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"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Evolution, Anthropogenic Global Warming and Other Non-Falsifiable Theories

Posted on | February 12, 2010 | 46 Comments

Michael Walsh at Big Journalism takes on MSNBC’s bizarre claim that the D.C. blizzard proves that climate-change skeptics are wrong:

MSNBC apparently borrowed their talking points from the New York Times which, as Walsh notes, invoked the authority of “most climate scientists” for the assertion that climate change caused the massive snowstorm. Even before we learned of the suppression of contradictory data (i.e., ClimateGate), this was the “tell” of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) argument, the anecdotal presentation of extreme weather — any extreme weather — as proof of their theory. Whether it was a drought in Australia or a hurricane in New Orleans, everything proved that they were right and their critics were wrong.

Common-sense objections were dismissed as the product of ignorance, and the fact that several climatologists and other scientists disagreed with the AGW theory was explained away as anomalous. “The science is settled!” they screamed, as they questioned the motives and denounced as “deniers” anyone who questioned their alleged scientific consensus.

What was at stake, really, was the authority of Science with a capital S — that is to say, the official, government-approved scientific establishment that possesses the overwhelming prestige necessary to silence all doubt. A prejudice in favor of scientific authority, a desire to confer privilege on the practicioners of Science, requires that Science speak with one voice, so that no amount of contrary evidence can permit skeptics to sow doubt as to the adequacy of official theory.

This disposition tends to lead toward a pseudo-religious faith that I have called “The Temple Cult of Scientism,” which grants Science an unquestionable influence far beyond the laboratory and the classroom. Our laws, our government, our families, our businesses — all our social institutions and private pursuits — must conform to the scientific consensus or else forfeit their legitimacy.

Science, Progress and Evolution

Science, in this view, is synonymous with Progress, and that which is “unscientific” is disdained as obsolete and reactionary.

“My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday.”
– G.K. Chesterton

Despite Chesterton’s brilliant aphorism, we must continue to argue with the apostles of Progress, especially when they drape their arguments in the holy vestments of the Temple Cult of Scientism. Why? Because their aim is revolutionary, their goal to undermine the very foundation of our society. The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the English common law — a whole chain of traditional precedents in law and morality, pre-dating even the Ten Commandments, would be presumed invalid if Science and Progress were the only arbiters of truth and right.

This is why the fanaticism of the climate-change theorists seems familiar to those who have fought against the very similar fanaticism of those who claim that the science is likewise settled on the origins of life. 

The conflict over the teaching of Darwinian evolution in public schools is often portrayed as a battle between the enlightened apostles of Progress and benighted Bible-thumping ignoramuses. What is really at issue, however, is whether the prestige of Science is such that government must suppress all dissent. Berkeley law professor Phillip E. Johnson, author of Reason in the Balance, is the most cogent critic of the assumptions at the heart of dogmatic Darwinism:

The problem with scientific naturalism as a worldview is that it takes a sound methodological premise of natural science and transforms it into a dogmatic statement about the nature of the universe. . . . It may well be, however, that there are certain questions — important questions, ones to which we desperately want to know the answers — that cannot be answered by the methods available to our science. . . .
Suppose, however, that some people find it intolerable either to be without answers to these questions or to allow the answers to come from anyone but scientists. In that case science must provide answers, but to do this, it must invoke scientism, a philosophical doctrine which asserts arbitrarily that knowledge comes only through the methods of investigation available to the natural sciences. The Soviet Cosmonaut who announced upon landing that he had been to the heavens and had not seen God was expressing crudely the basic philosophical premise that underlies Darwinism. Because we cannot examine God in our telescopes or under our microscopes, God is unreal. . . .
With the methodology of scientism in mind, we can understand what it means to contrast scientific “knowledge” with religious “belief,” and what follows from the premise that natural science is not suitable for investigating whether the universe has a purpose.

The assertion that Science has all the answers to every important question, and that no answers are to be found in any ”unscientific” source, is arrogant in the extreme. This assertion is offensive to anyone who has studied the history of science, for that history is littered with once-fashioable theories that have been discarded as not merely false, but dangerous. It is not hyperbole to say that the infamous dictators of the 20th century — Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot — all believed their tyrranies were justified by Science. Nor is it irrelevant to point out that all of these murderous madmen shared a contempt for religion and traditional morality.

The Guillotine of ‘Consensus’

Do the advocates of Darwinism have dictatorial aspirations? At least so far as the public-school curriculum is concerned. With similar dogmatism, the adherents of the anthropogenic global warming theory insist that AGW skeptics must be suppressed, and that government must act immediately to implement policies based on their “scientific consensus.” And nothing, not even a record-breaking winter or a blizzard unprecedented in its severity, can be accepted as contradictory evidence.

