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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As if post modernism is right wing. Just as big a threat; I think.
Alexander K says:
September 10, 2010 at 6:16 am
“[…] I find it a little scary that what should be a noble publication devoting itself to disseminating the truth and enlightenment of the sciences is indulging in medieval bigotry.”
It is simply the decline of a publication.
They have made the wrong choice: If the market has changed then they must change with it, otherwise…you have a lot of examples out there, babies.
I think it is especially surprising that Nature would use the d-word since they are owned by a German publishing conglomerate (that also owns Scientific American). I would think Germans would be the most sensitive to the use of that word.
Although, the company was founded by a former member of the Nazi party who was judged after the war to have only joined for purposes of making a profit.
http://www.german-times.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12709&Itemid=121
It appears the company is continuing its founders tradition of aligning themselves with crackpot movements just to make a buck.
Scott Basinger says:
September 9, 2010 at 10:58 pm
_____________________________
I agree that the comments at Nature are more interesting than the nasty little editorial. The “science” may be crumbling, but the financial need of big government is greater than ever.
Also interesting is the regional nastiness in these comments over Creationism. I understand its religious basis but I view it as an implausible interpretation of natural history, much like Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change.
peakbear says:
September 10, 2010 at 2:10 am
“I’m never really sure what people mean my right-left. I generally call myself a liberal (UK definition). I’d recommend having a go on the http://www.politicalcompass.org/test
”
Thanks! Very funny. I nearly hit the Friedman. Which was what i expected…
Economic Left/Right: 4.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.08
After reading the item in Nature, somehow the phrase “Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” comes to mind. Not quite accurate, but seems to fit the general tone of the item.
They, Nature, profess “true” science, as long as you agree. Otherwise, you deny reality.
I also support stem cell research, but draw the line on the destruction of innocent human life, including the embryonic stage. However in reading the research journals, it would appear, that “as one door closes, another opens” as in the case of expanding adult stem cell treatments out there.
Many Conservative Republicans, like me, are not opposed to stem cell research. What we oppose is taxpayer funding for the research. If the universities with large endowments would like to use some of their own money for stem cell research, that’s OK, but it’s not OK to force somebody else to fund it.
(BTW, Full Disclosure: My grand-daughter has type I diabetes, so I stand to benefit from stem cell research. I’m just not willing to force you to pay for my benefit.)
Solomon Green says:
September 10, 2010 at 5:46 am
Economic Left/Right: -0.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.56
I find, therefore, that I am definitely of the left, both economically and socially. So much for the suggestion that all sceptics must be right wing.
You are now an official candidate for comment acceptance on RC. ;~P
Robert says:
September 10, 2010 at 8:02 am
Economic Left/Right: -1.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.03
Whew, for a second there I thought I was the only right-wing denialist wacko. ;~D
Let’s not forget the Nuremberg Laws were based on “science” based government regulation. While I certainly enjoy reading in science, particularly new theories in physics, astronomy, and climate, I am not a scientist. However, I do feel very qualifed to opine on radical political movements, and the AGW zanies methods are in lock step with some of the worst of the worst including the Eugenicists, the Nazis, and some of the loopy Scientific Socialists of the Marxist-Leninst camp (Stalin was evil, but pragmatic). Some of the statements of the fringe element wishing to imprision or exile “Denialists” (Oh so very a Leninist term), especially denialist scientists (the radical always loathes his heretical brethern the worst, just look at bloody Communist/Socialist battles in the early 20th Century and the Shia/Sunni fueds), and impose their morally superior way of life on the unwashed masses, I’m afraid are far from rhetorical if they would ever get true power. Luckily Americans, who at times are taken in for a while, almost universally loathe demagouges, much to our credit I would say.
Nature ‘journal’ has long since gone down the leftist politics = science road. In an apparent effort to promote the feminist agenda “Nature” magazine published the infamous Whipp & Ward, “Will Women Soon Outrun Men?” study. This study was laughable in the extreme even on the day it was published, but as time has passed and none of its predictions remotely occurred it is really beyond laughable in hindsight. The only way a person could have bought this is if they just really WANTED it to be true.
