Scientists Fight Back In Canada

Trufagus writes "The current Canadian government is widely regarded as 'anti-science,' and this year they have stepped up their efforts to undermine scientists and control their contact with the media. But now the federal scientists are fighting back and have just launched their own website. Gary Corbett, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said, 'If science isn't supported then you're going to find that decisions are going to be made more at the political level,' on Monday as the union launched their website."

Comments

Reality's well-known biases

[dkleinsc]

"The union said in a release the recent decision to end the mandatory long-form census is the latest step in a worrying trend away from evidence-based policy making."

Well, see, there's your problem. You silly scientists, insisting that demonstrable facts are used to guide public policy. Don't you know that the truth is whatever the Party says it is?

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

Soviet Canada, wait what.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[chronosan]

It's Soviet Canuckistan.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Adambomb]

How many fingers, Winston?

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[hey!]

In Soviet Canada, ignorance is a dish best served cold.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Burnhard]

Don't you know that the truth is whatever the Party says it is?

The problem with your argument is that it assumes scientists are always right and are always better able to conduct public policy than politicians. Wasn't this precisely what Dwight Eisenhower warned us about in the 1950's?

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

Your point also completely disregards the growing philosophy of post-normal science, where scientists can "produce" evidence to support a viewpoint they consider to be politically expedient, even if the evidence does not necessarily incontrovertibly entail the conclusions.

It's rather sweet that you hold all of science in so high a regard. I used to. These days I see Scientists pretty much in the same was as I see politicians: I always want to follow the money.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Outside of a few backwards hellholes, I'm pretty sure that communism as a threat to empiricism is dead and buried. I'm sure that North Korea thinks that crops evolve because Dear Leader wishes them to; but that isn't exactly a problem for canadian scientists.

Depending on your region, businesses that absolutely hate any environmental, product safety, or occupational health regulations; Jesus freaks/ Allah enthusiasts/ Torah bashers with major hang-ups on biology, cosmology, and sex; or the occasional ultra-green who insists that any human activity is a threat to mother gaia(outside of a few pockets of Europe, these guys are playing a distant third), are really the present threats of note.

There are also the jackbooted drug warriors, who could really use a course in comparative risk assessment; but precisely their weakness in that area makes them a very single-issue threat to scientific policymaking.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[pnewhook]

Ridiculous. The long-form census is still there, it's just voluntary. What the government got rid of was the mandatory part of it. Going to jail for not telling the government how and when I drive to work and go about my daily business is an affront to civil liberties. Getting rid of this was a GOOD thing.

And I also highly disagree with the statement that the government is considered 'anti-science'. This is just liberal media spin. I've never hear the government considered in that light by any serious source.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Scrameustache]

In the case of the mandatory long form census, do I think it is worth threatening my fellow citizen with jail time and fines for not filling in a form on how many hours of unpaid housework they did?
Absolutely not. Yet apparently many 'scientists' think they should.
Apparently it is 'scientific' that government use force against its citizens to collect data for scientists to use. It would not be mandatory otherwise.

The fact that they see this whole process as 'scientific' and cannot be questioned is really quite absurd.

You know what's absurd? That you don't know what "scientific" means.
"Scientific inquiry is generally intended to be as objective as possible, to reduce biased interpretations of results. "
If everyone is threatened with jail time if they don't fill out the form, then you don't have a self-selecting group of people willing to fill out the form.

It really is like religion.

Oh FUCK no! Religion doesn't fly planes, religion didn't cure polio: There's your goddamn problem, you're too fucking stupid to understand the difference between reality and fiction, you think science and religion are the same.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[dkleinsc]

Science itself is valueless. It cannot be used to set policy.

Whoa, what? Are you seriously suggesting that humanity is worse off knowing how to form various iron compounds, or how to treat leukemia, or how freshwater mussels affect trout? As far as whether it can be used to set policy, are you suggesting that we set policy with no understanding whatsoever about what the probable effects of that policy are?

It really is like religion

... except that science produces testable, verifiable, repeatable results. Unlike religion, there's absolutely nothing science tells you to accept simply because an authority says so. If you don't think a scientific result is accurate, you can look through the data and methodology, you could set up a lab and try to repeat the result, you could look at what other scientists have to say about it, and so forth.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[smidget2k4]

I'm sorry, but what do you mean by "follow the money"? How do you think scientists get paid? They get a salary from their university. There, I followed the money for you. Grants can only cover lab equipment, grad students (lab equipment), and experiments. You are not allowed to spend grant money on anything else.

Please provide some evidence to back up your insinuation that "Scientists" are... what? Bought by someone? Have some sort of political agenda? Please also cite evidence for the "growing philosophy of post-normal science", because, being a scientist, I have not encountered it in any of the fields that I work in.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

"Apparently it is 'scientific' that government use force against its citizens to collect data for scientists to use. It would not be mandatory otherwise."

What you miss is the fact that the data isn't being collected for scientists, it is being collected by scientists who are tasked by the government to provide the information to make informed political decisions, rather than wild-assed guesses.

This is not some ivory-tower statistical exercise, it's providing the necessary ingredients to make a useful decision by politicians elected by us to make those decisions. The alternative is, of course, to not base decisions on useful or detailed information.

Then there's the straw argument about "jail time" for failure to fill in the forms. As far as I can remember, nobody has ever been jailed. So, yeah, strike that nonsense off there because it is both extreme and unused anyway.

We still seriously need the data. And, yes, it's a duty of all citizens to provide it, so I have no problem with providing some kind of strong incentive to get on with it. Rather than listening to government speaking points, sit down and think how you would manage a country of ~30 million people without decent, reasonably comprehensive data to help decide where you were going to efficiently and effectively invest your limited financial resources over the next several years, rather than wastefully overallocating them where they aren't needed, and underallocating for places it is needed. I mean, ye gods, government is already short-sighted enough, now you want them to be blind?

Or is it your political plan to just wing it on gut instinct on the basis that "science is infected by politics" anyway? Science isn't perfect, but the alternative isn't exactly effective.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

Your point also completely disregards the growing philosophy of post-normal science, where scientists can "produce" evidence to support a viewpoint they consider to be politically expedient, even if the evidence does not necessarily incontrovertibly entail the conclusions.

Thank you! If more people understand what this is, they will be able to wrap their heads around the state of climate science today.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

Science itself is valueless. It cannot be used to set policy.

So when science says that fibrous asbestos causes cancer, we shouldn't do anything about it? When science says BPA is toxic, we shouldn't do anything about it? When science says certain levels of alcohol lead to slower response times when operating automobiles, we shouldn't do anything about it?

Generally speaking, we should minimize laws and regulations. But, when science gives us facts and trends that point to something "bad" or undesirable happening, we should ignore it?

Science gives us data about what is happening. Once policy makers know what is happening, they can decide whether it is good or bad (or neutral), and whether something needs to be done about it.

It's like the F-35: do we need new jets? Yes. Do we need a 5G fighter? Maybe (what criteria are we using to judge? unknown). Could we have gotten a better deal or more industrial concessions with a more open process? Previous experience implies yes. The Cons came in on a promise of greater transparency and openness, but they're no different than the last bunch of yahoos.

In the case of the mandatory long form census, do I think it is worth threatening my fellow citizen with jail time and fines for not filling in a form on how many hours of unpaid housework they did?

Canada doesn't ask much of its citizens. Basically you're (1) attend jury service semi-regularly, and (2) fill out said form every few years.

While the jail time is excessive, I don't think a fine is. By filling it out you're allowing municipalities, counties, provinces, and Ottawa to make decisions on policy and resource deployment based on facts on the ground. And personally, I trust Statistics Canada a lot more with this data than I would private corporations having it and then the Feds collating it from them.

Politicians and bureaucrats are a lot more accountable than most private corporations, especially if they're multi-national.

And this goes back to my earlier point: the long-form census gives policy makers a snapshot of how society is organized. And going back to previous censuses it is possible to spot trends. Various levels of government can then plan for the needs of the citizens and allocate various resources more efficiently in areas where they are needed.

Scientists have long crossed the line of just being object truth seekers and are well into politics and political movements.

Overgeneralizing much?

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Millennium]

I think the grandparent meant to say that science makes no value judgments, as opposed to saying that it has no value.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[bluie-]

Science is far too diverse to categorize all scientists as one thing or another. The scientific process is our best (and really only tool) for determining what is physically true. Yes, scientists can abuse the process, or choose to disregard some evidence, but this kind of science won't stand up to peer review.

Good public policy should involve decisions based on fact, and that means a system where politicians, who make our decisions, are well informed by the scientific community, and the public understands through the media not only the facts but the reasons behind implementing them as policy. Of course this isn't really what we have today.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Jawnn]

And your argument conveniently fails (yet again) to produce any credible reason as to why scientists would fabricate results. Yes, we all know about "scientists" whose livelihood is tied to, for example, the fossil fuel industry. We'd rather expect such shenanigans from them, and of course, history has proven that expectation to be well founded, but we don't have anything anywhere near such a relationship between some funding entity and the huge majority of climate scientists (for example) who are raising the alarm about what they are finding.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

"The problem with your argument is that it assumes scientists are always right"

Bollocks. Even scientists don't say they are always right. With politicians however, more often than not it does not even seem to matter whether they are right or wrong.

"These days I see Scientists pretty much in the same was as I see politicians: I always want to follow the money."

Which explains why there are no scientists on the Fortune 500 list?

Btw, how do you see corporate leaders? Or do they just not factor into your worldview?

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[c6gunner]

Thing is, this is the least "soviet" government we've had in a LONG time.

The summary is pure hyperbole. There's nothing anti-science about the current government; people just stick that label on them because it's a conservative majority. The entire uproar is a manufactroversy - government funded scientists are still free to conduct their research and publish their findings free of interference, they're just limited in their contact with the media. Seeing as how pretty much every other arm of the government has the same limitations, I personally don't see an issue here.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[jargonCCNA]

THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTS!

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

Post-normal science is not exactly mainstream in science.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Gravitron 5000]

These scientists get a salary from a government agency. They may or may not also get a salary from a university, but that is besides the point. This is about employers controlling the communications of its employees. That the employers are various government agencies adds a bit of an interesting twist in that the Canadian populace as a whole are paying their salaries, and so should have some stake in the fruits of their labours. The implication is that the politicians are only interested in data that backs up their agendas, and would like to sweep any contradicting evidence under the rug. Add to this that the scientists may also have their own agendas (career advancement being one of them), and so might be tempted to work towards specific conclusions rather than objectively look at what conclusions their data points to.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's rather sweet that you hold all of science in so high a regard. I used to. These days I see Scientists pretty much in the same was as I see politicians: I always want to follow the money."

That's a joke, given that most scientists work at a fraction of the wage they could receive if they worked in other, similarly-qualified jobs. People don't go into science "for the money", so it obviously can't be the primary motivation behind their work. It's certainly a factor in plenty of issues in science, but not an overriding one, and not most of the time. Don't be so cynical.

Ever since the days of tobacco industry "scientific" studies, probably earlier, some people have developed the attitude that science can be twisted to say whatever anybody wants. No, not really. You can try using the usual techniques of human persuasion, but it doesn't work for long -- also as the tobacco industry fiasco demonstrated. However, there are plenty of other examples that worked for a while and then failed (e.g., Lysenkoism). Science isn't perfect, but it does sort these things out eventually, and the more open the process the better, which is the biggest problem with what the Canadian government is doing. I hold science in high regard precisely because scientists *don't* claim to be "always right", and we do critique ideas openly in public forums.

I find the various philosophical arguments to the contrary -- i.e that science doesn't work reliably -- completely uncompelling. Just because you can make an entertaining philosophical argument out of "the Earth is flat" doesn't mean that any chosen scientific position is equally tenable, or that it could be artificially supported as long as there is enough money behind holding such a position. That's nonsense. It's a snake-oil salesman argument that they can stay in business forever. I'm sorry, but once people realize the stuff doesn't work or even makes things worse, or even before that point, there are going to be questions and other scientists are going to step in and test the claims. There will still be gullible people around from which you could make money ("There's a sucker born every minute"), but scientists are going to be the biggest critics, and eventually reality is going to shine through for anyone willing to take the time to look.

It's also important to understand that scientists do not set public policy, they provide the ingredients -- information -- for democratically-elected politicians to make informed decisions. When politicians ignore important information it is part of a scientist's job to point it out -- especially to the broader public. To that extent scientists certainly can have political influence on both political leaders and the public, but the ultimate decisions are not their call. It's up to the politicians and the public that elect them. Well, okay, unless a scientist happens to be elected to public office, but that isn't particularly likely.

Also keep in mind that scientists in a democracy are citizens too. I personally think scientists should be cautious about stepping into the political realm, but at the same time I'd never deny them their right to speak their opinion.

In my experience, the people who don't think science is significantly more trustworthy than your typical politician are the ones that have their own political agenda to push, and science happens to be in the way of it. Therefore, tearing down science generally fits their own agenda.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Burnhard]

And your argument conveniently fails (yet again) to produce any credible reason as to why scientists would fabricate results

Are you seriously suggesting that results are never fabricated? Or that it's not possible for Scientists to behave in a generally dishonest manner in order to advance their own agendas? Or that scientists do not have political opinions that are in direct conflict with the work they perform?

According to David Goodstein of Caltech, there are motivators for scientists to commit misconduct, which are briefly summarised here.

Career pressure

Science is still a very strongly career-driven discipline. Scientists depend on a good reputation to receive ongoing support and funding; and a good reputation relies largely on the publication of high-profile scientific papers. Hence, there is a strong imperative to "publish or perish". Clearly, this may motivate desperate (or fame-hungry) scientists to fabricate results.

To this category may also be added a paranoia that there are other scientists out there who are close to success in the same experiment, which puts extra pressure on being the first one. It is suggested as a cause of the fraud of Hwang Woo-Suk. A main source of detection comes when other research teams in fact fail or get different results.

Laziness

Even on the rare occasions when scientists do falsify data, they almost never do so with the active intent to introduce false information into the body of scientific knowledge. Rather, they intend to introduce a fact that they believe is true, without going to the trouble and difficulty of actually performing the experiments required.
Easiness of fabrication

In many scientific fields, results are often difficult to reproduce accurately, being obscured by noise, artifacts and other extraneous data. That means that even if a scientist does falsify data, they can expect to get away with it - or at least claim innocence if their results conflict with others in the same field. There are no "scientific police" which are trained to fight scientific crimes, all investigations are made by experts in science but amateurs in dealing with criminals. It is relatively easy to cheat. Finances

There is the additional incentive of money. If one has a promising proposal in an area in which federal or other grant money or funding is available, especially in a new technology in which there is no existing standard to compare it with, the submission of preliminary data cannot be confirmed until further research is done.

Ideology

While perhaps the least common incentive, it is still there. The classic example would be anti-abortionists claiming sonograms show the silent scream of an aborted fetus demonstrates the fetus is alive with feeling, while pro-abortionists would submit demographic studies showing that women who considered abortion but later decided against it are doomed to life of dependency on welfare, lower socioeconomic status, relationship abuse, child abuse, drug abuse, etc.

Scientists are Human and subject to all of the same frailties as the rest of us. If you want the political sphere, as Dwight said, "to be held captive" by them, then in my view that is a very naive viewpoint indeed. There are many cargo-cults in science. Its practitioners are no more suited to directing public policy than anyone else.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with your argument is that it assumes scientists are always right and are always better able to conduct public policy than politicians. Wasn't this precisely what Dwight Eisenhower warned us about in the 1950's?

No it doesn't assume that they are always right. Science has a decent feedback loop and is decent at self-correcting--just like democratic societies.

As long as science properly sticks to what Poppler called falsifiable claims, it will work properly. It gathers facts and trends, make them public, and lets other scientists (and society in general) figure out if anything needs to be done.

Your point also completely disregards the growing philosophy of post-normal science [wikipedia.org], where scientists can "produce" evidence to support a viewpoint they consider to be politically expedient, even if the evidence does not necessarily incontrovertibly entail the conclusions.

