How did censorship, airbrushing history and “it isn’t what it is” become hallmarks of progressivism? A discussion for another time…
For the nonce, consider Porsche, which airbrushed away the famous Portuguese statue of Jesus Christ that overlooks the capital of Lisbon in a promotional video celebrating 60 years of its iconic 911 model. For some reason, many people had a problem with that.
Here is yet another Comment of the Day regarding climate science, junk science, propaganda…you know: “Climate change.” It is also yet another excellent entry by Sarah B. Here is her Comment of the Day on the post, “From The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: The State of Certainty And Reliability of Climate Change Forecasts And Analysis” but it applies equally well to this one (from today), this one, and this one too:
Many people who question anthropogenic global climate change have good reason to do so. Here are a few of the facts that make believing the anthropogenicity of climate change difficult for me.
This “hottest days ever” claim has been shown to be mostly false. For example, the Rome data point was from a model, not actual data. Indeed, while the temperature measured was almost two degrees Celsius below what the high was claimed to be, that high was under previous highs from the last few decades recorded in Rome. The actual temperature of the day in question was 40C, measured at the Urbe airport, not 41.8. Rome’s highest temperature ever recorded is not 40.8C as claimed, but instead 42C. This high temperature was recorded at the Ponte di Nona bus station in 2005.
I was so tempted to headline this post with the res ipsa loquitur tag, but didn’t at the last minute. The reason: I was convinced that as obvious as the scientific and logical nonsense her tweet represented should be, a lot of usually intelligent people wouldn’t allow themselves to see it, because, as Ethics Alarms notes repeatedly, “bias makes you stupid.” The post’s comments turned out to be a marvelous example of that.
One persistent defender of Omar insisted that it was crucial that I had checked the alleged authority for her gaffe before criticizing her. It happens that I did, but I didn’t need to. Nobody did: that’s the whole point. If the woman had the requisite number of brain cells to rub together to start a bonfire, she would have known what emerged from her keyboard when she typed that was hilariously silly with the application of basic critical thinking skills.
Recently, Major League Baseball teams broke the record for the most runs scored in all games on a single day. It was remarkable, because the record was more than a century old: the day occurred in the 19th century. All of the articles about this event specified the day. If, as Omar’s ignorant tweet claimed, the Earth had broken its previous record for “hottest day in 120,000 years,” there would be a day from 120,000 years ago that held the broken record. No source mentioned such a day, however, because there are no daily records of the Earth’s weather—daily temperature is weather, not climate—from 120,000 years ago or even a thousand years ago (though we know Pompeii got pretty damn hot when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.) Estimates of global climate in the periods before records were kept depend on “proxy data.” Here is a chart explaining what proxy data can tell scientist about distant climates:
Ah, how I love it when readers send in superb and informative Comments of the Day when I am strapped for time and have ProEthics deadlines to meet! This post in particular has generated several COTD-worthy responses. I may re-post them all.
But first, here’s Michael R.’s Comment of the Day on “From The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: The State of Certainty And Reliability of Climate Change Forecasts And Analysis”:
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One of my big problems with the whole ‘climate change’ agenda is that the people who are pushing it don’t believe it, either. If they believed it, they would push agendas that would further the goal of counteracting global warming, but they don’t. They push agendas that are outrageously expensive, damaging to the economy and the well-being of people, and don’t do much, if anything, about the warming of the planet.
(1) Electric vehicles. This is an easy one. The demand to eliminate cars and trucks and replace them with electric vehicles is a high-profile and telling example. First of all, electric vehicles are not capable of replacing many of our vehicles, such as semis. Secondly, we probably lack the resources to replace even most of our cars (alone) with electric vehicles, especially since we oddly won’t allow the mining required to obtain the materials. Thirdly, of electric grid is completely incapable of powering this massive addition to the electric load, especially since we are making it more unreliable with renewables. Most importantly, however, THEY DON’T REDUCE CO2 emissions significantly or at all. Their increased energy involved in production and the battery replacement cycle makes them worse or marginally better than today’s gasoline powered cars (depending on your assumptions). For my use, my gasoline powered cars are better for the environment.
(2) Meat. There is a big push to eliminate meat from our diets for ‘global warming’. However, anyone with half a brain realizes that the ‘fake meat’ they are creating takes vastly more energy to produce than a cow does. Lets take a large vat of rhizobium and extract a few hundred milligrams of leg-hemoglobin so we can make our soybean patty taste like meat? Sure, that’s so much more efficient than a cow or chicken. Of course, a lot of our beef is grown on western grazing lands where you are ONLY allowed to graze cattle. Removing the cows from that land, without opening it up to other agriculture (as the Biden administration has done) only reduces the amount of food produced, increasing the world starvation we are facing.
