Fundamentalists 'threaten scientific progress'

[camouflage]

Right wing novelist and titled member of establishment launch attacks on anyone who dares to disagree with them and seek to tar them with language that links them to the current universal bogey of extreme Islam?
What else is new?
May appears to be attacking ad hominem attacks on the pronouncements of the Royal Society and other such bodies. The Royal Society is in the habit of selective presentation of facts - anyone pointing out that they are engaged in selective presentation (usually to bolster the position of the economic-political elite) is now it seems to be dismissed as a "fundamentalist", a somewhat illogical position given May's revulsion at ad hominem when deployed against his institution.
Attacks on opponents from this quarter, and accusations of ad hominem, must be seen in the economic-political context of the current crisis of (Western) capital brought upon by the usual elements of unstable markets, declining rates of profit, competition from NICs, resource scarcity and environmental constraints amongst other things. The role of bodies like the RS, -since its' inception if you look at history,- has been to secure the domain of scientific/technical discourse for the rising (now dominant) class and those elements of other classes that support them (i.e vassal elements of the aristocracy and liberal intelligentsia). The idea that science/technology/philosophy or anything else can be divorced from the class forces, power relations and development stage of productive forces was an idea already ridiculous 130 years ago
Nevertheless, interesting in what it reveals of the line of attack of that element of the establishment against perceived threats to capital accumulation from the green or religious sectors. Now what would really worry them would be if the green critique of modern consumer capitalism became more openly based on an understanding of class and power relations.

Balderdash, poppicock and tosh!

I suspect political-scientists and class-warriors see everything existance as being about political-science or class-war.

 

[pbman]

On the Crichton evidence to the senate committee, I quite enjoyed the response of one senator, "Why Do We Have a Science Fiction Writer As Our Key Witness?". Why indeed.
.

CAuse if any scientist showed up, they wouldn't be able to money grub successfully anymore.

But his point is still extreamly valid.

Why don't the environmental "scientists" use blind study's?

Expically when its obviouse as hell most of them are baised.

 

[ViolentPanda]

CAuse if any scientist showed up, they wouldn't be able to money grub successfully anymore.

But his point is still extreamly valid.

There's no such thing as "extreamly[sic] valid", Cleatus, something is either valid or it isn't.

Why don't the environmental "scientists" use blind study's?

Expically when its obviouse as hell most of them are baised.

Most of them are "baised" are they?

That's odd. I'd have thought it was your boys who are the ones that are screwed.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Well from my point of view, it appears that the Guardian (and Times) articles seriously misrepresented the position May took in the text of his address in order to attack environmentalists, particularly those pointing out the flaws in the nuclear industry's claims. Bigfish then took the distortions of these journalists even further and in effect claimed that Lord May was supporting the same line as Michael Creighton about 'environmental religion' and so on, which if you read the text of Lord May's address is just painfully, embarassingly ludicrous.

I actually think the address given by Lord May as published on the Royal Society site is sound, although I disagree with his position on nuclear while understanding his reasons. I don't think what he actually says in that piece bears any sort of accurate relationship to what the journalists were saying that he'd said, let alone to bigfish's fantasy version and the rather ill-judged gloating that he indulged himself in on the basis of what he'd fantasised about the journalistic distortions of what Robert May's text actually says.

I have to say bigfish, that once one reads May's text, it appears that you have made even more of a credulous fool of yourself than you usually do, which is an impressive feat, even compared to your outstanding track record.

In fact, as the quote from his address I gave earlier clearly shows, what Lord May is actually saying is pretty close to what I've been saying in many important respects. So I have few problems with the content of his published address. I especially think he's spot on when he's talking about irrational fundamentalist garbage of the sort exemplified by our own science deniers here on urban.

I seriously wonder where the Guardian and Times journalists got that stuff. Was it dictated to them over the phone by some nuclear industry PR slime?

 

[pbman]

There's no such thing as "extreamly[sic] valid", Cleatus, something is either valid or it isn't.


