Your first paragraph amounts to an argument (or reduces to an argument) that “Everyone is doing it”. So, it is OK to use the N-Word because all your friends in the KKK use it? Is it OK to use ANY insulting degrading term “because all your friends” use it? Really?
Ignorance of where a term came from, or what it’s propaganda purpose was and is, is not an excuse. It is even a worse excuse in what is supposed to be a peer reviewed or carefully objective broad science context. Is it acceptable to just plead ignorance of, say, Einstein and Relativity in a paper on physics? Just say “Oops, didn’t know that, but I’m going to keep on ignoring it anyway.”? In ANY paper on the sociology of “Denier” one would reasonably expect the very first step to be looking at where the term originated, from whom, for what purpose and to what effect.
So here’s one free clue for you: I, like others, will now use the term “Denier” from time to time for ourselves. This is EXACTLY like blacks using the N-Word with each other to blunt the effect of it. Someone outside the group uses it, it is a red flag of bigotry. Similar to an Italian calling himself a “Wop” or any of a dozen other bad terms being used inside or outside the insulted group. So WHEN you use the term Denier, and you are not a Skeptic, you are waving a large “I Am A Bigot” flag. Got it?
Keep using it, and you are saying “I am HAPPY to be waving a large I Am A Bigot flag”…
Saying “All my friends us it” is saying “I’m Happy that all my friends are waving large I Am A Bigot flags”.
Just ask yourself “When is the N-Word” acceptable and you will have a decent guide to the proper usage and context of the term, and an accessible touchstone for the sociology of the term.
Indeed. As a reminder, here’s what I deny:
I deny that science is a compendium of knowledge to be ladled out to school children like government-approved pablum (and particularly malnutritious pablum), rather than a systematic method of attaining such knowledge.
I deny that skepticism about anthropogenic climate change is epistemologically equivalent to skepticism about evolution, and I resent the implications that if one is skeptical about the former, one must be similarly skeptical about the latter, and “anti-science.”
As someone who has done complex modeling and computer coding myself, I deny that we understand the complex and chaotic interactions of the atmosphere, oceans and solar and other inputs sufficiently to model them with any confidence into the future, and I deny that it is unreasonable and unscientific to think that those who believe they do have such understanding suffer from hubris. To paraphrase Carl Sagan, extraordinary policy prescriptions require extraordinary evidence.
I continue and am proud to be a “denier.”
[Update late morning]
You really should read the whole thing, if you haven’t. This is just a small excerpt from a massive take-down of the warm-monger crowd by an econometrist (and modeler).
I continue and am proud to be a “denier.”
Hope that continues to work out well for you.
I’ll be interested to see how bad things get before you change your mind.
Maybe he will change his mind during the AGW apocalypse that alarmists keep predicting is just around the corner never shows up.
I’ll be interested to see how bad things get before you change your mind.
You’re putting the cart before the horse. We don’t even have evidence that things will get “bad”. Keep in mind that most predictions for global warming have changes occurring over the time scales of centuries. So if things never get bad, at least with respect to anthropogenic global warming, then there never will be a reason for Rand to change his mind on this matter.
That’s terrible science, isn’t it? Geology and History from the past million or so years has shown a cycle of global warming and cooling about every 100,000 years, +/-. Things could get bad, and it might not be anything we did, or anything we have control over. Unless, of course, you believe the world was created 6000 years ago, you Creationist, you…..
Awesome. Be proud, but make them play by their own rules …
“How dare you call me a denier as if to equate me to those that want to cover up the holocast. You should be ashamed, such behavior is unacceptable in our society! “
Adding to the second part, I’ve noticed its come in favor to say people are “deniers” of Global Warming. Skepticism of Anthropogenic Climate Change is not the same as recognizing solar cycles which can cause global warming from time to time.
Let’s take are village idiot Daveon. He’s decided to come out, because a straight wind storm has caused massive power problems in DC. Or perhaps the forest fires in Colorado. Neither event is unprecedented in terms of climate. Both conditions, loss of power and extent of fires, are exacerbated by human activities, but not those that affect long term climate.
In the case of power loss, Obama was given $1 trillion to revitalize US infrastructure, yet apparently didn’t use that money to bury power lines in Maryland and Virginia, in power grid with already well known vulnerabilities (some will remember when much of the Northeast went dark when an initial power disruption occurred in Ohio).
In the case of Colorado, environmentalist that support climate change theory are likely the same people who pushed to remove fire fighting roads from national forests. Likely the same people who argue against reasonable logging activities that increase economic output and remove dead and dangerous wood from forests.
So we know how it is working out for us when we listen to AGW believers.
I for one am enjoying the benefits of the Northwest Passage being open and higher sea levels due to the loss of the polar ice caps this year, just as was predicted would happen. I can’t believe these rednecks don’t believe in the climate change models; they were done on computers!
Then there is the nice UV from the whole in ozone layer.
I wonder what the economic effects of a mostly ice-free Arctic Ocean would be. Earth already has most of its population and land area biased towards the northern hemisphere. And you’d have new shipping routes for not only the countries of the far North, Russia, Canada, and the Scandinavian countries, but also Europe, North America, and the Far East.
Ya really aught to be ashamed of yourself Rand… picking on children! …er I mean, respected global warming scientists and pontificaters.