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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“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. ”
This misses the point completely. The abuse of science is usually decided by scientists, or by investigative committees of scientsts, not by student debates. Besides, I would guess Monckton is the better debater. Why should Abraham allow his opponent to choose his best weapon?
Abraham basically accused Monckton of misrepresenting the published papers of scientists to make false claims. I think he made a convincing case – of course, you are at liberty to disagree with that.
Monckton clearly has most to lose. Attacking climate change is his main meal ticket. Contrary to what he claims in this post, the University of St. Thomas is not backing down, but are allowing Prof Abraham to keep his original rebuttal, snark and all, on the faculty website.
Monckton has a clear choice – as he is not a scientist or belong to a scientific institution, he has no recourse to ask that institution to investigate the competing claims. As well, recall how convinced people on this site were by the clearing of Michael Mann by Penn State!
His only recourse, it seems to me, is to the courts – which will be long, arduous and run the risk of expensive failure, leaving him worse off than before. Otherwise, he could just continue to proclaim his rectitude, and move on. My advice to him would be to take the second option.
Why not be honest, Anthony, and simply filter all dissenting opinions out.
[REPLY – We never edit out dissenting opinions that are either constructive or polite. ~ Evan]
The threat to expose information about the writers of dissenting posts will stop people posting.
If Anthony had wished to email me and ask me to expose my location, or at the very most publicly stated the type of organisation from where my post came, then that is fine in showing up any “agenda” I may be perceived to have.
I assume that most posters’ anonymity is respected if they prefer not to give their full names.
But my opinions are expressed as personal opinions, and can only be expressed openly by being circumspect.
I apologise to Anthony for calling him a lickspittle. Reading too much of Monckton’s flowery language put me in creative-insult mode.
Steve Milesworthy,
“In the UK we have a name for people like Watts who sycophantically defend Monckton’s “honour” from the hilarious attack by posters such as ice9 –”
Well Steve, I found only 1 reply to ice9’s diatribe, and that was a one sentence reply to a ludicrous claim made, not against Monckton, the subject of this blog, but bizarrely against Lindzen and Choi. And you know what? The diatribe of your hero, ice9 was so beneath contempt, that nobody even bothered.
Steve Milesworthy says:
July 15, 2010 at 12:39 am
If you just have a blog policy that says “no dissenting opinions allowed” then that would be a little clearer.
I used to post quite regularly at climateaudit and never got this treatment. I had lots of constructive and polite debates there with people such as Steve Mosher. I learnt a lot there that helps me do my job better. I’ve learnt little here.
Why not be honest, Anthony, and simply filter all dissenting opinions out.
===================================
That would be RealClimate.
Well, thanks for clarifying, Steve. Your sarcasm escaped me. Obviously that is much better. I’m glad to be mistaken on that point, for obvious reasons.
As you’ll see, I had no major issue with you using your employer’s computer with their permission, if not actually on the clock at the time, and if the exact same permission would be given to a person with a view opposing yours (with no retaliation at work).
Well it helped that I halfway agreed with you, although not on the climate science itself, assuming you believe CO2 is a significant and dangerous forcer of global warming.
Dave McK: July 14, 2010 at 1:41 pm
If, given the irrefutable libel, Mr. Monckton chooses to release the man unscathed, he will have confirmed them in their habits and demonstrated the measure of his own tolerance for dispute. If the AGW clan becomes convinced that even Mr. Monckton can be okie-doked out of a victory even when it is in his lap, then the license is given for unconstrained pillage.
One evening, I watched the Duty Officer chastise a pilot who persisted in taking a transmission oil sample from the helicopter before each flight.
Since the oil was sampled every 50 flight hours, taking an additional sample was unnecessary, and was against facility policy. Doing it wasted oil, and, since the drain valve wasn’t designed for rapid opening and closing (as the fuel sump drain valve is), excess oil usually formed a large puddle beneath the aircraft before the valve closed, necessitating a Spill Response (thanks, NJDEP).
The pilot had been told every day for two weeks to desist. When the Duty Officer saw him crawl under the aircraft to open the transmission drain valve, he walked out onto the ramp, grabbed the pilot’s heels, yanked him from beneath the aircraft and delivered a right cross to his jaw.
From that night on, that particular pilot was a model of decorum.
As the Duty Officer explained to me as he passed me on the ramp, “Sometimes, ya just gotta lump ’em.”
Joe Spencer says:
July 15, 2010 at 2:19 am
John from CA says: July 14, 2010 at 10:20 pm
Or , enthusiasm aside, perhaps it was just the language.
===========
I agree and, not that its a good excuse, I didn’t realize at the time I posted that the comments sections was for “We the undersigned offer unreserved support for John Abraham and St. Thomas University”.
I also realized this morning that the blog software they are using drops comments that receive too many negative votes. I’m reasonably sure my comment got the max so — “Stupid is as Stupid does” applies to me.
@ur momisugly James Sexton
I scrolled down to the last comment on this page then slowly scrolled up until I reached a comment that actually refered to any of the points Monckton makes to see if I could research it.
“For instance, when Monckton asks questions such as 80: If you agree that the graph shows what I say it shows, why did you snidely remark, “On this slide he says, ‘Sea ice is growing in the Beaufort Sea’: I’m not making that up” (15), if one does a bit of research, you’ll see Monckton was correct.”
OK I am not a scientist but let’s do a bit of research –
Question 80 is contained in the “Extent of Beaufort Sea Ice” section and includes questions 78 through to 85.
Re. questions 79,82 and 83 –
Monckton states that his graph represents a “22-year period” “22 years” and “almost a quarter of a century”. He also states “that it is an abuse of statistical technique to rely on very short periods of observation”.
Well first off the graph is clearly labeled 1991-2003 which, if my maths is correct, amounts to only 12 years. Secondly, why does Monckton refer to the “Aristotelian logical fallacy” when that is precisely the mistake he is making himself ?
Re question 81 –
Monckton asks why Abraham did not contact him to obtain a citation for his graph (which I suppose you could argue is fair enough comment) but then continues to provide no citation. Well luckily Abraham was able to track it down and here is a link to a pdf of the actual paper containing the original graph –
http://www.spaceweather.ac.cn/publication/jgrs/2005/Geolphsical%20Research%20Letters/dec/2005GL024483.pdf
Re question 80 –
I have just read the whole paper it is only 5 pages long. Some of it is highly technical but I believe I can make the following points –
The actual graph that Monckton has copied is Figure 4. and shows concentration (extent) and draft (thickness) of pack ice at one site over a 12 year period. There are 2 trend lines on the graph, 1 show’s a slight upward trend for ice concentration and 1 show’s a slight downward trend for ice draft. The graph also shows monthly data for concentration and draft.
Note that: no particular element of the graph is given prominence, the graph only covers a 12 year period, the graph does not show trend lines for seasonal concentration and draft (which is very important – see figure 5 for instance, showing ice concentration in September with a downward trend) and the graph is only one element within a paper, that is itself only one paper amongst many others, that only refers to a particular set of data, from a particular site up until 2003.
Now what does Monckton do with this graph ? He takes it completely out of context, draws a thick red line over the concentration trend line, adds the words “Sea ice extent in the Beaufort Sea is growing” and states ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zOXmJ4jd-8 0:28:35 ) “…the Beaufort sea has shown if anything a slight increase in the amount of sea ice available over the last 30 or 40 years, so there is no basis whatsoever for his suggestion that the polar bears were having to swim up to 60 miles to find ice. The whole story was a fiction…”
“30 or 40 years” ? No 12 years !
Also the graph show’s a trend line AVERAGE over 12 years. It does not show a trend line average for PARTICULAR TIMES of the year. Do Polar Bears exist in an alternate universe where they are swimming towards sea ice averagely in over 4000 days all at the same time ?
This is classic cherry picking and over simplification. Monckton is using slight of hand combined with a erudite and convincing stage presence to fool the audience.
Anthony, you posted this “A stasi-esque master list of skeptical scientists” about the PNAS paper. If you are so concerned about the potential for harrassment, why do you post Monckton’s invitation to harrass Abraham? “Please contact Father Dennis J. Dease, President of St. Thomas University, … to instigate a disciplinary inquiry.” It’s just an attempt to bully an opponent into silence.
Let me get this straight. Lord Monckton ( not his real name) advertises himself a Catholic and proclaims that Parliament has no authority, that only the Queen does.
What happened to the last one of those?
Dear Dr. Dease;
Regretfully, Dr. Abraham’s attack on Lord Monckton represents an abuse of academic freedom and— unless authorized— a usurpation of the University of St. Thomas’ reputation and resources in what is clearly a personal vendetta.
It would be wise to disengage the University from this unfortunate partisan episode before it spirals further out of your control.
Very truly yours,
Chek at 8.19 am july 14
Are you English? You clearly don’t understand an old English saying.
