"Denialism" is Different on the Left
That’s Chris Mooney’s assertion, that it hasn’t become associated with liberals in a monolithic way as it has with American conservatives, especially in the political sense:
just because denialism occurs sometimes on the left does not mean that in the U.S. today”“and particularly in mainstream U.S. politics”“it’s predominantly a left wing phenomenon.
Mooney goes on to argue that the anti-science attitudes often embraced by the left, (such as anti-vaxx and anti-GMO) haven’t been codified into the Democratic party the way rejection of climate science and global warming as a legitimate concern has become party line for Republicans. True enough.
But does that make the anti-vaccination movement any less of a threat to public health and society? Because while their irrationality may not have infected the Democratic party, anti-vaxxers sure look like a potent, influential force to me.
Yet if you read between the lines of Mooney’s post, it sounds to me as if he’s playing down the significance of left-wing science “denialism.”
I’ve argued that there is an equivalence between anti-science irrationality on the left and right, but that the former gets a free pass in liberal outlets.
On that note, let me ask this. Which does more harm: the Washington Post for the occasional George Will screed against climate science, or the Huffington Post for the platform it frequently gives to anti-vaxxers, such as Jennie McCarthy?
False equivalence — if George Will consistently writes egregiously disingenuous and misleading articles about climate science (which he does) and if AGW projections are in fact broadly correct regarding a significant increase in the global average temperature and significant ecological effects (which I think is at least plausible at this point), then Will is doing his best to prevent society from even seriously considering dealing with what could be a serious existential threat (which, if it materializes, will have effects which are not reversible on human timescales). If Jenny McCarthy is wrong (which certainly appears to be the case) then individuals who follow her wrongheaded advice are exposing their kids to grave health risks – a bad situation but hardly an existential threat.
I don’t know if framing the debate between the left and right as a debate between science deniers is correct.
IMHO It’s a debate between those that are skeptical that science provides sufficient justification to deliberately impose direct economic harm and those that believe it doesn’t.
I would point to recent reports of Dr Hansen’s admiration of the Chinese System of Government as to their ‘Environmental Action’.
The price of coal in China in $120/tonne. The price of coal in Wyoming is $14/tonne.
In my twisted right wing mine what I see is that China’s economic interest happens to coincide with Dr Hansen’s interest in curbing CO2 emissions.
If coal were $120/tonne in Wyoming, George Will would be advocating for the transition away from expensive fossil fuels and happily pointing out that science tells us their will be environmental benefits as well.
Keith, if anti-vax is still ‘potent’ and ‘influential’ (though you’re careful and right not to say *politically* influential) in three years, we’ll talk. For now, it appears to be a discredited ‘movement’ rapidly retreating from the spotlight back under the rock it came from (though if we’re asked to get vaccinated again a la H1N1, I’m sure it’ll resurface, and I’m sure Glenn Beck will again recast that as ‘do you trust your government?’). HuffPo, regardless of its blogospheric influence, or Arianna’s dreams, is simply not very influential on policy matters, Left or Right. Contrast that with the sorts of think tanks and op-ed pages that the George Wills of the world inhabit.
Fact is, whichever ‘denialist’ has more influence on those holding the reins of power and policy over a longer time, will tend to be more harmful. There still is no ‘Democratic war on science’.
Anecdotally, the anti-vaxxers and 9/11 truthers I’ve run into online and IRL are just as likely to turn out to be Ron Paul supporters as “left wing”.
Mooney’s point is not only valid, it’s incredibly important and transcends the narrow issue of science denialism. There are surely examples of anti-science, incendiary/demonizing political rhetoric, anti-intellectualism/war on “elites”, etc. on the left. However, these things do not appear to have been codified at a party-identity level nor are widely, openly embraced by influential members of the Democratic party at the state and national levels.
I completely agree with the above commentors. It’s a false equivalence. It’s a line of criticism leveled at Mooney for years but no one has- to the best of my knowledge- actually rebutted the main point that he’s making. His critics seem to believe that merely pointing out examples of left leaning people holding anti-science beliefs is sufficient, and it’s decidedly not. Where is the broad Democratic Congressional or Executive embrace of McCarthy’s anti-vaxx views? It doesn’t exist.
The term “denialism” is a form of intolerance that is intended to give its speakers a false sense of authority and the people described a false patina of evil (by linking through innuendo those described to Holocaust Deniers.) There are dozens of negative terms that could be used to describe those who are anti-scientific but this terms is used (primarily by warmists) to enforce groupthink and intolerance.