As opposed to politicians making decisions that are "politically expedient, even if the evidence does not necessarily incontrovertibly entail the conclusions." The first step is in gathering evidence. Once you have that, you can publicly dissect it. Once it is confirmed (hopefully multiple times), you begin acting on it.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[easterberry]

"Least soviet" yes. Dissolving government twice, once to prevent a vote and the other to avoid discussing a controversial issue. Cutting a deal with Google to allow the Speech From the Throne to be publicly broadcast but NOT the opposition's response. The G20 debacle.

You stay open and fair Harper.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Bongo]

In life one has to choose what to believe in, what to value most, what is it that is the true guide?

At some point, some people choose Science. The way our minds work, we don't have much room for more than one Absolute at a time... otherwise it isn't an Absolute if there's more then a few... Science... Art... Morals... Religion... Sex... whatever. Something gets placed at the top.

The funny thing is that people will spend about 10 or 20 years putting one thing as the absolute top and then later, through life experience, change their minds, and put something else at the top. Then they put being Relative at the top... for a while... then another 20 years and it changes again.

What I'm saying is, yes, I agree with you... people are imagining that Science is the best most rational objective guide to truth... and they are partially correct. But they forget the "partially" and so they have to denounce anyone who might suggest that in practice, science is practiced by people with human motivations just like the rest of us, and that just because there are institutions and methods doesn't mean that those institutions and methods can't become corrupted to varying degrees from time to time, or just make mistakes which take a long time to correct, if they're even noticed.

I mean, we used to believe the police were the force for good and eventually we came to see things like "institutionalised racism" as real. But wait... how can there be bad cops? Surely the majority of good cops would catch them right away? Well... not if there's too many of them and they are covering each other's backs. Or if denouncing the few bad ones would bring the force into disrepute and lead to social problems because people lose faith in the police. So... "better" to hide the bad ones. That's why it is "institutionalised racism".

Many fields and activities have great value, even I daresay, politicians who have to expend great intelligence in trying to hold the nation together whilst trying to get something done, when competing groups would happily kill each other. I have to entertain the idea that some politicians are actually great people. Some scientists are great people. Some doctors are great people. Some soldiers are great. Some philosophers are great. Some religious people are great. The list goes on. And any of them could be wrong on any number of subjects.

But no... I'm forgetting... SCIENZ RULEZZZ!

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Burnhard]

It's also important to understand that scientists do not set public policy, they provide the ingredients -- information -- for democratically-elected politicians to make informed decisions

I was with you up to this point. So you see no conflict of interest between scientists receiving research grants and continued funding (or their institutions doing so) and the requirements of the people actually paying the bills (the Government)? Interestingly, you are aware of the conflict when it comes to private corporations and research into the effects of tobacco smoking, for example, but you are strangely blind when exactly the same scenario presents itself in the public sphere. Why?

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[MadUndergrad]

Of course to be fair I think even many of those scientists do produce good research, with their results either buried or cherrypicked depending on whether or not it's favorable to their corporate sponsors. Granted you'd think that anyone who stays in such an environment has to be somewhat complicit, I'm just saying they're maybe not as corrupt as you might think.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[daem0n1x]

It's rather sweet that you hold all of science in so high a regard. I used to. These days I see Scientists pretty much in the same was as I see politicians: I always want to follow the money.

Even if that was true, I'd take scientists over politicians any day of the week. To be a scientist, you have to be, at the very least, above-average intelligent. But not to be a politician, being a lying, greedy pig is just enough.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[dkleinsc]

If you've been following this issue, you know that The Party that I'm referring to is not a communist party or something, it's the Conservative Party of Canada, precisely because they're muzzling government scientists who they disagree with. Thankfully, these scientists aren't risking their lives, only their jobs.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Buelldozer]

I am not the original poster and I'm not necessarily arguing against you but there are some points that you should consider.

First, not all Scientists work for a University. Many of them are employed by corporations, either public or private. You didn't "follow the money" in this case.

Second, Scientists working for a University can be directly influenced in ways besides grant money. You didn't "follow the money" for this case either.

Third, it is a fact that historically scientists have banded together to push a political agenda. Research the history of the saying "Scientists on tap, not on top." for a good start.

I'll admit I'm slightly confused by the "post-normal science" phrase. It seems that poster is arguing that p.n.s. is being more heavily used in science as it revolves around public policy. I'd guess that they're referring to G.C.C. and if my assumptions are correct I'd have to agree with them. It seems that p.n.s. IS being heavily used in the G.C.C. debate, it's just not being talked about as such.

I do not see Scientists as a cabal intent on warping public policy to satisfy their scientific reasonings, but to claim that Scientists all work for Universities, are beyond direct influence, and have never worked together to push a public policy agenda is disingenuous.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[khallow]

And your argument conveniently fails (yet again) to produce any credible reason as to why scientists would fabricate results.

From the grandparent post:

Your point also completely disregards the growing philosophy of post-normal science [wikipedia.org], where scientists can "produce" evidence to support a viewpoint they consider to be politically expedient, even if the evidence does not necessarily incontrovertibly entail the conclusions.

There you go. A credible reason.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[mcgrew]

I think he may be mistaking scientists who work for a university with scientists that work for industry. All of us, scientists and non-scientists alike, do what we're told, or resign or get fired. I'm pretty sure that most scientists, if told to fudge the numbers, would find somewhere else to do his/her research.

I respect all scientists, but I have a lot more respect for someone researching in a university than I do for one who's trying to make Monsanto or BP richer.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[sarkeizen]

The problem with your argument is that it assumes scientists are always right and are always better able to conduct public policy than politicians.
Lame. The OP's implied statement appears to be that policy can't dictate reality (or at least generally so). Science is actually better suited to inform public policy than politicians appear to be. However that doesn't mean that scientists have to be always right or that they need to be involved at something other than the informational level.

Your point also completely disregards the growing philosophy of post-normal science
Just as an aside "growing philosophy" are weasel words where I come from. Who cares that some idea is growing? Vaccine as a cause of ASD is a growing philosophy too.

where scientists can "produce" evidence to support a viewpoint they consider to be politically expedient,
Well having read the Wiki article it doesn't really seem to say that to me (also some of the examples seem poorly researched). It seems closer to what Steven J. Gould covered in the "mis-measure of man" that social norms guide avenues of investigation and this focus can produce poor quality evidence which can be used by people looking to justify their cause and/or convince people who are not wary.

However what can be said that is that without cheating you actually CAN'T "produce" the evidence for any claim when they are judged by the same standard Your mistake here, and perhaps in life is assuming that all evidence is equal.

even if the evidence does not necessarily incontrovertibly entail the conclusions.
*rolls eyes* More weasel words...there is very little that wouldn't qualify there.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/article320476.ece

"Canada's science minister, the man at the centre of the controversy over federal funding cuts to researchers, won't say if he believes in evolution.

"I'm not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don't think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate," Gary Goodyear, the federal Minister of State for Science and Technology, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail."

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[commodore64_love]

>>>The problem with your argument is that it assumes scientists are always right and are always better able to conduct public policy than politicians

No.

The problem is that the Canadian Government wants to muzzle scientists' mouths. We may not agree with their views but that's no reason to silence them. Liberated speech is one of the most basic rights. The muzzling of speech is the purview of tyrants.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[fredjh]

First, not all Scientists work for a University. Many of them are employed by corporations, either public or private. You didn't "follow the money" in this case.

I'm fairly certain those aren't the ones he's talking about.... I don't see those types pushing public policy, only sometimes you see lobbyists pushing for something that benefits their company because their scientists invented/discovered something, but I don't think that's the issue at hand.

Second, Scientists working for a University can be directly influenced in ways besides grant money. You didn't "follow the money" for this case either.

Such as? Hookers? Tenure? Publicity? I don't really see much of a difference.

Third, it is a fact that historically scientists have banded together to push a political agenda. Research the history of the saying "Scientists on tap, not on top." for a good start.

I think that's part of the problem he's describing, and I agree (with him and you).

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Burnhard]

I think he may be mistaking scientists who work for a university with scientists that work for industry

Whilst respecting all scientists, you will listen to the scientist who's work agrees with your pre-conceived beliefs and ignore the one who's work contradicts them. Where science is black or white, there isn't a problem. Where science is grey (particularly where it intersects with social policy), there is. This is true regardless of whether or not the scientist works in a University (and therefore is more likely to be a leftie or green), or if he works in industry.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

Please provide some evidence to back up your insinuation that "Scientists" are... what? Bought by someone?

Tobacco, Pharma, Oil/Gas, Pro/Anti-Abortion, Safety Testing, Weapons Development, etc, etc. It is not hard to find egregious cases of science and scientists being co-opted by gobs and gobs of money.

Have some sort of political agenda?

I agree with their conclusions, but the environmental sciences movement are not out there measuring temperatures and counting molecules because they want to impress their PhD advisor. They are looking for evidence of warming and measure it's progress because they feel the need to do something about it. Since they cannot regulate the coal industry, they take their evidence to congress and make the case that something needs to be done. That's politics pure and simple. It happens to be politics that, I presume, we both agree with, but it is politics all the same.

Science and scientists are an increasingly important part of world culture, and I am quite happy that they are. But to take the position that science is some kind of pristine human endeavor that has inherent safeguards against money and politics is, well...not based on evidence.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[pnewhook]

To further the quote: "When asked about those rumours, Mr. Goodyear said such conversations are not worth having."

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Gadget_Guy]

It's rather sweet that you hold all of science in so high a regard. I used to. These days I see Scientists pretty much in the same was as I see politicians: I always want to follow the money.

Why is it that you only want to follow the money of the scientists. The last time we discussed this, you completely disregarded the financial interests of industry as a motive for taking sides in this debate while coming up with complicated backstories to justify financial (and political) interest being a motive for the scientific community. Why don't hold you hold scientists, politicians and industry executives to the same standards?

Why do you consider scientists to be more political than politicians and more financially motivated than industry executives? If they really are like that, then maybe they should be running the country! By your accounts, they would be more qualified to do so.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[scamper_22]

"So when science says that fibrous asbestos causes cancer, we shouldn't do anything about it?"

Is there science in building a nuclear bomb that slaughters hundreds of thousands of people? Yes. Pretty good advanced science actually.
It there science in building a clean nuclear power reactor? Yes.

Science is valueless. Try reading up on the scientific method. You won't see anything in there about being good or the consequences. Science is largely a process by which you discover things. How you apply it is completely up to you and your morals.

Science might say that asbestos causes cancer, but that is not why you should do something about it.
You should do something about it because you are a moral person with values that says human life is precious.

Once you decide that human life is precious... then you can measure the impact of asbestos and can come to a sane policy.
And never forget the 'what' you choose to do is very important as opposed to just doing something.

But the philosophy comes first. It always comes first.
If you are an immoral person, maybe you can use science to create a destructive asbestos airborne contaminant to bring cancer to a population.'

But of course life is rarely that simple. More often than not, life is deciding between lots of good things we value and how far we go to get them... it is rarely about only one good thing. Communism didn't campaign on slaughtering millions of people. It campaigned on building an equal society (good thing), workers being treated fairly (good thing)... Yet it went too far, pushing aside other values like freedom and human life aside in favor of the 'greater good'.

So we take a value judgment that life is precious. Great... now does that justify infinite spending on public healthcare as a scientific fact?
Well healthcare is good. But so is leisure time, work fulfillment, family life, prosperity, dignity...
And often times every dollar you spend on healthcare is a dollar taken away from these areas.
Sometimes good values are mutually inclusive... other times exclusive.

Different people value things differently.
I for one am willing to let people have different values as opposed to have government scientists determine my adequate allotment of healthcare vs leisure time.

The big problem for scientists is this area is two fold:

1. As scientists like numbers, they will inevitably choose to measure things that are easy to measure, which leads them to choose a set of values that is easy to quantify (length of life, IQ test scores...) as opposed to vague concepts like dignity, leisure, freedom. hence sciences support for questionable moral areas like eugenics in the past.

2. They want to force their choice of morals on the entire populace through legislation.

Which begs the question:
Why is it so hard for you to state you have morals?
Is it because you'd rather pretend that science can substitute for morality and therefore decisions and morals you agree with can remain unquestioned because it is 'science'.

Take a philosophy class. It will help you round out your education.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[dkleinsc]

Actually, in Soviet Canada, cold dish serves you!

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Mr. Slippery]

So when science says that fibrous asbestos causes cancer, we shouldn't do anything about it?

Science can tell you that asbestos causes cancer. It can tell you that abatement strategy A has such-and-such dangers and costs, strategy B has such-and-such dangers and costs, and leaving the situation along has such-and-such dangers and costs.

Science cannot tell you that saving 100 lives is or is not better than saving 1,000, or that spending $100 to get result X is or is not better than spending $1,000 for the same result. That's a value judgment, as much outside the realm of disciplined observation that is science as is the question of whether Bach's music is "better" than that of Brahms. It's the wrong tool for the job. I certainly think that saving 1,000 lives is better than saving 100, but this is not a scientific conclusion.

By filling it out you're allowing municipalities, counties, provinces, and Ottawa to make decisions on policy and resource deployment based on facts on the ground.

The information needed to set public policy can be obtained by voluntary anonymous surveys. There's no need for mandatory invasions of citizen's privacy.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that for the most part science is "controlled" by a self-selected elite. Not too much evidence of a difference between that an other human hierarchies where the folk at the top dominate everything whether they are in the right or the wrong. If you don't think one of their theories is correct good luck to you in getting anything together to challenge it, unless you have access to a powerful rival to support you.

Unless you're independently wealthy/resourced then you don't get to do what isn't "approved" and even that has its problems as if you're outside the circled wagons you won't be treated seriously, even if you are right!

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[scamper_22]

"This is not some ivory-tower statistical exercise, it's providing the necessary ingredients to make a useful decision by politicians elected by us to make those decisions. The alternative is, of course, to not base decisions on useful or detailed information."

Umm, the elected government doesn't want to use this data.
The elected government does not want to use statistical data to run the lives of people under threat of coercion for not providing it.

It is in fact the ivory-tower of unelected public sector bureaucrats and scientists who want this data.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[grumpyman]

I'm not sure about the rest of the argument but this statement: "They get a salary from their university." is representative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Canada

"Post-secondary education in Canada is also the responsibility of the individual provinces and territories. Those governments provide the majority of funding to their public post-secondary institutions, with the remainder of funding coming from tuition fees, the federal government, and research grants."

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[gstoddart]

Are you seriously suggesting that results are never fabricated?

No, he's saying that it is absurd to think that every scientist in the employ of the Canadian government is systematically corrupt.

We're not talking about one or two scientists in isolation. We're talking about "Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada" ... so the union of Canadian Federal employees with professional designation. Like, Lawyers, Accountants, Scientists, and Engineers.

The current Harper government has basically told them that they can't speak publicly about the science that they're subject matters in -- unless they ask in advance for permission and their points are vetted by the government. Hell, there was an example this summer where a scientist was barred from talking about historical results.

This has absolutely nothing to do with corrupt scientists, and everything to do with a government that is completely muzzling everybody lest scientific facts (and, yes, theories) that they don't agree with be spoken.

Nobody is saying that all scientists are 100% of the time ethical. But, this government is saying that 100% of the time, scientists can't say anything on public record unless it's been vetted by the government. This is about controlling information and facts to be sure the ones they don't like aren't used.

Stop talking about why a hypothetical scientist may fudge his work, and understand that this is being applied to every single scientist employed by, or funded by, the Federal Government of Canada -- and a Government which currently doesn't want their agenda to be derailed by actual facts.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[scamper_22]

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I'm amazed what I said is so controversial...

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Mad Leper]

Dissolving government? Really? The Liberals and NDP, backed by the seditionist Bloc party, twice attempted to force a political coup and overthrown the democratically elected Conservative party. Both times they were rebuffed by the Governor General and the people of Canada.

To this day, neither the Liberals nor NDP have summoned the courage to force an actual election, despite numerous opportunities to do so. Want to blame someone for the Harper government staying in power? Blame the cowards leading the Liberals and NDP.

