Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. explains why some leftist bloggers set themselves up for failure when they espouse their intellectual superiority. Screaming “hell, high water, global boiling, climate disruption, etc ” while at the same time saying “you’re too dumb to understand it” looks to be an epic “failure to communicate”.
He writes:
If you spend anytime at all perusing the blogosphere, you will find a common theme coming from self-described liberal or progressive bloggers, and that is that those on the political right are ignoramuses.
The argument is that they are just too stupid to know what’s what – they are even anti-science, rejecting knowledge itself — and consequently they support dumb candidates advocating ignorant policies. Such arguments are particularly evident in the corner of the blogosphere that discusses the climate change issue. This line of argument of course is a variant of the thinking that if only people shared a common understanding of scientific facts they would also share a common political orientation (typically the political orientation of whomever is expressing these views).
Read his whole post here where he explains why.
Or buy his book:
The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won’t Tell You About Global Warming is now available at Amazon.com
Why has the world been unable to address global warming? Science policy expert Roger Pielke, Jr., says it’s not the fault of those who reject the Kyoto Protocol, but those who support it, and the magical thinking that the agreement represents.
In The Climate Fix, Pielke offers a way to repair climate policy, shifting the debate away from meaningless targets and toward a revolution in how the world’s economy is powered, while de-fanging the venomous politics surrounding the crisis. The debate on global warming has lost none of its power to polarize and provoke in a haze of partisan vitriol. The Climate Fix will bring something new to the discussions: a commonsense perspective and practical actions better than any offered so far.
Editorial Reviews via Amazon
From Publishers Weekly
Pielke (The Honest Broker) presents a smart and hard-nosed analysis of the politics and science of climate change and proposes a commonsense approach to climate policy. According to Pielke, the iron law of climate policy dictates that whenever environmental and economic objectives are placed in opposition to each other, economics always wins. Climate policies must be made compatible with economic growth as a precondition for their success, he writes, and because the world will need more energy in the future, an oblique approach supporting causes, such as developing affordable alternative energy sources rather than consequences, such as controversial schemes like cap-and-trade, is more likely to succeed.
Although some may protest on principle the suggestion that we accept the inevitability of energy growth, Pielke’s focus on adaptation to climate change refreshingly sidesteps the unending debate over the reality of anthropogenic climate change, and opens up the possibility for effective action that places human dignity and democratic ideals at the center of climate policies.
The book is available at Amazon.com and I think it is destined to be a best seller in the “Global Warming” category.
The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won’t Tell You About Global Warming is now available at <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Fix-Scientists-Politicians-Warming/dp/0465020526/&tag=wattsupwithth-20″ target=”_blank”>Amazon.com</a><!–more–>
Why has the world been unable to address global warming? Science policy expert Roger Pielke, Jr., says it’s not the fault of those who reject the Kyoto Protocol, but those who support it, and the magical thinking that the agreement represents.
In <em>The Climate Fix</em>, Pielke offers a way to repair climate policy, shifting the debate away from meaningless targets and toward a revolution in how the world’s economy is powered, while de-fanging the venomous politics surrounding the crisis. The debate on global warming has lost none of its power to polarize and provoke in a haze of partisan vitriol. <em>The Climate Fix</em> will bring something new to the discussions: a commonsense perspective and practical actions better than any offered so far.
Editorial Reviews via Amazon
From Publishers Weekly
Pielke (The Honest Broker) presents a smart and hard-nosed analysis of the politics and science of climate change and proposes a commonsense approach to climate policy. According to Pielke, the iron law of climate policy dictates that whenever environmental and economic objectives are placed in opposition to each other, economics always wins. Climate policies must be made compatible with economic growth as a precondition for their success, he writes, and because the world will need more energy in the future, an oblique approach supporting causes, such as developing affordable alternative energy sources rather than consequences, such as controversial schemes like cap-and-trade, is more likely to succeed.
Although some may protest on principle the suggestion that we accept the inevitability of energy growth, Pielke’s focus on adaptation to climate change refreshingly sidesteps the unending debate over the reality of anthropogenic climate change, and opens up the possibility for effective action that places human dignity and democratic ideals at the center of climate policies.
The book is available at <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Fix-Scientists-Politicians-Warming/dp/0465020526/&tag=wattsupwithth-20″ target=”_blank”>Amazon.com</a> and I think it is destined to be a best seller in the “Global Warming” cate
Gates, what are we going to do with you? At least you’re entertaining:
That is a Gates version of the logical fallacy called the Argumentum ad Ignorantium: the argument that says, “Since we don’t know what causes climate variability, then it must be CO2!”
