UPDATE: Some new data has come to light, see below.
As Bishop Hill and WUWT readers know, there’s been a lot of condemnation of the way John Cook’s Skeptical Science website treated Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. recently when he attempted to engage the website. Shub Niggarath did a good job of summing up the issue (and demonstrating all the strikeouts of Dr. Pielke’s comments) here, which he calls a “dark day in the climate debate”.
As the issue found its way through the blogosphere, the condemnation of the technique became almost universal. Pielke Sr. tried again, but finally resigned himself and gave up trying to communicate. WUWT received some criticism from SkepticalScience as a rebuttal to the issue of “Christy Crocks” and other less than flattering labels applied by the Skeptical Science website to sceptical scientists whom they don’t like. They objected to the category I had for Al Gore, (Al Gore is an idiot) which I created when Mr. Gore on national television claimed the Earth was “several million degrees” at “2 kilometers or so down”. I thought the comment was idiotic, and thus deserved that label.
In the dialog with Dr. Pielke this label issue was brought up, and I found out about it when he mentioned it in this post: My Interactions With Skeptical Science – A Failed Attempt (So Far) For Constructive Dialog.
I decided the issue of the Gore label, like Dr. Pielke’s complaint about labels like “Christy Crocks”, was valid, and decided immediately to address the issue. It took me about an hour of work to change every Gore related post to a new category (simply Al Gore) and delete the old one. I then sent an email to Dr. Pielke telling him that I had taken the suggestion by Skeptical Science and Dr. Pielke seriously, and changed the category, with the hope that Skeptical Science would follow the example in turn. You can read my letter here.
Meanwhile Skeptical Science dug it its heels, resisting the change, and Josh decided that it might be time to create a satirical cartoon, about how Skeptical Science’s proprietor, John Cook had painted himself into a corner not only with the labeling issue, but because Bishop Hill had caught Skeptical Science doing some post facto revisionism (months afterwards, logged by the Wayback Machine) making moderators inserted rebuttal comments look better, which in turn made commenters original comments look dumber.
Of course the original commenters had no idea they were being demeaned after the fact since the threads were months old and probably never visited again. The exercise was apparently done for the eyes of search engine landings.
Both WUWT and Bishop Hill carried the cartoon.
I figured, since Mr. Cook makes part of his living as a cartoonist, he’d appreciate the work. While he has since removed the reference to his cartoon work from his current Skeptical Science “About us” page, it does survive on the Wayback Machine from December 2007 like those previous versions of commenter web pages that have been edited. A screencap is below:
The cartoon where he spoofs Mr. Gore is something I can’t show here, due to copyright limitations (there’s a paywall now on Cook’s sev.com.au cartooning website) but it does survive in the Wayback Machine here.
So point is, like me, even Mr. Cook has spoofed Mr. Gore in the past, he’s an easy target, especially when he makes absurd claims like the temperature of the interior of the Earth being millions of degrees.
While we haven’t (to my knowledge) heard from Mr. Cook what he thinks about Josh’s latest bit of cartoon satire, we all have heard plenty from Skeptical Science’s active author/moderator “Dana1981”
While we could go on for ages over what was said, what was rebutted, etc, I’m going to focus on one comment from Dana1981 that piqued my interest due to it being a splendid window of opportunity for us all.
Dana wrote in the WUWT cartoon thread:
dana1981 Submitted on 2011/09/24 at 5:42 pmPlease, can people stop using the acronym “SS”? The correct acronym is “SkS”
Dana probably doesn’t realize the magnitude of the opportunity he opened up with that one comment for his beloved Skeptical Science website, hence this post.
For the record: this was my reply:
REPLY: On this we agree, folks please stop using it. Now Dana, would you agree to stop referring to people here and elsewhere using that other distasteful WWII phrase “deniers”. You’ll get major props if you announce that. – Anthony
Note that this wasn’t the first time I admonished WUWT commenters on the issue,I also said it as a footer note in this thread:
Note to commenters, on some other blogs the Skeptical Science website is referred to as SS.com with the obvious violations of Godwins Law immediately applied. Such responses will be snipped here in this thread should they occur.
