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| Why Politicized Science is Dangerous |
| 2006-11-14 |
| (Excerpted from State of Fear) Imagine that there is a new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis, and points to a way out. This theory quickly draws support from leading scientists, politicians and celebrities around the world. Research is funded by distinguished philanthropies, and carried out at prestigious universities. The crisis is reported frequently in the media. The science is taught in college and high school classrooms. I don't mean global warming. I'm talking about another theory, which rose to prominence a century ago. Its supporters included Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Winston Churchill. It was approved by Supreme Court justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis, who ruled in its favor. The famous names who supported it included Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone; activist Margaret Sanger; botanist Luther Burbank; Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford University; the novelist H. G. Wells; the playwright George Bernard Shaw; and hundreds of others. Nobel Prize winners gave support. Research was backed by the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations. The Cold Springs Harbor Institute was built to carry out this research, but important work was also done at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Johns Hopkins. Legislation to address the crisis was passed in states from New York to California. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #8 It's wise to seperate the disgenic effect of the "welfare" state from eugenics. Perceptive comment. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2006-11-14 09:20 |
| #7 Well, I didn't say all of them, lol. You hafta be a DhimmiDonk or a Greenie or a Socialist to do that here... ;-) |
| Posted by: .com 2006-11-14 09:20 |
| #6 .com you'll never win an election if you call the public imbeciles. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan 2006-11-14 09:13 |
| #5 Phil_b, It's wise to seperate the disgenic effect of the "welfare" state from eugenics. One is incentivising bad gene combos by punishing successful people (likely to have better genes), the other is the state actively deciding that one group of genes is better than others, a gene corporatism (picking business winners). |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan 2006-11-14 09:12 |
| #4 Just for the record, I will cherry-pick a bit and admit that the "rising tide of the imbeciles" was in evidence just last week. :-/ |
| Posted by: .com 2006-11-14 08:12 |
| #3 I'm sorry, but you'll hafta be killed. Lol. Just kidding... But your kneecaps are forfeit, sorry. ;-) |
| Posted by: .com 2006-11-14 08:08 |
| #2 I disagree with Crichton on his examples, although not his argument. Lysenko was so influential because Marxism requires that nuture is far more important that nature. A much better example would have been the pervasive belief still widely prevalent that environment is a far more important determinant of human outcomes than genetics (examples about society A versus society B notwithstanding. This is an argument about individuals). Which brings me to Eugenics. It was certainly widely abused and the extension into racial purity is complete nonsense. Nonetheless there is a very hard truth behind it. That is, people are similar to their parents in the characteristics we think important and this is primarily a consequence of genes. Birthrates fall first and fastest with those who do the best in societies (until recently the reverse was true, at least in the West). Eugenics may be out of fashion, but it will prove necessary in the future. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2006-11-14 08:06 |
| #1 Crichton is among the brightest - and bravest. When he analyzes a problem or situation, his resulting output is always about as good as it gets - or can get in this timeframe - and usually the best of the lot, hands down. It is always sound, solid, rational, defensible and, most amazingly of all, prescient. If you find yourself on the opposite side of an issue, it's time to abandon your conclusions wholesale, drop any pretenses and emotional attachments, and rethink from scratch, for you have fucked up. Stephen den Beste is of this remarkable lot, as well, this small group who can logically and clinically work a problem without the crippling burden of dogma or emotion or custom or tradition or sentimentality or superstition or politics or greed. The output is always sterling, always worthy. May the scam artists and whores of pseudoscience be exposed, damned, and burned at the fucking stake, er, I mean perp-walked to a hellhole to become Bubba's Newest LoveToy. |
| Posted by: .com 2006-11-14 07:34 |