Do you really think any research being funded by the govt is truly unbiased?
Bob,
Then as a scientist do you believe the statement, drawn from research by NASA that Global Warming is man-made due to Greenhouse Gas Emissons (as opposed to the Natural Cycle theory of many other scientists who are not being paid to come up with an answer)
Bob, I showed your answer to a scientist and here is his response to your statement:
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What a hoot!. As a scientist who has worked for big brother…this answer is so far from reality. Hard to know where to begin to answer. He either knows nothing and won’t make it or is one of the bad guys…
Wait till he gets his grants refused on politics, nepotism, influence… He’ll wake up and probably go to the bad if he’s not already there. His disillusionment is going to really really smart when it comes.
From the extreme naive and inaccurate answer one has to suspect it makes him a student or post doc or one of the bad guys he talks about…Definitely not telling it like it really is…
Govt and academic (govt especially)
1) They are under extreme pressure to produce quantity not quality. So there’s a ton of them that will publish or write anything..outside their area of expertise, write silly position papers (say on global warming), reviews..can
give you true examples if you want..
Each year, me and all my employees got rated by publications per head..NOT QUALITY
OR ACCURACY and as the leader the AMOUNT of MONEY I brought in.
I had lots of employees and so just on numbers was extremely prolific but my boss pressured me continuously to make things up and increase the publication number..I wouldn’t.
2) Research funding is down so there’s lots of scientists trying to to save their jobs (see my get laid or eat comments). The disciplines of science are over populated for the resources..they are getting down to eating their young out of desperation (racketeering too to use the naive critters comments).
They will say or do anything. Need for food will override anything same for a tenure academic. Worst time I have ever seen in hype (not just in environment stuff). NASA in particular cause lots of fellow Americans who don’t see the relevance of the money spent on what they mean American’s lives and think NASA funding would be better spent on say health care.
So they are trying to look relevant..say saving the planet from evil global warming
They got another agenda…its cash and save our jobs (whatever it takes)..
As the Cold War ended,lots of govt. scientists funding got zeroed. Americans not scared of nuclear war anymore who needs a atmospheric turbulence lab if the bombs aren’t going to turbulence it??? If the bomb isn’t going to trash stuff with an EMF pulse, who needs the EMF scientist at the govt. lab? Who indeed?
So lots of them thought up new scares, ooooh scary cell phones and scary EMF causing cancer, ooooh scary global warming..etc. etc.
) Hugely Silly Stupid comment..”can’t be fired in govt. or loose tenure for disagreeing with a position that the administration or just your boss wants..been there done that..
I got fired for pointing out my boss was forging results and refusing to fake data myself (by the way I had the govt. equivalent of tenure, lol). I had the hard evidence on him too.
Here’s how it went. A group leader was being pressured into sex with her boss (mine too different divisions) and her refusal was going to get her fired (he took away her funding, not his money…her funding). Her husband, a scientist too asked me to help. He knew I had the hard evidence on the boss. I was leaving and didn’t want to get into the fight.
The husband’s boss, a big scientist, called me in for a chat got me into the fight with the quote by Edmund Burke, “Evil can only prevail while good men stand by and do nothing”. I swore at him for 15 minutes straight. Thought up some good original obscenities too. I knew he had me with this argument.
I initially got fired in that fight. But the good guys eventually won. The right thing eventually came about..not the way the naive critter that made the post would think.
My boss was bringing in lots of money from Washington so didn’t matter if he was making up stuff to get the money or sexually harassing his female employees etc.
They fired him when the cash flow went down. lol. They weighed his cash flow verses the trouble if the two managers went public with the environmental data forgery, sexual harassment (and a host of other things like misappropriation of funds, doing things directly ordered not to by Congress etc.). I was there as this debate was taking place. He was still bringing in huge dollars but less.. for a moment I thought we were going to loose. I was leaving so wouldn’t have hurt me but I feared for the wife of the other scientist..she would have to “give it up” or be fired if we lost.
They don’t want the truth..just $$$$ honey..When in doubt about anything..follow the cash girl (NASA, global warming etc. etc.).
Oh, by the way he was forging environmental risk studies..get the trend whats going on right now…lol..