Albert Einstein relied on Occam’s Razor to construct his Theory of Relativity. It allowed him to reject Michelson and Morley’s notion of an “[a]ether.” You might think about that. Just replace “Relativity” with “climate change,” and the “ether” with “CO2.”
Both the ether and CO2 are extraneous variables, unnecessary to answering the question. Mr Ockham would have told you to dump the extraneous variable.
CO2 as the cause of climate change is also a red herring argument, because it cannot be shown to have any effect on either the global climate or temperature. If CO2 does have an effect, it is too small to be measured, therefore it is insignificant and should be disregarded. The true causes of climate variability are yet to be nailed down; there is no Theory of Climate.
Best for you to not stray into logic. Emotion is your strong point; stick with that.
Hank Hancock said, October 31, 2010 at 4:10 pm:
“An educated person may come across as intelligent but may, in fact just parrot information, make poor use of resources, and be inept at problem solving”
Milton wrote, “Deep verst in books and shallow in himself”. In Algernon Blackwood’s Dudley and Gilderoy, a vicar says “deep in books, but shallow in himself” about an actual parrot.
Good article on why graduates tend to be left wing here:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/why-graduates-lean-to-the-left/story-e6frg6zo-1225945325274
The post on Roger Pielke’s blog reminded me a lot of Thomas Sowell’s “The Vision of The Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy”. An excellent read.
OK, there’s so much confused logic in this thread I hardly know where to begin. I’ll try and keep it to the point on [four] issues:
1. Intelligence and education
2. Elitism and who is guilty of what
3. The real flaw in leftist thinking
4. The flaw in Pielke’s argument
1. Intelligence and education – there is a vast gulf between theory and practice. Walk the floor of any custom metal fab shop and talk to the welders and sheet metal workers. They spend an amazing amount of time explaining to the much more educated engineers that the drawing they produced can’t be assembled in real life, or that the amazing fix that they came up with will require 30 hours of rework and that there’s another way to go about it that is much more sensible. Pick any industry and you can find some version of this story. Does that make the welders more intelligent than the engineers? Of course not. The trades people understand from first hand experience with the real materials how they behave to certain stresses and techniques in the assembly process, a perspective that most engineers don’t have. On the other hand, most of those trades people don’t know what finite element analysis or why it is important. The gap between education and intelligence comes in part when the educated believe that there is no gap in their knowledge that the less educated in the field can fill. The other part of the equation is best illustrated by (I think) Robert A Heinlein who said about education (paraphrase mine) that there is no need to study a particular subject in university to get a good mark, one need only study the professor’s opinions on the subject and repeat them in different words. The result is intelligentsia who proceed on one of two false assumptions, either that there is nothing in practice that they could learn from to improve their understanding of theory, or that parroting the opinions of others achieves high marks indicative of intelligence.
2. Elitism and who is guilty of what – I saw several comments complaining that both “sides” engage in ad hominem attacks, insults and denigrate each other’s intelligence. Very true, just read through the comments in various threads on this blog. BUT, and this is a HUGE but, there is a major gulf between an anonymous commenter on WUWT saying alarmists scientists should be put in jail and people in public positions saying the same thing. When you reduce the discussion to what those with a public persona and the ability to influence large numbers of people are saying, the divide is clear. Greenpeace leadership publishing threatening articles suggesting to skeptics “we know where you work, we know where you live”, David Suzuki or Nasa/Giss scientist Hansen calling for skepticism to be made a criminal offence, calls by senior leadership to equate skepticism with crimes against humanity, the IPCC itself publishing volumes of questionable science while proclaiming the science to be settled even as their predictions repeatedly fall flat on their faces. Has the leadership and public face of the skeptic community done the same? Has Anthony Watts, or Lord Moncton, or Professor Lindzen or any other high profile skeptic with a large public following said similar things? Worse, the leadership of the alarmist side actively engages in the suppression of contrary opinion. Not simply by declaring the science settled, but by actively suppressing debate. Post a well worded objection to a matter of AGW science on “warmist” blogs like Real Climate, and your point will likely never be seen by anyone other than the moderator. A quick read through this skeptic blog, in fact this thread, shows that dissenting opinion is both allowed and though a warmist will get their share of insults, they also get well founded well explained rebuttals. On this issue the alarmists are guilty as sin and there is no comparable behaviour amongst the luminaries of the skeptic side.
