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Scientists Challenge U.S. on Scientific Distortions
rocketjam writes "The Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent organization which includes 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement accusing the Bush administration of distorting scientific fact and supressing findings to fit administration policy decisions on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry. They also issued a 37-page report detailing the accusations. Bush's science adviser, John Marburger, called the report biased and said he was troubled that some very prestigious scientists had signed the statement. Numerous complaints from the scientific community about the administration's scientific policy-making prompted the The Union of Concerned Scientists to begin investigating the issue last summer. As an example, the group noted the panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control on lead poisoning had been prepared to recommend strengthening regulations due to new findings on lead toxicity, but had their recommendation rejected by the administration and two panel members replaced by individuals with ties to the lead industry." Other articles: Sydney Morning Herald, New York Times, The Guardian.
Trouble is, if you can't count on 20 Nobel laureate scientists to make an honest, apolitical assessment of the state of science in our government, who on earth can you trust?
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
accusing the Bush administration of distorting scientific fact and supressing findings to fit administration policy decisions on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry.
Bush administration? I believe you mean 'nukular' weaponry. Common mistake.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Typical. Next thing you know, they'll be claiming some country has Weapons of Mass Destruction as a pretext to start a war.
Oops. Too late.
Actually, they've been working on the report for over a year and released it as soon as they were finished. They didn't expect it to take this long. It's in the article.
To follow knowledge like a sinking star, / Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. ("Ulysses", Tennyson)
"We have to find a way to reach out to them and try to come to an understanding"
Being scientists the touchy-feely "reach out" approach won't work. They'll have to come up with solid data to refute these claims.
Money is a double edged sword: it's necessary for science & research but it can warp the results to be more business friendly.. and if the results are skewed then it's not science, it's bullshit.
disclaimer: I work in the biomedical research industry but not in the U.S.
Trolling is a art,
Which has nothing to do with the accusations the scientists are making. I wonder what sort of mindset the administration has when its science advisor can't even read the letter he's responding to.
There are a lot more voting bible-belters than there are scientists.
This administration has made it abundantly clear that they are only concerned with getting reelected. To hell with anything that stands in their way and alienates their voting base.
The US Presidency, much like US Corporations, is afflicted with serious shortsightedness.
I think a 10 year term is much better than a 4 year term because it would give the office holder at least 5 - 7 years before they would have to worry about reelection right after they enter office. And perhaps they'd think about doing things for the good of the nation rather than themselves.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Why are there 20 Nobel prize winners who can refute our findings, while we have an oaf as our head science guy?
Anything in parenthesis may (not) be ignored.
Nothing to see here, move along...
K
On their website is also a form to "sign" the statement yourself if you have an advanced degree in a scientific or technical field or are a graduate student pursuing one. Please read the report, though, before signing on.
Fark had the best headline for this:
"The Union of Concerned Scientists says the Bush administration manipulates and suppresses science. The administration points out that the Union of Bought and Paid for Scientists disagrees"
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Bush's science adviser, John Marburger, called the report biased and said he was troubled that some very prestigious scientists had signed the statement.
Yes it's biased. Biased towards scientific truth instead of political motives (though by creating the document in the frist place, the scientists are expressing some political motives).
And yes he should be troubled. Being a science adviser and having 20 highly acclaimed scientists say you are wrong makes you look like bad.
that being said, time to go RTFA and see where i'm wrong.
funding? what are your sources? i've noticed that the cry of the pro-dubyas is that any disagreement with the dubya's policies must in fact be from liberal sources. there are many other non-liberal folks (such as libertarians) who disagree with dubya's policies. and, of course, there are apolitical groups who disagree as well. i know it's convenient to put these things in their box so you feel justified in ignoring them. but...let's call this rationalization a severe deficiency in logical thinking.
He does more then distort the facts, he completly changes them for what the big coperations want. Take global warming and climate change, he completly refuses to even say they are real! He does this becuase industries that polute want him too, anything he does is for that reason or something else.
who thinks creationism is a valid science rather then a religious doctering.
They are luddites plain and simple.
They came out against the a health study a couple of weeks ago. The study said that americans or too fat and should eat less fat and more veggies. Real contravercial stuff..
You are doubleplus ready for Ingsoc.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
This was the same group that said SDI wouldn't work back in '83-'84.
Yeah, all those "successful" SDI tests, right?
Now the problem becomes convincing any potential adversaries that they need to tell us when and where they plan to attack, and, oh yes.... would they mind terribly putting a radar beacon on any incoming warheads?
The Union of Concerned Scientists
Oh c'mon, is that the best they could do? How about something totally original like... 'The League of Extraordinary Scientists' or the 'Fellowship of the Scientists'. That kind of thing!
Actually, if you remember the tests that were done a few years ago on the new SDI missiles were largely faked. Turns out the engineers just strapped a GPS locator onto the missile, and a GPS beacon onto the target. The funny thing is that it still only hit 1 or 2 out of the 3 missiles. Maybe it will eventually work, maybe it won't. But it sure as hell won't protect a damn thing in this country against a nukular missile attack for at least a decade if not a century.
So, what you're telling me is that Bush is stupid as an orc*, a troll who's pro-business, and cares only about his reelection prospects... What else is new?
*apologies to the Orcish-Americans out there, I know that's a grave insult.
Dude
Are you serious? You really think Star Wars works? What are the "successful tests" you refer to - the ones where the missile had an attached radio beacon?
Jeesh, my guess is you are either not a scientist, or if so, work on an SDI related project.
Do you really trust "successful test results" from an admministration that showed us "conclusive evidence of Weapons of Mass Desctruction".
I think, therefore I thought.
I'm amazed in seeing how far John Marburger has gone. I first knew him when he was the president of SUNY at Stony Brook when I was a student. He then went to Brookhaven National Labs and now he's the President's Science Advisor. I'll be real interested in how this whole event carries out. Personally I found Marburger to be a really upfront and a likeable person. I hope these high level politcs hasn't changed him.
Because if the Republicans had funded it, the conclusions would have been rewritten and the Nobel laureates on the panel replaced by industry lobbyists and political hacks.
No kidding. A quick perusal of their site comes up with articles on global warming, how to be an activist, the evils of SUVs, and other non-sense. Little wonder such a group would condemn the policies of the current administration.
For instance, this blurb is on their front page: "Misplaced Priorities in the 2005 Budget. President Bush's budget request for 2005 increases funding for the dysfunctional missile defense system while shortchanging programs that could ensure a future of cleaner energy and automobiles."
"Dysfunctional"? Funny, seems every test that's been conducted has shown better results than the previous one. I'm not sure how something designed to safeguard the US from attack by, oh, say, North Korea (who has persued nuclear weapons and missiles with range to California in the past), and which, while not perfect, is getting better, can be described as "dysfunctional." You'd think a bunch of Nobel laureates would understand the concept of "incremental improvement."
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Here's one on wired. I saw that one before the headline here. As for who to believe, I'm inclined to go with twenty Nobel laureates and 40 other scientists over one Whitehouse full of politicians. No matter what your opinion on politics, don't forget to get out and vote this year and let them know how you feel about this and other issues.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Pi has been redefined as 3, any greater precision may be an aid to terrorists.
e has been redefined as 2, any greater precision may be an aid to terrorists.
Air purity regulations have been relaxed so reduced visibility will help obscur tall buildings from planes piloted by terrorists.
Water purity regulations have been relaxed so terrorists drinking it may go to their martyrdom sooner, without killing patriotic americans.
The etters '','' nd '' hve been strken from the lphbet to hnder terrorst communctons.
Your Presdent thnks you for dong your prt to defet the enmes of merc nd protect freedom!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Umm... in 1980s terms they were absolutely 100% correct. Reagan proposed SDI to protect the USA from an all-out Soviet bombardment. The UCS said blocking 1000ish missiles at the same time would be prohibitively expensive (maybe quadrillions of dollars) if not impossible.
20 years later, we've got preliminary testing of anti-missiles that might be able to knock out at most a dozen incoming warheads, in a narrow region of airspace. Not nearly the same thing.
After a few successful tests, i'd suggest that they were full of it then, and continue to be full of it now. Talk about a group with an axe to grind. They might as well have called themselves 'Union of Progressive Scientists'. Truth in advertising.
They are on perma-ignore.
They're also the same group that warned everyone of Global Cooling back in the 1970's, and warn everyone of global warming today.
Here's a question - if Dinosaurs once ruled the Earth when it was a tropical paradise, doesn't it make sense that the Earth would return to that temperature?
Chicken Little called, he wants his gimmick back from these guys.
"The Demon Haunted World" by Carl Sagan has some excellent examples of how extreme political interference with science led to major catastrophes. It's definitely worth reading.
I used the modifier "extreme" intentionally. You should always expect a certain amount of political meddling/grandstanding with govt funded science, but outright suppression and heavy distortion is over the line.
And yes, I am posting this AC since my job is a result of federal research money.
We also see the imminent demise of HST. I know the timing is apparently just coincidental, but some speculate that killing off the Shuttle program now has a lot to do with the potential budget pressures imposed by the Mars travel.
I don't mean to disparage the idea of manned travel to Mars. I think it would be as nifty as the next person, and the advances required will no doubt produce ancillary technological benefits that will benefit everyone. However, the current leaning seems to be toward severely damaging existing and planned space astronomy to get there. Not good.
They (seemingly) manipulate intelligence reports to paint an incredibly grim picture of Iraqi's WMD program in order to justify an attack on a sovereign nation
The view the same job market and economy reports we do, and yet see 250 million new jobs being created this year, and that the economy is doing just fine, thank you.
Their interpretation of the Constitution allows attempt to circumvent the separation of church and state by giving your tax dollars to faith-based programs.
Why not circumvent the scientific process if it will appease the American Taliban (read the very left-wing christian fundamentalists, not your every day christian) and keep the $$$ rolling in from big corporations?
The short-sightedness of this administration is staggering. Yes, everyone knows other administrations have been corrupt as well, but Christ! They didnt' have the chutzpah this one does.
They scare me.
"If those scientists wanna fight, they found it. Bring 'em on! My crack team of scientists from Exxon and Haliburton continue to stand by our "Kinder, Gentler Fossil Fuels" programs, as well as our faith-based intitiative to persuade evil-doers to give up their WMD. We refuse to accept any other scientific theory that reeks of politics or isn't one hundred percent proven - now if you'll excuse me I've got some phone taps to listen in on - people are freaky!" - George W Bush
Is there still an industry specifically for lead production? I would have thought that they would have been bought out by Comcast by now.
