I never in my life thought I’d see this article, never. I witnessed the corruption of National Geographic and Scientific American into political cesspools, but I never thought this would happen. Nature has sunk to the depths of blatant political advocacy. They don’t even seem to read their own writing, because the first line says:
In March 2011, this publication suggested that the US Congress seemed lost in the “intellectual wilderness”.
The Republicans had taken over the House of Representatives, and one of the early acts of the chamber’s science committee was to approve legislation that denied the threat of climate change. As it turns out, this was just one tiny piece of a broader populist movement that was poised to transform the US political scene. Judging by the current presidential campaign, when it comes to reason, decency and use of evidence, much of the country’s political system seems to have lost its way.
It seems Nature has lost its way in the “intellectual wilderness” too, because your mission is (or was) science, not political advocacy.
Nature’s original mission statement was published for the first time on 11 November 1869. The journal’s original mission statement was revised in 2000. The original mission statement is reproduced below:
“To the solid ground
Of Nature trusts the mind that builds for aye.” – WORDSWORTH
THE object which it is proposed to attain by this periodical may be broadly stated as follows. It is intended
FIRST, to place before the general public the grand results of Scientific Work and Scientific Discovery ; and to urge the claims of Science to a more general recognition in Education and in Daily Life ;
And, SECONDLY, to aid Scientific men themselves, by giving early information of all advances made in any branch of Natural knowledge throughout the world, and by affording them an opportunity of discussing the various Scientific questions which arise from time to time.
To accomplish this twofold object, the following plan will be followed as closely as possible :
Those portions of the Paper more especially devoted to the discussion of matters interesting to the public at large will contain:
I. Articles written by men eminent in Science on subjects connected with the various points of contact of Natural knowledge with practical affairs, the public health, and material progress ; and on the advancement of Science, and its educational and civilizing functions.
II. Full accounts, illustrated when necessary, of Scientific Discoveries of general interest.
III. Records of all efforts made for the encouragement of Natural knowledge in our Colleges and Schools, and notices of aids to Science-teaching.
IV. Full Reviews of Scientific Works, especially directed to the exact Scientific ground gone over, and the contributions to knowledge, whether in the shape of new facts, maps, illustrations, tables, and the like, which they may contain.
In those portions of “NATURE” more especially interesting to Scientific men will be given :
V. Abstracts of important Papers communicated to the British, American, and Continental Scientific societies and periodicals/
VI.Reports of the Meetings of Scientific bodies at home and abroad.
In addition to the above, there will be columns devoted to Correspondence.
Here is the revised mission statement from 2000:
Citations and Impact Factor
Nature is the world’s most highly cited interdisciplinary science journal, according to the 2013 Journal Citation Reports Science Edition (Thomson Reuters, 2014). Its Impact Factor is 42.351. The impact factor of a journal is calculated by dividing the number of citations in a calendar year to the source items published in that journal during the previous two years. It is an independent measure calculated by Thomson Reuters, Philadelphia, USA.
Aims and scope
Nature is a weekly international journal publishing the finest peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising conclusions. Nature also provides rapid, authoritative, insightful and arresting news and interpretation of topical and coming trends affecting science, scientists and the wider public.
Nature‘s mission statement
First, to serve scientists through prompt publication of significant advances in any branch of science, and to provide a forum for the reporting and discussion of news and issues concerning science. Second, to ensure that the results of science are rapidly disseminated to the public throughout the world, in a fashion that conveys their significance for knowledge, culture and daily life.
Notice that POLITICS or POLITICAL ENDORSEMENT isn’t part of either.
And they close the Clinton endorsement with this paragraph:
Although both parties have become more extreme over the past two decades, conservatives have turned their backs on mainstream science to an unprecedented degree. If there is any good news, it’s that everybody now recognizes that the Republican Party has a problem. A new generation of conservative leaders will need to set a fresh course. In the meantime, Clinton must take the reins.
The irony is thick, and they don’t get what they’ve just done. They are no longer about science, and are little better than a political rag now. It doesn’t matter that they supported Hillary, it would have been equally bad if they supported Trump. Science and politics just don’t mix, and they’ve started themselves on the slippery slope to Perdition. But, surely they’ll say they had “good intentions”.
I’ve had a tiny hint lately that the journal Science may return to a little sense. Whispers, in the wind.
==========
I threw my AAAS membership into the toilet a long time ago. They were being blatantly biased many years ago.
It is time that the common person recaptured the government and scientists and engineers of integrity recaptured their fields. Science and engineering have been overtaken by elitist Lysenkoism and the phrenologists, and politics have been taken over by the self-anointed. Both will result in misappropriation of resources and excess mortality, morbidity and misery.
I would probably renew my membership in the American Chemical Society, the AAAS , and others. The problem is whether the people on the boards would take the criticism of their stance seriously, or dismiss it in favor of their pet belief. Nor do I know how far they have been corrupted. It seems that there are no fair minded individuals left on those boards. I haven’t seen or read one coherent article that is skeptical of the love affair with climate change. Somebody there has to be questioning the entire idea of climate change by co2. They are either all political hacks or none of them can do math. There simply is no way around it, the AGW math says it should be much much warmer than the slight warming we’ve had, if we’ve actually had any warming. The UN is on another rant. By the way, anybody invited to Morocco?
“Science and engineering have been overtaken by elitist Lysenkoism and the phrenologists, and politics have been taken over by the self-anointed.”
With respect, by quitting, you’re allowing the spread of these things to continue. the change has to come from within by those members who still have integrity.
Jeff, while I agree change must come within, if the members wishes’ are being ignored to the degree they seem to be, the best bet is for EVERY member to quit and collapse the body. Then rebuild from the ashes.
They think they’re defending science against the Philistines. They don’t think of it as primarily political.
And they wonder why the print media is losing money and subscribers.
/shaking my head
They lose money and subscribers because they’ve become politically biased. And it seems to be in vain to try to point this out to them.
It would be nice if Nature would eventually get back to objective science, but I doubt they ever will. Climate research should be just that, not political agenda. Until the money source reads them the riot act, they will not change.
If you think that’s bad, you should watch the UK’s Daily Politics show of today’s date. Staggering:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b080xry0/daily-politics-25102016
I just hope it’s available outside the UK. The panel discussion afterwards was equally bizarre.
Ian
I should have added, FF to 50 mins 40 secs. Sorry.
Ian
Daily Politics becomes Andy Pandy fiction entertainment
Video: Daily.Politics.161025.CO2.Mad.Professor.PDTV.x264-Pcar https://vid.me/DC9Y
Video Daily.Politics.161025.CO2.Mad.Professor.PDTV.x264-Pcar
Not available outside the U.K. unless you use a VPN..
I guess they are properly ashamed of it.
Ian
I am in the UK and sat through the video. The female presenter seemed a little bemused by the whole procedure
I went to the source of the Nature article linked to above and was surprised to se the actual headline was theirs, as I thought someone At WUWT was indulging in hyperbole and had ambitions to become the resident tabloid headline writer.
obviously many of the commenters to the Nature site were also surprised.
I could not bring myself to vote for either of these two very poor candidates. I am surprised Nature is endorsing one of them and seems oblivious to her many faults.
tonyb
“I am surprised Nature is endorsing one of them and seems oblivious to her many faults”
They’ve calculated that her administration is more likely to give them other people’s money.
Not sure why you wouldn’t vote for either of “those very poor candidates,” since you have undoubtedly voted for poorer ones in the UK. I don’t think you understand the US, anymore than do I truly understand the UK. I, for example, have never understood how anyone could have supported Blair or Cameron given their stated positions. to each side of the ocean, their own value set. Thankfully.
Tom O, in the UK only a small group – one constituency – actually votes for Blair or Cameron or whoever as they are just another MP. We don’t have the presidential head to head system. As leader of the winning party they get the PM job. The trouble is not enough people don’t vote if they don’t like choices on offer. A huge drop in turnout to say 20-25% might just be a wake up call that we hate the whole lot of them.
“Nature” obviously views itself as Defender of the Faith.
More superb science from the biased BBC here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge0jhYDcazY
It is incredibly hard to believe that anyone could be that stupid , pumping warm or even hot carbon dioxide from and exothermic reaction into a bottle – the temperature would have gone up several degrees without the lamps on but due to lack of scientific rigour she didnt bother to have controls operating that didnt have the lights on or at least a temperature guage in the reaction vessel – awful, awful science – if she is a teacher…….definitely detention for not paying attention in science class
Sadly those scientists and (less) engineers employed by the BBC in a sciencey capacity often and unwisely imho getting dragged into doing other staged stuff outside their field of expertise – where they trade their dignity and credibility to keep on the gravy train.
The BBC regularly contrives to leverage credibility in one field to lend authority and trust to something cooked up and staged by an activist production team.
As for Nature…. pfffff.. wow… ….
Far from proving the acidity of the oceans and its threat to coral all this has shown is that while Boris got the brains his brother got the offal: he’s full of it.
Absolute political junk science – Prof Martyn Poliakoff cherry picking chemical reactions to gain political ‘friends’ & more funding.
now repeat the experiment; using seawater & CO2 at the ppm found in the oceans & show what realty happens in the full chemical reaction.
If the “Corals”on the Great Barrier Reef are dead,then we may as well dredge a direct path through it,so the ships don’t have to go around the reef.
And all of this supposed loss of intellectual rigour among politicians(!) is due to one issue – climate change.
Yes, the pseudo-science of climate change supersedes all other science to these people.
CAGW is the religion of peace.
the science is settled.
CO2 akbar!
Like in politics, science publications will now give you a pond full of pure water to get you to drink a pint of poison.
…are we crying over the loss…?
Global mass extinctions are not limited to species; the truth and unbiased institutions also succumb in such widespread events.
You scratch her back, she’ll scratch yours. This is Nature joining the new reality.
…But she’ll draw blood!
She’s not called a black widow for no reason.
“Global warming causes increased greed amongst liberals and lefties.”
Can I get some dosh to study that please? (Just until the oil price picks up again and I can get back to looking at rocks for a living.)
Pardon, but Nature has been suspect for some time.
I fully agree that they’ve shown their hand, with this article.
This is really nothing new. Science has been mired in politics for over 100 years. This latest revelation is just the political factions becoming more visible.
With the End of Obama, they feel “safe” to crawly out from under their rock, but I don’t believe the light of day will be kind to them.
Media is desperate for the HildaBeast.
Take the reins in the Phaeton sense I suppose.
‘It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.’
