It is so frustrating to me, and to the “enemy of the people” that the press has been falsely dubbed, that simple facts have become a thing of the past. Falsehoods are spewed about at all levels in our society, from the lowest to the highest, and are instantly accepted by the credulous. Many don’t even bother to read past a specious headline. If they see it, and especially if someone in their tribe says it, they believe it.
It turns out this is not a new concern. A philosopher named Willian Kingdon Clifford wrote a piece about it called “The Ethics of Belief.” You very likely haven’t heard of him since his writings were nearly two centuries ago, but the beliefs he asserts of what damage can be done to society if people acceptingly embrace so-called facts without challenging them basically assert that they can bring down our social mores and even our ability to interact.
There’s a fascinating article about him on Aeon. Here’s my favorite paragraph:
“What we believe is then of tremendous practical importance. False beliefs about physical or social facts lead us into poor habits of action that in the most extreme cases could threaten our survival. If the singer R Kelly genuinely believed the words of his song ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ (1996), I can guarantee you he would not be around by now.”
You can find the rest of the article here
PAD
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I heartily agree with you, PAD. It is very frustrating when so many have bought into the big lie, such as AGW, especially because it so heartily and pervasively propagated with the cooperation of the media and government like all big lies must be.
Global Warming is not a lie, dipshit.
You’re wasting your bandwidth trying to convince him of that, Tom. The anti-science & anti-fact blinders are strong with that one.
Why, because the priesthood has told you so? And their pronouncements have been blessed by the blessed government? Or because their prophecies of doom are too terrible to behold????
Sorry, sheeple. I have studied the methodology, watched as the lies unfolded and were adopted by those who chose to profit from them. I know computer simulation too well to take any such conclusion without necessary testable results available.
Jerry, remember that I have a Masters in Electronic Engineering. Used to work with computer simulation for a living, and attending lectures in Earth Systems Science back in the 90s while this was all unfolding. I have seen the emperor, and he is naked.
But, go ahead and believe the lies. Alter your life to pay more in taxes as those who hold you in their sway command, and wonder why they are NOT living on the coast in DC in a hundred years. By that time, they will have convinced you to fear the coming Ice Age…
Charlie, your Engineering credentials might impress me more if I hadn’t once heard a Mechanical Engineer with dozens of patents to his name say evolution was nonsense because a butterfly can’t give birth to a bird. In my experience, engineers make good inventors and builders, but lousy scientists
Rev,
So, you knew someone that had a position on something different from you, so obviously he is deranged and incompetent. So, you now tar all engineers from this one example. A stunning display of illogic!
The good scientists are also engineers, looking for the way to test and realize their thought into reality. It is the ‘Earth System Scientists’ that you really have to question. Lots of theories and conclusions, plenty of computer generated fantasies, but no testable data. Unlike your mechanical engineer, who wants a REAL mechanism for speciation, you just assume you are correct in your beliefs because the PTB have told you so. Nice little sheeple, good little sheeple…
“Jerry, remember that I have a Masters in Electronic Engineering. Used to work with computer simulation for a living, and attending lectures in Earth Systems Science back in the 90s while this was all unfolding. I have seen the emperor, and he is naked.”
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And, yet, you often make observations not grounded by fact.
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Beyond that, I’m unimpressed by someone saying they have a Masters in Electronic Engineering when a substantial majority of the actual experts in the field being discussed say differently.
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Seriously, you come across like Food Babe claiming her University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Bachelor of Science, Computer Science degree makes her a an expert in GMOs and matters related to agriculture, nutrition, and chemistry while the people who actually have degrees and years of experience in such fields are all wrong.
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But, dude, when I want someone to talk about stuff involving designing devices and systems based on printed circuit boards, I’ll keep you high up on my list.
Jerry, just one little comment on that substantial majority of actual experts: Those are the ones that have survived the political climate that arose in the 90’s. I watched it happen in that one little department. A grad student’s research confirmed warming, he got grants, post-grads and success. If your research cast doubt, you sought employment in another field. I was amazed by it, but not really surprised. In a field with no real measurable results, the golden rule applies.
