BY DAN
KENNEDY
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See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
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Wednesday, January 28, 2004
James Taranto, scientific
know-nothing. I usually enjoy James Taranto, who compiles
"Best
of the Web" for the Wall
Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com
site. Yeah, he's a right-winger, but he's got a sense of
humor.
Which is why I was surprised to see
him rolling around in the muck of anti-intellectualism. Earlier today
I linked to a New York Times op-ed
by Paul Epstein explaining some of the paradoxical facts about global
warming. Among them: though the equatorial regions are likely to keep
heating up, changes in ocean currents and the balance between salt
water and fresh water caused by the melting of the polar ice caps
could actually make the temperate zones cooler. Epstein's was
a model of sophisticated, understandable scientific explication, told
in an astoundingly concise 455 words.
Well, Taranto saw it, too. And here
is Professor Taranto's summation:
When the weather gets
warmer, that's because of global warming. When the weather gets
colder, that's because of global warming too. "Global warming"
thus is unfalsifiable; adherents insist all contrary evidence
actually supports the theory. This isn't a scientific hypothesis;
it's a conspiracy theory.
The notion of global warming is not
holy writ, and it certainly may be subjected to intelligent
questioning. But Taranto's not being critical, or clever, or
counterintuitive. Rather, this is just simple-minded know-nothingism,
knee-jerk stupidity intended as cheap entertainment for the laziest
10 percent of his audience.
posted at 8:01 PM |
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MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