Actually the Whipp & Ward study has a close resemblence to the CAGW work because it takes a small trend and then just extrapolates it out into the future festooning it with fanciful predictions. There is a good and funny critique of this nonsense here.
http://commons.bcit.ca/physics/rjw/pers/womenrun.htm
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I’m surprisd so many people are taking the Political Compass Test seriously. I’ve only seen conservatives (USA) refer to it derisively. It was obviously created by liberals. With questions like “If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.” You’ll notice that it presumes that “trans-national corporations” inherently are in opposition to so-called service to humanity. The rest of the questions are biased as well.
The science of the right: Gnosis. The Science of the left: Agnosticism.
Hey buddies: We do not deny the “force”, you deny it!
“Either you got some readers or you close that magazine” ….Funders are the first ones in running out. Ask for support:
http://euro-med.dk/?p=13656
In the discussion of the article at the Nature site (which is MUCH shorter and less informed than this one) Steve Black replied to Johan F. Prins with:
“After careful reading of the website http://www.cathodixx.com/home.html and excerpts of the book called “The Physics Delusion”, may I suggest the following course of action. Set up your experiment where you achieve/demonstrate room temperature superconduction on doped diamond substrate without Cooper Pairs and invite the media to record the event. With the ensuing media frenzy, I am sure that other physicists around the world will try to reproduce your results.”
Well, is replication that not exactly the problem with AGW? “Science” as a publication is preventing exactly that: they are publishing numerous papers on the subject of climate change and refuse to publish papers that show what happens when other scientists try to duplicate their results. “Science” stifles science! Good heavens!
Hiding behind the bloomers and bloopers of church-wing nutters is pretty deperate. Further, they insult, even demonize, researchers who dare to disagree with the claims put forward in papers they print, trying to link them to any and everyone to fringe thinkers they feel will be rejected by the average person: disagreeing with CAGW is the same as praying at the feet of Glenn Beck.
The last fig leaf is falling.
The discussion a http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7312/full/467133a.html is a classic example of the problem: the AGW camp advocates publication and replication, yet refuses publication space to those who demonstrate the errors, misrepresentations and on occasion, scientific fraud, perpetrated in support of some CAGW scare. Unless Science can bring a more balanced view of the complex nature of life on this planet to their pages, particularly reining in the exaggerated claims for future warming and impact from AG CO2, they are surely doomed to drop from the list of mainstream publications.
Skepticism about CAGW or other scientific theories puts one in the right-wing – only as the antonym of the wrong-wing. This is true even if the world turns out to be in a long era of warming. Skepticism about any theory is healthy for science especially when plausible alternative theories exist both about what we are observing or have observed (history, archeology, geology-paleo) and not less, when the promoted theory is turning out to be significantly flawed. I find it egregious that a scientific journal would engage in this type of partisan political name calling (I’ve said elsewhere: this and a few other journals are headed for extinction over this terrible period in science). Thinking people know that there are know-nothing ideological hacks on both sides of the question – Limbaugh, Al Gore….. grinding their political axes and pushing their prejudices – we can’t stop them. But when a scientific journal takes an ideological position such as Nature has, they put themselves in this nutty ideological fringe. They also have a better than 50% or better chance of giving right-wing ideologues credit for being “right” as in correct as we slip into a cooling phase of the climate.
Dammit! I’m not a Republican or a Democrat nor am I some fundie nutjob. I’m a Libertarian, Atheist and Skeptic. I know evolution is true, childhood vaccines are entirely unrelated to autism, Uri Geller is a below average magician, John Edward may talk to the dead (but they don’t answer back) and man-made global warming is a vastly overblown non-problem. I revere the scientific method as the single greatest achievement of mankind (because it enabled so many of the others). Calling me anti-science is ludicrous when the warmist creed has all the hallmarks of a religion.
I particularly despise the fact so many of the people claiming we’re “anti-science” don’t even read the scientific papers themselves. It’s remarkably similar to the religious believers that naively assume atheists haven’t studied christianity. Yet if they bother to engage in conversation with me, they learn (to their amazement) that I can quote chapter, verse and theological concept far better than they (plus 3 or 4 other religions if they’d like). Invariably it becomes clear that I understand what they believe better than they do. Which has also been the case with every AGW discussion I’ve ever had with an AGW “true believer”.
