Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Still More Lysenkoism:
Director of CDC's Comments on Health Effects of Global Warming "Edited"

This sort of thing has become so routine in this administration that I usually don't even bother to mention it anymore. But this case is said to be particularly "heavy handed."

27 Comments:

Blogger The Mystic said...

If you ask me, this is the direct result of the lack of concentration on epistemic justification of beliefs in our society.

Americans just kinda brush someone who refuses to change his mind no matter what off with "oh, that's just how he is", label him as stubborn and entrenched in his beliefs, and then as long as those beliefs cause him to do one good thing on occasion, hell, he's an American hero! That dumbass who doesn't believe in global warming and thinks God made the earth 100 years ago just shot someone trying to break into his house and people LOVE IT! He's a good ol' southern boy who doesn't take no shit!

Americans LOVE people who have solid, unwavering beliefs, and who will do anything to support them. In fact, if I remember correctly, that's really high on all the exit polls in every election - "Candidate has clear, solid beliefs that he will stick by".

It may not be profound, but I wanted to say it - Americans are waaay too easy on those who don't change their beliefs in accordance with the evidence and place waaay too much emphasis on having a set of beliefs that you will always live by, regardless of what happens.

As a result of this, TONS of people in America will vote for a presidential candidate if he says what they want to hear. If he disagrees, they'll pick someone else. Why? Not because they're being intentionally dishonest, necessarily. Rather, honesty has fallen victim to their desire to be that good ol' southern boy. The glorification of the man standing up for his beliefs has completely beaten out the value in knowing when one is wrong. It's beaten it out to the point at which knowing when one is wrong is perceived as a weakness and frowned upon.

I'm almost 100% convinced that the Bush administration is perfectly aware that climate change is happening and of the effects it will have. The thing is, they know that if they present speeches on the reality of these issues, scientifically, that, rather than change people's minds, they'll simply push away voters. This is simply the necessary M.O. of the party that panders to a large amount of people striving to be that ideal belief-entrenched guy.

I know it's been said before that people vote for what they want to hear, but that's a pretty weak statement without some reasoning behind it. I just thought I'd throw out this line of reasoning because it kinda hit me when I read this article. Sure, it's just a theory and probably oversimplification, but it at least helps me to see how it is possible that people could just vote for what they want to hear without being entirely intellectually dishonest.

In short: a whole lot of Americans, most of whom back the Republican party, have been brought up in a culture (the south) in which one glorifies the guy who stands up for his beliefs and does whatever it takes to defend them. Never is it emphasized how good his reasons are, or how well they are thought out. Rather, the point that is glorified is the fact that he defends the beliefs and will put his life on the line for them.

I can't even count the movies where the main character says a line akin to "Because that's just not right", or "Because that's how things are" as a justification for what he's doing. Sure, sometimes that is proper justification, but in our society, it's dangerous. People who are justified in saying it and those who aren't all grasp this phrase and use it.

It never comes up in our society. No one gives a shit how you can be justified in what you believe - they just want you to believe something and, by golly, fight to the death for it.

And now here we are. We've got a party in control who believes something (climate change isn't really that big of a deal) and they're doing anything they can to make sure that belief stays. If they don't, they'll lose their glorified position given to them by their remaining supporters, and that'll be their end. If I'm right, they pretty much subside purely on this sort of glorification, and that's why we REALLY shouldn't take it when someone we know acts like a stubborn moron about issues where there is a landslide of evidence against him/her.

10:48 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mystic,

You were saying?:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/10/james-surowieck.html

1:57 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

Well I dunno if that's a good example of it, necessarily. It might be, but it might also be just merely that lying about the plausibility of tax cuts is a good way to get people to vote for you.

I wasn't necessarily complaining about the fact that people adopt stupid positions in order to get people to vote for them. Sure, that's bad, but what's REALLY bad is that the defense of a position is more glorified than the process of arriving at a reasonable one. This causes people with both bad AND good positions to defend them for stupid reasons, only because they want to be that guy who everyone looks up to for standing up for what he believes in.


This is what I was suggesting is happening in order to contribute to Lysenkoism in a democracy like ours:

A group of voters has been raised to believe that the strong have a belief system by which they behave. In this group's case, the belief system is nothing more than dogma that the constituents are conditioned to follow. Strength becomes not the validity or quality of the belief, but rather the degree of the person's resolve to hold on to the belief.

