When Politics Dresses Up as Science

Discussion Topic

Return to Forum List

This thread has been locked

Messages 1 - 19 of total 19 in this topic

NutAgain!

Trad climber

South Pasadena, CA

Topic Author's Original Post - Mar 30, 2017 - 10:06am PT

I can already hear the collective groans about yet another political thread.... My intent here is to collect examples of how politicians or non-scientists with an agenda attempt to dilute and disempower real science.

First example.

The Heartland Institute has mailed tens of thousands of public school teachers a book titled 'Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming,' and has plans to mail copies to all 200,000 K-12 science teachers in the United States.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2017/0330/How-climate-skeptics-are-trying-to-influence-200-000-science-teachers

Most of them will recognize the b.s. for what it is:

One teacher who won’t be using the book is Lori Baker, a sixth-grade science teacher from Indiana, who described the contents of the package as follows: “I read quite a bit of the book, actually, and it was extremely frustrating. It’s an attempt to sound science literate, but there’s very little actual data,” she told Frontline.

But K12 science teachers include MANY people who teach elementary school who have a very poor science background. This is a really nefarious method of corrupting our next generation.

And this is one of many reasons why destroying the Dept of Education is a bad idea.

c wilmot

climber

Mar 30, 2017 - 10:10am PT

Political agendas from both parties has corrupted our schools for decades

NutAgain!

Trad climber

South Pasadena, CA

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 30, 2017 - 10:13am PT

So fight it! Don't be a victim justifying the actions the hurt us.

Here's another example:

"By creating obstacles to independent research on its products, Monsanto makes it harder for farmers and policy makers to make informed decisions that can lead to more sustainable agriculture."
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/genetic-engineering/suppressing-research.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/business/20crop.html

How Monsanto thwarts exploring the link between the widely used Roundup pesticide and cancer:
http://blog.ucsusa.org/genna-reed/monsantos-four-tactics-for-undermining-glyphosate-science-review

More evidence about Monsanto cover-ups will come out as a result of this recent ruling, where a judge denies Monsanto's request to keep this info out of the records:
https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/MDLruling031317.pdf

Splater

climber

Grey Matter

Mar 30, 2017 - 10:30am PT

"Political agendas from both parties has corrupted our schools for decades "

This is often a copout argument used mostly by Republicans, not as a attempt to clean up government, but as an excuse to justify more bad government.

If you have specific examples of other issues that need cleaning up, it would be best to say just what you mean, in order that solutions can be considered. For instance some might be:

rules forbidding useful discipline and forbidding punishments,

rules protecting bad teachers,

rules giving teachers advancement based only on seniority,

school districts taking capital bond money and using it for pay.

Jon Beck

Trad climber

Oceanside

Mar 30, 2017 - 11:03am PT

Religion has corrupted schools for centuries. Friend of mine grew up in Indiana, tells me about his high school biology teacher who did not believe in evolution.

thebravecowboy

climber

The Good Places

Mar 30, 2017 - 11:04am PT

data is for the burnpile - stephen harper

c wilmot

climber

Mar 30, 2017 - 11:15am PT

Dmt- your response is why we can't have nice things. Even a simple bi partisan comment is used as an excuse to randomly denigrate another person over perceived assumptions. Assumptions that were incorrect.

Jon Beck

Trad climber

Oceanside

Mar 30, 2017 - 11:22am PT

Wilmot - your comment was not bi-partisan at all. We know what you meant.

Byran

climber

Half Dome Village

Mar 30, 2017 - 11:52am PT

Religion has corrupted schools for centuries. Friend of mine grew up in Indiana, tells me about his high school biology teacher who did not believe in evolution.

My highschool biology teacher didn't believe in evolution either and gave the class the whole micro-evolution/macro-evolution shtick. This was in California, in 2005.

Byran

climber

Half Dome Village

Mar 30, 2017 - 01:02pm PT

Here's an example of something that came up on my Facebook feed and really pissed me off. http://people.umass.edu/schaffne/schaffner_et_al_IDC_conference.pdf

I'm not even sure if it's been published in a peer reviewed journal, or if it's just a paper written for the conference. But Vox picked up on it and then it went viral through the rest of the left-wing blogosphere and social media
Study: racism and sexism predict support for Trump much more than economic dissatisfaction
http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/1/4/14160956/trump-racism-sexism-economy-study
NEW STUDY FINDS RACISM, SEXISM MOST ACCURATE PREDICTOR OF TRUMP SUPPORT
https://latest.com/2017/01/new-study-finds-racism-sexism-most-accurate-predictor-of-trump-support/
Report Shows Racism and Sexism Key Indicators for Trump Support
http://theimpacttap.com/2017/01/05/report-shows-racism-and-sexism-key-indicators-for-trump-support/
(you can tell Vox was the first to jump on it because everyone else cites Vox as their source rather than the paper itself, lol)

