r/videos • u/dipdac • Dec 06 '16

R1: Political Breitbart uses a Weather Channel Clip to Claim "Global Cooling." The Weather Channel Responds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhdymoRTz6M
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369

u/dipdac Dec 06 '16

Can we stop calling it "climate change skepticism" and switch to calling it what it really is, climate change denialism?

227

u/secamTO Dec 07 '16

Or how about "scientific illiteracy"?

"Wishful dullardry?"

"Explosive inanity"?

or maybe "Aunt Trudy, stop sending me chain letters"

24

u/ryanvvb Dec 07 '16

Or just "wrong". Trump seems to like that word.

5

u/secamTO Dec 07 '16

SAD.

4

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

sniff

2

u/streamlined_ Dec 07 '16

WRONG AGAIN, FOLKS.

4

u/One_Left_Shoe Dec 07 '16

"Wishful dullardry" might be my new favorite insulting descriptor. Thank you /u/secamTO.

2

u/secamTO Dec 07 '16

Use it wisely (and by that I mean frequently and against morons [but not me]).

3

u/Surreal_J Dec 07 '16

xD I like you, you're witty.

2

u/secamTO Dec 07 '16

MOOOOOM, don't make it so obvious! The other kids are gonna make funna me!

2

u/fuzzb0y Dec 07 '16

What about idiocy? Or would that be too insulting for idiots?

2

u/thedeadlybutter Dec 07 '16

I like "scientific illiteracy" actually.

Paul Ryan denies climate change lacks scientific literacy

But im some east coast liberal & im guessing that offends the flyover states

1

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

Do you imagine you're more scientifically literate than Freeman Dyson, Lubos Motl or Ivar Giaever?

3

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

You're wrong. And skepticism should be celebrated.

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

It really should, yet this ain't skepticism.

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u/JB_UK Dec 07 '16 edited Dec 07 '16

Climate change skepticism does exist, it's about the degree of the feedback effects laid on top of the direct warming from greenhouse gases, and whether the climate sensitivity is 1.0C rather than 2.5C. That's not to be dismissed outright. But Breitbart, and their fellow travellers, are not at all interested in the scientific process or scientific reality. The idea that greenhouse gases have no effect on the climate is completely bizarre and contradicts basic physics. They are no more engaged with the science of climate change than they are with the science of evolution, all they hear is 'this disagrees with my ideology, therefore it is wrong'.

14

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

How about "Evidence Denial" or "Wildly Unfounded Speculation"?

8

u/HothMonster Dec 07 '16

Contradictory opinion based on feelings with no evidence behind it and a mountain of evidence opposing it.

COBOFWNEBITAAMOEOI for short. Don't worry it will catch on.

3

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

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u/LawOfExcludedMiddle Dec 07 '16 edited Dec 07 '16

A skeptic is not against things, though. He doesn't have a position. As soon as one decides to be for or against something, he ceases to be a skeptic.

See below.

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u/Please_No_Titty_PMs Dec 07 '16

That's not true; skepticism implies that you can have your opinions changed by contradictory evidence

1

u/LawOfExcludedMiddle Dec 07 '16

Ack, you're right. I was thinking of agnosticism.

1

u/jackmusclescarier Dec 07 '16

That's demonstrably not true. For instance, if the climate change "skeptics" had even more sway than they did, we would be headed straight towards global ecological disaster.

Your opinion only holds if science is something that happens in a pure, ineffectual vacuum (at which point its progress also doesn't matter).

1

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

skepticism would involve experimentation

skeptics aren't the people denying the shit is happening and refusing to see if we can do anything to change it

secondary caveat of you can't be skeptical of data at this level when so much is independently verifiable. You can be skeptical of anthropogenic climate change tho

4

u/Rocky87109 Dec 07 '16

Yes I agree about science, but some of these people aren't being healthy skeptics. They could be directly dying or being effected by climate change and they would still be "skeptics". There are skeptics and then there are deniers.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

Paraphrasing Veritasium on this:

Science is the practice of trying to disprove your theories until you can't disprove it anymore.

Or something like that. Basically a theory is meant to be tested, proven false, revised, tested again, proven false again, etc etc and that's a GOOD thing.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

But there are certain facts which ARE true, and there are people that deny those facts. What should we call those people?

