As thousands of Norwegians poured into Oslo's streets singing, hugging and waving flowers, Queensland academic Merv Bendle sat at his computer fixated on how leftists and Islamists would try to exploit this latest act of mass murder. Maybe the attacks in Oslo an on the island of Utoeya were part of "a covert, 'false-flag' operation," he wondered. Maybe the attack was "carried out to give just this impression that it was conducted by anti-Muslim, right-wing extremists, but actually conceived and directed by other forces".
Nothing is ever as it seems, says Bendle. In an opinion piece for the Drum he wrote that Anders Behring Breivik "may be a very effective pawn in a much bigger and far more sinister game, in which there are still many more moves to be made." Not surprisingly, more than a few commenters accused him of peddling unsupported conspiracy theories (and some were less than polite).
For Bendle, this criticism is yet more evidence of a vast left wing conspiracy. In Quadrant he wrote:
... the government has already put in place a system to utilize online forums to carry out concerted and brutal campaigns of intimidation and victimization of anyone who dares to have or express dissenting opinions, i.e., they hold views different from those espoused by the Greens, the left of the ALP, other resurgent Stalinists, and their truly fanatical supporters in the community.
A lead agency in this system of intimidation is The Drum, the ABC organ of ‘online opinion’, about which I wrote in a recent Quadrant Online article. It had been given permission to republish an earlier article of mine on the Oslo atrocities, in a gesture of belief in the value of reasoned debate in the media, and obviously as an act of faith that it wasn’t just a set-up.
Well, it was a set-up, and one that allowed over a hundred cyber-bullies to attack me personally and professionally for daring to express opinions that differed from theirs.
Maybe it's time to re-read this 1964 essay by Richard Hofstadter: The paranoid style in American politics.
***
Hat tip to commenter Paul Bamford.
Have you noticed that when conservatives go looking for a terrorist comparable to Breivik, they inevitably arrive at Timothy McVeigh? Bendle also picks the Unabomber out, but Jared Loughner is usually the second choice.
It's convenient, because those attackers were clearly mentally ill. Loughner's choice of target was seemingly influenced by right-wing rhetoric, but his insanity is obvious.
The one they never choose, or even mention, is Joseph stack. It's odd that he's fallen down the memory hole, because it was only eighteen months ago that he wrote a suicide note full of Tea Party talking points before calmly flying his light plane into a tax office.
Or maybe it's not so odd that those who don't want to recognise a pattern of right-wing terrorism conveniently forget the most glaring example prior to Breivik.
This guy is also a pal of Bob Carter and a conspiracy theorist in climate change debate. The Greens are Eco-fascists according to Bendle.
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2011/07/eco-fascism-the-greens
Who has changed? Is it me or Quadrant? I use to subscribe to this publication - even once wrote for it - and found it a sensible source of conservative political opinion. It has become a vehicle for supporting ratbaggery and weary, tiresome culture wars stuff.
hc, trust me, it's them...you're one of the few conservative voices in Australia worth paying attention to these days.
No, no, Merv is right. My pieces on the Drum are always filled with comments of praise and agreement, and no-one ever says a bad word about me. He is the only person ever who has been bagged in comments. Leave Merv alooone!
Is it an eyeball play?
What appalling tosh from Bendle. At this rate they might as well let Graeme Bird write for the Quadrant website.
I suppose people have noticed the rave reviews that Brendan O'Neill (Spiked online editor) got for his performance on Q&A on Monday over at Catallaxy? I have never noticed him much before, but Googling around I see that he has been running the same "environmentalist as eco fascists" arguments that infects most of the libertarian take on climate change, and now is getting a continual run on the likes of Bolt's blog.
The funny thing is, I think Libertarians are much like radical environmentalists in that they are big on ideology, but bad at the practical details of how to achieve anything. For Greens, it's renewables can agreed energy problems within a ridiculously short time. For libertarians, firstly, you have the problem of their ideology preventing most of them making an honest appraisal of the science, but even if they do accept it, their faith based line is often that nuclear power will solve everything in a thrice, if only nasty government regulation would be loosened.
It's the middle ground that should show the way, but Labor will have trouble throwing the Green reflexive anti-nuclear stance (especially in light of Fukushima), and the Coalition is infected with members (double meaning intended) who have been conned against the science by non scientists like Bolt & Monckton, as well as drawing inspiration from the poisoned Right of American politics.
This is a very sad state of affairs.
Nice hysterical attempt to draw equivalences, steve but I've yet to see anywhere where Brendan O'Neill has actually come out on the sceptic side of the debate. His wiki entry says:
In other words, he doesn't deny AGW but uis a techno-optimist who believes in adaptation rather than mitigation. I would prefer if there were a workable multilateral agreement on mitigation that would get up and running in time to actually mitigate but as I don't believe there will and I think Australia's attempt to be a first mover won't get it doing I am effectively not pinning all my hopes on mitigation either.
Seems to me, Jason, that he is probably more of a game playing fence sitter like Sinclair (well, Sinclair's free to correct me if I am wrong.)
In other words, they feign a "well, even if there is some thing to climate warming..." line, but devote all their time to publicising and critiquing practical action against climate change in a way that seems purely designed to encourage skepticism about all aspects of the issue, including the science.
But tell me where I am wrong by quoting O'Neill sounding somewhat convinced of the science, and I'm happy to stand corrected.
Damn right Jason. Steve is like a really poor version of a muckraking outfit.
Well Steve, Clive Hamilton has called for the suspension of democracy.
Are the Greens eco-fascists? Yes.
Libertarians on the other hand think unlimited democracy is dangerous.
Oh that's a load of crap. The CIS and LDP have detailed policy. The LDP's budget assumptions are costed too.
An honest appraisal of the science is that AGW is real, we don't cause much of total GW, the models need a lot of work (little consideration of cointegration, poor backtesting) and it will be a trivial problem. 58 cm sea level rise? Who cares?
What is wrong with that? Compare France and Denmark with the same honesty you expect in the science.
Don't think you can bang us up with an identity. We don't buy into hero worship of politicians. Not even the good ones.
Skepticism is healthy, you dolt.
No, that's just the dot appraisal, supplied as it is by a blowhard who has to walk sideways through doors to so his head will fit.
Am I making this too Catallaxian in tone??
Shut up Steve, I am not a scientist but I can read the metrics competently.
The IPCC's confidence level is below what is generally accepted in research these days. When cointegration is considered, the forcing halves. The models do not backtest well and this is well known. Infra red absorption declines as CO2 concentration increases.
No, give me a non-blowhard rejoinder, Mr Majored in Macrame. It's not my fault if you can't keep up with the conversation and retaliate with envy.
No Steve it isn't devoting time to scepticism but denialism at Catallaxy.
They even laud Monkton for heaven's sake
Hey Merv....been following your writting for a while now.....Whats going on? We all remember the manufacture of news and media.....The americans are after the oil.....ha ha no, its the gold. they were not quick enough to get it though. the news does a good job of protraying what large powers pay them to say. we live in a world where anyone can get anything and basically any information. Its just hidden under more information...but it is still there. the real threat is home grown terrorism that uses international references. This bloke is to norway what mark chapman was to john lennon. he was set up to believe he was the one. lets leave it at that. by the way nice hat and u havent aged a bit mate........
I've been on about this for a while, and see it of a piece with a post of mine in 2006. It's always a shock to find out how many people's motivations in politics and ideology are essentially tribal or instinctive. If I was a right leaning subscriber to Quadrant and read Bendle's rant being marketed as a serious contribution, I'd cancel my subscription right there.
Nice to see Harry feels the same way. Pity it's so rare.
Right "libertarians" are just right-wing fascist leaning turds who like to cocksuck the Man, capital, big business, the banks, the military and the pigs and most forms of authority.
I've yet to hear a coherent libertarian vision for society. If you implement libertarian ideals you end up with either an armed anarchist fail-state like Somalia, or a Dickensian nightmare like industrial revolution England.
Point this out, however, and you wind up in an interminable round of "no true Scotsman" with self-styled libertarians who are sure their ideology will work, but just can't explain how.
As for "skepticism is healthy, you dolt", well of course it is. That's why skepticism is integral to the scientific method. What we see in the climate debate, however, isn't healthy skepticism, but reheated creationist denialism in which any discrepancy in the huge quantity of data indicating AGW is held up as falsifying all other evidence.
I also feel that way, Nick, in this case - I'm sure it is not so rare!
The paranoia continues here.
Sally, if you are another one of jimaro/phil/freddie/isher's sockpuppets, bugger off back to Graeme Bird's blog go back and discuss imaginary culinary tours of Italy or back to trolling Menzies House as the hilarious yet tragic "Pip".
I don't know if you're obtuse or block headed. Neither of those were libertarian.
This is a lie. Australia post Federation would have been libertarian if we had sexual and racial equality before the law. Switzerland is more or less libertarian save for high ag. tariffs and they've slid towards socialism a bit over the last two decades. Their democracy is a little too strong and not republican enough. Hong Kong pre handover was libertarian but unfortunately not democratic. Post industrial revolution America and Britain were libertarian and saw one of the greatest expansions of prosperity and cancellation of poverty human history has seen. Slavery was an obvious error. The CIS position papers and LDP policy are both real world plans. You're pretending they don't exist. Are you ignorant or dishonest?
