3 ms·

re: 1) You're saying I was wrong to think that your objection to his use of that phrase to describe Tierney meant that you thought the article was honest scient

re: 1) You're saying I was wrong to think that your objection to his use of that phrase to describe Tierney meant that you thought the article was honest scientific skepticism? re: 2) You used the phrase "Because that was the point". If not of the article, which you weren't commenting on, than the point of what, exactly? re: 3) You specifically said "Science advisers should stay clear instead of being part of the rabble", that hardly sounds like you're okay with either. All I was saying is that the scientific question is the political question, you can't have a scientific opinion without simultaneously having a political one. What good is a science advisor who can't give their opinion because it happens to also be political? And the question of science being politicized in the previous administration referred mostly, imo, to people with no science experience at all making decisions about what did and didn't get funded based on strictly political considerations. This doesn't seem comparable, really.

DanielBMarkham 18y ago
1) Yes. I just saw the comment and commented on it. That's it. 2) some scientists try to disguise their political agendas as scientific fact was responded to with frankly conflates political agendas with making your best guesses about the future. I was making the observation that conflating things, whether by a writer or a political appointee, is political. To argue about it is to have a political argument. To say the sky is falling may be science. To say we all have to buy steel helmets to be saved and that the other party is working to stop helmet production is politics. 3) I would like science advisers to stay clear, but I'm okay with either position. Honest. In fact, in a different thread on this same topic I made that point. Advisers should give their opinion to the president. The question on the table is whether or not they should also do so to the world at large -- especially if it means glossing over scientific issues for political purposes. I like science too much to see that happen, but I pragmatic enough to realize that it might have to work that way. Like I said, I just want consistency. The thing is, aside from formal proofs science is already a highly political arena. Funding decisions, professorships, research awards, publication rights -- it's all intricately connected to politics. It'd be simpler if that kind of politics stayed out of national partisan politics. It managed to do so for 200 years. Scientists do not want to get into the business of becoming expert witnesses for politicians. It's a marriage made in hell. As far as non-scientific people making scientific funding decisions -- welcome to a democracy. It's supposed to work like that. I was of the opinion that the old science advisers were saying things supporting "global warming deniers" that didn't fit with the current paradigm and then acting on those beliefs. If so, then again, that's politics. Pragmatically perhaps it's supposed to work that way. My understanding was that what people wanted was for the preferred role of adviser to simply advise the president -- not to play politics. That by getting on TV and making sweeping statements he/she was dragging science through the mud. That's what I thought the discussion was about, and it made some sense to me. If I was mistaken, sorry. But that's what I've been hearing.

DanielBMarkham 18y ago

1) Yes. I just saw the comment and commented on it. That's it. 2) some scientists try to disguise their political agendas as scientific fact was responded to with frankly conflates political agendas with making your best guesses about the future. I was making the observation that conflating things, whether by a writer or a political appointee, is political. To argue about it is to have a political argument. To say the sky is falling may be science. To say we all have to buy steel helmets to be saved and that the other party is working to stop helmet production is politics. 3) I would like science advisers to stay clear, but I'm okay with either position. Honest. In fact, in a different thread on this same topic I made that point. Advisers should give their opinion to the president. The question on the table is whether or not they should also do so to the world at large -- especially if it means glossing over scientific issues for political purposes. I like science too much to see that happen, but I pragmatic enough to realize that it might have to work that way. Like I said, I just want consistency. The thing is, aside from formal proofs science is already a highly political arena. Funding decisions, professorships, research awards, publication rights -- it's all intricately connected to politics. It'd be simpler if that kind of politics stayed out of national partisan politics. It managed to do so for 200 years. Scientists do not want to get into the business of becoming expert witnesses for politicians. It's a marriage made in hell. As far as non-scientific people making scientific funding decisions -- welcome to a democracy. It's supposed to work like that. I was of the opinion that the old science advisers were saying things supporting "global warming deniers" that didn't fit with the current paradigm and then acting on those beliefs. If so, then again, that's politics. Pragmatically perhaps it's supposed to work that way. My understanding was that what people wanted was for the preferred role of adviser to simply advise the president -- not to play politics. That by getting on TV and making sweeping statements he/she was dragging science through the mud. That's what I thought the discussion was about, and it made some sense to me. If I was mistaken, sorry. But that's what I've been hearing.