Guest essay by Eric Worrall
University of East Anglia Philosophy teacher Rupert Read is outraged that the government funded BBC would invite a climate “denier” to appear on the same show as himself.
I won’t go on the BBC if it supplies climate change deniers as ‘balance’
Rupert Read
Thu 2 Aug 2018 22.16 AESTLike most Greens, I typically jump at opportunities to go on air. Pretty much any opportunity: BBC national radio, BBC TV, Channel 4, Sky – I’ve done them all over the years, for good or ill. Even when, as is not infrequently the case, the deck is somewhat stacked against me, or the timing inadequate for anything more than a soundbite, or the question up for debate less than ideal.
But this Wednesday, when I was rung up by BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and asked to come on air to debate with a climate change denier, something in me broke, and rebelled. Really? I thought. This summer, of all times?
So, for almost the first time in my life, I turned it down. I told it that I will no longer be part of such charades. I said that the BBC should be ashamed of its nonsensical idea of “balance”, when the scientific debate is as settled as the “debate” about whether smoking causes cancer. By giving climate change deniers a full platform, producers make their position seem infinitely more reasonable than it is. (This contributes to the spread of misinformation and miseducation around climate change that fuels the inaction producing the long emergency we are facing.)
From a public service broadcaster, this is simply not good enough.
…
In the end, the broadcast went ahead without me. Much of it wasn’t bad. The scientists interviewed were excellent. But the framing of the debate was awful, and framing is everything, so far as the message that most listeners receive is concerned. The presenter introduced the segment by asking, “Is climate change real?” The journalist doing vox pops bombarded ordinary people with canards such as, “Maybe it’s just a natural cycle?” And, of course, a climate change denier was given a huge and undeserved platform on an equal basis to his opponent.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/02/bbc-climate-change-deniers-balance
How UEA – a philosopher who refuses to debate.
I’m watching/waiting for the time to come whereas the left wing nutcases adopt the cry that ‘it was a vast right wing conspiracy’ that caused/allowed their bizarre actions to be widely broadcast that portrayed them to be bizarre nutcases. They will demand reparations. So goes their circle reasoning.
The ability to rationalize themselves into the moral high ground is nearly super-natural.
Funny to see a chicken run. Poor thing.
New fields await us: environmental philosophy; environmental justice; environmental sociology; environmental mathematics; environmental political science; environmental economics; environmental medicine, dentistry, psychiatry; environmental humanities….the possibilities are endless
You laugh, but it’s coming for you.
Post-modernism and so-called intersectionality have destroyed the scholarship and standards in the Humanities and soft sciences in universities across the western world.
They’re coming for STEM. They’re at the door.
Couldn’t Ben Santer be called a type of denier for changing round the conclusions in the IPCC 1995 report that there was NO evidence of human activity on climate change to that there WAS evidence of human activity on climate change?
Refusing to debate climate change gives the impression that one is not completely au fait with the facts/details, and runs the risk that one might end up losing the debate.
“By giving climate change deniers a full platform, producers make their position seem infinitely more reasonable than it is. (This contributes to the spread of misinformation and miseducation around climate change that fuels the inaction producing the long emergency we are facing.)”
This guy is just another triggered leftist snowflake going along with the current anti-fake news movement.
Twitter, FB, google, and all of the “fake news fix” activities going on or that are planned to happen are all part of the elites plan to be in control of what we read and hence, why we think.
Reminds me of an article I read that quoted Bill Clinton pining for the old days when we all got our news from the 3 major networks.
Ponder this next time you hear leftist gush over diversity… Diversity to dems excludes diversity in news outlets.
“Because I said so” may be a sufficient defense for a tyrant, but it is an insult to science.
‘Deck stacked against you’ Lol! Good one. Historically it’s been a string of biased hit pieces against skeptics. Occasionally a real skeptic who knows his stuff slips though their tight audience controls and you get a situation like the one where Suzuki got destroyed but they’re few and far between.
We need a real debate with top skeptical scientists who bring up the important points like the missing Tropospheric hot spot which destroys the CAGW hypothesis right off the bat, the ERBE satellite-measured increase in Outgoing Longwave radiation with increased surface warming, the temperature rise slowdown since 98 (including the pause), the Vostok ice core CO2 lag of 800 years, the MWP etc.
I’ve seen a debate with Lindzen et all where they failed to bring up these points properly and it allowed the opponents to spout their normal ‘consensus’ rhetoric.
You mean it destroys the holly grail RGE right off the bat.
And shunts the lukewarm gravy train into the buffers,
”We need a real debate with top skeptical scientists who bring up the important points like the missing Tropospheric hot spot which destroys the CAGW hypothesis right off the bat,”
WELL, we all here know that only Climatologists can speak about climate-change, what’s with a philosopher speaking on this subject ??