So if Australia had equal rights for women and all races around Federation, the Swiss were a little less socialist and got rid of ag subsidies, Hing Kong became independent instead of given back to China, and America and England got universal suffrage and got rid of slavery earlier, all would have ended up as "anarchist failed states or Dickensian nightmares"?
LOL
Now I don't know if you're a wicked arch-conservative who is against equality before the law and the like or simply illucid.
This is a slick but damaging lie.
Discussing cointegration, CO2 thermal absorption, back-testing and the like does not constitute "creationism" or anything like it.
I guess it's appropriate to a post on the paranoid style in politics that the most prolific commenter should be so obviously paranoid.
What a sub sewer sub level of argument you have Paul. That makes me self satisfied.
Dotty by name dotty by nature; his scientific arguments are somewhat diminished by his admission "I am not a scientist"
Not that it was ever a well kept secret.
This isn't an argument either rog, but it is as good as you get. Like I said - I can handle the metrics, but the level of debate here is to hush it up. Everyone of those issues is relevant and important.
Nonetheless, you give Garnaut a pass. I'll give you a hint, pal, he's only an economist as well.
You haven't made one single positive contribution to any climate thread where a libertarian chimed in.
Why are you afraid of real debate?
Why are left wingers so dishonest? I never made that presumption nor did I try to "hide" it.
My point precisely, Period. You haven't cited any sort of libertarian state, simply states that you claim could be libertarian if they weren't conspicuously not libertarian. You may as well describe a liberal democracy as being like North Korea, except not a communist dictatorship.
And don't be mistaken: your brand of "skepticism" is taken directly from the Intelligent Design movement, and many of the PR men for the creationists swapped seamlessly into denialist think tanks after the Dover trial. Maybe some of this sounds familiar:
* “[Evolution][climate change] is a hoax being perpetrated by communists who want to enslave us!”
* [Biologists][climatologists] are driven by greed and have no regard for scientific evidence! We know this because representatives of an enormously wealthy lobby group said so”.
* “Any uncertainties in the data of [evolution][climate change] undermine the entire field and negate any amount of confirmed evidence in its favour!”.
* “Teach the controversy!”, as though the opinions of a handful of ideologues opposed to a scientific theory deserve respect equal to the independent findings of thousands of scientists.
* The opinion of any denialist/creationist with a PhD is equal to the opinion of an actual climatologist/biologist (see The Oregon Petition).
* Generously citing relevant scientists as being opposed to the theory when they actually believe the opposite, and hoping they won’t notice (see The Oregon Petition again).
* Rampant quote-mining and misrepresentation of scientific research.
Climate change "skepticism" is simply creationism with the serial numbers filed off.
Brendan O'Neill featured in episode 20 of The Australian's War on Science.
They are or were close enough. Hong Kong was a libertarian society, but it was a British crown dependency and the Chinese were never going to let it be truly autonomous.
This is an absurd analogy and takes my argument if facile for any particular example to ludicrous, clearly irrelevant extremes.
You haven't actually argued that if say Hong Kong became an independent democracy etc why they'd become a "failed anarchist State or Dickensian....". It is such a bizzare and predetermined conclusion with no reasoning at all. If America got rid of drug laws, repealed Obamacare, repealed the "Patriot" Act, repealed the Federal income tax twinned with cutting wasteful US spending and got rid of Gitmo...they'd come a long way to being a libertarian country.
Now why would they fall in a heap if they were either independent and democratic or repealed massively wasteful or intrusive Government power?
The gall of you, you know very little about me and given your above non argument, you either are hoist by own petard or have a hide thicker than a woolly mammoth on steroids.
Bizzare, ridiculous and wholly unscientific. I am sceptical of global warming as a problem. I think AGW is real but trivial & overstated and as a lapsed Catholic, wouldn't entertain creationism or ID for a second.
Keep on making bizzare assumptions about your opposition or political economy if you're afraid of real debate.
"Hong Kong was a libertarian society, but it was a British crown dependency and the Chinese were never going to let it be truly autonomous."
No it wasn't and isn't. There are and always have been large numbers of restrictions in HK as well as big government welfare in one form or another. For example, I think about 40% of the population lives in public housing (it's actually gone down in the last decade or two but this is due to population increase), most of the school system is public, and there is a public hospital system quite like Aus. There are many other examples, but since we've been through housing, health and education, that pretty much disproves your claim.
".", presumably you're aware even the Heritage foundation rates Australia as having a higher level of economic freedom than Switzerland. For one thing, I'm pretty sure they subsidize their farmers a good deal more than we do. And I thought the general Libertarian ideal for government spending as % of GDP was something close to 15% - half of what Switzerland's is.
Heh, actually "A 15% tax to GDP ratio can be considered social democratic. 10% is conservativism. 5% is libertarian."
Guess who said that...
These days we talk about annual public interest expense to GDP ratio, it is much more fashionable ;)
You're right, Period, I'm making assumptions about you. I assumed that what you call "libertarianism" is a half-baked fantasy of an ideological magic bullet that will deliver a prosperous and peaceful society if only we try, and yet, despite the many forms of governance and social structure tried over the past 5000 years, you'd be unable to identify any that qualify as libertarian. So far my assumption has been correct.
Try this instead: in which ways does Somalia NOT qualify as a libertarian state? The people there have limited government and regulation, freedom to arms and self-defence, the right to establish small business and compete in the marketplace, and nominal police and military forces.
I'm making more assumptions about your climate change views. It's nice that you accept the existence of science, but I'm assuming that only occurred a few years ago, when the entire "skeptics" movement reversed its decades-long commitment to total denial of climate change and began pretending it had only ever argued the extent of human influence - since revised to acceptance of human influence but complaining about the cost of addressing carbon emissions.
I'm also assuming that your "skepticism" rests entirely on the belief that climate scientists are fraudulently manipulating their data.
Am I correct that you completely reversed your attitudes to climate change around 2008 and accepted that humans are influencing the climate, after roughly two decades of branding it an elaborate socialist hoax? How about the integrity of climate scientists?
And you know perfectly well that I never labelled you a creationist. That's the point: when applied to climate science, denialists eagerly embrace creationist arguments and ideas that they would find laughable in their original context.
Always amused by how libertarians think they'll actually move up the food chain in their preferred society.
"." by name, dotty by nature.
You rightly noted the paranoid style, Don. I'd also note the projectile style: e.g. "their truly fanatical supporters in the community".
Re @31
Another inconvienent fact about Hong Kong for libbers is that all its land has always been owned by the State (first the Crown and then the PRC) which then leases or grants land - often for non-market driven reasons.
Well said Steve from Brisbane. What a cement headed and hearted cretin Bendle must be, to follow this line on this issue. Suppresses sense of nausea..
Look at the data. Stop duking the stats.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s we spent 17% of GDP and we had welfare, socialised medicine, a large defence force and Commonwealth supported university places.
Recently this ratio has gone up by 135% to 38%. Controlling for economic growth, are then 135% better off or not?
Do you guys even care about value for money or do you just assume that since you're socialists, if we get ripped off it actually enriches us.
There is no reason why we ought to spend more than 15% of GDP in the public sector. If outcomes were dependent on funding there would be a different story, but there isn't.
conrad - I never knew that. More or less they had free markets, tolerable taxation and civil rights. You don't call it libertarian but I say it's close enough. More hysterical commenters on this thread believe that if those services were privatised there would be "ungovernable anarchy or Dickensian...something...". Not a real argument at all. Plenty of countries have privatised public services with positive net outcomes.
You are not even up to date on current affairs. What have you proven? We ought to have rule of law? What makes you think this justifies an anti libertarian agenda of socialism and the suspension of civil liberties?
Now they do, after the Muslim theocracy wrongly called an anarchist State was swept aside.
You stupid git, what has any of that got to do with the CIS or LDP?
Shut up you presumptuous arsehole.
Now back on topic. The Greens are fascists and Clive Hamilton ran for Parliament as a Green and has also called for the suspension of democracy.
This is undeniable. Stop duking the stats.
Hi Sancho, I'm impressed by your determination to double-down on this line of argument. It shows real stoushing potential, and I applaud you for it.
*golf clap*
Please elaborate on the creationist arguments that have been alleged, by you, to have been embraced by Teh "Denialist" [boo! hiss!] rascals.
"In the late 1950s and early 1960s we spent 17% of GDP and we had welfare, socialised medicine, a large defence force and Commonwealth supported university places. "
I don't believe we had socialised medicine in this period (depends on your definition of socialised of course); we had a lot lower share of young people in University (or upper secondary school for that matter) than now, and we had age pensions that were about half the real level they are now and a lot fewer people of age pension age of course.
On second thoughts it's not really paranoia - it's Korsakoff's syndrome.
"Now back on topic. The Greens are fascists and Clive Hamilton ran for Parliament as a Green and has also called for the suspension of democracy.
This is undeniable. Stop duking the stats."
What is clear is this commenter is an hysteric wedded to baseless, hyperbolic and ridiculous assertions, not to mention adolescent-level personal smears.
Likely prognosis?
Spontaneous combustion.
'Twill be a Gaian self-cleansing.
Peter you are lying.
"suspension of democratic processes"
Is what Hamilton proposed to deal with dissent.
