Wednesday, December 14, 2011

An 'Ignorant Wingnut Conspiracy Theorist' And The Conspiracy Of AGW Wingnut Theorist's Ignorance


It appears that I, apparently suffering from a “personality disorder,” am an “ignorant wingnut conspiracy theorist.” It’s tough work, but I guess someone has to do it, especially when my so-called “theory” is based on the writings of the very scientists acknowledging that they have concocted the fraud called AGW.
It the mind of an ignorant wingnut conspiracy theorist, any level of denial and idiocy is possible.  These are the same people who believe in a magical being that rose from the dead and walked on water, yet are in denial of what our best science and military say is fact.    

How about that?    

If that's not a mental illness, I'd say it's at least a personality disorder.  
Enter another "ignorant wingnut conspiracy theorist":


Which brings us to Climategate.  Climategate parts one and two are a series of leaked e-mails from arguably the most prominent researchers promoting the idea that humans are causing catastrophic global warming. The e-mails show the scientists involved to be violating their professional ethics with the result that climate science in particular and science as an institution more generally is brought into question. 

The first group of e-mails released in 2009 showed scientists attempting to suppress or alter inconvenient data, destroying raw data so that others would be unable to analyze it, using tricks to change reported outcomes, conspiring to avoid legally required disclosure of taxpayer-funded data, and trying to suppress dissent by undermining the peer review process.  On the latter point the researchers involved threatened to boycott and get editors fired at journals publishing findings questioning the urgency of the climate crisis. 

Climategate 2 is a second release of e-mails, in November 2011, from the same cabal of scientists exposed in Climategate 1.  There is little new to the revelations—just more hiding data, trying to figure out how to downplay dissent or have papers that would seem to undermine one part or another of anthropogenic global warming theory ignored or discredited. 

To be clear, these e-mails do not disprove that humans are causing potentially catastrophic global warming. Whether or not humans are or are not, in fact, causing or contributing to dangerous climate change, the only thing clear that emerges from the Climategate e-mails is that the scientists claiming that “the science is settled” and that there is “consensus” among scientists that humankind are acting as planet killers, can’t be trusted, nor can their research be pointed to as solid proof of anthropogenic global warming. 

The term skeptic has historically been a badge of honor proudly worn by scientists as indicating their commitment to the idea that in the pursuit of truth, nothing is beyond question, every bit of knowledge is open to improvement and/or refutation as new evidence or better theories emerge.  However, in the topsy-turvy field of climate science, “skeptic” is a term of opprobrium and to be labeled a skeptic is akin to being a heretic in the Middle Ages – you may not be literally burned at the stake, but your reputation will be put to flames.  

The Climategate scientists continue to claim that the actions disclosed are not bad as they seem and that nothing contained in the e-mails is really important. But this is like the Wizard of Oz saying “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” when in fact the real action is going on behind the curtain. 

Of course, this “ignorant wingnut conspiracy theorist” is Dr. H. Sterling Burnett who specializes in Environmental Ethics. As such Dr. Burnett must be suffering from a personality disorder to demand the employment of ethics in science.

I wonder, if Dr. Burnett does not exhibit such hatred as the commenter quoted above exhibits to ideas such as a belief in God, will he be stripped of his title and expelled from science all together?  As political correctness is bureaucratic herding by its very nature Emerson's quote, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" comes to mind since it is foolishly consistent.