Look on the bright side. He might have followed those other two Oxford PPE graduates David Cameron and Ed Miliband into Parliament.
“And like most other greens, I avoid debating science.”
If only critical thinking was taught to everyone as teenagers, folks like this would have zero traction with John Q. Public and be totally ignored.
Instead they’re taught an ersatz version that assures them they think critically as long as they think the ‘correct’ thoughts, i.e. what their activist teachers tell them.
Perhaps this is a new mainstream opinion of Rupert Reed from the new member of the New York Times editorial board, Sarah Jeong:
Dumbass fucking white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants
— sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) November 29, 2014
these are inconvenient truths but we should thoroughly examine them instead of giving into the PC lie that white people don’t smell bad
— sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) December 24, 2014
the science is indisputable pic.twitter.com/th39vKR40g
— sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) December 24, 2014
https://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2018/08/02/sarah-jeong-new-york-times-dumb-ss-f-ing-white-people/
Personally, I don’t think I smell bad when I’m wet! But then I never asked a dog.
The Left keeps going a little more crazy every day.
I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised because Trump is destroying their socialist agenda every day.
Every day that TDS is on full display is another rock on the avalanche that’s going to hit them come midterms.
Really?
“If we get more momentum behind the idea of refusing to participate, it will force a change of coverage methods by the BBC, which experts have been calling for for years. For if we all refuse to debate with the climate change deniers on public platforms, and press the BBC to catch up with the 21st century, it will be forced to change its ways, because the BBC cannot defend the practice of allowing a climate change denier to speak unopposed.”
All BBC will have to do is publicly invite the Greens, and if they refuse, the BBC will have done due diligence. Failure to debate is not an excuse. Maybe the commentators can take the place of the PHDs on the panel and make a realistic challenge. Right.
Maybe if the BBC commentators also refuse to take part… well they’ll be replaced.
If everyone stops talking about climate change, maybe that will make it go away.
Go ahead. Hold your breath till you turn blue.
So much for ‘I may be wrong and you may be right, but together we may find the truth’. (K R Popper). The complaint about the ‘deck is….stacked against me’ is rich. Surely this is the time ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going, no?
Ah, no. The idea of ‘balance’ is ‘nonsensical’. This is a scientific debate, and we all know how settled science is from tobacco, which takes on negative weight when burned and gains phlogiston in the process, thus causing cancer. ‘Framing’ is everything, even though Trump won with the ‘wrong type of framing’ (to say the least!) and continues to pile on the votes.
We deniers should take comfort from this man’s whinging. Trump shows how very childish and feeble the rulers are, and collapse like cards even while issuing death threats.
Rupert – ‘Roop’ – is another reed which breaks easily in the wind. More fool him if he believes the ever-sympathetic BBC is gonna do him down. Can’t find his way out of the nursery? He can’t even see the door! Poor sod.
O Aristotle! Thou shouldst be living at this time! ‘The Great Souled Man’? Whither?
Don’t care, never heard of him.
I do know that only people who either know they cant win or are too lazy to even try are the only ones who will refuse a public debate. Being a green, you can be sure he is pretty much scientifically illiterate on the topic as a whole and fresh from the echo chamber
In this case, he knows he cant win, so complains and stamps his feet, becomes obstinate.
To date, still no explicit evidence CO2 drives observed warming, after all this time. It leaves people like Schmidt to tactics of tweeting “wow” at his own dodgy analyses and Mann claiming weather is “”climate change” in real-time” 😀
He would be easily defeated in a debate.
Q1 What do we know we dont know or understand well relating to climate
A: We don’t understand or know A LOT about the system(historically\currently\in future).
the answer invariably and logically leads to the second question
Q2 How then can you be certain at all?
A: we can’t
A philosopher would have to follow the same conclusion. So a philosopher like the above would both know he cant be certain at all, nor can anyone else, and yet still believe he and others are certain with good reason.
hmmmm
What an undemocratic idiot. He knew that if he debated his views with one of the millions of people that do not accept his own views, he would have lost the debate. AGW fanatics could never stand the heat of a true scientific questioning of their views.
I also hope the BBC put him in their black book, and never invite him again to talk or debate on any subject.
Let him talk about what he can’t talk about.
“the scientific debate is as settled as the “debate” about whether smoking causes cancer.”
AGW is settled, but not CAGW. CAGW is what skeptics are bridling at. But Warmists almost always implicitly portray skeptics as disbelieving in AGW, which they don’t—they are lukewarmers. For Prof. Read to engage in this strawman tactic is surprising in a philosopher, who should be familiar with argumentative / logical fallacies.
