Everyone who uses the words or phases “consensus” or “settled science” are politicians not scientists and should be removed from public debate, because their goal is to eliminate debate.
This seems to include the majority of scientists and 99.9% of media, especially science and climate writers.
It's all about the Benjamins. Throughout the academic and scientific communities there is a constant drumbeat of more funding. I saw it firsthand in the Leeds School of Business where academic rigor was sacrificed for money (yes, I'm calling out Leeds' business minor program and constantly increasing class sizes). My hunch is that Nature saw more NSF/NIH/etc. funding coming from a Biden administration so hence, the endorsement.
"...partisan cheerleading can actually make things worse and compromise democratic practices."
Whooboy that's the crux of the issue in'it? I picked up on that gem in 6th grade.
I'd been elected class host then the same day impeached. Being from the 'wrong side of town' & not wearing a yellow shirt to go with the maroon sweater then in vogue was my 'crime'.
Partisan 'cheerleading' negates truly democratic practices from cradle to grave.
Roger: Here is an alternative question you might consider. Rather than simply agree that the great majority of the science community leans left in politics, and in regard to climate change, leads very left, maybe you should inquire why that is so? And what does it mean to lean left in climate change? I suppose it means buying most of the IPCC position that the end of the world as we know it is on hand without immediate, draconian cuts in emissions. I suppose one possible reason is that science organizations believe the climate scientists have objectively studied the matter and come up with rational conclusions drawn from data and analysis. Another possible answer is that climate funding is a huge gravy train and they are the drummers to keep the beat going. Maybe they are better educated and smarter? But ultimately, it seems to me to reflect tribal culture. I suppose we could go on and on with more possibilities, and probably it is a combination of factors. It is also well known that while scientists tend to lean left, engineers tend to lean right. Maybe you ought to study this aspect?
Coming back to the matter of political advocacy by science organizations, the alarmist orthodoxy is very much parallel to a religious orthodoxy. Because it is fundamentally a belief system, and the overwhelming majority of people are unable to understand it technically, it requires fear as the driving force (like religion) and the thing to fear must already be affecting our lives (thus the exaggerations of current impacts you have exposed). It is not surprising that those who feared Covid the most overlap a great deal with those who fear climate change. It seems in some ways that educated people think they are better able to fear catastrophe than less educated people?
Note also, that the world economics of emissions, the effect of emissions on climate, and the impacts of climate change on human affairs are so complex that no single person or small group of persons could possibly understand it. So, the IPCC has pulled together hundreds of specialists to unravel this complex system problem, and it is a matter of faith as to whether they came up with a credible answer. I suppose that it is comparable to believing in the Holy Trinity or the parting of the Red Sea. You either buy it or you don't.
"But Thorp wasn’t really fired up until he heard President Trump tell pharmaceutical executives that they should speed up work on a vaccine. That led to the hugely popular editorial “Do Us a Favor.” Addressing the president, Thorp wrote: “If you want something, start treating science and its principles with respect.”
"Not only is it dangerous to skip important steps in the drug development process, but Trump “implies that science wouldn’t want to go fast, that we’ve been holding back for some reason,” he says to C&EN. “To say, ‘Do me a favor, speed up’ with no idea as to why things have to be done the way they have to be done is just so disrespectful.”"
In fact President Trump was correct in anticipating how quickly the vaccines could be made, and Thorp was wrong, but making his political points.
This is a left wing Progressive problem. Making believe that both "sides" are equally at fault by citing Naomi Oreskes is nonsense. Groups like the Heartland Institute and GWPF (founded by Nigel Lawson, RIP) were formed in order to try to bring a modicum of balance to the discussion.
Entrenched bureaucracies like the UN, NOAA, NASA, NSF etc. are manned and managed by activists fully committed to the catastrophic narrative and willing to do anything they have to in order to push it. The professional societies like AGU, The National Academies, The Physics Association etc. all toe the alarmist line. Universities are lost and the media loves it because fear sells. Corporations are totally intimidated and go along to get along. Roger publishes, he posts here, he write articles in Forbes and occasional Opeds and he is ignored.
Science has been coopted and corrupted and nobody seems to give a shit.
That’s why your worth the money. I want to be educated by unbiased scientists that want to inform not scare. Your political bias is not between every line. Thanks for speaking out. We have the same problem with the media.
I'm not optimistic that science organizations and researchers will ever regain the public's trust. There is just too much money tied to "being a proper progressive", and too little money available for actual skeptical science. And now there is a big stick (called the RESTRICT act) to go along with the carrot.
I'm just thankful that I've had a good life into my 70's, and don't have any children or grandchildren who will have to grow up in America 1984
Thank you, Roger and Matt. Especially for the Univ of Chicago Kalven reference. We wish more knew about it.
Our next piece, coming in a few days, is on what is possibly the best opportunity to get this right and restore trust in science in 30 years, since the “existential climate crisis created by RCP8.5”.
