Let me begin with Rush Limbaugh. In his book, See, I Told You So (1993), he begins the topic of global warming as follows:
Despite the hysterics of a few pseudo-scientists, there is no reason to believe in global warming (171)
For me, the first tip-off here is Limbaugh's (consistent) use of ad hominem.
Taken at face value, this starting point tells us that the only support for global warming comes only from non-scientists, - and even they are merely hysterical. Limbaugh's comments amount simply to an attack on the sources of the claim - not a direct attack on the evidence, the theoretical assumptions, the arguments for global warming. This is an elementary fallacy: Alpha Seminar and Values Analysis students can look this up in their Weston text.
Lesson # 1: beware anyone who begins their discussion of an issue with an ad hominem dismissal of those she or he disagrees with.
In general, Limbaugh's books are case studies in logical fallacies. Let me list just a few that can be easily discerned in just a few pages.
For example, Limbaugh turns to an article about Edward O. Wilson, professor of sociobiology at Harvard which, Limbaugh promises, will "prove so much of what I have been saying." (172)
What Limbaugh has been saying, is:
mankind is not responsible for depleting the ozone layer ;the ecosystem is not fragile and humans are incapable of destroying it;
the real enemies of the radical environmental leadership are capitalism
and the American way of life;
there are more acres of forest land in America today than when Columbus
discovered the continent in 1492;
less-developed cultures are not necessarily more pure or kinder to
nature than technologically sophisticated civilizations;
big-government regulation is not the best way to protect the
environment;
many environmental groups exhibit the fervor of religious crusades,
abandoning reason and accepting many faulty premises on faith;
mankind is part of nature and not necessarily its enemy (171-2)
As a sociobiologist, Wilson observes that human beings are driven by "selfish sexual and reproductive lives," so that "Cooperation beyond the family and tribal levels comes hard," (as quoted by Limbaugh, 173) This means for Wilson that our impacts on the environment are greater than they might otherwise be.
So - how does this article "prove so much" of what Limbaugh has been saying? The first question I would raise here is, in technical terms, the question of relevance. How relevant are E. O. Wilson's views for "proving" the rather extensive list of claims Limbaugh has promised to support for us?
Here's what Limbaugh takes from the interview with Wilson:
Humans, the good professor writes, are an environmental abnormality. Except for allusions to the Earth goddess Gaia, there is no mention of a supreme being or a Creator in this story. This, my friends, is what they're teaching your kid at Harvard. If you ever doubted me when I said that the militant environmentalists were anti-people New Age mystics, this article should prove my case. (173)
In addition to the question of relevance, there's an additional question of conclusions: Limbaugh can't seem to keep track of what he's really trying to prove by refering to the Wilson interview -
either most of everything in the first list (which is where he started),or
that militant environmentalists are anti-people New Age mystics.
In addition to questions of relevance - redoubled by Limbaugh's confusion as to what conclusions he's trying to draw - Limbaugh goes on to commit several additional logical missteps. For example:
Wilson said that "it was a misfortune for the living world" that human beings, given their selfish and destructive drives, have become the dominant species.Limbaugh says Wilson says human beings are "an environmental abnormality."
These are not the same thing - Limbaugh commits straw man. (see Weston for an explanation)
Further, for Limbaugh, Wilson's real crime is that he doesn't mention God in a form recognizable to Limbaugh. This issues in three further missteps:
1) Based on Wilson's comments - i.e., one professor at Harvard - Limbaugh asserts "This, my friends, is what they're teaching your kids at Harvard."Who are "they" precisely? If Limbaugh's intention is to suggest that many people at Harvard teach what Wilson teaches - he has provided no evidence. Hasty generalization - Limbaugh draws a grand conclusion about "what they're teaching your kids at Harvard" based on a single (indeed, distorted) example.
2) Similarly, if we grant for the moment that Wilson fits the category of "militant environmentalist," beyond what Limbaugh refers to asallusions to "the Earth goddess Gaia," there is no evidence to demonstrate that Wilson is a "anti-people New Age mystic."
--> Hasty generalization - and from what I know of Wilson, he would be quite surprised to find himself made out to be a "New Age mystic."
--> Questionable categories: not all New Age mystics are anti-people; not all militant environmentalists are anti-people New Age mystics - but this, according Limbaugh, is what this interview with Wilson "proves."
3) Even if Wilson serves as an example of a militant environmentalist who is also an anti-people New Age mystic - one example does not a category make. This is again hasty generalization - one that helps Limbaugh create one of his favorite straw men, i.e., the "wacko environmentalists," the "radical environmentalists," the "militant environmentalists," etc.
Indeed, given Limbaugh's pleasure in assigning derisive adjectives to environmentalists, one suspects he's guilty of a few fallacies beyond straw man - most importantly, false dilemma. It appears that for Limbaugh, either is a right-thinking, conservative enthusiast of free markets and Republican party - or one is an environmentalist wacko. It would be handy if the world could be so easily divided up this way - but I suggest that the world is black and white only for dogmatists, dictators, and anyone else who doesn't deal with ambiguity and complexity very well.
By the way, does any remember that Limbaugh was going to prove that he was right about global warming?
As an opening exercise in critical thinking, I'd suggest that when a writer manages to commit this many fallacies in the span of three pages, there is little reason to expect that writer to provide us with a reliable and balanced account.
Global Warming II: observations on uncertainty and ideology - the IPCC Report
Global Warming III: Moral Consequences