New Scientist has a barrage of articles on “denialism”, including one from DeSmog Blog misinformer Richard Littlemore, who runs with the tired old comparisons of today’s skeptical public to tobacco industry campaigns. He bashes what he calls “manufactured doubt” while at the same time ignoring the billions poured into the climate industry, including the funding he and his namesake publisher (Hoggan and Associates PR firm, who run DeSmog Blog) receives from that industry. It’s quite the sanctioned hatefest going on there. It is truly sad that like Scientific American, New Scientist has become nothing more that a political science mouthpiece, and a shell of its former self.
Here’s links to all the New Scientist articles on “denial”. They did include one article from Michael Fitzpatrick that is a feeble attempt at balance, but even it too strays into the ugly territory of comparing climate skeptics with AIDS deniers.
- Special report: Living in denial Opinion > Special Report p35 From climate change to vaccines, evolution to flu, denialists are on the march. Why do so many people refuse to accept the evidence?
- Living in denial: When a sceptic isn’t a sceptic Opinion > Special Report pp36-37 There are clear lines between scepticism and denial, but telling them apart can be tricky in the real world, says Michael Shermer
- Living in denial: Why sensible people reject the truth Opinion > Special Report pp38-41 Denialism satisfies deep emotional needs. That makes it easy to encourage and hard to counter, says Debora MacKenzie
- Living in denial: How corporations manufacture doubt Opinion > Special Report p41 If the truth is inconvenient, put up a smokescreen instead. It works wonders for big business, argues Richard Littlemore
- Living in denial: Unleashing a lie Opinion > Special Report pp42-43 It’s easy to send a lie flying around the world, and almost impossible to shoot it down, says Jim Giles
- Living in denial: Questioning science isn’t blasphemyOpinion > Special Report p44 Michael Fitzpatrick argues that calling an opponent a denier is illiberal, intolerant and ineffective
- Living in denial: The truth is our only weapon Opinion > Special Report p45 We must let denialists be heard, and respond with patience, vigilance and tireless rebuttal, says Michael Shermer
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Wow. But yes, haha, Nude Socialist can no longer surprise me. 😉
Since when hasn’t NS been lefty political pseudoscience rag?
New Scientist wants a new age, the “Age Of Acceptance” where all scientific material is published must be believed and where all scrutiny is to be denied.
Accept the Gospel of New Scientist, you bunch of denialist heathens. The editors at New Scientist must have decided there is more money in religion than science. Maybe they are right, just look at our supreme leader Al Gore.
New Scientist has been looney since the early 80s at least. Always goes for the screaming hair-on-fire angle if it can find one. MAD magazine has more credibility, AFAIC.
New Scientist / Post Normal Scientist. Same-same.
What a heap of garbage! I’m really pleased that I stopped buying New Scientist when it stopped being an objective science publication.
The only climate deniers today are the ones who cling to the discredited idea of catastrophic global warming.
[snip]
They doth protest too much. The irony of course is that they are in denial. Their denial is that reasonable, intelligent people could significantly disagree with them without either having been manipulated in some fashion by evil interests, or being actively on the payroll of those evil interests.
Is there really any difference between New Scientist, Scientific American and the National Enquirer? When are they going to start publishing articles about “Elvis found on Mars”
Actually I am maligning the Enquirer by lumping them with New Scientist. Seems they are up for a Pulitzer Prize according to the New York Times!
“….The Enquirer is under consideration for a Pulitzer Prize, and it has strong support for its bid from other journalists….” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/business/media/08enquirer.html
Interesting how these people see open discussion as the equivalent of being gagged, when it is actually quite the opposite. They are used to gagging any dissent and having control control of the discussion.
People defending undefendable religions always fall into this mode. Logic can’t win the argument, so they resort to more intellectually violent approaches.
About Elsevier; and New Scientist.
New Scientist is printed by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of Reed Elsevier. Reed Elsevier is owned by The Reed Elsevier group is a dual-listed company consisting of Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV.
At a 2009 court case in Australia where Merck & Co. is being sued by a user of Vioxx, the plaintiff alleged that Merck had paid Elsevier to publish the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, which had the appearance of being a peer-reviewed academic journal but in fact contained only articles favorable to Merck drugs. Merck has described the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine as a “complimentary publication”, denied claims that articles within it were ghost written by Merck, and stated that the articles were all reprinted from peer-reviewed medical journals. In May 2009, Elsevier released a statement by Michael Hansen regarding the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, conceding that these were “sponsored article compilation publications, on behalf of pharmaceutical clients, that were made to look like journals and lacked the proper disclosures”.
