Canadian Government Muzzling Scientists 264
Meshach writes "Scientists in Canada researching why salmon stocks are depleting face being muzzled by the Canadian Conservative government. Quoting: 'Science told Miller to "please feel free to speak with journalists." It advised reporters to contact Diane Lake, a media officer with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Vancouver, "to set up interviews with Dr. Miller." The documents show major media outlets were soon lining up to speak with Miller, but the Privy Council Office said no to the interviews. The Privy Council Office also nixed a Fisheries Department news release about Miller's study, saying the release "was not very good, focused on salmon dying and not on the new science aspect," according to documents obtained by Postmedia News under the Access to Information Act. Miller is still not allowed to speak publicly about her discovery, and the Privy Council Office and Fisheries Department defend the way she has been silenced.'"
Imagine (Score:5, Funny)
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A scientist telling an uncomfortable truth being silenced by conservatives. It's preposterous.
Go on then. Let her tell aboot the feesh. Thankyou kindly.
Re:Imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
You needn't be so specific in targeting the conservatives - it's true of all politicians from all sides across the whole world. If a report or scientific study doesn't give the result they want, then they reframe the question and try to bury or hide the original. The EU even do it with national referendums (e.g. the Irish vote to ratify the Lisbon treaty that had to be held a second time as they didn't get the result they wanted).
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True. On the otherhand, I don't recall the actual muzzling of scientist by centrist (right or left wing) governments. Yet North Americans have enjoyed at least two such leaders over the past decade.
Re:Imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
This Conservative government is an anti-fact government. They don't like evidence getting in the way of their agenda. From this, to the abolishment of the long-form census, to firing scientists who speak out, to going ahead with their "tough-on-crime, lock-'em-all-up" strategy in the face of evidence around the world that it doesn't work. The other parties are not like this. True, the other parties sometimes have other faults, but this abhorrence of data, facts and objectivity in general is a Conservative thing.
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They don't like evidence getting in the way of their agenda. From this, to the abolishment of the long-form census...
They did not abolish the long form census, they only made it voluntary instead of mandatory. From a freedom point of view this is exactly the right thing to do.. Do you really want your government asking you very personal questions, then having the ability to fine and jail you if you don't want to answer? Thankfully they fixed that piece of nonsense.
Voluntary Juries. (Score:4, Interesting)
Nobody should be threatened to perform public service; besides there are lots of people who would gladly serve on juries. What could go wrong?
Re:Imagine (Score:4, Insightful)
At the same time what are statistics worth if they are voluntary? I thought the whole point of the census was to have decent statistics to help confirm choices made and help future decisions?
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They did not abolish the long form census, they only made it voluntary instead of mandatory.
This sounds good in theory (Freedom good, Privacy good). In practice, I've never heard of a case where someone's personal information leaked from StatsCan. In practice, in order for those statistics to be useful, you need an unbiased random sample. Making it voluntary means it's self-selected, which ruins the results.
And in practice, the long-form census is easily the least intrusive thing the federal government does to us, and it's done with a clearly stated and obvious benefit (I've filled out a long-form
Re:Imagine (Score:4, Interesting)
I sometimes wonder if Harper based his governance methods on those of George Bush and his cronies?
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This Conservative government is an anti-fact government.
If I needed to be more specific, I'd say that the current Conservative government is trying very hard to become a franchisee for the Republicans.
It's moving a little slower up here, but all the fingerprints are there - blocking work to make a point, the compulsion to argue that everyone without an opinion Obviously Believes The Same As I Do, and people who oppose are Subversives (of whatever stripe we're painting this week), and the complete obliviousness to anything that might indicate they may be incorre
Re:Imagine (Score:4, Informative)
Take a look at how different the two versions of the ratification that the Irish voted on were, its quite interesting...
Basically, they didn't just vote on the same thing twice - it was rejected, they heavily amended it and asked if the amendment was acceptable and it was.
