Dangerous Climate Variations
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) came under scrutiny, not least of which was the so-called climate-gate e-mail scandal, which turned out not to be a scandal at all, but much to do about nothing and did not change the facts at all. Climate change pursuant to (anthropogenic) human causes is happening and the situation is becoming urgent; time is running out. But anti-science didn't begin with climate-gate. Anti-science is as old as politics and has been used by both the left and the right. Recently it surfaced again in the Bush Administration with regard to embryonic stem cell research; a political-science test of bad decision making. The Bush White House cherry picked a bogus number of stem cells to justify their desired results and their right wing public relations disregard for facts, an approach that didn't have to be right to work. It is dreadful intentional disinformation to maintain profitability of the status quo.
"President Bush falsely equated each embryo with "unique human life with inherent dignity," and claimed that stem cell research supported "the taking of human life." In fact, the stem cells used in medical research are actually taken from blastocysts, spheres of 100-200 cells five to six days after fertilization of a human egg. Imbuing such collections of cells with the qualities of an individual fully formed person, is a theological position, not a scientific or medical one." - Jews On First
The left did it with sociobiology and the right did it with smoking and ozone and stem cells and on and on. To the lefts credit, they are usually on the right side of the truth, but they do fuck up too as they did with biology and their deep desire to believe in the perfectibility of humankind, when there is no such thing.
"Marxist philosophy is founded on the premise of the perfectibility of human institutions through ideological prescription. Therefore, persons with Marxist views were particularly unreceptive to the notion that an evolved "human nature" exists, fearing that such a claim would be interpreted to mean that human behavior cannot change. If our actions really were immune to intervention, then the many ills of modern societies could NOT (emphasis mine) be corrected. Such a conclusion is needless to say a repugnant one, and not just for Marxists." (John Alcock, The Triumph of Sociobiology - Oxford, 2001)
Some left wing biologists, geneticists, et al, (and Feminists, Marxists, Left wing anti-war activists during Vietnam War, etc.) were very displeased with E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (75), including Stephen Jay Gould, Lewontin, and others, who believed sociobiology was founded on the type of pseudo-science which led to the eugenics movement and even served as justification for the gas chambers. There was a long list of misunderstandings and erroneous claims - much as was leveled at climate science though of a different nature. Climate science has been vilified also, but just like sociobiology, it has been exonerated and proved correct with every test and new information coming out of recent studies. [I'll get back to this topic later]
There have been many attempts to discredit evolutionary theory but they have all failed.
"Evolutionary theory is not controversial among scientists. True, some disputes still exist about such moderately arcane issues as whether evolutionary change is gradual or abrupt, with allied arguments about what "gradual" and "abrupt" mean in evolutionary time scales. But the fundamental propositions of evolutionary theory are universally accepted by biologists just as certain fundamental laws of physics or chemistry are understood to be true by physicists and chemists. No biologist lies awake at night worrying about whether evolutionary change has indeed occurred. Essentially all professional biologists agree that living species are descended from extinct ancestors in a tree of life that traces back to a single-celled ancestor that lived roughly 4 billion years ago. Almost all biologist accept the idea that natural selection is the ultimate "force" behind the evolution of the many adaptations that characterize all living things."
Many on the left believe if sociobiology becomes established science for behavior it would provide the ideological foundation for rape, sexism, genocide, social dominance of the poor by the rich, racism and other disagreeable features of human behavior. It is the position of some biologists that these behaviors are not necessarily determinist, however it is my speculative position is determinism is innate but can be altered. I don't think society should deny what is inevitable or determined if it intended to make over society so that it can be (or should be) more desirable. [More on this topic later]
Religious conservatives used pseudo-science to bolster their moral agenda and right wing political domination and greed pursued their anti-science positions to thwart federal regulations and insure unsustainable profit margins, i.e. "Profits Before People." They have founded many support institutions to promulgate their "line of march", a misuse of false information in their attempts to promote bad invalid science - to package it so it sells and it does.
