James Delingpole, the champion of online climate conspiracy theorists, claims he was ‘intellectually raped’ on television on Monday night, reports Joss Garman.
James Delingpole, the champion of online climate conspiracy theorists, was ‘intellectually raped’ on television on Monday night by the new head of the prestigious Royal Society. (Reportedly Delingpole’s own words.)
In a must-watch interview for the BBC’s Horizon, the Nobel-prize winning Sir Paul Nurse gently questioned the columnist about his forthright views on climate change science, which he espouses regularly for The Spectator and The Daily Telegraph and in the regular TV and radio spots he is offered by, amongst others, the BBC.
Here’s the video clip of the interview on YouTube:
Surprisingly, the question that tripped him up was one he should surely have seen coming. Delingpole, who had just been attacking the use of consensus in science, was asked if he would submit to a consensus scientific opinion if he needed treating for cancer. Stumbling wildly, he eventually feebly tried to change the subject, saying:
“Erm, shall we talk about climategate?”
Having been (unusually) simply lost for words, later he says:
“It is not my job to sit down and read peer-reviewed papers because I simply haven’t got the time, I haven’t got the scientific expertise… I am an interpreter of interpretation.”
But he apparently does have the time to obsessively blog misleading information about climate change and smear scientists in the process.
Anyhow, perhaps the most beautiful thing about his embarrassing interview is that Sir Paul clearly didn’t try to set him up. Delingpole needed absolutely no help in making himself look stupid. Sir Paul ended his programme urging scientists to speak up. He said:
“Scientists have got to get out there… if we do not do that it will be filled by others who don’t understand the science, and who may be driven by politics and ideology.”
As Left Foot Forward has previously noted Delingpole has admitted how his obsession with climate change is driven by “ideological warfare”.
39 Responses to “Telegraph columnist ‘intellectually raped’ by Royal Society scientist”
Andrew Owen
I find Horizon deeply disappointing of late. The incidental music used to ‘sex up’ the, frankly, banal dialogue of the programme presenters or narrators is hugely condecending and detracts from a supposedly serious science programme. They have made a true “science” of stretching 15 minutes of credible content into an hour. The BBC allowed Paul Nurse to present a virtually unchallenged one-sided view, with real credible opposition.
Elephant
Delingpole has not been attacking the use of consensus in science.
He has been attacking the use of consensus in “climate science in particular with regard to catastrophic man-made global warming”.
Everyone knows that “climate science” is a very immature science on an extremely complex global atmospheric, land and ocean, and planetary/solar/galaxy system that still has far too many major unknowns – the effect or Water and Clouds, for example – and therefore “consensus”, as regards catastrophic man-made global warming, has little value in this domain.
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[…] Joss Garman takes up the story: “Delingpole, who had just been attacking the use of consensus in science, […]
Tim Holmes
@JamesDelingpole From your performance in the video here, alas, I can only assume you mean that literally: http://bit.ly/fgE99g