Hat tip to Michael Moore for reminding me about President Eisenhower’s famous “Beware the Military-Industrial Complex” speech, in which the Liberal Icon and Pacifist Saint Dwight David Eisenhower had this to say:
“…the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
(Emphasis mine – BW)
I wonder if this admonition from Eisenhower – uttered a few moments after he warned of the influence of the Military-Industrial complex — will be repeated among the Left with the same grave sense of somber warning as his previous few sentences?
UPDATE: Since it’s my blog…
I read a comment on the original post that I thought deserved a brief response. Long time readers know I am incapable of a brief anything. I actually thought it raised enough interesting points to not have it buried in the comments.
So here’s the original comment, and my response below:
From PHILLIP:
It seems, for all your criticism of liberals, you’ve only shown your anti-science and intellectual biases.
“a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity”
This is talking about the risks inherent in pure science vs. Applied science, not so much just federal money. Pure science is studying something for it’s own sake (ie, Newton’s studying gravity as a curiosity). Federal funds, particularly in military research, sometimes grasp at the basic pure science questions, but always have the bent towards a practical application. This is what restricts curiosity. It could be said of privately funded R&D, particularly when business fund university research. The novel “Arrowsmith” by Sinclair Lewis captures this quite well in it’s character Max Gottlieb.
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money”
This is goes back to the issue of funding. Grants are necessary to fund research. Industrial and military grants limit research potential because there is almost always an expectation of certain results, be they practical technologies or monetary gain.
The federal government could give money to answer the basic questions without immediate practical gain, but often as not Congress representatives will protest this, but have no problem backing pork projects in military or highway funding.
“danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.””
Let’s first recall Eisenhower says science should be respected, which the right has often not respected.
Unlike people in business or politics, there is a lot more self reflection by academics of their role in society. Putting aside the social scientists who often try to force there way in, academic scientist usually have the least interest in influencing the whole of society. Note the novelty when Rep. Bill Foster, a particle physicist, replaced Dennis Hastert in Congress.
They’ll often be content in doing their research and presenting the evidence as is. They’ll try to apply their findings to solve societies problems, but often the offices they seek are still within academia and out of the public spotlight or directly involved in public policy.
The scientifc-technological elite is important. This means defense contractors. They have a direct interest in government funding of their projects, but the cost is several times higher than would be pure research, and often benefits from there being more conflict, war, and instability.
Note the F-22 that Obama cut out of the budget. It was a plane for a war long since over, of little use against terrorism, and severely overbudget and over-inflating the pockets of private interest. Yet the businesses that made the plane or it’s parts, and the Congressmembers who received donations or had parts of the plane made in their districts, fought to keep it. This is the influence that Eisenhower is warning us of.
It’s not an EPA scientist measuring pollution or the university physics professor probing the workings of sub atomic particles, or the climate scientists warning us about warming or the biologist writing of evolution. it’s those who try to wield science in a way to put a strangle on our government, it’s polices and its budget of private gain.
Phillip:
I am critically short on time today but I feel that your reasoned answer (well, most of it is reasoned) deserves a response.
It’s a shame you have to lead with the unreasonable — and arrogant — assumption: “..Your anti-science and intellectual biases…” I have been a research assistant for many years. I began teaching Astronomy at the Miami Space Transit Planetarium at age 15. I have been an astronomy research assistant at the University of Florida and I spent several years as a lab technician at Beta Analytic, which is the world’s preeminent Carbon 14 lab. I have spent most of my life using what intellectual powers I possess making science understandable to the layman.
I don’t need to be lectured about anti-science bias. I know what science is, and what it is not. And what is coming out of East Anglia is the PRECISE OPPOSITE of science. When I learned, only through “Climategate,” that the internal algorithms of the computer models were not open to everyone you could have knocked me over with a feather.
Furthermore, you will note that I have not denied that AGW is real, or that it is serious. But the POLITICAL intersection of science has ruined the scientific method — which is a way of thinking — at least at that installation. You don’t think that’s important? I think it is CRITICAL. You cannot wield the sword of science as a politician. POLICY is separate from THEORY, RESULTS and DATA. When scientists become involved in policy decisions, you get Climategate. And you DESERVE Climategate.
Your first point about pure science versus applied science is interesting. If I have a large set of contrary data, and I am doing pure science to try to understand the cause, I do not throw that data away and try to fire publishers that agree with it. If the contrary data points are outliers I can prove that statistically. If not, then I need to modify or scrap the theory. One compelling set of repeatable data can –AND SHOULD — destroy a theory. There is nothing pure science about AGW research.
Furthermore, I utterly reject your assertion that “one kind of science” is susceptible to budgetary pressures while the other kind is not. There is only one kind of scientist, and that is the human kind. All humans make mistakes. Science, when it is allowed to work, corrects most of those mistakes. When scientists know they are right and disregard conflicting views in the manner we have seen, that is not science. That is politics.
You go on to say that “Industrial and military grants limit research potential because there is almost always an expectation of certain results.” That may or may not be true depending on the individual case, but the ENTIRE POINT of the post is to point out that “the expectation of results” is PRECISELY the effect we have seen in East Anglia CRU, and if it is there, (and given the hugely politicized nature of the other climate research centers and their directors) then it is not unfair to assume that the anti-scientific protocols seen at EACRU are present elsewhere. Given the magnitude of the change AGW proponents want to create, and given shocking anti-science activities at one of the leading AGW centers, I would say fair-minded people believe the burden is on you.
You say that “Let’s first recall Eisenhower says science should be respected, which the right has often not respected.” CATEGORICALY TRUE. It’s shameful. That doesn’t impact this argument, but it is a point well taken.
However, when you write “Unlike people in business or politics, there is a lot more self reflection by academics of their role in society” it makes me wonder: have you read what is going on at CRU? Do you not realize how completely and transparently you reveal the bias you have? Scientists certainly DO NOT spend more time on self-reflection than people in politics and business. This assertion on your part goes straight to the heart of why you cannot make your point with just the data. Self-reflection would seem to indicate that there is a problem with the data sets. CRU chose to bury that problem. A SELF-REFLECTIVE person might see that this was a problem. I am NOT saying that the conflict in data means AGW is not happening. I AM saying that a real scientists would have to modify a theory to include contrary data, rather than congratulate themselves on how self-reflective (and therefore correct)they are IN SPITE of contrary data.
Now on to defense contractors. How many do you know? Personally, I mean. How many defense workers do you have drinks and dinner with? For me, it’s quite a few. Because when you say that they have a vested interest in “there being more conflict, war, and instability,” you have shown me you have not the slightest idea what or whom you are speaking of. Yet to make such a statement goes straight to the arrogance and narcissism that got us Climategate.
Defense Contractors have dedicated their lives to making the weapons that keep a society free and safe enough so that science and poetry may thrive. GOT THAT? That’s what they do. They — unlike you — have studied history and conflict, and they — unlike you — have had enough experience out in the real world beyond the bubble of freedom and security that you have spent your life in to know that bad things and bad people are out there trying to get in. They don’t need to be slandered by the likes of you, no matter how subsconciously you do it.
Furthermore, you specific criticism of the F-22 as “a plane for a war long since over, of little use against terrorism,” shows a remarkably poor understanding of the modern battlespace and furthermore carries the same short-sighted arrogance common in scientists: namely, the idea that they way things are now, politically, is the way things will always be. If China, or even Vladimir Putin decides to do something, on his own and for his own demented reasons, then we are left with a choice between A.) fleet of F-22′s or B.) your assurances that those wars are long over. I’ll take A.) I’m not arrogant enough to say what type of wars will never be fought again.
Scientists are good at detecting patterns. Detecting a pattern here, are we Phillip?
Will they quote the second part with equal fervor?