This modern-day controversy has ancient historical roots. The radicals of French Revolution claimed that their own actions were justified by Science and Progress, and that their radicalism represented the triumph of Reason over ignorance. Defending sturdy English traditionalism against these arguments, Edmund Burke memorably responded:

We are not the converts of Rousseau; we are not the disciples of Voltaire; Helvetius has made no progress among us. Atheists are not our preachers; madmen are not our lawgivers. We know that we have made no discoveries, and we think that no discoveries are to be made, in morality, nor many in the great principles of government, nor in the ideas of liberty, which were understood long before we were born, altogether as well as they will be after the grave has heaped its mould upon our presumption, and the silent tomb shall have imposed its law on our pert loquacity.

Burke’s warning went unheeded, and the tumbrels eventually carried to the guillotine many of those who scoffed at his defense of tradition. The Girondins, who had been leaders of the Revolution at the time Burke wrote Reflections on the Revolution in France, were beheaded only two weeks after Marie Antoinette went under the blade in October 1793.

Similarly, many of those who enthusiastically endorsed the unquestionable authority of Science when it was wielded against Bible-thumpers who doubted Darwinian theory now find themselves shocked — shocked! — that Science now arrogates to itself the right to dictate policy on the basis of AGW theory. But if Science is the sole authority to determine what shall be taught in public schools (as federal judges have declared), then what power can conceivably be denied to Science?

All that is necessary is a plausible “scientific consensus” on any controversy, and no legitimate skepticism is thereafter permissible. Dissent against Science cannot be tolerated. As Bill Nye says, once the science is settled, it’s “unpatriotic” to dissent:

The fanatical certainty of the Temple Cult’s high priests is reflected in the zealotry of such of their acolytes as Charles Johnson:

He believes his disagreements with some conservatives should have become obvious in the spring of 2008 when he slammed Ben Stein for his anti-evolution movie, “Expelled.” In numerous posts since, Johnson has derided what he sees as the right’s anti-science bent. “When they teach their children that,” Johnson said, “they are raising a generation of kids who aren’t going to be ready to deal with the world in which science is increasingly important.”

Exactly how an unshakeable belief in Darwinism is necessary to “deal with the world” is something the Temple Cult never bothers to explain, despite the successful scientific careers of such non-Darwinians as Dr. Ben Carson and Professor Michael Behe. One of the characteristics of a dictatorship, however, is that it is never be required to justify its actions, as there is no competing authority in society empowered to require such justification. (By similar principles, Charles Johnson is never required to justify his banishment of commenters at Little Green Footballs.)

We’re All ‘Bad Crazy’ Now

We note that, in announcing his parting of the ways with the Right, Johnson lumped “creationism” and ”climate change denialism” under the heading of “anti-science bad craziness,” suspiciously adjacent to “homophobic bigotry,” with all of these bad-crazy tendencies typified by the same personalities, including Sarah Palin and various figures of the Religious Right.

Hostility toward religion, and toward the traditional beliefs associated with religion, is a necessary correlation (if indeed it is not the origin) of fanatical Scientism. To deny the existence of God is to invalidate any supernatural authority in human affairs, which necessarily means that ultimate authority must reside in human hands. This all-encompassing human authority cannot be entrusted to religious people, as they do not accept the denial of God on which such authority is premised. So Christian conservatives like Sarah Palin and her supporters are viewed by the high priests of Scientism with a horror similar to what the mullahs of Iran reserve for the infidel.

What we are witnessing is therefore not actually an argument about what science has proven in regard to climate change or evolution or anything else. Rather, when we see defenders of the “consensus” seeking to employ government authority to impose policy based on claims of scientific expertise – while they insist that official recognition must be denied to skeptics who question such claims — we are witnessing a power-grab. Just as Lenin once made “All Power to the Soviets!” the slogan of the Bolsheviks, so now our own totalitarians cry, “All Power to the Scientists!”

Americans are instinctively suspicious of such tactics simply because these tactics express an anti-democratic impulse. Invoking the prestige of Science to carry an argument about public policy has the effect of disenfranchising everyone who is not a scientist. And when it is discovered that the evidence has been manipulated — today Instapundit links the headline, “Editor of Nature Forced To Resign From Climate Review Panel” – these instinctive suspicions are fortified by memories of past incidents where “consensus” arguments proved to be misguided or perhaps even purposefully falsified. (Does the phrase “weapons of mass destruction” ring a bell?)

We would be less skeptical of claims to expertise if it weren’t for the fact that such claims always seem to precede arguments that we must shut up and do whatever it is the experts tell us to do. For at least the past half-century, this “trust the experts” argument has been used to undermine democratic governance at every level, from the Supreme Court down to the local zoning board. After years of watching the failure of these expert-endorsed policies, people naturally begin to do as the bumper-sticker slogan urges: “Question Authority.”

When it comes to questioning the authority of the global warming experts, there’s nothing that provokes skepticism quite like being up to your ass in snow.

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Category: Charles Johnson, Global Warming, Science

Comments

  • http://liberalsmash.blogspot.com/ paul mitchell

    Finally, a big name blogger that puts all of the leftist “science” together. Thanks.

  • http://liberalsmash.blogspot.com/ paul mitchell

    Finally, a big name blogger that puts all of the leftist “science” together. Thanks.

  • http://ifyouseekpeace.blogspot.com/2010/02/calling-bob-woodward-amspecs-quin.html Ran / Si Vis Pacem

    Stacy,
    Melinks your WalpinGate articles with Chesser’s ClimateGate work from AmSpec over at my place, pursuant to Quin’s article on media cowardice.

    With the IPCC’s credibility in the sewer, it’s more than AGW in trouble. The entire statist agenda is going down like the Wicked Witch of the West. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

  • http://ifyouseekpeace.blogspot.com/2010/02/calling-bob-woodward-amspecs-quin.html Ran / Si Vis Pacem

    Stacy,
    Melinks your WalpinGate articles with Chesser’s ClimateGate work from AmSpec over at my place, pursuant to Quin’s article on media cowardice.

    With the IPCC’s credibility in the sewer, it’s more than AGW in trouble. The entire statist agenda is going down like the Wicked Witch of the West. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

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  • I.B. Wright

    Heck of a good article. Bout time someone wrote it.

  • I.B. Wright

    Heck of a good article. Bout time someone wrote it.

  • Live Free Or Die

    The Science!-Is-Settled Religionists have bitten the forbidden fruit, under the assumption that, “You shall be as gods!”
    And in doing so, they lost the ‘knowledge of right and wrong’ in their pursuit of knowledge
    without restraint,above all else.
    Now, professing themselves to be wise(“The Science! Is Settled!”), they become fools.

  • Live Free Or Die

    The Science!-Is-Settled Religionists have bitten the forbidden fruit, under the assumption that, “You shall be as gods!”
    And in doing so, they lost the ‘knowledge of right and wrong’ in their pursuit of knowledge
    without restraint,above all else.
    Now, professing themselves to be wise(“The Science! Is Settled!”), they become fools.

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  • http://thecampofthesaints.wordpress.com Bob Belvedere

    This is the best exposition of the case against the deification of Science I have ever read. The key word here is ‘deification’, the belief that through Science all answers can be found. Such god-makers deny the transcendant element in human existence. They are also the grandest of the grand hypocrites because they seek nothing less than to make Science religious-like, to declare that it ‘exists apart from, is not subject to the limitations of, the material universe’ [The Oxford Dictionary And Thesaurus, American Edition, 1996].

  • http://thecampofthesaints.wordpress.com Bob Belvedere

    This is the best exposition of the case against the deification of Science I have ever read. The key word here is ‘deification’, the belief that through Science all answers can be found. Such god-makers deny the transcendant element in human existence. They are also the grandest of the grand hypocrites because they seek nothing less than to make Science religious-like, to declare that it ‘exists apart from, is not subject to the limitations of, the material universe’ [The Oxford Dictionary And Thesaurus, American Edition, 1996].

  • http://www.haemet.blogivists.com Roxeanne de Luca

    Wonderful post, Stacy!

  • http://www.haemet.blogivists.com Roxeanne de Luca

    Wonderful post, Stacy!

  • http://redstate.com/diaries/finrod Finrod

    It was once the unquestioned scientific consensus that the Earth is the center of the Universe. That is, until Galileo Galilei came along and pointed out otherwise. Who is he? He’s only called the Father of Modern Science, after all.

  • http://redstate.com/diaries/finrod Finrod

    It was once the unquestioned scientific consensus that the Earth is the center of the Universe. That is, until Galileo Galilei came along and pointed out otherwise. Who is he? He’s only called the Father of Modern Science, after all.

  • http://zaitcev.mee.nu/ Pete Zaitcev

    In other words, you have nothing — nothing — to shake the soundness of evolution, but you are trying to drag it into the mud by ridiculous associations with the crooks of AGW. Sounds just like what Charles Johnson tried to to to Pamela and some… other people.

