Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Selective use of science ‘as bad as racism or homophobia’ (war against "bad" science)
Research ^ | February 14, 2011 | John Dwyer and Laura Hood

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.”


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: activism; climate; globalwarming; science
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-71 next last
John P. Holdren, the White House Director of Science and Technology holds similar views and activism as the British Chief Science Adviser.

[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.

------------

Anti-global warming "pseudoscientists,""skeptics" and "contrarians" in industry, business and science are being targeted.

The call by science and government "elites" for "intolerance," is getting louder. The call for violent intervention and is spreading in "elite" circles. Human caused "global climate disruption" is framed as too important; that forced change through government action is essential; that citizens must demand it; that those opposed are their enemies and must be dealt with.

------------

Three more examples: Woodwell (Woods Hole Research Center), Holdren (White House Chief Scientist), Hansen (NASA).

George Woodwell in Q&A after his Armageddon diatribe, is encouraged that his friend and "smart guy" the former head of his organization Woods Hole Research Center, John P. Holdren,[Global warming, population bomb activist] is Barack Obama's (who Holdren "considers a very smart guy") Director of Science and Technology, and that Holdren will get this to the president's ear. In Woodwell's view, Obama is hamstrung by government (current laws and regulations to act forcefully). Woodwell laments not having enough power to force change (he's painted AGW as critical, with absolutely no time left to tolerate pseudoscience and industry abuses) --- the only thing he can suggest is raising hell as loud as everyone can (HUGE applause).

More from Q&A in last half-hour where Woodwell accuses “deniers” and “contrarians” of being stupid and/or driven by profits, full of religion and political baggage.

[Exactly as expressed by British Science Adviser John Beddington in his speech posted above: “There are enough difficult and important problems out there without having to… deal with what is politically or morally or religiously motivated nonsense.”]

[excerpt from Woodwell's prepared speech] "..We have one political party in the United States that’s committed to smaller government and to growth at the same time. They are absolutely mutually exclusive. That is silliness; it makes no sense at all. We have to have more government if we’re going to have more growth, and more rules, more thoroughly pervasive rules that establish the stability of the biophysical system that we all depend on. Building that change is going to take a major effort on the part of the scientific community first in defining it, and second in executing it – persuading the conservation community that it has to have clear objectives that will work............... [end excerpt]

Green NASA global warming activist, James Hansen:... (starting at 45:26 into the 51:19 interview)

Dian Rehm’s question to James Hansen (NASA): “Are you calling for trials for energy company executives.”

James Hansen: “CEOs are guilty of crimes against humanity if they continue to dispute what is understood scientifically and continue to fund contrarians.”

1 posted on 02/16/2011 3:12:35 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife; Zionist Conspirator
...scientists to be “grossly intolerant” if science is being misused by religious...

Sounds fair.   I'm religious and I'm “grossly intolerant” whenever I see religion misused by scientists.

2 posted on 02/16/2011 3:22:47 AM PST by expat_panama
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

When science starts out with an agenda or goes in with preconceived notions then it is garbage.
Still it will be called “science”.


3 posted on 02/16/2011 3:22:47 AM PST by Joe Boucher ((FUBO))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
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.”

If you have time to listen to the James Hansen NPR radio interview linked above, you will hear (toward the end) the same sentiments, that he is amused, insulted and refuses to be interviewed alongside a "contrarian" because it elevates pseudoscience.

4 posted on 02/16/2011 3:25:22 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife (Allhttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2122429/posts)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Wow! Just wow!


5 posted on 02/16/2011 3:28:37 AM PST by Incorrigible (If I lead, follow me; If I pause, push me; If I retreat, kill me.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Joe Boucher

Climate change has the same agenda as government run health care and government run jobs stimulus -— control.


6 posted on 02/16/2011 3:30:33 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife (Allhttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2122429/posts)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
“If you have time to listen to the James Hansen NPR radio interview linked above, you will hear (toward the end) the same sentiments, that he is amused, insulted and refuses to be interviewed alongside a “contrarian” because it elevates pseudoscience.”

