Bishop Hill Comedy debate
Mar 5, 2014 Climate: Sceptics Media Science Media Centre I always like it when upholders of the scientific consensus hold a debate, because they never fail to give us the opportunity to have a good old laugh at them. Take this major event later this month when the Press Gazette is going to look at whether sceptics should be heard or not:
Chaired by Fiona Fox of the Science Media Centre it will ask whether it is time for journalists to rewrite the ethical rulebook and simply acknowledge a few scientific truths.
Among the panelists are broadcaster and geneticist Professor Steve Jones who published a report for the BBC Trust in 2011 in which he argued that the corporation gave too much weight to fringe scientific viewpoints on subjects such as climate change, GM crops and MMR.
The other panelists are:
BBC head of news programmes Ceri Thomas
Bob Ward – Policy and research director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change
Michael Hanlon – Science writer and author, former science editor of the Daily Mail.
Hanlon, for those who don't know, is the green guy at the Mail.
You have to laugh don't you? Truth as in Pravda, democracy as in the People's Democratic Republic of China, debate as in a Press Gazette debate.
Details here.
Reader Comments (62)
Steve Jones is a lefty, if he wrote the SELF INTERESTED gene rather than the selfish gene, he'd have got a lot better insight.
Genes mutually beneficial behaviour mirrors nicely that of markets engaging in the process of comparative advantage, as a lefty he's blind to it.
I look forward to all those involved in Private Eye being banned from the BBC for propagating MMR nonsense.
With the collapse of the soviet union, surely there's evidence enough to ban marxists like Paul Mason from positions like economics editor at the BBC.
johanna
bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2014/3/5/comedy-debate.html#comment20802336
Groucho Marx
Steve Jones on Mar 5, 2014 at 4:43 PM
"Please note: I am not THE Steve Jones!"
But you are THE Steve Jones! It is the other, misled, Steve Jones who is the OTHER Steve Jones! :)
I am old enough to remember the "No platform for Fascists" policy promulgated by student unions at Universities during the 1970s. Of course "Fascist" was defined as anyone who opposed the variegated Trotskyists, Maoists, Leninists etc who ran the student unions.
Classifying CAGW sceptics as "deniers" achieves the same objective. How to silence your enemy in one easy lesson. It is no wonder that the BBC, Clegg, etc use this propaganda technique with relish.
Anyone know why Wikipedia on Science Media Centre say Fiona Fox writes for Spiked Online? I found nothing there.
They cite SourceWatch and Comment is Free! Neither says that.
Roy asks the key question. It is such a large question it could pass as the elephant in the room:
Why is AGW exempt from critical analysis?
Ah but in Pravda there is no Izvestia, and in Izvestia there is no Pravda
rhoda (Mar 5, 2014 at 4:37 PM): "I always wondered about MMR. I don't just dismiss the anecdotal evidence, and I do think that somebody somewhere on the public health side might just sacrifice a few autism cases in the cause of herd immunity."
I think you are probably on the right tack with herd immunity. Before MMR, girls were routinely vaccinated against rubella but not boys; since boys derived less clinical benefit than risk, to do so would have been unethical. Likewise I understand, mumps is a greater risk for boys than girls, but in each case 50% coverage is not enough for herd immunity. By combining both vaccines with measles, both the risks and benefits are aggregated and the ethical problem is hidden but not removed. Despite the collapse in public confidence in the MMR vaccine, the authorities were adamant that separate vaccinations would not be sanctioned. I have always felt that the reaction of the medical establishment has much more similarity over this with the climate establishment in 'self-defence mode' than with climate 'anti-science' scepticism, as some have suggested. It seems that whenever science meets public policy, then public policy trumps science.
Incidentally, my daughter suffered a severe refractory febrile convulsion (lasting several hours) within a day or so of receiving MMR, resulting in 24 hours hospitalisation and about a year of outpatient check-ups. The pediatric consultant recommended no further vaccination until she was 15, this didn't stop several condescending letters from our GP surgery telling us that we were bad parents for failing to maintain her vaccination programme.
They must have learnt the meaning of the word "debate" from the "balanced, our Charter makes it a legal requirement" BBC.
@Mar 5, 2014 at 4:37 PM | Unregistered Commenter rhoda,
Rhoda,
Good question. Sorry I over looked it.
Yes, I would be pleased to debate with promoters of the anti-vaccine movement. More debate, not less, is vital.
Protecting people from disease, unlike protecting people from "global warming" is to protect people from something that actually hurts people.
By the way, we need to stop letting the climate obsessed keep changing the name of their movement everytime their test marketing shows they need to.
They picked 'global warming'.
"AGW" is the best acronym for it. "Climate change" is just an amorphous circular term that means nothing more or less than the climate obsessed want it to mean on any given day.
We should not grant them that out.
They predicted massive global warming when they told us it was getting warmer.
Now it is not getting warmer for nearly two decades and they want it to be 'climate change'.
Stuff that.