FollowUp 9: Republican Denial of Climate Change

In the seventh follow up of this series, I discussed how the Wall Street Journal had published an error-filled denial of climate change by sixteen scientists, an article that was called "dismal science" by two hundred and fifty-five scientists who are in the field of climate change.  Science Magazine published the truth when the Wall Street Journal, a subsidiary of News Corp., refused to do so.

Yesterday another subsidiary of News Corp., Fox News, published an Opinion piece by Matt Patterson, a commentator for the anti-environment Competitive Enterprise Institute, that relies on the discredited article from the Wall Street Journal.

[R]ecently in the Wall Street Journal 16 prominent scientists, including physicists, meteorologists and climatologists, came forward to express solidarity with Giaever, writing:

“…large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific “heretics” is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts. Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 “Climategate” email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: ‘The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.’”

So why do so many still cling to the hope of climate change catastrophe? The scientists offer their own view in the Journal: 

“Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow.”

Fortunately this strange fever is breaking, and voters are becoming ever more suspicious of government-mandated schemes to control their “carbon emissions,” which is just a bureaucrat’s way of curbing productivity, and therefore liberty.

In centuries hence the global warming boogeyman will be seen for exactly what it is – The Great Delusion. Future generations will wonder how so many people could have believed something so suicidally ridiculous.

The more times a lie is told, the more it is likely to be believed.  News Corp. keeps telling this lie.  The Republican contenders for President have all picked up the lie and run with it.  The proof is readily available, including from scientists who once doubted whether climate change was real.

1 October 2011, Original Pedantic Political Ponderings post.
10 October 2011, FollowUp 1.
11 October 2011, FollowUp 2.
17 October 2011, FollowUp 3.
21 October 2011, FollowUp 4.
27 October 2011, FollowUp 5.
30 November 2011, FollowUp 6.
29 January 2012, FollowUp 7.
15 February 2012, FollowUp 8.

2 March 2012, FollowUp 10.
11 March 2012, FollowUp 11.
4 June 2012, FollowUp 12.

FollowUp 8: Republican Denial of Climate Change

A lot is being learned about the Heartland Institute, a significant source of climate change denial, thanks to an insider releasing a lot of documents.  The documents can be found at DeSmogBlog and are in the process of being analyzed.  Funding for climate change denial is largely from energy and tobacco companies, from De Smog Blog,

It is clear from the documents that Heartland advocates against responsible climate mitigation and then uses that advocacy to raise money from oil companies and "other corporations whose interests are threatened by climate policies." Heartland particularly celebrates the funding that it receives from the fossil fuel fortune being the Charles G. Koch Foundation.

Heartland also continues to collect money from Philip Morris parent company Altria as well as from the tobacco giant Reynolds American, while maintaining ongoing advocacy against policies related to smoking and health.

The Koch brothers have been famous in the past year for funding Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin and a prank phone call where Governor Walker sounded like their lap dog.

As a teacher the most disturbing part of the information is a curriculum project.  From their 2012 Climate Strategy,

Development of our "Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Classrooms" project.

Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective. To counter this we are considering launching an effort to develop alternative materials for K-12 classrooms. We are pursuing a proposal from Dr. David Wojick to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12 schools. Dr. Wojick is a consultant with the Office of Scientific and Technical Information at the U.S. Department of Energy in the area of information and communication science. His effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain - two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science. We tentatively plan to pay Dr. Wojick $100,000 for 20 modules in 2012, with funding pledged by the Anonymous Donor.

Despite their claims, principals and teachers are heavily biased toward truth.  We do our best to counter lies, even those put forth by large institutions with heavy funding.

It should not be a surprise that the Heartland Institute denies much of what is being learned.

One document, titled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,” is a total fake apparently intended to defame and discredit The Heartland Institute. It was not written by anyone associated with The Heartland Institute. It does not express Heartland’s goals, plans, or tactics. It contains several obvious and gross misstatements of fact.

We respectfully ask all activists, bloggers, and other journalists to immediately remove all of these documents and any quotations taken from them, especially the fake “climate strategy” memo and any quotations from the same, from their blogs, Web sites, and publications, and to publish retractions.

Okay, so what does the Heartland Institute really stand for?  From their Ideas list:  Hydraulic fracturing, removal of CAFE standards (let's waste more petroleum), and proving that climate change is not a crisis.  Sorry, I do not believe the Heartland Institute.

1 October 2011, Original Pedantic Political Ponderings post.
10 October 2011, FollowUp 1.
11 October 2011, FollowUp 2.
17 October 2011, FollowUp 3.
21 October 2011, FollowUp 4.
27 October 2011, FollowUp 5.
30 November 2011, FollowUp 6.
29 January 2012, FollowUp 7.

