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Skeptics Would Like Media To Stop Calling Science Deniers 'Skeptics'
Layzej writes: Prominent scientists, science communicators, and skeptic activists, are calling on the news media to stop using the word "skeptic" when referring to those who refuse to accept the reality of climate change, and instead refer to them by what they really are: science deniers. "Not all individuals who call themselves climate change skeptics are deniers. But virtually all deniers have falsely branded themselves as skeptics. By perpetrating this misnomer, journalists have granted undeserved credibility to those who reject science and scientific inquiry."
Don't get me started on pirates.
And hot dogs contain only 0.01% dog. They would prefer to be called something different, but they're not sentient.
Yes constant questioning is at the heart of scientific inquiry however deliberate obfuscation of established science for political and economic objectives is not scepticism but subterfuge.
Constantly questioning is running experiments, taking measurements, and trying to model the future and see how well it lines up with reality. Scientists are doing that all the time, and the result keeps being that climate scientists are as sure the Earth is warming as biologists are that animals are evolving.
When you deny the evidence, slander the scientists, buy into conspiracy theories, you're not honestly asking questions. You're "questioning" climate science the same way creationists "question" evolution.
The whole point of emphasising the difference between an actual sceptic and a denier is that the sceptic questions the science, whereas the denier ignores it entirely. The scientists and others referred to in the article have no problem with the actual sceptics. Questioning the science is fine, disregarding it is not.
Oh no... it's the future.
Creationists, anti-vaxxers, anti-HIV causes AIDS guys, and anti-AGWers can hardly be considered to be utilizing the scientific process honestly, let alone correctly. Hence why actual skeptics want to be distanced from them.
Oh look! An advertisement from 1906 calling copyright infringers "pirates".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Using teh term "pirates" to refer to copyright infringers is nothing new.
Bitching about it, however, is.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Funny, because the science that I learned about in college was ALL ABOUT being constantly questioned.
Exactly.
A skeptic will ask questions, and will pay attention to the answers, open to the possibility of their views being changed by evidence. That's science.
A denier will pretend to ask questions, but with no real interest in the answers: their opinions are already set, and won't be changed. That's not science.
Deniers pretend to be skeptics. However, they are actually exactly the opposite: the distinguishing feature of deniers is not skepticism, but credulity-- they seen to credit pretty much anything they hear (or read on a blog somewhere)-- if it supports their pre-existing opinions.
(Amusingly, Fred Singer wrote an article making that exact point: "Deniers are giving us skeptics a bad name.")
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
And hot dogs contain only 0.01% dog.
Yes, but hot dogs are homeopathic food . . . so the lower percentage of dog, the stronger it tastes of doggy.
Or something like that.
I'm actually quite surprised that PETA hasn't thrown a hissy fit over the name "hot dog".
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
My stance in AGW is that you can bitch all you want about climate change, but if you're not willing to build a bunch of nuclear power plants and shut down a bunch of coal plants, then yes you ARE arguing global warming to advance a political agenda and nothing more.
If you don't back real solutions that can yield real results then I am going to call bullshit on your advocacy.
From the statement: "As Fellows of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, we are concerned that the words “skeptic” and “denier” have been conflated by the popular media. Proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims. It is foundational to the scientific method. Denial, on the other hand, is the a priori rejection of ideas without objective consideration."
No you havent. If youd been looking you wouldnt have said the stupid things you did.
Changes in behaviour are all but irrelevent for measles, polio, or smallpox. Its so contagious that if an infected person walks through a room, that room is contagious for as much as 4 hours after the person left. Ppeople were forcibly quarentined in their homes by law enforcement to prevent its spread, and even so it infected 3 to 4 million people each year in the United States. Of those people, 400 to 500 died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and 4,000 developed encephalitis (brain swelling) from measles.
Yet within a couples year of the vaccine being introduced and a widespread vaccination program start measles cases plumetted, from millions per year to fewer than 20k. By the 1990s it was declared eliminated from the US, even though our population had doubled and more people lived in closer quarters in cities.
"at the same pressure"
You do realize that in order to be at "the same pressure" you have to be more than 50 km (50,000 meters, or >160,000 ft) above the surface of Venus?
that on the surface pressure is more than 90x greater than earths? and temperature is greater than 850F ?
what you said is an invalid comparison, a misdirection that relies on ignorance, and that is ultimately irrelevent.
