Saturday, March 17, 2007

Hey, Doc, that's what ellipses are for.


And taking a few minutes to visit the intellectually lowest of the low-hanging fruit over at the Blogging Tories, we find the tail end of the bell curve, Dr. Roy, all excited by more scientific corroboration, as he quotes (quote reproduced verbatim):

Two leading UK climate researchers have criticised those among their peers who they say are "overplaying" the global warming message.

Professors Paul Hardaker and Chris Collier, both Royal Meteorological Society figures, are voicing their concern at a conference in Oxford.

They say some researchers make claims about possible future impacts that cannot be justified by the science.

The pair believe this damages the credibility of all climate scientists.

They think catastrophism and the "Hollywoodisation" of weather and climate only work to create confusion in the public mind.
They argue for a more sober and reasoned explanation of the uncertainties about possible future changes in the Earth's climate.

Hey, I know -- let's go to the actual BBC article and reproduce what's there, with emphasis on the juicy bits that the ethically-challenged Dr. Roy conveniently skipped over:

Both scientists believe that man's activities are causing global warming

Two leading UK climate researchers say some of their peers are "overplaying" the global warming message and risk confusing the public about the threat.

Professors Paul Hardaker and Chris Collier, both Royal Meteorological Society figures, are voicing their concern at a conference in Oxford.

They say some researchers make claims about possible future impacts that cannot be justified by the science.

The pair believe this damages the credibility of all climate scientists.

Both men are highly respected across the world and hold the mainstream view on climate change - that human activity is the cause.


But they think catastrophism and the "Hollywoodisation" of weather and climate only work to create confusion in the public mind.

They argue for a more sober and reasoned explanation of the uncertainties about possible future changes in the Earth's climate.

Why, yes ... Dr. Roy is a dishonest hack. I'm sure you're shocked and appalled.

OK, maybe just appalled.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Dr. Roy just showed highlights.

He linked directly to the BBC article.

Hardly a "dishonest hack."

Anonymous said...

Q: Is it dishonest to take someone's words out of context to make it seem like they support views which, in the original context, they clearly do not?

A: Why, yes it is. In this case, Roy used scissors to carefully excise individual words that went against his views, and presented the quote as if it were complete.

I do not completely reject that there is global warming but its cause and extent seem to massively overstated, by the left which wants to use this to destroy capitalism. It is the last resort of the marxists who were defeated in the cold war to destroy the Western way of life and to ensure ppoverty for much of the world.

And this quality of writing I believe qualifies as 'hackery'...

Anonymous said...

Or to quote wayne about Dr. Roy, just using the above comment:
"Dr. Roy just a dishonest hack".

I'm not misrepresenting your comment, because other can see your original comment if they want. Cutting out words isn't misleading at all, right?

CC said...

Once again commenting before he fully appreciates the situation, Wayne writes:

"Dr. Roy just showed highlights."

Sure he did, Wayne -- if by "highlights," you mean seven consecutive paragraphs, except for the one that contradicted the point he was trying to make, at which point the good doctor carefully snipped it out, without informing his readers (by way of the standard use of ellipses) that he'd done that.

Thanks for clearing that up, Wayne. Whatever would we do without you?

CC said...

P.S. By the way, Wayne, did you notice how Dr. Roy also quietly snipped the word "But" off of the beginning of one of those paragraphs, and dishonestly capitalized the very next word "they," in order to mislead readers into thinking that that was one continuous stream of text?

Because if he hadn't, the text wouldn't have flowed, and readers would have noticed it just didn't sound right and suspected something funny was going on.

But I guess that's what you call "highlighting," right?

Greg said...

Original: Dr. Roy is a dishonest hack.

Dr. Roy version: Dr. Roy is honest.