They are taking this stance in part because Trump has promised to wipe the slate clean of this type of behavior in government sponsored science, and they are simply doubling down on stupid here, an in your face, “‘oh no you won’t’ meddle with our [misplaced] science and political advocacy, nor our vast funding.”
All the C/AGW proponents will to have to discuss in the future is their former golden era, when they fooled themselves and everyone but skeptics into thinking that they had the upper hand scientifically. Their legacy and prestige is coming apart at the seams under their own hubris, at their own hand.
I consider this to be another political ad bought and paid for by Clinton’s fellow travelers, who have demonstrated nothing is beneath them when it comes to stealing this election.
Real NATURE is presently overruling Nature. How will they save face? By imposing groupthink.
The SUN rules NATURE, not CO2!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/28/solar-variability-and-the-earths-climate/comment-page-1/#comment-2316211
[excerpt]
However, I do agree with you that peer review as practiced by leading journals such as Nature and Science is mere pal review, and these once-great journals have recently published a pile of utter crap, especially about manmade global warming.
I suggest that the internet and forums such as wattsup are the new, much better and more transparent form of peer review. Publish, let others comment, take your lumps, and let your results stand or fall as they may.
I confess that I am not as shocked; with a vantage point inside academia and as a reasonably well-published scientist, I’ve observed that Nature has for some time veering off course in significant ways. While their mission might, at one time, have been to publish research deemed significant from an unbiased perspective, in recent years significance has been replaced by ‘high impact’, a numerical score that measures the citations of articles within the journal. However, there is one problem: Nature screens articles for impact by looking at the reference list of the article. If an article cites plenty of Nature papers, it is considered. If not, it is by definition ‘low impact’. Since the impact factor of journals includes self-citations (citations of Nature articles by Nature articles), they have engineered a self-sustaining impact factor. Through this they have convinced scientists all over the world that publishing an article in Nature is the ticket to promotion and tenure. Their 20 specialty journals charge USD 7000 each for an institutional subscription.
Despite this (or perhaps because of it) I’ve found many examples of either trivial or questionable research in my own field published in Nature. I’m afraid that the political posturing is simply reflective of a journal that has become convinced that it bears no risk, that it can say, do, or act in any way its owners and editors wish without consequence. I’m further afraid that the elitism present in these sorts of attitudes and actions are all to common in scientific leaders.
Tom, what is your field? Why would you be against free speech. Nature’s editorial staff has a right to expressing their opinions about things other than nature or science. Don’t you agree?
bobthebear,
“Nature’s editorial staff has a right to expressing their opinions”
Except that outright lying by any publication for political purposes is far over the line, especially when just the opportunity cost of those lies is measured in the trillions. If it was a person, other than CO2 being vilified, it would be called slander.
Bob that’s true, but they should change their name from Nature to Political Science Quarterly or American Interest or Foreign Affairs or Foreign Policy…. at the very least American Interest ran an article skeptical of the path current climate change policy is taking us. ( about 2 years ago)
Yep. It is called a Letter to the Editor of their local (or even national) Paper. But when I go to buy a car, I do not want a lecture on who is better for president. Just like I do not accept medical advice from my car mechanic.
All good responses … I don’t think the issue is free speech. Rather it is the problem that arises when one publication becomes the de facto gatekeeper, eventually getting to dictate what represents good science. When one group has that power, after awhile they begin to actually believe that they are both better scientists and better people than the great unwashed masses.
Much better this openness of theirs than covert bias in selecting and peer-reviewing articles.
Simple, it’s called conflict of interest https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest
Science is meant to be apolitical to avoid influence by any outside force or ideology, and Nature represents more than just American researchers and interests. What they have done is violate that core principle and declare a straight up conflict of interest.
Freedom of Speech means the editors can personally on their own with their personal accounts voice their feelings and thoughts on politics. But Nature is not a platform or soapbox for anything except sharing scientific discoveries, and politics immediately corrupts it.
“…conservatives have turned their backs on mainstream science to an unprecedented degree…”. Uh, no, but judging from that statement, liberals have turned their backs on logic to an unprecedented degree.
Please don’t call them liberals. They aren’t. Liberals believe in liberty.
socialist progressive is more accurate
Mary, how about Marxists or radical leftists?
Dem-Progressives are Ideological Liberals: they say what they’re supposed to say in order to stay with the Totalitarian Agenda of the “Liberal” Progressive-Dem Party. So they simply repeat and “believe” Dogma as “truths” about Reality. The Totalitarian Agenda is only to manipulate people so as to produce nothing having to do with Liberty. North Korea would be more like it.
Classical Liberals do not say what they are supposed to say, since they/we depend on our inherent rational capacities to figure things out for ourselves, with the aid of a lot of other people similarly oriented – such as almost everyone here at WUWT.
Hardly anyone not familiar with the terminology knows what the term “Classical Liberal” means as opposed to “Liberal”, so I use “Classical Liberal” mostly to upbraid Ideological Liberals who think they’re operating at the same level as, say, the “Liberal” Enlightenment people who Founded America and Empirical Science.
The Totalitarians are using the old trick of keeping a word, but changing its meaning in practice to even its opposite, while still wanting to keep the original meaning as it was practiced. They do this 24/7. Now Climate/Climate Change in their practice means “CO2-Climate Change”, so they don’t mention the “CO2”.
I learned about this trick in a Philosophy Class around 1965, but now even “Philosophers” think their Degree allows them to tell everyone what the “correct” Philosophy is. It would be pretty funny or pitiful, if this kind of thing didn’t work to self-gratify so many people, and to fool themselves and other people. It is the Dems own “Perception is Reality” [Delusionalism] since “Perception is Reality” is a good definition of someone who is “Clinically Deluded”. Otherwise, “Perception is Reality” is used as a tactic to delude other people, such as by what they call “mainstream Climate Science”, which is really only a massive Propaganda Operation.
Thank the Stars I’m not allowed to write more that 140 characters on Twitter!
JPeden,
In some parts of the world, Liberal refers to a more Libertarian point of view and is about as anti progressive left as you can get.
Progressive left politics in America is defined by taking the easy ‘feel good’ path, not for the benefit of constituents, but for the benefit of political ambition since hard choices are often bad politically. Look at what ‘everybody deserves a handout’ has done to our inner cities, or how the ‘if we’re nice to them, they’ll be nice to us’ foreign policy has led to the rise of Isis, the unabated nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, one sided trade deals and more. Climate change is much the same thing, where they have become deluded into thinking they’re saving the world which is the ‘feel good’ path which gets reinforced by a progressive left media that considers anyone who doesn’t agree with them deplorable. This progressive left ideology where catastrophe is misrepresented as hope and truth is deprecated with lies is a failed experiment and it’s time for it to be discarded.
Notes from 2012 – looks like we chose Option B (the quagmire) below.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/28/germanys-new-renewable-energy-policy/#comment-1067214
[excerpt]
In North America, we too have our share of CAGW scoundrels and imbeciles – an ignorant stew of Harpo and Groucho Marxists who are convinced that if all industry were shut down and everyone worked for the government, the economy would perk along just fine. These leftist ideologues appeal to that idiot 30% of humanity who are somehow convinced they are much more intelligent than the rest of us, despite their lack of any technical or economic competence.
From time to time, these ideologues gain power and proceed to wreak havoc upon their economies – witness the Canadian Liberals under Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien, or the Ontario Liberals under Doltan McGuinty. Out of neighbourly courtesy, I will not comment on USA politics.
Because of the boom in cheap natural gas from shale, and similar apparent success in shale oil, North America is again enjoying abundant cheap energy. The question is, will we use this incredible competitive advantage to rebuild our economies and our manufacturing sectors, now increasingly outsourced to China, or will be squander this opportunity in a quagmire of regulatory incompetence and pseudo-environmental obstructionism?
Stay tuned.
Perhaps they should change the name of their journal to “Human Nature,” since they have obviously succumbed to same.
You mention Scientific American which I had subscribe to along with Science News in about 1968, I was 12. I maintained these subscriptions into the 1990’s about 25 years. For most of those years I looked eagerly each month to learn about new theories, science and results from ongoing research. In the waning years I looked forward with fading hope of something of interest but ultimacy disappointed at the wishy-washy watered down articles and in many cases the horse sh#* that passed for science. Cheers, Mark * * *
Go back to sleep, zz…zz. Apparently the smarts you had when you were young, have left you. What a shame.
!@ bobthebear, regarding your comment to zzmabzz. Along that line of thinking bob, why don’t you quit posting here until you GET some smarts? Thanks.
“Apparently the smarts you had when you were young, have left you.”
Oh, the irony…
Same for me ZZ. I subscribed to them both shortly after I graduated from college in the early 1970’s and I used to read them cover to cover on the long boring train ride to work. Then I noticed in the 90’s that their quality was slipping badly. Scientific American in particular was running a lot of garbage articles. When Science News ran a long unscientific global warming scare story it was for me the final camel that broke the straw’s back. I dropped both magazines.
Just to generalized for a moment, there seems to be a systemic problem in the academic world and in journalism with group think and with a general intolerance of differing points of view.
I did the same, Marty, ZZ. And it was specifically because they were pushing the human-caused global warming narrative.
I’m just glad Astronomy magazine doesn’t have many opportunities to discuss climate change. I still read that one. There have been a couple of opinion pieces chiding skeptics about climate change, but only a couple. They should stick to the stars and planets, and leave the science fiction to others.
TA – ’tis not science fiction. ‘Tis fantasy.
I call these “journals” Denatured, Fantasy News, and Insane American. (Former subscriber to some, and one of the first at the University Library Periodicals desk to get hold of others that I couldn’t afford.)
BTW, I stopped Insane American WAY back, when they were proclaiming that the “Next Ice Age” was nigh, and that if we just got rid of all of our missiles, those nice Communists would of course do the same…
Remember that Trump might just take down the educational-industrial complex. There goes the gravy train. This is largely about following the money.
He could start by banning publishing in Nature any research funded by the US taxpayer.
Been inferrable for some time. Lots of really bad papers. But now its obvious rather than inferrable. Just like what McNutt finally made obvious via editorial at Science. The real and growing dilemma for both journals is that Mother Nature is disagreeing with their ‘climate science’. Observed ECS half of modeled. No warming this century except via Karlization. No acceleration in sea level rise. No tropical troposphere hotspot. Arctic ice hasn’t disappeared. Planet greening. Renewables black out South Australia.
If you would just swallow the blue pill, ristvan, you too could stay plugged in to the computer models and ignore reality.
