Latest delusionism from the WSJ

Because we have been successfully Godwinned out of calling the self-proclaimed "skeptics" "denialists", I join the new trend in calling them "delusionists".

Here's a slightly edited instant messaging transcript you may find interesting. "mt" below is me. The other two people speaking are not climatologists. One (here called 'Fred') is well-known as an author of operational weather forecasting codes. The other (here called 'Barney') is a very clever high performance computing expert who has seen weather and climate codes but does not specialize in them.

It is interesting that Barney was quick to violate Godwin without any prompting. I do not think he has heard of "denialism".

TRANSCRIPT BEGINS

mt says, "The Wall Street Journal is at it again." [linked]

... pause ...

Fred: Mr. Jenkins is pissing in the wind. If the world scientific community *and* the U.S. Supreme Court aren't enough for him then I guess he's just gonna have to suffer.

Fred says, "I like how he slams Gore for what Jenkins thinks Gore's going to say."

Fred says, "Ought to at least let him say the thing first before criticising it. What's wrong with public discourse in this country?"

Fred says, "Are the people I agree with this strident and obnoxious too, and I just don't notice it because I agree with them?"

Fred . o O ( I'd like to think not, but we're all creatures of our own biases. )

Barney . o O ( What's wrong with "such a belief [being] the 'consensus' of scientists"? Perhaps Mr. Jenkins only shares beliefs with a plethora of tooth faries, or he only believes things written in invisible ink he cannot see drafted by an invisible man he does not know, or maybe god just tells him what to believe... or maybe he just knows better. )

Barney says, "A consensus of scientists have a theory of gravity -- but they're all wrong: The earth just sucks."

Barney says, ""Obviously we need a better theory than Mr. Inhofe's of when head-counting is a useful way of estimating the validity of a factual proposition and when it isn't." Yeah... How about a "scientific theory"?"

Barney assumes fetal position on floor in corner.

Barney can't tell if the WSJ is anti-science, or anti-intellectual.

Barney says, "What other well documented facts does WSJ provide coulmn space debunking? Anything on holocaust denial? What, exactly, is WSJ's point in running this dribble?"

Barney says, "There's a reason why it's always non-scientists who discover "mistakes" in cimate change studies: Lack of skill in the field leads to difficulties in self-assessing one's own incompetence."

Fred says, "Well said. I like the tooth fairy plethora consensus."