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"There's also quite a bit of ad-hominem character assassination going on, even in this piece. I find that folks who have to result to labeling and name-calling
by nfnaaron 17y ago
"There's also quite a bit of ad-hominem character assassination going on, even in this piece. I find that folks who have to result to labeling and name-calling usually are insecure about their position."
Yes, the amount of derision, even targeting scientists who merely hold an opposing interpretation of the data, is troubling.
- gjm11 17y agoMany biologists, palaeontologists, etc., apply "labeling and name-calling" to creationists; the person whose blog the original article here is posted on (not, as it happens, the author of the article itself) is a good example. I do not find it plausible that the reason for this is that those biologists are "insecure about their position". So another explanation for the ad hominems remarked on here would seem to be: many climate scientists think that denying AGW is about as sensible as denying evolution. For what it's worth, this seems to me a more likely explanation than that they're "insecure about their position". Incidentally, there's not exactly been a shortage of ad hominem attacks going the other way. My impression, of which I'm not particularly confident, is that the density of personal attacks on opponents is higher in the output of AGW disbelievers than in that of AGW believers.