SoylentNews

What Do You Call a Doubter of Climate Change? A Skeptic or a Denier

posted by LaminatorX on Monday February 16 2015, @02:00AM   
from the Pro-Heat dept.

Hugh Pickens writes:

Justin Gillis reports at the NYT that in the long-running political battles over climate change, the fight about what to call the various factions has been going on for a long time with people who reject the findings of climate science dismissed as “deniers” and “disinformers" and those who accept the science attacked as “alarmists” or “warmistas". The issue has recently taken a new turn, with a public appeal that has garnered 22,000 signatures asking the news media to abandon the most frequently used term for people who question climate science, “skeptic,” and call them “climate deniers” instead. The petition began with Mark B. Boslough, a physicist in New Mexico who grew increasingly annoyed by the term over several years. The phrase is wrong, says Boslough, because “these people do not embrace the scientific method.”

Last year, Boslough wrote a public letter on the issue, "Deniers are not Skeptics." and dozens of scientists and science advocates associated with the committee quickly signed it. According to Boslough real skepticism is summed up by a quote popularized by Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” "[Senator] Inhofe’s belief that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” is an extraordinary claim indeed," says Boslough. "He has never been able to provide evidence for this vast alleged conspiracy. That alone should disqualify him from using the title skeptic."

• Re:Scientific Method My Ass (Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday February 16 2015, @04:52AM

  by c0lo (156) on Monday February 16 2015, @04:52AM (#145488) Journal

  There are heaps of sciences for which one can't organize an experiment, thus the data available can come from observation - this is to say by requiring the possibility/existence of an experimental avenue, you are imposing too big a constraint in the definition of the scientific method

  • You can't experiment with a neutron star: fortunately the universe give you plenty of objects which may be neutron stars (because they somehow fit your model). Yet, you don't know for sure - never visited one close enough to experiment with it (provoke a change, observe the effects) - the hypothesis they exist is plausible and one can continue to build on it (until one finds something contradictory)
  • You can not (at least, not longer) experiment with the negative emotions of a toddler. This doesn't make paediatric psychology less of a science - disturbed kids exist enough to accumulate a body of knowledge by observation

  No the model is not the experiment: the model is the hypothesis
  Yes, even if you can't experiment as such, to be scientific, you still need to bring your model in accord with the reality of the observations - be them the result of a direct experiment or just by using the "variability of the nature"

  .

  --
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

  Parent

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+3
  Insightful=2, Informative=1, Total=3
  Extra 'Insightful' Modifier		0
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		5