Monday, September 28, 2009
The Difference Between Willful Distortion and Damn Lies
It has come to my attention that a group of loud so-called Social Conservatives have been using their shrill tones to blast presidential appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency. The reason? They have accused E.P.A. officials of suppressing an internal report that dismisses global warming, and that these officials have done this for political reasons.
Here are the real reasons. The E.P.A. employee who wrote the contrary report is not a scientist and he did not use scientific method or reasoning in the writing of his report. Not only that, but the writer, Dr. Alan Carlin, an economist, has admitted that the paper in question is not scientific research and not suitable for publication.
The above reasons have had no bearing on Rush Limbaugh. He is only too happy to have an additional excuse for blasting President Obama and his advisers. In an all too common tirade from the widely syndicated hot air balloon, Mr. Limbaugh failed to mention that Dr. Carlin has no scientific background to write such a dissenting paper.
Glenn Beck has also joined Mr. Limbaugh in this effort, which should come as no surprise. The Heritage Foundation also published a piece with no specific author attributed, stating that Dr. Carlin's duties were tied to climate change issues, leaving out that Dr. Carlin is an economist and not a climatologist, and that climate change and/or global warming was never one of his assigned subjects to research.
On September 24th the New York Times published an evaluation of the paper, finding that the paper has been branded shoddy work by several analysts who have pointed out that it contains unverified information from blog posts, failed to acknowledge contradictory information, and included whole passages verbatim from the blog of a well known climate change doubter. The Times article went on to report that Dr. Carlin himself has admitted to the shoddy work and that the paper was rushed and never intended for publication in a scientific journal.
Spokespeople and top executives at the E.P.A. have stated numerous times that Dr. Carlin is not being muzzled, a charge that the conservative screamers have been repeating, ad nauseum.
In short, in spite of evidence to the contrary, the conservative press have put Dr. Carlin on a pedestal, stating he has been muzzled by the liberal power base because he possesses facts that are inconvenient to the Obama Administration. They also know that this is not true, which is inconvenient to their point of view. But with this group facts have never been allowed to get in the way of a good smear.
I want to call them a pack of damn liars, but legal concerns force me to refer to these people instead as "those who routinely engage in willful distortion." Sure, it's the same thing, except in a courtroom.
Here are the real reasons. The E.P.A. employee who wrote the contrary report is not a scientist and he did not use scientific method or reasoning in the writing of his report. Not only that, but the writer, Dr. Alan Carlin, an economist, has admitted that the paper in question is not scientific research and not suitable for publication.
The above reasons have had no bearing on Rush Limbaugh. He is only too happy to have an additional excuse for blasting President Obama and his advisers. In an all too common tirade from the widely syndicated hot air balloon, Mr. Limbaugh failed to mention that Dr. Carlin has no scientific background to write such a dissenting paper.
Glenn Beck has also joined Mr. Limbaugh in this effort, which should come as no surprise. The Heritage Foundation also published a piece with no specific author attributed, stating that Dr. Carlin's duties were tied to climate change issues, leaving out that Dr. Carlin is an economist and not a climatologist, and that climate change and/or global warming was never one of his assigned subjects to research.
On September 24th the New York Times published an evaluation of the paper, finding that the paper has been branded shoddy work by several analysts who have pointed out that it contains unverified information from blog posts, failed to acknowledge contradictory information, and included whole passages verbatim from the blog of a well known climate change doubter. The Times article went on to report that Dr. Carlin himself has admitted to the shoddy work and that the paper was rushed and never intended for publication in a scientific journal.
Spokespeople and top executives at the E.P.A. have stated numerous times that Dr. Carlin is not being muzzled, a charge that the conservative screamers have been repeating, ad nauseum.
In short, in spite of evidence to the contrary, the conservative press have put Dr. Carlin on a pedestal, stating he has been muzzled by the liberal power base because he possesses facts that are inconvenient to the Obama Administration. They also know that this is not true, which is inconvenient to their point of view. But with this group facts have never been allowed to get in the way of a good smear.
I want to call them a pack of damn liars, but legal concerns force me to refer to these people instead as "those who routinely engage in willful distortion." Sure, it's the same thing, except in a courtroom.
