Christian Climate Scientist Sets the Record Straight

[Guest]

Gunnar re: your comments regarding science and government. Our President has the ability to access any top notch scientist in the nation that he wishes to consult with. It's obvious that this one doesn't care.

Yes, I know! Shameful insn't it? All he cares about is whatever he thinks will further enrich or empower him personally, and to hell with anything else. Trump incessently boasts of his intelligence and that he was a very good student. This opinion is not shared by his professors.

Trump’s Own College Professor Confirms That He’s Been A Moron For Most Of His Life.

Trump’s former college professor is quoted as having called the now President, the dumbest student that he ever had. The professor added that Trump came to Wharton thinking that he already knew everything, which means that even before his mind started to go, Donald Trump was a moron.

In a diary published on Daily Kos late professor William T. Kelley was quoted as saying about Trump:

Professor Kelley told me 100 times over three decades that “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had.” I remember his emphasis and inflection — it went like this — “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had.” Dr. Kelley told me this after Trump had become a celebrity but long before he was considered a political figure. Dr. Kelley often referred to Trump’s arrogance when he told of this — that Trump came to Wharton thinking he already knew everything.

The post came in response to Trump challenging Rex Tillerson to an IQ test, but the broader point is that as admits that Trump has mentally “lost a step,” the President was never that mentally fast, to begin with. Trump is not smart. Everyone knows this who isn’t named Donald Trump. The same man who claimed that he knew more than the generals during the presidential campaign, and boasted that peace in the Middle East would be easy, and that healthcare was a simple fix has been carrying around this false attitude of intellectual superiority for decades.

The same man who once demanded Obama’s college transcripts is an idiot, but what is damning about Trump’s stupidity is that there is no evidence that he cannot learn. Donald Trump is shutting out opportunities to gain knowledge because he thinks he already knows everything.

When the arrogance is added to Trump’s emotional instability, the combination is not just dumb. It represents a danger to the country.

See also https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/former-wharton-professor-trump-was-dumbest-gddam-student-i-ever-had

and https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2017/10/12/1705902/-Former-Wharton-Professor-Donald-Trump-Is-the-Dumbest-Goddam-Student-I-Ever-Had

This is the real danger and the most frustrating part of Donald Trump. According to his college professors, it is not that he is actually intrinsically stupid and incapable of learning. It is that he refuses to acknowledge that he has any need to learn anything beyond what he thinks he already knows.

ETA: It reminds of the lyrics to Tevye's song I Wish I Were a Rich Man in Fiddler on the Roof: "And it won't make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong.
When you're rich, they think you really know." This epitomizes Trump's attitude: because he's rich, he thinks he really knows!

[_Gunnar]

That's outrageous! Rick Santorum has no credibility at all when it comes to anything scientific. I wish some of the other networks would give her fair hearing. I also wish there were some way to make scientific literacy an unwaverable prerequisite for anyone aspiring to be a journalist or government official or politician. No one should be eligible for any kind of academic degree without a basic knowledge of science and how it is supposed to work. I think that is every bit as important as knowing how to read and write and construct grammatically correct and coherent sentences.

It gets better. Rick Santorum hasn't been a US Senator for a long time. When he was, he was known for being one of the biggest friends in Congress to pseudo-scientific movements, especially intelligent design. He's been a handsomely paid lobbyist for things like oil interests. He used his time on CNN to argue that scientists who share warnings about climate change are doing it for the money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCjcrnFYI0M

Rick Santorum has zero scientific credibility. He went on the news specifically to misinform the public, and he did so as a replacement for a well-respected scientist with expertise in this subject and good public communication skills. This is because CNN feels the need to cover climate change as a "both sides" political dispute like it is a sports debate show. This is how pervasive right-wing bias seeps into mainstream media sources.

Yes, I have long been aware of Santorum's willful scientific ignorance and anti-science attitude. It is particularly galling that he insists on repeating the lie that climate scientists' jobs and income somehow depends on concluding that AGW must be true and problematic, even if it isn't. Their scientific efforts would not be any less valuable, essential or interesting or less worthy of funding if the evidence led them to honestly conclude the opposite. Their task is to learn all they can about how the world's climate system actually works, regardless of what is or is not true about global warming.

[_EAllusion]

The EPA - the EPA - has issued a press release on this climate report by citing the Daily Caller:

https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/fact-c ... assessment

There's a humorous subtext to this that you wouldn't know unless you understand the report. This EPA press release blasts the climate report by looking at a worse case scenario at the direction of the Obama admin. This EPA press release tries to make hay out of the fact that the Obama admin directed the report authors to look at the worst case scenario to dubiously imply that the report itself is misleading by having unwarranted focus on worst possible outcomes, but the report looks at a range of scenarios and merely was expected to examine a range of outcomes like you'd expect from such an assessment. But do you know what it considers to be the worst case scenario? Staying the course on carbon emissions as is the Trump admin's official policy positioning dictates. Its "worst case scenario" - the one that augurs global catastrophe at a dystopian level - is doing what the Trump admin prefers.

