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.
==========================================================
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.
Sorry Tommy Curtis,
[snip – we aren’t going to have a discussion on the KKK, the only person who mentioned it on this thread was Tom Curtis, and I’m not allowing it to proceed any further, even if you are admonishing him. I think the “k” in SkS was the source of the “k” letter substitutions that marcherosa and Combs made, and it was comedy/satire along the lines of Keystone Kops. Curtis is the only one who thinks KKK.
Any further discussion of the topic goes straight to the bit bucket.(other than Gail’s reply below) – Anthony]
Tom Curtis says:
September 27, 2011 at 9:00 am
I note that Marcheserosa and Gail Combs are making a puerile attempt to link me with the KKK and other right wing fanatic groups….
Wrong link Tom the K is for the LEFT wing and not the right wing as in the Peoples Republic of AmeriKa because they seem to be the people who are most in support of CAGW.
It is interesting that you took it to mean the exact opposite which show WHY name calling is a really Bad Idea as is the constant changing of the meaning of terms we see in the news media.
Eye of the beholder and all that.
REPLY: OK we are done with any KKK discussion, any comment containing it automatically goes into the bit bucket. Tom’s complaint is unproven, especially since he was the only one to use the term. Tom has spent a lot of time hijacking this thread because he’s appointed himself the arbiter of the denier word usage issue, when it doesn’t have anything to do with him, nor was directed at him.
Still missing is any response from Skeptical Science, and I know they know, since Dana1981’s mailbox successfully received an email from me.
So Tom, take a rest. – Anthony
Anthony: point taken. I lose it when I read posts like that.
The issue of offensivenes, as Tom Curtis fails to realize, has meaning only when people try to communicate with each other. The meaning of a word in that case is not established by a third-party such as a dictionary or even common usage, but by the people that are trying to communicate.
Hence it makes no sense to ask that refusal of a word be based on this or that reason. If a friend of mine asks me to stop using the word “negro” in Italian, as it happened >20 years ago, I don’t even try to probe the reasons, even if the dictionary says otherwise. After all I’m talking to a person, not a dictionary.
Likewise in a climate discussion if somebody says they don’t like “denier” or “warmist” or “Minion of the House of Mann and Gore”, all references should be stopped, and all attempts to reintroduce them be considered an attempt at killing communication.
Doesn’t sound too hard to comprehend.
And before anybody complains about my Those-who-cannot-be-named jokes, well, I wasn’t exactly trying to communicate with dana1981 was I?
Anthony: “I have no doubt that there’s a ramp up in the 70′s, the ngram of the word “nazi” shows a resurgence…”
Except that the ngram shows no corresponding rise in “denier”
“And yes there was a third book book also in 1964, The Drama of European Jewry, which is likely what Lipstadt is referring to.”
Lipstadt refers to a number of authors and books, increasing as time went on. A notable one was The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, published by Canadian Arthur R Butz in 1976, which, she says, “garnered considerable attention”. But your ngram shows a precipitous drop in references to “denier” from 1950, and a steady fall from 1960.
“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.”
I don’t claim “no reaction”, merely less than you claim. It is more likely that the bulk of early post-war references were to another meaning of the term “denier”.
REPLY: I tend to think that the strongest reaction to something frightening happens at event time, consider the atomic bomb and subsequent variants:
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/ngrams/graph?content=atomic+bomb%2Chydrogen+bomb%2C+neutron+bomb&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
We had lots of new bombs made post WWII, at WWII time we had just a couple, like the couple of books I cited, but that is where the strongest reaction was in time. Since the knowledge of the bomb was made public, we’ve had a proliferation of atomic bombs, new missile delivery systems, cold war standoff, etc, lots more written about each and yet in each case it it peaks then tapers off from the event. The discovery of atrocities denial just after WWII would seem no different. Like the fear of the bomb, I would expect atrocity denial to follow the same course: discovery, proliferation of the issue, publication of outrage/condemnation, and then a fade of the issue. While denier in the nylon context is most certainly a component, you can’t exclude the reaction to the discovery of atrocities denial post WWII and reactions to the repugnancy of the idea. – Anthony
———————-
Tom Curtis,
You are very consistent and persistent in insisting no implication of the Holocaust when you used the word ‘denier’ to label skeptics who do not generally accept IPCC supported climate science.
