For John Broder – this is science :
“Climate change is real, and man is causing it,” Mr. Hill said, echoing most climate scientists. “That is indisputable. And we have to do something about it.”
That sounds like a statement of faith, not science. Broder then turns logic on its ear.
Skepticism and outright denial of global warming are among the articles of faith of the Tea Party movement, here in Indiana and across the country.
Skepticism forms the basis of science, but for Broder, faith is science and science is faith. Then he launches a non sequitur tirade of smears against skeptics.
The “right wing religious nuts” smear :
“It’s a flat-out lie,” Mr. Dennison said in an interview after the debate, adding that he had based his view on the preaching of Rush Limbaugh and the teaching of Scripture. “I read my Bible,” Mr. Dennison said. “He made this earth for us to utilize.”
The “corrupt big oil” smear :
Those views in general align with those of the fossil fuel industries, which have for decades waged a concerted campaign to raise doubts about the science of global warming and to undermine policies devised to address it.
The “paranoid urban legend” smear.
They have created and lavishly financed institutes to produce anti-global-warming studies, paid for rallies and Web sites to question the science
Sorry John, I’m not religious, I don’t get paid, and I don’t like cars. I do this because I hate stupid religions and all other philosophies which stifle human beings. Like Broder’s core belief system.
h/t to Marc Morano
And an agnostic amen to that!
I wonder if Mr Broder would be open to a debate with a knowledgeable skeptic? How open are his own religious beliefs to counter arguments?
One wonders how committed these alarmists are to their own religion once they are shown facts and data that counter what they have been spoon fed?
I suppose, in Mr. Broders mind, the words skeptic and heretic are synonymous.
Interesting bicycle rack
I’m religious but it didn’t stop me studying Physics at university or being a good scientist.
As one of my lectures said “Physics is about ‘how’, if you want to know ‘why?’ go and study philosophy or theology”
This is the problem today scientists get mixed up between how & why, this is “why” their science turns into religion as it gets driven by ‘why?’ science cannot answer that question.
Last week I saw an article about what happened before the big bang and I’ve seen other articles about multi universes, unfortunately it is all B*llsh*t as our universes laws of physics came into existence at the big bang and other universes do not have to follow the same laws of physics so we cannot make assumptions about them or before the laws of physics came into existence.
Again this is an example of scientists asking ‘why?’, but as soon as they do this it is no longer science as it becomes subjective not objective (as you try to impose your view of “why” on the rest of science).
AGW does exactly this it does not ask how is the climate changing, it states an article of faith i.e. “Humans are causing AGW/climate change” and then try and force science to bend to their belief system.
I have a belief system but I know science cannot answer “why” so I don’t try to force it to agree 🙂
Yup physicists do tend to b*llsh*t themselves. In super-conductivity, for instance, there are a range of phenomena that take the mickey of Schroedinger’s equation and Maxwell’s Laws which we know electrons obey because we’ve built the technology of electronics from them. Official theory says that if they don’t behave like electrons then they must be electrons behaving badly. To me the logic that things that don’t behave like electrons probably aren’t electrons seems a lot more obvious and leads quickly to explanations for high-temperature super-conductivity and the like.
Unfortunately academia cannot yet accept that the internet shows them up to be not quite the brightest of the bright, which is their core belief
WHY is the reason for science (and religion)
Then you need to know how, you construct a hypothesis.
Finally you have to test that hypothesis.
If the hypothesis falls short you need a new hypothesis.
The hypothesis is a construct of “how” it works not “why”.
When I do a physics experiment and get a result I work backwards to see “how” that result came about.
“Why” implies intent or causation, as in “Why did you kick me”, but if you ask “How did you kick me” you end up with Biology, Chemistry and Physics.
Physics describes “How” gravity works, but it doesn’t tell us “Why” it works (If we knew that we would know if there is such a thing as “Anti gravity”, but we don’t we only know about the gravity we can experimentally measure).
Gravity is a great example as Newton formulated how gravity worked, however Einstein described how gravity could work another way. Neither told us “Why” it worked they just describe “How” gravity might work.
🙂
No, why is the same thing, generally as how.
Or perhaps you’re referring to the “everything happens for a reason” mentality?
If I find a ball sitting some where, I can perhaps describe how it got there, by bouncing from some unknown direction. Why it got there is essentially the same as the how, someone threw it most likely, and it bounced. So the “why” is just following though with the complete “how”.
The New York Times has lost all credibility promoting junk science and are isolating it’s mainstream readership at an alarming rate.
“…..views in general align with those of the fossil fuel industries, which have for decades waged a concerted campaign to raise doubts about the science of global warming…..”
Talking points straight out of the ’96-to-present smear of skeptic scientists, which seem to originate from around a dozen enviro-activists back at the beginning of it all. For details, please see my four articles about that very situation:
“Smearing Global Warming Skeptics” http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/smearing_global_warming_skepti.html
“The Left and Its Talking Points” http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/the_left_and_its_talking_point.html
“Warmist Slander of Scientific Skeptics” http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/09/warmist_slander_of_scientific.html
“The Curious History of ‘Global Climate Disruption’ ” http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/the_curious_history_of_global.html
The people Broder interviewed made religious arguments. How is it a “smear” to quote people who believe that global warming is impossible because of their understanding of the Bible? Aren’t you the one calling them “religious nuts”? Are you saying that we all have to be atheists to distrust the “science” of global warming?
It’s a sneer as much as a smear since the article’s readers are expected to mostly be, like the undersigned, atheists. At the very least they are expected to be opposed to any literal reading of religious texts, an act that will be interpreted as extremist, intellectually under par and highly manipulable by the nasty right. Broder’s citation is an example of the desperate venting of arrogance that “my” Dems seem to be putting out as their death cry this election season.
Too bad Broder didn’t mention those of us who are motivated to speak out against the AGW noise by a passionate loathing of dishonesty in the scientific profession. He forgot to describe to his readers just how damaging the anti-science backlash will be to our civilization once the tide turns on Eisenhower’s “scientific-technological elite.”
Ironically, those New York Times readers who hold their intellects in such a light of superiority should take a good look in the mirror–they might even spend a night reading the full text of AR4. That particular bible is missing the parables and the psalms so it’s a bit less entertaining than the Christian bible. However, it is written with the same appeal to faith as the older book, and it contains just about the same quantity of prophesies, appeals to faith and the same lack of any hard evidence.
Who’s teaching scripture now, Mr. Broder?