Category Archives: Science

Our four year old granddaughter had a slight melt-down on Wednesday. She’d been with us for nearly the whole week, and for breakfast enjoyed all kinds of healthy and less healthy cerials. However, just before the relevant meal that morning she conversationally mentioned that the last time she was here, she’d had breakfast that went “pop.” This was rapidly identified as Rice Crispies.

Over at Peaceful Science, I have been labelled by one poster as a “climate change denialist,” which is more interesting for the way the diagnosis – or actually, slogan – is used to foreclose discussion of a factual story I cited, rather than anything else. “Denialism” is one of those many Newspeak words designed specifically as a demonization-label. It’s used primarily of climate change science (where the “science-deniers” are often scientists doing the wrong research or declining to doctor their data to fit the consensus), and of “creationism” so called, where it may label, once more, qualified scientists proposing “the wrong kind of theory,” or those supporting more obviously unlikely … Continue reading →