Dana is obviously upset about the “SS” abbreviation, due to the immediate connection many people have to the feared and reviled Schutzstaffel in World War II. I understand Dana’s concern first hand, because when I first started my SurfaceStations project, I had a few people abbreviate it as SS.org and I asked them to stop for the same reason. I suspect that like me, when Skeptical Science created the name for their website, they had no thought towards this sort of ugly and unfortunate abbreviation usage.
But this distaste for “SS” as an abbreviated label opens up (or paints a corner if you prefer) another issue for Skeptical Science – their continued serial use of that other ugly and unfortunate WWII phrase “deniers” in the context of “holocaust deniers”. Of course some will try to argue there’s no connection, but we know better, especially since the person who is credited with popularizing the usage, columnist Ellen Goodman, makes a clear unambiguous connection:
I would like to say we’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future. – Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe, February 9, 2007 “No change in political climate” on the Wayback Machine here
Skeptical Science authors, moderators, and commenters know that people involved in the climate debate here and elsewhere don’t like the “denier” label any more than Skeptical Science like the “SS” label.
The big difference though becomes clear when you do a site specific Google Search:
A similar search on WUWT for “SS” using the internal WordPress engine search yields two results, Dana’s comment/my response, and another commenter asking about the issue which is fair game. The other handful of “SS” references Dana 1981 were removed from the thread per his request (click to enlarge image):
So, since Dana1981 has not answered my query about the use of the word “denier” on Skeptical Science and since there is such a huge disparity in usages (thousands versus two), I thought this would be a good opportunity to bring the issue forward.
In addition to their own sensitivity over ugly and unfortunate WWII labels, Skeptical Science has two other good reasons to stop using the term “denier”.
1. Their own comments policy page, which you can see here on the Wayback Machine (Feb 18th, 2011 since I can’t find a link anymore from the main page, correct me if I am wrong), emphasis mine:
No ad hominem attacks. Attacking other users or anyone holding a different opinion to you is common in debates but gets us no closer to understanding the science. For example, comments containing the words ‘religion’ and ‘conspiracy’ tend to get deleted. Comments using labels like ‘alarmist’ and ‘denier’ are usually skating on thin ice.
Interestingly, the first appearance of the comments policy page (Jan 17, 2010) said this:
No ad hominem attacks. Attacking other users, scientists or anyone holding a different opinion to you is common in debates but gets us no closer to understanding the science. For example, comments containing the words ‘alarmist’, ‘religion’ and ‘conspiracy’ are usually skating on thin ice.
So clearly they have moved to address the use of the word “denier” in policy, which seems to have appeared in March 2010, but strangely I can’t find any link to the comments policy page on their main page today that would allow users to know of it. Again correct me if I have missed it.
2. The other good reason is their recent Australian Museum Eureka Prize award (Congratulations by the way to John Cook) which has this to say in their code of conduct policy
Not calling people you disagree with on science issues “deniers” with a broad brush would be consistent with both Skeptical Science’s and The Australian Museum policies on how to treat people. Mr. Cook might even ask the Museum to remove the phrase from their press release (2011 Australian Museum Eureka Prizes Winner Press Release pdf – 1,419 kb) since it clearly violates the Australian Museum’s own written policy:
While he and Dana1981 may not realize it, there’s an excellent opportunity here for Mr. Cook to redeem himself and his Skeptical Science website in the eyes of many.
My “modest proposal” is simply this:
Make a declaration on your website, visible to all, that the use of the word “denier” is just as distasteful as the use of “SS” to abbreviate the website Skeptical Science, and pledge not to allow the use of the word there again. Update your own comments policy and ask the Australian Museum to adhere to their own policy of respect on the treatment of people, and remove it from their press release as well. As Eureka winner, you are now in a unique position to ask for this.
In turn, I’ll publicly ask people not to use “SS” in referring to your website, and to ask that in the future the phrase “AGW proponents” is used to describe what some people call “warmists” and ask the many bloggers and persona’s I know and communicate with to do the same. I’m pretty sure they would be thrilled to return the gesture of goodwill if you act upon this. I’ll bet Josh would even draw a new cartoon for you, one suitable for framing. (Update: Josh agrees, see comments)
You have a unique opportunity to make a positive change in the climate debate Mr. Cook, take the high road, and grab that brass ring. Thank you for your consideration. – Anthony
——————–
UPDATE: Tom Curtis in Australia in comments works mightily to defend the use of the phrase “climate denier”. One of his arguments is that the word “denier” has a long period of use, going back to 1532, and of course he makes the claim (as most AGW proponents do) that “we shouldn’t be upset about the phrase” because there (and I’m paraphrasing) “really isn’t much of a connection”. He didn’t accept examples such as the one Ellen Goodman made in 2007 that really propelled the phrase into worldwide consciousness via her syndicated column.