  • http://zaitcev.mee.nu/ Pete Zaitcev

    In other words, you have nothing — nothing — to shake the soundness of evolution, but you are trying to drag it into the mud by ridiculous associations with the crooks of AGW. Sounds just like what Charles Johnson tried to to to Pamela and some… other people.

  • Chuck Cross

    @ Bob Belvedere — I could not agree more.

    That was an outf’ingstanding post.

    I will be spreading this one through the network.

    Most certainly a tip-jar-worthy post.

  • Chuck Cross

    @ Bob Belvedere — I could not agree more.

    That was an outf’ingstanding post.

    I will be spreading this one through the network.

    Most certainly a tip-jar-worthy post.

  • confused

    I thought this was a good post, although the last sentence confused me a little – I thought that the snow is at least *some* evidence towards global warming’s case?

  • confused

    I thought this was a good post, although the last sentence confused me a little – I thought that the snow is at least *some* evidence towards global warming’s case?

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  • Alec Leamas

    I tend to give credibility to fruitcakes in electric blue suits and molester-style bowties . . . so . . .

  • Alec Leamas

    I tend to give credibility to fruitcakes in electric blue suits and molester-style bowties . . . so . . .

  • Skunkfeathers

    AGW is a fraud. Scientists who, first with contempt, and now with desperation, try to prop up a proven fraudulent argument, are no longer scientists; they are prostitutes for the “green Left”. Or, as Lenin called them, “useful idiots”.

  • Skunkfeathers

    AGW is a fraud. Scientists who, first with contempt, and now with desperation, try to prop up a proven fraudulent argument, are no longer scientists; they are prostitutes for the “green Left”. Or, as Lenin called them, “useful idiots”.

  • http://warlocketx.wordpress.com Ric Locke

    Bumper sticker:

    If you believe, it ain’t science.

    And to be perfectly fair to the warmenists, snowstorms and other precipitation are, in fact, a possible result of warming.

    If it’s warmer, there’s more evaporation. More evaporation gives more clouds, and more clouds (with more moisture in them) yields more precipitation of whatever type, snow included.

    Consider the “old ones” of the American southwest, sometimes called “Anasazi”. The culture existed during the Medieval Warm Period, when there was enough water for crops and trees (for both firewood and building material) in that area. They died out as the Little Ice Ace advanced, due to climate change that reduced their water supply.

    The madness isn’t citing snowstorms as evidence of warming. It’s citing longer growing seasons, more precipitation, and general better living conditions in temperate zones as evidence of civilization-threatening disaster.

    Regards,
    Ric

  • http://warlocketx.wordpress.com Ric Locke

    Bumper sticker:

    If you believe, it ain’t science.

    And to be perfectly fair to the warmenists, snowstorms and other precipitation are, in fact, a possible result of warming.

    If it’s warmer, there’s more evaporation. More evaporation gives more clouds, and more clouds (with more moisture in them) yields more precipitation of whatever type, snow included.

    Consider the “old ones” of the American southwest, sometimes called “Anasazi”. The culture existed during the Medieval Warm Period, when there was enough water for crops and trees (for both firewood and building material) in that area. They died out as the Little Ice Ace advanced, due to climate change that reduced their water supply.

    The madness isn’t citing snowstorms as evidence of warming. It’s citing longer growing seasons, more precipitation, and general better living conditions in temperate zones as evidence of civilization-threatening disaster.

    Regards,
    Ric

  • http://maaadddog.wordpress.com/ John Doe

    I call b.s. on the notion that Virginia is having more snow now due to more water vapor in the air because of global warming. In the past it has been too darn warm to snow. You need more water vapor AND cold temps to equal more snow.

    If more water vapor alone accounted for all the snow, we would be seeing an increase in rain when it is warmer as well as snow when it is colder. But rainfall is about normal (at least around here). Georgia and north Florida were in fact in a terrible drought for a long time.

    tl/dr. er, I should have just said, just because it is a possible explanation that we are having more snow due to more water vapor in the atmosphere does not mean that it is the correct explanation.

  • http://maaadddog.wordpress.com/ John Doe

    I call b.s. on the notion that Virginia is having more snow now due to more water vapor in the air because of global warming. In the past it has been too darn warm to snow. You need more water vapor AND cold temps to equal more snow.

    If more water vapor alone accounted for all the snow, we would be seeing an increase in rain when it is warmer as well as snow when it is colder. But rainfall is about normal (at least around here). Georgia and north Florida were in fact in a terrible drought for a long time.

    tl/dr. er, I should have just said, just because it is a possible explanation that we are having more snow due to more water vapor in the atmosphere does not mean that it is the correct explanation.

  • http://warlocketx.wordpress.com Ric Locke

    Well, let’s look at actual, you know, history.

