Following his embarrassingly ignorant performance on CNBC, newly installed Energy Secretary Rick Perry closed off his week somehow managing to look even worse. The venue was a hearing before the United States Senate; the event was Senator Al Franken, former comedian turned political force, reducing the Republican ex-governor of no remaining discernible talents to an angry puddle by introducing him to scientific conclusions Rick Perry steadfastly insists are not real.
Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) informed Perry that scientists have concluded that “humans are entirely the cause” of recent warming, to which Perry responded, “I don’t believe it” and “I don’t buy it.”
Thank the heavens the world's collected scientific research does not hinge on gaining the personal buy-in of one Rick Perry. We would be in deep trouble if the man failed to give his stamp of approval to the existence of electricity; we may be in deep trouble if the man overseeing the nation's nuclear stockpiles decides that radiation is now a vitamin.
Perry went on to call for a so-called “red team” exercise where scientists argue back and forth with a “blue team” on the issue. “But that is exactly how science works,” replied Franken, with teams of scientists pushing back and forth on one another until a consensus is reached.
We can assume that Rick Perry did not in fact know this.
Franken then pointed out that the Koch brothers had actually helped set up a “red team” of skeptics to take a new look at all of the historical data on global surface temperatures. He then quoted what the head of that team, Dr. Richard Muller, said in the New York Times about their findings:
Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.
At that moment in the questioning, Perry lost his composure, not merely rejecting this scientific reality but asserting angrily that it is “just indefensible.”
And so we we draw our little scene to a close, as Rick Perry confronts the forces of scientific inquiry and responds with stern disapproval that the forces of scientific inquiry would say such things.
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2005—More Science: Do Dems Need A Reality-Based Community?
Public health officials like Ms. Ehresmann, who herself has a son with autism, have been trying for years to convince parents like Ms. Rupp that there is no link between thimerosal - a mercury-containing preservative once used routinely in vaccines - and autism.
They have failed.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the Institute of Medicine, the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics have all largely dismissed the notion that thimerosal causes or contributes to autism. Five major studies have found no link.
Yet despite all evidence to the contrary, the number of parents who blame thimerosal for their children's autism has only increased.
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