So I thought about this for a bit, how could I demonstrate that the word “denier”, by itself, has strong connotations to the atrocities of WWII? Then I remembered the ngram tool from Google Labs, which tracks word usage over time in books. So I ran the word “denier”, and here is the result:
Note the sharp peak right around WWII and afterwards, as books and stories were written about people who denied the horrible atrocities ever happened. No clearer connection between WWII atrocities denial and the word “denier” by itself could possibly exist. It’s a hockey stick on the uptake.
Curiously, the phrase “climate denier” is flatlined in books, probably because many book editors rightly see it as an offensive term and don’t allow it in the manuscript:
UPDATE2: In comments, Tom Curtis now tries to claim that “holocaust denial” is a recent invention, and thus the peak use of the word “denier” after WWII has no correlation with the war. This updated graph shows otherwise:
As would be expected, the word “Nazi” starts a sharp peak around 1939, and then starts tapering off after the war ends. In parallel, and as the war progresses and ends, the word “denier” starts peaking after the war, as more and more people denied the atrocities. But as we see in the Jewish Virtual Library historical account, “denial” started right after the war.
Paul Rassinier, formerly a “political” prisoner at Buchenwald, was one of the first European writers to come to the defense of the Nazi regime with regard to their “extermination” policy. In 1945, Rassinier was elected as a Socialist member of the French National Assembly, a position which he held for less than two years before resigning for health reasons. Shortly after the war he began reading reports of extermination in Nazi death camps by means of gas chambers and crematoria. His response was, essentially, “I was there and there were no gas chambers.” It should be remembered that he was confined to Buchenwald, the first major concentration camp created by the Hitler regime (1937) and that it was located in Germany. Buchenwald was not primarily a “death camp” and there were no gas chambers there. He was arrested and incarcerated in 1943. By that time the focus of the “Final Solution” had long since shifted to the Generalgouvernement of Poland. Rassinier used his own experience as a basis for denying the existence of gas chambers and mass extermination at other camps. Given his experience and his antisemitism, he embarked upon a writing career which, over the next 30 years, would place him at the center of Holocaust denial. In 1948 he published Le Passage de la Ligne, Crossing the Line, and, in 1950, The Holocaust Story and the Lie of Ulysses. In these early works he attempted to make two main arguments: first, while some atrocities were committed by the Germans, they have been greatly exaggerated and, second, that the Germans were not the perpetrators of these atrocities — the inmates who ran the camps instigated them. In 1964 he published The Drama of European Jewry, a work committed to debunking what he called “the genocide myth.” The major focus of this book was the denial of the gas chambers in the concentration camps, the denial of the widely accepted figure of 6 million Jews exterminated and the discounting of the testimony of the perpetrators following the war. These three have emerged in recent years as central tenets of Holocaust denial.
These books and the reaction to them clearly account for the post war peak in the word “denier” [at least in part, the word denier also is used with nylon stockings which came into vogue during the period – see comment from Verity Jones] . My point is that the peak of the word “denier”, is associated with WWII and the atrocities committed that some people did not believe, and wrote about it. Unless Mr. Curtis wishes to start disputing the Jewish historical account, clearly the peak is related and I find it amusing he is working so hard to distance the word from this association with WWII. Sadly, it is what users of the word do to justify their use of it when using it to describe skeptics, which is the whole point of this post.
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Note to commenters and moderators – extra diligence is required on this thread, and tolerance for off topic, rants, or anything else that doesn’t contribute positively to the conversation is low.
Eric (skeptic)
On the contrary – denial is a real phenomena, and an accurate description of certain behaviors.
