There are two newspaper items at hand that serve to illustrate the scientific ignorance of the Religious Right, and the Bush administration's exploitation of it.
One of them is a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece by Peggy Noonan that has already been noted by PZ Myers at Pharyngula and Matt Brauer at Panda's Thumb. Noonan proudly displays her moranity on the subject of science in general and global warming in particular when she laments what she perceives as the failure of scientists to have a big meetin' and settle all of this controversy once and for all:
During the past week's heat wave - it hit 100 degrees in New York City Monday - I got thinking, again, of how sad and frustrating it is that the world's greatest scientists cannot gather, discuss the question of global warming, pore over all the data from every angle, study meteorological patterns and temperature histories, and come to a believable conclusion on these questions: Is global warming real or not? If it is real, is it necessarily dangerous? What exactly are the dangers? Is global warming as dangerous as, say, global cooling would be? Are we better off with an Earth that is getting hotter or, what with the modern realities of heating homes and offices, and the world energy crisis, and the need to conserve, does global heating have, in fact, some potential side benefits, and can those benefits be broadened and deepened? Also, if global warning is real, what must - must - the inhabitants of the Earth do to meet its challenges? And then what should they do to meet them?
Of course, the consensus Noonan wants — one that concludes that global warming is just a big leftist lie — isn't going to happen, because there's already plenty of credible science that Noonan and her ilk choose to ignore or disparage. Noonan doesn't want the issue to be confused by a lot of hard-to-understand facts, and like all neocons, doesn't want to have to make any sacrifices if it's possible to avoid them by remaining ignorant or telling lies.
The other item comes from my local newspaper, the Kenosha (Wisconsin) News in the form of a letter to the editor from one Kathleen Ehlen, chairman of the Kenosha chapter of Pro-life Wisconsin. Ms. Ehlen, waxing indignant over embryonic stem cell research, dissembles thusly (in part):
If embryos are not human beings at their earliest stage of development, prove it. [Stem cell research proponents] are trying to justify chemical abortion by birth control drugs.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - RJ Elliott
I think we should abort everyone, in order to solve global climate change...
2 - Jim Wynne
Believe it or not, there are people out there who believe that global warming is caused by a lot of breathing for a long time. God save us from the willfully stupid.
3 - MCH
Look, everyone knows global warming is caused by all the hot air from Rush Limbaugh...
4 - Maurice
The fact that you use a non-word 'truthiness' tells me all I need to know about you.
This syntactically incorrect and incoherent sentence certainly assigns powers to GWB that I would not have assumed:
"...is that Bush administration has targeted the intellectually challenged..."
I not going to bother refuting the global warming nonsense.
5 - Jim Wynne
Maurice:
Look here for the defintion of "truthiness."
I'm not sure what you're on about wrt syntax and the cited sentence, but it makes perfect sense to me.
And for this:
I think we can all thank you.
6 - Maurice
"I'm not going to bother refuting the global warming nonsense."
I fixed mine. You fixed yours.
I got rid of my TV 10 years ago. If you did the same you would not be tempted to use non-words.
7 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
So you just ignore the man's whole argument simply because you are were able to find one word that you think is misused? If this is how you determine truth, then you would have to ignore nearly every word out of W's mouth, an absurd proposition.
8 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
Quit trying to feel smart by convincing yourself you are so smart you can just ignore the truth because you're the only one that really knows what the truth is. It must feel so good to be able to read a whole argument and just know how much smarter you must be than the author because he used the word truthiness.
9 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
I would recommend a good dose of "An Inconvenient Truth" for you. It's a great movie. It will give you the basics for a lifetime of recovery.
10 - Maurice
If I don't want to get my information from TV why would I want to get it from a movie?
My opinion. Peggy Noonan is a very interesting writer and does her research. Human caused global warming is a religion that I don't have enough faith to join.
11 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
Maurice, did you know that satellite and observed data tells us that 2005 was the hottest year globally since observations began in 1885. 6 of the last 10 years have been one of the hottest 10 years since 1885. A graph of global temperature when you zoom in on the last century looks something like this "/" . It is not that it is rising rapidly (only something like 1.5 degrees" but that it is a steady climb, each decade warmer than the last. Whether you want to believe it is human caused, that is more debatable. Either way it is undeniable that the temperature is rising. And the trend continues, The first half of 2006 was the hottest first half of any year in history, including 2005. The Record highs are occurring at a record rate. The evidence goes on and on and on. You just have to read it.
12 - Maurice
Do you remember the 70's when it was "universally accepted" that we were heading into an ice age?