If all that's true, and I think it is, then it makes sense that this group would attempt to find a candidate whose beliefs mesh with its, as the quality of the beliefs are never questioned. Once a candidate like that is in power, it's not an option to say "Look, I was wrong about x". That would be suicide, as the group would see that as weakness. The whole candidacy is ranked regarding the capability of the candidate to stick to beliefs and how glorified that has become.

I was saying we're too weak on people who dogmatically stick to positions because doing that is part of this group behavior I see in America that leads to people supporting Bush.

It's a group of people with convictions that have been culturally ingrained in their brains to the point where the convictions aren't questioned - only the tenacity with which one adheres to them. That's why Bush goes all Lysenko on things - because speaking the truth will only make him look weak for breaking the adherence to conviction.

I see it in movies, as I said, and all over our culture. There's just a group that has fallen victim to it more than others, and I fear they are the ones who support Bush.

All of this could be entirely wrong, really, I'm just saying - it's a way you can see how people would encourage Lysenkoism without simply being evil and with malicious intent. It's just that they "know" their convictions are correct, and argument to them is not about finding truth, but about establishing dominance.

Now, whether or not that has happened with tax cuts - I doubt it. Probably on an individual level. However, on a group level - with the supporters of Bush, that is, I am almost certain it has happened with a number of topics, such as American ethnocentrism, Protestant Christianity, Climate Change, and Evolution.

2:55 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

The funny thing is, altho he was largely a fraud, Lysenko (and Lamarck) were somewhat correct---acquired characteristics can be inherited after all, per epigenetics. Scientific certainty is a tricky thing, and that's true of anyone who claims certainty.

[For the record, in 2002, the administration acknowledged a human role in global warming. The criticism about policy is of course proper in the public discourse, but it's not as cut-and-dried as some would like it.]

Now, in a Democratic administration, those who are less alarmist about global warming would never be suppressed. Or if they were, it would be only in service of the "truth" (since any dissent from the worldwide "consensus" is by definition scurrilous and dishonest).

"Truth" is always a defense. For anything, or so I'm told.

As for the issue at hand, I don't see how deriving disease vectors from temperature increases, especially marginal increases, can be anything but speculative, even if it's informed speculation. I don't expect any administration to put its imprimatur on speculation it's uncomfortable with. That would include Democratic administrations as well.

Nor would draconian solutions to CO2 increases be the most effective method of combating increases in disease vectors, not by a long shot. If malaria spread increases by x%, perhaps it would be more effective to combat malaria. If the cure to a given disease is not at hand [in this case global warming], one should not ignore treating the symptom [increased malaria]. That can also save lives.

I hope I'm not being Lysenkoist about this. Unlike him, I have no desire to suppress opposing viewpoints.

3:02 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

1. Although people sometimes use 'Lysenkoist' to mean a cluster of things, one of which is believing in inheritance of acquired traits, the more common meaning is the narrower one, i.e. (b) someone who uses politics to manipulate science, or infuses science with politics. I've been a closet Larmarkian myself for a long time, so I've got nothing against the former bit...though Lysenko was right (well, if being only 99.9% wrong can count as being right) only but dumb luck. Not a man one should be eager to defend.

2. Your main error here involves suggesting that we have a better way of discerning truth (or, as you would say, "truth") than expert opinion. We don't in this case.

3. Expert opinion is against you on this.

4. Will the next Democratic admin have scientific biases? Almost certainly. Will they, as you suggest, be as bad as those of the current admin? Almost certainly not. Your main error here--one you make frequently--is to pretend that since all admins are to some degree dishonest, all are equally dishonest. That is false, of course. This might be called "the no difference in kind = no difference fallacy." But differences in degree matter. This administration is a radical outlier.

5. "I don't see how deriving disease vectors from temperature increases, especially marginal increases, can be anything but speculative." Care to pony up with your epidemiology credentials? Your failing to be able to see this is virtually weightless in this case, as is mine.

6. The issue here isn't whether we uniformed bystanders agree or disagree with the experts. The issue isn't even whether the CDC director is right. The issue is: suppression of expert opinion in the name of politics.

7. There is no suggestion that stopping global warming is "the most effective method" of combating any disease.

8. I like how you deftly turn the actual Lysenkoism of this actual administration into an indictment of the merely possible Lysenkoism of a merely possible Democratic administration. It's a nice little piece of sophistry. But note that it's this (actual, real, Republican) administration that is (actually, really) suppressing expert opinion (our best route to the actual, real truth) in the interest of defending the "truth" (i.e., not the truth).

