4,000 scientists vs Bush

[Jim]

More lies.

 

Group says that Bush undermines science for politics

 

By Earl Lane

Newsday

 

WASHINGTON — A scientists' group yesterday leveled new charges that the Bush administration has undermined the integrity of science in policy-making, including asking proposed appointees to science advisory panels what they thought of President Bush and whether they voted for him.

The report by the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group based in Cambridge, Mass., is a follow-up to a similar report by the scientists' group in February. That one was dismissed by White House science adviser John Marburger III, who said Bush supports science and wants the highest scientific standards.

 

During a news briefing on the report, Dr. Gerald Keusch, former director of the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health, said his nominees for a science advisory panel had been promptly agreed to by the Clinton administration. Under Bush, he said, superiors at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) balked at many of his nominees.

 

Keusch said he had been told by administration officials that Torsten Wiesel, a Nobel laureate in medicine, had been disapproved because "he had signed too many full-page letters in The New York Times critical of President Bush."

 

William Pierce, an HHS spokesman, said appointments to the Fogarty center advisory panel are made by HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson and names sent forward by Keusch were recommendations only. "We are forced to make choices and decisions," Pierce said. He said he had been unable to verify the comment about Wiesel.

 

The report cites some cases already reported in the press, including a charge that the Interior Department disregarded extensive federal an state studies in an environmental impact statement on mountaintop-removal mining, a process in which mountain ridges are removed to expose coal seams. The report says the department proposed no alternatives to soften the worst environmental consequences of the mining process.

 

"We were flabbergasted and outraged," said a high-ranking U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientist quoted in the report.

The February report by the Union of Concerned Scientists accompanied release of a statement signed by 62 prominent scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates and former senior advisers to administrations of both parties, that called for "restoring scientific integrity in policy making." Kurt Gottfried, a physicist who is chairman of the board of the scientists group, said more than 4,000 scientists now have signed the statement, including 48 Nobel laureates.

 

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

 

 

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release.cfm?newsID=405

[Fairweather]

The report by the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group based in Cambridge, Mass......

 

This is what you bring to the table to support your positions? Are you sure you're not confusing non-profit with [/i] non-partisan[/i]? Gimme a break.

 

[sailBOI]

The report by the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group based in Cambridge, Mass......

 

This is what you bring to the table to support your positions? Are you sure you're not confusing non-profit with [/i] non-partisan[/i]? Gimme a break.

 

 

Crichton comments on the herd mentality of today's scientists : Crichton's Commonwealth Club Speech

 

[willstrickland]

Oh yeah, those non-innovative nobel laureates. Complete herd mentality, never had an original though in their lives.

 

Let's get something out there: Any one of those 48 Nobel laureates have a depth of knowledge in their subject matter and probably many others well beyond what you or I could even comprehend.

 

You complain about the source, ignore that 48 extremely intelligent scientists have signed the statement, and then cite Michael Crichton...a FICTION WRITER who studied anthropology in college as someone qualified to comment on the professional scientific community?

 

 

When BushCo is sent packing and you wonder what went wrong, just remember that there are plenty of conservatives like me who don't buy this kind of bullshit spin job from either side. When the GOP decides to embrace it's roots again and cuts spending, balances the budget, and quits meddling in states rights issues, and respects personal freedoms, you'll get my votes again. In the meantime, I'm voting libertarian. You can call it a wasted vote, but it's one less vote for the two fucking retards running the show now.

 

And yeah, I think I respect the opinions of 48 nobel laureates over the opinion of a couple of partisan shills.

[Ratboy]

When the GOP decides to embrace it's roots again and cuts spending, balances the budget, and quits meddling in states rights issues, and respects personal freedoms, you'll get my votes again.

 

[sailBOI]

When the GOP decides to embrace it's roots again and cuts spending, balances the budget, and quits meddling in states rights issues, and respects personal freedoms, you'll get my votes again.

 

Check out the platform of the Jefferson County Republican Party.....our area is moving toward Libertarian ideals...

 

JEFFCO REPUBLICAN

 

www.brinnonprosperity.org

[Ratboy]

You'll excuse me if I take everything you recommend with a huge amount of skepticism, considering the amount of endless propaganda you post.

[sailBOI]

You'll excuse me if I take everything you recommend with a huge amount of skepticism, considering the amount of endless propaganda you post.

 

Well , I didn't draft this platform, but it's a good one and reflects what you were just saying above. Have a read through......the change needs to start at Grass roots level and move up, it will never start inside the Beltway!

[Ratboy]

Have a read through......the change needs to start at Grass roots level and move up, it will never start inside the Beltway!

 

I agree with you there.

 

I read through some of the website, and I agree with a lot of what they support, but not all. I'm a libertarian, not a conservative, and certainly not a Republican (and I don't live in Jefferson County). Republicans generally lose me with religion, or other means of legislating morals over freedom.

