Lawmakers Seek Information On Funding For Climate Change Critics 394
HughPickens.com writes: John Schwartz reports at the NY Times that prominent members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate are demanding information from universities, companies and trade groups about funding for scientists who publicly dispute widely held views on the causes and risks of climate change. In letters sent to seven universities, Representative Raúl M. Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who is the ranking member of the House committee on natural resources, sent detailed requests to the academic employers of scientists who had testified before Congress about climate change. "My colleagues and I cannot perform our duties if research or testimony provided to us is influenced by undisclosed financial relationships." Grijalva asked for each university's policies on financial disclosure and the amount and sources of outside funding for each scholar, "communications regarding the funding" and "all drafts" of testimony. Meanwhile Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, Barbara Boxer of California and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. sent 100 letters to fossil fuel companies, trade groups and other organizations asking about their funding of climate research and advocacy asking for responses by April 3. "Corporate special interests shouldn't be able to secretly peddle the best junk science money can buy," said Senator Markey, denouncing what he called "denial-for-hire operations."
The letters come after evidence emerged over the weekend that Wei-Hock Soon, known as Willie, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, had failed to disclose the industry funding for his academic work. The documents also included correspondence between Dr. Soon and the companies who funded his work in which he referred to his papers and testimony as "deliverables." Soon accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. At least 11 papers he has published since 2008 omitted such a disclosure, and in at least eight of those cases, he appears to have violated ethical guidelines of the journals that published his work. "What it shows is the continuation of a long-term campaign by specific fossil-fuel companies and interests to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change," says Kert Davies.
The letters come after evidence emerged over the weekend that Wei-Hock Soon, known as Willie, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, had failed to disclose the industry funding for his academic work. The documents also included correspondence between Dr. Soon and the companies who funded his work in which he referred to his papers and testimony as "deliverables." Soon accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. At least 11 papers he has published since 2008 omitted such a disclosure, and in at least eight of those cases, he appears to have violated ethical guidelines of the journals that published his work. "What it shows is the continuation of a long-term campaign by specific fossil-fuel companies and interests to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change," says Kert Davies.
Interesing... (Score:3, Insightful)
SO, they're only investigating the funding sources of people who disagree with their position.
Well, that couldn't be biased at all, now could it?
Re:Interesing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Interesing... (Score:5, Insightful)
You can find that out by looking at their published work - it's standard practice to disclose your funding sources when publishing or presenting.
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Re:Interesing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Meanwhile in Europe where one party's politicians don't spend as much effort trying to use global warming as a bludgeon against their political enemies (and an excuse to funnel public money to their friends) popular acceptance of "climate change is a real thing to worry about" seems to be higher. How about that, hmm?
Re:Interesing... (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to change the voting system to something that breaks up the two party system. That will remove a lot of the idiotic deadlock over some of these things that should be moved to the non-issue category.
Re:Interesing... (Score:4, Insightful)
We need to change the voting system to something that breaks up the two party system. That will remove a lot of the idiotic deadlock over some of these things that should be moved to the non-issue category.
Sadly, the only thing both parties agree on is the two party system.
Re:Interesing... (Score:5, Insightful)
When Congress also demands "information from universities, companies and trade groups about funding for scientists who publicly [accept or] dispute widely held views on the causes and risks of climate change," then I'll care about what "prominent members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate" think about climate change.
It's not like members of Congress understand the "research or testimony" anyways. Nor do members of Congress care what others have to say; they use testimony as an opportunity for themselves to give speeches disguised as questions.
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They've investigating the funding sources of people who disagree with scientific consensus.
Think about it. (Score:5, Insightful)
If 95%+ of scientists agree with each other ... and are NOT all paid by the same corporations ...
but the scientists who disagree with them ARE all (100%) paid by the same corporations ...
I think you're implying bias on the wrong side.
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Re:Think about it. (Score:5, Informative)
I thought that the claim about consensus was based on peer reviewed papers that had been published and not on the public stance of individual climate scientists.
The following article looked at 12,000 papers and found a 97% consensus regarding human-caused global warming.
http://skepticalscience.com/97-percent-consensus-cook-et-al-2013.html
I'm curious as to what data you used to determine that the 95% consensus statement is a proven lie. Care to elaborate?
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I believe the critiques of all of the 95+% papers (and if you google it you will find many) are based on the fact that their filtering criteria are generally poorly conceived of and executed and the methods used to gauge the pro/con aspects of the paper are highly bias.
These papers generally start by using limited databases to perform their searches on, then they use poor keyword/phrase filtering to select/eliminate candidates. For at least one paper (possibly Cooks) the blind analysis was also shown to no
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"PKB", I think, is the term you are looking for here.
Obviously, all private funding for science should be required to be funneled throught Lessig's superpac to be vetted and pasteurized for social responsibility, political correctness, and overall greenness. I nominate Hugh for the job. ;-)
Funding is less of an issue to me than the allegations of fraud on both sides of this "debate".
Re:Interesing... (Score:5, Insightful)
It depends - reputable scientists disclose all of their funding sources when publishing so you usually don't have to investigate it. Given the pretty major snafu with Willie getting caught and his clear position in opposition to a large published majority, it's not unreasonable to check into actual funding sources, not just those he and others like him have reported.
It's not uncommon to be funded by large industrial groups, even in areas that you would typically not expect - for example, BP funds a lot of non-fossil-fuel energy research at academic institutions which is totally fine, but if you receive money from them then you have to disclose it, regardless of what your results are.
Re:Interesing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesing... (Score:4, Informative)
Do you have any problem with investigating *all* scientists working on climate, or only on one side of the issue?
No, where did I say that I did?
Scientists are routinely investigated. Not just climate scientists but all scientists of all disciplines - it's part of the process. Accounting for the money used to fund your research is a major part of modern science and it is carefully tracked and audited, as are the sources used by groups and individuals.
It is your responsibility to disclose them in your published work, but that doesn't mean that people aren't also going to check if you don't - that's exactly why this story exists and why it is important. He didn't do so and an investigation caught it. This sort of financial scrutiny of scientists is not uncommon, and it happens to *all* scientists, even ones who don't work on climate science.
Attacking messengers - what about the IPCC? (Score:2)
If we are questioning Soon because in the PAST he had funding from sources disliked by the left, why shouldn't we question all the original IPCC reports since the head of the IPCC (Rajendra Pachauri) was using his position of power as a sexual predator [bbc.com]?
I mean, it could well be he didn't care about the environment, he was just there to gather power and hypnotize potential prey with his positions (a pretty well known technique to get laid in college is to proclaim you are an environmentalist regardless of yo
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This is what most people d
Re:Interesing... (Score:5, Informative)
and the wall street banks were salivating at the thought of trading carbon credits
your point being?
a lot of money to be made on "green" crap
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Yes, and the free market whackjobs have been telling us for years to let the market rule the green space so that it can investments are made properly. Now that it might actually happen, you are complaining someone might make money off it. Make up your frikken mind.
Re:Interesing... (Score:4, Informative)
At one time, most people thought the earth was flat. That didn't make it factual.
The correct sentence should have been: "At one time, most people thought the people of former times thought the earth was flat. That didn't make it factual."
There never was a time when people, who were really interested in the actual shape of the earth thought it was flat. There have been models of a flat earth, but they existed solely because no one actually cared about the real shape. It was just assumed in the models to be flat because it wouldn't have made a difference anyway. Old Germans believed the world was a tree -- but just in the sense that the World Tree Yggdrasil made for some nice stories. They never tried to map their trips assuming they would be walking along the bark of an actual oak.
As soon as the necessity arised to know about the real shape, it was pretty clear from the beginning that the earth was round.
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Honest politicians (Score:5, Insightful)
"My colleagues and I cannot perform our duties if research or testimony provided to us is influenced by undisclosed financial relationships."
That line from the mouth of a politician is pure gold. Pot, meet Kettle.
Congress needs to butt out of science! (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm tired of these evil republicans going on witch-hunts after scientists! Those evil right-wingers hate anyone who disagrees with their religion and [interrupted, whispers]..
Oh wait, this is a brave Democrat who is uncovering a vast evil conspiracy because some evil slimeball had the gall to say that global warming is real but that the apocalyptic predictions of natural disasters made by the religion of Environmentalism aren't supported by real facts*.
Carry on, burn him at the stake, expose all of his emai
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Mann, meet hockey-stick graph, meet "fudge factor", meet media response to the exposure of same.
If only... (Score:3)
If only there was some way of detaching politics from science.... Hm....
Politics, science & religion (Score:3, Insightful)
If only there was some way of detaching politics from science.... Hm....
Easy: make sure to elect only religious people as politicians. So they won't need to bother with science, and can base laws & regulations on holy books alone. While in the meantime, the rest of society can use actual science to discover how the world around us works (and improve our lives in the process).
Oh wait...
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I find myself correcting atheists as many times as I do religious people. Neither side is bereft of people spouting inane generalizations.
Financial Relationships (Score:5, Informative)
The President’s 2014 Budget proposes over $ 21.4 billion for climate change activities [whitehouse.gov]
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that is one fucking huge gravy train. I am sure no one will be influenced by this funding.....
Bizarro World (Score:2)
.subject comment seE
The Liars (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I suppose it's a good thing if it can be demonstrated that the Koch Brothers and other fossil fuel interests are behind the vanishingly small number of still-reputable scientists issuing climate change lies. But, really, when you have 98% or 99% consensus, you don't need to wonder if the 1 or 2% are lying or just wrong. There are no areas in life where we find ourselves unable to operate with a consensus of 98% or 99%.
So the problem is not that a few scientists are wrong, or willing to be bought. The problem is that the people we elect are willing to destroy the planet for the benefit of their reelection. And the problem is that substantial numbers of voters are stupid and so incredibly self-interested that they are willing to trade their children's future for some politician's "promise" of "jobs, jobs, jobs."
Capitalism as we see it is a complete failure, allowing 85 individuals to control equivalent assets to several billion people, and legally treating the destruction of the planet as just another externality. "Democracy" as it is practiced in the United States is a game played by advertisers and strategists; really, all you need do to understand the depth of the fraud is to realize that advertisers "buy" points with advertising buys. It's not a democracy if you've learned you can predictably alter the point spread with a "buy" of a certain size.
There is no longer *any* legitimacy to our national-level institutions, and for the Senate or House to "investigate" fraud is a joke.
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The problem is the politicization of science. When the majority look for truth, and base their assessment foremost upon the credentials of men with the title of scientist rather than the evidence and results produced by science, we have already failed. We have done little more than replace religious texts that are only to be read and interpreted by scholars, with scientific journals that are only to be read and interpreted by scholars.
The entire point and improvement that the scientific method is to bring i
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You don't need 'legitimacy'. You gotta have faith!
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Dyson contends that since carbon dioxide is good for plants, a warmer planet could be a very good thing.
That isn't even wrong.
Re:The Real Lie - faking statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
The old appeal to authority. Nice. Well, Dyson is a physicist and mathematician, so his opinion on this matters exactly the same as yours - not a jot.
You're doing a great job of discrediting yourself - no one else needs to even bother.
The point is he understands real science (Score:2)
The old appeal to authority. Nice.
No different than your appealing to "climatologists" who can't get ANY predictions right over many decades of trying.
Why do you distrust a physicist / mathematician, who is far more apt at understanding statistics, chaotic systems, and the pure physics involved in atmospheric changes than a climatologist (with a much more shallow education in any of those areas) can possibly be?
That's the really puzzling aspect of people like you who believe deeply in people specializing in
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Because they're on the same team, silly. Dyson says things he agrees with and that's all that matters.
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The old appeal to authority. Nice. Well, Dyson is a physicist and mathematician, so his opinion on this matters exactly the same as yours - not a jot.
You're doing a great job of discrediting yourself - no one else needs to even bother.
You are grossly overstepping in your zeal to disprove your opponent. Unless of course you really do think physics and math aren't relevant to computer modelling of... statistical estimates for changes in radiation absorption based on multiple variables. You know, the very heart and soul most important component of the greenhouse effect.
Dyson's opinions as portrayed in the linked article include: ...was that article substantially accurate about your views?
Question:
Dyson:
He had his agenda. Obviously he wanted
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The procedures used by the IPCC to gather data and come to consensus are described here: http://www.ipcc.ch/
I suggest you read them, because it is clear you haven't. I'd also suggest you read the lists of authors of the working group reports. Perhaps you might consider contacting a few of them to find out why they believe what they believe. Until you've done so, you're not worth taking seriously.
Also, I notice you do not respond to the fact that United States elections may be purchased like any other com
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This is fairly hopeless, I see.
I'm sure the IPCC, like any other bureaucracy, has problems. But you cannot take a situation where there is no consensus and fool everyone into believing that there is a 98% or 99% consensus. The consensus may be wrong, but I do believe in playing the odds.
I'm sure there are occasional credible people who disagree with it; we are not machines. I'm sure there are people agreeing just because there is a consensus; again, we are not machines. But to suggest that the vast majo
Who dares speak against the King?! (Score:2)
Come out! And accept your punishment, with shall be death by burning at the stake! You're a witch!
Fuck all this! Make the damn politicians who write the damn laws reveal their sponsors! Then maybe they can complain about other people
Attack the messenger... (Score:2, Insightful)
Read more...
http://www.breitbart.com/big-g... [breitbart.com]
Billions and billions of dollars have been squandered on this boondoggle. No wonder so many people don't accountability.
Re:Attack the messenger... (Score:4, Insightful)
Soon's paper was fine. No lies, no fabricated data... And he attempts to explain the obvious elephant in the room: Why Climate Models Run Hot, which they obviously do.
Read more...
http://www.breitbart.com/big-g... [breitbart.com]
Billions and billions of dollars have been squandered on this boondoggle. No wonder so many people don't accountability.
Your source is suspect there, I'm afraid.
If his papers are fine then why did he not disclose his funding source? That's rule one about publishing your work. To not do so is very sketchy.
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There was no funding source on Dr. Soon's latest paper.
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AHAHAHAHAHAHA. You're citing Breitbart of all news sources and trying to claim they're... fair and balanced.
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This is good. (Score:2)
I'm aghast... (Score:2)
Very interesting view from one of the authors. [wmbriggs.com]
~Loyal
Guys, stop it (Score:2)
my poor killfile is so full of deniers that it's not able to fit one more wafer-thin mint.
Legal Precedent? (Score:2)
Didn't we go though just this sort of thing when some lawmakers tried to subpoena Micheal Mann's communications regarding the backing for his research? And were these demands for information eventually blocked?
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Of this there can be no argument. It is established fact.
So you will have no problem proving your claim ?
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Sure.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... [telegraph.co.uk]
From TFA:
When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.
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Re:The real junk science (Score:4, Interesting)
All the article does is highlight a few carefully selected weather stations where the temperature records have been adjusted. It doesn't explain why the adjustments were incorrect. It also doesn't show what the unadjusted temperature record would look like if you took all the station data.
Luckily, somebody else did that: http://judithcurry.com/2015/02... [judithcurry.com]
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Oh, kazam! Andyring is shown up for the lying sack of shit he is!
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Or do they just not care?
They think the problems will be at least decades away. They feel justified in believing this because some people have always been saying the world will end tomorrow.
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It's the natural tendency for people to interpret evidence in the way that supports their prejudice. Go to any football match (I'm thinking soccer as I'm a Brit, but I guess USian football is probably the same) and ask two supporters from different sides what they honestly thought of the merits of a referee's decision. 90% of the time they will agree with decisions that went their way and disagree with decisions that went the other way.
My mum watches a load of those "psychic detectives" TV programmes, and w
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You're referring of course to the billions of people around the world who drive cars, use electricity, burn trees for heat, or any other activity which contributes to climate change, yes?
Convince the world to go back to a pre-industrial standard of living, and all the industry funded "science" in the world won't make a difference. There won't BE a fossil fuel industry.
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Re:Inquisition (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Inquisition (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Inquisition (Score:5, Insightful)
Now this just uses the same argument: Climate sceptics have to doubt AGW, because otherwise they would lose their financial founding. And to support that, the lawmakers want to actually know who founds the climate sceptics.
Re:Inquisition (Score:4, Insightful)
I see, so pseudo-skeptics can be as shrill and hyperbolic as they please, and that's just fine, but the scientific community is just supposed to endlessly take it up the rear.
What are you afraid of? That it will turn out most of the shit people like you believe is bullcrap invented by the Koch Brothers?
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We can't get the same standards for police brutality that exist in Fergeson to be applies in LA, Chicago, or New York City. We can't get the
Re:Inquisition (Score:4, Insightful)
What are you afraid of? That it will turn out most of the shit people like you believe is bullcrap invented by the Koch Brothers?
I'm afraid that people like you are absolutely certain of what you believe, and that one of the things you believe is that none of your beliefs were influenced by anyone with a motive.
~Loyal
Re:Inquisition (Score:4, Insightful)
one of the things you believe is that none of your beliefs were influenced by anyone with a motive.
Of course they were. Just like your beliefs. That in itself doesn't help us determine which are true, though.
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Personally, I think when science allows itself to get into witch hunt mode, it is damning itself to staying there. Scientist should stand up and say "we got this, politicians, please stay out of it".
Re:Inquisition (Score:4, Interesting)
The denier in question is a scientist, who has taken large amounts of money from the fossil fuel industry without reporting it in his papers.
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I'm not clear as to what you are referring to. What "smells like fascism"?
Re:Inquisition (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Inquisition (Score:4, Insightful)
So investigating a conflict of interest is now "going after citizens"?
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You're comparing asking a researcher why they received large amounts of cash from groups with obvious and well known biases to AGW research to McCarthyism?
Re:Inquisition (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference is that no one is going to go to jail, and the worst repercussions are likely to be the researcher in question is taken to task for not reporting his funding sources.
Are you fucking retarded?
Re:Inquisition (Score:4, Insightful)
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Funny. Very few governments seem to be willing to do anything except sit on their asses.
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Great. So you come up with a solution to AGW...
But let me guess, you conveniently reject the science.
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Bull-fucking-shit. AGW is about the observation that increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere lead to increased energy in atmospheric systems, increased surface temperature, increased ocean temperatures, and increased absorption of CO2 into the oceans leading to acidification.
This idea that the laws of the fucking universe somehow have to abide by YOUR political ideology is so ludicrous as to make me believe you either a fucking moron or a religious fanatic.
Re:Inquisition (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Inquisition (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Inquisition (Score:4, Funny)
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Financial disclosure is standard procedure in scientific publishing. Problem is, of course, that few AGW denialists ever publish anything in scientific journals.
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We could look into that. But according to you (here [slashdot.org]) it would be a witch hunt. So I guess we can't look into conflicts of interest.
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It isn't the "scientific community" that is making this demand, it is the people that fund the "scientific community"
Nope, its the people who have to listen to the same "experts" (who mostly aren't climate scientists) repeating the same arguments that disagree with the vast majority of actual climate scientists. And they want to know if there is something going on here - like the experts being paid by the same people as those who insist that they know more about climate science than actual climate scientists. You know, Senators like James M. Inhofe and people like the Koch brothers.
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I see. So the fact that the overwhelming majority of linguists believe French, English and Urdu all descend from a common mother tongue mean that the consensus proves Proto-Indo-European studies are false?
You're talking bullshit, and sounding like a simpering moron.
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Consensus is the exact opposite of science. If we went with the consensus, the Earth would be flat, the sun would revolve around the Earth, the moon would be made of cheese, etc. Science is questioning *everything*. Anybody who says there is a consensus in AGW and opposition is to be silenced or downplayed is anti-science.
What are *you* afraid of?
You don't understand what a scientific consensus is. In science a consensus exists when there are no longer arguments among the practitioners of a science about a particular point in that science. It's not something they vote on, it just happens organically.
Re: Inquisition (Score:4, Informative)
Same as we did on the "lead in gasoline isn't harmful", "asbestos is safe to breathe" and "smoking tobacco doesn't cause cancer" instances, yes.
Industry runs the same playbook over and over, and reasonable people counter it the same way each time...
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Who is jackbooting anyone? Last time I checked, it was the psuedo-skeptics who were comparing scientists to child molesters.
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
Now the politically correct enforcers are going to jackboot all over anyone who has a different opinion?
Obviously if they don't agree with us, they must be corrupt or worse.
That's some Nazi shit right there.
No, the fact that he has been caught not disclosing his funding sources and been caught breaking ethical guidelines is what makes him corrupt.
Just a thought.
Disclosing your funding source is standard practice. Not doing so is very sketchy.
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No, the fact that he has been caught not disclosing his funding sources and been caught breaking ethical guidelines is what makes him corrupt.
No. The work was unfunded. The publisher required the authors to disclose any funding for the work. Soon disclosed no funding for the work because there was no funding for the work, and disclosing no funding was the proper thing to do. In fact, it would have been dishonest to claim to have been funded by someone if you weren't. (Scarlett Johansson paid me to make
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Yes, governments.
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Clearly they are not very good at their jobs because the source of funding is irrelevant. Unless you are accusing them of outright fraud, what matters is the research itself, it's replication and peer review.
Right, but the rule for publishing is that you disclose who paid for your research. If you don't do that then people aren't going to take the research seriously. Your funding source is most certainly not irrelevant at all. It doesn't mean that you automatically dismiss any work that us funded by an organisation you don't like, or who you assume has an agenda - you look at the research itself - but if you don't disclose then you're nowhere.
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That shutting down funding of a contrary point of view is not exactly scientific best practice.
Who said anything about shutting it down?
All they want is for him to disclose who is funding him, as is standard practice in science.
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The Koch Brigade is out in force today.
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As it almost always is when this place covers AGW, thanks to Dunning-Kruger victims thinking that their knowledge of computers directly translates into knowledge of climate science.