“Sometimes science is just politics wearing a lab coat.” What an excellent description! And it became readily apparent to anyone paying attention during covid, even though it’s been going on for much longer than that.
We live in a semi-rural area and have one of those clunky old mailboxes with a red flag you can raise to indicate you have outgoing mail. More on topic, I learned long ago while reading an article on any subject the opening phrase “studies show that…..” is a huge red flag the reader should maximize their skepticism and fully anticipate contradictory new “studies show ….” In 3 to 6 months.
Just got a warning from FB for sharing this article. They deleted it. Not sure if everything from you is on the hit list or just this... I told them they are wrong. See what happens.
"This whole saga teaches us an important lesson about the intersection of science and politics."
Eisenhower warned about this long ago, but most of the oxygen in his speech was consumed by the part about the military-industrial complex. In the same address was the part about a growing nexus between research and govt funding of research, and the rational theory that the people doing the funding might have preconceived conclusions in mind. Seems Ike's speech was right on both counts.
It's true that no one study can definitively answer a scientific question. But that doesn't mean a scientific consensus can't form around complex issues.
Climate change driven by human activity is a good example. A lot of folks deny it even exists, so they cherry-pick their favorite data and try to discredit certain studies and institutions. No one study can prove climate change is real, no institution is perfect, and there will always be outlier studies and contrarian scientists. But there's still a broad scientific consensus that climate change is very real, and it's driven by human activity.
COVID is another example. People on both sides, but mostly conservatives, went into the pandemic with strong opinions like "vaccines are bad," "masks don't work," "shutdowns are bad," "it was a lab leak," etc. Because COVID was so new, the scientific consensus on those details was slow to emerge and took some twists and turns along the way. Whenever a study supported a conservative position, the response was "See, we were right all along." Whenever a piece of evidence pointed in the opposite direction, it was "See, science is just politics in a lab coat." You can't have it both ways.
As a kid I attended religious schools that taught that God created Earth about 6,000 years ago. They went to great pains to interpret astrophysics and the fossil record in a way that supported that position. I know now it was all hogwash, but it inadvertently taught me how the scientific method is supposed to work. Whenever people deny the scientific consensus and distort data to support wacky theories, I think, "6,000 years. 6,000 years."
Heh … this write-up reminded me about this other headline from the 1990s Clinton era in which the Pentagon considered R&D for a “gay bomb” that would cause enemy soldiers to throw down their weapons and start humping each other instead of fighting.
Kinda puts a new perspective on that 60s peacenik slogan “Make Love, Not War.” 😏
Hmmm … maybe there is a crazy conspiracy theory out there that the Military Industrial Complex released experimental “gay bombs” in heavily populated cities like San Francisco during the 1950s and 1960s to measure the results?
It could have been (hypothetically) like a Pentagon version of the CIA’s MK Ultra program. 🤔
First define ‘gay’ because it isn’t what you think. It really is a lifestyle that includes a lot of homosexuals, pederasts, pedophiles, sadomasochism, etc, and a lot of narcissism - HUGE amount of narcissism.
often discoveries happen because of accidents and mistakes. Unfortunately I do not have the reference to the paper I read some time ago, but in a hospital they administered a newly discovered hormon to pregnant mothers who had problems. When the childen were born, they found out that boys, XY, had female organs and vice-versa. So they found out that during pregnancy, the foetus sends hormons to the mother which inform her of its sex, and the mother sends hormons to the foetus to build up its sex organs (of course they stopped using that drug for humans and they carried out researches on animals to confirm the process). This goes a long way to explain why there could be ormonal interference because of drugs, or anything happening to the mother that can influence the growth of the fetus and the final result.
“Sometimes science is just politics wearing a lab coat.” What an excellent description! And it became readily apparent to anyone paying attention during covid, even though it’s been going on for much longer than that.
We live in a semi-rural area and have one of those clunky old mailboxes with a red flag you can raise to indicate you have outgoing mail. More on topic, I learned long ago while reading an article on any subject the opening phrase “studies show that…..” is a huge red flag the reader should maximize their skepticism and fully anticipate contradictory new “studies show ….” In 3 to 6 months.
Just got a warning from FB for sharing this article. They deleted it. Not sure if everything from you is on the hit list or just this... I told them they are wrong. See what happens.
"This whole saga teaches us an important lesson about the intersection of science and politics."
Eisenhower warned about this long ago, but most of the oxygen in his speech was consumed by the part about the military-industrial complex. In the same address was the part about a growing nexus between research and govt funding of research, and the rational theory that the people doing the funding might have preconceived conclusions in mind. Seems Ike's speech was right on both counts.
It's true that no one study can definitively answer a scientific question. But that doesn't mean a scientific consensus can't form around complex issues.
Climate change driven by human activity is a good example. A lot of folks deny it even exists, so they cherry-pick their favorite data and try to discredit certain studies and institutions. No one study can prove climate change is real, no institution is perfect, and there will always be outlier studies and contrarian scientists. But there's still a broad scientific consensus that climate change is very real, and it's driven by human activity.
COVID is another example. People on both sides, but mostly conservatives, went into the pandemic with strong opinions like "vaccines are bad," "masks don't work," "shutdowns are bad," "it was a lab leak," etc. Because COVID was so new, the scientific consensus on those details was slow to emerge and took some twists and turns along the way. Whenever a study supported a conservative position, the response was "See, we were right all along." Whenever a piece of evidence pointed in the opposite direction, it was "See, science is just politics in a lab coat." You can't have it both ways.
As a kid I attended religious schools that taught that God created Earth about 6,000 years ago. They went to great pains to interpret astrophysics and the fossil record in a way that supported that position. I know now it was all hogwash, but it inadvertently taught me how the scientific method is supposed to work. Whenever people deny the scientific consensus and distort data to support wacky theories, I think, "6,000 years. 6,000 years."
Heh … this write-up reminded me about this other headline from the 1990s Clinton era in which the Pentagon considered R&D for a “gay bomb” that would cause enemy soldiers to throw down their weapons and start humping each other instead of fighting.
Kinda puts a new perspective on that 60s peacenik slogan “Make Love, Not War.” 😏
See: https://allthatsinteresting.com/gay-bomb
Hmmm … maybe there is a crazy conspiracy theory out there that the Military Industrial Complex released experimental “gay bombs” in heavily populated cities like San Francisco during the 1950s and 1960s to measure the results?
It could have been (hypothetically) like a Pentagon version of the CIA’s MK Ultra program. 🤔
We live in strange times … ⏳
gay is a choice simply because we are human, what separates us from animals is rational choice, everything that is not a reflex is a choice.
First define ‘gay’ because it isn’t what you think. It really is a lifestyle that includes a lot of homosexuals, pederasts, pedophiles, sadomasochism, etc, and a lot of narcissism - HUGE amount of narcissism.
And in addition to the politics, always follow the money....
Damn Politics ruin Pure Science
science is just politics wearing a lab coat!
Thoughtful and enlightening!
often discoveries happen because of accidents and mistakes. Unfortunately I do not have the reference to the paper I read some time ago, but in a hospital they administered a newly discovered hormon to pregnant mothers who had problems. When the childen were born, they found out that boys, XY, had female organs and vice-versa. So they found out that during pregnancy, the foetus sends hormons to the mother which inform her of its sex, and the mother sends hormons to the foetus to build up its sex organs (of course they stopped using that drug for humans and they carried out researches on animals to confirm the process). This goes a long way to explain why there could be ormonal interference because of drugs, or anything happening to the mother that can influence the growth of the fetus and the final result.
Excellent article.