Another Example of How Science is Being Corrupted by Politics and Desire for Funds
George Bush was often accused of politicizing science. But the real truth is that science has been corrupted from within by too often slouching into blatant ideological advocacy or money-driven agendas.
And here's an unintended admission of that very point. The New York Times Magazine ran a story a few weeks ago on a global warming skeptic named Freemon Dyson called "The Civil Heretic." The current edition's letters to the editor are all opposed to Dyson's view--a standard approach for the NYT that I believe uses its letters-to-the-editor pages as another way of editorializing (in addition to editorials, imbalanced op/ed pages, and news stories). But one letter stood out in its clear admission that the "science" of global warming is not science as much as politics. From the letter by Monika Kopacz, a Ph.D. candidate in applied mathematics and atmospheric sciences, Harvard University:
It is no secret that a lot of climate-change research is subject to opinion, that climate models sometimes disagree even on the signs of the future changes (e.g. drier vs. wetter future climate). The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians'-- and readers'-- attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today's world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty.Whoa: Now there's an admission worth noting! Clearly, we should put little stock into what these "scientists" tell us about the global warming because they are not providing objective facts from which we can glean proper policy options. Rather, they are intentionally and sensationally exaggerating their findings to win political points, promote their favored policy outcomes, and get more money for research.
I doubt she meant it this way, but Kopacz's letter is as pure and succinct an indictment of the ongoing corruption of science as I have yet seen.
Labels: Politicized Science. Global Warming. Exaggerated Findings.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 3:15 PM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
Gosh, how'd they let that one slip through?
This goes all the way back to Galileo, for example, and beyond.
The alliance of religion, "philosophy," politics, and science has always been in conflict with the freedom of the mind and the best of humanity, and the Church doctrine that non-human animals do not have souls enabled experimentation on them, which has yielded bad science and an anti-life and ultimately anti-human ethos which is as callous and inhumane to humans as it is to the other animals. That's how we got the death culture.
This is also what happens when material success is the paramount value and science is seen as the route to material success. Since the second world war, in a world shaped by the Nuremberg Code and the U.N. worldview, professions have been reduced to businesses, ethics have been reduced to convenience, the ultimate value has become material success, and a generation has sprung up that was raised to believe that to be a doctor, a specialist, a scientist was the ultimate success. No wonder they behave the way they do and whenever an attempt to introduce actual ethics back into the mix is made, it is called "interference" and "politicizing," and morality and religion have come to be ridiculed and regarded as the bad guy. Philosophy, morality, religion, theory, ethics, principles, and the principles of science are supposed to be entwined -- just not the way they are now. They all belong to the same house of the zodiac, for good reason. But astrology, which was an integral part of science and medicine when they were still science and medicine in their ethical form, became ostracized from "science" when science stopped being a servant of humanity and became infiltrated, co-opted, and run by a corrupt western Church. When one is corrupt, the other is as well. That's why we've now got a Vatican that says out of one side of its mouth that theological doctrine on the sanctity of life is to be followed, and out of the other that gee, we don't want anyone to have to suffer on life support, and if the person "does not wish to be a financial burden to his or her family or the community," it's ok for them to ask to have the plug pulled. Utilitarianism, futile care theory, assisted suicide, "advanced directives," "counselling" -- all part of the same ball of wax, and the bottom line of all of it masquerades as "ethics," "ethics committees," "bioethics," etc. and of course is all about money. They even manage to make "costs" sound sanctimonious. We don't need all these constructs and institutions; but without them, people would be free to think for themselves and live as they choose, and that's what those who profit through them are afraid of; thus they keep insisting that they are necessary -- and like idiots, people believe them rather than seeing through the game.
I'm just using astrology as an example; it is a moral science, and therefore modern science considers it not science. Without having studied it, of course. When I was in academia, if I'd yet become a professional astrologer at that point, which I hadn't, I'd have received the same reaction from "the academy" as I did whenever I mentioned that I was a Republican. These are not very open-minded people -- and they run modern science. How likely is it then that modern science would let anyone have the freedom to live; they don't even grant it to laboratory animals, let alone humans who are supposed to bow to "superior" "scientific" "knowledge"; there isn't even genuine academic freedom. Not unless one agrees with them. If they lose the position of being right, after all, they lose their salaries, and then they might have to go out into the world and do, you know, actual work, and make actual sense.
Wow...that picture shouldn't say 'Climate Confusion', but 'Climate Confession!'
I just think it's funny when climate change deniers and creationists turn around and accuse anti-vivisection activists of being "anti-science". Is the pot calling the kettle black?
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