The celebrities and media who lend any support or comfort to those who manipulate the young to commit crimes based on flawed science are worse than those who encouraged flagellation to cure the Black Death in medieval times.
Posted by Leslie Eastman
Today, I am going to add a mother’s perspective on “climate crisis” pseudoscience” to address an issue I think is essential: Who, exactly, do we punish for fake science upon which poor policy choices are made?
But beyond that, how can we crack down on science fraud poisoning our children’s futures?
Last October, we reported two women in their early 20s were arrested in London for throwing soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting during a protest against fossil fuels.
They both are now looking at over two years of jail time.
Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, from the protest group Just Stop Oil were imprisoned for two years, and 20 months, respectively, according to PA Media.
These are the latest in a string of prison sentences handed to climate activists in the UK for engaging in disruptive protests against the use of fossil fuels. Two relatively new, controversial laws have boosted the powers of police and courts to crack down on protests that are disruptive, even when they are peaceful.
The sentences appeared to do little to deter Just Stop Oil: Hours after they were handed down, three more Just Stop Oil activists threw soup over two other Van Gogh paintings of sunflowers in the Poets and Lovers exhibition at the National Gallery, the same venue the 2022 protests was staged, according to the group.
Those years those girls are going to lose are essential. They are the years to complete an education or gain important work experience for a career. That is the time to make life-long connections and perhaps meet a future spouse. It is also the age at which many women are starting their families.
Because of climate hysteria driven by agenda-driven pseudoscience and pushed by a media that silences critics and ignores counter-evidence, progressive educators are enabled to push this dogma. Cult-like-leaders arise to encourage young people to ruin their futures to protect an Earth that is not in jeopardy from its carbon dioxide levels.
In his recent Substack, Glenn Reynolds asks a question I think should be pondered and answered: Should we criminalize scientific fraud?
As Reynolds notes, the issue is complex. Determining what real science fraud is versus typos and misinterpreting data can be difficult. However, as it relates to climatology, massaging data to produce temperature spikes and ignoring urban heat island effects to support the green energy agenda should have consequences. And, as we have seen with COVID-19, poor science used to promote disastrous rules and regulations isn’t confined to climate.
Reynolds reviewed a wide array of potential options to prevent science fraud. Based on his analysis, perhaps the best place to focus is “revising incentive structures.”
I like requiring researchers to specify ways of ensuring reproducibility in their applications, and evaluating researchers based on long-term reproducibility.
…Requiring data-sharing – and data “archiving,” as it’s surprising how often data for crucial studies turns out of have been lost in a move or a flood when requested later – would also help.
And – and this was suggested by a commenter to an earlier blog post – not relying on scientific research for public policy purposes until it has been successfully replicated by someone else is not a bad idea. That would slow down the connection between research and public policy, but would that really be such a bad thing?
This might be the best direction to head. Currently, it seems science that gets social media clicks, softball interview questions, academic rewards, and generous funding is the science that can occur. Research isn’t done for knowledge’s sake but for personal gain.
If punishing fake science is difficult, and completely removing incentives for fake science to be published is not practical. Preventing it from taking root by showing the data can be replicated before new rules are created would be the logical path forward.
Another option would be a return to the Renaissance approach to science, with those passionate about real research funding institutions specifically devoted to such study, as we clearly can no longer trust our elite universities and colleges to do so. For example, like the one SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has planned.
The charity, called The Foundation, plans to use a $100 million gift from Musk to create and launch a primary and secondary school in Austin focused on teaching science, technology, engineering and math. Once it is fully operational, the filing states, the school will focus on creating a university. The school intends to seek accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, a necessary first step to launch the school.
Finally, making pseudoscience cult leaders who brainwash young adults into committing crimes pariahs rather than making them celebrities would be helpful. Of course, the elite media (in this case, the BBC) attempts to make these villains into martyrs.
I give you its last report on Roger Hallam, founder of Job Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion.
When five activists who brought chaos to the M25 motorway were jailed last week, some thought the law had finally caught up with Just Stop Oil.
Celebrities spoke out in anger at the lengthy sentences – and a United Nations official described their treatment as “not acceptable in a democracy”.
With Roger Hallam, the architect of the modern environmental protest movement, and his co-conspirators now behind bars, this might have been “checkmate” in a five-year long game of legal chess between the state and a group of increasingly bold direct action environmental groups.
