Assignment for January 12th

Mo Brooks, chair member of the US House of Representatives’ Science Committee, Brooks is a lawyer and elected state county official from Huntsville, whose district includes NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, and heads the panel that oversees research activities at the National Science Foundation (NSF) (Mervis, 2011).As a veteran, he is sceptical about forcing the U.S. government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (2011). He claims, “30-some years ago the big scare was global cooling, and once they drained that [topic], they shifted to global warming” (2011).

The evidence he presents for his side is mainly a consensus from different scientist “on the fence” who disagree as to whether human activity is causing global warming (2011). He also believes that the current amount of scientists needed for such a big undertaking to reduce global warming is insufficient at present time (2011)
The main logical fallacy from this skeptic is “appeal to tradition”. Due to Brooks’ position as a government official and his repeated referral to US traditions and his own experiences, he believes that this provides enough basis for him to be sceptical about the current issue of climate change and does not choose to examine all scientific evidence at hand.
Sources Used:

 

Mervis, J., 2011. Science Insider. Taken from:
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/02/new-science-subcommittee-chair.html

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