Nature‘s Aims include the publication of “surprising conclusions“. Yet they won’t publish the surprising conclusion that Mother Nature is disagreeing with their ‘climate science’. Methinks their treatment of surprise is rather selective.
“Science and politics just don’t mix, and they’ve started themselves on the slippery slope to Perdition.”
Looks to me like they jumped off the cliff.
[Snip, off topic /mod]
[Snip, off topuc, though interesting /mod]
[Snip, off Tupac / Schitz]
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6agpNRNYkZk/T9w-PTLOzEI/AAAAAAAABmE/0avG-uhqXeM/s1600/2PAC%2B2.jpg
^_^
Congress is lost in a wilderness alright.
It’s a deep, mysterious forest of money trees.
“It’s a deep, mysterious forest of other people’s money trees.”
Fixed that for ya’.
It is political science
While disappointing, it is not surprising. Politics corrupted mainstream science long ago. People wonder how “lysenkoism” could have existed, but then reassure themselves it was the old USSR. However that misses the point. Government pays for a product. Not for dissent. And it does not take a communist government to get what it pays for.
Maoism is a snowball rolling downhill. Can’t stop it, just ride it down to the bottom. Deep Green, snowflake culture, SJWism, are all of a piece and are here for the foreseeable future. God help us.
In the broadest scope, whenever two or more are gathered in the name of science…there is politics. In a way, Nature is just being uncharacteristically honest, not even bothering with the facade of knowledge for knowledge’s sake! With governments funding so much of the science that goes on these days, it is impossible for scientific organizations to remain apolitical.
As for not adhering to founding documents…have you read the US Constitution lately? Almost everything the US Government does is clearly un- or extra-constitutional. No one seems to care. Not even the Supreme Court, which was founded specifically for the purpose of protecting the Constitution against such degradation. If we don’t care about the documents our nation is supposed to be governed by, why would we care about the mission statement of a magazine?
The pendulum swings from renaissance and enlightenment to dark periods in human history. Guess where we are now. Clinton, Trump and Nature are just manifestations of the this point in the arc.
I tried the AAAS journal “Science” for awhile and was disappointed.
This question is intended to be real and not facetious. Is there a good science journal currently published in the English language?
“Although both parties have become more extreme over the past two decades, conservatives have turned their backs on mainstream science to an unprecedented degree. If there is any good news, it’s that everybody now recognizes that the Republican Party has a problem.”
The problems Repubicans have is the advocates of human-caused climate change cannot prove what they claim: That humans are causing the climate to change in ways it would not do otherwise, without human intervention via CO2.
As soon as CAGW advocates come up with some proof, Republicans will get on board. But just saying something is so, doesn’t make it so. Saying humans are causing the climate to change does not make is so. Proof is what is required. You have no proof. You shouldn’t expect Republicans or any sensible person to get on board until you do.
Personally, what I require isn’t definite proof. I’d actually be willing to go along with at least some of the anti-CO2 measures if all they had was a good hypothesis and some evidence that could go either way. We really WON’T know for sure one way or the other about a lot of the measurements for decades, and sometimes you have to take a chance and bet on the unlikely be devastating possibility.
No, what I require is HONESTY. I require CAGW proponents who act like they believe the stuff they are repeating. I require ‘solutions’ that might actually effect the CO2 level and not just waste billions. I require Climate Scientists who don’t hide their data and constantly adjust their work. I require journals and papers that a 5 year old can’t see the holes in. I require Climate reporters who don’t create fake memos from their opponents. I require Activists who don’t constantly publish tweets, comments, articles, and videos that demand unbelievers be punished or fantasies about their deaths.
In short, I require the Climate Faithful to start acting like reasonable people and stop acting like a cult.
And I need it a decade ago, back before they destroyed their reputation with all this crap. Because it’s frankly to late by now.
have you heard mr pence reading his thoughts about evolution into the congressional record?
no politician has any use for truth, much less science.
it’s all about the narrative – whatever gets you to play at the voting casino.
to play is to lose. but you must believe you can win to be a proper chump.
Science and it’s public manifestations like Nature are undergoing a nessecary clarification. Good. While it is sad to watch from the cheap seats it is not unwanted or unexpected. The known known becomes visible to all.
Science in the West was captured by its funders the politicians over a long period of time. Lets have it out in the open where we can more readily defeat the thing.
Nature is the world’s most highly cited interdisciplinary science journal,
Job knew how to handle this kind of modesty:
No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you
About thirty years ago I first read an article about journalism students. When asked why they were taking the course the answer was “To change the world”. Not to report on the world. Saw it a few times since.
Also at about that time I was a regular reader of Scientific American. Then one edition started with a brief essay that native Indian cultures were not violent until Europeans arrived on the East Coast.
Subscription ended!
The next edition did publish a retraction and offered an apology. It took a lot of distorted anger to publish that foolish essay.
The rot continues, particularly in the collective garbage about man-forced climate change.
The way that these neo-bolsheviks (which is what they are) operate was nicely summarized by the great “iowahawk” (David Burge):
1) Find a respected institution.
2) Kill it.
3) Gut it.
4) Wear the carcass as a skin suit and demand respect.
Now would be a good time for everyone who has never done so to read what I think is George Orwell’s best work – his non-fiction memoir (of his time as a marxist volunteer in the Spanish civil war and how he came to his senses about marxism) “Homage to Catalonia.”
This is just another manifestation of a MSM that has gone nuts over supporting ‘feel good’ far left causes because emotion sells and the left deals in emotion, not logic. The truth no longer matters to either the media or the fools who unconditionally believe what they are told. The ‘progressive’ left takes advantage of the ignorance of their followers to obfuscate the fact that the policies they pursue are self destructive, ineffective, counter productive and foolish. This regressive left ideology is not at all concerned with the best interest of citizens, but only with the political ambitions of its proponents as they give lip service to the contrary. How the political left in combination with the MSM has infected climate science is a case in point, but this foolishness transcends climate science and will inevitably lead us to ruin, especially since this pathological condition has worked its way into the electoral process.
“Nature is the world’s most highly cited interdisciplinary science journal, according to the 2013 Journal Citation Reports Science Edition (Thomson Reuters, 2014). Its Impact Factor is 42.351. The impact factor of a journal is calculated by dividing the number of citations in a calendar year to the source items published in that journal during the previous two years.”
Clicks on internet keys determine the worth of scientific articles? Is that better or worse than peer reviews?
There are so many problems with this that even I, neither a scientist nor a computer geek, can see huge problems. And that’s an understatement.
Are you kidding?
And “It is an independent measure calculated by Thomson Reuters, Philadelphia, USA.” (http://thomsonreuters.com/en.html)
Again, are you kidding?
Nature! Another magazine for the consensus set.
I wonder what it will take for you people (I assume you’re people) to get your heads out of the sand. To an adult you sound so whinny and small. It’s time to grow up and broaden your perspective. Is it possible that your thoughts on climate change may be wrong? What is the probability of you being correct in your assessment? What are the consequences if everybody agreed with you and then you were found to be wrong? Could the damage be corrected? How many lives would be lost, how many species would be lost? All so that you might be right, but could just as easily be wrong. Mathematics is not on your side. It’s fine to be skeptical, but not to the detriment of all other possibilities.
Mathematics is not on your side.
Them’s fightin’ words stranger. The only thing skeptics have on their side is math/science.
Mathematics is not on your side
I have written several articles for WUWT on climate science from a mathematical perspective. They show that (a) CO2 has not been a major driver of climate, (b) the way the climate models are tuned is mathematically invalid, (c) the climate models’ internal structure can never work.
bobthebear, you are so far off the mark that it is hard to know where to start to put you back on the track to reason. Perhaps you could start by reading stuff with an open mind. I suggest you start here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/08/inside-the-climate-computer-models/
Note that the arguments presented in this article have been confirmed by the (US) National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). They performed 40 climate model runs in which changing the initial state by less than 0.000000000001 deg C (!! yes, really, a trillionth of a degree !!) caused a model’s results to change by several deg C.
Mathenatically, unequivocally, the climate models in their current form can never predict future climate.
Skepticism includes ALL possibilities! I would suggest you take your own suggestion. You need it more than anyone else here.
“It’s fine to be skeptical, but not to the detriment of all other possibilities.”
What the hell is that supposed to even mean? It’s every scientist’s job to be skeptical of every single thing and continue to be skeptical until the theory is mature and well enough tested to be invariably correct in its predictions. So far cagw has proved to be the diametric opposite of that and is invariably wrong in all of its predictions. So much so that the permanently embarrassed Mandarins of cagw were obliged to change the branding to ‘climate change’ which is forever completely unfalsifiable and cannot therefore even be said to lie within the remit of science at all.
bobthebear,
“It’s fine to be skeptical, but not to the detriment of all other possibilities.”
Main stream climate science is not just skeptical that the SB relationship and COE determines the steady state solution for a specific stimulus, but ignorantly insists that incremental CO2 both drives the steady state and supplies stimulus. So, are you saying that skepticism is OK when accompanied by ignorance, but when supported by science and math it’s not?
bobthebear,
It is the true believers to whom you should address your questions.
bobthebear,
Perhaps you imagine yourself sound logical and high minded but your vague holier than thou style of argument is just pathetic. Better rethink your strategy.
Dear Unbearable Bob,
I’ve lived in one place for the great majority of my seniority and I can personally testify that NOTHING HAS CHANGED concerning climate, sea level, or the peskiness of crows. The summers are hot, the winters are cold, the spring and fall are rainy, and plants will grow unless you beat them back into submission. What planet do you live on, where you have seen any climate change? (Urban heat island effect doesn’t count…which I assume you are familiar with, considering the breadth of your erudition.)
It s not about science, agw is ,was and always will be political.
And it is a Lie.
The Projection is strong in this one.
But srsly newfriend, which part of The Church of CAGW do you want to know the consequences of if we skeptics are wrong? Because the Climate Faithful have it wrong on pretty much every level. Their projections fail, their data needs constant adjustment, and their solutions don’t even work. And judging by the air miles and seaside homes accumulated by the High Priests of Climate they don’t even believe in it themselves.
But hey, lets give the Climate snake oil salesmen the benefit of the doubt and, just as a ‘what if’, pretend that a CO2 level over 350ppm really will cause Thermagedden. So what will happen then?
WE. ALL. DIE.
Well, maybe not ALLLLLLL of us. Just most. BILLIONS. Because we’ve been over 350ppm since the 80’s. And if the Climate Faithful were even half right then nothing we do can bring it back down again. Even if we stopped all Fossil Fuel burning tomorrow (and cement production, and raising farm animals, and whatever else we might be doing to produce ‘greenhouse gasses’) It would take centuries for the levels to return to the ‘natural’ (read ‘near killing point of most plants’) levels of CO2 we had before the Industrial Revolution.
