3 ms·

> But this was also the decade in which science was commandeered by all kinds of people with political, social and economic axes to grind. And here follows a l

> But this was also the decade in which science was commandeered by all kinds of people with political, social and economic axes to grind. And here follows a list of people with political, social and economic axes to grind. Wow, apparently, all of the examples I have just happened to be from the political right and/or aligned to the evils of ‘Big Business’! Come on, if you’re going to accuse people of having an axe to grind, don’t do it in the service of having a political axe to grind.

commandlinefan 7y ago
... and they wonder why "trust in experts" is declining.
defterGoose 7y ago
Saying that the author has an axe to grind is another way of saying that their idea is without merit. But you haven't actually done any work to analyze or convince anyone of that.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- twoflower9 7y ago
  Nationalism bad!
skierguy 7y ago
I'm not quite sure how these are right-leaning political statements. She criticizes: * Nazis chugging milk and Hindu nationalism * Gene editing babies, especially in ways that they can be passed along. * AI/ML as a powerful tool we're worried about. * People denying medical consensus by avoiding vaccines and causing resurgence of preventable disease. I guess there is a solid part of the political left that gets too earthy for vaccines, but there's also a solid part of the right that seeks religious exemption. Both are unfortunate and (to the eye of an atheist) avoidable. * A minority of voices being amplified by social media to confuse the majority.
- antod 7y ago
  Yeah, I was also wondering which article they were commenting on. Seemed like a fairly broad base of examples to me.
- Koremat6666 7y ago
  > and baseless claims made by some Hindu nationalists that the speakers of the original Indo-European language hailed from the Indian subcontinent As someone deeply familiar with the debate around IE languages and entire Aryan Migration to India vs Out of India theories I would like to point out that author is way out of his/her depths on this matter. There is a lot of serious work and theories around both sides of the debate and neither side has conclusive evidence. Calling one side baseless by somehow attributing it to political motives is plain stupid, especially when plenty of non-Hindu scholars like Dr. Elst have contributed to the either sides of the debate. One of the foremost and original proponents Aryan Invasion Theory was Mr. Tilaak who was a Hindu nationalist. While I am not qualified to comment on rest of the article; I think it is clear to me that the author has her own political biases and might not be analyzing things in dispassionate way. The thing with science is that the people who push the boundaries of science often seem outliers and mad folks. When Galileo was being harassed he appeared mad to everyone else, now in hindsight we might think of the Church as a mad organization but that was not the case then. Similarly, the university system, peer reviewed journals, main stream media etc. could be a modern day church. True science will always win because it is on the side of the truth.

commandlinefan 7y ago

... and they wonder why "trust in experts" is declining.

defterGoose 7y ago

Saying that the author has an axe to grind is another way of saying that their idea is without merit. But you haven't actually done any work to analyze or convince anyone of that.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
twoflower9 7y ago
Nationalism bad!

skierguy 7y ago

I'm not quite sure how these are right-leaning political statements. She criticizes: * Nazis chugging milk and Hindu nationalism * Gene editing babies, especially in ways that they can be passed along. * AI/ML as a powerful tool we're worried about. * People denying medical consensus by avoiding vaccines and causing resurgence of preventable disease. I guess there is a solid part of the political left that gets too earthy for vaccines, but there's also a solid part of the right that seeks religious exemption. Both are unfortunate and (to the eye of an atheist) avoidable. * A minority of voices being amplified by social media to confuse the majority.

antod 7y ago
Yeah, I was also wondering which article they were commenting on. Seemed like a fairly broad base of examples to me.
Koremat6666 7y ago
> and baseless claims made by some Hindu nationalists that the speakers of the original Indo-European language hailed from the Indian subcontinent As someone deeply familiar with the debate around IE languages and entire Aryan Migration to India vs Out of India theories I would like to point out that author is way out of his/her depths on this matter. There is a lot of serious work and theories around both sides of the debate and neither side has conclusive evidence. Calling one side baseless by somehow attributing it to political motives is plain stupid, especially when plenty of non-Hindu scholars like Dr. Elst have contributed to the either sides of the debate. One of the foremost and original proponents Aryan Invasion Theory was Mr. Tilaak who was a Hindu nationalist. While I am not qualified to comment on rest of the article; I think it is clear to me that the author has her own political biases and might not be analyzing things in dispassionate way. The thing with science is that the people who push the boundaries of science often seem outliers and mad folks. When Galileo was being harassed he appeared mad to everyone else, now in hindsight we might think of the Church as a mad organization but that was not the case then. Similarly, the university system, peer reviewed journals, main stream media etc. could be a modern day church. True science will always win because it is on the side of the truth.