The Death of Real Science

[PoliticalChic]

In an almost forgotten time, prior to the ascendancy of modern liberalism, one could equate the term ‘science’ with ‘objective.’
Alas, this is no longer true. The ‘new world’ replaces objectivity with a malleable version of truth, of science, that conforms to a political ideology.

a. In academia, truth has fallen in priority to ideology, also known as the ‘greater truth’ of pre-formed conclusions. A case in point is climate change. Normal science discovers facts, and then constructs a theory from those facts. ‘Post-modern science’ starts with a theory that is politically sensitive, and then makes up facts to influence opinion in its favor.

b. The leading proponents of ‘post-normal science, (PNS), Funtowicz and Ravetz, have written that, in issue-driven science, ‘facts’ and ‘values’ are unified by replacing ‘truth’ by ‘quality.’ http://www.ecoeco.org/pdf/pstnormsc.pdf

c. Ideology represents the power over truth. The French Revolution introduced secular ideology to the Western world. Sir Isaiah Berlin, of the University of Oxford, stated that the 18th century “saw the destruction of the notion of truth and validity in ethics and politics, not merely objective or absolute truth but subjective and relative truth also…”

In his own words, published in the UK Guardian, Professor Hulme, tells the world that in post-normal science we cannot wait to prove global warming, but must ‘trade normal truth for influence’ and must ‘recognize the social limits of their truth seeking.’


d. Mike Hulme is Professor of Climate Change in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA), [http://mikehulme.org/] and was good enough to reveal the truth in the Guardian, 2007. These are his words:

“…this particular mode of scientific activity… has been labeled "post-normal" science. Climate change seems to fall in this category. Disputes in post-normal science focus as often on the process of science - who gets funded, who evaluates quality, who has the ear of policy - as on the facts of science…. Self-evidently dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth seeking,… scientists - and politicians - must trade (normal) truth for influence. If scientists want to remain listened to, to bear influence on policy, they must recognise the social limits of their truth seeking and reveal fully the values and beliefs they bring to their scientific activity…. Climate change is too important to be left to scientists - least of all the normal ones.” The appliance of science | Society | The Guardian.

So global warming theory did not seek to establish the truth through evidence. Instead, truth had to be traded for influence: scientists presented beliefs as a basis for policy. The shame: science has been junked in the interest of promoting ideological conviction.

In the words of Melanie Phillips, (The World Turned Upside Down), “we have a doctrine of mandated intellectual mendacity.”

 

[rdean]

Thank God the Right Wing doesn't believe in "fake science" or live by "ideology". From now on, I'm getting all my science from them. After all, look at all the success they've brought the world. All the inventions that come from "conservative scientists". The amazing technology. The biological science. The list is endless.

 

[Old Rocks]

Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming

Censoring Science:

Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming
Dr. James Hansen is widely regarded as the leading climate change scientist in the country. For the past twenty-five years, he has headed NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Just over a year ago, Dr. Hansen went public with a charge that made headlines around the world—that the Bush administration had been trying to silence his warnings about the urgent need to address climate change. Dr. Hansen joins us in our firehouse studio. His story is detailed in a new book by author Mark Bowen titled Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming. Mark Bowen joins us from Massachusetts. [includes rush transcript]

 

[Old Rocks]

So, PC, in 1820, Fourier was preparing for the politics of the 21st century when he noted that by the math of the incoming and outgoing energy in sunlight, something in the atmosphere had to be absorbing some of the outgoing radiation, or the Earth would be much cooler.

Then Tyndal carried it even further in 1859 by noting the absorbtion spectrum of water vapor, CO2, and other GHGs. Then Svante Arnnhenius quantified the effects and made some solid predictions in 1896. All these people foresaw this political debate in the 21st Century?

The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect

No, the people playing fast and loose with lies and falsehoods are the people denying the obvious reality of science nearly two centuries old.

You put more GHGs into the atmosphere, and you will get a warmer atmosphere. By burning fossil fuels, we are putting huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased from 280 ppm to 387 ppm. That is nearly 40%. And we have increased CH4 by nearly 150%. And added industrial gasses that have up to 20,000 times the effectiveness of CO2.

We have created a warming that is starting to thaw the Permafrost, and the Arctic Ocean, and now we are seeing both releasing vast amounts of CO2 and CH4. The oceans are turning more acidic, which is negatively affecting the very base of the food chain.

But you state this is all politics? When scientists from every country in the world are reporting the same thing?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Thank God the Right Wing doesn't believe in "fake science" or live by "ideology". From now on, I'm getting all my science from them. After all, look at all the success they've brought the world. All the inventions that come from "conservative scientists". The amazing technology. The biological science. The list is endless.

