Bogus Science
By Mitch Berg
Gary Miller has the best introduction to Bogus Doug’s evisceration of Brian Lambert’s call for media censorship of the global warming debate:
Doug Williams demonstrates why he is duty-bound to never again take 6 months off from blogging by offering this extraordinary post on Brian Lambert’s global warming pronouncements.
In the span of just a few paragraphs, Doug demonstrates Lambert’s unfamiliarity with the scientific method.
But don’t take Gary’s word for it. Read Doug’s post.
A highlight:
Brian Lambert has written a screed a bit wordier, but no sillier about conservatives. But we shouldn’t mock. He’s in his terribly serious mode, you see. He’s trying to explain that he – failed media critic Brian Lambert – has figured out the high holy scientific truths journalists ought to respect.
The ethical challenge for journalists and journalism (as opposed to infotainment personalities in “the media”) is stark. It means accepting what the best available science has now concluded is fact about global warming — that it’s happening and human activity is an aggravating if not principal cause — and pulling the plug on spurious “debate” engendered by conservative ideologues, much like what credible news organizations have done with Holocaust-deniers and creationists.
Of course to anyone with a degree studying science as opposed to journalism it’s a grand load of hooey on it’s face. What exactly is a phrase like “accepting what the best available science has now concluded is fact about global warming” supposed to mean? Real science hasn’t “concluded” that any future predictions – about global warming or anything else – are “fact,” because that’s not how science works. And “pulling the plug on spurious ‘debate'” is about as blatant a rejection of the scientific method as one could propose.
Doug shows in tall block letters the scientific illiteracy which is so comical when coming from a cartoon like Lambert – but so dangerous from actual reporters:
It’s child’s play to find leading experts in climate science dissenting from the IPCC report. Yet that’s not something Lambert even finds relevant. Because “for journalists the debate phase has ended.” Science goes in story phases, don’t you know. It’s not really about the search for truth, it’s about framing the narrative. I don’t think he intended to be nearly so honest, but wow is that ever telling.
The other telling thing here is how Lambert has drifted into the position that journalists should trust the scientific pronouncements of political scientific bodies. I know he thinks this is a special and singular scientific issue unlike any other before or likely to come after. But that just illustrates his naivety. Especially in the modern age, scientific funding is driven to a large extent by crisis-mongering. If Lambert is suggesting – and it seems he is – that in the case of a crisis journalists must abandon their skepticism, he’s calling for journalists to become little more than government propagandists. And what could possibly go wrong there?
And Gary was right, Doug; I hope you’re good and rested. We’re gonna need you.
June 25th, 2007 at 11:39 am
The links to Doug’s post aren’t working, on either your site or Gary’s. Doug must be having server trouble, or there’s a problem with the link.
June 25th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
There is a link between what Lambert has written and what Mitch has written about the revival of the “fairness doctrine”.
In both cases the left wants to end political debate.
It’s obvious, for example, that the left doesn’t casre so much about providing an alternative to Hannity, Limbaugh, etc, as they are in getting them off the air.
June 25th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
There’s a reason that 99+% of what is “science” reporting should be taken with a barrel of salt: most reporters don’t understand even the basic underpinnings of the scientific method, much less actual science. There are some exceptions, but they’re so rare as to be shocking.
Lambert’s also got a strange idea of how science and the media interact. Think back on the cold fusion fiasco that was primarily driven by the media. Shark bite fever of a few years back, anyone? The media is driven by its own herd instinct and desire for sensationalism rather than any rational discussion. For the “media” to decide on how to report the ongoing discussion is pretty strange. If they had followed Lambert’s formula nobody would ever have been able to develop quantum theory, since that was firmly against the consensus of scientists for many years.
June 25th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
There’s a reason that 99+% of what is “science” reporting should be taken with a barrel of salt: most reporters don’t understand even the basic underpinnings of the scientific method, much less actual science. There are some exceptions, but they’re so rare as to be shocking.
I’m not sure I agree with the percentages but it does seem to be true with regards to reporting over AGW. Most scientists probably agree that the Earth’s temperature has increased by about a degree over the last century but that’s about the extent of the agreement. The causes (note the plural) of this increase in temperature, the proportion to which each cause has lead to (or mitigated) the increase, and the long-term effects not to mention what if anything should be done about it are very much up for debate.
June 25th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Wingnuts. Science. Angryclown’s bustin’ a gut over here.
June 25th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
I just can’t wait until angryclown talks about Jesus on a dinosaur again.
That one will never get old. *yawn*
June 25th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
The Clown’s understanding of science begins and ends with experiments in various greasepaints.
Ok, 99% is a bit high, but it’s rather distressing to be interviewed by a journalist and have to explain the basics of theory, hypothesis, and correlation vs. causality before they can begin to properly report what has been seen. There’s a distinct lack of understanding of the basic mechanisms of science and a profound ignorance of the very human dynamic that governs how theories are formed, tested, and accepted. It is quite rare for theories to come out of the blue and be spontaneously accepted. There are often times of great debate and even strident animosity before enough data is gathered. Quantum theory is a great example of that, as a theory that was tremendously controversial at its inception and by no means universally accepted until quite a while later. Hans Bethe quipped that quantum theory simply outlived the doubters.