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Current Events » in reply to Dont be an idiot

re: Dont be an idiot
TB — (archived)

Your first error is assuming I know less about this subject than you do. Snide cracks are not an argument.

Your second error is assuming that politics and science have nothing to do with each other, which is amazing considering that much of this science is, when it comes down to it, being funded by political entities.

What gets printed in the papers, who gets lauded, who gets ostracized, and in some cases, who gets published or not, is often political, at least in the sense of academic politics if not government politics.

Both you and Yeti work in scientific/computational fields that are, for the most part, far removed from most political considerations. Maybe you don't deal with politics much except when the funding has to be renewed. I worked at Gravity Probe B for a while, and Francis, the head of the project, spent as much time in Washington during NASA funding time as he did working on the project. But that's just money stuff. There wasn't anything political riding on the results of the science.

I have seen enough from scientists working in more controversial fields (not just climate) to know that politics weighs heavily on them. Hansen, among others, screams endlessly about being "suppressed" under the Bush administration. You think there's never any pressure in other venues in the other direction?

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