Nerds Make Science Fun!

The hour of judgment is upon us. As I stated earlier in this article, it is important that those who support science and its products must not only study it, but they must help the general public understand it as well, or else the public will not generate the political will needed to help fight powerful problems because it lacks understanding. Well, the problem has arrived. It has arrived in the form of climate change, and because of public misinformation and the lack of education, our response has been absolutely pathetic.

So what now? It seems as though science and facts are being overridden by a wave of bullshit spouted from conspiracy theorists and denialists. Public policy is no longer made on the basis of reason, but on the basis of “I-can-shout-louder-than-you”.  Nowhere is this clearer that climate change, where every attempt to produce rational, evidence-based debate is replaced with claims of conspiracy and bias. The suppression of reasoned discussion is not only idiotic; it is dangerous. To deny the public critical information on such an important issue is not only unfair to the public, but threatens everyone by creating an illusion in which everything is dandy, when it obviously isn’t. It is very clear that the denialists have to be shut down, but how? Many people in the scientific community have openly stated that scientists should not debate with denialists, because the very act of staging a debate gives them an undeserved semblance of credibility.

I vehemently disagree. Those who advocate silence and quiet work have completely misunderstood the fundamental nature of the enemy. They do not care about credibility. They do not care about truth, facts, or intellectual honesty. All these people care about is spreading their agenda. In other words, they are mirror copies of creationists. It is because of their similarity to creationists that I advocate the engagement with climate deniers.

Although engaging the deniers will give them a semblance of credibility, it also puts the kibosh on their agenda in three ways. First, a public debate is a great way to teach people about the facts and science of climate change. In a debate, facts are exchanged and explained, and the judgment of who “wins” the debate is usually decided on the quality of the explanation of said facts. Second, a movement of active engagement would immediately silence all claims of “bias” and “censorship” in the scientific community. They would no longer have the option of falling back to these claims whenever it becomes clear that things are not going there way.

Finally, a series of open debates will show the general public that the deniers are fundamentally wrong and rely on outdated assumptions, fallacies, and lies. Again, I will draw a parallel with creationism. After their defeat at the very public Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, the intelligent design advocates were forced to withdraw from the mainstream and abandoned efforts to get intelligent design taught in school. Although part of this was because of the legal ruling, their public humiliation meant that they did not have the face to go out and continue advocating their agenda. Given the fact that climate change has a body of evidence similar to evolution in terms of quality and size, a victory like Kitzmiller v. Dover is very likely.  Once the denial movement is dealt several public blows in a fair and open arena, they will be exposed for the frauds they really are, which, hopefully, will drive it to the same fate as the intelligent design movement.

Tags: al gore, climate change, climate change deniers, controversy, global warming, science

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 2:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.