Including with spillover effects (we hope) in public health science in the wake of Covid-19(84).
Or, it will be the next example of the very phenomenon you and Matt wrote about so eloquently at Heterodox.
Apr 5, 2023·edited Apr 5, 2023Liked by Roger Pielke Jr.
While I agree with the thrust of the article, I strongly disagree with the connotation that scientists should be partisan and political advocates. First and foremost, we should be as objective as possible. That is the debt we owe to science, other scientists, and those who made it possible for us to become scientists. Nothing wrong with being partisan, or advocating for a particular policy, per se – it's a part of the human condition. However, if we do that in our role as scientists it is virtually impossible (and decidedly UN-human) to maintain our objectivity – bounded rationality (like entropy) almost always wins.
Partisan cheerleading is just one more example of corruption. Holden Thorpe knows very well who butters his bread. When you allow a group of people to create and control the entire Western World's money supply they can buy most people in any leadership position. As we saw very well with Covid, political leaders, union leaders, journal publishers, medical authorities, virtually all major media, university leadership all fell into lockstep with the bogus Covid narrative. And anyone in a leadership position who dissented was dealt with viciously. Welcome to the coming Post Truth, techno-feudal, Totalitarian World Dictatorship.
It may help to nudge the academic mindset to remind them of the practice of the 1930s government in Germany to de-platform communists and Jews. That was a disturbingly similar situation where institutions and government were aligned in their beliefs. Sadly, my personal experience of academia leaves me sceptical and confirms that history repeats and much of academia is not so smart as it likes to think.
Just look at what happened to the once informative Scientific American. I was a subscriber decades ago, but recently because everything is edited through a woke microscope I can’t trust anything they publish and studiously avoid it.
"We experts, especially those of us whose work is supported by the public, should always remember that we work for those who provide us the resources and social license to do our work. That includes both people who may be our political soul mates and fellow travelers, as well as those whose politics we may find appalling or even worse." This is an interesting idea, especially from the perspective of who pays the piper and the tunes called. Which research is funded, which not. Which policy is implemented, which not. We can assume that the payers don't always have the common good in mind, what with the profit motive and everything. Too, the profit motive has produced much common good and as such is the epitome of the "win-win". Frankly, at this point I'm not sure which side is winning.
Everyone who uses the words or phases “consensus” or “settled science” are politicians not scientists and should be removed from public debate, because their goal is to eliminate debate.
This seems to include the majority of scientists and 99.9% of media, especially science and climate writers.
It's all about the Benjamins. Throughout the academic and scientific communities there is a constant drumbeat of more funding. I saw it firsthand in the Leeds School of Business where academic rigor was sacrificed for money (yes, I'm calling out Leeds' business minor program and constantly increasing class sizes). My hunch is that Nature saw more NSF/NIH/etc. funding coming from a Biden administration so hence, the endorsement.
"...partisan cheerleading can actually make things worse and compromise democratic practices."
Whooboy that's the crux of the issue in'it? I picked up on that gem in 6th grade.
I'd been elected class host then the same day impeached. Being from the 'wrong side of town' & not wearing a yellow shirt to go with the maroon sweater then in vogue was my 'crime'.
Partisan 'cheerleading' negates truly democratic practices from cradle to grave.
I assume you know this site: https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/
What 's your opinion, in particular about the "analyses"?
Regards, Hans Rentsch
Roger: Here is an alternative question you might consider. Rather than simply agree that the great majority of the science community leans left in politics, and in regard to climate change, leads very left, maybe you should inquire why that is so? And what does it mean to lean left in climate change? I suppose it means buying most of the IPCC position that the end of the world as we know it is on hand without immediate, draconian cuts in emissions. I suppose one possible reason is that science organizations believe the climate scientists have objectively studied the matter and come up with rational conclusions drawn from data and analysis. Another possible answer is that climate funding is a huge gravy train and they are the drummers to keep the beat going. Maybe they are better educated and smarter? But ultimately, it seems to me to reflect tribal culture. I suppose we could go on and on with more possibilities, and probably it is a combination of factors. It is also well known that while scientists tend to lean left, engineers tend to lean right. Maybe you ought to study this aspect?
Coming back to the matter of political advocacy by science organizations, the alarmist orthodoxy is very much parallel to a religious orthodoxy. Because it is fundamentally a belief system, and the overwhelming majority of people are unable to understand it technically, it requires fear as the driving force (like religion) and the thing to fear must already be affecting our lives (thus the exaggerations of current impacts you have exposed). It is not surprising that those who feared Covid the most overlap a great deal with those who fear climate change. It seems in some ways that educated people think they are better able to fear catastrophe than less educated people?