I'm not surprised by the lack of concern in the general population. We've still got school districts that are fighting to keep evolution out of the public schools! I'm afraid too many people's idea of science are shows like "FOX Special - "Conspiracy Theory: DID WE LAND ON THE MOON?" If we as a society don't understand science, then our leaders will get away with shuffling off pseudo-science, self-serving, political-oriented junk on the country. If anyone wants a good read, Carl Sagan co-wrote this awesome "book about science vs. ignorance. /rant off
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The Bush administration has started to get into a bad habit of saying things it can't back up, when simply telling the truth would have been good enough.
We had a legit reason to invade Iraq, it just wasn't the one the administration was talking about. At the end of the first Gulf War, the peace treaty said that Iraq would not have WMDs, and the UN would get to have uninterfered with inspections to make sure they didn't. Iraq was playing games with the inspectors, so we couldn't be sure that they didn't have any WMDs. That alone is a justification to attack, they had broken the deal that ended the first war.
They were playing the hidden ball trick and making it look like they had WMDs. That was the reason Saddam had to go, because we couldn't take the risk that he just might have the ability to give his WMD program to Al Queda.
But, instead of saying that it was a worst case situation that we should have the ability to prove isn't happening but can't, the Bush administration took it a step foward and said that Iraq actually did have WMDs, and it turns out Saddam had the biggest bluff in history working. Saddam and the people around him sure thought they had WMDs, but the truth turns out to be that his scientists couldn't come up with the goods but were too scared of him to say they faied. Oops...
Had Bush just stuck to what he knew was true, he could have justified the war with a weaker but still good enough justification. But, instead, he over inflated the information, and now he's got a credibility problem that infects nearly everything else he says. He ended up doing a right thing but for the wrong reasons...
Danish Government Committee Exposes Union of Concerned Scientists
Written By: Neil Hrab
Published In: Environment News
Publication Date: February 1, 2004
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
_____
Best-selling author Michael Crichton recently observed that environmentalism
is a kind of pseudo-religion. He's right. Environmentalists have their own
holy day (Earth Day, April 22), their saints (Rachel Carson, Jacques
Cousteau), demon (George W. Bush), and Garden of Eden (Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge). They also have their own Grand Inquisitor--the Union of
Concerned Scientists.
The Union's job is to hunt down heretics who desert the true faith. One of
those is a Danish academic named Bjorn Lomborg. The green witch-hunters have
been after him for the past three years.
Skeptic Attacked, Vindicated
Lomborg, a statistician, was once a member of Greenpeace and believer in the
green religion. But he began to doubt its articles of faith as he studied
the facts about the environment. Eventually Lomborg reviewed all the latest
research and compiled his findings in a 540-page book, The Skeptical
Environmentalist, published in 2001.
Before long, the green version of the Inquisition began to hound Lomborg.
Savage reviews of his book appeared in newspapers and journals, claiming the
book was based on a "lie." The Union of Concerned Scientists helped mobilize
some of Lomborg's detractors.
In Denmark, his enemies formally attacked his scholarship. In January 2003,
the oddly named "Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty," a creation of
the government-funded Danish Research Agency, sprang into action. Its
verdict: Lomborg was "guilty" of "plagiarization" and "fabricating data."
Lomborg's "optimistic view of the world" made it impossible for scientists
to credit his findings. The greens asserted Lomborg tailored his book's
conclusions to fit his belief that the global environment was in no danger
of collapse. "[Lomborg's] values regularly taint his conclusions," said one
American reviewer, writing at the request of the Union.
But Lomborg has had the last laugh. On December 17, the Danish Ministry of
Science overturned the January ruling. It found the Committee's judgment
"completely void of argumentation."
Calling the Kettle Black
Those who charge that Lomborg's research is clouded by bias would do well to
look at their own history. The Union of Concerned Scientists, a strident
political advocacy group conveniently based in the shade of Harvard at
Cambridge, Massachusetts, typically interprets science to fit its politics.
In the 1980s it claimed President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense
Initiative (SDI) would never work. A Union spokesman said it would cost
taxpayers $1 trillion to put 2,400 armed satellites in orbit to shield the
U.S. against a Soviet missile attack. Persistent criticism finally forced
the group to revise its figures downward--to 800 satellites, then 300, and
finally 162.
In 1984 the Union dropped all pretense to science or neutrality. Popular
science writer Carl Sagan organized a 15-city tour by UCS members to bolster
Democratic Presidential nominee Walter Mondale, an opponent of "Star Wars,"
in his unsuccessful campaign against Reagan. In 1988, the Union and other
"peace" groups opposed research on what's now called the "stealth bomber,"
claiming it would make war with the Soviet empire more likely. The Union
lost that fight, too.
In 1992 the Union issued a "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity." This
petition is no different from the jeremiads of Paul Ehrlich, Lester Brown,
and other members of the environmental clerisy. None dare quarrel with their
dark vision of the future. The Warning speaks of "vast human misery" and a
planet left "irretrievably mutilated." Mankind "may so alter the living
world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know
Sorry if the subject sounds like a flame, but it's true. Bush got into Harvard and Yale through connections. He was exposed to people infinitely smarter than him, and this seems to have vastly shaken his self confidence. This happens to a lot of us, but we grow out of it. Bush hasn't. All professors or researchers are now 'elites.' Science is subjective. All that matters is faith.
The scientists signing the letter do not represent the Union of Concerned Scientists. They are an independent group who are merely endorsing the UCS report. Furthermore, they include scientists who are not particularly left-wing, such as H-bomb designer Richard Garwin and physicist Norman Ramsey, both of whom served as advisers to Republican administrations. According to this news item, organizations opposing the Bush administration policy include: the National Academies of Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Federation of American Scientists, and the Association of American Medical Colleges. The opposition isn't coming from the left fringe; it is mainstream.
Does it not occur to you that maybe the SDI test was to test the interceptors ability to adjust course, not its ability to find the target? Do none of you think of that? We're talking about a complex system. You should test all the pieces independently before you put them all together to see if they work. Monkeys.
I find it troubling how much of a disconnect there is in the American public (and beyond) such that political opinion overshadows scientific fact and mathematical logic. Yet another sign our education system is in crisis.
Even sadder is that people generally don't care to understand the difference between 1 million and 1 billion and 1 trillion. It's all just some big number to them, but a few extra zeros really matter!
As always, I blame the news media (present company excluded, of course). They could really help bridge the gaps but they don't. I believe a law should be passed that every number ever stated in the news should be followed by an analogous per capita statstic. Like, $87 Billion more for the War on Iraq? That'll be $300 each per American. Funny.. Isn't that exactly what Bush gave us in the first tax year after he was elected?
Oops. Too much coffee. Back to work..
- Lebofsky
Bias helps to understand why someone takes a view and also what facts/theories/ideas they might be ignoring or not telling you about. It doesn't tell you what is right or wrong. While I have a bias against the Bush administration and their policy of allowing affected business to write their own regulations (e.g. Cheney and the secret meetings over energy policy), those businesses have knowledge that is useful to the process (they know things about their businesses and their process use that others wouldn't know) and should have input into what happens. The UCS has a bias as well, but they are made up of smart people who might also know something. The bias of these groups doesn't negate the validity of their arguments. Ultimately, the facts will out - the biases will explain why the UCS looked into these issues but do not deny the validity (or lack thereof) of their results.
Everything's fine. According to the president himself, we don't have nuclear weapons... we have nukular weapons... a totally different thing.
*whew*
-=sig=-
But that's not exactly what this group is claiming. They're not questioning the final decisions the Bush Administration has made, but claiming that invalid science is being used to back up the decisions, essentially using bad science as a cover story because if they stated the real reason, it might not be accepted by the public as easily.
I've seemed to notice that many /.-ers have this opinion of "nothing new". Yes, this is nothing new (especially if you're a skeptic of the Bush administration) but to me this means something big.
The reason is is that much of our bias, one way or another, has come from the media. Yes, much of it can be based on facts, but I think we'd all be lying to ourselves considering the amount of biased media out there. While scientists could have their own political agenda, the fact that this report was signed off by 20 Nobel Laureates gives it real legitimacy.
Nobel Laureates don't come a dime a dozen and they can't be bought out or created like special think tank groups out there. So, therefore, this sort of report gives our concerns about the Bush administration, in my opinion, real legitimacy. No longer can people say that our skepticism is the result of "liberal media".
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
It's not flaimbait. It's the truth. You all rant about how the big bad corporations have undue influence over the government but yet you ignore the fact the organizations like the the UCS are funded by another big money group. Unions. I guess what Sun Tzu said is true. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Doesn't anyone know how to read the fucking news critically anymore?!
Dateline of the linked article: July 31, 2001
Dateline of this article: November 21, 2002
This is what I meant by incremental improvements. Yes, some of the first tests were done under "ideal" circumstances. But those were designed to test the feasability of actually hitting a supersonic missile and disabling it, not tracking it, too. As we go along, the technology will mature and we'll be more able to protect not just our homeland, but our allies, too (since they're unwilling to do it themselves).
Now, answer this: the Navy has been able to knock down incoming anti-ship missiles for years now. The technology has gotten to the point where the chance of a missile impacting one of our ships is miniscule. How is that fundamentally different from shooting down an ICBM? Answer: it's not, it's only a question of scale.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
There's a lead industry? And it has influence in washington?
... lead. Drive your car to the doctor to get an Xray, the apron they put over you to cover your "radiologically sensitive glands" is made of ... lead. You go home & turn on the TV, which shields
you from radiation from the CRT with, guess what, lead. And so on, and on, and on.
Of course there's a lead industry. You're using a computer, and the components are soldered to the board with...lead. Get up from your desk to go take a drink, and unless your building is less than 5 years old, the pipes are held together with...lead. Get in your car, and the battery works because most of it's weight is
Yes, there's a special interest group for the lead industry. Oddly enough, if they weren't standing up for that industry, we'd have government mandates imposed upon us which have no foundation in reality, like the ill-advised "rip out the asbestos floor tiles" craze in the 90's.
It's a case of a "special interest group" that you're not even aware of, that has a positive effect on your everyday life. Next time you hear someone whining about lobbyists and special interest groups, think for a bit just what the big picture might be.
The entire exectuive branch is the responsiblity of the president. Only the prez and VP are elected offices, everything else is an appointed position. Therefore, the only effective way to force the replacement of a disliked member of the executive branch is to replace the entire administration from the president on down, there's just no middle step.
This report doesnt'accuse anybody of abusing their power, but simply using bad science when trying to justify their decisions. They could have made such decisions with no reasoning at all, but then the public would likely assume the worst possible self-serving reason is the true one. Well, if the scitific reasoning as wrong, either the person is stupid or acting on those self-serving reasons...
What happend on November 9th?
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
(As quoted from www.activistcash.com )
Unbiased? "Rigorus" scientific processes? Yea right.
