President Eisenhower warned of this. In the world of climate science, we have come to know this simple equation as demonstrated by some of the most zealous proponents of climate change:
No Alarm = No Funding + No Glory
Dr. Lonnie Thomspon and his false alarm over Mt. Kilimanjaro, coupled with him being made famous by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth while seeking more research money to study a problem that is actually more related to land use and evapotranspiration than global warming comes to mind as an example. Andrew Resnick has written a letter published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science that suggests researchers are “addicted” to funding, much like drug addicts. His words, not mine.
Click image to enlarge
Source: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/06/11/1407369111.extract
…gotta go where the money is
There’s always a chain of command over you that wants more money
For years, I thought scientists would never be this cynical, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.
Here is the real crux of the matter. Rather than “warmists” studying the psychology of “denialists” and their mythical funding by “big business”.
The real issue is the psychology of grant addicted warmist researchers and publishers..
Add that to the plethora of community funded “lost in green Luddites and as they say, we have;;
“A suitable case for treatment”…
So “green” is the problem with green.
Whoda’ thought?
Anyone remembering Huff’s How to lie with statistics? ……
The surest way to solve CAGW is to stop funding it’s “research”.
We have a new monster in out midst. Forget the “military-industrial complex” we now have the “science-political complex” or the “ecoreligeous-science complex”. Call it what you will, its a Godzilla sized monster spreading destructive nonsense and drooling at the prospect of total power.
M Seward: we call it the Cathedral.
“””””…..norah4you says:
June 14, 2014 at 3:30 pm
Anyone remembering Huff’s How to lie with statistics? ……”””””
Statistics don’t lie; ever. They don’t predict anything either; ever.
It is people who lie, when they claim their statistics predict anything; ever.
Did Yogi Berra really say; Prediction is hard, especially about the future. ??
It isn’t just money/funding, there is also chum review making sure your papers are published.
Plenty of chum prizes, plenty of chum awards, plenty of chum congratulations, plenty of circling the waggons when you are caught out and of course the obligatory pretend Nobel laureate status.
No one wants to talk about the fact that universities have flooded the market with excess PhDs for decades. This necessitated the establishment of “institutes” with specific purposes to hire all these graduates, and provided government and NGOs with a perfect outlet for agenda-driven research. The universities, always hungry for money, welcomed this change because they could charge “overhead” to fund a lot of the stupid frills they now offer students. This, of course, is heresy- who can be against more highly-educated students? The truth is that there is no real market for most of them in standard university faculty positions. The whole system suffers the results.
R2Dtoo says: bingo
They should all be called Thugs by Proxy.
A Thug by Proxy fears actually acting like a thug but is quite willing to take advantage of those who are willing to be thugs. So they provide an excuse for the government thugs to do the dirty work and pretend the resulting stolen wealth is to be used for a noble cause. Rather than being noble, they are just as morally guilty as their surrogate thugs themselves. What they are addicted to is the unearned and they don’t care how they get it.
I’m deeply unsympathetic towards scientists who trump up “crisis” to make the next mortgage payment.
I used to know a scientist, who used his deep knowledge of Chemistry, to develop a revolutionary new method of producing vitamins.
And there are plenty of real world problems waiting for all disciplines to solve. For Physicists, there is the holy grail of 3D printing yet to be solved, printing high resolution, high quality shapes in metal. http://3dprint.com/5737/affordable-metal-3d-printer/ – this is at least as much a Physics issue, as it is a Chemistry issue.
Or a related problem, printing circuit board tracks made of metal on 3D plastic constructions.
There is a world bursting with opportunity, with real problems which can be solved. And these pathetic losers, all they can think of is how to squeeze the next grant out of the public purse.
Maybe there is hope as Randy Schekman allowed this to be published. Circumspection or just a temporary slip, time will tell. If science is to advance it must get over the politics.
Mortgages, kids, HOT TROPICAL holidays to the sinking Maldives, SUVs, flights, climate conferences to HOT TROPICAL JOINTS, multiple homes, hypocrisy et al all have to be paid for dontcha know. Government control, money and undeserved climastrological recognition is the key to the global warming alarm.
This isn’t just a problem with AGW, this is systematic. If we want to save Science we have to eliminate government funding for “science.” Government funding for “science” will always yield junk that meets a political need, not real Science.
At least engineers are good.* (:
*micetype: Results may vary. Void where prohibited by over-regulation and sustainability standards imposed by the UN. Not applicable in some Institutes in Massachusetts. Green engineering not guaranteed by an warantee, implied or otherwise. Use with discretion.
It ain’t so much the scientists who are addicted to funding but their lords and masters in admin who cream at least 15% off the top. That is where the drive comes from.
No funding, no tenure. No funding, no promotion. And so it goes. It is why those same lords and masters will protect a proven fund raiser no matter what codswallop they produce.
While his article is a bit “duh!”, it is a surprise to see who the author is.
It’s the oldest profession ….selling what you have for what you want to any buyer with the resources. Not much different than prostitution.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
Follow the money. Despite assertions to the contrary by alarmists, all the money is on the alarmist side, most of it from the government, most of that directly from progressivists and enviro-radical types. Dry up the money, and no one will continue with the alarm. Then maybe we can do some real research and maybe find something worth spending time and money on.
“The surest way to solve CAGW is to stop funding it’s “research”.”
PaulH you could be onto something there.
Also in that blatantly obvious letter from PNAS, but overlooked, is that it concludes water is wet, the sky is blue, and the sun is hot.
If people didn’t know that science is biased on money and not truth then they are either blissfully ignorant, on the take, or blinded by those on the take. The soda companies recently commissioned a study which concluded that drinking diet soda helps you lose more weight than water. If that is not a prime example of how science always favors funding, I don’t know what is. The late Michael Crichton’s book State of Fear was based entirely on this premise. But the message was lost because he chose the biggest example of corrupted science, AGW, to prove this point. Michael Crichton said one of the most appropriate things about money and science.
So,
Glory = Alarm – Funding
?
“His words, not mine.”
Well, it’s the headline, which he probably didn’t write. The letter rather seems to be asking of Alberts et al – well, what do you want?
It’s a reasonable question. It is government that has decided that research will be grant funded. And so that is the research you hear about. You don’t hear from the people who didn’t get grants. They had to do other things.