Atloggerheads

Have you ever noticed that people will throw around the label “fascist” (in a political context) or “fundamentalist” (in a religious context) at times? What I’ve always found slightly amusing about these labels is that they tend to signify far more about the person tossing the label out than the person the label is being applied too.

Alvin Plantinga famously observed that a “fundamentalist” is normally an epithet applied to someone who is a “stupid sumbitch whose theological opinions are considerably to the right of mine”. He made this observation on page 245 of his brilliant work Warranted Christian Belief.

I think it would be fair to say that such a definition would be just as fruitfully applied to someone who shouts “fascist” in a political context. Keep that in mind next time someone accuses you of being a “fascist” or a “fundamentalist”. Especially when it is clear that they are unfamiliar with the origins of the Fundamentalist movement in late 19th/Early 20th century Christendom or don’t really have even a passing idea of what Mussolini was on about when he started his Fascist^W Movement.

I had an interesting conversation at bible study last night when the topic of “global warming” came up and I got some odd looks when I came out in favor of the proposition that much of it is essentially a fraud. I’m not really sure why that was such a controversial position but it did inspire me to put electrons to disc platter and outline my thoughts on the position.

To properly set the scene I have for many years followed the Intelligent Design movement and the things they have been doing and I’ve seen how a collection of interests in the scientific community with a philosophical agenda has sought to suppress their dissent from a materialist orthodoxy in the biological sciences. I’ve also seen a deep similarity between the sorts of tactics used by them and the sorts of tactics that are used by “climate change proponents” to quell dissent from their point of view. The upshot of this is that I think skepticism of “global warmers” is at least as justified as my skepticism of “Darwinian materialists”.

The first thing I should have communicated to my Bible Study members (and I failed too, but limits of time didn’t really help) was my observation (and reason for my skepticism) that stemmed largely from a failure of climate change proponents to be clear in the way they present evidence and how they essentially cheat in the way they present things. I have a real problem with this approach and it makes me extremely skeptical of either the competence or honesty. Either way, they are not to be trusted in the claims they make, but I will explain further.

Typically when someone makes claims about climate change and the need to “do something” they will try to present some evidence to buttress their claims and then claim this demonstrates that man made global warming is a fact and that “debate is over” as a result. “Apocalypse” Al Gore is particularly good at engaging in this sort of practice and he should be dismissed because he does this.

Consider the steps that are required to demonstrate the claims of global warming alarmists like Apocalypse Al and then compare that to the evidence they typically present.

Normally what will be presented is some observed change in weather patterns or global temperatures over some period of time. But what does this actually demonstrate? The answer is very very little. That the climate changes over time is not in dispute. The climate has been warmer (The Medieval Warm Period) and cooler in the past and these variations precede the industrial revolution, or as some smart alec put it, “Whose SUV’s caused the Medieval Warm Period?”. No amount of observations about changes over time in the temperature or weather patterns will demonstrate anything more than that the climate is variable and changes over time. Nothing in such data sets will allow you to distinguish a natural cycle in the climate from a supposed man made one.

Now there is an additional problem with these data sets, and that is one of selective culling of data points to suit a conclusion. Only pointing to observations that agree with your case (some area of sea ice has shrunk, or a particular glacier or set of glaciers is in retreat) while ignoring data points that disagree with the conclusion (other glaciers advancing, snow in all 50 states of the US etc) that is desired. I guess a person can do this, but it is dishonest and it certainly isn’t science. Still, even with the selective observations, none of it differentiates a natural cycle from a man made one.

Another trick, one Apocalypse Al used in his grossly fraudulent propaganda piece “An Inconvenient Truth”, was to misrepresent data. Al pointed to a large graph that purported to show CO2 levels and temperature went up and down together over time. It is even true there is a rough correlation between the two, but the rise in temperature precedes the rise in CO2 levels rather than follows it. Such gross dishonesty (or absolutely monumental incompetence) should make people stop listening to a clown like Al Gore immediately but for some reason it doesn’t. Honestly I don’t understand this. If some one makes a error this bad (deliberate or due to a staggering degree of incompetence) it really should utterly destroy their credibility.

Of course the problem gets worse from there. What is actually required to demonstrate that man is responsible for the climate change due to something we are doing requires that some work is done to show that there is a causal relation between something man has done and the change in the temperature over time. This really hasn’t been done. The claim is made that increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere as a result of the industrial revolution are causing the change in temperature, but that is problematic as we have seen changes greater than what is observed prior to the industrial revolution. So just pointing to some supposed trend based on CO2 levels and temperature is insufficient. Much more work is needed to actually even show the change over time is not some simple natural cycle that we are not going to be able to make a difference too.

Additionally, there is the simple historical reality that in the 70’s scientists were panicking about “global cooling”, prior to that there was a concern about warming, and before that a previous concern about cooling. Such chicken little behavior is hardly conducive to the idea that climatologists have any idea what they are talking about. Plus the previous round of panic about cooling contained all sorts of suggestions of things that must be done now to prevent it. How much worse would things be now if such actions had been undertaken I wonder?