Outside of descriptions of Holocaust Deniers the term should not be used. I might have a low opinion of Jenny McCarthy’s science, but there is no reason to link her anti-science antitudes to the Holocaust, which had very little to do with science anyway.
JD
Yeah, there’s a prominent and mouthy streak of ‘libertarian’ in lots of supposed ‘extreme left wing’ movements, certainly including anti-vax. Not to mention the occasional out-and-out Right Wing eagle…some of whom are rather influential. Glenn Beck , no ‘radical leftist’ he, was happy to recast H1N1 vaccination as a question of ‘do you trust your government’. Hmm, how many ‘extreme left’ voices does one Glenn Beck balance out?
Keith wants to see not just lack of acceptance of denialism, but outright condemnation of it, from the political and media powers that be. On the political left, we have the former, but not necessarily the latter. On the right, we have neither…indeed, we have their opposites: acceptance of denialism, and outright endorsement of it at the highest levels.
How this ends up as ‘equivalence’ to Keith, I cannot fathom.
@1
Will preaches to the converted and his influence on the climate debate, IMO, is overstated.
McCarthy, along with RFJ and in concert with the well-organized anti-vax movement, has influenced behavior and attitudes. The movement transcends politics and touches mass culture.
I suppose your own attitude is that the threat from the anti-vax movement is not sufficiently catastrophic to warrant being on a par with the likes of Will.
@4
I don’t disagree with Mooney’s larger analysis. I thought that was clear in the post. What I’m suggesting is that some (note I said some) liberal science bloggers don’t deem the anti-science cranks in their own fold to be important enough to call them out. Better not to distract from the Republican “deniers,” I suppose.
#5 I would add to my previous post that the use of the term “denier” and “denialism” in the context provided here, cheapens the sufferings of those Jews who were exterminated as a result of the Holocaust by comparing the Holocaust to problems arising out of anti-vaccination anti-science, for instance.
JD
thingsbreak,
I tend to agree with you, however I would bring up the organic food/homeopathy/anti gm crowd as an example of left wing denialism (not that everyone who believes in one of those things believes in all, I often buy organic). Nor is it nearly as serious of an issue, though I think it does have negative consequences.
My disagreement with arguments like Mooney’s isn’t so much that I reject the validity of what he is saying, I tend to agree with him, but I think it is counter productive to keep pointing it out. It raises rather than lowers the polarization, (not to take blame away from right wing denialists). I live around lots of conservatives and IMO it makes it easier for them to reflexively reject science when it is being presented in this way. My hope is for issues of climate and environment to become more like national defense, where everyone basically agrees to the goal but disagree on the details. (I realize how unrealistic this looks now, however I’m young and am optimistic about my generation, I find acceptance of climate science to be much higher the younger you go). Here’s hoping:/
JD Ohio,
I agree, I use the terms for descriptive purposes without thinking. I do not wish to compare those who do not believe in climate change with holocaust denial. I’ll try to use different terms in future.
#8 JD Ohio, you’re right in a limited sense — I would normally use ‘vaxers’ or ‘anti-vaxers’ for the deniers of vaccine efficacy and safety, because those are the the terms actually in common use. I wrote as much in another thread on the ‘D’ word.
In *this* thread, it was just shorthand for both anti-vaxery and AGW skepticism . I’m happy to put ‘denialism’ in ‘quotes’ here as Keith did, if that makes it clearer. (Though I must add, there does exist an AGW denialism analogous to Holocaust denial — it is the subset of ‘skeptics’ who hold that AGW isn’t really happening.)
#7 Keith
Which liberal science bloggers are you particularly thinking of, who haven’t called out anti-vaxers and should? PZ Myers (the king of them all) certainly has. So have Orac and ERV. Mooney too.
To me the whole “false equivalence” thing is meaningless unless one is interested in keeping score. In my experience those who shout “false equivalence” loudest are usually those with the greatest partisan or ideological bias. I think such people are primarily interested in the “score” and in showing how much worse their political/ideological opponents are.
I’ve personally never cared much for political partisanship. People who advocate unscientific BS should always be criticized in my opinion. I don’t really care if, after adding things up, one side is arguably “worse” than the other. Such judgments are inherently subjective anyway. I would suggest that anyone interested in promoting scientific truth should stay away from the score-keeping and “false equivalence” game as it only leads to pointless partisan squabbling.
