The Climate “Creationists”

Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:

Global warming is a religion, not a science. The prospect of governing every action of every individual on the planet in the name of staving off “catastrophic climate change,” and charging especially the U.S. a fee for impoverishing it, makes belief in global warming as tenacious and anti-reason as the literal interpretation of the Bible is to a fundamentalist or evangelical holly-roller. The fraudsters and reivers have come too close to their goal of “world governance” to concede not only error, but the lies that sustained that error, as well. They want to rule, or at least see men ruled by others.

Global warming advocates are “creationists” because, in their view, man is the exclusive “creator” of the potential -- nay, they say the inevitability -- of catastrophic climate change.

It would not be irrelevant, then, to preface comments on Climategate by relating another instance of a furor instigated by religious creationists over a scientific finding, in this instance, the unnecessary carping over the discovery of the Java Man. The following discussion is from the blog site Creationist Arguments: Java Man.

Many creationists have claimed that Java Man, discovered by Eugene Dubois in 1893, was "bad science". Gish (1985) says that Dubois found two human skulls at nearby Wadjak at about the same level and had kept them secret; that Dubois later decided Java Man was a giant gibbon; and that the bones do not come from the same individual. Most people would find Gish's meaning of "nearby" surprising: the Wadjak skulls were found 65 miles (104 km) of mountainous countryside away from Java Man.

Similarly for "at approximately the same level": the Wadjak skulls were found in cave deposits in the mountains, while Java Man was found in river deposits in a flood plain (Fezer 1993). Nor is it true, as is often claimed, that Dubois kept the existence of the Wadjak skulls secret because knowledge of them would have discredited Java Man. Dubois briefly reported the Wadjak skulls in three separate publications in 1890 and 1892. Despite being corrected on this in a debate in 1982 and in print (Brace, 1986), Gish has continued to make this claim, even stating, despite not having apparently read Dubois' reports, that they did not mention the Wadjak skulls (Fezer 1993).

Lubenow does acknowledge the existence of Dubois' papers, but argues that since they were bureaucratic reports not intended for the public or the scientific community, Dubois was still guilty of concealing the existence of the Wadjak skulls. This is also incorrect; the journals in which Dubois published, although obscure, were distributed in Europe and America, and are part of the scientific literature. They are available in major libraries and have often been referred to by later researchers..

Based on his own theories about how brains had evolved and wishful thinking, Dubois did claim that Java Man was “a gigantic genus allied to the gibbons,” but this was not, as creationists imply, a retraction of his earlier claims that it was an intermediate between apes and humans. Dubois also pointed out that it was bipedal and that its brain size was "very much too large for an anthropoid ape", and he never stopped believing that he had found an ancestor of modern man (Theunissen 1989; Gould 1993; Lubenow 1992). (The creationist organization Answers in Genesis has now abandoned the claim that Dubois dismissed Java Man as a gibbon, and now lists it in their “Arguments we think creationists should NOT use” web page.)

Briefly, Eugene Dubois was as confused about his finding as the religionists were determined that it either was fabricated or that it could be explained away to conform to a literal interpretation of the Bible. And the excerpt above is as tedious a read as pouring over the CRU emails. But, it is worth the effort. One might ask oneself: Why is the author of that excerpt going to the trouble of answering the claims of anti-evidence, anti-reason creationists? Why would any scientist feel compelled to attempt to rebut the absurd claims of mystics? Briefly, because religion is still the default moral code of our time.

Incidentally, the “Arguments we think creationists should NOT use” web page bears reading, if not for laughs, then for a glimpse into the art of prevarication that has been employed by Bible thumpers and climate creationists alike.

Religion rears its ugly head here in today’s San Francisco Gate article in its defense of “bad science“ exposed. The article is slanted in favor of the believers of anthropogenic global warming.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., the ranking Republican on the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, said "the documents show systematic suppression of dissenting opinion."

True enough. But:

Joseph Romm, a physicist and senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, said the evidence of warming is getting clearer while opponents are "redoubling their disinformation campaign."

Read the email exchanges. Are or are not Phil Jones and his colleagues working to suppress data that don’t fit their a priori conclusion that the climate is warming? Does that or does not that constitute a systematic suppression of dissenting opinion, a suppression that included mocking dissenters, denigrating their findings, and even dumping all the raw data? Was it or was not the omission and/or distortion of data an instance of “cherry-picking,” something the new deniers are accusing the skeptics of in regards to the emails themselves? In the face of incontrovertible evidence of doctoring the data to fit a political agenda, are or are not Romm and his allies launching their own disinformation campaign?

The scientists from two major research centers, a national think tank and NASA, claimed during a telephone news conference that the e-mail exchanges were taken out of context in an attempt to influence pending greenhouse gas emissions policies….It is, they said, a cynical, blatantly dishonest effort to cloud the fact that the world is now confronting a huge, potentially disastrous climactic shift…."There is so much information that tells us the planet has been warming," said Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "No independent study is going to come up with anything other than what we've already concluded."

Let’s see: Phil Jones recommending that A should be made to look like B, and if anyone questions the validity of that “trick,” tell him to go fly a kite -- this is a statement “taken out of context” by his critics to prove that he is committing fraud and so it shouldn’t be held against him? Aren’t such “tricks” calculated to “influence pending greenhouse gas emission policies”? Charging Jones with manipulating data to suit his bias for “global warming” is not an instance of “cynical, blatant” dishonesty? Instead of examining the surviving, adulterated data or even the statements in the emails, the “climate creationist” establishment resorts to casting aspersions on the motives of anyone who questions that establishment.

Then there is this gem:

The scientists dismissed the criticisms Friday as intellectually dishonest distortions by those who seek to discredit global warming for political or business reasons. When scientists talk about "tricks," pointed out several academics, they are often using colloquial jargon that means a method of dealing with a problem.

And these “2,500” scientists are not working to advance their own political agenda? They are not intellectually dishonest? They stand to have perpetuated their lucrative research grants, paid for by tax revenues, and that‘s all right? And, the term trick means what it means: a sleight of hand, a work of magic, a cunning action; the meanings are many, but they are all founded on the root concept of deception. Who has been caught distorting the data? Who has been caught deceiving others? Phil Jones and his friends in the CRU. As well as NASA and GISS. And there’s the EPA standing by to enforce the dictates of the Copenhagen Communiqué.

We believe in global warming. Ergo, it must be true. Now that’s religion!

If it were not for the projected astronomical costs of “combating” global warming, now “climate change” -- neither of which could be “combated” anyway, has anyone ever successfully “combated” a tsunami or a volcanic eruption? -- and the prospect of a massive government expropriation of the economy, this kind of unmitigated dishonesty on the part of politically correct “scientists” would not merit front page news.

The “climate creationists” protest too much. They would do themselves a service by taking the Fifth, as their crime boss predecessors did during the Senate organized crime hearings. They should be smart enough to know that anything they say from now on can incriminate them and be used against them.

Crossposted at The Dougout