Posted by Dee Norris
This article concerning the Nobel Prize for Chemistry caught my attention this morning:
Twenty years ago, Douglas Prasher was one of the driving forces behind research that earned a Nobel Prize in chemistry this week. But today, he’s just driving.
Prasher, 57, works as a courtesy shuttle operator at a Huntsville, Ala., Toyota dealership. While his former colleagues will fly to Stockholm in December to accept the Nobel Prize and a $1.4 million check, the former Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist will be earning $10 an hour while trying to put two of his children through college.
Shuttle driver reflects on Nobel snub – Cape Cod TImes
Are we starving science research in other areas to pursue accelerated and possibly needless research into Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) and the dire consequences of AGW at the expense of other more productive and beneficial areas of study?
We have recently heard from Richard A. Muller justifying the distortions and untruths of Al Gore (I guess if the untruths were committed willingly, one could call them LIES) as necessary to stir the public to combat AGW, but at the same time are these tactics shifting funding away from more deserving science projects?
While it was perfectly within his rights not to share the cloned gene with others, Prasher said he felt an obligation to give his research a chance to turn into something significant, even if he was no longer a part of it.
“When you’re using public funds, I personally believe you have an obligation to share,” Prasher said.
How many researchers like Douglas Prasher are under-employed while others like Hansen and Mann receive lecture fees and yet continue to obfuscate data and research paid for by public funds simply to protect their ’empires’?
Your guess is as good as mine, but I ask if spending money on research the explore to the link between global warming and kidney stones really a good use of a limited resource?
In a final thought, I hope some research facility sees this article and offers Doug a job that pays better than $10 an hour. Clearly, he is a more deserving scientist than many of the AGW researchers.
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Yes, I agree with your assertion. Global warming research is getting too much money and leaving other science endeavors dry looking for money. The AGW money is on top of that corrupting the science process and Peer review and the IPCC in climate science is a disgrace. The money would also be put to better use auditing climate science.
Baksheesh.
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Absolutely, 100%, definitely agree. And I’ve been saying it for a while.
Not only that, but the bloody nose “science” in general will receive once this is all exposed will set all of us back centuries (us = science people).
How many times can someone cry “wolf” before the townspeople stop coming out to help? Others have listed a few of them, but let me mention some highlights: Ozone layer, Ice Age, Atomic tests at Bikini vaporizing the oceans, supercollider experiment creating a black hole that will absorb the Earth, DDT, Polar Bears on the ESL, and it goes on and on. The real problem, of course, is that NOBODY KNOWS THESE WERE BOGUS… a compliant and complicit media seem only to happy to cover it all up.
And yes, I have more respect for Prasher than I do for 95% of practicing “scientists”.
Any industry needs to allocate funding for specific portions of what they do. For example, during the development of the automobile they needed to develop effective suspensions, engines, exhaust systems, drivetrains, glass, steering geometry, etc. Imagine if 95% of the automotive development had gone into the cigarette lighter? I mean, sure, it’s an essential part of the car, but what a waste! I imagine the research articles would be something like “Effective disc brakes and their effect on lighting cigarettes in a moving vehicle”.
Imagine, to quote the people I have lately come to see as my opponents, if all the money currently spent on AGW research had gone to feed the hungry and house the homeless. Imagine! And put shoes on their feet.
As the recent economic turmoil dries up private and corporate research funding, look for the problem to get worse. We will hear ever more dire predictions of catastrophe, because only the most urgent scenarios will receive funding.
Ironic that the “best hope” we have for a reality check is for a sustained cooling where millions will starve.
Sad, really.
CodeTech (07:10:32) Until just recently I worried about all those bad effects on science that you eloquently delineate, but now I’ve come to look upon this episode as more likely to serve as a vaccine. The object lesson of Galileo was enough to spark an enlightenment; perhaps the lessons from this may do something similar. We will have antibodies to similar ‘madness of crowds’ for awhile.
In the meantime, we’ve got to save all those poor people from freezing and starving if carbon is encumbered as we chill for how long, even kim doesn’t know.
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Nonetheless, this particular madness is a fever. It seems to be a persistent inflammation of the body politic, with episodic exacerbations. Is it cancerous? Not likely; much as I disdain it and combat it, it is more likely creative than destructive, ultimately. It’s been a successful herd tactic from early times.
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Imagine competing for funding from the UN if your research had previously contradicted the IPCC conclusions.
The UN allocates something like 28 billion per year for this agw “science”. twice the Nasa budget. The funds indirectly directed by their recommendations probably exceed hundreds of billions.
How many climatologists would change area of study rather than go against the agw wave. Douglas Prasher wasn’t even in a highly politicized field and look what happened to him.
Maybe he’ll get a second chance.
This sickens me.
My son is a senior research associate in the Center for Space Physics at Boston University.
He called last night relieved that he’s funded again for the near future.
He’s working with two teams now, in order to remain funded.
When will this AGW idiocy be laid to rest?
How I hope to live to see Hansen/Gore eat crow.
Exactly what “research” is going on within the AGW community? Expensive fiddling with computer games, oops “models”, to fit their preconceived notions? What of all the interesting things that go undiscovered because they aren’t looking? What a waste.
May I suggest Prasher to restart his career with a grant application like
“luminescent jellyfish protein affected by global warming induced ocean acidification”
Well, for what it’s worth, federal spending for research and development has gone up 40 percent under President Bush. (It had stagnated under President Clinton, falling slightly in real terms during his first term, and then rising slightly in his second term.)
