Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Climate change deniers are anti-science and anti-reason — and they terrify me

Hugo Rifkind gives a Shared Opinion

issue 28 November 2009

You know what I don’t believe in? Engineering. Shameless pseudo-science. You want to watch out for those so-called ‘engineers’. See that bridge that fell down in Cumbria the other day? Lordy, they’ll be cashing in on that. Up they’ll pop with their ‘stress points’ and ‘foundations’ and other such insider-ish, clubby mumbo-jumbo. As though any of it actually meant something. As though bridges hadn’t been falling down forever, for no particular reason at all.

And medicine? God, that’s even worse. I mean, sure, sometimes you get a fever and somebody gives you some pills and you get better, but is there really a link? I doubt it. Kick up a fuss, though, and they freeze you out. They’ll stifle you. They’ll call you a crank. Because unless you’re one of them — a ‘doctor’ with ‘training’ — they just don’t want to know. As though they didn’t have a vested interest in the status quo.

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