Who’s shocked?
Reddit’s science forum banned climate deniers. Why don’t all newspapers do the same?
That’s the headline at Grist, which, unshockingly, takes the typical fascist route in wanting to shut down all debate that disagrees. Whether it was written by the writer of the article, Nathan Allen (who is a “scientist” and moderator at Reddit), is unknown
The forum, known as /r/science, provides a digital space for discussions about recent, peer-reviewed scientific publications. This puts us (along with /r/AskScience) on the front line of the science-public interface. On our little page, scientists and nonscientists can connect through discussions on everything from subatomic particles to interstellar astrophysics. (snip)
Some issues, however, are particularly contentious. While evolution and vaccines do have their detractors, no topic consistently evokes such rude, uninformed, and outspoken opinions as climate change.
Instead of the reasoned and civil conversations that arise in most threads, when it came to climate change the comment sections became a battleground. Rather than making thoughtful arguments based on peer-reviewed science to refute man-made climate change, contrarians immediately resorted to aggressive behaviors. On one side, deniers accused any of the hard-working scientists whose research supported and furthered our understanding of man-made climate change of being bought by “Big Green.†On the other side, deniers were frequently insulted and accused of being paid to comment on reddit by “Big Oil.â€
So, obviously, Reddit has banned….the “deniers”, rather than the “hard-working scientists”. Anyhow, most of the article is whiny, simply highlighting that Warmists cannot stand up to people questioning them with facts and reality, which is the norm. And questioning of these “hard-working scientists” is deemed “trolling”.
As a scientist myself, it became clear to me that the contrarians were not capable of providing the science to support their “skepticism†on climate change.
A scientists, huh?
When 97 percent of climate scientists agree that man is changing the climate, we would hope the comments would at least acknowledge if not reflect such widespread consensus. Since that was not the case, we needed more than just an ad hoc approach to correct the situation.
If you’re going to mention “consensus”, you aren’t practicing science. Furthermore, that 97% meme has been fully discredited many, many times.
As a site, reddit is passionately dedicated to free speech..
Because they believe in “free speech”, they’ll ban any dissenters.
So if a half-dozen volunteers can keep a page with more than 4 million users from being a microphone for the antiscientific, is it too much to ask for newspapers to police their own editorial pages as proficiently?
In other words, Warmists love free speech and freedom of the press so much that they want to ban any discourse that diverges from the official cult doctrine.