Do you really believe CFC's could somehow overcome gravity and rise to 60 miles where they could be exposed to UV light releasing the chorine that destroys ozone?
You gotta a lot of faith.
Oh, BTW. Is butter good for us today or will it kill us?
13 - Clavos
PETI,
You missed Maurice's point. He didn't say he didn't believe the world is warming. Go read his comment again.
14 - Dave Nalle
Believe it or not, there are people out there who believe that global warming is caused by a lot of breathing for a long time. God save us from the willfully stupid.
There are also people who believe it's caused by cow farts, and amusingly they may be at least partially correct.
But then there are other people who believe global warming should just be accepted as gospel with no further study, discussion or debate. I call those people ignorant, and they include you.
When you accept a scientific THEORY as an element of faith, how are you any better than the people who believe in intelligent design?
When you stop questioning and seeking, you become the enemy.
Dave
15 - Clavos
PETI,
They can't predict what the climate is going to do to the weather next week, and you accept their predictions for years from now?
16 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
Also i would like to point out Noonan's quote is actually quite hilarious. Her "common sense" questions show she has no understanding of the scientific questions at hand. Global warming is not about saving on heating costs in winter. That is laughable. The record droughts costing U.S. agriculture billions are a much larger concern. If the center of the country is a dust bowl, central heating and AC will be a thing of the past. This might seem dramatic, but record droughts have been occurring around the globe, as has record rainfall in other areas. Record number hurricanes, costing the U.S. Billions last year. If you know anything about meteorology, you would know prior to the 05 season, 28 named storms would be laughable- hence the running out of names and resorting to Alpha, Beta, Zeta...The one thing nearly every global climate expert will tell you is that the effects of changing global temperature will be unpredictable and sudden. Last year over 40 inches of rain fell on an Indian city in 24 hours, again a new record previously unthinkable. Another point of common sense to anyone is that warmer temperatures = rising oceans. Numerous conferences that apparently Noonan choses to ignore, have said that even with conservative estimates sea levels will ovverrun over 30 million people in 50 years. And over 100 million in 100 years. Glacier national park is forecast to lose the last of it's glaciers by 2015. Every glacier formation in the wold has shrunk in the last century, many have dissapeared entirely. Next time you want to deny global warming, take a look around.
17 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
EXCUSE ME CLAVOS, my statement contained no reference to ANY SORT OF PREDICTION. It merely referred to a the slow, steady increase in global temperature occurring nearly every, and every single decade since 1900. This is not forecasting. This is observation. Look at a graph it is almost a straight line, with virtually no bumps increasing at the rate of 1 degree celsius, every 50 years.
18 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
correction to my statement: nearly every YEAR, and every decade
19 - Clavos
I stand corrected, PETI. So the Earth is warming--didn't that happen when the Ice Ages ended?
20 - Clavos
PETI,
If Peggy Noonan isn't authoritative enough for you, how about an MIT scientist?
21 - Dave Nalle
The earth may be warming, but analysis of temperature data for prior geologic eras show that it's still considerably cooler than has been the historical norm since the advent of humanity a couple of hundred thousand years ago.
Dave
22 - pleasexcusetheinterruption
I honestly and sincerely am thankful that we can agree the earth is warming. I will concede that the rest is debatable. As long as we can both agree that the earth is warming, then at least we can discuss what the changes/affects will be, if any.
23 - Jim Wynne
Holy Jebus--MIT scientist Richard Lindzen??? Please.
Mr. Nalle: Perhaps you need to look up "theory" and find out what it means, unless you also think that say, the gravitational THEORY, and the germ THEORY of disease should also be "debated." All of science is provisional, including all of climate science.
Maurice: With regard to comment #12, you give away your reliance on specious talking points as opposed to actual research. Otherwise you would know that there was no such agreement in the 1970's regarding cooling (or can you provide references?), and you would also know that CFCs can reach the upper atmosphere by way of the same atmospheric phenomena that allows kites to "overcome gravity." Or are you also an air current denier?
24 - Maurice
"The point of all of this is that the Bush administration has targeted the intellectually challenged (Noonan and Ehlen are perfect examples) and pumped them full of specious reasons for ignoring the best scientific information and replacing it with appeals to morality."
Is Bush a smarmy idiot incapable of independant thought or is he a master controller of all he surveys. I always forget which it is.
25 - Jim Wynne
Maurice:
Try reading before you comment. Nowhere do I ascribe any sort of extraordinary level of intellectual accomplisment to Bush personally. That's too easy to disprove.