Now, I really don’t want to get into motivations, particularly. I have family connections to denial in terms of second hand smoke (sibling, who stated that he was the major character from “Thank You For Smoking”), observed psychological denial in several contexts, and basic ideological denial (and no, I’m not going to give examples of that).
Despite the various motivations, the actions are the same – ignoring the evidence, supporting a more palatable yet unsupported premise.
What is the appropriate term for someone, on either side of the AGW issue, who engages in such behavior?
KR says:
“Denial” and “Denier” are, from my perspective, appropriate terms for ignoring the evidence.
Then you have a wacked-out perspective, because there is NO EVIDENCE supporting your belief system. There is only your evidence-free true belief.
Witch doctors thrive on true belief. Scientists? Not so much. You need some new juju.
You may be a poor representative and ‘judge’ for what is normal, sane and reasonable (also for constructing the usual ‘strawman’ ignoring-the-evidence false claim), if I may interject … so be it; Last of the Neanderthals …
.
[SNIP: Please be kind enough to read WUWT policy here. WUWT is not your soapbox and irrational diatribes directed at the site host will not be accepted. -REP, mod]
Anthony
Given the last several responses to my posts, I would have to say your “Modest Proposal” for reasoned discussion needs some participation from your end, as ad hominem appears to be quite acceptable according to your site moderation.
[REPLY: You have been given an exceptional degree of latitude on this thread and keep repeating the same demand. Time to quit. You also need to look uo the meaning of “ad hominem”. I don’t think it means what you think it means. -REP, mod]
I think KR has a point, up to a point. CAGW proponents are “deniers” of scientific observational data and analysis. CAGW skeptics are “deniers” of computer modelled predictions of climate using poor assumptions. To me “deniers” is a non-specific term, however it is used to demonise one side of the debate just like “alarmist” or “warmistas” is and the term “denier” has historical connotations that must be taken into consideration. I think that the terms “(C)AGW propopents” and “(C)AGW skeptics” are clear, concise and non-emotive. Mind you if someone refers to me as a “denier” I know I am going to have any easy time in demolishing their emotive and illogical arguments that are not based on any valid science because they are using emotion rather than logic.
Sorry, Anthony, but I am not buying your spin on my “yarn”.
“The fact that the word denier looks like a bell curve in the graph above (and in link below) is a classic event driven spike and decay”
Yes, the spike is invention of synthetic fibers, followed by an explosion of the interest following WWII, when they were suddenly available for civilian use and people wanted luxuries like stockings.
“it can’t be the full component”
Look at the hits. There are NO hits related to “holocaust denial” in the first 50 hits during the 1951-1959.
There are NUMEROUS hits related to textiles. There are a few hits related to coins. If “holocaust denial” was even a moderately important topic in those books, it would certainly show up more than 0/50 hits.
On the other hand, a handful of rather specific hits about textiles all show the right shape and the right time and show up in the hits for actual books. There are lots of other sizes that could be searched for. There are other fibers. There are other adjectives. Put them all together and they could easily account for the full peak.
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22denier%22&tbs=bks:1,cdr:1,cd_min:1951,cd_max:1959&lr=lang_en
“If you look at my comparison graphs with the word Nazi, you’ll see a similar even driven interest spike”
The size of the spike is a key factor, but you interpreted it completely incorrectly! In the 1950’s “holocaust deniers” were a fringe of a fringe, yet you conclude this very specific topic would warrant a similar number of books as Nazis ???
In fact, the spike in “holocaust” is smaller than the spike in “denier” at the end of WWII. That would suggest that there were a similar number of books about/by holocaust deniers as there were about the holocaust itself !
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=denier%2C+holocaust&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
REPLY: Your whole argument is a strawman. I started out with the word “denier” ….not “holocaust denial”, not “holocaust deniers”. As I said and demonstrated with references that those terms didn’t come into broad use much later, so of course they would not appear shortly after WWII. And coins? So what? I’ve demonstrated historical references to WWII atrocities denial becoming a published issue just after WWII closed, and explained the reaction/publishing delay. You’ve got nothing to back up your claims other than your opinion of interpretation.
