How to discredit science...

Here is a disappointing post from my major news source the CSM. This article is a great example of how legitimate science becomes poisoned in the public eye.

By grouping human-caused-global-warming deniers and creationists together the author has pushed real scientists into the same category as right-wing religionists. This is a great example of how the media can take opposition to a morally wrong idea and flip them to become the bad guys.

The first step that occurs is blurring the lines between terms used. A great example of this is how "man-made-global-warming" (something that can be proven incorrect) was shortened to "global warming" (something that could possibly be proven wrong) and now it's just "climate change" (something that is obvious to anyone who has lived more than a few years). By changing the terms to something more public friendly, they have sugar coated their pill.

Another good example of this that is still surprising to me is how willing people accept socialist ideas. My grandfather fought in WWII against Nazi's who were socialists; now it is in vogue to spout redistribution and equal care for all. Still one more example is how the White House (who is particularly guilty of this) has changed words to be more public friendly; like "socialized medicine" to "universal healthcare" to "single-payer plan". What the hell is "single-payer", it's going to be "millions-of-payers".

The second step is to give the opposition a bad name. A great way to do this is to find some connection between them and some other radical group (a common platform or some members that belong to both), then write articles lumping them together. The above article does just that. Another example of this is how atheists and communists somehow became the same in the 60's and 70's.

The final step is to re-wire the public's mind. This is particularly easy now that they are softened to your morally wrong ideas and have lumped the good ideas in with obvious crazies. If you spread this over a generation or two you will have a complete and incontestable reverse of policy: individualism into collectivism, capitalism into socialism, "humans require changing their environment to survive" into "humans destroy their environment".

This is a big problem and I believe is one of the key reasons that the US is slipping into collectivism, socialism, and environmentalism. Fighting this disease of bad ideas as it rears its head is a requirement to hang on to what freedom we have. It was encouraging to read the comments after the article, most were against the author completely.

---TK