Readers may recall this piece Monckton’s Schenectady showdown in which he schools a number of students despite “en-masse” collections (to use Donald Rodbell’s words) of naysayers. Mr. Rodbell and Erin Delman, pictured below, wrote this essay (which I’ve excerpted below) in their student newspaper The Concordiensis, citing their angst that Monckton was speaking.
A lord’s opinion can’t compete with scientific truth
Erin Delman (left), President of the Environmental Club, debates with Monckton – photo by Charlotte Lehman | Department Chair and Professor of Geology Donald Rodbell (right) asks Lord Christopher Monckton a question at the event on the “other side” of global warming. – photo by Rachel Steiner, Concordiensis
By Donald Rodbell and Erin Delman in Opinions | March 7, 2012
As Earth scientists, we were torn. The College Republicans and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) were hosting Lord Monckton, a globally recognized climate skeptic, on Mon., March 5, and we were not quite sure how to respond. Frankly, the sentiment vacillated between utter disgust and sheer anger. On one hand, it seemed ludicrous to give Monckton a second of time or thought. On the other, however, dismissing him and allowing his speech without rejection risked that he would have an impact, and a dangerous one at that.
And thus, the college environmentalists – including Environmental Club members, the leaders and members of U-Sustain, concerned citizens, and renowned Earth scientists with PhDs from prestigious research institutions – decided to oppose the presence of Lord Monckton on our campus. We collected en-masse before his presentation to make it unambiguously clear that we would not allow such erroneous discourse to go unnoticed.
…
Lord Monckton does not stand alone in his beliefs on this issue; however, 97 percent of scientists overwhelmingly oppose his viewpoint. He kept asserting that this debate must follow a rigorous, science-based approach, and that the consensus of experts is, by itself, an insufficient basis on which to decide the veracity of the evidence for significant human-induced global warming.
…
Serious scientific debate cannot be carried out in the blogosphere, nor in highly charged and politically motivated presentations either by Lord Monckton or by Al Gore. The fact of the matter is that science has spoken, the overwhelming bulk of the evidence has shown very, very clearly that global warming is occurring and is at least mostly caused by humans. While scientific consensus can be wrong, it most often is not.
[end excerpts]
===============================================================
Sigh, there’s that ridiculous 97% figure again. You’d think these “educated” people would bother to check such things before mindlessly regurgitating them and making themselves look like sycophants. And then there’s this: “Serious scientific debate cannot be carried out in the blogosphere…” well, then, PLEASE tell that to the RealClimate team so they stop trying to do that on the taxpayers dime.
It seems Erin Delman is training to be a professional enviro-legal troublemaker…
She is interested in pursuing a joint Ph.D. and law degree in geology and environmental law and is considering a career in environmental policy, particularly involving water rights.
…so I suppose I’m not surprised at this article. With that California background and water rights bent, I predict she’ll be joining the Pacific Institute to supplement Gleick’s mission.
Full article here: A lord’s opinion can’t compete with scientific truth
===============================================================
Monckton responds in comments to that article
Monckton of Brenchley March 16, 2012 at 2:34 pm | Permalink
Oh, come off it, Professor!
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Professor Donald Rodbell’s personal attack on me in Concordiensis (“A Lord’s Opinion Can’t Compete with Scientific Truth”) deserves an answer. The Professor does not seem to be too keen on freedom of speech: on learning that I was to address students at Union College, he said that he “vacillated between utter disgust and sheer anger”. My oh my!
The Professor should be reminded of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech”. I exercised freedom of speech at Union College. The Professor may disagree with what I said (though his article is lamentably unspecific about what points in my lecture – if any – he disagreed with); but, under the Constitution, he may not deny or abridge my right to say it.
He and his fellow climate extremists ought not, therefore, to have talked of “opposing the presence of Lord Monckton”: for that would be to abridge my freedom of speech. It would have been fair enough for the Professor to talk of opposing my arguments – yet that, curiously, is what his rant in Concordiensis entirely fails to do.
The Professor says it is certain that “the world is warming, climatic patterns are changing, and humans are a driving force”. Let us look at these three statements in turn.
