No, @ChrisMooney, it’s not the Republicans.
[Update a few minutes later]
Whoops. Just read more of it. This is a little out to lunch:
Take the NASA portfolio, for example, where the president unceremoniously cancelled the Constellation plan over the objections of both parties and both chambers of Congress. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan, hardly partisan bomb throwers, highlighted this in testimony before the House Science Committee on multiple occasions, pleading, “now is the time to overrule this Administration’s pledge to mediocrity.”
Constellation had absolutely nothing to do with science, and both Armstrong and Cernan were notoriously uninformed about it, relying on nonsense fed them by friends in Houston and Huntsville. Things like this damage the credibility of the rest of the piece in the minds of people who understand space policy.
Many of the issues on which Republicans have been labeled “anti-science” are actually policy disputes, not scientific disputes. Global warming, mentioned in the article, is one example. Another prominent one is support for embryonic stem cell research. The dispute was over a moral issue which is not within the purview of science.
When James Inhofe (R-OK) describes global warming as a hoax, he isn’t making a policy objection. He’s saying that mainstream science isn’t to be trusted. Ditto when Paul Broun (R-GA) calls evolution and the Big Bang “lies straight from the pit of Hell”.
[ James Inhofe] isn’t making a policy objection.
Yes he is. Your assertion is no more valid then others. It’s not either/or.
Well, Baghdad Jim, we don’t have any proof yet that CAGW is a real thing, but we DO have 16 years of no net temperature increase to suggest it isn’t. And don’t try the “the heat’s buried in the ocean” line because that’s already been discredited.
we don’t have any proof yet that CAGW is a real thing
No, and we also don’t have “proof” of evolution, the Big Bang, plate tectonics, the role of HIV in AIDS, the role of cigarette smoking in lung cancer, etc. But there is a mainstream scientific view on all those subjects, and the GOP is notable in discounting scientists’ views where climate change (and, to a lesser degree, evolution) is concerned.
You cannot put global warming in the same category as the big bang and plate tectonics. It’s rhetorical sleight of hand. There is no mainstream scientific view on global warming.
There is no mainstream scientific view on global warming.
Every scientific society that has ventured an opinion has agreed that humans are responsible for most of the recent warming. That’s the mainstream scientific view.
There’s a pretty broad range of opinions on AGW, ranging from WE’LL ALL DIE to IT’S ALL A HOAX (throw in your favorite conspirators). The article mentions that while some vocal Republicans are in the latter category, many are more “maybe it’s real, but it’s not worth ruining our economy over”.
Many in the WE’LL ALL DIE camp don’t really seem to believe it–if they did they’d be much more strongly in favor of going nuke to lower our carbon footprint and not attending any more save-the-planet boondoggles. There are some pro-nukers there, but it seems that most are the hair-shirt we-(well, you)-must-suffer-for-Gaia variety.
many are more “maybe it’s real, but it’s not worth ruining our economy over”.
If only that were the case. But when the House Energy committee voted on a statement asserting that human-caused climate change is real, every single Republican voted against it. In the 2012 presidential campaign John Huntsman was the only candidate to agree with the scientific mainstream view. The GOP totally rejects the AGW hypothesis, and the views of 90+% of climate scientists.
I’d vote against it as well as a matter of principle. I don’t see how the belief of a senator has any impact at all on the truthfulness of scientific statement. I expect nobody voting against it voiced their opposition in that manner, though.
But when the House Energy committee voted on a statement asserting that human-caused climate change is real, every single Republican voted against it.
If they had voted otherwise, then this would have been used as a flimsy pretext for regulatory intervention. Why should they have voted for something that would be used against the interests of their constituents?
In a similar fashion, why should a lawyer in court not question evidence that is detrimental, even if only slightly, to the interests of their client?
Lol. Jim thinks we are all going to die in an AGW apocalypse. What a cute little doomsday cultist. Maybe the mothership will arrive in time to take you back to the homeworld.
If you get caught in a fire tornado just look for the nearest extreme™ flood.
The Big Bang theory has garnered support because the predictions based on the theory have been pretty well supported by experimental and observational evidence — regardless of how “mainstream” the theory is. Likewise for evolution.