Oh, no, no, no, Bill – it wouldn’t fit in with their agenda. It’s all about money and power, and they are grabbing for both with fevered frenzy, like little kids in a candy store. And with about as much blatancy, I might add…
And if anything would upset their agenda, or even has a whiff of doing so, mum’s the word. Or obfuscate, deny, deny, deny. Look at that interview on PJTV that shows the “Climate Scientists” blathering on and on about how the science is settled! Lock ranks, march onward, damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead!
We have a HUGE mess to clean up after we throw the bums out.
May I live long enough to see it.
Igor
Of course they would repeat that phrase. Just as soon as a Government-funded line of research skewered one of their sacred cows and threatened to kill off some of their favorite Socialist legislation as a result.
Love the Michael Moore link! Very subtle but hilarious.
I never thought about it like that, but you’re quite right.
“But it’s for your own good.”, was my first clue and then hearing what they actually believed to be true just sealed the deal for me. Computer Models do not make good Govt. Policy. If it could any idiot could run a Govt….wait I might have to re-think that.
I don’t suppose Flint really has the resources to cope with a challenge of that magnitude.
“I wonder if this admonition from Eisenhower – uttered a few moments after he warned of the influence of the Military-Industrial complex — will be repeated among the Left with the same grave sense of somber warning as his previous few sentences?”
Nah. Doesn’t fit the narrative. They prefer the out-of-context quotes. If the quotes don’t fit, they’re buried and forgotten.
Nice catch. I wish we had leaders today that could match Eisenhower’s experience and common sense.
Doug Santo
Pasadena, CA
Wasn’t Eisenhower a Republican?
Well, there ya go! He must be one of those anti-science types. No wonder he’d question the conduct of science.
And he wasn’t even trained as a scientist, so what the heck could he possibly know?
(The ultimate irony, of course, being that his opponent, Adlai Stevenson, was the quintessential intellectual, dismissive of common folks, and therefore quite well-suited to the modern Left’s pretensions.)
Thanks for writing this entry. I had never read the whole speech but just did so. When hearing quotes it’s easy to be lazy and not go any further. I should always go to the original source so I can get it in complete context, but often don’t.
This speech should receive more attention. Two sentences later Ike seems to be warning us about excessive spending and borrowing.
Leftist think that the military-industrial complex occurs because the military is evil. They think it doesn’t happen in other parts of government because those parts are not evil.
In fact, the military-industrial complex arose because of the vast amounts of money, resources and status that were being allocated via the political process. The same dynamic arises whenever the government spends a lot of money. If we politicize medial care, we will get the same kind of complex in the medical field.
The greater the proportion of government money in a field, the greater the distortion. In the case of climatology, global warming creates a motivation for 90%+ of all the funding in the field. Most of that funding comes from the government. All climatologist have a powerful incentive to not only bend their own research but to lobby the government for even more research money.
The pressure of politics and vast amounts of money creates an enormous distortion of normal processes in the science and everywhere else. This is why we can’t trust anything that comes out of climatology that has not had its predictive power repeatedly reproduced by many independent sources.
I don’t think Ike’s saying what you think he’s saying there.
Thank you for that reminder.
IMHO the three successful post-WW2 Presidents were Reagan, Eisenhower, and Clinton in that order. Reagan was a great President, and I place Eisenhower closer to him than to Clinton.
If and when the academy and the media lose their leftist bias, Eisenhower will be assessed more highly than he is today.
The danger isn’t so much that government could be captured by “a scientific-technological elite,” but that science itself could be corrupted and enslaved to political incentives by the flow of government funds.
This appears to be exactly what’s happened in the “Climaquiddick” affair.
We all have to remember that the left regards the Constitution as a “living” document. If liberals can take the highest law in the land and re-interpret its meaning to suit their agenda, why would anything else ever written or said in history be subject to any objective standard? In the mind of a leftist, there are no freedoms for anyone except those that facilitate the leftist dogma.
Why quote the quote when you can live the quote?
If only there were some sort of way that this could be tracked, monitored, and managed. Perhaps if scientists’ were required to publish their findings, and their research were subjected to the scrutiny of others in their field. Some sort of ‘peer review’.
If this had come to pass:
“Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.””
The world would be a much better place.
I have always adhered to the warning of Dwight D. Eisenhower concerning the threat of the military-industrial complex. It was not a call for pacifism! He simply knew that many flawed human beings would inevitably attempt to jack the system for their own benefit. There is little doubt but he would have also included the hysterical climate warming community.
I can’t think of a better warning for what I’ve been seeing for most of my life, but I call it the rise of the specialist/expert/judge class. I would call it the rise of the expert class, but that doesn’t make it quite explicit that I’m including judges in there.
They all know more than we do, and so are a necessary balance to the popular vote. Because you can’t just go on what the *people* think! I’ve often thought that the legitimate part of Marx’s warnings about The Capitalist could easily have been directed to The Bureaucrat and so the decline of capitalism solved nothing. Sometimes you only see the part that shows itself first, thus it first showed up as “The Military Industrial Complex” tainting the military and industry.
I hadn’t really expected that Eisenhower’s “Military Industrial Complex” to be an indication of what I have seen as the rise of the new priest class of experts, specialists, and *judges*.
It’s like I feel that the legitimate parts of Marx’s complaints about The Capitalist were equally true about The Bureaucrat, and a necessary development from adding more people to the equation–all of which cannot be equal stake-holders. Just like The Manager took place across the board, The Expert is across the board as well, and they advance lockstep to drown out the people’s voice and vote.
Note that what he wrote was, to beware the military-industrial-congressional complex. If congress voted to end funding, the military-industrial part wouldn’t exist.
Even a retired President and former General feared congress so much he struck it out. But his original draft was right. History said he struck out “congress” to placate some people. Who did he have to fear in this farewell speech?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-industrial_complex
In the penultimate draft of the address, Eisenhower initially used the term military-industrial-congressional complex, and thus indicated the essential role that the United States Congress plays in the propagation of the military industry. But, it is said, that the president chose to strike the word congressional in order to placate members of the legislative branch of the federal government. The actual authors of the term were Eisenhower’s speech-writers Ralph E. Williams and Malcolm Moos. Shortly after Eisenhower’s address, the issue of military-industrial-congressional influence came to the forefront after Kennedy canceled the B-70 bomber on March 28, 1961. After appropriations bills had been passed and signed with B-70 funding that Kennedy would not use, the House Armed Services Committee (with 21 members having B-70 work in their districts) subsequently attempted to “direct” — by law—the Executive Branch to use “the full amount” appropriated for the B-70.
It seems, for all your criticism of liberals, you’ve only shown your anti-science and intellectual biases.
“a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity”
This is talking about the risks inherent in pure science vs. Applied science, not so much just federal money. Pure science is studying something for it’s own sake (ie, Newton’s studying gravity as a curiosity). Federal funds, particularly in military research, sometimes grasp at the basic pure science questions, but always have the bent towards a practical application. This is what restricts curiosity. It could be said of privately funded R&D, particularly when business fund university research. The novel “Arrowsmith” by Sinclair Lewis captures this quite well in it’s character Max Gottlieb.
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money”
This is goes back to the issue of funding. Grants are necessary to fund research. Industrial and military grants limit research potential because there is almost always an expectation of certain results, be they practical technologies or monetary gain.
The federal government could give money to answer the basic questions without immediate practical gain, but often as not Congress representatives will protest this, but have no problem backing pork projects in military or highway funding.
“danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.””
Let’s first recall Eisenhower says science should be respected, which the right has often not respected.
Unlike people in business or politics, there is a lot more self reflection by academics of their role in society. Putting aside the social scientists who often try to force there way in, academic scientist usually have the least interest in influencing the whole of society. Note the novelty when Rep. Bill Foster, a particle physicist, replaced Dennis Hastert in Congress.
They’ll often be content in doing their research and presenting the evidence as is. They’ll try to apply their findings to solve societies problems, but often the offices they seek are still within academia and out of the public spotlight or directly involved in public policy.
The scientifc-technological elite is important. This means defense contractors. They have a direct interest in government funding of their projects, but the cost is several times higher than would be pure research, and often benefits from there being more conflict, war, and instability.