Most of them are "baised" are they?

That's odd. I'd have thought it was your boys who are the ones that are screwed.

lol

You better dodge and run.

You have no answer.

The truth is they don't do blind studies cause their "evidence" isn't strong enough.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I seriously wonder where the Guardian and Times journalists got that stuff. Was it dictated to them over the phone by some nuclear industry PR slime?

"nuclear industry PR slime"?
The nuclear industry don't need to spend out big bucks on the likes of Bell-Pottinger, their cause is just!

Oh, hang on a minute....

 

[rich!]

He said in his book that all enviornmental science, needs the same blind protection that medical science has to eliminate intentional and un-intentional bias. One independent gorup should work only on the data, another independent group should work only on the computer modeling, and a third independent group should use the data in the model.

Currently one group does all three.

I'm going to ignore the whole "should have the same standards as the medical industry" - too easy.

On the modelling: because of a funny concept called "publication", all scientific modelling gets reviewed incredibly well, because everyone gets to run your model on their hypothesis and their data - and if it disagrees with their hypothesis, and they work out the fault is *your model*, then they get to write a great bitchy paper.

The fundamental point about science that the insane miss is that the high-points of science normally consist of insanely bitchy papers destroying one idea and offering another in its stead. The new idea might be cr@p, but the point is to show the old idea wrong.

 

[laptop]

I seriously wonder where the Guardian and Times journalists got that stuff. Was it dictated to them over the phone by some nuclear industry PR slime?

Nag me to chase this, and to ask Robert May how he feels about it.

My instant guess is that it came from spin, not from the Royal Society but from the Royal Institution - it employs Kate Fox, ex-Living Marxism & RCP... and is headed by Susan Greenfield who wouldn't spot a political scam if it hit her over the neurones like a wet fish; and of course Kate has comrades in the pro-nuke, pro-oil "Scientific Alliance"... (very interesting background on her propagation of Frank "Furedi"'s pro-risk line)

I've not read the speech yet, but the RS press release seems to have extracted the key quote:

In the US, the aim of a growing network of fundamentalist foundations and lobby groups reaches well beyond 'equal time' for creationism, or its disguised variant 'intelligent design', in the science classroom. Rather, the ultimate aim is the overthrow of 'scientific materialism', in all its manifestations.

Oooh, he's been reading the stuff I've eeen sending him

One thing to remember about Robert May is that he's old enough that he shares the reaction that practically everyone from the Sunday Times leader writer to Peace News had when news came through of Hiroshima in August 1945: "This awesome destructive power must be turned to the good of humanity." Scientists of that generation, of course, share this particularly strongly; it was the motivation of that old bastard Walter Marshall, as well as the much more rational Joe Rotblatt. The emotional need blinded them - totally in Walter's case, partially in others' - to the rather severe difficulties with civil nuclear power, and indeed to the fact that it only ever made sense as a plutonium production line for yet more nukes.

Apart from that, the few face-to-face conversations I've had with Robert leave the impression that he's a good old stick who is spitting furious about the way that climate-change deniers have diverted attention from the truth and put the whole of humanity at risk.

As they appear to have done with the Guardian article. Subject to checking.

Should get interesting now he's retired and free to speak his mind - which is the whole point of the speech.

Oh, and I detect, at a greater distance, that Rees is at least as furious...

 

[pbman]

There's no such thing as "extreamly[sic] valid", Cleatus, something is either valid or it isn't.


Most of them are "baised" are they?

That's odd. I'd have thought it was your boys who are the ones that are screwed.

NO they have money, they don't need to lie and bullshit and look the other way to get more.

 

[pbman]

On the modelling: because of a funny concept called "publication", all scientific modelling gets reviewed incredibly well, because everyone gets to run your model on their hypothesis and their data - and if it disagrees with their hypothesis, and they work out the fault is *your model*, then they get to write a great bitchy paper.
QUOTE]



You didn't read the links did you?