Note also, that the world economics of emissions, the effect of emissions on climate, and the impacts of climate change on human affairs are so complex that no single person or small group of persons could possibly understand it. So, the IPCC has pulled together hundreds of specialists to unravel this complex system problem, and it is a matter of faith as to whether they came up with a credible answer. I suppose that it is comparable to believing in the Holy Trinity or the parting of the Red Sea. You either buy it or you don't.
Science Editor Holden Thorp was very abusive of President Trump in an interview in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) in April 2020.
https://cen.acs.org/people/profiles/Science-editor-chief-Holden-Thorp/98/i16
Just one excerpt:
"But Thorp wasn’t really fired up until he heard President Trump tell pharmaceutical executives that they should speed up work on a vaccine. That led to the hugely popular editorial “Do Us a Favor.” Addressing the president, Thorp wrote: “If you want something, start treating science and its principles with respect.”
"Not only is it dangerous to skip important steps in the drug development process, but Trump “implies that science wouldn’t want to go fast, that we’ve been holding back for some reason,” he says to C&EN. “To say, ‘Do me a favor, speed up’ with no idea as to why things have to be done the way they have to be done is just so disrespectful.”"
In fact President Trump was correct in anticipating how quickly the vaccines could be made, and Thorp was wrong, but making his political points.
(more in the full article).
This is a left wing Progressive problem. Making believe that both "sides" are equally at fault by citing Naomi Oreskes is nonsense. Groups like the Heartland Institute and GWPF (founded by Nigel Lawson, RIP) were formed in order to try to bring a modicum of balance to the discussion.
Entrenched bureaucracies like the UN, NOAA, NASA, NSF etc. are manned and managed by activists fully committed to the catastrophic narrative and willing to do anything they have to in order to push it. The professional societies like AGU, The National Academies, The Physics Association etc. all toe the alarmist line. Universities are lost and the media loves it because fear sells. Corporations are totally intimidated and go along to get along. Roger publishes, he posts here, he write articles in Forbes and occasional Opeds and he is ignored.
Science has been coopted and corrupted and nobody seems to give a shit.
That’s why your worth the money. I want to be educated by unbiased scientists that want to inform not scare. Your political bias is not between every line. Thanks for speaking out. We have the same problem with the media.
Roger,
I'm not optimistic that science organizations and researchers will ever regain the public's trust. There is just too much money tied to "being a proper progressive", and too little money available for actual skeptical science. And now there is a big stick (called the RESTRICT act) to go along with the carrot.
I'm just thankful that I've had a good life into my 70's, and don't have any children or grandchildren who will have to grow up in America 1984
Thank you, Roger and Matt. Especially for the Univ of Chicago Kalven reference. We wish more knew about it.
Our next piece, coming in a few days, is on what is possibly the best opportunity to get this right and restore trust in science in 30 years, since the “existential climate crisis created by RCP8.5”.
Including with spillover effects (we hope) in public health science in the wake of Covid-19(84).
Or, it will be the next example of the very phenomenon you and Matt wrote about so eloquently at Heterodox.
Keep plugging. Kudos. Both of you.
While I agree with the thrust of the article, I strongly disagree with the connotation that scientists should be partisan and political advocates. First and foremost, we should be as objective as possible. That is the debt we owe to science, other scientists, and those who made it possible for us to become scientists. Nothing wrong with being partisan, or advocating for a particular policy, per se – it's a part of the human condition. However, if we do that in our role as scientists it is virtually impossible (and decidedly UN-human) to maintain our objectivity – bounded rationality (like entropy) almost always wins.
Partisan cheerleading is just one more example of corruption. Holden Thorpe knows very well who butters his bread. When you allow a group of people to create and control the entire Western World's money supply they can buy most people in any leadership position. As we saw very well with Covid, political leaders, union leaders, journal publishers, medical authorities, virtually all major media, university leadership all fell into lockstep with the bogus Covid narrative. And anyone in a leadership position who dissented was dealt with viciously. Welcome to the coming Post Truth, techno-feudal, Totalitarian World Dictatorship.
It may help to nudge the academic mindset to remind them of the practice of the 1930s government in Germany to de-platform communists and Jews. That was a disturbingly similar situation where institutions and government were aligned in their beliefs. Sadly, my personal experience of academia leaves me sceptical and confirms that history repeats and much of academia is not so smart as it likes to think.
Just look at what happened to the once informative Scientific American. I was a subscriber decades ago, but recently because everything is edited through a woke microscope I can’t trust anything they publish and studiously avoid it.
"We experts, especially those of us whose work is supported by the public, should always remember that we work for those who provide us the resources and social license to do our work. That includes both people who may be our political soul mates and fellow travelers, as well as those whose politics we may find appalling or even worse." This is an interesting idea, especially from the perspective of who pays the piper and the tunes called. Which research is funded, which not. Which policy is implemented, which not. We can assume that the payers don't always have the common good in mind, what with the profit motive and everything. Too, the profit motive has produced much common good and as such is the epitome of the "win-win". Frankly, at this point I'm not sure which side is winning.