Do you really want to go there? Do you want me to list all the scientific discoveries and engineering advances that come from conservatives?

Before you answer, you might want to remember that I am typing this in one place, and you are reading it in another, through something called the Internet. The Internet was designed by the military so they could communicate in the event of war, it was not invented by Al Gore.

 

[ConHog]

Thank God the Right Wing doesn't believe in "fake science" or live by "ideology". From now on, I'm getting all my science from them. After all, look at all the success they've brought the world. All the inventions that come from "conservative scientists". The amazing technology. The biological science. The list is endless.

Do you really want to go there? Do you want me to list all the scientific discoveries and engineering advances that come from conservatives?

Before you answer, you might want to remember that I am typing this in one place, and you are reading it in another, through something called the Internet. The Internet was designed by the military so they could communicate in the event of war, it was not invented by Al Gore.

Bullshit, Gore invented the internets, I heard him say it.


oh rdean. you give stupid liberals a bad name, something that is quite difficult to do.

 

[edthecynic]

Thank God the Right Wing doesn't believe in "fake science" or live by "ideology". From now on, I'm getting all my science from them. After all, look at all the success they've brought the world. All the inventions that come from "conservative scientists". The amazing technology. The biological science. The list is endless.

Do you really want to go there? Do you want me to list all the scientific discoveries and engineering advances that come from conservatives?

Before you answer, you might want to remember that I am typing this in one place, and you are reading it in another, through something called the Internet. The Internet was designed by the military so they could communicate in the event of war, it was not invented by Al Gore.

Thank you for admitting that the CON$ who claimed Gore invented the internet are liars.

However the internet as we know and use it today is quite different from what the military had. We can thank those dippy hippies from the 60s at UC Berkley in the Free Speech Movement like Bill Joy and John Gage, one of whom, John Gage, made it onto Nixon's enemies list, for today's UNIX TCP/IP internet, governmentally funded thanks to Gore's efforts. All CON$ do is try to take credit for other peoples' hard work.

OLD-COMPUTERS.COM : HISTORY / detailed info

In March 1978, Bill Joy, who studied at the University of California at Berkeley, released the first free version of UNIX operating system which is now known as BSD UNIX. (Berkeley Software Distribution)

The history of UNIX starts back in 1969, when Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and others started working on a Digital Equipment PDP-7 computer at Bell Labs. The first edition was launched in 1971 and was mainly used for text processing. It had a kernel, an assembler for the DEC PDP-11/20, a file system and some vital tools, including the 'ed' (editor for mortals) text editor written by Bill Joy.

Two years later, the Fourth Edition was totally rewritten in C language with multi-platform support in mind, allowing it to be used on a wide range of computers. In 1975, the Sixth Version, widely known as 'Version 6' was the first UNIX version really available outside the Bell Labs. The first BSD version was derived from this V6.

The second BSD version was launched a few months later with the full kernel source codes. This version became the backbone of the Internet and introduced the "open source" concept.
From this time, the various flavours of UNIX were divided in two different families, the BSD based types and those derived from the SYSTEM V.
The Berkeley version of UNIX became the standard in education and research and was notable for introducing using TCP/IP to UNIX (later Bill Joy will be nicknamed the "Edison of the Internet"). BSD was widely distributed in source form so that others could learn from it and improve it.

After having been involved in the BSD project, Bill Joy co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and led technical strategy of the company. He designed Sun's Network File System (NFS), parts of the SPARC microprocessor architecture as well as basic pipeline used in all of Sun's SPARC microprocessors.
Later, he was the co-author of the specification for the Java programming language.
In 1998, Bill was appointed as Chief Scientist of the company.

The Network Is the Company | Fast Company

Other movement veterans have attempted to bring their previous beliefs into line with their current activities. John Gage, a veteran of the Free Speech Movement, went on to become chief scientist at Sun Microsystems, blending, in his words, "'90s technology with '60s activism." Explaining business at Sun (where cofounder Bill Joy is also a veteran of The Movement), Gage notes that "The whole thing has a '60s flavor to it. There’s a populist ethic. You don’t like the news? Make some of your own. Put it on the Net." Describing Sun, New Economy champion Fast Company has noted: These days, 'Power to the People' sounds like the quaint rallying cry of a bygone era. But it's a way of life at young companies like Sun – where information flows freely and people aren't afraid to express their opinions – and in the explosion of activity around the Internet. For Gage, the Net - and in particular the World Wide Web - is an electronic frontier that marries technology and democracy, the last best hope for an economy built around grassroots participation and personal expression.

Here we see the New Left's vision of true democracy through technology finally realized.