The problem with the study is the questionnaire they used was designed to target Trump supporters and produce the desired conclusion. Let me explain, if you agree with the statement that "Men seek to gain power by getting control over women", you might be a sexist. Or maybe not. There's arguably at least some truth to the statement. It could also be that you think it's TRUE that men seek to gain power by controlling women, and that this is a BAD thing. This is the difference between a positive statement and a value judgement. In any case, the previous statement was not included in the questionnaire, but the statement "Women seek to gain power by getting control over men" was included, and any respondents who agreed that this statement is true are labeled as "sexists".

The same approach is used for flushing out the racists. If you don't agree that "White people in the U.S. have certain advantages because of the color of their skin", then you are a racist. The authors say this tactic is needed because if you ask straightforward questions like "People should be treated the same regardless of skin color", that people (the Trump supporters) will hide their racism by lying. But really it seems obvious that these questions are designed to trigger a response from anyone who doesn't subscribe to white guilt or male privilege and this I think has more to do with political affiliation than real sexism or racism. Just to put this into perspective - if you were to survey a black person who absolutely hates white people, who would be appalled if his daughter married a white man, and who thinks that white people have been the oppressors for too long and need to be wiped off the face of the earth, this person would probably receive a perfect score as a "non-racist". That's how carefully calibrated the questions are to separate out the Trump supporters from everyone else.

Anyways, the real reason this paper pissed me off is that half the country believes that scientists and all the academic institutions are a bunch of left wing atheists out to push their new world agenda. Dressing up political mud-slinging as if it were research is especially troublesome when it comes from the left, because it undermines everyone who's working to beat back all the anti-science propaganda that's being spewed by the right.

Mark Force

Trad climber

Ashland, Oregon

Mar 30, 2017 - 01:23pm PT

If the far left and the far right would get a clue, the rest of us would probably get along fine.

My wife and I had a conversation lately where she had to convince me that there are actually groups of folks that believe and promote the idea that the earth is actually flat!!!!

I still have a hard time getting my head around the idea that there are more than a couple of hundred people around the world that could actually believe that one!!

Byran

climber

Half Dome Village

Mar 30, 2017 - 01:32pm PT

Lol, don't tell me you believe the earth is a sphere! Wake up sheeple!

[Click to View YouTube Video]

And here's a fun video on what happens when Creationists and Flat Earthers collide
[Click to View YouTube Video]

Norton

Social climber

Mar 30, 2017 - 02:04pm PT

oh, more than just a few hundred

welcome to the Flat Earth Web Site

https://theflatearthsociety.org/home/

eeyonkee

Trad climber

Golden, CO

Mar 30, 2017 - 02:42pm PT

This is a subject dear to my heart. I'm glad you started it. I don't know where to start, AND I have a deadline tomorrow.

Jon Beck

Trad climber

Oceanside

Mar 30, 2017 - 03:17pm PT

The flat earthers got together to prove the earth was flat. They were going to use GPS technology in their experiment. They did not understand the humor in using a satellite to prove the earth is flat.

Byran

climber

Half Dome Village

Mar 30, 2017 - 04:30pm PT

You might be wondering, "if the Earth is flat then what is at the edge of it?"

The answer is

The earth is surrounded on all sides by an ice wall that holds the oceans back. This ice wall is what explorers have named Antarctica. Beyond the ice wall is a topic of great interest to the Flat Earth Society. To our knowledge, no one has been very far past the ice wall and returned to tell of their journey. What we do know is that it encircles the earth and serves to hold in our oceans and helps protect us from whatever lies beyond.

https://wiki.tfes.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#What_does_the_earth_look_like.3F_How_is_circumnavigation_possible.3F

Although I don't know if flat earth theories are so much politics pretending to be science as they are religion pretending to be science, and even more so it might just be all out "groupthink" where people get sucked down a rabbit hole of blogs and internet videos and eat it up without necessarily attaching any sort of ulterior agenda to it. They also make for a really soft target. It's easy to point and laugh when everyone is doing the same. What frightens me is that 42% of Americans outright reject the theory of evolution, and that might even include some of you reading this thread. Yet we have every bit as much evidence confirming the theory of evolution as we have to prove the Earth is a sphere.