Post by louise on Jul 2, 2011 21:22:31 GMT 1
An interesting comment showed up on Bart Verheggen's blog recently
I was reading Mark Lynas’ blog and noting who was turning up in the comments. One chap (David Bailey) has posted an old WUWT story, with the argument: look, here’s a pic of a submarine at the North Pole in 1958, so a melty North Pole is nothing new.
I couldn’t help but try and point him towards improving his google-skills a little, but it underscores the point that ‘rocket scientist’ wants to exploit: a single picture on WUWT does have a lot of persuasive power, and is much easier to integrate into a narrative than spending time checking up on how ice actually changes / the history of nuke subs trying to get through the ice / looking at the actual data. It’s just “no smoke without fire” writ large, and once it gets stuck in people’s minds, it’s incredibly hard to dislodge.
The problem is, of course, we cannot counter with the same tactics – and indeed, of course, you are attacked if you post (say) pictures of polar bears swimming across open water. Cherry picking nonsense! Unscientific!
It’s a communication problem we still haven’t solved, and the only way I can think it can be solved is long-term education in critical thinking.
ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/climate-science-scientific-method-skeptics-not/#comment-13402
His referrence to 'rocket scientists' was to part of Bart's post of
One self-proclaimed “rocket scientist” who has published junk science in the opinion pages of The Australian has been quoted on a New Zealandwebsite as saying:
“To win the political aspect of the climate debate, we have to lower the western climate establishment’s credibility with the lay person. And this paper [an accompanying picture book of thermometers] shows how you do it. It simply assembles the most easily understood points that show they are not to be entirely trusted, with lots of pictures and a minimum of text and details. It omits lots of relevant facts and is excruciatingly economical with words simply because the lay person has a very short attention span for climate arguments. The strategy of the paper is to undermine the credibility of the establishment climate scientists. That’s all. There is nothing special science-wise.”
Included here for context rather than discussion
I was reading Mark Lynas’ blog and noting who was turning up in the comments. One chap (David Bailey) has posted an old WUWT story, with the argument: look, here’s a pic of a submarine at the North Pole in 1958, so a melty North Pole is nothing new.
I couldn’t help but try and point him towards improving his google-skills a little, but it underscores the point that ‘rocket scientist’ wants to exploit: a single picture on WUWT does have a lot of persuasive power, and is much easier to integrate into a narrative than spending time checking up on how ice actually changes / the history of nuke subs trying to get through the ice / looking at the actual data. It’s just “no smoke without fire” writ large, and once it gets stuck in people’s minds, it’s incredibly hard to dislodge.
The problem is, of course, we cannot counter with the same tactics – and indeed, of course, you are attacked if you post (say) pictures of polar bears swimming across open water. Cherry picking nonsense! Unscientific!
It’s a communication problem we still haven’t solved, and the only way I can think it can be solved is long-term education in critical thinking.
ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/climate-science-scientific-method-skeptics-not/#comment-13402
His referrence to 'rocket scientists' was to part of Bart's post of
One self-proclaimed “rocket scientist” who has published junk science in the opinion pages of The Australian has been quoted on a New Zealandwebsite as saying:
“To win the political aspect of the climate debate, we have to lower the western climate establishment’s credibility with the lay person. And this paper [an accompanying picture book of thermometers] shows how you do it. It simply assembles the most easily understood points that show they are not to be entirely trusted, with lots of pictures and a minimum of text and details. It omits lots of relevant facts and is excruciatingly economical with words simply because the lay person has a very short attention span for climate arguments. The strategy of the paper is to undermine the credibility of the establishment climate scientists. That’s all. There is nothing special science-wise.”
Included here for context rather than discussion