Sunday, August 29, 2010

We must take steps to un-do the corruption of government funded science

8/28/10, "Many people have come to understand that the climate scam involves collusion between corrupt politicians and dishonest scientists. The problem however, is much broader even than Al Gore. Science is critical to our modern existence. Large amounts of public money are spent on a wide range of scientific activities each year; a practice that has become the heart of the problem.
  • Yet, precious little focus has been placed on developing reforms
  • to undo the ongoing damage.

The climate change example has demonstrated that scientific integrity can be compromised with money. This doesn’t mean that all scientists are dishonest. But experience shows that these kinds of problems, involving insufficiently safeguarded access to money, tend to grow. Indeed, as more money was offered to a broader group of scientists during Al Gore’s political tenure, we discovered that many scientists are willing to compromise at least a little. When funding was offered to virtually any scientist who was willing to include an untested support phrase for man-made global warming in final reports and articles, propagandists got the result they wanted; a large number of published papers containing a gratuitous statement of support.

  • (Publishing scientists cited reports that claimed that man-made global warming is really bad and destined to get worse without containing any research to test the claims.)

Those who compromised got funding and published papers, padding out their resumes and improving their chances of more funding and greater numbers of research students. Those who did not compromise would later be characterized as lesser scientists by those who did, based on having received less funding and having published fewer papers in “climate science,” an activity now nearly completely defined by paid support for a political agenda. The snowballing continues as

  • increased taxation and spending related to global warming is one of the key goals in the Obama agenda; it’s execution already involving impeachable abuses of power and
  • open corruption in the EPA. The argument for their agenda is that they are supported by a “scientific consensus.”

The circle of corruption is almost complete. As children were indoctrinated with the fake science, they (and many others) were pushed to a level of ignorance previously thought impossible in the modern, civilized world. Millions accepted, in effect, the outlandish superstitious idea that insufficient sacrifice to and worship of the leftist Political Class would summon the wrath of nature.

  • The social, emotional, and intellectual damage caused by such well-funded misinformation campaigns is immeasurable.

Corrupt use of experts is not confined to research. It is common practice for politicians and bureaucrats to construct commissions to investigate policy issues, padded with members who they can trust will recommend the policies that they desire. Policies are then constructed based on commission reports,

Commission members can easily be found among academics who have built careers on public funding and have shown a willingness to compromise on other occasions. They can even be drawn from the population that owes their appointments to cronyism; providing them with pseudo-qualifications by job title and position history. (Even in Supreme Court appointments. This is how the Political Class operates.)

  • In reaching toward One World Government, US government funding has even been causing chaos in other countries.

Using counter-terrorism related funding, the Department of Homeland Security has been able to fund technical research and development in all politically friendly nations. This gave an unprecedented level of control to a US bureaucracy in effecting strategic research throughout the Western World. Thinking it a good deal, and feeling some obligation to join a unified front against terrorism, politicians accepted the offer and reorganized their strategic research plans toward a “cooperative” plan. This sometimes involved dropping some of the most promising and critical research being done in their own countries; decisions that will ultimately weaken the Western alliance economically and militarily.

What to do? Certainly, public funding for science and engineering has historically produced enormous benefits. It would be easy to respond to the misuse of the power of funding by politicians by simply arguing for greater scientific independence. But we know that scientists are people too, subject to temptation like everyone else. One should also consider that mission focused research and development in some areas, such as military technology, is critical. Advancements in energy production, storage, distribution, and use throughout our history (not all publicly funded) have dramatically improved our lives and will likely lead to economically sound alternative energy sources in the future. Someone has to decide how and how much public money should be spent.

  • How do we allow continuous spraying of funds into the right areas while assuring that holes are not being poked in the hose?

How do we sustain an effective public effort while checking the influence of our government representatives?"

The US taxpayer via the government has funded the ClimateGate group every year since 1990, to the sum of at least 131,000UK pounds per year:
  • from Times UK, 7/18/10
"The US Department of Energy (DoE) was one of the (East Anglia CRU) unit’s main sources of funding for its work assembling a database of global temperatures. (The above article mentioned payments were going on slight hiatus, but they've no doubt resumed ten-fold. There are of course many other ways US taxpayers have "contributed" to global warming "research" they never know about).
  • via Tom Nelson

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