Do not challenge the SJW, for they are fierce


Lorrie Goldstein is a writer for the Toronto Sun, one of those cheesy conservative tabloids that features half-naked “girls”, and rages against liberalism and science and those terrible transgender people. He tweeted out a challenge: Next time a Social Justice Warrior tells you “science is settled” on global warming, ask them to explain the science. Then watch the fun.

Yes, do. I knew this was coming. And it was quite fun to watch @karengeier lop off his ass and carve it into itty-bitty pieces. It’s so beautiful.

Comments

  1. wcorvi says

    Actually, I use this technique in reverse. I have made greenhouse models of Venus (not earth). I like to ask deniers how they treat the air-surface interface in their greenhouse models, or how they treat the cloud feedback (these are two of the big uncertainties). They generally stare blankly. I then tell them I was assuming they knew something, but evidently they do not.

  2. jaybee says

    The original taunt is stupid on multiple levels. Yes, there are a lot of people who believe scientific opinion who aren’t versed on the science. Is that supposed to be bad?

    The next time Lorrie Goldstein says that smoking causes cancer, ask him the mechanism whereby 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone causes genetic mutations, and watch the fun! Therefore smoking doesn’t cause cancer.

    (I myself have no idea how it works, I just cut and pasted a big word from some medical journal)

  3. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    I read that tweet as from an adolescent who likes to see people get upset by teasing them with what they’re actually saying by always asking “why”. Not explicitly disagreeing, just waiting for them to get to the point where they can’t answer why. Which will cause them to get emotionally upset with themselves and project it onto lashing out, causing the bully to claim victimhood.
    in short “poking with a stick”. He’s looking for “the fun” of making SJW’s dig up all the research proving their point and waiting for them to get frustrated and angry at him to feed his martyr complex. Probably get a little uptick in advert sales from extra audience attention clicking on those ads.
    “then watch the fun” (in my opinion) is becoming a dog-whistle.

  4. handsomemrtoad says

    Two points which KarenGeier left out:

    1. The water-vapor in the air absorbs and traps MOST frequencies of IR radiation, allowing only a small frequency-window to escape, BUT CO2 absorbs and traps almost exactly the frequencies which water vapor allows to pass, so CO2 effectively “blocks the frequency-window”.

    2. I don’t normally go for appeal-to-authority arguments, but there have been TWO exceptions whose pronouncements are/were always right. One was Richard Feynman. The other is Yuan T. Lee. Dudley Herschbach was not exaggerating when he called Yuan “the Mozart of physical chemistry”. And Yuan has signed the 2015 Mainau Declaration on Climate Change. His signature is conclusive scientific proof that CO2 is a real issue.

  5. emergence says

    Why is he using “SJW” here? Social justice refers to identity politics, like opposing racism and sexism. Environmental issues are important to progressives, but they’re at best tangentially related to social justice. Apparently, “SJW” has become a catch-all slur to use against progressives regardless of what they’re arguing for. It’s like “political correctness” in that regard.

  6. numerobis says

    SJW, progressive, leftist, communist, islamofascist, and member of the reality-based community — it all means the same, that facts matter to us.

  7. Siobhan says

    @emergence

    Apparently, “SJW” has become a catch-all slur to use against progressives regardless of what they’re arguing for. It’s like “political correctness” in that regard.

    You just noticed? :P

  8. says

    @2:

    Actually, I use this technique in reverse.

    Yeah, while I wouldn’t be nearly so detailed as you were, my experience is that your typical denialist does not know how the greenhouse effect works, doesn’t understand basic statistical concepts, and in most cases doesn’t even know how to properly read a graph. Arguing over the details then becomes like debating Shakespeare with an illiterate drunk. Better to probe the limits of their ignorance first.

  9. Rich Woods says

    @e,ergence #6:

    Why is he using “SJW” here?

    Because he’s an ignorant idiot reliant upon emotive terms to sell his tawdry rag.

  10. Rich Woods says

    Arguing over the details then becomes like debating Shakespeare with an illiterate drunk.

    As a groundling who may have had one or two pints before attending the Globe on occasion… Oh, hang on, I can just about read. Never mind.