What has NPR been smoking?

NPR recently did a story with a pretentious 16 year old who runs a website detailing why she's skeptical about anthropogenic global warming. Superficially, this seems like a bright young girl dissenting from the scientific consensus after objectively evaluating the evidence for herself. If this was the case, I would exuberantly commend her efforts. Skeptical inquiry, even against accepted science, is necessary for scientific progress. Alas, this is not the case.

There seems to be a more malicious undertone to this story. Has this girl honestly examined all the evidence, or has she put on blinders? It appears to be the latter. According to the story, when the girl got confused on the technical data she consulted her stepfather. Her stepfather then elucidated the data. According to the story, "when her determination sagged, [her stepfather] encouraged her." One must ask, if her stepfather is the one clarifying the data to her, what credentials does he have. The story does not say. This story seems less and less to be a story about a free-thinking teen, and more and more like a story about a girl who is being proselytized into the anti-science right-wing ideology by an overzealous stepfather.

What's even more baffling is why NPR would run this story. Am I supposed to be impressed by another teenage denialist mimicking the canard of mostly ignorant, anti-science curs? Am I supposed to rush over to her website to be stupefied by the same inane drivel I have read and heard hundreds of times? This piece is absolute rubbish. It's frivolous. The only purpose this piece might serve is to consolidate the global warming denialists. And if that is the case, one has to ask, what has NPR been smoking?

One of the injustices of this piece is that it gives the girl too much credit without challenging her. This girl may have turned around to become a budding young scientist. Instead, this sort of publicity is just motivation for her to stay the course. Her head must be inflated beyond all belief right now.

Furthermore, for the uninformed public, this may make them believe that these global warming denialists have some scientific credibility if this story is on NPR, especially if the girl goes unchallenged. If you're going to do a story on global warming do it right. If this girl is in the ring with the big boys, the kid gloves must come off. If such a story was to be run, she should have been aggressively challenged. Of course, then it would have just looked like NPR was beating up on a little girl. It's a lose-lose situation. Once again, it seems like NPR had something potent in their pipe.

Here is the most distressing paragraph from that article:

Mainstream scientists would argue that many of the issues on her Web site are red herrings or have been put to rest — and Kristen did get emails from people challenging her science. But after a few exchanges, she says, her opponents backed down. "A few of them gave up and figured they can't win against a 15-year-old," she says. Mike laughs as she says this.

The hubris of the ignorant is unmatched!