From an editorial from nature.com, and published in the journal, they seem to think the d-word is proper vernacular.
Volume: 467, Page: 133 Date published: (09 September 2010) DOI: doi:10.1038/467133a
The anti-science strain pervading the right wing in the United States is the last thing the country needs in a time of economic challenge.
…
There is a growing anti-science streak on the American right that could have tangible societal and political impacts on many fronts — including regulation of environmental and other issues and stem-cell research.
…
The right-wing populism that is flourishing in the current climate of economic insecurity echoes many traditional conservative themes, such as opposition to taxes, regulation and immigration. But the Tea Party and its cheerleaders, who include Limbaugh, Fox News television host Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin (who famously decried fruitfly research as a waste of public money), are also tapping an age-old US political impulse — a suspicion of elites and expertise.
Denialism over global warming has become a scientific cause célèbre within the movement. Limbaugh, for instance, who has told his listeners that “science has become a home for displaced socialists and communists”, has called climate-change science “the biggest scam in the history of the world”. The Tea Party’s leanings encompass religious opposition to Darwinian evolution and to stem-cell and embryo research — which Beck has equated with eugenics. The movement is also averse to science-based regulation, which it sees as an excuse for intrusive government. Under the administration of George W. Bush, science in policy had already taken knocks from both neglect and ideology. Yet President Barack Obama’s promise to “restore science to its rightful place” seems to have linked science to liberal politics, making it even more of a target of the right.
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They say in a sidebar that: “The country’s future crucially depends on education, science and technology.”
I don’t disagree, but we also need to separate science from the global warming ideology that has hijacked it. The current backlash they speak of has in fact been brought about in part by allowing this to happen. I’ll point out though that the sort of idealogy we see in the global warming movement doesn’t seem to pervade other sciences, at least until somebody demands that one of the science organizations embraces or endorses the cause. That’s when the dissent starts. For example:
American Physical Society rejects climate policy plea from 160 physicists
Dissenting members ask APS to put their policy statement on ice due to Climategate
Witness Nature using the word denialism, born of the politically nurtured global warming ideology. If Nature’s editorial staff was not indoctrinated to at least some of that ideology, I wager they’d have used a different word. And they wonder why there is dissent while at the same time they use the word to insult people. I encourage subscribers to call them to task on this use of the word.
h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard
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So when is Anthony going to add Nature magazine to the list of Pro AGW View Website on the right hand side of the page?
It’s not that other sciences haven’t been hijacked, it’s just that they don’t have the leverage to be used for gaining political power. Remember the scarcity/overpopulation horror stories that were being used for similar purposes? They weren’t gaining the traction that they wanted because of the green revolution/birth control, so they’ve switched to climate. If climate fails them, they’ll try something else.
Nature still has subscribers, at least enough to notice?
Do James Hansen, Gavin Schmidt et al hold “Defend Science from the Deniers!” subscription drives for Nature‘s benefit?
(“In kind” reciprocal support agreements, or anything resembling kickbacks, are not being implied by this comment. They are not being ruled out either, especially an informal “you scratch my back” arrangement.)
I am far from a right-wing religious, anti abortion, anti gay, anti stem cell research person (I am pro-choice, all for stem cell research, and believe in the sanctity of love in all its many colors). I am fiscally conservative, yes, in spades, and I am ALSO about as close to a science nut as you can get. Religion, to me, is completely outside the realm of science. I guess in a nutshell, I believe in the null hypothesis till proven otherwise.
Jimbo,CuriousGeorge, I hardly fit the stereotype either.
I’m sure I’m considered a beyond the pale liberal/lefty atheist by some – though not by many outside of the US.
I have no problems with stem cell research, think that creationism is bogus and the American right wing cheerleaders make my skin crawl.
The evidence also leads me to think that dangerous AGW is something propagated by the mad, bad and deluded, whatever their politics.
Incidentally, in Europe, it’s by no means as clear a left/right split. The right are almost as taken in as the left.
The editors of Nature or any other publication have every right to express themselves. Like may of us who take that license seriously they have the same right to be in error. I do take some exception when anyone: right, left, or in the middle, confuse science with faith, politics and ideology.
“The movement is also averse to science-based regulation, which it sees as an excuse for intrusive government.”
Darn right it is an excuse for intrusive government and after seeing the first example of International ” Science-based regulation” applied in the USA, I hope I am long dead before they try any of it ever again.
Keep these references handy so the next time someone accuses a “denier” of being “averse to science-based regulation” you can give them a real life example of “science-based regulation” in action…. That is if they don’t have to make a run for the loo because of another bout with food poisoning…..
