Heretics Corner: Letting The Think Tanks Do The Thinking

First out of the traps when the Heartland docs were posted online was new darling of the skept-o-sphere Megan McArdle. Indeed the Washington D.C. based hack has penned 9732 words on the Heartland document dump , and not a single one of them actually examining the shady antics of Heartland exposed in the documents.

In February Megan claimed "I don't blog about the science" and then went on to assert that "the science is so uncertain". Earth to Megan: scientists quantify their uncertainty, that is part of science, so the bald statement "the science is so uncertain" would disqualify her claim not to blog about the science. But that isn't the only absurdity in Megan's stance

"I not only believe that anthropogenic global warming is happening, but also support stiff carbon or source fuels taxes in order to combat it." MEGAN MCARDLE FEB 16th

"I've basically outsourced my opinion on the science to people like Jonathan Adler, Ron Bailey, and Pat Michaels " MEGAN MCARDLE Feb 28th

Okay let's forgive the management speak. What kind of ardent advocate of carbon taxes picks this likely trio as experts on anthropogenic global warming?

Ron Bailey holds a degree in philosophy and economics, he is the author of Eco-Scam: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse published by the Cato Institute . Jonathan Adler worked for the Competitive Enterprise Institute for nine years,and before that was an intern at Cato , his area of expertise - Law. Pat Michaels the only actual scientist amongst Megan's 'experts' needs no introduction, oh, he's a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute . So all three of them have close ties to think tanks, all three of them have ties to the Cato Institute.

So Megan's claim to believe in global warming can be likened to supporting Arsenal, but having all your favourite players from Spurs. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Megan has outsourced her rationale to the Think Tanks.

1 comment:

John Mashey25 March 2012 at 00:40
CATO: see Fake science, ....
p.39 Philip Morris funding 1991-2001, from tobacco archives. Of 39 thinktanks, CATO is #3 with $965K, after WLF and ATR.

p.40-41: what the thinktanks did for their tobacco money.
It’s too bad the archives effectively stop after that.

We now know that Heartland is taking even more tobacco money than it got in 2001.
How about CATO?

A quick search for “Cato Institute” in the tobacco archives gives 2700+ hits.

#1 is from RJ Reynolds (the Joe Camel folks) saying IT IS OUR PLEASURE TO BE ABLE TO SUPPORT THE WORK THAT IS BEING DONE BY THE CATO INSTITUTE.

#7 was from 1995, by Edward .H. Crane to RJ Reynolds,
Just a note to add my thanks to those of Bob Borens for the generous $50,000 contribution from RJ Reynolds…. The whole letter is:

‘Just a note to add my thanks to those of Bob Borens for the generous $50,000 contribution from RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company in support of the Cato Institute’s Regulatory Rollback and Reform project . We are delighted to have RJ Reynolds as a significant corporate supporter of the Institute and look forward to working with you in the months and years ahead .
For now, I’ve enclosed a copy of a piece I had in the Washington Post last week along with information on our upcoming Benefactor Summit, which we’d be delighted to have you attend . Let’s get together for lunch on one of your upcoming trips to Washington . Thank you again for your support and best wishes for the New Year.’