Category: Cranks

I thought the denial of the link between smoking and cancer had gone out of style. The link between smoking and cancer is so thoroughly established that I thought no one could continue to defend cigarettes with a straight face.

Well, all Orac has to do is write a piece about the evidence for a health risk from second-hand smoke and soon enough the denialists come crawling out of the woodwork. The reason is pretty simple, smoking bans are unpopular with a certain group of people, and what do you do when science suggests something that people don’t want to believe? Well, you whip out the tactics of course.

Orac then follows the trail of BS back to one of the more incredible crank sites I’ve ever seen. It’s called forces.org, and it meets every single possible criteria of both crankery and denialism. It’s pretty incredible. They have conspiracy theories about drug companies being behind smoking bans to promote their nicotine replacements and anti-addiction drugs. They have quote-mines galore (every scientific paper they cite is misquoted, it’s incredible). They have these unbelievable crank fake experts. They clearly aren’t convinced by any amount of scientific evidence or expertise. And their logical fallacies are great! Not only do they conflate all sorts of different cancers, it seems that if something besides smoking can cause any type of cancer, then it must cause all cancers – including those cigarettes have been falsely implicated in. All of this is permeated by one of the more hilarious persecution complexes about their rights being violated because they can’t persist in a behavior that is a nuisance and health-hazard to other people.

The point of the site seems mostly to be opposition of the extension of smoking bans, and their reasoning is somewhat intriguing, at the same time it’s hilariously self-defeating. According to the mission statement of their West Virginia division, they have no chance to oppose smoking bans because there is no legitimate right to be a nuisance and hurt others’ health in public. Therefore they have to make sure to deny the science until they die of old age (or cancer). It’s almost like a public admission of using denialist tactics.

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Does Tim Slagle strike anyone else as being a crank?

I feel like we should lend Orac a hand. He’s had to deal with the anti-global warming denialism from this guy all on his own. Let’s do a take down of this wise man’s approach to global warming science.
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La Corte de los Milagros translates the Crank HOWTO!

I’m flattered. Thanks Martin.

I see that Tim Blair has decided to quote mine me. As part of my analysis of Cockburn’s crankery I made the following statement.

Below the fold I’ll summarize Cockburn’s arguments and how they use the denialist tactics, George Monbiot’s responses (including his amazing crank-fu!) and discuss why in the future we may start seeing global warming denialism from the left as well as the right.

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It’s important to remember both the left and the right have anti-scientific tendencies, the left’s just tend to be less religious, less world-threatening and more woo-based. My brother recently told me about moving to California, “they don’t believe in Jesus here, just bullshit” in reference to the woo-based beliefs of large portions of the population. The risk of unscientific tendencies is when people with potential to become cranks see a scientific theory as a threat to some overvalued idea they hold dear. Sometimes the over-valued idea isn’t even a bad quality, it can be compassion – but taken to an extreme. If the left starts to see global warming policy as a money-grab by the elites, expect to see more left wing crankery and climate denial based on conspiratorial beliefs about carbon markets.

I suspect this is what has happened to Alexander Cockburn, a lefty who has gone over the deep end, on what appears to be suspicions of a conspiracy to further defraud and hurt poor countries using global warming science.

Basically, I was saying that the origins of anti-scientific arguments are based on certain overvalued ideas that the left has as well as the right. Neither is completely free of unscientific movements. How does Tim Blair read my statements?

That this means there is no consensus on global warming science!

CONSENSUS LESS CONSENSY

Mark Hoofnagle predicts:

In the future we may start seeing global warming denialism from the left as well as the right.

But … but … the debate is over! And it’s been over for 15 years, according to Al the Colder:

I actually can’t figure out exactly what his reasoning was here. Does it mean that left wing crankery somehow disproves science? That Alexander Cockburn, a political writer, disagreeing with global warming science is proof of no consensus? This is classic crank logic here though. A single sentence out of context proves they’re right! There is no consensus! If any left-wingers think something stupid the science is untrue!

Sadly, he doesn’t allow comments without registering (and he isn’t registering anyone new). Basically, they all sit around in a circle-jerk making fun of my last name (I’m being persecuted!) and acting like it’s some great coup that Tim Blair could take half of a sentence out of an essay saying something completely different, and warp it into something absurd.

What a moron.

**Update** Blair has suggested that I’m made unhappy by the attention I’ve gotten from his blog and the Blairites. Quite the opposite. The thing about running a blog on denialists and cranks is that you’re going to be attacked. I’m mostly amused when it happens. And besides, the Blairites don’t troll like others have – the 9/11 truthers come to mind. If anything they’re very polite, if a little touchy. I don’t mind having them around at all and am not so afraid of trolling (or just dissent) that I create a gated community of people who agree with me.

Readers of the Nation are probably by now familiar with the lunatic ravings of Alexander Cockburn on global warming.

What is bizarre, is that, before he traveled down this road, he seemed able to identify other crank ideas – like 9/11 conspiracy theories, and criticized them. Further, it’s unusual to see a left-winger become a crank on global warming. The history of this mess is interesting. It started with this first post from Cockburn, in which he declares global warming a scam.

What evolves is a fascinating picture into the formation of a crank, and the change in global warming denialism from attracting only right-wing cranks, to also attracting left-wing cranks – both denigrating science to serve a political goal.

Below the fold I’ll summarize Cockburn’s arguments and how they use the denialist tactics, George Monbiot’s responses (including his amazing crank-fu!) and discuss why in the future we may start seeing global warming denialism from the left as well as the right.
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