Having yesterday praised Intelligence Squared’s and the Federalist Society’s public debates for exposing the Left and Center to ideas from the Right, I was amused to read a Daily Kos post by Adam Siegel that unintentionally helps to prove my point. He draws our attention to an upcoming Iq2US debate on the motion “Major reductions in carbon emissions are not worth the money,” in which climate-change skeptics Peter Huber, Bjørn Lomborg, and Philip Stott will face off against climate-change believers Daniel Kammen, Oliver Tickell, and Adam Werbach.

An anti-climate-change apostle, Siegel warns of the risks of publicly engaging with such unbelievers:

Unlike those in the scientific community, these three (and others of their ilk) have little to no interest in the search for truth and are not prepared to (ever) acknowledge errors and shift their views if confronted with evidence that proves their points wrong. To quote from a great modern philosopher, Stephen Colbert, they focus on “truthiness.”

The past record of such “debates” is not favorable to those focused on truth and honesty. The debates turn to the trivia as skeptics throw out some outlandish claim driving those seeking truth to can get caught up in minutia seeking to “prove” some seemingly arcane point, often enabling those selling snake oil answers to the challenges we face to set the discussion terms and, by doing so, in essence “win” the debate before the first verbal shots are fired.

One of the earlier debates he refers to was an Iq2US debate on a similar subject, “Global warming is not a crisis.” When he refers to the unfavorable record, he perhaps has in mind the results of that debate, though he doesn’t mention them. Before the two sides spoke, 30% of the New York audience voted in favor of the motion, 57% against, and 13% undecided. After the debate, the numbers were 46% in favor, 42% against, and 12% undecided—an impressive victory for the anti-alarmist side.

Now, of course, Siegel would interpret those results as showing that members of the audience—who, I should note, are the kind of people who chose to spend their evening at a policy debate—were duped by three “charlatans”: a professor of meteorology at MIT, an emeritus professor of biogeography at the University of London, and a medical doctor turned author.

To prevent any audience from being suckered by such snake-oil salesman, especially “suave and debonair” types such as Lomborg, Siegel advises his allies not to appear on stage with them at all. Second to that, he recommends that “all three [debaters] supporting the urgency of action on Global Warming should go into the debate with a series of statements and material that fundamentally call into question the very legitimacy of the three others.” In other words, he favors an ad hominem attack on their general trustworthiness over a direct attack on the validity of their claims. This speaks volumes as to Siegel’s lack of confidence in his side’s ability to win on the merits.

It is interesting that Siegel seems to assume that all prominent climate skeptics are charlatans knowingly peddling lies, as opposed to people who hold their (mistaken) opinions honestly. Perhaps it is because he finds climate change to be a simple and obvious issue, the variables so easy to disentangle. What intelligent, knowledgeable could possibly believe differently? But maybe I’m wrong about Siegel’s assumption. If so, I’d love for him to name some well-informed, articulate climate skeptics who are not charlatans. They could then be invited to take part in a future public debate that would meet his exacting standards. Let’s just organize that debate before hell freezes over.