” Science-based regulation” is what they called the “new international” 1996 HACCP regulations that replaced the old US regs producing the “safest food in the world.” HACCP regs, by turning over lab testing to corporations, allows US and international corporations to poison people. Then when the HACCP regs caused a major increase in food poisoning it is now being used as an excuse for the government to regulate farms by blaming farmers for the real problem, contamination problems in the factories. The Festering Fraud Behind Food Safety Reform
As with CAGW, it all goes back to globalization:
“…This latter option was chosen by the negotiators of the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) in the Uruguay Round. The agreement was negotiated to provide a set of multilateral rules…
(2) use scientific risk assessment to inform regulatory decisions (science-based risk management)…. Adoption of international standards (multilateral harmonization) is encouraged…
Science-based risk management (Articles 2 and 5): SPS measures must be based upon scientific principles and sufficient scientific evidence; more particularly, measures must be based on a risk assessment. Measures should be chosen so as to minimize distortions to trade and must be no more trade restrictive than necessary to achieve a country’s “appropriate level of protection.”….” Regionalizing the Rules for Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures
The same guy who is trying to shove Cap and Trade down our throats wants to also strangle US farmers in red tape, poison and bulldoze our farm ponds, removing vegetation buffers near field crops and place fences and poison baits in wildlife corridors. All so the mega corporations can pass the blame on to farmers if there are food borne illnesses.
“I’ll point out though that the sort of idealogy we see in the global warming movement doesn’t seem to pervade other sciences . . .”
Except one particular branch, which shall remain unnamed for readers to discern on their own . . .
“Limbaugh, for instance, who has told his listeners that ‘science has become a home for displaced socialists and communists’, has called climate-change science ‘the biggest scam in the history of the world’”.
I think that Rush Limbaugh is exaggerating. Yes, I agree that climate-change ‘science’ is a scam. But the biggest ever?
How about the 1949 Nobel Prize in Medicine? Egas Moniz, a Portuguese physician, became a Nobel laureate for his pioneering work on lobotomies. Thanks to the Nobel imprimatur, lobotomies became more frequent in the early 1950s, before the advent of relatively effective anti-psychotic drugs, like Thorazine.
The big irony here is that the Universal Declaration on Human Rights came out in 1948, the year before the Lobotomy Nobel, and in response to revelations about the monstrous medical ‘experiments’ and other atrocities conducted by the Japanese and by the Nazis during World War II. Bodily integrity is a fundamental human right. And schizophrenics are usually *not* able to give informed consent. The Nobel Committee screwed up big-time. What on Earth were those nice Swedes thinking?
The 1949 Lobotomy Nobel, and more recently, CAGW, are not unique in the history of science. They are two egregious examples of mainstream junk science. There are other smaller examples as well. And when I use the expression ‘mainstream junk science’, I’m *not* talking about garden-variety stupidity, or about sloppy lab technique.
Nature has gone the same way as many enviromental groups and in my view ended up doing more damage to themselves than anything else. So may enviromentalists automatically assume if you don’t believe in AGW you are anti ALL environmental issues. As a result they just alienate more people. I’m totally opposed to the AGW theory but I am certainly not against many other environmental issues.
Similarly Nature’s reputation among the science community cannot be a strong today as it once was. With the advent of more online Journals with more rapid review and publication methods they may live to regret their political stance
Nature Magazine’s doltish Cargo Cultists are best described by Lewis Carroll in the ninth verse of his “Mad Gardener’s Song” from Sylvie and Bruno (1889):
“He thought he saw an Argument
That proved he was the Pope.
He looked again, and found it was
A Bar of Mottled Soap.
‘A fact so dread,’ he faintly said,
‘Extinguishes all hope.’ ”
Let’s just say that Warmist theses so beloved of Nature Magazine’s besotted acolytes
“won’t wash,” no matter how much Mottled Soap they slather on. Dread facts, my little friends, extinguish all your hopes. And where will propagandists’ grants be then, poor things?
Lucy Skywalker says:
September 9, 2010 at 5:34 pm
In psychiatry this behavior is called psychological projection. This is when one sees in another the traits that they themselves possess and are in denial about. As some “right-wing” (meaning normal) pundits have said correctly, the left-wing elitists are mentally ill. Some really sick puppies now control the formerly considerable publication, Nature.
By the way, as a research scientist, I was a subscriber to that publication for over 20 years, but two years ago cancelled. Nature’s downward spiral was inevitable for some time, because of “buddy-reviewed” submissions by story-tellers all with the same story to tell.
The right-wing fanatic gun-toter and Bible-thumper [sarc] Dwight D. Eisenhower recognized this as one of the major threats facing America (yea, the world) in his farewell address at Dartmouth in 1957!:
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
Jimbo says:
September 9, 2010 at 5:26 pm
For me it is not about right and left but about getting to the truth.
