Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
Desmogblog posted John Mashey's detailed examination of the spread of Monckton/Schulte's misinformation. For your amusement, Monckton's reply, in full:
"Dr." Mashey says Mr. Schulte plagiarized my research. He did no such thing. It was he, not I, who conducted the research. "Dr." Mashey was told this.
"Dr." Mashey submitted his over-long complaint formally to Mr. Schulte's academic institution, whose investigator rejected it on all counts.
"Dr." Mashey is now himself under investigation for circulating his complaint publicly, in a form in which which inter alia he breaches doctor-patient confidentiality. For this reason, please remove all links to "Dr." Mashey's document.
One realizes that the news that the scientific "consensus" no longer believes in climate alarm (if it ever did) is unwelcome in certain political circles. But the science is the science.
Perhaps it would be better if "Dr." Mashey were to write a peer-reviewed rebuttal of Mr. Schulte's paper, rather than interfering in an unlawful manner on the blogosphere, which is not the best place for serious scientific discourse.
Better slap the cuffs on me, "Lord" Monckton, because I linked to Mashey's "unlawful" document. Oops, did it again. And again. Maybe you could do a Lord's arrest.
There's lot more you could say about Monckton's comment, but Mashey already said it all.
Politics
Comments
Does that mean the study gets sent to Guantanamo?
The whole affair though, is hilarious. But not in the way those "sceptics" think, I guess. :)
Posted by: student_b | March 27, 2008 1:48 PM
Wow. Tim ripped them a new one!
Posted by: Max Lini | March 27, 2008 2:03 PM
Max Lini- Tim did no such thing. Mashey did. Are you deliberately misunderstanding the point of this sort of post?
Posted by: guthrie | March 27, 2008 2:12 PM
What's with the "inverted commas"?
Monckton is very quick to threaten litigation these days. The last defense of the irrelevant Thatcherite?
Posted by: AmeliaP | March 27, 2008 2:29 PM
I caught Monckton's response when it went up, but missed Mashey's reply. Thanks for calling attention to it, Tim! (Although all three links you provided to Mashey's document are broken.) [Oops. Fixed. Thanks. Tim]
What I find most telling from this is that Monckton's usual pompous, puffed-chest writing style (demands and threats of legal action and all) appears to have supported, first-hand, the link between Schulte and Monckton as doctor-patient (a point that was purely speculative before this), by claiming confidentiality had been violated. What confidentiality could be violated if no doctor-patient relationship existed?
Posted by: Brian D | March 27, 2008 2:33 PM
I don't think I misunderstood this guthrie, I meant bringing it up in a post did that. And this too.
Better slap the cuffs on me, "Lord" Monckton, because I linked to Mashey's "unlawful" document.pdf). Oops, did it again. And again.pdf). Maybe you could do a Lord's arrest.
Posted by: Max Lini | March 27, 2008 2:37 PM
Given the useles denialists that have infested this place recently, your post looks like you are being sarcastic.
Posted by: guthrie | March 27, 2008 2:46 PM
Monckton hasn't threatened to sue me yet. I feel so left out. :(
Should I make myself more famous and more influential, so that Monckton can threaten to sue me, and I can finally join the Club of People Whom Monckton Had Threatened To Sue?
Posted by: bi | March 27, 2008 3:59 PM
If Schulte's paper, such as it is, is not peer-reviewed, why should Mashey's comments be published in a peer-reviewd way ?
Posted by: _Arthur | March 27, 2008 4:30 PM
I am being serious. A slam is a slam. Obvious PR is obvious PR.
Posted by: Max Lini | March 27, 2008 6:52 PM
Naming no names of course, but I wonder if either of the following are unlawful: 1. Claiming to be a member of the Upper House of the British legislature when one is not; 2. Falsely claiming that one is having to sell one's house in order to gain publicity to boost sales of a product. I will make some enquiries as to whether these constitute illegal acts.
Posted by: Benny Lin | March 28, 2008 7:57 AM
I feel neglected. I did a whole web page attacking Monckton's 2006 editorial:
http://members.aol.com/bpl1960/Monckton.html
and I haven't been served even one subpoena yet. THE VISCOUNT DOESN'T LOVE ME ANY MORE!!!
[breaks down in hysterical sobbing]
Posted by: Barton Paul Levenson | March 28, 2008 8:05 AM
Well, he'll also tell you he's the hero who won the Falklands war, despite anything all those British soldiers and their families may think they had to do with that:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/may/06/observerreview.climatechange
"Monckton won the Falklands conflict from his armchair after suggesting, he claims, to the Prime Minister that the best way to undermine the Argies was to have the SAS introduce a mild bacillus into the water supply in Port Stanley. 'I can tell you from experience there is nothing more demoralising than having the trots in a trench!' He believes, laughing a little wildly, she took him up on this idea and the rest is history."Britan has never signed the treaty against biological weapons: http://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B8954/(httpAssets)/DB8EE12E52B57272C12573310035A53C/$file/membmap.html
Posted by: Hank Roberts | March 28, 2008 11:46 PM
Who Will Monckton Threaten To Sue Next?
Posted by: bi | March 30, 2008 6:36 AM
Just got an idea: maybe someone should start making "Viscount Monckton Wants To Sue Me" web banners and/or T-shirts?
Posted by: bi | March 30, 2008 1:40 PM
I was toying with the idea of making "Monckton is Lord!" shirts, for both the mockery and blasphemy. And maybe in smaller print: "* Monckton is not Lord".
Posted by: pough | March 31, 2008 3:56 PM
BTW, when is Monckton going to say the next funny thing? I'm bored.
Posted by: pough | April 1, 2008 12:42 PM
Bloody hell! I've just read Monckton's earlier piece published by the SPPI. A good chunk of it seems to be repeating Peiser's work, which was thoroughly debunked awhile ago such that even Peiser's has admitted he doesn't agree with parts of it.
This is just like the creationists. It doesn't matter how many time an argument is refuted, they just keep recycling it. I need to write a detailed rebuttal of the Oreskes/Peiser parts of Monckton's piece.
Posted by: Meyrick Kirby | April 1, 2008 4:47 PM
For those who might like to see the Schulte paper, but do not wish to pay $18 for the privilege to E&E, the Schulte paper is almost online at SPPI
I say "almost" because:
The actual paper at E&E has the following additional words:
after Klaus-Martin Schulte add: MD, FRCS Consultant in Endocrine and General Surgery, Department of Endocrine Surgery Kings' College Hospital, Denmark Hill, London SE5 9RS United Kingdom Honorary Senior Lecturer of Surgery, Kings' College London E-Mail: Klaus-Martin.Schulte AT kch.nhs.uk
after the ABSTRACT, add:
after "It is high time to reconsider the trend of global climate changes." add:
and change "Conclusion" to:
By principle, Science does not rise or fall with consensus or its absence, but rather with the reliability of data and vigorous consideration. The prediction of consequences of changes that are only predicted to happen is burdened with serious methodological problems. This inherent degree of uncertainty and the herein shown lack of consensus do not support a further induction of fears of climate related illness and death in the medical world and its patients.
3. CONCLUSIONThe formatting is also different, 2 columns instead of one.
Anyway, the paper posted at SPPI is not just a copy of the PDF from E&E, it presumably started as a word document of Schulte's and then he (or Bob Ferguson) edited it. Or maybe the Viscount was involved.
Posted by: John Mashey | April 1, 2008 4:47 PM