The number of global warming skeptics who jumped straight from “it’s not happening” to “well we didn’t do it” to “well we can’t do anything about it without doing more harm than good” should also...give us a bit of pause.
Actually, that move is perfectly consistent with real skepticism applied to a complex assertion.
To see why, let’s consider a different argument. Suppose a True Believer says we should punish gays or disallow gay marriage “because God hates homosexuality”. You and I are skeptical that this assertion is rationally defensible so we attack it at what seems like the obvious first link in the logical chain. We say “I doubt that god exists. Prove to me that god exists, and then maybe we’ll consider your argument.” At this point you can divide the positions into:
“god hates X”/god doesn’t exist
Now let us suppose TB actually does it. He does prove that god exists. Does this mean that we skeptics immediately have to accept his entire chain of reasoning? Of course not! We jump to the next weak link. To establish the original claim, one would need to prove god exists and is benevolent and wrote the bible and meant those passages in the way TB interprets as applied to our current situation. Anything less, and the original assertion remains Not Proven.
If any link in the chain fails, we don’t have to accept the compound assertion “God hates X, therefore we should do Y”. We can reasonably express skepticism towards any link that hasn’t been proven until the whole chain is sound. Right?
Now returning to global warming, the larger claim that is implied by saying things like “global warming is real” is “greenhouse gases are warming the globe; this process will cause net-bad outcomes if we do nothing and net-less-bad outcomes (including all costs and opportunity costs) if we do X, therefore we should do X”. The skeptical position is that not all the links in that chain of reasoning are strong and the warmists need to solidify a few weak links. I don’t see how disagreeing over which link in the logical chain is weakest or focusing on the next weak link when one formerly-weak link is strengthened constitutes “sophisticated apologetics”. I would have rather called it “rationalism”.
This is a great point that’s making me revise my position on some right wing commentators. Still, I’m struggling to think of any actual examples of this behavior in action: we don’t actually tell religious people who believe wrong things “well god ain’t real deal with it”. We point out how their assertions are incompatible with their own teachings, and with the legal system, and scientific findings etc. We don’t keep all the flaws we see in their position back in reserve.
Moreover most of the serious commentators on the skeptical side of the issue argued only one of the points in question, whether it was the statistics showing warming or the economics implied by it or (cue rim-shot) sunspots, it’s only journalists and politicians who skipped from one to the other, which is where I got the impression they’d only looked at the issue long enough to find a contrarian position.
I’m struggling to think of any actual examples of this behavior in action
If you’ve ever said or thought “Okay, just for the sake of argument, I’ll assume your point X is correct...” you were holding a position back in reserve.
One typical example is arguing with a religious nut that what he’s saying is incompatible with the teachings in his own holy book. Suppose he wins this argument (unlikely, I know, but bear with me...) and demonstrates that you were mistaken and no, his holy book really does teach that we should burn scientists as witches. Do you immediately conclude that yes, we should burn scientists as witches? No, because you don’t actually hold in high esteem the teachings in his holy book.
Actually, that move is perfectly consistent with real skepticism applied to a complex assertion.
To see why, let’s consider a different argument. Suppose a True Believer says we should punish gays or disallow gay marriage “because God hates homosexuality”. You and I are skeptical that this assertion is rationally defensible so we attack it at what seems like the obvious first link in the logical chain. We say “I doubt that god exists. Prove to me that god exists, and then maybe we’ll consider your argument.” At this point you can divide the positions into:
“god hates X”/god doesn’t exist
Now let us suppose TB actually does it. He does prove that god exists. Does this mean that we skeptics immediately have to accept his entire chain of reasoning? Of course not! We jump to the next weak link. To establish the original claim, one would need to prove god exists and is benevolent and wrote the bible and meant those passages in the way TB interprets as applied to our current situation. Anything less, and the original assertion remains Not Proven.
If any link in the chain fails, we don’t have to accept the compound assertion “God hates X, therefore we should do Y”. We can reasonably express skepticism towards any link that hasn’t been proven until the whole chain is sound. Right?
Now returning to global warming, the larger claim that is implied by saying things like “global warming is real” is “greenhouse gases are warming the globe; this process will cause net-bad outcomes if we do nothing and net-less-bad outcomes (including all costs and opportunity costs) if we do X, therefore we should do X”. The skeptical position is that not all the links in that chain of reasoning are strong and the warmists need to solidify a few weak links. I don’t see how disagreeing over which link in the logical chain is weakest or focusing on the next weak link when one formerly-weak link is strengthened constitutes “sophisticated apologetics”. I would have rather called it “rationalism”.
This is a great point that’s making me revise my position on some right wing commentators. Still, I’m struggling to think of any actual examples of this behavior in action: we don’t actually tell religious people who believe wrong things “well god ain’t real deal with it”. We point out how their assertions are incompatible with their own teachings, and with the legal system, and scientific findings etc. We don’t keep all the flaws we see in their position back in reserve.
Moreover most of the serious commentators on the skeptical side of the issue argued only one of the points in question, whether it was the statistics showing warming or the economics implied by it or (cue rim-shot) sunspots, it’s only journalists and politicians who skipped from one to the other, which is where I got the impression they’d only looked at the issue long enough to find a contrarian position.
If you’ve ever said or thought “Okay, just for the sake of argument, I’ll assume your point X is correct...” you were holding a position back in reserve.
One typical example is arguing with a religious nut that what he’s saying is incompatible with the teachings in his own holy book. Suppose he wins this argument (unlikely, I know, but bear with me...) and demonstrates that you were mistaken and no, his holy book really does teach that we should burn scientists as witches. Do you immediately conclude that yes, we should burn scientists as witches? No, because you don’t actually hold in high esteem the teachings in his holy book.