Support for anthropogenic global climate change is not derived from the media or the government. It is derived from the scientific evidence that has been confirmed for it by climatologists, from which nearly unanimous consensus among the climatologist community, and the scientific community, is derived. This is seen not only in the scientific literature, but also in the literature of scientific skepticism that is written for the lay reader, as in publications like Skeptic and Skeptical Inquirer, which in addition to explanation the convergence of evidence for the phenomena, have also addressed and debunked the most popular climate change denier arguments, much as that community has done with creationist arguments, Holocaust denier arguments, and other popular examples of pseudoscience, pseudohistory and pseudoknowledge in general.
Luigi,
I acknowledge your faith in climatologists. Unfortunately, your faith is not justified, but I still acknowledge it.
The ‘climatologist community’ may even believe it by now, since their computer generated fantasy has been established as gospel for over a generation of new scientists by now. It is still all blowing smoke, desperately grasping for any meteorological outlier to try and justify its existence.
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When I see them make REAL MEASURABLE PREDICTIONS, and those predictions are confirmed for three years in a row, then I will acknowledge they might have something.
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Hand waving at every storm or heat wave or cold front is not proof, it is politics.
Thank you PAD. I finally got a few minutes to read the article you are referring to, and found it very interesting. What is equally interesting, is that all the other respondents have either not read it, or just assume that it doesn’t apply to themselves. I see this very problem on both right and left, the assumption of correctness with no real evaluation of evidence or conflicting opinions.
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Did any of ya’ll see the PBS Frontline two-parter on Facebook? Boiled down, Facebook is designed to get you to use it. To do this, it tries to to find other articles and posts that you will want to read. Usually, this will be posts that you already agree with, so you will feel validated to have your existing opinions. The ‘Russian Meddling’ was simply them posting more and more outrageous posts that fed into this culture. Too many of the other posters on this thread need to get out find other opinions like I do…
Actually, I read it. But, as your entire post shows, you assume what you want to be fact is fact and make a pronouncement about it as if it were fact.
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So, basically, you read it and still think that, so long as it’s what you want to be true,believing in falsehoods is just fine.
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Seems to be your pattern over the years.
Jerry,
Ok, what pronouncements that I have made do you consider to be non-fact? That AGW is a political issue, not a scientific one? Sorry I have seen for myself the falsehoods uttered by the priesthood there. Another little fact – my wife’s nephew graduated a couple of years ago from a major university with a meteorology degree. If you ask him about AGW, he shakes his head and tell you that quietly, quietly all his professors know that it is bunk, but know that if they say anything in public they will lose their positions and/or prestige. Again, I have watched, listened and looked at this for 20 years now. The real-facts are clear: What global warming there is, if any, is small, and is little influenced by human sources. If they could make any verifiable predictions, they would make them and shout them from the rooftops. Instead, they make generalizations and claim any incident that supports their proclamations as proof. Sorry, I am a scientist, not a true believer.
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There may be other issues that I have been mistaken on in the past, but this is not one of them.
I just love CharlieE’s anecdote about his “wife’s nephew” and his vaunted “meteorology degree.”
Charlie, I trust you understand that the VAST majority of people would think that your “wife’s nephew” is a bigger fraud that any concept of “global warming” since what most people think of when they hear or read “meteorologist” is “TV weather person” (ie, somebody who gets paid to stand in front of a green screen while reading whatever weather stuff is on a TelePrompter) rather than a legitimate scientist.
And, for the record, the majority of climate scientists (and “climate science” is a DIFFERENT thing than “meteorology”) refer to the process as “climate change” rather than “global warming.” It’s only the deniers who insist on using the incorrect term (largely because half a century ago, the prevailing idea was “global cooling”; the idea is that if they were wrong about “cooling” then they’re wrong about “warming”).
Actually, I read it. But, as your entire post shows, you assume what you want to be fact is fact and make a pronouncement about it as if it were fact.
