If At First You Don't Succeed. . .

[peristaltor]

. . . Lie through your teeth.

Or, more specifically, commit perjury before congress.

From beachofdreams, a bit of a tale from a scientist regarding what happened to him during a debate:

In late 1998, I was asked to debate the well-known greenhouse skeptic Dr. Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia

Comments

[beachofdreams]

In order to be charitable to Gore, he did NOT state that the sea level would rise that amount this century. To interpret him like that would be to commit a straw man argument against him. The indication that he did mean this is more or less illusory. I will vouch for the position that there are many advocates for the truth of the alarmist position that don't really justify their claims well, but Gore, and to a lesser extent the producers of AIT, aren't a part of that group.

Gore's point in the slideshow is that the East Antarctic ice mass has enough water contained therein to raise sea levels by around 20 feet. He brought it up to highlight the dangers of warming, whether or not they are dangers for this or subsequent centuries. The fact that, among other things, sea level rise could manifest more as a grave threat post-2100 does not detract from the seriousness of the situation as we can expect people and ecosystems to be living, and functioning, in the 22nd century and beyond.

This despite many examples of literature which posit that current projections of ice melt may have been underestimated. See the author above (Hansen), and some of his papers on the subject, as well as the piece posted above where he discusses a little of the subject.

Back to your points to Peristaltor, in P's defence I would be careful about accusing him of making a hasty generalization from Micheals to all "skeptics", because I don't think that P made the argument that since Micheals' made some false (probably dishonest) assertions, it is that fact alone which makes many of the rest the "skeptics" the same way; rather, he seems to be drawing attention to Micheals as an example of what has already been proven to be a well-entrenched problem within the scientific community.

[beachofdreams]

No, I didn't claim that you were making a generalization.

[beachofdreams]

How is asking you to be careful of accusing someone of making a hasty generalization the same as claiming that you, yourself, are making a generalization? Read my posts more carefully.

[beachofdreams]

I think I have a right to be correctly understood. I didn't realize that making sure your co-interlocutor understands you correctly is an instance of semantic "ass-coverage".

[beachofdreams]

No, I'm serious. You have misread what I have to say, just like you obviously misread what Gore's statement was. If you want to carry on a meaningful debate, you must make sure to get the position of the other correct.

[beachofdreams]

No, I don't "fail". There is nothing in my sentence that comes close to even suggesting that you were making a generalization. "I would be careful about accusing him of making a hasty generalization" cannot be read to mean that. Call it a tactic or not, asking you to read my arguments properly is certainly called for.

[peristaltor]

What are you now, Faux News? ;-)

[peristaltor]

Allow the source to comment.

What is missing here is prior experience with scientists doing exactly what Dr. Patrick Michaels did -- distort the evidence specifically to mislead. Sadly, both beachofdreams and I have such experience with seemingly well-credentialed experts turned obfuscationalists.

Reading Ross Gelbspan, Jeremy Leggett and others will acquaint you with several more "experts," along with proof that they are paid directly by carbon business, or (even scarier) who seemingly surpress fair consideration of the evidence due to an overwhelming adherence to faiths which dictate the necessity of an armageddon. Seriously, in Leggett's book, a vice president executive leading Ford's Environmental division believed the world was only 10,000 years old, and that Jesus' coming would obviate the Kyoto accords!

I will only concede that if you are not familiar with the scope of tactics just like the one cited above, then my statement would seem a gross generalization.

It is not.

I will concede that there are skeptics out there who honestly feel their positions to be based upon evidence and to be, therefore, perfectly reasonable. More and more, however, the evidence upon which these opinions are based turn out to come directly from the paid and/or zealous obfuscationalists.

It is alarming, all too common, and hardly ever discussed.

Also, have you had a chance to peruse my Skeptic's Primer? I value your opinion, and welcome any comments. Seriously, I wrote that with folks like yourself in mind as the target audience.

[peristaltor]

I don't feel I am talking down to you. Really. I simply feel I am trying to make my point.

The links you request would be a bit difficult. As beachofdreams can confirm, I used to post links like this exclusively in boiling_frog; but I have recently felt this is like preaching too exclusively to the choir. Very recently I decided to cross-post to my main LJ. This also gives myself a better reference to what I have and have not posted.

(I am finding LJ's database search options really limiting. If you post to a community, you'd better know exactly when you posted, or you're screwed and have to wade through months of posts to find it. I could be just a computer idiot; but I suffer nonetheless.)

Therefore, since I don't think you follow the Frog, posts like this one would seem out of context and ill-supported. Out of the blue. I can see this. It's a concern.

I am trying, though, to make my points singly, without having to repeat myself too endlessly. That is a limitation of the LJ medium, as compared to a long article or a book, where the reader is already assumedly familiar with the supporting evidence for later conclusions.

I don't want to become boring and repetitive with my LJ just to support later assertions. . . okay, okay, too boring and repetitive.

As to the "random quack," did you follow up on who he is? Seemingly, this guy gets paid large green and has lots of friends. There's money to be made in obfuscation, though I can imagine less than in recent years.