Note the F-22 that Obama cut out of the budget. It was a plane for a war long since over, of little use against terrorism, and severely overbudget and over-inflating the pockets of private interest. Yet the businesses that made the plane or it’s parts, and the Congressmembers who received donations or had parts of the plane made in their districts, fought to keep it. This is the influence that Eisenhower is warning us of.
It’s not an EPA scientist measuring pollution or the university physics professor probing the workings of sub atomic particles, or the climate scientists warning us about warming or the biologist writing of evolution. it’s those who try to wield science in a way to put a strangle on our government, it’s polices and its budget of private gain.
Almost twenty comments were held for moderation by the UNKNOWN FORCES that power the WordPress comment autocensor. They have been approved as quickly as I could get to them. Apologies for the hold; it’s utterly out of my control.
Apparently, there’s a special kind of Willful Stupidity required to be a Conservative these days. Let’s do some fact-checking, shall we? First of all, since when has it been LIBERALS that have quoted the “Military-Industrial Complex” meme? That’s something that the Tinfoil Hatters on the Right have typically railed about, up until the author of this article decided to try and randomly assign it to “liberals”. Second of all, there’s absolutely nothing in the second part of Ike’s speech that “liberals” would specifically disagree with. Except, of course, maybe the idea that we should all be doing our scientific research on blackboards instead of computers. My guess is that ANY thinking human being living in 2009 would find that to be a silly idea. But that’s the way of the Insane Right Wing these day: post some non-sequitor comment, then foam at the mouth about how it proves that “liberals” are hypocrites.
Phillip:
I am critically short on time today but I feel that your reasoned answer (well, most of it is reasoned) deserves a response.
It’s a shame you have to lead with the unreasonable — and arrogant — assumption: “..Your anti-science and intellectual biases…” I have been a research assistant for many years. I began teaching Astronomy at the Miami Space Transit Planetarium at age 15. I have been an astronomy research assistant at the University of Florida and I spent several years as a lab technician at Beta Analytic, which is the world’s preeminant Carbon 14 lab. I have spent most of my life using what intellectual powers I possess making science understandable to the layman.
I don’t need to be lectured about anti-science bias. I know what science is, and what it is not. And what is coming out of East Anglia is the PRECISE OPPOSITE of science. When I learned, only through “climategate,” that the internal algorythms of the computer models were not open to everyone you could have knocked me over with a feather.
Furthermore, you will note that I have not denied that AGW is real, or that it is serious. But the POLITICAL intersection of science has ruined the scientific method — which is a way of thinking — at least at that installation. You don’t think that’s important? I think it is CRITICAL. You cannot wield the sword of science as a politician. POLICY is seperate from THEORY, RESULTS and DATA. When scientists become involved in policy decisions, you get Climategate. And you DESERVE Climategate.
Your first point about pure science versus applied science is interesting. If I have a large set of contrary data, and I am doing pure science to try to understand the cause, I do not throw that data away and try to fire publishers that agree with it. If the contrary data points are outlyers I can prove that staistically. If not, then I need to modify or scrap the theory. One compelling set of repeatable data can –AND SHOULD — destroy a theory. There is nothing pure science about AGW research.
Furthermore, I utterly reject your assertion that “one kind of science” is susceptable to budgetary pressures while the other kind is not. There is only one kind of scientist, and that is the human kind. All humans make mistakes. Science, when it is allowed to work, corrects most of those mistakes. When scientists know they are right and disregard conflicting views in the manner we have seen, that is not science. That is politics.
You go on to say that “Industrial and military grants limit research potential because there is almost always an expectation of certain results.” That may or may not be true depending on the individual case, but the ENTIRE POINT of the post is to point out that “the expectation of results” is PRECISELY the effect we have seen in East Anglia CRU, and if it is there, (and given the hugely politicized nature of the other climate research centers and their directors) then it is not unfair to assume that the anti-scientific protocols seen at EACRU are present elsewhere. Given the magnitude of the change AGW proponents want to create, and given shocking anti-science activities at one of the leading AGW centers, I would say fair-minded people believe the burden is on you.
You say that “Let’s first recall Eisenhower says science should be respected, which the right has often not respected.” CATEGORICALY TRUE. It’s shameful. That doesn’t impact this argument, but it is a point well taken.
However, when you write “Unlike people in business or politics, there is a lot more self reflection by academics of their role in society” it makes me wonder: have you read what is going on at CRU? Do you not realize how completely and transparently you reveal the bias you have? Scientists certainly DO NOT spend more time on self-reflection than people in politics and business. This assertion on your part goes straight to the heart of why you cannot make your point with just the data. Self-reflection would seem to indicate that there is a problem with the data sets. CRU chose to bury that problem. A SELF-REFLECTIVE person might see that this was a problem. I am NOT saying that the conflict in data means AGW is not happening. I AM saying that a real scientists would have to modify a theory to include contrary data, rather than congatulate themselves on how self-reflective (and therefor correct)they are IN SPITE of contrary data.
Now on to defense contractors. How many do you know? Personally, I mean. How many defense workers do you have drinks and dinner with? For me, it’s quite a few. Because when you say that they have a vested interest in “there being more conflict, war, and instability,” you have shown me you have not the slightest idea what or whom you are speaking of. Yet to make such a statement goes straight to the arrogance and narcissism that got us Climategate.
Defense Contractors have dedicated their lives to making the weapons that keep a society free and safe enough so that science and poetry may thive. GOT THAT? That’s what they do. They — unlike you — have studied history and conflict, and they — unlike you — have had enough experience out in the real world beyond the bubble of freedom and security that you have spent your life in to know that bad things and bad people are out there trying to get in. They don’t need to be slandered by the likes of you, no matter how subconciously you do it.
Furthermore, you specific criticism of the F-22 as “a plane for a war long since over, of little use against terrorism,” shows a remarkably poor understanding of the modern battlespace and furthermore carries the same short-sighted arrogance common in scientists: namely, the idea that they way things are now, politically, is the way things will always be. If China, or even Vladimir Putin decides to do something, on his own and for his own demented reasons, then we are left with a choice between A.) fleet of F-22′s or B.) your assurances that those wars are long over. I’ll take A.) I’m not arrogant enough to say what type of wars will never be fought again.
Scientists are good at detecting patterns. Detecting a pattern here, are we Phillip?
Hi Maven.
Apparently your comprehension skills are not quite up to par. However, I will inform Right Wing Nut MICHEAL MOORE that he is not a liberal and that only right wingers can use the Eisenhower speech, as per your unsubstantiated assertion.
I appreciate your well written response to Phillip. It is refreshing to see logic and argument correctly used as opposed to stereotypes and rhetoric. People like you do indeed instill a sense of hope for our future. Thank you.
Michael Moore, Bill?
Admittedly, “a chick from Saskatchewan” doesn’t carry the same name-dropping panache, but still….
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/012763.html
—–First of all, since when has it been LIBERALS that have quoted the “Military-Industrial Complex” meme? —–
Maven—–
Hahahahahhahhahahahhahaah!!!!!
–9,830 for “military-industrial” complex libtard
–163,000 for “military-industrial” complex wingnut
libtard talking about wingnuts
You must not ass/u/me everyone on this site is a Republican….we have democrats, libertarians and even constitutional party members.
Dont forget a military industrial complex run amok and an incredible national deficit that currently is, I believe, 8 trillion dollars.
Ever heard of Dwight D. Eisenhower?
Listen to his words before he left office. This adminsitration is the one he warned us about 45 years ago.