My point is that the REACTION to the ugliness portrayed in the denial books I cited as being published just after the war likely elicited a number of responses (using the word denier i.e. “Rassinier is a denier of the atrocities committed and documented” )in publications for the sheer absurdity of the idea he proposed. They were arguing against one man, the author of those books I cited, Paul Rassinier, which is why “denier” is the word they would choose to denounce his ideas. I find it absurd to hear somebody arguing that the event that created the situation for the denial issue to occur (WWII atrocities) can’t have the word describing reaction to denial of such in publications in close years following it. It’s like arguing that nobody wrote books about denial of 9/11 after the fact, and we know firsthand there are a boatload of those.
And why argue so vehemently for no connection of “denier” to post WWII, just so some people can use the derogatory term “denier” with a clearer conscience? That sure seems what it is about. I’ve never seen anything like this. Generally sensible courteous people apologize and say “I’m sorry”, when they have offended somebody, here we have people arguing so they can keep using the term when they have politely been asked to stop.
Do you see anything wrong with the picture you and others are painting here? I sure do. Personally I think this whole thing that you and Curtis are arguing is just a decoy, so that SkS won’t have to answer the difficult question and say “we don’t need to respond, denial it’s about yarn”.
We’re done here. – Anthony
Truthseeker
Thanks for the response. I’ll try to stick to those terms in the future, although (on both sides) I don’t know that they capture a denial of evidence.
Upon seeing the title, I thought for sure that we were going to propose eating scientists that disagree with AGW to store their carbon.
Verity Jones says: September 26, 2011 at 3:10 pm
And just to add to the etymological confusion, this “denier” is pronounced quite differently [listen at http://www.thefreedictionary.com/denier ]
But, to the matter at hand … as one who is a relative latecomer to the climate wars – having arrived on the battlefield a mere ten days or so BC [Before Climategate] – my virtual background includes many years in the trenches of the newsgroup alt.revisionism (the favourite posting ground of Holocaust deniers and other assorted antisemites).
Needless to say, it was quite a shock to find myself labelled as a “denier” – particularly when those who were labelling me as such were, in fact, using “debating” tactics that appeared to me to have been lifted straight from the real deniers’ handbook.
For those who may be interested, I did blog about this issue (and my perception of the point at which the label appeared to gain popular currency, i.e. Ellen Goodman’s notorious Feb. 2007 proclamation) a few months ago:
Of labels, libels and language launderers
Anthony, I admire your patience (and perseverance!) in taking the high-road on this matter. But the silence from those to whom you have made this proposal, I find quite telling. I was hoping that at least one of the SkS powers that be might have risen to the occasion – and, at the very least, responded to the questions posed by RDCII September 26, 2011 at 12:31 pm.
That being said, and since we are on the topic of words and our choices (and at the risk of incurring the wrath of other posters here, although it is not my intention!) …
Perhaps some are unaware that words such as “scam” and “hoax” are among those preferred by Holocaust deniers when attempting to dismiss (or divert from discussion of) the historical record – and to denigrate those who believe in truth in posting! So, IMHO, when we choose to use such words to describe that which we question, we are – in effect – inadvertently feeding the mythology our opponents are attempting to build.
If “SkS” is the ‘correct’ abbreviation for Skeptical Science, it must be one of a number of instances of use of mixed caps and lower case acronyms. Please provide other examples. (Good luck with that!)
Anthony, I know you are making a point, but, still, the excessive politeness and formal respect with which you are addressing Cook and S
kS is almost ludicrous. It is certainly undeserved. So while I understand the tactic, it’s hard to choke down! {Sneezing}Anthony continues with spurious arguments. Unable to defend his position properly, he now quotes a 2011 article that uses the term ” Holocaust denier” as proof that the term was in common use during World War 2. He conspicuously does not publish the Ngram showing that that phrase is non-existent in literature prior to about 1990.
Clearly Ngram evidence is not enough to resolve this impasse. Therefore I did a search of Google books using the terms “denier” and “-hosiery -stockings -pantyhose”. That left around 7500 books, most of which still dealt with fabrics of ancient coins (the denier). Further restricting the terms with ” -textile -coin -currency -filament -silk -fabrics -fibres -rayon -cotton” restricted the number of entries to 3000.
I surveyed the first 300 (10%) of entries, many of which still referred to fabric weight or coins. Equally numerous were references to people with the surname “Denier”, and to a place name “Denier”. Next most numerous, but in the low 10s, where references to religious denial, ie, denial of Jesus. One of those was reference to Satan, several where references to Peter, while others were more general. There where two translations of ancient authors (including Tertullian), and one work of Shakespeare.
More pertinently, in the 300 references examined, only two had a political context. One was a reference to ” deniers of equality” in a philosophical journal. The other was a reference to deniers of communist party involvement in the USA in 1949. Consistent with the Ngram evidence, there were no references to Holocaust or Shoah denial.
In addition to arguing anachronistically (as though a 2011 use of a term could show its use in the 1940’s), he relies on a very weak correlation, while rejecting any similarly weak correlation as counter evidence. Regardless of Anthony’s distortions of evidence, however, examining the original sources shows that “Holocaust denial” was a non-existent term in 1940’s literature, although the term ” denier” in the sense of ” one who denies” continued its infrequent but ancient usage.
Given this new evidence, I must re-emphasize that my initial calculation of proportion of usage in the 1990s is not valid, and as yet I am unable to determine the correct proportion.
KR said “Now, I really don’t want to get into motivations, particularly. I have family connections to denial in terms of second hand smoke”
I am sorry for your family member(s). Let’s say you paid $1000 to hire a psychologist. Do you think if the doctor came back with no suggestions you would feel like you got your money’s worth? As pointed out you keep asking the same question over and over. Can you suggest to us a word for that? Here, let me put in bold: what is the word for for a person who keeps asking the same question over and over even after getting lots of good answers? A question that degrades the debate and trivializes the opposition and is documented to be counterproductive for your side of the debate. The very few people who are actually ignoring all or most evidence have other specific labels which you call “getting into motivations”. But your smear, denier, is all about motivations and making a (false) accusation of ignoring evidence (rather than disagreeing with evidence).
[snip – this sort of thing is uncalled for – Anthony]
Tom Curtis,
Are you a simpleton, or what? It has been repeatedly explained by various climate alarmists themselves that the term “denier” refers explicitly to Holocaust deniers, and therefore is intended to denigrate honest scientific skeptics.
You are squirming around trying to invent reasons to excuse your insulting terms, which take the place of facts and evidence. It is clear that you have no credible facts or evidence to support your misguided belief in runaway global warming caused by an insignificant trace gas. Do you really believe your opponents are stupid, and don’t see through your gratuitous insults?
If you stopped using insulting pejoratives like “denier”, denialist”, etc., you wouldn’t have much to say, because you don’t have the facts or the evidence to support your debunked belief system. Those derogatory terms take the place of intelligent discourse, and brand their users as unscientific fools with no credible arguments. Is that really how you want to be perceived?
Anthony Says: “And why argue so vehemently for no connection of “denier” to post WWII, just so some people can use the derogatory term “denier” with a clearer conscience? That sure seems what it is about.”
I don’t argue so that people can use the term, I argue because you are warping data to fit your view. There is no reasonable way to misinterpret data the way you do (ie claiming the peak in “denier” in the 1950’s is related in any measurable way to the Holocaust) to strengthen your case. There is sufficient evidence today that many people equate “denier” with the Holocaust — stick to the real evidence.
There are plenty of reasons to avoid the term “denier” in climate discussions. Any time the discussion is about labels or personalities rather than science, it detracts from a quest for the truth. Your original idea for this post is spot on — “I decided the issue of the Gore label, like Dr. Pielke’s complaint about labels like “Christy Crocks”, was valid, and decided immediately to address the issue.” There are two many people (on all sides) who prefer zingers and ad hominem attacks and cute alliterative phrases, rather than scientific substance and nuanced analysis.
Personally, my cultural background doesn’t make me equate “denier” with the Holocaust. I can respect that others have a different culture and history. Personally, I try to stick to discussions of measurements and science and statistics, not the cultural wars or political debates.
Anthony continues: “I’ve never seen anything like this. Generally sensible courteous people apologize and say “I’m sorry”, when they have offended somebody, here we have people arguing so they can keep using the term when they have politely been asked to stop.”
Personally, my cultural background doesn’t make me equate “denier” with the Holocaust. I can respect that others have a different culture and history.