This is a direct quote, and a plain fact laid bare.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing.
I also said, "control for GDP"
But really, we need to spend 21% of GDP more for those costs? It's much more likely we are not getting value for money.
No, you're all lying!
"conrad – I never knew that. More or less they had free markets, tolerable taxation and civil rights. You don’t call it libertarian but I say it’s close enough."
I think you're your deluded or have an entirely different definition of libertarian to me. Personally, I was quite happy they had socialized medicine when SARS turned up (it kept sick people away from me!), my girlfriend lived in public housing, and I worked at a publically subsidized university that was more "public" than the one I work in in Australia. Thinking about things, I would think that all three of these categories are more socialized than Australia. There are also very small direct payments for people that really need it that are vastly less than Australia -- but a lot of that problem is soaked up by cultural differences (i.e., Chinese people look after their families in a way that Western people don't). As for other social things, well, I don't know the laws, but Chinese people tend to be more conservatives that Australians, so I'll assume that's another category of things which are less liberal than here. So that basically leaves freer workplace employment laws and less tax. But that certainly doesn't equate to libertarian.
Dot
According to my copy of Australian Economic Statistics (online at the Reserve Bank)general government outlays have been above 25% of GDP since the 1960s. Even Commonwealth outlays were above 22% of GDP in 1955.
So we are probably spending about 10% of GDP more than in the 1950s and 1960s, not 21%. Now of that increase about 3% of GDP is higher public health care spending, and there is also about 2% in public education spending.
Now you can argue that we are not getting value for money, but it would be preferable if you could present some evidence for this assertion- given that we do have much higher educational attainment, higher productivity and higher real wages plus improvements in health outcomes (and reductions in poverty among the aged.)
Just want to agree with Conrad's posts. The idea that libertarian thought was influencial may date from the policies of John Cowperthwaite after WWII. He adopted the laissez faire approach to business regulation. However that was just one part of the social organisation the people of HK arranged.
Don what is the point of the article? We know that the left ridiculed the idea of stealth, during the cold war, on account of their amigos having so many plots on the fly the whole time, and always involving themselves with infiltration.
Its 2011 now. What is the point of what you are attempting to say here. Are you claiming that stealth doesn't play a part in the life of the human species? Does your point of view (whatever it turns out to be) have some backing in any sound understanding of history?
"Another inconvienent fact about Hong Kong for libbers is that all its land has always been owned by the State (first the Crown and then the PRC) which then leases or grants land – often for non-market driven reasons."
Very interesting. Can you give a ballpark figure of how much of this land is still leased? This may be a bit of a heads-up for Geo-libertarian position.
"Not surprisingly, more than a few commenters accused him of peddling unsupported conspiracy theories"
Sorry Don. But this is truly idiotic. Imagine the sort of thing that constitutes a "fully supported" conspiracy theory!!!!!! Can you give me three examples!!!!
Well it would no longer be a theory then would it! The criminals would be in the process of being rounded up.
The first and most enduring goal of any conspiracy is to not get caught. And the prospects for any random upper-class conspiracy, once launched, are obviously excellent or they would not be launched in the first place clearly.
So how in blazes would you expect conspiracy theories to be SUPPORTED all the time?? Thats the expectation that leaps out from your sentence. That every theory has to be supported to not attract social stigma. That every theory must be fully supported from the get-go as if 20-20 vision ran backwards. As if we were all like some mythical Merlin living our life backwards in time.
Don do you have remote vision? Do you have x-ray vision? Can you see behind closed doors from many thousands of miles away? If so can you HEAR these things that the people you can see behind those closed doors are saying? Or do you lip-read these people with your gift of second sight?
You theory that there is no stealth in human relations is just not going anywhere. Wake up to yourself. The mentality of the dupe that you are portraying here is simply a mindless tribal taxeater position. If you think otherwise go tell it to the ghost of Julius Caesar.
"Very interesting. Can you give a ballpark figure of how much of this land is still leased? This may be a bit of a heads-up for Geo-libertarian position."
100% is theoretically owned by the PRC (actually 99.9999% -- St John's Catherdral isn't), although it is exceptionally unlikely the PRC would doing anything significant in 2047 when they are allowed to. What it basically means is that if they want to bulldoze your apartment block to put a freeway on top of it (or whatever), they can in a way that is much harder than in places like Aus (although perhaps not looking at the Footscray situation in Vic). It's like libertarianism in reverse.
1) I was wrong. However I think we've been spending about 12-16% more than a balanced budget scenario back then over the past few years. You don't count WWII as normal, do you? That was being paid off until about 1971 IIRC.
2) Look at Federal outlays in 1957-63.
3) We're still getting ripped off. My foibles do not diminish that in any significant way. Forget how much we spend on welfare and education, the Australian military was much bigger then. We don't have a seaworthy vessel now. You seem to have ignored anything I said about "controlling for GDP growth" which is like ignoring any good evidence.
4) The value of university educations are grossly overrated. Look at graduate earnings.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/graduates-slip-down-the-salary-ladder-as-other-professions-offer-big-money/story-e6frg97x-1226076668712
Some of these guys can't even pay back their HECS debts and their industry has a significant barrier to entry. Ouch.
As long as the public sector has lower productivity than the private sector, I can clip off more than 12-16%. Why has recurrent expenditure grown by 4.5% annually over the last ten years, with wages growing at 5.5% (Feds)?
I agree it is not ideal but this is like saying that (some) agriculture in Australia or business ownership in Canberra is socialised because of land tenure rules. No, the land tenure rules are socialist/monarchical.
Is Period always like this? Can't substantiate an argument; can't rebut one without an army of strawmen; Gish galloping like mad; calls everyone arseholes when cornered. Solid gold.
Fyodor, I haven't "doubled down" on the creationist comparison because it hasn't been refuted yet, and I've provided a list of near-identical arguments used by both creationists and denialists, which will be familiar to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the debate.
It's very interesting that creationists are, overwhelmingly, climate change "skeptics". What does it say about the integrity of the "skeptics'" claims that they appeal greatly to people who believe that the theory of evolution is a fraudulent communist plot to turn people from God?
The evolution (LOL) of climate change skepticism has also mirrored that of creationist claims: "It's a baseless hoax!" followed by "Okay, the data are right, but you're reading them wrong!", then "The science is irrelevant since it's all just a leftist political ploy anyway."
You don't need to take it from me. Here's Jay Richards of the Discovery Institute explaining why creationists and AGW denialists are comrades:
You'll notice the similarity between that and the examples I gave previously.
Richards finishes with the conclusion that AGW is "inspired" by Darwinism in order to "justify a Left-leaning takeover of the worldwide economy."
So, yes, climate change denialists are simply recycling creationist arguments and obfuscation techniques and arriving at the same leftist conspiracy theory as an explanation for their lack of scientific credibility.
"The value of university educations are grossly overrated. Look at graduate earnings."
I'm not sure that pointing to an article showing that graduates start on a mere 49K a year is particularly good evidence for you claim. I would think in fact it is the reverse (let alone if you look at life-time earnings and unemployment statistics, neither of which I presume you've bothered to stick your eyeballs on).
"Is Period always like this? "
Yes.
Nope. Jay Richards doesn't mean what you think he means.
Further, you cherry-picked his article, as it clearly does not substantiate your allegation. I can only assume you picked it out of lazy desperation as your earlier allegations are unmitigated strawman bullshit.
Please substantiate your allegation that "denialists eagerly embrace creationist arguments".
Here's a clue: WHICH "denialist" embraced WHICH "creationist" argument WHERE?
Conrad,
The salaries in an industry with significant barriers to entry begin at $35k, not $49k. Read the article.
Sancho - you keep on calling me a denialist and think I AGW is real.
You are a religious fanatic.
Quote from first paragraph of article: "A Graduate Careers Australia report this week revealed the median starting salary for law graduates was $48,400 -- just shy of the median salary for all graduates of $49,000."
"Look at the data. Stop duking the stats."
No idea what you're talking about - I merely cut and pasted something from the LDP blog that I'm pretty sure you wrote. If you personally believe a libertarian state is something that taxes/spends at something like 5% of GDP then you can't seriously claim there is a single successful nation in the history of civilisation that has come close to being libertarian, and therefore any claim that you're a libertarian because "the evidence" tells you it's a sensible stance is spurious at best.
Fyodor, in post #28 I gave seven examples of common, identical arguments used by creationists and climate change deniers to justify their claims in the absence of scientific evidence. You haven't refuted them or proven me wrong in any way.
Nor have you explained how I've misunderstood Richards' article. Crossing your arms and saying "Nuh-uh! You're wrong!" is the quality of argumentation that gained creationists the respect they enjoy today. Can you do better? Can you also explain why climate change denialism is so overwhelmingly popular among creationists?
I'd particularly like to hear your opinion on why the "skeptics" argument has retreated from outright denial of climate change, to arguing that it happens too slowly to matter, to claiming that we can't stop it happening fast, to complaining about the economic hassles of addressing it - all over the space of a decade. Those don't seem like the features of a solid, evidence-based scientific position.
Some more interesting factoids while you're running up what I'm sure will be a comprehensive and devastating response, Fyodor:
* Prominent creationist Wesley J. Smith also spoke against climate change at the same Los Angeles conference where Christopher Mockton so reasonably compared climate scientists to Nazis. It seems Monckton and the conference organisers don't find creationists too ridiculous or unscientific to be allies.
* Climate change denialism and creationism are almost synonymous in American politics. Where's the great rejection of creationists if "skeptics" don't regard them as right-thinking allies?
wiz,
I don't see any reason for a socialist state to spend more than 20% of GDP. We had a welfare state, large military and WWII debt to pay off and under Menzies and we spent as little as 22% of GDP on Government.
As for low proportions of GDP you are not looking back in history far enough. To call pre WWI America and Australia "Dickensian" is fanciful, riffing the yellow journalism of the time. Yes I know Australia had large dominion debts then but they go back to colonial era loans.
I quickly went through the stats and got 35.44% as spending to GDP as the current fig (I know June isn't released yet so I used the year end March figure).
I'm not as doctrinaire as you think. If some place spends 20% of GDP on Government and low taxes, civil liberties etc but socialised medicine I'm fine with that, I'd just push for them to privatise the health system.
Peter challenged me to come up with some evidence and I did re recurrent expenditure. It's up to you guys to say how the extra 13/15% of GDP has made us better off than not spending it (controlling for GDP). The tone here is Candidean. "We're in the best of possible worlds!". No, not really.
The pro spending lobby hasn't even addressed Federal/State duplication or how we could reduce taxes and spending as a proportion of GDP if we had a better tax system.
Swan's bungling of the Henry Review was a massively wasted opportunity.
What's to refute? You've provided no evidence whatsoever that "Denialists" have used such arguments. I've asked you several times to substantiate your allegation and you've squibbed every time.
That wasn't in contention, but as you insist.
You asserted that Jay Richards explained "why creationists and AGW denialists are comrades", but that's not what he said or did at all. Nowhere in his article did he state that they are "comrades", in league or that, as you asserted previously, "denialists eagerly embrace creationist arguments and ideas".
In fact, the thrust of his article is to highlight the efforts of the NYT, amongst others, to, as he put it,
The irony of your use of his article as a source is that he was criticising precisely what you are doing now, i.e. framing AGW skeptics as the sputniki of creationists. It's an intellectually lazy, gutless smear, as evidenced by your unwillingness to susbtantiate your strawman assertions.
You want my opinion on your strawman? OK, here goes: it's a strawman.
Heh. I'm still waiting on your "comprehensive and devastating response", Sancho.
That's it? That's your "factoids"? Some religious nut and shit you made up?
AGW skeptics aren't responsible for creationists' views on anything, any more than they are the views of truthers, birthers or other assorted nutjobs on the price of fish. I think you need to re-read Jay Richards' article as you REALLY don't get the point he was trying to make.
Dot:
"1) I was wrong. However I think we’ve been spending about 12-16% more than a balanced budget scenario back then over the past few years. You don’t count WWII as normal, do you? That was being paid off until about 1971 IIRC."
As you note, you were wrong by a very large order of magnitude.
No, I don't count WWII as normal, but I also don't count the last few years as normal. Are you saying that that it will take us as long to pay off the current debt?
"2) Look at Federal outlays in 1957-63."
And what?
"3) We’re still getting ripped off. My foibles do not diminish that in any significant way. Forget how much we spend on welfare and education, the Australian military was much bigger then. We don’t have a seaworthy vessel now. You seem to have ignored anything I said about “controlling for GDP growth” which is like ignoring any good evidence."
You were the person who claimed at 40 that in the 1950s and 1960s we "had welfare, socialised medicine, a large defence force and Commonwealth supported university places" and now you want not to discuss welfare and education, and you were wrong on health - so the basis of your argument is that we used to spend more on defence and had a larger military (we also had the Korean war and later the Vietnam war). Would you like to support your estimates of how much we were spending on defence with any evidence?
I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by "controlling for GDP", since expressing spending as a percentage of GDP is the standard way of doing this (and it is how you referred to it in 40). If you don't express spending as a per cent of GDP, what else did you have in mind. Just adjusting for inflation for example?
"4) The value of university educations are grossly overrated. Look at graduate earnings.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/graduates-slip-down-the-salary-ladder-as-other-professions-offer-big-money/story-e6frg97x-1226076668712
Some of these guys can’t even pay back their HECS debts and their industry has a significant barrier to entry. Ouch.
As long as the public sector has lower productivity than the private sector, I can clip off more than 12-16%. Why has recurrent expenditure grown by 4.5% annually over the last ten years, with wages growing at 5.5% (Feds)?"
Conrad has dealt with this well - you are worried about the starting salaries of law graduates, but as Conrad points out their median starting salary is close to indistinguishable from the median salary of all graduates. If in your view this shows that a University education is not valuable - tell us what percentage of all graduates are in law and how they compare. Also as Conrad points out, the returns to education are not only in wage rates, but they also show up in participation rates and unemployment rates.
Sancho, I think you'll find that not only are climate change denialists first cousins of creationists, they're also gun nuts who think the right to bear arms (typically to shoot wild animals for sport) is the sine qua non of personal freedom.
In other words, vulgar lugs with a low IQ.
You have the chance to take this seriously, Fyodor, but I'm not going to drag relevant responses out of you.
* The arguments I cited are commonly used by creationists and AGW denialists alike, and rely on conspiracy theories and false equivalences to overcome a lack of scientific integrity.
* Creationists consider AGW denialists allies against a leftist scientific conspiracy, as demonstrated by Richards' article, and in most cases creationists ARE climate change denialists.
* Christopher Monckton and the organisers of the Los Angeles conference he spoke at recently saw nothing at all inappropriate in hosting a prominent creationist as a speaker against the science of climate change.
* The "skeptics'" argument has been in a constant state of surrender and retreat since day one.
You have done absolutely nothing to disprove any of this. Shouting "strawman!" doesn't identify a strawman; it indicates that you wish to avoid discussing a particular topic.
I'll give you an example of a strawman:
- Poster A points out that climate change "skeptics" use arguments against science that were pioneered and perfected by creationists long before any significant debate on climate change existed and that, due to their work on Intelligent Design, prominent creationists are regarded as serious contributers to "skeptical" critiques of climate science.
- Poster B claims poster A has asserted that climate change denialists are biblical creationists.
The "strawman" is that the argument poster B is addressing is not the argument actually stated by poster A.
You can choose to stay on topic or not. If not, it simply means that you have publically avoided discussing why creationist arguments are being recycled by climate change "skeptics", why "skeptics" are more than happy to treat creationists as scientists, why the "skeptics'" arguments are so appealing to creationists, and why anyone should regard the "skeptical" position on climate change with any credibility when it has not only continually shifted its points of denial, but at one point completely reversed its acceptance of the existence of climate change.
Don't try to convince me. Try to imagine what anyone without an opinion either way would think of your frantic avoidance of some very simple questions.
Also, I don't think "sputniki" is a word. If you mistyped "Sputnik", that still doesn't make sense in the context.
I'd disagree with that, Sally. The right to bear arms is a peculiarly American conservative position, albeit one that self-styled libertarians in Australia have cottoned onto as a touchstone for social freedom.
John Howard was strongly against gun proliferation, but I very much doubt he'd support the science of climate change.
The problem with the greenhouse effect is that there is no evidence for it ever, or on any planet. So to make such a thing an article of belief would be an oddball thing to do. That story of the emperor and his non-existent clothes came about because of a real feature of human behavior. Its not just another tall tail like Jack and the Beanstalk.
Carl Sagan brought the greenhouse theory back from the dead tendentiously since he didn't want to believe that the heat of Venus was from the inside out as he was out to prove Velikovsky wrong. Venus barely receives the suns light at its surface and no light on its night side. So there is not much in the way of light to create the backradiation to make Venus hot. Venus has most of its craters in pristine condition. Which they would hardly be if Venus had been around a long time.
Sancho, there's always exceptions to the rule.
I think it's giving a lot to Howard to call him a climate change denialist. He didn't need to campaign about it or agin it. He just didn't care about it and oversaw bureaucracies and policies that marginalised it to the point of non-existence. Very effective.
He was anti-gun proliferation? Beyond the PR needs of Port Arthur media management? I don't think so.
Guns, sport hunting and AGW denialism go together in a noxious Australian (and elsewhere) subculture much like kicking a lame dog or shooting a neighbour's cat does with dumb-ass alienated male adolescents since time began.
Well you have to hand it to the conservatives if they didn't buy into the global warming lie. Thats at least one point in their favor. Guns are a much more difficult matter. Actually I think most conservatives did buy into the global warming lie to some extent. I think the campaign was so effective that nearly everyone was taken in. Because the campaign came in two waves. In the seventies, then starting again in the nineties. So a lot of us thought there was something real to it, having been taught this nonsense at school.
That's rich. You construct a strawman from a bunch of unsubstantiated assertions and when challenged on it you squib. Lift your game.
So commonly you refuse to cite a single instance. Repeating your allegation without substantiation does not make it any truthier.
More unsubstantiated assertions.
So what? They could have had Ronald McDonald presenting on his AGW skepticism and it wouldn't matter a bean. BFD. Your smearing by association remains as odious and intellectually contemptible as before.
Assertion, not argument.
