Does anybody besides me find it slightly ironic that Neven would endorse ridicule of a climate-alarmist newspaper article? I guess global warmingists accept them as a proxy for what the science says, until they are proven wrong, and then only risibly so.
Carrick gives us an interesting example of how believers shield themselves from disconfirming evidence. He has a belief -- "global warmingists accept [newspaper articles] as a proxy for what the science says." This belief is directly in conflict with an observed fact (Neven mocks inaccurate "climate-alarmist" journalism.)
The conflict between Carrick's faith-based position and reality does not make him question his faith: instead, he chalks up the incongruity to "iron[y]," and asserts that Neven must only be an exception in special cases (when "they are proven wrong, and then only risibly so.") Carrick has managed to transform a failure of his thinking (Neven acted with integrity and good judgement, while Carrick's faith tells him Neven would do the opposite) into a further moral failure by Neven (Neven wishes he could support the bad science used in the article, but does not dare, because it would obviously discredit him. He is obviously cowardly as well as dishonest!)
Orwell was right: the key to identifying an obedient servant of an ideology is that they have the ability to say that war is peace, wealth is poverty, black is white. Neven failed the test of ideology -- he's able to call bad journalism bad, regardless of the beliefs supported. Carrick passes with flying colors.
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