Stereotyping climate skeptics is just another, more subtle ad hominem attack.
Pamela Gray says:
September 9, 2010 at 6:37 pm
“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)….”
How about the ‘sanctity’ of the love between a female and her cats?
Mister Mr says:
September 10, 2010 at 10:47 am
So, Nature guys, are deterministically deterministic, or, better expressed, self deniers or suicidal. No, No!, they don’t exist at all!…. What a mess! 🙂
Don’t get mad!, it’s just that they DO and we don’t, or was it that they DON”T and we DO, instead. One thing is obvious: They DID.
And…what did they do? this: Booooah!, Mommy, those kids are telling me bad things!
As a devout Catholic this is the statement that most offends me:
“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 Catholic Church, devout Catholics, and other “right wing” opponents to embryonic stem-cell research are NOT opposed to stem-cell research. In fact the Catholic Church and devout Catholics strongly support “adult stem-cell” research. Adult stem-cell research is making fantastic strides in developing cures for all kinds of illness. There are many advantages beyond the moral and ethical reasons behind the advancement of adult stem-cell research. Adult stem-cells are stable. Adult stem-cells taken from a patient are not subject to rejection of the patients body.
The disadvantage to adult stem-cell cures is that adult stem-cells can not be patented.
Therefore, research companies will not be able to realize as much profit.
It is the subtle lies of this administration that I find most objectionable.
Lucy Skywalker says:
September 9, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Perfect! Thanks for stating the obvious, and true.
Dave Springer says: Evolutionary biology would be a waste of precious time that could be better spent elsewhere.
No it isn’t. For example, developmental biologists have reversed the changes in chickens that make them more modern. Modifications produce teeth, more scales, and long tails. Definitely, more dinosaur-like features. Thus, using evolution as the model, a series of experiments demonstrated that modern birds could be made to look more like dinosaurs. It seems unlikely that the features would easily be created if they were not overlaid with new genetic information. In other words, an old program with a newer subroutine was modified to remove the new code. Evolution supported by experimentation, and evolutionary theory being the source of the hypothesis tested.
Now a general comment: The ‘right wing’ doesn’t necessarily equate with the religious right. There are many brands of conservatives. I am a scientist-atheist-conservative. I happen to believe in the moral teachings of christians and the value of Judeo-christian philosophy as the basis of western civilization. I simply don’t care for a supreme being, and would probably be a revolutionary if there were one. Our rights do not come from government, but we are born with them.
We Americans are in a voluntary association as free people, who derive benefit from living under the Rule of Law and the US Constitution. I am not a kept person, like the Europeans, who are not really free. We need to defend our liberty and take back what government has usurped. The more government does for us, the less freedom we have.
*****
Joseph Day says:
September 10, 2010 at 12:05 pm
We Americans are in a voluntary association as free people, who derive benefit from living under the Rule of Law and the US Constitution. I am not a kept person, like the Europeans, who are not really free. We need to defend our liberty and take back what government has usurped. The more government does for us, the less freedom we have.
******
Very well said. If some haven’t heard of it, a good book on this topic is “The Road To Serfdom” by F. A. Hayek. It was written during WWII and discusses how socialism led to a dictatorial state in Germany among other things. Even though it was written in the ’40s, so much of it rang true today for the US and definitely for Europe. Quotes from the book:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1775089/posts
I highly recommend reading it if you haven’t already.
http://www.amazon.com/Road-Serfdom-Fiftieth-Anniversary/dp/0226320618
Joseph Day says:
September 10, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Can’t believe they made this to create Al Baby and other post modern/post normal sciencetists!. I always thought there was kind of an alien look in them all 🙂
For example, developmental biologists have reversed the changes in chickens that make them more modern. Modifications produce teeth, more scales, and long tails. Definitely, more dinosaur-like features. Thus, using evolution as the model, a series of experiments demonstrated that modern birds could be made to look more like dinosaurs
Definitely, those rossy cheeks were not normal….