Most of the increases went to health and military research.
I haven’t seen a report on support for research by foundations.
@Demesure:
Yikes!
Almost choked at the thought of that one! It is up there with:
A Study of the Impact of the Use of Global Warming Stressed Genetically Modified Corn Feedstock on Equine Methane Emissions.
Hardtalk Dr Tom Pike
Watch this BBC HardTalk Interview and see how Dr. Pike trys to make a case for Mars Exploration (and all scientific research) against the question regarding AGW being the single greatest threat to mankind.
When I see people like Dr Pike have to defend their research vs AGW I nearly pop a artery in anger.
CH (08:13:49) A great deal of research with the patina of being AGW related really just relates to temperature changes and so still may have a lot of validity. The assumption that any heating is from CO2 may have to be modified, but a lot of the empirical data may still be useable. Maybe it’s job security for a lot of scientists, re-interpreting their data in light of a better understanding of what actually drives climate.
Plus, cooling climate does test a lot of theses. Doesn’t every dark cloud have a sliver of phase change lining it?
I think I’ve never heard so loud
The quiet message in a cloud.
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The one good thing about the current economic downturn is that many silly AGW stories appear to have slipped off the mainstream news stands. Maybe there is yet hope against the hysteria.
My problem isn’t so much the amount of money dedicated to climate research, it is where its being spent.
Too much of funded research goes to what I think of “derivative” science. These are studies that take GCM output and look at the “what if” potential impacts of the output. This is poor science and a waste of research money IMO.
The Australians are concerned about a starving economy.
Time to Erase the Emissions Trading Nightmare:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/5498
The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on the Premier of Queensland and all elected members to bring pressure to bear on the Federal Government to immediately abandon plans for Emissions Trading.
The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that at a time of world economic crisis, the last thing productive Queensland industries need is the threat of this destructive policy hanging over them.
“Emissions Trading and its carbon taxes must harm Australian industry, and Queensland will suffer most.
OT:
“A new Cycle 24 sunspot has quickly formed high in latitude in the northern hemisphere of the sun. There is at least 2 clearly visible flux regions along with it.” http://www.solarcycle24.com
Hmmmm.
As a non-scientist who has been science mad since a young boy I will say this:
A lot of scientists are burning the collective credibility garnered over centuries of work by other scientists.
One of the things I enjoy doing is asking people questions when in public or social situations. One question I have been asking is what the reaction would be if it turns out that AGW was nothing more than hype for more funding.
To say the reaction was extremely negative is a vast understatement.
One issue in particular was that many children are being indoctrinated with AGW in very frightening ways, something that parents aren’t appreciative of if it turns out that AGW is bullshit.
‘Fraid not Mr Jones: “The one good thing about the current economic downturn is that many silly AGW stories appear to have slipped off the mainstream news stands. Maybe there is yet hope against the hysteria.”
In last night’s BBC TV programme: The American Future: A History by Simon Schama, opened with all the alarums and excursions about Global Warming. Couldn’t stand it so turned it off. Pity really because I’ve always regarded Schama highly. Maybe I should have stuck it out.
Mister Jones:
There’s a pattern to the media’s behavior that we all need to be aware of.
Now instead of Amazing Stories focused on Global Warming Chaos, the press is preoccupied with Amazing Stories focused on Economic Chaos.
When the economy turns around, if the climate is still warm, expect more stories on Global Warming Chaos. If the climate then is cooling, I expect we will see stories on Global Cooling Chaos.
It what the press has always done. Yellow Journalism is not new, its focus has simply migrated to other areas.
As I have said before–
We need to amputate the Radical Environmental Limb before the “GangGreen” kills us all.
Deadwood, I’m with you. To me the big question for the next 50 years is this: How are we going to feed all the people? Even under the most optimistic projections that see world population growth rates slowing significantly, the global population is projected to be 9 billion by 2050, nearly 50% more people than are on the Earth today! How is everyone going to be fed and live without hopelessly polluting the planet and wrecking ecosystems? World grain stores are down from a 1-year supply to a 3-month supply, even now. Pouring all the research money into AGW research seems like doing computer simulations to design a more efficient garage door opener while your house is on fire! In light of the upcoming food shortage, increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and a little extra warmth might even be good news, since plants grow faster under those conditions.
Sunny, no sense in replacing one set of hysteria with another. Grain prices are falling like a rock. Worldwide. A recent Stanford study identified One Billion Plus Acres of abandoned farmland. Our corn yields are expected to rise from 151 bu/acre to 180 bu/acre in just the next six years.
Our new seeds will grow in aluminum-toxic soil (about half the world’s farmland.) We used to rowcrop 400 million acres, now we rowcrop about 250 million acres. Brazil has about 300 Million acres of fertile land lying fallow. DR Congo, alone, could probably feed all of Africa, and half of Europe.
Food won’t be a problem until we run into a wall with “Phosphates availability.” Even the we’ll be able to accomplish a Lot with just a little “tweaking” of the way we farm. It’s something to keep an eye on; but, the situation with Agriculture is in no way, “Dire.”
As Lee Smolin showed conclusively that String theory sucks up all the available grant money for useless projects that cost astronomical amounts of money; the same is true with climate science. Another similarity, is that String theorists don’t acknowledge that their ideas have ever been refuted or made to look ridiculous as many of them are. This is a major impediment to dealing with the important threats and challenges we face.