Thursday, July 15, 2010

A troubled soul


An extraordinary attack by Tim Holmes on his blog Climate Safety reveals a great deal about the warmist mentality. Note how Holmes (MA in Media and Communications from Goldsmiths College, University of London and a degree in English and Related Literature from the University of York) luxuriates in the use of the word "falsehood", rolling it out at every possible opportunity, wrapping himself in its embrace and lavishing his affection on it.

Such are the intellectual contortions though, that he is driven to micro-analysis of extracts from comments taken from a forum to make his (laborious) case, cherry picking the perceived weaknesses and pouring all his resources into his attempt at trashing them.

We can see the technique under the heading: "Did the IPCC make an erroneous, unfounded statement?" - where Holmes offers the sub-header: "Falsehood (in North's 13th comment) ", his example of this "falsehood" being a selected extract from a longer comment.

Thus Holmes uses: "The only way, therefore, to fix Amazongate is for the IPCC to do the decent thing and admit it is wrong." The entire post is replicated above (click the pic to enlarge). The extract that he quotes is arguable, but then this is an argument. To call it a "falsehood" is bizarre. But then, what do you expect of an "English and Related Literature" graduate from York University?

One could return the compliment and micro-analyse the micro-analysis. But one will not. We simply mark in passing the increasing desperation of the warmists to shore up a collapsing case, evidenced by the fact that there is not a single reference to the IPCC case being reliant on a single non-peer reviewed text from a Brazilian website. Invent a mote and forget the beam? Nice technique.

Meanwhile, that other towering intellect, Prince Charles, is accusing sceptics of peddling "pseudo science" – this from a man who had difficulty as a boy passing his O-levels and who talks to plants and believes in homeopathy. He and Holmes should get on well together.

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