There is a climate of confusion on global warming, as the "Merchants of Doubt" use any non-scientific tool to delay any legislative action. When a scientist tries to right its ship by providing a thorough, scientific rebuttal, he/she risks time constraints, undue attention, accusations of libel, threats of litigation, demands for apology and retraction, etc.
This is exactly what is happening to Prof. John Abraham against Christopher Monckton.
To counteract the impending censorship, a website is up to Support John Abraham and St. Thomas University. Hopefully some Kossacks could leave a comment to show some support.
Associate Prof. John Abraham of Univ. of St. Thomas recently uploaded a Adobe Presenter rebuttal (original, revised, notes by Citizen's Challenge, or 7 highlights) of Christopher "Lord" Monckton's global warming talk in St. Paul (October 14th, 2009 at a climate skeptic event sponsored by the Minnesota Free Market Institute). Monckton is a non-scientist and the favorite communicator for Republicans when it comes to climate change matters. Richly supported by the vast climate "skeptic" movement, he has much influence on public opinion to the point where he has been inducted to the Real Climate hall of fame.
Typical of non-scientist, well-endowed, highly ideological, PR spokesmen, Monckton has come with his own response to Abraham immediately afterwards in a mocking tone ("a lecturer in fluid mechanics at a Bible college", "venomously ad hominem", "he looks like an overcooked prawn"), that does not discuss the scientific problems brought up by Abraham; rather, Monckton subsequently published a full on rebuttal (pdf) that consists of 466 (!!!!!) nagging questions (basically to muffle what's really important), ending with a direct request to give $10,000 to charity (and $100,000 from the U); in addition, Monckton is asking for an apology and a retraction with the help of Watts Up With That readers, with (I fear) possible libel suits in the pipeline.
Clearly Monckton is trying to use "shut them down" tactics instead of debating the science. Abraham has been classy throughout, but he has been officially accused of "bad faith," "malice," "appealing to a false authority," "academic dishonesty," and "lying." Monckton is only gushing hypocracy from this affair (from his 1st rebuttal).
Abe, baby, if you present yourself as “a scientist” — as you do throughout your talk — then it is as a scientist that you will be judged, found lamentably wanting, and dismissed. You may like to get your apology and retraction in early: for I am a Christian too, and will respond kindly to timely repentance.
I won't be able to look through Monckton's rebuttals point by point (it is only a little unbearable to read). But Deltoid has discussions on #17, #394 and #466, while Eli Rabett has ones for #455 and #456.
Here are a couple extractions (and comments) of mine:
- Are you familiar with the convention in the academic world that if one wishes to rebut the work of another he should notify that other in good time, so as to avoid errors in the rebuttal and to afford the other a fair and contemporaneous opportunity to refute the rebuttal?
I thought this was a fair concern, though I'm not sure how the correspondence would have went between them. But the Monckton gallop quickly degrades into a he-said, she-said:
- Do you accept that your assertion that you are “a scientist” (2), and the fact that you have used the time, facilities, and imprint of your university in preparing and circulating your talk, and the failure of the University to take down you talk from its servers upon request, are likely to amplify the very great harm that your widely-circulated talk was calculated to do to my reputation?
- Please provide a full academic resume. Though you have described yourself as a “professor” (3, 62) more than once in this presentation, are you in fact an associate professor?
The science portions show misunderstandings and rabid nitpicking. Below, I will excerpt a few questions from the section that says: "Is “global warming” accelerating?"
Monckton (in the talk) shows a series of graphs (around 40:00 mark) to show how trends can be rigged by choosing different starting and end points (calls it the "start point or end point fallacy"); he relates this to this graph by the IPCC. He calls this "statistical technique" as a "lie," "bogus," "invalid," "deliberate bad faith," a "disgrace" and it can "produce results which can only be right."
Abraham criticizes this portion for three things: need for proper citations of the data, that it's almost impossible to rig a cooling trend for long term data, and the non-inclusion of the most recent data.
