When an argument is being won and lost, the retreating team does not issue statements saying: By gad, you were right and we were wrong, sorry and all that, we’ll try not to let it happen again. No, the way you spot a victory and a defeat is when you see bits of bullshit (linked to rather admiringly, on account of the piece not being complete bullshit throughout, from here) like this from the Los Angeles Times:
The real scandal illustrated by the e-mails is not that scientists tried to undermine peer review, fudge and conceal data, and torpedo competitors, but that scientists and advocates on both sides of the climate debate continue to claim political authority derived from a false ideal of pure science. This charade is a disservice to both science and democracy. To science, because the reality cannot live up to the myth; to democracy, because the difficult political choices created by the genuine but also uncertain threat of climate change are concealed by the scientific debate.
Actually that is pretty much exactly what the real scandal was, except that they missed out the bit about sabotaging the entire world economy.
But allow me to draw your particular attention, just in case you missed it, to this bit:
… scientists and advocates on both sides …
Position one: Our guys are right and your guys are wrong. Position two: Yes, it’s true that our guys are wrong, but … but … so are your guys! “If we have the decency to admit that our bad guys are bad, now that your good guys are proving it, can’t you at least be a sport and say that your good guys are bad also?”
No.
How, exactly, do the AGW sceptics “continue to claim political authority derived from a false ideal of pure science”? How has their conduct earned them the insult of being part of a “charade”? How have the sceptics been undermining science? Or democracy? There has been a charade. But the sceptics are busily unmasking it, and replacing it with truth.
This is a classic retreat from fraudulent moral superiority to fraudulent moral equivalence.
Once again, as so often in this ruckus, I’m thinking: Cold War. “Yes indeed, Communism is not working very well and many of the communists are very bad people, but capitalism and those who support it are no better …” No, communism was indeed a catastrophe, but capitalism was and is colossally, world-transformingly better. I despised the fraudulent army of anti-anti-communists then, and I despise the fraudulent and soon-to-be-huge army of anti-AGW-sceptics now.
geez….IIRC, the guys on the *other* side have never been given a fair hearing, so how can we possibly know if the guys on the *other* side, whose work the drive-by-state-sponsored media have NEVER reported on, are wrong when we don’t know what they have done.
This is a case of “yes, …. in other words, no…..” which was a ploy one of my sons used to use when he was little. It is marginally cute when a tiny boy tries it; it is profoundly hideous when responsible people attempt it with the support of liars in the MSM.
Reposted on WUWT
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/17/spencer-on-his-agu-presentation-yesterday/#comment-264108
“I despised the fraudulent army of anti-anti-communists then, and I despise the fraudulent and soon-to-be-huge army of anti-AGW-sceptics now.”
These buffoons claim to have taken positions that were exactly opposite of the positions they actually held, and claim credit for accomplishments that weren’t theirs.
The thing I can’t understand is that people keep letting these lunatics into positions of authority. How insane are we? Do we as a species have a death wish?
As I see it people ideally want leaders (whether that be political leaders or leaders of opinion) who are nice and kind, wise and knowledgeable, and leave us alone where possible.
Some people (generally the rank and file of the left) prefer nice and kind above the rest.
Others choose wise and knowledgeable (right wing authoritarians)
Yet others have given up on either and prefer to be left alone (The classical liberal or libertarian view).
Leaders then arise to appeal to these constituencies.
Those that seek to sell their niceness tend to call the others nasty (though a proper judgment of the niceness or otherwise of anyone requires personal knowledge not available to the man in the street- and is therefor virtually unverifiable).
Those that seek to sell their wisdom proclaim their rivals as ignorant (this is easier to assess- provided there is a public record of past actions and their results for the parties concerned)
As I read it the LA times has chosen to appeal on the grounds of its self proclaimed niceness- being wise comes down the list for them. For them to say that being right is more important than being nice would telling their readership that their core values are wrong- it would in fact be the end of the paper, so its not going to happen.
For what its worth I’d rather be left alone, including being left alone to interpret facts myself- but where I have to defer to authority I’d prefer it be wise than good solely because anyone can claim on the evidence of their friends, to be good- if a proposed leader has a track record then his wisdom can be checked.
Remember how we used to have these litmus tests to see if someone was truly against communism or simply a mealy mouthed fellow travelling useful idiot of the comintern? Like “Do you believe in an individual right to keep and bear arms?” and “Do you believe the right of the individual to own property and reinvest the fruit of their labor in others free of confiscation?”….
Now that the AGW argument is being debunked by climategate, all my leftie friends are pulling the “energy independence” card out so they don’t look like a bunch of traitorous little NWO socialists. After all, someone like me can’t be opposed to energy independence from a bunch of islamofascist tyrannies, can I?
The test to put to them in response to that gambit is: Sure I am for energy independence, ARE YOU? (why yes I am, they say) Then how about we start building a few hundred nuclear plants RIGHT NOW? Oh? Cats got your tongue?
And drilling in ANWR, and off the coasts.
Nicely said – Thanks, and a link.
“For them to say that being right is more important than being nice would telling their readership that their core values are wrong- it would in fact be the end of the paper, so its not going to happen.
The “core values” of the LA Times readership would be of little consequence to me were there not concerted attempts to impose those values on other Americans.
I make consistent efforts to confront the editorial staff and readers of another paper with the notion that their (similar) core values are wrong. Why let them off with an easy time of it? Make them suffer. Put nasty little doubts and fears into their minds at bedtime.
Absolutely correct!!! When I first saw that column I was SO insulted.
And one of them works at AEI!!!
This one reminds me of Obama in Berlin last year, talking about how the fall of the Berlin Wall shows what the people of the world can do when they all work together… like the Wall was put up by Martians or was a natural phenomenon or something.