Whose cult is it now?
Last week a report hit the net — specifically, a listserve for global warming skeptics — with scientific proof that humans have no involvement in the atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide. Within hours, some actual scientists were sniffing it out as a hoax, but not before Rush Limbaugh and his whole hee-haw gang took the bait and made greater fools of themselves than usual. Dozens of freshly-posted blog posts disappeared faster than a central MN ice-fishing contest. Later, one David Thorpe was credited, supposedly, with the game and an explanation:
“What the hoax showed is that there are many people willing to jump on anything that supports their argument, whether it’s true or not. What we wanted to emphasize is that it’s necessary to achieve scientific validity using the peer-review model. Proper climate science makes every attempt to do this, and is a constantly evolving and self-refining process, as all science is.”
Sigh. I’ll try to give this one more shot.
Certainly anyone who was taken in by this fraud has egg all over their face today. Still, It’d be nice to know who the “whole hee-haw gang” is. Other than Limbaugh, I am having difficulty finding many reputable commentators who took the purposely dangled bait.
In fact, the first I even heard about the supposed study was at this site (link) (a premier denialist site), that posted on it only to point out it was a hoax.
I’m not sure why people felt they needed to get sucked into this hoax, especially when there is so much credible information calling global warming science into question.
It’s nice, however, to see your new found devotion to “fact checkery.” Why, just a few days ago it seems, you were defending perpetrators of fraud, calling evidence of said fraud “subjective.” I am sure you will join with me now in denouncing these examples of fraud perpetrated on an unsuspecting public.
Links:
Time’s false report of 20 headless corpses
The New Republic’s false story about Iraq atrocities
The false Jesse MacBeth story picked up en masse by the leftist media
The New York Times reporting a false narrative by Amorita Randall
Frauds perpetrated in An Inconvenient Truth
Let’s not forget “Memogate”
And my personal favorite, the false story of the now infamous polar bear photo
I couldn’t agree more that any person or entity that gets caught up in a hoax because it fits their meme is, as you say, an “idiot.” Unfortunately, in the case of major media, frauds have a much more profound impact than “dozens” of gullible bloggers.
But hey, I don’t need to convince you, right?