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Scientists Decry Political Interference
RamblingMan writes "According to the BBC, the American Union of Concerned Scientists has put out a statement about the misrepresentation of date and a list of such interference by the U.S. government in scientific research. Besides the usual slew of Nobel Laureate signatories, they provide a number of examples besides the well-known example of the EPA's Global Warming Report." From the BBC article: "'It's very difficult to make good public policy without good science, and it's even harder to make good public policy with bad science,' said Dr Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security. 'In the last several years, we've seen an increase in both the misuse of science and I would say an increase of bad science in a number of very important issues; for example, in global climate change, international peace and security, and water resources.'"
More like "anti-American Comrades and Concerned Marxists".
http://www.ucsusa.org/
This is nothing more than an environmentalist wacko political action group. Take everything they say with a Costco-sized bag of salt.
I still can't believe the lack of knowledge on here (oops..wait this IS Slashdot..home of the ignorant and anonymous) about how the US Government works. The executive branch has little control over what gets researched. The LEGISLATIVE branch writes and funds ALL the Bills that provide the funds for Government research, if they don't like it they won't fund it (aka "it died in committie"). The "fourth branch" aka The Agencies have a great deal of control over what they PROPOSE to Congress to get funding in the budget requests they submit each year that get turned into Bills that are then funded (Authorization and Appropriations process). It is true the Exec Branch gets to name the heads of the Agencies but Congress confirms them and the long-term civil servants at the mid-levels really run the Agencies. Yes, the President also sends a "Budget" to Congress but that really has no bearing on what gets passed and most of the time the numbers are not real. Oh, and don't forget all the "pork" your Senator or Representative slips into the Bills. Having been the recipient of some "pork" when I was at NASA so I can tell you how the pig gets born, raised, slaughtered and sent to market.
Go to the "concerned scientists" website. For an organization that decries political interference, they sure have a lot of political commentary. Yawn.
The most commonly perverted science is chemistry. Did you know the lead (the element lead (Pb)) industry buried data relating to lead poisoning for almost half a century, while lobbying to have lead added to gasoline as an unnecessary additive? How about Tobacco companies, and "Smoking doesn't cause cancer"? Chemical companies defending themselves against lawsuits over their pollution by employing scientists who are willing to go on the stand and say that there is no possible link between dumping compounds containing large amounts of covalent chlorine into the environment and the statistically unlikely upswing of cancer in the area?
There are huge amounts of dishonest shilling in every branch of science where there is money at stake. That's just the way of the world.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
"And don't tell me that these are not "real" sciences"
Ok, I will tell you that they are "humanities" or "social science", sure science can be used on them (mainly statistical math such as epedimiology studies) but there tends to be alot of speculation about what the stats mean with no few tests available to differentiate between speculations (theories), especially in areas like history and politics.
The problem is not science as such, the scientific method is the best thing we have for understanding the natural world, the problem is the humans that perform it and politicians who contort it. In the "hard sciences" few get away with deliberately rigged experiments, and those that do don't last for very long. OTOH: A politician or corporate sponsor can silence or dismiss science itself when it does not fit the worldview they portray.
The idea that a bunch of scientists simultaneously invent problems to increase funding comes from politics (machevelian). It is in the interests of politicians and corporate captains to push this message onto the general poulation in order to portray the notion that scientific method as "just another opinion".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.