Cruc
I wonder why people immediatly get into their corners and start to discredit the report based on "political" views, instead of calmy discussing the contents.
The whole "lead" issue raised in the report is quite revealing.
Is it all that hard to realize that so called "scientists" may have agendas as well?
[FromTheMorning]
I am sure they didnt think they would have such a wealth of a source to write about.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
I am not particularly fond of Rt. Hon. Tony Blair's policies, but I can appreciate how he defends them in public.
The owls are not what they seem
All these corruptions and political BS is going to abuse our scientific and military strength.
It's almost inevitable that history repeats itself. US is on track to crash and burn like the Roman Empire.
What, you mean that "Bush is evil and the scientists are 50% correct"?
Yeah, instead of taking into account the information provided by an independent organization which includes 20 Nobel laureates, I'll just go to google and do a little reasearch myself...
(clickety-click)
Hmm, see, according to my extensive search query, they are totally wrong in their assessment.
Bumper sticker I saw yesterday: Which is worse, screwing an intern or screwing the country?
Bush is a lying megalomaniac with a family axe to grind, regardless of whether or not these scientists are right in their assessment. But if I had to make a surface judgement, I think I'll go with the overwhelming odds.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
And this is news?
Calling atheism and agnosticism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.
Another way to spin that is that they delayed its release to coincide with the election year.
You need some sunlight to produce vitamin D; therefore, therefore, sunlight cannot cause cancer.
Sure, whatever you say.
Ummm yea d00d, except that it was Clinton who said Iraq had WMDs.
And since the yahoo link is farked, here is a google link for ya.
And while we are at it, let's look at this timeline of statements by the best Scientists of their time:
0000's : Elements are Earth, Fire, Water, and Air
1300's : Earth is Flat
1800's : Radio waves move thru the "Ether"
1800's : Man will never fly
1900's : Smoking is good for you!
1970's : Global Cooling!!!
2000's : Global Warming!!!
2400's : There will never be a warp drive
Hell, I would be just as accurate as "Experts" if I just flipped a coin...
And we're back to "terrorists". I hate to tell you this but spray-painting a car is vandalism, not terrorism. I disagree with their tactics, but in today's society I understand their futility in playing in a system where Bush has $120 Million already in campaign funds and they want what's right.
Follow the money and you'll find the root of all the problems in politics.
okay, i always find these examples humorous. here's why: how did we come to "know" about ionizing radiation, vitamin D, ozone, skin cancer, CFCs, or vulcanology? i'll give you a big hint...science. if you wish to argue about how science is a religion, then please do not use terms related to science (or scientific discovery) as your points of contention.
Here's what they've found:
Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple
They've found that Democrats cause cancer
Study: 92 percent of Democrats are gay
JFK posthumously joins Republican Party
(for those with no humor, this was all taken from an episode of The Simpsons. If you're offending in any way, I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, and was in no way fair comment, and was motivated purely by malice, and I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you, or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.)
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
So why is it that since the largely global ban on CFCs, the ozone hole has been on the mend at a rate pretty much consistent with the rate that the model for CFC action in the ozone says it should given our new, lower CFC levels?
The basic problem with science is that when it is used to justify *decisions*, those decisions are usually made by persons not directly familiar with the science in question. Therefore in public debate regarding science there is no accountability, because the judges-- the public-- do not have enough knowledge on the subject to determine truth. I could claim here that the chlorine from the oceans is of a different compound structure from those in CFCs and so does not engage in the chemical reaction harmful to the ozone, and no one reading would know if that's true or not, but they'd take my word for it (Note: It may or may not be true incidentally, but it isn't coming from anywhere. I just made it up). Likewise you've claimed there are CFCs in volcanoes, and no one knows if it's true or not, but they'll probably take your word for it. Time Magazine claimed at some point that CFCs cause the ozone hole, and no one knows if it's true or not, but they take their word for it. Your assessment of the problem is right, but what I am describing here is what allows the problem you describe to occur.
We'd all be better off if we would stick to discussing the facts rather than immediately questioning people's motivations. No matter what the political bent of these scientists is, the question is whether or not there is any truth in their charges and should something be done. Let's try to be adults.
Here is some already formatted HTML you can copy into your email client (preferably Mozilla). Remember to remove the blank spaces Slashdot puts in URLs.
U.S. government corruption: Two Stories
Killing and destroying property
N.Y. Times editorial:
"... Americans paid Ahmad Chalabi to gull them into a war that is costing them a billion a week and a precious human cost."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/15/opinion/15DOWD.
Lying about scientific facts
"The Bush administration has deliberately and systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals..."
N.Y. Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/18/science/18CND-R
The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,11511
Wired News:
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,62339,00
Union of Concerned Scientists:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/rsir
...in the back of room, in a tone certain to make you know you shouldn't have forgotten the one "logy" that all but turned Evolution upside down from the sixties on... :)
I love that 'labeled by some' phrase, by the way. It's a very useful tool for discrediting something when you don't have the balls to take responsibilty for doing so yourself. If you did THAT, why, you actually might have to provide some evidence to back your claim, and you can't have that, can you? "Yes, it's been labeled by some that way. Not by me of course..." Pathetic.
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
Your comment about CFC's would be laughable if your post were not modded so high. Raw chlorine does not get into the upper atmosphere and is not stable enough to do damage. CFC's are very unique. The CFC ban is one of the few absolute scientific environmental succeses of our lifetime. The scientists involved made predictions based on courses of action, the politicians followed their advice, and the ozone hole is behaving as predicted given the ban.
In conclusion, GFY.
A scientist.
Just a possibility: /. username, but at least you'll know my own biases (which I'm trying to change). I won't believe anyone who says they aren't even a little bit biased one way or another.
What if the report is to protect their reputation? It's feasible that 20 like biased scientists could group together to produce such a report that bolsters their previous findings as well as denounces the policies that were built on research by competing scientists. You can report scientific facts and still ignore other scientific facts that don't lead to the same conclusion and opinions as your own. Such research can draw extremely difference conclusions.
All I'm asking is that before you take Michael's "unbiased" commentary for fact, do some research of your own into these 20 scientists and I'll bet that you could draw pretty strong links from their findings to their funding.
I'm no Bush Administration lover, but I hate to see science bent for political reasons, to the right or the left. In the end, this could weaken valid environmental science, because we rush to use the data for our own political views. Example? Green Party. They could do more harm than good for environmental protection.
And for the record, I get flack for my
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
What I got from that statement was the following dilemma: Those with ties to the lead industry should have more intimate knowledge of lead, but that limited intimacy also makes them dependent upon the future of that industry. This dependency makes it easy to apply FUD to anything they say.
The question then becomes, who do you trust more? Someone who doesn't necessarily know the topic as well but has nothing to lose/gain or someone who probably knows the topic quite well but has something to lose/gain.
The above is really just a generalization applicable to any industry. Of course, I should eventually RTFA.
This is not my sig.
What is that? There is a lead industry out there?
What do they promote? More lead in paint?
Whats next TV ads for the lead industry:
"Got lead?"
And things were so much better back then.
Science is just knowledge governed by systematic quality control. That doesn't mean that its conclusions are always correct or complete, but it does mean that the methods and reasoning behind them are available and open to scrutiny. If, as you say, it's performed poorly over the last few centuries, then I suppose we should consider abandoning the scientific method and officially making the President of the United States the Supreme Arbiter of Knowledge and Truth. That's essentially what the conservatives are arguing in this thread.
Hey! That's it!
Let's attack the source of the money!
No! Don't look at the facts! Look at the money!!
Or Wait! Let's find something else to talk about!!
But... god forbid... we actually look at facts and use science and logic to solve our problems any more. That would require thinking... and that would be waaayyy too hard.
What was this article about again?
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
funding? what are your sources? i've noticed that the cry of the pro-dubyas is that any disagreement with the dubya's policies must in fact be from liberal sources.
There is nothing wrong with identifying what the agenda of someone who puts forth a study, article, recommendation, or whatever is in order to better discern the bias and fallacies that agenda leads to. If tomorrow's Slashdot headline read, "Proprietary software superior, Microsoft study finds" would everyone ditch Linux, or view the report with a healthy dose of skepticism? Even highly respected scientists, who are supposed to personify objectivity, can have the interpretation of their results influenced by peer opinion, personal beliefs, need for funding, and so on.
A rational approach to this news would be to:
No, step #4 is not a "severe deficiency in logical thinking", but rather an important component of rational thought.
"The strongest conspiracy is the conspiracy of the stupid"
Chlorine might indeed rise from the ocean in prodigious quantities. The problem wasn't pure chlorine, but CFCs. Pure chlorine rarely makes it into the upper atmosphere. CFCs however were a perfect vehicle for delivering chlorine into the upper atmosphere where each cholorine atom could ionize several thousand O3 atoms.
A few years back the man who had discovered and characterized CFC's effects (he won a nobel prize for it) talked to our colloquim. I find it a bit distasteful to accuse him and his collegues of inflating their claims. Also remember that their claims weren't winning them friends and fortune; they were raising their flag in front of an industry that had no intention of stopping production. I find that many ecologists end up in this position. I don't see how broaching enviornmental problems wins them any money. It's the people who back up those with the pockets to pay who seem to have the most to gain financially. Thus said, I prefer not to think of the world as a place where ever single person is doing back door deals and slinking around like little weasles.
I would agree with you that sometimes Greenpeace's rhetoric is a bit strong, but I wouldn't throw out what they say just because of that. In my eyes the case that humans are contibuting to global warming has grown from possible to quite likely. In the past few years several major reports have been published that are quite damning because they back up their claims with mountains of high quality research.
If I got any of the science wrong, please forgive me...
There are two separate ideas that fall under the name "evolution." The first is the basic idea of one thing evolving into another-- there are a number of examples that we have watched happen right before our eyes. The common example is the English moth, biston betularia-- whose population was 95% soot-colored after heavy industry in the late 1800s, but was primarily light-colored in the years prior.
The second is the theory that evolution is responsible for everybody being here. This isn't provable, but it seems to be the best no-magical-stuff explanation we have right now. This is where you're right-- evolution-as-creation is a theory.
The idea that evolution happens is a solid fact. We just don't know if it's the only thing at work that could have led to people. (or other various animals and plants)
Why is Bush's crowd always 'troubled' about these things? .. as if they were dainty sensitive little people.
"Ouch, you're troubling my poor little mind with your big sciency words and all your facts."
"Gee, I'm just so troubled that you noticed that we're lying through our teeth. It just hurts so much when point this out to everyone. Please let us deceive in peace so that we won't be troubled."
Laureates in what, though? Is a Nobel prize winner for work in cosmology really worth listening on climatology? Does a prize for quantum physics give one the right to judge dangerous lead levels?
