Depends if “most modern European languages” covers “most other languages”. Doubt it, me.

J’ai, Ich habe … ho, habia – is this right?

The whole idea of contrarianism is that you’re “attacking the conventional wisdom”, you’re “telling people that their most cherished beliefs are wrong”, you’re “turning the world upside down”. In other words, you’re setting out to annoy people.

Compare this:
The whole idea of conspiracism is you’re “just asking questions”, or “applying scepticism to official claims” or “researching the secret state”. In other words, you [yes, you sir] are indulging a prurient taste for paranoid fantasy.

As for Mhyrvold, while opinion given under the aegis of supposed expert authority is one of very few cases in which motive-based meta-argument (crude ad hom.) is apt*, a 5-minute internet search suggests that M is not disputing received wisdom qua received wisdom (i.e. ‘being contrarian’), still less aiming to piss people off. He’s attacking solar power to promote the nuclear reactors he hopes to develop (with a little help from his friends).

Anyway, let’s assume that these people do indeed only do it to annoy, because they know it teases. Why should they (choose to) be governed by a rule that tells them to stop at the first round of annoyance, when they could annoy even more teasingly by being evasive, backtracking, whining, etc?

*Others being testimony, those who explicitly say “trust me” (or “I’m a pretty straight kind of guy”), and (to some extent) known timewasting talkers of bollocks.

http://www.grouchyoldcripple.com/archives/001257.html

http://www.polyamorousmisanthrope.com/2008/10/13/personal-ad-translation-service/

Then again, I may have been biased at that point, having recently broken up with a woman who could be aptly described by the phrase, “She thought she was a contrarian, but in fact she was merely disagreeable.”

Gwynne Dyer made the excellent point in Climate Wars, which I haven’t seen made elsewhere (though I’m sure others have made it too) that the entire reason scientists weren’t overly promoting relatively simple geoengineering ideas like atmospheric sulphur dioxide spraying or low-altitude cloud seeding (let alone second or third generation stuff like sun shields) is that they were afraid people would seize on them as a substitute for the necessary real action, rather than a temporary brake to buy a few extra years to get carbon emissions down. And since his book came out last year, articles since then – and now this book – seem to be bearing him out.

I’m not sure Levitt & Dubner’s stuff adds that much to the outright denialists’ arsenal, but it does muddy the disucssion even more, which is just not useful from an act-in-time-to-avoid-Bangladesh-going-underwater perspective.

If you’re an English-speaker, you translate “Peccavi” as “I have [verb tense marker] sinned,” which is homophonic to “I have [possess] Sindh.” In most other languages, the perfect tense marker is not even close to the verb for “have,” and the place-name “Sindh” isn’t going to be suggested by the verb meaning “sin.”

Their “solution” would also hasten—rather than stop—ocean acidification which could wipe out the entire marine food chain by preventing plankton from building their bodies from calcium carbonate (the ocean would be too acidic and dissolve them). No more oceanic plankton. No more coral reefs. No more oceanic food chain. The only way to stop ocean acidification (which occurs by CO2 being dissolved in seawater, lowering its pH) is to put a brake on atmospheric CO2 levels. Levitt & Dubner’s “solution” would allow CO2 levels to go up, and up, and up …

This has nothing to do with being “contrarian”—it has to do with getting all your facts wrong and omitting the rest.

No matter how many times it will be debunked it will pop every now and again as one those impossible to kill zombie lies.

I’m wondering if this is for real, or if it is a Yes man spoof.

The only real question is, “How much?”

Speaking of being contrary, the Colorado microbrews are too malty for my taste and have a slight bitter aftertaste. Give me an alarmist California-Washington state hoppy brew any day, even if it dehydrates. But surely you all will misinterpret this as whining. I’m not whining, no sir. I’m not.

Best,

D