on science as politics
hello from my local NPR station. Shannon signed us up to answer phones during radio pledge. It's been slow, so I have time to post.
Anyway, I read, against my better judgement, an opinion piece by one of those obnoxious loudmouths about big oil, which turned into a diatribe about global warming. I won't identify the guy or link to him, because that only gives his opinions more visibility (not that he needs that). Once again, this idiot repeats the moronic position that some random think tank claims that the ratio of global warming "supporters" to the "other side" is 38:1 on CBS news.
I'm not the first to make this point, but it needs to be repeated as long as people keep making this claim on tv. Science is not politics. Unlike any political topic where you can balance the debate, scientific debates should not be "balanced". For example, let's say your average truthiness-spewing idiot has an astronomer on who claims that the sun will rise the next day in the east. In order to balance this, does he need to have someone on to claim the sun will rise in the west?
Maybe a more direct analogy -- if a cosmologist gets on tv because of the discovery of a redshift 8 object, is the show obligated to have Chip Arp on to dispute the cosmological origin of the redshift?
The Nobel prize winning scientists here tell us that human induced climate change is supported by evidence so strong that they felt comfortable using the word unequivocal in their report. To me, the cosmological origin of the redshift is unequivocal. By "balancing" debates on science it gives people the impression that we can legislate science. Congress can vote to deny global warming or evolution, but that doesn't make it so. So by finding and giving a platform to some random person with scientific credentials who claims that global warming is not human caused, it gives the false impression that the evidence isn't as strong as it is.
So as much as some folks would like to treat climate change as a political issue, it is not one and should not be treated as one. So a 38:1 ratio on the news "supporting" global warming is appropriate.
If you want to have a political debate, you can balance the folks on your show discussing how to address climate change.
Anyway, I read, against my better judgement, an opinion piece by one of those obnoxious loudmouths about big oil, which turned into a diatribe about global warming. I won't identify the guy or link to him, because that only gives his opinions more visibility (not that he needs that). Once again, this idiot repeats the moronic position that some random think tank claims that the ratio of global warming "supporters" to the "other side" is 38:1 on CBS news.
I'm not the first to make this point, but it needs to be repeated as long as people keep making this claim on tv. Science is not politics. Unlike any political topic where you can balance the debate, scientific debates should not be "balanced". For example, let's say your average truthiness-spewing idiot has an astronomer on who claims that the sun will rise the next day in the east. In order to balance this, does he need to have someone on to claim the sun will rise in the west?
Maybe a more direct analogy -- if a cosmologist gets on tv because of the discovery of a redshift 8 object, is the show obligated to have Chip Arp on to dispute the cosmological origin of the redshift?
The Nobel prize winning scientists here tell us that human induced climate change is supported by evidence so strong that they felt comfortable using the word unequivocal in their report. To me, the cosmological origin of the redshift is unequivocal. By "balancing" debates on science it gives people the impression that we can legislate science. Congress can vote to deny global warming or evolution, but that doesn't make it so. So by finding and giving a platform to some random person with scientific credentials who claims that global warming is not human caused, it gives the false impression that the evidence isn't as strong as it is.
So as much as some folks would like to treat climate change as a political issue, it is not one and should not be treated as one. So a 38:1 ratio on the news "supporting" global warming is appropriate.
If you want to have a political debate, you can balance the folks on your show discussing how to address climate change.
posted by Chris at 6:57 PM
1 Comments:
Global warming wouldn't get discusses in these political terms if people weren't always trying to politicize it.
And have experts on the skeptical side is not a matter of political balance. It's matter of there still be some holes in the global warming theory (not to mention the wild exaggerated claims of people like Algore). While the greenhouse effect may not be in dispute, the degree of warming and the ultimate effects on the planet are very much a subject of scientific debate. When ice sheets recover to previous levels, when January is the coldest month i ten years, when the network of weather stations is revealed to have severe problems with consistency, these are valid topics to bring up.
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