By Rick Landry, Corvallis
I am weary of seeing the same old cabal of Trump supporting wingnuts using these columns with every publication like some kind of uncontested personal forum, within which to spread their insidious ideology and disinformation. My personal opinion is that none of them write particularly well, and that all may truly suffer from varying degrees of the Dunning-Kruger Syndrome.
I am writing today to take to task Dee Gibney’s January 16 2019 LTE, Response to ‘worst crime’. Everything about Gibney’s contribution is flawed; the only question remaining is whether this is expressly intentional, or not.
In her second paragraph, she begins with a claim that Mr. Sikorski, whose letter she was responding to, “is dead wrong about global warming, it is just made up by those who want a one world order, by over regulating…” She then continues by tossing an unsourced statistic into the fray, to apparently prove her case: “There are over 31,000 scientists that say there is no convincing evidence for global warming!” Where to begin? Back in eighth-grade debate class, maybe?
Opinions without basis lack veracity, and do not win in a discourse or exchange of this manner. To simply toss out there that global warming is “made up”, is without value, weight or merit. It does not further her position to attach this to a paranoiac conspiracy theory about the ‘one world order’.
BTW, Mrs. Gibney, this theory is more properly framed as the New World Order; your form is already archaic, which speaks volumes. I will not deign stoop to engage in a deconstruction of a theory which has been thoroughly refuted and debunked over many years’ time. A minor point, to be certain, but Gibney employs it here grammatically incorrectly; this phrase would formally require the first letters be capitalized.
Moving on, we come to the statistic she cites (again, without a given source or documentation provided), wherein 31,000 scientists have signed on to a petition decrying “evidence for global warming.” Of course, what she intends to emphasize by this is that this impressive coalition were claiming there is no evidence that global warming is attributable to anthropogenic or man-made causes. In her excitement and haste, she apparently failed to make this distinction clear. But what about this petition?
As a Microsoft-Certified Information Specialist, an internet skill I acquired while adjunct faculty at a technical college in Washington State, I was able to locate this august document which satisfied Gibney’s confirmation bias and helped further confirm her steadfast opinion. I am afraid what I learned could prove disappointing to her, and anyone else who might conceivably have been taken in by her argument.
Known as the ‘Oregon Petition’, this hoax has been floating around on the internet since 1998. The petition was created by individuals and groups with political motivations, was distributed using misleading tactics, is presented with almost no accountability regarding the authenticity of its signatures, and asks only that you have received an undergraduate degree in any science to sign.
It is therefore misleading for the signatories to be considered climate scientists or even top researchers in their field, as some suggest. In fact, based on the group’s own numbers, only 12% of the signers have degrees (of any kind) in earth, environmental, or atmospheric science. Further, the petition and its creators are not neutral parties, and the major entities supporting it can easily be described as politically motivated.
However, as an Information Specialist, I went a step further, even though I had confirmed to my own satisfaction that the writer was cherry-picking stats from non-credible sources to “strengthen” her argument. I checked out this same subject matter at the Pulitzer-prize winning fact checking site, ‘PolitiFact’, which is rated as Highly Credible by every agency I am aware of. What I discovered there was that most scientists agree that climate change is real (duh?), and that humans are causing it. In fact, they provide the number that 97% of climate scientists stand behind this assertion, as cited within three highly-respected, recent peer reviews of this subject matter. PolitiFact went on to report that other similar studies report the overwhelming majority of experts – in the 90 percentile range – are in accord with this, as well as 18 of our leading scientific associations. I hope Mrs. Gibney is noting how beneficial research and source documentation can be when attempting to make your point, or persuade others.
Which brings us to Gibney’s third paragraph, which is an equally unpalatable admixture of cherry-picked stats, undocumented or unnamed sources, textbook fallacies, and incomplete clauses which infer but do not verify. In short, her writing is a nightmare, and why she persists week after week, is well beyond my comprehension. Generally speaking, many people, Mrs. Gibney included, seem quite comfortable relying upon the figures and data churned out by the minions of the federal government, from agencies such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
I do not happen to share in this acceptance, nor do I find these economic pencil pushers infallible. In short, I have a healthy mistrust of their outcome, especially when it varies so greatly from what my personal experience informs me. I like to do a version of the old ‘cui bono?’ routine when assessing their data: the BLS, for example, compiles what are referred to as the “headlines data” for public consumption, and have been tasked by every sitting administration to redefine the qualities of unemployment in order to come up with the lowest numbers possible.
The current U-3 figure of 3.7% is a much repeated refrain of politicians, pundits, and news hosts alike, and is held up as a reflection of just how great the (Trump) economy is booming. ( Even while we watch Sears closing its doors, Shopko going down fast, GM laying off 14,000 workers and closing 5 more plants, with Ford Motors cutting 15,000 workers and their entire second shift at some plants; does it not appear contradictory, something more associable with a decline rather than an economic ‘boom’?) They rarely announce the U-6 rate, which is often more than double. In fact, this unemployment statistic is highly-variable, depending upon which source you choose to go with: I have seen a range from the 3.7% noted above, to just under 23%. The point here I believe is because of the variety of metrics gathering approaches, and the wide-latitude of results, one should not feel the data they choose is necessarily impregnable. Thus, I would not become overly dependent upon it to base or found an appeal.
Finally, when Dee drops in a clause like “the poverty rate is at an historic low,” I immediately must ask according to whom? What is the source, and why should we, the readers, simply accept a claim like this without any apparent basis? I can tell you that researching this online will again lead to discovery of huge disparities, dependent upon the sources. I have seen figures from 14% to 47%, so you can easily see why a statement like hers needs to be clarified, sourced, or better defined.
At this point with Gibney’s agenda-driven, echo-chamber inspired opinion-piece, I personally begin to suspect the lack of sources to buttress her points might indeed be intentional omissions; some might even say misinformation. So, when she writes “3 million have gone off food stamps,” intending this to represent a plus and reflect positively on how great her beloved President is doing, I almost gloss right over it before stopping to think: where does this number come from, and what is it attributable to? Is it just a positive reinforcement of Trump’s brilliant economic policies, or might there be something more to it?
Back to the internet, once again, where I discover the source nearly right away: none other than Breitbart News. Now, I know this will arrive as a shock to Gibney (Novotny, the other Gibney, and Haslip, et al), but Breitbart News is not an accredited, viable, or credible news source. I hope you were all sitting down when you read that.
In fact, checks by all the media bias fact checking sites out there produced the same response on Breitbart: Reasoning: Extreme Right, Propaganda, Conspiracy, Failed Fact Checks. So, quoting them in her letter without documenting the source is a tactic which displays a lack of veracity, as well as questionable ethics. It also happens to supplant the qualities of a logical fallacy, the Anonymous Authority Fallacy, to be precise.
As for the substance of the claim itself, turns out a huge number have dropped off SNAP eligibility because of punitive new policies from the Trump administration, and the remaining hundreds of thousands stopped soliciting food stamps because of fears of deportation. So, it wasn’t so much a reflection of how great the economy was doing (although this is what Gibney’s letter implies), but attributable to the arguably harsh policies resulting from the REAL national emergency we are now experiencing: Trumpism.