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Wildlife Deputy Changed Science For Lobbyists
fistfullast33l writes "In another case of a government official creating a 'unique' interpretation of science, TPM Muckraker reports on Julie MacDonald, deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks in the Department of the Interior in Washington. The Department's Inspector General issued a report today documenting evidence that MacDonald not only overrode opinions of department scientists to benefit lobbyists, and political interests, but also that she shared internal documents with said lobbyists and a friend in an unnamed online roleplaying game. My favorite episode: 'At one point, according to Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall, MacDonald tangled with field personnel over designating habitat for the endangered Southwestern willow flycatcher, a bird whose range is from Arizona to New Mexico and Southern California. When scientists wrote that the bird had a nesting range of 2.1 miles, MacDonald told field personnel to change the number to 1.8 miles. Hall, a wildlife biologist who told the IG he had had a running battle with MacDonald, said she did not want the range to extend to California because her husband had a family ranch there.'"
We need to legalize the culling of lobbyist. If they can cull baby seals and alligators the culling of lobbyist is long overdue. Their explosive breeding is threatening the Washington political ecosystem. Tag and release is no longer a viable option. The overpopulation is similar to the Australian rabbit plagues only far more destructive.
The problem isn't that Republicans are at war with science, or the Democrats. The problem is that we have put politicians in charge of science! As long as some government official, bureaucrat or politician can gain a bit of power by manipulating science, they will. The separation of church and state has proven to be a great success. Let's take it one step further and have a separation of science and state.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I feel like death on a soda cracker.
But you are certainly right, though. Having a bunch of scientifically-uneducated lawyers (which most Congresscritters are) set science policy is, shall we say, not exactly the best of ideas. I think this whole attitude goes back to the ancient stupidity which basically said that the king knows all.
I feel like death on a soda cracker.
Nobody cares what you believe. We're trying to keep coastal areas habitable. You need to shut the fuck up; you don't know what you're talking about, and you're fueling men who will cause major problems in the future. I'm aware that the evidence for global warming isn't as conclusive as some rabid environmentalists would have you believe, but to assume that means everything is peachy and you should keep as many lights as you can on at night is flat-out retarded. Also, the predictions of global cooling was based on a flawed model, one whose errors have been found, explained, and fixed. If you can find the same sort of errors in the current models, great, otherwise learn to judge the maturity of a science before commenting on it.
ResidntGeek
This topic is a red herring, a debate which is DELIBERATELY furthered by commercial interests so as to avoid the real problem, which is pollution of the air in general.
Look, we all know polluting the air is wrong. The earth is enveloped by the thinnest egg-shell layer of an atmosphere. Whether filling that thin memrane causes warming, cooling, or stasis for thousands of years, it doesn't matter. In the long run, it is objectively, undeniably stupid to fill the balloon with pollutants. So whether some sort of rapid onset of "global warming" is going to happen or not doesn't matter. What really matters is stopping the pollution of the air, which is undeniably a wrongful, stupid act.
I wouldn't put too much stock in any "science" from anyone at the Dept. of the Interior.
Are you saying you would rather put your "stock" in a political appointee that's been caught numerous times altering government reports, in one case because she didn't want the habitat to intrude on her husbands's ranch!? The nice thing about science is you must publish your results and data for peer review. If you try to fabricate your results, somebody will eventually catch you and your career is over. But every time a Bush appointee is caught altering data, they quit and go to work for Exxon. What we need are some real criminal consequences for altering government reports. It's a criminal offense for a company to alter its books or for me to lie on my taxes. People like this lady should be going to jail.
I read Mooney's book, and I read several of his articles. It was consistent with what I had been reading in Science, New Scientist, Scientific American, and Henry Waxman's documentation (which is where a lot of this comes from).
More convincing than their arguments is the Bush Administration's inability to give a convincing rebuttal. I also read the Wall Street Journal editorial page every day to get the other side, and I don't think they gave a coherent answer. Most significantly, when they got someone to rebut the scientists, they usually got an economist, not a scientist, and their economists seemed to make obvious logical and scientific fallicies. For that matter, the Wall Street Journal news stories pretty much took Mooney's perspective. (Science and New Scientist made a reasonable effort to give the opposing views too, and at least they got scientists.)
There was an editorial in Science signed by science advisors to presidents over 30 years denouncing the Bush Administration -- including many Republicans. Even Republican scientists said that they've never seen political pressure like this (and I saw political pressure on scientists under the Carter and Clinton Administration). The unanimity among scientists really is striking, bipartisan and unprecedented. It's always possible that they could all be wrong, but it's better than the evidence we usually have for other policy decisions (like Star Wars), and given the risks, you can't just say, "Let's put off action for 10 years while we get more evidence," like George W. Bush does.
So as a journalist, much of what Mooney does is merely summing up what highly-credentialed PhD-level scientists are saying, giving the arguments on both sides, coming to conclusions, and giving it a context. The scientists say that he's reporting their views accurately. Furthermore much of what he does is reporting on politics, and it's nice, but not necessary, to be a scientist to do that. (Gerard Piel, the publisher of Scientific American, was a history major.)