@12 Andy:
To me the whole “false equivalence” thing is meaningless unless one is interested in keeping score. In my experience those who shout “false equivalence” loudest are usually those with the greatest partisan or ideological bias. I think such people are primarily interested in the “score” and in showing how much worse their political/ideological opponents are.
Can you explain how pointing out the non-existence of a McCarthy/anti-vaxx embrace by the mainstream Democratic party (comparable to the Republican/right wing embrace of climate denialism) is partisan, while claiming that there exists such an equivalence is somehow not?
Either such an equivalence exists or it does not. So far, people like Keith have done little to support their assertion that it does. I’m not sure why pointing that out is supposed to be partisan, while baldly asserting its existence without evidence is somehow non-partisan.
The “both sides are bad” stance is itself often adopted from an exceedingly partisan position of imagined centrism (hallmarks of which include the glorification of “civility”, bipartisanship for its own sake, hippie-punching, etc.). Think Clive Crook, the establishment beltway media, et al.
People who advocate unscientific BS should always be criticized in my opinion.
Agreed.
I don’t really care if, after adding things up, one side is arguably “worse” than the other.
I think the concern has less to do with score-keeping and more to do with the concern that when anti-science positions become synonymous with political ideology and are embraced by powerful politicians of a party, anti-science spreads into policy-making.
As bad as Jenny McCarthy is, it would be orders of magnitude worse if the Democratic Congressional and Executive leadership embraced anti-vaxx BS and tried to base policy on it.
TB (13), this is the second time I’ve had to point out that you’re asserting something in a comment that is not my post:
Can you explain how pointing out the non-existence of a McCarthy/anti-vaxx embrace by the mainstream Democratic party (comparable to the Republican/right wing embrace of climate denialism) is partisan, while claiming that there exists such an equivalence is somehow not?
You’re arguing with yourself, because as I said to you already, I agree with Mooney’s larger analysis of the modern-day Repub party. And I did not say that the Dem party has embraced the anti-vaxx position.
But over at Mooney’s thread, someone did take issue with my associating liberals with anti-vaxxers. Here’s Mike from that thread:
Can we stop with the anti-vaxxers have a liberal bias, please? Last year, during the flu outbreak, registered Democrats were far more likely to plan on getting a flu shot than either independents or Republicans.
Yes, Jenny McCarthy and Arianna Huffington are rich, pseudo-liberal twits. Yet the data suggest that liberals were more likely to want a flu shot.
And here’s Mooney’s response:
Mike: That is interesting data, but I don’t know how to square it with the fact that the clusters of unvaccinated/vaccine resistant tend to be in these leftwing places like Boulder or Ashland, Oregon.
@kkloor:
Sorry. I’m not sure how to reconcile these two statements:
Mooney goes on to argue that the anti-science attitudes often embraced by the left, (such as anti-vaxx and anti-GMO) haven’t been codified into the Democratic party the way rejection of climate science and global warming as a legitimate concern has become party line for Republicans. True enough.
Which I agree with, vs.:
Yet if you read between the lines of Mooney’s post, it sounds to me as if he’s playing down the significance of left-wing science “denialism.”
I’ve argued that there is an equivalence between anti-science irrationality on the left and right, but that the former gets a free pass in liberal outlets.
I don’t understand how you can be simultaneously arguing for and against Mooney’s central point. Either you agree that there is no equivalence for the kind of political entrenchment of anti-science Mooney describes or you believe that such an equivalence exists.
It sounded to me like you believe such an equivalence exists. I have seen no evidence for it. If this isn’t your opinion, of course I apologize and withdraw the claim! 🙂
TB,
Did you see the words “political” or “Democratic party” in that passage of mine you bolded?
I’m contending that liberals generally give liberals a pass on left-wing science “denialism.” (Not everybody, as has been pointed out in a comment upthread.) I tend to think this is because folks like you want to keep the “denier” label firmly attached to 2) the climate issue and 2) Republicans. Pure speculation. 🙂
Anyway, what I’m hinting at in my short post today is expanded on here. And there I’m mostly arguing that the “denier” label should be applied more consistently, which plenty of people took issue with, too.
Keith:
I read Chris Mooney as merely saying that the denialism on the left doesn’t count, i.e. it’s [not] predominantly a left wing phenomenon.
