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
I used to buy New Scientist every week but I stopped some time ago for the obvious reason. However, when I’m in Smiths I may occasionally buy a copy if the contents appear to be free of the usual nonsense. When I saw the cover yesterday I didn’t even bother to look inside….
Chris
It’s a vast right-thinking conspiracy.
PS: I should have said, “It’s a vast right-think conspiracy.”
(I.e., it’s a holier-than-thou fad / bandwagon.)
NS was probably nagged into running this series by “activist” warmists, as part of their counter-reformation campaign — I doubt that it was their own idea.
When that happens, and you get a pop-up warning-of-infection box, don’t hit “cancel” — instead, immediately quit your browser. That’s the only safe way.
Brendan H: “anti-evolutionism and climate scepticism share some marked similarities in the way they see their opponents.”
“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.”
Hmm, BH… As a biologist (epizootiologist, if you wish to nit-pick and/or pigeon-hole) with a long history in the study of speciation and a sceptic based on my knowledge of the science of ecosystems, I find the first statement [quoted above] offensive. I can discern that the core of your rant is really based on one fundamental question: how may bales does> it take to create your army of strawmen? Reductio ad absurdum, my friend, a bizarre case of -ismosis.
BH, another small point – AGW isn’t a theory, its a weakly structured hypothesis, rapidly being falsified. If you’re going to pontificate pseudo-intellectually, at least take the time to get the jargon down.
If you can prove to me that the ‘New Scientist Magazine’ actually exists….I’ll believe them. 🙂
Re the comment on AIDS: Three years ago Henry Bauer published a heretical book on the topic, available on Amazon here:
http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Persistence-Failings-AIDS-Theory/dp/0786430486/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273924171&sr=1-1
I recently read a detailed positive review of it in either the London Review of Books or TLS (Times Literary Supplement). I tore the review out, but can’t find it at the moment. Apparently Bauer takes a more moderate and more believable position than Deusberg, saying (or inclining to the belief) that the cause of AIDS is HIV + another infectious agent. Bauer also (according to the reviewer) manages to illuminate the whole subject in a fairly even-handed way, despite his heretical position. Typical of the controversy, there are no 2-, 3-, or 4-star reader-reviews on Amazon. They’re all 1- or 5-star. (Mostly 5-star.)
PS: here’s a gem from one of the reader-reviews:
And both share marked similarities to the much-mocked anti-fluoridation movement of the 50s, which has subsequently been vindicated — or at least un-smeared. The issue then becomes, if their type of claims were valid, why should they be invalid in the case of AGW?
It appears to me that the Real Denialists are those who refuse to accept the fact that we are not all about to be engulfed by an Anthropogenic Global Warming Crisis. The evidence and the basic science seem to be saying that no such problem is likely any time soon.
It appears that the only real problem here is a runaway urban technical legend.
I´m really glad of having cancelled the New Scientist subscription a year ago!
Brendan H says, May 14, 2010 at 8:34 pm:
“The facts are that both evolution and AGW are new scientific theories…”
BZ-Z-Z-Z-ZT!!
Wrong.
But thanx for playing, and Vanna has some lovely parting gifts for you on your way out.
AGW [by which you must mean catastrophic AGW — otherwise, why spend tens of billions on something insignificant?] is not a “theory.” Never was.
Equating CAGW with evolution is like equating astrology with astronomy. That dog won’t hunt.
Evolution is a theory, while CAGW is simply a conjecture; an opinion. To even be a hypothesis, CAGW must be testable. It is not.
Brendan, your feeble attempt to connect CAGW/CC Skeptics/Climate Realists with anti-evolutionists uses a logical fallacy known as Guilt by Association. Nice try.
Is that really the best you can do?
Jo Nova wrote an article on Non Scientist’s propaganda back in December 2009 regarding the fallout from Climategate.
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/new-scientist-becomes-non-scientist/
Brendan H, those guilt by association tactics are most commonly used by those who have arguments with weak or no factual evidence to back them.
Brendan H says:
May 14, 2010 at 12:43 pm
OK, getting a little tired of the tennis match. Allow me to make a point by adjusting your original words a tad (my changes in italics):
It’s not perfect, but I think you can get the idea if you try, and are willing. The natural climate variation deniers are acting exactly like those they are essentially attacking in this excessive number of excessively biased articles. You are merely following the same pattern, in my view.
my last post contained the ‘D’ word a few times. I was trying to make a vaild point without offence. An altered version is:
Brendan H says:
May 14, 2010 at 12:43 pm
OK, getting a little tired of the tennis match. Allow me to make a point by adjusting your original words a tad (my changes in italics):
It’s not perfect, but I think you can get the idea if you try, and are willing. The natural climate variation d*****s are acting exactly like those they are essentially attacking in this excessive number of excessively biased articles. You are merely following the same pattern, in my view.
my last post contained the ‘D’ word a few times. I was trying to make a vaild point without offence. please save from the sin bin.
[We go over the spam folder before we junk anything. It doesn’t show up as “waiting fr moderation”, but it’s still there and will be eyeballed before being trashed. ~ Evan]
“Doubt is uncomfortable, but certainty is absurd.” — Voltaire
I read the NS from the early 60’s faithfully, learned to love particle physics and that revolutionary new idea: plate tectonics, that overthrew the prevailing theses. Much of what I know about science I learned from the NS. Everywhere I lived in the world I managed to find a weekly source. It was written for me!