(im not even sure its true, as im quite sure from the venus article earlier this week, that we established that even at the same pressure, the temperature is signifcantly higher)
If you cant find satisfactory answers, its either because you havent been lookng hard enough, or you simply lack the intellect.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Doesn't matter. I hear they had words in 1906 they routinely called black people that today are "frowned upon."
"Piracy" a pejorative meant to associate copyright infringement with theft, which it is not. Also murder, scurvy, and parrots.
On the flip side, I also don't like the term "sharing." It's an attempt to associate copyright infringement with an innocuous or altruistic endeavor. It's not.
Words mean things, and I wish people would use them correctly.
Copyright infringement: the illegal copying of a work protected by copyright.
Theft: The unlawful taking of someone's belongings with the intent to deprive them of their use.
Sharing: Willingly giving a portion of your possessions to another, denying you use or benefit thereof.
Copyright infringement is not theft, because the copyright holder is not denied their property. They still have it. (Assuming no trespass or theft of physical property was required to obtain the source material)
Copyright infringement is not sharing. If I share my cake with you, I have given up a portion of my delicious cake I can no longer eat. If I share a ride with you, I've given up my personal space and privacy. But if you copy my file, I haven't given up anything. We both have full use of the file.
Let's just call things what they are, and leave the emotionally loaded words out of it.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
I can't help but notice that the reasons you give for being skeptical of AGW are the character of some prominent people pushing for actions to counter AGW, the cost of said actions, the fact that other countries aren't being forced to take action, and that our current weather models aren't perfect.
NONE of that has anything to do with whether humans are responsible for climate change. All of your skepticism is around what do to about it and the extant of the warming.
Which is why we should NEVER ever stop questioning "science". Newtonian Physics is wrong, but close enough to be functional in many circumstances. Science should be about continuous improvement, which requires ongoing skepticism.
Agreed, and this is what happens. Anyone who tries to publish a paper can tell you how much fun it is, even for papers that follow the current thinking in a particular field. I work with a couple scientists that published a paper in regards to climate change, and it took two years of sometimes colorfully worded review comments and re-submissions before it as accepted.
AGW or "climate change" is one of those things I simply do not believe is "settled science", mainly because of the huge number of variables, and the models and advocate predictions have completely been falsified.
And this is where you turn stupid and destroy whatever argument you were trying to make. Global warming as a result of increased greenhouse gases was discovered well over a century ago, and falls out quite readily as a result using some basic high school level chemistry and physics. The equation for determining the atmospheric forcing of CO2 was developed by Svante Arrhenius (a.k.a the father of modern chemistry) back in the 1890's, and it is still used today.
A much more difficult problem (and where the vast majority of research is going) is what will the effects on the climate will be. That requires advanced coupled models across multiple science domains.
Call me a denier all you want. I'm not denying the "Science" part of this (CO2).
Yes you are. You made unsubstantiated claims that all the results from current as well as historical climate research has been nothing but BS. You claim that global warming isn't "settled science" when it is a direct result of fundamental chemistry and physics that have been around for a century or more, the same chemistry and physics that are used in many other applications today. This is the very definition of a science denier.
I am denying the predictive hyperbole from the likes of Al Gore, who keeps making ridiculous claims, while having a huge Carbon Footprint (carbon offsets not withstanding).
AL GORE IS NOT A FUCKING CLIMATE SCIENTIST. Stop using him as a pariah for the climate science community, because he has NOTHING to do with climate science research. He does not publish papers. He does not perform climate research. He has no credentials for doing so, nor does he have any credentials in any related field. He is an activist for a cause he believes in, nothing more.
Using Al Gore as an EXCUSE for your ignorance would be like someone using Michele Bachman's claims as the reason why they don't get their kids vaccinated.
And if you are going to make fun of Fox News, great, but the real person you should make fun of is the stupid chicken littles who have been proven wrong, but continue to spew their idiocy and the climate lapdogs keep licking up.
Again, this is pure denier speak. Fox News has a documented history of misrepresenting science (among other things), especially climate science. The science has not been proven wrong. Not even remotely. That is, at best, willful ignorance on your part.
~X~