Guest post by The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
UPDATE: A new condensed rebuttal from Monckton for easier reading is available below.
Once again I have much to thank Anthony Watts and his millions of readers for. My inbox has been full of kind messages from people who have now had the chance to dip into my point-by-point evisceration of Associate Professor Abraham’s lengthy, unprovoked, and widely-circulated personal attack on me.
Latest news – sent to me by two readers of Anthony’s outstanding blog – is that Abraham, inferentially on orders from the Trustees of his university acting on advice from their lawyers, has (without telling me) re-recorded his entire 83-minute talk to take out the very many direct accusations of “misrepresentation”, “complete fabrication”, “sleight of hand” etc. etc. that he had hurled at me in the original version of his talk. For instance, he now seems to have appreciated his unwisdom in having accused me of having “misrepresented” the work of scientists I had not even cited in the first place.
Taking out his direct libels has reduced the length of his talk by 10 minutes. To my own lawyers, Abraham’s retreat will be of interest, because it is in effect an admission that his talk is libelous, and that he and his university know it is libelous. Though his new version corrects some of the stupider and more egregious errors in the original, many crass errors remain, including errors of simple arithmetic that are surely disfiguring in a “scientist” presuming to correct mine.
At several points in the new version, Abraham rashly persists in misrepresenting me to third-party scientists, getting hostile quotations from them in response to what I had not said, and using them against me. He thus persists even though – having received my long letter detailing his defalcations a month ago, long before he recorded the new version of his talk – he can no longer legitimately maintain that any of his numerous remaining libels is a mere inadvertence.
Plenty of libels indeed remain in the new version of Abraham’s talk: he has even been imprudent enough to add quite a new and serious early in his talk, having failed yet again to check his facts with me. In the new version of Abraham’s talk, every remaining libel will be regarded by the courts as malice, because he was told exactly what libels he had perpetrated, and was given a fair chance to retract and apologize, but he has wilfully chosen to persist in and repeat many of the libels. And when the courts find that his talk was and remains malicious, then he will have thrown away the one defense that might otherwise have worked for him – that in US law a public figure who sues for libel must be able to prove malice. I can prove it, in spades.
Several of you have posted up comments asking to see the full (and entertaining) correspondence between me, the professor, his university, and its lawyers. The ever-splendid Joanne Nova is kindly hosting the correspondence, so that we can spread the word as widely as possible across the Web to counter the malevolence of the many climate-extremist websites that are now ruing their earlier and too hasty endorsement of Abraham’s libels. Not one of them contacted me to check anything before describing me as “the fallen idol of climate skepticism”, “a sad joke”, etc., etc.
May I ask your kind readers once more for their help? Would as many of you as possible do what some of you have already been good enough to do? Please contact Father Dennis J. Dease, President of St. Thomas University, djdease@stthomas.edu, and invite him – even at this eleventh hour – to take down Abraham’s talk altogether from the University’s servers, and to instigate a disciplinary inquiry into the Professor’s unprofessional conduct, particularly in the matter of his lies to third parties about what I had said in my talk at Bethel University eight months ago? That would be a real help.
It is sometimes a cold and lonely road we follow in pursuit of the truth, and the support of Anthony and his readers has been a great comfort to me. Thank you all again.
====================
See also: A detailed rebuttal to Abraham from Monckton
And
A new condensed rebuttal for easier reading is here
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Christopher Monckton it was with interest that I dipped into your excellently written 500 point evisceration of the poor sodding associate professor sinking his battleship. While I haven’t yet had time to read all 86 pages it has been a pleasure. Not only do you hammer him point by point but you also illuminate many of the key issues in the climate debacle oh so very well. It’s quite an education. You might have the basis of a new presentation. I like the format of taking on the alarmists claims head to head, point by point, and holding them accountable for their soothsaying of doomsday without OPEN repeatable verifiable scientific evidence grounded in factual integrity to back them up.
