From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Mar 20 2004 - 21:10:15 GMT
> "Phaedrus had always believed science is a search for truth. A real
> scientist is not supposed to sell out that goal to corporations who are
> searching for mere profit. Or, it he had to sell out in order to live that
> was nothing to be happy about. These frat brothers of his acted like they
> never heard of science as truth. Phaedrus had suddenly seen a tentacle of
> the Giant reaching out and he was the only one who could see it."
Platt said:
Pirsig is right. Scientists can sell out their commitment to truth. The
environmental movement is a classic case in point--tentacles of the
political Giant reaching out to corrupt intellectual honesty.
dmb says:
It looks like we almost agree on the principle, just not about who tends to
violate those principles. I'm not interested in defending the enviromental
movement and I'm certainly not going to pretend there are no "scientific
illiterates" on the left. I never doubted that and its quite beside the
point. The point is that when commerce comes into conflict with scientific
truth, it is immorall to let commerce win. And this is what the Bush
administration is presently doing. Here we are not talking about a
non-profit advocacy group, not even one with as much clout as Greenpeace.
We're talking about the federal government and the world's largest
corporations working together to put commerce over science. In terms of
scope and intensity, I really don't think there is any comparable
anti-intellectualism on the left. And this is only consistent with Pirsig's
descriptions of the levels. You may recall, dear reader, the posts I sent
describing the uproar in the scientific community over Bush's interference
with Scientific journals such as NATURE and LANCEOT. And the debate has more
recently related to their suppression of a Pentagon report on global
warming. (The Penatgon - for those of you overseas - is a hippy lefty
peacenik organization that wants to end the fossil fuel age.) To those
examples please add the following...
In an article titled THE JUNK SCIENCE OF GEORGE W. BUSH, Robert F. Kennedy
writes...
"Today, flat-earthers within the Bush Administration - aided by right-wing
allies who have produced assorted hired guns and conservative think tanks to
further their goals - are engaged in a campaign to suppress science that is
arguably unmatched in the Western world since the Inquisition. Sometimes,
rather that suppress good science, they simply order up their own.
Meanwhile, the Bush White House is purging, censoring and blacklisting
scientists and engineers whose work threatens the profits of the
administration's corporate paymasters or challenges the ideological
underpinnings of their radical anti-enviromental agenda. Indeed, so extreme
is this campaing that more than 60 scientists, including Nobel laureates and
medical experts, released a statement on February 18th that accuses the Bush
Administration of deliberately distorting scientific fact "for partisan
political ends"."
The author then provides a horrifying list of examples. The EPA report
issued to days after the terrorist attacks told Manhattanites that the air
downtown was fine, was "safe to breath". But, says Kennedy, "A study being
preformed by Mt. Sinai School of Medicinde has found that 78% of resue
workers suffered lung ailments and 88% had ear, nose and throat problems in
the months follows the attack and that ablut half sitll had persistent lung
and repiratory illnesses nine months to a year later."
"As a faovr to utility and coal indusires, America's largest mercury
dischargers, the EPA sat for nine months on a report exposing the
catastrophic impact on children's health"
"Interior Secretary Gale Norton falsely claimed that the caribou would not
be affected becasue they calve outside the area targeted for drilling She
later explained that she somehow substituted "outside" for "inside"."
"Roger Kennedy , former director of the National Park Service, told me that
the alteration and deletion of scientific information is now standard
procedure at Interior. 'It's hard to decide what is more demoraliizing about
the Administrations's politicization of the scientific process', he said
'its disdain for professional scientists working for our government or its
willingness ot deceive the American public'."
Jack Spadaro, a geo-technical engineer who has worked in mine regulation
since 1966, has been placed on administrative leave since June and will most
likely be replaced by a more friendly "regulator" from within the mining
industry. He was in charge of investigating the cause of the largest toxic
spill in American history, 300 million gallons of toxic sludged. The Bush
administration didn't like his findings. "We simply wanted to get to the
heart of the matter - find out what happened and why , and to prevent it
from happening again. But all that was thwarted at the top of the agnecy by
Bush appointees who obstructed professionals trying to do their jobs." he
said. "This is the most lawless administration I've encountered. They have
no regard for protecting miners or the people in mining communities. They
are without scruples."
dmb continues:
There are countless examples, but you get the idea. The current conservative
administration is repeatedly asserting social level values over intellectual
truths. They are largely motivated by ideology and plain old cash, but they
aren't really so different from those who would deny the theory of evolution
to students of reproductive medical information on religious or moral
grounds. The social and intellectual levels are large and so the conflict
has many permutaions, but we can see trends and patterns. One of the most
obvious patterns we see among reactionary movements is an anti-intellectual
bias. In history we see this most conspicuously among the fascists and
fundamentalists. As demonstated by Kennedy's article and the angry
scientists he quotes, as well as a thousand other places, we can see the
same tendency in the Bush administration. And let us not forget that this is
a moral battle. Kennedy concludes this way...
"Led by the President, the Republicans have gutted scientific research
budgets and politicized science within the federal angencies. The very
leaders who so often cndemn the trend toward moral relativism are fostering
and encouraging the trend toward scientific relativism. The very ideologues
who derided Bill Clinton as a liar have now institutionalized dishonesty and
made it the reigning culture of America's federal agenides. The Bush
Administration has so violated and corruped the institutional cluture of
goverment agencies charged with scientific research that it could take a
generaton for them to recover their integrity even if Bushis defeated this
fall. Says Princieton University scientist Michael Oppenheimer, 'If you
believe in a rational universe, in enlightenment, in knowledge and in a
search for truth, this White House is an absolute disaster.'"
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