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From the I've-heard-enough-and-won't-take-it-anymore department, http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39024648
The BBC reports that former Congressman Rush Holt, now part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), is the spokesman for a movement "standing up for science".
His remarks reflect growing concern among researchers that science is disregarded by President Trump.
Scientists across the US plan to march in DC on 22 April.
[...] "To see young scientists, older scientists, the general public speaking up for the idea of science. We are going to work with our members and affiliated organisations to see that this march for science is a success."
Mr Holt made his comments at the AAAS annual meting in Boston as President Trump appointed a fierce critic of the Environmental Protection Agency as its head. Scott Pruitt has spent years fighting the role and reach of the EPA.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by jmorris on Tuesday February 21 2017, @04:17PM
As usual, don't get into an argument with a Prog over their statements, instead find the defective premise they are based on.
His remarks reflect growing concern among researchers that science is disregarded by President Trump.
Scott Pruitt has spent years fighting the role and reach of the EPA.
Can you spot the problem? The example picked for the summary is not an argument over "science" at all. Science doesn't have policy positions, science doesn't have a preference in the debate over the "role and reach of the EPA." Scientists might have policy preferences, because they are a subclass of both "Human" and "Citizen" but science is, by definition, silent on the question. So this dispute should be honestly restarted as:
His remarks reflect growing concern among researchers that scientists are disregarded by President Trump.
Which may or may not actually be a true statement, may or may not be a good thing. But what it most certainly is is a very different thing entirely. It is a primal scream of "Respect My Authoritah!" Sorry guys, when 90%+ of scientists have openly taken a side in the political debate they should, hopefully being educated folks of above average intellect, realize that when their side loses a few elections they lose influence along with everyone else on their Team. The Team currently running Washington thinks Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are idiots with ideas unworthy of serious consideration. And they think the same thing about their pet celebs and scientists too. Just the way the game is played.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday February 21 2017, @05:21PM
Are you using SN as a testing ground for the next Black Mirror episode?
Scientific facts have no bearing on policy? Scientists should stick to their labs and let the "leaders" steer the country wherever? This tide of anti-intellectualism is incredibly alarming and proponents such as yourself pretend to sit on the moral high ground while accusing your "enemies" of the behaviors typified by your glorious leader. All the proof we need has come from the resignation of Michael Flynn and Vice Admiral Harward declining to take the position.
If anything we need more science involved with policy instead of less. Y'know, making informed decisions and all that.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday February 22 2017, @12:22AM
Scientific facts have no bearing on policy?
That would be stupid, which is why I didn't say anything of the sort. Scientists != science. Scientists are, in general, dweebs who are overly specialized in one or two disciplines, none of which are typically applicable to policy debates. To use a classic example, scientists could inform FDR of the possibility of the atom bomb. But whether to launch the Manhattan Project required inputs from many other areas considering the huge allocation of resources that would be required, during wartime. Then once the thing was built and tested it was again time for the other specialists to grapple with the question of whether to drop the thing; in the end it was one person's call and he was a politician. And I assert that was the correct place for that decision to be made, as scientists are not particularly well equipped to handle a political / moral problem of that complexity.
Even if, for the purpose of debate only, we accept the science on AGW scientists aren't the ones who should be deciding what to do about it. Climatologists most certainly aren't. Do you upend the world's economic and political systems and install a one world socialist dictatorship? That is the solution the scientists prefer, but most of them were already politically naive one world socialists from their college days and, because scientists, never expended the mental effort on political and economic thought to overcome it. But do you mitigate AGW, adapt, etc.? Science can offer input into the feasibility, cost, consequences of proposed plans but is totally ill equipped to handle what in the end must be a political decision.
This tide of anti-intellectualism...
And this is a textbook example of Scientism. Science, not even the actual hard sciences, is not the only outlet of intellectual activity.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Wednesday February 22 2017, @06:05AM
I never said science is the be-all end-all, but your ilk sure do love to ignore facts when they inconvenience your world view and/or profit margins. So bug off you goose stepper.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 21 2017, @09:58PM
The laws of physics don't have a party affiliation you fucking partisan hack. If science has become politicized at all, it's because people like you and your handlers have driven the Overton Window so far out into loonie la-la land that the scientists HAVE to fight.
And why is this? It's because your kind don't do epistemology. You don't do reality. You don't do truth. One of you even said "There's the reality-based community, and there's us," remember? That was the single most telling thing from the right wing in the last 20 years, and it may well be this nation's epitaph.
So yeah, it's gonna fuckin' get political when the people in charge are by definition anti-science, anti-knowledge even, as their strategy relies on undermining the very epistemological basis ("common ground") we communicate with. Take your aggrieved whining and go to Hell; you vandals would destroy even basic truth to further your own agenda. That you then turn and accuse your opponents of doing the same is only going to get you thrown even deeper into that sulphurous furnace.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @01:34AM
Can I now push my policies as long that I claim it is scientific? More importantly, how do I remove heretics and heathens who are against my holy science?
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday February 22 2017, @08:00AM
A few months ago, I had a "crisis of faith" in evidence-based policy: for that very reason. I noticed the both "sides" of many debates claim to have science on their side.
After much pondering, I came up with a solution:
Nothing replaces reading the original studies.
That takes time, but it is what you have to do is you want to resolve an impasse.
Science should not have an inherent bias. If it does, you should be able to find contradiction: possibly invalidating the conclusions.
More worryingly (but is saves you work as a critic), the "science" often does not actually prove what various pundits claim that it does. A lot of the time: it merely shows that a related, weaker, claim may be true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @08:31AM
Everyone pushes their policy however they want. I don't recommend you use the "science" label unless you're only trying to convince some suckers...
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday February 22 2017, @09:10AM
Or, maybe, unless you do science?
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