Uhhh…. You know this is Peter David’s blog right?
It’s not name calling. It’s just fact.
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Hah! Like I said, Peter David’s blog.
In the last week, I’ve told a Flat Earther, a Chemtrail proponent, and a Moon Landing denier they were idiots.
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Not name calling, just statements of fact.
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Same thing here.
Here’s a tip for you, Charlie:
DON’T USE “YA’LL” IF YOU CAN’T USE IT CORRECTLY!
The PROPER spelling is “y’all” not “ya’ll.” The former is a contraction of “you all”; the latter is a contraction of “ya will.”
Y’all really do like to disparage scientist, don’t y’all! First, you insult all engineers, since like Sheldon you must ALL have useless doctorate degrees, and then you insult meteorologists, who use a lot more reliable SCIENCE than those climatologists you champion. After all, THEIR predictions are actually measured against real life.
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And yes, they now call it Climate Change because their initial predictions of increases of temperature didn’t happen, so they changed it. After all, climate is not always the same, so that way they HAD to be right!
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Y’all don’t know ANYTHING about how the big cons work, do you?
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Joe, does y’all make you happy? Sorry, but I have been doing the other spelling for over 50 years…
CharlieE in a nutshell here, and easily 80% of the modern conservative movement in general on most matters.
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https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/11/06/bagley-cartoon-glued-news/
Sorry, Jerry,
Believe in facts not stupid cartoons. Don’t know of a cartoon showing fat, happy sheep being led to the shearing by wicked politicians and academics…
So, it looks like y’alls only response is insults and name calling. Good to know the American liberal is still as useless as possible.
Just prointing out your desperate desire to cling to your own falsehoods pretty much underscores Peter’s post. The fact that you claim your own masterful scientific knowledge is greater and more accurate than actual qualified experts in the field being discussed while saying things that show you’re clueless about key points just makes it all the more laughable.
Not remotely as useless as morons denying climate change,
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PAD
PAD,
Thank you for joining in on the name calling. Always glad to see a gracious host…
As for denying climate change, I deny nothing. Climate changes, has always changed. Man has always had an effect on the climate, usually due to his agriculture and hunting effects on the bioshpere causing changes to terrain.
What I deny is the political posturing about the unmitigated (and, apparently unmitigatable) disaster that is coming according to certain experts and agencies who profit from the fear mongering. I know that you feel that, well, they are experts, and you have no actual knowledge in the field, so you feel you MUST believe them. I also know how troubling it must be to you to be told by others how wrong those experts must be.
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Let me put this in a historical perspective. In the late 80’s and early 90’s, computers became ubiquitous enough and cheap enough that even small University departments could use them for simulation. Some started doing simple physics studies on solar insolation and atmosphere interactions, especially as CO2 levels varied. Many showed great increases in temperature as CO2 levels increased. This drew a great deal of attention, headlines even and attracted a great deal of funding.
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The next steps were to increase the scope and accuracy of these simulations. Databases of temperatures were compiled for different locations going back as many years as possible. The simulations began to try and account for other effectors such as methane, wind currents, ocean currents and clouds. I was a witness during this period, and can make this simple observation – show disaster, and you got funding, show status quo and you didn’t.
To Be Contimued
It’s not name calling. It’s just fact. Deny climate change and you’re a moron. It’s pretty simple.
Once the simulations began to show more and deadlier disasters, then more and more organizations and government agencies began to pay attention and reward these new prophets of doom with grant money, prestigious positions and most important ATTENTION!!!
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For these academic departments, being made up of human beings, the feedback made them more and more about the disaster. If you were writing simulation software, it had to show not just warming, but catastrophic warning to receive the rewards. This has been going on for almost 30 years, so there is little internal dissent in the field.
