WOW how do I respond to the big FU.... Let me see
Man I made you mad I guess I hit a nerve. No doubt I like a good conspiracy theory But the best ones involve people looking out for their own self interests. Especially money.
As for the politics of global warming, well it might be news to you BUT science is not conducted in a bubble.
The academic world IS political, I have some experience there and I know exactly how it works.
1 Get you PhD and a post doc
2. get a tenure track position
3. start producing papers of publishable quality
4. Start firing off grant applications
5. Pi$$ all over your students
6. Get tenure
The fast track to tenure is to get big grants. universities love grant money and most if not all universities will take between 3% to 10% of the grant money you receive. It is in your interests to further your career in academia by researching popular issues where grant money is made available. Of course it helps if your personal belief system coincides with the desires of the grantor. If the grantor wants to prove global warming then guess what, a person with publication record of proving global warming who also writes a grant application trying to further the "science" in that area is going to get the grant money. Get the grant money and get tenure.
Of course others are weeded out along the way through the "peer review process." And an academic must publish or perish as the saying goes. Publishing in peer reviewed journals means having to undergo a vetting of your papers. These journals have boards, on these boards sit other people in your field who subscribe to one theory or another, they vet your paper and decide whether to publish it. And if your paper says something against conventional wisdom, or the ruling theory at the time, or shows fault in theory that the board members personal support through their publications then guess what???? your paper is labelled as unpublishable. The opposite is true where you paper is more likely to be published if it supports, furthers or makes even more outlandish claims that the papers of the person sitting on the board.. why?? because you pushed the envelope and make the board member into a conservative in the field. A sure fire way to get published is to cite from the papers of the board members, they like that too. That not a conspiracy. That's the academic world. Welcome to academic politics 101. Science is not made in a bubble. Money talks, academics want to further and protect their careers and when they get on the grant money gravy train good luck to you and your career if you get in their way. A lot of these guys don't care, they spend their time counting their years of service as they get towards their pension and they file for grant money so that they can travel for free. That's a pessimistic view but I also know professors who have killed themselves out of depression because academia is also a depressive trap with two ways out, pension or death.
No science is made in a vacuum, there is politics, economics, business interests and also the human interest at play.
Global warming is money jackpot for these guys. you make predictions that are not supposed to come true until after you retire, if at all, and by that time you made it to pension or you are dead so what do you care. Not a conspiracy, just people going through life.
SO DON'T GIVE ME THAT ITS A SCIENCE PROBLEM BS... YOU OBVIOUSLY DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. THEORY IS ONE THING REALITY AND PRAGMATISM ARE ANOTHER. AND IF YOU ARE ALREADY IN THE ACADEMIC FIELD OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE OR SOMETHING ELSE THEN YOU SHOULD ALREADY KNOW HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS.
$HIT MY WEATHERMAN CAN'T TELL ME WHAT THE WEATHER WILL BE LIKE 12 HOURS FROM NOW AND YOU GUYS WANT TO MAKE GRAND APOCALYPTIC PREDICTIONS ABOUT WEATHER CHANGE.
Please, if you want to be scientist and go into academic endeavors and solve the worlds problems, fine... but don't expect me to smell your BS and call it a rose.
I've been there and seen how they make the hot dogs. Soylent green anyone?
PS: I think that would be the long version of FU
Last edited by Diesel_dyk (2007-12-13 21:11:08)