Finally, a last thought. Even if the claims of man made climate change were substantiated it doesn’t mean we should do anything about it at all, or that we should try to prevent it. Even if it has negative side effects (an open question, CO2 is plant food after all) there is good reason to think that human innovation and attempts to ameliorate the problems will be cheaper and more effective than grand schemes to prevent the problem in the first place. All of the schemes to “prevent global warming” that have been proposed would ultimately be ineffective (take Kyoto for example) even if the targets could be reached and would prove devastating to industrial economies around the world. Why does it make sense to utterly destroy wealthy economies in the quest to “prevent global warming” when it is clear that the effort is expensive and pointless? We would be better off being wealthier as wealthier nations are better able to weather things like climate change than poorer nations. It isn’t a coincidence that you measure the lives lost from hurricanes in the industrialized west in the 10’s or 100’s, but the body count for them in chronically poor places like Bangladesh routinely starts at 1000’s and go up from there.

One of the Bible Study members cited some data point that increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere will render some crop grown in some poor part of the world poisonous. I’ve not heard this, but lets assume it is true and not based on a misunderstanding. Surely it makes sense to provide the farmers in the region a new staple food crop (assuming that is what is was) to grow in place of the crop that can no longer be safely grown. That would be cheaper and more effective than indulging in futile gestures designed to “prevent global warming”.

Just some random thoughts …

There was an interesting picture taken of someone at a Tea Party in the US recently. There was a young woman photographed with a sign reading “Jesus was a Socialist”. This struck me as a rather perculiar sign to have given who Jesus was and the nature of socialism as a political system. Maybe someone can explain it to me?

After all Jesus made a claim to be God incarnate, the Son of God the Father. So we can get some idea how Jesus would approach the business of organising the state. There was a functionng state and rules for organising government presented in the Old Testament and the organisation of the state of Israel. It is an admittedly imperfect model as it was a theocracy directly ruled by God and we don’t have such a system today, although I think the argument could be made that a republic governed by l the rule of law is actually a fairly similar form of government, but that is a topic for another time.

Now socialism as a system is based fundamentally on the idea of a redistriubtion of wealth by the state. That the state is entitled to take money from one group and give it to another. This is normally done for some high sounding motives about “equality” and “justice” or some sort of “duty to help the less fortunate”. The way I would normally think of much of it is as government enforced “charity” that is administered by the state with the state deciding who is “truly needy”.

I would contend that this is little more than government sanctioned theft, or as Bastiat termed it “legalized plunder”. Given that that would be a wholesale violation of the 8th commandment by the state it seems strange to claim that Jesus, part of the trinity, and therefore one of the authors of the old testament law, would be in favour of a political system that conflicts with one of the 10 commandments.

Now in fairness the girl made another basic error with her use of the term “was” as Jesus is alive today and isn’t properly referred to in the past tense.

Still I find the idea that Jesus would embrace a socialist apprach to government a bit strange given that He had ample opportunity extoll the virtues of it in His earthly ministry and the old testament law could have included explict tennents like that.

But maybe that is just me…

Have you ever heard of the 19th Century French Economist Frederic Bastiat^W? If you haven’t I would recommend his writings to you. Specifically his brilliant short work The Law in which he talks about the purpose of law and the effects of its perversion by people. He describes the Law as follows

What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.

and i’m not sure it could possibly be better than that.

If you haven’t read Bastiat then check him out, he is worth your time.

I noticed recently that my friend @zipzink on Twitter posted a tweet that included a reference to the idea that someone could be “Good without God^W“. I have heard the phrase before but it had me reflecting on it a bit and I find such a notion to be odd and probably incoherent. Now before you jump up and down, I would have no problem with a statement like “Good without a belief in God” but that is not the statement that was made.

What would it mean to be “Good without God”? The question I would have would be, “What does Good mean without God”? I am not sure the word means anything. Can any sense be made of concepts like Good and Evil^W. It seems there are only two possible ways a person could mean the term “good”. The first is by appealing to some external objective standard that they expect other people to recognize. This is what people usually mean when they say good. The second is that they could be referring to some subjective personal standard that they invent for themselves when they say good.

If a person means the second then the word “good” doesn’t really mean anything. Whatever a person decides is “good” is “good for them”. By such a standard a person who thinks raping babies is “good” is a “good person” because they are using their own standard. Since all standards are personal the concept of “good” looses all meaning.

Now I doubt the person who says “good without god” is doing this. If they are, well so what. By such a light Jeffrey Dahmer^W was good and he ate people.

But this presents a problem. What is this external standard they are appealing too? Where does this external universal conception of “good” come from that they are adhering too? In a universe with a God there is no problem with grounding this idea. The idea has a long pedigree and is known as Natural Law^W. But the idea of Natural Law is going to be very difficult to square with the sort of Metaphysical naturalism^W that the person who says that sort of thing normally espouses.

Maybe someone can help me with that. How can someone who claims to be “good without god” ground a conception of “good” that means something beyond an appeal to some subjective preference?