The Amazing Randi Loses His Skeptic Credentials

It’s a cold, cold day in Randi-Land. You just can’t be a Skeptic and be skeptical of Anthropogenic Global Warming. James Randi is finding this out the hard way. He admitted to skepticism that global warming is human caused, and that skepticism lost him his credentials as a Skeptic.

A lengthy article by Massimo Pigliucci takes Randi’s credentials away. Membership in the Skeptic’s Union requires certain discipline, which includes NOT being skeptical of certain untouchable subjects. AGW is one of those.

Massimo sorts through Randi’s thoughts and predictably finds a number of fallacies. (Note 1)

First Randi refers to the 32,000 signatures of science types that disagree with AGW. This is of course the Fallacy of Appeal to Authority, but Massimo goes to the fact that "only" 9,000 signatories have PhD’s, and then probably not in climatology, thus one-upping Randi's fallacy usage by requiring higher, more powerful authorities than Randi gave. It's the Battle of the Authorities.

Next Randi claims that scientists have made mistakes before (a premise), which Massimo takes as a conclusion that climate science must therefore be wrong… wherein Massimo has jumped to a false conclusion, accusing Randi of something he did not say.

Randi then claims that there are very many variables in climate; And Massimo jumps to the false conclusion that that means that climate investigation should stop. Again accusing Randi of something he did not say, although he does say that AGW is detracting from other, better pursuits.

Then Randi claims that humans are tough and adaptable and can survive global warming: "Humans will continue to infest Earth because we're smart." This incenses Massimo, who asks, humans aren’t smart enough to model climate, but they are smart enough to survive the climate change? He concludes that this is a massive contradiction (even though many animals have survived climate change without having the ability to model it – which seems fairly obvious).

And Massimo sums up:

” But the real [sic] damning part of Randi’s essay comes when he says: “I strongly suspect that The Petition Project may be valid. I base this on my admittedly rudimentary knowledge of the facts about planet Earth. ... this my amateur opinion, based on probably insufficient data.” This is essentially saying that although Randi has no expertise whatsoever in a complex scientific field, together with very scant information on the specifics of the problem, he nonetheless “suspects” that the overwhelming majority of (PhD-holding) practitioners in that field have made a colossal mistake. So are we supposed to take his position seriously on authority alone (another logical fallacy)? And where does that authority come from? His undoubted ability to expose real nonsense like hand surgery?

It never ceases to amuse me when Leftist – Atheo - scientismists use the very fallacies that they condemn. For Massimo, “the overwhelming majority of (PhD-holding) practitioners in that field” cannot have made a mistake; they are the authorities to which he appeals, in a huge Appeal to Authority Fallacy, in defense of a position in which he, himself, has no expertise, and in fact offers no other defense than that. Amazing.

Next Massimo blames “big corporations” for much of the dissent. This is the same defense as the Astroturf lies of Leftists who are under stress from tea-partiers. Everyone knows that Big Corporations are evil, and therefore are the cause of all problems, right? Fits right into the argument just fine. Even though undoubtedly Randi is not on the take from Exxon, and the argument is entirely superfluous, it is at least cynical. Cynical works too.

Next, Massimo claims that science has its own skeptics – peer reviewers, right? – and that no one else should be skeptical of science. More authority reference. And with plenty of empirical evidence that peer review is tainted too, it is an odd Appeal to Potentially Corrupted Authority.

And Massimo says,

” But these same people should remember that the mantle of “skepticism” does not provide one license to shoot from the hip and express a cynical attitude about anything and anyone. When we cross that line from positive skepticism into negative cynicism we do no favors to critical thinking. Instead, we undermine the whole notion and make the public as distrustful of serious scientists as they are and should be of Deepak Chopra. The public loses, and the Chopra's of the world run laughing all the way to the bank”

To disagree with the authorities is “negative cynicism” according to Massimo, and Randi is thus compared with Deepak Chopra (but not Noam Chomsky, of course).

And finally, Massimo disallows a “clarification” issued by Randi, saying it’s just “not good enough”. Randi now claims that he just meant that global warming might not be man-made. Of course that’s not good enough, Randi.

The entire article is a huge Appeal To Authority Fallacy, which is actually used to cover for the real offense: the heresy of a (previous) member of the Elite Skeptics of the Universe Club. While Randi discusses CO2, methane, and other items of interest to AGW science, Massimo does none of that. His complaint is not with Randi's interest in complexities. Massimo's complaint is that Randi even considers that there might not be an "A" in AGW. That's illegal skepticism. Out of bounds. Foul!

Can Randi ever get his credentials back?

Note 1: The number is (1), and he, Massimo, uses the same fallacy himself, throughout: Appeal to Authority Fallacy.