I certainly wouldn't be surprised if in his day Ptolemy felt the same way. Didn't quite work out for him. Bleeding people was also mainstream ‘science’ not long ago, and contributed to the death of George Washington.

To people like Hansen I would just like to say ‘Dogma is the enemy of truth’.

7 posted on 02/16/2011 3:48:52 AM PST by pieceofthepuzzle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

So, they want to apply hate crime laws to anyone who deviates from the politically correct orthodoxy of what science should be. Do believe in man made global warming? - Go to jail.


8 posted on 02/16/2011 3:58:26 AM PST by circlecity
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: circlecity

Do = Don’t


9 posted on 02/16/2011 4:00:14 AM PST by circlecity
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Putting anti-homosexual attitudes and pseudo-science peddling on a par with racism? Too busy to stand there and refute it intellectually?
Racism is to modern times what devil worship was to an earlier era. It exists, here and there, but not as frequently as it’s used for smearing.
“I saw a succubus fly into Goody Gumm’s window. If she hath enjoyed congress with the damned, it is her sovereign right to express her diablosexuality; but she would afterwards harbor racist opinions of her laundress, Carmelita.”


10 posted on 02/16/2011 4:06:01 AM PST by 668 - Neighbor of the Beast (BYOST -- bring your own sark tag. Thank you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Comment #11 Removed by Moderator

To: Cincinatus' Wife
Right after his oft quoted words on the “military-industrial complex”, Eisenhower had this to say:

"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."

12 posted on 02/16/2011 4:17:41 AM PST by beef (Who Killed Kennewick Man?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Incorrigible

When an apple falls from a tree, it goes up, Ya got that, it goes up, IT GOES UP, GET THAT THRU YER HEAD, IT GOES UP.


13 posted on 02/16/2011 4:37:22 AM PST by Waco (From Seward to Sara)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: expat_panama

“We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of people who [are] anti-homosexuality”

Stopped reading right there.

Colonel, USAFR


14 posted on 02/16/2011 4:39:06 AM PST by jagusafr ("We hold these truths to be self-evident...")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

We’re ‘scientists’ and WE know best.

So STFU and worship us!


15 posted on 02/16/2011 4:58:59 AM PST by WayneS (Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. -- James Madison)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: jagusafr
Hmm, I hadn't read that far because the whole piece seemed so flippin' air-headed.   Somehow I'd have thought a scientist would be focused on what is instead of caring about other peoples likes and dislikes.
16 posted on 02/16/2011 5:14:06 AM PST by expat_panama
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Alternative Title:

Gulobal Warming crowd start to fight back after big kick in the nads!

Mel


17 posted on 02/16/2011 5:30:16 AM PST by melsec
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Flippin hypocrits...absolutely amazing that they dare to have all people respect science and call those who don’t akin to homophobes because after all science supports that homosexuality is not a choice...right? Flippin liar!


18 posted on 02/16/2011 5:46:43 AM PST by ICE-FLYER (God bless and keep the United States of America)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: beef; All
Some “roots" of "settled science” and the politics of power over the people.

Agronomist --- [Trofim] Lysenko himself spent much time denouncing academic scientists and geneticists, claiming that their isolated laboratory work was not helping the Soviet people. By 1929 Lysenko's skeptics were politically censured, accused of offering only criticisms, and for failing to prescribe any new solutions themselves. In December 1929, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin gave a famous speech praising "practice" above "theory", elevating the political bosses above the scientists and technical specialists. Though for a period the Soviet government under Stalin continued its support of agricultural scientists, after 1935 the balance of power abruptly swung towards Lysenko and his followers.

Lysenko was put in charge of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the Soviet Union and made responsible for ending the propagation of "harmful" ideas among Soviet scientists. Lysenko served this purpose by causing the expulsion, imprisonment, and death of hundreds of scientists and eliminating all study and research involving Mendelian genetics throughout the Soviet Union. This period is known as Lysenkoism. He bears particular responsibility for the persecution of his predecessor and rival, prominent Soviet biologist Nikolai Vavilov, which ended in 1943 with the imprisoned Vavilov's death by starvation. In 1941 Lysenko was awarded the Stalin Prize. [end excerpt]

Lysenkoism is used colloquially to describe the manipulation or distortion of the scientific process as a way to reach a predetermined conclusion as dictated by an ideological bias, often related to social or political objectives.” >

"Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants for food, fuel, feed, fiber, and reclamation. Agronomy encompasses work in the areas of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and soil science. Agronomy is the application of a combination of sciences like biology, chemistry, ecology, earth science, and genetics. Agronomists today are involved with many issues including producing food, creating healthier food, managing environmental impact of agriculture, and creating energy from plants."

