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All science is bought by special interests to a certain extent. Frankly, I think the connections to the oil industry, et al., are not as important as the verac

All science is bought by special interests to a certain extent. Frankly, I think the connections to the oil industry, et al., are not as important as the veracity (or lack thereof) of his claims.

g2boojum 17y ago
"All science is bought by special interests to a certain extent." Any evidence for that statement? My academic research was mostly funded by the US NSF, which doesn't really strike me as a "special interest". The NSF doesn't particularly care what the results are, just that the questions are worth answering and that the approach is reasonable.
- hga 17y ago
  I'm not asking you to do this work, but to prove your point you'd need to list some research that the NSF has funded that "denies" global warming (assuming they fund the reverse).
  - cgranade 17y ago
    That's false equivalency. The NSF doesn't fund research to show that the earth is flat, because it isn't. Just because the well-tested AGW hypothesis exists doesn't mean that AGW denialism is on equal footing.
    - anamax 17y ago
      The "earth is round" folks don't hide data. They show their work. Note that the NSF does fund things that seriously test special relativity. Do you really think that the temp measurements are as sound? You remember the temp measurements. The US ones come from stations in parking lots, and they're the good ones. A huge fraction of the foreign ones have been moved. We don't know how that was adjusted for. (The dog ate their homework.) Which reminds me, we have data showing that CO2 levels on earth have been several times higher than the projected disaster case. Care to guess what the "unbearable" temps were?
- dgabriel 17y ago
  "To a certain extent," meaning that popular stuff gets funded at a much higher rate than unpopular research. I'm not suggesting your motives, or the motives of other hard-working scientists, are suspect. I'm just pointing out that most science is funded by outside organizations that have their own agendas, and can exercise those agendas by choosing what to fund. As an aside, this is true in scientific publications, as well. Just because your research is great, and your conclusions sound, doesn't mean Cell (or whatever journal) is going to print it.

All science is bought by special interests to a certain extent. Frankly, I think the connections to the oil industry, et al., are not as important as the veracity (or lack thereof) of his claims.

g2boojum 17y ago

"All science is bought by special interests to a certain extent." Any evidence for that statement? My academic research was mostly funded by the US NSF, which doesn't really strike me as a "special interest". The NSF doesn't particularly care what the results are, just that the questions are worth answering and that the approach is reasonable.

hga 17y ago
I'm not asking you to do this work, but to prove your point you'd need to list some research that the NSF has funded that "denies" global warming (assuming they fund the reverse).
- cgranade 17y ago
  That's false equivalency. The NSF doesn't fund research to show that the earth is flat, because it isn't. Just because the well-tested AGW hypothesis exists doesn't mean that AGW denialism is on equal footing.
  - anamax 17y ago
    The "earth is round" folks don't hide data. They show their work. Note that the NSF does fund things that seriously test special relativity. Do you really think that the temp measurements are as sound? You remember the temp measurements. The US ones come from stations in parking lots, and they're the good ones. A huge fraction of the foreign ones have been moved. We don't know how that was adjusted for. (The dog ate their homework.) Which reminds me, we have data showing that CO2 levels on earth have been several times higher than the projected disaster case. Care to guess what the "unbearable" temps were?
dgabriel 17y ago
"To a certain extent," meaning that popular stuff gets funded at a much higher rate than unpopular research. I'm not suggesting your motives, or the motives of other hard-working scientists, are suspect. I'm just pointing out that most science is funded by outside organizations that have their own agendas, and can exercise those agendas by choosing what to fund. As an aside, this is true in scientific publications, as well. Just because your research is great, and your conclusions sound, doesn't mean Cell (or whatever journal) is going to print it.