Nobel Laureates don't come a dime a dozen and they can't be bought
Bullshit. They can suffer from ideologies just as much as anyone. Some of the most ideologically blinkered people I have met in my life have had PhDs and were leaders in their professional fields. They get so many accolades in their field they think they can do no wrong elsewhere.
--- Ban humanity.
Since
We have fabulous technology that allows us to keep people out of a given building, right? The vaults at Fort Knox, CIA Headquarters, the Whitehouse, whatever. But for the life of us we can't keep people out of the country. The borders, both land and sea, are porous. This is the difference between protecting a single ship, and protecting the continental United States. Yes it's just a matter of scale, but the orders of magnitude may take generations to overcome, and, personally, I don't think that it's a forgone conclusion that it will happen.
Incremental improvements are nothing. That program needs substantial, dramatic, improvements just to prove it's feasability, much less that it's achievable within out lifetimes.
So a very nasty fellow. But focussing on the history of nastyness by Saddam would have prompted question as why nothing was done about it before. Who was supporting him while he was doing it and how the hell he got into power in the first place.
All questions america rather would not answer.
So WMD it was. As a reasonably intelligent person I can see what the real reason was. Saddam was like the guard dog that had snapped and had to be put down. Nasty and perhaps better care should have been given but this is the real world not some pacifists lala land.
For me and apparently you the reasons that saddam was a loose cannon with same very nasty habbits was enough. For many others it wasn't.
How does this relate to the hiding or falsyfing scientific evidence? Very closely. Instead of just saying, well yes lead is bad but so is making thousands of people jobless and we need the lead, they instead make up fancy reports saying lead ain't bad at all. It insults people like you and me but the people who elected him swallow it hook line and sinker.
Oh he was elected by a majority of americans. To remain silent implies consent and the majority of voters remained silent therefore consenting to bush. Still no option, "none of the above", I guess.
Poster should have spellchecked but poster is a lazy bastard
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/RSI _final_fullreport.pdf
Yeah, all those "successful" SDI tests, right? Now the problem becomes convincing any potential adversaries that they need to tell us when and where they plan to attack, and, oh yes.... would they mind terribly putting a radar beacon on any incoming warheads?
First of all it was not a radar beacon, and it wasn't tracked by the interceptor, it was used to supplement the remote tracking part of the system (which was not finished yet).
In another post I linked to this article. Do some extra research if you like.
Tracking a missile is not nearly as hard as controlling an interceptor - that was the part the system did not "cheat" at.
I would suggest that you check up on the science behind these tests... I cannot believe the ignorance that is being modded up on slashdot (not that it is your fault, this was not given a lot of coverage).
Cheers,
Justin
...such as Greenpeace, labeled by some as ecoterrorists.
So, tell me... Are you in favor of rounding up everyone that's ever donated monet to Greenpeace and shipping them off to Guatanamo Bay to be detained indefinitely?
And now, as you're nodding your head, think about what kind of government ships dissidents off to jail without due process. Doesn't that scare you a bit?
Anyone but Bush in 2004.
The most likely reason we are only now seeing large numbers of melanomas is that people used to die of other things before the melanoma had a chance to appear. Our cells have natural defense mechanisms from DNA damage caused by UV rays, but these are not 100% perfect and mutations can occur. Most of these are benign. However, as we age, the mutations accumulate, and eventually you can get unlucky and have a harmful mutation.
Also, the practice of lounging half-naked in the sun for days on end in relatively new. In the olden days, people wore clothes when they worked outside, not swimsuits.
The link between UV rays and DNA damage is so well-documented that research scientists use it in the lab: they use UV light to fragment DNA or randomly introduce mutations into cells they are studying. Get any basic biochemistry or cell biology book to check my facts if you want.
Yes, we need some sunlight, but not nearly as much as most of us get. In the opinion of this fairly skeptical scientist, the link between sun exposure and melanoma is very strong. I wear my sunscreen.
HA! If only it were that HIGH... Fact is, many slashdot readers probably fit the definition...
From The Heritage Foundation:
Like fairness, "rich" is a subjective term, but the most common definition of "rich" in Washington is someone in the top 20 percent (or quintile) of income. Many Americans in this quintile hardly would qualify as rich, though, since the cutoff in 1999 for the top 20 percent of tax returns is $79,375 of household income.
Keep in mind that that is HOUSEHOLD income...
-bs
That that is is not that that is not. That that is not is not that that is.
The problem you describe is however hardly isolated to america. It happens around the world. Here in holland we used to have an tv news program at 8 o'clock on the first channel (we only had one when I grew up then two and now three). It was reasonably good proffesional guy in suit telling the news headlines with a bit behind. Not terribly deep but you got what had happened and could read the indepth stuff in next days newspaper.
What has changed. Well first of all it has gotten shorter not just in pure time but the opening jingle and ending credits have become longer, they have a summary at the beginning and end wich each take about a minute from what is now 15-20 minutes. They extended weather and now always have some human intrest stuff. I remember that during heavy suicide bombings in Israel they had a 5 minute piece on the royal family opening some art show. Good grief. The final killer is that they took the presenter from the childeren news (used to be very good, the biggest real news stories explained a bit more with simpler language or complex words explained) and got all the other presenters to use her language.
To describe the news here now is impossible. CNN is better. At least they don't talk to me in kid speak. Americans complain that american news is biased. It is perhaps. So is dutch news. Doesn't matter if the news is pro-israel or pro-palenstine. They are both biased and not telling the thruth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
You know what the really funny thing is? All this dumbing down was to get more viewers. Tiny little detail? The old news was often the most watched program, not well watched. ONE in the ratings. Now viewing figures are down. So they are dumbing down even more to attract more viewers.
Excuse me while I go bang my head against the wall.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"[F]or a long time I bought into a common schema for the Bush administration: dim-bulb president surrounded and propped up by bright, ruthless neocons... I'm chagrined to admit now that I have, at least in part, bought into a lie... The neocons surrounding Bush are not all that bright." - Jon Carroll
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
There is no such thing as the "fact of evolution". You should really check your sources on that one. It's called a theory for a reason.
Actually, evolution was accepted as fact even before Darwin advanced a theory to explain it. Before Darwin, there actually were real scientists (as opposed to religious ideologues masquerading as scientists) who took creation seriously as a theory of the origin of species. But even before Darwin, they had rejected the Biblical notion of creation as patently inconsistent with the data that clearly demonstrated evolution over time. The creationist theories before Darwin tended to postulate multiple creation events at different times and places. Of course, after Darwin, all the real biologists embraced the new theory, leaving behind the Biblical zealots who wouldn't even accept creation theories that didn't agree with Genesis.
I'm cunfused as to why we are all taking the time to bitch about Bush when the majority of us (if not all) aren't in politics (we're all smart enough to know better), so we don't know why the decisions are made. I may or may not agree, but shit, I'm not going to sit here and critize an admidistation who made choices that I don't know all of.
Hell, yeah!
Now *that's* the spirit that made this country great!
Three cheers for apathy!
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Whether or not being a Nobel Lauriate somehow makes one immune to politics or completely unbiased (it certainly doesn't, but I doubt that it's possible to explain here why that is the case to someone that believes otherwise), the Union of Concerned Scientists is certainly a political organization. It was founded in 1969 by a group of MIT professors that wanted to protest the Vietnam war and has morphed into an environmental group with positions tha are considered progressive (in the US, at least). If you have any doubts about the claim that the UCS is political, or that it is progressive, I would suggest reading:
Unfortunately, you may have to wait a few days, first, as their site has been ./'ed
Thats great, 100 bucks a month. While you got your 100 bucks, Bush took away school funding. I had to pay over a grand more for tuition(per semester). My parents had to pay 500 more to the school in our area for property tax. The health care costs rose up a bitch. So just take that 100 bucks and shove it up your ass.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
Cry me a river, Over the past four years I paid over half a million dollars in taxes. But I would rather see the tax cuts repealled and the economy doing better than continue with a stagnant economy and $50,000 off my taxes.
During the Clinton boom the economy grew 4% year on year, that means the economy grew by almost a fifth in each term. That means far more to me than any amount I might pay in taxes. During the Bush recession the economy was stagnant, there was one quarter where it grew by 2% (reported in the press as 8% anualized) and a second when it grew by 1% (reported in the press as 5% anualized). But we still havent had one year that comes close to matching the Clinton performance.
Sure Bush had some bad luck, but all President's do. Bush has made no good luck. That is the problem. He is also responsible for the bulk of the deficit, he has not vetoed a single one of the pork filled spending bills from the Republican Congress. He pushed through irresponsible tax cuts which in many cases will only start to take effect after the recession is over. That means that long term interest rates, the rates businesses borrow money at and the rates that determine economic growth are much too high. The markets know there is a big increase in borrowing comming.
The falloff of tax revenues and the $250 billion cost of the war in Iraq are part of the reason for the deficit, but they are not the biggest reason and they are not part of the forward planning estimates that are predicting $400 billion dollar deficits for the next ten years.
So no, a four year tax cut does not impress me in the slightest. It is clearly not going to last. Regardless of who is President next year taxes are going to return to their pre-Bush level and then some extra will be added on top. Read my lips, Tax rises are inevitable.
No politician deserves credit for tax cuts unless they can cut spending or raise revenues by enough to pay for them.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
And the Liberal/Democrats fail to make ANY allowance in their rhetoric for cost of living. In New York, a school teacher may make over $90K/yr. That makes them "RICH", by the Liberal definition. I guarantee they don't feel rich while they're paying out probably $2K+/mo for rent/mortgage on a small living space, and 1/3 of their paycheck is going straight down the tubes of government excess.
I have no problem with there being a flat tax. 15% is not outrageous. The earlier poster who suggested that we should limit the amount of money one should be able to make is obviously clueless. There are plenty of places in the world that do limit your income (one way or another), and I guarantee you wouldn't be happy there.
Since the high income earners make so much more, they can afford to pay a higher percentage. It's based on the ability to pay and the fact that they can pay more in taxes than most people actually get to keep because they have plenty left over to live better than everyone else.
If you think the US government serves the middle class as well as it does the wealthy, you are sadly mistaken. The people that have the money are the ones that influence the government
If you made $10,000 per year and the government took $2,000 of it, you'd miss that $2,000 more than a wealthy person making $200,000 would miss $40,000 (I can guarantee they wouldn't even lose that much after taking every tax break and exemption in the books). Food, heat, shelter etc do not change in price because you have a different income. The wealthy don't have to live in bigger more expensive houses, eat ridiculously expensive foods or invest their money in businesses, but they do and they apparently have the money to do it even though they pay higher taxes (their salaries are probably inflated to make up for the taxes anyway).
If taxes were completely eliminated, I'd imagine employers would probably cut wages where possible under the excuse "You don't pay taxes anymore so 75% of your old pay is now reasonable!" anyway.
BTW, Gates would be in the category of 5% of citizens that control 80+% of the US's land, wealth etc. I think the people who are making use off the country's wealth on the backs of the other 95% of the population SHOULD pay a higher percentage of their incomes.
That's not true at all. Government money goes in an unequal proportion to the rich, not the poor. In any government transaction there are two parties, the government and whoever they pay the money to. Welfare may be the only government program that pays poor people more then the rich. Twenty percent of the US budget goes to pay interest to the rich people who hold the federal debt. I don't give a rat's ass if a bunch of Arabs want to blow each other up, but Amoco sure does. All that money spent on "Ensuring Global Dominance?" I don't need global dominance, but Halliburton does. My interest in global dominance ends at the Risk board. What OS does the US government buy? It's the one Bill Gates made. So much for me getting as much federal money as Bill Gates. You may bring up Social Security, but payroll taxes only apply to the first $90,000 of income. Besides the fact that poor people today pay 50% more Social Security then is needed to cover current obligations so that the President can run up an enormous deficit to give a trillion dollar in tax cuts to billionaires. Google for the federal budget, read through it, and then try to tell me that poor people are getting all the money. It ain't true. And the rich don't pay most of the taxes, the middle class does. They get socked with the most payroll taxes, and they have less recourse to tax shelters to avoid paying income tax.
This only confirms my fears. I'm just hoping that Bush isn't in office if an asteroid ever comes our way. Can you imagine how many oil drillers he knows that look like Bruce Willis? Man, that would be some nightmare.
Your point being? The Wired article quotes people in the administration who seem to indicate that the events that the UCS claim to have happened did in fact take place. Of the lead analysis panel: "I'm sure there were other reasons for the change". Other reasons indeed.
The fact is, Bush's Administration is undergoing a major credibility crisis. Excising scientific research is not how to go about fixing it.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I hate to rain on the parade of science good, politician bad, but I find this absolute statement of scientific truth to be disturbing at best. As a research scientist, I think I have some authority to comment on this from a different perspective than joe average code warrior.
By definition of the scientific method, there are no scientific facts. We have theories, which we beleive to be true as long as they stand up to all known tests. The momment they fail to explain something, then a new theory is needed.
Why am I reminding you of this? Because in this posts, and others throughout the thread, there as been an assumption that the statements of my esteemed colleques are scientific facts or truths. In reality, what they are is an interpretation of the data by these scienties, often in fields which they are not experienced. This is much different than absolute truth. In particular, it is critically important when viewed in the context of the science issues listed. Although you may not have thought of it, none of these theories are completey proven, especially to a level as, say, the charge on an electron is 1.6 *10(-19) C.
Case in point, another poster in this thread said that global warming IS occuring by CO2, and there is no disputing this. Actually, this finding is under debate, and by serious climatologists at MIT and other places. It turns out that serious people with serious ideas can assert that the earth naturally undergoes temperature fluctuations. Remember the ice-age, and other climate related disasters occured long before fossil fuels. So, we can say that we know the earth is getting warmer. This si the scientific fact so carelessly alluded too in this thread. But, can we absolutely say we know the cause? The answer is no. Several models do explain the temperature rise. Many prefer the fossil fuel effect becuase it stems from a simple correlation. Nature is not always kind and phenomena can arise from complex factors we don't understand. So, the best and only valid approach is discuss how likely a model is to be the "true" case, and openly talk about where it succeeds and where it fails. The sad truth is, most of us have not seen such a discussion becuase falling into the trap of oil industry bad is such a temptation. Therefore, one viewpoint is forwarded in the media and popular culute. This IS a political idea. And, scientists are human and history is replete with us falling into group think for wrong causes. So, I ask anyone on this list, to take a step back, take a deap breath, and ask themselves what do I know, and from where do I know. You probably will find (much to your dislike) you know all these facts from newsweek, and can't answer simple questions such as under what conditions do these global warming models fail? What approximations were made. Until you understand this, please, please do not jump up and down and claim to know something.
Before flaming me, I ask you to realize that nowhere have I stated which models do I happen to believe. So, arguemnts along those lines while passionate, but false. All I am saying is that the issues are more complicated than meet the eye, and even 21 random noble laureattes are not omniciant.
There is room for debate. In fact, debate is healthy and should occur. If you believe exactly what they say, then you are just as dogmatic as you are accusing the Bush adminstration being.
My two cents,
Iowa
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
Look, I'ma War President [smirk]. Since 9/11, we realized we can't sit around waiting for things to happen. We need to act now. Al Queda operatives are trying to destroy America. Saddam was a dangerous evil dictator. By hurting big business, the terrorists will win. These are things we know. We haven't yet proven a link between Al Queda and these evil scientists, but rest assured, when we do find it, I will act upon that intelligence.
Here come da fudge!
You're thinking of Trofim Lysenko who wasn't a trained scientist, but his 'theories' seemed to fit in with Communist dogma - so he attracted the approval of Stalin. Lysenko got his ideas from a Russian form of Lamarckism known as Michurianism. Essentially it was the old falsehood that said such nonsense as the children of a giraffe have longer necks because their parents stretched to reach leaves on trees.
Lysenko came to prominence in 1948 when he declared Mendelist evolution to be reactionary, decadant and its proponents to be enemies of the Soviets. Other scientists knew what that meant and on whose behalf he was speaking (Uncle Joe) and quickly fell behind the Party line. He and his theories basically held sway in the Eastern Bloc until 1965 when Kruschev had Lysenko denounced and returned the Soviet Union to the orthodox view of evolution.
But of course Lysenko's theories were in sway during the pivotal discoveries of DNA and how it affected genetics. So the Soviet Union fell behind at a vital moment and never recovered.
It's an extreme form of the current situation in the US, where any old nonsense can be promoted by politicians to keep their vested interests (be they oil, lead or Christian fundamentalism) happy. Sadly the same is starting to happen over here in the UK, where our non-scientific Prime Minister refuses to condemn schools that teach creationism over evolution.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Here
Here are their main findings:
1.There is a well-established pattern of suppression and distortion of scientific findings by high-ranking Bush administration political appointees across numerous federal agencies. These actions have consequences for human health, public safety, and community well-being.
2. There is strong documentation of a wideranging effort to manipulate the government's scientific advisory system to prevent the appearance of advice that might run counter to the administration's political agenda.
3. There is evidence that the administration often imposes restrictions on what government scientists can say or write about "sensitive" topics.
4. There is significant evidence that the scope and scale of the manipulation, suppression, and misrepresentation of science by the Bush administration is unprecedented.
I must say that I'm *shocked* (*shocked*!) that anyone could suppose the Bush administration has ever been anything less than completely forthright about anything with the American public (cough, IRAQ, cough). I mean, they've never stretched or distorted facts to fit their preconceptions before, ever. Really!
No, Bill Gates receives a lot more benefits from government. Who issues the copyrights and patents that make Microsoft a rich company? Hell, who issued Microsoft's corporate charter? Who issued him the deed to the land where his mansion sits? Who protects Bill from a little grass-roots redistribution of the wealth?
When you're living in a cardboard box, it doesn't much matter if you're living in a democracy or a dictatorship or total anarchy.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Regardless of when the release time is, they make excellent points. I hate the fact that chosing an inoppourtune timing casts doubt on the results. What's more, it's not like we're in October, here. This is not a last-minute, obviously election-related item. We're still the better part of a year away! The timing of this report should not enter into the discussion.
Critique the MESSAGE, not the MESSENGER! Talk about the report itself, not the motivation for it.
> the top 20 percent of tax returns is $79,375 of household income.
Shit, to me, that is rich. I'd give both of my nuts (hell, I'm not using them anyway) to make that much.
My original message
Bush is stupid
No WMDs ever existed
Bush can't speak correctly
Ashcroft is stripping every liberty we have
Bush is evil
Reagan was stupid
Global warming is happening right now
These scientists are not bias at all.
Before you flame-bait me, ALL of the above WERE responses by people in this thread.
And I get modded down as flame-bait.
BUT ALL OF THE ABOVE RESPONSES WERE MODDED UP TO 4 OR 5. THOSE WERE ACTUAL RESPONSES THAT WERE MODDED UP.
THAT was my point.
Random example off the top of my head: an American citizen is held without being charged with a crime, without trial or bail, for eight months. Wait, let me guess. It doesn't count, because he's a brown American.
I think that those ginormous tax cuts for the extraordinarily wealthy may have had some effect on the debt. Just maybe. That, and the $100bn+ adventure in Iraq.
*cough* Abstinence-only education *cough*. When they require teaching abstinence, and disallow teaching anything else, that makes it 'abstinence-only'. Get it?
If you're going to talk smack, can you at least talk the kind of smack that can't be refuted with five minutes of Googling?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Here, for example, is an article from September of 2002 on the same thing. That was more than two years before this year's election. This isn't the first time this sort of thing has cropped up before, not by a long shot; it's not even the first time it's come up on Slashdot (see this, or this, or this (referring to the article I referenced above).
Judging by Table 5 here, it would appear that at least in 2000, the top 5% (the floor for which was $128,336 in adjusted gross income) collected about 35% of the income but paid 56% of the income taxes, which amounts to 56% of the total income tax take. I'm not sure how you define "middle class," but I think it's traditionally well below the $128,000 mark.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Also remeber that the job of government in a democracy is to protect the minority from the will of the majority.
If you read the article that you cited, you'll notice that Gore wasn't making a "grandiose attempt to take political advantage of the internet's popularity". He didn't write the code, and never claimed he did. But if it wasn't for Gore the internet would probably still be ARPANET. Nothing obnoxious there.
I just don't think doing a grade check is a valid way to prove how intelligent someone is. There's lots of "book smart" people who aren't that bright in regular life. That was my point.
I'm not a Bush hater or a Gore fan. You're being overly defensive. Paranoid I think it's called. Do you listen to Limbaugh a lot?
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
Been in the field for a few years, worked at a national lab, major university...and I can tell you there is no such thing as an unbiased scientist. We don't actually cook the books, but most researchers have an preconceived notion of what their results should be, and will interpret their data in a way that backs up that desire. Nobody ever talks about it and even fewer will acknowledge it, but it's there, which is why I look at all this squabbling between left-leaning and right-leaning scientists to be pure political bullshit; especially since most scientists are of a rather liberal bent and despise Bush - $20 says if gov't scientists were all enviro-friendly, this lot would be bitching about the myth of global warming.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
30-45 is not young when you consider that life expectancy was once much lower than it is today. Google it for yourself. Here is one blurb that puts the life expectancy in the 1800s at ~30
And have ever looked at laborer fashions from the 1700s? I haven't but, I suspect the women at least weren't showing much back. You can disregard the fashions worn by the nobles, because they stayed out of the sun (being tanned was considered coarse).
