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
My reply to the “New Scientist”
We are not the underdogs here, we are the people who are going to pay the $trillions in taxes and try to survive in a drastically altered economic world. People are starving to death right now, many more are surviving only because of the charitable goodwill of people in the industrialized countries. When it gets to the point that I have to choose between feeding myself or someone who was born in a third world country, well I’m sorry about their luck. When climatology was just Ivory Tower mental masturbation, it was OK that the degree of certainty was on the dodgy side, now that we are talking about trillions of dollars and lives of millions, the certainty of your data and conclusions from it go up dramatically; you are coming to me with your hand out, you have the burden of proof and you have to convince me to my standards, not yours.
Why are so many angry? You are on the cover of a major magazine! :0
Brendan H, May 14, 2010 at 5:59 pm:
“… anti-evolutionism and climate scepticism share some marked similarities…”
And Elmer Gantry and Michael Mann share some marked similarities.
FYI, the only honest scientists are skeptics, first and foremost. That eliminates about 99% of alarmist scientists feeding at the public trough.
The N(B)S folks and their cohorts can cry all they please, but thoe of us who actually think about it and pay the least bit of attention to their surroudings can’t help but wonder what the heck the AGWers are talking about.
Someone earlier said that country folk generally aren’t buying AGW. As one of said folk, I’d agree. People who are, for lack of a better phrase, “close to the land,” pay more attention to climate and recognize AGW for the foul carcass it is.
And for the AGW believers here, perhaps you would answer one question that I’ve never had an AGWer willing to address.
The temperature in my neck of the woods varies by as much as 40 degrees F every day. The annual temperature range is over 100 degrees, from 10F to 110F. Given these FACTS, why do you think that a 10 degree increase or decrease in either the daily or annual range is worthy of panic? Your worst-case scenario is 10% of the run-of-the-mill annual temperature range over which no one panics, so why should your 10% scare me?
I read this drivel yesterday. Unfortunately as they take subscriptions in advance I have already paid for it. Never again, however.
One thing I noted was that if you replaced every instance of ‘climate denier’ with ‘AGW believer’ or possibly ‘natural climate variation denier’, and every instance of ‘climate scientist’ with ‘climate sceptic’ the result would be much more valid than the current articles.
I guess that makes me a ‘denier’ because I have preconceptions (or maybe I have just had enough BS?). In fact, if you read their definitions of denier and sceptic, it is really saying sceptics are those who will come around to believing them, deniers are those who won’t. So who has the preconceived ideas now?
Whoever “New Scientist” is written for, it certainly isn’t scientists.
I think the whole climate issue is very much like the Scopes Monkey Trial. Often the warmers use the wrong issues and science but currently have a very good chance of winning. However, I think in the long run, history will prove us correct.
I hate being proved wrong so I always look carefully at both sides of an issue before I make up my mind on what is the truth. It seems the far left is blinded by fear or the warming idea (or political power) and only looks at what supports their belief. This is very much like what happened in the Scopes Monkey Trial where absolute belief in the bible blinded people to the truth. The more things change, the more things stay the same.
Brendan H says:
May 14, 2010 at 5:59 pm
“I’m not sure what ‘dodge’ you are referring to, but my point was that anti-evolutionism and climate scepticism share some marked similarities in the way they see their opponents. The issue then becomes: if these types of claims are invalid in the case of evolution, why should they be valid in the case of AGW?”
Your response does a very good job of proving that your initial point was indeed a “dodge”, although I may have to rethink that descriptive “clever” that I added. The list of claims you offered is commonly shared by many proponents on either side of many contentious ideas and they are by turns valid or invalid for each case. The fact that you choose to use strained analogies to dismiss contrary views rather than make even a feeble attempt to argue the merits of your position is QED for me
Smokey: “And Elmer Gantry and Michael Mann share some marked similarities.”
Last I heard, Elmer Gantry was a fictional character.
Brendan H says:
“Last I heard, Elmer Gantry was a fictional character.”
Same qualities. But if you want to pick nits, replace Gantry with Madoff or Ponzi. Grifters all, like Mann. Peas in a pod, birds of a feather.
Happy now?
Dave Wendt: “The fact that you choose to use strained analogies to dismiss contrary views rather than make even a feeble attempt to argue the merits of your position is QED for me.”
I’m not using analogies to dismiss contrary views. Climate scepticism is not just a “contrary view”, but rather a position, or number of positions, taken by people who oppose the theory of anthropogenic climate change. Climate sceptics could make their case without resorting to the claims I listed. But since climate sceptics do make these claims, one can subject them to scrutiny.
The facts are that both evolution and AGW are new scientific theories that overturn previous understandings; both have potentially far-reaching social and political consequences; both have generated very strong resistance from some people.
Furthermore, both theories have generated a similar set of responses from their opponents. In my view, these similarities are significant and not incidental. My conclusion is that the same sorts of non-scientific objections to a scientific theory indicate a similar mindset.
I stopped buying New Scientist (which I now refer to as “New Environmentalist” when it run a article from a Greenpeace report that blamed cow farts for 2/3rds of all “global warming”. Anyone with even a basic education in the sciences should now that cows are part of the contempory c02 and play no part in “global warming”. Despite this obvious fact, New Scientist published it any. That was a line for me, when it went from Science to Green PR promoting vegetarianism to save the planet and it lost my subscription for it (even though I am already vegetarian I cant stand others telling people they should be – its a personnel choice). Good ridence to them. I now read an excellent Australian science magazine (cant recall its name off hand!) that is much more balanced with out angenda.
Brendan H says:
May 14, 2010 at 8:34 pm
“I’m not using analogies to dismiss contrary views.”
” The issue then becomes: if these types of claims are invalid in the case of evolution, why should they be valid in the case of AGW?”
Sounds fairly dismissive to me.
“Climate scepticism is not just a “contrary view”, but rather a position, or number of positions, taken by people who oppose the theory of anthropogenic climate change.”
Seems like a distinction without a difference to me, and ACC is a barely supported hypothesis that doesn’t rate being called a theory.
“Climate sceptics could make their case without resorting to the claims I listed.”
And they generally do, but due to issues related to those claims you find so appalling and which,I would note, you have yet to offer a single counter argument against the discussions seldom rise to the level of rational debate.
“But since climate sceptics do make these claims, one can subject them to scrutiny.”
One wonders why you are not willing to provide similar scrutiny to the claims made in the series of opinion pieces that were the genesis of this post.
“The facts are that both evolution and AGW are new scientific theories that overturn previous understandings; both have potentially far-reaching social and political consequences; both have generated very strong resistance from some people.
Furthermore, both theories have generated a similar set of responses from their opponents. In my view, these similarities are significant and not incidental. My conclusion is that the same sorts of non-scientific objections to a scientific theory indicate a similar mindset.”
Evolutionary biology has a few more whiskers than AGW and a considerably sounder basis in science. People who oppose it for the most part, though not always, do so based on religious faith and your continued attempt to analogize that opposition to climate scepticism demonstrates your own intellectual dishonesty.
The reason the sceptic side offers the claims which you find so unscientific is that almost from the start the science of all this has been primarily a pretext for attempts to remodel almost the entirety of human culture to match the utopian visions of its major proponents.
My own conclusion is that your continued insistence on clinging to this phony argument indicates you lack the intellectual skills to argue your case on the merits and you probably deserve to be classed as just another “useful idiot”.
I’ve read ALL the New Antiscientist articles. All of them.
I was looking for something special: evidence. One, single, little, tiny bit of actual evidence.
None, Nothing. Nada. Zip.
If you’re publishing a major issue of a supposed science magazine, shouldn’t you accompany all the nasty filthy abuse of those with whom you disagree with at least one article (heck, even one paragraph! One SENTENCE!!) setting out in simple terms for lay people the CASE IN FAVOUR OF YOUR CLAIM?? (Excuse the shouting, but this sick and hateful trash has really got my goat.)
If you can’t do that, then what are you? And, of course, no matter where you look, no matter who is abusing those people who ask for evidence, none of them, ever, provide that evidence. Maybe there isn’t any?
Brendan H says:
May 14, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Smokey: “And Elmer Gantry and Michael Mann share some marked similarities.”
Last I heard, Elmer Gantry was a fictional character.
Last I heard, Michael Mann was still dismissing the MWP with two tree rings.
>>Jim Clarke says: May 14, 2010 at 1:37 pm
>>To date, none of my concerns about the theory of an AGW crisis
>>have been seriously addressed, much less debunked!
And likewise on this wind-energy site, regards wind power and other Green issues.
http://www.navitron.org.uk
The standard reply by wind proponents is that they will either (a.) store the energy to cope with wind outages, or (b.) have more wind turbines elsewhere in Europe and transmit the energy to all the windless areas of the continent along a super-grid.
To cover for a 3-week outage of wind, Britain would require:
In the first option (a.) 2,100 Dinorwig plants and 90,000 3mw windelecs (turbines).
In (b.) you would require something like 200,000 3 mw windelecs (to power the rest of Europe having no wind – estimating the average size of a anticyclonic weather system).
And they said these were realistic proposals.
.
Excerpt from: Ric Werme on May 14, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Yup, clicked the “X” on that very first box, still didn’t work. Come to think about it, the “X” could also activate malware. That final pop-up box looked like a Win message box, but it sure wasn’t a message box either Linux or Firefox would generate. It apparently was just an image, with an image map over it so it acted like it had normal working buttons (however no color change on mouseover or click IIRC).
I could have killed Firefox outright and started a new session, using System Tools: System Monitor (Debian) so the hijacked Firefox had no say in it. But at the time I thought it was WUWT related and the “Remove Threat to my Species” routine was running, I wanted the details. Later, while knowing I likely had nothing to worry about, one of the main reasons for installing ClamAV was to make sure I wouldn’t be passing anything on to anyone else.
