Friday, August 10, 2012

Come on ,Deniers, learn from the best : the sleazy tactics of GG Simpson, the world's best known continential drift DENIER

Climate deniers are already pretty good at presenting nonsense arguments in science to deny the existence of human-cause climate change ----- but they can always do better.

One of the best of the old school deniers at slashing and smearing opponents was the world-famous paleontologist, George Gaylord Simpson , one of the eternal deities of the "Darwinian Heaven".

One of the most effective torpedoes ever aimed at the idea of continental drift was Simpson's 1943 claim that he had studied the evolution and spread of the mammals better than anyone else and that evidence showed no sign of  continental drift.

Wegener was long dead by then so he couldn't defend his thesis - but his chief supporter, South African Alexander Du Toit, tried his best.

Tried, by agreeing wholeheartedly with Simpson's claim.

Agreeing wholeheartedly and then asking "and your point is ??"

He agreed because he showed that both opponents and supporters of continental drift had long ago agreed that mammals only emerged after the last major drifting apart of today's continents , so they offered no proof one way or another about events before their emergence.

I've said it before : the best work Naomi Oreskes ever did about climate change denying was her earlier, lesser known, work on continental drift deniers. I am willing to bet my farm that many geologists were involved in both : both equally wrong.

Consistent in their wrongness, if in nothing else !

GG Simpson was a past-master at bogus arguments to destroy his opponents

Simpson had put up a totally bogus argument, in other words,  in one peer-reviewed prominent journal in one field of science, to smear a scientist in another field.

Now Fred Singer and his ilk might "point with pride" to their unequalled ability to smear other scientists by illogical scientific arguments but are they truly worthy of this bold claim to scientific infamy ?

Come on Freddie : pull up your socks, learn from the best, er, worst : GG Simpson ,past-master of sleeze....


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