The final piece of information you aren't considering is the fact that most people native to regions with lots of sun have darker skin. This adaptation protects their skin from the damage caused by UV (incidently, it also makes it harder for them to produce the vitamin D they need from sunlight, but that's another story.) My ancestors were all from northern Europe, but I grew up in Arizona and live in southern California. I am not adapted for my current environment: I'm adapted for a place where the sun barely shines half of the year!
The real trouble started when us fair-skinned northern European types started moving to the sunnier areas, stripping down to our skivvies, and hanging out at the beach.
I never said I had all of the answers. But you don't appear to have any facts.
For now, let's assume (wrong or wrong) that Gore is 100 times dumber than Bush. That still doesn't mean he would subvert science like Bush's administration has. Intelligent != ethical.
At any rate, Gore really has nothing to do with this. If you want to make a comparison that matters, tell me how Kerry, Edwards, or even Dean have been misused or suppressed science to further their political goals like Bush has.
Our alternative is not Gore because we can't go back and change the past. (No matter how much we want to.) Our alternatives are the guys that are going to be running in November, 2004.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
I personally find his statement that he "took the initiative in creating the internet" to be a grandiose attempt to take political advantage of the internet's popularity... He certainly was a supporter of the idea, but wrote none of the code, developed none of the protocols... he's trying to take credit for the hard work of a lot of scientists and engineers... I personally think that's obnoxious.
Then it's equally obnoxious for Bush to take credit for the liberation of Iraq, after all, he didn't coordinate the troop movements, go on any patrols, or capture Saddam himself, right? He's just trying to claim credit for the hard work (literal blood, sweat, and tears) of a lot of soldiers.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
http://webexhibits.org/bush/
Thirty years of satellite observations, computer advances and improvements in theory go into current thinking that didn't figure in 1975. That said, nothing I saw in the article seems particularly alarmist or ideological.
The period of concern over "global cooling" was brief and driven by intuition. Pretty much as soon as they started doing the numbers, most of the serious physicists who were to be the founders of physical climatology agreed that greenhouse warming was probably a bigger concern. See Science, vol 193 pp 447 ff, Aug 6, 1976 , pretty much right after the Newsweek article.
mt
No, not really. The problem with intercepting an ICBM is above all one of decoys. The radar and IR sensors see an incomning cloud of 100 identical shiny, round objects. One of them contains a warhead. Which do you hit?
Why, all of them, of course. Definitely the biggest hurdle.
Given that it's MUCH easier to build a decoy than an interceptor, that is a game that you can't win (assuming equal resources going in - which against the Russkies is a reasonable bet).
ROFLMAO! The US and Russia have equal resources? Man, what are you smoking? The US has a GDP of $10.45 trillion, Russia's is only $1.4 trillion. That's almost an order of magnitude in difference. Do you honestly think Russia can build enough decoy ICBMs to counter the number of interceptors we could assemble?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
I remember a while ago here in Alberta Premier Klein made a very interesting quote about global warming where he joked that the end of the ice age was due to dinosaur farts. This made me realize that Klein, and probably a lot of other politicians, not only doesn't believe in science but doesn't even respect it. They'll quote studies when it suits them and claim they have done scientific research but at the end of the day I don't believe science has the slightest baring on their decisions. Therefore it's not surprising that politicians are playing funny with the numbers, after all it's just dinosaur farts.
I stole this Sig
Interesting. Today's Washington Post is recommending D.C. residents flush their taps for 10 minutes to help reduce exposure to lead. Missed the opportunity to blame it on Bush, however.
Story
Today, the Bush administration said in a press release that 20 important US scientists had been arrested for terrorism charges under the Patriot Act
"73% of quotes on the Internet are made up" -Ben Franklin
I agree about the president influencing the economy bit, but...
Regarding the deficit:
1) The president has almost full control over the budget. He can veto anything he doesn't like. BUSH CAN VETO SPENDING BILLS AND BRING BACK THE DEFICIT. but he doesn't. Also US deficits were of trivial quantity until the Reagan administration. There were no large deficits before that even with a democrat congress.
2) Okay. Now that would be nice. I wish the Republicans in power NOW (not 4 years ago) would learn how to cut spending. They haven't - even if you discount the ridiculous rise in military spending.
3) Again. I wish Bush would sign a bill like that.
4) And every economist in the world said that's not a realistic possibility. How many lies does Bush have to say before you stop believing him?
5) If the government gave me ONE MILLION DOLLARS that would be MERE CRUMBS compared to what is spent on other things. And although I would love that, its still a stupid govenment policy.
Tax raises are not inevitable. But for god's sakes you have to reduce spending to avoid them! And I laugh at your Democrat comment... Bush Sr raised taxes.
And just for note - I am not a Democrat. If the Republicans would revert to being a party of small government I would go back to them. Otherwise, I vote against them.
------ Warning! You are too close!
Yes it does, unfortunately there is a fallacy regarding the second law of thermodynamics which is often used by creationists.
The second law of thermodynamics states that left to itself, the entropy (that is the amount of disorder) in a closed system can never decrease. Rooms get untidy, a cup of coffee cools down and heats the room and so on...
There are two important parts of the law that are forgotten by creationists:
It means that you can tidy a disorganised house apparently in contravention of the second law of thermodynamics. All your shelves are neatly organised, the floor positively sparkles - order has been created from disorder. BUT to do that, you have had to use some energy and will have dumped unrecoverable heat into the wider environment.
Organisms are not closed systems, they are local pieces of order. They take in raw materials, use it to increase the amount of local order and dump heat energy into the wider environment.
The total amount of entropy in the Universe has increased, but locally it has decreased. The total amount of usable energy has decreased, the total amount of entropy has increased.
No contravention of the second law.
Best wishes,
Mike.
On The laws of thermodynamics:
You are wrong. A man actually won a nobel prize for proving you wrong.
While humans are highly ordered and certainly complex, that in and of istself in not a universal decrease in entropy. It is a LOCAL decrease. Also, we are very efficent at creating entropy (which some might consider bad). We spin the whole earth up by moving water to the northern hemisphere with our dams. We slow it down by contributing ever so slightly to global warming causing water from the polar caps to raise sea levels in the tropics. We are some crazy crazy bastards. And we've got nuclear weapons. And man you want to talk about entropy, those fuckers create the hell out of it.
Also, the universe was origianlly very simple. Almost perfectly smooth, very hot with a very uniform density and temperature. Now it's very "bumpy." Very very cold, very very hot, very very empty and some places are pretty dense too. Of the 5000 and change subatomic spaces in the universe each year that do get as hot and dense as the universe once was, a pretty impressive fraction of them are on our humble little rock. One might even say entropy is the change in the journey from one simply described state to one of a vast multitude of complicated states.
Creationism is a crutch for the faithless faithfull. It never fails to surprise me how small people demand that their God be. What's really sad about that isn't that people like you are ignorant, it's that you're ignorant because you're cowards. You need some idol to serve as a compass to your faith, which completely misses the point. It's just so pathetic.
So don't vote...
DJIA
Not true. Interestingly enough, under Bush the percent working for the government has increased from 15.8 - 16.5 %. Bush is definitley a big government kind of guy.
Why don't you just meantion one instead of this "every economist" that no one has heard about.
The tax cuts has lead to a huge deficit, which is basicly a huge tax increase on everyone, rich and poor. Of course, the rich are lucky, and have got most of the tax cuts to compensate for this unfortunate tax increase on the nation. Bush the tax increase.
Regean had to reverse his tax cuts. Bush senior had to increase taxes more (read his lips). Clinton increased them even more, and the boom came.
... when we have a fisical responsible democrate in the White house. Thank God for the republicans with their booms 8 years after leaving office, a boom they gave us even "no president has direct influence on the economy".
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
Except Vin Cerf, who is the (one of the) fathers of the internet, gives Gore credit for making the internet what it is today. Goree provided the pull in Congress and in the Clinton Administration that enabled the grants to fund the research that built the internet.
See, what y'all have to understand is, it's not politics, it's just that scientists hate bad science. When they see it, they just can't help themselves, they have to destroy it. And by destroy I don't mean bury or ignore it, I mean publicly tearing that faulty logic/research to pieces and sending the proponent of it packing with tears of shame in his/her eyes. They absolutely will not give up until the fool either admits s/he was wrong, proves they are right, or is so thoroughly discredited they can't even get anyone to listen anymore.
Why? Because when someone is clearly WRONG, they'll be damned if they let them pretend that they're right. And they especially hate it when psuedo-scientists try to use their profession.
Remember Galileo? Hundreds of years of attempted suppression, but they never gave up and never let anyone forget until the Church officially apologized. There were a lot of reasons for Vatican II, but I'd argue that the Church's losing battle against the forces of reason was the major one. Darwin? They're still fighting tooth and nail. States can pass laws allowing "creation science" but they soon find they're the butt of ridicule and have acquired a reputation for ignorance. If Junior has any brains at all (which is debatable) he'll quietly start leaving the science to the scientists... and if he doesn't he'll soon find his intelligence will be a rather large issue.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Not decoy ICBM's. Balloon decoys. And hell yes. You can put ~100 of them on each booster because they are little more than balls of mylar. Look, it's sooo much easier to build a mylar baloon than an anti-missle interceptor that a few orders of magnitude in GDP just doesn't fscking matter. You may feel superior to the Russkies, but fact is that they have enough resources to build enough ICBM's that the U.S. simply COULD NOT defend against them. It's really that simple. And getting back to the original point, back in the 80's before the Soviets collapsed, they definitely had the resources to build an ICBM force that we could not defend against. No resonable person - even current SDI advocates - talks about defending against 1000+ incoming ICBMs, decoys or no decoys. All the current system is supposed to do is protect against North Korea and their 2 ICBM's. (In actuality the idea is to force the Chinese to spend real $$$ on more ICBMS so we can spend them into the ground the way we did the Soviets; those cheap bastards have been getting away with less than 100 ICBM's until now! Flawed logic for various reason we can go into later.)
And I haven't even started talking about counter-countermeasures other than decoys. You've got maneuvering warheads and buses, you've got chaff & jammers, you could set off a few nukes in space (completely wiping out any radar visibility for hours on end), you could have depressed-trajectory SLBM launches against the missle-defence sites, or you can have fast-boost ICBM's where the intercept time is very short.
Or you could just smuggle the damned things into downtown NY, LA and DC and be done with it, missile defence or no missle defence.