In 2003, the conservative right founded "the Maryland-based Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy, a conservative-leaning group funded in part of industry...And Annapolis is jut one of the many science policy think tanks on the Right, a niche sector of the ideas industry in which consevatives have dominated liberals. Other such outlets include the Goerge C. Marshall Institute, a hotbed of global warming doubters and contrarians, and the Center for Science and Public Policy at Frontiers of Freedom, a group founded by former Wyoming Republican senator Malcolm Wallop, an early proponent of the quest to develop space-based laser technologies (an agenda ultimately embraced in Ronald Reagan's controversial "Star Wars" program). Borrowing a line from the conservative Fox News, the Center for Science and Public Policy promises---shades of Orwell---a "fair and balanced" approach to scientific information." (Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science, 2005)
As stated above, to be fair, the left has also abused science, not just sociobiology, but also with regard to the environmental and health risks, etc.
"Let's be fair: those on the political left have undoubtedly abused science in the past. While the best environmental groups marshal good science to make their case, more radical groups have occasionally allowed ideology to usurp fact. In objecting to genetically modified foods, for instance, Greenpeace has suggested that these "Frankenfoods" pose human health risks due to the "inherently risky process" by which they are made. Yet in a 2004 report, the Institute of Medicine fo the National Academy of Sciences, the government's leading indiependent adviser on science and technology, refused to treat food created through genetic engineering as inherently more dangerous than food creaed through other forms of genetic modification such as conventional breeding, adding that "to date", no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population." (ibid)
Scientists, especially those working with climate change, are convinced by the science but the public wasn't, but that view seems to be changing.
"61% (Rasmussen Reports (Oct 2011). Most voters continue to believe global warming is a serious problem, but they still have mixed views on what the primary cause of climate change is."
"[G]lobal warming denial has seen its apogee. The concerted effort by the fossil-fuel industry to underwrite scientific revision met its match last month when a team headed by Berkeley skeptic and prominent physicist Richard Muller -- with funding from the Koch Brothers, of all people -- actually found that, what do you know, all the other teams of climate-change scientists were, um, right. The planet was indeed warming just as fast as they, and the insurance companies, and the melting ice had been insisting." - CBS News (November 15, 2011)
Still, scientific studies only reach a certain audience. Weird weather is a far more powerful messenger. It's been hard to miss the record flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, and across the Northeast; the record drought and fires across the Southwest; the record multi-billion dollar weather disasters across the country this year; the record pretty-much everything-you-don't-want across the nation. Obama certainly noticed. He's responsible for finding the cash every time some other state submerges."(ibid)
"As a result, after years of decline, the number of Americans who understand that the planet is indeed warming and that we're to blame appears to be on the rise again. And ironically enough, one reason may be the spectacle of all the tea-partying GOP candidates for the presidency being forced to swear fealty to the notion that global warming is a hoax. Normal people find this odd: it's one thing to promise Grover Norquist that you'll never ever raise taxes; it's another to promise that you'll defeat chemistry and physics with the mighty power of the market." (ibid)
"According to a new environmental report, the world only has five years to initiate
effective change before the effects of global warming become essentially irreversible. The
dire World Energy Outlook report, by the International Energy Agency, looked at the planet's
energy trends over the next 25 years and found that action is needed immediately to stem the
tide: "The door is closing," Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy
Agency, told the Guardian UK. "I am very worried, if we don't change direction now on how we
use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The
door will be closed forever."
Gothamist
(Toronto) - Nov 9, 2011
World headed for irreversible climate change in five years,
International Energy Agency (IEA) warns.
Denying climate change is an insult to democracy. The Tea Party, the Republicans, even some conservative Democrats, have been doing everything they can to ensure that the government does nothing that might disrupt the profitability of the status quo. If this is what they want, I really have to ask again, as I've done herein before, are humans really worth saving? I am not sure they are, but I would really not like to see the real sentient creatures that live here harmed by human greed.
Hank Roth
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