The G20 debacle was the result of jack-booted extremists, anarchists and paid professional protestors hired by various extremist socialist groups that turned what could have been a peaceful protest into a violent mess. After all, peaceful protests don't get you those precious Twitter and Facebook hits do they...

As for the opposition claims that they were excluded from the Google broadcast of the speech from the throne, never ascribe to malice what can readily be explained by sheer laziness and incompetence.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[interkin3tic]

Your point also completely disregards the growing philosophy of post-normal science [wikipedia.org], where scientists can "produce" evidence to support a viewpoint they consider to be politically expedient, even if the evidence does not necessarily incontrovertibly entail the conclusions.

And, as we all know, scientists do this far more often than politicians. Furthermore, scientists are known for completely lacking skepticism in reguards to their peers, wheras politicians question themselves at every step. /s

You can find results that support your hypotheses, yes, but basing policy off of those new hypotheses is a bad idea even if there is no intent to distort the truth. When scientific consensus over something grows though, it is time to act. Specifically with global warming, yeah, it would have been a bit foolish to rush to dump fossil fuels back in the, what, 70s when it was first being suggested, since we weren't sure. That time has passed.

Politicians, on the other hand, it's rare that they actually have cherrypicked evidence to back up their claims, prefering instead just to pretend reality conforms to their edicts, not vice versa. I mean, governor Jan Brewer claiming that illegal immigrants were decapitating people in the Arizona desert. How many scientists are there not working for the oil industry that make up lies of that magnitude, and actually have an effect? The Jan Brewers of the political world are out there making policy based on ridiculous lies, and you're worried about -scientists- lying?

This is clearly a case of the foxes guarding the henhouse.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[interkin3tic]

I'm sorry, but what do you mean by "follow the money"? How do you think scientists get paid? They get a salary from their university. There, I followed the money for you. Grants can only cover lab equipment, grad students (lab equipment), and experiments. You are not allowed to spend grant money on anything else.

Politicians get campaign contributions from interested parties. Even though they don't directly get that money to spend on hookers and blow, it does definitely influence politics. The same is true for scientists. Their grants aren't given to them to spend on themselves, but the grants are still their livelihood even at a university. No grants = you might have a job, but you're not doing much besides teaching, and that's if you're tenured. If you're not and you run out of grants, you are also out of a job.

Grants definitely have an influence on researchers, which is why disclosure of funding sources is a must.

Furthermore, it doesn't necessarily have to be grants corrupting scientists. If BP funds climate studies, those are going to be scientists who are concluding that global warming is bunk. Those scientists might be the worst climatologists out there, but thanks to BP's grants, they're artificially competitive and are given a megaphone. By amplifying those researchers who are finding things that agree with your goals, that can influence the debate.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Rutefoot]

I suppose this depends on the field you're talking about. Physics and chemistry are less susceptible to corruption, but then you get fields like human biology, psychology and social 'sciences' whose data can easily be subjected to manipulation or bias. To suggest that all scientists are fully immune from bias when it comes to qualitative results is asinine and dangerous.

If science has taught us anything is that we should question everything. Never trust a source to be 100% correct.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[SnarfQuest]

They get a salary from their university.

Who get their money from the polititions. I'm sure that if the government said "you must always be pro global warming or lose all your funding", that the universities would tell them to stuff it, right?

Grants can only cover lab equipment, grad students (lab equipment), and experiments. You are not allowed to spend grant money on anything else.

Those hookers and that cocaine were covered. It was all for an "experiment", Ok. We were just experimenting with drugs and sex. We've done nothing suspicious with our physics grant.

Please provide some evidence to back up your insinuation that "Scientists" are... what? Bought by someone? Have some sort of political agenda? Please also cite evidence for the "growing philosophy of post-normal science", because, being a scientist, I have not encountered it in any of the fields that I work in.

You mean, like if all the scientists were gotten together, and those that votes "yes" on the "global warming" ballot were given extra speial consideration during grant consideration time. But wait, everyone knows that "GW" has been accepted by all the scientists, at least those receiving grant money.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[SomeKDEUser]

No, sorry, it is never "grey". If tradeoffs are known, it is a political decision to decide what ought to be done. However, trying to hide the fact that a tradeoff is taking place is pure dishonesty. And in many cases politicians want certain tradeoffs to remain hidden, because they make there life harder: going against the beliefs of your voters is a sure election loser.

"Grey", meaning "we don't know", or "we are not sure" is a cop-out: the maximum likelihood still lies somewhere, and ignoring it will not improve public policy, quite the contrary. Also, if you really don't know, as a politician-elect, you must know. It is your duty. This means more science and more communication, not less.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[HungryHobo]

So have you ever tried this?
Ever?
or do you just sit on your arse complaining about how it's impossible.
have you tried educating yourself to the point that you don't sound like this woman : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjZY0KufWao

Ever tried taking a published paper, checking over the figures and then simply having a sensible discussion about the problems you see with their data or methods.

If you rant and rave about how it's WRONG BECAUSE GOD SAID SO or BECAUSE TIMECUBE you'll be ignored but precious few scientistists are unwilling to listen to a well researched and well thought out arguemnt.

I've contacted professors about papers they've written and so far I've always gotten a response.
Most are happy to see interest in their papers even if it's people trying to poke holes in them.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[frogzilla]

At universities in Canada some grants can be used to pay salaries of research associates, post-docs and technicians. After all expensive complex equipment needs trained staff to operate it. Also grad students can get part or all of their pay from various grants. It depends on the type of grant.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[HungryHobo]

Damn them!
Damn them for wanting to know how many schoolchildren they should expect to have to deal with in different communities over the next few years.
Damn them for wanting to know the living conditions of their citizens so they can make sensible decisons about dealing with poverty over the next few years.
Damn them for wanting to base policy on reality rather than what good god fearing people know to be TRUE!

everyone knows the right way to make choices is to pray and listen for gods voice to tell you what to do.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[scamper_22]

Yes.

Damn them for threatening people for wanting little pieces of data.
If they were any good at what they do, they would get by with voluntary data.

It's not perfect... but if I look at history, I'd rather have a government with incomplete data, than one with too much power.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Late Adopter]

but we don't have anything anywhere near such a relationship between some funding entity and the huge majority of climate scientists

It's more subtle than that. People who go into a field that tells us how to save the earth probably do so because they believe the earth needs saving. If climatology were a more hard science that wouldn't matter, but climate science is very model dependent, and even when clear conclusions develop the policy implications for them are often overemphasized without a more sensible cost/benefit or risk/reward analysis.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[davester666]

It's just as important, if not more so, to make decisions based on how you feel, not just on the facts.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[BZ]

> ... except that science produces testable, verifiable, repeatable results.

This is the theory, yes.

It's more true in some sciences than others. For example, in medicine, verifying results (e.g. withholding treatment that a previous study determined to be effective from a test group to see whether it really is effective, or giving a substance a previous study determined is harmful to a test group to see whether it really is harmful) is generally considered unethical and is disallowed by the various ethics boards. Heck, measuring outcomes in a hospital and then adjusting hospital practices based on that has caused hospitals to get in trouble with ethics boards in the US because that's "unauthorized experimentation on humans". Note that the ethics board had a problem with the measuring outcomes bit, not the changing practices bit...

In other sciences, the whole "testable" bit is somewhat suspect, and I say this as someone who's done some astrophysics in the past. Some things we can try to verify using new observations, for example, but it's very easy to overfit your model to your available data and then have no new data coming in for a while that tests the model, and no way to design experiments to test it. Climate science has some similar issues.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Krau Ming]

So you see no conflict of interest between scientists receiving research grants and continued funding (or their institutions doing so) and the requirements of the people actually paying the bills (the Government)?

Wouldn't this suggest that the scientists should be providing "data" that backs up the intended government policies in order to continue receiving funding? And then the government would have no reason to censor them?

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

And your argument conveniently fails (yet again) to produce any credible reason as to why scientists would fabricate results. Yes, we all know about "scientists" whose livelihood is tied to, for example, the fossil fuel industry. We'd rather expect such shenanigans from them, and of course, history has proven that expectation to be well founded, but we don't have anything anywhere near such a relationship between some funding entity and the huge majority of climate scientists (for example) who are raising the alarm about what they are finding.

So, you admit that some scientists will falsify results for their personal interests, but those are only the scientists that have a different perspective than yours? If some will do it, why wouldn't some of those that agree with you also do it? Or do scientists only choose their field of research based on their ethical alignment?

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[c6gunner]

Um, the "government" has been "dissolved" something like 120+ times since it was formed. And the G20 was great fun for all involved.

Also, your comment is completely off-topic, and the mods are smoking crack again. None of the things you brought up have anything to do with either the original article or what I was talking about.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[danmart1]

Except that for the most part science is "controlled" by a self-selected elite. Not too much evidence of a difference between that an other human hierarchies where the folk at the top dominate everything whether they are in the right or the wrong. If you don't think one of their theories is correct good luck to you in getting anything together to challenge it, unless you have access to a powerful rival to support you.

Unless you're independently wealthy/resourced then you don't get to do what isn't "approved" and even that has its problems as if you're outside the circled wagons you won't be treated seriously, even if you are right!

Except that it's not. Science isn't some book that can't be questioned. It, mostly, changes with time. Usually, if a theory is wrong, someone will eventually refine it, but it takes time, effort, and a willingness to defend your hypothesis with more than just name calling. It also requires an education. In many cases, to be accepted in a particular field of study one must have axially studied it. This is not always the case, but the two have a strong correlation.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Chris Tucker]

"There's no need for mandatory invasions of citizen's privacy."

If there is no personally identifying information associated with any particular census form, how is it that you can seriously claim privacy invasion?

One can only invade a person's privacy if you can point to that particular person and say that they do this that or the other, or that they are (Wacky christian cultist/wacky moslem wahabbi/wacky ultraorthodox jew/wacky atheist) or (really sexually kinky) or (racist) or (doesn't care a flying fuck about the latest celebrity scandal du jour)

Really, you sound just like the morons 20 something years ago who were fulminating about the US census wanting to know how many toilets were in the home.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[sarhjinian]

No one ever went to jail for not filling out the census. Not only that, no one even complained about the possibility of it.

The government said they got thousands of complaints per day, but when people actually looked into what the government was told by citizens, they got about twenty in total, most of which were people complaining about offshoring census data crunching to a firm in US. Everyone, from citizens to businesses to provincial and municipal government to academia said it was a stupid idea. The only people than agree with them are their own echo-chamber supporters and libertarian wing-nut think-tanks who don't want government to do anything at all---again, neither of whom had complained before all this mess.

The whole "OMGTEHJAILTIMEFORNOTHAVINGYRPAPERSPLZ!!!" was the Conservative Party trying to make a tempest in a teapot, a wedge ideological issue because they'd just taken a pillorying on several other issues. When they were caught on fudging numbers, the tune suddenly change from "thousands of complaints per day" to "it's a matter or principle", at which point the problem wasn't the census but jail time. Now it's being spun as "just a K1A (Ottawa postal code) issue that isn't relevant to Canadians".

It was blatant, naked politicking; an attempt to make hay by looking ideologically pure after a several tarnishing moments over the past few months. What's surprising is that, usually, this government isn't this stupid and shortsighted, from the perspective of their past political strategy.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[eriqk]

This is usually the argument of kooks and crackpots.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

They can get paid out of grants too. They can use grant money to buy out of teaching classes, and for summer salary.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly most politicians like most people ignore facts that contradict their beliefs. Even worse the facts eventually bite them in the ass at which time they look for any convenient scapegoat.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Burnhard]

Wouldn't this suggest that the scientists should be providing "data" that backs up the intended government policies in order to continue receiving funding? And then the government would have no reason to censor them?

There are examples I can think of where this is the case (AGW, in my opinion) and there are cases where scientists have presented findings the implementation of which would contradict Government policy (the classification of drugs, for example). In the latter case the scientists in question were fired from the policy body (Advisory Council in the UK) by the Secretary of State, because they disagreed with Government policy and were actively promoting what they thought the "policy" should be in the media. When scientists are both advising the government and promoting their own political views in public, there is an obvious conflict. I am speaking here not simply of publishing results, but of promoting a policy response in the context of these results.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Burnhard]

The problem with scientists is that they are no more able to predict the unintended consequences of the actions they promote than anyone else. The difference is that they don't realise it, because people like you hold them up as Delphic Oracles. They are just as likely to make catastrophic errors, resulting in millions of deaths, as politicians are.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[SilverEyes]

Damn you, I nose-sprayed coffee over my keyboard. You have no idea how much that hurts!

I don't know why, but this response is just goddamn hilarious.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[easterberry]

They ONCE attempted to hold a vote of non-confidence to remove a minority leader with large amount of seats and a relatively small percentage of the popular vote. A completely legal and precedented action which exists for that EXACT situation. Harper responded by using an action which is meant for wartime situations, transfers of power and emergencies to further his political agenda. The second time had nothing to do with a vote, he just was trying to avoid the torture scandal.

The Grits and NDP have not forced an election because it (A) would not make a major change as the Tories still would get around the same number of seats (the left vote is still divided to harshly for either party to get more seats than the tories despite the fact that the population as a whole is more left leaning, which is why the no confidence vote was used) and (B) we've had too many elections lately which people don't like and don't want to pay for.

No, the problem was not the violence, the problem was that the violence was allowed to rage for over an hour while peaceful protesters were being arrested under a law that it turns out, never existed. I understand the need for higher security, I live in Toronto and was fine with the increased police presence, but the police did nothing to stop the violence (seriously, over an hour going straight north on Yonge street: the police should have been there in under 2 minutes and started arresting people before they even made it to the Eaton Center) and acted more like a brute squad suing authority they didn't actually have to arrest people who weren't actually doing anything wrong and didn't actually pose any threat.
 
Not to mention the ridiculous budget allocated to the project for things like a temporary man made lake which served no purpose and cut into tax dollars while health and education continue to be underfunded.

Google DID exclude the other parties. It might be due to incompetence and laziness but it's just as likely that it was malice, and Harper's track record for unscrupulous actions isn't doing him any favours in tipping the scales towards accident.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[easterberry]

Which would be a great point if I were responding to the original article. But I wasn't. I was responding to your claim that this is the "least soviet" government yet.

Yes, the government is often prorogued. Because that is what you do when a parliamentary session ends. Every election there is a prorogue. This is what the mechanism exists for. Saying that Harper is justified because prorogues have happened before is like saying that arresting someone arbitrarily for speaking out against the government is justified because arrests happen a lot. He is using the mechanism for something other than it's intended purpose. If parliment were a video game his actions would be classified by the term "exploit".

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[c6gunner]

Your definition of "soviet" seems muddled, and the rest is completely unsupported. You don't like the Conservatives, fine, that's your choice; there's no need to make up bullshit to try and justify your dislike of them.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[easterberry]

No, I DISAGREE with conservatives. I don't like Harper. The difference is that the Conservatives use the system to pass measures I disagree with, Harper actively abuses the system to do things he should not be allowed to do.

I am assuming that by soviet we were referring to totalitarianism and suppression of information. If you're talking about distribution of wealth, then yes, this is less soviet than previous governments, however that would make you off topic so I assume you meant the first thing. Dissolution of the government to prevent a vote of no confidence is totalitarian by removing power from the rest of the parties to secure his own position. The G20 incident was just straight up totalitarianism in action. The second prorogue was to avoid having to answer for the torture debacle and therefore falls under suppression of information.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[c6gunner]

The G20 incident was just straight up totalitarianism in action

lol. Thanks, I almost took you seriously there for a minute :)

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[easterberry]

Cute. But people were detained without a reason given, for hours at a time without any charges brought against them and without being allowed to even know the rule they were being accused of breaking (which turned out not to exist).
 
For those of us living downtown, near the perimeter it was genuinely frightening. I would come out of the subway to see groups of 3 or 4 cops putting random people up against the wall and doing everything short of strip searching them. Some people would get arrested. They didn't tell them why, they just put them in the holding areas for hours on end, in the rain. They claimed that the law prevented any testimony from going over a police officer's word. The security team they hired were not even legally registered to work in Ontario.
 
I was physically manhandled while walking down the street to my home and told that I couldn't go that way and when I asked how far the blockade went (because it was kind of directly between me and my home) the cop, or rentacop or whatever he was told me to go around NOW or be arrested. I had to wander 15 minutes south to finally get around the damn thing because I was afraid to approach any of the police.
 
For that weekend there was no due process, no rights, no recourse. It WAS totalitarianism.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it would be so much better if politicians were more easily able to just do what they felt like, without any data or science backing them up. Clearly all science is made-up nonsense.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[c6gunner]

Yeah, yeah, and you raped a kid and curb-stomped a puppy. See, I can make up shit too!

I was in TO for the G20. It was a blast. Never got arrested, never got threatened, just had a fun time strolling around the streets and then hit the bars in the evenings with my friends. The only people getting arrested were the twits who were intentionally causing problems, or who were too stupid to stay out of the cross-hairs. If you fall into either of those categories, I don't have much sympathy for ya.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[easterberry]

Good for you! I didn't get arrested either. Lets start a club with stickers! See, I can be needlessly condescending to dismiss your actual points too.
 
But I won't be because I'm not a tool. I'll just explain why your situation was probably different from mine
 
How close to the summit do YOU live? Because I was a 10 - 15 minute walk away and to pass through (or around) the main patrol area every day when I had to go to work or wanted to go out anywhere downtown. And you know what? When I went to bars in the evening, I had a blast and everything was fine. Saw a few helicopters overhead, though that might have been unrelated but other than that, no police presence on west College. Of course, on my way home I passed a house party a few blocks from Chinatown being broken up by 5 police cars which struck me as a tad odd, and over the top, but ya know, they were probably intentionally causing problems... at their house... at 1:00... with no loud music playing.
 
The day after the big smashup I was told by my neighbors to change because I was wearing a black t-shirt and therefore was probably going to get arrested or detained. This is not say that I would have been, just that people were afraid enough to alter their clothing to not arouse police. Also, you see all those people who are getting off without charges because it turns out they did absolutely nothing and were just arrested for the hell of it? That's because people were being arrested arrested for the hell of it while doing absolutely nothing. Which is the type of thing that only happens in a police state where you're allowed to arrest people for doing nothing and detain them for hours on end. Which is what Downtown Toronto was during the G20 for those of us who lived near the summit.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[c6gunner]

Most of that isn't really worth responding to, but I will comment on one bit, for your benefit:

Which is the type of thing that only happens in a police state where you're allowed to arrest people for doing nothing and detain them for hours on end.

You already made a similar remark once, but I let it slip by. Now I'm starting to think that you really are too stupid to stay out of the cross-hairs. Since you clearly don't actually know what a police state is, you may be interested to know that police in ANY nation can arrest you without giving you a reason, and can detain you for varying periods of time without laying any charges. If you think that those powers are restricted to police states, you're delusional. For your own safety, I suggest you disabuse yourself of this notion ASAP.

That is all. You take care now. Try to stay out of trouble.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[easterberry]

Wow. OK. No. No they can't. Not legally anyways. Please see the following handy guide regarding police rights. They need either probably grounds that you've commit or are about to commit an indictable offense (that's a felony for any American's watching at home) or you need to be actively committing a summary (misdemeanor) offense. Otherwise, they cannot arrest you. They can DETAIN you after giving you a legally valid reason and even then you have the right to a lawyer.

The arrests and detentions at the G20 violated most if not all of these rules.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[c6gunner]

Hey, I tried to help. You want to play internet-lawyer with the cops, you'll only have yourself to blame. Good luck!

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[pnewhook]

It is a fact that the long form census was MANDATORY and not filling it out COULD result in a fine (up to $500) or jail time (up to 3 months). People HAVE been fined in the past for refusing to fill it out.

The ONLY thing that has changed is that the census is no longer mandatory. It still exists. If you want to fill it out, then go ahead and fill it out. The only group making noise over this completely non-issue is some media outlets because there is nothing else to report on, and the opposition who can't think of anything else more important to bitch about.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

Outside of a few backwards hellholes, I'm pretty sure that communism as a threat to empiricism is dead and buried.

Absolutely not. While the threat was arguably much greater in the 70s anti-empiricist, "anything goes", postmodern thinking (which correlates strongly with marxist leanings) is still alive in humanities faculties around the world.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[easterberry]

Oh, you think that because the police do abuse their power sometimes that's the same thing as them having that power legally and openly flaunting it in public? Because during the G20 that was what happened. Like I said, I saw people in the subway up against the wall without their shoes on. That's what made it a god damn police state.
 
I am not stupid enough to presume that if a police is power tripping that I can just wave my rights in his face and walk away. That was the first thing when we were taught arrest/detention law (protip: I'm not an internet lawyer; I have 3 semesters of legal courses) But during the G20 it was a completely different environment where you had to worry about being grabbed and arrested for no reason anytime you went near the summit area.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[jafac]

well - of course, Economists, who profit by also doing side-jobs working for "think-tanks", writing editorials, public speaking, and there is the promise of profitable private engagements after leaving academia, through appointments to the Federal Reserve, various corporate Boards of Directors, etc. Economists are the absolutely most biased lot - but then again, the dead giveaway that it's not a REAL science, is the fact that they believe in an "Invisible Hand". lol.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[jafac]

Tobacco, Pharma, Oil/Gas, Pro/Anti-Abortion, Safety Testing, Weapons Development, etc, etc.

Most of these are cases of "Applied Science" (a.k.a. "Engineering")

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

And this is a threat to empiricism how exactly?

Humanities faculty are really far down the list when it comes to political influence. If anything, well below the scientists(scientists may bring bad news about heavy metal toxicity, the nonexistence of baby jesus, and the feasibility of producing a live sharktopus; but even the groups that hate their guts for that tend to need them. Modern industry depends heavily on applied science; contemporary religious apologetics are often all about reconciling empirical realities with scriptural claims, and the greens tend to have their ecologists and whatnot.)

The only threat to science that university environments have managed at all recently is a dash of animal-rights terrorism against researchers in relevant fields.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Idiomatick]

Personally I don't think parent is Flamebaiting. His ignorance resulted in a number of well written replies that illuminated exactly how he is wrong and how wrong he is. He was the perfect devil's advocate, guiding the other side to numerous insights. And I thank him for it.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[uninformedLuddite]

Please provide some evidence that your comment hasn't been cribbed from pages on Wikipedia. What's that you say? You can't?
Are Coffee, biscuits, wine, beer, nights out with visiting professionals etcetera considered lab equipment too?
And try and show at least a modicum of respect for your grad students. Then again this is the Internet so they might be imaginary.
And HTF is this +5 insightful?

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Anonymous Coward]

In my field we have a lot of scientists who subscribe to voodoo logic. For example, we must measure certain pH's with certain meters. As a scientist, I see this as voodoo logic. As an engineer, I see this as totally nuts. pH meters are volt meters. No volt meter is better than another.

On topic: When I went to the Montreal science center this summer, I was utterly shocked at how anti-science it was. I went to a section called the "technology demonstration." They had a "cold fusion reactor" that was a kinetic sculpture of old circuit boards and dot matrix printers. The rest of the museum was more of a children's play ground.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[daem0n1x]

The article you linked to is a crock of shit. The guy just talks about DDT as it is harmless, citing the facts that are convenient to him and omitting everything else.

So, DDT is effective in malaria control. Spraying cyanide would likely be, also. But it would kill more people than it would save. DDT kills many insects and other animals, accumulates in the environment and the body for a long time and it has proven toxic and carcinogenic effects. Also, it spreads to the rest of the world easily. Do you really think we should be using that to fight malaria and causing long-term effects that could kill many more people than malaria? Come on, you don't need to be a scientist to know this.

Also, it was a scientist that created DDT, it was another that killed it. I wonder, when you say "They are just as likely to make catastrophic errors, resulting in millions of deaths" you were mentioning the former or the latter?

If think scientists are so bad, shutdown your computer, take off your clothes and go live in a cave. That's where you'd be without the evil scientists.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Mr. Slippery]

If there is no personally identifying information associated with any particular census form, how is it that you can seriously claim privacy invasion?

Census forms in the Great White North don't have the address on them? Here in the U.S., since the primary (and only Constitutional) purpose of the census is to draw up legislative districts, each form has the address on it.

If there is no personally identifying information on the form, how can it be mandatory? "You didn't turn in your form!" "Yes I did." "Oh. Sorry."

Really, you sound just like the morons 20 something years ago who were fulminating about the US census wanting to know how many toilets were in the home.

What business of the federal government is it how many toilets are in my home? And if it wants to know, if it asks nicely I might tell it; if it threatens me with legal sanction for failing to reply, my response is "fuck you, you have neither moral nor Constitutional authority to do so."

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Chris Tucker]

"What business of the federal government is it how many toilets are in my home? And if it wants to know, if it asks nicely I might tell it; if it threatens me with legal sanction for failing to reply, my response is "fuck you, you have neither moral nor Constitutional authority to do so."
--"

You read a LOT of Ayn Rand as a lonely, insecure teenager, didn't you?

As for the Constitutionality of the Census, Article 1, Section 2. I'll wait while you look it up in your copy of the Constitution.

What? You don't have a copy. I do. It's about US$3.00 from the Govt. Printing Office. Ask nicely and your Representative will likely send you one for free.

Thomas Jefferson and a few others who had a hand in creating the US, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution considered a census vital to the public interest. That'll be Article 1, Section 2, again. That's the first part after the Preamble .

Diverse courts, up to SCOTUS, have affirmed that the Census can ask whatever questions it feels germane to its mission.

There's a pretty good precis at the 2010 Census site.

As for the 'toilet' question. Statistics. Watching trends over the decades are very useful.

If you know how many toilets there are per person in Anytown, USA, you can statistically determine how many toilets there may be in ten, twenty, thirty years, which means that there will be a need for more water, because there will be more people, more houses (Fire Departments LIKE having lots of hydrants about the place. Makes it easier for them to fight fires.) and, potentially, more water treatment plants and sewage treatment plants.

OMG! SOCIALIZED FIRE DEPARTMENTS! SOCIALIZED CLEAN WATER! SOCIALIZED SEWAGE TREATMENT!

TEH HORRORZ!

So, the bottom line is, you just proved yourself to be one of those morons who got their Official Libertarian Panties in a wad over a legitimate question in the Census.

Please! Stop using the Internet, You're getting your stupid ALL OVER everything.

kthnxbai!

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Mr. Slippery]

You read a LOT of Ayn Rand as a lonely, insecure teenager, didn't you?

Ha! I loathe Rand's work, and since I'm rather anti-capitalist, I'm sure she'd loathe me.

As for the Constitutionality of the Census, Article 1, Section 2. I'll wait while you look it up in your copy of the Constitution.What? You don't have a copy?

I was hosting this on-line copy at an FTP site before the Web existed, thanks.

Article 1, Section 2 authorizes the Feds to conduct an enumeration. That's a count. I don't mind being counted. It does not authorize an investigation into lifestyle. That's why I decline to answer anything on the census form beyond how many people live in my house.

Diverse courts, up to SCOTUS, have affirmed that the Census can ask whatever questions it feels germane to its mission.

The illiteracy of the courts does not change the meaning of the document.

As for the 'toilet' question. Statistics. Watching trends over the decades are very useful.

Except that "statistics" is not an excuse for demanding, under penalty of fine or imprisonment, personally-identifiable answers to questions about my plumbing. Anonymous voluntary surveys can gather the info.

It's not that I think there might be some conspiracy to, ahem, flush out certain groups based on toilet info -- though I would be concerned about local governments, or worse yet private homeowner associations, trying to use the data for code enforcement; it's a matter of principle. If you stand up for the little infringements, you're in practice when a big one comes along; if you're in the habit of doing whatever those in Authority ask of you without analysis, you will do horrible things at the request of anyone who can put on the attitude of power.

So, the bottom line is, you just proved yourself to be one of those morons who got their Official Libertarian Panties in a wad over a legitimate question in the Census.

Considering that census data was, in the past, used to herd innocent Americans into concentration camps, anyone who doesn't have at least a tiny drop of concern about census data is woefully ignorant.

"But that data is protected by law!" you protest. It was protected before WWII also. Then the law changed. Anyone who doesn't think that it's at least possible that it could change again is woefully ignorant.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Chris Tucker]

" You read a LOT of Ayn Rand as a lonely, insecure teenager, didn't you?

Ha! I loathe Rand's work, and since I'm rather anti-capitalist, I'm sure she'd loathe me."

Which implies that you DID read a lot of Ayn Rand as a lonely insecure teenager. Really, you should have stuck with Lord of The Rings. It has ORCS!

"I was hosting this on-line copy [infamous.net] at an FTP site before the Web existed, thanks. "

Doesn't mean that you actually READ it or UNDERSTOOD it, though. Considering your Teabagger/Randroid comments, I'm thinking that you never did read the thing.

"Article 1, Section 2 authorizes the Feds to conduct an enumeration. That's a count. I don't mind being counted. It does not authorize an investigation into lifestyle. That's why I decline to answer anything on the census form beyond how many people live in my house."

This is why no one wants to play D&D with you. 'Rules lawyers' are SUCH a PITA!

"Diverse courts, up to SCOTUS, have affirmed that the Census can ask whatever questions it feels germane to its mission."

"The illiteracy of the courts does not change the meaning of the document."

Ah. The PERFECT Teabagger/Randroid rationalization! "The Courts are stupid! I KNOW more about the LAW than they do!" Hate to tell you this, but, no, you DON'T know more than the Courts.

"So, the bottom line is, you just proved yourself to be one of those morons who got their Official Libertarian Panties in a wad over a legitimate question in the Census."

"Considering that census data was, in the past, used to herd innocent Americans into concentration camps [scientificamerican.com], anyone who doesn't have at least a tiny drop of concern about census data is woefully ignorant."

And there we go. Teabagger/Randroid conflates the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans during WWII with a question about the number of toilets in a home.

How many toilets in your home = The rounding up and detention in concentration camps of American citizens.

The mind of a Teabagger/Randroid is a strange thing.

Assuming that they actually HAVE minds, that is, and not just a brainstem that reacts in a predictable manner when stimulated.

The grownups are having a conversation here.

So, look, Teabagger/Randroid, just "go Galt" or whatever it is you yahoos do.

There's a good little developmentally disabled chap!

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Mr. Slippery]

Which implies that you DID read a lot of Ayn Rand as a lonely insecure teenager.

No, actually, it doesn't. I came rapidly to the assessment that she was full of shit the first time I cracked one of her books. And that was several years after I'd gone from lonely insecure teenager to lonely insecure college student -- this is /., after all. (I'm feeling much better now, thanks -- young geeks out there, it does get better.)

Considering your Teabagger/Randroid comments...

I tell you that I loathe Rand, and you call me a Randroid. I not only criticize teabaggers on my blog but go out counter-protest them in person, but you call me a teabagger.

You classification system is broken. The world does not work the way you think it does. Please try actually listening to what people are saying before you start labeling them. Thank you.

"The Courts are stupid! I KNOW more about the LAW than they do!" Hate to tell you this, but, no, you DON'T know more than the Courts.

I didn't say I knew more about the law than the courts; but I will say that there are areas of the law where the courts are not part of the reality-based community. For example I know that denying people the right to have their vote counted, as the court decided in Bush v. Gore, is not an application of the principle of equal protection. I know that corporations are not citizens and that corporate personhood is a steaming crock of shit, despite the Citizens United decision. I'll go out on a limb and guess that there is at least one case decided by the Roberts court that you think they got completely wrong.

Teabagger/Randroid conflates the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans during WWII with a question about the number of toilets in a home.

As I said, I am neither a teabagger nor a Randroid; and further, you have just committed the fallacy of the extended analogy

You continue to dig yourself into a deeper hole. It's time to be quiet now before you make a greater fool of yourself.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Chris Tucker]

Teabagger/Randroid says what?

