Letters to the Editor
-
Inupiat knowledge or Camille Paglia's hot air?
Hmm. I just today talked to some Inupiat women from northern Alaska who detailed the very dramatic changes to the natural world they have seen in their lifetimes and the very measurable, obvious negative impacts on their food sources, health and personal safety.
So who knows more about this subject? I would say the Inupiat are better informed than Camille Paglia.
-
The Scamming of Sam Sham (pt. 1)
I took a break from this debate yesterday. I come back and I see you officially jumped off the deep end into repetitive insults at the expense of real debate. Sorry to see your emotions got the best of you. You need to step back and take a harder look at your own methods and responses.
You commit the frequent error of responding to a point with a non-sequitur. When somebody makes a point, you will respond with a different point that, while perfectly valid on its own, bears no direct relationship to the first point that was made (though it might have a distant relationship). You do this time and time again and then try to pass it off as if it is evidence that the other person's position is wrong or is ignoring your arguments. (I think James Randi would have serious issues with this approach.)
You also keep trying to divert the debate from global warming to other subjects. I may not have the expansive knowledge of cult medicines and other quackery that you do, and I may not visit all of your links (because you have copied and pasted dozens that have turned out to be utterly irrelevant), but it hardly matters since the subject of the debate is global warming.
You have ignored every attempt I've made to focus the debate to the subject at hand. Here is the bottom-line of what I am saying: The evidence for global warming is peer-reviewed, tested, re-tested, scrutinized, analyzed, checked for falsifiability, compared to control groups, and refined over and over again. This is in stark contrast to the evidence for all the quack new-age medications you've mentioned, which tend to avoid any sort of rigorous testing and instead exist at the peripheries of small social groups who apparently get some sort of psychological satisfaction from exploring them.
You also keep confusing the completely separate subjects of (1) whether the scientific concept of human-caused global warming is true or not, and (2) whether the proposed solutions, in Europe and elsewhere, are unnecessary, overkill, or otherwise harmful to Capitalist society. I am primarily concerned with the first subject because it is what Camille Paglia was addressing in the article. The second subject is something I do not see any point in discussing at the same time as the first subject precisely because of people like you who are unable to avoid confusing and separating the two issues. Thanks for whatever links you gave me, but again, they have no bearing whatever on the question of whether the science is true.
Here is an example of you answering my statement with an unrelated statement and trying to pass it off as if it were a legitimate debate response:
Me: "It certainly is untrue within the realm of scientific journals, who have been examining global warming (and debating its merit openly) since the 1970s."
You: "I asked you about the change in the 1995 IPCC report - you ignored it."
My statement was that there has been open and steady debate in the scientific community about global warming for decades (you had claimed otherwise). Your response, above, involves a tiny detail about a report, which you had mentioned elsewhere, and which I found too irrelevant to the debate to even address. Whatever your point was, I find it highly unlikely that a single example invalidates my contention that scientists have been openly discussing and examining global warming for decades. Let's stick to a single issue at a time, shall we? Your debate tactics are disingenuous and diversional.
Here's another example of diversion by you:
Me: "The important difference between global warming and all the garbage you're mentioning is that global warming science is tested and studied by actual scientists."
You: How, if you're correct about the separation of cults and science, are homeopathy and TT in hospitals?"
I was talking about global warming and trying to bring the subject around to global warming (because that's what Camille Paglia discusses in the article). My point was that climate science is rigorously tested by scientists using the scientific method and a wide academic process of peer-review and so forth. This separates it from cultish things that do not have rigorous testing. Your response is to refer to a single example where some cultish thing managed to sneak into a realm usually reserved for science. But this hardly means anything about global warming unless you're saying that all of climate science has been infiltrated by new agers, which is obviously not the case. So your entire response doesn't really mean anything.
Here's where you completely lose it, Sham Sam:
"You sound like some Ivory Tower-type with no idea where I'm coming from because you're not in the real world with me."
This is hilariously ironic. It's also a descent to ad hominem attack. I am not sure why you feel the need to label me "Ivory Tower" just because I hold a different position than you do. Do you label all your opponents? Do you believe that you alone possess a monopoly on the One True Reality and all others are deluded? I wonder what a psychologist would have to say about that point of view.
-
The Scamming of Sam Sham (pt. 2)
Here's another example of a weak and dishonest debate tactic from Sam Sham:
Me: "If you want to debate that actual scientists doubt global warming, that's one thing. Let's hear which scientists you mean, from which universities and research groups, and what peer-reviewed scientific journals they've contributed to."
You: I gave you the links."
Here it is, the most important question of the debate, and all you can do is utter a single sentence referring me back to vague links (which ones?) hidden in dozens of your posts which are filled with dozens of links. Do you expect people to go to all your links and read every article? I did follow a few of your links but I found them to be mostly concerned with peripheral subjects that didn't have much bearing on the central debate. I didn't see any links from you that directly addressed why the science of global warming is false. If you cut-and-pasted them, why is it so hard for you to cut-and-paste them again?
Here's an example of an outright falsification from Sam Sham in response to a direct question:
Me:"How do you separate credible modern scientists from cultish modern scientists? What is your basis for delineation?"
You: Of course, evidence. Like when someone says we have a consensus when I'm looking at multiple articles saying it's not true."
Actually, the use of the word "consensus" is accurate. Please look up the word in the dictionary. Then show me your evidence that a consensus does not exist. You say "I'm looking at multiple articles saying it's not true." Which articles are you looking at? How many is multiple? What are your sources? What are the links? How are you defining consensus? This is one of the pivotal points of this debate -- since it directly relates to the Camille Paglia article -- and you've blown it. You're quite loquacious when it comes to pasting details about cult medicine, but you can't be bothered to provide information about the actual subject?
"But if you're poo-pooing (or ignoring) what's going outside your Ivory Tower, how would you know anything either?"
Again with the "Ivory Tower" label. What purpose does this sentence even serve other than ad hominem?
Yet another Sam Sham diversion, this one semantic:
Me: "How can you say "all global-warming scientists are cultish" at the same time you say "all neuroscientists are legitimate"?"
You: "You're refusing to be fair - I may have, at one point, implied something but I'd never say "all" scientists are anything. You're not even reading what I say."
In no way did I "refuse to be fair" by asking this question. You're getting hung up on my use of the word "all," but that isn't even what the question is about. The question is this: You have decided that climate scientists are not using legitimate science and instead are involved in some sort of cultish, herd-like thought process. How can you be sure this is true? What have you seen from the scientists, from the actual scientists (and not observers), that displays a different approach than from other scientists whom you consider legitimate? Can you provide examples? (Do not tell me "I already gave links," because you didn't, and if you did, then give them again.)
"Like I said, come out of your tower, professor."
This is something Sam Sham wrote in response to one of my legitimate questions. Just ad hominem. I am very familiar with James Randi (whom you look up to) and he is always very critical of those who descend to ad hominem in debates. So you might want to re-think your methods.