Again, there's nothing to refute, as you refuse to substantiate the shit you made up. Why don't you ask me to disprove the existence of invisible pink unicorns while you're at it?
No, it indicates that you have constructed a strawman. Look up the definition.
FFFS.
"Strawman": A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.
YOU asserted that "Climate change 'skepticism' is simply creationism with the serial numbers filed off." and that "...denialists eagerly embrace creationist arguments and ideas...".
You have consistently misrepresented the position of AGW skeptics. You have constructed a strawman.
I have avoided nothing. It is you who has refused to substantiate your assertions. Why you refuse to do so is becoming increasingly obvious: you got nothing.
Hahaha. Very funny. How original of you to try the old switcheroo. Classy.
It is a word - a plural, to be precise. That you don't know it or understand its meaning is colossally unsurprising.
I'd encourage you to do your homework, but that's evidently a waste of time given your lazy performance to-date.
I was having a look through your post history around the place, Fyodor, and apart from scientifically illiterate gems like this:
There is no such evidence for the AGW hypothesis; it is contested and unproven.
...I found this keen observation from Jack Strocchi:
It's an old obstructionist technique: demand proof that 1+1=2 before allowing the debate to progress. Thus, you demand that I produce examples of climate change deniers claiming that AGW is a communist plot, or that the opinions of celebrities like Christopher Monckton should be regarded as equal to the research findings of thousands of scientists, or that climate climate scientists are motivated solely by clutching for research grants.
These claims are so ubiquitous that to pretend they don't exist is like denying the existence of carbon dioxide. If I cite a specific instance, of course, you'll find a reason to declare it invalid and a one-off statement that isn't representative.
What you demand is that an opponent cite every single example of a common phenomenon so that you can rebut each and claim the phenomenon doesn't exist.
The involvement of creationists in climate change denialism is entirely relevant. We're talking about a movement that was looking about for authoritative sources of scientific information and said, "Yes! Those guys who believe the earth is 6000 years old and that evolution is an atheist lie! Those are the sort of people we can trust to provide good science!"
And it's not just the chap at Monckton's conference, of course. If you read through the link provided at the end pf post #64, you'd know that anti-AGW groups in America are eagerly teaming up with creationists to boost their appeal with the electorate. This is happening and you have no argument to the contrary. You can't even explain why climate change skepticism is so overwhelmingly popular with people who believe evolution is a hoax.
For comparison, can you identify any obsolete pseudoscientific faith groups that the IPCC turns to for input?
And the there's the Kryptoite Question: why is climate change "skepticism" constantly in retreat?
The denialist argument has continually lurched between precarious positions, holding fast until the evidence forced them back a step, then trying again. That was the process right up until about 2008 when, almost overnight, the entire “skeptic” movement accepted that CO2 was driving climate change.
Remember when News Ltd used to publish articles arguing against the science? Not any more. Now it’s all economists predicting the implosion of the economy as mining corporations take all the ore and go overseas.
How about the blogs? You’ll know more than me about the denial-o-sphere. Is anyone still arguing against the actual science, or have Watts et al all signed up to the “sssh! No one mention the decade of total denial!” pact?
In case you don’t yet realise what an incomprehensible wreck the denialist argument has become, and how obvious it is, try to imagine that Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, PZ Myers, AC Grayling and all of the other New Atheists, their publishers and supporters, overnight and without any sort of public debate, self-examination or explanation, began claiming that they’d never, ever denied the existence of god.
Imagine they tried to argue that they’d only ever disputed the accuracy of the bible, while fully accepting the existence of god, and began getting quite peeved if anyone suggested they’d once been atheists.
Would you take them seriously ever again? Because that’s exactly what the “skeptics” did between 2006 and 2008. Do you have some sort of explanation for that other than admitting that the entire “skeptical” movement is wrong and knows it?
Yes, yes..."Lies!", "Strawman!", "Sputniki is a real word and because I can't prove it you must be stupid!"...the usual routine. But do have any straight, solid answers?
"…I found this keen observation from Jack Strocchi:"
Cue the sound of a decidedly modest case unravelling...........
That's all I know of Jack, Geoff. Whatever he's said otherwise, he was right on the money there.
Sancho, not too many Earlwood boys of Howard's vintage were gun nuts. He wouldn't know his case from his trigger 'cept what he glimpsed from 'Bonanza'.
No, the climate denialist gun nuts today come from a different gene pool.
Folks from the regions say weekends see their environs swarmed with flat tops loaded up with booze, guns and dogs in the charge of brutish males who try to compensate for their rage and joylessness by busting up the bush.
I'm not sure about that, Sally. Politics in Europe and Scandinavia have lurched to the right recently, but to my knowledge there's no renewed enthusiasm for relaxing gun laws.
The Liberal Party is currently riding the extremist overflow from US politics, but even Joe Hockey was shocked to have someone stand up and demand an armed revolt against the Gillard coalition government recently.
What's scientifically illiterate about that gem, Sancho? It's not self-evident to me. Go on, open up a fresh can of worms.
Myairs. What Geoff Honnor wrote, with a double side-serve of "Heh".
You really are a desperate noob, aren'tcha?
YOU made the assertions, YOU substantiate them. In the absence of supporting evidence, it's entirely appropriate to call "bullshit" on your crap.
I'm sure I'll find plenty of errors in your work [sic], Sancho. Yet again, if you're unwilling to test your evidence, I can only conclude that you're spinning a load of bull. Your spinning sputniki in the Warmenist movement are familiar with that modus operandi.
Shorter Sancho: Blah, blah, blah, dog ate my homework.
Still avoiding the question. You were asked for evidence. Produce it.
I didn't accuse you of lying. I accused you of debating a strawman, as you are.
Sputniki is a real word, and, yes, you must be stupid because I CAN prove it, yet you claim I cannot, despite having all the resources of teh interwebs at your disposal to audit my assertion.
Here's a clue, Shakespeare: google it in cyrillic and learn something.
Sancho, the Shooters Party and the Christian Democrats have a nice lil ol op going in NSW and they're dictating a lot of terms, not least environmental, to the O'Farrell Liberal government.
AFAICWO the Shooters Party reps, members and voters are overwhelming right-wing male climate change denialists, deeply alienated from nature to the point of being psychotic.
Awesome.
Jinmaro, Ozblogistan's most notoriously unhinged sockpuppetrix, persona non grata at BOTH LP and the Cat, passing judgement on the mental state of others.
Fucking priceless, J-ro. Don't ever change.
"Sally" is spreading bigotry and misinformation about gun owners.
http://www.ssaasa.org.au/pdf/Baker-McPhedran_critique_of_chapman_et_al.pdf
The Christian Democrats aren't completely stupid on all matters.But they're stupid to the point drooling idiocy when its comes to issues pertaining to what we know about human nature, and sexuality, which in itself means they're totally unreliable nay useless in all important ways when it comes to most political questions beginning with 'what is to be done?'.
The Shooters Party are simpleminded thugs.
Of course the Shooters Party and the LDP are both protofascist orgs. And their chief spokesperson on this blog, the abusive hysterical nutjob who is so alienated he can't even bring himself to bestow a name upon himself and his comments, has been demolished over and over by many commenters on this thread alone.
Small mercies.
Wasted opportunity, Fyodor.
As I said, it's not me you need to convince. Imagine how our debate appears to someone who doesn't have an opinion either way on climate change.
Compare my contributions, comprising concise, rational arguments backed up with links to evidence, to your rambling collection of red herrings, neologisms, clear misunderstanding of what a strawman is, and lack of arguments or even a single citation to support your position.
You really peaked when you responded to a thorough and accurate tear-down of the entire history of AGW denialism with "Blah, blah, blah, dog ate my homework."
Creationists and climate change "skeptics" are coming together due to identical scientific priorities and shared conspiracy theories, and this childishness is your best attempt at explaining why it doesn't further damage the credibility of both.
You're a case study in the Dunning-Krueger effect.
I'm not sure what your point is, Sally. There's no significant push in Australia to loosen gun laws, no matter what some fringe groups may want.
Wasted opportunity, Fyodor.
Squib, Sputnik Sancho.
You haven't presented a SINGLE point of evidence supporting your allegations.
You're simply full of it.
Imbecile. Pro gay marriage, more open borders, unabridged free speech, anti censorship, common law rights. Yes "sally", we're all fascists.
Loon.
Sancho, I don't know where you live but there is a significant political push in NSW to allow gun nuts free range in national parks. It's the thin edge of the wedge mate and it's important not to be naive about what is going on here and what is the broader right-wing agenda.
You're no doubt unaware of the irony in that statement, Fyodor.
What do you think creationists say when confronted with unambiguous evidence of their errors and falsehoods?
Nope. Is "irony" another word you don't understand, Sputnik Sancho?
Dunno, Sput. You're the expert on creationists - why don't you ask them?
Also: when are you gonna produce the "unambiguous evidence" supporting your bullshit assertions, Squibber?
Anyone familiar with creationist arguments will be aware that quote mining is rampant.
Climate change denialists employ it as well. The Australian, for example, does it again, and again, and again.
In the absence of scientific evidence, they clearly need something to keep the pressure on the communist conspirators. After all, it's a lot of work to chop an entire research paper up and reassemble it to make it reach the opposite conclusion. You can only get away with that sort of gross misrepresentation...several times before the "skeptics" start questioning your integrity.