Meaning that to Mooney denialism is predominantly a right-wing phenomenon.
To me it is just guilt by association.
He thinks some are “deniers”, and wishes to taint (in his eyes) the right with this label, and so merely associates deniers with the right wing.
Clearly, the few misguided liberals who are “deniers” don’t count, and so the left is not guilty by association.
Personally, I find the word offensive, and don’t like how it is spreading, and being used to label folks on the left and the right.
Some people doubt that the recent warming is totally outside natural variation over the last 2000 years.
Some people doubt that giving vaccines to their children is a good idea.
With the sloppy loose thinking going on, who is not a “denier” of something.
We don’t need the terms flatearther, or luddite, or creationist anymore – lets get rid of them all and just start calling anybody who doesn’t buy into everything a denier.
L.Carey—
Vaccines protect from diseases that can cause death. Death is an exitential threat whose scope is personal rather than species wide or global.
Steve Sullivan— I had to google for the Beck anti h1n1 vax stuff. I don’t get cable and I’m not a big fan of Beck so I wasn’t remotely familiar with his position on this. I found this: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,563300,00.html It reads like his concern wasn’t that it wouldn’t work, nor that it would make you sick. His concern seems to have been that there was no pandemic, and he didn’t like the government requiring it. That’s a bit different from Jenny McCarthy’s position. So Becks position did appear to be “anti government forcing people to take the H1N1 vacine in 2007.” As political labeling goes it’s different from what people usually mean by “anti-vaxxer”.
It would be interesting to know his position on the other vacinnes. O’Reilly didn’t ask during ththat inteerview.
(It’s hard to get the gist of everything in that interview. Does it read like he was paranoid that the government was going to inject us with tracking devices? Read the bit starting here “BECK: Put a chip in my arm to make sure that I’m taking it. )
@16 kkloor:
I tend to think this is because folks like you want to keep the “denier” label firmly attached to 2) the climate issue
Nope. I’m for fully employing it wherever it applies. Anti-vaxxers and 9/11 Truthers fall under the category of denialism/denialists, as do those that claim that CFCs don’t cause ozone depletion, and many others. I’m pretty sure we’ve been down this road before.
and 2) Republicans. Pure speculation.
And wrong again, see Alex Cockburn. Now I’m certain we’ve down this road before. Sigh.
The fact that someone has come up with unique labels for 9/11 Truthers and anti-vaxxers doesn’t mean that calling them what they’re best known as means I don’t consider them to be engaged in denialism. I’ve referred to climate denialists as “Climate Truthers” but don’t regularly because it’s not the most recognizable name.
When a liberal/democrat engages in climate denialism, they’re a climate denialist; the label doesn’t change based on political leaning. 9/11 Trutherism and the anti-vaxx movement fall under denialism; the definition doesn’t change based on political leaning.
kk @7
”
@1
“Will preaches to the converted and his influence on the climate debate, IMO, is overstated.
McCarthy, along with RFJ and in concert with the well-organized anti-vax movement, has influenced behavior and attitudes. The movement transcends politics and touches mass culture.”
Wow, so George Will is a lonely voice crying in the wild, while Jenny McCarty is part of a well organized movement that impacts mass culture — who knew! So the anti-AGW movement is a poorly organized band of hapless and poorly funded individuals and unable to impact, like, say lots and lots of Congressmen, Senators, governors and rightwing media cult figures watched by millions of viewers daily and unable to influence millions of dollars in campaign contributions????
Wow is right. And you got that part about “anti-AGW movement is a poorly organized band…” from what part of my post?
Keith,
This comment thread is an example of why I personally disaggregated questions of of “denialism” or trutherism or whatever with ideology. The debate quickly devolves into a “who is worse” series of arguments and you spend the whole thread trying in vain to add some nuance while dispelling the incorrect interpretations of what you actually said.
#11 Sullivan
” I’m happy to put “˜denialism’ in “˜quotes’ here as Keith did, if that makes it clearer. (Though I must add, there does exist an AGW denialism analogous to Holocaust denial “” it is the subset of “˜skeptics’ who hold that AGW isn’t really happening.)”
We had several threads where those supporting the left claimed that the right was poisoning political discourse. I argued that both sides did. Sullivan, apparently losing track of the threads from last week claims that those who oppose AGW are committing some sort of action analogous to Holocaust denial. You can never be surprised by the hypocrisy of the left.
