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Canadian Scientists Protest Political Sandbagging of Evidence-Based Policy
New submitter sandbagger writes "Stephen Harper and the Canadian government have made headlines several times for stifling opinions that dissent with their own. This also applies to respected, peer-reviewed science. Canadian scientists have chafed at being gagged and having evidence take a back seat when forming policy, so they're grabbing their slide rules and marching in protest. 'Hundreds of participants gathered in 17 cities for rallies on Monday. In Toronto some donned lab coats while in Vancouver protesters were seen wearing gags adorned with the Conservative Party logo – a reference to the alleged muzzling of federal scientists by political overseers. ... Dr. Gibbs and colleagues said they hoped the rallies would alert the public to scientists’ concerns that the federal government has shifted funding markedly toward commercially driven research at the expense of public-interest science. ... Dr. Gibbs said her group would consult with the Canadian research community and look to other countries in trying to craft recommended policies for science in government. In recent years explicit scientific integrity rules have been adopted by many U.S. federal departments and agencies, after accusations of censorship and politicization of science during the administration of former president George W. Bush. 'Canadian scientists are where American scientists were maybe a decade ago,' said Michael Halpern, a Washington, D.C.-based program manager with the Union of Concerned Scientists. 'They're trying to figure out how to protect themselves from a government that’s increasingly focused on message control over a more open discussion of the facts.'"
In 2003 When GW Bush was riding VERY high in the polls, the left in the US was desperate to find ways to drag him down so their guy would have a chance in 2004. They came up with three big themes: "War on Women" (at tactic they'd used before) "Bush Lied Us Into War" (a lie, but they knew all their buddies in the press would say it over and over again) and "War on Science"
The "War on Women" has always been a lie. First, women are not paid less per hour as a form of gender discrimination (if they were, anybody starting a business could hire all women and wipe-out their competitors because of much lower labor costs). Women tend to get less per hour because they (statistically, not as individuals) make different life choices preferring things like schedule flexibility and also because they tend to take time out on their careers. It's also NOT a "war on women" to say "you do not get to kill your child" (one could easily flip it and screech that "pro choice" == "war on children")
Bush did not lie us into war; If you look at the actual words he said in his speech to Congress, he was truthful (he did NOT say Saddam had WMD, he said our allies had intelligence to that effect... and indeed he was in possession of just such intelligence reports from our allies at the time) The left KNEW those intel reports would never be made public within that election cycle, or indeed even during a 2nd Bush term. The "Big Lie" propaganda technique worked well however and now all the same stupid morons who think Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from her house as evidence she knew foreign policy (she DID NOT say this... the Saturday Night Live comic impersonator said this) are are convinced that Bush lied in his speech to congress
There was an organized effort to get left-leaning scientists in the Bush years to claim they were being muzzled... also a lie. A well-known global warming fanatic at NASA held something like 100 press events telling people he was being muzzled (the insanity of this should logically be obvious... but it is not if you are a left-wing journalist). This was the same guy who helped kick-off the climate scares in congress years earlier by participating in a rigged hearing (he and his friends in congress had arranged for the air conditioning to be off during those hearings so that everybody in the room would be hot, sweating and uncomfortable). The right is in many ways more pro-science than the left... the left is anti-nuclear (generally out of irrational fear and mis-trust of science), anti frakking (when all available science says its safe) the left hated the moon program (saw it as spending money on elite science-y stuff when it should be spent on poverty programs instead). The left is terrified of GM crops, no matter what the science says. The left has generally been anti-technology as well (opposed supersonic jets, hates hydro-electric dams, opposed nuclear-powered ships and subs, fought against many plastics and chemicals, fought against robots in factories, etc. Luddites to the core... they'd like us all to live in caves (and NOT to even warm ourselves with fire (which emits the EVIL global warming gas CO2)). The ONLY science that the left tends to like is any science that says "the world will end if people don't give more money and more power to big government". ANY "scientific" paper (no matter how thoroughly-manipulated the peer-review and publishing was) that supports left-wing beliefs is trumpeted as "SCIENCE" which everybody must bow down to... but of course any science that they do not like is denounced as phony or tainted. When Freeman Dyson (world-famous physicist) did not go-along with them on global warming, they screeched that we was not a climate scientist... but (as leftists ALWAYS do) they COUNTED on the public not knowing that their favorite NASA expert on global warming was, himself, also "just" a physics guy...
The right has disdain for this crap NOT because we are "anti-science" but because we are onto your political tactics and your selective love for only the bits of