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
New Scientist has not been worth reading for about 25 years. It got hijacked by warmists long ago.
They are actually now suffering from displacement. They consider themselves a knowledgeable elite and all sceptics as below average IQ.
What amuses me is that they lump Creationists, the religious and the tobacco-doesnt-cause cancer with Climate Sceptics.
– When it is now quite clear who is suffering from religious fervour.
What really hurts and angers them is that they failed miserably to get earth scientists, physicists, chemists, engineers etc on the AGW bandwagon.
But dont worry about it. No real scientists subscribe and it has a rapidly dwindling readership. It is outrageously expensive and this kind of Editorial Commentary will just switch off yet more readers.
After reading this issue, people can review New Scientist at Amazon. I just read the reviews of Sci American, there are many bad reviews due to lefty/green politics.
I noted about ten years ago that New Scientist had become the para-military wing of Greenpeace, and that its articles had become inane drivel aimed at the average ten year-old. Hence I cancelled my subscription.
Like the BBC’s flagship Horizon documentary program, which has become an adult version of Blue Peter (a children’s show), New Scientist has become a dumbed-down propaganda mouthpiece for environmentalism.
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If you want to complain, the email address for New Scientist is:
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tonyb says: May 14, 2010 at 7:49 am Is this really from the New Scientist? If so I hope they will look at this edition in future and hang their heads in shame.
I think he is being kind. Sad as it may seem, this issue makes it clear that “The New Scientist” has no future. Au revoir!
Bruce Cobb says:
May 14, 2010 at 9:30 am
Fear of C02 is simply unnatural. I’m guessing the issues involved may be Oedipal, but further investigation will be necessary.
I’d rather incline myself to an asphyxiating mother case.
If you want to complain, the email address for New Scientist is:
letters@newscientist.com
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I was intrigued by ‘Living in Denial – the Truth is Our Only Weapon:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627606.500-living-in-denial-the-truth-is-our-only-weapon.html
In the nearly 20 years I have been debating AGW with crisis supporters, I have never found one who was willing to follow the guidelines put forth in this article. It states:
“Those who are in possession of the facts have a duty to stand up to the deniers with a full-throated debunking repeated often and everywhere until they too go the way of the dinosaurs.”
To date, none of my concerns about the theory of an AGW crisis have been seriously addressed, much less debunked! All I have ever received for my arguments were ad hominem attacks and logical fallacies. I, for one, would be greatly appreciative if the AGW proponents would follow the advice in this article. Of course, they really can’t afford to do that, because they do not have the truth or the facts.
Discouraging, but not surprising. The New Scientist was created when the term “new” was starting to be used as a euphemism for “communist” or “socialist”. At least they’re consistent.
New Scientist is weak and foolish, no doubt, but it still gets bought, albeit not read, because it carries adverts for scientific jobs. A bit like the [UK newspaper] The Guardian, which sensible people long ago gave up reading, but which still stumbles from issue to issue based on state subsidy due to Public Sector job advertising. That, and the best Cryptic Crosswords on the Planet.
However there IS [in my opinion] a grain of sense in the linked articles. Why DO so many intelligent people believe in stuff [CAGW] which is obviously false? Again in my opinion, it is because they have seen something with their own eyes which conflicts, so they think, with the sceptical position. That something is the FACT that it HAS warmed up in Western cities since the clean air acts stopped smog from cooling cities relative to the country. Journalists and politicians, right and left, step out of their city parterres and see, feel, smell that it is hotter right where they are [aka the Centre of the Universe] than 10 years ago. It’s human nature to seek a cause when one sees an effect, and lo! there are more cars, people are richer, it MUST be that those clever scientists who say human activities warm up the earth are correct. This hypothesis also explains why Weatherpeople, who look at the big picture, and countryfolk, whose experience is different, are [almost all] sceptics.
Enneagram says:
May 14, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Zeke the Sneak says:
May 14, 2010 at 9:56 am
I find, instead, those “deep emotional needs”in BELIEVERS
…we must say that this applies only to Global Warming preachers, leaders, and “scientists” but NOT in any way to their patrons, bosses or funders, they are perfectly conscious of their inexaustible need of power and money.
Point very well taken. If they want to play the dime-store psychologist about “deep emotional needs,” “two can play,” as they say.
I no longer give quarter in conversation to even my closest family members for supporting AGW policies, because deep down they are insisting that they know best, and must micromanage other people’s lives, making every little decision for them using the force of government. That is the real “deep emotional” aspect at play here. And it’s beyond arrogant.
So perhaps we have a tiny disagreement; I think the deceived are just as exactly as guilty of this insensate elitism as the deceivers.
Electric regards
and best always
The New Scientist folks aren’t just in denial, they’re on a scuba diving expedition through Cairo.
“The AGW warm-mongering carbon-fear cutlists are in denial about the evidence, about the proper application of the scientific method, about the fact that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, that the burden of proof is always on the theory to be proved and not on the null hypothesis, and about the fact that the hundreds of billions of government funding politicizes and corrupts them beyond any possibility of objectivity.” – Alan Lovejoy
Jon-Anders Grannes said on May 14, 2010 at 11:13 am:
As is noted here, someone using Firefox got that warning, virus was in the disk cache. As mentioned on the Firefox Support site, it is unlikely a Firefox user would get infected, and also possible that anti-virus scanners can misidentify some files as viruses.
That said, I just about Hansen’d my shorts yesterday when my browser was hijacked. I just started doing something on WUWT but afterwards it looked like it started at another tab that was loading a different page. I got this warning in a pop-up box:
I tried to cancel, it ran anyway, showing me a page with “ongoing virus screening.” Tried to go back, I got a warning message pop-up (I took screen shots):
Take a flying guess how effective “cancel” was. Plus I couldn’t go to another tab while that warning was up, couldn’t really do anything with the browser. Had to let it complete.
It finished with a beautiful blue pop-up box, Win XP style or something, titled Windows Security Alert, saying how Windows Web Security has detected trojans and is ready to remove them. This time hitting Cancel did something, forced a download of an exe file that I guess a user can run later. Shortly thereafter that page ceased to exist, browser couldn’t find it, and it had a random-generated name anyway. The page had looked nice, showing all the Windows directories being scanned on my C: drive, where in those directories the viruses were…
I use a Linux box. Thus I knew it was bogus, I don’t have those directories. And I knew it is very unlikely I was infected with anything, being Linux. But I also know sites can remote-detect operating systems, there are a few Linux viruses out there… And there went the rest of my day, downloading many megabytes of Linux-flavor anti-virus software on dial-up. (:-(
If I had been running Windows… *shudder*
Anyone else have strange virus warnings or browser hijacks lately?
At some point, someone will actually do an experiment with forcing and gain some clarity. In fact, if I get off my backside and get some funding it may even be me. Theory and the impression of understanding is so intoxicating; experimenting is ugly and complicated yet much more rewarding.
As for the hubris, I turn to a fellow Norn Iron poet: Crawford Howard and The Diagonal Steam Trap (apologies for the long post but you’ll see the relevance):
Now they built a big ship down in Harland’s –
She was made for to sell till the Turks –
And they called on the Yard’s chief designer
To design all the engines and works.
Now finally the engines was ready
And they screwed in the very last part
An’ yer man says ‘Let’s see how she runs, lads!’
An’ bejasus! the thing wouldn’t start!
So they pushed and they worked an’ they footered
An’ the engineers’ faces got red
The designer he stood lookin’ stupid
An’ scratchin’ the back o’ his head.
But while they were fiddlin’ and workin’
Up danders oul’ Jimmie Dalzell
He had worked twenty years in the ‘Island’
And ten in the ‘aircraft’ as well.
So he pushed and he worked and he muttered
Till he got himself through till the front
And he has a good look roun’ the engine
An’ he gives a few mutters and grunts,
And then he looks up at the gaffer
An’ says he ‘Mr Smith, d’ye know?
They’ve left out the Diagonal Steam Trap !
How the hell d’ye think it could go?’
Now the engineer eyed the designer
The designer he looks at the ‘hat’
And they whispered the one to the other
‘Diagonal Steam Trap? What’s that?’
But the Gaffer, he wouldn’t admit, like
To not knowin’ what this was about,
So he says ‘Right enough, we were stupid!
The Diagonal Steam Trap’s left out!’
Now in the meantime oul’ Jimmie had scarpered
– away down to throw in his boord –
And the Gaffer comes up and says ‘Jimmy!
D’ye think we could have a wee word?’
Ye see that Diagonal Steam Trap?
I know it’s left out- it’s bad luck
But the engine shop’s terrible busy
D’ye think ye could knock us one up?’
Now, oul’ Jimmy was laughin’ his scone off
He had made it all up for a gag
He seen what was stoppin’ the engine –
The feed-pipe was blocked with a rag!
But he sticks the oul’ hands in the pockets
An’ he says’ Aye, I’ll give yez a han’!
I’ll knock yez one up in the mornin’
An’ the whole bloody thing will be grand!’
So oul’ Jim starts to work the next morning
To make what he called a Steam Trap,
An oul’ box an’ a few bits of tubing
An ‘ a steam gauge stuck up on the top,
An’ he welds it all on till the engine
And he says to the wonderin’ mob ,
As long as that gauge is at zero
The Steam Trap is doin’ its job!’
Then he pulls the rag outa the feed pipe
An’ he gives-the oul’ engine a try
An ‘ bejasus! she goes like the clappers
An’ oul’ Jimmy remarks ‘That’s her nye!’
Now the ship was the fastest seen ever
So they sent her away till the Turks
But they toul’ them ‘That Steam Trap’s a secret!
We’re the only ones knows how it works!
But the Turks they could not keep their mouths shut
An’ soon the whole story got roun’
An’ the Russians got quite interested – –
Them boys has their ears till the groun ‘ !