It should be peer reviewed before it published and the results released at the same time. That would keep things like mann's flawed computer model from being glorifed in the press for sol long until its strainted out. What happens is the wrong sky is falling bullshit gets hyped in the press, and then when its found to be bullshit, the correction doesn't get any press.

So the mass of people get an incorrect impression.

I'm going to ignore the whole "should have the same standards as the medical industry" - too easy.

No doubt you can blather on about it, but the facts remain that environmental science has just as many if not more, temptations for people to "missinterprete" - bullshit about.

 

[MikeMcc]

You forgot to add the perversion of science by commercial interests, or doesn't that happen? It's pretty bland to say that fundamentalism limits free thinking.

Like the whole MMR scam! The research was entirely funded by a company producing individual vaccines. IIRC, the doctor concerned went on to be a director in the company as well.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Nag me to chase this, and to ask Robert May how he feels about it.

My instant guess is that it came from spin, not from the Royal Society but from the Royal Institution - it employs Kate Fox, ex-Living Marxism & RCP... and is headed by Susan Greenfield who wouldn't spot a political scam if it hit her over the neurones like a wet fish; and of course Kate has comrades in the pro-nuke, pro-oil "Scientific Alliance"... (very interesting background on her propagation of Frank "Furedi"'s pro-risk line)<snip>

Interesting theory, it certainly sounds like the sort of spin one of the LM crowd would come out with. The chunk of the RS press release that you quoted captures the gist of what he's saying about fundamentalist science denial in the full text of the address a lot better than either of the two suspiciously similar articles spinning his speech.

It's pretty clear that even in the event that Lord May did say something disparaging about 'green lobby groups' that somehow didn't make it into the published text, the only conceivable point of disagreement would be about using nuclear as a 'medium-term' bridge technology, which he gives the impression of being cautiously in favour of 'despite its problems'. That's just one issue out of many and it's not remotely the main thrust of his address. It's a couple of sentences that appear in a section where he's talking about potential responses to climate change.

It doesn't mention 'green lobby groups'

All the stuff about industrial agriculture, food security, biodiversity and especially climate change, which is at the heart of his address, is entirely in line with what any science-based environmentalist, e.g. someone like Cornell's Professor David Pimentel, would want to say about those things.

There's simply no way though, that the published text supports the spin it's being given in both the Times and Guardian articles. There are several pages of very strong words directed at science-hating fundamentalists and their cynical corporate sponsors in which there is nothing about 'green lobby groups'

If you read the Times and Guardian articles you'd get the impression he was equating them and attacking them about equally.

I'd be very, very interested to know what Lord May makes of those articles.

 

[greenman]

I suspect political-scientists and class-warriors see everything existance as being about political-science or class-war.

Correct.

Although it seems in this case, due to the excellent detective and rat smelling abilities of urbanites, our friend May is not as guilty as was originally suspected! In fact some of this might stem from a cult group propagating an over-deterministic , vicious and class collaborationist version of "Marxism", i.e. the LM cult.

Well done to Bernie and the others.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Well, I think the jury still out on exactly how much of that stuff Lord May would actually endorse. I'd guess based on what I already know of his views that he might well have had a go at some sections of the anti-nuclear lobby on those grounds. There is a scientific debate about the merits of nuclear as a bridge fuel where he takes a position that he can justify in terms of science that others would disagree with on equally scientific grounds. There are also people in the environmental movement who would simply reject nuclear because it's 'bad karma man', and I frankly don't have any problem if he wants to have a go at them.

It's very obvious from the main thrust of his address however, that he shares many of the major concerns of the environmental movement.

In particular, he's taking a position I'd strongly agree with on food security, biodiversity and climate change and he's excoriating the fundamentalist anti-science lobby and the corporate contrarians in no uncertain terms in his address. Comparing his position to that of Michael Creighton, or for that matter bigfish and pbman is just absurd.

