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Friday, May 04, 2012

Name that logical fallacy!

By Megan Crepeau


This just in from the Heartland Institute: If you accept the conclusions of the overwhelming majority of climate experts and agree that the earth is warming, you are a mass murderer.

So, obviously, everyone should eat meat, because Hitler was a vegetarian. Nobody should go to church, because Timothy McVeigh was Catholic. Anyone want to give me money for those billboards?



Association fallacy, I think.
These types of arguments are the lowest form of debate - factless, illogical, aggressive and personal. I'm ashamed that they (the heartland institute) are headquartered in Chicago.

Charming. I wonder if Heartland's Bruno Behrend, who comments here, cares to defend this ridiculous campaign.

One of my personal maxims is that good ideas can gain acceptance without having a bunch of lies told about them. I have no idea if this billboard is technically true (did Heartland staffers interview the man recently?), but this campaign is just further support for the idea that global warming denialists are full of it.

Anyone have pictures of the actual billboard (with a recognizable background and/or GPS latitude/longitude for use with Google Maps?). And Heartland claims there are two others around Chicago somewhere - anyone know where?

The irony is, Ted Kaczynski never EVER said anything about global warming, climate change or CO2. Not only is this a logical fallacy, it is factually incorrect.

Rob Honeycutt. Thanks for the clarification. I had wondered about the claim on the billboard.

"Poisoning the well"

One of big media's favorites, also one of the most reliable arrows in any CoSers' quiver.

Near as I can tell, Ted Kaczynski still has air in his lungs, so maybe we should all stop breathing to show our rejection of all things Ted?

Perhaps our friends at the Heartland Institute want to go first.

"Guilt by association"

Love the headline, too. I had to check to make sure this wasn't a story from The Onion.

I guess this sort of desperation means they're worried we're going to stop listening to the small but loud group of climate change deniers?

From the Koch brothers, "no it wasn't us":

“Our giving to the Heartland Institute has been repeatedly misrepresented in recent stories by the media as reaching into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s unfortunate that those reporting on the matter did not seek the facts as they would have found the Charles Koch Foundation provided $25,000 to the Heartland Institute in 2011 for research in healthcare, not climate change, and this was the first and only donation the Foundation made to the institute in more than a decade. The Foundation has made no further commitments of funding to Heartland,” said Tonya Mullins, director of communications for the Foundation.

--First of all, it's a terrible argument, that just because Mr. X does Y and Z and Y is bad, so therefore Z is bad. This billboard will change zero minds. Somewhere the person who sold this billboard to Heartland is laughing all the way to the bank, because it is a complete waste of money.

However, I think it's unfair to say that anyone who questions global warming is a kook. Or at least someone who does not accept the most radical theories and predictions, like in 50 years we are all going to suffocate because there won't be enough oxygen (a professor at my school actually said this). And let's be honest, most of us are not living in a house powered by solar and wind energy and are not driving electric cars and even fly on planes that pollute the air, so while we might believe global warming in theory, we;re not really making any drastic steps in our lives because of it.

Tom Blackford, I believe it is completely fair to say that anyone who questions global warming NOW, after all the decades of research have combined to say it is true, is a kook.

Just like it is completely fair to say that anyone who questions the earth being "not flat" is a kook. Or someone who says the Holocaust did not happen is a kook. Or someone who says they have ESP is a kook. Or someone who says that homeopathy works is a kook. Or someone who says that evolution is untrue is a kook.

Speak for yourself about your lack of making any drastic steps in your life because of believing in global warming.

when I was a kid I swear I recall commercials talking about Global Cooling in the 70s.

I think -- let's call them Global Climate Issues -- are like the Y2K problem. You have to amplify them somewhat to get people's attention or else everyone thinks "yeah that's true but we can fix that in the future when we all have jetpacks."

Xuuths- so if they don't agree with all the things that you believe, they are a kook? You are the official judge of whether something is the absolute truth, then?

Yes, Icarus, yes... I remember that too and others from the 1970's and 1980's... And the world will be overpopulated and everyone will starve to death. Pluto is a planet, nope now the scientist think its too small. Red wine causes cancer, no it's good for you, oh unless you are prone to alcoholism. The Great Lakes will be so pollutted that nothing can be comsumed from them.

I am not saying that we shouldn't endeavor to conserve, reuse, recycle, etc. That's a good idea no matter what. Try to see this in the bigger picture of often all the facts are not in or available to the scientists.

Scientists don't know everything, so let's never listen to anything they say.

Right on, Pan. Also, dimly-remembered commercials from 40 years ago are science.

@ Tom Blackford & MOPerina -- I understand that there are two arguments, one that the earth is getting warmer, resulting in climate change, and another that human actions are the cause of that warming/climate change.

My understanding is that no credible scientist disagrees that the earth is getting warmer. The data there is so consistent, so overwhelming, and from so many varied sources and techniques that disagreeing with "global warming" does place one in the kook/flat earth/holocaust denier realm.

Where there is any dispute is whether human activity causes this, or whether is is cyclical/natural/unavoidable. Even here, most scientists agree that human activity does contribute to warming.

So the Heartland Institute ads fail both because of their own internal inconsistencies but also because they are aimed at a target that no credible person really disagrees with.

It's only in the political dialogue, where "global warming" is shorthand for "human causation," that it makes any sense at all, and even there, it doesn't hold up. And these ads make far more sense in the political context than in the scientific one, staking out an extreme position so that reasonable people have to revisit a topic that science has long ago settled.