3. The real flaw in leftist thinking – it may come as a surprise to those who know me or have read my writing that I am a leftist. No, really, I am. But I am a leftist who understands the divide between theory and practice. In theory, there is little to complain about as regards communism. From each according to their ability to each according to their need. What evil lurks in such a statement? Answer; human nature. Trotsky and Lenin may well have believed their own theories, and on the surface, what better way to run a society than for maximum benefit of all? But in practice, implementation of the communist system requires the one thing that Trotsky and Lenin didn’t seem to get; someone has to be in charge. In theory, if that someone is as committed to the greater good as Lenin and Trotsky proclaimed themselves to be, then we need only worry about their competence. But I doubt that Lenin or Trotsky foresaw that their theory of governance would, in practice, give rise to monsters like Stalin and Khrushchev. Stalin had no illusions about communism, he loudly proclaimed the opinions of his teachers (Lenin and Trotsky) to get the good marks and trust needed to seize power. What happened next was not communism in theory or practice, and those who objected were silenced with death, Trotsky amongst them. This is the real flaw in leftist theory. No matter how much sense the theory makes, in practice it degrades from benevolence to suppression in a single change of leadership, proving repeatedly that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Democracy by comparison is an akward and inefficient method of making decisions in the national interest. But precisely because it is akward and inefficient with power spread so thinly, it cannot give rise in a single change of leadership, not even in several generations of leadership, to a monster like Stalin.
4. The flaw in Peilke’s argument – At the risk of offending someone I have a great deal of respect for, and proceeding without having read the book itself, only the review, it seems that his argument is predicated on the following:
“According to Pielke, the iron law of climate policy dictates that whenever environmental and economic objectives are placed in opposition to each other, economics always wins. Climate policies must be made compatible with economic growth as a precondition for their success…”
I submit that the opposite is true. Given the nature of the warmist position, that the economy must be energy constrained in order to save the environment, what is required for their argument to gain traction with the public in general? Answer; strong economic conditions. During weak economic conditions, their arguments fall on deaf ears. People aren’t interested in what is best for the planet a century from now, they want to keep the bank from foreclosing on their house. Implementation of the warmist agenda is predicated not on climate policy compatible with economic growth, but on an economy so robust that the average person is prepared to consider giving up some of what they have “just in case”. The fat man with well fed children scurrying around his beautiful home entertains the entreaties of the salesman at the door promoting swamp land in Florida and considers that the possibility for profit may in fact exist, and considers if he will commit some portion of his personal wealth to invest. The starving man whose children’s bellies are swollen with hunger answers the knock at the door of his decrepit shack to find the same salesman pitching the same swamp land. He doesn’t hear the words spoken, though the vibrations in the air reach his ears as well as they did those of the fat man. The difference is that his mind is preoccupied with another matter entirely. Is the salesman edible and will anyone come looking for him? Climate policy is not trumped by need for economic growth. It is economic growth that enables climate policy to be heard and sit at the table where decisions are made by the rich and powerful. But when the climate declines the public revolts, at the ballot box if not worse, and the alarmists voices fall on deaf ears, for the public is focused on finding their next meal. The rich and powerful may not be under the same strain, but make no mistake about it. The climate alarmist sits amongst them at the dinner table only because they see some use in his drivel. When the public both cottons on to the swamp land scheme while at the same time focusing on their next meal with no regard for the meal after that, the alarmist loses his sway and becomes ever more shrill and insistent, lest the rich and powerful lose all interest in his usefullness and withdraw the invitation to dinner.
They’ll bring him back of course, when economic conditions have improved and the public is dominated by fat men with well fed children who can be taken in by CAGW. Oops, I meant swamp land investment schemes.
whoops. four issues. can’t spell and just discoverd I can’t count either.
Very Sad.
I guess we will all have to learn “Seig Heil” again.
Unfortunately that is where I see the United States heading.
good luck
What is it with the elites and the Nazi accusations? Hitler was a socialist, for Pete’s sake. Do you really think the name calling is going to make someone change their mind and agree with you?
I have never, NEVER so looked forward to an election in my life, and I’ve been through my fair share. Tuesday can’t get here soon enough for me. I’m throwing an all-night party to watch the election returns.