 

[edthecynic]

Thank God the Right Wing doesn't believe in "fake science" or live by "ideology". From now on, I'm getting all my science from them. After all, look at all the success they've brought the world. All the inventions that come from "conservative scientists". The amazing technology. The biological science. The list is endless.

Do you really want to go there? Do you want me to list all the scientific discoveries and engineering advances that come from conservatives?

Before you answer, you might want to remember that I am typing this in one place, and you are reading it in another, through something called the Internet. The Internet was designed by the military so they could communicate in the event of war, it was not invented by Al Gore.

Bullshit, Gore invented the internets, I heard him say it.


oh rdean. you give stupid liberals a bad name, something that is quite difficult to do.

Bullshit, Gore said no such thing, and you know it!

Oh ConJob, you give dishonest CON$ a bad name, something that is quite difficult to do.

 

[fyrenza]

Thank God the Right Wing doesn't believe in "fake science" or live by "ideology". From now on, I'm getting all my science from them. After all, look at all the success they've brought the world. All the inventions that come from "conservative scientists". The amazing technology. The biological science. The list is endless.

Why can't you ever just sit back, and listen?

Open Your Mind,

to ALL of the ways it "could" be.

I see your s/n, and I make this horrible noise my mom used to make whenever she was disgusted with something, this ACKKK sound.

Dude. It's truly time to re-examine YOUR values, YOUR morals and your path through all of this.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

Yeah, totally agreed. It's the bummer about science, it dies whenever scientists disagree with one's point of view.

 

[Dr Grump]

Do you really want to go there? Do you want me to list all the scientific discoveries and engineering advances that come from conservatives?

Before you answer, you might want to remember that I am typing this in one place, and you are reading it in another, through something called the Internet. The Internet was designed by the military so they could communicate in the event of war, it was not invented by Al Gore.

Nobody believes Gore invented the Internet...not even Gore....

 

[Dr Grump]

Do you want me to list all the scientific discoveries and engineering advances that come from conservatives?.

Why yes I do..

 

[Toro]

Do you want me to list all the scientific discoveries and engineering advances that come from conservatives?.

Why yes I do..

It won't take long lol

 

[jillian]

no problem has ever been solved by conservatism and no advances have ever been made by conservatism.

the definition of conservative is one who wants to maintain the status quo.

 

[editec]

In an almost forgotten time, prior to the ascendancy of modern liberalism, one could equate the term ‘science’ with ‘objective.’
Alas, this is no longer true. The ‘new world’ replaces objectivity with a malleable version of truth, of science, that conforms to a political ideology.

a. In academia, truth has fallen in priority to ideology, also known as the ‘greater truth’ of pre-formed conclusions. A case in point is climate change. Normal science discovers facts, and then constructs a theory from those facts. ‘Post-modern science’ starts with a theory that is politically sensitive, and then makes up facts to influence opinion in its favor.

b. The leading proponents of ‘post-normal science, (PNS), Funtowicz and Ravetz, have written that, in issue-driven science, ‘facts’ and ‘values’ are unified by replacing ‘truth’ by ‘quality.’ http://www.ecoeco.org/pdf/pstnormsc.pdf

c. Ideology represents the power over truth. The French Revolution introduced secular ideology to the Western world. Sir Isaiah Berlin, of the University of Oxford, stated that the 18th century “saw the destruction of the notion of truth and validity in ethics and politics, not merely objective or absolute truth but subjective and relative truth also…”

In his own words, published in the UK Guardian, Professor Hulme, tells the world that in post-normal science we cannot wait to prove global warming, but must ‘trade normal truth for influence’ and must ‘recognize the social limits of their truth seeking.’


d. Mike Hulme is Professor of Climate Change in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA), [http://mikehulme.org/] and was good enough to reveal the truth in the Guardian, 2007. These are his words:

“…this particular mode of scientific activity… has been labeled "post-normal" science. Climate change seems to fall in this category. Disputes in post-normal science focus as often on the process of science - who gets funded, who evaluates quality, who has the ear of policy - as on the facts of science…. Self-evidently dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth seeking,… scientists - and politicians - must trade (normal) truth for influence. If scientists want to remain listened to, to bear influence on policy, they must recognise the social limits of their truth seeking and reveal fully the values and beliefs they bring to their scientific activity…. Climate change is too important to be left to scientists - least of all the normal ones.” The appliance of science | Society | The Guardian.

So global warming theory did not seek to establish the truth through evidence. Instead, truth had to be traded for influence: scientists presented beliefs as a basis for policy. The shame: science has been junked in the interest of promoting ideological conviction.

In the words of Melanie Phillips, (The World Turned Upside Down), “we have a doctrine of mandated intellectual mendacity.”

