It’s extremely sad that science, or so-called science can no longer be trusted.
If a special interest group or government grant drags a hundred dollar bill ... or perhaps a bit larger amount ... through the science community, they’ll be on it like fleas on a dog.
Willing to manipulate data to prove anything the money folks want proved.
NOAA very guilty in this regard.
Imagine if, say, a pharm research group released data that was 3X the known possible.
Or a bank giving 3X the amount in asset columns.
Science can be trusted. It is the scientists you have to keep an eye on.
I’m sure that TPTB use the carrot, but they also use a stick to beat the climate scientists into line. The “deniers” lose tenure, grants, esteem, etc. Destroy the lives and reputations of a few of them, and the cowards fall into line.
It was predicted 50 years ago by a very wise man.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
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.
Dwight Eisenhower, Jan 17, 1961 Source: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm