When Science is Corrupted by Politics, This is What You Get

First there was the question under which forum this should be run. It concerns science and politics but it is also a very obvious form of disinformation. It may well be that those behind the article we will be looking at actually believe what they are saying, but it was undoubtedly disinformation that led them to it to begin with.

So, that's that.

Also... looked briefly for other threads on the subject and didn't find any. If I overlooked one, I apologize and will place my neck on the chopping block. Please aim well, thank you.

Onward...

The article appears on medium.com via Mother Jones. Anyone familier with the latter should know right away that this once respected alternative information source has become more and more politicized as the years have passed. So, while it does note how our polarization has become increasingly bitter, it merrily takes a very polarized course of its own.

The title of the piece is, "The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science" and what it does, basically, is to tag anyone who doesn't buy their preferred slant as heretical. Moreover, it goes on to then apply a broad swath of politically partisan paint, thus classifying/stereotyping based NOT on science but on... you guessed it, politics.

It's a rather lengthy bit of hawg-jowling so, one quote will have to suffice as example and what better subject to do so... than our old friend, Global Warming. (Note: Link to story follows quote.)

... one key predictor of whether you accept the science of global warming is whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat. The two groups have been growing more divided in their views about the topic, even as the science becomes more unequivocal.

So perhaps it should come as no surprise that more education doesn’t budge Republican views.

Story Link

Now then, the above point is actually pretty accurate. Indeed, the belief or not in the theory of global warming is pretty clearly defined by political preference. But what is happily neglected is the most basic reason for that division and it is as plain as the first day of summer is long.

Prior to 2005/06, we had all heard some of the basics on global warming. In fact, we had been told back in the early '90s that by the year 2005, much of the US East Coast would have have lost much of that coast to rising water levels. That was about the extent of understanding by the average layman... or general public. Then came the show.

Al Gore opens the movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" by advertising himself as the president who was elected but lost the election so, right away, you get a dose of the politics. From that point forward, Mr. Gore becomes the godfather of the global warming community and creates divisions from which the subject has never recovered.

The whole concept of global warming should have been handled by science, and science alone, to begin with. Why in the hell it was handed off to a politician that spreads polarized divisions like fleas once shared the Black Death with Europe, really defies all known logic. And now almost a decade later, if you are conservative or Republican or any other brand that is targeted, it is YOUR fault because of your politics.

That's right... you didn't arrive at your personal beliefs because you actually thought about the evidence. You get there because you were incapable of thinking about it because you fall under a certain political stereotype that was invented by an opposing political one.

Talk about inconvenient truths...

Anyway, the article covers a number of other topics. If you are a person of faith and chose to believe that the Almighty created humanity... you may be in for a pasting and postering as well.

Inquisitions aren't just the things of religions anymore.

What I found to be worth the time for this thread is not that someone holds such opinions as articulated in the piece, but that it is disguised as science while really nothing more than plain, pure politics of the type that is meant to divide us, not unite us for science or any other cause.

I recommend a full reading of it. Another link to it follows:

Story Link

reply to post by redoubt


This article tends to confirm my belief that thinking about thinking causes thinkers to outthink themselves ... or over-think themselves ... I think....

this paper seems to back your conclusion. it was written in 99. take as you will.

The hypothesis of man-made global warming has existed since the 1880s. It was an obscure scientific hypothesis that burning fossil fuels would increase CO2 in the air to enhance the greenhouse effect and thus cause global warming. Before the 1980s this hypothesis was usually regarded as a curiosity because the nineteenth century calculations indicated that mean global temperature should have risen more than 1°C by 1940, and it had not. Then, in 1979, Mrs Margaret Thatcher (now Lady Thatcher) became Prime Minister of the UK, and she elevated the hypothesis to the status of a major international policy issue.

Global Warming: How It All Began

here is a link to the web site it came from, last up date for the site 2008
john-daly.com