– The world is not warming at present. It has not been warming for almost a decade and a half, though it has been warming since 1695. In the 40 years to 1735, before the Industrial Revolution even began, the temperature in Central England (not a bad proxy for global temperatures) rose by 4 Fahrenheit degrees, compared with just 1 F° in the whole of the 20th century.
– Climatic patterns are indeed changing. But they have been changing for 4,567 million years, and they will go on changing long into the future. However, the fact of climate change does not tell us the cause of climate change.
– Humans are indeed exercising some influence. Indeed, though the Professor implies otherwise, I stated explicitly in my lecture that the IPCC might be right in saying that more than half of the warming since 1950 was caused by us. However, that tells us little about how much warming we may expect in future. My best estimate is that the CO2 we add to the atmosphere this century will cause around 1 C° of warming by 2100. But that is not far short of the IPCC’s own central estimate of 1.5 C°.
Next, the Professor asserts, without any evidence, that “97% of scientists overwhelmingly oppose [Monckton’s] viewpoint”. Overlooking the tautology (the word “overwhelmingly” should have been omitted), as far as I am aware there has been no survey of scientists or of public opinion generally to determine how many oppose my viewpoint. I am aware of two surveys in which 97% of scientists asserted that the world had warmed in the past 60 years: but, in that respect, they agree with my viewpoint. No survey has found 97% of scientists agreeing with the far more extreme proposition that unchecked emissions of CO2 will be very likely to cause dangerous global warming. And, even if there had been such a survey, the notion that science is done by head-counting in this way is the shop-worn logical fallacy of the argumentum ad populum – the headcount fallacy. That fallacy was first described by Aristotle 2300 years ago, and it is depressing to see a Professor trotting it out today.
Science is not done by headcount among scientists. It is done by measurement, observation, and experiment, and by the application of established theory to the results. Until Einstein, 100% of scientists thought that time and space were invariant. They were all wrong. So much for consensus.
Next, the Professor says I made “numerous inaccuracies and mis-statements”. Yet he does not mention a single one in his article, which really amounts to mere hand-waving. He then asserts that I have “no interest whatsoever in pursuing a truly scientific approach”. Those who were present, however, will be aware that I presented large quantities of data and analysis demonstrating that the principal conclusions of each of the four IPCC climate assessments are defective; that the warming to be expected from a doubling of CO2 is 1 C°; and that, even if 21st-century warming were 3 C°, it would still be 10-100 times cheaper and more cost-effective to do nothing now and adapt in a focused way later than to try to stop the warming by controlling CO2.
The Professor goes on to say that “the fundamental building block of all science is peer-reviewed publications”. No: rigorous thought is the cornerstone of science. That is what is lacking in the IPCC’s approach. All of its principal conclusions are based on modeling. However, not one of the models upon which it relies has been peer-reviewed. Nor is any of the IPCC’s documents peer-reviewed in the accepted sense. There are reviewers, but the authors are allowed to override them, and that is not peer review at all. That is how the IPCC’s deliberate error about the alleged disappearance of all Himalayan glaciers by 2035 was not corrected. Worse, almost one-third of all references cited in the IPCC’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report were not peer-reviewed either. They were written by environmental campaigners, journalists and even students. That is not good enough.
Next, the Professor says that, in not publishing my own analysis of “global warming” in a reviewed journal, I am “fundamentally non-scientific”. Yet he does not take Al Gore to task for never having had anything published in a reviewed journal. Why this disfiguring double standard? The most important thing, surely, is to shut down the IPCC, whose approach – on the Professor’s own peer-review test – is “fundamentally non-scientific”.
The Professor goes on to say, “It is impossible to scrutinize [Monckton’s] methods, calculations, and conclusions without a complete and detailed peer-reviewed publication that presents the important details.” On the contrary: my slides are publicly available, and they show precisely how I reached my conclusions, with numerous references to the peer-reviewed literature and to the (non-peer-reviewed) IPCC assessment reports.
Next, the Professor says that “rather substantial errors” were pointed out to me at Union College. Yet in every case I was able to answer the points raised: and, here as elsewhere, the Professor is careful not to be specific about what “errors” I am thought to have made. I pointed out some very serious errors in the documents of the IPCC: why does the Professor look the other way when confronted with these “official” errors? Once again, a double standard seems to be at work.
