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The Encroachment of Fact-Free Science
G3ckoG33k writes "Fact-free science is not a joke; it is very much on the move, and it is quite possibly the most dangerous movement in centuries, for the entirety of mankind. One can say it began as counter-movement to Karl Popper's ground-breaking proposals in the early 20th century, which insisted that statements purporting to describe the reality should be made falsifiable. A few decades later, some critics of Popper said that statements need peer acceptance, which then makes also natural science a social phenomenon. Even later, in 1996, professor Alan Sokal submitted a famous article ridiculing the entire anti-science movement. Now New York Times has an article describing the latest chilling acts of the socially relativistic, postmodern loons. It is a chilling read, and they may be swinging both the political left and right. Have they been successful in transforming the world yet? How would we know?"
I love how the article is equally fact-free, but makes sure to include several opinion polls.
That's the whole idea of the scientific process, though, in that being wrong drives change. The fact that we've "so often been wrong" I think proves the process works: someone publishes a paper, others peer review it and find it ok but with a few nagging yellow flags, other independent labs perform the same experiment and publish different results, consensus breaks down and alternate, more feasible theories are produced instead. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Also, as a student in research who only just had his first-ever paper accepted and published, I'd have to say your blanket statement about the "most powerful clique" ensuring their papers get published and "no one else"s is patently false. There are always going to be bad apples in research, just like any other field, but that doesn't make the whole process broken.
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
but we can attribute those periods to natural phenomenon not as influential during out current warming trend, while we can also show evidence that man made phenomenon are most likely the cause of the current trend which is rising MUCH faster than the ones you cited.
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This whole topic pisses me off. The non-science idiots who try to pervert science with their armchair observations polluted with religion are ruining this country.
We need science policy based on fact - not fantasy. This creationist crap is what leads to bad policies for the country as a whole too and impacts global warming and energy policy just as much as science funding.
Keep the nut jobs out of science.
This kind of ignorance is dangerous and baffling. It's not as if he's arguing against anthropogenic global warming using science. Hell, maybe he believes in global warming and that it really is man-made. But he refuses to accept what will happen because the Bible says otherwise. What. The. Fuck.
He actually misunderstands the scripture he references. God says "never again will I curse the earth because of man...". This entirely precludes man himself doing it.