Apparently, Jim Steele's What's Natural? column is a weekly affair. This week he cancelled his promised Changing Sea Levels #2 and instead shares pointers from Carl Sagan in his What's Natural? "The Scientific Baloney Detection Kit" Feb. 20th, Pacific Tribune. It promises to offers an interesting journey into the mindscape of double standards and blindspots. I'm limiting this post to his introduction which offered it's own share of talking points. Then I'll be looking into Sagan's specific points in a later posting.
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My intention is a point by point review of libertarian deception in action.
(please click on image for sharp view)
Jim Steele writes: "Politicians from all sides manufacture "crises" and "demons" to promote their agendas superficially designed to fight those crises."
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Okay, no arguing that. So far so good.
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"In his book “The Demon Haunted World," Carl Sagan famously published his Scientific Baloney Detection Kit, a "do and don’t" list to guide honest scientific inquiry."
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Wait a minute. How did we get from “Politicians” to “Scientific Inquiry” via a book written for laypeople?
In the book Sagan “aims to explain the scientific method to laypeople, and to encourage people to learn critical and skeptical thinking.” (WIKI)
Serious scientific inquiry is something that only the learned can do. Of course, one can be self-taught. But expert status in any field demands, learning, acquiring real knowledge, skills and experience.
That is quite different from being a spectator trying to understand what the scientists and experts are talking about.
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"Sadly, climate science has been too politicized. But Sagan's advice can help separate the politics from honest science regards claims of a "climate crisis.”"
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Here again Steele strives to coalesce science with politics and public spin - that is deceptive nonsense.
Sagan’s advice is for us laypeople to develop some critical thinking skills in order to better recognize our thoughts and what to look for as we assess the various claims being tossed at us.
What drives scientists? - Richard Alley's Golden Nugget
Published on Aug 24, 2015
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"The very foundation of scientific inquiry demands a vigorous skeptical challenge to every hypothesis. Several different hypotheses can explain the same phenomena. Anyone, scientist or layperson, can make assertions and models."
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No Jim. Not anyone can make assertions about climate models and other complex aspects of climate science. It may work in that Hollywood world so many seem to be inhabiting, but not in the real physical world that we depend on for our life support systems.