For instance, I believe that irrespective of whether the Earth is significantly warming that humanity will be able to geoengineer its way out of the problem. Does that make me analogous to people who deny the killing of millions of innocent human beings? Those who insist on using the denier innuendo have a very narrow view of history and don’t realize how close their methodology is that of the Communism in the 60s. The epithet the Communists used when they couldn’t make rational points was calling their opponents “imperialists.” Denier is a similar epithet used by those who are afraid of the competition of ideas.
Very hypocritical to criticize the right for coarsening discourse, and then making ridiculous comparisons to Holocaust denial.
JD
Generally, saying “my side is less bad” is a bad idea. First, it smacks of useless point scoring. Second, who cares? If you’re wrong, you’re wrong and you should get corrected. Third, it’s way too easy to fool oneself; one should be harder on one’s own side in order to avoid sympathetic blindness to real issues.
Vax contrarianism is killing people right now; cc contrarianism may (emphasis on may) be killing people due to that portion of severe weather events which is greater than would have occurred absent the extra CO2. But that’s no excuse for giving anyone on the left side, expecially elected politicians a pass for touting vax con. nonsense.
JD, if denier and “denier” are unacceptable, how do you feel about climate change contrarians (or cc cons, for short)?
KK said: “liberal science bloggers don’t deem the anti-science cranks in their own fold to be important enough to call them out.”
Exactly! And they aren’t important enough because on the left the anti-science doesn’t get much beyond the HuffPo. You don’t see Obama basing health policy on anti-vaxxer claims.
XKCD sums it up.
http://xkcd.com/154/
I think that the biggest tragedy of the Wakefield fraud has been the way that the media, including blogs have kept the vaccine discussions focused on a vax/aniti-vax argument and thus, left broader societal issues regarding vaccinations and health care largely undiscussed.
Right now, for example, the world seems to have pretty much decided not to put out the effort that would be necessary to provide Haiti with either a widespread Cholera vaccination program or reliably clean drinking water. Do we have what it takes to gear up to fight epidemics?
A lot of disease spread that could be alleviated by vaccination has more to do with poverty, distribution of health care, and research decisions by large pharmaceutical companies than it does anti-vax activists.
I think that the important lesson here is that responding to screeds in kind is ineffective. We shouldn’t let anti-science opponents set the terms of the debate.
Holding broad based conversations on these issues in a more complex way might be a good way to unite the country on matters of science.
#24
Have no problem with contrarians, negaters, delusionists whatever. Have a problem with the Nazi connection.
JD
> the former gets a free pass in liberal outlets.
I’d disagree with this.
Anti-science of any flavour gets a pass in outlets that are sympathetic, which is invariably not a simple left/right issue. I definitely wouldn’t say that Anti-vax is more associated with US democrats than republicans, for example.
In the UK, which outlets pushed Anti-vax the hardest? Reactionary right-wing sources like the Daily Mail. Conversely, more left-wing papers (like The Guardian) have been reporting something closer to the real story for much longer.
I think Mooney’s point is that some anti-science (anti-AGW) *has* been turned into a left/right issue, quite deliberately, by political groups that have latched onto it as an ideological issue.
Gaythia (26):
I recall your comments on previous related threads and I also saw your recent one over at Mooney’s. I think you make fair points worth following up on.
Keith,
Andy #12 is correct (“People who advocate unscientific BS should always be criticized in my opinion”). This sentiment is shared by any practising scientist or engineer with integrity, and that is why, out of the woodwork, you have many new voices chiming in on Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Disruption/whatever the hell they are calling it this week. These are intelligent people that know how practical and theoretical science works, that can smell BS a mile away, and who see the scientific method as failing badly in today’s climate science discussions.
There are others, a certain % of people who don’t believe in AGW because they don’t like the people sending the message, period. If they hear “environmentalists” or “lefties” or “socialists” supporting an idea, even if the idea is be nice to your mother, then they will be against it. These people are idiots. The Republicans do pander to them on this and other issues. The Republicans gain no respect for that and it is for them a major failing.
But, these zombies are not the ones that in the long run will sway the battle of public opinion. Neither will it be the zealots who see mankind asnd technology as a fatal plague upon Nature. They’re also idiots. As time rolls on it will be the growing number of people, with technical backgrounds, who understand that given what has been measured to date and what we know, that no one knows how the climate will play out. One thing that dispassionate, scientifically trained people do know (and a very high % of the media do not understand or acknowledge) is that the underpinnings of catastrophic AGW are ridiculously weak, and that the behavior of many climate scientists, even pre-Climategate, has been reprehensible. No branch of science has ever made forward progress with the level of obfuscation tolerated in climate science. Media types do not know this as a fundamental truth; scientists and engineers do.
