Category Archives: Media Criticism

Business, Economics, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Science, Uncertainty And Advocacy

Judith Curry is attending an interesting conference in the UK, and has some formal comments:

Some people regard any engagement of a scientist with the policy process as advocacy – I disagree. The way I look at it is that advocacy involves forceful persuasion, which is consistent with the legal definition of advocacy.

In the code of ethics for lawyers, where forceful persuasion is part of their job description, they are ethically bound only not to state something that they know to be false. Lawyers are under no compunction to introduce evidence that hurts their case – that’s the other side’s job.

Unlike lawyers, scientists are supposed to search for truth, and scientific norms encourage disclosure of sources and magnitude of uncertainty. Now if you are a scientist advocating for a specific issue, uncertainty will get in the way of your forceful persuasion.

In principle, scientists can ethically and effectively advocate for an issue, provided that their statements are honest and they disclose uncertainties. In practice, too many scientists, and worse yet professional societies, are conducting their advocacy for emissions reductions in a manner that is not responsible in context of the norms of science.

Much of climate “science” abandoned science years ago, going back to Schneider.

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The IRS’s Latest Email Excuse

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…draws it closer to rogue-agency status:

Let’s cut to the chase here: The IRS is obstructing justice because it doesn’t want the truth to come out . The agency has been caught red-handed targeting opponents of the Obama administration, including the tea party, pro-Israel groups and conservative news media.

It purposely delayed issuances of tax-exempt status to nonprofit groups and held investigations entirely outside its own mandate.

What the IRS is hiding is bound to be the work of malicious political operatives cloaking themselves as impartial civil servants, plotting among themselves against their political enemies through email.

The stiff-arms given by the IRS at every juncture — from Lerner’s invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at a House hearing to this latest claim about preventing duplicates — is consistent with that scenario.

I’d say it’s already been full rogue for many months.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Why Haven’t We Built Cities In Space?

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There’s a long piece over at Gizmodo, mostly about the NRC report. Sadly, the reporter didn’t seem to talk to anyone except Ariel Waldman:

The US has a plan for Americans to live in space. In 2012, the National Research Council was commissioned by Congress to roadmap the future of human space exploration. Last June, the team published its findings in a massive report, which called for several action steps to be taken immediately.

No, actually, the NRC report was not really a plan. It was a set of fairly vague and broad recommendations. There is no plan.

Statistically, China’s space program is a few decades behind the US, but consider these facts: Just in the last two years the country has sent ten people into space.

Really? No, not really. In the last two years, China has sent three people into space. Go back three years, and they’ve sent six.

The agency is currently working on a mission to Mars and a proposal for its own space station, which is planned for sometime in the 2020s. Soon, China will undoubtably surpass the US in its efforts for space colonization.

That’s ridiculous. China is using legacy Soviet-type hardware. No one is going to colonize space that way.

Thanks to a 2011 Congressional act that bars the US from collaborating with China’s space program, NASA is not allowed to work directly with the most quickly accelerating efforts to get humans into space. Thanks to a 2011 Congressional act that bars the US from collaborating with China’s space program, NASA is not allowed to work directly with the most quickly accelerating efforts to get humans into space. This is a huge problem. “There are only two places that are going into space,” says Waldman, referring to current crewed missions by Russia and China. “We’re not one of them, and we’re not in collaboration with the other one of them.”

This is delusional. China is not the place with the “most quickly accelerating efforts to get humans into space.” That is happening in Hawthorne and Mojave, California, and Seattle. We do not need to work with China or Russia to get into space, and we are not in a race with them.

So much of what seems to motivate any space exploration is the concept of flag planting, which the US pretty much invented: I HEREBY CLAIM THIS MOON FOR AMERICA. Take away these imperialistic aspirations and the goals of human spaceflight become unmeshed with these ideas of nation-building—and a lot more pragmatic.

Ummmmmm…no. We did not CLAIM THIS MOON FOR AMERICA. We “came in peace for all mankind.”

Anyway, you get the idea.