Duh — yeah, Bush’s “adminsitration” with its EIGHT TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT
Liberal talking about wingnuts
ut this is only the illusion of health. In actuality the changes have only allowed the Right, including all plutocrats and a majority of rank and file Republicans, to suck on the Right Tit with one side of their mouth while using the other to spread a pan-cultural fable that the Left Tit, and any citizen that would deign to go near it, much less suck upon it, is a collectivist poison upon the land. Along with the profound changes to the body-politic, the lactose secreted by the Right Tit undergoes a fundamental metamorphosis from a sugar-fat-protein suspension into a potent and powerfully addictive opiate.The effects of ingesting this opiated mother’s milk are a general feeling of well-being, of being a “Real” American who “supports the troops” and who is on “the right side” of history.
– oral fixation
Dwight D. Eisenhower was President of Columbia University between retiring from the US Army and running for President. He simply loved sitting down with scientists and made time for them even after he became President.
Ike organized special groups of scientists into special teams while he was in office, assigning them to tackle new challenging national security issues. He distrusted the normal military procurement methods when it came to innovation and instead relied on what might be called the scientific elite.
He was no bureaucrat, contemptuous of the men in the white lab coats (and I met such bureaucrats in the Pentagon) but was instead someone who knew and respected the scientific community.
Read “The Secret Empire” about Ike’s creation of the National Reconnaissance Office.
> Pure science is studying something for it’s own sake
> (ie, Newton’s studying gravity as a curiosity).
What if Newton was actually trying to devise a gravity-powered super-weapon that used apples as projectiles for the military-agricultural complex?
Just think how much the apple growers would have profited every time England went to war against Spain, France, or those pesky Colonials across the Atlantic!
“Unlike people in business or politics, there is a lot more self reflection by academics of their role in society.”
I can only speak anecdotally—but your claim contradicts my own experiences. In no way, shape, or form do I consider members of the academic community to be more self-reflective than other well educated professionals. They seem just as venal, nasty, and prone to petty rationalizations as anybody else. There is indeed little evidence that these individuals have corned the market on morality. As matter of fact, the historical record indicates quite the opposite. University professors are often very supportive of totalitarians like Adolph Hitler and Fidel Castro. They seem to gravitate to those who prefer employing violence to persuading others intellectually.
As a Leftist, I guess I don’t understand what you want my reaction to this to be. The Government contracts tend to dictate research? That’s not much of a revelation. You right-wing protestors are the Johnny-Come-Latelies of the protesting-against-the-government party (2 hyphenated phrases in a row, I know). I personally have been protesting against the corrupt and power hungry Government that stomps all over our civil rights since Clinton was in office, which is when I could first vote. And believe me there were some very elderly people there who had been talking about “when the revolution comes” for the better part of 60 years. So as a Leftist my response to this is: pfft. Eisenhower was as right about this as he was about the Military-Industrial-Complex. And both have happened. Free ideas in Colleges are nonexistent. Socialism and Communism are swear words, and whenever they are uttered, heads are called for, and better than half of our national budget is dedicated to the Military-Industrial-Complex BEFORE you factor in the cost of the wars.
To you at PJTV I say, welcome to the party.
The Right disrespects Science? Mr. Whittle, I suspect you’re talking about Darwinism and Embryonic Stem Cell research. As to the latter, just because I choose not to live in a B&W Saturday Matinee with infernal cultists sacrificing babies on altars for immortality does not make me a disrespecter of science. It makes me aware of moral bounds. Besides Embryonic Stem Cell research has been a largely a spectacular failure. Adult stem cell research, OTOH, has been vastly more successful.
As to Darwin, he’s a bad philosopher, and a second rate experimentalist who’s primary opponents in his day were paleontologists. I disrespect him as I do the AGW fanatics. And the AGW people have a long way to go on manufacturing fraud to catch up with the preminent fraudsters in ‘science’, Darwin’s disciples. One day, Science will be free of Government monies, and its corruptive influence.
I stand for the Separation of Science and the State for many of the same reasons that one should limit state power over religion.
Despite my harsh words, I do usually find myself in agreement with you, and I’ve been moved to tears by certain things you’ve written. But the Right is vastly better at respecting real science than the Left.
> Let’s first recall Eisenhower says science should be respected, which the right has often not respected.
As opposed to The Left, which, judging from ClimateGate, clearly has NO CONCEPT of “science”…?
I won’t defend the fact that there are certainly those on The Right who confuse matters of Faith with matters of Science. The two do not affect one another for the most part. Either something IS factually verifiable, IS falsifiable, or it’s not. If it IS those things, it’s Science. If it’s not, it’s Faith. And people often attempt to pass off matters of Faith under the guise of Science.
But, as ClimateGate shows — it’s not only the Right which does this — it’s abundantly clear, if it hadn’t been already, that there are many people who claim to be “scientists” on The Left who are pushing a matter of blatant Faith as though it were Science.
In other words, Phillip, perhaps you need to be a bit more careful about bandying phrases like “respecting science” around — Pot. Kettle: Black.
.
> Note the F-22 that Obama cut out of the budget. It was a plane for a war long since over,
Not necessarily. It may well have been the plane for the next war. Given the development times on modern planes, that’s not a trivial issue. We may wind up fighting the next war with technology little better than our opponents, despite our overall advantage in tech.
The Left seems to spend a lot of time on past wars, and worrying little about the current or the next war. A bad form of policy, actually.
Bill, as well as Maven –
> First of all, since when has it been LIBERALS that have quoted the “Military-Industrial Complex” meme?
I’d also point out its prominence in the 1991 Oliver Stone movie JFK. IIRC, it’s the opening scene.
Is there an argument, Maven, with the notion that Stone is a liberal?
> does not make me a disrespecter of science. It makes me aware of moral bounds.
No, it makes you unfortunately clueless about what constitutes Science. The Theory of Evolution is science. Most of the holes you’ve been “taught” about are either trivial issues that deal with minor problems in the theory (and have equally scientific alternative explanations) or are based on your ignorance of science as a whole, the scientific method in particular, and the overall arc of the theory. If the theory is wrong, then not only is the confirming science wrong, but a whole host of scientific knowledge and techniques are woefully in error — and these are not “difficult to test” like evolution is, but get tested each and every single day through usage in various fields. Forensics, for example, is a modern-day application of many of the same knowledge/techniques used in Evolutionary theory.
Creationism, Intelligent Design, whatever name you call it by, requires an untestable presumption at its base — the notion of a larger creator somewhere, who set All Things In Motion. This cannot be proven or disproven, ergo, IT IS most emphatically NOT SCIENCE
And evolution does NOT have a thing to say about God. There is nothing in evolution that says that He did not create the universe, nor that He did not use the mechanism of evolution to create man.
Further, one of the most common arguments used “against” evolution is actually a statement about the failure of the speaker’s own Faith in God.
The common argument I speak of is that of “improbability”. All the things that “supposedly” happened in Evolution (not to spend any time discussing that) being “highly improbable”, it is clear that there must be a God/Creator from that.
Now, it’s clear to me that God wants us to have Faith in him without Proof. It’s pretty obvious that, if God was interested in Proving his existence to us, he could pretty much part the heavens and say “I’m here, you big dummies!”.
That He does not do so says that, unequivocally, He wants us to have Faith but not Proof. I have no idea why that is, but it’s a clear tautology from “God Exists” plus “God Does Not Prove He Exists To Us”.
No, to say that evolution CAN’T work, is to say that the universe REQUIRES a God to make it. That God can be proven by this. Since this is clearly at odds with His wishes, we have a problem — it is a blatant statement that God is too incompetent to create a universe which doesn’t have, built into it, proof that He created it. Now, I can’t speak about YOUR faith in Him, but Mine is that He’s pretty much got to be capable of not revealing his existence to me through any means but non-provable mechanisms.
You may choose to worship at the altar of God the Halfway Competent, but I’m a firm believer in God the Fully Competent, and assume that evolution, or some variant on it, works 100% to explain how We Got Here.
.
No. The theory of evolution is a theory. Science is the process that’s used to either establish the theory or refute it.
I’m noticing a lot of people these days (cough Charles Johnson cough) who like to wave the science pom poms but don’t have the foggiest idea what it is, or how you do it.