Please, please don't waste my time with stuff like this, Tom.

6:58 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

Sorry you don't seem to like thought experiments anymore, WS. You proposed them awhile back, reversing colors and then testing one's views, but you get mad when I do it lately. "Tu quoque."


The issue here isn't whether we uniformed bystanders agree or disagree with the experts. The issue isn't even whether the CDC director is right. The issue is: suppression of expert opinion in the name of politics.

Well, that cuts to the chase, so let's consider it. The Clinton-Gore Administration supported the Kyoto treaty [which 95% of the Senate ended up rejecting, if you recall].

Now, would the administration have put out arguments under its own auspices that disagreed with its support of Kyoto? I wouldn't expect them to. That was my political point. Perhaps you disagree, and I'm OK with that.

As for the science part, I'm not an epistemologist or an epidemiologist, nor do I (or you) know what was edited out. Still, it stands to reason that any predictions of increased disease vectors would heartily depend on the underlying predictions of just how much temperatures will rise. Doesn't it?

Because I'm afraid it's not all as black-and-white as your unfortunate charges of sophistry require. There is great variation even among "expert opinion" as to just what the level of potential rises might be.

Disease may grow greatly with global warming or the rise might be insignificant in the scheme of things, depending greatly on just how much temperatures will rise; linking them could shine more heat than light. It is a fact that this stuff ends up being political, and is handled politically. Linking disease and global warming is political hot stuff, and we might also observe that the head of the CDC is not a climatologist, and contrary to popular sentiment, there is no reservoir of truth for her to tap for the necessary underlying data, not even An Inconvenient Truth which suffers from its own epistemological problems. As you know. ;-)

I thought the backstory on Lysenko re epigenetics was interesting, which is mostly why I brought it up. But it's also a caution to anyone who is certain that certainty is on their side, even "expert opinion."

Acquired characteristics are heritable? Unthinkable!

7:42 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

"Now, would the administration have put out arguments under its own auspices that disagreed with its support of Kyoto? I wouldn't expect them to. That was my political point."

What the hell are you talking about? This isn't about whether or not people should "put out arguments" against their own positions. Are you asking whether or not they'd argue with themselves? Of course not.

This is about actively censoring the position of an expert because you disagree with him or her. THAT is the problem.

"nor do I (or you) know what was edited out"

Well, given that 10 of 14 pages were cut out, I'm thinking it wasn't just gossip. If you're suggesting that the administration was just doing a good editing job, then that's ridiculous.

"There is great variation even among "expert opinion" as to just what the level of potential rises might be."

How the HELL do you know? You're just BSing. These were prepared statements from the entire Center for Disease Control. They didn't just pick a random person and go "Hey! You, write about your opinion on this matter!" This was a product of the agency. Clearly it carries weight. Further, whether or not others disagree isn't even the point. The point, AGAIN, is that the administration edited out the opinion of experts in order to make it correspond more with their desires.

"It is a fact that this stuff ends up being political"

What!? Scientific opinion regarding the effects of climate change on disease is political? WTF?

"and we might also observe that the head of the CDC is not a climatologist"

Also, he's not a firefighter.

"and contrary to popular sentiment, there is no reservoir of truth for her to tap for the necessary underlying data, not even An Inconvenient Truth which suffers from its own epistemological problems. As you know. ;-)"

What..but..this is about what would happen to disease IF climate change occurred..wha..th...*seizure*

WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!? HE'S NOT A CLIMATOLOGIST!? NO TRUTH RESERVOIR!??!??

WHAT THE HELL IS GAAAAAAAAA!! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!


I had a dream in which I'd been trapped in this room for so long.. when I first got there, I saw a metal door, and so I tried to use the most logically appropriate object (a SWAT team battering ram) with which to batter it down so I could escape. Finding that to be a failure, I broke down and started hitting it with everything I found, logical or not, just in the hopes that somehow, something would break it down. Written all over the door was "TVD" in blood...

7:59 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

she's* not a firefighter.








or an astronaut.

8:03 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

I think you missed every point I made. Well done.

I'll just take the first right now---


What the hell are you talking about? This isn't about whether or not people should "put out arguments" against their own positions. Are you asking whether or not they'd argue with themselves? Of course not.


