OT: The politicization of science

[Jared]

When scientists are revered above all other human life forms as somehow perfectly objective, never driven by ideologies, only interested in arguing science, as well as how wonderful peer-review is ( as well as how lack of peer reviewed articles proves that the scientist is a hack ), it kinda exposes the emperor as wearing no clothes.

...That they won't admit this while looking down their collective noses on everyone else just makes the irony even more sad.

Randy,
Stuff like this is a straw man (a position that no one really believes). It is clearly inflammatory and stereotyping a large group. Because of that, people will think you are trolling, even if your intentions are different. (BTW, I don't think your intent is to troll.) Now, to address a few things before I exit from this thread:

1) Scientists are not always perfectly objective. At times they can be driven by ideologies. Peer-review does have flaws. And some scientists can be arrogant. Are you happy? Let me make it clear that virtually no one believes what you stated above.

2) I'm not responding to the contents of the link in this post or to anything else in this thread. This is not because I agree with it, or that I can't debate it, or that my "silence speaks volumes", or anything like that. This report you linked to has serious problems, and if one does research on this, they can examine it further (Brando and Slumber have touched on some of this, see HERE and HERE for those that want to read about it). However, I don't have the time or desire to address this. I figure everyone would rather their tax dollars be spent doing work and not responding to these posts.

3) I would like to lock this post, since it's turned into a bit of a flame war. However, my hands are a bit tied. If I lock it, then it could be taken as evidence of me stifling discussion on the politicization of science. I don't want to have any hints of "suppression" of things I don't agree with on this board, so I'm leaving it open for now.

4) Off-topic posts are fine. Spamming the board with them is not. That line has not been crossed here.

5) If people want to discuss an off-topic forum, we can do so, but let's start another thread for that.

(Made some changes, they're in bold)

[RandyM]

Stuff like this is a straw man (a position that no one really believes).

Perhaps. The problem is one of behavior. If you behave as if you believe something is true, then is it the same as believing it is true?

When a debate is engaged, different tactics are used. To the extent that they argue the actual content of the science, that's fine. But when they go beyond that and start questioning the motivations of individuals doing the research, whether or not they have taken money from one 'side' or the other, questioning person A's credentials vs. person B's credentials, etc, then the content isn't being debated anymore. It's now become about PEOPLE, not SCIENCE.

The thesis that gets presented often by the 'consensus' side (and please tell me if any of these are strawmen), is:

a) The people arguing against the consensus are mostly cranks, hacks, pseudo scientists, and are otherwise unqualified.

b) The remaining minority that are qualified are under the pay of the 'other side' and therefore anything they say should be regarded as highly suspicious.

c) The scientists arguing against the 'consensus' are not PEER REVIEWED scientists, and therefore have no credibility

Those are three common objections I see made repeatedly. The only way to get back to the science is to somehow dispense with the highly personal objections. The link I posted at the top was my attempt to show that sometimes these personal arguments are based not upon scientific disputes but personal bias and ideologies. There are other examples out there, but I have not seen anything to make me believe other than that too many in the 'consensus' camp are doing their best to silence opposition, rather than remain open to countering science, and that they are using the 'gatekeeper' mentality to prevent otherwise credentialed scientists from entering the fray via journals, and then pointing to their lack of membership in that club to the public to 'prove' that these scientists are just hacks or industry paid oil-shills.

The link above was not global warming related. It was related to a paralell fight between a 'consensus' viewpoint and those that are skeptical of that viewpoint. The question in my mind is: how do we ensure we have a scientific community that is not driven by ideology, that welcomes dissenting views, whose peer review process is not driven by cronyism nor a desire to keep out consensus conclusions, and that all scientific endeavors are evaluated on a level playing field - e.g. that a paper AGREEING with a consensus viewpoint receive the SAME amount of scrutiny and criticism as one that DISAGREES with the consensus viewpoint.

I don't know the answer to this. But my personal opinion (and that's all I'm saying it is -- my opinion), is that it is neither wrongheaded nor unreasonable to question positions on difficult issues, whether they are consensus or not, and that taking measures to silence or intimidate opposition does not and should not inspire confidence in the consensus viewpoint.

I've been accused of pushing an agenda. That's a fair accusation. My agenda is to see a little less absolutism about these difficult issues, and an end to making science so unbelievably personal. It's hard to find any facts at all anymore about these issues. Both sides get nasty and personal so fast, but I will say I see the 'consensus' viewpoint resort to personal destruction and censorship much faster than the skeptical side. Perhaps that's just the human condition, since it seems to happen over and over in human history. We just keep trying to fry the rebels, whether they be protestant vs. catholic, muslim vs. jew, or whatever. It's a wonder there are ever any breakthroughs anymore. It's depressing.

Randy