Lots of people do that, and still turn out to be wrong. But Mooney got generally good reviews in the scientific journals. He took a lot of stuff I read and made it easier for me to understand the context. In my reading, he does seem to have a good grasp of the subject. He wouldn't be qualified to do the hard science, like look at temperature data in ice cores and make a scientific judgment about it, but he doesn't make hard scientific decisions, he just talks to other people who do.
That's what qualifies him to write a book and report on this. He could be wrong, but he's at least as qualified as any journalist, columnist, or economist. Of course you have a perfect right to be skeptical, and you provide a useful service when you are skeptical. But I think there are good answers to your objections.
I don't suppose anyone would argue that the President of the United States has a fundamental grasp of these concepts.:)
The problem is people who don't believe in objective reality.
Such people are dangerous everywhere but are outright toxic when allowed to tamper with the results of fieldwork.
People who substitute goodfact for realfact and own propaganda machines are inimical to democracy.
My point is that the various claims of decades past don't come near the broad consensus and quantities of data we have today. The fact that some scientists have been wrong in the past doesn't mean that most scientists are wrong now.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
yeah! Cuz we all know right wing Republicans are against the EPA since the very beginning. Why, if that left wing loony Nixon handn't of signed it into law, we wouldn't have to do stuff like this!
Yes, it's telling, isn't it, that the current president and administration make Nixon look a "left-wing loony" by contrast? Of course, Nixon didn't act alone in forming the EPA, nor did he do so in a political vaccuum. The EPA was formed in response to massive public pressure in the wake of a number of highly visible environmental disasters — the kind of popular political force the current Whitehouse may be doggedly determined to ignore, but which even the Nixon administration occasionally bowed to.
Please, bad science is bi-partisan. All you have to do is hear Gore (as a recent, glaring example) state the "debate is over" on global warming. Any time you hear an absolute from a politician of any ilk you can be assured it is no longer science, but retoric (sic).
There is a near-universal consensus amongst climate scientists that global warming is occurring, and almost agree that the anthropogenic climate change is a significant factor. For most intents and purposes, the scientific debate on that topic is over, though the political debate may rage on unabated by fact or reason. No one, including I think Al Gore, would claim that major questions don't remain to be answered, but whether or not global warming is happening isn't one of them. You may feel free to 'disagree' all you like; until you've invested the years of time and effort to earn a PhD in climatology and the respect of your academic peers, nobody is really obliged to care.
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
The difference is that when democrats are opposed to research, they just don't fund it. They don't say to scientists "we don't like nuclear weapons, so change epsilon in the equations so that they won't work any more". Whereas republicans seem to tell scientists to change their data to fit the facts that they want to be true, like telling scientists to change the nesting range so that california isn't included in the range of this bird. The former is a funding issue. That's political, it's ledgit. The later is data manipulation. In the world of science, that's sacriledge.
'I remember being taught in highschool that "we are overdue for another ice age'
Yes, since then the scientific ideas on these topics have changed (why do people think that's strange?). However, there is still a LOT of uncertainty on how ice ages happen.
"we started learning about holes in the ozone layer, and my first thought was "wait, if this stops the next ice age, isn't it a good thing?"
The holes in the ozone layer have nothing to do with the climate, and everything with CFK's and harmful ultraviolet light. Ask Australians, they'll know.
"When a single volcanic eruption has the potential to put out more CO2 than all human production over the last decade, I think it's fair to say that we're a pretty insignificant factor."
Let's turn this argument around (for fun and education). Did you know that big volcanos (as in, happens every couple of years) can produce the same amount for carbondioxide as all human production over the last decade? You don't have to strain to realize this doesn't help the global warming problem at all!
Keep in mind that these volcano's have been partaking in the earth CO2 cycle for as long as humans remember, and really are an integral part of it. CO2 is absorbed by the ocean (at a certain rate), volcanos and animals contribute to it (at certain rates), and now also humans contribute heavily to it. Of course, this isn't to say that one really big volcano cannot ruin the earth climate for a couple of years to come.
But, think of this: if one reasonably big volcano can dominate earth climate for years (as we have seen a couple of times now), why then is it so strange that humans contribute to the effects of the CO2 when the human production is slowly getting comparable with what volcanos can do. And we do it every day, every year, and it is increasing fast.
As a side note, of course we humans have hardly seen what volcanos can REALLY DO. And volcanos don't just produce CO2 but also a lot of ashes (blocks sun) and SO2 (ozone dissolving(?) and other problems), so don't just pull volcanos out of your hat when talking about global warming, unless you know a bit more.
Try learning actual science for a change instead of mindlessly quoting ignorant bufoons like Rush Limbaugh. Sorry, but given a choice between (1) a great body of scientific work and research, along with the overwhealming scientific consensus, and (2) a guy who can't even get through his first year of college and has spent the last 20-30 years sitting on his butt behind a microphone blathering ideology out his cakehole, I think even someone as clearly ignorant as you are could see why I would choose option 1 (well, that and personally having a good understanding of actual physics).
I feel like death on a soda cracker.