18 February 2012, FollowUp 9.
2 March 2012, FollowUp 10.
11 March 2012, FollowUp 11.
4 June 2012, FollowUp 12.

Repudiation: Newt Gingrich on the Food Stamp President

The day of the State of the Union Address, 24 January 2012, jump to about the 3 minute mark for the comparison of President Obama as "the most effective Food Stamp President in American history."



Almost the same wording the next day.  Again, jump to the 3 minute mark.



President Obama responds. The whole clip is only 27 seconds.



And yesterday on the floor of the House of Representatives, Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Illinois responded to Newt Gingrich, who has begun calling President Obama the "Food Stamp President." Armed with facts, the Congressman has a little fun setting the record straight and despite the name calling, concluded that "hunger knows no race or religion or age or political party. Hunger is colorblind."



We should be lowering instead of increasing the number of people on food stamps as a side effect of improving the economy and getting more people working in well paying jobs.  So, this is not a cheer.  But it is wrong to lie about the facts.  Mr. Gingrich, it appears, has not moved entirely beyond his ethical challenges.

Repudiation: Christian Anti-Defamation Commission

It can be argued that the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission is none of the above.  Their first installment in a series of ten proofs that President Barack Obama is not a Christian is filled with lies that neither promote Christianity nor defend it from anything real.  Watch and see.



Lies I caught:

1.  Life is defined by the Bible to begin at conception.

Genesis 2:7 is the first time that the Bible discusses the soul.  The soul is associated with the first breath, not the moment of fertilization.

2.  Death Panels in ObamaCare.

Despite the claims in this video, there are no Death Panels in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (which detractors call ObamaCare).  President Obama said that the death panel claim is a lie.  It is a lie according to Politifact.  The denial of neurosurgery to patients over 70 is a lie according to Snopes.  The caller to the Mark Levin show was telling a lie when he claimed to be a neurosurgeon.

3.  Abortion funding in ObamaCare.

Not true.  President Obama signed Executive Order 13535 that applies the Hyde Amendment to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  In short, ObamaCare does not include abortion funding.

4.  Reproductive care means abortion.

No.  The World Health Organization says reproductive care should be

access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of fertility regulation of their choice, and the right of access to appropriate health care services that will enable women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth and provide couples with the best chance of having a healthy infant.

The only hint regarding abortion is "fertility regulation of their choice", which is best handled through contraception not abortion.

5.  ObamaCare is anti-life.

Exactly the opposite.  But this 501(c)3 that masquerades as a non-political charity is loading in every deception that they have available to distort both the intent and reality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  While the Act could have been improved, Republicans in Congress made that impossible.  Many of the ideas that were originated by Republicans, including presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, are now disavowed as socialist plots to overthrow America and proof that President Obama is a secret Muslim.

Unlike abortion, telling lies is forbidden in the Ten Commandments.  Thus, one could say that the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission is not Christian or at least not adhering to Christian tenets.  Rather than defend Christianity, the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission is slandering the President of the United States.  Thus, one could say that they are not anti-defamation.  The word commission is a nebulous enough term that we can grant that much.  Still, one might wonder from whence came this commission.  Their history page states who founded them, not who commissioned them.

Thanks to Joe My God for the heads up.

FollowUp 7: Republican Denial of Climate Change

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), owned since 2007 by News Corporation (the same company that owns Fox News), is a conservative newspaper.  The WSJ claims to be a source for unbiased news.  When it comes to reporting on climate change, they are not.  On Friday 27 January, the WSJ published an article titled No Need to Panic About Global Warming.  It was filled with errors.  The Union of Concerned Scientists called it Dismal Science.

To take just one example, the authors claim there has been a “lack of warming” for 10 years. Here’s what we know: 2011 was the 35^th year in a row in which global temperatures were above the historical average and 2010 and 2005 were the warmest years on record. Over the past decade, record high temperatures outpaced record lows by more than two to one across the continental United States, a marked increase from previous decades.

So where should decision-makers and the public turn to understand what the vast majority of scientists with relevant expertise really think about climate change?

They should start with the US National Academy of Sciences, established by President Lincoln to advise our nation’s leaders on matters of science. In May 2010, a major NAS  report requested by Congress concluded  that  “Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for—and in many cases is already affecting—a broad range of human and natural systems”.

Greg Laden, writing the on Science Magazine blog, held no punches.

The Wall Street Journal has published one of the most offensive, untruthful, twisted reviews of what scientists think of climate change; the WSJ Lies about the facts and twists the story to accommodate the needs of head-in-the-sand industrialists and 1%ers; The most compelling part of their argument, according to them, is that the editorial has been signed by 16 scientists.

