Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Finding
tree3075 writes "The LA Times is reporting that a survey by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has found hundreds of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists have been instructed to change findings to favor business interests. I'm not surprised anymore when I read these things."
...even though:
1. In the last 15 years, the majority of most of these scientist's time has been spend under a Democratic president;
2. The "Union of Concerned Scientists" has been a liberal activist organization throughout its history, originally organized to protest the Vietnam war, and with less than 10% of its membership actually from the scientific community[1];
3. Most scientists in FWS reported no such pressure;
To quote the submitter: "I'm not surprised anymore when I read these things."
But since it's an organization with a decidedly and unabashedly liberal political agenda, I guess they must be telling the truth 100%, whereas anyone on the conservative or Republican side of the spectrum is a greedy, money grubbing liar who would just LOVE to see an end to all environmental concerns. Because, you know, there's no balance or anything in environmentalism. I mean, economic development is always bad, and any edict on "endangered species", no matter how shaky, is always good, right?
[1], more: In 1969, forty-eight professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology formed the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) to protest America's involvement in the Vietnam War. The group conducted a highly publicized strike in March 1969, that included such speakers as leftist MIT professor Noam Chomsky, and Eric Mann of the Weatherman faction of the Students for a Democratic Society. (SDS was the terrorist organization responsible for bombing the U.S. Capitol Building in 1971.) The Union used the strike as a forum to declare that "misuse of scientific and technical knowledge presents a major threat to the existence of mankind." This philosophy was starkly articulated by key organizer, Jonathan Kabat: ""You've got to say, 'No, we want capitalism to come to an end."
The Union's trendy radicalism launched it into money, power and influence. A permanent office was opened in Cambridge, and UCS grew into a multimillion dollar activist organization. Three of its original founders still sit on the board: James A. Fay, Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering (MIT); Kurt Gottfried, Chairman of the Physics Department at Cornell University; and Victor Weisskopf, Professor Emeritus of Physics (MIT). The Board of Directors of this organization also includes the standard litany of corporate America special interests, liberal nonprofit foundations, and former government agency employees.
Political activism in UCS's early years was confined primarily to opposing nuclear power and the military defense establishment. Emphasis later shifted to include all energy policy issues and global warming. In 1989, the Union commissioned Republican pollster Vince Breglio of Research/Strategy/Management to conduct a survey on global warming and environmental protection. Breglio found that "the environment is becoming a political issue with some bite." This poll convinced the group to change its focus. In 1990, UCS brought together forty-nine Nobel laureates, and 700 members of the U.S. Academy of Scientists to sign an appeal for action against global warming. The event was highly publicized and called for tougher fuel efficiency standards for U.S. automobiles, centralized government control of energy issues and the continued deactivation of America's nuclear power generating industry. That same year, however, 425 scientists and intellectual leaders presented another document to the world at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janerio. Entitled The Heidelberg Appeal, it condemned UCS's document as "an irrational ideology which is opposed to scientific and industrial progress and impedes economic and social development." Today, more than 2,700 signatories, including dozens of Nobel Prize winners, from 102 countries have signed The Heidelberg Appeal.
More censorship in the United States? Meh.
I thought the United States would at least set an example after critisizing China of censorship...
This administration is completely and totally shitty. Deal with it. Acknowledging the utter and absolute shittiness of the previous administration doesn't detract from the current administration's shittiness one iota.
The Democrats and the Republicans are indistinguishable as far as their actual policies are concerned. They're both corporate puppets who only follow the money.
This is not about "your side is evil, my side is pure" -- unless you actually consider yourself to be on the side of falsifying science. We're on the same side, the side that believes in freedom, science, privacy rights, and all that. The government is on the opposite side, the side of tyranny, ignorance, and the police state.
You see that brine there? That's my brine.
This goes for loud mouthed celebrities and professional do-gooders of all stripes as well.
RFK Jr. has all kinds of coercive, job-killing prescriptions for how the average American should live his life, yet flies around in private jets and opposes wind power in Nantucket Sound because it would spoil the view from the deck of his yacht.
Barbara Streisand and a hundred other Hollywood locusts never shut up about the environment, but live in monstrously wasteful air-conditioned mansions, and tool around Malibu and Beverly Hills in limousines.
