I am a Dragon. I emerge from my Egg. There is a fun wiki user page collecting a rebuttal of Moncktons nonsense. Mostly I'm impressed by peoples patience in bothering to follow it all through. One thing sticks out to me: Moncktons apparent use of references that totally fail to support his claims for them. For example, Monckton says "From c.1000 AD, ships were recorded as having sailed in parts of the Arctic where there is a permanent ice-pack now (Thompson et al. 2000; Briffa 2000; Lamb 1972a,b; Villalba 1990, 1994)." but apparently T2000 is concerned with hydrology on the Tibetan plateau; B2000 is, as you might expect, a general review of analysis of tree-ring proxy data for reconstructing past climate; Villalba lends no support. So where did M find these things? Did he totally make them up? Copy from elsewhere without checking? Or just fail to understand what he was reading?
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Did he totally make them up? Copy from elsewhere without checking? Or just fail to understand what he was reading?
It's the boilerplate template for skeptic/denialist argumentation. Of course when you follow up on their references they don't say what the mendacicizers claim. The text isn't aimed at people like you and me; rather, it is aimed at people who can't or won't read refs.
Best,
D
[Ah, but are the refs themselves bolierplate form somewhere? If so, where? Crichton? -W]
Posted by: Dano | November 30, 2006 12:34 PM
He got at least some of his stuff from co2science, which does engage in this type of distortion. Possibly there's a match to one of their articles. Crichton is a possibility but I didn't think he was quite that stupid.
Posted by: Steve Bloom | November 30, 2006 2:58 PM
see-oh-too does their refs in a particular style. Lots of commenters cut-paste directly and you can tell where they get their arguments from. If Monckton's refs are in the see-oh-too style, there ya go.
Can't do the legwork for a while to see for myself.
Best,
D
Posted by: Dano | December 1, 2006 11:58 AM
This seems to be job for Social Network Analysis; let's hope that eventually Google provides for doing that in some automated way.
Either that or we're getting alternate facts leaking in from some not quite parallel universe, a.k.a dork energy.
Posted by: Hank Roberts | December 1, 2006 2:38 PM
Off topic but relevant since today is World AIDS Awareness Day.
In 1987, Monckton, while an adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wrote the following in The Spectator:
"There is only one way to stop AIDS. That is to screen the entire population regularly and to quarantine all carriers of the disease for life [...] Every member of the population should be blood-tested every month [...] all those found to be infected with the virus, even if only as carriers, should be isolated compulsorily, immediately, and permanently".
Seems like climate science is not the only area where he seems to be a crank.
Posted by: Ian Forrester | December 1, 2006 3:08 PM
I wonder anybody put an effort to debunk C. Moncton.
Sad thing is, that is is still needed
Posted by: Alexander Ac | December 3, 2006 1:31 PM