Let’s follow the arc of just one wingnut whopper. It starts as a seed in the form of a flatly untrue headline by none other than Fox News shouting out ‘scientists say dinos farted themselves to extinction’. Ahem:
(PZ) — But the paper makes no such claim, instead suggesting that the mass of herbivores during the Mesozoic would have made a substantial, but stable, contribution of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere that may have been partially responsible for the warmer, moister climate of the era …
But the truth doesn’t matter, facts are so unimportant we can’t even stop to check; we are witnessing wingnuts getting busy, hotly engrossed in zombie baby-making! Dozens of news sites get sucked in. Next up RushBo takes the false headline and pollinates it, mocking climate scientists for ‘claiming dino’s farted themselves to extinction’. Worldnut Daily and other large sites soil themselves congratulating Rush for ripping scientists who say ‘dinosaurs farted themselves to extinction,’ and throw in some zippy one liners.
Now the spawn grows, it goes viral. Conservative hillbillies see it and pass it around to one another, giggling at those stupid scientists: “LOL, did you hear the latest? Climate scientists say dinosaurs farted themselves to extinction! Hahaha, does that pass the smell test?!” And just today a regular conservative stalker is concern trolling me about some climate change stuff, decides the NASA data measuring it must be false because he doesn’t like what it says, and emails back maybe it’s from the “same scientists who said dinosaurs farted themselves to extinction.”
And just like that, grats! A new inbred conservative zombie lie is born. Awwww, isn’t it an adorable little zombie? Just like the reliable golden oldie ”scientists were predicting another ice-age just a few years ago,” it’s alive and kicking its cute little undead hands and feet, forever and ever, at least in the hearts of zombie lie lovers everywhere. The immaculate deception has another arrow in its quiver, merchants of doubt have another angle to mislead the public and milk industry. It’s just a matter of time before a Fox News pundit completes the insular circle of zombie life, heaping scorn on climate scientists because, everyone knows, the same scientists used to believe dinosaurs farted themselves to extinction.
That’s what happens when what passes for a journalists in popular (read: money making) media just cannot resist the temptation to snigger behind their collective hands like twelve-year-olds on the school playground.
I’m looking forward to that point in another decade when, out of the blue, some climate change denier uses this one against me. I’ll look back fondly and remember that I was there when that one came about.
Ugh dammit… I can already sense we’ll be dealing with this stupidity for years to come. We need better article titlers or something…
Damn. *I* used that smell test joke earlier – in being cynical about the media cliam being what they thought it was.
I hope they didn’t get it from me somehow .. Course I very much doubt that. I’m just very one small commenter on a blog-verse that’s theopposite of conservative and it is an obvious bad pun but still .. yeeurrgh. :-(
Wish I could take that comment back now. Because, yeah, “DarkSyde” you’re absolutely right.
I love how it’s always the “same scientists” who “used to predict X”. The average hillbilly zombie must think there are only about a dozen scientists in the world working in a given field and they’re all sitting around a table like the Legion of Doom discussing which conspiracy theory to promote that week.
OTOH, I look forward to seeing how Greenman 3610 handles this one surely in an upcoming Climate Denial Crock of the Week – it wouldn’t be the first crock we’ve seen birthed before pur eyes over the years either, fr’ex :
Oh, the clip has auto-embedded (if that’s the term right?) above – I didn’t know or intend it to do that. Oh well.
I have youtube auto display enabled. Haven’t figured out how to change the scales though. If anyone knows by all means, tell me. The code that shows in admin edit doesn’t even have the usual sides 350 x 225 kinda thing.
A two-paragraph rejoinder for your consideration:
So, does this mean climate change can happen because it clearly killed the dinosaurs, or climate change cannot happen because those atheist scientists are trying to undermine American values?
Please help me, Fox Talking Heads! I’m so terribly confused by your non-conflicting, non-biased reports!
Perhaps it’s time for science in general to throw its hands up, say “fuck it, you idiots win”, and go home. Taking along, of course, all the wonderful advances that science has brought us (pretty much every invention ever made, etc.).
Lorax: it means whatever it needs to mean to serve the cau$e, it doesn’t have to be consistent or even mean the same thing from one sentence to the next as long as it serves that cau$e.
Yeah, the morons at the Creationist newsletter I monitor were giggling over it this morning. And they failed to mention this flood thing they’re usually going on about, but somehow fixed on the “unsubstantiated” claim that big animals would have big intestinal tracts.
Heresy! Only their god could be that full of crap, thou shalt have no other Bowels before me.