Damn you global warming!!!

[Wayward son]

LOL, that rant fits right into that flowchart I put up.

 

It wasn't a rant. It was simply pointing out other documentaries that are also based on denying scientific evidence. Why limit yourself to just denying climate change science and evidence when there is so much other science and evidence that can be denied as well?

 

The Swindle is not scientific and it is not an example of scientific skepticism. It is an example of denialism, promoting the views of those who have no support among the scientific community for a reason, manipulating the opinions of other scientists (like Wunsch) and distorting graphs.

 

The reality is that scientific skepticism for AGW is a lot bigger that for AIDs, vaccines causing autism, NWO, and fluoride.

 

If the size or number of supporters of a denial idea grows that doesn't make it a scientific skeptical idea or position. It is the methods that are used by the proponents of those views which matter. And in the case of Patrick Michaels and the Swindle the methods are the same denial of science and evidence as used by other deniers. This isn't simply my position - both Skeptic magazine and Skeptical Inquirer came to this position about AGW back in 2006 or 2007 when they said that unless those who oppose the scientific community and organizations can come up with some actual evidence to support their position than continued denial of the scientific evidence of AGW is not scientific skepticism, but instead denialism. They are still waiting - and you can bet that Michael Shermer, the editor of Skeptic magazine and a libertarian who hates that acceptance of the evidence for AGW makes his political positions less tenable would jump on any evidence provided by deniers like a fat kid on a smartie. I have read Patrick Michaels second and third books, but haven't bothered with his last two or three (nor will I). If he actually has anything different to say than he can do what scientists do and publish it. Instead he writes books which pander to libertarian AGW deniers who will not have the knowledge or political desire to question anything he says.

 

Really the only deniers left are those who are deniers because they are professional deniers (like Fred Singer who denied the dangers of smoking among other things) or are hard core libertarians (who are almost always connected to the Cato institute) who can't accept AGW as it is a major challenge to their political ideology. The same goes for non-scientists like Penn and Teller. They embrace the idea of scientific skepticism unless it interferes with their libertarian political ideology. You don't see them talk about it at conferences promoting skepticism anymore however, because when they used to they had their asses handed to them by anyone in the audience who had basic knowledge on the subject.

 

Its ok to point-counterpoint but it isn't ok to get emotionally and personally offended by healthy skepticism. Science requires criticism from all sides of the equation; with climate change, however, any denier is immediately called names and personally attacked when they make a good, foolproof point.

 

That claim can't actually be evaluated until a denier actually makes a good foolproof point.

 

There has NEVER actually been a good and healthy debate about this in an official format.

 

What kind of format would you like? The normal format that is used in science is the submission and peer-reviewed publication of articles to scientific journals. This has been done and the result is embarassingly one sided. Now of course I realize that evolution deniers, HIV-AIDS deniers and climate change deniers believe that they should be treated differently than the normal scientific process and instead fight their battle in the media where their claims are not evaluated under a strict process.

 

If you went to a climate change conference in the 90s, it is clear that they purposely skipped over the debate of the issue and onto how to solve the problem. I am not denying that AGW can or does exist, I am just pointing out that the science and support isn't as foolproof and therefore, there is a good chance that its not true.

 

I can either listen to the overwhelming majority of climate scientists (some of whom may have biases) and the mountain of climate change data, and the basic understanding of the greenhouse effect which goes back over a century - or I can listen to a couple climate scientists (all of whom have biases) and the lack of climate change evidence they have provided, and the distortions and lies they have spread in the media. It seems pretty simple.