Science denialism: The problem that just won’t go away

All of the denialist arguments (anti-evolution, anti-global warming, etc.=anti-science) have similar fallacious arguments, and all use the same arguments that were used by the tobacco industry to deny the fact that cigarette smoking causes disease. Coincidence?

 

Is this from the crazy Oreskes again, which now has 3 or 4 threads? Have you read any of her other crazy stuff? Did you know your pets will die? LOL

 

I forgot to add the link. Here it is:

http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/science-denialism-problem-just-wont-go-away

 

Well there you go, if you challenge the faith, you will be prosecuted like skeptical scientists of the Merchants of Doom are now for pointing out some inconvenient facts that challenge the faith.

Here is one of the problems.

If it is 'unprecedented' in the last 150 years and CO2 is to be blamed for warming since 1950, what caused all that warming previously?

 

I think you should look up the definition of the phrase 'straw man'.

 

You mean pointing out facts is a strawman for the Merchants of Doom?

 

Well that's par for the course. If there is a threat of regulatory action against your industry, you might find justification to resist. You might fund studies to show that the government is wrong in it's conclusions that lead to the political action in question. None of this tells us anything about the validity of either the government's case or the industry's case.

 

Potentially significant research that provides a physical explanation for El Nino cycles by linking them to the sun also has major implications for our understanding of the imporance of the role of the sun in the climate system more widely and for the implied reliability of climate models.

 

And you'll grow hair on your palms.

 

The warming that preceded man and his co2, is just the natural cycle of the earth warming and cooling. Which of course means, eventually after the earth warms up, and the death of life in the polar regions will again create more fossil fuels, as it did in the past, then the earth will go into another ice age, to be repeated again and again until the sun finally burns out.

As that NASA scientist said, the earth will continue to warm for at least 500 more years. and all that man's co2 will do is to shorten the inevitable warming, so that it happens sooner rather than later. And even if we could cut c02 production today by 80 percent, it would not make any difference at all, in the future. NOW, becoming hysterical about this, as the lefties have done, is just a psychological problem with them, which of course can be treated with drugs. So they can lead normal lives, without living in their hysterics and fear.

I would rather these people be concerned with particulate pollution, like you see in china, where the air is toxic, from particulates. Let them be concerned with radioactive wastes, trying to store that life robbing stuff, and using dirty nuclear energy which is much more dangerous potentially than fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are natural, nature make them, and therefore much greener than nuclear.

Since a little more co2 in our atmosphere greens up the earth, the lefties should like that fact. More food for an ever growing population, more plants feeding off of co2, and putting oxygen back into the air. Fossil fuels are green energy. Natural.

 

All forms of denialism have the same basic structure and tactics.

these include cherry picking, specious generalization, rejection of evidence, pseudo-science, irrelevancies, attacking sources, unsubstantiated accusations of conspiracies, fun with numbers, repetition of formerly debunked nonsense, etc.

Regardless, no amount of facts, common sense, or science will sway denialists from their position. It is a matter of faith, not fact.

 

One could say all forms of alarmism have the same basic structure and tactics.

these include cherry picking, specious generalization, rejection of evidence, pseudo-science, irrelevancies, attacking sources, unsubstantiated accusations of conspiracies, fun with numbers, repetition of formerly debunked nonsense, etc.

Regardless, no amount of facts, common sense, or science will sway alarmists from their position. It is a matter of faith, not fact.

 

One could say all forms of alarmism have the same basic structure and tactics.

A lack of education in science, a lack of curiosity, a complete lack of comprehension of the complexity of the climate, a complete lack of knowledge about the limitations of computer science, a belief that all is known or basically no knowledge of the unknowns, a complete trust in authority, a complete belief that media science reporting portrays everything fairly, a lack of understanding about human nature, an anger for anyone that points out the fallacy of some of the thinking, attacking the messenger without being able to counter the science, mistaking politics for science, and an eager use of logical fallacies.

 

Well, you know something is badly wrong, when the people who are using science to defend their beliefs, are so ignorant as to say, "the science is settled". That statement is anti science, and has the tendency to make thinking beings question science, and look for agendas and motives, that have nothing to do with science at all. And if scientists start to act like politicians, we are in deep (*)(*)(*)(*).

 

Ignorance is not the exclusive domain of denialists, by any means. Alarmists are merely the opposite side of the same coin. Both are small minorities.

OTOH, when there is scientific consensus there are always a few who despite their gross ignorance wish to deny the massive amounts of evidence that supports that consensus.

Vested interests almost always deny and deflect for as long as they possibly can and use all of the denialist tactics in the toolbox to do so.

As to your sig.

Yes, being passionate about protecting the only ecosystem we have and can currently survive in is an excellent reason to reject the mountain range of evidence and the continuing observation, experimentation and observation wrt climate change that the IPCC engages in. Classic denialism.

 

The science IS settled on a large number of things. The earth is neither flat nor is it the center of the universe. Very few people are suggesting that we should take another look at those issues anymore, not even the biblicists.

 

If you knew anything about climate science you would know that it is a very immature field full of known unknowns and unknown unknowns. You can find new papers almost daily where they discover something new to add and some that question the current consensus science. Science is never settled when it comes to a wicked system not fully understood.

 

What I wish would go away is this conflation of anti-evolution nonsense with denial of the AGW claims. They are not the same thing, are not motivated by the same things, and have very different levels of political significance.

 

Ya....In addition, that there in red....Amazing how statements like that go unchallenged by the doomsday predictors. Take actual data and 'reconstruct' it THEN claim 'unprecedented' warming based on the 'cooked' data......And claim it's 'science'...Simply amazing.

 

Tell that to the AGW denialists who have been and are using the exact same fallacious arguments used by creationists and the tobacco industry alike. Tell that to Roy Spencer, an admitted creationist, and the darling of the AGW crowd.

 

I don't believe even you could think it a GOOD idea to dump billions of tons of hydrocarbons into the air each year regardless of their effects.

 

Not sure how that is relevant to CO2 centric warming.

 

We don't dump hydrocarbons into the air.

They are burned first, and we dump H2O and CO2 in the air.

 

Every time you fill your car with gas, hydrocarbons seep into the air. To say nothing about the tons of hydrocarbons released during drilling, well field production, and refining.

 

Please stop moving the goalpost. It's unbecoming. Phoebe said:

This is what the response was to.