And ending Fossil Fuel use world wide in anything less then 2 or 3 decades would be global suicide. ‘Renewables’ simply can’t provide the power that modern society uses. A crash course in building Nuclear power plants MIGHT have worked, but the Greens are anti-nuke even more then they are anti-carbon. Even if we could get such a Nuclear program off the ground and building globally, that still doesn’t solve the transportation problem. The past decade has proved that making Fossil Fuel free cars, trucks, trains, aircraft and ships will require far more then government throwing billions at Elon Musk.
The only way we could ‘Decarbonize’ the world economy would be to drastically cut back in energy production. Back to the energy production levels of the 1800’s. or even the 1700’s. I’m not even talking about just ‘Renewables’ like wind farms and solar panels. Producing both are themselves high energy industries. Aluminum production, Silicon, Rare Earths and high precision manufacturing. Just transporting the components for your average 5MW wind turbine and assembling them on site. All require an energy capacity
above what they can themselves produce. Even the large Hydroelectric Dams that were build in the last hundred years were built with the power of coal and oil. (not that they count as ‘Renewable” in the Greens crazy worldview) To truly Decarbonize we’d have to go back further, to what is truly ‘sustainable’ under it’s own power. Which means deindustrialization on a scale to make the Khmer Rouge look like a boy scout nature hike.
BILLIONS. DEAD. PERIOD.
The sad truth is, even if the Climate Faithful’s crazy CO2 induced apocalypse were a possibility, the alternative would be horrifically worse. With affordable energy we can survive even if the environment were to suffer devastating collapse. without it, we simply can’t support ourselves at our current levels, even without ‘Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming’.
Bob, any action we take in the West will have only an insignificant effect on temperature, etc. Only if our example inspires Asia to double or triple its electrical costs and follow in our footsteps would it be meaningful. (It won’t.)
Most of us need not speculate on how many lives will be lost. We have a pretty good handle on how many lives have already been lost thanks to you and your agendas. Fifty million from the ban on DDT alone. How many more thanks to the lack of other pesticides and fertilizers that were not made available to the poorer nations? How many more thanks to the lack of energy to run refrigeration, heating, transportation? How many specimens of endangered species have been chopped to bits, or broiled alive by your money-making “Green” schemes? How many fish and other wildlife died, and how many First Americans lost their livelihood thanks to the “help” of a so-called Environmental “Protection” Agency? How many millions of acres of forest have burned to the bare soil in wildfires and lost their ability to ever regenerate thanks to your “management” of the woodlands?
What are the consequences of following your religious faith? How many more millions, how many more species, how much more of our environment should we let you destroy?
Since when does a “science” publication print “opinion” about “politics”?
That is what you read the NY Times for.
WOW! I wish I had to power to make everyone look like fools by just voicing a POLITICAL OPINION.
Trump IS Political. He never claimed to be a scientist or a science magazine.
At least one of them is honest. The other is a political rag masquerading as a science one.
“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
He wasn’t all wrong. He wass right that it’s created concept and that the Chinese are giving it lip service to make the U.S. non-competitive, but the concept of a CO2 related crisis was invented by the UN, not the Chinese.
I will never understand why some people think Bill Clinton is running. Trump can talk the talk, but only Bill walks the walk.
So keep your ignorant opinions to yourself. Unless you have incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, you are merely a parrot of the most corrupt person to ever run for president.
Chantrill says:
The truth? Apart from the fact that you seem to be still in kindergarden? It’s that Clinton has sold her soul and the people of the US to the devil – or the highest bidder. She is corrupt, disloyal and a very sick woman. Stacked against a man who may be fond of women (like JFK, W Clinton, any other Kennedy) I’d take the man.
First, to serve scientists through prompt publication of significant advances in any branch of science, and to provide a forum for the reporting and discussion of news and issues concerning science.
Discussion? There’s a stretch.
It’s all caused by too much of that mystical, magical gas, CO2, in the Nature corporate offices.
Office methane concentrations.
@bobthebear October 25, 2016 at 11:20 am
Have you got any evidence we can discuss, I would be interested in what you have and how it fits into the current picture…..
WOW! What a great response! Thank you all. The mathematics has to do with basic probabilities, not the science of climate change. If there is a 10% chance that the climate science is correct, what is the cost of ignoring the science. If Russia had an atomic bomb and we didn’t, and there was only a 10% chance that they would use it because they didn’t want to kill so many people or that they would make the country they bombed uninhabitable. What would our response be? Not to spend as much as it takes to get a bomb? I doubt it. That’s the mathematics that I’m talking about. You folks need to look a little deeper.
Thanks for your thoughts.
OMG, you are blathering on about the precautionary principle as if it was mathematics.
Thank you for your comment.
So you counted the responses but didn’t read any of them?
I’m going by your “Wow! What a great response!” Not really engaging in any type of critical thinking. Or are you here just to derail the thread?
When you start off with Juvenile attacks, no deeper inspection is necessary. Both the arguer and argument can be safely discarded. So you and yours were.
What complete and utter drivel, Bob.
You really haven’t the first clue, have you?
Not about mathematics, most especially probability theory, and even less about climate science.
I suggest you change your handle from bobthebear to bobthebedwetter.
Really? 10%?
Nope. The predicted “climate catastrophe” has about the same probability as the Sun going nova sometime in the next century or so.
At least if we invest a few trillion dollars into interstellar spaceships (ignoring the billion or two extra deaths from keeping the majority of the world in abject poverty while we do so) – we’ll have something to show for it.
Yes! The next great apocalyptic scare! I humbly volunteer to lead the effort – I really want to take a vacation, errr… horribly inconvenient nova-prevention conference duty… on the Orion resort planet. (I hear that those green slave women are hot – and not in a climate sense.)
Nature may be declaring their hand a little too soon. The parallels with Brexit are startling. The Dems have started celebrating their victory two weeks out just like the Remoaners did in Brexit. Their entire campaign has been personal attacks on Trump ( With Brexit it was Farage and UKIP) They are relying on Star Power as did the Europhiles and trotting out an endless stream of quite foul mouthed celebs to carry out personal attacks. They have tried the “”fear of Trump” card for two years and it has not worked. I was always of the opinion that if your strategy was failing after a year maybe you should change it? Hillary only plays to her own Gallery, Trump goes out in the wild. Cameron only stood in front of preselected audiences whilst Farage turned up in Pubs. Trump only needs to capture the undecided voters. The Solid Dems are not a threat.
Anyway, where did Hillary get that inane smile. Did she nick it off the Cheshire cat or was she the first killer clown let loose? Interesting times. I’m a Brit living in France so I can’t vote. For being spared that decision I am truly grateful.
Shhhh!!!!!! Hillary is hunting wrabbits!
I have heard the argument that he needs to entice the Undecided, but I have come to the conclusion that if anyone remains undecided between Trump and Clinton, in consideration of their legal liabilities and policy prescriptions, they are mentally defective and we would be better served if their dilemma prevents them from attending the polls.
Alternatively, I think what Trump is doing, successfully, is appealing to the vast majority who have not been voters and recruiting them to his side.
Ivor, you pretty much echo my own thoughts on this election matter. All looked lost for Brexit and even Farage was prematurely accepting defeat but what was missed was the pure revulsion of the many for the elitist establishment. What the polls apparently show is a reflection of the incumbent’s opinion of themselves but that is increasingly divorced from what the people actually think. Considering a small cynical punt on Trump with the added bonus that I’d be delighted to lose it.
The Brexiteers complained, whined and lied for over 40 years after the decision to join the EU was made. And you worry about a few months? I suppose you are someone who stops trying to influence political ideas once your party loses an election? You give up on it all? The fact is that Brexit will be economic suicide for the UK, in our opinion and the opinion of most economists and we will persist in trying to avoid that outcome. You had over 40 years to make your case, and you convinced voters to ignore experts and see truth and accuracy as optional ideas.
You ain’t seen nothing yet from from the remainders, we may have lost the battle, but the war still rages.
It is indeed a “comment”. Unfortunately it is a “comment” that has nothing to do with the subject of the magazine it is printed in… at least not the subject it claims to be about.
Can you imagine the uproar on the left if a magazine like ‘Family Circle’ or ‘Parents’ printed an ‘Editorial’ advised its readers to vote for Trump because Hillary eats babies.
I expect this kind of thing from ‘Rolling Stone’ or ‘National Rifleman’. They wear their politics on their sleeve. But ‘Nature’ is supposed to be a science magazine.
At least, it WAS.
Yes I do. I do not want someone who lied, cheated and stole to be near them. I do not want someone who sold controlling interest in our Uranium to the Russians. I do not want someone who has revealed national secrets through incompetency and now just outright big mouth to be near them.
I do not care about someone’s opinions about Global warming where Nuclear options are at stake. The 2 have nothing in common as it is not nuclear bombs that have (or have not since the science is NOT settled) caused global warming. And it is not some politicians opinion that is going to either confirm or refute the hypothesis.
Only an idiot would believe that.
Dear Chris: No, you don’t want someone who BELIEVES IN THE CONCEPT to be anywhere near the nuclear launch codes. (Particularly since she spilled the beans on our nuclear response timeline to 76 million viewers.) That is a dangerous disconnect from reality.
Trump’s off-the-cuff speculation (and that’s all it was, as anyone can recognize) may be more true than the concept anyway.
Personally, I’ve really gotten sick of the Lefties ‘Trump can’t be trusted with the Nuclear Launch Codes’ meme. What, do they think it’s still the 80’s? That we are still in the cold war? Who do they think we have missiles aimed at right now for immediate launch at the press of ‘The Button’? The Russians? The Chinese? Iran? SYRIA? The last time I checked, the president doesn’t have the authority to start a war without Congress’s approval, Nuclear or otherwise. (I could be wrong, though. Obama seems to think so) The ONLY situation the president is likely to ever be in a position to authorize a general launce without going though congress first would be if someone else had already launched on us. Frankly, anything else is a crazy fantasy.
Someone needs to tell Hillary that the Big Red Button on the Oval Office desk that Bill said never to press because it launces the nukes was really only to summon an intern for a lapdance.
“You seriously don’t want someone that believes the Chinese invented the concept to be anywhere near the nuclear launch codes.”
So vote for the party that is helping enable nuclear weapons for the Mullahs?
Got it!
