Richard Lindzen on the Politicization of Science
Posted by jennifer, October 4th, 2008 - under Opinion.
Tags: Climate & Climate Change, Philosophy
Hi Jen, Have you read Richard Lindzen’s article about the politicization of science. Did you know Realclimate.org is an astroturf set up by a left-wing PR firm? Al Gore sued Fred Singer to remove a co-author. Numerous heads of climate science organizations are not really climate scientists at all.
It’s all there and much more…
Go here and download the PFD to the right of the site: http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.3762
Regards, Joe Cambria
Lindzen’s comments are applicable to science in general but it would folly to underestimate the resolve and the enormous financial resources behind AGW politics.
The sneaking of carbon trading legislation in the U.S. bailout is a pointer. See Anthony Watt’s take on it as well as Mark Sheppards on American Thinker.
I’m actually shocked that Realclimate is a leftist front. I always thought it had legitimacy.
Ra said…”I’m actually shocked that Realclimate is a leftist front. I always thought it had legitimacy”.
Their counterpart, desmogblog, is apparently funded by John Lefebvre, who is facing serious jail time for money laundering.
http://redmaryland.blogspot.com/2008/05/tom-pelton-cites-blog-funded-by-dirty.html
desmogblog offer a kind of snitch service. If you want dirt on a scientist, you send his name (with the appropriate pieces of silver if you’re in a hurry) and they dig up dirt on him. That only applies, if the scientist has a skeptical POV.
http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1272
Please note that Tim Ball seems to be public enemy #1.
So Gavin Schmid at realclimate isn’t this intrepid truth seeking scientist at all. Isn’t the world a funny place.
I was told some years back by friends in the Australian Labor Party that global warming was the means by which the ALP will force us to live sustainable lives. Native Title legislation had the purpose of diminishing private property.
It’s simply a well planned effort to implement socialism. The tragedy is that the young people have no memory or any historical evidence to realise just what socialism means.
I have two young men working for me, both are scientists, and the appalling ignorance of the history of the last 70 years is astonishing. Their only source of information is the internent, and reading the Sydney Morning Herald website is the first order of the day.
The ALP has truly brainwashed a generation via the state education systems.
What a brave new world we live in.
“Brave new climate”. LOL…Louis. It’s “Brave new climate”…..
You seen the alarmist swill that snakeoiler has been trying to sell to an unsuspecting public?
Louis Hissink said …”It’s simply a well planned effort to implement socialism. The tragedy is that the young people have no memory or any historical evidence to realise just what socialism means”.
Most people don’t know what it means, Louis. In fact, there are so many different socialist systems around that a clear definition is not forthcoming.
I found this article by Chomsky interesting:
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1986—-.htm
He points out that “Since its origins, socialism has meant the liberation of working people from exploitation”.
We have a lot of trouble with that notion today because we don’t have the same kind of world that was prevalent when socialist movements were popular. Then again, our world is in many ways a better place because of those movements.
I don’t understand why people who owned businesses made it so miserable for people that they had to revolt. I’m sure it was a throwback to the feudal system where serfs had no rights, but why people didn’t evolve along the way and offer to make working conditions better is a mystery.
Having grown up in Canada, with a good mixture of capitalist and socialist values, I would not want to go back to an ideological system of pure socialism. By the same token, I don’t want an ideological capitalism in its purest sense.
If you look closely at labour governments today, they have distanced themselves from socialism. I don’t think that’s simply due to the stigma associated with Russian and Chinese communism, it because they are no longer socialists. They are not worker movements anymore, they have become ideological cesspools. They talk a lot and do nothing.
On the other hand, you have the right-wing governments who are no smarter. Our local provincial government are about as ideologically right-wing as you can get and they are losing popularity. They are the ones who brought in the carbon tax. That’s only part of their problem, they are just plain cheap and mean.
That’s what started socialism in the first place. If employers had treated people with basic charity and dignity, the workers movements would never have gotten started. If young people go back to that kind of system it will be due to them being driven back to it. In Canada, home prices have increased dramatically into the $750,000 range and young people can’t afford them.
The problem is multifaceted but it’s basically about Asian investors (and others) buying property for investment and driving the prices up. The government gets into the act by appraising the homes higher on a regular basis.
That kind of unfettered capitalism will lead back to socialism. It will become a workers movement again because the wages and conditions are getting worse while prices are increasing in many ways without bounds.
I personally feel it’s naive for anyone to expect a capitalism to work without strong central government. There has to be controls, otherwise prices get out of hand. Then again, if prices are controlled too tightly, the opposite happens. What we need is more intelligent politicians who can work with both sides for the betterment of everyone. I’m not holding my breath.
Gordon:
Stop talking shit. We know what socialism is without having Chomsky poisoning the well.
By the way Chomsky was the prick who covered for the Pol Pot’s mass murdering ways by suggesting all talk of genocide was bull.
You know shit all about economics and it shows. You have no fucking idea what ” pure capitalism” means, you donkey, so stop polluting the blog with crap.
Gordon,
I think it is better described as statism – unbridled capitalism hasn’t really happened despite the assertions of the political left.
Lindzen’s summary of what has happened to science is hardly news to me. I wasn’t what Charles Lyell did politically two centuries ago but Grinnell’s paper summarised it concisely – the hijacking of a nascent science for political purposes.
One reason Lyell managed it was because no one could actually do an experiment to test any of his assertions. Same with the idea of the sun being considered a neuton star – no one can go to the sun and actually see what matter it is made of.
There is a common thread in all this – the posing of hypotheses which can’t be physically tested – but hypotheses which can be deemed correct if enough experts agree. This is the leftist or statist mind set that is in charge of our societies. This mind set has no difficulty imagining CO2 a a pollutant or the belief that space can be curved.
Why workers were so ill treated remains perplexing – but equally the understanding of capitalism is also dominated by what the political left think it is – capitalism is simply the philosophy that it’s the individual who chooses what to do, or not do as the case might be. Statism is the philosophy that it is the state, or society, who determines what you do or choose.
But many prefer not to have to take the responsibility for their decisions, preferring rather that someone else take it.
Louis “Same with the idea of the sun being considered a neuton star..”
Is someone actually alleging that? A neutron star in astronomy is a star that has had it’s mass collapse because it’s fuel is essentially used up. Our Sun has thermonuclear explosions that counter its gravity, preventing it from collapsing. Of course, I haven’t been there to check.
Once the fuel (hydrogen and helium) begins to run out, the gravity should lessen and the Sun should expand to become a Red Giant. It will engulf the Earth. As the fuel continues to run out, it will get to a point where collapse will begin.
According to theory, three things can happen. 1)during collapse, the Sun will blow up as a Supernova. 2)it will continue to collapse till the neutrons condense into a high density called a neutron star. The electrons are theoretically all gone, having been driven off the nucleus and are hiding somewhere. 3)the collapse will continue beyond the neutron stage to become a Black Hole.
Any reference to our present Sun as such could only be based on the notion that the electrons are all boiled off hydrogen and helium, leaving bare nucleii.
That brings us to your plasma theory. All those free electrons flinging about in there have to be producing immense electrical fields.
BTW…do you remember the nuee ardente at Mont Pelee in Martinique? Wouldn’t want to be in the neighbourhood but it would be fascinating to see.
Louis…just thinking about a neutron star. If gases like helium and hydrogen collapse till they are a blob of very dense neutrons, where did the electrons go? What is a hydrogen or helium atom with no electrons? Is there anything in the universe that consists of neutrons and protons with no electrons?
It’s funny what you accept in university.