Not so much the case for CAGW. We are now starting to see the observed temperature records deviate significantly from the the predictions made over the last few decades by “mainstream” climate scientists. Whereas scientists in other fields trumpet data that matches observations, climate scientists seem to keep trumpeting computers models in the same way early astronomers kept adding epicycles to force their models of circular planetary motion to fit observed data.
As Richard Feynman said, “There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It’s a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you ‘play’ with them! ” I would propose that the phenomena that Richard Feynman described is exactly what we are seeing from many “mainstream” climate scientists.
Jim: “Every scientific society that has ventured an opinion has agreed that humans are responsible for most of the recent warming. That’s the mainstream scientific view.”
What is a “scientific society”?
Round and round and round we go. The basis for all of these silly assertions have been thoroughly debunked and disproved.
And yet, the tireless Socialists return to them after a rest period…spouting them as if they have always been true – when they have never been true.
There is very little “recent warming” and zero evidence that humans are the cause and that bit if silliness is by no means the “mainstream” view:
How can it be the mainstream view when any scientist who disagrees is not counted?
So we get the same twaddle with a different colored bow or some such minor change over and over and over.
What is a “scientific society”?
Most countries have national organizations of top scientists. We have the National Academy of Science (established in the Lincoln administration), the UK has the Royal Society, etc. Dozens of these bodies have endorsed the AGW hypothesis, none has dissented.
How can it be the mainstream view when any scientist who disagrees is not counted?
They’re counted, there just aren’t that many of them relative to the scientists who subscribe to the mainstream view.
I don’t see how the belief of a senator has any impact at all on the truthfulness of scientific statement.
It doesn’t, but it’s a perfect expression of the politician’s respect for mainstream scientific thought. The GOP has no respect at all for mainstream climate science.
What is a “scientific society”?
Argument by authority.
That the left resort to it so much just proves they know absolutely nothing about science. “Authority” in science is often wrong, usually resists new theories, and can be blown away by a single piece of new data.
“Most countries have national organizations of top scientists. We have the National Academy of Science (established in the Lincoln administration), the UK has the Royal Society, etc.”
Ok thanks I wasn’t sure what you meant by that…whether you meant places like the Royal Society and National Academy or if you meant “A society that is scientific”.
Me: How can it be the mainstream view when any scientist who disagrees is not counted?
Jim: They’re counted, there just aren’t that many of them relative to the scientists who subscribe to the mainstream view.
The numbers of dissenters has been cooked by the Greenies just like every other number you come up with…..That 97% number is a joke. There were people’s names on the list of acolytes who were never asked and when they were asked after the list came out they said they think AGW is a sick joke.
And we have Democrats wondering if Guam will tip over and other such nonsense. The article was pointing out that while Democrats like to attack other people as being anti-science, they have quite an anti-science problem of their own. It is called hypocrisy and Democrats have been hypocrites on all of their self proclaimed ideals that they have been campaigning on for the last twenty years.
And it now it looks like AGW alarmists are being anti-science when politicians have to pressure scientists to change their reports. The efforts by progressives to push an AGW alarmist agenda is just as dishonest as their advocacy for Obamacare.
Constellation was more than just the Ares I. Cancelling one shouldn’t have meant the need to cancell the other. But I wouldn’t call the cancellation anti-science. As Bill pointed out above, it is a policy dispute. Democrats have been very successful in framing policy disputes as anti, anti-science, anti-immigrant, anti-insertskincolor, anti-agegroup ect.
The dehumanizing otherizing stereotypes pushed by Democrats are politics at their ugliest and I hope other parties don’t see their effectiveness as a reason to use them as we’ll.
Science is separate from party. Ignorance is broad based (and seems to be a required trait for media and late night comedians.)
Then there is this gem from 2010:
Rep. Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat, asked if adding a few thousand people to Guam would make the island “become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.”
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20001611-38.html
I think this shows a smidgen of scientific illiteracy on the democrats’ side.
That’s hilarious. But fortunately the Democratic party as a whole is not convinced that scientists are lying to the public about the risks of islands tipping over.
No Jim, but they are convinced Fracking is bad in the absence of any scientifically compelling supporting data and they pust out scaremongering shit on the Keystone Pipeline like the video I linked above from the Short-Bus Rep. from Arizona.
“Fracking is a danger to groundwater!”…said no practicing hydrologist ever.
they are convinced Fracking is bad
Where’s your evidence? I see no sign that the leadership of the Democratic party is convinced that fracking is bad. You don’t see any effort by Obama or Reid or Pelosi to restrict fracking — if anything they’re pushing for it. You don’t have top Democrats rejecting the mainstream scientific view of fracking’s risks.