The CDC is part of the executive branch. You could look it up. After you do, you'll discover you just agreed with me. Danger, Will Robinson.

8:25 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

Ohhhhh


So that's just like how it'd be ok if Coke's quality control department found out that one of the ingredients Coke was using was killing people and Coke's CEO edited their reports so it didn't sound so bad.

Right?

8:30 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

Just to clarify that, it seems as though WS said that the Bush administration edited the CDC's report in a Lysenko-esque behavior. You said you wouldn't expect them to do anything otherwise through your Clinton administration reference. I pointed out that, then, you must expect that Coke would censor its quality control department if it found out that there was a dangerous substance being used in its product that was killing people.

So basically, your response to the allegation that the Bush administration is behaving immorally by censoring the CDC is that you expect them to do it. Then you go on to indicate that the Clinton administration would've done the same thing.


Given that you constantly bring in democrats when discussing Bush, it seems as though you think everyone behaves immorally in this manner, so everyone's equal. Is a recurrance of the fourth point in Winston's comment, necessary here?

8:39 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

4) is a "you always" [Bush always] argument. I was talking about this argument.

Your analogy of killing people and immorality begs the question to my mind. There is no such certainty here.

If you want to argue that if the head of the EPA had prepared a report that held that Kyoto was bunkum and that the Clinton-Gore administration would have put it out unedited anyway, then that's a reasonable analogy.

Otherwise, you agree with my thought experiment, provided you don't give it any thought.

Oooops, the 10-post mark. If y'all can disagree with me without impugning my character, I'm happy to yield the last word. I've had my say, although it wasn't quite understood.

8:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would be a cynic to think that the '10-post limit' serves to mainly diminish, not enhance discussion.

I would be a fool not to entertain that possibility of there being a non-trivial chance(as they say in the math biz) of my hypothesis being true.

I've had my say, although it wasn't quite understood.

I don't think that works as a good defense, as it reflects badly on one party at best, or, at worse, like charity and the sustain pedal of the piano, can be used to cloak a multitute of sins, as the old saying goes.

If this is a recurring problem,(as it seems to be since this isn't the first time you've indicated this was a problem) then you need to reconsider your approach, or help us with feedback as to the specific misunderstandings you see going on in reaction to your posts.

3:56 AM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

Wtf, Tom. Winston's fourth point:

"4. Will the next Democratic admin have scientific biases? Almost certainly. Will they, as you suggest, be as bad as those of the current admin? Almost certainly not. Your main error here--one you make frequently--is to pretend that since all admins are to some degree dishonest, all are equally dishonest. That is false, of course. This might be called "the no difference in kind = no difference fallacy." But differences in degree matter. This administration is a radical outlier."


That is NOT a "you always" argument, by which I can only presume you mean that it's an argument that says you always do something and you insist that you don't. It's entirely applicable here. AGAIN, I will summarize what has gone on to see if I can get a response that isn't just some sort of rhetorical game playing a la "that's a 'you always' argument".

Summary:

1) Winston Smith alleges that the Bush administration is behaving immorally by censoring the CDC in Lysenkoist behavior in order to further their own political goals.

2) Tom states that this is simply what all politicians do.

3) Winston Smith points out that, while all politicians to some degree may censor opposing arguments in order to further their own goals, differences in degree matter. The Bush administration is a radical outlier in the spectrum of Lysenkoism; that is, the Bush administration perpetrates this behavior far more frequently and with more impact than other administrations.

4) Tom responds by saying that this is a "you always argument"

5) The Mystic showed that this argument, regardless of the assertion it makes about Tom's frequency of perpetration, is absolutely relevant in this specific case.

6) Tom seems to claim that there is no convincing argument for the immorality of the actions taking place under the Bush administration due to the dubious nature of global warming.

7) [explanation given below] Whether or not global warming is actually occurring is not the point of the CDC document. The point is to explain what impact climate change would have on disease IF global warming were to occur. Censoring a scientific report on the consequences of an event because one believes the event is unlikely to occur, despite the vast body of literature supporting its occurance, is immoral.


Explanation of #7
My response is that I can only guess that Tom means that, due to the dubious nature of global warming, we can't be certain that the Bush administration is improperly censoring the opinion of the expert from the CDC.

