Marohasy's dishonesty

Pure Poison is a new blog covering the intellectual dishonesty of Australia's punditocrats. Tobias Ziegler covers Marohasy's response to Bond University's categorical denial of her claim that Jon Jenkins had been fired for his opinions:

But her most disingenuous statement was the following:

My original blog piece included both fact and opinion. You may disagree with my opinion (based on the facts and my world view), but the facts stand. Mr Lambert queried the facts unsuccessfully. His opinion (based on his world view), though, has not changed.

Marohasy claimed that "[f]or his opinion," Jenkins was reprimanded and then dismissed - an assertion of fact that turned out to be wrong. She suggested there was "no doubt" that the university had done so on some technical violation that "no doubt" would have been overlooked if his views were different - and maintained that opinion even after the facts were clarified. When her description of the facts was shown to be wrong, she nonetheless managed to maintain her opinion.

"No Doubt" Marohasy, that is not the way a sceptic or a scientist should think. Your readers deserve better. And this sort of intellectual dishonesty should not be forgotten.

When [I wrote](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/01/assertions_that_dr_jenkins_has…):

>So what do you think we'll see from Marohasy?

>1. a correction?
>2. silence? or
>3. a claim that the registrar is covering up the real reason?

I did not expect that she would respond with:

4. Insist that her original post was accurate and demand that I apologize for getting it wrong.

I have adjusted my expectation of Marohasy accordingly.

More like this

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Remember Jon Jenkins and his sixth degree polynomial fit? Well, Jennifer Marohasy is presenting him as a martyr for the denialist cause. Interestingly Bond University has a new name for its business and IT faculties, The Faculty of Business, Technology & Sustainable Development, but apparently…
I was pleased to see that Dr. Kaiser responded to post from earlier this week. If you'll recall, Dr. Jon Kaiser is a doctor in California who is promoting a nutritional supplement to help treat HIV disease. I was hoping his response would be substantive, containing references to data I had missed…
In my previous post I noted in his story promoting AGW denial Adam Shand disputed even the most uncontroversial statements (eg "Summer is warmer than winter") from supporters of mainstream science he uncritically accepted everything from the AGW deniers. For example, he agrees with Jennifer…

I have adjusted my expectation of Marohasy accordingly.

The funny thing is, my expectation of Marohasy was already so low, it actually went up.

It's a bit like the time Orson Welles was cast as Falstaff. He was so overweight already, he had to slim down for the role.

By Ezzthetic (not verified) on 18 Feb 2009 #permalink

As the evidence continues to overwhelm them, the Deniers left standing are, by necessity, congenital liars.

Tim, you know as well as I do (perhaps even better) that Marohasy has less intellectual integrity than any other living Australian. I really don't believe that you expected her to do anything other than what she has, although I concede that pretending you did has some impact as a rhetorical device.

By David Irving (… (not verified) on 19 Feb 2009 #permalink

I think Bellamy was the subject of this blog a while ago.
Well it seems that he was due to host a renewable energy award (he is against wind turbines and doesn't believe in AGW) but he pulled out because some of the nominees were in the wind energy industry:

http://newenergyfocus.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=1&listcatid=32&li…

BTW he charges £5000 to £10000 for an appearance so i wouldn't worry about his whining about not being on TV.

One wonders why they booked him in the first place!?

She seems to have "gone fishing" since 3rd Feb.

Probably contemplating how to rescue a career from the black hole of Shillsville.

She has been busy - offline. And now her environment group has just launched an online petition:
www.listentous.org.au
Over 1,000 signatures in just 36 hours! The official launch is tomorrow morning at Parliament.

By Dennis Webb (not verified) on 24 Feb 2009 #permalink