But at least for some Just Stop Oil activists, it doesn’t appear to have worked.
The celebrities and media who lend any support or comfort to those who manipulate the young to commit crimes based on flawed science are worse than those who encouraged flagellation to cure the Black Death in medieval times. At least the men and women in the Dark Ages hadn’t already learned germ theory and did not know how to apply the scientific method.
I must admit that I don’t have much compassion for eco-activists who commit crimes and disrupt other people’s lives. But, as a mother, I hate seeing young lives sacrificed on the altar of pseudoscience, and I would like to save others from similar fates.
After all, “it’s for the children” is supposed to be a reason respected by progressives.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
We should punish ourselves for sitting by complacently while the institutions were all taken over by Marxists. This is what happens when you just quit instead of fighting from within.
….and what’s more they’ll miss out on doom spending unless Heinz think there’s a woke sponsorship opportunity going begging-
What is doom spending, and can it be curbed? (msn.com)
As for any man wifing them up in future I don’t fancy their chances with MGTOW all over social media in response to Meetoo nowadays so it’s alphabet soup or cat food in future girls. Welcome to woke Utopia folks.
Birthing pains of a technological age I’m afraid.
The printing press was considered a subversive influence by many. It too incited censorship from some quarters including governments who felt threatened by the spread of information and free speech.
As cellphones intrude more and more into our daily lives, kids will get bored with them, especially if mum and dad are tracking them every moment of the day.
Self driving EV’s may serve a purpose, and will likely replace conventional car ownership, which is a good thing in my opinion. No more messing about with buying/selling/leasing/insuring/maintaining cars that spend most of their lives parked on the drive.
Will AI fly, or will it be the next Dot.com bubble? Who knows, but again, ultimately younger generations don’t like having their lives controlled. If we are surveilled by satellites the child’s fashion of the future may well turn out to be tinfoil hats.
One of the great strengths of mankind is it’s ability to adapt to prevailing conditions. The climate scam is beginning to creak as people suffer from increasing energy bills, mostly in Europe right now as the US is so far getting off lightly.
Kids will also get fed up with being told the world will end in the next ten years. Most of us rebelled against the system when we left school and learned by experience that half the stuff we were taught was either useless or out of date by the time we were in our 30’s. Tomorrows kids will do the same.
We were all warned of the dangers of drinking, smoking, drugs and sex, but we all went ahead and did it anyway. Our kids (more likely grandkids) are up to the same things we were. We just forgot we thought we were as clever and unique as they think they are now.
Contrary to this article, I think kids will save themselves from the excesses of the boomer generation just as we saved ourselves from the generations that inflicted two world wars on the planet which we largely paid for. We didn’t complain because we understood the sacrifice our parents generation made.
Xi of China said last year that the world will change more in the next 5 years than it has in the last 100. I don’t believe that was a threat. After all, the west is China’s biggest customer. If we stop buying their stuff,China starves.
But I do believe we are facing a new global political landscape. Not Globalism, Russia and China are not interested in that and without them Globalism doesn’t work.
Our democratic systems are now too corrupt to repair, and both the Russians and Chinese have living memories of the brutality of communism. Frankly, they don’t want to go back there. The painful truth is that BRICS is the emergence of a new, and probably, digital economic future which will drive a new political paradigm. What shape it will take, no one knows, but across the US and Europe politics is in a real mess and historic political allegiances are now so blurred no one really knows what political position to take.
The fact is, future generations only get out this with hard work, which will begin to dawn on the Extinction Rebellion types when they are left freezing in the dark.
They were 22 and 20 years old when the offense occurred. These “girls” were then and now adults. This was no doubt realized by the demonstration organizers, and they were no doubt chosen because they both appear younger than they are.
I am all for exposing their benefactors and the abusive sadists running their organization, but this was deliberate vandalism. Sure, these (excuse the expression) women are really kind of stupid, but they did the crime, now they do the time.
Maybe we could reduce their sentences if they rat on the ringleaders — that’s how other organized petty criminals are treated — for the first offense.
Punish the groomers that bankroll these stupid tangential activities. Rich people wishing to hold sway. We should more closely define what the purpose of extreme wealth is and ensure it stays clear of these imposing of one’s will activities. Prison does not seem inappropriate if you are grooming, provoking, feloniously misleading these impressionable youngsters. If you get your satisfaction by using the bodies of others to achieve your pleasures, that is akin to solicitation.