If that's your argument, Tom, it should be noted that the CDC report is on the effects that climate change would have on disease should it occur. It is improper to censor the report on climate change's potential effects on disease because one does not think climate change is a reality. That's like censoring a report on the effects of a car accident on the passengers because you don't think a car accident is likely to happen.

Secondly, given the vast, vast body of scientific literature supporting global warming and the extremely small dissenting population, global warming should be taken seriously by laypeople like you and me.

However, before arguing about global warming, if you really need to do that, it's important to note that whether or not it is occurring is irrelevant to the morality of censoring a document discussing the consequences SHOULD it occur.

11:15 AM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

Morality. Science. Politics.

Uncertainties abound.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13gore.html?ex=1331438400&en=2df9d6e7a5aa6ed6&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

I'm still not satisfied with your analogies, Mystic. I think mine is more probative.

1:30 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

What do you think about #7 in the discussion? Justification of analogies aside.

2:01 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Wait! Mystic...are you...trying to reason with Tom about this stuff?

This will get you:

(a) Somewhere

(b) Nowhere

Please complete this exercise before proceeding.

Tom: You're beaten here, even if you can't see it. Again: I know you can keep typing words...but finger endurance =/= truth.

You continue to make me more and more sympathetic to Democrats! Please desist! They don't deserve it!

6:25 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

By last word, I meant rebuttal. You can't just call me unreasonable (well, you can---you just did. Yet again.).

You can't declare victory until you answer the Clinton-Gore-Kyoto analogy with something more than delegitimization.

1:29 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

If they wanted to join Kyoto and the EPA put out a report showing that Kyoto was totally ineffective in combatting Global Warming, and that our money would better be spent doing [insert proposal here], you're damn right they'd bbe doing something immoral if they censored that report.

So then, I presume you agree that Bush did something immoral here.

2:10 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

I'm uncomfortable with dragging my moral condemnations into politics and their uncertainties. I believe my record here bears that out, and I have plenty of them, believe me.

I would expect Clinton-Gore would honestly disagree with the analysis that Kyoto was bunkum---altho it was, as it turned out---and would have refused to have criticism of it come out under administration auspices. (Certainly their political opponents would have used it against them.)

And you agreed with that, back when it was an abstract proposition.

2:53 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

So then, are you saying that Bush really believes that the scientists are wrong, and therefore it's ok to censor their speeches?

And all I'm saying is that if someone censors scientists' opinions in order to further their political agenda, that's bad, no matter who does it. You have yet to show how that's not the case.

3:20 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

"Censor" isn't the right word. Dr. Gerberding would be representing the administration. What is said is their call, as the OMB acknowledged in the article.

I guess nobody's going to answer the Clinton-Gore-Kyoto thing. That's a shame, because anyone can "win" an argument by alleging bad faith on the opponent's part. (Sophistic, don't you think?)

We assume that the Clinton-Gore administration could not act in bad faith, and therefore as a controlled experiment, we could examine the actual issues of whether "science" is synonymous with truth, that all science is equal, or that science as practiced in America by definition is apolitical.

I have my reservations about all of the above propositions.

4:37 PM  
Blogger lovable liberal said...

TVD, even trying to take you seriously is hard. But here goes.

The scientific consensus on human causes of global is not new, except to Andrew Sullivan and others like him. It has existed since the early 1980s. Political resistance to that consensus hasn't changed it; it has merely trumped up ignorant doubt among the voters using essentially the "research" paradigm pioneered by the Tobacco Institute and the Institute for Creation Science (sic).

The climate change consensus existed during the Clinton administration, as it still does during the Bushist reign. Clinton and Gore had no need to suppress the actual science.

Now, of course, your postings suggest a rhetorical trap. Do you have something from Newsmax or NRO alleging a suppression of dissent on climate change by someone connected to Al Gore? Is the fact that the UN's reports don't include Singer's dissent evidence for you of symmetrical suppression of scientists? Or did a denier's peer reviewed grant application get rejected? Well, out with it, then.

I will say this: Democrats are much more tolerant of mixed messages from the scientists in their administrations. This is true, I believe, because Democrats are more comfortable with dissent in general. Republicans, on the other hand, hearken to the corporate model, where the one version of the truth is handed down from the executive suite. The Bushists explicitly believe this - see Yoo, John. WS's explication of your fallacy is right on point.

Of course, science is not certain. It's empirical, not subject to certainty. It's qualitatively different from logic and mathematics. Their epistemic justification still has to deal with the often faulty reasoning power of humans, but at least they don't have to deal with the whole host of other sources of error and misinterpretation that are inherent in any study of the world.

The right question is: Based on our current knowledge, what should we do? We have three options - something, continued study, and nothing. Expense and confidence in our knowledge both do figure in a rational choice, but the expense is a balance of expenses since there is a large expected expense of doing nothing, too.

(Aside: Go ahead and object to the phrase the right question. Make more rhetorical fog. It won't obscure the facts.)

One source of my confidence in the scientific consensus is past cases. When scientists ascribed the ozone hole to freon, industry and its Republican handmaidens shrieked that the science wasn't certain, just as they do now (and as big tobacco has done for more than 40 years). Scientists not employed by the industry turned out to be right.

At this point, when you suggest that maybe it's cheaper to address symptoms rather than causes, it sounds as though you're saying: "Hey, we ran the clock out our opportunity to address the problem before dire consequences, and now it's too late to stop them." Hidden of course is the fact that mitigation is still possible even now that you have succeeded in causing us to miss out on prevention.

6:23 AM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

LL, you're the one who predicts the right wing will rise up in violence when things go against them. I don't take you seriously at all. Leave me alone.

7:48 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

Look, here it is in as basic as it gets, Tom:

You think that, because the CDC is part of the Executive Branch, it's perfectly moral for the rest of the branch to shut one part of it out.

You keep asking people if the Clinton administration would've done the same thing to Kyoto - I alrady answered your question, but you keep asking like it hasn't been answered.

The answer is: Yes, if the EPA was going to deliver a speech to the Senate that showed that Kyoto was crap and that our money would best be spent doing x, and the Clinton administration censored the crap out of their report, that would be immoral.

I don't know if they would've done it - I don't see any evidence that they would've, so I'm going to go with "no". But that is SUCH a tangential point that you keep focusing on.

Returning to the REAL point, you seem to think that it's ok for the administration to edit a scientist's speech because the scientist will be "representing" them.

This is just like a CEO of a company editing out the statements of the quality control section giving a report to the public about dangerous materials found in their product. Does he have the POWER to do it? Sure. That's not in question. Is it MORAL? Hell, fucking, no.

So in short, you responded with

Dr. Gerberding would be representing the administration. What is said is their call, as the OMB acknowledged in the article.

Correct, it is their call. But, because they have the power to edit her voice doesn't mean that it's right to do it. What they did with their power was morally wrong - censoring the report of a group of scientists because you don't like the conclusion is bad, bad, bad.

Just like the quality control.

12:16 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

Summary:

1) Winston Smith alleges that the Bush administration is behaving immorally by censoring the CDC in Lysenkoist behavior in order to further their own political goals.

2) Tom states that this is simply what all politicians do.

3) Winston Smith points out that, while all politicians to some degree may censor opposing arguments in order to further their own goals, differences in degree matter. The Bush administration is a radical outlier in the spectrum of Lysenkoism; that is, the Bush administration perpetrates this behavior far more frequently and with more impact than other administrations.

4) Tom responds by saying that this is a "you always argument"

5) The Mystic showed that this argument, regardless of the assertion it makes about Tom's frequency of perpetration, is absolutely relevant in this specific case.

6) Tom seems to claim that there is no convincing argument for the immorality of the actions taking place under the Bush administration due to the dubious nature of global warming.

7) [explanation given below] Whether or not global warming is actually occurring is not the point of the CDC document. The point is to explain what impact climate change would have on disease IF global warming were to occur. Censoring a scientific report on the consequences of an event because one believes the event is unlikely to occur, despite the vast body of literature supporting its occurance, is immoral.

8) Tom says that the administration is being represented by Dr. Gerberding, and because of that, "what is said [by her] is their call".

9) Mystic notes that no one questions their power to censor what she says. Clearly they CAN and DID do it. The real problem is that the censorship is immoral - not that they don't have the ability to do it.
a. It's just like a CEO of a company censoring the quality control section's speech to the public about dangerous content in their product. He has the power to do it, but it would be immoral if the quality control report is correct.

12:22 PM  
Blogger lovable liberal said...

LL, you're the one who predicts the right wing will rise up in violence when things go against them. I don't take you seriously at all. Leave me alone.

Lucky me!

1:23 PM  

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