Also: “Herman van Campenhout is Chief Executive Officer of Science & Technology at Elsevier … Prior to joining RBI, Herman spent 17 years with the Royal Dutch Shell Group”, Royal Dutch Shell provides funding to the Climate Research Unit.
So, the people that own, control, publish and distribute New Scientist print ’fiction as science for money’ and the ‘Science and Technology Division’ is run by an ex Royal Dutch Shell executive.
New Scientist was a source of the IPCC Glacier Melting lie.
Its a major circling of the wagons as if science were an “ism”.
This is the real threat to science. A bunch of ignoramous magazine editors playing the role of the Pope’s propaganda machine in insulting the many scientists challenging the orthodoxy.
Warmists In Groupthink Death Spiral
They past “craziness” a long time ago.
New Scientist is to science as Newsweak is to news. I had a subscription for a while and found it to be so horribly shallow that its hardly worth using to light a fire with. Flashy cover promising real neat stuff in the story. When you hit the story, its mush.
The alarmist lobby has hundreds of millions of dollars to play with each year.
Almost all the ‘climate scientists’ are funded by government and want to continue their comfy lifestyles – hence the never ending stream of alarmist propaganda.
We are now entering the age of painful budget cutbacks. Yet, the very underfunded sceptical movement – does anyone give us serious funds? – is steadily winning the hearts and minds of Jo Public.
Why? Joe Public is beginning to clearly see that: a) The alarmist scare stories are daily becoming more ridiculous, ii) the practitioners of present day climate science have regularly manipulated data to ‘prove’ their flawed hypotheses, and iii) there is an unhealthy and mutually supportive relationship between very overpaid populist politicians and overpaid ‘climate scientists’.
Why should Joe Public support the Establishment and AGW, when the actions proposed will do almost nothing to reduce the growth in carbon dioxide levels and cause widespread economic misery through huge rises in stealth and other forms of taxation?
Bottom line: the attacks on reasonable scepticism by alarmists will become ever more shriller.
So what is it about millions of us who believed in global warming hysteria for years but then realised it didn’t add up? Did an evil corporation put something in my tea that killed my Marxist leanings?
These New Scientist articles are opinion pieces, and only that. There is no science here.
The idea that AGW skepticism is somehow linked to all of the other anti-science examples that they listed (they missed the faked moon landings) just shows that there is a lot of traction to the skepticism.
Its sad that they can’t see that many of the arguments that they apply to the “deniers” are actually more reasonably applicable to themselves. They are the real deniers.
Cap & Trade is on the Senate floor again, with the compliments from Maurice Strong, George Soros, Al Gore and all the other hacks who belong behind bars.
In itself the argument of “It is wrong because it was said by a denialist” is a logical fallacy but one can justifiably ask the following:
Do you have an experimental test, which could be replicated in the lab, which could demonstrate that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that at current or even double present concentrations in the atmosphere of the earth could increase temperatures in any measure?
If you don’t, then you have NOTHING. PERIOD!
time for a good old book burning!!!
Mmmpf. The lizards are not going extinct, they’ve just taken up writing for New Scientist…
Scientific American and New Scientist have been politically motivated for over two decades. The only real scientific import they have now is to give the left a “scientific” fig leaf for their talking points.
The irony level of Michael Shermer writing a article sub- titled “When a Speptic isn’t a Skeptic” is off the charts. Shermer can’t see his own blind spots.
Even to a true believer, this issue must seem over the top.
If you look really closely, you can actually see a little tiny motorcycle jumping a shark on page 17.
On the other hand, this kind of desperation disparaging is what will kill their little cult… so bring it on.
Climate craze/hysteria and swine-flu craze/hysteria have much in common: there was not much to it, but certain industries, international bureaucracies and internationalist politicians strengthened their positions.
Create a “crisis” and then “solve” it, and it looks like you did a marvelous job. Better give this guy my vote next time as well.
Here in Norway, we recently had a sick-leave crisis. Sick-leave was suddenly out of control – even though the rate was perfectly normal, and would be less than normal if it wasn’t for the swine-flu crisis, during which people were advised to stay home for 8 days at the slightest symptom.
But the real “crisis” was of course the need to slash public spending to balance the budget.
So what is the proper democratic response to public manipulation, deceit and manufactured crises?
Yep.
Proud denial. Based on facts.
And watch out for the next “crises”!