LOL! No, the "skeptics" don't mind a jot.
It's indicative of the state of climate change "skepticism" that The Australian deserves praise merely for misrepresenting genuine science, instead of simply inventing ridiculous quotes and attributing them to climate scientists, as Piers Akerman does.
Oh, look! Chris Monckton believes the goal of climate change science is to...
...and that...
No, no deranged conspiracy theories popular among climate "skeptics". And not at all similar to the anti-scientific arguments of creationists.
Sancho
The first link you provided that Fyodor challenged you on, disagrees with what you suggest it said. He's right.
You are also clearly making what appears to be a basic logical fallacy. It may very well be that all creationists are sceptics. Lets assume that is correct. It does not mean though that all sceptics are creationists.
How is that a creationist argument, Sput?
"It does not mean though that all sceptics are creationists."
Very true. I'm not a creationist. But I know that global warming is a lie, because no evidence whatsoever favors the racket, whereas all evidence goes against it. Bear in mind now that Al Gore is a billionaire. A moron like Al Gore would hardly have made a billion dollars spruiking this crapola if he was simply telling a prosaic truth.
Never let it be said that denialists don't know their audience.
What's your point Sancho? Do you have evidence for this racket? If you had a million dollars could you find someone who could find someone who could find evidence for this racket?
Sanch:
Is writer of piece you linked to a creationist.. Dr Evans? Do you know?
Explain how Fyodor is right, JC. He has proven himself incapable. And are you also saying that climate change denialists don't a) employ arguments long used by creationist, and b) are allying themselves with creationists and giving credibility to their claims?
No evidence, David, apart from all the evidence. And this is the whole point: if there's no evidence for climate change, and plenty of evidence against it, why do "skeptics" routinely quote-mine, appeal to conspiracy theories, refuse to submit their claims to peer review, and continually change their claims - to the point, around 2008, of utterly reversing a decade of outright denial to accept that the climate is changing? None of this suggests a solid base of evidence.
Which link are you referring to at post #100, JC?
I'll try again Sancho. Do you have any evidence at all for this global warming racket? You don't do you? No you don't. So you are the idiotic faith-based moron.
Dr Evans is not a creationist. Nor is his wife Joanne Nova.
Lets have that evidence Sancho.
What on earth are you talking about, David? Are you trying to nail up the same strawman I patiently described to Fyodor in post #69?
I'll direct you to an organisation called the "IPCC" for the evidence. You may have heard of it.
Sancho, is this another example of being unable to read/understand your own links.
At comment 97 you linked to a piece which starts off like this:
The header was in bold. You missed that too?
I didn't write post #97, FC. Look again.
Sancho do you have some evidence for the global warming fraud or not? Here you are pretending that people who actually follow climate science are all creationists, when the reality is you are just going along with the emperors new clothes. There has never been any evidence that CO2-emissions were detrimental to the biosphere. Not now or ever.
Okay... I'll repeat it again.
Your first link didn't support your claims. It in fact supported Fyodor's where he said:
Fyodor seems to be correct. You don't understand what he (Richards) said.
What do you think Richards is saying, JC?
106
I didn’t write post #97, FC. Look again.
but at
97 Sancho said:
Quoting
Never let it be said that denialists don’t know their audience.
Posted on 05-Aug-11 at 4:37 pm | Permalink
there are two Sancho's on this thread?
Ah, there we have it:
Not only did I never say that, but I explained to Fyodor in post #69 that that claim is a strawman. Pay attention to the thread.
Ah-ha! I knew that "cometary Venus" idea was'nt original. New cosmology my little brown one.
Dunno what he's saying, Sanch. I've seen Evans write before and never seen him characterize himself (or others) as a creationist. Have you?
Now please deal with you last comment. Are there two Sancho's on this thread or just one?
Fyodor is too stupid to be a climate skeptic. What line is this dope supporting now?
#97 is David Wilkie, JC. One of us must have a post hidden. In any case, I just addressed that.
What is clear, Sancho, is that the climate change denialists here are anti-science throwbacks who have no arguments that would persuade a five year old and whose main purpose is to support and further planetary contamination and degradation.
Why is another matter.
"Ah-ha! I knew that “cometary Venus” idea was’nt original. New cosmology my little brown one."
Very true. Velikovsky came out with it in about 1950 when people still thought that comets were snowballs. And since then all new evidence that has come out has supported what he said then. He was the first person to suggest that Venus would be very hot. He was proven right.
Interesting coincidence that Fyodor, JC and David Wilkie all make the same specific mistakes and misunderstandings. It's almost like they're all the same person, using three accounts to give their opinions more weight!
Sanch.. did you write this or was it another Sanch?
Look Sancho. Tell me yes or no. Are you a supporter of the global warming racket? Or have I misread your faith-based position?
Great argument at #118, David. We can't rely on any scientific theory at all, because there's a tiny, tiny chance that a fringe idea that contradicts the mainstream may be accurate.
I just took an antibiotic, but bacterial disease could turn out to be an evil spirit instead!
Lol.. Ummm as thread of doom veterans I say no, we're not the same person. But nice try.
Answer the questions, Sanch.
Looks like JC has come to the rescue; has the argument now moved from the absurd to the delusional or vicky verka?
I feel blessed that I don't have the resources to understand the kerfuffle, others may judge otherwise.
Simple cut & paste for you, JC:
I rest my case
Tell you what, JC, give me three questions, labelled with numbers, and I'll give you three, and we'll respond according to number so there's no avoiding.
Fire away.
I haven't really paid attention for what "Dave" is saying, however you again present the argument upside down. Both of us, Fyodor and myself are making the similar(ish) points that you don't understand your own links.
You also suffer from logical fallacies.
Okay, I'll take a 3rd look:
That's Sancho number 2, right?
That's from post #98, JC. Regardless, do have a question relating to that post that wasn't answered in post #69 or #125?
nope. It's 97 sanch. You clearly looked down instead of sideways to the number clearly resting silently beside your name. Those errors happen to the best of us. However, I also quoted the comment in 97 and you at first didn't recognize it as one of your own comments, which further illustrates the possibility you may have difficulties with comprehension and now it seems, spatial cognition.
Yes. Please look up the thread.
I know you'd like to go round in circles, because the alternative is having to answer hard questions. Here are my three questions to you. Please answer by number, and I will do the same for your three.
1. Climate change denialists and creationists both rely on quote mining and scary communist conspiracy theories to justify their rejection of science. Why do these techniques prove that climate change is false but not that evolution is false?
2. Christopher Monckton and the organisers of his recent Los Angeles conference felt it was entirely appropriate to feature a speaker who has no scientific qualifications and whose past work is in Intelligent Design, while American creationist groups are rapidly merging with climate skepticism groups. How does the presence and influence of creationists enhance the credibility of climate change skepticism?
3. Why has the skeptics' position on climate change shifted from outright denial, to acceptance that is happening but denying human influence, to accepting human influence but denying the need for action, to accepting the need for action but claiming that it's economically impossible? Why should any rational person accept that there is any scientific integrity behind such a haphazard retreat?
Look Sancho? Do you have any evidence for the global warming lie at all? If not just say "no". Pretty simple really. I assure you that no scientist, or anyone else, has evidence for this fraud.
"1. Climate change denialists and creationists both rely on quote mining and scary communist conspiracy theories to justify their rejection of science. Why do these techniques prove that climate change is false but not that evolution is false?"
Look what the hell is the matter with you? The above is not evidence for the global warming lie. Now either make good with the evidence or retract.
Bollocks. Science fiction writers (like Stanley G Weinbaum) were writing stories set on a hot venus as early as the 1930s (if not before). Velikovsky's major intellectual achievement was to get his writings onto the non-fiction shelves of the bookstores - a feat that was later repeated by Erich von Daniken in the early 1970s.
No you are lying. You cannot write a story of people living on Venus. And writing a story about a hot Venus is hardly the same as predicting that Venus will be hot and saying why. The scientific community had absolutely no idea that Venus was hot.
Dunno. But the question was put to you to prove your claim and you still haven't which means that this questions is built on a false premise.
Dunno, I don't follow what his "lordship" has to say about pretty much anything. You clearly do, so you're the best person to answer your own question.
You're making another logical fallacy in thinking that a very large disparate group believes the same things about science and economics and they progress in their beliefs system in lockstep. That's clearly simplistic and very very silly.
Now please answer my questions if you can.
Why the criticism of Velikovsky from a moron like you? He wrote it in 1950 and now we know that he was entirely right!!!! Who are you, you worm, to criticise such an astounding achievement?
1. The point in question 1 is proven in the thread, JC. I've linked to both creationists and climate change "skeptics" quote mining and invoking communist conspiracies to validate their scientific claims. Can you explain why that supports climate change denial but not evolution denial?
2. Regardless of your opinion of Monckton, he is a prominent proponent of climate change skepticism, and American creationist and denialist groups are merging en mass, as described in the link I provided. What's your opinion on the "skeptic's" embrace of creationists?
3. So you're stuck with explaining why you deny the science of climate change but disagree with mainstream climate skeptics. Why has the movement become so splintered?
"The point in question 1 is proven in the thread, JC. I’ve linked to both creationists and climate change “skeptics” quote mining and invoking communist conspiracies to validate their scientific CLAIMS"
Claims?????? Anyone can claim anything. What is missing from the global warming racket is evidence. You can say "no" you know. Yes you can. Have you got the evidence, yes or no?
Sanch,
You appear to have asked an open question:
1. I answered it. You were clearly wrong with the link you provided suggesting there was a connection and the piece was in total and complete disagreement with your assertion. Fyodor was correct.
2. You have difficulty understanding what is and isn't your comment even though numerical sequencing is clear (right beside your name). see the 97 argument
3. You don't even know the person who is indirectly quoted in a link you provide. see the Dr Evans argument
I think we're done here.
You see if the scientific method was all about conflation and character assassination there is no question that the global warming fraud would have proven its case to the nth degree. No question about that at all.
What we wanted was evidence.
1. Richards clearly links climate change denialism and creationism as allies. You have done nothing to disprove it.
2. If the question is more important to you than obfuscation, ask it again.
3. So you’re stuck with explaining why you deny the science of climate change but disagree with mainstream climate skeptics. Why has the movement become so splintered?
"1. Richards clearly links climate change denialism and creationism as allies. You have done nothing to disprove it."
Hang on. Where is the scientific evidence for CO2 emissions hurting the biosphere. Get with the program doofus. Either come good with the evidence or admit you have been supporting science fraud.
You're right, David. There is absolutely no evidence for climate change at all. Now go to bed.
So why did you lie about it? You don't have evidence for this. You were lying the whole time. Whats more you don't even know what evidence is.
That's right, David. Lying the whole time. No evidence for climate change. Go to bed, sweetheart.
You guys will enjoy this.
What do they hope to accomplish? Only creationists and their climate skeptic brothers will find out!
Supposing I weigh into the argument between Carl Sagan and Velikovsky. Velikovsky says the Venus ought to be hot. He says that Venus is a young planet. Carl Sagan makes his attitude clear that he's tendentiously trying to prove Velikovsky wrong.
Then the 2008 evidence from the satellite comes in. Scientific evidence is not me finding pictures of Carl in bed with a younger woman not his wife. Scientific evidence is not me digging dirt up on him. Scientific evidence is not me conflating another argument he had with this one.
The data comes in and Venus is isothermic up to 45 kilometres. And the clouds above that super-rotate, so that the hotter air chases the cold air around. The craters on Venus are pristine. So from that evidence I know that Carl was wrong and Immanuel was right. Thats evidence. Not this nonsense you have been playing at all this time.
Oh, look. JC and Fyodor don't post while David Wilkie is writing up a lengthy contribution. Wonder why they'd hold off while David's busy.
147 no thats not evidence either you idiot. If you didn't know what evidence is you ought not be affecting to debate this matter. The science is very clear on this matter.
"Oh, look. JC and Fyodor don’t post while David Wilkie is writing up a lengthy contribution. Wonder why they’d hold off while David’s busy."
No thats not evidence EITHER Sancho you idiot. Now lets have the evidence or lets have the retraction.
Don't you imagine that if this weren't science fraud you could simply cut and paste someone's evidence. You just not clicking are you? You just are not that bright.
So you don't have any evidence yourself, and you cannot even so much as cut and paste something clear and convincing from someone else?
Note the contrast with my example. Here I have clear concrete facts of the youth and inner heat of Venus. Whereas you got nothing.
Creationist-denialist coalition? What coalition?
Oops! Guess they forgot to run it by Fyodor.
Tell us, David, what's the difference between you demanding evidence of climate change and a creationist demanding evidence of evolution? Do you reckon people should jump to provide the creationist with evidence of a well-established scientific fact? Why is the creationist even ignorant of the evidence in the first place if they have a genuine interest in knowing?
No you total moron. Thats not evidence lets have some evidence. That global warming fraud providers carry on like this tells us that they are involved in fraud. Or else they would talk science.
"Tell us, David, what’s the difference between you demanding evidence of climate change and a creationist demanding evidence of evolution?"
No asking stupid questions isn't evidence either. Lets have some evidence. Or admit you have never seen any and apologize and retract.
Here's a more comprehensive explanation of the shared features of creationism and climate change denialism:
NO thats not evidence. Lets have your evidence that human CO2 emissions are causing dangerous warming.
Exactly, David. The creationist doesn't want any of the mountains of comprehensive proof of evolution; he wants someone on the internet to present a slice of evidence so that he can use his denial skills to avoid acknowledging it.
Seriously, man. It's 2011 and you're saying that you can't find any evidence for climate change unless I present it to you. Can you use cutlery?
Here is the raw climate data for the US showing that the 30's were much warmer than the 90's. So what do you make of this? Where is the implied CO2-warming in this graph?
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/hammer-graph-5-us-temps.jpg
No no. 160 had no evidence whatsoever in it. The dumb leftist naturally thinks he can filibuster the world into being a different place. Like whining to his rich mother. Whereas I showed that the 30's were warmer than the 90's. Making a mockery of your baseless beliefs.
I don't make anything of it, David. I'm still waiting for answers to the questions in post #132.
Why don't you post some graphs about the Cambrian explosion, or ask why there are no crocoducks?
Are you envious of people with rich mothers? Did this contribute to your distrust of science?
Obviously, the one to three people who post as Fyodor, JC and David Wilkie think they're doing a great job here. High five! Avoided honest debate and hard questions!
This, of course, is the luxury of the liar. You don't need to demonstrate that you're right; just avoid admitting you're wrong while muddying the water and tying a thread up in semantic bullshit to prevent relevant facts being posted.
But remember that you're part of a worldwide debate, and every time you dodge and obfuscate, you simply confirm that climate change "skeptics" can't support even their most basic claims.
Club Troppo is reasonably popular, and as a new visitor I'll be certainly be referring others here. And when they arrive, they'll see the champions of climate change skepticism falling over themselves to avoid direct questions and factual debate. That's everything you're contributing to your cause.
I certainly hope not as that would be most unfortunate.
Sanch, can I give you some honest advise here. You will lose a ton of credibility if you keep suggesting David, fyodor and myself are the same person.
You've spent the entire thread dodging simple questions and avoiding straight answers. My credibility is fine, but yours is shot to bits.
Sancho, you just over-reached in a big way.
LOL hardly. here we go. I'll go through your crappy little list, then at the end I'll explain the big point that you missed.
1. there's verifiable evidence of conspiracy in the climate community, climategate being merely the most high profile example. so such evidence exists for creationists.
2. this is where climate believers think they are on strongest ground but nothing can be further from the truth. While people in actual climate science departments overwhelmingly support the AGW hypothesis, researchers in other earth science departments dont, certainly not with anything like the same uniformity. This situation simply doesn't exist for creationism. You don't have nobel prize winning scientists spruiking for creationism.
3. Cherry picking? Come on. you just pulled this one out of your arse. If there's any cherry picking it's in the selective use of a short time series to impute planet wide unprecedented catastrophe.
4. Man, you have totally looked at this one upside down. It's the believers in climate change who have impossible expectations. They believe there is much more certainty in the predictions of the future than there actually is. The skeptics are, as the word implies, skeptical of what science can realistically tell us about the future.
5. You can't just assert that someone made a logical fallacy. You have to actually say what the fallacy is, and where they made it. I could just as easily do this to you! Watch: "Sancho has made lots of logical fallacies." I'm sure you're devastated.
But the big thing you missed is that creationism is a theory. Climate skepticism is not a theory, it's merely skepticism.
Now, I'm sure you'll write lots of words to pretend you've got a comeback to all of this. So go on, sancho. tap away. you won't fool anyone but it will make you feel better.
JC doesn't known how to take a screenshot. This is the level of technical brilliance he brings to this discussion.
Sancho, you're an embarassment and a disgrace to the regiment. Fyodor, JC, and "David Wilkie" (aka Birdie) are three distinct people.Maybe it's time for you to start addressing the arguments of at least one of them (preferably Fyodor or JC - Birdie is a lost cause).
Possibly, Paul. Even probably. I haven't dismissed the possibility out of hand. But having seen a lot of sock-puppets, I'm skeptical.
Tell that to Weinbaum, Cordwainer Smith, CS Lewis, Roger Zelazny and every other writer of science fiction who's ever set a novel, novella or short story on Venus. When it comes to fiction, you can do what you damn well like. End of story.
True - most of the SF that relied on a hot Venus was based on the assumption that Venus would be hot because it's closer to the sun.The contribution of carbon dioxide to Venus's surface temperature didn't rate in the 1930s (when Weinbaum was active). Of course when you look at why Venus has a high surface temperature and discover that it's not just that Venus is closer to the sun, but also that Venus's atmosphere has a high concentration of carbon dioxide, that tends to confirm the hypothesis that CO2 production here on Earth leads to higher average surface temperatures.
If Velikovsky said why Venus will be hot, then I salute him - he recognised the importance of CO2 as a greenhouse gas and its effects on planetary surface temperatures. Clearly this is more than "David Wilkie" can manage.
A "dickensian nightmare" that was responsible for the greatest increases in knowledge, productivity and living standards in the history of human civilisation.
But hey, whatever you do don't mention recent, successful libertarian states like Monaco or pre-handover Hong Kong. That would make your argument seem disingenuous.
