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Liberal's War On Science

Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby C8 » Sun 26 Apr 2015, 12:48:57

The left's biggest casualty they created in the war on science was using hysteria, Hollywood and protests, in the 1970's to today, to hoodwink everyone into believing that nuclear power was a demon that will destroy us all.

Leftist France relies on something like 80% of its electricity from nuclear power and you don't see French people dropping like flies.

So we quit nuclear and ramped up fossil fuels, especially coal, which promptly led to a massive spike in CO2.

You could argue that global warming is a Democrat created monster kept alive by Republicans (and Democrats as Obama pursued an "all of the above" energy strategy.)

Democrats' attack on Republicans for Global Warming is reaching dangerous concentration levels of hypocrisy.
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby dissident » Sun 26 Apr 2015, 13:36:30

C8 wrote:The left's biggest casualty they created in the war on science was using hysteria, Hollywood and protests, in the 1970's to today, to hoodwink everyone into believing that nuclear power was a demon that will destroy us all.

Leftist France relies on something like 80% of its electricity from nuclear power and you don't see French people dropping like flies.

So we quit nuclear and ramped up fossil fuels, especially coal, which promptly led to a massive spike in CO2.

You could argue that global warming is a Democrat created monster kept alive by Republicans (and Democrats as Obama pursued an "all of the above" energy strategy.)

Democrats' attack on Republicans for Global Warming is reaching dangerous concentration levels of hypocrisy.


The Green Party and other "environmentalists" succeeded in shutting down the Superphenix program in France. This is an example of epic idiocy. These loons would rather have unsafe water-cooled reactors than allowing new and intrinsically safe unpressurized molten metal reactors that have a passive cooling capacity that excludes meltdowns from any regular operational state in the case of sodium and from any initial condition with molten lead. Perhaps if the Superphenix reactor was the only nuclear plant in France, then the actions of these loons would make sense. But they don't. Just luddite mob hysteria.
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby Simon_R » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 08:28:17

Before we get too excited, maybe we ought to determine what is science.

the definition I get is.

the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.


I see no one waging a war against this.
The most we could say is some people disagree with the conclusions of other people who use science.

however changeing the title of this post to

Some people disagree with the conclusions of some other people


would be a bit tedious.
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby Ibon » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 09:51:05

Simon_R wrote:Before we get too excited, maybe we ought to determine what is science.

the definition I get is.

the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.


I see no one waging a war against this.
The most we could say is some people disagree with the conclusions of other people who use science.

however changeing the title of this post to

Some people disagree with the conclusions of some other people


would be a bit tedious.


The point is that bias enters into the picture even in rational science. Stephen Jay Gould, an ecologist and paleontologist, wrote extensively about this back in the 80's. His famous book, The Mismeasure of Man, explored the hundreds of cases where human bias influenced scientific work. To this day there is still ongoing controversy over some of his claims. Read here

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cro ... terminism/

Pop's post is just trying to gently nudge everyone away from a reductionist position that the political right and republicans is the sole domain of this bias.

Why do we have so many double blind controlled experiments if not to attempt to weed out inherent subjective bias?

The very polarity of liberal / conservative actually creates an ideological divide that has now cemented itself quite deeply in American culture. You do not see this quite so defined in other cultures. It almost approaches the way racism runs deep in our culture and regardless of how much one tries to not be affected by it, it remains the elephant in the room when mixed races gather. Of course there are some important exceptions but so be it.

Take GMO crops and Monsanto which perhaps is the best example of liberal anti science bias. If you go to a social gathering in Seattle for example and bring up the topic of Monsanto, just sit back and listen to the adjectives of evil and all kinds of claims regarding gmo crops that is so non scientific it borders exactly on the same level as listening to baptists from Alabama talking about evolution.

For those who are genuinely concerned about agriculture and teasing out the benefits and detriments of industrial agriculture, this kind of liberal bias is actually not helpful. Climate change has some of the same polarized issues.

I don't think there is much of an argument around the scientific consensus of climate change, but ask yourself a moment why the ideological opposition gets the traction that it does? A big reason is because of the extremes to which liberals take climate change science and project it on to their ideological beliefs.

The planet's biosphere can really give a damn about humans petty quarrels.
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby dohboi » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 11:05:55

"bring up the topic of Monsanto"

Ummmm, Monsanto is a corporation, not a science. Are you particularly enamored of this particular corp that you find it so upsetting when other criticize it?
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby Timo » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 12:11:23

I think i can sum up the discussion here by simply saying that a person's views on science, be they conservative, or liberal, also comes with emotional baggage that's inseperable from that person's ideological views on any matter, be it a corporation, a person's scientific hobby of collecting insects, or GMOs, or feticide, or anything that anyone can think of that can possibly be interpreted scientifically. Science does not mean factual, and that opens up Pandora's Box to everyone's own personal interpretations of literally anything. If there is any "war" going on, it's one side (either one) attepting to legislate their own personal interpretations of science as the law of the land, facts be damned. That may be too "thin skinned" an interpreation of this thread, but every last one of us have emotions that relate specifically to our relationship to the physical world around us. Our physical world is interpreted through various scientific methods, and we all do our best to fit those interpretations into our own emotional feelings that support our own personal ideologies. I think it is a big mistake to equate personal emotions, or personal reactions based on those emotions, as scientific views on any subject. They are not equal.
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby Plantagenet » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 12:22:11

Timo wrote:Science does not mean factual, and that opens up Pandora's Box to everyone's own personal interpretations of literally anything.


Pardon me but I have to disagree with that.

Actually, science does mean factual. The scientific data consists of the measurements and the data, i.e. the facts.

But you are right that interpretation of that data is the problem. Both people's personal interpretations at times goes against the facts and politics sometimes goes against the facts (i.e. against science) .

Both liberals and conservatives are guilty of this. On some issues like AGW more conservatives then liberals go against the facts, and other other issues like the heritability of IQ and GMOs more liberals than conservatives go against the facts.
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby Lore » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 12:33:50

You forgot evolution.
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby Pops » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 12:40:12

Ibon, you really gets the point I'm trying to make.
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby Plantagenet » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 13:01:56

Lore wrote:You forgot evolution.


You're right. Polling shows about 58% of Rs and 41% of Ds don't believe in evolution.

That proves my point---neither Rs nor Ds are wholly on the side of the angels when it comes to science.
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby Timo » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 13:05:21

Ignorance is now a scientific discipline.
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby dohboi » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 14:06:43

"neither Rs nor Ds are wholly on the side of the angels when it comes to science."

But the Rs seem to have the lion's share, in that case (and most others). :-D

On the other hand, there are all sorts of ignorance that I'm sure are pretty evenly spread across party lines.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/201 ... urvey-says

"A quarter of Americans surveyed could not correctly answer that the Earth revolves around the sun ..."

"Just over half understood that antibiotics are not effective against viruses"

Of course, in day-to-day life, the second misconception is potentially more dangerous than the first, but I still find it rather shocking.

(But then we get back to the definitely party-based looloos like: "One in four Americans think Obama may be the anti-christ" http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/a ... esMichelle Bachmann recently implied this. And of course the birthers, those sure he is a Muslim...the right is indeed pretty damn chalk full of loonies--present company excepted, I'm sure! :-D :-D ETA--Oops, I see that 6% of Ds believe the anti-Christ thing!!)
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby Ibon » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 14:17:42

dohboi wrote:"bring up the topic of Monsanto"

Ummmm, Monsanto is a corporation, not a science. Are you particularly enamored of this particular corp that you find it so upsetting when other criticize it?


Well reasoned criticisms are valid. Demonizing this corp as many liberals do with fantastical claims of evil actually discredits the valid criticisms. It feeds into the polarization. That's all.
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby Timo » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 14:24:21

dohboi wrote:"neither Rs nor Ds are wholly on the side of the angels when it comes to science."

But the Rs seem to have the lion's share, in that case (and most others). :-D

On the other hand, there are all sorts of ignorance that I'm sure are pretty evenly spread across party lines. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/201 ... urvey-says

"A quarter of Americans surveyed could not correctly answer that the Earth revolves around the sun ..."

"Just over half understood that antibiotics are not effective against viruses"

Of course, in day-to-day life, the second misconception is potentially more dangerous than the first, but I still find it rather shocking.

Ignorance is quantifiable. That does not mean that ignorance is a war on science. Ignorance can be closely tied to the war on funding for science (or education, in general), or even for priorities in scientific education, or even the distortion or suppression of truth in scientific discoveries. However, below the "war on science" lies the greater war on exposing, or learning the truth, and the resulting cultural advancement that comes with greater knowledge. That war is in the policy arena. Who is in control of the formation of public policy? What dangers are posed in the revelation of scientific discoveries that can advance civilization forward? Who wants to remove scientific curriculum from public education, and replace it with faith-based fantasies? Now, who wants to expand funding for scientific education and research? Who wants science education to be based on demonstrable facts, and not on religion? Who wants to answer questions that only scientific research can answer? What is the title of this thread?
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby dohboi » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 14:25:23

They do a pretty good job of being demons themselves...no 'demonization' necessary! :lol:
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby kuidaskassikaeb » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 17:28:52

The problem with this is that there is actually a very nasty corporate war on inconvenient science, and it's been around for a long time. People try to make it a psychological personal thing. but it isn't. It is mainly fought by PR companies that are very well funded. And yes they use right wing anger very effectivly.

Exibit A is of course the one that comes up here is global warming denialism.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/

In all, 140 foundations funneled $558 million to almost 100 climate denial organizations from 2003 to 2010.


The examples of "liberal hatred of science" on this thread illustrate how one sided this war is.

Like cat lover and ornithologists. Does anybody think David Sibley gets death threats from irate feral cat feeders. Do feral cat feeders deny that their cats kill birds. I think they might be surprised by the numbers, but I think they get the principle. But for some reason I don't think any well paid media hosts are accusing birders of lying about this. I don't think there are thousands of press releases from Purina's PR group defending feeding wild cats. And why does anybody think cat ladies are ladies or liberals. The only one I know is an old republican man.

Or Monsanto. This one one is more difficult, since the arguments seem to be more about the business model than the science, and I really can't follow the technical arguments. The main source of anger seems to be that Monsanto's business practice has caused a lot of suicides in developing countries, basically due to the high cost of inputs and necessity of borrowing to get a crop in. Once the inevitable bad years hit the small farmers go under. Also dismissing these activists as anti-science seems more like an ad-homonin argument than a real argument.

I include one anti-gmo post. To show what I mean. It is all about the business and debt.
http://gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2013/15165-vandana-shiva-on-seed-monopolies-gmos-and-farmer-suicides-in-india




GMOs are not a “thing”, they are a set of relationships, and it is the context created by these relationships that is driving farmers to suicide. GMOs are not a disembodied “technology” as so many pro-GMO commentators try to present. These commentators then proceed to protect this abstract construction of GMOs as disembodied technologies from the evidence of reality. In reality, what exists is a GMO complex, or nexus, that has an impact on real ecosystems and real farmers.

Shutting out evidence from reality is a completely unscientific approach. Reality cannot be cooked up in papers, no matter how prestigious the journals in which these concoctions are published. Reality is what happens in reality – the reality of farmers’ suicides, reality of the emergence of super-pests and super-weeds, the reality of rising costs of seed as royalties are extracted from poor peasants. These are no abstractions; rather, they are the lived realities of the consequences of GMOs.


This doesn't seem like a war on science as much as PR from Monsanto. Besides which one of you actually went to Seattle.
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby Ibon » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 18:36:22

kuidaskassikaeb wrote: Also dismissing these activists as anti-science seems more like an ad-homonin argument than a real argument.

I include one anti-gmo post. To show what I mean. It is all about the business and debt.
http://gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2013/15165-vandana-shiva-on-seed-monopolies-gmos-and-farmer-suicides-in-india

GMOs are not a “thing”, they are a set of relationships, and it is the context created by these relationships that is driving farmers to suicide. GMOs are not a disembodied “technology” as so many pro-GMO commentators try to present. These commentators then proceed to protect this abstract construction of GMOs as disembodied technologies from the evidence of reality. In reality, what exists is a GMO complex, or nexus, that has an impact on real ecosystems and real farmers.

Shutting out evidence from reality is a completely unscientific approach. Reality cannot be cooked up in papers, no matter how prestigious the journals in which these concoctions are published. Reality is what happens in reality – the reality of farmers’ suicides, reality of the emergence of super-pests and super-weeds, the reality of rising costs of seed as royalties are extracted from poor peasants. These are no abstractions; rather, they are the lived realities of the consequences of GMOs.


This doesn't seem like a war on science as much as PR from Monsanto.


And here is an article that paints a different picture enabling local farmers in Kenya to increase their yields of eggplants without the use of pesticides using a GMO eggplant variety. From where do you think the local opposition in Kenya or in The Phillipines (where field trials were vandalized by local Greenpeace) came from? Was this home grown opposition or was this from NGO's who spread the evil GMO message to local activist groups. Did they actually study the specifics of this crop and its benefits to local people or was this just a sweeping anti science GMO is evil opinion?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/opini ... -food.html

In a rational world, Mr. Rahman would be receiving support from all
sides. He is improving the environment and tackling poverty. Yet the visit was rushed, and my escorts from the research institute were nervous about permitting me to speak with him at all.

The new variety had been subjected to incendiary coverage in the local
press, and campaign groups based in Dhaka were suing to have the pest resistant eggplant banned. Activists had visited some of the fields and tried to pressure the farmers to uproot their crops. Our guides from the institute warned that there was a continuing threat of violence — and they were clearly keen to leave.

Why was there such controversy? Because Mr. Rahman’s pest­resistant
eggplant was produced using genetic modification. A gene transferred from a soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis (more commonly known by the abbreviation “Bt”), produces a protein that kills the Fruit and Shoot Borer, a species of moth whose larvae feed on the eggplant, without the need for pesticide sprays. (The protein is entirely nontoxic to other insects and indeed humans.)
Conventional eggplant farmers in Bangladesh are forced to spray their
crops as many as 140 times during the growing season, and pesticide
poisoning is a chronic health problem in rural areas. But because Bt brinjal is a hated G.M.O., or genetically modified organism, it is Public Enemy No.1 to environmental groups everywhere.


So Kuidaskassikaeb, in a polarized world where ideology and bias is at play, immediately me and you would be put into pro and anti GMO camps. Because I posted a rebuttal to your last post I must obviously be pro GMO. But this is not true. The points you made about corporate agriculture were valid actually in the dependency this can cause on 3rd world country farmers. It is also a huge concern having a corporation like Monsanto able to sue an organic farmer because some of his seeds through inadvertant pollination had some traces of patented trademarked GMO genetic material. This corporate take over of our agricultural sector is a real problem. And so is feeding 7 billion people by the way. I am not pro or anti Monsanto.

People are complaining about bakers with their mouths full of GMO corn bread! A variation on Pops statement :)

GMO products are not inherently bad. They can be extremely beneficial in the right application. They might possibly create some unforeseen detrimental affects as well depending on the genetic modification. But they do not warrant the fear mongering anti GMO, anti science groups advocate.

I should note, in all fairness, that before owning an eco tourist resort here in Panama I was Regional Director for Latin America for a company that among its many product lines sold micro manipulators and high end research microscopes that are the actual tools that enable genetic researchers to cut sections of chromosomes out of DNA so I spent my fair share of time in labs where similar research was done as what Monsanto does in their labs when developing GMO products. The science is a clear technological jump from selective breeding that started centuries ago. The lab technicians are not evil scientists.

Let's not lose focus on this thread by going off on a huge GMO debate. The point is that anti science does not have an exclusive political home.

My daughters went to high school in Seattle and I lived their most of their time there. I love the city. Just don't go into a cafe and start defending GMO products. The PC correct culture there is formidable.
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby Ibon » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 18:45:08

I would like to add that I am somewhat ambiguous about the increased yields that GMO products enable in feeding Kudzu Apes as this thwarts The Overshoot Predator's arsenal of famine to correct our overshot population. Just saying.
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby Plantagenet » Wed 29 Apr 2015, 16:48:32

Liberal Group faults Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other Ds for their failures on Climate Change

elizabeth-warren-democrats-failing-climate-change-report

"Elizabeth Warren consistently ranks as a leader of the liberal left, but when it comes to climate change the Massachusetts senator and many other prominent Democrats are lagging behind, a new report claims, and are not taking the steps required to prevent the globe from plunging into manmade catastrophe.

The report, released on Wednesday by California-based liberal Super Pac Climate Hawks Vote, is the first to rank Senate Democrats’ environmental records not solely on congressional votes, but on their leadership and vocal support for action on climate change. That includes things like how many floor speeches a senator has given on the issue, and how many climate-related bills they have introduced.

The report came to some surprising (and not-so-surprising) conclusions about the Democratic party. While some senators scored well on the report’s -100 to +100 scale, most were middle-of-the-pack, and several scored near zero or negatively, meaning they either stayed silent on climate change or actively supported policies that exacerbate it.
"

Maybe this new report from the "Climate hawks vote" group will open some eyes as to Sen. Elizabeth Warren and her fellow Ds lack of action of Climate Change. The term War on Science. is a bit over the top, IMHO --- perhaps the situation should be described as many Ds being big talkers but then are clearly AWOL when it comes to actually fighting the war on Climate Change. :idea:
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Re: Liberal's War On Science

Unread postby Cid_Yama » Wed 29 Apr 2015, 17:35:22

Look, Plant, she's showing everyone the size of your willie. :lol:
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