Perhaps ironic that on a lecture on “Academic and Intellectual Freedom” we get the following:
Throughout his lecture, Mann dissected the ways in which climate change is often portrayed as a debatable phenomenon.
For instance, when climate change is a news show topic, producers will host a scientist alongside a “climate change contrarian,” even though a vast majority of scientists agree climate change “is real, it’s human-caused, it’s already a problem,” he said
That got me thinking about JS Mill’s observations about clashing with error. If you have good ideas and arguments, you should cherish the opportunity to have opponents present wrongheaded views alongside you, no? In a lecture on intellectual freedom, is it not odd to make the case that “climate change” is not a debatable phenomemon? Seriously.
I loved the introduction of the talk from the UM President:
In introducing Mann, President Mark Schlissel said he hopes U-M will always be “an unalienable forum for discovery, debate and discussion — a place where respect and disagreement are complementary, where each makes the other stronger and where we all advocate for and learn from their confluence.”
And again, remember our discussion earlier about what the “consensus” is about and what the honest “debate” is about – you would hope that one of the world’s leading climate scientisits would at least pay lip service to it:
He said denial has several stages, including claiming it does not exist, that it’s natural or self-correcting, or that it’s possibly “a good thing.”
… the hay pile lie in pieces on the ground, smoldering from the decalescent blade of our hero’s sword.