I don’t see what difference the so-called intelligence of the candidates makes in the great scheme of things. Given a choice between a supposedly stupid, backwards Tea Party candidate that supports limited government and a Mensa alumni leftie who claims he knows what is best for me, I say it’s Tea Time. I’d happily vote for a bunch of new-Earth creationists if I thought they would vote within the limits of the Constitution. And, for the record, I have a degree, but I don’t think it makes me smarter than anyone else.
Wade
October 31, 2010 at 5:29 pm
I pretty much agree with what you have to say. There are still some fine educational institutions that do not hammer Marxism. I had a good experience at Mesa Community College many years ago, but ASU was close to intolerable. I am fortunate to be able to work with summer interns every year. This gives me an opportunity to gauge the curricula. Most have been taught some very biased history, but a few Universities stand out as exceptions. I have been pretty impressed by the knowledge of some of the kids pursuing Computer Engineering degrees at Georgia State. One thing I have noticed, that is quite interesting, is the number of students who are recognizing the bias of their professors seems to be increasing.
Yes. Their answer: “Real Socialism hasn’t been tried yet.” Many of them are very attached to the theory and completely ignore how it’s played out in the real world. Much like climate science.
I wish Obama would release his college & university records so we can how smart HE is. For some reason he doesn’t want anyone to know. One wonders why.
I clicked the link to Dr. Pielke’s blog entry and the comments there are too good to miss. Please do read them.
mod: Those comments may be very useful please view them. Thanks.
This debate should not be about who is smart and who is dumb. It should not be about who is educated and who is not. It should not be about whether using energy is moral or not.
Let’s take emotion and labelling out of the debate and we will all be better for it.
Is the theory factually accurate or not. That is the debate.
I think the theory has never been outlined in enough detail so that we can tell whether it is accurate or not. That indicates the problem is not with the “masses” but with the science itself which refuses to lift the veil of secrecy over how it is supposed to work. We are supposed to just believe it or not.
We are not given the evidence to prove it (which is the normal manner in how humans accept new scientific fact). As a whole, humans are very smart but, in this case, we are expected to believe rather than be shown the facts.
Are the predictions actually happening? What specific predictions you might ask. The cloud ones? The Albedo ones? The tropospheric specific humidity ones? The increased forcing expected to date from increased water vapour ones? etc. etc. These examples are absolutely crucial aspects to the theory and nobody knows what these predictions are. It is clear we have missed them by a certain amount, whatever they might be.
It is interesting to note that cognitive dissonance can cut both ways. Highly educated and otherwise intelligent people can have so much invested in an idea that they refuse to acknowledge, against all evidence, or lack of support, that their much cherished theory might be wrong. One might reasonably point out that the history of scientific research is littered with examples. Indeed, the breaking of such idealogical constructs on the anvil of reality could be quoted as a measure of great moments in science.
Is there a name for an reverse Dunning Kruger effect where supposedly highly educated people make ill considered and less than competent decisions?
Smokey says:
October 31, 2010 at 6:35 pm
“Albert Einstein relied on Occam’s Razor to construct his Theory of Relativity. It allowed him to reject Michelson and Morley’s notion of an “[a]ether.”
Eh! WHAT???????????.
Michelson and Morely set out to test whether the ether existed by experiment and concluded that it did NOT. It is a classic experiment: but so strong was the notion that the results were disputed for years afterwards. Einstein’s relativity showed in theory of why there was no need for the ether, which M&M had shown experimentally did not exist: or indeed for other mechanistic assumptions still popular back then.
Kindest Regards.
davidmhoffer:
Awesome article “Global Warming Settled By Poker” on your page.
Bill Illis says:
October 31, 2010 at 7:18 pm
“This debate should not be about who is smart and who is dumb. It should not be about who is educated and who is not. It should not be about whether using energy is moral or not.
Let’s take emotion and labelling out of the debate and we will all be better for it.
Is the theory factually accurate or not. That is the debate.
I think the theory has never been outlined in enough detail so that we can tell whether it is accurate or not. That indicates the problem is not with the “masses” but with the science itself which refuses to lift the veil of secrecy over how it is supposed to work. We are supposed to just believe it or not.
We are not given the evidence to prove it (which is the normal manner in how humans accept new scientific fact). As a whole, humans are very smart but, in this case, we are expected to believe rather than be shown the facts.
Are the predictions actually happening? What specific predictions you might ask. The cloud ones? The Albedo ones? The tropospheric specific humidity ones? The increased forcing expected to date from increased water vapour ones? etc. etc. These examples are absolutely crucial aspects to the theory and nobody knows what these predictions are. It is clear we have missed them by a certain amount, whatever they might be.”
