[ExI] Use of Irony, or Miscommunication? (Was Re: Global Temperatures to Decrease)

[Damien Broderick]

At 11:52 PM 4/17/2008 -0700, Lee wrote:

>It looks to me as though Alex saw through (thankfully!) your
>ironical retort, because he's rebutting the point you're *really*
>making, no?
>
>Or am I missing something?   Recap:  Lee links to "not warming", then
>Damien implies "global warming is not bullshit",

There were two steps in what I posted.

The first was to point out *from your own source* that what you were 
citing made exactly the *contrary* argument to yours.

The second, bracketed after my name, was ironical: a sort of 
equivalent bogus "argument" proving that traffic on highways is 
slowing down. What my sarcastic counter-example tried to undermine 
was the structure of inference in Lee's post.

>and then Alex rebuts
>the global warming "meme".

Alex failed to rebut anything I said, which is why I took his 
comments the way I did (evidently in error). He *asserted* that 
anthropogenic global climate change was non-existent, without making 
any rebuttal of Lee's citation from a climate scientist. He expressed 
vehement *disagreement*--

<Where is the consensus? I can't see it. I must have missed the end 
of the debate, I think it must have ended with all dissenters being 
shot, thus argument settled. Shameful derailing of the scientific 
process and a damning indictment of the state of our media driven 
scientifically illiterate society. How can you defeat such ignorance 
and blatant fraud? Show me the facts, not the opinions. >

--without any attempt (other than a reference to past fluctuations) 
to show that this is incorrect:

 >Researchers say the uncertainty in the observed value for any
 >particular year is larger than these small temperature differences.
 >What matters, they say, is the long-term upward trend.

Calling "I think it must have ended with all dissenters being shot" a 
*rebuttal* is the same class of error made by the media when people 
are said to have "refuted" a charge against them when all they've 
done is *denied* it.

Damien Broderick