[Fairweather]

48 Nobel laureates whom, I'm sure, don't have a political bone in their collective bodies. Are you trying to say, Will, that those we hold high in academic esteem are devoid of political bias? I believe the opposite is often true.

 

The original story begs completion: Who are these 48? Is there a counter position, or group of "concerned" scientists who don't hold these views? We went through this when the Kyoto debate raged...the hundreds of American Academy of Sciences members who signed a letter in support, versus the thousands of members who declined to do so.

In order to know the whole story, you have to have....the whole story, no? And Jim's post certainly does not represent the whole story.

 

Do you really believe that it is only Republicans who are willing to stack-the-deck when it comes to science? I recall The Clinton Administration doing the same on several occasions. Generally speaking, administrations will buy the science they like, and decline that which they don't. If you think you can keep politics out of science, or vice versa, ....well you know this just ain't gunna happen in our lifetimes.

 

 

If you torture the data long enough it will tell you what you want to hear. Better yet, subvert the process at the source!

[Ratboy]

the hundreds of American Academy of Sciences members who signed a letter in support, versus the thousands of members who declined to do so.

 

Failure to sign shows nothing either way. If there was a corresponding letter opposed that was signed by as many or more scientists, then you've got something.

[Fairweather]

the hundreds of American Academy of Sciences members who signed a letter in support, versus the thousands of members who declined to do so.

 

Failure to sign shows nothing either way. If there was a corresponding letter opposed that was signed by as many or more scientists, then you've got something.

re: Kyoto:

 

 

http://www.sepp.org/pressrel/petition.html

http://www.oism.org/pproject/

[cj001f]

re: Kyoto:

 

 

http://www.sepp.org/pressrel/petition.html

http://www.oism.org/pproject/

 

Fairweather-

Your Kyoto link doesn't show squat. We have 2,500 Climate Scientists vs. 15,000 "scientists" only whose degrees are listed, not their specialty, represented by a group chartered to do "conduct basic and applied research in subjects immediately applicable to im­provements in human life — including biochemistry, diagnos­tic medicine, nutrition, preventive medicine, and aging".

 

This is Michael Moore quality grandstanding.

[AlpineK]

So what you're saying is that we should teach creationism in school because all those scientists must be biased.

 

Acording to GW it's ok for kids to drink a lot of lead and mercury. Lets not forget that hatchery salmon should be counted just like real salmon even though hatchery salmon are unsubstainable.

 

I think you'd be happier if you moved to some repressed third world backwater Fairweather. You know some place where the government told you what to think and do.

[Fairweather]

So what you're saying is that we should teach creationism in school because all those scientists must be biased.

 

How do you make this leap, moron? Show me where I've ever subscribed to anything of the sort being taught in our public schools.

 

Acording to GW it's ok for kids to drink a lot of lead and mercury. Lets not forget that hatchery salmon should be counted just like real salmon even though hatchery salmon are unsubstainable.

 

So you don't support the lower arsenic levels adopted by the Bush administration for drinking water? The levels that are even lower than those proposed by Clinton? 3ppb, I believe. And you don't support the lower sulphur content in diesel recently passed by the Bush administration?

 

I think you'd be happier if you moved to some repressed third world backwater Fairweather. You know some place where the government told you what to think and do.

 

No, asshole, I think this is where you would have us ALL live.

[cracked]

[sailBOI]

So what you're saying is that we should teach creationism in school because all those scientists must be biased.

 

Acording to GW it's ok for kids to drink a lot of lead and mercury. Lets not forget that hatchery salmon should be counted just like real salmon even though hatchery salmon are unsubstainable.

 

I think you'd be happier if you moved to some repressed third world backwater Fairweather. You know some place where the government told you what to think and do.

 

The title of this thread shoud be:

 

4000 Liberal Democratic Scientists vs Bush

 

Many of these same scientific sheep were among those condemning Lomborg in 2002, as this article from the Economists describes:

 

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=965520

 

Lomborg is now the head of a leading Danish based think tank !

[Fairweather]

 

 

exactly!

[johndavidjr]

There is a conspiracy among these-here scientists, Democrats I guess, to surpress stuff that proves the Bible. I learned about this through a link on a Web site based somewhere on the Hood Canal. Republicans like Ann Coulter talking about "junk science" are on to something really BIG. Tip of the ice berg, so to speak.

 

""..On November 17, 3398 B.C., two billion people, with their astonishing technology, vanished from the face of the earth. This lost super race beat us to the moon(?), to computers, and to nuclear war. A cosmic disaster occurred which wiped out a super civilization and generated 6,000 foot tidal waves the disaster known to early civilizations worldwide as the great flood."

 

(Okay, I guess they're not really sure about the part about the moon, since they do put question mark in there... But it's amazing how all this information has just been surpressed because of politics.)

 

______

[TBay]

...talking about "junk science" are on to something really BIG.

 

Yeah, i myself am addicted to it. Its called TRUTH . Good shit if you open your mind.

[johndavidjr]

Ahmen