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Mr. Slippery]

I have no idea what a teabagger or Randroid will say next -- they always manage to surprise me with some random nonsense -- but you are giving us all a fine example of what an immature person who's unwilling to admit to an error says.

I regret that I have to embarrass you by pointing out your immature behavior here, but it's the only way I have available to help you grow. Your passion might serve you well once you grow up (and whether you're 16 or 60, I don't know which, you've clearly got to do some more of that), but for now you'd be well-served to listen more carefully, speak less quickly, and learn a bit about the world around you and other people. Next time perhaps you'll restrain your zeal to put people into easily-labeled boxes and avoid the fallacies of extended analogy and ad hominem attack you've illustrated for us so well in this thread. Till next time, best wishes.

Re:Reality's well-known biases

[Chris Tucker]

You still here? Don't you have a MoveOn head to stomp, somewhere?

Stop denying it. You're a classic Randroid/Teabagger. Come out of the closet and EMBRACE your pseudointellectual dumbassedness.

Your comment about the ignorance of the courts (because they disagree with your interpretation of the law) and conflating the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans with a census question about toilets brands you forever as an ignoramus.

Off to your next Rand Paul bundrally. The grownups are talking and you have nothing to add to the conversation. Save your tantrum for the cameras at the rally.

statement

[Anonymous Coward]

> The current Canadian government is widely regarded as 'anti-science,'

Just saying ... This statement is total shit.

Re:statement

[Smallpond]

> The current Canadian government is widely regarded as 'anti-science,'

Just saying ... This statement is total shit.

Do you have any evidence to back up that statement?

Re:statement

[TheCycoONE]

The article backs him up. If Canadians were aware that their government was anti-science then it wouldn't be newsworthy that a science union put up a website raising awareness about the way the Canadian government is treating scientists.

I'm a Canadian and I didn't know - now I do. I knew that the Conservative government is against public services in general, but I certainly didn't know they're regulating what public scientists are allowed to say.

Re:statement

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

He does; but all that exposure to non-hazardous asbestos has left him needing to speak slowly and breath out of his good lung...

Re:statement

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Damn, and I thought that Saddam Hussein as your prime-minister was bad enough already, and now this. Well, let's hope that four American kids can solve this problem for your scientists on this Christmas too. It's your best bet, considering "efficiency" of all other legitimate and official solutions. Good luck anyway!

Re:statement

[Scrameustache]

If Canadians were aware that their government was anti-science then it wouldn't be newsworthy that a science union put up a website raising awareness about the way the Canadian government is treating scientists.

I'm a Canadian and I didn't know - now I do.

I knew. I think it's newsworthy. Your ignorance doesn't mean something isn't widely known, it just means you're ignorant.

Re:statement

[erroneus]

It is long established that belief is more powerful than fact. Facts often interfere with our beliefs to the point that you have to get rid of one in favor of the other. The problem is simply that one's own identity is tied very closely to belief where facts are rarely, if ever, claimed as a part of one's identity. Political affiliations and sports teams are also often components of identity for some people to the point of being violently defensive of them.

It may seem nonsensical to ignore new information in order to maintain one's beliefs, but we see it all the time. We see it in diet, religion, relative mathematics, and pretty much every aspect of life. It is all part of how the brain works. We break down, simplify and symbolically represent things in our minds. It serves to help remember, categorize and index what we keep in there. To change our beliefs means to change our long-term neural pathways. This is no trivial matter. For example, I am atheist, but I was raised Christian and so various aspects of Christian thinking still runs through my brain with no sign of ever going away.

Beliefs are comforting. To challenge belief is to make someone uncomfortable.

Re:statement

[ljgshkg]

Well, there is in fact a conflict here. But I wouldn't call it "anti-science". In fact, there is nothing to do with anti science.

A party is elected by people that care about certain things more than others at certain time. In order to maintain their position, a political party in power must adjust and design their policy/aim.

Now, everything costs money. Say, you want cleaner electricity? More money. Better health care? More money. Money is limited, and you can't do everything. So you have to put your money and force on what's currently more important.

Now comes the conflict. Say, a government's priority is on economy, and try to decrease tax. Then they can't allow things that'll clearly negatively affect the economy/taking-more-money-from-our-pocket to happen. Now, those scientists are hired by government, and hence is part of the government. How can you, as a government, allow your departments and or ministers/important-members to have conflict publicly shown without beautifying what's happening or coordinating inside? When there're conflict of interest between departments, you'll need to decide what to do, and that can take time. If a government scientist suddenly come out publically and say something strong against a public policy, then the party in power will at once be attacked by oppositions, whatever reason they use.

Government need a united voice to show a clear path of where it's going. Otherwise, it's just adding problems to the political side while policies are STILL going to be made based on political concern, or even more so if the party in power is under serious attack as they now will need to perform even more politically benefitial policies.

Right or wrong is not absolute in this case. And I personally don't think the new web site will add much since those are really not most people's concern. Or at least, so I think.

Re:statement

[sackvillian]

You didn't know that our Minister of Science is a creationist chiropractor?

Or that the government recently claimed that statistics showing a decrease in crime over the last years are not to be trusted?

Or even the recent slashdot story of the government meddling with reports from government labs on certainly "politically charged" scientific topics? Etc etc.

If that's the case, I don't see how you can make any claim about this being newsworthy or not from under the rock you are inhabiting. And frankly, even if every Canadian was properly informed and realized this government has set the bar for anti-science policy, why would the new development of some group finally standing up to said government on behalf of scientists not be newsworthy?

Ricky?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else notice this guy looks exactly like Ricky Gervais?

Re:Ricky?

[somersault]

Looks more like a cross between Ricky Gervais and Simon Pegg!

Coming soon---

[cindyann]

Next step: government outlaws scientists fighting back!

Re:Coming soon---

[confused one]

Have a care ma'am. The scientists are the ones who gave the government their toys. We might take them away.

Re:Coming soon---

[JackieBrown]

They made the toys with money provide by the government.

People need to remember who they work for and look for a new employer if they don't like the conditions.

Re:Coming soon---

[Anonymous Coward]

Have a care ma'am. The scientists are the ones who gave the government their toys. We might take them away.

Atlas didn't so much shrug, but he did set the world down for a bit while he had some donuts, eh?

/posted from south of the border.
//we've got anti-science nuts in politcs here too.
///but at least our government is still in the toymaking business, from which Canada retired in 1959 by means of blowtorch.

Re:Coming soon---

[Anonymous Coward]

Public sector scientists certainly do remember that. At least, I sure did when I was a government scientist, before I moved on to other opportunities. While I worked in that job I took my commitment to the public very seriously and treated any money I received for my research as if it was my own -- I pay taxes too, you know.

That's why public sector scientists get particularly frustrated when they are told by their government masters that they can't speak to the public who are paying the bills, and it's why the public should feel justifiably angry with any government that sets serious restrictions on scientific communication. You the public are our bosses, not merely the government-of-the-day who might not like the scientific results and decides to stifle open communication.

A government that prevents scientists from speaking to the public is denying the public the right to hear the scientific results they paid for, and for issues that everyone agrees are important to the public (e.g., things like public safety, health, resource development and preservation, etc.). Government scientists provide what is needed to have informed political discussion and decisions. It's grossly irresponsible on all sorts of levels to restrict their communication with the public, but it sure isn't the fault of the scientists trying to do their job.

Re:Coming soon---

[sourcerror]

and treated any money I received for my research as if it was my own

Nice euphemism for theft ...

/sarcasm off

Re:Coming soon---

[Anonymous Coward]

"They made the toys with money provide by the government."

They made the presses the government printed the money on and calculated how much they can print.

Re:Coming soon---

[confused one]

I'm pretty sure they meant it as they were careful with the money, and did not spend it frivolously.

Re:Coming soon---

[confused one]

And if the conditions are oppressive, the people working for them will leave, and there will be no new toys.

Re:Coming soon---

[pablo_max]

Why is it that when ever a discussion about public employees comes up, someone invariably mentions something amounting to, "They are working for the public and should be flogged for misspending public money".
Funny thing about public employees, they happen to be people as well. People, as you may well know have self interests. They also like to have fun.
You show me someone who has never misspent company money and had fun on company time and I will show you a liar.

Re:Coming soon---

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure people think the same thing every time they "steal" the use of some asphalt on taxpayer-funded public roads. /sarcasm off

The fact remains that I was tasked by the government to do a job and given some taxpayer money to do it, some tiny fraction of which came from my own taxes, just like yours. I therefore treated the money very responsibly rather than squandering it on, say, doughnuts, beer, and hookers that weren't essential to the research task at hand.

If you begrudge the fact that any money at all is spent on scientific research by the Canadian government, then I'm sorry, but that's not my department. The politicians at the top decided on our behalf that some scientific information would be worthwhile to collect rather than making political decisions in a vacuum. They chose the priorities for the research, and they hired me among many others to fulfill those goals. I diligently and responsibly tried to do that, as did my coworkers tasked in similar ways.

If it's any consolation, I left that job for another that offered more money and more control of the research direction. The research money still can't be spent on doughnuts, beer, or hookers.

Re:Coming soon---

[arth1]

The government isn't the scientist's boss, the public is.
The government are public servants, employed by the people, and should not forget that.

(And who pays for something is irrelevant anyhow, unless you subscribe to the conservative view that money equals rights. You don't buy employees and can't dictate their actions beyond what the employment contract states. We kind of frown on owning workers these days.)

Re:Coming soon---

[Anonymous Coward]

swoosh

Re:Coming soon---

[mcgrew]

You must have missed his "/sarcasm off" tag, Sheldon. In other words...

WOOSH!

Re:Coming soon---

[gstoddart]

They made the toys with money provide by the government.

People need to remember who they work for and look for a new employer if they don't like the conditions.

Look, just because the federal government funds it, doesn't mean they get to decide what the facts and conclusions are. Science is objective, the government isn't.

This government is basically trying to muzzle the scientists and make sure that any facts they have that contradict the wishful-thinking they use to justify policy aren't used. It's essentially a blanket gag order.

Seriously, unless you're a Canadian and/or have been following this closely, it really is difficult to explain the extent to which they are stifling the free exchange of information. Under current policy, I'm not sure that these scientists could confirm their belief in Gravity without permission from the government.

This isn't a matter of "we paid for it, so we get to do anything we like with it". This is undoing decades of precedent where the scientists who work for federal agencies are still independent to do the science, and the government tries to use the science to arrive at policy. They're going straight to policy, and ignoring/quieting the science where it's inconvenient.

Re:Coming soon---

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, bad choice of phrasing because you don't know my financial habits.

Let me put it in ways that might be more familiar to people here: you remember when you wanted to buy the latest-and-greatest CPU+motherboard, saved up your money, read all the reviews, and went shopping around dozens and dozens of different vendors trying to find the best deals on what you regarded as the best price/performance option? All those days spent looking for promotions, coupons and other such gimmicks to shave a few dollars off the price of what you wanted?

Well, that's how I buy all my machines at home, and I applied pretty much the same approach to anything bought from a research grant: it's precious, hard-earned money and I'm going to try to squeeze as much value out of it as possible.

Heck, I even brought some of my own personal equipment from home into work to get jobs done, because it was cheaper and faster (for the government) than going through the bureaucratic process of filling out a requisition.

I like value for my own money. I treated government money the same.

Re:Coming soon---

[serviscope_minor]

People need to remember who they work for

That includes you. They work for the government, not parliament or the ruling party.

Big business corruption and greed is anti-science

[digitaldc]

If you can prove that a business is ruining the environment and economy through sound scientific methods, OF COURSE big businesses will try to stifle research, innovation and facts in order to continue their relentless pursuit of money. Unabashed greed and facts do not mix well.

The worst-case scenario is never knowing the truth about anything because businesses have completely obscured reality in order to continue their pursuit of massive profits.

I dislike unions, but...

[elsurexiste]

I dislike unions, but, in this case, I must agree with them and support their decision. The government can't interfere with scientists the way it does!

Go figure

[Nimey]

that a conservative government is anti-science.

Re:Go figure

[couchslug]

Why is that a Troll? There are almost zero secular Conservatives, and not enough to make policy.

Religion and science are opposing views, and religionists have a history of stifling science and killing scientists they thought threatened belief in their imaginary celestial friend.

Re:Go figure

[Minion of Eris]

It isn't even that they are anti-science per se, but more that they are anti-dissemination of truths revealed by science. They aren't stifling the research so much as muzzling the researchers.

Re:Go figure

[neoflame]

Canada isn't the US. Bible-thumping has little to do with the Conservative Party's policies here.

Re:Go figure

[grumpyman]

Remember though Canadian "conservative" government is very 'left' compare to the folks in south.

Re:Go figure

[Scrameustache]

Why is that a Troll?

Conservatives don't want the truth to be heard, they'll gag scientists, mod down slashdotters, whatever; the important thing is to keep people in the dark so their scams can keep going unchallenged.

Re:Go figure

[grumpyman]

You think religion and science is mutually exclusive and they are opposite - I think a big bunch even here on /. would disagree with you.

Re:Go figure

[Nimey]

Depends on your particular religion. American evangelicals and hardcore Islamists, sure, there's not much common ground.

You'll probably find that people who are more relaxed about their religious beliefs don't have a lot of problem with what science has to say.

Re:Go figure

[Late Adopter]

There are almost zero secular Conservatives

They prefer to be called "economists".

Re:Go figure

[grumpyman]

I agree - those for sure are a nutty bunch :)

Re:Go figure

[Anonymous Coward]

There are almost zero secular Conservatives, and not enough to make policy.

Ummm, actually the Canadian Conservative party is a secular party. If anything, it's the National Democratic Party that's the more religious (and politically center-left), through their traditional connections within the United Church.

You really should try getting out of the US a little more often.

Re:Go figure

[shutdown -p now]

Well, the present flock of Conservative Party politicians in power certainly seem like Bible-thumpers to me.

Re:Go figure

[Creedo]

You think religion and science is mutually exclusive and they are opposite - I think a big bunch even here on /. would disagree with you.

They might. That doesn't mean that they are correct. Science has this ongoing habit of proving religious assertions incorrect.

Think of the Seals!

[Anonymous Coward]

Clubbing is scientifically proven to cause harm to Seals. That's why Canadians don't like science.

Re:Think of the Seals!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Clubs are a hotbed of illegal drug use, of course they are going to harm baby seals...

Re:Think of the Seals!

[Stumbles]

lol

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[Smallpond]

If you can prove that a business is ruining the environment and economy through sound scientific methods, OF COURSE big businesses will try to stifle research, innovation and facts in order to continue their relentless pursuit of money. Unabashed greed and facts do not mix well.

The worst-case scenario is never knowing the truth about anything because businesses have completely obscured reality in order to continue their pursuit of massive profits.

I've never heard of a business ruining the environment and economy through sound scientific methods.

combining two things

[memnock]

conservatives hate: scientists and unions. i imagine there will be some kind of counter-campaign to smear the Public Science members at some point. another CRU incident maybe?

of course what i just wrote is based on politics too. it's hard to see how rationality can trump ignorance when the ignorant have the bully pulpit to shout down the rationalists.

Re:combining two things

[khallow]

of course what i just wrote is based on politics too. it's hard to see how rationality can trump ignorance when the ignorant have the bully pulpit to shout down the rationalists.

At least you realize something is wrong, if you can't understand what is wrong. I'll spell it out for you. If you want to be scientific, you have to walk the walk. That means among other things avoiding unfounded stereotypes like "conservatives hate science and unions".

Shockingly Unsurprising

[damn_registrars]

Conservatives in Canada rise to power, and start squelching science funding. Anyone who didn't see this coming hasn't been paying attention ... anywhere. Many scientists in Canada saw this coming a while ago and have been working on diversifying their funding to insulate themselves from the inevitable cuts.

Fortunately, the conservatives in Canada are at least smart enough to know better than to screw with the health care system (at least too much).

Re:Shockingly Unsurprising

[couchslug]

Scientists ought to seek out other countries for funding. The brain drain can work in reverse.

