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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."
"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?
I am officially gone from
Next step: government outlaws scientists fighting back!
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.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
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!
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
that a conservative government is anti-science.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
> 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?
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.
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.
"To stop the terrorists."
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).
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
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.
Clubs are a hotbed of illegal drug use, of course they are going to harm baby seals...
He does; but all that exposure to non-hazardous asbestos has left him needing to speak slowly and breath out of his good lung...
"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.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
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.
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.
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) .
There is a comparable web site by US scientists started during the Bush Jr. administration. http://www.ucsusa.org/
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.
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!
Absence of proof != proof of absence.
Ya, that whole science thing is a waste of time. ...of some kind...
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!
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!
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
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.
... 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
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?"
"Question everything, including this!" - http://technoracle.blogspot.com/
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.
++
No phones, no lights, no motorcars - not a single luxury. Esp no heat.
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.
You can't take the sky from me...
It's time to introduce some facts to the douchebags running Canada's schools as well.
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.
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.
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.
The rules we don't know about because the people who know about them are being cut off from the media?
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.
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.
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!
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
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.
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.
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?
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.
"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.
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!!!
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
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.
You're confusing science with engineering. Scientists discover principles, engineers put them to work in the real world,
Free Martian Whores!
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.
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.
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
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.
"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."
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
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.
--srj/mmv
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?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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.
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.
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.
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?
Hey mate, spare a sig?
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.
--srj/mmv
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.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
--srj/mmv
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".
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.
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
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.
"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.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
= 9J =
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.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
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'
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.
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).
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
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.
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.
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!