Antinuclear

Murdoch’s AUSTRALIAN news compares wind energy proponents to paedophiles!

The day The Australian died, Independent Australia
28 December, 2012
Professor Stephan Lewandowsky reports on the exchange that finally,
completely, destroyed Australia’s national newspaper credibility.
“………In May 2012, The Australian ran an opinion piece by Mr James
Delingpole in which he riled against wind energy under the title:
“Wind farm scam a huge cover-up.”

Wind turbines actually constitute an increasingly important tool in
our arsenal of alternative energy to wean the planet off fossil fuels;
however, Mr. Delingpole begs to differ. Among other arguments, Mr.
Delingpole cited an unnamed Australian sheep farmer’s opinion that:

“The wind-farm business is bloody well near a paedophile ring. They’re
f . . king our families and knowingly doing so.”

Yes, that did appear exactly as quoted in The Australian.
The use of “is” to connect one concept (“wind-farm business”) to
another (“paedophile ring”) leaves little doubt that this statement
was intended as an analogy. Any remaining doubt evaporates with the
graphic description of what is being done to families by paedophiles
and wind energy alike. By engaging our deliberative system of
reasoning, we can identify this analogy quite clearly.

Let’s turn to another apparent analogy that was splattered across The
Australian’s front page a few days ago under the headline:

“It’s OK to link climate denial to pedophilia, ABC tells ex-chairman”.

Did the ABC really draw an analogy between climate denial and paedophilia?

Clearly, some journalists and the ABC’s former chairman thought so.
But did this opinion reflect deliberation or might it have been their
rapid system misfiring because the emotiveness of the issue got the
better of them?

Let’s find out. The ABC’s Science Show on 24 November opened with the words:

“What if I told you that paedophilia is good for children, or that
asbestos is an excellent inhalant for those with asthma? Or that
smoking crack is a normal part and a healthy one of teenage life, to
be encouraged? You’d rightly find it outrageous. But there have been
similar statements coming out of inexpert mouths again and again in
recent times, distorting the science.”
The presenter, Robyn Williams, then proceeded to cite an Economist
article about American politicians, among them one staunch foe of
abortion who believes that the “bodies of women subjected to rape can
shut down a pregnancy.”

Only later in the show did Mr. Williams turn to climate change, by
interviewing me about my research, which seeks to explain why people
deny the overwhelming evidence about the fact that the climate is
changing and that humans are causing it. (Full disclosure: the
interview was pre-recorded and I had no advance knowledge of or input
to anything preceding it on air.)

So did the Science Show link paedophilia to climate denial by way of
an analogy? Did Robyn Williams suggest that climate denial is akin to
paedophilia, the way that wind energy was linked to a paedophile ring
in the pages of The Australian?

No.

To see why not, let’s engage our deliberate reasoning system and amend
the opening of the Science Show by replacing the emotive trigger words
thus: “What if I told you that lamp posts are made of chocolate, or
that armchairs are an excellent tranquilizer? Or that tractors make
great pets?”

Would this link climate denial to lampposts, armchairs, and tractors?

No. Instead, it links climate denial to statements that most people
would recognize as being false or outrageous. Drawing that analogy is
appropriate because much of climate denial is recognized as false or
outrageous by people who are familiar with the scientific process or
the peer-reviewed literature.

This actual analogy was lost on some listeners of the Science Show and
the headline writers of The Australian because the emotive keywords of
the opening statements overpowered analysis of what was actually said.
Instead, the emotive content of the key words triggered the rapid
reasoning system and tricked it into perceiving an analogy where there
was none.
A few days ago, The Australian received an adjudication by the
Australian Press Council against them for likening wind energy to
paedophilia in the piece mentioned above. This slap on the wrist was
promptly followed by another piece in The Australian by the same
author who unrepentantly declared:

“I stand by every word of the piece – especially the bit about
paedophiles. I would concede that the analogy may be somewhat
offensive to the paedophile community.”

No ambiguity there, this is the deliberative reasoning system
wantingly, and wantonly, drawing an analogy between wind energy and
paedophilia.  There really are people like that out there, and they
are given an opportunity to publish in Australia’s national newspaper.

But that doesn’t mean The Australian will publish just about anything,
however bizarre or pornographic it may be. Far from it, The Australian
is quite capable of editorial restraint. For example, they elected not
to run the statement from the ABC that very calmly explained the
difference between an analogy and emotive short-circuitry. http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/business/media-2/day-the-australian-died/

December 29, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, media