“Just because a scientific paper is peer-reviewed does not mean it is correct. The peer-reviewed scientific literature is full of papers that contradict each other so they can’t all be right. Peer review does not stop bad science being published. Scientific theories live or die on evidence, not whether or not they were published in the peer-reviewed literature”
Prof. Ian Plimer.
Somewhat to my no-surprise, my own little Facebook Page, A Devil’s Curmudgeon, recently earned its first Zuccing. One of my posts was tagged as Fake News and my page was threatened with suspension if I kept up with this heretical behaviour.
Imagine my shock when I read the “fact check” and realised that it was nothing but a steaming pile of lies, half-truths and misinformation.
Facebook fact-checkers have tagged veteran environmentalist Michael Shellenberger’s Forbes article as “partly false.”
The widely shared article, ‘On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare’, first published on Forbes, rejected ‘climate alarmism’, and featured Shellenberger apologizing for how ‘badly environmentalists have misled the public’ about the relatively new field of climate science.
Facebook’s Climate Science fact-checking “Climate Feedback” evaluated Shellenberger’s article, arguing that he allegedly ‘mixed accurate and inaccurate claims in support of a misleading and overly simplistic argumentation about climate change.’
In the pseudo-peer review Climate Feedback cited ‘six scientists who “analyzed” the article, estimating its overall scientific credibility to be ‘low’. Stating that [an ambiguous] majority of reviewers tagged the article as Cherry-picking, Misleading.’
The review was typical of the mendaciousness and deliberate deceit of so-called “fact-checkers”. Repeatedly, they responded to Shellenberger’s claims which were absolutely true, but acted as if he had said something completely different than he did.
For instance, when Shellenberger said that “fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003”, even the fact-checkers (tacitly) concede that he is 100% correct. So, they resort to claiming that, “this is driven in part by non-climatic factors”. Well, so what? His claim is still absolutely true.
Similarly, when Shellenberger says that “climate change is not making natural disasters worse”, he is correct. Climate-related disasters have declined dramatically. So, the “fact-checkers” claim instead that this contradicts “IPCC reports” – in other words, computer models. Yes, folks, when the real world contradicts computer models, the world is wrong. Don’t believe your lyin’ eyes, just look at the computer model.
Ultimately, the “fact-check” only contradicts four of Shellenberger’s claims. Yet Shellenberger listed 12 examples.
So, even if Shellenberger is “partly false”, he is mostly correct. Eight out of 12 times.
This kind of one-sided, selective fact checking raises its own questions about bias. Are fact-checkers sorting truth from falsehood, or buttressing ‘herd madness’ and it’s shared narrative?
Or as Ian Plimer has posited, are scientists who are in the employ of politicians, Big Tech and the leftist hegemony, ‘crushing opposition to ensure that science serves politics?’ The so-called “facts” simply just follow the money.
Who fact checks the fact-checkers? Why are most fact-checkers almost certain to be left-leaning activists?
Because the narrative must be maintained at all costs – even if the cost is truth.
To apply the words of Andreas Vou from Spiked-Online, the contempt towards Shellenberger is an example of how ‘terrible of an idea it is to have Big Tech companies act as arbiters of truth.’
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