Gore's Law

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Gore's Law states, as coined by Laanta in March 2008:

As an online climate change debate grows longer, the probability that denier arguments will descend into attacks on Al Gore approaches one.[1]

Immediately after making the post, commenters proceeded to nitpick at Gore — thus proving his point.

[edit] Why Gore's Law is relevant

The problem with attacking Al Gore is that he has absolutely fuck all to do with the actual science of climate change, no matter his carbon footprint, PMRC involvement, Manbearpig, etc. You really can't find a better instance of poisoning the well.

Common examples and the reasons they are fallacious include:

Even if this was a problem, association fallacy. It's the equivalent of a leftie rejecting calls for alternative energy because T. Boone Pickens wants it too.
If you see Al Gore making money as a bad thing, this is an appeal to motive and an argument from adverse consequences.
  • There are x number of errors made in Al Gore's film.
Fallacy fallacy. Just because a sub-set of his arguments could be proven wrong doesn't mean that AGW isn't happening.[2] Gore is a politician with zero academic expertise in climatology;[3] all he did was put the scientific consensus into Hollywood format.

Was An Inconvenient Truth Nobel-worthy? It's certainly debatable. While Gore was awarded for popularizing the issue to the general public, others believe he received too much credit because the data involved was never his in the first place.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Laanta: Gore's Law
  2. In fact, evil "Warmists" like Potholer54 have been quite scathing with him on occasions.
  3. He shares this title with almost all of the most voracious climate deniers.
Articles on RationalWiki about Eponymous laws
  Danth's Law  -  Feminist internet laws  -  Godwin's Law  -  Haggard's Law  -  Haig's Law  -  Internet law  -  List of Poe's Law examples  -  Loi de Poe  -  Murphy's Law  -  Poe's Law  -  Rove's Law  -  Whale.to  
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