“t doesn’t matter which side of the debate you are on, it’s not true that the Chinese invented the concept of global warming. You seriously don’t want someone that believes the Chinese invented the concept to be anywhere near the nuclear launch codes.”
Who says Trump really believes that? Trump says a lot of things tongue-in-cheek. In other words, he likes to joke around and tweak people (like you). He knows alarmists are SO serious, so he tweaks them a little. That’s the way I take this particular comment.
Just to (literally) interject…
Unless this is someone spoofing his login (unlikely) – Chris is a conservative. (Tending libertarian – not the small “l” there.)
Funny thing about the people that are not Regressive Democrat Robots – they feel free to disagree with anything, including other people that (mostly) agree with them. So – please – retract the claws, WUWT regulars.
Now, having defended the person – I disagree with his position. It is indeed an opinion piece, but a “science” oriented journal should restrict its official opinionating to science-related issues. A piece on “Vote for Hillary because Trump will cut science funding” – that would pass muster as a fit subject for their voicing an opinion in that forum.
Um, and Chris? You might want to read up a bit on Thomas Jefferson and Joseph Priestley. Jefferson was quite enamored of Priestley’s works defending the Phlogiston Theory and Spontaneous Generation – at the time when both of those ideas were being rather thoroughly disproven by empirical evidence.
Blast it… NOTE the small “l,” if you please…
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
Eisenhower warned of the corruption of science with politics in 1960.
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocation, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet in holding scientific 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.”
– President Eisenhower 1960
I too have been watching the decline of scientific journals into political rags. I don’t know that I ever considered National Geographic as a science magazine, but at least it used to not be just a tool for political activists. Then Scientific American lost all sense of what is science. Then Science (AAAS) jumped onto the Climate Change bandwagon so hard it can’t print a page that doesn’t reference it somehow. One by one they all turn into junk. I think it must be a natural progression – I mean even the Royal Society is full of activists instead of scientists now.
I suppose it was a forgone conclusion – the people who work there come from modern Universities, and those no longer teach science but instead political correctness and activism. As the old scientists retire, they are replaced by poorly trained and incompetent staff with degrees but no context in science. They all chase political power and government money. No one has time to perform good science for the sack of learning. They certainly don’t want to be argued with and shown a fool – so best to avoid controversy and debate.
“O’Sullivan’s First Law in operation (An eternal truth” by John O’Sullivan, published in the National Review on October 27, 1989) — “All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.”
Schitzree addendum to O’Sullivan’s First Law: Even those organizations that are actually right-wing will over time become left-wing unless they actively guard against being infiltrated.
I’m certainly not surprised. They tasted power (money) years ago and their collective tummies said, “It is good!” They won’t veer from their current direction until the money and jobs dry up and they’re out in the cold. That will probably take a long time – certainly long enough to destroy the West.
Christopher, I was under the impression that section was to be used for comments on articles within the magazine not outside politics. although in this case I see why they are demonizing the GOP. If Trump by chance wins funding for these “scientists ” will come to a be a slow trickle. And in the case of AGW rightfully so.
The basic problem is government has abrogated its responsibility to maintain an independent civil service. Loyalties are split between institutional budgeting and serving the needs of the people. Thats why the civil service was created in the first place to create an independent source of information. Now the foxes are guarding the chicken coop. Thats why you have the Sierra Club saying “your own NOAA” when in fact NOAA is not a conglomeration of outside interests beyond the reach of government. The democratic system was built on accountability through the ballot. A career civil service was created to end the practice of politicians giving away plum key jobs to people with conflicts of interest. People in the civil service work under stringent controls over conflicts of interest. Now we have all this “official” agencies like NASA’s GISS operating under the control of people without accountability standards and split loyalties via grants and affiliations with non-government institutions. We either break that up or this will never end.
If scary global warming didn’t sell Nature wouldn’t pump its tires . The field of science is being reduced to lot lizard status .
Liberalism is the direction this country is headed, I don’t like it but we live in a democracy and our democratic process is turning our government and our society more and more liberal. Socialized health care seems inevitable, even with the failure of ObamaCare. Being offended by something is now a badge of honor, which has driven political correctness to absurd extremes. We blame rather than learn. I just saw a video of an ObamaCare advocate blaming Republicans for the law’s failure. In the discussion of saving black lives you can’t even suggest the problem can be worked from both sides, police training reforms AND basic compliance with officers, or you are a racist. Global warming is the perfect liberal issue for the media. The media is saving the planet by making money informing us of a problem that big oil has created. And now people are being told you can define your gender by chosing which gender you identify with the most. Some college applications now have 6 choices for the question of gender, and that number will only grow. Its a world going to the left my friends, whether we like it or not.
If it continues left much longer, we will not have any functioning democracies left. Instead we will have oligarchic kleptocacies, organized around a central
“big leader”, a la Venezuela, Cuba and Zimbabwe.
Honestly, that’s about all the world had a few hundred years ago. And then democracy blossomed (often from the end of a rifle).
Civilizations rise and fall, real suffering recedes until the people forget why they thought they needed so much control over government in the first place. Then the scammers, thugs, and power mad slowly work their way into power. eventually the parasites outweigh the host and often the only way to shake them off is though a fall. And hope that what rises after is at least in some way a good alternative. That is the time when what you set as your foundation makes or brakes a nation.
Protip: A strong declaration of basic rights right from the start can head off a world of trouble later on. Expect those with an agenda to start whittling away at them immediately. All slippery slopes will be declared a necessity and a temporary evil, and if started down will go on until you hit bottom.
“If it continues left much longer, we will not have any functioning democracies left. Instead we will have oligarchic kleptocacies, organized around a central
“big leader”, a la Venezuela, Cuba and Zimbabwe.”
Yeah, and since the Left is completely incapable of defending the United States national security, our new “Big Leader” will probably be the Chinese or Russian leader. They know how to push Leftwing pacifists around, and will certainly do so if given the chance. Obama being a good example. A couple of more decades of that kind of governance and we can probably kiss the U.S. and the Western World goodbye forever.
I’m not sure that Obama’s “election” and “reelection” weren’t the result of fraud. The case is clearer for 2012, which was well within the margin of fraud.
That’s just one reason why this election will be the last real shot for democracy. With the courts in the one party pocket, no electoral reform will happen with a Democrat (ironic!) president and possibly Congress.
Voting more than once per election should be a capital offense for the third conviction. Even photo ID and indelible ink on thumbs isn’t enough to deter the Democrat fraud and intimidation machine. Fingerprint ID or its biometric equivalent is called for. To get into Disneyworld requires a fingerprint, but not to vote.
To allay privacy concerns, only one print should be used.
And voting by mail, as in OR and WA, should also be banned for federal elections. There has never been more blatant fraud than in those two supposedly reform-minded states.
After retiring about 11 years ago I subscribed to both Nature and Scientific American. I dropped both after about one year when I realized that both had the same threefold agenda: (1) Promote their primary religion, atheism, (2) promote their secondary religion, human-induced global warming, and (3) promote continuing government funding of liberal university “research.” The current post indicates a “doubling down” on that agenda.
I don’t understand why Nature’s editorial writer thinks a war between Russia and the US would be good for science or the planet.
I’ve read through and no one has raised this point, so I will raise it here.
There is a profound irony in this situation. I will assert that the fundamental principle of all science is the commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” Truthful observations and truthful records and honest conclusions are what science depends on, TO EVEN BEGIN.
These paltry publications, however, have indulged in what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn long ago termed “the Lie.” Against this he declared: “One word of truth shall outweigh the world.” And, if we are truly believers in the truth, we should accept this as also being true, and be fortified in it.
I await Nature’s ‘science’ article on which side of the bed I should get out of in the morning and who I should vote for in all future elections here in the UK!!!!
I may have a view about candidates in the US election but as a British citizen I sure won’t be sticking my nose in democratic elections in another country. Nature is an international journal with an international editorial (mostly British), they have just published a politically biased, anti-science article. Hopefully they will see sense and there will be some resignations.
Proof that science is politics now. Any claims of impartiality can be disregarding immediately. These are now activists—political activists and should be referred to as such. Do not use the term science journal—it’s a political activist journal.
Well, l suppose they were running up against political correctness issues with with their earlier exclusivity centred on “scientific men”, so they may as well catch up with the new post normal mixing sciency stuff with activism and politics.
If I may be permitted some old fashioned non pc opinions, I find it troubling that an inordinate percentage of US women have such a thin skinned sensitivity to a man’s boorish remarks that they would choose to destroy this great USA and vote instead for it’s most corrupt elitist, self interested, women the country has ever produced. I hope the media is wrong about this because if it is true, women have no place in politics. Actually, the majority of men in men’s company talk about women’s figures and attributes and how nice it would be… There remaining s a lot of Neanderthal in men’s make up and “locker room talk” wasn’t just coined by Trump. He’s just too candid to conceal what a high percentage of males think. I guess he has to learn how to lie better to be acceptable to these perennialy aggrieved souls seeking safe spaces. We’ve mentioned Bill Climton’s and his wife’s attitude to their victims and we know about the beloved Kennedy’s who have couple murders of lovers chalked up. But they were polite about it so that made it ok. Were it not for Maggie’ Thatcher, Golda Meir and a few others and some of the no nonsense women of self esteem like Janice Moore’s we meet at WUWT I would say that women have no place in politics.
“If I may be permitted some old fashioned non pc opinions, I find it troubling that an inordinate percentage of US women have such a thin skinned sensitivity to a man’s boorish remarks that they would choose to destroy this great USA and vote instead for it’s most corrupt elitist, self interested, women the country has ever produced.”
Don’t sell American women short just yet. Let’s wait and see how they vote.
One thing I have seen consistently this year is every time they do these real-time polls with the lines scrolling across the screen in response to what the candidate says, the Independents have been in lockstep with the Republicans since the beginning of this political season.
A lot more emails to come out between now and election time.
Don’t you love how the Leftwing Media buries every Hillary negative (a lie of omission), and trumpets every Trump gaff (half-truths). The Leftwing Media will never be considered unbiased after this election. Their Leftwing political agenda is out there for all to see. They have no credibility anymore (haven’t had any credibility with me since the Vietnam war).
I’ll say it. “Women have no place in politics!”*
*nether have men. I for one anxiously await our future robot overlords. They can’t do any worse. >_<
I make no money from this – but if you read SF, schitzree, you might enjoy E.M. Foner’s books.
Our best fighter pilots can’t defeat planes piloted by A I . In fact they can put those planes at a disadvantage and still can’t beat them.
Mr. Chantrill,
Thank you for your inanity. There certainly hasn’t been enough of it this election season.
