The real story here is that a peer reviewed journal was intimidated into withdrawing a paper that had passed through the proper review channels.
That the internet is full of conspiracy theory isn't news. And to the extent that climate science denial is correlated with beliefs in conspiracy theories, so is climate science acceptance. You don't have to read blog rows for long to see that climate science acceptors are the lackeys of communist Illuminati hell bent on denying the world freedom and that climate science deniers are in bed with the oil barons attempting in a capitalist frenzy to do pretty much the same thing. What gets lost on both sides is the actual science. A fact that I think is illustrated perfectly when climate science acceptors demand capitulation on the basis that 97% of climate scientists agree there is human caused problem. That 97% of scientists agree is an empirical fact, presumably, but it is also an irrelevant one. Not a single fact about the climate is true on the basis of a 97% agreement between scientists. Its an argument from authority writ large. its the kind of fact which if persuasive would have kept us believing the earth was flat. Yet every time I see blog rows on climate change it gets trotted out as if it is informative. I think what this paper really shows is just that part and parcel of debate is to weave a narrative about your opponent: 'Obviously', if you are not convinced by my water tight arguments then there must be something wrong with you. Unfortunately the paper shows it by doing it. Thats not to say that it shouldn't have been published, it should have. But the shame is that by not publishing it, it has somehow earnt respect and currency. Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2014 12:15:26 -0700 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Re: If you can't disprove the science, you can always try suing On 4/6/2014 11:36 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Apr 6, 2014 at 6:47 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: On 4/5/2014 4:18 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Apr 6, 2014 at 1:04 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: On 4/5/2014 3:54 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Sure, I also find it quite likely that powerful fossil fuel companies are lobbying or using even dirtier tricks to discredit AGW theory. On the other hand, this says nothing about the truth status of AGW theory. Doesn't it? If it weren't true, then dirty tricks wouldn't be needed to discredit it, would they? It could be discredited like the flat earth, creationism, and cigarettes-are-good-for-you theories. If that was true, the world would be free from religious superstition So do you classify religion as a conspiracy? Do you think clergy are really all atheists and are just conspiring to fool others? I subscribe Bruno's and Kim's replies. But this is besides the point here. You claimed that, if AGW was false, then oil companies would only need to falsify the models to affect political change. If that were true, then it wouldn't be the case that the majority of the world population is religious, because most religious claims are trivially and publicly falsified by the many fields of modern science, from cosmology to archeology. Religions make vague claims which are 'interpreted' and so cannot be falsified - notice that even Bruno believes in a God and refers to angels (of course he 'interprets' them very differently). But the oil companies don't offer any corrections to the absorbtion spectrum of CO2 or the insolation power or the measurements of temperature... They just attempt to obfuscate the problem of climate prediction by pointing to minor gaps in knowledge and saying, "What about THIS?": Maybe cosmic rays make clouds. Why is the stratosphere cooler in the equatorial zone? Maybe weather stations have been moved. Didn't temperatures rise before CO2 did in prehistoric times? ... Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