Since some EA commenters have chosen to send their credibility to die on the metaphorical hill of Rep. Omar’s ridiculous climate change tweet of last week, I felt this paired set of reports made an important point. Amazingly, so far at least, these irreconcilable contradictions—and this is far from the only one in the climate change “settled science” debate—- don’t seem to shake the faith of climate change fanatics even a little bit.
Which itself is useful information….
The photo above was entered into a photography competition but disqualified because the judges “suspected” that it was generated by artificial intelligence. As it turned out, the photograph was taken legitimately, but by the time the contest entrant learned about her disqualification, the competition had been settled. Suzi Dougherty used a high-level iPhone to createn the unsettling photo of her son standing near two mannequins while visiting a Gucci exhibition.
The photo competition was sponsored by Charing Cross Photo in Australia. Disqualifying Dougherty’s photo via Instagram post, the judges said they were “intrigued” by the photograph, but “suspicion set in.”
Oh. Well that’s OK then!
…among others. But let’s concentrate on the First, shall we?
The Swiss Gymnastics Federation (STV) has now banned photographers from taking photos of female gymnasts like the one above of retired female gymnastics champ Gabrielle Douglas.
The association has imposed the ban on such “suggestive” photos to ensure that gymnasts can only be photographed in a way that focuses innocently on their poses and positions, not their bodies. “To protect gymnasts, the STV strives to ensure that no suggestive or otherwise ethically sensitive photos are published and passed on. Especially photos where gymnasts were photographed in the crotch,” STV states in its news guidelines. “The STV is aware that such photos can arise in action photography. However, publication should be avoided. The main concern of the STV is to sensitize the media professionals and to let common sense prevail.”
Spain’s Parliament, in its wisdom, has declared dwarf bullfighting illegal. Not because the bulls are treated cruelly, mind you: oh no, that part is fine. It’s the small bullfighters the legislators find intolerable. (That’s a group of them rehearsing above.)
Comic bullfighting shows in which individuals with achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism, fight with juvenile bulls are now illegal. A new law bans “shows or leisure activities” employing a disability “to provoke public mockery, ridicule or derision.” As a result, the performers who earned their living putting on such shows are now forbidden from plying their craft, and citizens willing to pay to watch them can no longer do so. This is also embarrassing: the same law directs that “people with disabilities will participate in public shows and recreational activities, including bullfighting, without discrimination.”
Spain’s law arises from a failure to distinguish “Ick” from ethics, the same problem that has led some states to try to ban drag shows. There is no question that the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights would absolutely prohibit a law such as the Spanish dwarf bullfighting ban, and we should be grateful for that. The ethical principles embodied in freedom of expression include autonomy as well as intrinsic fairness and the Golden Rule validity of allowing others to have the same right to make their living as they choose without others deciding that because they wouldn’t make the same choices, those choices shouldn’t be available to anyone.
First, the moral: Cultural literacy is a life competence obligation both at home and abroad. Now the tale:
I had been planning on a post about the manhunt in Rome for the unethical tourist caught on video carving “Ivan + Hayley 23/6/23” into a brick on a wall of the Colosseum. Authorities went looking for “Ivan;” meanwhile, not only is destruction of natural and historical sites an occasional Ethics Alarms theme, but in this case the video-taker’s conduct was also questionable: he was more interested in taking a viral video than he was in stopping the vandalism.
[ Rose’s breast-baring at the White House will serve as the regular graphic accompanying this topic in the future, because it perfectly symbolizes the attitide of these activists toward the public,
The Tran Ethics Train Wreck was made official back in February, and in retrospect Ethics Alarms should have designated it much earlier. An ethics train wreck is a continuing and evolving situation involving ethics issues and dilemmas that entice anyone becoming involved in them to end up looking foolish at best, misguided at worst, and in between, subject to anger and abuse. Latest developments:
AMC Theaters canceled screenings of a documentary film showcasing the experiences of de-transitioning transsexuals following an aggressive campaign by a group called the Queer Trans Project which sends “Build-a-Queer kits” to “transitioning” LGBTQ+ individuals. The kits include chest binders and tucking tape The online activist group encouraged protesters to send letters to AMC executives to block the screening of the documentary titled “No Way Back: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care.” The film shares the stories of five young transsexuals regretting their decision to cross gender lines as well as critical commentary from medical experts. Once AMC announced that it would not show the film, the group posted: “We did it! Our community’s swift action is a testament to the power of advocacy and the importance of raising our voices against harmful content. Your collective efforts have made a significant impact, and the decision to pull No Way Back from AMC theaters is a step towards fostering a more inclusive and respectful environment. Thank you for your dedication and commitment to creating positive change.” AMC claims that the decision was based entirely on poor advance ticket sales.
And absent leaked documents or emails, there is no way to determine which story is true, or if reality is some mixture of both. The activist group would try to take credit regardless the actual impact of its lobbying, and AMC would never admit to suppressing speech and art because of political pressure.
That’s quite a role-model you have there, Trans World! Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 