Note: To listen to this blog
on KWON/KYFM go to http://www.bartlesvilleradio.com/caffeine/uploads/files/ON%20Demand/Ideas%20Matter/Ideas%20matter%2048%20complete.mp3
In challenging my recent sarcastic reprimand of Al Gore a pastor
sent me a note chastising me for using "global warming" as a description of the
Vice President's position. He said I
should have said "climate change" because this is indeed what Mr. Gore is
claiming happens as the result of human behavior and CO2 emissions.
Well, without knowing it my pastor friend has stumbled across the
key point I'm trying to make in my admitted snarkiness?
Changing
the target is indeed not something that has escaped my attention. In fact
it is exactly this academic dishonesty that I am confronting. If I had
used such terrible logic and methodological slight of hand in my doctoral
research at Michigan State I would have been laughed out of the room.
Venture
this: My hypothesis is that human behavior is causing temperatures to
rise. My data shows the exact opposite of my hypothesis. Therefore
my conclusion is that the data proves my hypothesis because what I meant to say
was climate change not global warning?
This
is simply absurd. Trying to cover one's research errors by changing the language
from global warming to climate change is akin to saying whatever happens
(cooling or warming, draught or flood, clouds or sun, darkness or light) proves
my hypothesis because the "climate is changing"!!
This
faulty reasoning should be obvious to everyone in the academy and yes even in
the church but unfortunately political correctness and desires for popularity are
proving to be more powerful than sound research and intellectual honesty.
CS
Lewis' scold of the young scholar in The
Great Divorce comes to mind: "Our opinions were not honestly come by" he
said. "We simply found ourselves in
contact with a certain current of ideas and plunged into it because it seemed
modern and successful…"