To you, the term is clearly offensive. So I challenge you to follow your own advice, and apologize for the use of “denier” here at WUWT, rather than side-stepping the issue with sarcasm as you did earlier in this thread. And I promise not to use the term myself in this context. (And even to admonish others for using it, since any use of labels tends to create more heat then light, especially when the term has strong negative connotations.)
REPLY: I can appreciate you noting the term denier is offensive, thank you. But accusing me of “Warping data”? I call bullshit on that Mr. Folkerts. That’s desperate of you. I presented the data exactly as it comes out of Google, other than add a line to show a time mark on one graph for the benefit of everybody, I’ve done nothing to modify, fold, spindle, mutilate, torture, or even or warp the data presented by Google. And apologize for using the word denier here in this discussion for purposes of analysis and discussion? No. The use is legitimate. I will however accept an apology from you on “warping data” since I’ve done absolutely no such thing and is a patently false accusation. Not one single data point was modified and I’m rather put off that you’d claim this. In fact, it is so over the top and without evidence that an apology on that is required for your further discourse here. Troll bin for now until you apologize for that claim – Anthony Watts
Tom writes “Anthony continues with spurious arguments.”
There is no argument here Tom. The simple fact is that some people, whether you like it or not, are offended by the term denier for reasons that you simply cant understand and no amount of research or reasoning will change that. You’ve been asked to not use the term anymore. Either stop using it or not, its entirely up to you.
Anthony has been asked to stop using the abbreviation “SS” for Skeptical Science and he has decided to do so and furthermore to enforce it on his blog as a sign of respect for the wishes of someone who has clearly displayed their distaste for it.
Smokey, if you wish to take umbrage at the word “denier”, by all means do so. But do so because of its meaning, ie, a person who denies truths known to be well established by evidence, not because of any false equation with Holocaust denial.
As for my squirming around, It is not me, but Anthony who has been caught making repeated false statements on this issue, including an uncorrected claim (explicitly denied by Monbiot) that Monbiot made the claim of “AGW denier”/ “Holocaust denier” equivalence. That makes me wonder how many AGW proponents have actually made that claim, for it is often said that they do, but rarely is evidence of that produced.
Tom Curtis says:
“Smokey, if you wish to take umbrage at the word “denier”, by all means do so. But do so because of its meaning, ie, a person who denies truths known to be well established by evidence, not because of any false equation with Holocaust denial.”
Are you a lunatic?? It has been proven with verifiable quotes that “denier” in climate parlance refers specifically to a Holocaust denier. To claim that is a “false equation” in the face of verifiable, irrefutable contrary evidence makes you either a mendacious propagandist, or a lunatic. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I suppose you’re just a common lunatic.
Given all the data presented, including direct quotes, Tom [C]urtis, exemplifies the wriggling around the truth that is characteristic of himself and his [c]orrupted friends.
If I was not already viewing [c]limate “Science” with a ton of salt, his defense of the indefensible in this thread, would have me taking a long hard look at the supposed science of CAGW.
REPLY: Gail I don’t know what you were thinking here in substituting “k”s but Tom Curtis thinks its KKK linkage. In deference to his complaint, I made edits. But I see it as satire such as “keystone kops”. Please explain yourself. -Anthony
@ur momisugly Tom Curtis: “if you wish to take umbrage at the word “denier”, by all means do so. But do so because of its meaning, ie, a person who denies truths known to be well established by evidence, not because of any false equation with Holocaust denial.”
——-
Spoken like a true Cultist.
Thoughts.
New terminology indicating what is one’s intent is when labeling a person ‘denier’.
So, to label a person a denier without pejorative WWII intent then you need a new qualified word for denier. I suggest that new qualified word be ‘denier-preHolocaust’ for use by all the Skeptical Science denizens insistent on continuing to use the word. You could shorten it to ‘denier-pH’. Then the Skeptical Science denizens are explicitly disavowing their intention to accuse those they label with it as being morally degraded like Holocaust deniers. OK?
All uses of ‘denier’ in the broader sense could still include the possibility of an intentional reference to the Holocaust. Anyone using the label of ‘denier’ would be viewed as potentially intending the pejorative Holocaust sense. Any use of ‘denier’ to label a skeptic could be agreed by all to be immediately challenged for clarification as to their intent wrt to the Holocaust. Where they do not immediately clarify their intent in using ‘denier’ then blog-by-blog restrictive action toward them can be mutually agreed to voluntarily by rational parties.