I think that you are arguing from ignorance. The theory of how greenhouse gases warm the earth is at least 150 years old. There a loads of publications in the open literature and there is lots of evidence and data. The percentage of climate scientists who accept AGW as an important force has been determined as 97% by two indepenedent surveys.
The climate models are not yet capable of making specific predictions. Due to the empirical nature of some of the parameters, and the chaos in climate models, their predictions, just like weather models are uncertain. The nature of such predictions is such that we cannot expect them to predict the future accurately. To complain about this shows ignorance of the fundamentals of climate science. Climate models have been used for “hindcasts” and the results are reasonably good. It has been shown that the evolution of global temperature since 1900 cannot be explained without the contribution from human emissions of greenhouse gases.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm
Robt,
Point taken. Sigh…. 🙁
Extreme Left and Right philosophies join in totalitarianism. Having decent slightly right thinking people at the throats of slightly left leaning people is exactly why a totalitarian state is possible. Stop arguing over who’s smart and who’s not because that is exactly what divide and conquer is all about. The “liberals” are being led by false leaders, the “conservatives” are being led by false leaders and the leaders are winking and nodding as the noose tightens around the masses. The liberals leaders know AGW is a crock, but like the pied piper they have a job to do — meet the fascists at the OK coral and enjoy the shared laugh as the gate slams. (This is not the first time in history this has happened — let’s not be so gullible this time.)
a jones, my apologies, you are right. For some reason I was recalling Lorentz, who believed the effect was due to changes in the ether, but had just been reading an article on M&M’s emitter theory of light, which M&M also wondered about and wasn’t falsified until much later.
Thanks for pointing out my error. Scratch M&M and replace with Lorentz.
Kindest Regards ☺
When you say that educated people are “elite” and don’t think straight, I believe this may be true of liberal arts colleges, and those who major in political science, etc. But I defend my profession of engineering. If engineers misuse phony data, the plane won’t fly, the bridge falls down, the Hubble telescope is out of focus, etc. Most engineers realize this and try to be objective. (On the other hand, Jimmy Carter was an engineer, so there are exceptions!)
Dave Springer says:
October 31, 2010 at 7:11 pm
“I wish Obama would release his college & university records so we can how smart HE is. For some reason he doesn’t want anyone to know. One wonders why.”
He should also show his birth certificate, and while he is at it, he should prove he is not a Muslim.
Obama apparently did not have a distinguished college career, and it may be due to emotional difficulties and drug use.
http://www.eduinreview.com/blog/2008/10/barack-obamas-gpa-and-college-records/
“Law school was another story for Obama. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School (the second highest honor available) in 1991. He also was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, a very prestigious honor.”
He graduated from Harvard Law School with a Magna Cum Laude honor, which is quite good.
There is hardly anyone regardless of political persuasion who knows the math necessary to assess the validity of some climate science. How many liberals or conservatives are familiar with Navier-Stokes equations? At the same time, most anyone can make some sense of simple graphs and assess the strength of a relationship between two variables plotted on the same graph. For instance, if we plot paleoclimatological estimates of global mean surface temperatures over the entire Holocene against estimated atmospheric CO2 concentrations it is clear to anyone that there is no correlation between the two. If we compare the rate of increase of global mean surface temperature during the 1930s and the recent period of warming between 1975 and 1998 we find no notable difference. If we compare rural temperature recording sites to ones that have been influenced by urbanization or other land use changes we find that largely undisturbed rural sites largely show no or little increase in global mean surface temperature. Some show a cooling trend.
There is a large body of climate science that is entirely accessible to the interested layman regardless of political persuasion. Some if not all of that layman-friendly science can be found at http://rps3.com/Files/AGW/EngrCritique.AGW-Science.v4.pdf .
In short, the academic credentials of the self-defined left wing intelligentsia are not significantly superior to those of the average plumber. Neither of them know the physics involved in climate modeling. Both can at least read simple charts. The left-wing intelligentsia has no advantage in this regard. The entire political spectrum must belly-up to the same trough of information.
What differentiates the left from the right is unquestioning acceptance of the declarations of authority figures. The conservative disposition expects extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims. The left-wing or progressive or statist disposition requires consistency with political aims. There is no shortage of scientist cadre members they can rely on to advance a political agenda. Welcome to post-normal science.