And Democrats are convinced the science of Big Food is correct, even though there is ample Scientific Evidence that we’ve been getting it wrong for forty years. In light of this, can we blame the Democrats for genocide, for killing millions of Americans with their foolish, low fat diet?
” I see no sign that the leadership of the Democratic party is convinced that fracking is bad.”
Umm what?
” if anything they’re pushing for it”
Really now…
/puts his coffee down and slowly backs out of the room careful not to make a sudden movements that might startle the person in front of him with a fire in his eyes and spittle clinging to his chin like Jenni Sands after a shoot because they are clearly detached from the world the rest of us inhabit and who knows how they will react should reality meet their delusions, two galaxies crossing paths destroying countless suns and planets.
“But fortunately the Democratic party as a whole is not convinced that scientists are lying to the public about the risks of”
Vaccines, GMOs, or fluoride?
There are even some crazy eco-nuts who think you can live off sunlight.
Vaccines, GMOs, or fluoride?
Show me the Obama administration policy against vaccines, GMOs or fluoride. Show me the unanimous Democratic congressional vote against these things. Yes, there are Democrats who think science is wrong about these items, but they are a fringe minority in the party. By contrast, virtually all of the GOP’s leadership rejects mainstream climate science.
“Show me the unanimous Democratic congressional vote against these things.”
Why not just talk about the hordes of Democrats that hold anti-science views on these issues? After all, the linked article was pointing out how Democrats attack other people for being anti-science while holding many anti-science views themselves.
“but they are a fringe minority in the party.”
Ya, sure.
“By contrast, virtually all of the GOP’s leadership rejects mainstream climate science.”
Rejecting Democrat’s horrendous policies is not rejecting science. It is also harder to take scientists seriously when they advocate with a religiosity and zealotry that calls into question their judgement on policy.
How the rightosphere missed this gem that is the epitome of leftist scientific competency is beyond me, this is pure unintentional comedy gold, it makes Maxine Waters, DWS, SanfranNan and Sheila Jackson Lee look like The Harvard Debating society in comparison! This is a dumb as the whole Guam tipping over nonsense!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmxDouhAgNo
I give Rep. Grijalva an F————- at petrology and hydrology. Fuck, ding the retard for specific gravity while we are at it!
Those are some interesting equations on the whiteboard…
Equations that have absolutely no relationship to the subject being lied about.
Note that that YouTube video turned off comments. That might be some kind of sign.
How many republicans are Young Earth Creationists?
How many republicans believe in Intelligent Design?
Evolution is the acid test on wether you believe in rationality.
Should we turn the question around? How many democrats are anti-vaxxers? How many democrats believe in CAM? How many democrats are 9-11 truthers? How many democrats believe Bush stole the election?
I imagine that a higher percentage of believers in astrology are republican than democrat, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if it were the other way around.
Kerry adds another–how many democrats believe in a second gunman?
My guess is that most creationists are republicans, but most republicans are not creationists. My limited experience is that the YEC republicans tend not to be small-government republicans–they want government control of morality, just their morality.
Anyway, stupid game–for every loopy segment of one party someone can find a loopier section of the other.
most republicans are not creationists
According to a 2012 Gallup poll, 58% of Republicans believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years.
Democrats aren’t that much better — 41% of them agree.
How many Democrats believe we can legislate ourselves to a Utopian society?
How many Democrats believe we can continue to spend trillions of borrowed dollars each year and hand the check to our children?
Fiscally sound governance is the acid tests of whether you believe in rationality.
Let’s see, who will impact me more? People who hold certain religious views on events that happened thousands to billions of years ago, or those who are doing their best to turning our country into another neo-fascist hell hole.
How many Democrats believe we can continue to spend trillions of borrowed dollars each year and hand the check to our children?
They’re good for it! They might not have the sense to stop breathing water when the sea levels rise a few feet, but they’ll make boat loads of money to pay for all the wonderful things we’re doing for them.
A person’s beliefs on evolution have zero impact on how to treat sewage, pick up the garbage on time, run a successful business, whether to buy or lease a car, or just about anything that is important in day to day life.