I take it, from the posting of this article, that you do not believe that we are experiencing anthropogenic Global warming?

People once believed that the passenger pigeon couldn't be slaughtered into extinction by mankind's actions, either.

Now most of us can plainly see how our air pollution can screw up an entire region of this world.

Every time I go from Maine to New York City region that much is very clearly evident to me.

But it takes an impossible leap of imagination, I guess, for some of us to understand that the world is just as subject to the noxious effects of our carbon burning as regions of the world so obviously are.

 

[PoliticalChic]

It is beyond interesting, and clearly dispositive, that none of the sinister folks have dared to comment on either the concept of 'post normal science,' or to the words of the professor of climate science, who admits that truth is secondary to ideology in terms of climate change.

I have provided the links, the proof, and yet you lemmings continue to march over the cliff.

You have been fooled, snookered, confounded, and cast a blind eye so as not admit the truth, even when the exponents of the scam are telling you, laughing at you...

So, we see once again, that the left is filled with children who fold their arms across their collective (pun intended) chests, stamp their feet, and tightly close their eyes. For the left, reality is a social construct.

Oh, the humanity...the humanity...

 

[editec]

No, you haven't provided "proof".

You have provided us with OPINION masquarading as proof.

 

[PoliticalChic]

No, you haven't provided "proof".

You have provided us with OPINION masquarading as proof.

You have the ability to cloud your own mind....the refusal to change, and accept new evidence. While not surprised at your resonse, I am disappointed.

Evidence: The documentary or oral statements and the material objects admissible as testimony in a court of law.


First, the writing of the most prominent 'scholars' in the area of post normal science, who clearly explain that objectivity and data no longer matter. Did you read the link? Pretty scarey to anyone interested in truth.

Second, the essay by an actual professor of 'global science' who admits that we need not wait for the data to determine our conclusion. He admits the scam!

Can't you just hear them laughing in the prep room: "I even published it in the paper!"

Third, maybe you missed the emails from East Anglia admitting that they fudge data and hide competing measurements. I can provide the link if you need it.


Live and learn, huh?


BTW, if any require same, I can write a monograph showing how this ideology arose, from the Age of Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

 

[edthecynic]

No, you haven't provided "proof".

You have provided us with OPINION masquarading as proof.

You have the ability to cloud your own mind....the refusal to change, and accept new evidence. While not surprised at your resonse, I am disappointed.

Evidence: The documentary or oral statements and the material objects admissible as testimony in a court of law.


First, the writing of the most prominent 'scholars' in the area of post normal science, who clearly explain that objectivity and data no longer matter. Did you read the link? Pretty scarey to anyone interested in truth.

Second, the essay by an actual professor of 'global science' who admits that we need not wait for the data to determine our conclusion. He admits the scam!

Can't you just hear them laughing in the prep room: "I even published it in the paper!"

Third, maybe you missed the emails from East Anglia admitting that they fudge data and hide competing measurements. I can provide the link if you need it.


Live and learn, huh?


BTW, if any require same, I can write a monograph showing how this ideology arose, from the Age of Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

You are merely projecting what the deniers do. Not only do deniers not wait for the data to determine their "conclusions" they never even take measurements of any kind. All they do is attack everyone else who actually takes measurements. Deniers have no ground temperature measuring stations, not a single one!!!

In the one and only attempt deniers made to try to create some data contradicting global warming, the UAH satellite data of Christy and Spencer, they got caught fudging the data by using the OPPOSITE sign in correcting for diurnal satellite drift. That is why deniers have no choice but to muddy the water by accusing everyone else of fudging the data like the deniers do.

Your attacks on science describe the tactics of deniers trying to pass themselves off as scientists.

So please explain how East Anglia can "hide competing measurements" when no such measurements exist???

 

[Old Rocks]

PC, it is so pleasing to learn that these professors have such power that they have convinced all the glaciers to melt, as well as the ice caps and the permafrost. They have convinced the snow packs to melt weeks earlier, and the form weeks later. The have convinced the atmosphere to hold much more water and create far more precipitation events than the past norm.

You are doing your best to make this a matter of politics, rather than science. And you are getting your butt kicked.

Ten years ago, you were even denying that there was any increase in the heat content of the ocean and atmosphere. Then when it became so obvious that even the most dense could see it, you changed that denial to state that the increase was natural, although you could not point to any natural cause.

People like you and Barton have tried to play politics with the greatest obvious ecological disaster, the Gulf Spill, this nation has ever known. Well, as the coming years play out, people are going to realize that the climate change induced by the burning of fossil fuels has even worse and longer lasting affects than that catastrophe.