How UEA philosopher refused to debate –
Wittgenstein:
You should not talk about what you can not talk about.
https://www.google.at/search?q=Wittgenstein%3A+You+should+not+talk+about+what+you+can+not+talk+about.&oq=Wittgenstein%3A+You+should+not+talk+about+what+you+can+not+talk+about.&aqs=chrome.
_____________________________________________________
University of East Anglia Philosophy teacher Rupert Read could not talk about
what for he has no concepts.
_____________________________________________________
https://www.google.at/search?client=ms-android-samsung&ei=ALJlW7b6G8eV6ATr4J3oAw&q=wittgenstein+stint+elementary+school+teacher&oq=wittgenstein+stint+elementary+school+teacher&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.
same as it ever was:
https://www.google.at/search?q=wittgenstein+stint+elementary+school+teacher&client=ms-android-samsung&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwif_qvg89PcAhXSyaQKHSOwAicQ_AUIESgB&biw=360&bih=560
https://youtu.be/5IsSpAOD6K8
To get clear, his mama knows – what he can’t talk about is not a philosophy issue.
It’s just – he can’t talk about.
Any scientific topic with the word philosophy in the preface is bound to include mostly long-winded discourses that do not clarify anything about the topic. Read calls upon the Precautionary Principle as does the IPCC to justify precipitous actions to mitigate vaguely-defined and uncertain catastrophic threats to the planet and the population. The fundamental problem is the flagrant misapplication of the Precautionary Principle.
The IPCC analysis of low-probability, high-consequence events is demonstrably flawed, and decisions made from that analysis would be the wrong ones. Based on a mathematically correct analysis of low-probability, high-consequence events, a decision to maintain the status quo until the science is right is the right decision.
Probability distributions have two tails. A correct analysis must consider the entire distribution, not just the extreme high-value tail. The IPCC’s findings ignore the low-probability, high consequence cooling event. Temperature databases and GCMs are not sufficiently robust to reliably estimate whether, long-term temperatures will be hot or cold. The best estimate now of a probability distribution for a mean global temperature is a rectangular distribution; all temperatures from lowest to highest have the same probability.
The adverse consequences of a warming earth are no greater than the adverse consequences of a cooling earth. Policies appropriate for the warming case would be diametrically opposite to those appropriate for the cooling case. The cold case might call for spreading soot on the polar ice masses, and the cold case might call for increasing the content of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Under this reality, promulgating environmental regulations with too little information is illogical and likely disastrous for the humanity. The likely damage from acting on the wrong premise, a warming or a cooling planet, nullifies arguments for either action until the science is right. The goal of climate research should be to successfully predict global mean temperatures within a range of values that is narrow enough to prudently guide public policy decisions. That cannot be done now.
The IPCC has failed miserably in the communication of degree of uncertainty and its effect on different policy responses. At best, current technology can only predict future temperatures within a wide range of values, which is not sufficient to warrant spending trillions of dollars going down the wrong road.
Philosophical responses of “on the one hand” or “on the other hand” are of no use whatever. Only fundamental science properly applied can determine when action is warranted.
Tom K correction: “The cold case might call for spreading soot on the polar ice masses, and the cold case might call for increasing the content of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere” should read “The cold case might call for spreading soot on the polar ice masses, and the HOT case might call for increasing the content of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
A UEA “philosopher” not only refusing to debate, but in essence calling for censorship.
One has to carefully read Mr. Read.
I just love the punch line at the end;
“In the end, the broadcast went ahead without me.”
Without, Rupert. Without.
Ever considered that your view just isn’t that important?
It would be like a doctor refusing to debate anti-vaxxers. A doctors “view” is much more important, but such debates are silly.
The best debates are when the debaters are experts, otherwise you get one huge Gish Gallop.
The wonderful thing about our modern era is the ability to educate oneself on just about any topic. Information is cheap and easy to access…so almost anyone can become an “expert” of sorts.
In the specific case of doctors vs anti-vaxxers, this is just silly. Doctors engage anti-vaxxers all the time. They actively do so because they understand the stakes and understand that many people might be lured into a false belief that could hurt everyone. It’s pure fantasy to think they don’t. And pure insanity to say they shouldn’t.
Sheesh. Your posts (so, so many of them today!) are even more incoherent than normal.
Climate scientists’ refusal to debate is an aberration never before seen. The many thoughtful, erudite, and sophisticated arguments against the overly simplistic control knob theory should be treated with the respect they deserve, especially when the request by alarmists is to hand enormous power to the government (in the form of regulating a basic building block of life). That “climate scientists” refuse to engage is a sign of their inherently weak position, and leads many keen observers of this issue to assume that it’s out of fear of being exposed.
rip
If he doesn’t see the need to debate he must be nearly perfect. Congratulations sir! You clearly consider yourself so much better than us mere mortals that debate (the sharing of ideas) is either unnecessary or immoral.