If humanity is not ‘natural’ then who are we and why are here? One obvious answer is we were put here by a greater being, a God. But the entire essence of Darwin’s theory is that there is no God as Darwin was a professed atheist. This debate is actually part of the entire question of environmentalism[...]
-- Tim Ball
Here’s an interesting diatribe penned by climate change denilaists Tim Ball and Tom Harris, both self professed anthropogenic global warming (AGW) “skeptics” (cough cough), and both allegedly on various oil company pay roles. Other than the blatant attack on environmentalists and environmentalism (although no where in the article does he define what he means by environmentalism), this article sheds a new light in regards to what is really at stake for some of your more fervent cynics, and why they have amassed such an unrelenting army of ignoramuses.
As many know, recent debates over climate change have taken on a fairly caustic and often war like atmosphere. Cynics (not scientists) have crept out of the woodworks. Just a decade ago none of these “truth warriors” could pronounce climate change and now are all self-proclaimed global warming experts. They are relentless, mean spirited (dedicated to epithets and quirky insulting one-liners like “alarmists”, “eco communists”, green garbage etc.) and often quite violent in their proclamations. On the CKA (Canadakicksass forum ) one poster even asks for environmentalists to commit suicide en mass to show our commitment to nature. Yes folks, this is the level of discussion at times.
So we know that dealing with this ilk of sophistication and having any type of meaningful dialogue on the subject is a Sisyphean task. I’ve often mentioned that the issue was politicized given Al Gore’s film (hate by association), and of course funding from various corporate entities that have oil profits at stake, but Tim and Tom’s articles gives us one more ingredient in the ideation of the denialists. Now, I understand why it is the perfect storm of controversy on the blogosphere: Politics, Corporate greed, and now RELIGION! And it was this paragraph in their article that set me off.
The current western view of the World essentially evolved from the Darwinian view. Even though it is still just a theory and not a law 148 years after it was first proposed, Darwinian evolution is the only view allowed in schools. Why?
There are two extremely important facts to bring up with this one paragraph. For starters, and you hear this questioned time and time again by laymen is that for some reason after years and years of research evolution still doesn’t stack up scientifically and why isn’t it a scientific law if it does? This exposes a gross over simplifications of the scientific process and, dare I say, highlights a blatant ignorance on the part of those who seem to think that in science there is a formal ascendancy from scientific theory to scientific law. There’s not. And anyone claiming to be a climatologist (or any scientist for that matter) as Tim Ball does should actually know this.
Secondly, to answer Ball’s question at the end; Darwinian evolution is only allowed in SCIENCE and BIOLOGY classes because it is the only scientific theory that adequately explains the development of species over hundreds of millions of years. Until another theory is developed, Darwin’s evolution is it. But for the religious, it is not so cut and dried. They wish to see CREATIONISM taught as a science. nd this is behind Ball´s line. It is a long standing debate that goes back well before the Scopes trials and I´ve always been at a loss to understand why certain groups feel so threatened with ONE theory (evolution) taught in ONE class, when they have entire schools (think the Catholic school board) dedicated to teachings of "the creator did it all".
Attempts were recently made by Christian groups to have ‘Intelligent Design” forced into science classrooms and biology text books, but those attempts inevitable, and thankfully, failed. Take a look here and watch Ken Miller, a biology professor and CATHOLIC, rip ID proponents a new one. (This video is not recommended for the chronically fidgety or other sound byte warriors. It´s close to two hours of one man speaking. No special effects and no sound tracks. )
So what does this all mean? Well, Tim Ball and Tom Harris -- two ardent climate change denialists -- are on a mission to demonize not only the science of climate change and its proponents, but now, as we see here, they are in fact actually setting out to demonize the very field of science itself and using the "Good Book" as their trump card.
The last century or so has given us the age of scientific enlightenment, and yet there are crusaders, in science sheep’s clothing no less, attempting to undermine hundreds of years of scientific inquiry and send us back to the dark ages.
It is common knowledge that the right wing Conservatives have a vested interest in sewing doubt, or dismissing climate change outright (although you won´t find ONE repubilcan candidate to say this openly) . They are the energy stock holders, they are the oil barons and they feel they stand to loose the most if the world takes tackling global warming seriously (poppycocks). Partisan political hacks too see this as an “Al Gore issue” (and hence a THEM issue) and now they are being joined by religious fundamentalists in the cause, not necessarily out of unsubstantiated fears of profit losses or a dedication to a political party, but out of the fear that religion is starting to lose its centuries old-toe hold on society as more and more question the “devine” and place more faith in the scientifically explainable.
We live in scary times.
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