Did you know the word 'gullible' isn't in the dictionary?

Climate change skeptics fall for hoax paper

Posted by David Roberts at 4:00 PM on 09 Nov 2007

Read more about: climate | climate change skepticism

UPDATE: I have to put this up top, because it's so deliciously delightful. Turns out Rush Limbaugh fell for this scam, hook, line, and sinker. He bought it because he misunderstood a warning from notorious skeptic crank Roy Spencer -- he thought Spencer was calling climate change, not the paper, a hoax. Spencer subsequently apologized for, um, Limbaugh's stupidity and gullibility. Wow. I hardly know what to do with all this schadenfreude.

The world hardly needs any more proof that the remaining climate change "skeptics" (who among other things have ruined the perfectly respectable term "skeptic" for the rest of us) are ideologues who will believe anything that supports their position and disbelieve anything that refutes it. They keep offering us proof anyway.

Last week a paper was drifting around the tubes that allegedly showed that ocean bacteria, not humans, are responsible for most global warming. It was published in a heretofore never-heard-of online journal called Journal Of Geoclimatic Studies. It contained charts and graphs and other scientistical-type stuff, but what really gave the skeptics a stiffy was this passage toward the end:

But we recognise that in [overturning anthropogenic climate change] we lay our careers on the line. As we have found in seeking to broach this issue gently with colleagues, and in attempting to publish these findings in other peer-reviewed journals, the "consensus" on climate change is enforced not by fact but by fear. We have been warned, collectively and individually, that in bringing our findings to public attention we are not only likely to be deprived of all future sources of funding, but that we also jeopardise the funding of the departments for which we work.

We believe that academic intimidation of this kind contradicts the spirit of open enquiry in which scientific investigations should be conducted. We deplore the aggressive responses we encountered before our findings were published, and fear the reaction this paper might provoke. But dangerous as these findings are, we feel we have no choice but to publish.

Brave scientists battling the "consensus" cabal! This played perfectly to the fruitloop paranoia of the skeptics, so naturally they ate it up.

And naturally it's a complete hoax.

DeSmogBlog has a detailed account of who created the hoax and who fell for it. Amusing stuff.

Postscript: The founder of the Weather Channel, who's been a TV weatherman since 1952, says global warming is a scam. How does he -- without, you know, practicing science or having a degree in the relevant disciplines -- know this? He thought hard about it:

I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct.

You really can't make this stuff up.

For story: Did you know the word 'gullible' isn't in the dictionary?
10 Comments | Post a Comment

and about those FBI mind-control implants...

Regarding that rant from the Weather Channel guy, apparently CNN parrotted it on-air sometime this afternoon. To which Mark Hoofnagle responds: Ahhh, that is some fine crankery. I speak as a connoisseur... Why are we listening to this nonsense? CNN might as well broadcast an editorial from a man convinced the FBI put a chip in his brain... I think we've got to break out the tinfoil hats for this guy.

by tidal at 4:22 PM on 09 Nov 2007

Good one. (nt)

--- G. R. L. Cowan, boron internal combustion fan
How shall cars gain nuclear cachet?
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html

by GRLCowan at 5:33 PM on 09 Nov 2007

The dozens

Whole dozens of scientific papers. Wow. I'm somewhere north of 1,000 and feel that I just barely have an amateur grasp of many of the basics.

by Steve Bloom at 9:57 PM on 09 Nov 2007

See Steve

that is your problem, you've gone at least two orders of magnitude too far.

If you've only stopped at 10, you'd have much more certainly in life. (Well, of course, even better at one or even never doing any.) Then you could follow that sage advice, "Don't Worry, Be Happy".

Dave -- nice write-up. I'll add a link to it at mine (http://energysmart.wordpress.com/2007/11/10/pity-the-fool ... )

Blogging regularly at Energy Smart to Energize America .

by A Siegel at 4:40 AM on 10 Nov 2007
[ Parent ]

Colbert principle

This whole phenomena ought to be named for Colbert. Satirical hosery of the nut wing.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 6:56 AM on 10 Nov 2007

some took it well

This blogger had a sense of humor and appreciated the Hoax. It was an interesting read. The comments at the end seem so very true.

http://www.peerreviewflorida.com/fl/2007/11/the-death-of- ...

But Rush's failure was misreading a memo from someone who screens his stuff and the screener did think it was a hoax. Although it's funny to catch him on anything, he only misinterpreted a badly written note. ( as reported) funny, but not enough of an indictment, he's done much worse.

That meteorology claims to say 'it's all about the science,' then goes on and on about the politics. What he disagrees with about the science he won't say, he's to busy writing about the politics.

by trock at 8:05 AM on 10 Nov 2007

Better and more helpful hoax:

If only someone would convince people that Climate Change would bring about the extinction of NASCAR.

Heh heh.

Better yet, require every spectator of air shows and auto races to pay a "carbon offset fee" at the door. Throw in a "meat eaters tax" and we could properly fund the healing of Mother Earth.

NoPunProductions.com ~ AmericaTheGreen.org

by Greta at 11:09 AM on 11 Nov 2007

And from the other side....

I did see a biology paper once, wherein a graduate student at a top American University (nameless to protect the innocent) had after long and careful research determined that we are, indeed, descended from our ancestors....

(I wondered what the other possibilities were for quite some time...)

patrick in beijing

by bookerly at 5:06 AM on 12 Nov 2007

They fooled Rush!!

Of course, plenty of skeptics saw it as an obvious hoax.
Like this one.

by Reformed Republican at 11:58 AM on 12 Nov 2007

Fun, but not helpful

Of course it's entertaining to poke fun at naive / stupid global warming deniers.

But we have to realize that this kind of hoax plays into the hands of the strategic and intelligent global warming deniers - the ones who are getting paid a lot of money to create confusion. These are a far more effective crowd.

This crowd doesn't care if something is a hoax, or is even outed as a hoax. They only care that it gets published as widely as possible, because for some of the populace, IT WILL STICK NO MATTER WHETHER IT IS TRUE OR FALSE.

Those who have looked at Big Tobacco's tactics (and anyone who cares about global warming should do so) will know that they have - more than once - funded bogus "studies" that get reported in newspapers. Later these "studies" get de-bunked, and sometimes the journals and newspapers that reported on them even print a retraction. But very few notice the retraction. The bogus studies, in other words, worked. Just like a hoax.

So while we high-five and say "good one - we really confused those dummies", guess what the strategic global warming deniers are doing.

Yes, they are high-fiving and saying "good one, etc."

by DaveGreenAndRed at 10:16 AM on 26 Nov 2007

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