{"id":1925,"date":"2011-10-14T08:14:14","date_gmt":"2011-10-14T12:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oddempire.org\/weblog\/?p=1925"},"modified":"2011-10-14T08:14:14","modified_gmt":"2011-10-14T12:14:14","slug":"arguing-with-your-crazy-uncle-about-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/2011\/10\/14\/arguing-with-your-crazy-uncle-about-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Arguing With Your Crazy Uncle About Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can see where I’m going with this. The implicit philosophy here is that\u00a0scientific “belief” is inseverable<\/em>, and that if Einstein (one of our holiest prophets) can be questioned, surely everything falls apart! Just as we tore away from the impure Faith, now the scientists are questioning themselves. Surely the schism of Science is close at hand, and with it the fall of this pernicious heresy….<\/p>\n

They really, really don’t get it. They never even tried to understand us. The idea that not onlycan<\/em>\u00a0our ideas be severable — but that they\u00a0must<\/em>\u00a0— that it is\u00a0intrinsic to everything scientists do<\/strong>\u00a0that everyone, no matter how laudable, can be questioned, can be debated, can be flat out\u00a0wrong<\/strong>… it’s so far away from how shamans have operated throughout history that they never made the leap, not through all their schooling. To them, we’re just competition.<\/p>\n

– a comment by\u00a0Catfish N. Cod<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Forget “left-versus-right.” Or even arguments over taxes. The centerpiece of our current Phase Three of the American Civil War is the all-out campaign to discredit science.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere<\/a>\u00a0I show that the\u00a0War on Science<\/a>\u00a0is part of a much wider effort to destroy public trust in every “smartypants caste” — from school teachers, journalists, medical doctors and attorneys to professors, civil servants and skilled labor. (Name a center of intellect that’s exempt!) But nowhere is it more relentless than by savaging the one group in society that’s unarguably among the smartest and best educated.<\/p>\n

It’s having the intended effects. Chew on this. Thirty years ago, in the era of Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley, 40% of U.S. scientists were Republicans. Today that\u00a0fraction<\/a>\u00a0has plummeted to around 6%.\u00a0 Can you blame them?<\/p>\n

Why is this happening? I go into it\u00a0elsewhere<\/a>\u00a0— the underlying motive for a campaign that will leave only one elite standing. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that everybody has this thing backward.\u00a0 Scientists are not being undermined\u00a0in order<\/em>\u00a0to argue against Human Generated Climate Change (HGCC). Rather, the whole HGCC imbroglio serves as a central rallying point in the campaign against science.<\/p>\n

== The latest salvo\u00a0 ==<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trust the once-credible — now murdochian — mouthpiece called the Wall Street Journal to publish a sophistry-drenched festival of talking points.\u00a0Five Truths about Climate Change<\/a>\u00a0by Robert Bryce.<\/p>\n

Yep, call it “truth.”\u00a0 The\u00a0Far Left\u00a0spent years devaluing that once-proud word on a hundred university campuses, in their own version of a War on Science. Now the\u00a0Entire Right\u00a0— not just the far-fringe — completes the devaluation of “truth” down to Orwellian levels.\u00a0 Take this sampler from Bryce.<\/p>\n

“The science is not settled, not by a long shot. Last month, scientists at CERN, the prestigious high-energy physics lab in Switzerland, reported that neutrinos might\u2014repeat, might\u2014travel faster than the speed of light. If serious scientists can question Einstein’s theory of relativity, then there must be room for debate about the workings and complexities of the Earth’s atmosphere.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Urk!\u00a0 Gurggle (*strangling sounds*) — I must let someone else answer this.\u00a0 This cartoon from\u00a0Sci- ?nce!<\/a>\u00a0will make you both laugh and sob for your civilization.<\/p>\n

[[[MORE from Contrary Brin]]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can see where I’m going with this. The implicit philosophy here is that\u00a0scientific “belief” is inseverable, and that if Einstein (one of our holiest prophets) can be questioned, surely everything falls apart! Just as we tore away from the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1925"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1927,"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925\/revisions\/1927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oddempire.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}