Hot weather...

... and even hotter rhetoric. Richard Parncutt, a Professor at the University of Graz, Austria, is calling for the death penalty for skeptics of global warming.

Let's leave aside the fact that threatening to slaughter your opponents is not a sign of confidence in your argument. Let's also leave aside the fact that Parncutt is a Professor of Systematic Musicology (whatever that is), and can in no way be considered an expert in climate. Professor Parncutt's proposal for witch hunts and kangaroo courts to seek out and destroy "deniers" is scientism in its rawest form.

Scientism is the belief that science alone can explain every phenomenon, and that the scientific method is the only rational method for solving problems. To some, that has been expanded to the belief that science is a god. Not surprisingly, trouble will always follow.

When political goals become the most important, and religion is harnessed to achieve those goals, the result is a religion that bears no real resemblance to what its followers profess to believe. Most Christians look back with shame and embarrassment at many of the political antics of the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. For the same reason science, if it is used to further political goals, can cease to be science. Much of the public debate (if it can be called that) about global warming has a definite intolerant religious fervor to it.

Prior to starting this blog, I used to argue with people on other websites about issues such as evolution and homosexuality. In the process I learned three important things. The first was that the less someone knew about science, the more likely they were to bring up "scientific consensus" as a way to invoke cloture on debates they would rather not have. The second was to never respond to anyone who thinks the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, or the network news programs are reliable sources of scientific and technical information.

And the third? One of the reasons I blog anonymously is because of the "behead the anti-science infidel!" attitude of some of the folks I encountered. Rather than disprove what I said about homosexuality, evolution, or whatever, I found myself accused of all sorts of crimes against humanity. Much of what passes for debate on the Internet - and much of the media, for that matter - is not debate so much as an Inquisition in which those who do not hold the same views as secular progressives are criminals to be prosecuted. Professor Parncutt has a definite Grand Inquisitor attitude about him.