Contrarianism without consequences: Daniel Davies has it exactly right. The refusal of the Superfreakonomists to take responsibility for their failed attempt to be cleverly contrarian on climate change is a sad spectacle to watch.
Let’s talk about the “brief mention” of global cooling that Dubner feels has been misread. Um, that was a page and a half — and it was the first page and half of the chapter. Why shouldn’t readers conclude that it was supposed to be an important story?
And there’s context. The “scientists used to predict global cooling” is a favorite argument of climate change deniers — see any number of George Will columns. If you put that story at the front of your chapter on climate, anyone, and I mean anyone, who has been following the debate will conclude that you are endorsing that position.
Now, Dubner’s denial that he was supporting the denialist position would have at least some credibility if anything in the writing had suggested that there was a difference between the global cooling theorists of the 70s and the massive consensus now. But readers are, in fact, given no warning whatsoever about the fact that cooling was a hypothesis offered by only a handful of researchers, greatly overblown in a couple of news articles.
Instead, the chapter transitions from the cooling story to the current consensus by saying:
These days, of course, the threat is the opposite. The earth is no longer thought to be too cool but too warm. No hint that one view had weaker support than the other. Readers are clearly being led to see a straightforward parallel. And if there were any doubt that the authors were trying to lend support to those who minimize the threat, that doubt is wiped away by the many errors — all leaning in the same direction — that grace the rest of the chapter.
So Dubner’s whine about a “wilful misreading” just isn’t credible. What it is, instead, is cowardly.
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