Should we criminalize scientific fraud?
In my (experienced) opinion, definitely not.
Fraud, unless it is admitted, is a conflict of opinion. The barristers who present conflicting opinions commonly have little expertise in science. They try to convince a judge or jury also unlikely to be experienced in science. The arguments in this courtroom forum might be encouraged to revolve around a concept of “Truth” either stated or inferred, because many criminal and civil cases are about who told the truth. Truth is a useful community commodity there.
Science has no such concept of Truth. A Law or a Principle in Science is not a Truth. It is but the latest accepted form of serious scientific debate about its topic. If it was declared a Truth, there would be no or little incentive for further scientific investigation, because the matter would be done and dusted.
Recall the advance of science after researchers Warren and Marshall, now Nobel Laureates, showed that ulcers were caused by treatable bacteria, rather than wholly by stress as had been prior conventional wisdom. If that Wisdom had been classed as Truth and unassailable, would this advance have happened?
Science advances by the continuing effort for better understanding.
We should arrest all 432 members of the IPCC and the unscrupulous collaborating scientists for perpetrating the the greatest scientific fraud since the Piltdown man and
throw them all in jail. The IPCC was formed in 1988 by the UNEP and the WMO on the premises that (1) the activities of humans and (2) the release of greenhouse gases cause
dangerous global warming.
We know from the studies of the late John Daly that CO2 doe not cause warming of air as shown by the temperature data from Death Valley, for example. The reason is that there is too little CO2 in the dry desert air. Presently, one cubic meter of air at 21 deg. C and with
a RH of 70% has 14.3 grams of H2O but only about 0.80 grams of CO2.
There have been a number of articles posted here reporting how this fraud is upsetting and slowly destroying the economies of some western countries such as the UK, where the last
coal-fired power plant has just been shut down. In these countries, the politicians and even many major companies are pledging net zero by 2050. This is nonsense.
In a recent comment you said that we should take off the gloves and start campaign to put
an end to all global warming and climate change nonsense. What is your plan?
There is no plan for widespread ignorance/apathy in democracies but their prescriptions are failing and will see them undone. The next question will inevitably be what else did they get wrong and there’ll be plenty piling on with 20/20 hindsight answers. It’s what we do with major cockups all being wise after the event.
Fraud, unless it is admitted, is a conflict of opinion.
That is your opinion. I disagree.
Fraud is deliberate manipulation. There is a nuance between misinformation and disinformation that is generally lost in the fray? The difference? m = mistake, d = deliberate/deception
People can have differences of opinion on any topic. That is fine. Debate, argue, challenge, all good. That is the basis of skepticism. It goes into the area of fraud with tactics to silence, rather than nurture a mature exchange of ideas.
Fraud embodies the intent to deceive and with that is well beyond an hones conflict of opinion.
How about when a geriatric President can tell the world that hurricane Helene is proof of man made climate change and so many gullible people believe him despite his having no evidence to support his position. The result is more money wasted, more anxiety in the populace and further economic destruction for which he will never be held to account.
Talk about money wasted. How about spending FEMA’s budget on illegal aliens. Now they have nothing for our own citizens. These criminals in power should be punished.
Those in power can only suffer a political process called impeachment.
Next time you hear someone proclaim that they are pursuing an impeachment for political purposes, you must agree and point out that it is always political. If it were otherwise it would be tested in courts.
That after stating 3 months ago that they (FEMA) were “tremendously prepared” for hurricane season.
I think we should treat them the same as we do pedophiles. Both are destroying kids lives, giving them mental illness and depression.
The list is long…. academia. politicians, the MSM, teachers, “experts”, modellers, Banks, investment clown, fund mangers… they are all guilty and wilfully ignorant.
Sorry but I don’t give a rats if these two rich, stupid fools lose a couple of years of their lives. They are ultra privileged and quite happy to impose significant cost of living rises on those least able to pay. Making examples of a few more of these fools is likely to be more effective than just trying to shift the blame to others. Mummy and Daddy need to look in the mirror here. These brats never anticipated there would be consequences because their rich parents always bailed them out. All of a sudden that doesn’t happen. Oops!