Posted on 02/16/2011 3:12:28 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[British] Government Chief Scientific Adviser John Beddington is stepping up the war on pseudoscience with a call to his fellow government scientists to be “grossly intolerant” if science is being misused by religious or political groups.
In closing remarks to an annual conference of around 300 scientific civil servants on 3 February, in London, Beddington said that selective use of science ought to be treated in the same way as racism and homophobia. “We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of racism. We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of people who [are] anti-homosexuality...We are not—and I genuinely think we should think about how we do this—grossly intolerant of pseudo-science, the building up of what purports to be science by the cherry-picking of the facts and the failure to use scientific evidence and the failure to use scientific method,” he said.
Beddington said he intends to take this agenda forward with his fellow chief scientists and also with the research councils. “I really believe that... we need to recognise that this is a pernicious influence, it is an increasingly pernicious influence and we need to be thinking about how we can actually deal with it.
”I really would urge you to be grossly intolerant...We should not tolerate what is potentially something that can seriously undermine our ability to address important problems.
“There are enough difficult and important problems out there without having to… deal with what is politically or morally or religiously motivated nonsense.”
Beddington also had harsh words for journalists who treat the opinions of non-scientist commentators as being equivalent to the opinions of what he called “properly trained, properly assessed” scientists. “The media see the discussions about really important scientific events as if it’s a bloody football match. It is ridiculous.”
His call has been welcomed by science groups, including the Campaign for Science and Engineering.
Edzard Ernst, professor of the study of complementary medicine at Exeter University, whose department is being closed down, said he was “delighted that somebody in [Beddington’s] position speaks out”. In an interview with Research Fortnight Ernst said that the analogy with racism was a good one and that he, like Beddington, questioned why journalists have what he called “a pathological need” to balance a scientific opinion with one from outside of science.
“You don’t have that balance in racism,” he said. “You’re not finishing [an article] by quoting the Ku Klux Klan when it is an article about racist ideas,” Ernst said.
“This is strong language because the frustration is so huge and because scientists are being misunderstood. For far too long we have been tolerant of these post-modern ideas that more than one truth is valid. All this sort of nonsense does make you very frustrated in the end.”
Ben Goldacre, a science journalist and medical doctor, agrees. “Society has been far too tolerant of politicians, lobbyists, and journalists wilfully misusing science, distorting evidence by cherry-picking data that suits their view, giving bogus authority to people who misrepresent the absolute basics of science, and worse,” he told Research Fortnight. “This distorted evidence has real world implications, because people need good evidence to make informed decisions on policy, health, and more. Beddington is frustrated, and rightly so: for years I’ve had journalists and politicians repeatedly try to brush my concerns on these issues under the carpet.”
Scientists need to fight back, he says.
In closing, Beddington said: “I’d urge you, and this is a kind of strange message to go out, but go out and be much more intolerant.” He asked his audience to forgive him for what appear to have been unscripted remarks, adding: “But it is a thing that has been very much at the forefront of my mind over the last few months and I think we need to do it.”
Thank you for your ping list circulation!
[excerpted].....when I came across an opinion piece by Mark Hertsgaard in The Politico, where he cites Galileo in defense of the current global warming hysteria. Hertsgaard appropriates the name and legacy of a man who defied the established scientific dogmas of his day-and uses it to enforce the established scientific dogmas of today. The man who dedicated his life to defending the idea that the Earth moves around the sun is doing a little turning of his own right now-in his grave.
Hertsgaard accuses the Republicans of a "Galileo moment"-i.e, that they are acting like Galileo's persecutors-because "This week, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Energy Committee, introduced legislation that would 'repeal' the Environmental Protection Agency's scientific determination that greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare."
Never mind that he's getting the politics wrong. (This is not a Galileo moment, but a James Madison moment. The point of the House legislation is not to "repeal science" but to reassert the separation of powers, preventing the EPA from imposing through regulation what congressional Democrats could not achieve through legislation.)
More fundamentally, Hertsgaard gets his science and history comprehensively wrong. Galileo is just a talking point; he doesn't know who Galileo was, what he did, and what was at stake in his struggle against the Church.
[snip]
Hertsgaard's article is partly a cautionary tale about one of the occupational vices of the political polemicist: using historical examples and symbols to score rhetorical points, without really understanding them. Perhaps Godwin's Law should be extended to cover Galileo and the Inquisition. But it is also an example of the way the left uses science, not as a vital thinking method, but as a political pose. They drag out science as a prop, without understanding the basic method and attitude of science.
Part of the reason why Galileo is remembered as one of the fathers of modern science is his thoroughgoing rejection of this subordination to authority. His achievement is reflected in the motto of Britain's Royal Society: nullius in verba, "on no one's word." The idea is that even if a Galileo or a Newton were to present a new theory, his prestige should count for nothing. He still has to show his data and prove it.
The same goes for climate scientists, environmentalist activists, and hack political writers. [end excerpt]
Exactly.
You’ve done a nice job here.
It is appreciated.
Thank you BH-fred.
My pleasure. :’)
:’)
“George Soros -- whom we're always told is not serving his own economic interests at all by promoting liberal politicians and big-government policies -- is launching a new investment fund that plans to profit off of the "green energy" boom, which is entirely dependent on government subsidies supported by the groups Soros funds.
As the press release puts it, this fund will "leverage technology and business model innovation to improve energy efficiency, reduce waste and emissions, harness renewable energy, and more efficiently use natural resources, among other applications." As Soros puts it in the same release: “Developing alternative sources of energy and achieving greater energy efficiency is both a significant global investment opportunity and an environmental imperative.” Cadie Thompson at CNBC's NetNet flagged this.
So, yeah. The big-government policies advanced by the liberal outfits he funds -- like Center for American Progress -- will enrich the companies in which Soros is investing.
But this story gets better.
The press release casually mentions whom Soros is hiring to run this new fund: Cathy Zoi.
Zoi was Barack Obama's "Acting Under Secretary for Energy and Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy." An Al Gore acolyte, Zoi was Obama's point-woman on subsidizing green tech. Now she's going to work for George Soros to profit off of subsidized green tech.
If you remember Zoi's name, it's because of another green-tech conflict of interest: Zoi's husband is an executive at a window company, Serious Windows, which the White House regularly held up as a "poster child of green industry."
This pseudo science is very prevalent in the cause to rid the planet of those who choose to use tobacco, and has been since the 1980’s.
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