Part of a sentence in a story in one of the nationâs leading newspapers speaks volumes about whatâs wrong with the media, with established science, with public discourse, with government policy-making:
âparts of the country are experiencing increasing severe weather events and pest invasions, which scientists have tied to the affects of climate changeâ
No source given, of course, for âscientistsâ, as is the common habit nowadays in what passes for journalism.
As everyone knows, âclimate changeâ in common contemporary usage means âclimate change brought on by human activities, in particular generation of carbon dioxideâ.
As everyone should know, thereâs not a shred of reputable evidence to support the view that human activities are responsible for the historically inevitable increase in global temperatures, eventually by about 5-6°C over the next 100,000 years or so, as Earth rebounds from the last Ice Age (A politically liberal global-warming skeptic?; Dogmatism in Science and Medicine: How Dominant Theories Monopolize Research and Stifle the Search for Truth, McFarland, 2012: 18-26).
Nor is there a shred of reputable evidence to support the increasingly common assertion that rising temperatures are associated with an increased frequency of âunusualâ climatic events.
The storyâs header is âWhite House to unveil âclimate hubsâ to aid farmers across countryâ (David Nakamura, Washington Post, 5 February 2014), illustrating how our government has swallowed the Big Lie pushed by a small proportion of self-interested careerist âscientistsâ, who have even managed to divert attention from the fact that their vaunted computer models have been wrong for the last 15 years or so â âClimate Scientist: 73 UN climate models wrong, no global warming in 17 yearsâ; note also âNASA study proves CO2 cools atmosphereâ.
I relished the âaffectsâ instead of the presumably intended âeffectsâ, since it reminds that all the bullshit * about âclimate changeâ is a matter of emotions (affects) and not facts or good objective science. If itâs a typo, it illustrates the lack of good editing at a leading newspaper. If it is the authorâs mistake, it illustrates the condition of our education system.
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* Bullshit is now a perfectly respectable as well as useful term, thanks to philosopher Harry Frankfurtâs On Bullshit, Princeton University Press, 2005. He defines it as assertions made without regard to whether or not they have any truth value, a very apt description of public shibboleths about global warming, HIV/AIDS, and any number of other topics where hordes of people, including journalists and public pundits, say things without thinking about them or actually knowing anything about them other than that âeveryone knowsâ them; and âwhat everyone knowsâ is just what âauthoritiesâ have told them, authorities who understand that âSaying so, makes it soâ (big file, loads slowly, sorry).