I am worried that thing was looking through my History, snooping out any words or numbers that Firefox was waiting to helpfully suggest while I’m filling in blanks (forms, etc). I don’t let Firefox remember my passwords, so at least I shouldn’t have to worry about those.
But, man, to see your trusted browser get out of your control like that… Wow. Now I know what it feels like to drive a Toyota.
😉
Dave Wendt: “…but due to issues related to those claims you find so appalling…”
I didn’t say the claims were “appalling”. I noted their existence and offered an explanation as to why both anti-evolutionists and climate sceptics make these sorts of claims.
“…you have yet to offer a single counter argument against the discussions seldom rise to the level of rational debate.”
I think you’re probably complaining that I am not arguing against the claims. That is not my argument. I am suggesting that these claims serve a particular function, ie they are used to explain the fact that both evolution and AGW have become the dominant view among the scientific establishment and the major societal institutions.
“People who oppose [evolutionary biology] for the most part, though not always, do so based on religious faith and your continued attempt to analogize that opposition to climate scepticism demonstrates your own intellectual dishonesty.”
People may oppose a scientific theory for a number of reasons. In the case of AGW, opposition comes primarily from people and groups whose views are associated with the conservative/libertarian end of the political/ideological spectrum.
Of course, this says nothing about the accuracy or otherwise of the science. Nevertheless, it is striking that two groups of people who oppose different scientific theories should share so many claims about their opponents.
Hu Duck Xing says:
May 14, 2010 at 3:19 pm
I remember, back when I was in High School in the Sixties, how I anxiously awaited the latest Scientific American’s arrival in my Dad’s mailbox. I couldn’t wait to immerse myself in the latest news in Science! If I immersed myself today, I’d come up gasping for air, feeling dirty!
A lot of that is because we are NOT doing any science any more. We have taken all those financial resources an pumped them into social projects instead. (Britain alone used to have about a dozen new aviation projects on the go at any one time. Now we have 1/4 of two projects).
Instead of investing in science and technology to lift the poor out of poverty, we now either (a.) give financial assistance directly to the poor, which is wasted on either booze, drugs or weaponry (depending on the nation in question); or (b.) we waste money on projects designed to bring the richer nations down to the same level as the poor (by emulating their farming techniques etc:).
The ’60s were full of hope for a brighter future, based on science and technology. The ’00s are full of fear and self loathing, based upon atoning for the ‘sin’ of wanting a better and brighter future.
.
I gave up on New Scientist years ago – they interpret all science from a juvenile socialist point of view. Any objective scientist can see that the issue is about strength of evidence – the evidence for smokers getting lung cancer is robust, but the risk from second-hand smoke is minimal in most cases. The evidence supporting most vaccinations is robust, but the links between CO2 levels and climate change are pathetically weak.
My inclination is say that academics need to speak out, but perhaps the issue is more fundamental – we need to protect government research funding from direct political influence. What does Bill Gates think?
Smokey: “Same qualities. But if you want to pick nits, replace Gantry with Madoff or Ponzi.”
Madoff and Ponzi were convicted swindlers.
“Happy now?”
Always happy to shoot the breeze with you, Smokey.
I am a denialist! I denied the existence of the Millenium Y2K computer bug, never seen one, nobody ever showed me one, if anybody had found one they would have shouted it from the rooftops for all too see.
As a bit of a machine code junkie, after half an hour of investigation, I came to this conclusion that it was largely an overhyped myth. My professional colleagues who also knew it was a myth told me to shut up as they were very busy filling their pockets with cash
This was a scientific myth supported by the scientific press and all the great scientific establishments. The Institutions produced great peer reviewed works on what might happen, the IEE in UK produced a thousand page manual, but not one practical example of faulty code is given in the whole 1000 pages.
The really strange thing is that certain parts of the scientific establishment and press still actually believe that they solved the Y2K problem, but when I meet such people I ask “which bit of code did you alter or cause to be altered?” I have never received a reply.
Idid have colleagues in the non english speaking part of the world who thought we had gone mad, they did nothing and nothing went wrong!
The NS articles are brilliant!
They show the weapons of the AGWers, they show us that the warming conspiracy have nothing else than propaganda, emotionalism, etc. etc. to show. No facts, just opinions, and probably not even opinions, just handy cliches the AGWers use in order to further their underlying causes.
The fun thing is, the AGWers THINK that this kind of propaganda helps, simply because this kind of propaganda functions so well towards their own kin, in general people not used to facts, science, logic and reasoning.
Whoo-hoo!
Michael Shermer has just provided the perfect description of a climate scientist.
I became aware of the NS publication in question here when I dropped in at The Reference Frame , and after a taking a closer look came to remember an old adage “.. Give them a long enough rope and they will hang themselves..” .
Seems to me the editors at NS are really very intent on shortening the rope they already have.
All I could think of as a comment on that utter collection of garbage was to parrot a short comment I saw somewhere recently
“I love the smell of desperation in the morning”