Beyond seeing this as just a battle (or is it really only a minor skirmish) with one lowly associate professor the bigger picture is dealing with this sort of alarmist tripe in a decisive manner. How could this 500 point by point destruction of the alarmist arguments (if they can be called arguments) be turned into a magnum opus that can decimate their alarmist claims once and for all? Assuming that’s even possible it sure would be nice to have VERIFIABLE facts of science rule the day rather than tripe doomsday messages sooth-said from dead tree ring entrails or fabricated with bad statistical techniques (seriously Nasa GISS having one thermometer at Eureka, Canada for a circle of a diameter of 1,200km, might as well just make up the temperature data with dice). As you know the list of their doomsday prophesies goes on and on. Keep hammering it point by point by bloody point. Let’s put enough nails in the alarmist coffin to keep the lid shut and their arguments burred by the cold hard facts of repeatable and verifiable OPEN science.
I encourage you to continue with the full fury of a cat 5 hurricane firing your rational decisive and in-depth approach.
All the best,
Peter William Lount
Vancouver, Canada
ps. Christopher, if you could make your PDF file available as a HTML file with the graphics it would be easier to post it in it’s entirety to my web site: http://PathsToKnowledge.net. Thanks.
Speaking of schooling, I got a kick out of Monckton’s refreshingly large vocabulary (an informal indication of a high IQ):
I have contacted Professor Abraham, and he informed me that the second rebuttal is on his website because it is shorter, has better audio, includes components which the
original did not have, has toned down what might have been interpreted as
sarcasm, and is clearer about some issues.
No climb-down there.
For those interested, the Abraham original is (currently) posted here:
http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/jpabraham/global_warming/Monckton/Original%20Presentation/index.htm
it is 83 minutes and begins…’Welcome everyone to the presentation where I, John Abraham, is [sic] going to ….’
The revised version is currently posted here:
http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/jpabraham/global_warming/Monckton/Monckton%20Presentation%20June%2022/index.htm
it is 72 minutes
There is no explanation as to why there should be two versions.
I am looking forward to the live debate between Abraham and Monckton – presumably as Abraham is an honest and accomplished scientist there should be no reason for the school not to host such an event.
I’m on dial up and on a waiting list for wireless. We here in rural NE Oregon have little access to the internet. Is there some other way to produce this material? I can’t download either though I am fully equipped computer wise to read the material. It just takes too long to download resulting in the dialup connection hanging up on me.
I have sent:
“Dear Father Dennis J. Dease,
I am writing to request that you take down Associate Professor Abraham’s recent talk, which targets Viscount Monckton, altogether from your University’s servers and that you instigate a disciplinary inquiry into the Professor’s unprofessional conduct, particularly in the matter of his lies to third parties about what Viscount Monckton said in his talk at Bethel University eight months ago.”
Oh! The revised rebuttal has been up since 22nd June! So not really news.
Pamela Gray,
Do you have cell phone service? Check to see if your provider offers mobile broadband.
My email to Father Dease:
I should like to congratulate you and your institution on continuing to host Prof Abrahams polemic on Lord Monckton notwithstanding its many errors. The liklihood of any sort of libel action is small and I am sure your courageous backing is attracting a great deal of favourable publicity for you, you institution and the estimable Professor.
Keep up the good work and damn the torpedoes!
Remember the words of Stephen Schneider: “On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”
In the world of post-modern science, we must keep our eye on the objective rather than the boring old truth.
Yours aye.
Jack Savage
I’ve sent e-mail to Dease at above address:
“I am aghast that the egregious and libelous statements presented by Assc. Prof. Abraham re: Lord Monckton are found acceptable by the university.”
Steve
I think it is wonderful Asst. Prof. Abraham has brought the debate forward. If I were an Alarmist, however, I would not want him doing the debating. There is far too much that is just plain shoddy, and worse, in the points he makes.
In the prior post some stated Lord Monckton asked too many questions, and should have kept things simpler. I don’t agree. I feel the meticulous nature of his statement displays the exact sort of mind that is needed, to debate the issues involved.
Asst. Prof. Abraham, as a scientist, should have been equally meticulous. He was not. He acted in haste, and now has the opportunity to repent at leisure.
