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The Island of Doubt

An irregular exploration of the struggle between the power of rational discourse and the scientific method on one hand, and the forces of superstition and dogma on the other. Mostly regarding climate change, though.

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me-fergus.jpg James Hrynyshyn is a freelance science journalist based in western North Carolina, where he tries to put degrees in marine biology and journalism to good use.

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Inspiration

The Demon-Haunted World:
Science as a Candle
in the Dark, by Carl Sagan
(A review)

The Doubter's Companion:
by John Ralston Saul (Excerpts)

Skeptic Magazine: www.skeptic.com

Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal: www.csicop.org

A poem by Yehuda Amichai:
The Place
Where We Are Right


The Meaning of the
Island of Doubt


Author's site: cyamid.net


Add to Technorati Favorites! Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops.
--- H. L. Mencken

By doubting we come to inquiry; and through inquiry we perceive truth.
--- Peter Abelard

Undisguised clarity is easily mistaken for arrogance.
-- Richard Dawkins

As for evolution, it happened. Deal with it.
-- Michael Shermer.

"There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve, then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving, and tiny blasts of tinny trumpets, we have met the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us."
--Walt Kelly

climate:

Bjorn Lomborg launches campaign against logic

Category: climate

(Pseudo)-Skeptical Environmental Bjorn Lomborg advises in the Wall Street Journal that spending money on anti-malarial campaigns makes more sense than, and by implication is morally superior to, spending money on cutting carbon emissions. But to make his case, he has...

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The link between the climate denial and anti-vaccine crowds

Category: climate

Rarely does a blogging day pass that I don't stumble upon some post or comment or email that champions the value of skepticism of anthropogenic global warming and the need for scientists to answer their critics. So it's refreshing to...

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Climate control in Canada: And now the good news

Category: climate

Dramatic changes are necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change. There's no getting around that. Pretending, as the Globe and Mail does, that any plan that accepts that reality is "unacceptable" is denial, pure and simple.

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Another nail in the Superfreakonomics coffin

Category: climate

Could Levitt and Dubner have really just chosen their words carelessly? Did they really think that including the phrase "global cooling" in the subtitle and leading off the chapter by repeating the most common denier argument would lead readers to believe they don't have a problem with the consensus view of anthropogenic climate change?

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Is 350 the right target for atmospheric CO2?

Category: climate

No one, or at least, no one worth blogging about, is demanding we bring emissions down to 350 ppm directly from current levels

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Explaining plummeting belief in anthropogenic climate change

Category: climate

Figuring out how to get people to disregard their own sensory data in favor of graphs in a PowerPoint presentation, newsmagazine (or a blog post) is proving tricky.

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Limbaugh listeners need to do some soul-searching

Category: climate

Anyone associated with the production, distribution or support of Limbaugh's program, including the advertisers, must ask themselves some serious questions about their ethical standards.

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Superfreakonomics: How did they get climate change so wrong?

Category: climate

This is the sort of thing that happens when one forgets that being a contrarian is just a means to end, not an end in of itself.

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Isn't that special?

Category: climate

Every now and then a commenter at this or any number of other climate-oriented blogs spews out the phrase "the height of arrogance" and uses it in a way that defies logic. For example, one "Bruce" recently wrote "It is...

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What good are the ScienceBlogs anyway?

Category: climate

It's Blog Action Day. What I find remarkable is the relatively low profile that my particular pet project -- climate change -- enjoys at ScienceBlogs

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