You disagree with someone about events billions of years ago? Wow, clearly that is important…
A person’s beliefs on evolution have zero impact on how to treat sewage
Understanding natural selection will help you understand how dangerous microbes in sewage may develop resistance to your treatments.
They better evolve a resistance to strong UV and Chlorine then Jim. Do you, without googling it, even have a clue about how all the stages of an STP works and about the different types of treatment systems? I never found evolution mentioned in the Sacremento manual.
yet MDR strep, staph, etc are killing people.
You must be some medical genius, why don’t you go to a regional
hospital and explain why their micro-biologists are fools and
should listen to you.
I’ve been running this blog for over a dozen years, and you seem determined to prove yourself the most moronic commenter here. Well, OK, except for the very few who have been banne.
It’s obvious he doesn’t have a fucking clue what he is talking about. How we can go from the engineering and biological specifics of a modern sewage treatment plant to some massive straw hispital I cannot fathom.
I think when a regressive can’t come up with an effective counter-argument, they by knee-jerk reflex fall back on the strawman argument. This is the first time I have seen anybody twist and rape a strawman into a straw hospital, however. That takes a special kind of window-licking, short-bus thinking to construct.
“Understanding natural selection will help you understand how dangerous microbes in sewage may develop resistance to your treatments.”
Not necessarily. A person does not need to follow the current trends in evolutionary theory regarding homo sapien sapiens in order to understand microbiology. Throughout history, there have been many religious people who have performed excellent science. So no, believing in evolution is not necessary to running a sewer treatment plant.
But look at views regarding fluoride, GMOs, and vaccines. Those all have real impacts on our society. Believing in evolution apparently does not help this large group of people deal with other science issues.
look at views regarding fluoride, GMOs, and vaccines. Those all have real impacts on our society
Yes, and you don’t see the leadership of the Democratic party dismissing the science in those fields. You do see the leadership of the GOP dismissing climate science.
I disagree Jim. The leaders of the Democrat party not only speak out about these issues but propose legislation on them. Fracking is a good example of this but so are GMO’s and fluoride. Obama wont even allow the construction of a pipeline because of these anti-scientific views causing damage to our economy and national security.
Dig a little deeper and look at the real power in the Democrat party, the activists. Obama and many of the current Democrat leaders have risen out of the activist community and the activists are very… active… in advocating for many anti-science causes. I am not sure why we should ignore what the Democrat party agitates for other than their actions undercut your arguments.
Acid test: what people ignorant about science call a litmus test.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_test_(gold)
An acid test is any qualitative chemical or metallurgical assay which uses acid; most commonly, and historically, the use of a strong acid to distinguish gold from base metals. Figuratively, acid test is any definitive test for some attribute, e.g. of a person’s character, or of the performance of some product.
(Acid Test: A test that for people who know what science is)
But a litmus test tests acidity.
As the article pointed out, twice as many democrats believe in astrology as republicans.
Let’s just decide to use astrology as a litmus test, it’s just as arbitrary as using evolution.
Except that neither party tries to make astrology a factor in policy-making, while the GOP makes disbelief in mainstream climate science a centerpiece of its energy policy.
Ahh, but here on this post you are using beliefs held by some people to disqualify them from political office, participating in any scientific field, and operating sewer treatment plants.
So if Democrats do this, why couldn’t people do the same to Democrats?
Jim: (Various arguments from authority.)
Royal Society: Nullius in verba
Exactly. Just because something is the mainstream scientific view doesn’t mean it’s true. But if you’re a lay person making public policy, you should have some respect for the mainstream scientific view — it’s better than nothing.
” you should have some respect ”
Having respect is not the same thing as accepting without question. You are mistaken to think that your friends on the right do not respect scientists. This is another one of those BS stereotypes being pushed by Democrats to otherize their political opponents. The question is, do you realize this is an intentional misrepresentation in order to demonize the opposition and fool simple minded folk or do you actually believe in these dehumanizing stereotypes?
You are mistaken to think that your friends on the right do not respect scientists
Where is the evidence that the leadership of the Republican party has any respect for climate scientists? Calling their work a hoax is a funny way to show respect.
“Where is the evidence that the leadership of the Republican party has any respect for climate scientists?”
Questioning their findings does not mean they do not respect them. But you shouldn’t confuse opposition to Democrat’s punitive policies as being anti-science.