The scientists who signed to WSJ editorial are:

Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.

Emphasis added to underscore the fact that this is a group of older and often retired weathermen, engineers, or otherwise not-climate-scientists.

Forbes Magazine, hardly a bastion of liberals, includes a link to the Union of Concerned Scientists article and notes that the WSJ rejected a letter from 255 scientists, members of the National Academy of Sciences, that offers a defense of the scientific method used to approach climate change and concludes that climate change is real and affected by human activity.

But the most amazing and telling evidence of the bias of the Wall Street Journal in this field is the fact that 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences wrote a comparable (but scientifically accurate) essay on the realities of climate change and on the need for improved and serious public debate around the issue, offered it to the Wall Street Journal, and were turned down. The National Academy of Sciences is the nation’s pre-eminent independent scientific organizations. Its members are among the most respected in the world in their fields. Yet the Journal wouldn’t publish this letter, from more than 15 times as many top scientists. Instead they chose to publish an error-filled and misleading piece on climate because some so-called experts aligned with their bias signed it. This may be good politics for them, but it is bad science and it is bad for the nation.

Science magazine – perhaps the nation’s most important journal on scientific issues – published the letter from the NAS members after the Journal turned it down.

The letter in Science magazine is about a page in length followed by half a page of the names of scientists who signed it.  No doubt we will hear one or more of the Republican presidential contenders cite the WSJ letter as evidence that there is no climate change occurring.  The WSJ was wrong as will be those who depend upon them for truth.

Thanks to Boing Boing for the heads up.

1 October 2011, Original Pedantic Political Ponderings post.
10 October 2011, FollowUp 1.
11 October 2011, FollowUp 2.
17 October 2011, FollowUp 3.
21 October 2011, FollowUp 4.
27 October 2011, FollowUp 5.
30 November 2011, FollowUp 6.

15 February 2012, FollowUp 8.
18 February 2012, FollowUp 9.
2 March 2012, FollowUp 10.
11 March 2012, FollowUp 11.
4 June 2012, FollowUp 12.

History: 1973 and the APA Changes the DSM

One of the assumptions that some people are making about me as the author of this blog is that I have spent my life as a homosexual activist.  While I have been a quiet supporter for equal rights for all of my adult life, I have not been an activist.  The research that I do as part of writing here has me learning about homosexuality all the time.  I was recently challenged in a private dialogue regarding the change in 1973 of the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual of the American Psychiatric Association to no longer list homosexuality as a disease.  The challenger, prominent in one of the hate groups that I sometimes rail against, claimed that the change was fraudulent, brought about by homosexual activists without any science behind the change.  So, it was time for me to learn about what happened before and during 1973.

The best single resource I found is a 2002 episode of This American Life, titled 81 words.  If you have an hour to listen, I would encourage you to enjoy the entirety of it.  Based on this and a few other references that I will link in, I think I have a better understanding of the history of the change and why it is correct.

Prior to the 1973 change, most psychiatrists based their treatment of homosexuals on the works of a medium size group of experts, among them Edmund Bergler, Irving Bieber, Sigmund Freud, and Charles Socarides, all of whom had a significant flaw in their methodologies.  The homosexuals that these doctors studied tended to come from either prisons, those released from the military dishonorably, or men who hated their sexuality enough to seek treatment to change who they are.  There were no well-adjusted, normal, gays among those studied.

There were two researchers before 1973 who studied homosexuals with less or different bias.  The better known is Alfred Kinsey, who released a report in 1948 that was incredibly controversial.  The most controversial aspect was, perhaps, that he found that 37% of men had experimented with sex with other men and is the source for the claim that 10% of the population is homosexual.  It is, of course, more complicated.  Far more complicated because the two largest groups of participants in the Kinsey studies were prison populations, similar to the studies by Dr. Bergler and the others cited above, and a second group being male prostitutes.  Like those who found homosexuality to be a pathological condition, Dr. Kinsey used biased samples, not quite as normal as one might have hoped.

The second researcher was Evelyn Hooker, who wrote a paper in 1957 based on homosexuals who were functioning in ordinary society.

She administered psychological tests to groups of self-identified homosexuals and heterosexuals and asked experts, based on those tests alone, to select the homosexual people. The experiment, which other researchers subsequently repeated, demonstrates that most self-identified homosexuals are no worse in social adjustment than the general population.

This experiment was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and was probably the first study of homosexuals conducted without obvious bias.  In blind studies, researchers found an equal percentage, about two-thirds, of homosexuals and heterosexuals to be well-adjusted.

