EU Referendum


Declining standards


02/09/2010




When push comes to shove, it is totally unacceptable that an official report of the supposed status of the IPCC AR4 should produce work of a quality that would not be acceptable for a PhD thesis. Yet, as we see above, The Daily Telegraph (the egregious Louise Gray) is giving house room to an "Oxford academic" who argues that the poor little darlings who author the next report should not be burdened with "red tape" – when what he is actually complaining about is that they are being asked to stick to the rules that are imposed on PhD students.

It comes to something when Dr Myles Allen does not seem to know the difference between "bureaucracy" and academic rigour, although this is perhaps unsurprising given what is clearly evidence of a long-term decline in academic standards.

Interestingly, and perhaps spurred on by my piece, the Moonbat has come back into play, defending his hero Pachy. But for all his stridency, Moonbat has never even begun to address the issues. He simply relies on the joke report from KPMG to clear his hero.

What he therefore neglects is that Pachy is a man at the head of an international organisation, with offices (and bank accounts) all over the world. In the one instance that we were able to get to his accounts, those of TERI Europe, because they were under UK jurisdiction, we found that they had been falsified. Look at the "before" and now look at the "after" and you will see what I mean.

Given this behaviour from a man that is a proven liar, it would be rather foolhardy to assert on the basis of an extremely limited report, laced with caveats, that Pachauri is "innocent of financial misdealings". Not least, you would have to go through every bank account, in every country, carrying out a forensic audit, before you could be so bold as to make such a statement - if it was true.

But that is precisely what Moonbat does, which says all you need to know about him. He believes what he wants to believes. He then cherry-picks the "evidence" to support his case and ignores the rest. That is why you cannot engage with him and it is not worth arguing with him. He is yet more evidence of the inexorable decline in standards that is poisoning the well of public discourse.

And the worse of it all it that he is so far gone that he does not have the first inkling of quite how off the wall he has become - a pathetic figure worthy only of sympathy. But then, he is in good company - exactly what we would expect of his creed.

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