What we see today is a reflection of the past .
“The Cold War began during the Truman administration and lasted through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations and was ended in Reagan’s second term when Reagan and Gorbachev came to an agreement that the conflict was dangerous, expensive, and pointless.
The Cold War was a Washington creation. It was the work of the Dulles brothers. Allen was the head of the CIA, and John Foster was the Secretary of State, positions that they held for a long time. The brothers had a vested interest in the Cold War. They used the Cold War to protect the interests of their law firm’s clients, and they used it to enhance the power and budgets associated with their high positions in government. It is much more exciting to be in charge of foreign policy and covert activity in dangerous times.”
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2016/08/20/rethinking-the-cold-war-and-the-new-one/
“Three spooks, John Foster Dulles (aided by his equally corrupt brother Allen, head of the CIA), Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, chosen by David Rockefeller to oversee the deaths of tens of millions of men, women and children, murdered in their own small beloved countries, as often as not in their own towns, villages and homes – millions more dying in violent aftermaths of US crimes against Congo, Guatemala, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Indonesia, Libya and many other places. (Congo alone accounts for from between six and fifteen million dead since the US led Belgians and other Europeans in destroying it as a nation.”
http://www.countercurrents.org/janson170812.htm
We often hear how important the past is Re Climate Change and how we arrived here at 400 ppm. My grandfather used to sit me on his knee and complain about the political system back in the 60’s . He’s biggest projection that I can remember was that one day they will TAX the air we breath. So is the real issue about the one part Carbon or the two parts Oxygen. I read somewhere that it takes 11 litres of air to burn one litre of gasoline. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. So next time your sitting in a traffic jam on your way to work think about how much Oxygen your converting to CO2.
“What we see today is a reflection of the past .
“The Cold War began during the Truman administration and lasted through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations and was ended in Reagan’s second term when Reagan and Gorbachev came to an agreement that the conflict was dangerous, expensive, and pointless.
The Cold War was a Washington creation. It was the work of the Dulles brothers.”
A ridiculous conspiracy theory. You act like the communists were innocent bystanders in all this.
Eight different presidents from both political parties thought the situation in Southeast Asia was serious enough for the U.S. to be involved (along with numerous allies). Maybe they knew something about the situation that you don’t understand.
Sorry, jmorpuss, but the Cold War began when the Soviet Union detonated an atomic bomb in 1949. And it got even colder when they actually beat us to the demonstration of a deliverable hydrogen bomb only a few years later. And began building ICBMs.
I have no love for most of the administrations you mention, or their key actors, and most were doubtless involved in ulterior agendas. But nobody was in control of the Soviet Union and they were quite clear about their interest in ruling as much of the world as they could put under their grip.
TA and Michael
To me the cold war was a war about knowing (knowledge) and science was the chosen weapon. The race was on to convert theories into practice as quick as possible, before the other side did. And stepping into the now, you can’t keep spending this type of money on defence http://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2015/06/25/the-biggest-military-budgets-as-a-percentage-of-gdp-infographic-2/#693f1f134064 and not have a war to fight. Here’s 15 more facts about military spending http://www.businessinsider.com.au/military-spending-budget-defense-cuts-2011-10?r=US&IR=T When I see this type of expenditure I ask, who’s really running the show? And does the US constitution change when at war? Is America under military rule, because of the war on terror .
“Is America under military rule, because of the war on terror .”
American is firmly under Leftist pacifist civilian rule. That’s why we are losing all our wars, and our international standing. If the military were running things, we wouldn’t be losing all our wars, or our international standing.
Not that I am advocating military rule. I advocate realistic civilian rule, which cannot be had with Leftists/pacifists like Obama/Hillary in the driver’s seat.
Yeah, I know, some people think Hillary is a Hawk, but I disagree. She might be quick to bomb someone like Kaddafy, but she’s not going to commit American troops to anything (you didn’t see any followup in Libya, did you?).
Instead, she will seek to “empathize” with our enemies. Anyone who says, as she does, that their goal is to empathize with our enemies is not a hawk, they are a pacifist, plain and simple. That’s the way pacifists look at the world: They think they can reason with the bad guys. That’s because they reject war out of hand in their minds, so reasoning with the bad guys is the only option left to them. And puts them and us in a bind when the bad guys decide they don’t want to be reasonable, which they usually do.
Hitler was totally reasonable. He only wanted the land next to his. Appeasement they called it. History repeats itself, sort of…
“Judging by the current presidential campaign, when it comes to reason, decency and use of evidence, much of the country’s political system seems to have lost its way.”
Evidence???
When it comes to empirical evidence climate science too has lost its way and in terms of the unbiased and objective evaluation of research climate science journals and many universities are lost for good.
What ever were you Republicans thinking when you chose an idiot like Trump to run against Hillary? What ever Hillary is she’s not stupid and stupid always loses to smart . Republicans had the option of choosing Cruz who is smarter than Hillary instead they chose a looser
Lots of Democrats and Independents voted in the GOP primaries this year, but Trump still won only 42% of the vote before Cruz dropped out, and 44% at the end. The media gave him free coverage, since they knew he’d be a worse nominee against Clinton than almost any other in the field of 19 major candidates. NBC could have released the rude, crude and lewd Billy Bush tape during the primaries, but of course waited until October.
But forced to chose between a clown and a crook, I have to go with the clown. Corrupt Clinton is a pathological liar, traitor, racketeer and accomplice to rape, a gross failure as SecState, and suffering from late-stage neurological disease as well. I’m not voting for Trump but against her.
I should add, not just a gross failure, but guilty of selling US foreign policy to the highest bidder, regardless of national security interests.
Stealing money donated for Haitian earthquake relief might have been a new low for the Clintons, but they’ve probably committed much worse crimes against humanity I don’t know about. IMO that was worse even than handing Libya over to ISIS or selling US uranium mines to Russia. Now she dares to claim that Trump is in Putin’s pocket.
“Republicans had the option of choosing Cruz who is smarter than Hillary instead they chose a looser”
Trump hasn’t lost yet. I won’t take the cheap shot on you. I will let it slide. 🙂
“All your points are well taken, but you still haven’t explained why you would choose stupid Trump over way smarter Cruz?”
Not sure who you are addressing but from my point of view Trump is not stupid. In fact, I think he is a *very* intelligent person. He has the skills the United States needs right now. We need a tough-nosed executive who knows how to take charge of things and get them in good financial shape. And Trump is NOT obligated to any special interest, since he is not taking their money. He can govern for the benefit of the people, not the special interests, who have been taking this country down for decades, and will continue to do so if the corrupt Hillary Clinton is elected.
I ask myself, who would I choose as a next door neighbor? Who would be the least likely to make my life miserable with frivolous lawsuits and other annoyances? I’ll take Trump, thank you.
All your points are well taken, but you still haven’t explained why you would choose stupid Trump over way smarter Cruz?
For those who have been hiding under a rock for the past 4 months – Cruz is not running.
. . . and a sure win ?
. . . for those hiding under a rock Donald Trump is a New York Liberal , why did the Republicans go with a New York Liberal ??
If all you can see is liberal/conservative, you will never understand. Cruz was #2 in the primary, and Bernie would have taken Clinton if not for the conspiracy of the DNC. So ask yourself, what all 3 have in common.
And you will have your answer.
“. . . for those hiding under a rock Donald Trump is a New York Liberal , why did the Republicans go with a New York Liberal ??”
Trump is espousing conservative policies, that’s why. His running mate, Mike Pence, is a rock-solid conservative.
Sun Spot: “…why you would choose stupid Trump…”
Trump may be many things, but stupid is certainly not one of them.
You, like most, miss the forest for the trees. It would not have mattered if the republicans had nominated Gandhi. The democrat play book would have been the same. The only difference would have been the response of the nominee.
Trump is not stupid. He is also not a politician. So he does not couch his words in political double speak. He says it straight. And if you actually listen to what he is saying, it is not stupid and not surprising. But the media has to be hysterical about it and they push the meme that “no one does that!”. And fools believe them.
Do enough believe them? We will find out in 2 weeks. But I will warn you of the following:
#1 – Cruz is no smarter than Trump (and I am a Cruz supporter).
#2 – Hillary IS stupid. No one can be smart and plan what she did. The only reason she is not in jail is that the media is covering for her.
Your best bet is to stop listening to the media and listen to the what the facts are saying. It paints a vastly different picture.
Sun spot,
“All your points are well taken, but you still haven’t explained why you would choose stupid Trump over way smarter Cruz?”
Intelligence is not necessarily an indicator of leadership qualities and often it leads to a failure to compromise. Look at Obama. There’s no question that he is intelligent, but he’s a horrible leader. Like Cruz, his IQ may be high, but his EQ is low and you need both to be an effective leader.
Trump has demonstrated leadership qualities by building a multi-billion dollar enterprise. This tells me that he would rather surround himself with people who are smarter than he his, rather than surrounding himself with sycophants as career politicians always do.
Not to mention the fact that Cruz has Canadian parentage and was Canadian. (His mother WAS American, until she became a Canadian, and was Canadian when she gave birth. The father was Canadian also.)
The original point of “natural born” (lost in all the commentaries) was the objective that the candidate have no residue of foreign citizenship, and thus no vulnerability to foreign direction. This was fulfilled if both the parents were American citizens.
“Natural born” means a citizen from birth, ie not needing naturalization. Because Cruz’ mom was a US citizen, so is he, based upon the citizenship laws in effect at the time of his birth.
Dear Chimp,
Not so. “Natural Born” was a term of art used in international law in the 18th century. It referred to a situation where the person was born of parents who were BOTH citizens of the country of interest. As I read the biographical information of Ted Cruz, his mother became a Canadian citizen before he was born, so he was NOT born of a U.S. citizen…and his father was not a U.S. citizen. He is (or was) a Canadian.
Even if he were able to claim some form of dual citizenship, he would not meet the constitutional requirement for being eligible for the Presidency. My cousin is in such a situation. Her mother was a U.S. citizen and her father was a French citizen. She holds dual citizenship…but she can’t run for president.
This whole concept arose from the laws and regulations of the English peerage, since it was not uncommon for births to occur when a family might have traveled to continental Europe, and it was important to establish what kind of citizenship was legitimate for succession.
This is why a person can be “natural born” even if the birth occurs on the Moon, so long as both parents are U.S. citizens.
Since the founders did not define the term, it is up to the courts to decide. As of yet, they have not. So until there is an Amendment or a ruling, the US Code, section 8, Title 1401 is the law of the land. And Ted Cruz is indeed a “natural born” citizen.