Dr. Hooker and Dr. Kinsey provided the foundational science behind the activists who did disrupt APA meetings in the early 1970s.  Disruption tends to alienate, not to attract allies.  So, claiming that the change was forced by disruptions alone is absurd on its face.  There was also first person testimony from a gay psychiatrist, John Fryer.

Dr Fryer's speech started with the words "I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist" and continued to describe the lives of the many gay psychiatrists among the American Psychiatric Association who had to hide their sexuality from their colleagues for fear of discrimination, and from fellow homosexuals owing to the disdain in which the psychiatric profession was held among the gay community.

A year after Dr. Fryer spoke under the pseudonym Dr. H. Anonymous, the change was made.  Homosexuality was no longer considered an illness.  Other medical organizations studied the change in policy at the APA and made changes to their policies over the following twenty years. 

81 words, which I cited near the top, is by the granddaughter of John Spiegel, who was president-elect of the APA at the time of the change.  His granddaughter, Alix Spiegel, bases her piece on an interview of her grandfather and she also interviews many of the major players.

My conclusion is that there was a great deal of activism in the early 1970s, without which the studies of Dr. Hooker and Dr. Kinsey would not have been considered.  There was also a generational change in progress, with younger psychiatrists who had other concerns than the status of homosexuality challenging the older conservatism.  Science traditionally changes slowly and painfully, as seen from Galileo Galilei to Charles Darwin to Hooker and Kinsey.  That people are upset by the changes does not make the science wrong.  In this case, the APA was correct to change.

Let me conclude by personalizing this.  I have never been incarcerated and am honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy.  My relationship with my parents is fairly normal.  I was neither excessively beaten as a child nor was I overly coddled.  I have never been raped and never been molested (other than by the TSA, as is the case for many when flying these days).  Most people passing me on the street would probably guess that I am straight as I don't tend to lisp or swish or any of the other stereotypical behavior associated with homosexuals.  I was born under Eisenhower, thus I have well exceeded the life expectation of disproven studies like that of Paul Cameron.  Neither my partner nor I have any sexually transmitted diseases.  We have been together since 2005. 

In other words, the reasons to consider homosexuality a pathological condition are not apparent in me, in my partner, or in any of our friends.  The only problems with our relationship as I type this are that we cannot be recognized legally.  The problem is discrimination, not who we are.

Praise: Fairleigh Dickinson News Poll

Today Fairleigh Dickinson University of New Jersey released the results of their PublicMind Poll.

The winners included the New York Times, USA Today, National Public Radio, and viewers of Sunday morning news shows.

For example, people who report reading a national newspaper like The New York Times or USA Today are 12-points more likely to know that Egyptians have overthrown their government than those who have not looked at any news source. And those who listen to the non-profit NPR radio network are 11-points more likely to know the outcome of the revolt against Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. However, the best informed respondents are those that watched Sunday morning news programs: leading to a 16-point increase in the likelihood of knowing what happened in Egypt and an 8-point increase in the likelihood of knowing what happened in Syria.

Additional winners were The Daily Show and MSNBC.

Listening to NPR also helps, but the biggest aid to answering correctly is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which leads to a 6-point decrease in identifying the protestors as Republicans, and a 12-point increase in the likelihood of giving the correct answer.

Watching MSNBC was associated with a 10-point increase in identifying Romney as the leader, and a 5-point drop in the likelihood of identifying Cain compared to those who got no exposure to news at all.

The big loser was Fox News.

Sunday morning news shows do the most to help people learn about current events, while some outlets, especially Fox News, lead people to be even less informed than those who they don’t watch any news at all.

The survey was limited to one of the smaller states, by land area.  So, it is not mathematically clear that these results can be extrapolated to the rest of the country.  I am biased and often consider Fox News to be less than reliable.  Real data is far better than personal bias.

Thanks to the New Civil Rights Movement for the heads up.

Praise: Scott Adams Calls for Fourth Branch of Government

Scott Adams, best known for his funny and nerdy Dilbert comic, has written an article in the Wall Street Journal calling for a Fourth branch to the United States government.  The fourth branch would be to clarify political information, similar to what the Congressional Budget Office does for legislative financial effects. 

The problem is that most of the political information out there is at least biased and often completely wrong.  I will be the first to admit that what I write here is biased, with a blatant progressive political slant.  While I endeavor to present accurate facts, I am certainly interpreting those facts to my favor.  Mr. Adams is calling for neutral arbiters to rate political claims.  Brilliant idea.  Now the problem is finding those who we can agree are neutral.  Just like with the CBO, this should be easy.