This is one of the best most prescient speeches given! I blogged on this in 01/08 and have been posting the response below on every blog/climategate posting I go to.
Every Liberal remembers Eisenhower warning against the, “military-industrial complex” but few if any know his second stated warming in that same farewell message, his warning against the, “scientific-technological elite“!
This speech could have been made last week, read the whole thing.
David
In addition to the climategate issue Ike addressed Obamacare and all areas of Government imbalance!
(“Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defenses; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research — these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs, balance between the private and the public economy, balance between the cost and hoped for advantages, balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable, balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual, balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future.)”
O Bloody Hell, I like your argument, it’s creative, but wouldn’t the argument you’ve made almost be a kind of circular proof, and in that end be a kind of signature? Yanno, not signing being the best way to know who did it? I mean, you’re kind of arguing that no proof is proof, and I thought you didn’t want proof? The whole situation is weird.
I really do have to compliment Phillip on his presentation; he’s one of the very few liberals who seem to be able topresent a coherent argument. Too many of the ones I’ve read on the Internet are barely capable of stringing a sentence together, and their posts come across as random babbling.
To get a little off-topic here, though, global *warming* is actually on its way out. Here in central South Carolina, the past few summers have been remarkably cool, and winter has been exceptionally cold for this part of the country in recent years.
Yes, to look at the temperatures reported by the weather services, temperatures are still rising. John Ringo has a wonderful explanation for that: Most temperature readings are taken either at airports or in cities, environments where the measuring equipment is surrounding by concrete. That concrete reflects the heat and intensifies it, which is why it’s always a little cooler once you leave the cities behind. Continuing this explanation, the satellite readings taken from areas away from the cities are showing a DROP in average temperatures. (This drop, by the way, was reported in an article on MSNBC two or three weeks ago, only to be soundly debunked by more “official” sources a few days later.)
For the complete explanation, check out Ringo’s book “The Last Centurion,” which I highly recommend. He accurately projected the hysterical fervor with which the powers-that-be are clinging to the “global warming” meme and actually disavowing any data showing the opposite.
It has been pointed out that the whole health care issue isn’t about health care at all, but about control, i.e., certain elements in the government wanting to inject governmental control into every aspect of our lives. The same is true about environmental concerns. The environment is not the issue, but the controls they can put in place in its name. Next thing you know, we’ll be like Soviet-era Russia, when the utilities were completely shut off at certain parts of the day in the name of “conservation.”
Miami Space Tranist Planetarium?! man I miss the days of john Horkeimer (never saw his name spelled out). He was the most precise measure of when you had stayed up too late watching British comedies on a Sunday night.
You knew the next day was going to hurt when you were watching John.
Good times.
Global Warming as a rallying cry seemed to come out of nowhere. I remember growing up that it was simply pollution that was the problem. I believe that the emergence of the global warming moniker caused us as a nation to forget about pollution, allowing the government to increase the allowable levels of pollution in the environment. So in a way, yes I believe Global Warming is a hoax; but one designed to allow a further degradation of the environment, not to promote some “liberal agenda.”
Phillip is completely off base on his theological exegesis into Eisenhower’s statement. Eisenhower did not speak in parables. The speech gives the context
“Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research — these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs — balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage — balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.”
Note there is no mention of defense contractors or any of the other boogeymen Phillip pulled out of who-knows-where. Eisenhower points to an essential truth that we are losing sight of. We are not ruled by a race of philosopher kings. We are ruled by people we select. While science should inform policy making, science is not necessarily paramount. It is balanced against morality, ethics, and, dare I say it, the “general Welfare.”
Andrew,
Pollution levels ??? You are kidding right ?
From the EPA report http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/2008/report/AirPollution.pdf
Source Category PM2.5 PM10 NH3 SO2 NO x VOC CO Pb
% Change
(1990 vs. 2007) -51% -33% -4% -45% -33% -35% -44% -72%
This is from the EPA, not from some “right wing” nutjob OK
don’t stay ignorant … you have the power to control the garbage you feed your brain …
“Defense Contractors have dedicated their lives to making the weapons that keep a society free and safe enough so that science and poetry may thrive. GOT THAT? That’s what they do.”
Sir, you seem in that paragraph to have confused the employees of for-profit business with soldiers, sailors, and airmen (and women!) who do, in fact, dedicate their lives to their country. While many defense contractors do good as they do well, the shareholders, executives, and employees of those contractors are human; I know of no reason why, say, making tires for army trucks instead of farm tractors immunizes one from the venality and vice of the human condition or endows one with superior virtue, knowledge of history, or moral sense.
A quick review of the history of military procurement during, say, the U.S. Civil War will quickly destroy any illusions that defense contractors are inherently noble; it was the uniforms those contractors supplied that gave us the modern meaning of the word “shoddy.”
I’m simply not willing to canonize the members of any field or industry, science- or defense-related or not.
JMC:
It has been pointed out that the whole health care issue isn’t about health care at all, but about control, i.e., certain elements in the government wanting to inject governmental control into every aspect of our lives. The same is true about environmental concerns. The environment is not the issue, but the controls they can put in place in its name. Next thing you know, we’ll be like Soviet-era Russia, when the utilities were completely shut off at certain parts of the day in the name of “conservation.”
Add to that the whole “gun control” debate. Its NOT about the guns…its about CONTROL. Of YOU. Incidentally the disarming of “We the People” is the first step towards exerting even MORE control…When we no longer HAVE an effective means of saying “NO MORE” its time to start practicing “Da Kamerad”.
SHOULD READ: ” … the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research … (and) a government contract (has become) a substitute for intellectual (integrity). For every old blackboard there are now (millions of computers).
“The … domination of the nation’s ‘scientists’ by federal … allocations, and the power of money … (has absolutely corrupted ‘science’).
“Yet, in holding ‘scientific research’ and ‘discovery’ in respect, as we (once could), we (ignore the fact) that public policy (is already) the captive of a (pseudo)-scientific-technological elite.”
– Dwight David Eisenhower – With apologies to
Brian Richard Allen
Lost Angels – Califobambicated 90028
And the Very Far Abroad
“” …. Every (il)liberal remembers Eisenhower warning against the military-industrial complex …. “”
But few (il)liberals and even fewer conservatives ever bothered to check out the Republican, Mr Eisenhower’s, definition of “the military-industrial complex.”
Which definition referred to that great “Democratic” potty money-printing machine created by the richly-Soviet-agent-larded Roosevelt “administration” and by such of its cohorts and war-profiteering cohorts as the Kennedy Crime Family. (Which loathsome gang feeds off it still)
The military-industrial complex, that is, that saw the likes of the execrable L B Johnson, a failed wrong-side-of-the-tracks’ Texas grade-school teacher, who never took home other than a government issued check, leave an “estate” valued, in 2009 “Dollars,” in excess of 1.5 Billion Dollars.
The “Democrats” don’t recoil from the very mention of the name “Ronald Reagan” as vampires from the dawn for any reason more powerful than the Greatest One, by ending the Cold War, willfully killed (and deliberately targetted) the decades-long transfer of Billions of effectively corruptly-looted feral-gummint Dollars to the on-and-offshore accounts of the “Democratic”-potty-linked owners and cronies of the military-industrial complex. Particularly of those parts of it located in Southern California and Texas.
The (ancestors of) today’s much hated “Halliburton,” for example, was one of the Johnson/”Democrats” slices of the pie – as was Fort Worth-based General Dynamics, whose F-111 (along with the Vietnam War) was the abjectly-corrupt Johnson’s big bonus of that era.
The “Democratic” potty’s military-industrial complex’s insidiousness has been so persuasive as to have systemically and absolutely corrupted every the smallest detail of every contractual dealing with the feral gummint, to have made the corruption of every contractor a lay-down misère certainty — and to have effectively morally, intellectually and fiscally bankrupted our beloved fraternal republic’s entire feral gummint!
The Goebbels Warmongers’ “climate change” rackets are but “Democratic” potty business as usual.
Brian Richard Allen
Lost Angels – Califobambicated 90028
And the Very Far Abroad
O Bloody Hell – Very well made points. I was thinking much along the same lines, but you beat me to it with probably better-written arguments. I keep wanting to ask those who insist on a Creation/Evolution dichotomy, “Do you have any idea how much MORE impressive God is if He created the Universe 8-15 Billion years ago, setting up the precise conditions for the uncountable interactions of the equally-uncountable particles of the Universe to produce all the immense number of lifeforms which have ever existed, including Human life”?
Desonus – O Bloody Hell’s argument is not circular, since it does not REQUIRE God as a prerequisite for the existence of the Universe. It is his FAITH that God exists, and that He created the Universe in the way that O Bloody Hell described, but is not proven thereby, as the non-interventional model is also sufficient to explain the observed Universe.
Andrew – Global Warming as a rallying cry arose as the Pollution levels created by Automobiles and Industry went down – in many cases to such an extent that it was hard to detect any difference between the intake and the effluent from them – and the air and water which were the rallying cries of the Environmentalists were no longer sufficient to evoke support for ever-increasing levels of regulation and Government intrusion in Industry. Thus, since they could no longer easily push through legislation based on their old standbys, they lit upon Carbon Dioxide, which, being a direct product of 99+% of all combustion currently used in generating both Electrical power and the mechanical power used to drive Automobiles, was the perfect target, since that combustion cannot be “cleaned up” by comparatively simple means before it exits either the tailpipe of the auto, or the smokestack of the power plant.
For decades, the Left has been attacking our use of fossil fuels, first with the pollution that earlier, less efficient and clean engines and power plants produced, and later with the notion that “WE WILL RUN OUT SOON!!!!” After the cleanup of the emissions of the cars and power plants emasculated the pollution argument (basically they won that one, but are never satisfied), and new oil and natural gas finds nullified the “Running out” argument, they essentially had nowhere to turn for new ways of controlling our lives, until they looked at the people who were claiming that the Earth was heating up (in some cases, these were the same people who said we were heading for an Ice Age just a few years earlier), and someone said, “Hah! EVERY car and combustion-powered power plant creates CO2, we can ring THAT welkin for a long time!”
Here’s the thing that is most convincing to me: You notice that hardly any of the people screaming about CO2 will even consider the most simple solution to the problem that is obvious to most people, and that is Nuclear Power. Contrary to what the paranoids would have you believe, Nuclear waste generated by a power plant is not hard to deal with. Most of the worst radioactive materials can be refined into a glasslike substance and stored right on the site, and there are even ways to use the heat generated by the secondary radioactivity in these blocks as a supplement to the main power plant. The rest is low-level radioactives which could be safely mixed in with highway cement, or used in similar ways to contain the materials (the cement would block the radiation of all but the surface particles, which would not contribute significantly to the overall background radiation). So we have Environmentalists telling us that our Carbon economy is killing the planet, but they won’t let us use the most efficient way to cut the carbon emissions (even though there are now a couple of plans in the works to build nuclear power plants, it takes at least 5 YEARS just to go through the red tape and get it approved – which may or may not happen). That tells me that their goal is control, not reducing emissions, and the environmentalists are nearly all Leftists.
None but the faithful and initiated will have a clue what I AM and always will be refering to. The rest of you can pass on by, nothing to see here ;-}
How ’bout a little Psalm to start. Lets see here,…oh, here’s one.
18 and Life 2,… go!.
10. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him [were] dark waters [and] thick clouds of the skies.
I am not going to get into the AGW or creationism arguements. I would simply like to point out that any person who refuses to even debate another who holds opposing ideas and/or theories or attmepts to claim that the science is settled and that the debate is over is not a SCIENTIST. It simply does not work that way. People such as these are, in my opinion, nothing more than hippocrites who are trying to paint their antagonists as nothing more than obtuse polemicists. True science is a process of continued and unbiased learning that takes into account all points of view, all theories and does not shy away from vigorous debate. Anyone that claims otherewise simply fails to grasp what true science is all about.
WayneB, you’ve pretty much hit the AGW nail on the head:
1) Progressives looking for a way to influence friends and control enemies.
2) A new boogeyman to beat the Great Unwashed Sheeple over the head with, the last one ain’t workin’…
3) Lest we forget the most basic of reasons: Money to be made, Power to be exercised.
I’ve been telling almost anybody that would pay attention since I was 17 years old (40 years ago!): IT’S THE SUN, STUPID!! (Well maybe not quite in *those* terms…)
It’s very interesting that all of the e-mails, etc. were supposedly obtained by a “hacker”. Perhaps a “concerned citizen” (within the Climate Science Community, perhaps?) would be a more likely explanation?? Kudos to whomever it was, Hacker or Concerned Citizen. Maybe it was both!
It all boils down to faking the data to advance a Political Agenda, for whatever nefarious reason. And THAT ain’t Science, boys and girls…
Igor
I enjoyed the essay, and I wish you’d write more often, in all that spare time you spend eating and sleeping. I particularly liked your and Phillip’s exchange. I look forward to more of it, if he chooses to write again.
I am a conservative Christian, but I am by no means “anti-science.” I like science. I do not like people using scientific sounding misinformation to push an agenda.
Since the scientific elitist (not elite) community has long been corrupted by such people, I am wary of people who blindly accept a thing as fact because a serious looking man in a white lab coat says so.
OK, I’ll be the first to bring this up again 6 days later? Where the hell did Philip go? It’s not every day a guy has the honor of being taken apart by Bill Whittle in a public forum. Ol’ Phil could at least come back and give Bill the courtesy of a raspberry.
I spent my whole career as a forester in a public forestry agency. Over that time I came to understand that, as someone recently said, “words matter”.
If I found myself in a discussion/argument with a collegue or a member of the public and they were reapeatedly talking about “environmental impacts”, I could be pretty sure that we were in a political argument/discussion and my points should be framed that way. Impacts imply value judgements. Values questions are only solved in the political realm.
If, on the other hand, that person was speaking in terms of “environmental consequences” we were engaged in a scientific discussion. That is, there is no right or wrong in an ecological response to a foreign perturbation. The ecosystem incorporates the foreign entity through some internal process or function and carries on. As an ecologist friend of mine was fond of saying, “All an ecosystem NEEDS is for the sun to keep rising every morning”.
The past, ecologically, is the result of millions of random things that fell in a way and in a sequence that the sum of the ecological responses created the present. It wasn’t pre-ordained; it was random. The future will be created in the exact same way. You may or may not like it. In some cases you may be able to change it at the margin (but always remember that even your own “do good” perturbations may have future consequences you don’t like). Regardless, there is no pre-ordained “natural” end in nature. For that matter, there is no “end” in nature.
As Homer Simpson says, “Sometimes stuff just happens”.
BW: Ike’s Response to Climategate
and fiscal responsibility:
you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow.
Ike spent a lot of time playing golf,
and letting the country run itself: Smart man.
The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex
was an instance of “Honest Graft”; The contract
might go to particular district, and cost more
than it should, but the job got done right,
eventually.
The Left spent its money on social engineering
the US into their idea of Utopia; Nowhere, man.
Almost twenty comments were held for moderation by the UNKNOWN FORCES that power the WordPress comment autocensor. They have been approved as quickly as I could get to them. Apologies for the hold; it’s utterly out of my control.
Bill,
At first I had a lot to say but you pretty well nailed things down. BUT, as I tell my passengers during the face-to-face welcome aboard speech “Folks, I’d like to be brief; but it’s just not in my nature”.
I just have to chime in on the absurd F-22 comment Phillip made.
Phillip, ARE YOU ON FRIGGIN’ CRACK? The F-22 is about the only insurance we have for air superiority for the next 10 years. By then new ‘bad guy’ technology will be able to start chipping away at it’s current invulnerability. The current missile magnets (F-15s and F-16s) are about as stealthy as a barn door and the Eagles (that’s the F-15s) are aging to the point that they are literally falling apart in mid air. This is not a metaphor, one actually broke in half and the cockpit section fell off in flight. The pilot ejected but was seriously hurt.
