The left doesn't want to win arguments with its opponents, it wants to silence them. More evidence comes from our mailbag. A letter and a response.

Letter to the editor:

Dear Editor:

Perhaps Sheppard's unscientific rantings against those (84% of climate scientists, 58% of Democrats, 50% of Independents, and 27% of Republicans, according to "A Deeper Partisan Divide Over Global Warming," Pew Research Center, May 2008) who have learned that global warming is almost certainly caused by humans are due to his being a technology consultant and software engineer, not someone trained in science.  Anyone familiar with science knows there is a great deal of difference between the training of an engineer and that of a scientist.  However, many engineers and others have the ability to look at a broad body of data and draw logical conclusions.  Unfortunately, Sheppard is not one of them, unless he really hasn't looked at the broad body of global warming data.  I recommend the books The Hot Topic, by Gabrielle Walker, the climate change editor at Nature, and Sir David King, until 2007 the UK's chief scientific adviser, and Field Notes from a Catastrophe, by Elizabeth Kolbert, who interviewed a dizzying array of climate change scientists.  Unfortunately, Sheppard is damaging our chances of addressing this serious problem before the consequences do become catastrophic.  He is also seriously damaging the credibility of your web site, "American Thinker," which, after reading a couple of Sheppard's articles, I decided was a misnomer.  Please remove his distorted and misleading articles from your site.

Sincerely,

Bonney Hughes
M.S. '86, Cornell University

Marc Sheppard responds:

Dear Bonney Hughes,

Thank you for your comments.  American Thinker’s editor was kind enough to forward me your thoughts and I’m very pleased that he did.  I thoroughly enjoy hearing from both fans and antagonists, as both agreement with and challenges to one’s words generally broaden one’s vantage. 

Unfortunately, you have provided neither.  Indeed, rather than cite specific words you care to take issue with you instead refer to my “unscientific rantings against” a demographic breakdown (unscientifically attributed to a single source) who have “learned that global warming is almost certainly caused by humans.”  What nonsense.

You then proceed to suggest that anyone looking at the “broad body of global warming data” MUST reach the same conclusion and recommend a few books to prove your point.  Sorry – for every AGW proponent you name I can provide an equally or greater qualified dissenter.

Your suggestion that my field of computer science (BTW -- just what is your position at the PC building company you work for?) somehow disqualifies my opinions in the matter couldn’t be any more absurd.  In fact, as the IPCC-driven hysteria is built predominantly upon climate models specifically programmed and calibrated to FIND an anthropogenic GHG/Temperature anomaly link, who better than a software expert to analyze and challenge their algorithms? 

Besides, if you actually read my pieces, you’ll find that I try my best to avoid injecting scientific analysis, but rather that of a political command and control nature, which is truly what the AGW scare is all about. My focus is on leashing the dogma being generated by hysterical and agenda-driven alarmists, while reporting and connecting the work of myriad contrarian scientists ostracized by those alarmists and all but ignored by the media.  And of course, uncovering and reporting their true motives.

And while your statement that I am “damaging our chances of addressing this serious problem before the consequences do become catastrophic” is way off-base, it is, nonetheless, quite flattering.  If, in fact, my research, analysis, and opinions aid in the effort to force policymakers to look carefully before they leap into the abyss of non-workable solutions to a non-existent crisis, then I can sleep well at night complacent in a job well done.

For someone heralding the virtues of science, you seem woefully unaware that it is faith, not science, which demands consensus.  Antitheist Sam Harris put it best when he wrote:

“The difference between science and religion is the difference between a willingness to dispassionately consider new evidence and new arguments, and a passionate unwillingness to do so” 

It’s quite obvious which better exemplifies your position. You alarmists and the criminally complicit MSM use ad hominem and similar dishonest mind-games in an effort to shut down a debate you know you just can’t win.  Case-in-point: The all-knowing Goracle has refused one debate challenge after another simply because his Joseph Goebbels style of propaganda dissemination cannot withstand direct scrutiny.

On a personal note -- I genuinely want to thank you, Bonney.  Business-related travel and work obligations have sadly conspired to minimize my article submissions to American Thinker this summer.  Your kind words have convinced me to seek a better balance post haste.

Stay tuned for my next piece, as I believe it will be right up your alley.

As to “American Thinker” being a misnomer, I’ll leave you with this thought.  Just who are the actual thinkers – those who blindly accept the sci-fi predictions of charlatans the likes of Al Gore and politically-driven junk science from the ultra-corrupt IPCC, or those questioning the premise that this most recent in a perpetual 1500 year cycle of climate shifts dating back long before homo sapiens walked the planet is somehow more ominous and of different origin that its predecessors?

ATB,

Marc Sheppard