Monckton first complains that Abraham's criticism should apply to the IPCC graph as well.
- Why did you fail to admit that my intention was to demonstrate that the application of multiple and arbitrarily-chosen trend-lines to a single stochastic dataset and the drawing of conclusions as to the trend in the data from the relative slopes of the different trend-lines, as the IPCC has done in the left-hand slide, is a grave abuse of statistical technique?
Here, Abraham did not "fail to admit" Monckton's intention. Monckton claimed that the IPCC can create any trend by showing four graphs of very short time scales, while failing to discuss sample size issues. The IPCC graph show longer term trends that is accelerating. The shortest trend in the IPCC graph is still longer than the longest trend in Monckton's graph. Monckton's demonstration of trends in a stochastic dataset should not be linked with the IPCC graph (or to the allegation that IPCC is rigging the data).
- Are you trying to maintain that my choice of trend-lines in the right-hand graph above had been applied over too short a period to demonstrate the falsity of the IPCC’s technique, and, if so, would you care to comment on the graph below, which shows (and, again, this is the same bogus statistical technique that the IPCC used in its headline graph in the left-hand slide above) that the rise in global mean surface temperature in the 40 years 1905-1945 was twice as rapid as the rise in temperatures in the 100 years 1905-2005?
Yes, and it is not "bogus" to show increasing trend rates over time for a significant time span. But it is bogus to say that IPCC is fudging its message just because there was a fast period of warming from 1905-1945 (due to natural causes BTW). If IPCC had the same graph in 1945, they might say warming is accelerating. If it was 1975, it probably would not. Far from telling a story of convenience.
- Though you say that “temperatures have been going up consistently since 1880” (35), is it not evident to you that the graph actually begins in 1850, and that in the 30 years 1880-1910 global temperatures actually fell consistently?
Semantics shemantics.
- Since you have said, “... if you use different timescales you can come up with different temperature trends. ... and that’s something that’s quite well known in the scientific community, and that’s why you don’t look at short-term temperature trends: you look at long-term what are called “running averages” or “smoothed averages” (35), would you care to explain why, just a few sentences later, you yourself attempt to draw a conclusion from a temperature trend of just 13 months?
Abraham is talking about maximum temp. from 13 month spans in the instrumental data, instead of significant trends within 13 months. Abraham is also not attempting "to draw a conclusion," though he may have been quick to be skeptical of Monckton's end points (I don't see the chopping off of data).
- Since you are aware of the website of the Science and Public Policy Institute, and you could therefore have checked that in fact we update our global temperature index regularly, why were you snide enough to say, “I’m waiting to see when Chris Monckton is going to add this new data to his curves” (35)?
This is fair criticism, except that the chart that's shown after is rigged.
- Since you say, “If the citation was given as the Science and Public Policy Institute they should probably be the ones who originated the data but we never know” (35), why did you contact the Science and Public Policy Institute, whose co-ordinates we can prove you knew, simply to ask?
It is common courtesy to cite data/papers. Abraham was criticizing the non-inclusion of citations in the presentation. Of course one could ask later, but it's easier if it's shown on the file, aka courtesy.
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Anyways, the general trend of Monckton's criticism tend to be arrogant, ad hominem and un-scientist like, with pressure to suppress dissenting work (all things Monckton accuses Abraham of). Even though Monckton would not admit it, he is not interested in having a serious debate. This type of ordeal would never happen with two dissenting actual scientists. Piling up questionable arguments (that often are contradictory to each other) on top of each other effectively creates confusion.
Supposedly the University is watching the thread at Skeptical Science (* I do pro bono translations for them) and also the Support John Abraham page. I hope people can show some support.
Here are a few other highlights on the science by this self-described scientist and Lord:
or his intangibles:
Update:::
Dr Susan Alexander in the office of President Dease is heading the university response (slalexander@stthomas.edu)