Sunday, March 28, 2010

A Little White-nosed Lie

Leslie Newell Peacock of the Arkansas Times does a nice job here explaining the decision of federal and state agencies to close caves under their jurisdiction. The caves contain bats that may be susceptible to white-nose syndrome, a fungus that kills bats. The fungus is thought to have been introduced from Europe or Africa by human visitors. Note at the end of the article a quote from the owner of a commercial tourist cave who is "skeptical" that the fungus is killing bats. Does that sound familiar? If you don't like the science, just declare yourself a skeptic! White-nose syndrome, anthropogenic global warming, evolution--all junk science, invented by those pesky scientists to make life difficult!

6 comments:

twif said...

of course, the fact that this "skeptic" owns a cave and makes money off tours of it has NOTHING to do with his skepticism, right?

Archaeopteryx said...

Right, Twif. Just like it's a coincidence that global warming deniers almost always turn out to be oil company employees.

Keifus said...

I don't know, it's a well known fact that political and economic proofs and judgements matter just as much as scientific ones.

Cindy said...

I like words with k's in them ... so you can call me a skeptic too.

Not that I'm skeptical about White-Nose Fungus, or Global Warming, or Obama's Birth Certificate. Oddly enough I have no problem with those things.

I am skeptical about other things ... and being that I'm also a Procrastinator at heart I will get around to listing all those things I'm skeptical about later...

Archaeopteryx said...

Come to think of it, I think it's possible that Obama has white-nose fungus. If only he had an immunization certificate....

Robert Scheidler said...

"Just like it's a coincidence that global warming deniers almost always turn out to be oil company employees."

That is wildly innacurate -- many of them are executives with coal companies!