 

[ViolentPanda]

NO they have money, they don't need to lie and bullshit and look the other way to get more.

You must be a total loser.

Only a loser needs two cracks at the same post.

 

[Fruitloop]

NO they have money, they don't need to lie and bullshit and look the other way to get more.

This is a definite contender for the most stupid statement I've ever encountered. How long is the list of people with plenty of money who've lied and bullshitted to get more, exactly? I'll start the bidding with Robert Maxwell.....

 

[Jo/Joe]

pbman, can you name some of these scientists that are trying to fool everyone with theories of global warming, and also point out the flaws in their ideas. Also I'd like to know their motivations, seeing as the majority opinion (including the experts in the relevant fields) is in favour of theories that support the idea that humans are affecting atmospheric change.

 

[ViolentPanda]

pbman, can you name some of these scientists that are trying to fool everyone with theories of global warming, and also point out the flaws in their ideas. Also I'd like to know their motivations, seeing as the majority opinion (including the experts in the relevant fields) is in favour of theories that support the idea that humans are affecting atmospheric change.

You forgot to ask him to do so in his own words, rather than with a C & P.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

You forgot to ask him to do so in his own words, rather than with a C & P.

What you ask for makes very little difference in my experience. What you'll get is a massive pile of garbage c&p'd from various fruitcake sites. Waste of valuable time and bandwidth in my personal opinion.

 

[bigfish]

Here's bigfish's original post again, minus the C&P. I recommend following the Link to the Guardian article, which is clearly talking about the same address. If you read the Guardian article you might come away, as bigfish evidently did, with the impression that Sir Robert was at least partly agreeing with bigfish, pbman and Michael Creighton.

It's clear though, even from the Guardian thing, that they're not exactly in total agreement on say climate change. The Guardian piece does however appear to suggest that Lord May regards environmentalists as fundies too.

Well quite. That's why I posted the article up in the first place. You are right though, some of the text apparently attributed to May by Staples does not actually appear in the PDF of May's speech. I'd be interested to find out how this discrepancy has arisen myself.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

It's not just that the text doesn't appear. The whole thrust of the article makes it clear that by any reasonable standard, May is himself an environmentalist.

There is at least one area where I believe he might disagree with green lobby groups. That is concerning moral objections to nuclear power, which he thinks should 'despite its problems' form part of a wider approach to mitigating climate change in the medium term.

That view only makes sense in the context of his extreme concern about climate change.

It makes no sense whatsoever if he thinks climate change is a myth propagated by some sort of new environmentalist religion, as your man Michael Crieghton apparently does.

Similarly, although there is no mention of it anywhere, I could also imagine him getting annoyed with people who object on emotional grounds to GM in agriculture, in the context of his clear concern about food security.

Turning to food, we could not feed today’s population with yesterday’s agriculture, and it is doubtful whether we can feed tomorrow’s with today’s agriculture. The Green Revolution’s doubling of food production involved, amongst other things, massive inputs of fossilfuel energy subsidised fertilizers; around the globe, more than half of all the atoms of nitrogen and phosphorus in green plant material that grew last year came from artificial fertilizers, rather than the natural biogeochemical cycles that built the biosphere and which struggle to maintain it.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

So it strikes me that you are onto something of a losing proposition if you are trying to use Lord May's address to support the position you're expressing in the following quote.

Well I'm pleased we've established Robert May's scientific credentials. But with all due respect, this thread isn't about the nuclear energy option (I'm completely opposed to it, by the way), it's about the pervasion of science by religious and environmental fundamentalism and the damage this is liable to do in terms of retarding our collective future to which science is essential.

We live in a world of growing abundance Bernie, despite pronouncements to the contrary by environmentalists and anarchist's alike - who nearly everywhere preach looming resource scarcity and ignore the evidence of abundance all around. In the 1960s, a libertarian anarchist wrote that he saw no evidence of overproduction because millions of people were dying of hunger in Africa. What he was really doing, though, was ignoring the evidence that we live in a world of contradictions. Of course, it is true that the world population is large and that people are starving, but it's also true that millions of tons of food is being destroyed each year –an ugly fact, but true nonetheless. Yet, despite all of the privations, the large size of the human population itself is nothing more than an artifact of the evolutionary success of mankind over the last 4 million years or so. In any event, the world population is set to begin falling in absolute terms somewhere around the middle of this century. It seems inconceivable to me therefore that having made it this far our species wont be able to muddle through for another 40 or 50 years until then.

The way you tell it -that depleting finite fossil fuel (sic) will lead on to a collapse in agricultural production, compounded by increased soil erosion and a rising population, and therefore to a profound downward pressure on the human species due to growing food scarcity etc., etc., -rests on a number of assumptions which do not appear to reflect anything tangible or real in nature. Rather the whole construct appear designed to induce a particularly fearful and paralyzing sense of hopelessness in those who might succomb as believers.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Here's another quote from Lord May's admirable speech.

The well-intentioned actions that gave us better health, more food, more energy all have unintended adverse consequences, which we are only just beginning fully to appreciate. It took essentially all of human history to reach the first 1 billion people, around 1830; a century to double that; 40 years to double again to 4 billion around 1970. Today we are 6.5 billion, headed, barring catastrophe, to around 9 billion by 2050. The total number of people our planet can sustainably support depends on the assumptions you make. But given that we currently sequester one quarter to one half of all net terrestrial primary productivity to our use - a circumstance without precedent by any single species in the history of life on Earth - we are likely already to be at or beyond Earth's sustainable carrying capacity.

Again, I'm not really seeing a whole lot of support for your position that these problems are all some sort of deep green religious myth meant to terrify the gullible bigfish. In fact, it rather looks like he holds much the same views you're continually attacking with regard to sustainable carrying capacity.

 

[hundredthmonkey]

What is it with conservatives who try to legitimize scientific claims with anthropology degrees? Michael Savage uses his anthro credentials to make such weird claims about race that it's pathetic (and pathetically racist).

Anthropology isn't a hard science. It in no way qualifies you to talk about physics and chemistry related topics. The same is true of medicine. They are both diciplines, not sciences.

Agreed! But Bigfish was pointing to some kind of fundamentalism taking place in our thinking. There are a lot of fundamentalists from Christians to - indeed - Environmentalists. Take population growth - the argument put forward in The Population Explosion written by Ehrlich in a book that was published in the sixties and was greeted as revolutionary, even though Malthus had suggested the idea some hundred years before, this book that argued, like Malthus before him, that zero population growth was good and desirable. It is a theory which is still current intellectual fare even though it was initially theorised over 150 years befor peak oil became a concern amongst scientists.

When you think of how carefully Darwin had to present the case for evolution, to go against the establishment, to prove without a shadow of a doubt that evolution was a theory that should be taken seriously, it was not a hard science but he provided data and so forth to support his theory. Given the minds that were weighed in opposition to him, you can see why it might not be conducive for him to risk his career. Here was a man who was able to command a ship to sail around the world, and came from what was the scientific community of the day. He risked his career. How many of you are doing the same today to bring knowledge into the world? In Darwins time there was a fundamentalist view just as there is today - there will always be fundamentalists and there will always be thinkers and visionaries.

So much of our current thinking is fundamentalist, it's supporting some kind of status quo, and particularly a corporate status quo, that doesn't want us to challenge thoughts on science like the answers have already been given for all time. Everything is changing.

 

[laptop]

hundredthmonkey - I haven't the faintest what you mean by "fundamentalist".

It rather looks ago you are using it to indicate "strongly argued viewpoint that hundredthmonkey would rather not hear".

Thus yet another word is gradually biting the dust to become a generic and meaningless term of abuse...

 

[hundredthmonkey]

hundredthmonkey - I haven't the faintest what you mean by "fundamentalist".