Al Gore pompously lectures Middle America about the need for "wrenching change" to their comfortable lifestyles, then goes and has four kids, doubling his own claim on the Earth's non-renewable resources.
If these leftist scumbags really cared about any of this shit, rather than self-aggrandizement and the ammassing of political power, they'd shut up and set a good example through their own actions. But as long as they do not, I will happily and proudly drive around in my Land Cruiser, and global warming be damned.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Because following up a fairly rational argument with a mindless piece of partisan zombie-drivel is the best way to maintain credibility, kids!
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Or a Christian who carries a gun.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
He isn't the one engaging in "Bush bashing".
He is replying to a reply to a reply to a comment about how this is about "Bush bashing".
That first post was a troll that included the troll phrase "Bush bashing". People replied to the troll.
People replied to the people who replied to the troll.
People replied to the people who replied to the people who replied to the troll.
Now you're getting bent out of shape because you cannot distinguish between one of those 3rd generation replies and the original troll.
That's simple Pavlovian response on your part. You react to the phrase you've seen and not to the content of the message you are replying to.
THAT'S HOW TROLLING WORKS.
He implied that the Bush supporters spouting their "Bush bashing" lingo were fascist.
There's a huge difference there. Learn to read.No, that is NOT propaganda. That is his opinion.The thread flows thusly:
daveschroeder - initial post in this thread
sahrss
TheFlyingGoat
Doc Ruby
ifwm - your postI believe the phrase is "GET OVER IT".
So you're response to his current post may have NOTHING to do with that post? What kind of idiot are you?Once again, your reply has NOTHING to do with his post, and you even admit that.
I'm not being an asshole because I'm pointing out that fact.
And no, carrying a grudge because of something that someone said sometime before and then bringing it up again is NOT being "reasonable". Nor is it indicative of normally developed social skills.
I don't care if you're a geek or not. Your reply still had NOTHING to do with his comment and EVERYTHING to do with a grudge you hold because of things he has said in the past.
GET
OVER
IT
Religion does not mean belief in what other people say. Religion means belief in or worship of supernatural or divine power.
You're wrong. Religion is a set of beliefs about how the world works, usually accompanied by a set of rituals. In this case, the belief is in the natural order and the scientific method, and the rituals are peer-reviewed papers, for example.
And even if you don't accept it is a religion, it is close enough that the same terminology is useful to understand the point. For example, the argument used here, that scientists have some special impermeable knowledge that only those with specific training can comprehend, is the exact same belief found in many of the world's religions.
And I find such beliefs objectionable.
You expect us to take your criticisms of the allegedly sloppy methodology of a group of scientists in your WA neighbourhood seriously, yet you did not cite any of your sources.
This discussion is not about me proving they are wrong. I never intended for the specifics to be taken seriously, or else I would have provided the information. It was merely an example to explain what I was referring to, a reason why a. science is not merely about the nuts and bolts that require advanced learning to understand, but is largely about interpretations that laypeople can perform, and b. scientists are not to have their word accepted just because they have the priestly label "scientist."
I don't expect you to take things at my word. I do expect you to not assume there's nothing there just because I didn't present the full argument (not that you did this, but the other poster certainly did).
But if you must know, I am referring to the CTED's sourcing of "Management Recommendations for Washington's Priority Habitat: Riparian" by Knutson and Naef, 1997.
Note especially the recommendation goals, where it is said they are general and not specific, and not meant to include all possible circumstances, and that each locale would need to modify the recommendations to suit their needs, etc.
Then, for example, the Criticial Areas Assistance Handbook from CTED gives an "Example Code Provision" that says all use within 300 feet of a wetland shall be regulated, and bases it on that study, which doesn't say that.
And then a group of scientists hired by the county comes in to the county council with their own study, based on the state example provision, and says the state says there should be a buffer of 300 feet. And unless you follow their footnote to the CA Handbook and then that footnote to Management Recommendations: Riparian, and you just take the scientists at their word just because they are scientists, then you don't realize that they are wrong, that the science does not say 300 feet is required.
And then when the county council does their reseasrch and says no to the scientists, they complain that science is being ignored.
This is what has happened and continues to happen. I won't go into any more detail about this issue here, because I don't have the time or inclination. The larger point about trusting scientists does not stand or fall on the accuracy of my position on this smaller local issue.