If China were smart, it would buy up the scientific talent chased out of the West by religious oppression. China was once the most advanced country in the world. There is no reason that shouldn't happen again. The Communists knew what to do about religion, and did it in a manner no harsher than that which spread religion in the first place.

Re:Shockingly Unsurprising

[Nimey]

Except that in China, unlike Canada, you can and probably will go to prison for saying something the government doesn't like.

Also, there's far less oversight of food and drug safety over there.

Re:Shockingly Unsurprising

[royallthefourth]

Why would they need to buy our surplus? They're capable of making plenty of good scientists on their own. They're even willing to give them jobs!

Re:Shockingly Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Communists knew what to do about religion, and did it in a manner no harsher than that which spread religion in the first place."

Kill millions of their own? I can't think of many religions that spread that way...

Re:Shockingly Unsurprising

[damn_registrars]

Screw with it? It's not like it's particularly good or anything.

The US system? Indeed it isn't particularly good at anything.

My daughter attended a Canadian university. For three years she (we) had to pay extra for the university health plan because she (obviously) wasn't on the provincial health plan. This was despite the fact that she was covered by my US-based health insurance -- my insurance that covers her anywhere in the world

The Canadian health care system is intelligent enough to realize that most likely your insurance plan that claims to "cover her anywhere in the world" would either refuse payment or jerk them around to the point of them giving up on trying to obtain payment. In other words, the Canadians didn't want your health insurance plan to treat them the same way your plan treats American health care providers.

(And if, by some chance there was something that couldn't/wouldn't be covered in Canada, she was only a few hours away by car and could be brought home for treatment.)

That sounds easy but if you are talking about a true emergency situation bringing someone across the US/Canada border is not trivial. And if you have a disease that you want treated down here, good luck talking US CBP into letting you cross back in to the US.

Why? Because my plan doesn't have unlimited mental health coverage. A college student? For three years? Needs unlimited mental heath? She'd never had a need for mental health treatment before that.

If you were to read the data on mental health situations, you would find that young adults are particularly susceptible to mental health issues and mental health crises. They are standing on solid ground insisting that all students have unlimited mental health coverage, regardless of their past. Just because your little Johnny or Sue had a spotless record as a teenager does not mean he or she will do so well as a young adult.

And any time she actually needed health care, getting to see a doctor was a three-plus hour ordeal. No appointments -- walk-in only.

It is not the fault of the system that your daughter did not know how to use it. Someone unfamiliar with the US system would face the same situation their first time through as well.

Oh, and the stories her friends told a general shortages of doctors because every Canadian that earns an MD leaves. I used to laugh at the billboards on the I81 leading to Canada advertising (begging) for MDs to come work in Canada.

I have driven various parts of I81 - including near the NY/Ontario border - a few times over the past several years and have not seen the billboards you refer to. Where abouts did you see these begging billboards?

Re:Shockingly Unsurprising

[interkin3tic]

Scientists ought to seek out other countries for funding. The brain drain can work in reverse.

Scientists, unlike some businesses, can't just change their roots as often as the political winds change. And scientists, like pretty much everyone, SHOULD stay and fight for what they believe rather than fleeing.

Re:Shockingly Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

The US system is wonderful if you have decent insurance. I'm an American living in Quebec and am trying to get used to health care here. The day to day stuff really sucks.

Many people here are sensitive to criticism of the public system and will defend it to no end but at the same time many of those that can afford it use private clinics when possible. Why? The public ones don't take appointments in advance and it is usually a 3 hour ordeal to be seen. That is if you show up at 8am, wait until 3pm and you are likely to be turned away. The facilities are also typically spartan and old looking, like the free clinics in the USA that nobody aspires to use. The doctors seem generally very good in Quebec. Just way overloaded.

At our US clinic we'd make an appointment, go there at the agreed on time, see a doctor that wasn't too busy to see us, and then leave. Perfect. Generally speaking you are treated more like a customer (which you are) in the USA. I do dislike dealing with insurance companies though!

Re:Shockingly Unsurprising

[damn_registrars]

The US system is wonderful if you have decent insurance

Except that every day in the US fewer people have decent insurance. Even those who manage to hold on to their existing insurance find it is no longer worth shit as more and more benefits are removed - while the cost simultaneously goes up.

I do dislike dealing with insurance companies though!

Tragically, nobody with any power to change the situation is willing to change that problem. We will continue to be raped by insurance companies for the forseeable future because apparently this is "the American way".

Re:Shockingly Unsurprising

[steelfood]

The scientist is never in want of a job to perform. Alas, the scientist may not always be paid.

Re:Shockingly Unsurprising

[couchslug]

"Also, there's far less oversight of food and drug safety over there."

At the moment.

They've only had since 1948 to go from "impoverished smoking war ruin" to their present state.

Re:Shockingly Unsurprising

[Nimey]

I'm not so sure it's that. Their leaders don't seem to value individual human lives or rights like we do in the West.

Re:Shockingly Unsurprising

[couchslug]

"And scientists, like pretty much everyone, SHOULD stay and fight for what they believe rather than fleeing."

Religious societies that attack science don't deserve scientific assistance. Punishing them by abandonment is justice.

Re:Shockingly Unsurprising

[Idiomatick]

"There's far less oversight of food and drug safety over there."

Sounds like a great thing from someone wanting to create drugs and test it and not be old by the time people can use it.

Re:Shockingly Unsurprising

[phliar]

Scientists ought to seek out other countries for funding. ... China ...

Other countries, perhaps. But China? Why do you think a scientist will feel more free to speak his or her mind in China than in Canada?

Re:Shockingly Unsurprising

[interkin3tic]

Religious societies that attack science don't deserve scientific assistance. Punishing them by abandonment is justice.

Well, no, since fighting ignorance with education and science is the only way ignorance goes away, and in the societies that actually have science, the ones you're talking about, it's a small minority of the population that is anti-science. Those people are found everywhere. Moving because they happened to gain power for a moment will really set you back, the people you're going to be "punishing" is primarily yourself, people who support science and need cures / technology second, and by far in last place, the proponents of ignorance. They're happy to stay stuck where they are and would rationalize unchecked global climate change as God punishing gay people or something.

Re:Shockingly Unsurprising

[Nimey]

...and then die of lead or melamine poisoning because someone took shortcuts while making the actual pills.

Quote reaffirms opponents of science?

[Anonymous Coward]

'If science isn't supported then you're going to find that decisions are going to be made more at the political level,'

So basically he's telling corrupt politicians that they are achieving their goals. It's how politicians want it to be so they can do whatever those with most money/influence tell them to. How exactly are the scientists expecting change when they tell those in power they are winning? It's not like the dumbed down public would waste their precious TV time reading such a website anyway.

Stop giving Canadians a bad time....

[Brad1138]

Their Scientists have now figured out how to make a web page. Maybe they can use it to promote their armed forces

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[couchslug]

"The worst-case scenario is never knowing the truth about anything because businesses have completely obscured reality in order to continue their pursuit of massive profits."

No coincidence that the Religious Right in the US, who compose the vast majority of the Tea Party, are funded by oil billionaires among others.

It's the perfect storm of anti-science superstition and corporate greed.

No, it doesn't assume that.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it doesn't assume that. All it assumes is that the Party assumes it is itself always right.

Please try a little comprehension with your reading.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[Burnhard]

Please try a little comprehension with your reading.

There's nothing wrong with my reading comprehension. The sarcasm in the OP is obviously directed towards the idea that politicians have no right to contract scientists in the area of public policy, where scientists produce evidence that supports a particular point of view (which, I might add, they are well able to do for any point of view). This is plainly absurd, for the reasons I have given.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[HungryHobo]

Ya, that whole science thing is a waste of time.
The "scientists" just make things up so that the "data" says whatever they want it to say.
And they have an agenda!
A scary agenda! ...of some kind...

The very idea that it could be a good thing if policies at a national level were influenced by such nonsense as "evidence" or "data" or "reality" is absurd!

If the sceientists want to disrupt the orderly running of the country by publicly talking about how their "data" (made up of course) and "conclusions"(nefarious no doubt) contradict the decisons made by our good and godfearing leaders then they should be silenced!

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[Anonymous Coward]

And you assume that scientist are always right.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[Burnhard]

The very idea that it could be a good thing if policies at a national level were influenced by such nonsense as "evidence" or "data" or "reality" is absurd!

Your argument is really lacking in any intellectual rigour. It is also insufficiently nuanced.

Nobody is arguing that evidence shouldn't be used when making policy decisions. What I am arguing is that science isn't always black and white. There can be a range of opinion on any given issue, with supporting or contradictory evidence on both sides, provided of course that those with contradictory evidence or opinions aren't black-balled by the scientific establishment.

The role of politicians is to take a view on the evidence, not to simply accept it at face value.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[huckamania]

The issue is about 'federal scientists'. The government of Canada is within their rights to setup rules regarding how their employees are talking to the media. It is no different then any large organization. There are numerous reasons why a large organization would want to control their public image. Imagine if you were an employer and one of your employees thought they had the right to hold press conferences that disagree with how you are running things.

These 'federal scientists' are free to work elsewhere if they disagree with these rules. The citizens of Canada can pressure their current pols and/or elect new ones if they are unhappy with these rules.

Welcome to the real world.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[easterberry]

The rules we don't know about because the people who know about them are being cut off from the media?

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody is arguing that evidence shouldn't be used when making policy decisions.

The role of politicians is to take a view on the evidence, not to simply accept it at face value.

If you're aware at all at what's going on in Canada, or if you'd read the article, you'd know that the entire point is that the govt is moving away from evidence-based decision making. It cancels programs that might give data they don't want to acknowledge, and then claim that the data is unknown so they must go ahead with what is known. The restriction on scientists is not because they don't want scientists dictating policy -- it's because they want to censor and regulate scientific discourse. If the evidence gathered is broadly interpreted contrary to their official party policy -- which was arrived at without the use of data -- then they want it shut down, period.

To claim otherwise means you're either not familiar with the current situation in Canada, or you have a bone to pick with a particular peripherally related issue and are projecting it onto this situation.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[Burnhard]

A good example is the UK Drugs Advisory Panel. Here we have scientists coming out directly contradicting government policy. Scientists cannot advise politicians on the one hand and then go off and actively campaign for their particular view-point in the media, on the other. It would be uncontroversial if the scientific evidence itself was incontrovertible; often it is not. But even so, would implementing such policy be politically expedient? That is why we have politicians and don't decide every issue on balance of evidence.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[Anonymous Coward]

isn't call fascism or dictatorship when a gov want to control his image by all means?

Welcome to the real world, where historical experience counts.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is radically different than any other large organization. It is a government that is democratically elected and is answerable to its citizenry. It is not Nike or IBM or PepsiCo or BP or anything like that.

You are characterizing a citizen as a "shareholder" then, except that they are not at all alike: the shareholder has a vested financial motivation in the company, whereas the citizen is concerned with the building of a society.

A government can also create legislation that compels all inhabitants towards certain behaviours. PepsiCo can't do that.

As a citizen of Canada I have a legal right to know about the inner workings of the government, which is why the Freedom of Information act gives me access to that (within some bounds of national security). A shareholder of PepsiCo can't just demand to be shown inner working information.

If you disagree with something Pepsi does, you can instantly stop buying their products and buy from Coke instead, for example. Citizens can't just suddenly boycott their own government and start paying taxes and feeling patriotic about some other country.

They are not remotely the same.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[HungryHobo]

When their advice and evidence is ignored or misrepresented they have every right, indeed a duty to tell the electorate that the government is ignoring well informed advice in favor of whatever is politically expedient(ie whatever won't ruffle and feathers or upset anyone).

That is why we have newspapers and other media, to tell us when the politicians voted for ignore reality and instead base their decisions on the mad little voices in their heads.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[HungryHobo]

If a companies board of directors is making decisions which are actively harmful to their shareholders, employees of the company become aware of this and try to inform the shareholders but are silenced by the directors because they don't want anyone to disagree with how they are running things.

In general the shareholders wouldn't be to happy about the directors doing that.

If a government tries to do the same to it's citizens how is that any better?

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[eddy the lip]

You are making the rather serious work of governing a country sound like running a Fortune 500 company. Many people are not comfortable with that view of things.

Federal scientists work for the government, not the political party in power at the moment. The government is (or should be) the people. We are the ones scientists should be speaking to.

That any political party thinks it is their right to control how and to whom a scientists paid by the people speaks frightens me.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[easterberry]

You mean the case where the drug adviser did scientific studies on the danger of various drugs and posted their findings (which is pretty much exactly what the title "drug adviser" implies they should do) that went against the governments current drug policy and instead of altering or even more carefully examining the policy (on the advice of their adviser) they fired him?
 
Because really, I'm on the "the government was completely in the wrong on multiple levels" camp on that one. Both for ignoring his advice and for firing him.
 
A politician who does what is most likely to get himself reelected instead of what is in the best interest of the people is not a politician who should be in power.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[Burnhard]

Politicians do what is politically expedient given the various social, moral and ethical mores of their voters (on the whole). Such things are often irrational, yes. The issue here is that the political leanings and views of the politicians are generally known and so can be taken into account by the voters whenever they give an opinion. If scientists wish to weigh-in on political issues then they should be subject to the same kind of disclosure.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[Burnhard]

That is why we have newspapers and other media, to tell us when the politicians voted for ignore reality and instead base their decisions on the mad little voices in their heads.

Ironically, the very same media that criticise politicians for ignoring advice (in this case), would be the first to criticise a change in government policy and its potential consequences. That is why the policy doesn't change, regardless of the scientific evidence.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[easterberry]

My point is that if you have a person whose title is "Drug adviser" then you should assume that they will give you advise regarding drugs. To fire them because you do not like the advise they give you is unethical (and really, should probably be illegal), ignoring the advice, while politically expedient, is immoral and makes their position irrelevant since you don't actually want an adviser, you want a yes man.
 
It is not the Drug Adviser's job to tow your party line. It is to gather the best and most accurate data they can and use it to create the most informed advise available. If the politician is trying to cover up findings that go against their ideology then it is not the drug adviser who is in the wrong for going public, it is the politician who is in the wrong for lying to the public.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[Burnhard]

In that case you should enforce disclosure of scientists' political leanings. How else are the people to judge their motives? The "cloud cuckoo land" argument is that all scientists have 100% integrity, are completely impartial with how they analyse their data, have no financial interest in their results and do not suffer from any of the usual careerist/ego-based political shenanigans that politicians or other such social climbers do. This "faith" in the integrity of scientists is, on the whole, misplaced. They are no different to anyone else.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[Burnhard]

That isn't what happened. The scientists gave their advice. The government didn't agree with the proposed policy and the scientist then ran to the media to complain about how unfair it all was. That is why he was fired. Not for disagreeing with government policy, but for attempting to influence government policy through the media.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[easterberry]

The government hired the scientists to give them advise, the government then ignored the advise because it didn't line up with the decision they had already made. This is an entirely valid thing to go to the media about.
 
It is a waste of taxpayer's money to have the tests done if you don't care about the outcome. It is, as stated, morally questionable (at best) to make decisions that you know go directly against scientific evidence for political expedience or to hire scientists for the sole purpose of adding legitimacy to your beliefs.

ALSO, the statements that the adviser was fired over were completely valid. He presented the PM with the facts, the PM read them and then went on to make public statements that went against them. This is know as "lying" and when the highest authority in the country is doing it, then it is entirely valid to go to the media and call them on it, especially when what they are lying about is your work.
 
The government did not say "we acknowledge that these drugs are less harmful than alcohol but are still keeping them illegal for other reasons" they flat out said "these drugs are very dangerous".

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[eddy the lip]

That's why we have things like peer review and the scientific method. So others can, y'know, check the data.

Scientists aren't different from everyone else, except in one important way - they figured out a long time ago that you can't trust anyone, including yourself.

This has nothing to do with "faith." It's about what science is.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[Burnhard]

That's why we have things like peer review and the scientific method.