I imagine part of Abraham’s haste was propelled by passion. The topic of Global Warming involves a lot that gets people riled up. I can’t scold Asst. Prof. Abraham for his passion without being a pot calling the kettle black, for I have lost my temper on numerous occasions, while debating this topic. I even was snipped at the Accuweather site, back in the days when Brett Anderson hardly ever snipped anyone.
However there is a big difference between being passionate and displaying malice. As soon as you allow your hot-headedness to brew up hate of the sort that twists Truth simply to hurt another, you are stepping beyond the bounds of civilized behavior.
The best way to avoid making a jack-ass of yourself in this manner is to cling to the Truth. Cling to Truth so hard your knuckles get white.
True scientists are able to debate furiously because they are all interested in the same Truth, and are looking at different sides of the same one Truth. Because Truth is honored, there is always the eventuality that the two sides will work out their differences.
Asst. Prof. Abraham needs to look hard into his mirror and ask himself whether he truly respected Truth, or whether he allowed himself to be warped, and to have his logic warped.
Personally I feel wiser heads should have snipped his comments. He would have been grumpy at first, but grateful later. Or, at least, that’s how I always feel, when I get snipped.
Dear Father Dease,
I suspect that by now you’re somewhat bewildered by the flow of email into your inbox on the issue of Professor Abraham and Lord Monckton. You have my sympathies. If you don’t mind, I would like to offer some unsolicited recommendations.
As I see it, you have a few options open to you:
(1) Back your man no matter what. Abraham: right or wrong. Of course, as a man well versed in morality and ethics, I’m sure you see the problems inherent here.
(2) Cut your losses, and jettison Abraham. Might be the right course, but leaves the rest of the faculty a little jumpy. Besides, Abraham might be right, who knows?
(3) Appoint a commission to conduct an inquiry. Follow the climate change lead of other universities under fire for questionable faculty activity–ensure that no contrary views are presented, and hope that the blogosphere doesn’t notice and the issue goes away. Good luck with that.
(4) Use this as a teaching opportunity for your students. Have Abraham remove the offending material (all the offending material) for the time being. Invite Monckton to your university to debate Abraham (and show him the courtesy you would any other guest), and let the students decide. If, after a student body vote, Monckton wins, then Abraham apologizes and the material goes away for good. If Abraham wins, then Monckton withdraws his complaint and charges of libel.
While it may be too late for it, I think option 4 is the closest you can come to “taking it outside,” without enriching a bunch of lawyers, namely, Monckton’s. No doubt you are looking at other options—equally tough choices that are fraught with the possibilities of painful litigation and institutional embarrassment, but wouldn’t it be nice to take a course of action that might actually benefit your students while doing credit to the intellectual integrity of your university?
Good luck to you, sir.
Cordially,
CDR Mark Bowlin, USN (Ret.)
Pamela: (at 0914)
Do you have a Starbucks or similar coffeehouse that includes Internet wireless? Such things may be in rural areas. They often have the fast Internet where it is difficult to find. A library might have the fast connections as well.
Also, “wireless” is usually a local area network, not an Internet provider. Do you have cable television? Most cable providers include a fast Internet connection.
Pamela-e-mail.me at bushy@mail.org with your contact address and I will send to you on CD ASAP, unless someone closer can do it for you. Am in the uk.
” Jan says:
July 14, 2010 at 7:29 am
I’ll believe “Lord” Moncton as soon as he has published a peer reviewed scientific paper on climate change. As far as I can tell, Prof. Abraham did a nice job. Please point out where he is wrong.”
You are kidding me right? Are you deliberately being a troll?
Read the response to John Abraham’s rebuttal by Viscount Monkton. (You can find the link on WUWT. It is NOT hard to find). You will find hundreds of instances where Lord Monkton shows factual errors, misrepresentations and outright lies by the Associate professor.
In fact the degree to which the very inept professor is wrong suggests that he had never even seen the presentation by Viscount Monkton and had ONLY seen the slides from the presentation, utterly misunderstood many of them, took others of them completely out of context, did not even bother to CHECK with the Viscount and hastily produced his libellous diatribe and spread it far and wide on the internet.
This is evidence of serious professional misconduct and he has brought his University into disrepute.
