Debunking Denialism

Defending science against the forces of irrationality.

Tag Archives: denialism

An Open Letter to Libertarian Climate Change Denialists

1 Comment Posted by on December 27, 2011

Hello,

I am writing this plea in order to counter the growing tendency for some libertarian groups to reject the science behind global warming and climate change. This is an unfortunate tendency because if libertarianism can be associated with fringe antiscience groups, then this makes libertarianism as a whole an easy target for naive critics. They can ignore the problems with large bureaucratic governments and the reduction in civil liberties and just focus on the fact that certain libertarians reject mainstream climate science and thereby portray libertarianism as an irrational form of antiscience denialism, in the same way many liberals view creationist republicans as intellectually left behind.

Many people would probably object to being labeled as denialists. This is understandable, but it is important to realize that this is not meant as a guilt by association tactic to, for instance, Holocaust deniers. Rather, the term denialism usually refers to the deployment of a dishonest rhetorical debating tactic which makes it appear as if there is a legitimate scientific debate about the topic when the evidence for the mainstream scientific position is overwhelming. This is usually done by quoting scientists out of context, portraying a discussion about how something is happening as if it was a debate on whether it was occurring or not, misunderstanding basic science, peddling conspiracy theories, cherry picking research results while asserting that themselves are being censored when scientists are criticizing them and so on. These tactic are frequently used by opponents of the mainstream scientific position on climate change. To be sure, big government liberals are also guilty of quite a bit of pseudoscience as well, such as postmodernism, opposition to genetically modified foods, animal rights extremists and so on.

One useful realization is that it is important to separate the science behind climate change and global warming from the big government suggestions for mitigating the issues. It is entirely consistent to accept mainstream climate science, yet reject the proposed “solutions” provided by liberal politicians and other organizations. There should be opportunity for investigating free markets solutions and investing in new technology for mitigating climate change. Read more of this post

Climate Change Denialism , , , , ,

How 9/11 Gave Rise to a New Generation of Denialists

6 Comments Posted by on September 11, 2011

The horrible events of 9/11 2001 were unique in many ways. In the past, hijacking had most often been a method of trying to acquire political concessions or for monetary extorting, but rarely before had planes been hijacked to be used as weapons in themselves. Despite the incident at Pearl Harbor, the 1993 attack on WTC and the Oklahoma City bombing, the United States had been relatively spared from international terrorism up until then. The attacks against WTC and the Pentagon also lead to never-before-seen security measures on airports, consuming vast sums of money and changing the very core of air travel. It lead to increases in military spending and wars overseas, the Patriot Act and many other major changes on the regional and global scene.

However, there were other consequences of the events that day, namely the rise of a new generation of young and tech-savvy conspiracy theorists and denialists with the world wide web at their fingertips. Read more of this post

Conspiracy Theories about 9/11, Skepticism , , , ,

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