[_moksha]

Not even subs could defend this kind of crazy crap, and he voted for the moron.

Challenge accepted, in 5...4...3...2...1...

What kind of what is the betting line on Subgenius?

[_DarkHelmet]

Yes, I have long been aware of Santorum's willful scientific ignorance and anti-science attitude. It is particularly galling that he insists on repeating the lie that climate scientists' jobs and income somehow depends on concluding that AGW must be true and problematic, even if it isn't.

It's simple projection. Since Santorum's income depends on him denying AGW, he assumes scientists are motivated by the same thing he is.

[_EAllusion]

Yes, I have long been aware of Santorum's willful scientific ignorance and anti-science attitude. It is particularly galling that he insists on repeating the lie that climate scientists' jobs and income somehow depends on concluding that AGW must be true and problematic, even if it isn't.

It's simple projection. Since Santorum's income depends on him denying AGW, he assumes scientists are motivated by the same thing he is.

If only. Rather, this is a disinformation strategy petrochemical lobbyists and those associated with them use when given a platform in the media. Santorum isn't coming up with this on his own. It's a coordinated messaging effort that he either has bought into or simply says cynically. Personal projection would be less dark.

If you paid attention to how critics of the report addressed it when given media spots, which they were given plenty of, they invariably hit the pecuniary motive line. It was a talking point. I'd be surprised if it wasn't focus group tested.

[_subgenius]

What kind of what is the betting line on Subgenius?

place your bets

[_subgenius]

For what it is worth, here is Donald Trump explaining his views on the report:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... 2e60a75521



This is indistinguishable from the senile ravings of someone who only watches Fox News. It's easy to get lost in the stream of consciousness, semi-coherent attempts at denialism, but even the syntax of his sentences is utterly broken.

Are you stating that you are unable to discern any of Trump's positions as presented here?
or here? (from the image posted but its continuation):
DAWSEY: So you’re saying you don’t see the —

Trump: Josh, you go to other places where they have denser trees — it’s more dense, where the trees are more flammable — they don’t have forest fires like this, because they maintain. And it was very interesting, I was watching the firemen, and they’re raking brush — you know the tumbleweed and brush, and all this stuff that’s growing underneath. It’s on fire, and they’re raking it, working so hard, and they’re raking all this stuff. If that was raked in the beginning, there’d be nothing to catch on fire. It’s very interesting to see. A lot of the trees, they took tremendous burn at the bottom, but they didn’t catch on fire. The bottom is all burned but they didn’t catch on fire because they sucked the water, they’re wet. You need forest management, and they don’t have it.

There is a logical fallacy called: the fallacy fallacy, whereas just because a claim is poorly argued does not equal the claim itself being wrong. So, while the "raking the forest" is fuel for the snark fire du jour, the claim for poor forest management is still true....and just because foreign garbage washes up on our shores does not mean that one shouldn't be skeptical of the extent for which mankind influences the global climate (personally I influence local climate change with a thermostat timer, heat-pump, and air-conditioner).

[_EAllusion]

Are you stating that you are unable to discern any of Trump's positions as presented here?

No, I am saying that he jumps from one thought to the next with only tenuous connection to the question he was asked, the arguments he alludes to are very poorly thought out, and his sentence structure and phrasing choices are exquisitely poor and reminiscent of dementia. It's bad arguments expressed poorly to a degree that even if he was a person of no importance whatsoever, I'd feel a mixture of pity and worry towards him. Add in that he actually has tremendous power and pity and worry doesn't seem sufficient.

There is a logical fallacy called: the fallacy fallacy, whereas just because a claim is poorly argued does not equal the claim itself being wrong. So, while the "raking the forest" is fuel for the snark fire du jour, the claim for poor forest management is still true....and just because foreign garbage washes up on our shores does not mean that one shouldn't be skeptical of the extent for which mankind influences the global climate (personally I influence local climate change with a thermostat timer, heat-pump, and air-conditioner).

[/quote]

First, let's try to trace the line of reasoning here, as "raking the forest" has virtually nothing to do with the conclusions of the climate report that he is attempting to justify his disagreement with. It likely goes something like:

People are saying those wildfires are the result of global warming. The climate report says that global warming is happening, is causing bad things, and is going to cause really bad things in the future. But actually, the real cause of the wildfire problem is poor forest management. So, that shows you those global warming folks don't know what they're talking about.

Is that it? It sure seems like it. What fallacy do you think would describe this reasoning Sub?

[_canpakes]

Is that it? It sure seems like it. What fallacy do you think would describe this reasoning Sub?

Considering that Trump is making shite up as he goes with this comment, both he and subs are committing the newly minted Fallacy Fallacy Fallacy (‘F3’ for short), which - simply put - means that attempting to justify a bad argument by claiming that invented bullshite somehow validates a claim is both disingenuous and fallacious in and of itself. ; )


https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source= ... 1029030929