So they sent a spy dressed as a sailor
To take photies of Jimmy’s Steam Trap
And they got them all back till the Kremlin
An’ they stood round to look at the snaps.
Then the head spy says ‘Mr Kosygin!
I’m damned if I see how that works !’
So they sent him straight off to Siberia
An’ they bought the whole ship from the Turks!
When they found the Steam Trap was a ‘cod’, like,
They couldn’t admit they’d been had
So they built a big factory in Moscow
To start makin’ Steam Traps like mad!
Then Kosygin rings up Mr Nixon
And he says ‘Youse’uns thinks yez are great!
But wi’ our big new Russian-made Steam Trap
Yez’ll fInd that we’ve got yez all bate!’
Now oul Nixon, he nearly went ‘harpic’
So he thought he’d give Harland’s a call
And he dialled the engine-shop number
And of course he got sweet bugger all!
But at last the call came through to Jimmy
In the midst of a terrible hush,
‘There’s a call for you here from the White House!’
Says oul’ Jim, ‘That’s a shop in Portrush !’
There’s a factory outside of Seattle
Where they’re turnin’ out Steam Traps like Hell
It employs twenty-five thousand workers
And the head of it – Jimmy Dalzell!
Crawford Howard
+The question that has to be asked is; for whom are these opinions provided? Us ‘deniers’ just laugh and the warmists nod their heads in agreement. It all seems a bit pointless, unless of course it is themselves who need convincing. Why have they bothered.
Talk about gray literature… New Scientist is a prime example.
Gareth Phillips says:
May 14, 2010 at 10:22 am
It’s sad edition for a well loved magazine. They seem to have fallen for the sad tactic of ” if you can’t challenge the idea, attack the person” However we need to stop confusing politics with science. As a European style lefty and evironmentalist , I have grave concerns with climate theory. That does not make me right wing. If we accuse proponants of climate theory as “lefties” they could refer to us as right wing capitalists which just destroys constructive debate based on good evidence.
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As a liberal I quite agree with your satement, this debate must not be divided along political lines (LOL, I know that’s a tough one…). Working in the field of science and engineering for decades with strong interests in renewable energy, I also have strong reserves and totally disagree with AGW and CO2 driving climate.
Well this is the problem, isn’t it ?
Climate science has taken AGW and renamed it ‘climate change’… a catchall phrase. With this catchall phrase they can play on words much easier.
And this is where they get you.
So you no longer question AGW, you now question ‘climate change’, thus making you a ‘climate change denier’ and ultimately portraying you to look like an idiot.
See how that works ? How convenient for them.
One day, when the AGW hypothesis is found out to be false on many levels, they’re all going to look back on this and hang their heads in embarrassment… and will most likely deny that they ever said/did such things, or at the very least, attempt to soften the blow their dogmatic agendas had on the world. The term ‘backpeddling’ comes to mind.
I hope I live to see that day.
I know you folks don’t like to be compared to creationists, but the parallels are very strong. They cannot accept science when, in their view, it goes against the Bible. [snip] cannot accept science when, in their view, it goes again the free (unregulated) market. Both groups claim that the world’s scientists are in some sort of vast conspiracy.
Seriously, do you think most of us think there is an actual conspiracy among scientists?
There is all the difference in the world between believing the opposing view suffers from group-think and aligned interests and thinking that there is some kind of nefarious plot.
The “free (unregulated) market” dig is also wildly off beam. In the US it might be true, but then that’s how most Americans are at the best of times (there it is the warmists liking of controlled markets that is the minority). In other countries it is just plain false to assert a link between climate scepticism and belief in free markets. I doubt that the Chinese and Russian scientists who disagree with the pronouncements of imminent climate doom are even remotely free market.
Both groups trumpet work by a few amateurs and jump on any open questions or conflicting data as proof the whole theory is wrong.
The warmists gave a Nobel Prize to Al Gore. They let Pachauri run their most important organisation. They listen, God help us, to Sting.
Accusations that only the sceptics listen to amateurs falls completely flat to me. The warmists do just the same.
My work was once published in The New Scientist and I had a subscription for a year or two. Now I don’t even look at it on the magazine shelf in the airport. Do they really think this opinionated rubbish will improve their circulation?
Ray said on May 14, 2010 at 2:28 pm:
Grey? Nah, it is clearly RED literature. See the cover?
“denialists” have more fun, and get featured on the cover of leading scientific magazines!
I used to read New Scientist. I wouldn’t go near that rubbish rag now. There’s probably many more like me.
I’ll not read the linked articles. Stopped reading NS a couple of years ago and not going back there to remind myself why I stopped.
BTW – as soon as I see the ‘D’ word, I stop reading. I know exactly what will follow and have better things to do with my time.
BTW2 – We don’t refer to “economic scientist”, even though economics is an interesting, numercial and philisopical subject. The term “economist” maintains a handy separation beteween economics and experimental science. For much the same reason, I prefer “climatologist” to “climate scientist”.
Cheers