Rapture Ready: The Science of Self Delusion

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney

by epo • 15 years ago

3 1 15 years ago

wccrawford• 15 years ago

I like how they've already made up their minds about Global Warming and treat skeptics like crackpots. It pretty much proves their point in the article.

They even try to justify it with 'evidence' that the more educated a Republican is, the more they deny it because "one insidious aspect of motivated reasoning is that political sophisticates are prone to be more biased than those who know less about the issues."

It couldn't possibly be that the facts don't provide the proof required. No, it must be bias and their ability to create counter-arguments.

Counter-arguments are good science. Trying to disprove a theory is good science. Blindly accepting the word of 'scientists' is not good science.

Also, telling someone they aren't smart enough to understand the facts will never convince them, especially if they are college educated.

For anyone out there that doesn't already know it, here's the skeptic's stance on AGW:

The planet is warming. The planet has natural warming and cooling cycles.

There does seem to be some correlation between man's activities and increased warming. Causation has not been proved.

The ONLY data on this subject has been doctored by people who stand to gain from it. The original data was destroyed and nobody else can reproduce their work. Good science depends on peer review, which cannot be done now.

Any steps to 'fix' the planet could very well be pointless (if there's no causation) and are almost guaranteed to have side-effects. "We have to do SOMETHING" is foolish and dangerous. It's quite possible (maybe even probable) that doing nothing is less harmful to the planet than doing random things that might help.

There is nothing magical about a college education that makes someone able to do a job that a non-college-educated person could not. Telling someone they couldn't possibly understand the science involved is ridiculous and pointless.

Rapture Ready: The Science of Self Delusion

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