The Professor ends by saying that “science has spoken” and that, “while scientific consensus can be wrong, it most often is not”. Well, the eugenics consensus of the 1920s, to the effect that breeding humans like racehorses would improve the stock, was near-universally held among scientists, but it was wrong, and it led directly to the dismal rail-yards of Oswiecim and Treblinka. The Lysenko consensus of the 1940s and 1950s, to the effect that soaking seed-corn in water over the winter would help it to germinate, wrecked 20 successive Soviet harvests and killed 20 million of the proletariat. The ban-DDT consensus of the 1960s has led to 40 million malaria deaths in children (and counting), 1.25 million of them lasts year alone. The don’t-stop-AIDS consensus of the 1980s has killed 33 million, with another 33 million infected and waiting to die.
The climate “consensus” is also killing millions by diverting billions of dollars from helping the poor to enriching governments, bureaucrats, bankers, landowners, windfarm scamsters, and environmentalist racketeers, and by denying to the Third World the fossil-fueled electricity it so desperately needs. It is time to stop the killing. If arguing for a more rational and scientifically-based policy will bring the slaughter of our fellow citizens of this planet to an end, then I shall continue to argue for it, whether the Professor likes it or not.
He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself.
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I’ve been mulling over the “utter disgust and sheer anger” statement. I can only conclude that they actually believe mankind is ruining the planet and Lord Monckton is hindering progress toward “healing the planet” for personal gain, basically to them he’s a charlatan of the worst sort, something akin to a miracle medical treatment con artist in the process of conning a family member into costly and ineffective treatments in lieu real treatments to the detriment of the family member. Certainly, the presence of such a charlatan would incite feelings of utter disgust and sheer anger. How would I deal with such a con artist? Discredit the treatments by proving the treatments are ineffective and potentially detrimental if I could. Discredit the con artist by proving the con artist is a scoundrel if I couldn’t discredit the treatments. Appeal to authority by imploring the family member to seek a second opinion from what I consider a reputable medical professional if I couldn’t successfully discredit the treatments or the charlatan. If all else fails, I’d have to attempt to separate the charlatan from my obviously brainwashed family member any way I could. Obviously, the “rules” of civil debate and logic are meaningless to me in this situation; I wouldn’t care whether I’d have to use ad hominem attacks or any other logical fallacy to save my family member from such a swindler. This seems to be the same strategy the advocates for action on climate change take with respect to skeptics. So, that’s what we’re up against, except everything is turned upside down, it’s like we’re in some twilight zone where the doctors prescribe snake oil and the traveling salesmen are providing antibiotics. Can reason, logic, and evidence be successfully employed in such a situation? Perhaps not to those that feel a familial connection to Mother Earth and have acquired a religious like belief that man is defiling the planet, but maybe to those as of yet to be indoctrinated it may have an effect. I hope so.
I think that’s why they fear Lord Monckton so much; his cool, calm, and collected manner has a way of projecting a principled character that’s incompatible with that of a charlatan; while the leadership of the advocates of taking action on climate change project just the opposite. I may not always agree with him and of course he makes mistakes occasionally (he’s human), but his stand against this epic railroad (unjust conviction) of humanity for global bureaucratic empowerment is indeed inspirational.
Hugh Pepper says:
March 17, 2012 at 1:27 pm
Well said Smokey. You certinly have a way with words.
Mr Monckton is universally criticized because HE has not provided “evidence” for his numerous assertions. Are you defended him? If so on what basis? And by the way, Cook and Abrahams have thoroughly debunked Monckton’s assertions. Everyone who follows this conversation must be aware of this.
Hugh – you have not read or listened to Lord Monckton’s presentation.
He provided evidence in the form of quoted ‘peer reviewed’ papers for everything he said. Indeed, he caused somewhat of a stir by _agreeing with the IPCC_ in some of what he said. You would discard what the IPCC said and demand evidence? You would not be welcome with the IPCC lead authors and reviewers as _they_ don’t expect evidence or even peer reviewed papers. You will also see that Lord Monckton scrupulously quotes the papers his evidence is based on, much of it references in the IPCC reports. So if ‘Cook and Abrahams’ have thoroughly debunked these assertions then they will also not find favor with the IPCC. Perhaps you are unaware that you are falling into the trap of always disagreeing, even when it is papers in support of your cause that have been quoted – an inverted confirmation bias?
