Not a scientist?
The New York Times reported last summer that “President Obama mocked members of Congress who ‘duck the question,’ as he put it, of whether climate change is real by saying that they are not scientists.”
Obama was echoing a theme posed by Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine in an article titled “Why Do Republicans Always Say ‘I’m Not a Scientist’?”:
Asked by reporters yesterday if he accepts the scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming, John Boehner demurred on the curious but increasingly familiar grounds that he is not a scientist. “Listen, I’m not qualified to debate the science over climate change,” the House Speaker said. …
This particular demurral seems to be in vogue for the Grand Old Party. Florida governor Rick Scott (“I’m not a scientist”) and Senator Marco Rubio (“I’m not a scientist. I’m not qualified to make that decision.”) have both held up their lack of scientific training as a reason to withhold judgment on anthropogenic global warming.
This criticism might have more credibility if it also acknowledged how commonly climate activists dismiss the arguments of politicians, analysts, and even scientists who dare to openly challenge some of the desperate claims made in the name of “climate science.” Consider just a few examples:
Why has there been such a buzz about FiveThirtyEight and Roger Pielke Jr.? Likely because Pielke has a history of climate claims which have been criticized by scientists — not the type of hire many of us expected by the FiveThirtyEight team. Dr. Pielke, a political scientist (not a climate scientist), was recently called out by Dr. John Holdren for statements he made to congress on droughts. — John Abraham, in Huffington Post
You all do realize that this guy isn’t even a climate scientist, he’s an economist. It’s sad that they can’t even find scientists that discount AGW to try to “debunk” the consensus. — comment on report that Richard Tol had resigned in protest from an IPCC panel
The BBC received a well-organized deluge of complaints — some of them, inevitably, from those with a vested interest in renewable energy — accusing me, among other things, of being a geriatric retired politician and not a climate scientist, and so wholly unqualified to discuss the issue. — Nigel Lawson, Global Warming Policy Foundation
[Bjorn Lomborg] is best known as the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It, two books on global warming. Notably, Lomborg does not have a background in climate science and has published no peer-reviewed articles in the area. — DeSmog Blog
James Taylor — a professional denial propagandist. He [is] not a climate scientist or even a scientist in any way. He’s a lawyer paid by the Heartland Institute to write climate change denial propaganda.— blogger J. Jerrald Hayes
Fox News and Fox Business Network frequently host Joe Bastardi to comment on climate change. But Bastardi, who is a weather forecaster, not a climate researcher, has made inaccurate claims about climate science on multiple occasions and is not seen by experts as a credible source of climate information. — Media Matters
“John Christy has made a scientific career out of being wrong,” one prominent climate scientist, Benjamin D. Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, wrote in one 2008 email. “He’s not even a third-rate scientist.” — New York Times article on Christy
…the rest comes from a retired TV weatherman named Anthony Watts (who’s not a climate scientist), who runs the climate denier blog WattsUpWithThat. Watts was on Heartland’s payroll last year for a $44,000 project to undermine climate change evidence gathered from weather stations, funded by Heartland’s billionaire “anonymous donor,” Barre Seid. — Polluter Watch
Freeman Dyson isn’t a climate scientist, and agnosia is only a cloak for denial. — comment on Shaping Tomorrow’s World blog
The frequency of these sorts of attacks may explain why some politicians and others opt to recuse themselves from engaging in arguments about climate-related science. In effect, they may be preempting the criticism by conceding it and using it as license for silence.
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