I scaned a page from my son’s National Geographic April 2017 about Fake News and how to spot it thought I need to rescan. I notice in the 2 biased examples I had students analyze, many were sucked in to a straw man argument by Brooks regarding climate change that casts doubt on science because of a false claim attributed to Kenneth Watt. A Kenneth Watt did exist, and he was a professor emeritus at some big CA school, but the quotes attributed to him come from an alleged public lecture (not on a campus) of which there is no than hearsay; however, climate deniers trot him out as evidence regularly. What he is alleged to have said has no source, other than hearsay. It may be that he said it, but it is equally likely that someone misquoted him or outright lied. AND if he did make the claim he is alleged to have made, and he was wrong, stupid, nuts or all of the above, does that make all scientists wrong?
AND this all happened almost 50 years ago. In 50 years this is the best evidence that climate change is not real?
Idiots exist in every field, and smart people willing to prostitute their values for cash also exist. This is true of every side of every argument. We have to read critically. Heck, from what I’ve read of the history, it may be he got drunk at a conference and spouted some BS. As someone who has gone to my share of academic conferences, THAT is more common than you think.
I found the Brooks article on Facebook, same place I got the Guardian source. originally there was no author listed, then a first name was added, now a last name has been added. Efforts to make it look more legit have been made, but it’s still not credible.
Both sources are biased, but one source is far more credible than the other.