“we were not quite sure how to respond. Frankly, the sentiment vacillated between utter disgust and sheer anger.”
———————————————————————
Your sentiments vacillate? May whatever deity (or none) that we subscribe to save us from a world where the owners of vacillating sentiments have any role that affects other people:
Vacillate – Synonyms:
waver – wobble – hesitate – oscillate – fluctuate
OK, that was shooting fish in a barrel. Being an airhead is unfortunate, but probably not malicious.
But then we got:
Michael Palmer says:
March 17, 2012 at 1:07 pm
While I don’t doubt Monckton’s good intentions, I don’t think his panoply of failed consensus helps his case; none of them hold even a drop of water.
Eugenics may or may not work – the fact of the matter is that it has not been tried (and I’m not suggesting that it should). The extermination campaigns of the Nazis may have been influenced by, but certainly are not the same as a planned breeding program; nor can it be assumed that most people who would support planned breeding would support murder.
————————————————————-
This is another kettle of fish. The whole point about eugenics (apart from the ethical issues) is that it doesn’t exist in a scientific sense. The ‘science’ which was so consensual in the 1920s and 30s right across the Western world about improving the human race was complete bunkum – as even the cause of Godwin’s Law was told by his own scientists at the time.
It is chilling to read that someone in this day and age, long after eugenics was disproved as well as dismissed as morally bankrupt, uses it as a first example of how Chris Monckton’s list of failures of consensus science does not ‘hold even a drop of water.’
You have not got the faintest idea what you are talking about. Your knowledge of genetics is apparently gleaned from the tabloids, or perhaps the darker corners of the internet.
Others may wish to take issue with your later points, but your opening salvo was so wrong, on so many levels, for so many reasons, that you can only have strengthened Monckton’s case.
Hugh Pepper,
Based on your post at 1:27 pm, I popped the words “Cook Abrahams debunk Monckton” into my search engine (sans quotes) and came up with this link.
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/07/abraham-surrenders-to-monckton-uni-of-st-thomas-endorses-untruths/
I suspect this is not what you had in mind. Would you be so kind as to provide a couple of on topic links that support your point of view.
Another account of the talk in Concordiensis by Gabriella Levine and Ceillie Keane, on 7 March, included the following comment by a former student who graduated in 1987:
“As Union enters its 217th year, however, 200 years of heritage have come and gone, as has the decorum once proudly displayed by Union students and their professors. I am ashamed of those among you who lack the intellect to rationally confront logic and reason, and who then resort to name calling, ad hominem attacks, and post script mendacity when you fail in open debate. I am also ashamed of the culture that permits these hysterics and the appalling lack of leadership demonstrated by the current faculty. Alternately, I applaud the dwindling number of you who value and promote Union’s eroding heritage of plurality and open debate. It is the latter few who give me hope for Union’s future. I wish you great success and look forward to seeing you this May.”
http://www.concordy.com/article/news/march-7-2012/lord-monckton-fuels-global-warming-debate/4216/
New email same mfo
But back to the real discussion after this Hugh Pepper character has tried three times to hijack the discussion (and like most hijackers, has been shot down mercilessly).
The main points I see are these: The professors that teach this brand of “earth science” stuff at Union college should pay back their last 5 years of salary. And all the “earth science” students should get full tuition refunds. That only begins to rectify the situation.
But more to the point–how many of you would be happy if your son or daughter came home with a BS from Union and that was LITERALLY all they had learned? I personally would be horrified!
97% of this commenters at Concordiensis supported Lord Monckton. Now to get my analysis peer reviewed.
Hugh Pepper says:
March 17, 2012 at 3:13 pm
It would be very difficult to “debate” Mr Monckton. His style stresses the limits of reasionable discourse. In short: as has been outlined by Professor Abraham and others, he males stuff up. He’s a very inventive guy with words and numbers. He cannot reference his assertions to research which he has actually conducted. But he is persuasive, in a perverse way!
================
You set a high standard for others, while exhibiting none yourself.
Rodbell just became roadkill.
Worrying to see these emerging greenshirts. La-la-la. Fingers in ears. Accusing Monckton of everything of which he is NOT guilty but they are. Liars and cheats. Calling themselves professor, too. What has Science become?
OTOH, perhaps there are a few students there now secretly reading W**T.
Aachoo!
Oops, sorry – too much Pepper.
🙂
John West says:
March 17, 2012 at 4:06 pm
I’ve been mulling over the “utter disgust and sheer anger” statement. I can only conclude that they actually believe mankind is ruining the planet………..
======================================================
Yes, and this is the crux of the argument. It isn’t about science. It never was. It is about an ideology and a belief system.
Many people, mostly the alarmists, believe humanity is an aberration of, and not part of, nature. They believe any advancement of humanity comes at the expense of nature. This is why Mz. Delman wants to worry about our water. It’s a Malthusian concept. Any rational individual knows we can’t run out of water, but that isn’t the point. The point is, we’re using it for humanity. It’s just like their fuel and energy efforts.
They wanted carbon free energy, but we didn’t build and advance already proven technology with essentially no emissions, (nuclear and hydro), instead we built windmills. An ancient technology which was proven not to work for these purposes. We also advanced natural gas at the expense of coal, because gas burnt cleaner. But, humanity was able to successful utilize the resources and find all that we’ll need for this use. Now, the alarmists are lining up against natural gas. Why? Because anything which benefits humanity, they are against us using it.
They’ve a peculiar form of self-loathing which extends to the rest of humanity. They are misanthropists, and they work against humanity. To effectively do this, they must exercise control over the rest of humanity. Left to our own devices, humanity has shown he can conquer the elements and adapt and effectively utilized the resources Nature has provided and continue to advance.
Alarmist advocacy is simply utilizing totalitarian socialism as a means to express their Malthusian misanthropy.
Hugh Pepper said @ur momisugly March 17, 2012 at 12:56 pm
The Good Lord shows the deficiencies of the CAGW argument using logic. This has nothing whatsoever to do with “research”. There are no “accepted processes” for criticism. If there were, you would be able to refer to an authoritative source. Rational discourse relies entirely on Aristotle’s Laws of Thought. You should acquaint yourself with them.
Michael Palmer- 1:07pm
By coincidence, there was a story in todays National Post that dealt with a Canadian political figure and his early support of eugenics . Writing in the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences, Dr. Shevell, a prominent McGill University physician, discusses the acceptance of eugenics in areas of North America and Germany in the early 20th century.
“…Dr. Shevell said he has long been interested in the role of medicine in the Third Reich, when eugenics led to horrific experiments by physicians and scientists on people considered to be inferior human beings.
As someone who has “revered” Mr. Douglas for his medicare achievements, he said he was surprised to come across the former premier’s 1933 sociology Master’s thesis from McMaster University in Hamilton, titled The problems of the sub-normal family. Similar ideas reappeared in a 1934 document of the CCF, the NDP’s predecessor, said Dr. Shevell.”
“Under eugenics, human reproduction is restricted as a way to address social problems and improve the human population. By the mid-1930s, 24 U.S. states, Alberta and B.C. had laws mandating sterilization of those found to be intellectually disabled or morally degenerate.”
It seems Michael Palmer, that we can find evidence of ‘legalized’ eugenics in North America and Germany. I would say Lord Monckton’s point on eugenics remains standing.
Your comments on DDT are also in need of correction. DDT was banned in the US in 1972, effectively eliminating the world’s largest and lowest cost supplier. The Stockholm Convention (2004) attempted to correct this by allowing global use of DDT in the use of malaria control.
It seems your bag of refutation was hastily filled.
Hugh Pepper says:
March 17, 2012 at 12:56 pm
He merely criticizes and his slide show has been thoroughly debunked by others.
I saw his slide show and he shows that there have been other periods with the same warming as between 1975 and 1998. He also talks about a cooling for many years. And guess what? Phil Jones agrees with him! Was Phil Jones part of the 97%? See
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
A – Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.
Here are the trends and significances for each period:
Period Length Trend
(Degrees C per decade) Significance
1860-1880 21 0.163 Yes
1910-1940 31 0.15 Yes
1975-1998 24 0.166 Yes
1975-2009 35 0.161 Yes
C – Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant global cooling?
No. This period is even shorter than 1995-2009. The trend this time is negative (-0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant.
And a different comment by Phil Jones:
Phil Jones, July 5, 2005:
“The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. Okay it has but it is only seven years of data and it isn’t statistically significant.”
That was in 2005. The latest from the MET is that there has been no warming for 15 years which is what Monckton said.
Now can you please tell us one specific thing that Monckton said that was debunked by others?
I wonder if it’s the title “Lord” that makes them think that the man is a pushover. The funny thing is, they never learn that he knows his stuff very well and they keep coming year after year having their faces blooded. Great fun Mr. Monckton and I thank you for that very much. Only confirms one’s suspicion that a large segment of the academia worries little about the truth, only caring about reinforcing their own preconceived beliefs.
Marlow Metcalf says:
March 17, 2012 at 2:57 pm
When he writes “my slides are publicly available” it would be helpful if he were to include a short cut link for us lazy people.
The link below shows a 95 minute speech he gave on October 15, 2009 where many slides are shown. Keep in mind this is before climategate.
I notice how the trolls keep saying Moncton was refuted without a.) providing reference. b.) are ignorant of the fact that every time I’ve seen critiques of his lectures he has, in turn, refuted those critics.
Marlow Metcalf says on March 17, 2012 at 2:57 pm:
When he writes “my slides are publicly available” it would be helpful if he were to include a short cut link for us lazy people.
=========
All you have got to do is to put “Lord Monckton’s slides and presentations” into your search engine and your wish will come true. – Personally I can watch and listen to Lord Monckton’s slides for hours on end. He really is good – and how he keeps it all in his head is beyond me.
Will Nitschke says:
March 17, 2012 at 3:05 pm
“In the sense that Monckton accepts that the planet has warmed recently and that CO2 has a significant (measurable/detectable) impact on temperatures, Monckton is as much a part of the 97% as the rest of the 97%.”
——————————————–
That is exactly my opinion too.
Monckton is brilliant, I always enjoy watching him, but he is no threat to the AGW concept.
I’d like to know, why he does not question the general calculations of “global warming” like “Hansen and Lebedeff 1987”. Neither are the data sufficient nor are the methods really scientific.
As he went to school and university students were not taught anything about “warming CO2” or “trapped radiation”, this idea was actually debunked by Professor R.W.Wood back in 1909. He was definitely taught, that the air gets warm through contact with the surface and convection. And now he agrees on “human impact”?
And this idea of his from the comment above is simply scientifically horrible: “the temperature in Central England (not a bad proxy for global temperatures)…”. Central England is representative for the whole world?
John Shade: Two children throwing a tantrum in front of an adult. That about sums it up.
I was looking at the Professor’s article and followed the link to some of Ms. Delman’s other articles. In an article where Ms. Delman was responding to comments on one of her previous pieces I discovered the following quote:
“Editorial pieces should not be diatribes, but rather an assertion of opinion and an attempt to educate or persuade.”
http://www.concordy.com/article/opinions/january-19-2012/in-defense-of-the-purpose-of-opinion-articles/3445/
I think that it is ironic that she and the professor authored an editorial that I believe was very much a diatribe…
FWIW – Frank
PS: It was very interesting to follow the link to other articles by Ms. Delman.
In my extensive research over the last 27 minutes I have found that approximately 97% of Mr. Pepper’s statements are fatuous with a margin of error of +3, -0.
And, yes, sorry to admit, that’s an ad hominem and I’ll probably go to hell for it.
One tires of reading the inane “peppery” drivel.
“allowing his speech without rejection risked that he would have an impact, and a dangerous one at that.”
Therefore, by their logic, they need to either not allow the speech or to allow it and reject it, whatever that means. It clearly does not mean debate it, so it must mean simply declare it to be false, which is an odd attitude for an academic institution. Many have noticed this non-science strategy before. Their strategy is not to try to convince anyone, it is to deny the existence of any doubt. The cause needs foot-soldiers, not free thinkers. To build a revolutionary guard, you need to build fear and hatred, not chat with the enemy.
Having just checked over in the opinion pieces comments it amuses me that not one comment supports the professor. All of them starting with the scientist in the first response are critical of the piece.