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Episode #6 Listener Feedback and Climate Change denial - Secular Ethos
Feedback from episode #1:
I have gotten some feedback from my first episode, where people have noted that I made an assertion about Trump supporters that I did not cite sources for. The assertion that I made was that there is a disconnect from what liberals see as corruption and what the right wingers call corruption. The liberals often see the billionaires buying politicians as corruption and the right wingers see unions supporting politicians as corruption.
The feedback I am getting is that I provided no support for that argument. First I want to say that I did not see a need to. I made the assumption that if you follow politics this would be obvious. Well, I guess that assumption was incorrect. I got this from multiple places, but the first and most important is the anecdotal evidence ( which I know is not good evidence ) However, the point is that I myself come from a very conservative background. I would sit and listen to my family constantly talk about how all the liberal are in the pocket of the unions and how they were so corrupt and needed to be replaced. I believed this way for years.
In fact, for nearly 2 decades I was a right wing conspiracy nut. I have recently ( in the past several years) been training myself in skepticism, and looking at the world much differently than I did in the past. In the past I believed most all of the right wing type conspiracies about the left, and even some of the more crazy ones. I was a 911 truther, I was climate change denier, I was a old earth denier. I believed that intelligent design had some truth to it. I believed in ghosts, demons, and even believed that humans could tap into their power to cast spells.
The things I believed were kinda crazy. Yet, through the help of a good friend and being completely embarrassed by a couple of the biggest morons where I worked, I took a deep dive into youtube atheists like Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris. I was able to critically evaluate my beliefs, and much more than the god belief fell away.
The march for science was on Saturday, and it brought out not only those that advocate for science but also all of the deniers came out on social media and comment threads. A common complaint was this so called agenda driven fear mongering of the advocates of stopping climate change.
Even with all of the data we have supporting climate change, the deniers take their anomaly hunting into overdrive. They also seem to be more reactionary to misleading headlines.
This article from the Washington Times is worth discussing here.
Washingtimes Headline:
“Climate change whistleblower alleges NOAA manipulated data to hide global warming ‘pause”
Briefly what this article talks about is this alleged manipulation of climate data. The data are said to show a pause in the global temperature rise in the 2000’s . Now let’s put aside whether or not this is true, and focus what that data would change in the overall view of climate change. The independently verified data that is already known shows that the average rate of temperature(climate not weather) is on the rise. A single data point showing no rise or fall does not change that overall rate. There would have to be a pause or decline over a significantly large period of time to alter that average.
There were many articles citing theses claims on other websites, and they all center around this same guys claim offering no new analysis.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/5/climate-change-whistleblower-alleges-noaa-manipula
A deeper analysis of this can be found on Snopes:
They go much more in depth into the claims of the alleged data manipulation.
View all episodes
By Secular EthosFeedback from episode #1:
I have gotten some feedback from my first episode, where people have noted that I made an assertion about Trump supporters that I did not cite sources for. The assertion that I made was that there is a disconnect from what liberals see as corruption and what the right wingers call corruption. The liberals often see the billionaires buying politicians as corruption and the right wingers see unions supporting politicians as corruption.
The feedback I am getting is that I provided no support for that argument. First I want to say that I did not see a need to. I made the assumption that if you follow politics this would be obvious. Well, I guess that assumption was incorrect. I got this from multiple places, but the first and most important is the anecdotal evidence ( which I know is not good evidence ) However, the point is that I myself come from a very conservative background. I would sit and listen to my family constantly talk about how all the liberal are in the pocket of the unions and how they were so corrupt and needed to be replaced. I believed this way for years.
In fact, for nearly 2 decades I was a right wing conspiracy nut. I have recently ( in the past several years) been training myself in skepticism, and looking at the world much differently than I did in the past. In the past I believed most all of the right wing type conspiracies about the left, and even some of the more crazy ones. I was a 911 truther, I was climate change denier, I was a old earth denier. I believed that intelligent design had some truth to it. I believed in ghosts, demons, and even believed that humans could tap into their power to cast spells.
The things I believed were kinda crazy. Yet, through the help of a good friend and being completely embarrassed by a couple of the biggest morons where I worked, I took a deep dive into youtube atheists like Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris. I was able to critically evaluate my beliefs, and much more than the god belief fell away.
The march for science was on Saturday, and it brought out not only those that advocate for science but also all of the deniers came out on social media and comment threads. A common complaint was this so called agenda driven fear mongering of the advocates of stopping climate change.
Even with all of the data we have supporting climate change, the deniers take their anomaly hunting into overdrive. They also seem to be more reactionary to misleading headlines.
This article from the Washington Times is worth discussing here.
Washingtimes Headline:
“Climate change whistleblower alleges NOAA manipulated data to hide global warming ‘pause”
Briefly what this article talks about is this alleged manipulation of climate data. The data are said to show a pause in the global temperature rise in the 2000’s . Now let’s put aside whether or not this is true, and focus what that data would change in the overall view of climate change. The independently verified data that is already known shows that the average rate of temperature(climate not weather) is on the rise. A single data point showing no rise or fall does not change that overall rate. There would have to be a pause or decline over a significantly large period of time to alter that average.
There were many articles citing theses claims on other websites, and they all center around this same guys claim offering no new analysis.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/5/climate-change-whistleblower-alleges-noaa-manipula
A deeper analysis of this can be found on Snopes:
They go much more in depth into the claims of the alleged data manipulation.