Tom, that's a really interesting observation. Is there some possibility you could expand on this into a longer essay?
David, well said, and as it happens quite useful to me at this exact moment. However, I don't actually think Tom disagrees with you; he speaks of a "misuse" of skepticism". In this regard I'd like to add two things. The first is my recent observation of how clueless scientists are about what they are up against, reinforcing David's point: http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2007/07/climatological-culture-wunsch-and.html The second is, "I toljaso", quoting msyelf from 1996 "My concern is that the weaponry of relativism is only coincidentally and temporarily associated with the rhetoric of freedom and dignity. Less developed versions of the same thing have been used in the Stalinist and Nazi tyrannies. This is a central fact of the history of twentieth century science. In developing a rhetoric of willful uncertainty and confusion (somehow ignoring manifest and spectacular success) and conferring some sort of academic respectability upon it, the relativists are developing a weapon that can and would be used by spectacularly malevolent forces in the process of subverting and eliminating the very sorts of human dignity contemporary proponents believe themselves to be promoting. Ultimately it comes down to the triumph of the ad hominem over the substantive. In that case, it is a trivial matter to move the trusted class from tofu munching bicycle commuting book collecting casual buddhist environmentalist utopians (I have described the class so as to include myself) to gun totin beer guzzlin angry racist tax paranoids. If such people ever get the sort of power they aspire to, they will need a front of intellectual respectability, and the machinery of radical relativism will prove remarkably malleable. " That's documented (thanks!) at http://www.swin.edu.au/chem/complex/vp/vp04/vp04.html mt --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