I think a good example of lack of respect was the no pressure campaign where AGW alarmists advocated killing everyone who disagreed with them. Another one is linking views on climate science with support for killing all the Jews. Then there is the destruction of property and threats of violence from the Democrat activists. Are you really sure you want to have a discussion about respecting other people?
“Calling their work a hoax is a funny way to show respect.”
Why should they respect a hoax?
Really Jim you are quite twisted around on this.
But if you’re a lay person making public policy, you should have some respect for the mainstream scientific view — it’s better than nothing.
Unless it happens to be worse than nothing and/or isn’t actually a mainstream scientific view. This is just another example of your CBO argument.
“Exactly. Just because something is the mainstream scientific view doesn’t mean it’s true. But if you’re a lay person making public policy, you should have some respect for the mainstream scientific view — it’s better than nothing.”
I’m sure that would have been a great comfort to you as you burned at the stake for saying the Sun was at the center of the Solar System.
Jim, wise up: these societies (Nat. Academy etc) you place your faith in are not scientific institutions doing research. Of all the member scientists, very few are climate scientists. The opinion of a nuclear physicist or a bio-chemist on climate science are practically worthless unless they’ve decided to devote years boning up on the subject. And they don’t. They are no more capable of an informed opinion on climate science than the car mechanic down the street. Long long gone are the days (like abut 200+ years) when the members of the group could encompass all the knowledge of each discipline.
Organizations like the Nat. Acad. do not do coordinated research. The scientists rarely meet. It’s a nice checkbox to have on your way to a Nobel, but that’s all. I know several Nat. Academy members (physicists and chemists) and they are not climate scientists and no more qualified to opine about climate science than they are able to do brain surgery. Any opinion they spout is unscientific and uncoordinated and is the opinion of a few of the officers of the organization.
Jim, you have no respect for
mainstream scientific thoughtscience. Which requires you follow the data where ever it leads. Computer modelers are manufacturing data which is not the same.In other words, you respect science, but not the practitioners in one field of science, because you’ve ruled their work unscientific.
You could use the same trick to dismiss any mainstream scientific view. “I respect science, but don’t vaccinate my kids, because immunologists have forsaken the true path of scientific inquiry in pursuit of grants from big pharma.” “I respect science, but not evolution, because evolutionary biologists aren’t really scientists, they’re atheists using pseudo-science to attack religion and suppress the work of creation scientists.” And so on.
When you pick and choose which mainstream scientific views to respect, you aren’t respecting science, you’re just cloaking your political/religious/economic/whatever views with a scientific veneer.
Jim, you’re missing a crucial point here. Immunologists and evolutionary biologists are following the scientific method, climate researchers are not. That whirring sound you hear is Popper and Feynman spinning in their graves.
Immunologists and evolutionary biologists are following the scientific method, climate researchers are not
Anti-vaxxers think that immunologists aren’t following the scientific method, and creationists think that evolutionary biologists aren’t following the scientific method. It’s all too easy to say that science is great, but if mainstream science disagrees with me it must be because that particular subset of scientists isn’t following the scientific method. That sort of “respect” for science is no respect at all.
Anti-vaxxers don’t understand math or science. Climate skeptics do, which is why they’ve been forcing all the corrections on the “mainstream” climate papers.
[People I don’t agree with] don’t understand math and science. [People I agree with] do.
It’s a content-free argument. Anti-vaxxers are sure that they understand science better than the scientists, just as lay climate dissidents are sure that they understand science better than the climate scientists.
which is why they’ve been forcing all the corrections on the “mainstream” climate papers
So mainstream climate scientists are listening to skeptics, and incorporating their input into published work, but those changes haven’t undermined their belief that most recent warming is human-caused. Sounds like science at work, and all the more reason to respect the mainstream view.
So mainstream climate scientists are listening to skeptics, and incorporating their input into published work, but those changes haven’t undermined their belief that most recent warming is human-caused.
Actually, they have been. You just haven’t been paying attention. See, for example, the head of the department at that second-rate school, the Georgia Institute of Technology.
See, for example, the head of the department
That’s great, and evidence that AGW conformity is not a requirement for professional success in the field. But so far the mainstream view continues to be that most warming is human-caused. If and when that changes, policy should follow, but it hasn’t changed yet.
She has been vilified for it, and called a “denier.” By liars like Mann.