We need new fighters and the F-35 is NOT an F-22. It has only ONE engine anda lot of limitations. It can be brought down by a missile, unlucky ground fire, bad maintenance or a bird strike(one motor).
When you have a jet that can go ’4 v 1′ or ’8 v 2′ with F-15s and bag them all (and this is a quote from a fighter pilot) “Easier than clubbing baby Harp Seals”, you’d better believe we DO need that plane. In case you didn’t get the memo, that kind of advantage is exactly what keeps bad guys on their side of the border.
Isn’t it funny that most of, if not all, the AGW Fraudsters are on government grants.
Pay more in taxes to the government so government bought and paid for science can pretend to control the weather. Key word “pretend”.
You’re embarrassing yourselves. Please stop writing about what you *think* all liberals and scientists are like and go talk to a few. No scientists that I know are opposed to nuclear power (though I am sure some are). And where would nuclear power be without load of government research money? If we were to rely on business to fund all research, we’d never have nuclear power (who would spend the requisite billions to develop it?) And please don’t comment on AGW until you’ve read some actual papers. Your intuition, and a few minutes scanning the leaked e-mails, does not constitute an education.
Here’s an interesting link from Mar. 2009 on the relationship between Global Warming, CO2, and water vapor:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/05/negative-feedback-in-climate-empirical-or-emotional/
Evidently balloon measurements of atmospheric water vapor have shown a gradual decline in relative humidity in the high troposphere since WWII.
If these measurements are correct the whole “catastrophic feedback” mechanism of “More CO2 begets more heat which begets More H20 which begets lots more heat” is pretty much busted.
Needless to say the anointed gatekeepers of the baseline data are unconvinced.
“The National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) reanalysis data on tropospheric humidity are examined for the period 1973 to 2007. It is accepted that radiosonde-derived humidity data must be treated with great caution, particularly at altitudes above the 500 hPa pressure level.”
. . .
“It is of course possible that the observed humidity trends from the NCEP data are simply the result of problems with the instrumentation and operation of the global radiosonde network from which the data are derived.”
. . .
“Since balloon data is the only alternative source of information on the past behavior of the middle and upper tropospheric humidity and since that behavior is the dominant control on water vapor feedback, it is important that as much information as possible be retrieved from within the “noise” of the potential errors.”
Sounds like they’re getting ready to “normalize” another annoying little piece of contrary evidence out of existence.
otpu
Wayne; response saved for future reference… well said.
Well done Mr. Whittle and a wonderful response to Phillip. Some great comments too.
This business with science and whatever integrity they retain being squandered by non scientists as a defense of research science is a straw dog argument.
One only need note the billions of dollars wasted and spent in pursuit of fusion. There is no justification , including spin- off discoveries as proof that continued funding will ever create anything except high paying jobs , swell careers and some lofty sense of self importance.
Fusion is the siren temptress beckoning just beyond the next appropriation. We cannot capture her but we’ll keep trying as long as the publics money holds out.
Bill,
I have watched you on PJTV for a time. This is my 1st trip to your site. I am greeted by your great blog spot on Global warming. I very much enjoyed your response to ‘Phillip” It once again re-enforces the saying “Conservatives think Liberals are wrong, Liberals think Conservatives are evil people”. I look forward to more of your thought provoking blogs and videos.
Steve
Bill,
I am surprised that “Climategate” was your first glimpse at the world of politically led reports from the Glowarmer World. Roger Pielke Sr did in fact resign from the IPCC for such behavior. The literature reviewers of the IPCC are only allowed to papers approved by the UN Politicians and not what the scientists would prefer to review. Thus there have been resignations from the IPCC for “coercion” by non-scientists.
Climategate only revealed what the leading skeptics have been saying for over half a decade now.
If I had a nickel for everyone who has made the mistake of arming themselves for the LAST war.
The only excuse for doing that would be that you’re under the age of 12.
Skate for where the puck will be, not where it is.
Shoot at where the duck will be not where it is.
This is simple right?
http://thevailspot.blogspot.com/2009/11/d-d-eisenhower-government-shouldnt.html
Bill, on Nov 30, 2009, I posted on my blog something about the same Eisenhower quote:
In 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States warned in his farewell speech not to trust the “military-industrial complex.” That’s a well know comment and is regularly quoted by the Left when criticising Defense Budgets. What is far less known is a quote warning against Government support of scientific research.
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961 {emphasis mine, ed.}
To me, this means that we must not allow public policy to be driven solely by the research/studies of a limited number of scientists…as has come to pass with AGW. Our government is proposing to raise a staggering amount of money through “Cap & Trade” of carbon “credits” through direct taxation, as well as indirect (fines and fees). This will have a tremendous impact upon our society, not to mention our civilization, because literally, just about everything will rise steeply in price.
When you throw in the prospect of a Value Added Tax on pretty much everything, you can easily predict what will happen to our depressed economy: We as a country, as well as the rest of the world, excepting India & China (who flat out refuse to be a party to economic suicide), will spiral into a prolonged and deep economic pit. One that will make the “Great Depression” of the late 1920′s and 1930′s look like a short-term blip in the economic road.
Fortunately, a whistle-blower at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (it’s pretty much now accepted that the 64 MB file dump wasn’t done by a hacker) may very well have single handedly headed off western civilization’s economic self-destruction. Because depending upon “settled” science that is anything but settled is beyond stupid and enters the realm of imbecility.
The implications that have been revealed by the emails that have now gone viral all across the net is mind blowing. A handful off researches have warped the “peer review process” beyond belief. Having scientific papers “reviewed” by other climatologist who have authored papers with those who are presenting articles/research for publication is a conflict of interest of the highest sort. Additionally, they have labored to get editors whom they view unfavorably fired from journals for publishing papers that were critical of the cabal’s positions.
As the late Billy May would say, “but wait, there’s more”…the icing on the cake are emails from the climatologists associated with the CRU to researchers around the globe urging them to delete emails and data that might come under the purview of Freedom of Information Act requests, both in the UK as well as the US. Then according to UEA, the CRU’s basic untainted data, was accidentally “lost”, and all that remains is the “massaged” data. When you add in that the New Zealand government’s official climate agency appears to have altered data that pertains to historical temperatures within New Zealand…as well as issues with France’s database that looks to have been manipulated as well. Additionally, recently NASA, through their climate agency located at the Goddard facility in Maryland, altered their data base to reflect temperatures that were lower than “originally” reported.
Oddly enough, many of the scientists who work at these various places, have at one time or another, have authored papers with one another that “validate” the science of AGW. When you consider that nearly all present research is based upon studies that have apparently been altered to fit a predetermined goals, and a political agenda, upon which ALL of the various laws that are proposed or have been enacted for capping and trading of carbon emissions have been based is…disconcerting to say the least.
Now, Mr. Obama is preparing to head to Copenhagen, Denmark for the United Nations Climate Change Conference hosted by the Danes on behalf of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to present a plan wherein the United States will reduce it’s carbon emissions by 17%. Factor in China (who surpassed the US this year as the single largest producer of CO2) and India’s (who will pass the US in production of CO2 next spring) refusal to be bound by any agreements along with the inability of Europe to remain anywhere near those goals they set for themselves and any possible agreement that could come from Copenhagen, based upon the CRU’s tainted data…is a travesty and utterly ridiculous as well as economic suicide.
Bill, you did make a couple of points I didn’t agree with. The first was that you do not deny that AGW is real and severe. I deny it, as do thousands of bona fide scientists who do not have millions in grant money on the line.
The second was that conservatives have often “disrespected science.” Nonsense. When? Where? Disrespecting non-objective scientists with a personal ax to grind is not the same as “disrespecting science.” Those who claim the contrary are generally liberals who want you to accept their solutions to non-existent catastrophes, e.g., to exercise significant governmental control over individual liberties in order to control non-existent APG.
