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BBC staff ordered to stop giving equal airtime to climate deniers

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31–40 of 119 posts

Re: BBC staff ordered to stop giving equal airtime to climate deniers

#31
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's advocate: When's the last time a fringe* conspiracy theorist's agenda has been able to effect legislature? EDIT: Added the word "fringe". As in, a conspiracy theory that doesn't get media coverage.

The "vaccines cause autism" crowd have been successful in carving out "personal exemptions" from otherwise evenly-enforced rules.

Sorry, I meant "fringe" conspiracy theories. Otherwise my point was kind of off topic to bring up. Imagine if that "vaccines cause autism" crowd didn't get air time. Perhaps they wouldn't get personal exemptions.

Re: BBC staff ordered to stop giving equal airtime to climate deniers

#32
post #11

That sucks. If someone has an opinion, it should be free to be debated. The only way we can fight ignorance in science is with public debate. If someone wants to deny it, fine (otherwise it's not science) but put the hypothesis on the table and let people actually test it and debate it publicly. The proves only that the BBC has various political opinions and agendas and is not an unbiased source (as many people surel…

Not the point. When there is limited air time, it is unfair to give 50% of the time to those whose opinion is supported by <2% of experts in the field.

Re: BBC staff ordered to stop giving equal airtime to climate deniers

#33
post #4

Quelling dissenters! A true victory for science!

Religious dissent? Unqualified, uninformed dissent? Yes, quell the hell out of it.

You may read a bit on US history and the role religious dissent played in it. It's no accident that religious freedoms are in the first amendment.

Re: BBC staff ordered to stop giving equal airtime to climate deniers

#34
post #3

Were every network to start doing what the BBC is, their unfounded opinions would cease to be heard, Bill Nye wouldn’t have to keep debating them, and maybe, just maybe, they’d all just go away. Not bloody likely. Now you've just put them in the same group as the other conspiracy theorists, and given them the additional (legitimate) ammo that "the establishment is censoring them". Confirmation bias is a hell of a dru…

Devil's advocate: When's the last time a fringe* conspiracy theorist's agenda has been able to effect legislature? EDIT: Added the word "fringe". As in, a conspiracy theory that doesn't get media coverage.

The totally over-restrictive GMO regulation in the European Union is based on very efficient, but scientifically unfounded, propaganda by some NGO's.

Re: BBC staff ordered to stop giving equal airtime to climate deniers

#35
post #25
post #11

That sucks. If someone has an opinion, it should be free to be debated. The only way we can fight ignorance in science is with public debate. If someone wants to deny it, fine (otherwise it's not science) but put the hypothesis on the table and let people actually test it and debate it publicly. The proves only that the BBC has various political opinions and agendas and is not an unbiased source (as many people surel…

People have tested it and debated it publicly, and 97% of those professionally qualified to test it and debate it are of the same opinion.

That doesn't mean they're right or proposing different hypothesis' is suddenly forbidden. That's not science.

Aristotelian physics was superseded by Newtonian Physics.

That's science.

I'm not suggesting that anyone will come up with a different conclusion but there's no excuse for this stupid dogma and religion getting in the way of rationality.

Feynman is doing 500rpm in his grave...

Re: BBC staff ordered to stop giving equal airtime to climate deniers

#37
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next up: muting people who don't agree with the fact that inflation is good because the only people who deny it don't participate in economics.

But science isn't about someone agreeing with a theory. If you can disprove a theory, great. Otherwise no one really cares about your flawed arguments.

But science isn't about someone agreeing with a theory.

Those who advocate blocking dissent with theories in the name of science would disagree. Apparently, it's more important that people agree with a body of work that is largely impenetrable than it is to question it or disagree with it.

Re: BBC staff ordered to stop giving equal airtime to climate deniers

#38
I think this is a dangerous precedent for media coverage of science.

If there is any doubt in your mind, you never read what Feynman had to say about Millikan's experimental results for measurement of elementary charge. Some scientists cheat at science, so they can be more popular. And this is why we don't trust conclusions until after they are independently repeated.

If someone were to produce real, verifiable experimental data that defied the political consensus, they would be blackballed from explaining them on BBC.

Bill Nye has to keep debating because the available data are not so unambiguous that princes and paupers could each reach the same conclusion independently, even with all their personal biases. He even debated Ken Ham over the origins of species, after all. True scientists must have the courage to stand up and repeat, over and over, what they have found--via collection and analysis of evidence, defended before their peers, and verified by their rivals--to be the truth, as long as there is even one person that still doubts. And the purpose is not to browbeat that last man into submission, but to assist them in devising an experiment sufficient to quell that doubt.

Silencing the ongoing debate, even if one side or the other is obviously delusional, is completely contrary to the spirit of science. With science, anyone is allowed to question anything, and the worth of the question is determined by the evidence gathered, not by an editorial board.

Re: BBC staff ordered to stop giving equal airtime to climate deniers

#39
I've always had mixed feelings regarding man-made climate change, seeing it as a marketed mainstream show. For me, this broad, somewhat blind, frightening threat is the ecological equivalent of the idea of terrorism.

I can't help myself to think that there are a lot of other ecological issues, even more critical, and affecting our societies today. Water/soil pollution for instance does kill millions of people a year.

People are scared by the carbon dioxyde they exhale, while they eat polychlorinated biphenyl and a thousand more toxic chemical compounds on a daily basis.

I don't think anyone wins when you remove/censor contrarian views.

Re: BBC staff ordered to stop giving equal airtime to climate deniers

#40
post #11

That sucks. If someone has an opinion, it should be free to be debated. The only way we can fight ignorance in science is with public debate. If someone wants to deny it, fine (otherwise it's not science) but put the hypothesis on the table and let people actually test it and debate it publicly. The proves only that the BBC has various political opinions and agendas and is not an unbiased source (as many people surel…

If someone holds the opinion that onions are actually evil aliens sent from the planet Zorlax to colonize the earth, should we also given them equal airtime? You need to draw a line somewhere, otherwise the airwaves will be full of nothing but crazies and their pet theories.

What's Songs of Praise then?

Worship thy sky daddy to prevent evil demons sent from hell to colonise the earth!

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