The Hockey Stick episode demonstrated that the climate “science” community isn’t capable of policing or critiquing itself. It took an outsider, a Canadian mining engineer who (unike Mann) actually understood statistics, to get it corrected. “Peer” review was useless.
So mainstream climate scientists are listening to skeptics, and incorporating their input into published work, but those changes haven’t undermined their belief that most recent warming is human-caused. Sounds like science at work, and all the more reason to respect the mainstream view.
Jim, it’s not the skeptic’s views that undermine CAGW. What undermines CAGW is the lack of global warming predicted by your proclaimed mainstream scientists. If your mainstream scientists views of CAGW are correct, then we should have experienced a rise in global temperatures as they predicted. But we did not, and that undermines the credibility of their predictions, the models that made those predictions, and the ideas that developed those models. That’s science. Declaring something to be true when the facts don’t support it is fantasy. Having a bestowed title doesn’t make the fantasy real or scientific.
“But so far the mainstream view continues to be that most warming is human-caused.”
Well, lets take a look at that. We often hear of a 95% certainty. This is used in the context of statistics but we know that there was not a statistical analysis with a 95% confidence level. It is just the opinion of the IPCC. It is a random arbitrary number chosen to sex up their reports. But AGW alarmists throw this number around as if it is a fact.
Jim sounds like the Roman Inquisition lecturing Galileo. Damn good thing the “Father of Science” decided not to respect the “mainstream” scientific views of his time. Alas, CAGW is still based in geocentrism, so no wonder Jim’s arguments sound familiar.
We don’t need scientists to respect the mainstream view in their field, we need them to challenge it, test it, and hone it.
We do need lay people, especially policy makers, to respect the mainstream view, and not fool themselves into thinking they can outsmart the experts.
This “mainstream” view you continue to speak of is a fiction in the real science community.
We do need lay people, especially policy makers, to respect the mainstream view, and not fool themselves into thinking they can outsmart the experts.
Yep, just like the Roman Inquisition. Galileo was a lay person. He wasn’t a member of the clergy, yet the clergy demanded his respect. So the political societies of science in his day persecuted him.
“We don’t need scientists to respect the mainstream view in their field, we need them to challenge it, test it, and hone it.”
Except when people with qualifications do challenge the doctrine they are attacked as anti-science or funded by big oil. Where is the respect at?
Galileo had data.
How many deniers have data?
Jeebus.
The Stupid. It burns.
How many deniers have data?
Do you mean other than the last 17 years of non-global warming that wasn’t predicted by mainstream climate scientists?
“you respect science, but not the practitioners in one field of science”
Climatology is a young field. They have not proved their field reliable yet. The models have been wrong so far. The predictions have been wrong so far. The “science” is heavily influenced by politicians and advocates who have motives other than adhering to the scientific method. And many of these advocates, backed by their scientists, have been calling for some despicable things, like killing everyone they disagree with, forced sterilization, confiscation of property, and other extreme actions.
It is unreasonable to expect people to have blind faith in a field that seeks to micromanage people’s everyday lives on such flimsy evidence that an apocalypse is happening and their proposed policies will do anything to prevent it. The thing is that even if people agree that humans have effects on the environment and this may contribute to global warming but disagree with the methodology of the IPCC and their proposed “solutions” then they are labeled as anti-science because it isn’t about the science but about the politics driving the movement.
The apocalyptical fear mongering has done so much to damage the AGW community. It is unlikely that climate change will lead to an apocalypse like alarmists claim but they have to sensationalize their position to get support similar to what happened to pass Obamacare.
Climatology is a young field
So is the study of HIV. Does that mean we should have patience with politicians who insist that the whole “HIV causes AIDS” theory is a hoax?
even if people agree that humans have effects on the environment and this may contribute to global warming but disagree with the methodology of the IPCC and their proposed “solutions” then they are labeled as anti-science
No, they’re anti-science if they deny that the mainstream scientific view supports the AGW hypothesis, or deny that the mainstream scientific view on any scientific question is more likely to be correct than the opinion of a layperson. So Jenny McCarthy should defer to science about vaccines, and James Inhofe should defer to science about climate; otherwise it’s fair to label them as anti-science.
We (that is, people who understand and believe in science) defer to science, not to people who call themselves scientists.
So is the study of HIV.