It rather looks ago you are using it to indicate "strongly argued viewpoint that hundredthmonkey would rather not hear".

Thus yet another word is gradually biting the dust to become a generic and meaningless term of abuse...

No. I engaged with the debate as presented by the initial poster

The Guardian

An upsurge in fundamentalism is seriously threatening the role of science in shaping the modern world, Britain's most senior scientist will warn today.
In a valedictory speech to mark the end of his five year presidency of the Royal Society, Lord May of Oxford will claim that fundamentalist thought in all its guises, from religious beliefs to the ideologies of green lobby groups, is skewing debates over some of the most pressing issues facing humanity, such as climate change and emerging diseases.

Such is the influence of groups that ignore or misinterpret scientific evidence, that the core values that underpinned the Enlightenment and led to "free, open, unprejudiced, uninhibited questioning and inquiry, individual liberty and separation of church and state" are being eroded, Lord May believes.

The Guardian

well you can choose not to engage in the debate but at least think about it.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I'm pretty sure I understand what Robert May thinks a fundamentalist is, it's rather clear if you read the text of his address. He thinks they're people who are

scandalised by "pluralism and tolerance of other faiths, non-traditional gender roles and sexual behaviour, reliance on human reason rather than divine revelation, and democracy, which grants power to people rather than God."

and who are opposed to and actively working to undermine

The Enlightenment's core values, which lie at the heart of the Royal Society - free, open, unprejudiced, uninhibited questioning and enquiry; individual liberty; separation of church and state

 

[laptop]

No. I engaged with the debate as presented by the initial poster

So you haven't read the rest of the thread, in which that Guardian journo's spin was comprehensively dismantled? (What you quoted was the Guardian journo not the OP, btw.)

Bernie just quoted Robert May's definition, from the speech he actually gave.

Mine would be narrower: one who believes that all questions can be answered by reference to an inerrant text and to whom critical, rational inquiry is therefore irrelevant. That text might be the Xtian Bible (as interpreted by Preacher X) or it might be Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (as interpreted in particular by Pareto).

I'd allow a secondary meaning, in homage to the coinage of the term by early C20 Xtian evangelists in the US: one who believes all problems can be resolved by a return to "the fundamentals" of an (imagined) golden age, and for whom no critical, rational inquiry is necessary because those "fundamentals" are divinely revealed. But critical usage of the term has developed since then toward the first meaning I just gave.

It seems to me clear that Robert May recognises that fundamentalist-free-marketeers are just as much a problem as fundamentalist-xtians.

Now, your definition is...

 

[hundredthmonkey]

Free and unprejudiced thinking, I am sure we all desire, but we are assailed by lawyers like Goldsmith and Prime Ministers like Blair who tell us otherwise.

 

[hundredthmonkey]

So you haven't read the rest of the thread, in which that Guardian journo's spin was comprehensively dismantled? (What you quoted was the Guardian journo not the OP, btw.)

Bernie just quoted Robert May's definition, from the speech he actually gave.

Mine would be narrower: one who believes that all questions can be answered by reference to an inerrant text and to whom critical, rational inquiry is therefore irrelevant. That text might be the Xtian Bible (as interpreted by Preacher X) or it might be Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (as interpreted in particular by Pareto).

I'd allow a secondary meaning, in homage to the coinage of the term by early C20 Xtian evangelists in the US: one who believes all problems can be resolved by a return to "the fundamentals" of an (imagined) golden age, and for whom no critical, rational inquiry is necessary because those "fundamentals" are divinely revealed. But critical usage of the term has developed since then toward the first meaning I just gave.

It seems to me clear that Robert May recognises that fundamentalist-free-marketeers are just as much a problem as fundamentalist-xtians.

Now, your definition is...

blah... read the wealth of nations know your secondary definition, academic... presented my point of view and... wasn't being academic... sorry. Sticking to the idea of fundamentalism as presented in the first post. Can we go there or what?