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You needn't be so specific in targeting the conservatives - it's true of all politicians from all sides across the whole world. If a report or scientific study doesn't give the result they want, then they reframe the question and try to bury or hide the original.
Yes, whenever a politician encounters a scientific fact that conflicts with their ideas he will try to cover it up. The difference is that conservatives are much more likely to have ideas that conflict with scientific facts.
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I used to think that too, before I became hopelessly disillusioned with politics as it's now practiced. However, yes, they are all the same. The only difference between them is the colour of the hobby-horse they're riding. There's not a lick of "civic duty" left in any of them. Their "job" these days is to generate campaign funding for the next election, and nowadays, that means doing the bidding of cor
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A scientist telling an uncomfortable truth being silenced by conservatives. It's preposterous.
This would never happen in Ame .... oh wait!
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Re:Imagine (Score:4, Interesting)
Realy?
I say this with incredulity because the Liberals did exactly that.
The only real difference is that the liberals shut down local fisheries and then sold the quotas equal to the fisheries they had just shut down to foreign nationals. So we still have over fishing going on, its just not helping canadians at all. All of it was very hush hush and no one knew about any of the fishing quotas that had been sold until Portuguese boats started getting spotted in Newfoundland waters.
Minister of Environment, J Baird (Score:3)
When he took that position in early 2007 said that
The facts are in about climate change; the time for study is over; it is time for action.
His action was to fire the climate scientists from Environment Canada. EC has been reduced to a marketing wing of the tar sands oil extraction travesty.
There is a pattern.
Same Everywhere (Score:2)
Those penned fish breed disease and kill the native population.
Get use to stunted, zombie salmon that taste like cardboard.
Because, Thats all you will be able to afford, once the native stocks are killed off.
Paging Detective Thorn (Score:2)
Harper: 1 (Score:2)
Home and native land: 0
Only 4 more years (Score:5, Insightful)
of Harperizim. By then 1/3 of us will be in private jails for breaking copyright laws or smoking a joint.
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of Harperizim. By then 1/3 of us will be in private jails for breaking copyright laws or smoking a joint.
BTW is Maui Wowee copyrighted? Do they still plant a fish under a cannabis plant.
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BC Bud or Quebec Gold or GTFO :P
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Only 4 more years? That's what we said last time he was elected, and what did we do?
We gave him a majority government this time... wtf?
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And the other 1/3rd for ...
Or maybe not. Harper is dangerously ideological, but he is not stupid. He is skilled at manipulating public opinion and likes to prey upon the vulnerable once he has swayed public opinion (which usually reenforces people's support for him). But it is unlikely that he would ever initiate a campaign of terror that would end up with 2/3rds of Canada's population being in jail. Or even 5% of our population for that matter.
Re:another 1/3 for possessing hacker tools (Score:4, Insightful)
Optimist.
Harper doesn't give a shit about public opinion. He's skilled at selling a story and manipulating the shit out of the media. He hasn't actually achieved a damn thing of significance since his first term as Prime Minister. He's managed to convince half the country sitting on his hands and pushing an agenda that bears no resemblance to his campaign platforms is progress. "Staying the Course" my maple dipped left testicle. He's even managed to blame his opposition for him repeatedly sabotaging his own legislation.
I don't have any doubt, if he could find a way to make a buck for him or his corporate handlers doing it, he'd jail every citizen in the country.
~Disgruntled Albertan
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1/3 in jail for copyright violations, 1/3 for hacker tools and the other half still in underfunded schools saying their muslim prayers
Welcome, O Canada, to the Fraternity (Score:3)
We here in the United States will try to teach you how to give the Fraternity the finger. For now... until we've marshaled the strength to put a stake through its dogmatic heart.
Let the fishermen be the judge (Score:5, Interesting)
I have done stream survey on the west coast of British Columbia. I am a fly fisher, and have an intimate knowledge of what is really going on. The truth is that a combination of factors are ruining what was once one of the greatest fisheries on earth. It comes as no surprise that the Tories would try to put a muzzle on anyone trying to ring the alarm bells.