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
The marginal value of most anything shrinks as the quantity owned or consumed go up. The first beer is Great!, the second is great, the third is good, the fourth would be better if I didn't have to pee so bad, the fifth is OK, I really shouldn't have the sixth, if you make me drink a seventh I'll puke...
One takes care of the most fundamental needs first. "nice to haves" and luxuries come later. Taking $2000 from the person with only $20,000 cuts into a lot of things that are hard to do without.
The US is spending more than half it's budget on defense and related moneysinks. This includes homeland defense, CIA/FBI/NSA etc spending.
More than half. Of all it's money. Whilst it's economy is down the drain, education is producing people who actually graduate from highschool whilst not being able to read, write or even calculate normaly (without the use of a calculator) and there is a large number of people living below the poverty line.
More than half. And you tell me that the current US government has a sound fiscal policy?
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Not decoy ICBM's. Balloon decoys. And hell yes. You can put ~100 of them on each booster because they are little more than balls of mylar.
Those only work once the warheads have seperated from the launch vehicle. The solution? Target the launch vehicle *before* the warheads deploy.
Look, no defense system is perfect, and noone ever claimed missile defense is a panacea. But it's better than sitting around, doing nothing to protect ourselves. Just like the best lock will only slow down the best thief, not stop him, so too will the best defensive system only reduce the amount of damage done by the best offensive system. The goal is to increase our country's chance of survival. Unfortunately, there's no way to guarantee it.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Easier said than done; assuming we're talking about a Russian ICBM field the only way to get close enough is to be in orbit (you need to be within a few hundred km, and even then you only have 15-30 seconds decision time). This means literally thousands of interceptor satellites in low-Earth orbit (laser or kinetic warheads - it doesn't make much difference). That's pretty challenging, as these are not small satellites either. For comparison the GPS network is 24 sats; given that satellites in low-earth orbit re-enter fairly regularly (residual atmospheric drag), we'd be talking about lofting something like the equivalent of the entire GPS network every month.
And that's assuming you could actually build a laser or interceptor that would work reliably - and that's by no means a given.
And that's assuming the opponent didn't start his attack by wiping out all the interceptor satellites that are in range of the launch field (they all have to be in orbit, and will thus be known and tracked). Remember, "buying the defences", especially when you have the element of surprise, is a technique that usually improves the chances of the offence greatly.
Look, no defense system is perfect, and noone ever claimed missile defense is a panacea. But it's better than sitting around, doing nothing to protect ourselves.
Didn't Reagan make exactly that claim? Anyway, your argument sets up a false dichotomy. Would the required 5% of GDP be better spent doing something else? Maybe the money should be used in anti-smuggling and border security ops? Or maybe, just maybe, we could stop trying to fsck over the rest of the world so maybe, just maybe, they'd be less inclined to lob ICBM's our way...
Just like the best lock will only slow down the best thief, not stop him, so too will the best defensive system only reduce the amount of damage done by the best offensive system. The goal is to increase our country's chance of survival
When the Soviets have enough nukes to personally provide a few kiltons to every man, woman and child in the U.S., it really doesn't matter if we could knock down 10, 50 or even 500 warheads. With 10,000 ICBM warheads (MIRV's, remember) and 30,000 tactical ones, the acceptable leakage rate has to be so rediculously small that it's surely wasted effort. I've seen professional assessments showing that 20-100 hits would be more than sufficient to destroy the U.S. as a national entity, killing 30 million people in the process.
You are thinking like a military guy, where even a defence that is 50% effective is worthwhile because it forces the enemy to double his effort. But when it comes to strategic nuclear war, the difference between 2 and 4 warheads/aimpoint is pretty immaterial.
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
Oh come on, you're just upset because your sacred cow, the 'united scientists' with their 'consensus' had their balloon punctured and were proven wrong. You can't really be serious that you buy this alarmist propaganda they peddle.
SDI has knocked down at least two more missiles than your 'scientists' have. Moreover, the supposed 'rigging' of the test is a matter of perspective - making contact with an item traveling at 10k mph is difficult enough. Altering the parameters to fit technological limitations I can deal with.
In regards ignorance, I read the book back at the time (in the 80's) and its basic premise was as follows:
While both of the above points are correct in some sense, they are inapplicable to either the situation then or the situation today. The first was begging the question, "Well, if it isn't possible today, research and development are necessary, no?". Duh. These 'scientists' decided to try to gainsay it EVER being possible, which is a silly thing to do with technology.
The second point is true enough but a poor argument: a similar argument could be made about other weapons systems. Take a tank: well, armor piercing rounds from antitank weaponry can always be made to pierce any thickness of armor, through various technologies such as hollow charges and sabot rounds, or just making the gun bigger. Should armor be dispensed with, then?
The answer is resoundingly no, because an armorless tank is prey to small arms fire and perhaps even prosaic things like Molotov cocktails. A balance is struck between armor thickness and desired survivability and transportability. This is instructive, because the purpose of SDI was never to kill every incoming missile, and the current National Missile Defense program is not geared towards that either.
The purpose of SDI was to create a situation where a 'ragged' first strike would result. Ragged in the sense that not every missile would hit the target. This would increase the risk of said first strike, therefore strengthening deterrence. I agree with the aforementioned book inasmuch as that this would have provoked a new arms race when the system became operational. That was the point. This arms race would bankrupt the Soviet Union, which was already teetering on the edge of same. Victory in the Cold War was very much as a result of the _threat_ of SDI.
The current NMD program is intended to provide defense against a 'Scud' situation ala Saddam in 1991, or a North Korean ICBM. It is intended to knock down a small number of missiles. It would have no effect on a French or Russian or Chinese nuclear attack, except inasmuch as it would cause, once again, a 'ragged' first strike that would not assure the launching nation of achieving the expected results, thereby once again strengthening deterrence. It will not be immune to countermeasures and it can be spoofed. Who cares. It raises the barrier of entry to successfully launch a nuclear strike on the US. It wasn't intended to be a perfect shield. Moreover, the NMD is small enough that it's unlikely to provoke an arms race, as the Russians or Chinese can still flood the system with RVs that would make the quantity of destroyed vehicles immaterial.
Perhaps these 'concerned scientists' should invent a rubber band gun to fire copies of "The Fallacy of Star Wars: Why Space Weapons Can't Protect Us" at incoming ICBMs. I'm sure with all their collective smarts they'll have it working in no time, unlike the idiots in the military who think NMD or SDI had some promise. Right?
This organization, these 'concerne
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
"Among the statement signers are: Philip W. Anderson*, David Baltimore*, Paul Berg*, Lewis Branscomb, Thomas Eisner*, Jerome Friedman, Richard Garwin*, Walter Kohn*, Neal Lane, Leon Lederman*, Mario Molina, W.K.H. Panofsky*, F. Sherwood Rowland, J. Robert Schrieffer*, Richard Smalley, Harold E. Varmus*, Steven Weinberg*, E.O. Wilson*.
* National Medal of Science, Nobel laureate"
2001 - Bush places crippling restrictions on stem cell research because the cells come from leftover embryos from fertility clinics that are going to be discarded anyway. Despite the fact that stem cell research is one of the most promising areas of medical research since genome mapping, Bush doesn't want to "condone abortion".
2002 - Bush's flagship environmental policy is the "Healthy Forest Initiative", which aims to reduce forest fires by easing logging restrictions in National Forests (look it up yourself!) Actually that one's good logic- less forests, less forest fires!
2003 Bush appoints Mike Levitt, the pro-industry Republican governor from Utah to head the EPA.
The administration has axed education programs that mention birth control, (he's got an "abstinence only" policy despite zero evidence showing that that works -theres even evidence it might be counter-effective), issued the "Global Gag Rule", gutted the Clean Air Act, forced the EPA to cut any mention of global warming from their state of the environment report, etc. etc..
Seriously, the list goes on and on..
Laureates in what, though?
You are missing the point.
They aren't endorsing or condemning a particular technical theory. They are condemning a way of cherry picking positions and data from the body of scientific work which is profoundly antithetical to the spirit of science, which as laureates they understand quite well, thank you.
Every scientific paper starts with the assumption the scientist might be wrong. We know he doesn't really beleive this, but he is not allowed to dismiss the possibility, or any evidence that supports that possibility. He then proceeds to bend over backwards to try to prove he is wrong. Ideally, he does a better job at criticizing his position than his most virulent could manage. The method is, to do your damndest to prove yourself are wrong and fail.
This is called intellectual honesty. The reason scientists go through all the bother with intellecutal honesty is its precious end product: credibility.
I don't think intellectual honesty is part of the political mindset. They go about getting credibility by entirely different means (mostly various forms of distraction). The problem for prominent scientsts is that after they've invested so much in gaining credibility the hard way, they can't stand to see somebody else get it on the cheap.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
really? no proof given though, huh?
Proof of the scientific studies or proof of government omissions? It should be obvious that they don't need to republish the results of previous studies in this report.
Highly qualified according to whom? UCS?
Ah, but there are such things as verifiable scientific qualifications. Of course, a little healthy skepticism is good too. You are free to verify the findings of the report on your own. This isn't politics; it's science.
That's specific? Not a single incident is cited.
I can't access the report right now, but I still managed to find this from cnn.com:
Among the examples cited in the union's report:
* A 2003 report that the administration sought changes in an Environmental Protection Agency climate study, including deletion of a 1,000-year temperature record and removal of reference to a study that attributed some of global warming to human activity.
* A delay in an EPA report on mercury pollution from some power plants.
* A charge that the administration pressed the Centers for Disease Control to end a project called "Programs that Work," which found sex education programs that did not insist only on abstinence were still effective.
I'm surprised that you couldn't find the examples yourself. Did you read the actual report or just an article about the report?
Main Entry: 1censure Pronunciation: 'sen(t)-sh&r Function: noun Etymology: Latin censura, from censEre 1 : a judgment involving condemnation 2 archaic : OPINION, JUDGMENT 3 : the act of blaming or condemning sternly 4 : an official reprimand
Furthermore, it says clearly, in at least one case, that a U.S. scientist was blocked 11 times from being able to share his research with Dutch scientists who asked for it. That is *censorship*. And since the research dealt with bacterial emissions near hog farms, I highly doubt it was a matter of national security.
Finally, the scientists are not asserting that the Bush administration, or any administration, be required to take their advice. They are saying that the Bush administration is deliberately trying to suppress scientific data with which the administration disagrees. I for one have a much higher degree of confidence in the learned advice of a Nobel laureate than in man who once said that "even C students [like him] can become President of the United States."
Ha, good one! But you forget that this is a report and that was a petition. The former needs only the signatures of the participants, while the latter needs the signatures of as many people as possible.
Some considerations for those who are hanging on the fence on this scientists versus politicisns (a.k.a the Bush administration) issue.
