Newton on Denialism
It’s been a few days since I gave you a good denialism article to whine about, so here you go: from Steven Newton: Science Denial on the Rise.
Science requires conclusions about how nature works to be rooted in evidence-based testing. Sometimes progress is slow. But through a difficult and often frustrating process, we learn more about the world.
Science denialism works differently. Creationists are unmoved by the wealth of fossil, molecular, and anatomical evidence for evolution. Global-warming denialists are unimpressed by mountains of climate data. Denialists ignore overwhelming evidence, focusing instead on a few hoaxes, such as Piltdown Man, or a few stolen e-mails. For denialists, opinion polls and talk radio are more important than thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles.
January 8th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
I think it is funny seeing that article on HuffPo in light of the amount of anti-vaccination articles that tend to pop up over there.
January 8th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Yeah. Phil Plait (whose item linking to it was where I came across it) mentioned the same thing.
January 9th, 2010 at 7:28 am
Ah we’re pulling out the old playbook here. First we have semantic infiltration, change the word skeptic to the less accurate or actually totally inaccurate denier ala Holocaust denier. Then we move on to an extension of moral equivalency; comparing global warming skepticism to creationists, they are both on the right, and, well that’s enough to make the comparison I suppose. For all dislike of Dick Morris by the left, they sure learned well from him.
This issue will ultimately be determined in the political sphere and probably in the next year or two, so in that respect the science is in (watch Enky and Smith jump on those few words, ignoring the rest). Co2 levels will continue to rise and if the last decade is any indication temp will stabilize or fall, a couple years of data aren’t going to change trends one way or the other. Political and professional careers are on the line here, they must be saved so go to the trick plays, attack the attackers.
There are jobs to be lost here, people are building these windmills, miners are working their strip mines with their huge diesel powered machines digging the raw materials, tankers hauling the crude to supply the industries, maybe some good will come out of this after all.
January 9th, 2010 at 8:14 am
“(watch Enky and Smith jump on those few words, ignoring the rest)”
If you don’t like being called out for stupid phrases, you should probably avoid using them. I tried having meaningful debate with you in the past, but you couldn’t handle it and quickly turned to name calling (fascist) and spouting off dumb, unsupported talking points you absorbed from your worthless talk radio shows. Having realized what style of debate you prefer, I have decided to engage you in your own terms. I’m just going to direct you back to this post, as I feel it gets to the heart of the matter rather well: http://www.lies.com/wp/2009/10/13/jon-leaves-it-there/#comment-167669
I see no reason to waste my time producing well thought out responses to your utter nonsense. It is much more fun to just nitpick and mock your comments. Since engaging with you has proven to be deficient in intellectual stimulation, I will instead respond to you in primarily antagonistic terms. Perhaps you will begin to realize how irritating it is to deal with your lazy talking points and labels if the same techniques are used on you.
January 9th, 2010 at 9:10 am
Don’t debate, attack the your opponent’s character.
January 20th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? Bring on the “fascists” with their “mud huts” and their “anchor babies”, eh shcb?