Intensive ongoing stewardship of the resource is the only possible solution. Yes it is extremely expensive and needs the complete cooperation of all. As things stand we can study the problems till there is no longer a fish problem to study. This is what our federal government would do as it keeps their cronies in work and makes for really good press. The federally funded studies are all centered around how to exploit the the fishing resource more efficiently, not how to preserve it. Every single paper that I have read is centered around a hands off approach to stream management...Let nature heal itself, is the doctrine.
The truth is that the damage has been done and the only approach that can possibly make a difference over the long term is, the clearing of blocked streams, the enhancement of riparian areas, the improvement and restoration of estuary land that is being gobbled up by our greed for real estate. And first and foremost let the truth about what has occurred be made public.The conservative government of Canada is a short sighted bunch of politicos that could not see the forest for the trees. What is needed is a conservation industry that pays our children back by returning what we and our parents have stolen from them with our short sighted greed!
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Amateur fishermen or commercial fisheries?
'cos the commercial fisheries are fishing the oceans out at the moment, but if you try and actually get them to do anything about it they bleat about traditional industry and having to make a living. Most of them don't seem to understand that the rate they're going they won't be a fishing industry in a few years either way.
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The people in charge don't care about the fishing industry in the long run. MBAs are taught that long term thinking is thinking about next quarter's results. Frankly, the people who own the fishing companies will sell them when their profits start to fall. The executives running the fishing industry will find jobs elsewhere, where they can maximize short-term profits. This is the problem with capitalism, so many externalities. The fluidity of capital allows the capitalist to ruin the industry he is exp
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It is not a blame game, it is a survival game that we must all buy into or ultimately, as a species, perish.
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Re:Let the fishermen be the judge (Score:4, Insightful)
"I'm sorry to say this but you're ignorant."
I'm ignorant because I think forcibly slowing down fishing now is better than being forced to slow down later because the tasty species are dead?
Seriously?
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The fact is that there are so many mouths to feed. I wish I could bring you over here so you can see for yourself. I'd show you, for example, the school where they built playground equipment and promptly had to forbid it to the children -- because their bones snap like twigs from malnourishment. Food is traded on a world-wide market, not just in your First World utopia.
It's wishful thinking to save the environment with restrictions because people will just find a different resource, even if it's catching th
Re:Let the fishermen be the judge (Score:2)
It's not a personal attack, but yes, you are living a sheltered and ignorant life.
No, I would argue that you are:
And it's outright cruel to simply dismiss people who say they must make a living. They're telling the truth.
That simply doesn't matter. Nature does not care about these people. If nothing is done, the fish stocks will crash soon and then they will not be able to make a living, regardless of political will, bad press and muzzling scientists.
You talk about human, economic and political things, and
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Okay, let me rephrase.
The rich (that's you and me, and everyone reading this) take all the resources and the poor (that's most of the world) get scraps.
The rich notice that the resources aren't going to last, so they point at the scraps and say "You can't have that, or there won't be any left tomorrow." The poor don't care about tomorrow because they're hungry now and, furthermore, because tomorrow the rich will just do the same thing again. So they poach/steal or they find something that's not protected an
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I'm sorry to say this but you're ignorant. How the hell do you expect to feed 7*10^9 people?
Funny, but this problem will solve itself. It might get messy, but it will solve itself. The question just remains, how much damage do we want to do to the world before the problem solves itself?
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I'm sorry to say this but you're ignorant. How the hell do you expect to feed 7*10^9 people?
I'm not sure, but a dead ocean certainly won't do the job.
By the way, you're an ignorant twat.
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So your *solution* is to eat the seed stock until there is nothing left, followed by mass starvation? Great plan!
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No. I'm telling you that people will eat the seed stock whether you like it or not. The underlying issues must be addressed.