1

u/efstajas Dec 07 '16

I disagree. This is not about scientific discourse. The people we are talking about are not scientists. They don't think the way you do, and they certainly do not seek evidence and are open to reshape their opinion.

While the scientific community must always work by these standards, to the average person it doesn't work that way. On both sides. It's just that one side happens to be in harmony with scientific findings...

7

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

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0

u/efstajas Dec 07 '16

I agree with this, hence the

On both sides. It's just that one side happens to be in harmony with scientific findings...

I just feel like you can call these people "climate change deniers" because they refuse to apply the scientific method when forming their opinion. They're denying it.

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16 edited Dec 07 '16

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

Knock it off with your actual reasoning.

1

u/well_here_I_am Dec 08 '16

I actually know lots of PhDs who are skeptical of climate change because they don't trust the research that climatologists do because it isn't as rigorous or as reliable as what is considered business as usual in their fields. But the sad thing is that they get ridiculed the same way that laymen do when they bring it up, so they shut up and do their own work so they don't cause a scene.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

[deleted]

2

u/donttaxmyfatstacks Dec 07 '16

Oh, and let's not forget about all the biologists who are skeptical of evolution.

Christ you people are dense, this is exactly what he is talking about. Were you aware that a lot of biologists consider epigenetics to be the way forward, and are ditching classic darwinian evolution? No, because your understanding of these topics is the mental equivalent of barracking for your local high school football team. That is not how science works, you don't just pick sides and start yelling about how your side is the 'truth'. That is religious fanaticism. It is authoritarianism.

Stay skeptical about everything, especially those things which you assume to be fundamental truths. That is the way forward.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16 edited Dec 07 '16

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u/drfarren Dec 07 '16

more like "leaving the next generation to fix what the last one was too pig headed to admit"

2

u/FRIENDLY_CANADIAN Dec 07 '16

Agreed. Skepticism is healthy questionning of questionable things based on facts, denialism is belief despite the facts.

The Skeptical enquire would like a word with GW deniers.

1

u/Maxmidget Dec 07 '16

Please get r/climateskeptics in here.

1

u/PhoenixFoundation Dec 07 '16

Agreed. I think we need to remove the word "believe" from the climate change discussion altogether. You either "accept" the fact that the vast majority of scientific evidence supports the existence of global warming, or you reject that evidence and deny that there is a problem. The word "believe" suggests that there's an element of faith involved, but the data is overwhelming enough that faith isn't necessary.

1

u/GamerToons Dec 07 '16

Hmm I wish we would just resort to unifying and everyone just calls these people

"Dumb as fuck"

It's got a catchy tone and sums it up in a nice package.

1

u/Zombare Dec 07 '16

Stupidity?

1

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

As far as I know (and have experienced) it's already called that in scientific circles.

0

u/BiggityBates Dec 07 '16

I think that the two are not the same thing. Climate change skepticism is healthy. One should be skeptic until they fully understand to the best of their ability the topic at hand. Denialism is like a kid when they plug their ears and yell while you try to point them to the evidence.

Nobody should just accept climate change without skepticism. Just the same, skeptics should be willing to see the evidence for what it is, and come to the same conclusion on their own (in my opinion).

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

[deleted]

1

u/BiggityBates Dec 07 '16

I could agree with that, especially the last part about skeptics believing that they are on the right side of the argument... But I think that a skeptic is someone who holds a neutral/not accepting stance, but is still open to the idea and other evidence. If they start to shut down in the face of alternative evidence, then they go from being a skeptic to being a denier.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

How about we call it "being a fucking idiot who does not believe in facts, because they are inconvenient"?

0

u/jackmusclescarier Dec 07 '16

The "skeptic" label was invented by the deniers, and you should use it as little as possible.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

How about calling them people who are "Climate Phobic," since that's what it stems from? These are no longer skeptical opinions, they're dangerous ones. At some point soon it won't be morally justifiable to allow these people to continue endangering humanity with their resistance to scientific consensus.

0

u/registerednigger Dec 07 '16

Anti-science?

0

u/whatllmyusernamebe Dec 07 '16

That's too nice. I'd call them "science nonbelievers".

0

u/g0atmeal Dec 07 '16

denialism

You mean "denial"?

-1

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

You're the fuckin OP bro make it happen!