make an informed, common-sense judgment on whether “global warming” is worth even thinking about.

In the B.C. court the “world’s leading climate scientist,” Dr. Michael E. Mann had spent eight years and millions of dollars suing another famous scientist, Dr. Tim Ball (who was skeptical of climate alarm) for libel.

The upstart Dr. Ball derided Mann’s iconic “hockey stick” graph, which most governments and academics said proved that a rise in modern global temperatures was “unprecedented.” Ball suggested it was built from fraudulent, even criminal, manipulation by Mann.

He demanded that the renowned “climatologist” simply reveal his “working out,” his research and bases for his audacious, preposterous claims so many other scientists were so quick to adopt as true.

It was a reasonable and legal demand – but Dr. Mann flatly refused. He claimed his numbers and data needed to be kept secret because they were “intellectual property.”

What? When what he and the alarmists were proposing would change the whole world, and create chaos if believed?

A very curious response from a “scientist.” Einstein was pleased to demonstrate – to anyone who could possibly understand it – how he arrived at his theory of relativity, which did affect the world.

No, Mann had spent untold amounts of taxpayer funds in government grants, and now huge sums in legal fees suing Dr. Ball for libel, and he couldn’t afford to expose his “working out,” lest he is shown to be a fraud and actually lose the lawsuit he had brought.

Which is exactly what happened.

Can you imagine that poor jury, trying to comprehend the legal battle between these two scientific wizards, one charging the other with fraudulent, unprovable data – and the other suing his accuser for libel and defamation?

And with all the necessary historical data and mathematical projections and terms flying back and forth? It was clearly over their heads and out of their areas of expertise.

But Dr. Ball played his “ace” – and won the case.

See, the two opponents had signed, in 2017, as their dual court and other costs were piling up, a binding legal agreement.

On Mann’s part, he agreed he had a legal duty, by a certain date, to produce and hand over his withheld numbers and data that proved his “hockey stick” assertions.

But as the days dragged on, dissenting climatologist Dr. Ball kept hammering that the whole “hockey stick” theory was actually “hockey puck” and that Dr. Mann was abusing proper scientific methods by not allowing independent (skeptical) scientists to examine and verify his “working out” calculations.

The deadline came and went. And Mann wasn’t budging.

All he had to do was what he had agreed to –and should have been proud of – simply lay his graph and “data” out for other scientists, and the jury, to see.

The self-styled “Nobel Prize winner” lost and is ordered to pay Dr. Ball’s legal costs.

As O’Sullivan writes, “So, the graph was junk science. You could put baseball scores into Mann’s Climate Model and it would create the Hockey Stick.”

O’Sullivan was referring to a report in 2003 that proved, with the partial data Mann had already reluctantly released, that he was at the minimum incredibly incompetent.

Mann’s graph was statistical “GIGO” – that is, “garbage in, garbage out.” O’Sullivan’s article gives more scientific background likely you and I can’t understand, so I omit it here.

But friend, as with Scopes, the fallout from this trial in our time is going to have a tremendous effect on the ongoing clamor for “climate control,” which its rabid supporters must now take up with God.

Pat Boone, a descendant of the legendary pioneer Daniel Boone, has been a top-selling recording artist, the star of his own hit TV series, a movie star, a Broadway headliner, and a best-selling author in a career that has spanned half a century.

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