The quote is often used to illustrate how people’s allegiances can sometimes gum up their cognitive ability or just cause them to ignore truths inconvenient to their cause, or their customer’s cause.
TV presenter and science advocate Bill Nye “the Science Guy” dusted off Sinclair’s 1935 quote in a new video, in which he challenged climate science denialist and weatherman Joe Bastardi to two $10,000 bets. Nye bet Bastardi, a regular guest on conservative media, that 2016 would be one of the top ten hottest years on record.
He also bet Bastardi that the current decade would the hottest on record (Nye was responding to this November 2015 from Bastardi, published in the Patriot Post).
In a string of responses on Twitter, reported on EcoWatch, Bastardi dismissed Nye’s bets, saying that in any case “I don’t have 20k”.
The bets are the same as those Nye offered to another climate science denier, Marc Morano, as revealed on DeSmog last week.
As I wrote on The Guardian, one study published in a Royal Society journal last year shows that Nye would be almost certain to win. Any bets placed in any year after about 1970 against that current decade being warmer than the previous one would have lost.
But what about the Upton Sinclair quote? Nye was pointing out that Bastardi was a regular guest speaker at fossil fuel industry events.
Directing a statement at Bastardi, Nye said: “Where you speak is your business, but it also seems to be your business, telling your audiences what they want to hear.”
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