The Heartland Institute is running a series of billboards featuring famous Bad Guys (Theodore Kaczynski, Charles Manson, Fidel Castro, etc.) who believe in Global Warming, the idea being that if these guys believe it it must be false, and/or that if scientists and the UN say it's true they must be as evil and twisted as Theodore Kaczynski.
Of course, that's a ludicrous, desperate, and dishonest claim. Unless folks want to see billboards with, say, Hitler saying, "I opposed abortion. Do you?"
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Climate change denier billboard featuring Unabomber
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My comment on another posting of this: Picture of Hitler cuddling a cat. "Still think cats are cute?"
"Poisoning the well." But yeah, they're not above that.
Your post struck me as being little hypocritical. Isn’t that like saying “Those folks at the Heartland Institute are dirty propaganda users, look at their straw-man arguments. If people like that believe that Global Warming is FALSE then it MUST be TRUE.” In a world where most people don’t have the scientific background to analyse the relevant data for themselves, the question for most people becomes “Who should I trust?”
Feel free to disagreed, but I think these posters b up the valid point that you shouldn’t accept something as gospel just because ANY person or group (including the prevaling scientists of the time) say that it is true or conversely, believe something is false just because ANY distrusted group says that something is true. It won’t be the first or the last time scientific “fact” has been wrong or insane men have been right.
@Cara – I beg to disagree. I don’t believe in Climate Change because the folks at Heartland Institute disbelieve in it (or argue against it, more accurately). I do think it’s legit to look at Heartland’s tactics and where their funding comes from and question how their motivations and behavior make them a trustworthy source of information.
While assuming that authorities in a matter are infallibly correct is dangerous to do, if given a choice between accepting an expert opinion and rejecting it, it’s usually better to err toward the former (because that is, of course, one one expects of experts). If a biologist says that dropping some of fluid X into a dish will promote growth of certain bacteria, and dropping some of fluid Y will retard growth, I’ll tend to assume they are being truthful and accurate unless I have good reason to doubt it. (“Scientist are sometimes wrong and scientific opinions change” is not a good reason; it’s a good reason to support continued research of a matter.)
The Heartland Institute wants to steal the water from the Great Lakes and sell it to Asia. That’s all I would ever need to know about this owned by ALEC group.
@Ellie – Wasn’t that the plot of “V”?
@ Dave — I don’t know. I didn’t watch “V.” Heartland has gone on record saying they don’t see anything wrong with taking our water and selling it to the highest Asian bidder. That’s from their information, not something someone made up. I’m sure I could find an acceptable source if need be. I live on Lake Erie. They can’t have my water. I felt the same way when George W. Bush wanted to take it…but only from the Canadian side.
Cara,
Dave would be just as incensed if somebody tried to “prove” global warming by saying that it must be true because high-profile people with no scientific credentials accepted it. His problem here is with the use of a logical fallacy (as Gary Roth pointed out) to attempt to sway public opinion. It’s not about who is right or wrong, but about the method employed to champion a belief. If they had presented evidence rather than an emotional argument, Dave would have no issue with their actions.
Saying that Dave does not accept their fallacy is not the same as saying that he accepts the reverse, which he recognizes as just as fallacious. Read some more of Dave’s posts. I think you will find him to be fair-minded. Dave accepts climate change as factual because the evidence supports it. If the community of climate scientists finds evidence that contradicts the current theory, Dave will be among the first to accept the new status quo.
He and I accept the results of the climate scientists’ work over the claims of economic institutions like Heartland because they are validated. Their tests can be replicated and have been shown to be accurate to the limits of today’s science. Refutation by economists does not invalidate those results, and should not be a reason to disbelieve the science. I would not disregard my doctor’s diagnosis of my medical condition if economists said he was wrong. If several other doctors told me that, I would question his findings, but economists are neither doctors nor climate scientists.
Um … what @Avo said.
This is, btw, why I am singularly unimpressed by “celebrities” who endorse various positions on things that they are not particularly trained or experts in (unless they demonstrate they’ve educated themselves in the subject in something more than a “I read the HuffPo about it” fashion, and even then it’s less impressive than folks who actually make a living having studied the matter). Even when they agree with me, unless they present a particularly logical argument (where logic applies) or a particularly decent turn of phrase.
For that matter, don’t accept anything *I* say as particularly authoritative on most subjects.