Mr. Whittle, excellent rebuke. Your retort was so much better than the one I composed mentally as I read the update (which is probably why you have a column on pj). I don’t often comment on websites but I really enjoyed your response.
The only catch to the farce that is AGW is what I call the “‘Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’ Effect.” You may recall, from Mark Twain’s fictional classic, that a Colt gun factory manager was sent back from 1905 to King Arthur’s Camelot and found himself about to be burned at the stake. Due to a coincidental eclipse, he was able to wave his finger at the sun as it was happening and claim credit for it. Of course they set him free, begged his forgiveness, and gave him the #2 position under the King. After about 30 minutes, he wiggled his finger to bring the sun back. Considering low life expectancies and low literacy rates, he was able to get away with this, since no one alive had ever seen an eclipse, let alone been able to explain it.
I saw Al Gore as the yankee who was going to be able to wave his finger and claim credit for the warming reversal after a few years, who would then be lauded as a superhero and given awards and riches (two out of three ain’t bad). I saw it as a ‘Win, win’ for him. I am greatly amused that ‘Mother Nature’ recently chose to snow on his parade. But I am still concerned that the media will continue to be complicit and capitalize on the masses’ short memory to give him credit for reversing the warming that is more likely a cycle than caused by anything we mortals have done thus far.
Mr. Whittle, feel free to elaborate on that theory. I have another one involving politics that could also be useful, which I can provide upon request. Don’t want to waste too much of your time, but thank you for reading the comments to your posts.
Vin
Bill,
In these times of trouble and strain. I think the cry of Bayonets should be on all our lips.
When is your Chamberlain Essay going up again? I used to link to it often.
Now I’m reduced to the very good YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYDhAmjmxYk
Yours was better.
“Stand firm,, ye boys of Maine, for not once in a century are men permitted to bear such responsibilities!”
A Grey,
Simon
This note is in re: when Global Warming first became an issue. I’ve been involved in the electric utility business since the early ’70′s. While the environmentalists were still yelling about a nuclear winter from a war or some exchange of missiles in the late ’70′s – early ’80′s, coal producers had finally finished surverying the Powder River Basin in NE Wyoming. There is enough low sulfur coal in that one area to supply this nation’s energy for over 200 years, in whatever equivalent form you want to convert it. Shortly after that, we started hearing about global warming, not from environmentalists or their retinue of scientists, but from the governmental scientists of Germany, Japan, and France. I’m sure the meme has taken off way beyond their ability to control it. . .
The fact of the matter is that the USA, in contrast to the other developed countries is resource rich. The US was still the leading petroleum exporter into the early ’50′s. Is it so surprising that our rivals would stoop to anything to put a stick in our spokes?
On the F22 –
The war you are ill prepared for is the war you will have. If you are strong against a stand up enemy, they will sneak attack with terror. If you have good intelligence and security and little against a stand up enemy, they will come with planes and tanks. The best defense is a balanced approach, and the F22/F35 combo gave us this balance. Now we have all our eggs in one basket, the F35 will not be here for another 6 years at least, while the F22 is here now. Stopping production does little to us today, but makes our force more one dimensional in the future.
The more science is manipulated for money, politics, prestige, or anything else outside of science … the more the results will be matters of economics, politicking, schmoozing, etc. and the less they will be valid science. It is human nature to be interested in matters of status and wealth and idealogy, but those don’t mix very well with scientific rules. For instance, if the results of an experiment are not such that will lead to continuing grant money, there is great temptation to tweak them a bit so as to obtain grant-generating false results. The best we can do is try to minimize outside influences so they don’t bend the results too far or too often. Thus, if we see that in a particular time and place, science is quite often being influenced by specific factor, we can see that it is likely to cause problems. Counterbalancing that influence with something else would be prudent, as it would make scientists less vulnerable to manipulation or temptation from that angle by providing alternatives.
As soon as people start arguing about “liberal” or “conservative” in the context of science, you’re already in deep trouble. That’s not a good place for carrying on political debates, because it will distort the data. Pure objectivity is not readily achievable by humans, but it is a good goal for science … and the opposite, increased subjectivity, is very easy and very troublesome. Try to keep biases out of the lab as much as possible.
Well, as a real Johnnie come lately here, I have a certain benefit of perspective.
I think that if Bill Whittle is a foaming-at-the mouth right-winger, he is the calmest and most intellectually organized foamer I’ve ever read.
Instead of “military-industrial complex”, the concept ought to be “government-industrial complex”, as the military is still part of the government that funds it.
In everyday language, a “theory” can be any idea anyone comes up with to argue causation. In science, that concept is called a “hypothesis”. A theory is a hypothesis that is substantiated by an experiment, or in some cases, by evidence, and if another experiment yields other results, or further evidence is discovered, the theory is refuted. I reference the theory of falling bodies as believed before Galileo, and the theory of “ether” as the medium through which radio and light waves traveled.
Lastly, the theory of intelligent design is not a scientific theory, but is instead a philosophical theory. It should be addressed in the philosophy classes high school and university students should be taking but aren’t because philosophy and the study of the foundations of what we think we know and why that’s important has been eliminated from schools for the past 40 years.
RE: F-22 AND THE LAST WAR
And last week we saw the public unveiling of the Soviet version of the F-22, supersonic cruise, multiple engagement capability and all… And the F-35 is being cancelled as well.
Don’t even talk to me about an aircraft “designed for a war that will never be fought”.
As usual, the current Democrat party leadership has placed its so-called “principles” over the safety of the nation.
Phillip and Bill regarding Phillip’s comment;
This is critically important. There is whole world of difference between a coercively funded (i.e. government) research project and one that’s voluntarily funded. They may both expect some result in exchange for the investment, certainly, but the motivations are separated by that world of difference.
In a free society, corporate research is targeting one thing and one thing only– making profit through serving the wants and needs of as many people as possible, attracting peaceable, voluntary exchange only.
Compare that to AGW “research”, which presumes to have at the end of it the answer to the question, “Should we in government have more money and power?” Well, the answer to that question is a foregone conclusion, isn’t it? And to the researchers who are in essence being asked, “Is there anything to be alarmed about? Because if there is, there’s a massive new grant in the works for you. If not, well, forget the whole thing and go find something else to do.” The answer to that question isn’t hard to predict either. We see average, otherwise decent people lying their asses off for a lousy million dollars on “reality” TV shows. What will people do for a billion? A trillion? Ten trillion?
If a corporation tries to tax you or restrict you (that is to say, take your money against your will or restrict your personal freedom) then you have an actionable case against them. Without government collusion, a business has to play nice or suffer the consequences.
A business could do some bogus research that tells us we’re all going to hell if we don’t buy their “green” products, but they won’t get far will they, unless they can fool a large number of people for a long time? Even then, without the use of government force, any research that tells a different story will have an equal chance to see the light day. Each individual may choose whether or not to buy into some bogus “findings”. No one is harmed unless they make that decision for themselves, and still each individual always has the right to opt out at any time.
When we’re talking governments doing this, we’re talking about massive power and wholesale coercion on a national or even global scale, and trillions of dollars. Hence the motivation for fraud is amplified millions of times over.
Chew on that for a while, as you ponder this question; is the role of our government that of protecting our liberty, or is it their role to protect some non-human entity from humanity itself? (the Earth, in its CURRENT state– no one has yet argued climate stasis, or proclaimed an ideal average global temperature)
I for one say it doesn’t matter whether there is any such boogeyman as AGW lurking in our closet. Our liberty, right now, is vastly more important. Human rights don’t change with the weather, or the climate. If there ever is some sort of climate trouble, a thousand or five thousand years hence (and we know there will be, whether or not AGW is real) the one thing we’ll need more than anything else is a free society (capitalism) because only a free society has the vitality and flexibility to deal with something like that.