So now a feudal principality qualifies as a "recent, succcessful libertarian state"?
Fascinating.
Yes, it does. Monaco is no more feudal than Hong Kong does, inasmuch as the Grimaldi Monarchy has less power over Monaco than the House of Windsor did over Hong Kong, it's completely irrelevant to the actual state of affairs in the country.
How ironic.
Should we start over the thread where this time you need to defend against accusations your own scepticism that JC, Fyodor and "David" are the same person is akin to creationism?
I'll borrow your post from Catallaxy, JC, since the technical challenge of cutting and pasting clearly has you stymied.
1. Thanks for that, JC. Why did it take 176 posts for you to admit that your entire concept of climate change relies on the existence of an enormous conspiracy?
I assume you're referring to the Climategate that was thoroughly investigated and found not to be a conspiracy or even an error. But don't tell us - the investigation was PART of the conspiracy! Of course it was. Because which is more likely:
a) There's a global, centuries-old communist plot afoot which involves all of the world's climate scientists, the governments of all western democracies plus China, the entire environmental movement, the media, and was successfully hidden from the public until the fossil fuel lobby noticed the dastardly deed at the exact same time climate change began to threatened its share prices, or...
b) That some people are unable to reconcile unwelcome scientific information with their pro-industry ideology and will embrace the most outlandish ideas rather than change their mind?
2. Well, you would expect climate researchers to have more unified opinions on their field than researchers in other areas. Would you expect boat mechanics to have more consistent opinions of car engines than car mechanics?
Do you have some evidence that "researchers in other earth science departments don't"? Sounds like something you made up.
Then you give us a non-sequitur. Creationist scientists work together because they believe in creationism and want to prove it has scientific merit. That's the opposite of climate science, where the findings of disparate fields of study are compiled to get a picture of the global climate.
Climate change denialists operate on the creationist model: people ideologically dedicated to fighting a particular scientific theory, rather than an open-ended group following the evidence to a rational conclusion.
And there is at least one Nobel Prize winning intelligent design advocate: Werner Arber. Raymond Damadian also came close, and creationists maintain he was denied the prize due to his beliefs. You would know this if you'd bothered to check. Unfortunately, due to the Dunning-Kruger effect, you're unable to recognise how little you know about the topic of climate change before you make claims about it.
None of this provides a satisfactory answer to the question of why you believe climate "skepticism" isn't damaged by its increasing alliance with creationists, or whether, by extension, you believe that creationists have disproved evolution because they employ the exact same arguments against science you do.
3. Seriously? It's the denialists who complain about this era or that in ancient history being hotter than now, which in no way addresses the unprecedented speed of recent temperature increases.
To accept this claim we have to believe that you've never noticed the denialists and right-wing media breathlessly jumping on every bit of research which runs counter to the evidence of climate change, only to shuffle it off when it's debunked. Remember when the sun was causing climate change? LOL. Urban heat islands? LOL. Of course you don't, but the denialists were dead-set certain of it for a while.
This, of course is another creationist trait. Check out the orgasms they're having about the archeopteryx revision, which in no way affects the theory of evolution.
4. Skepticism is inherent to the scientific process. By the time a piece of climate research reaches publication, it's already undergone rigorous testing and examination. Like the creationists, however, you won't accept anything that doesn't endorse your preconceptions, which is why you're a denialist, not a skeptic.
Anything you have to say about the corrupt communist scientific process has already been said by creationists. You're walking in their footsteps.
There's also the obvious question of why you're so easily convinced that climate science is corrupt, but not at all concerned about the integrity of, say, engineering or biomedical science, which your life depends on every day. Together now, kids: what trumps facts and reason? I-dee-oll-oh-gee!
5. You're still under the impression that I typed the post at #159. While you're Googling "how to take a screenshot", open a new tab...sorry, forgot who I'm dealing with...open a new window of IE 6 and search for "hotlink", then click the blue word at the start of the post. Like magic!
A couple of logical fallacies employed by both climate change "skeptics" and creationists: the excluded middle fallacy is cited in the post. Another classic is the fallacy of quoting out of context (or quote-mining), of which I've provided many examples above.
A favourite of climate change denialists is stating that because climate has changed in the past, all climate change must be natural. Creationists reverse this to argue that unless you can observe evolution from the beginning of time, any area of uncertainty must be attributed to god.
Finally, creationism is not a theory. Not in any way. You know next to nothing about science, how it works or how it is structured. You are demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger effect again.
Sancho
You seem to have a real difficulty with horizontal vision. You did that earlier and now you're doing it again, this time confusing some other person's comment with mine. I never wrote that comment, someone who calls himself Daddy Dave did.. Lol.
How many rakes have you tripped on?
I actually believe there is AGW.
"Tell that to Weinbaum, Cordwainer Smith, CS Lewis, Roger Zelazny and every other writer of science fiction who’s ever set a novel, novella or short story on Venus. "
You are a liar. If they set a story on Venus that means they didn't think Venus was as hot as it turned out to be. Only Velikovsky predicted that Venus was hot, because only Velikovsky knew that Venus was young.
Now Sancho. Where is your evidence. Why do you refuse to follow the verdict of science?
We've established that only Velikovsky predicted a hot Venus, heated from the inside out. Thats a remarkable achievement, given that it was 61 years ago. As Bamford testifies, science fiction writers of the time conceived of a Venus so cold that they were setting stories on it. None of these guys predicted a new Venus, heated from the inside-out, with pristine craters.
At every stage of the process in these last 61 years the evidence kept supporting Velikovsky. But ignoring the verdict of science, the astronomer public servants took it upon themselves to "prove Velikovsky wrong". Even harboring such a motive is the antithesis of science. Its not science its tendentiousness. That is how the greenhouse gas unscience was born. No evidence ever surfaced for the greenhouse gas myth. Thats why when I ask Sancho for some evidence he's totally at a loss.
We all felt that the greenhouse effect must have some truth to it simply because none of us could account for the hot temperature of Venus. None of us that hadn't heard about Velikovsky. But when the satellite information of 2008 came in there was simply no way to deny any more that the planet was heated from the inside out.
That should read the "greenhouse effect" myth.
"A favourite of climate change denialists is stating that because climate has changed in the past, all climate change must be natural."
No, the argument is that because we know the climate changes, and because we still have a poor understanding of the reasons why, a substantial input from natural causes is not easy to disprove and the claim that recent warming is largely human caused is more questionable than commonly claimed, like by you.
This is related to the "denialist" claim that models are not evidence of future warming. Now I'm sure you can dig up some warmenist denying that they are claimed to be evidence, yet the statements that the models show this and that are incessant.
Last weekend I heard some dick on the ABC sprouting his microclimate predictions for Tasmania. But he didn't just use one model, he used lots and averaged it out. FFS, that's just a joke.
I wrote that. You think every catallaxy commenter is JC, dumbarse? It suits you to smear JC as a sock-puppet without evidence, but you're wrong. Maybe you make the same cognitive area in other domains.
Yep. If you can stop the chortling at the New Scientist spin and look at the numbers, it's exactly as I described here. Like I said, go to the numbers.
sometimes concrete examples get through to the thick-headed. It's not the same as cherry-picking.
not mentioned in the post. Not argued in the post as a plank of skepticism. Like the creationists, however, you won’t accept anything that doesn’t endorse your preconceptions, which is why you’re a denialist, not a skeptic. ad hominem. next.
that's not a logical fallacy.
That will do for now. The rest of your mushy-headed thinking will keep.
I'm confused by the references to Venus. As I understand things this planet has lost it's magnetosphere and this allowed the high energy intensity radiation from the Sun uncontested access to the atmosphere and planet. Under this bombardment lighter gases have been substantially removed from the atmosphere leaving predominantly N and CO2 with sulphuric acid clouds.Other gases are present in trace amounts only. It seems an odd comparison to Earth as the Venutian surface may have an induced magnetosphere but this isn't the case on Earth. Various studies postulate that over 4 billion years the atmosphere changed to take it's current form. It now has high albedo and high CO2 content and in this state has massive greenhouse effects despite the low inlevel of inbound radiation. The presence of constant high winds - they circle the planet each 4-5 days allows heat to be transferred equally around the planet.
Sancho you fucking clown Fyodor, Bird, Daddy Dave, JC and yours truly are all five different people.
You have the temerity to lecture people about science after your off the beam conspiracy theory. You don't even know your arse from your elbow. If you're an ambassador for climate science, no wonder the general population don't actually give a shit.
IN the beginning, the LORD God Sancho (SNXO, I am who forgets who I am) created JC, Fyodor and David, but forgot his Clozapine and declared them his eternal enemies in an indivisible, unholy trinity...
They should be absolutely allowed. Stop the deceptive and uninformed smear campaign. Feral animals are breeding up recently after the recent breaking of drought across the country. You don't give a crap about the environment, "Sally".
You're really a male nurse who has never left the city and who has no idea about real environmental issues like feral animals. The only reason why you hate anything that is possibly 'right wing' is that you're a full on communist who thinks nurses should get paid the same as doctors.
Imbecile.
Gentle readers: beware of single named female personalities. They are likely a creation of "Jinmaro", too hideous for catallaxy and too left wing for LP.
It's closing time.