The Nazi Origins of Apocalyptic Global Warming Theory "...Guenther Schwab joined the advisory panel of "The Society of Biological Anthropology, Eugenics and Behavior Research." Schwab was especially concerned with the burgeoning population explosion of the Third World that he was sure would eventually overrun Europe. By advocating modern racial science based on genetics, Schwab believed that the population bomb, together with its associated environmental degradation, could be averted. Here, Schwab shows his basic commitment to the Nazi SS doctrine of ‘blood and soil' -- an explosive concoction of eugenics and environmentalism loaded with eco-imperialistic ambitions that had devastating consequences on the Eastern Front in World War II....."

Sokal-- Deference to Authority: obscurantism internalized

The Displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter, by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is — second only to American political campaigns — the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time. — Larry Laudan, Science and Relativism (1990)

The Sokal Affair(1996) was a publishing hoax that New York University physicist Alan Sokal perpetrated on the editors and readers of Social Text, an academic journal of post-modern cultural studies that was not then peer-reviewed. In 1996, as an experiment testing editorial integrity (fact-checking, peer review), Prof. Sokal submitted a pseudoscientific article — proposing that physical reality is a social construct — to learn if Social Text would “publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if: (a) it sounded good, and, (b) it flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions.”

SYNDICALISM is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and state socialism which uses federations of collectivised trade unions or industrial unions. It is a form of economic corporatism that advocates interest aggregation of multiple non-competitive categorised units to negotiate and manage an economy.

For adherents, labor unions are the potential means of both overcoming economic aristocracy and running society fairly in the interest of the majority, through union democracy. Industry in a syndicalist system would be run through co-operative confederations and mutual aid. Local syndicates would communicate with other syndicates through the Bourse du Travail (labor exchange) which would manage and transfer commodities.

Syndicalism is also used to refer to the tactic of bringing about this social arrangement, typically expounded by anarcho-syndicalism and De Leonism, in which a general strike begins and workers seize their means of production and organise in a federation of trade unionism, such as the CNT. Throughout its history, the reformist section of syndicalism has been overshadowed by its revolutionary section, typified by the IWW or the Federación Anarquista Ibérica section of the CNT.....................[snip]

Theory and Practice

Syndicalism is one of the three most common currents of socialist economics, together with Market socialism and socialist planned economies. It holds, on an ethical basis, that all participants in an organised trade internally share equal ownership of its production. By contrast, socialism emphasises distributing output among trades as required by each trade, not necessarily considering how trades organise internally.

Syndicalism is non-governmental and while some people say it is privatism, unlike communism, others[who?] maintain that it is more accurate to associate it with the civic sector. Communism rejects government-sanctioned private ownership of the means of production in favor of ownership by the class of individuals who actually use such property (i.e., the workers or proletariat, who under most variants of communism would have control of the state as well, muddling the distinction between state and proletarian ownership).

In syndicalism, unions exist independent of the state rather than needing the state's micromanagement and central planning. As with businesses in capitalism, labor unions in syndicalism would likely share a complicated relationship of co-operation and opposition with the state (with the obvious exception of anarcho-syndicalism, under which there would be no state).

Syndicalists state that society is to be organised bottom-up based on direct democracy, confederation, workplace democracy and decentralized socialism, and that to get to such a society they may either initiate a general strike through direct action and workplace occupation or - in the case of reformist syndicalists - develop the syndicalist economics alongside the state, in competition to it.

Where they’re linked: Organized Labor

Hitler: Fascism “Why nationalize industry when you can nationalize the people?”

