Monday, July 27, 2009

Mark Steyn--Science Or Stupid?

Mark Steyn, whose most famous scientific pronouncement (thus far!) has been that the world is "pretty much the world the Psalmist outlined in the Old Testament thousands of years ago", once more hurls rhetoric at the gates of Reason. Once again, climate change is the issue:

Then from 1940 to 1970 there was a slight cooling trend. In its wake, Lowell Ponte (who I believe is an expert climatologist and, therefore, should have been heeded) wrote his bestseller, The Cooling: Has the new ice age already begun? Can we survive?

No. Lowell Ponte is not and has never been an "expert climatologist". He has edited Reader’s Digest Magazine, worked in talk radio, and ran a PR firm. But that's not the same thing.

And so it is not at all surprising that, generally speaking, he was ignored by the scientific community at the time, the 1970s global cooling consensus that you may have heard about being largely mythical.

Go back to Muslim bashing, Mr. Steyn. Play to your strengths.

6 comments:

Ti-Guy said...

Judging from Steyn's last column in MacLean's, which wasn't too bad, I'd say Steyn's strengths are writing about psycho-sexual dramas involving latent homosexuals.

For obvious reasons, of course.

Mike said...

Ironic that the guy who wrongly proclaims global cooling is a hero of the denialist movement while falsely proclaiming a widespread belief in that same man's ideas as a reason not to accept AGW.

Its brilliant how one person can be on both sides of the issue as at the same time and used by the denialists like that without even a hint of cognitive dissonance.

Prove they are insane.

John Cross said...

A bit off topic, but I see that the UAH is still in record territory. By the way, I loved Pielke's response to you:

Thanks for alerting me to your weblog. I contacted them [UAH], and they reported there is a drift in the part of the diurnal cycle that the AMSU sensor samples.

So when the skeptic side applies corrections, they are necessary. When the scientists apply a correction to the GISS, that is of course because they are fudging the data.

John

Ti-Guy said...

Ironic that the guy who wrongly proclaims global cooling is a hero of the denialist movement while falsely proclaiming a widespread belief in that same man's ideas as a reason not to accept AGW....

Whaa..?

Don't try to explain Mark Steyn, Mike. The resulting intellectual discombulation is bewildering.

My usual explanation is this: Mark Steyn, like Ann Coulter, doesn't believe himself what he writes. He's just providing a product that appeals to incredibly stupid and gullible people.

Mike said...

No the whole "they predicted global cooling last time" myth. Then turn around an use the same scientist who supported that as evidence that the consensus on AGW isn't a, well, consensus.

Steyn is a an effete idiot. And he is merely repeating the myth.

bigcitylib said...

The late Reid Bryson, Mike means.