Basically it means (at this time) anyone who does not have to be naturalized. Cruz did not need to be since he got his citizenship by the fact that his mother still was one, regardless of her status as a Canadian Citizen.
President Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex, and all the leftist academics in the country are quick to attack anything related to military strength or industrial progress.
But he also warned us about the “scientific-technological elite”.
“Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields…
Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.
…
We must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
I worked for almost 20 years in academia and saw this first hand. Eisenhower’s statement that “a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity” was unbelievably prescient. Everything in academics is about securing grants, which earn scientists acclaim, job security, advancement, and power. Intellectual curiosity is quashed by formulaic expectations and a herd mentality. Government priorities dictate what will be studied and what outcomes are desirable.
As one obvious result that is only tangentially related to scientific inquiry, the federal government has a very “affirmative” diversity requirement that affects the likelihood of security grants by every scientist at every institution. This government priority has led to some universities going so far as to require that ALL faculty hiring goes through the Office of Diversity. Job listings come right out and say that “women and minorities are especially encouraged to apply”, which is the modern twist on “white heterosexual men need not apply”.
It has very little to do with science, but is clear evidence that the scientific-technological elite and the government are in a death spiral of conflicting interests, none of which contribute to intellectual curiosity or disruptive innovations.
The leftists in academics and government are so vigorously scratching each others’ backs that the article references by the author was a foregone conclusion.
The military-industrial complex is less of a threat now than the academic-green industrial climate hoax complex.
And I say that as a card-carrying opponent of the F-35 boondoggle.
“And I say that as a card-carrying opponent of the F-35 boondoggle.”
Well, the good thing about this is the Chinese probably stole the F-35 design from the U.S., so China is going to have a lot of problems with their new jet, too. 🙂
Boy, are we ever devious and clever to pull that trick on them!
Nobody with half a brain supports Trump.
Triple billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel has at least a brain and a half. Rudy Giuliani was the most successful US attorney in history and the best mayor of NYC in at least a lifetime. NJ governor Chris Christie was almost as good a federal lawyer. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was a college history prof. Multiple best-selling book author, lawyer Ann Coulter is his biggest fan.
Even Dilbert comic strip author switched from Clinton to Trump, because his support for Trump’s policies outweighed his fear of being killed by the murderous Clinton crime family.
Clearly it’s your brain that is a little on the light side.
Don’t be stupid.
You would certainly know a great deal about stupidity.
Speaking of intelligence, how could I forget former DIA chief, LG Michael Flynn?
I’m betting that most of the people on this list have IQs higher than yours:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign_endorsements,_2016
“Nobody with half a brain supports Trump.”
This explains the IPCC, MSM and his opponents on the political left which don’t have half a brain between them.
“Nobody with half a brain supports Trump.”
You are correct, the people with half a brain support the corrupt Hillary Clinton.
But everyone with a full brain does. Those with the half brains support Hillary.
Single strongest predictor of supporting Trump is low educational attainment.
Nuff said.
But like all predictors, it is not 100%, You are proof to that rule.
Wookie: “Single strongest predictor of supporting Trump is low educational attainment.”
So what?
Low educational attainment is absolutely not evidence of stupidity.
In fact, in a lot of cases rather to the contrary, many of those I have had dealings with are of very high educational attainment indeed, but are far and away the most stupid.
Are you acquainted with the acronym IYI, for “Intellectual Yet Idiot”?
I’m sure you must know plenty…
Perhaps you should look in a mirror…
Consumer Reports ” 42 million people owe $ 1.3 trillion in student debt ” … all those smart people are going to pay that off next year… they were fed a line and they bought it hook line and sinker.
Educational attainment may not 100% predict intelligence, but nevertheless it’s a very strong predictor. This “science” blog is evidence enough of that. A bunch of overweight, not very bright middle aged men that think that the world owes them something and the liberal boogy man is out to get them in the form of increased regulations.
You and your ilk are a dying breed. Get ready for 8 years of Hillary, a Democratic Senate and a Supreme Court stacked with liberal justices all salivating at the prospect of enacting a green agenda and taxing the bejesus out of your meagre 401Ks.
Wrong-o, Wookie. You pay for our retirement costs, but won’t get one yourself. We got ours, you pay the bill.
I can see how successful you are Wookie, still paying on your student loans? Right off the top of my head I can think of at least people that don’t have college degrees, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Warren Buffet. ( Jobs has left, but what he founded still is ). You should look at the credentials that most of the people on here hold. We are not stupid or ignorant. You remind me of the cultural revolution in China under Mao. … ” be careful what you wish for “
No, this blog is evidence that the owner will allow anyone to post, even those who have not yet matured and think that juvenile ad hominems and infantile insults are what passes for intelligent discourse.
Should you ever grow up, you may come to realize how very immature your entire rants are. But that is a big IF.
Stop whining.
Wookie,
Hey, moron!
Bill Gates is a college dropout.
Also Larry Ellison of Oracle.
Yes I can see how it logically follows that all those trump supporters that never went to college are as intelligent as Bill Gates.
Just like all the numpties on this website think they know the first thing about science.
Oooooh, Wookie. This “numptie” has a science degree. Do you understand the “science?” Can you explain the 3X CO2 amplification?
Desperation is so unbecoming. Perhaps if you stopped trying to think up new insults and actually learned something, you would be happier. You would definitely be smarter. But I guess that is too much for the wookie to handle.
Yes – and I bet you got very low grades…
@wookie – you have to at least take a course to get a grade.
“Nobody with half a brain supports Trump.”
NO, it talks a whole brain to do that.
That is why dumbocrats support Hillary.. less than half a brain.. are you one of them ?
talks.. === takes…
Wow- that’s quite a list of intellectuals you have there. It seems you’ve undermined your own argument.
Not that it matters. This election is going to be a landslide and the subsequent hand wringing and blame game is going to tear what’s left of the republican party in two.
Funny how clueless unsuccessful middle aged men always seem to support Trump.
What is really funny is how your only arguments seem to be juvenile ad hominems and infantile insults.
Guess you fit your own description.
Thiel, Giuliani, Christie, Gingrich and Flynn are highly successful. Coulter is a highly successful woman. To name but a few who show your assertion false.
Coulter is an idiot who preys upon bigoted not very bright people to buy her books which are littered with schoolboy errors and falsehoods. She’s on camera making an idiot of herself claiming Canada sent troops to Vietnam for Christ sake. Christie is a typical fat loud mouth mobster who is about to be indicted. Giuliani has just trashed any ounce of credibility he has by supporting a likely psychopath who not only knows nothing about current affairs/world events/government but is quite clearly incompetent in business. Anyone who inherits a seven million dollar silver spoon up their ass and manages to lose everything time and again has no place running the country. Jesus, he would have more money if he just put it in an index fund in 1970 and literally did nothing. If you think Trump is some sort of business genius then you really are as dumb as dogs***.
Wookie, just keep sending money to your masters so I can continue the good life.
Sorry Wookie, you are only demonstrating your own ignorance. Canada DID send troops to Vietnam. They sent them to enforce the Paris Peace accord (which of course was violated by the north).
So your whole diatribe merely shows her intelligence, and your lack thereof.
http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Canada_and_the_Vietnam_War
douche
LOL! So when shown the facts, your only response is an infantile insult. Yep, must be a hillary bot.
Wookie
October 27, 2016 at 9:14 am
Do you enjoy making a fool of yourself in public? What a sicko!
About 30,000 Canadians volunteered (including 50 Mohawks) to fight in southeast Asia, and 110 died, with seven among the MIAs. Canadian Pete Lemon, who thank God is still alive, was awarded the Medal of Honor.
You are such an idiot, that you must like being publicly humiliated.
Wookie,
You are well and truly a subhuman douche, not fit to shine the boots of Giuliani, Christie, Coulter or that great Canadian-American Pete Lemon. Here is his MoH citation:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sgt. Lemon (then Sp4), Company E, distinguished himself while serving as an assistant machine gunner during the defense of Fire Support Base Illingworth. When the base came under heavy enemy attack, Sgt. Lemon engaged a numerically superior enemy with machine gun and rifle fire from his defensive position until both weapons malfunctioned. He then used hand grenades to fend off the intensified enemy attack launched in his direction. After eliminating all but 1 of the enemy soldiers in the immediate vicinity, he pursued and disposed of the remaining soldier in hand-to-hand combat. Despite fragment wounds from an exploding grenade, Sgt. Lemon regained his position, carried a more seriously wounded comrade to an aid station, and, as he returned, was wounded a second time by enemy fire. Disregarding his personal injuries, he moved to his position through a hail of small arms and grenade fire. Sgt. Lemon immediately realized that the defensive sector was in danger of being overrun by the enemy and unhesitatingly assaulted the enemy soldiers by throwing hand grenades and engaging in hand-to-hand combat. He was wounded yet a third time, but his determined efforts successfully drove the enemy from the position. Securing an operable machine gun, Sgt. Lemon stood atop an embankment fully exposed to enemy fire, and placed effective fire upon the enemy until he collapsed from his multiple wounds and exhaustion. After regaining consciousness at the aid station, he refused medical evacuation until his more seriously wounded comrades had been evacuated. Sgt. Lemon’s gallantry and extraordinary heroism, are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the U.S. Army.
Gee- no psychopathology there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_and_the_Vietnam_War
Even your link proves Coulter correct and you incorrect. As I said, spend less time insulting and more time learning.
Grow up.
Funny how clueless unsuccessful middle aged men always seem to support Trump.
Even funnier when you sound just like the ‘remain’ camp did prior to the recent UK Referendum on EU membership.
A possibly ‘fatal’ case of projection on your part?
As opposed to those who adopt “Wookie” as a call sign?
“that’s quite a list of intellectuals you have there”
Jealousy.. you know that you will NEVER be among them.
From my just pasted 60-year perspective on U.S.A. “Academia”, they are mostly Leftist, somewhat Stalinist, always Communist, embarrassingly Denialist, and if they can find a “Republican Whig” to hang in place of a Mexican Tudor they are all for it.
For ‘Nature’ to “come out” like this says something else!
They … are Scared!
“For ‘Nature’ to “come out” like this says something else!
They … are Scared!”
I think you are right, they *are* scared. They see the world turned upside down if Trump wins. They would be correct, in that assumption.
If one regards – justifiably, I think most would agree – Nature as a microcosm of [institutional capitalization deliberate] Science, it appears that if you take the King’s coin, you sing the King’s song. Put another way, in a colloquial idiom: Who is Robert Stadler?