A friend of mine once asked me if I thought all smokers were stupid. I told him that I thought anyone who blatantly ignored the decades of scientific research and proceeded to willingly put crap into their body that the Surgeon-General says will kill them, is, on some level, stupid. I also know that when I go to Red Robin and order a Whiskey River BBQ Burger complete with fried onion straws, mayo, and a side of bottomless steak fries, that is also stupid.

At some point we need to accept that there is enough scientific evidence to support the theory that the human population of the world is having a negative effect on weather conditions, air quality, and wildlife population. Perhaps the overall impact is up for debate, but I think that denying that there is an impact at all is... stupid.

Here's a well-taken example of a fallacy the left has never made.

This billboard is awful, but I think Megan's post overstates her case slightly (and unnecessarily). The argument the billboard is making is not, "If you accept the conclusions of the overwhelming majority of climate experts and agree that the earth is warming, you *are* a mass murderer." Rather, it's, "you *agree with* a mass murderer," or, "you *think like* a mass murderer," or, by implication, "you *are no better than* a mass murderer." Those are awful, counterproductive things to say, but they're a lot different than, "you *are* a mass murderer." Again, this is not to defend the billboard - the billboard is terrible - but rather to say that there's no need to overstate the case.

All right, Xuuths, I'll bite: what exactly are you personally doing in response to global warming (besides recycling; almost everyone does that) ?

My point was that even though the existence of climate change might be real and agreed upon, there is no clear consensus as to the degree of climate change and even less consensus about what to do about it. I have a hard time believing that switching to windfarming will have any effect on the melting of the polar ice caps...

I never said that I didn't agree that the earth is getting warmer! I didn't say that scientists are wrong because not everything is 100% sure. Have an open mind, people, about science, continue to question and don't think that once a consensus is established that things WILL never change. That's why I mentioned the stuff from the 70's and the 80's and believe me, the scientists were SURE they were right then too. I also said that it's a good idea to do recommended things that go along with human causation of climate change regardless if it's humans that cause it.

So, insinuating that I am kook and stupid is just plain insulting. Like I said, Pluto was FOR SURE a planet but upon further review, it's too small to be one. All I am saying is keeping collecting data, keep using the most up to date technology and keep an open mind. I don't think they will find the earth is NOT warming, but there are related questions too that are not as sure. Can/will the earth self-correct, for example, to just barely touch on that... Why is that kooky or stupid?

Yes, I believe the holocaust happened- a cousin of mine was killed at Auschwitz, and that has NOTHING to do with science anyway.

I think the billboard is awful too.

Train, I think that's a fair assessment, except for your last part about the science being settled. There's really no such thing as settled science; there are always questions. No such thing as consensus in science either. Science isn't conducted by consensus, but by the often messy process of theories being advanced, others trying to duplicate it, others critiquing it. Scientists don't just take a vote and go with the majority. The dissenters serve a valuable role in making sure that the believers get it right. Come to think of it, it's that way in politics too.

As to the billboard, I can't conceive of a worse way for those on the right side of the anthropogenic global warming debate to try to get their message across.

--Although, MOPerina, you might talk to the people of the Marianas, an island group of which part is disappearing, and there is an island near them who is negotiating to buy part of one of the Marianas which is not as close to sea-level so will be safe to move to, and the Inuits in Alaska who have to move farther inland because their land is also disappearing, along with the polar bears & other animals they depend on for their existance. Also, I read that most of the hottest years globally have been in the last 15 years. Scientists have warned that we can be expecting more & more severe weather globally as ocean currents that drive the weather are becoming more erratic & have been "re-routed" by the polar ice melting. It is true that whether (or how much) man is involved is in dispute, but there certainly is agreement about the fact that the earth is warming.

Although, LizH. I just recently saw a copy of the Nome Nugget ("Alaska's Oldest Daily Newspaper") in which the front-page article said that this past winter was Alaska's second coldest on record, and January 2012 was the coldest January they ever had. I doubt that much ice melted up there this year!

I give up on explaining that I do believe that the earth is warming.

Ok, I'll just believe blindly in whatever Al Gore tells me to believe. I have no brain of my own. I just follow whatever the government says this week is the big issue because I am not allowed to ask questions. I just have to believe 100% of what they say because they say it and oh my gosh, as of today it's a consensus! Sounds like it's a dictatorship to me and any dissention or questions result in a stay in the mental hospital because I'm a kook. Are you listening to yourselves?

Here's an angle I haven't seen considered: couldn't the Heartland Institute have picked a better poster-child than a guy who got into Harvard when he was 16, and got a Ph.D. in math from Michigan?

The Unabomber was obviously mentally ill, but I don't think anyone could ever accuse him of being stupid, at least in the academic/scientific sense. In fact, I'd trust his opinion on matters of science and chemistry over the special brand of idiot who is apparently the target market of the billboard.

Interesting thing about natural events, they'll progress or change whether you believe in them or not. Science is always playing catch-up, why theories are always in flux. But, to hide your head in the sand and deny any and all proof to something you don't want to believe in may not brand you a "kook", it will brand you as woefully stubborn at maintaining a level of ignorance that you believe makes your case.

MOPerina, you came full circle and ended up making the same fallacy this billboard made. You're poisoning the well by claiming that belief in climate change should be based on a politician (whom I assume you dislike) instead of the actual work of climate scientists.

Feel free to bring up politicians when talking about the economics of reducing carbon emissions, but don't do it regarding the science. It's wrong and insulting to the people that actually did the research.

Wow, I don't know anything about these Heartland people, but they sure know how to get under your thin alarmist skin that's for sure. Perhaps they aren't as loony as you people prey they are.


klem, your post would have been more accurate if you stopped at the fifth word.

Good comeback there Pan, you must be back on your medication. Good for you.

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