How Climate Science Denialism Works

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This is a must watch video from the US Senate:

I’m pretty sure I heard once that there is a rule in the Senate that you can’t call another Senator a liar using that word (lier). So when you see Senator Whitehouse not using that word, that may be why.

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8 thoughts on “How Climate Science Denialism Works

  1. That was about as blunt as you can get without being rude. That was nicely done.

    Watts tweeted congrats to Dana for having his ‘propoganda’ show up on cspan in reference to those two charts. That just shows Watts can’t recognize science which is staring in his face–certainly explains his website.

  2. That was awesome. I’m seeing that chart matched with its absurd denier sister chart more and more. I think that “cooling trend” the deniers are trying to push will end up hurting their credibility. The facts are slowly eating their way into the publics’ consciousness. The climate related weather disasters don’t hurt either.

    Senator Whitehouse has done a few presentations to the Senate on climate change. He’s a real no prisoner takin’ butt kicker. I’m glad he’s on our side.

  3. OTOH, apparently at least one GOP in Congress thought it OK to heckle the POTUS by shouting “Liar!” (or was it “Lies”?).

  4. Canada’s parliament also has a tradition of not using the word “liar”. It generally means Members of Parliament (MPs) are very adept and skilled at finding alternatives while thoroughly conveying that meaning. The ultimate “non-liar” statement came in 2007 during an enquiry into whether former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney had taken kickbacks from a lobbyist over airplane contracts. A member of the enquiry panel, MP Pat Martin, was quoted as saying, “I’m not calling you a liar Mr. Mulroney, but I don’t want anybody here to think I believe you.”

    Now, that’s art! 🙂

  5. What I do wish we could agree upon is this: Scientists have unassumed responsibilities to accept and unfulfilled duties to perform when they refuse to report on all extant research of human population dynamics. The failure to skillfully examine, carefully interpret, objectively evaluate, and openly share data is unforgiveable. How about joining me by acknowledging this problem and then doing something to overcome it….fast? Perhaps Pogo was right after all, ‘We have met the enemy and we are it.’ The continuing denial of Pogo’s understanding is ruinous of all we claim to be protecting and preserving.

  6. I don’t think anyone denies failure to skilfully examine, etc can be a problem. However, there is a system in place already to deal with most issues. Any paper submitted for publication first has to make it past referees. If accepted, it subjected to intense scrutiny by other experts who may want to see it refuted (i.e. they try to kick the s*** out of it).

    Lately, there’s Retraction Watch, which is another step forward to tracking what papers have been retracted. Note that most of the retractions are because other researchers pointed it out (the peer-review system and the habit of scientists trying to kick the s*** out of other papers seems to be working). http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/ It is also interesting to note the disciplines from which many of the papers are retracted. Climate science disciplines are probably the most careful and most open of any other discipline so they’re leading the way for other disciplines to follow.

    When it comes to openly shared data, climate science is again well ahead of other disciplines. (e.g. medical field, and pharmaceutical industries).

    Climate papers published now have links to the data they used in appendices or on the publishers’ websites. You can find pretty much all climate data (raw and adjusted) on-line, and they’re even putting their coding on-line as well (in the late 90s, they generally didn’t because the coding was considered proprietary property belonging to the agency that the researcher was under, and it wasn’t the researcher’s place to submit the code that “belonged” to the university/government agency—that has now changed).

    Can things improve? Of course. We’re dealing with human nature and science is an imperfect messy process, but it works and continuing efforts are being made to let it work better.

  7. My avatar appears to be an angry looking face. Sigh. A resigned and slightly sardonic looking avatar would be more appropriate.

  8. It is obvious that March 2013 is colder than was March 2012 in my neighborhood. So, suck it, Alarmists!

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