I can only conclude that you didn't read any of the ClimateGate emails and that you aren't aware of attempts to hide code, data and methods from people wanting to review results - in that particular field at least.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[HungryHobo]

And?
the media isn't there to nod and smile at everything the government does.
If that were all they did then they wouldn't be doing their jobs.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[Burnhard]

The concept of doing something politically damaging appears to have escaped you completely. If you want science and scientists to earn the mistrust and contempt of the public, let them get involved in politics.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[HungryHobo]

They'd earn my mistrust more if they outright lied or withheld results because they didn't match with the politics of people like you.

Re:No, it doesn't assume that.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why we have things like peer review and the scientific method.

I can only conclude that you didn't read any of the ClimateGate emails and that you aren't aware of attempts to hide code, data and methods from people wanting to review results - in that particular field at least.

I don't think you know what those emails said or meant, and refusing to share data with someone who is trying to deliberately distort and misrepresent that data is not the same as refusing peer review. Especially when they aren't even experts in that field.

It's always a tricky balance

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a public servant and research scientist in Canada for several years. I moved on to other things eventually, but I understand why there is friction between scientists and the government of the day. It's normal, and at some level it isn't peculiar to the current government.

Here's why: on one hand, the government wishes to set and completely control the agenda, and the public service is supposed to be setting its goals at the direction of the political level. That's the job of a public servant: to do the job you are directed to do by the government.

But on the other hand, public servants have a broader commitment to the public-at-large, and scientists especially have an ethical responsibility to pursue the science regardless of whether the specific results of a study will support what the government wishes or not. If a measurement has inconvenient implications for political policy, well, too bad. Deal with the data or admit you don't care about reality. An ethical scientist is not going to cover it up or alter the data to fit political policy. Policy can and should dictate to some degree what should be studied in the first place (i.e. policy determines what is important enough to study -- in which field or topic to invest limited money), but it should have no influence on the actual results or the need to communicate them to other scientists and the broader public. Putting a barrier between scientists and the public is counterproductive to scientists doing their job. It's also a waste of money, because what's the point of doing science on behalf of the public and for the sake of important public concerns like health, safety, resources, etc. if you can't in the end communicate with the public, or if doing so is dependent on whether the results align with the politics of the day? Scientists have to be able to talk about the "bad news" as well as "good news".

A government that fails to recognize this balance between political loyalty and the broader loyalty of federal government scientists to the public and to science is a government that is no friend to anyone -- the scientists or the public. Like I said, the friction has always been there and always will be, but it's true that the current government has gone significantly further than previous ones to try to control communication. In my opinion, they're a bunch of control freaks more interested in determining the message than having an informed political debate. I'm glad that scientists fed up with the situation are doing something about it, because what the government is doing is wrong.

In my experience federal government scientists are some of the most highly-dedicated public servants I've ever met, and they're usually working at about two-thirds to half the pay they could get if they moved to equivalent industry jobs. Where I worked, it was the scientists who were often there until 6pm or later, doing their job because they enjoyed it. The administrators and bureaucrats would be out of there 4pm sharp.

Re:It's always a tricky balance

[Sprouticus]

Unless the government wishes to squelch all scientific study to prevent any actual debate to begin with....

I am not form Canada, and my knowledge of their politics is lean, but it sounds very much like the current government is doing just that. Cutting funding and silencing dissent where it cannot get away with funding cuts.

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[nomad-9]

Maybe Big Business is not so good for science, but still most tech innovations are done primarily in the private sector. The state is actually a much bigger obstacle to scientific research.

In "The Economic Laws of Scientific Research", Keeley showed with backed data (stats from OECD countries,) that gov-funded R&D is wasteful, and appears to reduce overall R&D spending, thereby causing slower economic growth.

Publicly funded science is ineffective compared to the private sector, although the latter is far from being perfect.

And since we're talking about Canada, an anecdotal evidence of the thesis above is the deplorable present state of Canadian fisheries where R&D are managed by the DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) .

Union of Concerned Scientists

[WebSorcerer]

There is a comparable web site by US scientists started during the Bush Jr. administration. http://www.ucsusa.org/

Re:Union of Concerned Scientists

[Mendenhall]

You do know that the Union of Concerned Scientists has been around since 1969, not since Bush Jr., don't you? Did you read their history on their web site?

They (we, in this case) certainly have been more vocal during the most egregiously anti-scientific administrations, but Bush Jr. wasn't the first.

Re:Union of Concerned Scientists

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume that English is not your primary language, due to the simple fact that WS simply stated that the website (not the group) was started during the administration.

Re:Union of Concerned Scientists

[WebSorcerer]

Thank you. I stand corrected.

I should have written that I discovered the site during the Bush, Jr. administration from press coverage at the time.

Everything is political

[southfarthing]

So the union doesn't think its positions aren't political? Nonsense. Policy - what we do about the facts - is supposed to be political. Many European countries are effectively bankrupt today. That's the fact. The policies that flow from that fact are political, and there's not a scientifically "right" choice to be made. Do they cut spending? Increase the retirement age? They need to choose based on their values and culture. Scientists are great at finding facts, but return to being regular citizens - no more or less important than anyone else - when it comes to deciding what to do about the facts. The website amounts to a lobby effort to increase funding and power for a bunch of civil servants, the vast majority of whom are engaged in necessary but mundane research that is nowhere near as important as they would like you to think.

Re:Everything is political

[Anonymous Coward]

The policies that flow from that fact are political, and there's not a scientifically "right" choice to be made. Do they cut spending? Increase the retirement age? They need to choose based on their values and culture.

And recent yet accurate demographic data, which if they had gutted their census information gathering (regardless if conducted either by traditional census taking on a "census day" or information sharing through multiple departments and agencies while respecting personal privacy) if they want to make the best possible decision. As well as enough economic and statistical knowledgeable staff to correctly interpret that data. Statistics Canada is currently being targeted for being radically reduced in size as well as scope.

The website amounts to a lobby effort to increase funding and power for a bunch of civil servants, the vast majority of whom are engaged in necessary but mundane research that is nowhere near as important as they would like you to think.

Because citizens don't need scientists who are free of commercial business vested interests to protect them from false and misleading claims of snake-oil salesman (who increase in popularity during an economic recession or depression), as well as health and safety of goods sold (so want if those light bulbs kill 1% of people when the fail, they're cheaper than brand X!)? Scientists in departments like Health Canada, free forecasting of severe weather in Environment Canada, Natural Resource Canada trying to keep running the reactor that still produces much of the world's medical isotope supply, they work for the health and well-being of the country's citizens and the country itself, not any political or corporate agenda.

If you're going to claim that federal scientists' research is not so important, please back up your claim with some facts, please.

What does your country need more of; ethical dedicated professional scientists, or self-serving middle-management paper pushers? Governments structures don't tend to because smaller, so why not staff it with the highest quality civil servants you can?

Disclosure: I'm a Canadian civil servant working in a department that has been negatively affected by the current anti-science sentiment that seems to seethe from the governing political party (Conservative Party of Canada) and in particular senior cabinet ministers since even before they won they were elected in 2006 (following the fall of minority Liberal government elected in 2004) and again in 2008.

Re:Everything is political

[Anonymous Coward]

You're missing the point. You can do whatever you want with the facts but by all means start with the facts. The issue here is the political agenda that happens "before" the facts not after. Just because we get the science right doesn't mean we're going to make the right choices but if we get it wrong we will almost always make the wrong choices.

Re:Everything is political

[Anonymous Coward]

"doesn't think its positions aren't political?"
What?...

"nowhere near as important as they would like you to think."
Thanks for pointing that out for us.
Good thing we've got guys like you around to keep us informed.

Re:Everything is political

[SleazyRidr]

Science is not political. The oxygen atoms aren't partisan; they don't bond to hydrogen atoms if they're left wingers and carbon atoms if they're right wingers. Scientific facts will continue to be scientific facts no matter who is in government.

You are correct that policy is indeed political. You are also correct that there is no scientifically 'right' choice to be made, the direction you travel depends upon where you want to end up.

Good science however, helps politicians form good policies. Taking a simplistic example: accurate census data could tell you that you have enough hospitals, but not enough schools. If your policy is to build hospitals and not schools, because that's what your values say, then you are wrong, and without accurate science the politicians cannot make that kind of decision.

As people, scientists may have political views based upon what they know about science. I will agree with you that in terms of policy development scientists should be given no more of a voice than anyone else, but no-one should be able to prevent accurate scientific information from being made available to as many people as want it, just because it doesn't fit in with the policy d'jour.

Good thing unions are not political

[Anonymous Coward]

Unions are luckily not political entities. They will not make statements or take actions unrelated to the strict academic evidence their members have provided. If a union says something, it will A) be related to the area of professional interest of its members, B) be quality checked and represent the entire consenus (and give fair weight to any dissent or doubts).

Good for them...although their web can be blocked.

[hesaigo999ca]

Websites can be blocked, or Ddos, so good luck , as long as you have it in another country and that government is known not to uphold any other nations cries about needing to shut that website down. I think science is so underrated, and under appreciated, although, we do need more scientists out there, I think we need a more understanding government first.

You can not have that type of government if the government itself, is too busy trying to stop any information flow coming out of the science community. I have to ask though, why would they be so assenine? I understand that the science community has a very powerful voice, especially when it comes to climate reports etc....but remember that people are also smart enough to make their own decisions when it comes to information being presented to them, and that when you get 4 reports all conflicting with each other about whether global warming exists, then they will watch closely....if all 4 reports are the same, people accept , we got a problem, if there are 4 reports of which all are held back by the government because they do not want you knowing what is in them, then you know you have a problem with your government

Here in Sunny Queensland - political choices

[dbIII]

A few years back in Queensland, Australia we had a government that wanted to get ahead instead of listening to those gloomy scientists. We ended up with a lot of taxpayers money going to things like Dr Horvath's Hydrogen car scam and the Cape York spaceport where the entire massive operation was going to be run by a two person company (which mysteriously soaked up money for years while still being nothing but two people and glossy brochures). The former USSR and Lysenkoism of course has many worse examples - but my point is purely political choices in science end up in snake oil scams.

Re:Here in Sunny Queensland - political choices

[Spectre]

But, the brochures were glossy! And loaded with full-color pictures!

It's like our climate-controlled server room here ... management thought that having a whole room, UPS, air-con unit, was a WASTE ... after all, it only kept those silly beige boxes coddled (the server farm that crunched their marketing and accounting data).

Then, we installed a new batch of routers and switches as part of a network upgrade. These were equipped with DAS BLINKENLIGHTS! Suddenly, the server room was terribly important, it housed the racks of high-tech flashing lights that management didn't understand, but found terribly impressive.

Moral of the story: Substance is NOT important to the masses, but FLASHY is.

Canada's Minister of Science is a Chiropractor...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and refused to say if he believed in evolution, saying that questions about is religion were inappropriate...

He then "retracted" himself and said this: "We are evolving, every year, every decade. That’s a fact. Whether it’s to the intensity of the sun, whether it’s to, as a chiropractor, walking on cement versus anything else, whether it’s running shoes or high heels, of course, we are evolving to our environment."

Yes, this is Canada's science minister. Look him up: Gary Goodyear

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[Attila Dimedici]

No coincidence that the Religious Right in the US, who compose the vast majority of the Tea Party, are funded by oil billionaires among others.

As opposed to the entire Left in the U.S., which is funded by the billionaires who played a significant role in the housing bubble and bust (the Sandlers) combined with a currency speculator billionaire (George Soros).

Only in Canada eh? Pity!

[nickull]

I guess people are worried that our state of the art igloo geometric designs, dogsled aerodymanics and maple syrup chemistry are in danger if poltical decisions are made without the benefit of science. Luckily there are only 78 of us in the whole country. We can probably sort it out in about a fortnight over a few Molson's beers while watching ice hockey. duane "Who won the damn gold medals at the last Olympics anyways?"

Re:Only in Canada eh? Pity!

[belrick]

I guess people are worried that our state of the art igloo geometric designs, dogsled aerodymanics and maple syrup chemistry are in danger if poltical decisions are made without the benefit of science. Luckily there are only 78 of us in the whole country. We can probably sort it out in about a fortnight over a few Molson's beers while watching ice hockey.

duane
"Who won the damn gold medals at the last Olympics anyways?"

Ha! You can tell you aren't Canadian because you put the word ice in front of hockey - that's redundant.

Let me guess...

[freeman-sr]

The site is being hosted on a server within Canada? There is a few probable sceneries about what the government might do about it, and none of them is going to be liked by the scientists.

Take away their science then

[Ryanrule]

No phones, no lights, no motorcars - not a single luxury. Esp no heat.

Re:Take away their science then

[Anonymous Coward]

They're scientists, not wizards.

Try to stop that stupid Wi-fi thing too

[stevegee58]

It's time to introduce some facts to the douchebags running Canada's schools as well.

Union poo flinging

[Anonymous Coward]

More union bellyaching. What this means is that the unions have sensed that the Canadian government, like other governments around the world, is looking to make some cuts to reign in government spending. The unions are engaged in some preemptive poo flinging. That is all that this is about.

Oh dear. Another one can't read.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, it merely assumes that the party is not always right and that ignoring the scientific results increases that chance of falsity.

But I suppose you don't like it that you're too dumb to understand so refuse to listen.

Re:Oh dear. Another one can't read.

[Burnhard]

Nope, it merely assumes that the party is not always right and that ignoring the scientific results increases that chance of falsity.

Is the answer to every social or political problem either right or wrong? Can you think of any scientific conclusions that were acted upon but turned out to have been wrong but that as a side-effect caused the deaths of millions of people?

Re:Oh dear. Another one can't read.

[Gadget_Guy]

The EPA ban on DDT only covered the United States. The EPA doesn't have the authority to make a worldwide ban. DDT is still in use in other parts of the world to combat malaria. The US gets around 1500 cases of malaria every year, but as far as I am aware there are no deaths.

Your linked article is very misleading.

Re:Oh dear. Another one can't read.

[SomeKDEUser]

This is irrelevant. Of course errors are made. Things can be outright wrong. The point is that as an elected official, you have to take decisions. These decisions are meant to improve the lot of the people you are responsible for. Therefore, you must use the best data available to optimise the outcome. And the best data/understanding is the current state of research. It might be wrong, but it is always your best bet.

But then, it is true that many things are disturbing to right-wing/conservative politicians. Giving free needles to drug addicts is a good thing for public health. The length and the harshness of a sentence are not well correlated to prevention. The social/monetary cost of not having social security/health care is higher than having it. Taxes are not always bad for the economy. Children raised by gays are not worse off than those raised by straights. But also, Nuclear power is necessary to fight climate change, vaccines are overwhelmingly good, new age doctrine is bullshit, education also means structure, law and order are necessary.

Basically, voters -- especially conservative ones, but the liberal ones also have all manners of wrong beliefs -- WANT things to be true. And telling them it is not so loses you votes, never mind that you are right. It is important that there be people, namely scientists, who say things as they are, never mind who this might disturb. After that, if you want to ignore reality, it's a free country! Eventually, the truth wins, if you let it exist.

Do not forget the political motivation

[mauriceh]

It all sounds good at first glance.
And then one notices the source:
Scientists? No.
A public employees labour Union.
And where do they spend their political funds?
Opposing the incumbent party.
It all boils down to the people with the political agenda having the loudest voices.

Let's just say it would all be much better to them if the government in power was the NDP.
At least they think so!

Re:Do not forget the political motivation

[Mad Leper]

Exactly, this has nothing to do about science and everything about political posturing. The public service unions are nothing more than extensions of the Federal NDP and regularly pull stunts like this in an attempt to whip up support for their party.

Re:Do not forget the political motivation

[Scrameustache]

It all sounds good at first glance.
And then one notices the source:
Scientists? No.
A public employees labour Union.
And where do they spend their political funds?
Opposing the incumbent party.
It all boils down to the people with the political agenda having the loudest voices.

So you're willing to ignore the Conservative anti-science movement because you're rabidly anti-union? Wow, you sure have a lot to teach us about politics!

Re:Do not forget the political motivation

[mauriceh]

No, I state this as I deal with many Canadian scientists at several institutions, both government and private sector.

This is the concensus of what I hear from them.

And you have a great skill at insulting people!