As time rolls on there are more people getting educated on this, and very few newcomers embrace the catastrophic AGW story. That’s a funny thing for many who follow with interest this slow-moving train wreck of a science. Many in the media repeat the mantra that any who question the catastrophic AGW creed are “anti-science”; I and many others believe that time will show that the “anti-science irrationality” of today’s skeptics will be vindicated. They will be vindicated not because they are inherently correct, but because they adhere much more closely to the scientific method. Sure, there are anti-AGW zealots like Morano & I have no problem discounting what they say, but history will almost surely show that the better heirs to Bacon’s scientific method are mainly on the skeptic side.
There will be plenty of time to see this play out; that is how science works.
@ Gaythia #26
I’ll second that.
@TB,
I agree with you on basically everything, your definition and application of ‘denier’ is the same as mine. However I still think its pretty counterproductive to have these conversations.
as Dave H points out:
“I think Mooney’s point is that some anti-science (anti-AGW) *has* been turned into a left/right issue, quite deliberately, by political groups that have latched onto it as an ideological issue.”
While I generally like Mooney, books like ‘The Republican War on Science’, make this situation worse. It feels like a progressive circle jerk, makes us feel good but gets us nowhere. The best policy is to keep thoughts like this to ourselves. It doesn’t help matters when right wingers go on and on about how the whole science establishment has a liberal bias.
#10 IsaacSchuman
Thanks for the kind words.
JD
@isaacschumann
I don’t really disagree, but I think the same can be said about literally anything. Political ideologues are going to politicize things. That shouldn’t preclude the rest of us from examining whether or not systematic problems on one side or another exist. I believe that it is a problem that climate denialism has become mainstreamed among one of the two major US parties. I would be equally concerned if anti-vaxx denialism became mainstreamed in the other.
Keith has speculated that this is because I want to demonize Republicans. And keep “denialism” focused on climate. He’s ridiculously wrong on both counts.
I firmly believe that we need to raise the profile of denialism generally along with its most damaging specific incarnations (wherever in the ideological spectrum they fall). Moreover, I have never excused climate denialism (or any other kind of denialism) on the political left. Whereas liberal activist would probably be thrilled to have “opponents” so divorced from reality, I’m actually terrified over this partisan divide, because it means that education outreach is likely to be futile unless rejection of the science no longer becomes a litmus test for the conservative base.
Also, re: Holocause denier vs. denialism- the general term denial (and “in denial”) existed long before the label Holocaust denier gained traction. To suggest that merely using derivations of the term denial is implicitly trying to associate someone with Holocaust denial is a convenient way of rejecting a label that otherwise fits. I’ll stipulate that there have been some fringe attempts to conflate the two groups, but there is nothing wrong with using the term denialism. Unless someone explicitly tries to associate climate denialists with Holocaust deniers, there’s no reason to suspect their use of the term is just a sneakier way of doing so. People in general just aren’t that subtle.
Keith @29: Someone who is I believe a new voice online and who I think has some intelligent and worthwhile things to say on the theme of vaccination (in this case on how sometimes we, ourselves, are the culprits) is Brian Zigmund-Fisher on the Risk Science Blog: http://umrscblogs.org/2011/01/18/familiarity-and-the-shingles-vaccine/
I’d like to see these conversations break out of the us vs them, science against denialist firefight. I believe that the real target audience is not anti-science, just uninformed, confused, or simply not sufficiently motivated.
Gaythia, thanks for the link–and what a great post that is, too. I will definitely add that site to my blogroll. Just to reiterate: i think you’ve pointed out an important blind spot in this discussion (in some of your previous comments) that deserves attention. I’ll do my best to follow up.
This comment has been deleted.
[HD: you haven’t responded to my email explaining why your previous comment didn’t get posted. Now you offer another one up, full of expletives and gratuitous insults. So I’m asking you publicly to reign it in.//KK]]
TB,
“I think the same can be said about literally anything.”
