Just shot through Cockburn’s most recent article at Counterpunch. Along with a rather fascinating look at eugenics, immigration policy, Zyklon B & the El Paso delousing facilities that later became the model for Nazi death camps, there is a fantastic article by MIT prof Richard Lindzen he quotes at length on the interstices between science, advocacy groups, and public policy:
The interaction of science, advocacy and politics in both the global warming and eugenics cases share a number of characterisics:
Powerful advocacy groups claiming to represent both science and the public in the name of morality and superior wisdom.Simplistic depictions of the underlying science so as to facilitate widespread ‘understanding.’
Events’, real or contrived, interpreted in such a manner as to promote a sense of urgency in the public at large. Scientists flattered by public attention and deferent to ‘political will’ and
popular assessment of virtue.Significant numbers of scientists eager to produce the science demanded by the ‘public.’
Given the automatic tendency of our educated elites to form advocacy groups, the above interactions would appear to have a certain inevitability, and the advantages of advocacy groups over individual scientists in communicating with the public will inevitably give advocacy groups an opportunity to dominate the presentation of the science.
While I have issues with Cockburn’s position on global warming, I think the above applies to just about every biological discipline which can result in public policy - most notably, health policy. The public will always be unaware that ‘consensus’ is not something built by scientists, but by advocacy groups with underlying motivations [or by industries with profit motivations]. In fact there are very few areas of science in which there is ‘consensus’ - and the history of science [at least as seen through Kuhn] is based precisely on the breaking of accepted scientific paradigms. We all need to keep this in mind when faced with other current idiocies like ‘global bird flu pandemic’, etc.
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In other news, my favorite Hasbara troll, dcoronata, made a lovely appearance today, trotting out some of his greatest hits:
What country was that? (3+ / 0-)
Recommended by:redcardphreek, Doughnutman, MBNYC
If you know your history, the area was a British protectorate, previously a part of the Ottoman Empire.There was no previous country in history, that went by the name of Palestine.
Right, so it’s fine that a bunch of Europeans came in, stole the land from the hundreds of thousands of people living there & then instituted policies of ethnic cleansing that continue to this day… Just so that’s settled…
In that diary though, mattes linked to a very interesting article I hadn’t seen before on the Mizrahi rejection of Zionism. Very good read & completely blasts the myth of the great Arab expulsion of Jews after the creation of Israel.
Anyhow - have at it vipes.