Do you really think that is a nice job? I think it is grounds for legal action in a court of law to seek redress and damages. The simple fact is, the Associate Professor is clearly very very wrong in a LOT of what his presentation alleges about Viscount Monkton, Viscount Monkton’s presentation and a lot of the science about climate change too.
Oh, sue away. Come on over, bring a box of wigs and lots of exhibits with House of Lords logos and wax seals and ribbands and such. We need the entertainment and you apparently need the education on American libel laws. You wouldn’t be the first self-important half-wit to be schooled by Larry Flynt (though perhaps the first VISSSScount.) But I’ll wager a guinea you puss out and do nothing but flail around with more weaselly questions and flying-monkey e-mail attacks aimed at the man’s boss. Coward, cowardly, cowardice–a white feather for you.
Abraham slaughtered you, or rather you slaughtered yourself and he did the hours of science spadework hang you up to ridicule. You probably didn’t expect that–most of us are too busy to dig up the particulars; we know a mountebank when we see one. That’s what it’s all about, you know–work. It takes time to chase down each lie, and when there are so many it can be daunting. He just took the necessary steps to shut you up. You’ve done some work, too–very impressive! Also very permanent! It takes five lies to justify a single truth even when your audience is lazy and already completely convinced. All that stuff, all on the record, your record: chaotic, inconsistent, bizarre, whinging, clownish, and wrong–and out there for all to see. Is it yours? Do you reject it? Fakes and lies. Props to Abraham for taking the time to organize each absurdity and show clearly that you’re a liar and a cheat as well as a fool.
You must attack, of course; you have no other course. It’s pretty clear you can’t do science–you can’t even do undergraduate math. Nobody else is doing any science you can use honestly (Lindzen and Choi have been debunked and dismembered…maybe you could use them still, maybe more of Mr. Soon’s oily prevarications, but no real science.)
Abraham is fully transparent. Do you claim those e-mails are fraudulent? Do you claim those aren’t your words, your slides, your citations? (where there are citations.) Not one or two or three–I count 22 clear and another 18 obvious and intentional misrepresentations. Not accidents, or vaguenesses, or misconstrued expressions, or cherry-pickings, or rosy-scenarios–intentional misrepresentations. You say libel? I say fraud, lie, fake, cheat, cheat, fake, lie, fraud, repeat if necessary. You were a lawyer–enough to disbar. You were a professor (assistant or not)–enough to fire, tenure or no.
By the way, you’re only a liar and a cheat if you claim to be a scientist–drop any pretense of scientific inquiry and you’re just a fool preaching to a choir of fools. What will it be? Even under the UK’s lord-leaning libel laws, you can’t very well squeal when the speech in question is direct and decisive refutation of your own statements quoted, made in a public forum and distributed widely with your permission. Truth is a defense (if any defense is needed from such puffery) and what Abraham has published is true. I stomached 29 of your questions, and did not find a single attempted refutation of Abraham’s charges in scientific terms–you didn’t even try.
ice9
REPLY: Ah, ranting bluster from an anonymous coward, I say good show lad. Come back when you grow a spine and can say those words with your name attached. -A
” Mike says:
July 14, 2010 at 7:53 am
If you cannot argue, sue and censor. Many posters here criticized Mann for demanded his copyrighted image not be used in a video.”
Mike, you are clearly as ignorant about the difference between rational argument and slander as you are about the science of climate change.
Associate professor is NOT presenting an argument about the science, or moving the science forward at all. He is making a fool of himself and his University by misinterpreting a simple to understand presentation, making hundreds of errors in this and libelling the author.
Associate Professor Abraham has not managed to ascend to the level of argument yet.
Doug Jones says:
July 14, 2010 at 8:39 am
“I had to chime in, too-
<blockquote cite=………
(here’s hoping the blockquote formatting works- haven’t tried it before.)"
Sorry Doug, fail. But the sentiment was good!
Pasted below is a copy of my e-mail to St. Thomas U. I would have sent a copy to Monckton if I had an e-mail address for him:
As a practicing Catholic, I am appalled that one of your ass. profs of mechanical engineering would be preaching Al Gore’s new theoretical global warming ecoreligion. As a retired Professional Engineer licensed in New Jersey, I am dismayed by what seems to be a pile of unproven, unprofessional, non-engineering, unscientific rubbish that Abraham is promoting from your erstwhile distinguished University.
