Kevin Drum talks today about the inherent silliness of people spouting bullshit economic theories, and other people debunking it, and how the whole process just goes on forever without actually getting anywhere. But he thinks it’s still necessary: Fighting the bullshit.

So sure, it’s kabuki. All of us who write about politics for a living understand that 90% (at least) of what we do is just shadow boxing. Controversies are invented, then debunked, then invented all over again, and debunked. Sometimes the inventors know perfectly well what they’re doing, while other times they’ve talked themselves into actually believing their own nonsense. In either case, these things are mostly just proxies for the issues that really matter.

But so what? The Reichstag fire was wholly invented too, and look what happened after that. As demeaning as it is, fighting back against bullshit is every bit as important as fighting back against the real stuff.

I think I was on-board with Mr. Drum all the way up to the last sentence, at which point I balked. “Every bit as important”? Really? I’m not convinced of that.

Which isn’t to say that fighting back against bullshit isn’t important. Case in point, the recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece claiming global warming is a sham. It’s exceedingly dishonest, and worthy of being fought back against. But is fighting back against it as important as fighting against the real stuff? I think maybe it’s only 38% as important. The real stuff, after all, is real.

Anyway, I know from The Debunking Handbook that I’m at risk of reinforcing the bullshit in your minds just by mentioning it, but so be it. I think that ship has already sailed, as least as far as Lies.com is concerned. I’ll try to prominently flag it, at least, as they recommend.

For what it’s worth, then, here’s the (WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS BULLSHIT!!) original WSJ opinion piece:

• BULLSHIT: No Need to Panic About Global Warming – in which 16 alleged “scientists” lie to you.

And here is the first in an ongoing batch of reasonable, well-informed, honest debunkings to fill the hole in your brain left by the removal of the previous bullshit. NOTE: NON-BULLSHIT:

• Climate change and the integrity of science – in which 255 much better scientists make the opposite case.
• Two incontrovertible things: Anthropogenic Global Warming is Real, and the Wall Street Journal is a Political Rag – Greg Laden rants entertainingly.
• Dismal Science at the Wall Street Journal – Peter Frumhoff responds more substantively.
• Remarkable Editorial Bias on Climate Science at the Wall Street Journal – Peter Gleick, writing in Forbes, about what this says about the WSJ. See? Just because you’re a business-oriented publication doesn’t mean you have to traffic in this particular bullshit.

This entry was posted by jbc on Saturday, January 28th, 2012 at 12:05 pm and is filed under business_lies, Denialism, global warming, Peter Gleick, science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.