Nice stuff from Gavin Schmidt

From a March '07 debate on global warming:

SCHMIDT:...Creationists have argued that the eye is too complex to have evolved. Not because they care about the evolution of eyes, but because they see the implications of evolution as somehow damaging to their world view. If you demonstrate the evolution of eyes, their world view won‘t change, they‘ll just move onto something else. Another example, when CFCs from aerosol cans and air conditioners were found to be depleting the ozone layer, the CEO of DuPont, the main manufacturer argued that because CFCs were heavier than air, they couldn‘t possibly get up to the ozone layer. So there was no need to regulate them, that was pure fantasy, but it sounded scientific. Again, tobacco companies spent millions trying to show that nicotine delayed the onset of Alzheimer‘s because that was a distraction from the far more solid case that, that linked tobacco to lung cancer. That was a distraction and a red herring. These arguments are examples of pseudo debates, scientific sounding points that are designed not to fool the experts, but to sow confusion and doubt in the minds of the lay public. This is a deliberate strategy and you‘re hearing it here tonight.
...
GAVIN SCHMIDT
—we‘ve seen over the last 30 years. There has been no trend in cosmic rays. So any change that there might have been because of cosmic ray impacts on climate, can‘t possibly have an impact on what‘s been going on—
PHILIP STOTT
The most famous—
GAVIN SCHMIDT
—in the last changes.
PHILIP STOTT
But the most famous astrophysicist working on it say that it has.
GAVIN SCHMIDT
Uh, he is drunk. [LAUGHTER]
BRIAN LEHRER
Okay—
GAVIN SCHMIDT
I‘m sorry.
BRIAN LEHRER
We‘re now ready to vote—no, I‘m kidding. Um, for—
PHILIP STOTT
That‘s a serious accusation against some very serious sci—some
are infinitely better than any of us on this platform today.
GAVIN SCHMIDT
I‘d like to meet the person—
RICHARD S. LINDZEN
Explain that—
PHILIP STOTT
There are some very eminent scientists, Professor Yanvesa [PH]
for example, uh, uh, Nir Sh—Professor Nir Shaviv who won the
Young Scientist of the Year in Israel two years ago, who are in fact arguing that 70% of, of climate change is primarily driven by cosmic rays working through water vapor and clouds. I‘m not saying they‘re right or wrong, they‘re pointing however at the edge, to new research. You cannot dismiss that, because it‘s a consensus for CO2.
BRIAN LEHRER
Gavin Schmidt, one more time?
GAVIN SCHMIDT
Okay, this is exactly what I was talking about. You see? Now, it looks like we‘re having a scientific argument, but, this is completely bogus. You don‘t know that it‘s bogus, but I know that it‘s bogus, he knows that it‘s bogus. [LAUGHTER] You‘re being led astray. [LAUGHTER]