I Can't Believe We Let These People Build Our Exploding Oil Platforms

I like Bill Maher. He's a polemical, funny satirist who's pretty sharp on religion, actually likes science and annoys religious people. This time, he's despairing of British people (who, like most English people, he calls English). Apparently, the endless stream of distorted, lying bullshit about climate change (I'm thinking particularly of the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express - oh dear, millions of readers each, and all Tory Scum)

People are always accusing me of hating America and calling it stupid, so tonight I'd like to take a few moments to hate England and call it stupid. Because now English people don't believe in global warming either. I thought the English were smarter than that. The home of Newton and Darwin. I can't believe we let these people build our exploding oil platforms.

Even scarier is why people have stopped thinking global warming is real. One major reason pollsters say is we had a very cold, snowy winter. Which is like saying the sun might not be real because last night it got dark. And my car's not real because I can't find my keys.

That's the problem with our obsession with always seeing two sides of every issue equally -- especially when one side has a lot of money. It means we have to pretend there are always two truths, and the side that doesn't know anything has something to say. On this side of the debate: Every scientist in the world. On the other: Mr. Potato Head.

There is no debate here -- just scientists vs. non-scientists, and since the topic is science, the non-scientists don't get a vote. We shouldn't decide everything by polling the masses. Just because most people believe something doesn't make it true. This is the fallacy called argumentum ad numeram: the idea that something is true because great numbers believe it.

…take this recent headline: "TV weathercasters divided on global warming." Who gives a shit? My TV weathercaster is a bimbo with big tits who used to be on a soap opera on Telemundo.

I seem to remember that during our cold winter, the Express had a front page reading 'Global Warming? It's the coldest winter in decades'.

I've got news for the Express (try this for a completely untrue story). It's hot today. The hottest day of the year. By that newspaper's scientific standards, it's irreproachable proof that global warming's real. But I don't think we'll see an apology in tomorrow's edition.

A couple of tips:
1. Weather isn't climate
2. The UK's kept warm by the Gulf Stream. We should have Canadian weather. If the Arctic icecaps melt, the Gulf Stream may move away. So global warming will cause local cooling.

It's not just Tory Scum newspapers - last week, the Observer's science correspondent wrote of miracle fish oil trials which improved child concentration and skills ('Fish Oil Helps Children To Concentrate'. As Ben Goldacre writes in today's Guardian (the Observer's sister paper), pretty much every detail was wrong. There was a study, but it wasn't of fish oils, it didn't show any improvement, it didn't measure children's concentration and the sample groups were of 12 kids each - basically no good at all. Still, you can't beat a good headline even if the article is a disgraceful travesty of journalism.

Tip for science journalists: please link to the papers you're distorting.
Tip for science readers: if the first sentence ends with '…scientists say', it means they probably don't. Science is complicated and doesn't lend itself well to headlines and short sentences. Unless, of course, that headline reads 'Massive Asteroid You Can Clearly See Getting Bigger Each Day Is Definitely Going To End All Life On Earth, Scientists Say'.