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The scientific technological elite
American Thinker ^ | December 07, 2009 | Robert W. Ball

Posted on 12/06/2009 10:55:28 PM PST by neverdem

President Dwight D. Eisenhower's famous 1960 farewell address contained more than an admonition about the danger of an expanding "military-industrial complex."  That speech was also an early warning of the current unholy alliance between the government and a scientific community dependent on the government for its funding.


Americans have steadfastly recalled his initial clarion call, especially in political debates concerning the size of annual defense budgets:

"... we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence...by the military-industrial complex.... Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together." [i]

However, little attention has been given to an equally important warning that Eisenhower issued in the same farewell address; the danger that public policy might become the captive of a scientific technological elite:

"...(In) the technological revolution during recent decades...research has become central...complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government...the solitary inventor... has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields...

...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.

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....we must...be alert to the...danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite." [ii]

It is uncanny that Eisenhower almost exactly predicted the current results we are experiencing from the past thirty years of multi-million dollar grants to study earth's climate. From the recent revelations of intellectual fraud and deceit, we have seen a perfect example of a "government contract" that has become a substitute for "intellectual curiosity."

The millions of dollars for continuing climate research, and the dazzling possibilities for expanding government policies and social controls, have provided the necessary components to allow trusted scientists to cheat their way into scaring the public to let them have their way with us. Thousands of researchers now depend on these grants for their livelihood and the movement pushes forward under its own momentum regardless of the underlying facts.

The will to survive overlooks non-supportive information. Defensive reflexes cause selective acceptance of data, and sometimes, outright deception.  Truth becomes far less important than the survival of the movement and the arrival of the next grant.  It becomes easy to rationalize away all opposition; especially when the opposition challenges the very premise upon which the source of income depends.

Governments will gleefully fund anything that tends to grow their power and control. The investment and stockbroker community rub their hands together in anticipation of the trillions of dollars that will reach their fingers through "cap and trade" solutions.  Energy companies will happily join the parade.  An unwitting public, dependent on a grossly inadequate press, will swallow the garbage whole. The media loves nothing better than a chance to help "save the world." Somehow it gives their lives meaning, and certainly beats the difficult task of being real journalists. That is how a theory becomes a widely accepted "fact" even though true scientific investigation has been seriously lacking.

The results are now before us; "science" has fraudulently provided liberal politicians with the means for total public control - anthropogenic (man-caused) global warming.

We deniers are hidden in the background wondering what would happen if "our" side is correct that we are more likely in an extended period of cooling -- a far more disastrous prospect than global warming. What can man do to stop that?  Must we start burning fossil fuels in the streets and chop down the trees?  Does any intelligent human being believe that mankind could then warm the atmosphere by increasing the production of carbon dioxide?  Sounds kind of silly doesn't it?


[i] Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040

[ii] Ibid


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 12/06/2009 10:55:28 PM PST by neverdem
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To: neverdem

Excellent catch!


2 posted on 12/06/2009 10:58:04 PM PST by ConservativeMind (Hypocrisy: "Animal rightists" who eat meat & pen up pets while accusing hog farmers of cruelty.)
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To: neverdem

Ikeswords bump!!


3 posted on 12/06/2009 11:04:44 PM PST by skeptoid (BUMP)
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To: neverdem

They lie to line their pockets. Period.


4 posted on 12/06/2009 11:21:00 PM PST by allmost
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To: allmost

Maybe it used to be different, the good old days...


5 posted on 12/06/2009 11:34:28 PM PST by allmost
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To: allmost
Maybe it used to be different, the good old days...

In the PBS series Cosmos there was an episode where an early mathematician, I think his name was Aristarchus, figured out the world is round, and even calculated the circumference and diameter of the earth.

He also said the earth revolves around the sun.

A politician opposed him and won the debate.

It took 1500 years for that PC situation to be corrected.

6 posted on 12/07/2009 12:06:41 AM PST by Dan(9698)
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To: Dan(9698)

The shadow was dead center on the village well. No one could have missed it. Refusing to see. Sounds familiar...


7 posted on 12/07/2009 12:14:03 AM PST by allmost
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To: allmost
Nobody else understood the significance of that.

They didn't understand the evidence he used to make his calculations, so they went with their feelings and followed the politician.

That is also familiar. PC is nothing new, and is just as misleading now.

8 posted on 12/07/2009 12:22:23 AM PST by Dan(9698)
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To: allmost
And, also for politicans it means jobs for local defense contractors, increased funding for military installations in their district, grants to colleges/universities in their locality with links to defense work, etc., which all lead to votes that, in turn, lead to re-elections.

Is the wedge which leads to perpetual prosperity in fact war?

9 posted on 12/07/2009 3:03:16 AM PST by jamaksin
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To: neverdem

**


10 posted on 12/07/2009 10:21:55 AM PST by what's up
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To: wardaddy; Joe Brower; Cannoneer No. 4; Criminal Number 18F; Dan from Michigan; Eaker; Jeff Head; ...
Climategate controversy has echoes of Watergate, UN says Is this rich, or what?

Donald Kennedy and the corruption of Science Magazine

Mark Steyn: The Unrealistic Realist - Leader of the free world? Not Obama’s bag.

Two Against Two: Bloomberg And Lautenberg Pair Up To Violate The Second And Fourteenth Amendments

Some noteworthy articles about politics, foreign or military affairs, IMHO, FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.

11 posted on 12/07/2009 10:38:58 AM PST by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: neverdem

Thanks for the ping!


12 posted on 12/07/2009 11:07:17 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: Dan(9698)
Um, the world was known to be a sphere and its diameter was calculated well before Aristarchus. He does deserve credit for the first heliocentric theory. He lost the debate in ancient times, however, not to politicians but to Aristotleans - who agreed on the earth being a sphere, but thought the heavens revolved around that sphere.

The reason he lost the debate is he could not meet a cogent Aristotlean objection, and made it worse by the manner he tried to address that objection. The Aristotleans pointed out that if he was correct, the angle to any given fixed star should change throughout the year, since the earth would be (in fact, is) on different sides of the sun every 6 months. They knew the distance from the earth to the sun was very large, already, so the baseline of that triangle is long (in fact, 186 million miles).

A change in the angle to a star from this effect is called parallax; it was familiar from terrestrial surveying, which uses it to find the distance to remote objects. But no parallax to any star was observed. As far as the Aristotleans were concerned, Aristarchus's theory made a clear and falsifiable prediction, and the observations seemed to falsify it.

Aristarchus replied that no parallax would be seen if the fixed stars were infinitely far away. He didn't argue that parallax would exist but would be small if the stars were very far away - he argued that zero parallax was consistent with his theory, provided that the stars were infinitely far away, and claimed this showed that the stars were in fact infinitely far away.

The Aristotleans rejected this argument for two reasons. First, it posited an "actual infinity" which they held to be impossible and a sign of bankruptcy and "reaching" in any theory (which goes a bit too far, but has some plausibility to it). Second, they pointed out that this was not the proper way to relate theory to observation - it was "patching" the theory with ad hoc hypotheses whose net effect was to prevent the theory from having testable observational consequences. And this objection was in fact highly modern and essentially correct.

The reality is, observation did not support the heliocentric theory until instruments were developed powerful enough to measure the very slight parallax that does occur in angles to the nearest fixed stars. This took quite powerful telescopes and very precise alignment and control of their direction and measurement of their deflection from any given base. And it was only achieved in the 19th century. (Yes, really).

Between Copernicus and the 19th century, the observations were not yet there to confirm the heliocentric theory. It was believed in anyway because it explained the detailed movements of the planets much more simply than any rival theory (from the time of Kepler, basically - Copernicus himself had precious little additional reason to think it true, compared to Aristarchus. Galileo had a bit more after observing the moons of Jupiter, suggesting the earth was a similar subsystem).

The observations available at a given time do not always point to the correct theory of any given phenomenon. Sometimes the crucial evidence to distinguish two theories, or that prove the superiority of one over another, is simply lacking. This was the case in Aristarchus's day. He had the right answer by basically an inspired guess, but the available evidence was actually *against* that guess.

Beware of flip explanations of the history of thought that paint everything as a matter of purity and enlightenment on one side, and benighted ignorance and contempt for truth on the other. It is almost always much more involved that that, but popularizes do not care about the details. They want a morality play, not the historical truth. Ironically, they practice as moralizing history what they condemn within their morality play script, as anti-scientific prejudice.

13 posted on 12/07/2009 1:21:46 PM PST by JasonC
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To: neverdem; OKSooner; honolulugal; Killing Time; Beowulf; Mr. Peabody; RW_Whacko; gruffwolf; ...
Image and video hosting by TinyPic

FReepmail me to get on or off

Ping me if you find one I've missed.


Good catch indeed.
14 posted on 12/07/2009 1:43:39 PM PST by xcamel (The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it. - H. L. Mencken)
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To: neverdem; DollyCali; According2RecentPollsAirIsGood; Thunder90; Little Bill; Nervous Tick; ...
 




Beam me to Planet Gore !

15 posted on 12/07/2009 3:19:15 PM PST by steelyourfaith (Time to prosecute Al Gore now that fellow scam artist Bernie Madoff is in stir.)
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To: neverdem

The scientific community has been from day one the primary target of infiltration by the communists comintern agents. This class has thus been particularly susceptible to the siren’s sing of progressivism. The problem is that we now have the mechanics of Lysenko prevailing in all “sciences” to the point that they are far less “scientific” than any true science could be. Once ideology infects the scientific community it is used as an instrument of mass control rather than as an instrument of progress..


16 posted on 12/07/2009 3:49:27 PM PST by Cacique (quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat ( Islamia Delenda Est ))
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To: JasonC
The point I was making is: Mankind has been down the PC road before. As recently as Galileo and Copernicus, there were severe penalties with disagreement with those in power.

The fact that someone may be right, does not mean they will win, or even be respected.

The “scientists” and “politicians” of long ago were willing to put their agenda ahead of actual truth.

There is nothing new in what the PC crowd is doing now. It took 1500 years to correct the “science” and the PC crowd is not interested in truth. They are interested in control and money.

17 posted on 12/07/2009 3:53:20 PM PST by Dan(9698)
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To: JasonC

Good post. Unfortunately, no libtard cultist is ever going to read more than half or it before they start calling you names.


18 posted on 12/07/2009 4:14:50 PM PST by crazyhorse691 (Now that the libs are in power dissent is not only unpatriotic, but, it is also racist.)
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