Koyaan’s Recent Comments

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  Hmmm...

  Whats wrong is that there's no substance behind their argument.

  Um... ok...

  They effectively don't have an argument any stronger than a pre-schooler's: "I'm right because I said so."

  Er, and how exactly is your "there's no substance behind their argument" argument any stronger?

  Which is made even weaker by the fact that most of these people do not even have relevant credentials.

  And what exactly are the "relevant credentials"?

  seOn Me on Hannity & Colmes posted 1 year, 10 months ago 22 Responses

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  Hmmmm...

  Except that they didn't really 'say' anything that was backed up by peer reviewed science.

  And that somehow inherently makes everything which was said false?

  kOn Me on Hannity & Colmes posted 1 year, 10 months ago 22 Responses

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  Logical Fallacies

  In a discussion of whether there's a scientific consensus, you are not allowed to appeal to the authority of science? What can that even mean?

  First, "scientific consensus" is a misnomer. What you have if you have anything at all isn't a scientific consensus but rather a consensus of scientists.

  Second, "authority of science" is also a misnomer. Science has no particular "authority." Science is simply a process; a methodology. The authority you appeal to isn't the authority of science, but rather the authority of scientists.

  The "appeal to authority" mentioned by Mr. Horner is one among a number of logical fallacies which ironically includes ad hominem. It's a logical fallacy because one's authority does not inherently make a thing true.

  Appeal to consensus or popularity is also among the logical fallacies.

  Moving on, you say on the Hannity & Colmes piece, "If you want to know what climate scientists think you should go ask climate scientists, not weathermen. They don't study climatology in meteorology school."

  I find it strange that you should be so dismissive of meteorologists when the IPCC itself was established (in part along with the UN Environmental Program) by the World Meteorological Organization.

  And if you bother to look, you'll find that those from various meteorological institutions figure quite prominently among the contributing authors as well as reviewers of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report.

  You'll also find physicists, geologists, biologists, etc.

  You essentially do what one of your fellow authors here did yesterday in his piece on the Inhofe list; pick a few from the list who may well be deserving of criticism, and use them to offhandedly dismiss everything else said by everyone else on the list.

  And finally, in the Hannity & Colmes piece, you say "A slight look at this list turns up some real gems. People with no relevant knowledge about the science."

  You then immediately follow this up with your coup de gras as to how closed the debate is by saying "Here's a statistic for you. In 2006 the new CEO of Exxon Mobil accepted the IPCC's conclusions..."

  So now let me get this straight. Because some of the people on the list of 400 have "no relevant knowledge about the science," we're to dismiss everything said by all 400 of them. yet because the CEO of Exxon Mobil accepted the IPCC's conclusions, we should unquestioningly accept them as Gospel?

  What sort of utter nonsense is that? Exactly what "relevant knowledge about the science" does the CEO of Exxon Mobil possess which the others you mention don't?

  I see now why you wouldn't want your children to watch it.

  kOn Me on Hannity & Colmes posted 1 year, 10 months ago 22 Responses