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Sorry if this bursts your bubble about the integrity of academia, but this happens in many areas. It is just this one whose actual impact is so damaging…
Arguing with man-made global warming deniers is useless. Arguing with evolution deniers is useless. They both believe what they believe because not doing so would invalidate dogmas that are as vital to them as oxygen. In the case of evolution it is the dogma of the literalist interpretation of the Bible. In the case of man-made global warming it is the dogma of free market capitalism as perfect. Believing in man-made global warming would introduce a major hurdle to free market capitalism and their insistence that market forces alone should regulate the market. It also would put in check capitalism’s dependency on perpetual growth of economic production. No amount of proof is enough, because you can always demand more proof when you really can’t allow yourself to believe.
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Also impossible to win are discussions about gun control and tricke down economics. Because the believers in gun rights and Zombie Reaganomics can always fall back into claiming that any problems can be solved by even more of the stuff that obviously causes the problems. Mass shootings can be stopped if we introduce even more (and more powerful) guns into the market. Economic distress will be a thing of the past if we cut even more taxes, the problem is that you didn’t cut taxes ENOUGH and didn’t shrink government ENOUGH. That ridiculous explanation was used after the abysmal failure of Kansas’s tax cut experiment.
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We’ll never find any consensus. We’ll be two tribes locked in conflict for a long time. Perhaps things can change with the new generations, because to change the minds of adults about these issues is impossible. Too much tribalism. There are perhaps 30% or less of people that are open to changes in opinion, but those people are precisely the ones less engaged with politcs.
Rene,
Actually, arguing with those willing to believe they must feel great guilt for others sins has proven to be pretty useless. You feel such guilt that all of mankind has produced so much CO2 that you must prostrate yourselves before the priesthood, give great sacrifices of treasure and freedom, and this will ease your debilitating guilt.
Now gun control is more a problem with the lack of mental health resources, and the prevalence of the ‘shoot the place up’ meme that is now attached to the common consciousness. The guns are already out there, locking the barn door does little good when the horse has already run away…
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Taxes and government are pretty intuitive, as they are by nature pretty wasteful. Those calling for the expansion of both should usually be taken out and shot by the no gun control folks as a benefit to the gene pool, but that is a whole other story… BAZINGA!
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Actually, there is a good balance point between taxes and government, but at present they are both too large. However, whenever you try to reduce them, the first things they cut are always the most essential functions, leaving the second and tertiary functions intact and feeding at the trough…
Charlie E –
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I am not going to argue with you. I will never convince you, you will never convince me. All your Libertarian Right-Wing Free Market arguments have been made a million times. So consider them made one more time. Pretend you typed all of them in 25 posts. All my Social-Democrat Left-Wing Welfare State arguments have been made a million times. So consider them made one more time. Pretend that I typed them all in 25 replies. Done. I just saved us a lot of time.
Rene,
I accept your detente. I still read and enjoy Peter’s work, and enjoy this blog just to see how other’s consider the world. I do try and cast a little sunlight here and there.
As a libertarian, guilty as charged. Free market, not so much as there are really no free markets. I don’t mind regulations, but there should be logic and constraint in them.
Thank you for your consideration.
Covers it nicely.
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Maybe We Should Have Done Something About ManBearPig
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https://youtu.be/0AW4nSq0hAc
CharlieE – If you have already stated so, my apologies, but what data could be presented to you, that you would accept the earth is warming? Answering that, what data would you need to see that human kind is contributing significantly (say at least 30%) to the warming?
Cheers,
Joseph,
Just noticed that someone had posted here again, and actually asked a reasonable question.
What data would convince me? Simple, if they would make complete, verifiable predictions for the next three years, and be within, say 20% of the actual numbers, that would go a long way towards convincing me. At present, they just seem to take what actually happens, declare this ‘the hottest year on record!’ and act as though this were somehow proof. It might actually be ‘proof’ but it isn’t science.
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As for proof that it is man-caused, that would be much harder. The first step above would at least show that their models had at least some accuracy, and then we could ask what percentage those models were set for. We could also verify from measurements that the levels they had predicted for CO2 and other man-made effectors were similar.
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You see, it is not just is it warming?, and is it caused by actions by man?, but also, whether their computer generated modeling is showing reality and not fantasy. How can you trust their visions of disaster when they can not predict reality in the first place!