“conservatives have turned their backs on mainstream science to an unprecedented degree.”
Obviously, Nature has turned its backs on mainstream science to an unprecedented degree.
And they’re now too dumb to even realize it!
Once highly respected, The Economist” has gone the same way, especially with climate change coverage.
Okay – this is no doubt a silly question – but why can’t the members get together, sweep in and take over the board? Demand the removal of the lot of them. Sack them. Kick them out. The only other way I can see the members gaining back control is to pull the rug out from under them by staging a walkout and letting the whole jolly lot collapse.
Voices from within won’t do it. It will take a coup. Or restart elsewhere – scientists doing science, but this time guarding the door.
The fact the editors of an international ‘science’ journal thought there was no problem in writing an editorial telling voters who they should be voting for – due to their bias on climate change – completely negates any research papers they publish on the subject. This isn’t just confirmation bias, can they not see you can’t do science if you only perform the research and accept the results you are already lobbying for. Pointless authors declaring a conflict of interest when the editors – and hence the entire journal has a conflict of interest!
Imagine if the journal had lobbied against the (unpopular) theory of continental drift and sea floor spreading. The theory was not generally accepted for over 50 years – mainly because the scientific consensus (led by several ‘distinguished’ scientists) was against the idea.
Imagine if the journal then had lobbied against the idea and told its readers to vote only for candidates who believed in popular consensus science as any candidate who believed in continental drift and sea floor spreading was ‘anti-science’ !
“Science and politics just don’t mix, and they’ve started themselves on the slippery slope to Perdition”
That is what we have said about this site for many years, but it remains a cheer leader for right wing US politics..
““Science and politics just don’t mix, and they’ve started themselves on the slippery slope to Perdition”
That is what we have said about this site for many years, but it remains a cheer leader for right wing US politics..”
Science and politicis *do* mix, you just have to get the science right.
As a follower of WUWT from another nation (Australia) can I make a plea on behalf of all non US folllowers of WUWT that we have more science writing instead of what seems interminable wrangling about US politics.
While I fully recognize and am grateful that WUWT originated in the USA, after all it is an online internet based blog, with no doubt many followers from a wide range of English speaking countries who are not all that exercised by the shenigans of US politics .
The best material I have read and learned about climate science I have found here on WUWT.
That includes me checking all the other blog sites listed on a side bar on WUWT’s site and finding that none of them come up to WUWT at its best
So as the principle of competitive advantage suggests please stick to what you are best at -ie publishing interesting challenging articles on climate science and allowing informed discussion to flow underneath.
Political abuse about US presidential candidates we can find any time on mainstream media
“While I fully recognize and am grateful that WUWT originated in the USA, after all it is an online internet based blog, with no doubt many followers from a wide range of English speaking countries who are not all that exercised by the shenigans of US politics .”
Perhaps you should get exercised about it. If Trump is elected, it is going to be a whole new world, including your world.
I am exercised about who becomes next US president but I can read about that in plenty of msm
I come to WUWT for the science coverage I cant get in msm not political argument
And how about instead of trying to dictate the rules, you just skip over any parts of the WUWT website that you don’t like.
I am not dictating I asked politely to focus on the science
Thomho, you did ask politely, and I hope I did not offend you with my reply. That was not my intention. But it is easier to just ignore the things you are not interested in rather than trying to get people to make big changes to a website format that works very well the way it is.
So Anthony should either shut up about politics or start a whole new blog? Just so you don’t see articles you’re not interested in? And did you notice the (absurd) claims about climate change in the political advocacy?
I don’t entirely know what to make of this kind of comment. It doesn’t discuss the subject, it just tries to disrupt the bloggist’s workflow. I’ve seen similar on other skeptical blogs.
On the other hand, there has been commentary about the political wrangling in other countries (internal) that as an American, I had no knowledge of. It shines a light on the scope of how organized C/AGW is. The proponents of climate change agenda are exercising the same strategies in all the western countries. Arguing this case successfully requires more than just the scientific bases. It’ll do little good to be right scientifically but be declared a criminal by law. Which is also an agenda of climate change. They have so stated by implications and outright. I am first and foremost an enemy in every sense of the word. ( not just me, every skeptic here ) The only thing that has kept us from being sent to a re education camp is our right to disagree. Of course that could change. We have an issue in the US where they gave bonuses for soldiers to reenlist. 15 years later the government wants the money back… with interest.
” 9. Per the WUWT policy page, certain topics are not welcome here and stories submitted concerning them will be deleted. This includes topics on religion, discussions of barycentrism, astrology, aliens, bigfoot, chemtrails, 911 Truthers, Obama’s Birth Certificate, HAARP, UFO’s, Electric Universe, mysticism, pressure gradient predicts all planetary atmospheric temperature, and Principia/Slaying the Sky Dragon aka “MAGIC GAS”.
Please note that politics is not mentioned as unwelcome
I am also from Australia and find the relevant WUWT Australian content to be refreshingly plentiful. A Google search yields About 16,600 results. There are also pages of results searching this site internally. Just my (counter) opinion.
Thomho,
The problem is that if you separate the politics from climate science (US, Australia and everywhere else), it no longer makes sense how climate science got to be so wrong. The current election will be a pivotal point in the science. If Clinton is elected, we can look forward to another trillion wasted on green garbage and main stream science staying broken for at least another 4 years and perhaps decades. If Trump is elected, much of Obama’s green nonsense will be rolled back and climate science will have a window to get back on track with the scientific method and away from science whose only criteria is that if fits the CAGW narrative.
People don’t like to be told they are brainwashed
Trump tries to frame Hillary : as a CROOK
Team Hillary try to frame Trump : as a MONSTER
Scott Adam’s explained that on his blog
Both are persuasive arguments to their own pool and means not having to think hard or look at full colour facts.
Many good people have found comfort in the simplicity accepting Trump is a monster.
But Trump’s actual policy documents don’t seem to mad they seem logical
If that whole new world is just a start at getting ride of the old Dem/Rep special interests system, then that is a positive.
I don’t see Trump as a risk but rather an opportunity, getting rid of the old makes a better America for Blacks, Hispanic, gays whatever.
(I wish Trump was pro-abortion choice, but some compromises have to made ..hopefully banning abortion won’t be an implemented policy.)
@stewgreen – I do not think you have to worry about Trump and abortion. Even if he was Pope Francis, he could do nothing about it. That takes a constitutional amendment. So even for those of us who are pro-life, it is a non-issue.
Incorrect. All it would take would be an act of Congress to restrict the Supreme Court from hearing cases pertaining to abortion and refer the whole topic to each individual state to decide. That is one of the powers of Congress, though it is placed in a different part of the Constitution. That would permit the states to hear new cases and decide them without any appeal to the Supreme Court.
@Michael Dunn – you will have to cite that part of the constitution, since I have read it from top to bottom and not seen that power enumerated. Indeed, the delineation of power between the feds and states is PART of the Constitution, so any attempt to change that would require a constitutional amendment,
Please cite the part of the Constitution where you found that. Apparently no one else has.
Dear Phil,
So glad to provide: Article III, Section 2, second paragraph: “…In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, WITH SUCH EXCEPTIONS AND UNDER SUCH REGULATIONS AS THE CONGRESS SHALL MAKE.”
What I have outlined would protect the power of the states from appellate reversal by the Supreme Court.
Apparently, the framers and signers of the Constitution knew all about it.
@Michale Dunn – Ah the irony! Not for you. I commend you on the reading. But it is interpretive. As the case has already been adjudicated by SCOTUS, it no longer falls under the appellate clause, but under the Constitutional clause, which Congress does not have the authority to limit SCOTUS on (the part not quoted in your response).
Now I fully understand that is merely my interpretation, and like most of the constitution, is open to other interpretation. But then who would adjudicate the issue if it came down to a challenge? And thus the irony. SCOTUS would.
But it would make for a great legal battle or a very interesting debate topic.
Thanks for opening up a can of worms! An enjoyable one as I doubt it will come into play.
Dear Phil,
I guess I do not follow your reasoning, since Roe v. Wade reached the Supreme Court as an appeal. Thus they were functioning in an appellate role.
Be that as it may, if it came down to a challenge, Congress could impeach and remove all the justices who opposed Congress. Politics is not for the faint of heart. Sometimes power must be affirmed by its exercise–because the exercise is necessary to set everyone’s heads straight. (I will admit, it comes down to how jealous the Congress would be about its powers. I am still awaiting their reclamation of the singular right to declare war.)
Just as an aside: I had a 5-year struggle with the tyrannical Executive Director of my union, who fancied that HE was the perpetual power presence, and that the elected union officers were merely temporary seat-sitters. Therefore, in his view, he was in charge and defied our directions. There was only one way to resolve that dispute. We fired him. Who can fire whom is what settles the question of who is in charge. He didn’t take it well, but he never returned.
@Michael J. Dunn – it CAME to SCOTUS as an appeal. However, it is NOT an appeal now. It is part of the constitution, so Congress has no say in whether SCOTUS hears it as they can only decide what APPEALS, not settled law, SCOTUS can rule on. But then my second part is who decides the delineation? And that would come down to SCOTUS. Conflict of interest? Yes. And well worth the cost of popcorn.
And another fly in the ointment is the fact that even if Congress takes that power away from SCOTUS (and SCOTUS does not slap them down), the lower courts would decide. And what do they use for their decisions? Previous rulings, especially from SCOTUS. So the final ruling would be from a Circuit court based upon the Roe v. Wade decision.
There are a lot of other possibilities, none of them good for anyone, even for the most ardent right to life supporter. So withdrawing appeals power from SCOTUS is not going to happen. And my statement stands. Whether you are for or against Abortion, using that as your litmus test in voting is a wasted vote. Nothing is going to happen until an amendment is passed. Period.
Win or lose, the republicans are definitely going to change into a dynamic rejuvenated party. Trump seems to have found many tens of millions of people that went unseen by both parties. If Trump doesn’t win, the next election, possibly the beginning of a dynasty, will be won by Trump-like candidates with brass balls but with perhaps fewer self-immolating topics and more care in choice of language. He should have won in a landslide. Maybe the latest stuff from the FBI will give him a win.
The Clinton campaign is the hybridization of Evita Peron with Tammany Hall, except Hillary is unable to sing dance or create effective policy. Evita could at least sing and dance.
“I witnessed the corruption of National Geographic and Scientific American into political cesspools, but I never thought this would happen.”
Let’s not forget Science News. It, too, has been corrupted.
Be afraid; be very afraid…