David Craig, on September 28th, 2022I posted the blog below yesterday (Wednesday 28 September). It contains an email I received from someone claiming to be Professor Neil Ferguson from Imperial College, London.
Since then I have been in touch with Professor Neil Ferguson and he denies sending the email which appears to come from him. That means either that someone sent the email from Professor Ferguson’s account or else someone hacked into his account to send the email. We are trying to find out who actually sent the email.
Wednesday/Thursday blog
I would like to draw readers’ attention to a comment made by someone claiming to be Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College – perhaps Britain’s most respected academic modeller? For legal reasons I have to be careful what I write today.
Here’s the comment:
I don’t think he likes my work
And here’s how I would answer some of the main criticisms made:
Sea level is not falling around Scandinavia. The land is rising due to post-glacial rebound, which Anders Celsius noted in the 1730s:
I know that sea level is not falling around Scandinavia and that is precisely what I explain in my book and recent blog and�Daily Sceptic article. So I’m not quite sure what point the gentleman is making.
I have seen your book The great university con, and it is clear from this that you are not capable of good research………….
Almost all of my books have been based on research that I have done myself. However, for my book THE GREAT UNIVERSITY CON I wrote this in collaboration with an expert /experts in UK higher Education. Given the background of my collaborator(s), I can assure Professor Ferguson (if it is genuinely him who has made the comment) that it is highly likely my collaborator(s) know more about UK Higher Education than almost anyone else in Britain and maybe even more than the Professor himself (if it is him commenting). My job with THE GREAT UNIVERSITY CON was mainly cutting down 200,000 words of serious research to make a readable 80,000-word book.
The point I am making is this: your “work”, whether it is on climate or university, is weak and shoddy and the kind of thing I would expect from a weak early secondary school pupil.
As regards my book on climate – I make it very clear at the start of the book that the book is mostly based on the work by Tony Heller of the ‘realclimatescience’ website, not my own research. Moreover, I would humbly suggest to Professor Ferguson (if it is really him commenting) that he looks at the work of�a weak early secondary school pupil�before comparing my books to that.
You are like a man down the pub who likes to pontificate and hear his own voice. You should stay down the pub, as people will be drunk and won’t remember you making a fool of yourself down the pub. If you wish to do something positive, it should be to encourage other people to write about things like climate and university. That is your greatest possible gift – to try to encourage others to write about the truth, but not to do this yourself, as you clearly lack the tools to do this yourself.
Professor Ferguson (if it is really him making the comment) is, of course, entitled to his opinion of my research and writing abilities. I will refrain from giving my opinion about his modelling abilities. Or about his morality regarding his attitude to lockdown rules which (I believe) were partly based on his world-famous modelling. But in his comment I do detect what I feel is a certain academic arrogance that only certain privileged people should be permitted to write books about serious subjects. Pig-ignorant, uneducated proles like myself with a degree from Cambridge University, a business school MBA and experience of working in almost 100 organisations across fifteen countries, clearly are not qualified to have opinions about anything except for spouting off at the pub.
Comments not allowed
I know that almost everyone in Britain is in trembling awe of Professor Ferguson’s (if it is him commenting) almost Nostradamus-like forecasting abilities. I certainly am a major fan as I’m sure you can imagine. But I also know there may be shallow, cynical people who don’t share my admiration for Professor Ferguson. So, for legal reasons, I won’t be allowing any readers’ comments.
However, in the comment the person claiming to be Professor Ferguson gives what seems to be a genuine email address – neil.ferguson@imperial.ac.uk
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