Comment by Robert Karp on June 10, 2012 at 7:26am

Thank you Nelson for putting this together and working so hard week after week!!! Everyone please tweet, g+, like, FB share and whatever else you do!!!

Comment by Robert Karp on June 10, 2012 at 8:13am

Update:  After posting on FB, the link went to this lovely statement:

"The link you are trying to visit has been reported as abusive by Facebook users. To learn more about staying safe on the internet, visit Facebook's Security Page. Please also read the Wikipedia articles on malware and phishing.

We need to en-mass email FB!!!! This censorship of the highest order!!!!!!!!

Comment by Michael R on June 10, 2012 at 9:01am

Every Sunday morning this is one of the first places I go to...and am never disappointed. Thank you Nelson.

Comment by Tom Holm on June 10, 2012 at 9:22am

Everybody don't forget to pick up Creflo doller's " how to discipline your child by beating, choking and throwing shoes at your child in 10 easy steps" going right now for $19.99

Comment by Reg The Fronkey Farmer on June 10, 2012 at 1:29pm

I stumbled upon this today –Scale of the Universe. Would it help Theists in answering Lowders’ first question for them? I think we know that answer.

Comment by Colleen on June 10, 2012 at 2:47pm

Thank you for the Autism One link.  As a behavior consultant who works with kids with autism and other developmental disabilities, I come up against this pseudoscience every day.  It baffles me that a conference on autism seems rather silent when it comes to ABA, a treatment with measured outcomes and a large body of research.  But hey, we don't claim that it's an easy, magical cure.

Comment by Skycomet the Fallen Angel on June 10, 2012 at 9:54pm

Having listened to the show... I want to say this:

SHOUT OUT TO ALL FEMINIST MEN! THANK YOU! :D

Comment by kelltrill on June 12, 2012 at 10:01am

Interesting. I was wondering when I read the inclusion of news about climate change in this post whether or not someone would take issue with it. I'm not sure what the intent was behind it, but it is perhaps a bit presumptuous to assume all atheists/skeptics think climate change is legitimate consider what a contentious topic it still is.

Ian raises some good points. I'm not sure whether or not i agree with them in their entirety, having always been very tentative about voicing a firm opinion on the topic because of how little I know about it. The climate change issue seems far more topical in the States. It's not quite as politically charged here in SA, which also means far fewer people actually care in either direction.

Comment by Nelson on June 12, 2012 at 12:57pm

There are two aspects to a discussion of climate science. One is whether the Earth is warming and that humans are a significant cause. The other is what will result from this.

That Earth is warming and that humans are a significant cause of that warming is settled science. Anyone who DENIES it denies this settled climate science. Hence, they are climate science deniers. They ARE denialists. This is a very simple thing that emerges from the facts as we know them, the facts that they deny. That climate deniers don't like being faced with their denialism is something they'll have to deal with the way that creationists have to deal with their denialism of the existence of transitional fossils and the way that this marginalizes them.

Now. The question of what results from these facts is where the interesting questions are. How fast will the warming increase? How fast will sea levels rise? How will weather and ocean currents be effected long term? How long will the effects last if we acted as an international community in a concerted effort to reduce carbon emissions today? This is where the legitimate debate is.

Ian is a denialist. He denies the reality of the settled climate science that shows that Earth is warming and that anthropogenic causes are a significant factor in that warming.

-James Lovelock is backtracking.

He's one single person. The fact is that (from the Wiki article on Scientific opinion on climate change, and filled with similar figures), in "an October 2011 paper published in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research, researchers from George Mason University analyzed the results of a survey of 489 scientists working in academia, government, and industry. The scientists polled were members of the American Geophysical Union or the American Meteorological Society and listed in the 23rd edition of American Men and Women of Science, a biographical reference work on leading American scientists. Of those surveyed, 97% agreed that that global temperatures have risen over the past century. Moreover, 84% agreed that "human-induced greenhouse warming" is now occurring. Only 5% disagreed with the idea that human activity is a significant cause of global warming."

-James Lovelock and Al Gore were alarmist about the impact of climate change.

Presupposes that climate change is a reality and only comments on the second aspect referred to above: what will happen as a result of the reality of climate change if we don't do anything about it. There's no question that there have been alarmist predictions of the consequences of doing nothing about climate change. But there have also been entirely reasonable predictions. And even if the predictions were all alarmist, it wouldn't change the fact that the science is settled when it comes to climate change being a reality.

-There are thousands of scientists who remain skeptical over AGW.

Also thousands who doubt evolution, that HIV causes AIDS, that vaccines don't cause autism, and that magic water doesn't have curative properties. What's the evidence say? That Earth is warming and that human activity is a significant cause. To deny this is to set yourself apart as a denier of settled science.

-Are you by any chance making the false assumption that all skeptical scientific and otherwise skeptical views on the subject of AGW are somehow dominated by narrow religious views and associated conservative politics?

No. I fully grant the existence of an alarmingly large anti-science left. Denialism of science isn't exclusive to one or another political ideology.

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