4) They have been after Hansen for years for hyping the meaning of his results..they right, he right nobody knows. When Hansen’s cash level drops..they will take him..
The guy that started all the electromagnetic fields cause breast cancer, cell phone hooey was a govt. scientist. Didn’t dare touch him while the press really had its teeth in this scare. The data eventually proved him wrong. They went in and he was shown to have forged his data he used to trying to scare you..Really quietly fired him for this…You didn’t hear that did you! Probably still think your cell phone and toaster causing cancer. not your fault, his and govt. agency his boss.
5). Academic tenure is similarly reliable. HAHAHAHAHAHA..Its all about money, what you bring in the university and salary for yourself..Data hyping, forgery, fraud at all time high from these sources..Not just a few as this naive critter says. The competition for grant funding is incredible. You get fired if you don’t bring in cash.
Publish or perish…
Plus, you can publish some hooey and nobody really checks..less you wade into global warming. You use your buddies to peer review your paper.rub my back I get a grant and I rub yours and you get a grant..everybody eats. Peer review system got a terrible problem…
6). Preferred outcome..happens all the time..see my example on risk of coal fired plants verses nuclear plants.
7). Academic types are soooo busy trying to get company money..I get hit up by them continuously. Its not the private company scientists you have to worry about. Its the govt or academic types, Lots and lots of them for sale. lol..
8). Company types got their problems too but their products have to work every time on time. The ultimate test of truth..not to mention they have the govt. regulator scientists watching everything they do, not to mention observation by the hypocrite academic types..They are under a much bigger microscope than the govt. or academic types.
Public companies have a zillion shareholders…they make something that doesn’t work cause bad science, environmental damage and loose shareholders money…they are toast…Quite the opposite on the tenure comment, they don’t have tenure to hide under…
Private scientist got their provocations to lie too. But more scrutiny on them.
9) Lying or backing a wrong theory bad for your career…hohohohoho.. I can tell you some stories about some of the most notable data forgers and where they are still working (including my former boss, lol).. You guessed it full professors at universities…
Makes me sad and want to puke that the “racket” of scare tactics, corruption, fraud, politics, influence peddling has become so persuasive in my chosen career…
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8 Comments Received
March 1st, 2010 @4:05 pm
Well the choice is research funded by the government, who may or may not have a preferred outcome (they usually just want a good answer) or research funded by a private company whose motivation is to make profit, and who usually has a preferred outcome.
I’ll pick the government every time.
By the way it always strikes me as strange that people think scientists would lie about science to get research funding. Lying or just backing a wrong theory is a bad thing for anybody’s scientific career. Quitting your job and getting another would be a better choice.
The best source, of course, is a government scientist. They’re hired under Civil Service and can’t lose their job for coming up with the “wrong” answer. Jim Hansen at NASA has been disapproved of by his bosses for years for coming up with the “wrong” answer. But they don’t dare try to fire him for that. An academic scientist with tenure is similarly reliable.
Once again, they are more reliable than a scientist who’s working for a private company and can be fired at any time. But even they have a career motivation to do good work, regardless of the outcome.
As you may have guessed I’m a scientist and I don’t think it’s a racket, though there are a few bad guys.
EDIT2: Clearly your friend had a horrible experience at a government lab. It doesn’t change my opinions about the situation in general. I’ve had experience with both academic and government scientists. And even he says:
“The guy that started all the electromagnetic fields cause breast cancer, cell phone hooey was a govt. scientist. Didn’t dare touch him while the press really had its teeth in this scare. The data eventually proved him wrong. They went in and he was shown to have forged his data he used to trying to scare you..Really quietly fired him for this…”
Which supports my point. Bad scientists usually get caught. People know that.
By the way, I’m most likely older than he is.
EDIT: Of course global warming is caused mostly by us. Short version. But you have to take the time to read at least some of the links, a few words isn’t enough here. The first one is an excellent start, which disposes of sun, volcanoes, etc.
The data, with references:
Good websites:
Definitive proof, 150 authors, 600 reviewers, over 1000 references to the peer reviewed literature.
Bottom line:
“There’s a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know – except maybe Newton’s second law of dynamics. Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point,You really can’t find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away.”
Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA
The skeptics may be noisy, but they’re relatively just a few.
