John Cook of the fabulously useful Skepticalscience blog, and the “97 percent of Scientists Support AGW” paper, has now written a great piece for CNN, “The 5 Telltale Techniques of Climate Denial”.
Predictably, the climate denial troll community has swooped in. So much so that John may be writing a follow up piece analyzing the denialist techniques used to attack his piece on denialist techniques.
A scrap here, but go read the piece on CNN and give John some support.
1. Fake Experts: We see this in online petitions such as the Global Warming Petition Project, which features more than 31,000 scientists claiming humans aren’t disrupting our climate. How can there be 97% consensus when 31,000 scientists disagree? It turns out 99.9% of the petition’s signatories aren’t climate scientists. They include computer scientists, mechanical engineers and medical scientists but few climate scientists. The Global Warming Petition Project is fake experts in bulk.
2. Logical Fallacies: The most common fallacious argument is that current climate change must be natural because climate has changed naturally in the past. This myth commits the logical fallacy of jumping to conclusions. It’s like finding a dead body with a knife sticking out of its back, and arguing that the person must have died of natural causes because humans have died of natural causes in the past. The premise does not lead to the conclusion.
I don’t want to spoil all the fun, so make sure you go check out the piece, and then see if you can spot each of the identified techniques in the spittle flecked comment thread that follows. You might even want to weigh in yourself, God help you.
If you ever need data for a research paper on climate denial, it’s a gift that keeps on giving….
Like dangling trouser legs in front of Jack Russells, they just can’t stop themselves.
Or indeed, like dangling climate ‘skeptics’ in front of John Russells.
Although sometimes it just gets too much and I have to take a walk outside.
hehehe!!!
Someone should send you a lifesize cuddly denier with a baseball bat so you can beat the stuffing out of it!
Speaking of “lifesize cuddly deniers”, here’s our very own Omno, displaying his “impenetrable” logic and boring us to death. ZZZZZzzzzzzz……!!
I’ll have to make do with being impenetrable to those who don’t think
Impenetrable? You mean ‘incomprehensible’.
Strictly for those impermeable to boredom
You mean ‘impervious’.
Cook’s video is excellent, but missed one very important detail – that many of the supposed signers of the bogus “32,000 scientists” nonsense didn’t in fact sign it at all. I know, because a casual googling of my name a couple of years ago showed my name as one of the signers! Anyone who’s read my online resources and postings for my students know how blatant that lie is. I’ve heard there are other scientists with the same story. I’m guessing the Oregon Institute simply harvested names of scientists off the web and included them w/o their knowledge.
With the outing of Lubos_Motl tonight, I recommend mentions of John Cook to be removed from websites.
I would counter that both you and Lubos Motl should be removed from all climate websites instead. You and Lubos are both crackpots and contribute nothing of value to the world of climate change, since neither of you have expertise in the field and are driven by politics rather than science.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Lubo%C5%A1_Motl
John Cook and his website, on the other hand, DO provide some real science about climate change, and are a real resource to those seeking knowledge.
(And I won’t ask why you are bringing this up—-I know the answer—-you actively search for denier horseshit (even stuff as obscure as Lubos_Motl) believe all of it, and enjoy the limited recognition you receive as part of the echo chamber of the denier blogosphere. Sad).
Surely normal people know what the limits are, and abhor dishonest impersonation.
Omno has shot himself in the foot yet again, folks. He has now admitted to us that he is NOT normal, since he himself does not abhor “dishonest impersonation”.
I say this because he dishonestly impersonates someone who is intelligent, knowledgeable in science, logical, and a seeker of truth. He is none of those things.
Omno has again come to Crock and with his moronic comments has crapped up a posting that deserves intelligent discussion. Omno knows no limits and dares to lecture us? I find that particularly abhorrent. It’s time for Peter to send Omno on another vacation while we clean up his mess.
You mean “With the outing of John Cook” or perhaps “With the revelations of Lubos_Motl”. No wonder you’re incomprehensible.
You’re boring
To you but he’s also right.
No he’s boring because he understood what I meant but felt compelled to rewrite it. Whom for?
Omno accusing someone of being boring is the laugh of the week. George Montgomery knows his impervious OmnoMorons and his comprehensible rewrites of Omno’s incomprehensible comments will be useful to anyone who is new to Crock. That’s “whom for” GM writes, Omno.
Went to the CNN piece and read it in its entirety. Excellent work by John Cook, —-and he really brought out the crazies in the comment stream—-and they do indeed display the five techniques (just as they always have).
Anyone who enters the “spittle flecked comment thread” is wasting their time. No one with any intelligence is going to wade through all that mindless denier BS in order to search out the few voices of truth that bothered to comment. God help them, indeed—if they go there, they will need a host of angels as bodyguards.