No, it’s a very old field. Before HIV, they were studying things like smallpox, measles, yellow fever, etc. Climatologists weren’t studying something else before they studied climatology.
We (that is, people who understand and believe in science) defer to science
That leaves you free to cherry pick the scientific findings that suit you. I’m sure that Jenny McCarthy thinks she’s deferring to science when she reads one doctor’s argument against vaccines, and thinks it’s better science than all that pro-vaccine stuff that strikes her as propaganda.
not to people who call themselves scientists
Jenny couldn’t say it better. Why should she listen to those people, just because they’ve spent their working lives studying disease?
I find your continuing comparisons of me, a person with advanced degrees in math and science, with a former Playboy playmate quite insulting. This kind of thing is why you’re losing the argument, and why knowledgeable people, as opposed to ignorant scientist worshipers, no longer take “climate change” as seriously as the hystericists want them to.
your continuing comparisons of me, a person with advanced degrees in math and science, with a former Playboy playmate quite insulting
So your views deserve more respect than McCarthy’s, based on your years of schooling? But we can dismiss the PhDs of thousands of climate scientists, because they’re just people who call themselves scientists, and you can see right through their shoddy work? Credentialism for me, but not for thee?
I’m not “dismissing their PhDs.” I’m critiquing their work, as a fellow “scientist.” That’s why the critiques of climate skeptics have generated corrections. I’m not aware of any research that Jenny McCarthy has challenged and gotten corrected. Perhaps you can point me to some.
I’m critiquing their work, as a fellow “scientist.”
Hardly — in this very thread you dismissed them as poseurs who merely call themselves scientists. The fact that they have spent far more time studying this subject than you have, and in fact have staked their careers on it, does not seem to impress you at all; but I’m supposed to be impressed that you have more degrees than Jenny McCarthy.
The fact that they have spent far more time studying this subject than you have, and in fact have staked their careers on it, does not seem to impress you at all
The issue isn’t whether or not I am “impressed” by it. Just because they do it for a living doesn’t make their work beyond question, but you somehow seem to think it should be. Still waiting for all that vaccine research that has been corrected as a result of Jenny’s penetrating critiques.
“You know, that Jenny McCarthy makes some good points.”
#ThingsNoDepartmentHeadOfEpidemiologySaidEver
Jim, many climate scientists have never agreed with the CAGW line, and more and more are jumping ship because the planet refuses to conform to the computer models. This points up the fact that to model a system you have to actually have to have the correct relations, otherwise you’re just writing a computer game about an artificial world.
Here’s a nice quote that Judith Curry, chair of the climatology department at Georgia Tech and one of the world’s top climate scientists, just posted:
She holds that the modelers took climatology down a dead-end track for two decades. The models do not work and impeded understanding and actual scientific research toward understanding the climate and what drives it. One of her recent papers was quite seminal at advancing our understanding of the drivers of natural climate cycles, and sure enough, most of the warming we had was to be expected with or without any influence of CO2. Now the temperatures head back down, following those natural drivers, and with it the last remaining shreds of scientific credibility of CAGW notions.
“No, they’re anti-science if they deny that the mainstream scientific view supports the AGW hypothesis, or deny that the mainstream scientific view on any scientific question is more likely to be correct than the opinion of a layperson. ”
This is exactly what is wrong with people who use the fear of an uncertain future to claim there is an impending apocalypse. People who are skeptical are labeled as deniers, like holocaust deniers. That is the origin of the attack and the intention is to dehumanize skeptics equate them with perpetrating genocide and to elevate AGW alarmist to the same level as trying to prevent a genocide.
After making remarks like this you want to lecture people on respect.
Climate scientists are not independent and are corrupted by their collaboration with advocates, activists, and political parties. The movement as a whole is dishonest in its portrayal of the world as it exists today, yesterday, and tomorrow. They need that dishonesty because without the threat of an apocalypse no one would enact their political policies. It is much the same as how Obamacare was passed and defended by its advocates.
Being skeptical is not anti-science, it is science. That is the basis for peer review after all.
Well Politico just destroyed Jim’s arguments. If policy makers should respect men of experience and nobility, then the Obama White House is not what Jim claims it to be. Click the link to read the bonus quote of Rahm Emanuel threatening to kill a Nobel scientist for talking about the effects of CAWG.
LOL the curtain is removed and now Obama can’t count on the media or his own cabinet to hide his incompetence anymore.