Above – continuing part 4 of our interview with Glaciologist Eric Rignot at the American Geophysical Union conference in December, 2014, San Francisco. Last thursday’s post of Part 3 is going pretty viral, so check that if you have not.
Here, Dr Rignot addresses the “slight distrust” that some groups actively promote in regard to science and scientists.
Below, Bill Maher asks a question a lot of us have – What’s wrong with listening to scientists?
Head vise warning on the contributions of the Wall Street Journal’s climate denying Bret Stephens. More evidence, if you needed any, of the impenetrable, hermetically sealed logic loop that is climate denial among so-called “conservatives”.
According to this GOPs completely braindead reasoning, when enough scientists did agree with Galileo, then its suddenly all a hoax as we started believing consensus and not “new science”. I really wonder if they really believe these stupid talking points? Are they really that retarded?
To be sure – the GOP pick and choose their talking points because they’re points that have been shown to be effective at persuading people. People really do respond to the mischief that ‘there’s been no (statistically significant at super high lab science gold standard confidence levels) warming since 1998″
But yeah, it’s the saddest thing that there’s not a bit more concern for veracity and a little less concern for saying what you’re paid to say. You don’t have to go very far to find someone vaguely competent in stats or science to point out that it’s childish nonsense.
The issue of “statistical significance” is one made to math and science illiterates. In the period chosen there were record temperature years. The only issue was the statistical significance of the regression line in an upward direction. If I flip a coin 10 times and it comes up head eight times, we can’t claim “statistical significance” for bias towards heads, but we also can’t claim any proof that there isn’t. We need more flips.
This is beyond the typical Fox News viewer.
“To be sure – the GOP pick and choose their talking points because they’re points that have been shown to be effective at persuading people.”
And judging by the reviews at Amazon.com of ‘America in Retreat’ it is working for some.
There were no people that we would call “scientists” in the time of Galileo. There were religious philosophers and the beginnings of what might end up as “science”. It’s a very rare theory that completely replaces “consensus opinion in science. There’s a lot that modifies consensus, but that isn’t Galileo.
Bill Maher in my opinion isn’t someone who should ask that question. He spreads a lot of misinformation about vaccines on his show.
What Maher thinks about vaccines has no bearing on what this post is about. Maher is dead on target with his comments about science, scientists, and global warming. He deserves a big pat on the back for the masterful job he did of helping that idiot Stephens show his ignorance and is a good spokesman for science and AGW, where he spreads NO “misinformation”.
Nobody is perfect, and in spite of the fact that other non-scientist “celebrities” like Britney Spears and Donald Trump also speak out against vaccines, there IS still some small question among scientists about side effects. Those folks who are looking for something to blame for their children’s illnesses will focus on that rather than the good that comes from vaccinations.
There are also those who instead say vaccinations are a bad thing because they have contributed to runaway and unsustainable growth in the human population, which is at the root of our present AGW dilemma and many other planetary ills. They might advocate that we stop all vaccinating and allow “nature” to take its course through natural selection. What’s your “opinion” on that?
Oh he did a good job on handling Stephens. However, one of his big points was about listening to experts and the consensus on global warming. Which he has trouble doing on the subject of vaccines. This is what I have a problem with.
I understand your point Collin, and it is very true that Maher is quite hypocritical about which science he chooses to accept. But the fact of the matter is that he is absolutely correct on this specific subject.
Those who would reject his opinion on AGW because of his other clearly wrong opinions on scientific matters, would be committing the Genetic Fallacy. It behooves all of us who strive for rational discourse on contentious ideas, to not make the same intellectual mistakes that the less critical thinking among us are making.
Maher is probably not the best spokesperson for the job, because he can be strawmanned by the other side, but that exposes their ignorance too, since they demonstrated that they cannot separate the message from the messenger. That is the simplistic, knee-jerk type of thinking that plagues or society to the detriment of all involved.
Ideas should stand and fall on their own merit, not who presents them.
That ‘flatliner’ Bret Stephens needs to have the books by Callum Roberts such as ‘The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea’ and ‘The Unnatural History of the Sea’ put under his nose and be instructed to read them to see how specious his arguments are.
Apart from having written a book, what else has this creature done with his life?
Oh! I see he has won a Pulitzer Prize and writes for the WSJ. That’s al-right then. Explains allot. He gets paid for dissembling.
Stephens bats for Lomborg, does not understand the nature of the scientific consensus of climate change, does not have a clue on the history of the Geocentric view of the universe and planetary motion Galileo was not the first to challenge these Aristotle/Ptolemy concepts.
I am pleased that Bill brought up James Lawrence Powell for his book ‘The Inquisition of Climate Science’ is another book that Stephens should be made to read as part of a badly needed remedial education. Pulitzer Prize indeed! Now since devalued.
Lomborg the conservative economist. Yep.
As is usual with these people, he doesn’t think the consensus matters, because the solution doesn’t make him feel warm and fuzzy. He said it himself, folks.