http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=11434

 

You know, I don't have any problem with someone being a skeptic, but (as is typical) this guy seems to go a little too far.

 

From the article: He [Professor Fred Singer] suggested people should be suspicious of any science where there was a consensus -- this just blows my mind away. How can anybody consider themselves a professor in any kind of science if the eventual goal isn't consensus?!?

 

I guess he's probably pretty skeptical of gravity, and light as a wave and particle, and of fluid mechanics, and of any other part of science where there is significant consensus. Math probably just kills him. "1+1=2" "I'm suspicous of that consensus!"

 

Maybe the article makes it seem worse than he really is, but it is truly a terrible quote/idea.

I rather doubt that he is wary of F=ma, and E=mc^2, (and the physics that gave us those equations) even though there is a consensus that they are correct. It's a political argument, meant to distract from the science. Notice how there is the claim by Lawson about "huge benefits from a warming planet," yet there is no science there, it's just a claim, and it contradicts the position of Singer that the planet isn't warming.

global warming sceptic Professor Fred Singer

 

Anyone who self-identifies as a "global warming skeptic" now raises huge red flags in my mind.

 

I worked for a true, bona fide skeptic of the sort all these climate science deniers wish they could be. He did not self-identify as a skeptic, but rather noted that others had often labeled him as a skeptic (a label he did not even like).

suggested people should be suspicious of any science where there was a consensus

 

I am suspicious because he's trying to create a consensus regarding the above assertion - if he fails, the assertion is irrelevant, and if he succeeds, the assertion is self defeating.

bascule, I don't think Prof. Singer self identifies withe label, it struck me more that the label was applied by the reporter.

You do realize that Ian Plimer is a mining geologist with no actual qualifications in climate science, and massive financial conflicts of interest in coal mining right?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Plimer

Edited December 14, 201213 yr by Arete

Fred Singer has done no legitimate science for many years now, instead making his living as a hired gun ("think tank" emissary) for corporate lobbyists doing battle with the EPA and the like. Over the years he has undertaken running interference for the tobacco industry, the asbestos industry, various mining concerns, and now the coal and petroleum industries.

 

In this he is typical of public anthro global warming "skeptics". There isn't a legitimate scientist left in that lot, AFAIK.

 

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=S._Fred_Singer The most telling detail for me is Singer's organization of a petition campaign he sold to fellow scientists as a means to pressure the EPA into backing off its asbestos removal recommendations in the light of prudence and care, which he then marketed as a list of real scientists urging skepticism of anthro global warming (the wording was vague enough to allow this). I thought at the time that would be the last we heard from Professor Singer in public - but clearly I underestimated the shamelessness of those people.

 

The man is not honest. Neither are the people who promote him and spread his essays etc.

Edited December 14, 201213 yr by overtone

See also the CBC denial machine documentary:

 

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/denialmachine/

 

One clip from the feature:

 

OH wow :/