The Big Lie: “But it remained for the Jews, with their unqualified capacity for falsehood, and their fighting comrades, the Marxists, to impute responsibility for the downfall precisely to the man who alone had shown a superhuman will and energy in his effort to prevent the catastrophe which he had foreseen and to save the nation from that hour of complete overthrow and shame. By placing responsibility for the loss of the world war on the shoulders of Ludendorff they took away the weapon of moral right from the only adversary dangerous enough to be likely to succeed in bringing the betrayers of the Fatherland to Justice.

All this was inspired by the principle--which is quite true within itself--that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.” —Adolf Hitler , Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X[1]

The New World Coming: Climatic Disruption and the Clash of World Views “The environmental system at the moment is conspicuously not working, and the gap between what the scientific community that I represent and the political and economic communities can do about it is increasing day by day. The problem is that the compromises that work and lubricate the political and economic systems do not apply to the biotic systems where basic rules of nature dominate and are simply not open to easy modification. Another fact is that the connections between those three lines, all of which are absolutely necessary if we are going to have a civilization into the future, are breaking down. And we have feedback from the failures in the biophysical world into the economic and political world in Pakistan at the moment, and Guatemala, Haiti, Somalia and other nations around the world, all of which are suffering from the extreme degradation of their environment to where it is not possible to have a viable economic system or viable political system.”

------------

MUST READ: Liberal Fascism By Jonah Goldberg.

19 posted on 02/16/2011 6:09:15 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife (Allhttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2122429/posts)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: WayneS; All
Not just scientists, it's a network:

GOVERNMENT, EDUCATION, SCIENCE, JOURNALISM, RELIGION:

U.S. Department of Education NEA: National Education Association

ED.gov --Feb 15, 2011: Advancing Student Achievement Through Labor-Management Collaboration “The pressure is on all of us -- and the four million students in your districts are counting on labor, management, and state governments to set an example of how America can provide a world-class education.”

EPA: Environmental Protection Agency “40 years of protecting health and the environment”

Environmental Justice and the Seven Priorities for EPA’s Future “Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism and Working for Environmental Justice: We have begun a new era of outreach and protection for communities historically underrepresented in EPA decision-making. We are building strong working relationships with tribes, communities of color, economically distressed cities and towns, young people and others, but this is just a start. We must include environmental justice principles in all of our decisions. This is an area that calls for innovation and bold thinking, and I am challenging all of our employees to bring vision and creativity to our programs. The protection of vulnerable subpopulations is a top priority, especially with regard to children. Our revitalized Children’s Health Office is bringing a new energy to safeguarding children through all of our enforcement efforts. We will ensure that children’s health protection continues to guide the path forward.”

John P. Holdren: White House Office of Science and technology believes in population control, de-developing the United States, and global climate disruption.

James Hansen (NASA-Goddard) Global Climate Change Activist

NASA is now GREEN ClimateNASA.gov

Layer upon layer of green departments at DoE: Department of Energy The Office of Policy and International Affairs (PI) serves as the focal point within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the development, coordination, and implementation of DOE-related aspects of climate change technical programs, policies, and initiatives. The Office of Climate Change Policy and Technology, located within PI, provides supporting policy, planning, technical and analytical services to carry out this function. To the extent delegated by the Secretary, the Office provides similar services to other Federal agencies and to Cabinet and sub-Cabinet-level interagency policy committees that work on climate change-related policy, science, technology, and greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation programs………..”

Creation Care for Pastors “We recognize that creation care is a part of the call to Christian discipleship. We are committed to integrating biblical principles of environmental stewardship into the life of our church. As first steps, we commit ourselves to improving our energy conservation practices, reducing waste through recycling, and promoting greater concern for God’s creation. We seek to learn more about the impact of climate change, species loss, and other environmental problems on the vulnerable poor, doing our part to address these concerns for the benefit of all.” Sermons to use Organizations and Ministries

Creation Care Science Advisors includes among others, James Hansen of NASA.

SEJ: The Society of Environmental JournalistsYour source for environment, energy, science health and climate reporting.”

20 posted on 02/16/2011 6:11:20 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife (Allhttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2122429/posts)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-71 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson