I quite disagree. The last I looked, the guy over in east asia who faked the cloning was still a member of the scientific community and still getting new papers published.

One of the failures of the modern scientific community is the failure to eject those who use shoddy data or methods to reach desired conclusions. Sadly it all goes back to Gore and his movie, where everyone decided it was okay that he lied about the science, because it convinced people there was a problem…

(which still makes me go.. wait… WTF? Run that by me again…)

Okay. I re-read the post. It was bad judgment on Lubchenco’s part to be associated with this report. It’s hard to know why she did it. I searched the report and it looks like she was cited as a source, but not for any critical information related what causes GW. She’s not listed as an director, author, or reviewer. She may have done it because she was asked, as a political gesture to the Obama Admin. (being a good team player and all). She may not have even known what was in it.

I think the author of this post is quite right that AGW is political post-modernist thinking in scientific garb, promoting “facts” when they believe there’s no such thing as absolute truth, only a political reality. Affirmative post-modernists believe just this, that “facts” are just a narrative that exists in a world of competing narratives, but the narrative that’s worth promoting is the one that they deem exemplifies social justice. I’m not so sure that the AGW crowd is interested in “social justice”. It’s more about population control, but the same sort of political thinking goes into it.

Quoting “Hunter” (I don’t think this is the same hunter who posts later)

“Your stupidity never fails to amaze me. Do you think a report for the public should be written in the same style as a scientific paper? We know that you don’t understand the science, no matter how clearly it’s presented, but many other people with basic intellectual capabilities can.”

This is anti-intellectualism at its best. The Puritans would be proud. I suppose the “basic intellectual capabilities” hunter speaks of are the ability to read and write. But oh no, don’t require us to THINK for God’s sake! To heck with non-universals!

the other coyote, re: Jane Lubchenco:

I did not draw the same conclusion you did from the article, but then maybe I don’t know Miss Lubchenco. There is a problem with academic researchers staying in their labs and not sharing their knowledge with the public. The public would benefit from some outreach from scientists. The state of American math and science education is not so good, and I think a part of that is the fact that the people who really get math and science (math in particular) are off in their ivory towers or out in the fields doing their research all the time and are unconcerned about educating the next generation. We do need to change this notion in the academy that in order to be considered a good research scientist or mathematician that you need to spend 100% of your work time doing science and math. Part of that time should be devoted teaching, without the risk of being considered a less than stellar researcher for doing so.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/science/earth/24prof.html

Here’s a link to the ABC story. Not surprisingly, also full of fear mongering and not a single question about whether the facts are as the “scientists” say.

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2009/s2600327.htm

“A person shall not be treated as suffering from a physical disablement such that he is either unable to walk or vitually unable to do so if he is not unable or virtually unable to walk with a prosthesis or an artificial aid which he habitually wears or uses or if he would not be unable or virtually unable to walk if he habitually wore or used a prosthesis or an artificial aid which is suitable in his case.” My all-time favorite quote from a Dept. of Health and Human Services publication explaining mobility allowances for the disabled.

If any of you know the history of PBO’s National Science Advisor, John Holdren, this doesn’t surprise you. Holdren is a disciple/compadre of the infamous neo-Malthusian Paul Ehrlich (The Population Bomb). Holdren, for example, helped Ehrlich choose the basket of metals for his famous bet with Julian Simon which attempted to prove that Ehrlich’s and Holdren’s views on resource scarcity were right and Simon’s cornucopian views were wrong (if you haven’t heard of this famous bet, Google it…).

If you’re not familiar, here are just a few of Holdren’s predictions, to give you a clue what you’re dealing with:

- “Some form of ecocatastrophe, if not thermonuclear war, seems almost certain to overtake us before the end of the century” (by 2000). John Holdren & Paul Ehrlich, 1971.

- “it is possible that carbon-dioxide climate-induced famines could kill as many as a billion people before the year 2020.” Holdren 1986. (With 11 years to go, I think it’s safe to say this one will turn out to be wrong, too.)

- in 2006, Holdren predicted that sea levels “could rise by 13 feet by the end of the century”. Even the high church of global warming scare mongering, the UN IPCC, only predicts 13 INCHES by 2100 in its FAR (2007).

These are just a few of his beauties.

This is the guy PBO promised us would “return science to its rightful place”. If this report is any indication of how Holdren will return science to its rightful place, then those involved in science should be very scared. This report is an affront to real science. It is political science. Nothing more, nothing less.