Perhaps not worth a florin*, maybe only threepence for the Godwin's Law swear jar ...

(Above: a handy conjunction of events. Yet another EXCLUSIVE fed to the reptiles, the thoughts of "", aka Tim Florin, and the bizarre illustration used by google for The Guardian)

With crony commentariat commentator Paul Sheehan off on a Laura Norder kick this morning - he could of course move to Queensland, where the streets are safe from pink-clad bikie assault - the pond's attention immediately shifted to the lizard Oz.

And immediately Tim Florin's effort We must be open to climate views  caught the eye (behind the paywall because life is hard for Chairman Rupert).

It turns out that Florin, who is listed as professor of medicine at the University of Queensland by the rag, is a researcher into the interactions of diet, microbial flora and human physiology in the normal and inflamed gastrointestinal tract (you can look at the prof at the UofQ website here).

Which makes it a tad unfortunate that the good prof's piece should appear under a header proposing an attitude beloved of intelligent designers, creationists, and other assorted odd bods.

Never mind the quality of the argument or the insight, print the controversy, show both sides of the argument. Why, the bacterial flagellum of E. coli is as good as a Darwin any day of the week ...

But how would the good prof feel if the pond proposed We must be open to normal and inflamed gastrointestinal tract views?

Frankly the pond has all sorts of insights to offer in relation to inflamed guts, irritable bowels, carcinogenesis and IBD, and Florin is welcome to be open to the pond's views, but it has to be said these will be the codswallop views of a goose, and he should be open at his peril.

Florin then busily goes about being an apologist for the way climate science is presented in the lizard Oz, and the rest of the tabloid Murdochian denialist rags, with a set of arguments that can only be described as half-baked.

Now either Florin doesn't have a clue about the quality of science reporting in the Murdoch rags when it comes to climate science, or he himself is in denial about the rampant denialism. Here we go:

Last month, The Guardian's Graham Readfearn lamented that "wrongheaded and simplistic views on climate denialism are a regular feature on the letters page of many newspapers", including The Australian. 
On his Planet Oz blog, he added that if "a newspaper or other media outlet is publishing content which it knows is factually questionable or demonstrably wrong, does it have a responsibility to keep such pseudo-science statements off its pages?". Readfearn is absolutely correct to ask where a newspaper should strike the balance and how to administer that balance. 
Not all views merit equal weighting. But it is important to remain open to a range of different viewpoints in order to advance a more nuanced discourse about climate science.

Uh huh.

Not all views merit equal weighting. But it is important to remain open to a range of different viewpoints in order to advance a more nuanced discourse about the inflamed gastrointestianl tract.

Because really what does Florin know that the pond doesn't already know. Haven't we got a tract? Do we not feel? Are we not human?

Never mind, all would have been well, and the pond would have accepted Florin's tedious and pedantic explanation of how consensus isn't the way forward in the scientific method - not that the pond has ever trotted the 97% of climate scientists as a meaningful or useful figure up against the actual evidence - but then Florin commits what can only be regarded as a major intellectual crime.

He doesn't actually do a primary Godwin's Law breach, but he certainly performs a secondary one, and in such a way as his contribution to the swear jar should be doubled:

In the past, political or religious ideology has often determined what was taught. The scientific method has won out in most instances, but it has never been easy. An example is the Lysenko affair in the USSR, which severely retarded Soviet capability in biological sciences. 
Trofim Lysenko, the director of the Institute of Genetics from 1940-1965 within the USSR's Academy of Sciences during Stalinist times, taught anti-Mendelian doctrines of genetics. He succeeded in having scientific dissent from his theories formally outlawed in 1948. 
This is only subtly different from what the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and The Guardian are advocating (and practising) regarding anthropogenic global warming climate change.

Lysenko? The IPCC and The Guardian are doing a Lysenko, with only subtle differences separating them from Stalin? Perhaps only one degree of separation?

Well the pond counts Stalin as second only to Hitler when it comes to Godwin's Law, but will allow Mao equal status in defamation proceedings, and then Florin compounds his insulting, abusive, risible, concept of being "open to views" - you Stalinist commie pinko pervert swine - by following up in the next par with one of those naughty words that should never turn up on the keyboard of an alleged scientist:

It is not that the warmist theories have no validity. It is that the bulk of people who advocate for them deny any validity for those who disagree with them. Science does not, and should not, work like this.

Warmist? This is of course the favourite term of abuse of climate scientists, though sometimes for variation, it might be warmistas or alarmist warmists.

It makes it all the more poignant when we get to the next offering by Florin:

Interestingly, a version of Lysenko's non-Mendelian theories - epigenetics - is now an accepted paradigm. This is a result of non-ideological scientific research. The Guardian should desist from using "denier" when describing those people who disagree with the current scientific paradigm as broadcast by itself, the IPCC and other media outlets. The word denier is clearly associated with denial of the Holocaust in the minds of many of us familiar with 20th-century history.

