Fighting Misinformation with Facts
May. 30th, 2010 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
c9Global warming denial comes in many forms, and detailed resources are available to those willing to hear them:
But reading is different from hearing a dynamic, interesting talk. Al Gore convinced many, and exposed many more to important ideas and facts that led to more people learning about global warming. Pause here to consider that I used "Al Gore" and "dynamic, interesting talk" in the same paragraph.
Science doesn't have a monopoly on dynamic, interesting speakers. In fact, it kind of has a reputation for the opposite. Which means that a dynamic, interesting speaker like Christopher Monckton can quite easily sway an audience based on passion and conviction, even though he actually doesn't know what he's talking about. Want proof? Settle in, this slide show is 90 minutes but easily skimmed if you want to see just bits. Monckton claims researcher X claimed Y, so *actual* scientist fights back by actually asking researcher X if they meant claim Y. Looks like he has a tendency to mislead, misunderstand, outright lie, or simply make stuff up, in 100% of the cases. Sad.
See the slide show (with audio) here: http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/jpabraham/
- How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic: Responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming
- Skeptic Arguments and What the Science Says
- Climate change: How do we know? (NASA)
- Global Warming Denier Database
But reading is different from hearing a dynamic, interesting talk. Al Gore convinced many, and exposed many more to important ideas and facts that led to more people learning about global warming. Pause here to consider that I used "Al Gore" and "dynamic, interesting talk" in the same paragraph.
Science doesn't have a monopoly on dynamic, interesting speakers. In fact, it kind of has a reputation for the opposite. Which means that a dynamic, interesting speaker like Christopher Monckton can quite easily sway an audience based on passion and conviction, even though he actually doesn't know what he's talking about. Want proof? Settle in, this slide show is 90 minutes but easily skimmed if you want to see just bits. Monckton claims researcher X claimed Y, so *actual* scientist fights back by actually asking researcher X if they meant claim Y. Looks like he has a tendency to mislead, misunderstand, outright lie, or simply make stuff up, in 100% of the cases. Sad.
See the slide show (with audio) here: http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/jpabraham/
