George Will's intellectual FU.

The United States has a crisis.

The crisis is this. We let ignorant, intellectually dishonest shitfuckers like George Will pollute our public discourse without any consequences.

Mr. Will has a new column up at the Washington Post defending his perfidy laden op-ed piece from two weeks ago.

I am not sure what is the most shocking aspect of it, the sheer unadulterated hubris, or the seemingly unmitigated mendacity of both articles.

My previous post on the subject is here.

If you are wondering why I care so much about this, or why it seems to bother me so much, it is really quite simple, it has to do with both a deep abiding love of science (in its myriad forms) and a deep all consuming hatred of willful ignorance.

There are many parts of the Mr. Will's article which bother me, but I suspect these two to be the greastest offenders:

"The column contained many factual assertions but only one has been challenged. The challenge is mistaken."

and

"Citing data from the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, as interpreted on Jan. 1 by Daily Tech, a technology and science news blog,.."

Now the first statement is absolutely and completely false, the topic of whether there was a consensus amongst the Scientific community on the subject of "Global Cooling" during the 70's was also attacked, as well as his interpretation of date presented by both IPCC and U.N World Meteorological Organization (a general summation of the principle offenses of the article).

As for the second quote, I like blogs, I think they are very useful and exceptionally entertaining, what they are not, however, is peer-reviewed journal. I don't give a flying fig about your opinion on the matter unless a) you are an expert on the topic being covered, b) you bring some mad data to support your attack of the premiss. Baring that, your opinion doesn't matter. On the subject of Climate Change far too many people who have no idea of even the basic science involved are given equal voice. They should not be.

Yeah I said it, your opinion is not sacrosanct. Just because of the odd firing of your neurons allowed you to postulate a flawed hypothesis does not mean it is the equal of peer-reviewed and tested data of seasoned researcher.

It just doesn't. One is the application of the scientific method, the other is just naked ideology.

If you wish to attack a consensus in the scientific community, collect data, and present your findings (or find others who have done this) for review. That is how a hypothesis is disproved.

Secondly we have this little gem of wisdom from Fred Hiatt (the editor of the Op-ed page at WashPo, interview by CJR):

"It may well be that he is drawing inferences from data that most scientists reject -- so, you know, fine, I welcome anyone to make that point. But don't make it by suggesting that George Will shouldn't be allowed to make the contrary point. Debate him."

A point of order here, "drawing inferences from data", would have implied looking at data and coming to a different conclusion then the initial one stated by the scientists. What Will does in his pieces is imply that the researchers in question, support his position. Basically he says they mean the opposite of what they actually state in their paper. That is not an inference, that is a blatant misrepresentation of a documented position.

So I will close with this observation from Dr. Jennifer Francis of Rutgers:

This battle never ceases to amaze me. People seem to be much more inclined to believe what they hear from non-experts because it’s what they’d rather hear.

Its called confirmation bias, and yeah it is amazing and depressing all at the same time. No amount of data will dissuade some people from their lunacy and pride is even worse. So yeah I am worried about our future when we let Luddites such as this spew their ignorance unmolested.

For more articulate take downs on the Will article, I would recommend here, here and here.

-cheers

edit- In my haste and verve I forgot to add this very comprehensive list by Think Progress on the matter, as well as Ombudsman Andrew Alexander's most recent commentary on the subject.