“Asshat of the Day” is now a regular feature here on The Thinker. Whenever someone egregiously violates the principle of reciprocity, that person may qualify for the Asshat of the Day. Sadly, there are many asshats out there.

And today’s Asshat is Tree Lobsters! Tree Lobsters! is a fairly humorous web comic (although not in the same league as xkcd or Abstruse Goose) that often displays good science- and skepticism-based humor. Unfortunately this time they violate the principle of reciprocity, by unfairly characterizing anthropocentric global warming (AGW) skeptics as “deniers” and comparing them to drunkards.

What’s really sad is that I have to hat-tip Skepchick (Amanda), whose post linking to the comic says “Skeptic vs. denialist - an excellent explanation from the tree lobsters.” So by extension she is being a bit of an asshat too.

And this is one of the reasons I make a distinction between skepticism and critical thinking, as I posted about here, here (this one on skepticism and global warming), and in particular here (my seminal post on skepticism vs. critical thinking). Critical thinking does not permit the type of snarky and insulting violations of the principle of reciprocity that many skeptics routinely engage in.