Skeptic Project

I'm fairly certain Muertos would agree with me, seeing as how he dislikes GW Deniers so much. That episode is an embarrassment. Its essentially exactly like conspiracy theorist quality when P&T report on the science of Global Warming.

Oh I'm sorry I assumed you weren't a denialist. OOPS

I didn't say I was a denialist. I said I don't completely agree with him. I agree with him on certain points and not on others.

Typical Ed strawman. You're so fucking predictable.

Clearly no one is intelligent enough to understand Ed's posts. Its everyone else's fault they can't grasp your awesome wisdom.

Good old predictable SpEd.

You're a beacon of light in a dark, dark world SpEd.

is this you ed?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8dAz6hTXuU

The problem with folks like Ed is that either you're completely on board with humans causing climate change or you're a denialist. They leave absolutely no room for gray areas. You claim you were just trolling, but essentially you're saying the same thing about P&T that you did about me.

Last I checked, P&T don't post here. So spare me the shit about how you're "trolling." You were wrong about my stance on climate change just like you're wrong about P&T's stance on climate change.

Really? You spoke with P&T and asked them their opinions on climate change? That's pretty awesome, how did you become so close to them?

Ed, my posts havent even been long and you are still missing my point!!!

Watch this... or at least watch the last few minutes of Part 3

PART 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DX3lZ8peBU /> PART 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ELJt0vUBi4 /> PART3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz8F6v5NB8I

Ed, my posts havent even been long and you are still missing my point!!!

Excuse me are you just repeating my own posts back to me now?

I told you to respond to my points and you have ignored all of them.

I HAVE seen the show, so I'm not sure what you think I am missing in it. P&T made all the same claims GW denialists do in most cases the exactly the same ways they make them.

They promoted falsehoods, lies, myths, fake experts. They had a good point in there but instead decided to promote the claims of those that want to obfuscate the science of Global Warming and used the real issues to make their lies sound more reasonable. Using ignorant hippies instead of top climate scientists and then making fun of them when they don't know anything about the subject. That's pretty damn low, even for a typical conspiracy theorist.

We would not give anyone else a free pass, why should P&T be? They, as skeptics that are usually quite good, should have even more of a responsibility to be right especially with a show called "bullshit" which so ironically in this episode came shockingly close to the journalistic and scientific integrity of Jesse Ventura's Conspiracy Theory, which if you're seen it will know how dreadful that is.

P&T's stance on what causes climate change is they don't know

Which is false, they are even saying they don't know if global warming is happening. Thats like GW denialist version of a Young Earth Creationist. Imagine someone saying they don't know if that's true or not. The bottom line is they made specific claims and spread falsehoods, lies, myths and used fake experts. Terrible show.

Uh, I just posted an Op-Ed piece written by Penn himself. Confirmation bias much SpEd?

Or maybe you just can't read. Either seems likely.

You seem to enjoy ignoring the very information you requested.

Do you have a learning disability or something? I'm asking srsly.

oreolvrs, carbon credits & trading ARE a scam

Oh dear Matt, once again you post something - quotemine it - and not understand what it is you're reading. Lets have a look...

The next day, I heard that one of the non-famous, non-groovy, non-scientist speakers had used me as an example of someone who let his emotions make him believe things that are wrong. OK. People who aren't used to public speaking get excited and go off half-cocked. I'm used to public speaking and I go off half-cocked. I live half-cocked. Cut her some slack.

Later, I was asked about a Newsweek blog she wrote. Reading it bugged me more than hearing about it. She ends with: "But here was Penn, a great friend to the skeptic community, basically saying, 'Don't bother me with scientific evidence, I'm going to make up my mind about global warming based on my disdain for Al Gore.' ... Which just goes to show, not even the most hard-nosed empiricists and skeptics are immune from the power of emotion to make us believe stupid things."

Is there no ignorance allowed on this one subject? I took my children to see the film "Wall-E." This wonderful family entertainment opens with the given that mankind destroyed Earth. You can't turn on the TV without seeing someone hating ourselves for what we've done to the planet and preaching the end of the world. Maybe they're right, but is there no room for "maybe"? There's a lot of evidence, but global warming encompasses a lot of complicated points: Is it happening? Did we cause it? Is it bad? Can we fix it? Is government-forced conservation the only way to fix it?

See the problem? Of course you don't.

He started off complaining about a scientist saying that Penn is a great example of not even the most hard-nosed empiricists and skeptics being immune from the power of emotion to make us believe stupid things in regards to Global Warming.

See the problem I have with Penn on this issue is that he decided to take his MASSIVE ignorance, apparently he admits to, and makes a TV program about it which is usually about exposing "bullshit" and acts like he does with lies, misrepresentation and fake experts.

He says even in the July 2008 article which was 4-5 YEARS after they made the program, that his questions are still... "Is it happening? Did we cause it? Is it bad?". Seriously Penn? Is GW happening? He still doesn't know?

No one but the most crazy insane people claim that Global Warming isn't happening at all, but of course Penn says he "doesn't know". Penn asks us in that article whats wrong with saying you "don't know". Nothing Penn! There's no problem saying you don't know, that is admirable. There's plenty of things I don't understand like Astrophysics and Quantum Theory, but you don't then go onto a popular TV show and act like you do.

When Penn says on the show and in that other "blog" style video posted earlier (posted only a month or two before this article was written) that he "doesn't know" it doesn't come across as someone who literally is ignorant about the issue and not worth getting any knowledge from. Instead when he says there's not enough information to know if Global Warming is happening, if its man made, if its bad etc. it looks more like he actually IS knowledgeable and that SCIENTIFICALLY we need more data. See, one is about personal knowledge of Penn whereas the other is the knowledge of the best climate science around today.

To be fair (and it's always important to be fair when one is being mean-spirited, sanctimonious and self-righteous), "I don't know" can be a very bad answer when it is disingenuous. You can't answer "I don't know if that happened" about the Holocaust.

But it is Penn! The same kind of "bullshit" dishonesty and twisting of facts used to support Holocaust denialism is right there in his episode on Bullshit.

I'm trying to learn what I can, and while I'm working on it, isn't it OK to say "I don't know"?

In the end, if you're going to make a show on Global Warming and point out what is "bullshit" about it, you better make damn sure you you're right about it or you're going to be embarrassed when your skeptic and scientist friends you associate with (who he is referring to in this article) complain about how misleading it is.

If you don't know, don't act like you know, very simple. There's no use looking for sympathy now, we wouldn't give Peter Joseph a free pass on the lies in Zeitgeist: The Movie if he had said that he "didn't know" afterwards. He should make another episode and feature actual experts that debunk the nonsense in his previous episode. Will he? After 5 years and he still doesn't know if GW is even happening, I doubt it. But for some reason he was willing to trust denialists to tell him it might not be.