Actually, one eyed prof, the use of "warmist" is just as offensive, since it is just as demeaning, and you don't have to trot off to the Holocaust to see why it is reductionist and stereotypical. At least the denying denialists are in denial ...

But then things get even worse, because what do you know, having foresworn consensus as an operating mode of argument for the scientific method, the good prof leads with ... consensus. Here we go again:

The Guardian should be leading discussion, not playing the censorship card. There are many qualified climate scientists whose views are in synch with the IPCC. There are also many persons with some knowledge in the area and many more persons with no ability in the area who agree with it. 
There are many reputable climate scientists, however, who do not agree with the IPCC paradigm. These include, but are certainly not limited to, Freeman Dyson, Mike Hulme, Judith Curry, Ross McKitrick, Nigel Calder, James Lovelock (originator of the Gaia hypothesis), Roy Spencer, Stephen McIntyre, Richard Lindzen (meteorologist, lead author IPCC AR3) and Ivar Giaever (Nobel laureate in chemistry).

Consensus!

There you go Stalinist warmists and your evil climate denialist abuse, evoking memories of the Holocaust, never mind the quality of the argument or the actual qualifications, feel the denialist width, feel the rich consensus.

No wonder the good prof is feeling frustrated. There's an astonishing consensus and no one's paying attention or asking penetrating questions. Except for Tim Blair, Andrew Bolt, and the whole gaggle of Murdochians parading anti-climate science abuse on an almost daily basis:

Frustratingly, it appears that the key questions on AGW climate science are not being asked by thoughtful non-specialist people because the same people have been encouraged to believe that the science is too complicated for them, and because they have been told that all expert climate scientists agree with the IPCC's position of certainty as regards AGW climate change. 

Which brings us back to that original question. Somehow the good prof seems to think it's highly desirable that ratbag ignorant luddites of the Murdoch school of science parade their ignorance on a daily basis and dress it up as being the ideas of thoughtful non-specialist people. Never mind if they get their facts wrong, never mind if the few, grudging corrections are printed out of sight in the back pages, never mind if this happens far too often in a way which is both deliberate and provocative ...

So why did the good prof leap into the fray? Why did the good prof feel the need to take the side of the reptiles at the lizard Oz, and by extension, the routine daily ranting of non-specialists like Andrew Bolt?

Is he a closet denialist coming out to the world?

It can't be the insights on offer, because he concludes his piece with a series of questions of breath-taking banality, containing a flavoursome whiff of insulting condescension:

 Here are four key linked questions: 
1. Is the rate of climate change increasing? Change is what climate does, so one does not need to be a climate scientist to deduce that it is important to address the question of whether the rate of change has increased. The IPCC has little to say on this scientifically, but continues to use phrases such as "unprecedented" global warming in its executive summaries. 
2. Is a significant portion of climate change determined by human activity? Although our human footprint is heavy, it is not the only influence on climate. Scientists in the field of climate research refer to these influences as "forcings". Forcings can be terrestrial or extraterrestrial. The CO2 greenhouse effect is an example of a terrestrial forcing. 
3. Is climate change significantly affected by human CO2 output, which nearly all warmists and sceptics agree is increasing? The IPCC modelling for the CO2 forcing effect has consistently grossly overestimated its effect on global warming. 
4. If CO2 is a significant cause of global warming, then what should be done to combat it?

Keen readers will note that "warmist" bobs up once more, though disappointingly there's no reference to Stalin, or for that matter Hitler or Mao.

But we do cop yet another bit of meaningless blather, inconsequential generalities, laden with a generous dose of hand-wringing and alarmist concern:

It is important for alternative views to be heard because an uncritical adherence to the AGW climate change paradigm could be siphoning off squillions that would be better spent on more important research and actions for the good of humanity and our Earth. A blinkered adherence to combating "the evils of CO2" can lead to solutions that do no good and may cause harm.

Harm? And the proof is? The use of "may" is enough to get you out of a charge of denialist alarmism? Well well, the pond may or may not allow it, but perhaps, maybe, if nothing else, it may be useful to stop the acidification of the seas, which even the wiki reading Greg Hunt acknowledges may be harmful, or certainly may do no good ...

Blinkered? And the Bolter and Tim Bleagh and the Murdochians (let's not mention Graham Lloyd), including but not limited to Miranda the Devine, Chris Kenny, and Janet Albrechtsen, routine and regular denialists, the way forward to scientific enlightenment?

Well whatever else might be said they sure drink a funny kind of fluoride-free water in Queensland. And the pond wants what the good prof has been drinking. Must do wonders for the gut, if not so much for logic in scientific disputation ...

* for young pups who've never hard of a florin, for heaven's sake read some history, or if desperate, join Greg Hunt - who oddly seems to swear blind by the Stalinist IPCC's consensus while doing his level best to undermine it - and read the florin's wiki here.

(Below: while we're doing meaningless slogans, Moir offers one today for Florin, the Murdochians and the rest of the tribe. More Moir here)