Question – Do you agree with that statement?
Question – If so then would you consider in the future to always qualify your use of denier so it is clear you are excluding any implication of the Holocaust?
Question – If you would agree to do so, then would encourage your fellow Skeptical Science denizens to also qualify their use of denier to exclude the Holocaust implication?
Example of Qualifying ‘Denier’: One could use a term like ‘denier-pH’ (pH = preHolocaust) to mean the standard definition of denier that existed before WWII . It therefore excludes the implication of Holocaust denier. That was just an example, I am sure there is a more professional way to express such a qualification of the meaning of denier when it is used to label a skeptic.
John
Tom,
You’ve said you don’t have much time right now, which is a statement I tend to respect. However, you subsequently found beaucoup time to argue with Anthony about the provenance of “Denier”.
What you haven’t done is justify the use as an accurate term in all those circumstances I listed above.
But more importantly, I have replied with a direct answer to your original post, where you asked for an alternative. I have supplied a couple of preferred terms, at least as accurate as “Denier”, and in addition a whole smorgasbord of alternate choices.
Which of these choices are you going to be using in the future, especially for all the situations I described above where “Denier” fails your accuracy requirement? You really need to address this, or it becomes explicit to all that your offer was insincere.
Doubter, like Skeptic, is too mild. We’re Dissenters and Disputers, i.e., active disbelievers, outspoken combatants, not just persons who are unconvinced because they have doubts.
Other, slightly milder, synonyms are Dissidents and Deviationists. I especially like the last term, because it carries a hint of a suggestion that we stand in relation to our opponents as Trotskyites did in relation to Stalinists. (The latter called the former deviationists–i.e., people who broke ranks just for the sake of being different.)
(Another suggestive term just occurred to me: Protestants!)
Omnologos, your claims about how you would react are proven entirely hypocritical by your reaction to your comparison of Skeptical Science to the Schutzstaffel at Shub Nuggurath’s Climate. When objected to, you proceded to defend the comparison at length (Stasi comparison snipped due to comments policy):
“As for the abbreviation, the claim was that SS was never called SS, when in fact it was, and it’s been for a long time. If and when that changed, it’s only now surfacing, and nobody ever worried about correcting SS into SkS (or perhaps […]”?).”
Indeed, you have continued to defend the comparison on this thread.
I mentioned a perfect one somewhere upthread: Scoffers. That’s what we are. We think catastrophic, runaway, unstoppable warmism (the “scorcher-scam”) is absurd, or at least vastly oversold, and so we mock and revile it.
[snip – as stated upthread, no more on KKK, move on – Anthony]
Verity Jones says:
September 25, 2011 at 4:20 pm
“I’ll happily delete all references to “warmists” and “alarmists” from my site…”
Just a quick note to say I meant this, but obviously it will take some time to implement.
I agree that the word is perfect for the use intended, and it’s unfortunate that there aren’t any similarly disparaging synonyms. (I think that 95% of the warmists who use it don’t intend to insinuate a Holocaust association–or if they do, it’s only to imply that we’re as out of touch with reality as Holocaust deniers are (or as “in-denial” alcoholics, etc. are) not that we’re LIKE them morally. Therefore the word doesn’t bother me.)
Off the top of my head, here are some potential replacements: Purblind, Benighted, Blinkered, Blinded (as by prejudice), Sightless, Unseeing, …
My dictionary defines purblind (in its symbolic use) as, “Obtuse, licking insight and understanding.” It was a common term of abuse about 100 years ago, but has pretty much faded from the scene. It could be revive even though it doesn’t as strongly convey the sense of being willfully blind as “denial” does. But it could pick up that implication if it were commonly used in a context carrying that connotation.
Blinkered is good because it does imply a willful exclusion of evidence or a chain of reasoning from consideration.
But neither are good replacements, because “purblinds” and “blinkereds” are awkward words. I hope someone can find a better synonym.
Oops–“lacking” (not “licking”).
To expand on omnologos a bit, we communicate in concepts. Words are mainly a symbol to represent a shared concept which is often a bit different from the definition found in the dictionary and certainly context dependent. In the case of the word denier, the corresponding concept has some of Holocaust definition mixed in provided, as Tom was trying to ascertain, it was with the Holocaust context. He’s probably correct that context was pretty rare. Nonetheless that context has been brought up and not just by the side currently “whining” about the use of that word.
As soon as denial is added into a phrase like “in denial of high sensitivity” or “in denial of substantial water vapor feedback”, the corresponding concept is much clearer even though the same word or root is being used. It is also free of any Holocaust baggage. Asking for a single word substitute for “denier” is like asking for a full paragraph in only a sentence or a complete picture with only a sketch. It may be a convenient shorthand to use every now and then, but it is rarely more applicable than some other word like troll or galloper (a troll who doesn’t hang around to argue each point).
The real problem with the use of the word comes from the lumping of a large group of CAGW critics such as all or most contributors to a website. Sites like “watchingthedeniers” have limited explanatory power because of that lumping. They may be entertaining to some and they can fool a few less educated laypeople for a while. But sooner or later those laypeople will learn that not all of the people characterized at that site as “parasites on science” are parasites or otherwise abusers of science. People like KR will find that their ability to convince a broader audience will be weakened by adopting that style and those types of labels.
Roger Knights,
Thanks for contributing. 🙂 I like Dissenters and Disputers. The others I don’t personally like because they have implications tying them in with other political or religious movements, and I think that’s to be avoided as much as Deniers.
Scoffers is really good, since it contains some of the negativity that I believe Tom wants to preserve.
We’ll wait to see which gets chosen by Tom. A plethora of goodness awaits his sincere evaluation!
But warmist has no offensive connotation or denotation. It’s not like “alarmist” or “warmista” (which are still pretty mild, compared to “denier”). If it makes warmists mad to be addressed so informally, instead of being given due deference as white-coated seers, tough noogies.
Roger Knights says:
September 27, 2011 at 3:13 pm
———————-
Roger Knights,
Thanks for your suggested interesting alternates to the use of the unqualified label ‘denier’.
I would suggest a replacement for denier could be ‘critic of EAGW’ (Establishment AGW).
The new term ‘critic of EAGW’ is not pejorative and captures the real essence of the establishment’s annoyance about the skeptical questioning of their so-called consensus on the so-called settled science that is supported by the IPCC assessment process.
John
RDCII, I had not proposed to respond to specific suggestions until the thread has run its course, and then gather up a list of appropriate candidates and take a poll at my blog. The purpose of using this method is that this issue is very much about framing of the debate. Indeed, IMO, the framing issue is more important to objections to the word “denier” than actual felt offense (which is not to deny that some people take genuine offense). Because it is about framing, any word selected by me, no matter how it is felt about by individuals, will soon be challenged in much the way that “denier” is. If, however, a word is self selected by so called AGW skeptics, that sort of challenge is cut of from the start, and we can stop being distracted by trivia. Of course, for my strategy to work, the poll must have significant participation. If Anthony were to host the poll, that would be better for that reason, but it would be up to him to do so.
I note that the existence of a well endorsed and plainly appropriate alternative to “denier” would make the continued use of “denier” a clear attempt to offend. On the other hand, endorsing terms as tendentious as “skeptic” or more so will resolve nothing.
I will, of course, not attempt to hijack this thread by trying to introduce a poll here.
Roger Knights, your suggestion that a deliberate comparison with the Sandinistas “Warmista” is somehow more offensive than a supposed comparison, not with people who committed genocide, but only with people who deny that the genocide was committed, shows a strange sense of values.
Unfortunately I was too busy with work yesterday and today to revisit this thread, but I note that my attempt to provide an alternative label for AGW proponents to call us climate skeptics was labelled as ‘trivial’ by Tom Curtis. Curtis did not even address why ‘climate naturalist’ was supposedly trivial. His off-hand dismissal, nay even pejorative labelling, of my attempt to strike a middle-ground point of dialogue, sends a clear signal that he has no interest in a civil engagement with those whose understanding of climate science does not fall into lock-step with his own. And in the meantime, I’ll proudly continue calling myself a skeptic of the CAGW theory, in the best tradition of scientific skepticism. By the way, Mr. Curtis, as a professional historian of science, I have some considerable understanding of what scientific skepticism entails.
Wow, Josh – what a thread your cartoon ultimately spawned!
Oops. I had no idea there was any such association. I thought it was just a snarky (diminutive) variation on “warmist.” I just googled the term and the first 20 hits seem to be used in that way. However, I then googled for “sandinistas warmistas” and found a link to this on HuffPo: “”Warmista” is a play on words that links warmists with the Sandinista’s in Nicaragua …”
Whadyaknow!? That never occurred to me. Well, I’m glad I haven’t used the term, except maybe once or twice, playfully, and I won’t again.
Vigilantfish, I apologize but I have entirely missed your first comment up until now. It was certainly not your suggestion that I was calling “trivial”, but rather examples like “Coolist” “Coolers”. Both of those are inappropriate because they do not describe over half of the opponents of “warmists”.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/25/a-modest-proposal-to-skeptical-science/#comment-752129
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/25/a-modest-proposal-to-skeptical-science/#comment-752134
Your example is not trivial, and would be very good were it not for the fact that scientists where called up until Victorian times “Natural Philosophers”, or more colloquially, “Naturalists”. Given that, calling the opponents of “warmists” “naturalists” would be equivalent to calling them “scientists”, which makes their opponents by implication “anti-scientists” which is tendentious. Even a “naturalist”, “unnaturalist”, (or “antinaturalist”) pairing is dubious.
In case I have inadvertently missed anybody else’s suggestion, following are the candidates I have come across so far. I have split them into exclusive categories (no option appears under more than one category) but appearance in one category does not mean I think objections cannot be raised under other grounds. The first category, “candidates” represent suggestions which I think are plausible alternatives to “denier”, although except for the issue of offense, none of them are as good. (I am aware of the whole “purblind” etc list, but have excluded them for reasons given in the post that suggested them.)
Candidates:
AGW scoffers
rejectors
challengers
impugners
quibblers
sophists
contrarians
dissenters
Tendentious:
scorcher scoffers
scorcher scam scoffers
skeptic
dissembler
naturalist
Inappropriate framing:
CAGW
AGW non-arrogant
refusnik
AGW Heretics
astrayers
Hot-air Heretics
Protestants
Descriptively innaccurate:
pettifoggers
unconvinced
low sensitivity proponents
doubter
mistruster
demurrer
hesitators
misgivers
suspectors
misdoubters
deviationists
cynics
coolists
@roger Knights says:
September 27, 2011 at 8:11 pm :
Has an explicit connection been made between ” Warmista” and “Sandanista”? I always assumed the use of ‘warmista’ was a faintly derogatory play on words such as ‘fashionista’ (women consumed by following fashions in clothing and make-up) indicating an obsession with the matter of interest.
Vigilantfish, I had missed your suggestion, for which I apologize. I consider it neither trivial, nor appropriate for reasons given in a longer post which I submitted, but which has not appeared as either posted or under moderation. This short note is to avoid misunderstanding if the longer post does not appear.