Slashdot Mirror
Expert Wants to Decertify Global Warming Skeptics
Penguinisto writes "Apparently in the Senate, at least one scientist wants to put a permanent stop to any arguments over Global Warming. The Weather Channel's most prominent climatologist is advocating that broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming."
No scientific discussion can be made without questioning theories. Censorship is no solution.
When global warming is outlawed, only outlaws will be warm...er, globally
The idea of doing this is just as ridiculous as Bush forcing all scientific papers produced by scientists employed by the government to go through political censors before being.
But, the linked to article is a horribly biased hatchet job that contains such gems as:
This is a ridiculous and disingenuous assertion, especially given the well documented policies of the Bush administration to do everything they can to supress research that doesn't support their view.
I find that entire site rather apalling. And the fact that it appears to be the website for a Senate committee concerned with the environment makes the blatant and obviously one-sided bias all the more awful.
But, the focus of this Slashdot article is on the person calling for decertification. And, as awfully disingenuous and biased as that site is, they have the guy dead to rights. That is not a reasonable thing to do. Calling for censorship of honest opinions is not something anybody of any political stripe should be doing and severely lowers the credibility of the person who asks that it be done.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
The blog cited is in such extreme form that I wonder how much truth there is in the story. It looks like someone has set up this Heidi Cullen as a straw person to claim massive discrimination against anti-Global warming advocates. The blog gets more and more extreme as it goes on until Godwin's Law is invoked. I wonder what Cullen really said, in what context.
Pining for the fjords
It's very simple.
1) Greenhouse gases create a greenhouse effect. What this means is that if you have a lot of C02 in the air, it will trap the heat, creating higher temperatures in the area. Our sister planet, Venus, has a runaway greenhouse gas problem. There are so many greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, that the planet keeps getting warmer and warmer. This in turn, creates more greenhouse gases. The place isn't very hospitable.
2) People create a lot of greenhouse gases, and pump them directly into the atmosphere. This comes by way of car exhaust, factory air pollution, power plants, and a host of other things. Automobile pollution is probably the single biggest cause though.
3) This has been going on for a very long time. Accordingly, the Earth has shown a HUGE spike in global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution.
To deny that this is going on is quite insane.
2006 was the warmest year ever
Not quite. You left out an important part of the sentence...2006 was the warmest year ever recorded. We only have records of weather data for approximately 400 years...not even the blink of an eye in terms of climatic change.
I'm not saying there isn't global warming taking place. I'm merely saying neither side needs to be exagerating to either extreme. And censorship is censorship, and is equally offensive and unscientific regardless of which side it comes from. A scientist who wants to censor or punish other scientists for their views is just as bad as any group of rabid "intelligent design" supporters.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Apparently on Slashdot neither the Slashdotters, nor the editor, nor the submitter bother to actually RTFA. The only relation to the Senate is that the author of that BLOG entry is does PR work for the majority chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Science requires it. We have to accept that you can't prove a theory true in the same was things can be proved in mathematics. There's not a one step, now this is true and we know that, kind of thing. The way it works is scientific theories must be falsifiable, that is a proposition which is able to be proven false. If they aren't they are a hypothesis at best and just aren't scientific theories. That's why creationism isn't a theory, there's no way to falsify it.
Thus the very essence of doing science is entertaining ways your theory could be wrong, even if you don't believe them. If someone gives an alternate theory for your observations, you need to test it. You have to try and prove your theory false. That's how good science is done. You entertain all the ways you can come up with that your theory could be wrong.
Now, the part of her statement this controversy is about, which is making just speaking on the actual scientific work out there part of the requirements of the seal of approval, rather then spreading misinformation not based on peer reviewed science. But what is the purpose of this seal. Well, let's check their site: And they now have a specific certificate for broadcast meteorologists, which states its purpose as: Hey, how about that. It's about giving accurate information on the actual scientific understanding out there, and communicating this in an accurate and effective way. Not at all about "censoring", this call is merely suggesting that people who are certified under this hold themselves to the peer reviewed science out there on climate change. Which matches remarkably well with the stated purpose of the certification.
I'm not exactly sure if it is a good idea though, but this blogger linked by the
Absolutely right! This scientist should bear in mind the old Nietzche quote: "He who fights monsters must be careful, lest he himself become one." Or something very much along those lines. What distinguishes the "good guys" from the bad is how they behave, nothing else. Adopting your opponents methods to defeat them, doesn't work in the larger picture.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Penn & Teller are great when it comes to con men, but on other subjects they fail it. Hard. They were wrong about glass recycling. They were wrong about second-hand smoke, using as their sole sources of information a "think tank" run by a woman whose reports echo whatever her tobacco and oil companies want them to as well as to a court case which was vacated by a higher court. They were also as wrong about global warming as Michael Crichton in his horrible passion play, State of Confusion which was wrong, wrong, wrong.
This doesn't mean that anyone challenging a popularly held idea or even accepted theory should be silenced. Far from it. Science needs theories questioned. However, when the questions are being raised by shills in order to confuse and are based in fallacy and reference already disproven works, that's when such "scientists" should have their credentials stripped.
The "liberals" didn't come up with the law. In Germany and Austria it was a postwar requirement of the Allied forces that among other things denying the Holocaust be a punishable offence, in order to prevent former Nazis from regaining any public support once the Allies left. If you had bothered to actually do any fact-checking before making a statement like that, you'd know that the law was passed in 1947 under the ÖVP, which is the conservative party of Austria. They held the chancellorship (under Figl) and majority in Parliament until the "Socialist revolution" under Kreisky in 1970.
Irving didn't go to jail for denying the Holocaust. He was put on trial because the Austrian government warned him not to enter the border because they knew who he was and what he would say. The Burschenschaft, a secret society of right-wing students who swordfight and wear weird costumes (I am not making this up, you can look it up if you want), invited him to speak and he was stupid enough to go and was subsequently arrested at the airport. We have a lot of problems right now, especially in Vienna, because so many Turkish people are coming and certain far-right parties are using it as the new scapegoat to gain support. The last thing Austria needs is some douche like David Irving fanning the flames.
Crack open a history book and an atlas sometime before writing flamebait about countries you know nothing about and have probably never been to.
brandelf: invalid ELF type 'KEEBLER'
I think your analogy is a little flawed. Broadcasts meteorologists do not have to consider global warming when making short-term local forecasts, so their beliefs concerning global warming won't affect their product, and decertification would make the meteorological association appear to be acting as a religion. Your analogy would be closer if it said surgeons who believed faith healing was possible were barred, regardless of their ability to conduct surgery.
That said, I doubt the meteorological associations would revoke certifications/seals. The associations would lose revenue (since members have to pay for a membership) and scientific credibility (for stifling dissenting opinions).
Just mentioning this because I thought the same as you, but only found this out recently.
The Weather Channel's most prominent man-made global warming evangelist is
advocating that broadcast meteorologists be excommunicated for heresy if
they express skepticism about the gospel of man-made catastrophic global warming.
They're all sorts of religions on the planet and only few deal with spiritual matters.