I’m going to get the local library to buy the book. That way lots of other minds can see what a fresh approach does to old problems. Well done RP jr!
How is it so “amazingly ignorant and stupid” to equate the Danish practice of gatekeeping by physicians and the organizations in a single payer government they must be accountable to for their decisions as the general equivalent of having “death panels” decide upon whether or not a particular patient’s life is worth the expense of attempting to prolong with an expensive medical procedure or treatment?
Although Denmark has had some commendable success with its healthcare services; it has also resulted in a extraordinarily expensive tax system while still having too few intensive care beds, shortages of certain types of healthcare and facilities for the elderly, and a loss of some personal freedom to select healthcare providers when the government approved providers are unsatisfactory. Many Europeans make an erroneous knee-jerk assumption that healthcare is a human right and many Americans do not. What these same Europeans enjoying and/or suffering universal healthcare fail to understand is how so many Americans jealously guard their personal freedom and human right to select their own choice of healthcare and healthcare providers, because they refuse to be dependent any more than absolutely necessary upon any single healthcare provider who too often may not provide safe, appropriate, or desired healthcare. We do not want any medical doctor/s, medical board, or any other authority becoming the sole arbiter of our personal fate. You can nitpick an argument about the definition of a “death panel”, but the context in which the terminology was used clearly meant any circumstance in which some authority other than the patient’s free choice from an adequate number of alternatives has the authority to deny healthcare services and treatments to the patient. You can call us “stupid,” but doing so says more about you than us.
Your remark about Governor Sarah Palin betrays an unfortunate ignorance. Perhaps you were unaware or chose to disregard reality, but Sarah Palin’s service as Governor of the State of Alaska does in deed qualify her as having some reasonable degree of very important experience in foreign affairs and international military affairs. In comparison to her political opponents Joe Biden and Barack Hussein Obama who had no military command experience at the time of the election, Sarah Palin was far more experienced in the role of a military commander and foreign trade diplomacy.
Governor Sarah Palin served as the Commander-in-Chief of the Alaska National Guard, Air National Guard, and other state military forces. During and after the Cold War, Alaska served as a frontline for the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) of the United States and Canada, and their successor organizations. The Governor of Alaska is an important decisionmaker in certain areas of Alaska’s military affairs. Unlike most other states, Alaska’s extraordinary size, low population, extensive wilderness, location, and proximity to USSR, People’s Republic of China (PRC), Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea), and the Great circle routes to the Euro-Asian theaters of operation have resulted in certain substantial and sometimes unique geo-political and military responsibilities for the Governor of Alaska that the governors of most other states do not have an opportunity to experience. Although the Adjutant General and the gaining commands of the U.S. Department of Defense are responsible for Federal mobilization of the Alaskan Federal Ready Reserve, the Governor remains responsible for and accountable for many important military decisions in Alaska not related to the Federal mobilizations.
Given the unusual size and location of Alaska with respect to international maritime trade, international fisheries, international air transportation, and foreign trade, Governor Sarah Palin experienced foreign affairs responsibilities, especially with Russia and Russian communities nearby Alaska, unknown to her opponents in the election campaign.
Perhaps you would care to reconsider your viewpoint?
tj says:
tj, I disagree strongly with this statement.
I don’t know a single “conservative” who follows a leader. Conservatives tend to make their own decisions and choose representatives who appear to represent those beliefs. In contrast, every “leftist” I know is constantly quoting and deferring to a “leader”, whether it’s chomsky or huffington or whoever.
Every conservative I’ve ever met (and yes, I do know there are many exceptions) are aware that guys like Rush and Hannity are entertainment, nobody takes marching orders from them. From what I can see, people who are willing to be led by “leaders” just assume that those they see as their adversaries must also do the same.
R. Gates says:
October 31, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Mike says:
October 31, 2010 at 1:03 pm
I think the truth is most people who think AGW is real don’t understand the science…
______
C’mon Mike, please get real. There are many highly educated scientists who are…
—–
I did not say most scientists, I said most people. The average person does not know what causes the seasons to change. Of course most scientists believe AGW is real, just as most scientists believe evolution is real. Look, most people who believe in electricity do not understand it. If some religion or ideology came out against Maxwell’s equations there would soon be blogs and radio talk show hosts denouncing them and millions of saps following along. Some blogs would spread word that James Maxwell was a Muslim or a Communist. Some politician would find a secret diary he left hidden that revealed the whole conspiracy.