Does membership have its privileges?

The brief bio of Monckton on OLO states:

Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is a British politician, business consultant, policy adviser, writer, columnist, inventor and hereditary peer...., which is identical to his entry in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Monckton,_3rd_Viscount_Monckton_of_Brenchley).

However, the Wikipedia entry goes on to say:

Although an hereditary peer, Monckton is not a member of the House of Lords.[3] He was an unsuccessful candidate for a Conservative seat in the House of Lords in a March 2007 by-election caused by the death of Lord Mowbray and Stourton. Of the 43 candidates, 31 – including Monckton – received no votes in the election.[4] He was highly critical of the way that the Lords had been reformed, describing the by-election procedure, with 43 candidates and 47 electors, as "a bizarre constitutional abortion."[5]

Reference 4 is the official result from the British Parliament, verifying the above statement http://parliament.uk.

Unlike climate data, these results are not open to personal interpretation.

Or is a "politician" somebody different from a "member of parliament"?
Definitions vary- Princeton Universitity's Wordnetweb http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=politician defines "politician" thus:

"Noun

* S: (n) politician (a leader engaged in civil administration)
* S: (n) politician, politico, pol, political leader (a person active in party politics)
* S: (n) politician (a schemer who tries to gain advantage in an organization in sly or underhanded ways)"

So opinions vary, but as the nineteenth century Italian politician (actually Minister for Finance) said:

“L’aritmetica non è un’opinione” (arithmetic is not an opinion).

Many thanks to ozbib for listing most of the many flaws in this appalling article.

Yesterday's Crikey had a good piece on Monckton:

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/01/12/hamilton-viscount-monckton-of-benchleys-over-egged-cv/

On reflection, I think it's probably a good thing that the denialist camp has spokesmen of Viscount Monckton's calibre as its public face. He's even more effective than Plimer :)

I can't wait to see him on Lateline.

jedimaster,so what's your point, apart from posting search results?

Wiki, most people get severely flamed for mentioning wiki on OLO, particularly in AGW discussions, why do you feel it suddenly relevant?

C J Morgan

Why was Clive Hamilton's article good? It merely tells you how the right will utilise the Viscount.

What are you worried about? If the Viscount is so flawed , do you not have faith that people will see the flaws or strengths of his argument.

As for those who can't handle attacks by global warming sceptics, what sort of democrats are you. Battles over ideas are hard won and may take years or even generations.

Sure, I do believe that global warming is real and human influenced, but I also deplore know alls telling us how it is. If you believe in democracy, then one side will always need to win the debate; albeit that environmental degradation is a most urgent issue (perhaps unprecented).

Dear Amicus

If you are to criticize Wikipedia, then you are implicitly criticizing the OLO Editor and/or Monckton himself, for as I pointed out, the words are identical. I accept that Graham Young used his bio in good faith.

You will also note that I corroborated the Wikipedi claim about his parliamentary status by going directly to the original source- the British Parliamentary record.

I use Wikipedia a lot as a starting point. As a trained researcher and librarian, I know that all references need to be corroborated. This is probably the main point that Geoff Davies, Ozbib and I- as well as others- are making. Scientific research is not salesmanship or showmanship or believership- it is about trying to make a statement about things that can be tested and verified. Nor is science about absolute truths- measurement and theory can only make the knowledge more reliable in a probabilistic way.

So when someone commences their statements with something that is ambiguous, we feel that we have a duty to point it out. When they continue to make unverified statements and/or statements that are not amenable to verification, then the probability increases that they are likely to be an unreliable source of knowledge.

We simply want to know what methodology Monckton and his followers use. Is it science or is it religious faith or is it the assumed authority of inheritance?

Amicus: "Wiki, most people get severely flamed for mentioning wiki on OLO, particularly in AGW discussions"

If you mean people get flamed here for quoting Wikipedia, and in particular flamed by "experts" for using Wikipedia, then could you give examples with links?

I follow most of these threads, and I don't recall seeing it.