The Left v. Free Speech (#21,692 in a series)

Scientist as Carnival Fortune-Teller

Gah!!!  Apparently some people think that “science” is defined as “the opinion of anyone that has a college degree in any field that can be called “science”.  Check out the description of who qualifies for the bogus list’o’scientists :

Signatories are approved for inclusion in the Petition Project list if they have obtained formal educational degrees at the level of Bachelor of Science or higher in appropriate scientific fields. The petition has been circulated only in the United States.

The current list of petition signers includes 9,029 PhD; 7,157 MS; 2,586 MD and DVM; and 12,714 BS or equivalent academic degrees. Most of the MD and DVM signers also have underlying degrees in basic science.

Nice, eh?  Bacause Global Warming could cause, say, health issues… health workers should be able to tell us if  a certain level of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause it to happen … right? Riiiiight…

Here’s my favorite, bit of course :

2. Computer and mathematical sciences includes 935 scientists trained in computer and mathematical methods. Since the human-caused global warming hypothesis rests entirely upon mathematical computer projections and not upon experimental observations, these sciences are especially important in evaluating this hypothesis.

Apparently, having studied Computer Science makes me a full-qualified expert in Climate, because I could, hypothetically, ply my trade coding mathematical models for grant money.  Ditto for anyone else with a degree in Code Monkey.  You could have spent the last 10 years writing web pages… it doesn’t matter!  You’re a Scientist, dammit!

Fortune Teller

AGW Scientist

Summary : you don’t have to have done any work that has anything to do with Global Warming, or Climate… much less published anything on the subject.  Or any subject, for that matter.

Yeah, pretty much what I thought…

Charles Johnson just confirmed it.  Basically, Little Green Footballs has gone into lockdown mode because his ideology is driven his own petty hatreds.  It’s a shame; a couple years back, LGF was a decent site with a free exchange of ideas.  Now, the slightest peep of dissent becomes a ban three minutes later.

Plenty of more interesting sites out there, but it’s a shame to see one descend into darkness…

Update : the folks over at Blogmocracy do a pretty good review of The List of Evil.