Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Moncktonation - a new word for skeptics

For a while I have been thinking about the dishonesty of some of the enemies of rational thinking, including climate “sceptics”, homeopaths and the like.

All of these types of people engage in a variety of dishonest behaviors. They cherry pick data, quote out of context, use anecdote instead of evidence and so on. Some of them outright lie.

I have been tweeting this frustration and have been looking for the word that best describes this behavior. I had been using disingenuous, but it turns out this doesn’t quite fit. Specious was suggested, but again it isn’t the right fit. Lie was another suggestion, but I would like a word with more subtlety.

Over the weekend, I tweeted that I wanted a word that means “to intentionally misrepresent another person's opinion/statements to support the opposite point of view”

Tanya Ha of Catalyst fame, tweeted “Moncktonation” as a suggestion.

"Moncktonation" to intentionally misrepresent another person's opinion/statements to support the opposite point of view

Mr Monckton is a well known climate change denier, who is guilty of all the tricks to try and deceive his audience into believing his point of view. He cherry picks, mis-quotes and all the rest.

So I propose that skeptics may now use the word Monktonation in reference to anyone who goes out of their way to misrepresent any information or other persons views.






1 comment:

  1. Love it.

    The self-interested moncktoner is so excited by his pied-piping that he can't help but crank the volume, further attracting moncktonee mice.

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