It is NOT “All mouth and trousers” it is “All mouth and NO trousers” meaning someone full of loud mouthed oral aggression but without the balls for a fight.
Get it now ?
The request for many to contact Father Dennis J. Dease is a mistake and should be recognised as such (a double-strikethrough of the blog text between “May I ask your kind readers” and “a real help” would be nice).
The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley and St. Thomas University have already access to all the necessary resources to get to the bottom of this dispute in a legal manner, amicable or otherwise, and personally, I have a strong distaste for internet campaigns of all sorts.
Quentin says: “Monckton asks why Abraham did not contact him to obtain a citation for his graph…”
I don’t get this. A similar point came up over at Deltoid, where someone said:
“most scientists would at least write an email requesting citations.”
My reply: no, they wouldn’t. Same as any academic, they would expect properly referenced work to be the norm – not to have to chase people asking where they got their information. We fail undergrads for not producing properly referenced work.
How does Monckton expect to be taken seriously if he’s asking others to contact him for reference details? As I say, without proper referencing, if he was doing an undergrad course he’d fail it.
Joe Spencer says:
July 14, 2010 at 2:23 pm (Edit)
chek says:
July 14, 2010 at 8:19 am
“Btw, where is this alleged legal correspondence with Mr. Monckton’s “hard headed lawyers” hiding? It appears yesterday was the last update on Nova’s site and there was no indication of future tense from Mr. Chris, and even Nova’s coterie of commenters don’t seem to be aware of it.
More of your characterisitic bluff, Mr. Monckton?”
Give her a break. She’s now doubt preparing a piece on it, illustrated with cartoons in that inimitable style of hers.
If Monckton says it will appear there, then have no doubt… it will.
It has.
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/07/abraham-surrenders-to-monckton-uni-of-st-thomas-endorses-untruths
Not sending a letter
catch and kill, mount and display, Indeed!
Lord M , Finish him!!
Has Anthony Watts sent an email demanding Father Dease both launch an academic inquiry and remove the presentation from the internet?
I’d be very interested to learn the answer to that question.
I’m guessing … no.
Quentin Wallace at 6:26 AM gives a serious and hard-hitting critique of a memorable part of Christopher Monckton’s presentation regarding sea ice in the Beaufort Sea.
AGW Skeptics pride themselves on being being able to think objectively, without bias.
While I am inclined to agree that AGW is a misguided theory, and that the truer risk is another ice age because we are near the end of an interglacial period assuming past trends hold, I can’t help but believe he has been fair in his criticism.
Will Christopher Monckton explain these discrepancies to us? If in error, will he admit this error and revise his rebuttal? If correct, will he demonstrate where Wallace has gone wrong?
Dear Christoph Dollis,
In review of the cycles, I may have misunderstood the authors on the various web sites, which is all I have available, is the Earth’s elliptical orbit is in our favor of sustaining some of the global warming and the axis tilt is at a favorable 23.5 degrees.
The missing element for sustaining global warming as we know it for the last 2 decades is a favorable sunspot cycle totalling between a total mean of 650 to 950. We are looking at less than 200 total sunspot mean for this cycle that began 30 months ago.
According to Joseph D’Aleo, this cycle will have a twin. If it has two more siblings like it in size, we can and will know that we are in a mini-ice age for the rest of this 100 years.
Considering the size of the world’s population, global this and global that will be another story like “The Tower of Babel” handed down through generations.
It will get rough and tough!
There are herds of deer in Alaska where Bucks are taking on doe likeness. Is this protection against growing wolf packs following man as he moves south? I would love to be around to record that history. We may be seeing the actual adaptation of a species for the next mini-ice age.
Sincerely,
Paul Pierett
Thank you for the information, Paul.
That was very interesting.
I do not know whether we are nearing the beginning of an ice age (I still remember the late 70s when our teachers were trying to scare us with concerns of one — well, that and the nukes, which were real — no slight to my teachers themselves, they were great). I am sure, however, that the next ice age, when it comes, will bite.
Seeing this comment thread, I am a little mystified by the love affair people here have for Monckton. Sure, he has a compelling oratory style, but just because he sounds good on video doesn’t mean he’s automatically correct. His “Response to John Abraham” doesn’t read as well as he speaks, in fact it reads like a haphazard pile of failed attempts at baited questions. It makes me wonder whether people here who unabashedly praise Monckton’s response has even read it.
For instance, question 17:
>Please provide a full academic resume [which was in italics for some odd reason]. Though you have described yourself as a “professor” (3, 62) more than once in this presentation, are you in fact an associate professor?
