I have a strong dislike for Penn Jillette. His show "Bullshit" was often guilty of the same smoke-and-mirrors rhetorical tricks of which they accused others. This became apparent to me when I watched the episode on climate change, where they failed to interview a single scientist on the subject and Penn later suggested he hated the theory because Al Gore was promoting it [1]. The only evidence I can find of his recanting his position on the science is a reddit thread [2]; meanwhile, to this day, I have Climate Change skeptics throwing the Dihydrogen monoxide hoax [3] episode in my face as proof that Climate Change isn't real.
As a rational atheist skeptic, it drives me up the wall that this guy is on the same side as me. When he sounds smart, it's because he's plagiarizing Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, and other skeptics who are smarter than him.
I don't think he recanted his position, rather he's just decided to keep his beliefs more to himself. The latest I can find from him is in his 2016 book Presto!: "The truth is that Penn & Teller were never climate change deniers. We just didn't know. Since then, peer pressure and kowtowing to authority have shut us the fuck up. We drive electric cars. I can also try to placate the climate people by calling myself a vegan. Eating onions imported from Mexico leaves a smaller carbon footprint than eating local chickens." https://books.google.com/books?id=nVGmCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA240&lpg=...
Personally, I think I agree with Penn. I believe the world is warming, some significant portion of it is anthropogenic, but that many of the "received truths" of popular climate science are based on weak science and overstated evidence. Most of the conclusions will stand, but more will fall than the published error bars would indicate. I think it's a problem that one is not allowed to genuinely say "I don't know" when asked what one thinks about any scientific issue. Whether or not the current conclusions are true, it leads in a dangerous direction when people are shunned for stating their ignorance rather than proclaiming their faith in something they do not actually believe.
As much of a rational atheist skeptic you may think you are, I believe you are twisting words. They actually conclude the episode with "I don't know".
If anything he was calling out those manipulating "green" for their own agendas -- and people "connecting" to river rocks.
The bullshit is the lack of consistency. Which one is to be feared: Warming? Cooling? Change? ... Hard to argue change ... What if we can't do anything about it? Are you truly sure the cause is CO2 or is CO2 just an indicator of a warming event?
Gore is a politician and charlatan. [1] Like many attached to the movement, a hypocrite and profiting without any realistic solutions that won't detriment the ecosystem, economy or quality of life in any other manner.
I don't care for him either. He did an episode of wife swap and he intentionally raised his kids to shit all over everyone else's ideas 100% of the time. There's something to be said for questioning authority and ideas, but his whole family comes across as rude and immature.
I'm an atheist too, but its counterproductive to spend all of your time telling people how stupid they are.
I agree with you. Penn's material (even when he's right) is all about calling other people wrong, to boost his own ego and that of his similarly-opinionated viewers. It's crack for the "smarter-than-you" contrarian crowd. I feel as if that kind of attitude is not beneficial to creating more reasoned discourse, and I don't like that at all.
Let's be clear: Penn exercises his own unique brand of anti-intellectualism and anti-authoritarianism; more generally, he's just an entertaining contrarian with an empathy gap, but it just so happens that he's on the correct side of things much of the time.
I would pay some money to see him, Ben Stein, Michael Moore, and Bill Maher and Ann Coulter all in the same room together.
He's very entertaining, seems intelligent, and he's a pretty typically myopic ideologue with the flavor being "Libertarian". On the other hand, I look askance at the people who took the magician seriously, just because he told them to.
Are you going to hate him forever because he was wrong about something 10 years ago? Penn and Teller made dozens of episodes of that show and most of them were great. Even if they weren't right about every issue, they encouraged their audience to think critically, Which is more than I can say about anything else on TV.
Penn and Teller are a lot of fun and put on a great show. The political issue they spend the most time on is the TSA.
Penn Jillette is an amazing person. What makes America such a great country is the existence of large number of libertarian business men, leaders and public figures.
In other countries it is uneconomical for most public figures to be critical of their government.
> And yet my heaviest and most important conversations are with Teller. When our parents died, we were the first ones we went to. When I was going to have children and get married, he was the first person I talked to.
[+] [-] ideonexus|9 years ago|reply
As a rational atheist skeptic, it drives me up the wall that this guy is on the same side as me. When he sounds smart, it's because he's plagiarizing Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, and other skeptics who are smarter than him.
[1] http://reason.com/blog/2008/07/03/penn-teller-and-climate-ch...
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/26o6o9/what_is_the...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax
[+] [-] nkurz|9 years ago|reply
I don't think he recanted his position, rather he's just decided to keep his beliefs more to himself. The latest I can find from him is in his 2016 book Presto!: "The truth is that Penn & Teller were never climate change deniers. We just didn't know. Since then, peer pressure and kowtowing to authority have shut us the fuck up. We drive electric cars. I can also try to placate the climate people by calling myself a vegan. Eating onions imported from Mexico leaves a smaller carbon footprint than eating local chickens." https://books.google.com/books?id=nVGmCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA240&lpg=...
Personally, I think I agree with Penn. I believe the world is warming, some significant portion of it is anthropogenic, but that many of the "received truths" of popular climate science are based on weak science and overstated evidence. Most of the conclusions will stand, but more will fall than the published error bars would indicate. I think it's a problem that one is not allowed to genuinely say "I don't know" when asked what one thinks about any scientific issue. Whether or not the current conclusions are true, it leads in a dangerous direction when people are shunned for stating their ignorance rather than proclaiming their faith in something they do not actually believe.
[+] [-] cornchips|9 years ago|reply
If anything he was calling out those manipulating "green" for their own agendas -- and people "connecting" to river rocks.
The bullshit is the lack of consistency. Which one is to be feared: Warming? Cooling? Change? ... Hard to argue change ... What if we can't do anything about it? Are you truly sure the cause is CO2 or is CO2 just an indicator of a warming event?
Gore is a politician and charlatan. [1] Like many attached to the movement, a hypocrite and profiting without any realistic solutions that won't detriment the ecosystem, economy or quality of life in any other manner.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore#Criticism
[+] [-] phaus|9 years ago|reply
I'm an atheist too, but its counterproductive to spend all of your time telling people how stupid they are.
[+] [-] loeber|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] batbomb|9 years ago|reply
I would pay some money to see him, Ben Stein, Michael Moore, and Bill Maher and Ann Coulter all in the same room together.
[+] [-] M_Grey|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] e7c6ht6iad|9 years ago|reply
Penn and Teller are a lot of fun and put on a great show. The political issue they spend the most time on is the TSA.
[+] [-] ucy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tn13|9 years ago|reply
In other countries it is uneconomical for most public figures to be critical of their government.
[+] [-] hyperpallium|9 years ago|reply