Over at Scienceblogs, they love the word “debunked.” These days it’s not good enough to counter, refute, dispute, respond, or retort, you have to debunk. It’s a word reminiscent of Houdini exposing two-penny psychics or a nineteenth century mayor running a shonky salesman out of town. The intent, of course, is to portray oneself as perpetually enlightened, and one’s adversaries as benighted and superstitious. In other words, it’s pure rhetoric.
So it must have been an occasion of joy and celebration for scienceblogger Deltoid to be able to announce that Ian Plimer, author of a new book, Heaven And Earth
The debunking of this rubbish is outsourced to Harry Clark.
Following the link to Mr Clark, we find the debunking itself:
The book apparently argues the usual irrelevances – climate change science is a religion, CO2 is a food for plants, the IPPC is a hotbed of environmental activism lacking science, AGW is a conspiracy by self-interested scientists, climate is always changing with etc. etc. The denialists do like to recycle half-truths.
(note that “CO2 is a food for plants” is a “half-truth,” as is the statement that “the IPPC is a hotbed of environmental activism lacking science“. With my old-fashioned right/wrong mindset, I would have thought these to be either true or false).
It’s a pretty severe two-line smackdown. Plimer must be devastated.
Update: Tim Lambert of Deltoid assures me he was not claiming that Heaven and Earth had been debunked. Rather, he was referring to several anti-climate-science articles in the Australian newspaper (including two sympathetic articles about Plimer’s book). Those articles have been debunked, Tim says, not Plimer’s book itself. It’s a distinction that was too subtle for me: debunking a book review does not constitute debunking the book. Apologies for the misunderstanding, Tim.
Update 2: Reading the comments thread at Deltoid, it seems that a lot of other people made the same assumption as me. Most of the discussion revolves around the merits (or lack thereof) of Heaven and Earth, and Plimer’s personal character. Some samples:
Lank: But Harry hasn’t even read Plimers book. He only comments on the comments. Looks like a classic claytons debunk – attack the reporter, forget about the science.
Ken: Lank, can you please point out where Plimer has published his peer reviewed science on climate change. I would like to read it.
Frankis: Let me just jump in with the heap of people kicking Plimer from pillar to post here and opine that indeed he’s more of a freak show attraction than a scientific viewpoint on anything to do with climate change in the holocene. I provide no relevant evidence to back this assertion, just as Plimer has none to back his ridiculous confabulations on subjects (such as climate science) well outside his qualifications and capabilities. Plimer’s a sideshow character who, enjoying his long term argumentation with Creationists, has come to believe that his opponents on more scientific issues are probably as intellectually inferior to him as are Creationists on creationism. He’s delusional, pompous, with a presumptively patriarchal delivery of the nonsense he talks.
…. and so on. Delightful, huh? Oh and this, also from the comments thread:
There are two kinds of science: right-wing science, where the outcome has to fit preconceptions (environmentalists are pot-smoking hippies out to destroy the economy), and old-fashioned science, where the outcomes have to fit the evidence.
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The half truth is that recognising that CO2 is a food for plants is correct but infering that therefore it is harmless to add far more CO2 to the atmosphere is not correct.
There are environmentally concerned scientists in the IPPC but many of the world’s leading climate scientists also participate in its deliberations.
Fair enough. Thanks for the clarification.
My favorite word in the “debunking” is “apparently”.
As in, “I didn’t read the book, and it’s wrong”.
Clown.
I’m sorry, was my post too long for you?
Try reading it again and see if you can tell us what “this rubbish” refers to.
Tim, I’m aware that the focus was the anti-climate-science bias at the Australian, but you explicitly included discussion of Plimer’s book as part of “this rubbish”, as did the linked article.
I wasn’t in the mood for analysing the entirety of someone else’s rather long post word by word, but since you seem to be implying that I’m distorting through selective use of paragraphs, I’ll make the following points.
1) The implication was that Plimer’s book was debunked. It wasn’t.
2) Clark’s response was to dismiss it out of hand (as quoted), based on reviews by non-scientist thid parties. Your response was to defer to Clark.
3) while some of the other Australian articles are criticised with a more solid basis, the overall approach is one of a mixture of factual discussion and bald assertion. That’s not “debunking.”
I hope that clarifies things.
“this rubbish” refers to the articles in the Australian. I did not say or imply that he had debunked Plimer’s book. You misrepresented me.
Despite your denial, Professor Clarke did debunk the articles.
To reiterate, I was not addressing the “main thrust”, I was focusing on expressed opinions of Plimer’s book, Heaven and Earth. I understand that this was not the main thrust of either post.
Now, since you are saying that you were offering no opinion on Plimer’s book (despite the pejorative “denialist” adjective), and that your link was intended to highlight only Professor Clark’s comments on the Australian and not his comments on “Heaven and Earth” in the same post, then I take you at your word.
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