What does that have to do with anything? Even if it was relevant, why is calling yourself a “professor,” when you in fact are a professor, a problem? And question 60:
>in 2005, the very year Gore was making his movie with its menace of an
imminent 20 ft sea-level rise, he bought a $4 million condo in the St. Regis Tower, San Francisco
Again, what does that have to do with anything? Is Abraham now responsible for Gore’s property-buying decisions? It seems to me that Monckton is flinging hundreds of irrelevant nonsense questions rather than straightforwardly rebutting anything Abraham states.
Earlier in the thread some people claimed that Abraham’s presentation was boring, as if that somehow removed all merit from his arguments. What about this blog’s insistence that Abraham’s presentation be removed? At worst, Abraham is guilty of being slightly snarky. Maybe he should have contacted Monckton before posting his presentation. But he clearly avoided making any statements about Monckton’s character and only attacked his presentation (the main reason why Monckton is so unlikely to win a libel suit). What’s worse is people here are calling for the university to discipline John Abraham. The hypocrisy (remember how everyone jumped on Mann for getting that youtube video removed?) and attempt at censorship here is completely disgusting.
I quite enjoyed doing the research on the “Extent of Beaufort Sea Ice” section (Quentin Wallace says: July 15, 2010 at 6:26 am) so I thought I might check out some more of Monckton’s questions/assertions.
A section that caught my eye was “Arctic sea ice extent”, “30-year loss of Arctic sea ice” and “The Greenland ice sheet”.
Preliminary thoughts on this section are centered around: the use of graphs out of context to give false impressions, the difference between AREA (sea-ice extent) and VOLUME (area x draft (depth)) and whether this could be a source of any misrepresentations (if they occur). I’ll need to find all the papers cited in this section first and have a read. I may be some time.
In the meantime here are 2 that jumped out at me that Abraham didn’t respond to –
Re question 455 –
“…are you not truly astonished to find that in the Central England Temperature Record, compiled since 1659 and, because of its latitude and other regional characteristics, a reasonable proxy for global temperature anomalies, shows that in the 40 years 1695-1735, before the Industrial Revolution even began, Central England temperature rose by 4 F°, a rate eight or nine times greater than the warming of the 20th century?”
Erm No I am not astonished because –
1. How one set of readings taken in the Midlands of England in the 15th/16th century can possibly be described as “a reasonable proxy for global temperature anomalies” is beyond me.
2. A quick search will also reveal such information as “Between 1723 and the 1760s most observations were taken not from outside measurements but from indoor readings in unheated rooms, and thus are of little or no use.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_England_temperature
I think we can probably conclude that Monckton’s assertion that “Temperature rose 2.2 C in the 35 years 1700-1735” is at best tenuous and at worst just wrong.
Re question 456 –
“…why were you silent when confronted with the above visual evidence, from the US Department of Defense, showing that half a century ago its DEW-line early-warning radar stations were standing proud of the ice, while now the allegedly melting ice is accumulating rapidly around them?”
Well probably because this is a ridiculous statement to make.
A number of points –
1. They are built on the ice.
2. They have been abandoned for I think 22 years.
2. Any object just left sitting on ice will sink over time.
3. I could go on here but it is just plainly silly.
Haha it’s not just me – In the process of searching on the net I came accross these 2 blog posts that address the same 2 questions in further depth –
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/07/this-is-where-eli-came-in.html
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-goes-up-often-melts-down.html
Admittedly these 2 were quite easy to criticise.
Damn I’ll have to get researching fast on the above sections.
And another thing – Am I the only one who is bored with all the – lawyer/libel/defemation/apologise/pay money – talk ?
Erm what about the science ?
Alex said:
I think Anthony Watts is more giving his ally and friend a forum to defend himself, rather than taking sides (beyond that).
In the first Monckton rebuttal response thread, Watts pointedly said he had no dog in the fight. My comment at 8:30 AM obliquely touches on this point.
Other than this and your giving Abraham’s presentation more credit than it may deserve, a point you made is well taken: Monckton’s good rebuttal points were obscured unnecessarily.
The comments here generally have the same level of content and style as Lord Monckton’s science. It’s sad that, rather than defend his work, he diverts the issue from subject content to personal reputation.
There’s a lot of comments about the presentation and the rebuttal, but there are clear indications those commenting failed to read both, and possibly neither. It’s a very long, and a very weak, thread. It’s another brick in the wall for Anti-Science Syndrome, imo.