March 4th, 2010 @1:34 pm
Of course its unreliable. Thats why we shouldnt take it at face value. And yes it is a racket. I would say that its the equivalent of you paying people to answer your questions. Theyre gonna want to answer according to your beliefs whether its right or wrong.
March 5th, 2010 @6:29 am
As the wife of a former NASA worker, the research done for parts of the space program positively affect our way of life for the better. We hear about the abuse of the system, and all of us know it exists, but much of the new medical breakthroughs in medical telemetry are a direct result of NASA research.
March 7th, 2010 @4:27 am
I agree with you. Its just a racket to justify the spending of the government.
March 9th, 2010 @1:58 pm
I trust it as far as I can throw it. Luckly I strong person! lol But honestly you really shouldnt trust anything in this world unless you believe it with good reason. What good reason is to you and me may differ. I like to check my facts and reflect on them with my core beliefs and such before I accept a thing as fact. Thus I have very few actual facts I base my life around. Love is one of the main ones. Trust is a two way street and nasa has a history of earning my trust in some respects but also it has a history of letting me down in others. I would say my trust in nasa is low because of its efforts to help the general public understand what its doing.
March 10th, 2010 @7:14 am
In general, yes. No system is perfect, but funding decisions about individual research efforts are normallly made by people who are qualified–in short, policy experts who are trained to evaluate the value of a research objective.
And it is NOT in the interests of policy makeers–politicians or otherwise–to demand or expect certain results, however much they might want a certain outcome.
That’s not being naive–it is a direct result of how science works. Here’s an example to show why: suppose the NSF funds an investigation into the chemistry of certain plants. The funding has been prompted partly because scientists, based on the state of the field, think its worthwhile–but also because there’s political support stemming from possible commercial applications. Clearly, the supporters WANT the research to say these plants do have commercial potential. But–if the plants turn out to be of no commercial value, then they don’t–and no company who might be considering investing wants to be told otherwise. They might wish the results were different–but eitherway, they need to know the facts.
There’s another reason, as well. Science is not just a disconnected set of experiments–do one, announce your findings, and move on. Research, to be accepted, has to be validated by other scientists–and not all of them work for the governmet. If others fail to get the same results, a fraud will be exposed. In addition, each step forwrd depends on building on what is already known. A false report will be exposed when later researchers doing work derieved from the earlier research find their results aren’t consistant.
Scientists do get off on the wrong track sometmes, of course–which is why you sometimes hear of revisions in their ideas–and why cutting edge work is always hotly debated–sometimes for years–until scientists have enough information to be certain no major errors have crept in.
That’s how the system works –or is supposed to. In recent years, the right wing in this country has tried to censor and falsify results–particularly on environmentlal issues like global warming. That’s not my opinion–its been well documented and reported in the news. And–despite the fact that the power of the White House wias directly behind this effort, it failed. Why? Because there are too many scientists in too many labs in too many countries. The false information the rigt-wing put out wouldn’t stand up under investigation–and the inevitable result is that now the whole charade of “global warming is a myth” has been exposed and the people responsible are laughinstocks all over the world.
March 11th, 2010 @2:26 pm
The problem isn’t the research or the scientist it’s the politicians in the current administration. Some scientists have complained that the Bush Administration has tried to either silence them or has altered their findings so that the publics see’s what they want instead of the truth.
I believe there is ample evidence that global warming is caused primarily by man-made co2 emissions.
March 13th, 2010 @12:32 pm
As your scientist friend reiterated, results of studies used to secure funding, power and prominence, are usually biased, and we recognize that. The saving grace of these studies is that they all (mostly) contain certain elements that do hold true, even if the origional intent and ultimate conclusion are flawed.
In general , a vast number of government studies require the results and conclusions to agree with an agenda. Even when they produce the required result , many are shelved and not heard from again or not for a long time.
So, is there a lot of waste? Yes. Are there studies being done to conform to an agenda? Yes. Are studies and experiments performed that are biased, fudged, estimated, exagerated and enhanced? Yes. Do we trust the results that private and government studies show? Yes / No. Ignorance will , of course, accept as fact. Agenda will accept that which agrees.
This is a world of “Believe It Or Not”.
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