Exactly, cohesive social interaction is based on white lies and things left unsaid. This is a subjective filter we all voluntarily apply. I live in a small rural town where most people are quite conservative; I appreciate that they refrain from telling what a panzy/hippie/socialist/quasi homosexual I am, and in return, I do not inform them what knuckle dragging/mouthbreathing/illiterate/anti-science/neanderthals they are. In seriousness I do get along quite well with my neighbors despite disagreeing on some things. If we see someones new baby and its really ugly, it is uncouth to inform the mother. (notice how I set up your position as the one akin to telling a mother her child is ugly, I’m classy like that) Mooney is a smart guy who has a real knack for describing science to layman, I think his talents would be better served doing this in the least controversial way he can.
As to your points about confronting science denialism in general, I’m with you, I guess it’s just a matter of how to go about it. I recently finished Jonathan Franzen’s excellent novel ‘Freedom’, if you haven’t read it you should, it touches on these themes and much else.
So, to summarize the discussion: TB thinks your kids are ugly;)
# 18 Lucia
Beck (and Limbaugh) both questioned the safety of the vaccine, not just the need for it.
http://mediamatters.org/research/200910070043
#14 Keith
Here’s an interesting — and influential, as their role int the scuttling of the Clinton healthcare reform plan showed — ‘cluster’ of anti-vaxerrs that you may not be aware of. Boulder CO lefties they ain’t:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/business/19physicians.html
It’s about the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a right-wing/libertarian organization which boasts just 3,000 members but counts among them Rand Paul and the jerkwad neurosurgeon from Florida who sent around a pic of Obama in African dress with a bone through his nose awhile back. Predictably, they’ve dived into the current conservative drive to deep six the new health care law.
“Its internal periodical has published studies arguing that abortion increases breast cancer risks, a tie rejected by an expert panel of the National Cancer Institute, as well as reports linking child vaccinations to autism, a discredited theory.”
#23 JD Ohio
Learn how to read. Seriously. I noted specifically what subgroup of you tribe literally merits the term ‘denier’. Review that and try again.
#33 Denialism Thingsbreak
I believe liberals are disingenuous when they claim that they don’t intend to link Nazism when using “denier’ in the climate context. Hansen has made the connection, and it quite frequently comes up when there is an impassioned defense of warmism. There are a number of terms that could be used to describe anti-scientific behavior, but the term “denier” always seems to be consistently used as a way to attempt to ascribe evil or bad motives.
The law has developed the concept of innuendo to hold accountable those who try to injure others through a term that has a superficial meaning and one that has an injurious meaning. For instance, if someone called another person a “fruit” intending the listeners to understand that the person described was gay, the law of defamation would hold the speaker liable for whatever damages that could arise through the use of the term “fruit.” The fact that the actual word “gay” was not used would not insulate the speaker from liability. My point is not to get into the specifics of defamation law but to direct attention to a milieu where this issue repeatedly occurs and how the matter is handled.
For those who continue to use the “denier” terminology, here are conservative applications that could be used. I know of no widespread use of the term “denier” to describe non-evidence based or illogical thought before it was used to describe Holocaust deniers.
1. Hypocrisy deniers. (Those whose actions or words show that they don’t consider consistency to be important. See Paul Krugman and the New York Times generally.)
2. Confirmation bias deniers. Those who claim that their science is not affected by their advocacy for certain results.
3. Social Engineering deniers. Those who ignore the high percentage of social engineering attempts that failed and who fail to acknowledge the extreme difficulty of social engineering.. (See Prohibition and busing.)
4. Scientific Method Deniers Those who refuse to acknowledge the importance of real world observations and who attempt to limit scientific inquiry through groupthink.
I could go on and on. However, the point is that the use of such terms cheapens the special opprobrium that should be heaped on Holocaust deniers. If someone has proof of that I would like to see it.
JD
#38 Sullivan
“Learn how to read. Seriously. I noted specifically what subgroup of you tribe literally merits the term “˜denier’.”
Thanks for confirming my point again. Those who link anybody in the climate change debate to Holocaust denial are intellectually dishonest and contributors to the poisoned debate that exists. If you associate someone with Nazis, you can hardly claim that they poison the debate when they make extremist allegations against you.
JD
#39 Correction
“I stated: I know of no widespread use of the term “denier” to describe non-evidence based or illogical thought before it was used to describe Holocaust deniers.” I meant to follow that with the statement that “If someone has proof of that I would like to see it.” S
Somehow the “proof statement” ended up at the end of the post instead of following the statement above.
JD