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When You Claim That Experts Don’t Know Their Stuff
Jordan Peterson says climate scientists don’t define their terms. It’s projection.
This week, bestselling author Jordan Peterson went on “The Joe Rogan Experience” to claim that climate scientists don’t know what they’re talking about.
Rude? Ignorant? Yes. Of course.
He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and I have an idea why.
Here’s The Video
Peterson “first made a name for himself by opposing a law that would protect transgender Canadians from discrimination,” according to Brynn Tannehill in Dame Magazine, and “has become something of an idol among incels and the alt-right.”
So, he has opinions about whether climate scientists know what they’re talking about. Great.
You can see the terrible video here. Peterson alleged: “There’s no such thing as climate, right? ‘Climate’ and ‘everything’ are the same word.” Because: “Climate is about everything, OK?”
“How,” he asked rhetorically, can a scientist make a model about anything and claim that it relates to their discipline if their discipline is “about everything?”
Which reminds me of an article Peterson wrote several years ago.
What Is Political Competence?
In December 2018, Peterson published an opinion piece headlined “The gender scandal — in Scandinavia and Canada” in Canada’s National Post.
The article is annoying for all kinds of reasons. Among these: He refers to Canada’s prime minister as “the absolute poster boy for…privilege” yet also says he doesn’t believe that “straight white men” enjoy privilege that is “generally undeserved.” Peterson says he doesn’t “assume” that such “patriarchy” exists, but then says the prime minister benefits from it and furthermore that the prime minister shouldn’t try to level the playing field by sharing his power with women…
