Deniers Chorus Redux

So, my wonderful visitor Christine Conte just left  (no, that's not her to the left).    I could barely wait to get to facebook to see what Jeffrey Malashock had to say about what I had to say about what of Brenchley had to say (yesterday's post).

Disappointment of disappointments, Jeffrey had not yet attended to my little missive.  But, wide awake, unlike last night while I was writing, it occurred to me that I'd not added a citation for the of Brenchley article.  Naughty me.  

And then I thought, "Gee, I didn't look up this fellow, of Brenchley, either."

Whoa!!!

Jeffrey, did you say of Brenchley did not have an agenda?  Are you serious?   Let me quote from Wikipedia, tacky as that is:

"Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is a British politician, consultant, writer, columnist, and hereditary peer. Since June 2010 he has been the deputy leader of the UK Independence Party.  He served as an advisor to Margaret Thatcher's policy unit in the 1980s and invented the Eternity puzzle at the end of the 1990s, as well as the Eternity II in 2007.  In recent years, Monckton has attracted attention for his denialist stance on anthropogenic global warming."

More to the point, whose work did Monckton put his name on?  Maybe it's his.  On the other hand, he has an undergraduate degree in the classics, and a graduate degree in journalism.  Somewhere in there, he got involved in politics, claimed to be a non-voting member of the House of Lords, a claim  debunked by the House, sold puzzles, and worked for a policy unit on Downing Street as a consultant.  Wait, British politics and selling puzzles.  How interchangeable is that?

And the viscount is a brilliant mathematician in his spare time!   Whoa, you go of Brenchley!


One last comment on of Brenchley's paper.  The current disclaimer on the document, apparently strengthened since the version Jeffrey sent me, says this:

"The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions."

By the way, of Brenchley does seem to have a penchant for getting himself into the thick of controversy.  Here's his view on how to handle the AIDS epidemic, for example:

"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."  From "AIDS: A British View," American Spectator, 1987.  Click here for the citation.


Anymore of my time on this is a waste.  But if you're feeling like a dose of British humor, here's the Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Monckton,_3rd_Viscount_Monckton_of_Brenchley