Re:Let the fishermen be the judge (Score:5, Informative)
The truth is that the damage has been done and the only approach that can possibly make a difference over the long term is, the clearing of blocked streams, the enhancement of riparian areas, the improvement and restoration of estuary land that is being gobbled up by our greed for real estate.
Her research, as far as I have heard seems to indicate a virus propagating in the salmon population. It doesn't seem unlikely that such a virus could be coming from the salmon farms that the wild salmon often have to pass on their way to spawn. Combine that with the very likely fact that salmon farms are a source of sea lice that have been shown to infect wild salmon fry as they pass by, and you have a good argument that salmon farming is a primary cause of the decline in wild stocks of salmon.
The conservative government seems to not understand an important fact about science and the pursuit of truth, simply that money and the truth are often enemies of each other. If you view the world through dollar signs, you will have a very warped worldview.
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Her research, as far as I have heard seems to indicate a virus propagating in the salmon population. It doesn't seem unlikely that such a virus could be coming from the salmon farms that the wild salmon often have to pass on their way to spawn. Combine that with the very likely fact that salmon farms are a source of sea lice that have been shown to infect wild salmon fry as they pass by, and you have a good argument that salmon farming is a primary cause of the decline in wild stocks of salmon.
I have caught wild Sockeye and they do not suffer from sea lice the way local fish do. And yes the sea lice problem has increased...but so has the effluent from things other than fish farms.
And yes I agree a productive natural fishery could easily again make chemically stupid fish farming financially ineffective if managed with common sense.
Deploy the submarines we bought from the British out in the open Pacific and sink the Asian drift net factory ships first...If they ever get the subs out of dry dock...B
Kind of said it all (Score:3, Funny)
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Privy : Means Private ...
In this case a group of Ex Cabinet ministers and MP's all appointed by the Prime Minister ...so an arm of the government ...basically a group of politicians
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FLUUUUUUUUSSSSSSH!
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Privy : Means Private ...
In this case a group of Ex Cabinet ministers and MP's all appointed by the Prime Minister ...so an arm of the government ...basically a group of politicians
In Canada, the Privy Council Office [wikipedia.org] is the means by which the Cabinet exercises its executive power. It isn't so much an "arm" of the government; it *is* the government.
From the abstract (Score:5, Interesting)
Long-term population viability of Fraser River sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) is threatened by unusually high levels of mortality as they swim to their spawning areas before they spawn. Functional genomic studies on biopsied gill tissue from tagged wild adults that were tracked through ocean and river environments revealed physiological profiles predictive of successful migration and spawning. We identified a common genomic profile that was correlated with survival in each study. In ocean-tagged fish, a mortality-related genomic signature was associated with a 13.5-fold greater chance of dying en route. In river-tagged fish, the same genomic signature was associated with a 50% increase in mortality before reaching the spawning grounds in one of three stocks tested. At the spawning grounds, the same signature was associated with 3.7-fold greater odds of dying without spawning. Functional analysis raises the possibility that the mortality-related signature reflects a viral infection.
The DOI is 10.1126/science.1196901.
The genomic signature that their microarray analysis identified suggests: 1) infection by a virus (virus associated pathways activated), 2) a possible connection to certain leukemias (same reason) and 3) osmotic gradient control malfunctions contributing to stress and mortality (same reason). Apologies to those without access - but Science isn't open - but their methods seem very sound. I really don't see the point of suppressing this. All that media attention would change is how polished her presentation is when that commission or whatever gets around to talking to her.
P.S. The biopsies were non-lethal!
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The entire paper is freely available here: http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/qgjc/2010_2011/Canadian%20Salmon%20genomic%20signature%20Science.pdf
It's fairly old (February), seems a bit late to be suppressing anything...
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There is a difference between an academic publication accessible to a small number of people, and science journalism conducted by reporters writing for a public audience. They are suppressing a popularized account based on her explanations to reporters, not the technical account which few could understand.
Yes, but the information is out there. It's published in one of the highest visibility general science journals in the English language. Since there are many people who's lives are impacted by this research, and there are other researchers in the field, it's not likely that the information is going to be repressed in any meaningful way.
It's a dumbshit move, typical of politicians and may not even be malevolent, but it's not a very good way to keep the knowledge closely kept.
Documentary about Canadian fishing (Score:3, Informative)
Links for the paper (Score:3)
Genomic signatures predict migration and spawning failure in wild Canadian salmon. [nih.gov]
Which gives you a link to sciencemag.org:
Science Abstract [sciencemag.org]
Of course, there is a paywall at sciencemag.org. Being as all the researchers are Canadian, there is no NIH requirement for the paper to be released for free. You may need to venture to your local university library to download the paper, but with those links it won't be hard to get. You can get as far as the abstract for free:
Long-term population viability of Fraser River sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) is threatened by unusually high levels of mortality as they swim to their spawning areas before they spawn. Functional genomic studies on biopsied gill tissue from tagged wild adults that were tracked through ocean and river environments revealed physiological profiles predictive of successful migration and spawning. We identified a common genomic profile that was correlated with survival in each study. In ocean-tagged fish, a mortality-related genomic signature was associated with a 13.5-fold greater chance of dying en route. In river-tagged fish, the same genomic signature was associated with a 50% increase in mortality before reaching the spawning grounds in one of three stocks tested. At the spawning grounds, the same signature was associated with 3.7-fold greater odds of dying without spawning. Functional analysis raises the possibility that the mortality-related signature reflects a viral infection.
This is amazing news! (Score:2, Funny)
So, based on which law do they prevent? (Score:2)
Whats the law behind that. Nobody can prevent a Journalist from talking to her and i doubt that if the paper was published under her official affiliation there is anything they can do about it. (since, if you go the permission to publish from your employer, what you publish is his position)
PM Harper is a control freak (Score:2)
Re:Conartist Party Lies (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't go so far as to godwin it, but it IS amazing what Harper will do given a majority government for the first time.
It's times like this I wish Canada had a strict no-third-term rule like the US has. Harper would have been gone long ago and he'd have little choice but to stop meddling with the system to keep his seat.
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Did this really just get modded "informative" for attacking the way the Prime Minister's name is spelled?
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The moderation itself deserves a +1 Funny ;-)
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Yes, give other historical villains a chance.
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Sorry, Stalin is already reserved for hyperbolic Obama comparisons. You can't dilute the brand like that.
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What a crock of shit. [It stinks.]
It is a pail of dung, and none may abide the odor thereof.
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Isn't a scientific report by definition made of facts and not hysteria?
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That depends on if you include bad science in your definition of science.
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Okay, Explain to me how the paper has been published in a peer reviewed journal, and the Canadian government is "muzzling scientists" by not letting the author of said paper speak about it to major news agencies, when she is a government employee and subject to certain employment restrictions.
She is being muzzled because she is not being allowed to talk about her findings to the public via the press. Her findings are buried in a pay for access science journal that is likely written in language that most in the public will not understand.
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She is being muzzled because she is not being allowed to talk about her findings to the public via the press. Her findings are buried in a pay for access science journal that is likely written in language that most in the public will not understand.
TFA said she was told she couldn't speak because she has to give evidence in a judicial inquiry. Then came much officious huffing and puffing from lefty paranoids about how it was an excuse and that she was being muzzled.
Unfortunately for those theories, TFA also said, near the end of the article, that she will be allowed to speak in August, WHEN HER TESTIMONY HAS BEEN COMPLETED.
So call the PMO paranoid. Make fun of them, if that's your wont - god knows that hasn't been a PMO since the country began
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TFA said she was told she couldn't speak because she has to give evidence in a judicial inquiry.
Why does that make it OK? Why should judges be able to stop scientists from reporting their results to the public in a timely manner? As long as the evidence she gives on the stand is accurate, why does it matter what she does in the media?
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Why does that make it OK? Why should judges be able to stop scientists from reporting their results to the public in a timely manner? As long as the evidence she gives on the stand is accurate, why does it matter what she does in the media?
For the same reason that witnesses aren't allowed to talk to other witnesses before their testimony, why juries are often sequestered - or if not, invariably forbidden as a matter of course to not discuss the case with anybody else, or read news coverage of the trial they're on, etc - to avoid influencing somebody else's testimony, and to maintain impartiality so that any decision is based only on the evidence presented in court.
Also - I know I'm sounding like a broken record - she has NOT been prevented
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I'm warning you - if I will still remember to follow this theme in the end of August or whenever that final paper will be out, and she still can't speak her mind, i WILL come back here and reply to you: "Ha! Told you so!" I agree on you, that bad science is worse than no science. Still, I wouldn't muffle anybody. It's like Barbra Streisand effect.
Apparently, you haven't read TFA *or* my comment. First - the final paper is out and published. That's what caused the media interest in the first place. Second - the whole point of my comment was that she *hasn't* been muzzled because of her science, the results or indeed, for any reason - she's been told she can't speak until her testimony at a legal proceeding has been completed.
It'd kinda like telling your friends that your mother said you aren't allowed to play with them for the rest of your life,
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I'm curious - what is the point of having her NOT talk to the press before this judicial inquiry (which isn't a trial as far as I can tell) while the information is already out in the public domain? Will the evidence be tainted? Are there precedents for this sort of thing?
First, let me make it very, very clear - I don't have access to any information other than what's contained in the article. I have, however, been rather heavily involved in politics at the national level in Ottawa in the past, so I've got a bit of an idea of the mindset. What I'm about to say is my own suspicion - and it's what *I* would be worried about, if I was in that position. I doubt her paper is directly related to what she is expected to testify to before the inquiry - otherwise, she'd not have bee
Hilarious.. (Score:2)
Those outside of Canada probably won't get the joke.
Every conservative MP in canada begins everything they say with "Lets be clear", "Let me make it very clear" etc... as some sort of warning that a major porky is on the way...
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Those outside of Canada probably won't get the joke. Every conservative MP in canada begins everything they say with "Lets be clear", "Let me make it very clear" etc... as some sort of warning that a major porky is on the way...
Or, maybe it wasn't a joke. Maybe - just maybe - I was trying to make sure that people knew that what I was saying was strictly my own opinion, based only on the information that's available to everybody else - ie, TFA.
..... sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.
In the immortal words of Grouch Marx
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That is entirely dependent on the assumption that the the inquiry isn't just the excuse currently being used to muzzle her. The point isn't to suppress the information for ever, because that won't work, it's to mitigate the damage done by the report. Harper just needs to make sure that the media interest in the topic dies out first, then she'll be free to talk to all the reporters who no longer want to talk to her.
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That is entirely dependent on the assumption that the the inquiry isn't just the excuse currently being used to muzzle her.
Am I the only person here who's actually read TFA? Her paper has been published in the freaking LANCET
Do you have any idea how the government works? How many levels up the food chain she would have had to go to get permission to submit the paper in the first place? How many times it would have been reviewed by her bosses, on multiple levels, before it was allowed to go out the door? If this is what you call suppression, then every federal politician should be shot to remove them from the gene pool, and ev
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No, the rules about talking to news media without permission are a Harper invention. It was originally used to muzzle scientists who were critical of the oil sands and the government position on climate change. Since then they've discovered that it can be used in two ways, to keep all kinds of stories out of the national media through the threat of termination for unauthorized speaking, and through terminating the careers of anyone brave enough to rock the boat. They look at it is a zugzwang position, an
Re:Notice: "Department of Fisheries ..." (Score:5, Informative)
. In that respect, it's not much different from a tobacco company telling their scientists not to talk about the health effects of smoking.
It's completely different. But the morality is simple: they're civil servants. "Civil" means the people of the country, not the government in power. In practice, of course, if you embarrass those in power you will be punished.
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There is a HUGE difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Notice: "Department of Fisheries ..." (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course the difference here is that the government should represent the people and the people's interest, and letting the people know about the research is normal.
If your representatives are willing to block something vaguely important like this, what are they hiding which is really important?
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Yes, I think the thing being missed here is not, "can the government sometimes direct when/how its employees should release information to the public", and rather, "is there any reasonable explanation for this particular regulation?"
Not many people object that, say, the ambassador to a country is not allowed to just speak his personal opinion about foreign relations w/o clearing it with the government; and researchers on military projects can't just post some schematics to the internet. On the other hand, i
Re:Notice: "Department of Fisheries ..." (Score:4, Insightful)
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Science doesn't work through interviews. The research isn't being muzzled, it's the follow up interviews by the media. The reason you have something to complain about is because the government did a study and published the results.
Personally, I don't like the situation and I don't think the government should be acting this way. But there is no real reason why we need an interview with the scientists. We have a research paper we can read if we want their scientific opinion. The reason for interviewing t
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Hmmm... You make some good points. I may actually rethink my stance.
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I think that a lot of people are missing the point of my earlier comment:
This is the way the world works, and it will continue to work like that no matter how upset you get about it. Accepting the word of a government research scientist is foolish because there is a conflict of interest. The government wants to promote an agenda and some governments will do anything to make sure that everyone toes the line. This is really no different than accepting the word of a tobacco or pharmaceutical company researc
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Interesting, because deliberately concealing the research about the health effects of smoking is a big part of what enabled the lawsuits against the tobacco companies. So what you're saying is that it's not only unethical, it's also possibly illegal? Or were you trying to make some other point?
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Thus the comparison to the tobacco companies. That being said, I think that a man like Harper believe that the governent departments are there to inform policy decisions rather than the public. Whether he listens to what they say is an open question, but they must not question his authority ... erm, leadership. That's likely also why he screwed around with the census.
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I've talked to many people about the census, and the only intelligible reason for him screwing around with the census that comes to light is so that there's less quality data available to organizations doing good work with fewer agendas. I've always heard that the quality of StatsCan data was legendary, in part for having excellent continuity and statistical control. Well, it only takes one man to burn the library of Alexandria, doesn't it?
I'm not so sure this majority will work in his favour. Rome fell
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Well, it only takes one man to burn the library of Alexandria, doesn't it?
No, it takes a bunch of men, because there were a number of libraries at Alexandria.
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I take it that in your world, a man can only ever start one fire.
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Hey genius - who is paying for her research? It's the taxpayers of Canada. The same taxpayers the fascists running the government want to keep in the dark about research findings that will have a direct impact on the public well-being.
I know people love to call anybody even remotely right of centre fascists, and that they love to see conspiracies in everything .... but I'm having a hard time trying to think of a scenario where publishing a peer-reviewed paper in a journal as prestigious and well-known as the Lancet could possibly be considered to be "keeping people in the dark". But hey, that's just me.
Re: (Score:2)
Countermeasures such as "Go fuck yourselves" and release it anyway?
Leak it via Wikileaks or whatever if you want plausible deniability to avoid losing your job assuming you're in a country with sane employment laws where your employer has to have good cause to get rid of you.
Re:Same in Australia (Score:4)
Science (the magazine) while not quite as politically involved as Nature (the magazine, not the mother) is still pretty activist. It will be interesting to see if they get wind of it and make it a Streisand Effect issue.
Re: (Score:2)
I wasn't aware of the specifics of this case but was primarily responding to the GP who was suggesting there was maybe something scientists could do to stand up against government muzzling of science in general which he claims is occuring in Australia too- I was merely pointing out that of course there is, and I think it's pretty straightforward!
I agree that stifling discussion of an issue is a further problem that needs to be dealt with.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This one appears to be "evidence indicates that fish farms are infecting wild fish with deadly diseases (because they're placed on the migration path of wild fish)".