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Exactly. And nature (not the magazine) will eventually weed out all of the impostors.
Science, philosophy, and religion intersect in one fashion, though, each in its own way: the search for truth.
They diverge (or CONverge, as the case may be today) when they resort to dogma and propaganda (on either”side”).
For a major, premier science magazine to publish a nazi-esque term like “denialism”…is not only dogma…it is propaganda.
The New Inquisition has arrived.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I have always been “pro-science” in that science and the scientific method has always been my first love.
The fact that I choose to enforce the scientific method in this field of science now makes me “anti-science”.
Strange development it seems to me. Strange enough that we should be labelling the pro-AGW side as “anti-science” instead.
Roger Cohen says:
September 9, 2010 at 6:27 pm
My colleagues and I organized the APS petition…..
_____________________________________________
Roger Cohen, a heart felt thank you to you and your colleagues for that petition and for your courage in taking a stand against cargo cult science.
“There is a growing anti-science streak on the American right that could have tangible societal and political impacts on many fronts — including regulation of environmental and other issues and stem-cell research.”
Interesting, the Administration has lost a court case (subject to appeal) on the legality of Embrionic Stem Cell research. I wonder if the article recognizes that there are Laws in the US?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-07/stem-cell-funding-ban-upheld-during-u-s-government-s-appeal-judge-rules.html
“The Obama administration can’t continue to fund embryonic stem-cell research while appealing a ban on government support for any activity using cells taken from human embryos, a federal judge ruled.
“U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington today rejected the government’s motion to reconsider his ruling last month enforcing the ban pending an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. The Justice Department argued that Lamberth’s injunction itself is causing irreparable harm to researchers, taxpayers and scientific progress.”
Since when is skepticism unscientific? I thought it was the foundation of science.
I am a warmist liberal who enjoys reading this at times zany blog. I do like Anthony’s choice and wide range of topics considered here. I don’t particularly like the badmouthing of climate scientists who do exacting and elegant experimental work.
By this point in the climate debate, the real question is: Who is really in denial here? Is it the skeptics who just want transparent, experimentally reproducible science shared? Or is it the emergent climate academic/industrial complex that want to hide data and methods, who ignore climategate, who don’t scrutinize IPCC results or citations and still defend Mann and Phil Jones and other work which has been discredited but still forms the basis of their argument?
Will the real Deniers please stand up?
There is one scam much bigger than the AWG fiasco.
This has made science into a joke of fictional proportions with suppressing science very early and creating the corrupted science we have today based mostly on theories.
This article isn’t political, it’s all about money. If conservatives get power and slash Federal spending, a lot of scientists might hit the bricks. Personally, I think the way Federal funding is disseminated needs to be re-worked. I would be for giving money ear-marked for scientific research to the States and let them decide who gets the money; in the US of course. I would also be for cutting the total amount. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be p*ss*d away like some is now.
As a scientist, politics had almost nothing to do with me becoming an AGW skeptic except that when I saw G.W. Bush jump on the global warming bandwagon I decided to do more investigation myself.
Of course, some of my previous beliefs were proven wrong. I used to accept the belief of AGW and I never thought we would have a President as bad as Bush.
“I don’t particularly like the badmouthing of climate scientists who do exacting and elegant experimental work.”
I don’t think I’ve seen such a person badmouthed here. That description hardly fits the majority of the consensus peddling groupthink following “scientists” who are at the forefront of AGW.
BTW, computer models are not “experiments” let alone elegant ones.
I rather enjoy watching the truly anti-science AGW elite (sorry – Its MMCC now isn’t it) self immolate over the impending demise of their pseudo-religion.
It scares me greatly that they still have control over science’s governing bodies and many of the world’s governments (including my own), but their panic over their dwindling powers of persuasion and loss of the public’s trust is fun to watch.
Nature that once proud, but now tarnished bastion of science, ignoring their own role and culpability!! Now attempting to “frame the debate” and “hide the decline” bought on by their own political spin to present a distorted rather than true unbiased science to the world.
When you can’t justify the unjustifiable, attack the reasonable voices, in the hope that they won’t be listened too above the violence of your attack! i.e. Ignore the message try and kill or discredit the messenger, very unscientific.
Got news for them, it won’t work out in their long term favour, as its just an extension of the typical responses we have copped for the last five years. Those past objectional (rather than scientific) responses have been at the heart of the critical change around in this whole debate. (and thanks to some probing questions, and the work of those scientists blessed with inquiring minds!!)
Nature – Dead set losers IMHO if they think that will work!