From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Telmo Menezes
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2014 3:09 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: real A.I.
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 12:49 AM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote:
On 8 December 2014 at 23:36, Telmo Menezes <[email protected]> wrote:
You can notice the subtle change in the meaning of being a "skeptic". The
original meaning is very close to "agnostic" but it has been slowly sliding
into a strong preference for common sense, which is to say, the belief of the
majority.
Yes that seems possible, indeed likely. Also it gets kidnapped by "climate
change sceptics" and suchlike,
I would say that anyone who labels themselves as "X skeptics" are already
missing the point. Skepticism is a general attitude towards knowledge.
who are using it in the "postmodern" sense that loosely translates as "you
can't prove X 100% therefore not-X is 'just as valid'."
Is this really the prevalent argument from climate change disbelievers?
It certainly seems so based on a sampling of their output. The MO of climate
skeptics – in my experience -- is to grab on to some anomaly or discrepancy in
some dataset (or some puffed up sinister sounding largely made up scandal, such
as Climategate for example). Giving them a toe hold to launch into an attack on
the entire edifice of climate science based on some cherry picked data. Often
it is anecdotal data – say an unusually cold winter… anything that can make
good copy and sow doubt in scientifically illiterate minds.
I see little scientific rigor, or intellectual honesty, operating within the
skeptic community; seems to me mostly made up of political operatives and PR
marketing spin types that only deals in convenient cherry picked facts
(ignoring broad swaths of data) and that often merely incestuously repeats
baseless accusations that reverberate around the many Kock brother funded
archipelago of astroturf organizations. (An American expression for fake grass
roots organizations – e.g. astroturf being fake grass. Grass roots
organization, is another American expression for spontaneously rising broad
based movements arising as a genuine expression of the people’s will.)
Climate skepticism is more of a political phenomenon, funded largely by
powerful fossil energy interests that are acting to preserve the future value
of their large carbon holdings.
-Chris
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