Those who specifically and unambiguously intend to imply a person is like a Holocaust denier, they can use the word ‘denier-H’ to label skeptics. Those people could be morally challenged and blog-by-blog restrictive action toward them can be mutually agreed to voluntarlity by rational parties.
I stressed the word ‘voluntarily’ in the above.
John
Anthony : “These books and the reaction to them clearly account for the post war peak in the word “denier”…“
I think you’re drawing a long bow here, Anthony. Many more books and articles have been written by Holocaust deniers in the decades following WWII than were written in the immediate aftermath. In that case, if use of the term ‘denier’ is a reaction to Holocaust denial literature, there would be a greater correlation between its use and those later decades.
It ‘s also likely that earlier denialist writers such as Rassinier were on the fringe in terms of influence and readership in the early post-war years.
And according to Deborah Lipstadt in her book, Denying the Holocaust’, Rassinier only became a full-blown Holocaust denier (ie denial of a planned programme of genocide) in the 1960s.
Further, she says that, ‘While Holocaust denial is not a new phenomenon, it has increased in scope and intensity since the mid-1970s’. Coupled with the formation of organisations such as the Institute of Historical Review in the late 1970s, this suggests that the blue line in your denier graph relates primarily to other meanings of the word.
REPLY: I have no doubt that there’s a ramp up in the 70’s, the ngram of the word “nazi” shows a resurgence then, but the Jewish museum reports in their history the publication of two books by Rassinier right after WWII, quoting the Jewish museum:
In 1948 he published Le Passage de la Ligne, Crossing the Line, and, in 1950, The Holocaust Story and the Lie of Ulysses.
And yes there was a third book book also in 1964, The Drama of European Jewry, which is likely what Lipstadt is referring to. To suggest that there was no reaction to the two previous books of any kind in literature, especially since the topic was morally repugnant, is as you say, drawing a long bow. Consider a parallel, when there is an event on the web today, such as Climategate, there early reporters (like WUWT and CA, Air Vent, Lucia) then secondary blog reports, then the MSM catches on, and secondary reports build the peak, then there’s the decay. In the Technology of post WWII where publishing is slow, watching something like that peak takes months, even years. I don’t deny that nylon/denier associations are a part of that peak, but not the whole thing. – Anthony
I note that Marcheserosa and Gail Combs are making a puerile attempt to link me with the KKK and other right wing fanatic groups by a deliberate misspelling of my name. I consider the attempt highly offensive – the more so because members of my family have literally been killed by a right wing regime for the stand they took against racism (or in the case of one of them, because she stood to close to her mother when the letter bomb was opened). I expect neither apology, retraction, nor even cessation of their disgusting behaviour, not because that would not be appropriate, but because that they made the suggestions in the first place marks how honourable they are.
I note, however, the double standard Watts has in what he considers inflammatory on his website. Against “warmists”, it appears, almost anything goes no matter how offensive.
And why not, almost anything goes in his own rhetoric as well.
REPLY: Tom I wasn’t aware of the comments until just now, as you know we have thousands of comments per day and several moderators. However, as I look at it now she did not use “KKK” (and Marcheserosa didn’t either, but made a lot of K substitutions in words talking about SkS, which turned into a long rant so I’ve snipped it) But in deference to the issue, I’ll certainly deal with it, Gail, that’s uncalled for to use K’s in word substitution perhaps you’d like to explain your motivation?. Note Marcheserosa’s comment at 3:05AM PST, while I was sleeping. But I agree it adds nothing and is out of bounds per our policy and it has been snipped per the policy I asked for on this thread in the post footer. – Anthony
[Reply: I approved that post, and I apologize for not paying closer attention. It was my fault for letting it through. I wasn’t asleep, just half asleep. ~dbs., mod.]
Late to the table on this one, but for me, the term “denier” is unacceptable because it is simply incorrect.
I don’t “deny” CAGW (or CAGW/CC/CD). I find that the evidence of it is inadequate. I consider myself an AGW/CAGW skeptic. “Denier” is the wrong word because it doesn’t correctly describe my perspective on the matter.