    At the beginning of the MWP, Teotihuacan and Macchu Picchu were abandoned. The Valley of Mexico became the center in Central America, Chaco Canyon began to grow, and off on the other side of the world the Angkor Kingdom grew stronger. Vegetation began growing in the southern Sahara, tempting settlement toward the north.

    So it looks like tropical and subtropical areas in the Americas became less livable, while temperate climates got better in many places, and Asian tropics and subtropics stayed about the same.

    This indicates, perhaps, that tropical areas became drier while temperate ones became warmer and more moist. Asian tropics were less affected because of the monsoons.

    Check point: Arabia became more populous and wealthier, to dry out and be invaded from the North during the LIA (perhaps the invaders were fleeing from cold weather?).

    Hey, it’s at least plausible enough to be worth more detailed research.

    Regards,
    Ric

  • http://warlocketx.wordpress.com Ric Locke

    Well, let’s look at actual, you know, history.

    At the beginning of the MWP, Teotihuacan and Macchu Picchu were abandoned. The Valley of Mexico became the center in Central America, Chaco Canyon began to grow, and off on the other side of the world the Angkor Kingdom grew stronger. Vegetation began growing in the southern Sahara, tempting settlement toward the north.

    So it looks like tropical and subtropical areas in the Americas became less livable, while temperate climates got better in many places, and Asian tropics and subtropics stayed about the same.

    This indicates, perhaps, that tropical areas became drier while temperate ones became warmer and more moist. Asian tropics were less affected because of the monsoons.

    Check point: Arabia became more populous and wealthier, to dry out and be invaded from the North during the LIA (perhaps the invaders were fleeing from cold weather?).

    Hey, it’s at least plausible enough to be worth more detailed research.

    Regards,
    Ric

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  • kansas

    25 Charles
    Sun, Feb 14, 2010 9:59:39am replyquote 3downupreport

    Meanwhile, white supremacist Robert Stacy McCain makes the connection between creationism and AGW denial even more obvious, with a blatantly anti-science post at his hate blog:
    Not sure how many more libelous things could be in one post. You need to have a contest.

  • kansas

    25 Charles
    Sun, Feb 14, 2010 9:59:39am replyquote 3downupreport

    Meanwhile, white supremacist Robert Stacy McCain makes the connection between creationism and AGW denial even more obvious, with a blatantly anti-science post at his hate blog:
    Not sure how many more libelous things could be in one post. You need to have a contest.

  • Mr Black

    Oh well done, trying to tie the fraud of AGW into the very well established theory of evolution. I say this as a major AGW skeptic,

  • Mr Black

    PLEASE STOP HELPING US.

  • Mr Black

    Oh well done, trying to tie the fraud of AGW into the very well established theory of evolution. I say this as a major AGW skeptic,

  • Mr Black

    PLEASE STOP HELPING US.

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  • Artesian

    Eric Hoffer, 1951 – “The True Believer – Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”
    P.11
    “When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors , shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the actions that follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
    And p.12
    “People who see their lives as irremediably spoiled cannot find a worth-while purpose in self-advancement…Their innermost craving is for a new life – a rebirth – or failing this, a chance to acquire new elements of pride, confidence, hope, a sense of purpose and worth by an identification with a holy cause. An active mass movement offers them opportunities for both…”
    and P. 13
    “ It is true that in the early adherents of a mass movement there are also adventurers who join in the hope that that the movement will give a spin to their wheel of fortune and whirl them to fame and power.”
    And

    Eric Hoffer, 1979 – “Before the Sabbath”
    p. 7
    “ I am curious about Pechorin, a Russian intellectual of the mid-nineteenth century who wrote a poem on “How sweet it is to hate one’s native land and eagerly await its annihilation.”

  • Artesian

    Eric Hoffer, 1951 – “The True Believer – Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”
    P.11
    “When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors , shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the actions that follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
    And p.12
    “People who see their lives as irremediably spoiled cannot find a worth-while purpose in self-advancement…Their innermost craving is for a new life – a rebirth – or failing this, a chance to acquire new elements of pride, confidence, hope, a sense of purpose and worth by an identification with a holy cause. An active mass movement offers them opportunities for both…”
    and P. 13
    “ It is true that in the early adherents of a mass movement there are also adventurers who join in the hope that that the movement will give a spin to their wheel of fortune and whirl them to fame and power.”
    And

    Eric Hoffer, 1979 – “Before the Sabbath”
    p. 7
    “ I am curious about Pechorin, a Russian intellectual of the mid-nineteenth century who wrote a poem on “How sweet it is to hate one’s native land and eagerly await its annihilation.”

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