Scientists pursue mainly knowledge. Politicians pursue mainly power. You need knowledge to gain and maintain power, so it's only natural that any government would try and make it's policies look "scientifically" sound.
Now, some politicians may use power to implement sound policies, but mostly they are too damn concerned about their own short term interest. Similarly, some scientists may use their position of knowledge to exercise power over their peers, institutions and funding bodies, or to influence what counts as science. But 20 Nobels it's a fairly significant sample of a scientific body to listen to and take stook of what they're complaining about.
With funding deciding the course of scientific research these days, it's easy to see why so many scientists, particularly early in their career, balk at the idea of taking a political stand. And when they finally do, as in the case of the 20 Nobels complaining about the Bush admin distorting scientific facts and figures to suit their policies, there is an uproar.
Some of the above comments about the relativity of scientific theories, political bias and so on make for an interesting academic discussiom, but that's not the issue here. The issue is that politicians, unless they have some reasonable degree of mental culture, are not capable of making, let alone thinking up, intelligent policies. Add to that a bunch of power driven science advisers and you've got a hyper-managed "make-it-look-neat" soviet era style sort of govermnet policy on just about every type of social, environmental or health related scientic issue.
There was a time when scientists, like philosophers before them, pursued knowledge for knowledge's sake. That pursuit has become now an industry that is "managed" by governments and corporations seeking their own interest (power, dominance, control, profit making, etc).
Though economically well off the scientist has become politically disenfranchised, and that's what this damming report is all about: exercising one's political right as a scientist to inform the community about the government suppresing scientific finding to fit its policy decisions.
How very interesting that concepts of God and Gospel have been replaced by Science.
/. colleagues that keep supporting these scientists as High Priests of Scientific Truth are as guilty of fanaticism and fundamentalism as the most radical Bible-thumpin' Baptist or Islamic Jihadist.
These "Nobel Laureates" have blasted the Bush administration with their "scientific" article.
Does anyone really believe that any science is purely devoid of politics? Go talk to professors trying to reach tenure. Go talk to researchers fighting for funding. Ask them if politics plays a part in their everyday lives. They're as political as any politician. These days you can't do science without money and you don't get money if you don't play the game.
Since the advent of the "Environmental Awareness" movement (my description for it, good or bad), it has been profitable for many scientists to find ways that the human race has damaged the environment. Any challenge to that dogma is met with violent opposition, as it threatens sources of funding.
This is not to say that the human race hasn't harmfully altered the environment. It does, however, point out a definite bias that these scientists might be subject to. They're not God, after all, they're human beings with normal human frailties, including prejudices and political agendas.
My esteemed
These scientists may be right. Then again, they may be biased. What is the extent of their bias? What could their motivations be? Can they truly be objective when the Bush administration's policies seem to be heading down a path of withdrawing funding from their projects or projects of friends?
Remember this: Jimmy Carter was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for engineering a "peace" that isn't. One of the original terrorists, Yassar Arafat, was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for that same "peace." (After the event which garnered both of these men their Nobel Prizes, Arafat declared an "Intifada" that has taken the lives of over 900 Israeli civilians.)
Nothing exists in a pure vacuum. These scientists don't. Politics, like it or not, plays a part in everything. Including science.
Um, Galileo was considered a heretic not because he was a scientist, but because he couldn't back a lot of his own claims up, and, because he also called the Pope an idiot.
Anyone who has taken an introductory course in the history of science knows that the reasons for Galileo's house arrest were complex. He did not believe that the Pope, who had been his friend, would let him fall to the inquisition. And for proof, all he needed to show were the moons of Jupiter that his discovered (and named after the Medici family - his patrons).
Similarly, much ado is made of how Copernicus had to "fight the power" of the church because he dared to propose the earth went around sun, but in reality tables produced from Copernicus's circular orbits were less accurate than their Ptolemiac predecessors.
Copernicus never fought the power. His book wasn't published until after his death.
The other thing that people forget is that science is a tool, not a means to an end. Science teaches us how to make things and how to better exploit the world around us. To say that there is an innate value system built around science is absurd. At the end of the day, there's little difference between Martha Stewart teaching how to put little curly cues on a cake, and a scientist teaching how to make an atom split. It's just an exotic Home Depot, and nothing more. As such, science must always take a back seat to political considerations and the popular will.
Science may be a tool, but it is a tool for understanding ourselves, the world around us, and the universe at large. And it does have a value system - it is simply that the truth will prevail through peer review.
To say that it teaches us how to better exploit the world is also a misnomer. It teaches us how things work - the exploitation comes in the hands of technologists and engineers who apply the knowlege.
Calling science an "exotic Home Depot" is absurd. Science does not build tools, it builds knowledge. It's more akin to the best-stocked library in the world than a home improvement store.
Saying that science must "always take a back seat to political considerations and the popular will" is ludicrous. Before important work by scientists, it was believed that tetrahedral lead was a perfectly innocuous additive to gasoline. The popular will wanted cheap gas that didn't make their car engines knock, and the political will was to keep the lead and oil companies happy by sweeping study after study pointing out the harmful effects of lead under the rug. It was only by the prolonged actions of scientists (and yes [gasp] environmentalists) that we are now breathing much less-toxic air. Politicians love nothing more than to protect the status quo (and prove that their opposition is a bunch of lying dogs even though they support nearly the same issues, but I digress), and the people are happiest when they're ignorant. It may be an unenviable task, but until the people and the government become interested in the truth, it will be up to scientists to push their ideas as hard as they can.
It must always tell the truth, to be sure, but we are under no obligation to abide by it or accept that what it teaches is useful or even valuable.
(I find it kind of ironic that you hold science to the standard of always telling the truth, but you don't put the same qualifications on politicians or the "popular will.")
We must, by definition, abide by the truth. If we did not accept Copernicus and Kepler's truth about how the planets really moved, or if we didn't accept Newton's laws, space travel would be impossible. Ignoring the truth does not make it go away, and is usually much more painful than just accepting it in the long run.
Finally, knowledge is always valuable. Let us not forget that knowledge = power.
I find the threads that have developed both amusing and alarming. It seems to me that half the problems in the US are attributable to the way that EVERYTHING has to be divided on bi-polar lines. Democrat vs Republican (who cares? what do they mean?) Evolutionist vs creationist (God created light, and then a little while later, God created the Sun....ermmm...oops!) Hawks vs doves (what the f***? And this is appearing in MY country now!) Isn't there any space for people who don't care about the 'two parties', want to live a normal quiet life, want to see peace in the world, want to see fewer homeless people, want to see fewer pictures of starving children in various African countries, want to see people with INTELLIGENCE AND MORALS in power? Or are you ALL so introverted that the only time you see other countries is when the Simpsons go there?
He got the prize for the Oslo peace accord. And yes he deserves it. U obviously believe the US/Isreali gov lies. Maybe once he was a terrorist but so was Nelson Mandela.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
Let's stay focused here.
He was staying focused.
Listening to all sides and coming to a conclusion after carefully weighing the evidence is important, and decidedly NOT what the current administration has done. Rather, they have chosen to listen only to those who support their pre-concieved notions, or can provide justification for acts they have already decided to commit. Isn't that the entire point of the article?
I forget, who is it that decides which scientist is credible? And I guess the others are not paid by the lobbies of prominent administration detractors. And of course their theories don't conviniently support the agenda of the "others".
An excellent point, and the only answer I can come up with is "the Scientific Community", which is a poor answer. Maybe "Experts in the Field" is better.
Certainly, though, the Bush administration doesn't hold a monopoly on bad science. Greenpeace is just as guilty as the "Creation Scientists" in that regard. It's just that much more disappointing when our elected representatives, and indeed the most powerful men in the world, who are charged with our wellbeing, show such blatant disregard for Truth (and don't even get me started on Justice and the American Way).
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
The removal of leaded gasoline helped destroy detroit and the american manufacturing base. So, yeah, we are breathing cleaner air, and saving the lives of a few thousand people for it, but, the price has been that millions of people had their lives destroyed because the retooling required to make engines that effectively run on leadless gasoline helped undermine american manufacturing sovereignty.
The only thing that "destroyed Detroit" was competition from foreign (notably Japanese) car manufacturers. It was the completely inbred "we are the best car companies in the world because we are American car companies" mentality that made the car industry lethargic and slow to respond to market factors (such as the energy crisis in the 1970s).
The only thing that cost American auto workers their jobs was the industry push to cheap foreign (ie. Mexican) labour.
The auto industry got its first real wakeup call in the 1970s with the energy crisis, and they have responded by introducing cheap-ass cars (ie. the pinto) and cars that are less energy-efficient (ie. SUVs) than their foreign competition. This is not a very effective strategy, if you ask me. The problem with the auto industry is a lack of invention and innovation, and this is not related to the elimination of leaded gasoline whatsoever.
This is a problem with American industry in general - they are unwilling to fundamentally change the way they do business because they feel some privilege in knowing that they are American industry (and that the government will bail them out if things get really tough). And the public is not pushing them to change, either. Many decry the loss of American jobs to cheap foreign labour, but they are unwilling to accept a lower minimum wage, and they will not push for a global minimum wage equivalent to their own because they're not willing to buy more expensive goods. It's quite the paradox.
Had Richard Nixon not founded the EPA, we might have actually had avoided the destruction of the American middle class. So, yeah, you can science is an absolute, lead is clearly bad. But, relentlessly implementing without a sober examination of the actual cost of doing so is simply, um, bad science. Why not have a cost benefit breakdown for environmental legislation - isn't that, um, scientific?
I just love it when people see the EPA as a massive anti-industry group. Compared to other countries (Germany, for example) the EPA is about as effective as a fly trying to take down an elephant. To the best of my knowledge, complying with EPA directives has never done any significant damage to a company's bottom line (unless there were some company called "Illegal Toxic Wast Dumping 'R Us" or something), and their actions have made America a cleaner, safer place to live. This has boosted the general health of the population, which is equivalent to a more productive work force and a reduced strain on the medical system.
Relentless implementation without sober examination is really bad politics, not bad science (just look at Bush's tax cut - has nothing to do with science at all). The removal of lead from gasoline didn't happen overnight, either. It took years and years of political wrangling and defeating bad industry studies to give everyone involved the impression that filling the environment with all the extra lead was *very* bad for people.
The removal of lead from gasoline did not kill the American auto industry - it merely placed a small constraint on their future manufacturing, namely that their engines should work with unleaded fuel. Telling an industry that their products have to be marginally better has never hurt anyone. Were the government to mandate that all vehicles had to get 50MPG, it would be unreasonable as the technology to implement that requirement is unstested and under developed. But clearly making car engines that burn lead-free gas was a fairly easy tweak, as we're all driving them today (and have been for many years).