5 thoughts on “Why I no longer subscribe to Popular Science”

1. Can’t have ALL recognized publications, that actually DO science, be credible in Ant’s eyes, now, can we? He is, first, last and foremost, an ignorant putz.

   [Well, they report science rather than resent it. A terrible fault for Anthony who is, by now, well exposed to the science of climatology. Sadly he is completely blinded by his politics. - Ben]

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2. Remember the Star Trek [episode] where Picard is put on trial by the witch-hunting–witch? Ant reminds me a LOT of her…;)

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   • I remember the ST-TNG episode: “The Drumhead.” One of the best, and certainly most relevant to the situation to which we–scientsts–are now being subjected.

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3. Heh: ALL one needs to know about the denialistas, Ant included, was this shining gem of idiocy…

   “I stopped reading the magazine when the emphasis shifted to POP from SCI. ”

   As I said earlier, can’t have *SCIence* be the end-all and do-all of an ostensibly SCIence-based magazine, now, can we?

   The D-K is awe-inspiring at WTFUWT!

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4. Ben, feel free to repost this to a possibly-more accurate thread, but I think it fits, broadly, here: It’s a quote by SkS regualr contributor Bernard J, and it fairly sums up the ever-increasing lukewarmer games.

   “On the matter of denialism itself, as embodied by Minchin, Palmer and so many others, it’s like this…

   …There’s a corpse, formerly known as Ms Ecosystem, lying on the ground, and the corpse has a CO2 bullet in its head – a bullet fired at point-blank range from a Coalington-Oilchester rifle.

   There’s a medico autopsying the corpse, a Dr Climatologist, and she concludes that the cause of death was an AGW brain injury resulting from the impact of the dissected CO2 bullet, now lying in the bloody kidney bowl.

   Watching the autopsy is a member of the NRA, a Mr W.A.S.P. Warming-Denier Snr, who (although he has no experience in medicine) variously asserts that:

   1. there is still a scientific debate about the capacity of CO2 bullets to inflict serious damage to brains
   2. well, OK, bullets might cause small bumps, but something else caused the corpse to actually die even though the autopsy showed no other plausible factors
   3. that the corpse isn’t really dead anyway
   4. that CO2 bullets are good for the brain
   5. alright, so maybe the bullet did kill Ms AGW, but if you control firearms, my life will fall apart, it just will.

   Nothing that Mr W.A.S.P. Warming-Denier Snr asserts has any objective relationship to the science that determined the cause of death. Several are ideological knee-jerks in response to the implications of the investigation, but these knee-jerks do not alter the fact of cause and effect.

   The debate isn’t about the cause of death, no matter how strenuously Mr W.A.S.P. Warming-Denier Snr attempts to make it so. The debate is simply about Mr W.A.S.P. Warming-Denier Snr’s unfettered ability to continue to do what he’s always done, no matter that control of this activity would result in less harm in the future.

   If Mr W.A.S.P. Warming-Denier Snr wanted a genuinely honest discussion, he’d openly admit that CO2 bullets will kill most, if not all, of Ms AGW’s family if they are all thusly shot, and he would argue that his right to shoot those CO2 bullets at these folk outweighs the rights of Ms AGW’s family not to be shot at.

   Of course, that is a much harder argument to win, so Mr W.A.S.P. Warming-Denier Snr is going to avoid it at all costs, even if he can never admit it even to himself…”

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