Maybe he would be more credible teaching in your school of EcoDivinity. I sincerely hope that no funds or services were stolen or misallocated from a Catholic University to attack Britain’s distinguished Lord Monckton in such a shamefully vile manner as was done by Abraham recently. I hope you will fully investigate this possibility.
Robert Paglee, Sr.
Mark Bowlin,
I hope your message is read by the good Father Dease. Well done!
The good news is that the warmists after claiming “the science is settled’ and “nothing to talk about” are debating the skeptics. Even better news is that they are really in a pile of sh..t if the best they can put forward is the pathetic attempt by Abraham.
As I said in the original blog:
The first thing I question is what axe does John Abraham have to grind?
It is obvious the purpose of John Abraham’s smear tactic was to discredit Lord Monckton or he would have confirmed his statements with Lord Monckton first.
I’m very surprised Father Dease finds this to be professional conduct becoming a professor of St. Thomas University. Has Father Dease commented on John Abraham’s lack of response and actions yet? [apparently he has not]
=====
John Abraham’s presentation is on the University server and uses the University’s emblem in the slides. Doesn’t this imply John Abraham is presenting on behalf of St. Thomas University and thus Father Dease?
On behalf of St. Thomas, the first thing Father Dease should have done, when first contacted by Lord Monckton, was to request Professor Abraham to post a retraction stating that his presentation “does not represent the views of the University…”.
This is beyond foolish, when will someone at St. Thomas step forward and protect the interest of the University and their Science programs? Or, does the entire faculty endorse Professor Abraham’s methodology and conclusions?
To be honest Lord Monckton, I would be afraid of what I might say to a Provost who appears to have such little regard for the University’s published principals. But, I’ll try to draft and send something proactive later today.
Best Regards,
John from CA
“chek says:
July 14, 2010 at 8:19 am
So pointing out your egregious and multiple “errors” with references is “libel” now is it? We have a saying in the UK, “all mouth and trousers” which I’m sure Mr. (note: not “Lord”) Monckton will understand as it applies to him.”
Now you are just making a fool of yourself. Viscount Monkton IS a member of the House of Lords and IS entitled to use the title of “Lord” as he has this hereditary title.
As for your other desperate attempt to describe Abraham’s Libel as “pointing out your egregious and multiple “errors” with references” I think you have neither watched the full presentation, nor read Lord Monkton’s original response to the rebuttal which points out hundreds of factual errors of the kind that can ONLY come about from not even seeing the full presentation, but only in seeing the slides separately and then misunderstanding them, their context or what was ACTUALLY being presented and then knee-jerking into a wholly inaccurate and error-filled diatribe dressed as rebuttal based entirely on ignorance, malice aforethought and arrogance in equal measure.
At least have the common decency to take the time to educate yourself by reading Viscount (not Mr) Monkton’s response to Associate Professor John Abraham and then come back and apologise for making a fool of yourself.
Could you add a link to the full correspondence referred to in the article?
“Several of you have posted up comments asking to see the full (and entertaining) correspondence between me, the professor, his university, and its lawyers. The ever-splendid Joanne Nova is kindly hosting the correspondence, “
Pamela Gray says:
July 14, 2010 at 9:14 am
“I’m on dial up and on a waiting list for wireless. We here in rural NE Oregon have little access to the internet. Is there some other way to produce this material? I can’t download either though I am fully equipped computer wise to read the material. It just takes too long to download resulting in the dialup connection hanging up on me.”
Pamela,
I have copied and pasted the document into word and saved in .docx (193 KB), .doc (370 KB) and .rtf (804 KB) format. It’s perfectly readable (and you would be able to change fonts and colours to suit you), but alas does not contain the images (graphs, etc) he refers to. Nonetheless, you can probably infer most of that from the text.
If you’d like me to send it to you by email attachment, please contact me here: mickjo at live dot co dot uk, specifying which version you’d prefer, and I’d be happy to send it as an attachment.