Re:Do not forget the political motivation

[Scrameustache]

Do you really think that publicly funded science wouldn't be better off under the Liberals, NDP or even the Bloc? And that scientists in Canada feel the same?
I don't see that as a rational position at all.
I'm out of the science loop lately, but the Conservatives have creationists in important positions, and they love cutting spending in everything but military and police expenses. I don't see how the fact that scientists use the resources of their union to fight the collective power of the Conservative detracts from the validity of their position.

you have a great skill at insulting people!

Yup, lots of practice.

Re:Do not forget the political motivation

[Sprouticus]

So you are saying that the current government did NOT try to prevent genverment scientists from public communications on their work?

Why it's marked as a troll

[MikeRT]

Because religion, in the West, has never suppressed science.

Galileo is the most famous "example" of scientific persecution. The inconvenient little fact is that the man was persecuted for publicly insulting the Pope who, at the time, had the same powers as any other Italian feudal leader. In fact, he was lucky that he did it to the Pope and not one of the other Italian leaders or a major monarch because they'd have been perfectly justified by the standards of feudalism to torture and kill him. The Pope, being the head of most of the Christian religion, was expected to be more merciful than that (and he was, the punishment was house arrest). Ironically, the very reason Galileo was able to insult the Pope in the Vatican was because the Catholic hierarchy invited him as an honored lecturer to discuss the merits of these new theories.

Heliocentrism, which nearly was declared a "heresy" was nearly declared so because of philosophy, not religion. One of the reasons for the Reformation was the influx of extra-biblical philosophy into Catholicism. Luther bluntly stated that he felt that Aristotelean philosophy had badly corrupted the Catholic Church and it was men in that tradition who persecuted the Heliocentrists.

You know why they did that? Because they merged Christian scripture and Greek philosophy and said "an oval is an imperfect circle, God never makes anything that's imperfect, therefore Heliocentrism is dangerous." You won't find this view in the Bible. It was only in the minds of "learned men" who applied pagan philosophy to Christian scripture, badly.

Ironically, this is why the New Testament frequently bashes philosophers and religious individuals who "value tradition over revelation." The New Testament has several scathing attacks on Greek philosophy and Talmudic legalism.

Re:Why it's marked as a troll

[Creedo]

Bullshit.
First, you are introducing a false division between the prevailing philosophical beliefs of those times with the religious beliefs. What, are you going to argue that Thomas Aquinas' arguments were not religious because they were philosophical? Rubbish.
Second, you are ignoring the fact that the geocentrists used biblical passages to back up their beliefs and attack heliocentrism.
Third, you seem to imply that Luther and his reformation weren't as mired in anti-scientific attitudes as the Catholics he broke from. Some choice quotes from this odious man:

Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.

Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has.

Such ignorance plagued both sides of the reformation.

Ironically, this is why the New Testament frequently bashes philosophers and religious individuals who "value tradition over revelation." The New Testament has several scathing attacks on Greek philosophy and Talmudic legalism.

Ignoring for the moment that the NT supported tradition(and, in fact, is part of a larger tradition), I would point out that both tradition and revelation are incredibly stupid ways of attempting to understand the universe.

Re:Why it's marked as a troll

[gstoddart]

Because religion, in the West, has never suppressed science.

Bullshit.

Religion in the West tries to do this all the time. For example, Tennessee vs Scopes, and anybody who tries to get creationism taught in schools. Or preventing experiments no fetal stem cells. Or outlawing abortion because God told them so. Or gay marriage because some obscure passage in the bible says so. Any number of ways in which religion tries to control both science and society.

There's loads of examples, and it's getting worse -- the fundamentalists try very hard to push back anything which goes against their "view" of how the world works, and force the rest of us to toe the line.

I'm sorry, but those of us who don't believe in God are often appalled to listen to some of the shit that gets said. And for you to try to say that the West has never allowed religion to suppress science is utter crap.

Re:Why it's marked as a troll

[Nimey]

Well-trolled sir. That one gets style points.

Re:Why it's marked as a troll

[Idiomatick]

Stem cell research?

Thread over now?

Yawn, propaganda as usual

[g2devi]

Shrug. What value is there in knowing that 20% of the population is composed of Jedi Knights and the ethnicity of 30% of the people "Tan" since they're a mix of two or more "officially recognized ethnicity"?

The log form census has many questions that are either ill defined or none of the of the government's business or can be more accurately gathered from other sources (e.g. several questions ask you about information that you would have filled out in your income tax or birth/citizenship certificate). If you don't fill out all the questions, you'll go to jail so you have to fill it out, even if you fill it out with junk data.

How reliable is this? Why not use actually reliable data for once?

What is being proposed by the government is simple, make the long form census *optional* (i.e. you won't go to jail for not filling out pointless questions), removing questions that can be gathered from other sources (e.g. the income tax ones), and if necessary, moving important questions that used to be on the long form census to the short form (e.g. what is your primary language). The short form census is still mandatory.

What's wrong about that? Europeans and Americans already do this without suffering from any data loss.

Previously on Canada, Conservative != Nut Job

[Anonymous Coward]

The now effectively defunct Progressive Conservative party was just that - socially progressive. Sierra club says they were also the MOST environmentally effective (OK, not a high bar but something). They were also the most fiscally conservative party, in policy if not effect. WITHOUT the religious wankering... and I didn't really like those guys LOL.

I can still remember when it was political suicide to advertise "I go to xyz church and the world is x Thousand years old". No longer unfortunately.

In short, at one time they reflected the ACTUAL character of Canada, live within your means but don't be an ASS about it. Arguably the torch now goes to the Liberals but they are pulling too much baggage. This leaves a huge swath of the political landscape out in the arctic hinterland so to speak. The wrong faction got in charge of the Conservative party, had it happened differently they would be enjoying their second comfortable majority government instead of the whiny minority they are limping around with.

Take a look at the census data, we are not that religious and fairly well educated up here ... oh yeah, right...

Re:Previously on Canada, Conservative != Nut Job

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, you can't believe this. The previous Progressive Conservative governments were Liberals in disguise. Remember Brian "clean hands" Mulroney for the Conservatives followed by Jean "the truth is the truth" Chretien.

This is the first government we've had in a while that hasn't been responsible for 'off balance sheet' transactions.

I think a government that isn't robbing Canadians blind is more in tune with the character of the people.

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[grumpyman]

"The worst-case scenario is never knowing the truth about anything because businesses have completely obscured reality in order to continue their pursuit of massive profits." - this is what we get for adopting capitalism.

Buncha goddam whiners

[Bemopolis]

They are trying to hold back to march of progress in Canada. Hopefully Stephen Harper will crush these gnats quickly, so that he may RELEASE THE POWER OF THE TIMECUBE!!!

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[mcgrew]

You're confusing science with engineering. Scientists discover principles, engineers put them to work in the real world,

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[interkin3tic]

No coincidence that the Religious Right in the US, who compose the vast majority of the Tea Party, are funded by oil billionaires among others.

As opposed to the entire Left in the U.S., which is funded by the billionaires who played a significant role in the housing bubble and bust (the Sandlers) combined with a currency speculator billionaire (George Soros).

Well, anyone who says that one side is saints while the other side is demons clearly has their heads up their arses, but they don't always have the -exact same- sins.

In this case, the right being funded by oil and the left being funded by housing and currency speculators suggest we be more skeptical of the right when they talk about climate change, and we be more skeptical of the left when they talk about housing and currency.

Speaking of 'well-known biases'

[Chris Tucker]

"This is true regardless of whether or not the scientist works in a University (and therefore is more likely to be a leftie or green), or if he works in industry."

Re:Speaking of 'well-known biases'

[Burnhard]

A new Pew Research report on American attitudes toward science finds that 55% of scientists identify as Democrats, while 32% identify as independents and just 6% say they are Republicans. When the leanings of independents are considered, fully 81% identify as Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, compared with 12% who either identify as Republicans or lean toward the GOP

Article I don't expect the facts are any different in my country either.

Re:Speaking of 'well-known biases'

[Chris Tucker]

And Democrats are, as well known, all "lefties" and/or "greens".

Speaking of 'well-known biases'...

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[sarhjinian]

There's an American Left? Really? Because what it really looks like is that there's a Right and an Ultra-Right

And can we please stop bringing up George Soros like he's some kind of counterbalance? As a very wealthy person who advocates for economic (not social, there's a difference) left-wing he is very, very much the exception to the rule, and vastly outnumbered.

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[Attila Dimedici]

Really? George Soros, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, the Sandlers (husband and wife), John Kerry (Heinz fortune), the Kennedys, the Rockefellers. Can you make a comparable list on the other side?

Well...

[ThatsNotPudding]

How many universities (even land-grant ones) have professorships totally funded by corporations such as the Conoco-Philips Chair of Showing Oil is Cool, or the Con-Agra Chair for the Study of Corn Sugar Health Benefits? Remember the Deans' response to Mr. Wong's question "How much for Summa Cum Luade?": "How much you got?" Yes scientific research is very beneficial, but some are willing to pick up thirty pieces of silver funding - mainly because of questionably counterproductive tenure competition.

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[scamper_22]

Since we're onto rhetoric now...

And every politician and bureaucrat and power hungry tyrant will use whatever justification to gain power over the people. I think history will attest to that.
They've used religion, political ideology (communism, fascism), fear, wars...

And today it is science being used to justify increasing government power.

Somehow... everything turns out to be:
Science says something is bad... quick create a government body to enforce it, ban it, make people criminals for victimless crimes, take their money...

If I were to take a long look history... the risk of tyrannical governments is far worse than the government not having all the statistics.

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can prove that a business is ruining the environment and economy through sound scientific methods, OF COURSE big businesses will try to stifle research, innovation and facts in order to continue their relentless pursuit of money. Unabashed greed and facts do not mix well.

The worst-case scenario is never knowing the truth about anything because businesses have completely obscured reality in order to continue their pursuit of massive profits.

Substitute business with politicians and your comment remains equally true. Power is the problem. Substituting one monster for another only alters the symptoms slightly and may likely make a cure impossible.

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[sarhjinian]

The Rockefellers? Buffett? Gates? Really?!

I don't think you understand what left-wing economic policies actually are, never mind that you're forgetting what people like Rockefeller did to get their fortune in the first place. even Buffett is only coming to this realization very, very late in his career, as is Gates.

I mean, Rockefeller? Mr. Standard Oil Monopoly?

Soros is about the only one who comes even close to left-wing economic policy.

You're operating from a very American perspective: that all social liberalism and leftist economic policy are in lockstep. This is very, very wrong: you can be a rampant capitalist without being a social conservative. Heck, you can even do it while being a philathropist. What you can't do is start talking about upper-to-lower-class income redistribution and cradle-to-grave social programs.

I'll give you hint: when any of these guys are start seriously proposing a return to 1950s income taxation levels, or when they start pushing for a Scandinavian-style social safety net, I'll believe we dealing with leftists. Right now, there's thousands of people making millions of dollars who very much do not want either of those (and especially the former) to happen.

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[Anonymous Coward]

"Greed is anti-science"?! That is "Insightful" these days? You are taking a position on the philosophical selfishness versus altruism debate and expecting science side with you, eh? Stop giving real scientists a bad name.

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[Attila Dimedici]

You never heard of Senator Jay Rockefeller, the grandson of Mr. Standard Oil Monopoly? And I guess you are somewhat correct depending on your definition of left wing. I was responding to the OP's allegation that the Right is funded by oil billionaires (referring, I believe, to the Koch brothers and their support of small government activists). In that light I was pointing out that there are many more billionaires backing greater government regulation.
In America today, the "left" is basically those who support greater government control over people's lives, while the "right" is generally those who favor letting people live their lives as they choose. The left in America today actually admits it, they call themselves "Progressives". The original Progressives were proto-fascists.

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[sarhjinian]

And this is why "left" and "right" don't really work: they're descriptors of economic policy, not social. Only the US does this happen because only in the US has the libertarian left been completely destroyed and economic leftism linked so tightly with a fear of tyranny.

You can be leftist and socially libertarian (though such an entity doesn't exist in the US). You can be a right-wing and very authoritarian, and there are plenty of examples of this.

"Big" and "small" government having inherent meaning are also intrinsically American terms. A better discussion is "does the government exert social control", which is not at all synonymous with "does the government provide a social safety net". Nazi Germany wasn't appreciably "big government" in the American sense: you could still make money and weren't taxed overly much.

A similar hatchet-job has been done on the word "progressive" (and for that matter, on the word "liberal"). All it means is "someone who pushes for social or economic change". That change could, and often is, socially liberal, which American libertarians would probably embrace.

Americans would do well to think about why the language they use differs so greatly from everyone else's use, and who worked to redefine it. Nowhere else in the world is "liberal" a slur.

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[couchslug]

"while the "right" is generally those who favor letting people live their lives as they choose."

The Right = "the Religious Right", and they aren't big on personal liberty with the exception (which I support) of the Second Amendment. Their version of "freedom" doesn't include gays, atheists, or anyone else who doesn't thump a Bible.

Nonsense Detection - The UnScientific Method

[ninejaguar]

The nicest thing about science is the great cartoons...

= 9J =

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[Attila Dimedici]

First, in Nazi Germany you could only make money if you were politically connected. Economic activity in Nazi Germany was highly regulated.
As for "progressive", the original Progressives from the 19th Century thought that society (including the economy) should be run "scientifically". That means that they believed in central planning. All totalitarian governments I know of are successors to the Progressive movement of the 19th century.

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[Attila Dimedici]

As opposed to the Left (Secular and Religious) which is tolerant of everyone, as long as they don't do or say anything that the Left disapproves of.

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[Lanteran]

I'm going to get modded to hell, but here goes: The tea party is not anti-science; it is a group composed of people who hold a wide variety of beliefs. True, plenty of people in it are those religious nut-job types, but the only factor connecting the entire group is discontent with the government and its actions of late, plus religious nuts are everywhere anyway. I'm sure almost everyone living in the united states is dissatisfied with the government, but the tea party is at present the only group getting really proactive in dealing with it, thus it is the largest group.

Oh yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

oh You're So Condescending
your bile Is Never Ending
we Don't Want Nothin', Not A Thing From You
your work Is Trite And Jaded
your funding's CONFISCATED!
if That's Your Best, Your Best Won't Do

Re:Big business corruption and greed is anti-scien

[Idiomatick]

I'd like to point out that while I think that Attila is totally wrong and a bit of a douche for saying the entire left is controlled by George Soros. And was dumb to discard the Tea Party's funding...

He certainly wasn't 'Offtopic' mods. 'There is no -1 Disagree'

Canadian Politics

[lsatenstein]

When India's Ghandi was in power, he said, where go the people, there go I, for I am their leader. With Harper, it's you elected me to lead and as I have the drum, so you follow me, even if I am wrong. The problem with mis-leading now, is that the consequences in a few years time will be felt by the next two generations. (A good example, is to examine what is coming to the surface after the Bush regime has left office).

Hogwash!

[DarthVain]

The conservatives aren't "anti-science", they just don't want to hear anything negative about the tarsands, erm I mean the oilsands, and they have a couple of crazy Ministers that don't want to be reminded how silly their creationism belief about the earth being 5000 years old and Fred Flintstone riding dino to work.

Apart from that, I bet they are real sciencey. Scary Sciencey!

Seriously though, like any political body that makes policy decisions weighted for the economy against the environment, they really don't want the voters to have that fact shoved in their faces every day. I will go so far to say to a limited extent I somewhat agree with them, in that the oilsands are important to Canada and should be developed. The key is not to be so short sighted that you only take into considerations the long term benefits and profits associated with the development and not the long term environmental cost (which will also have a dollar figure attached, look at past records). Many greens want to use the scientific ammo to torpedo any development, and the Conservatives are just trying to limit their influence. Problem is, do you trust them to do the right thing, and regulate the oilsands properly, and take the long view? The past has shown a poor track record. I think I would prefer scientists left alone, and to wage the public opinion war on their own merits. Besides, since when does any politician really care about facts, and scientific evidence anyway when trying to justify an argument or policy decision anyway!