I suffered thorough the printers strikes of the 70’s, the intolerable politics of Stephen J Gould as editor in the 70-80’s. He at least had the honesty, despite his speciality and strong Darwinian leanings, to print undeniable evidence of Lamarkian changes in the genes of mice. The NS was capable of printing news. No longer.
Now, NS endlessly crusades against straw effigies of what they imagine is the Church of England and jumps to rabid defence of their apparently speechless earth-god, newly threatened by an all-powerful Humankind, ruler of a homocentric universe. They fantasize, as did Lysenko, that overthrowing the prevailing scientific order with politically correct beliefs popularised as ‘truths’ will, after suitable penitent suffering, lead to an era of plenty, comfort and security. Resistance is futile!
In his 1970 book “Design for the Real World”, Victor Papanek quotes Dr Alfred Hulstrunck from the Atmospheric Research Center, University of New York inciting people to think catastrophic thoughts about air travel (referring to particulates from jet fuel shading the whole earth)
“If transportation continues to grow the way its going, it’s possible the next generation may never see the sun.” (p.242)
Sound alarmistly familiar?
A slathering Papanek amplifies this idea: “Were this to happen (and there is a good chance it will by 1990), this might not necessarily spell global darkness. Instead a ‘hothouse effect’ might take over. Transparent to sunlight, but opaque to the earth’s radiation, a blanket of moisture and carbon-dioxide might raise the temperatures of the earth enough to melt the polar icecaps. This would, at the very least, raise seal levels by 300 feet (shrinking habitable land by 64 per cent). But in all likelihood, the sudden weight shift might spin the earth off its axis.” (p.242)
Be still, my trembling knees! It might even make a good science fiction book. In 1971.
It is clear to me that for years the rabid Greens (in contrast to concerned environmentalists) had adopted the themes propounded by Hulstrunck and Papanek and mounted them as hood ornaments on their Mother Earth Cadillac making its Trip to Total Importance.
It is sad, even shocking, that the once venerable New Scientist has fallen off the real science wagon into the ditch of “sky is falling” chickenism. Hulstrunck’s running dogs have gagged the mouthpiece of British popular science. NS is apparently now edited by Monbiot’s evil twin, former owner of a pet shop selling Monty Python’s ex-parrot: “It’s not dead, it’s SLEEPING!” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218
Fred Pearce is helping in the back, nailing more ‘sleeping’ birds upright on three-column glossy perches, lining their cages with NS modern art pictures.
Incredible! NS, you have become the Monty Python of science, a perfect across-the-pond pairing for Scientific American, the Glenn Beck of climate science.
I have a subscription to NS that expires in June. It will, like John Cleese’s dumbstruck ex-parrot, utter no more brainless squawks in my home. Enough is enough. I will return only when real science once again graces its pages.
Bruce Cobb: “Brendan, your feeble attempt to connect CAGW/CC Skeptics/Climate Realists with anti-evolutionists uses a logical fallacy known as Guilt by Association.”
Are you arguing that my claim is false?
Rogerkni: “And both share marked similarities to the much-mocked anti-fluoridation movement of the 50s, which has subsequently been vindicated — or at least un-smeared. The issue then becomes, if their type of claims were valid, why should they be invalid in the case of AGW?”
I’m sure you’ll find that the “authorised” view of fluoridation does not agree.
rogerkni said on May 15, 2010 at 4:24 am:
My experience, with Windows one needs something authoritative like Norton Utilities to do a “hard kill” and force a sudden program termination. If you try a standard exit the browser will still do some housekeeping operations before fully ending, which doesn’t sound too safe with an already-hijacked browser. Plus in the past (when I ran Windows), sometimes the browser would appear ended but then Norton would still find it running, apparently stuck in the housekeeping, even though it had disappeared otherwise and I couldn’t access it. Netscape did that often, and that was the Mozilla-based later version (3.7?). Windows wouldn’t definitively kill it but Norton would.
Thankfully Debian Linux has no problem doing a hard kill through the System Monitor program, nothing else needed.
Brendan H: Are you arguing that my claim is false? Yes, of course. All you’ve done is “notice” that some skeptics somewhere might possibly use some similar types of arguments that anti-evolutionists use. So what? Even if it were true, not only doesn’t it prove anything, your motives are clear, and your method dishonest. You’ve been outed.
Excerpt from: Brendan H on May 15, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Fluoridation of public water supplies has now become another classic “What the #@ur momisugly$% were those eggheads thinking?” example.
Fluoride is desirable in teeth because it displaces calcium and forms stronger bonds, leading to longer-lasting teeth. Therefore it is a good idea to flood the body with fluoride in water where it can displace calcium and disrupt a multitude of complex chemical processes throughout by forming stronger bonds than the body’s normal chemistry can handle?
Thus once again scientists (as a whole although the fault is with some) have earned the line of derision which has long existed in various wordings: “You know, if you ever looked up from your test tubes you might actually learn something.” Still true, and still far too true.