Science, anti-science, racism and homophobia

[GoneOffShore]

Hooray - Someone who is not willing to give the woo peddlers equal time.

Exclusive: Beddington goes to war against bad science
Selective use of science should be on a par with racism or homophobia
By John Dwyer and Laura Hood

http://www.researchresearch.com/index.php?option=com_news&template=rr_2col&view=article&articleId=1032320

Research Fortnight
14-02-2011

Government Chief Scientific Adviser John Beddington is stepping up the war on pseudoscience with a call to his fellow government scientists to be "grossly intolerant" if science is misused by religious or political groups.

"We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of racism. We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of people who anti-homosexuality... We are not—and I genuinely think we should think about how we do this—grossly intolerant of pseudo-science, the building up of what purports to be science by the cherry-picking of the facts and the failure to use scientific evidence and the failure to use scientific method."
"One way is to be completely intolerant of this nonsense," he said. "That we don't kind of shrug it off. We don't say: ‘oh, it's the media’ or ‘oh they would say that wouldn’t they?’ I think we really need, as a scientific community—and this is a very important scientific community—to think about how we do it."

Beddington also had harsh words for journalists who treat the opinions of non-scientist commentators as being equivalent to the opinions of what he called "properly trained, properly assessed" scientists. "The media see the discussions about really important scientific events as if it’s a bloody football match. It is ridiculous."

[truedelphi]

1. Hopefully Beddington will start with some of the non-scientific doctrines

Foisted on true scientists and on the public through the arrangement of industry-controlled people in positons of power.

To make me happy, he could start with seeing to it that Mike Taylor is removed from his position at FDA. Mike Taylor is the Monsanto-clone whose pronouncement during the Clinton administration that GM food is similar to conventional food became the "new scientific doctrine" was given full authority over the GM food crop situation in this nation.

Only in the independent European science labs do we find the truth about GM foods. The University of Caen in France has already found enough evidence pointing to the fact that GM foods are probably a bad idea, and that GM seeds and foods need additional study.

Yes, the GM situation is one that needs at least a dozen years of study - but since the likes of Bush Sr, Bill Clinton, George W and Obama need those campaign funds so badly, real science is not attainable in this nation.

[patrice]

2. Method in particular should be better understood, because of it's importance to results.

Also because the traits and assumptions associated with the methods of a given piece or research are the means by which that research relates to other research in the same field and it is that network of relationships that is knowledge, rarely, if ever, a single piece of research the way it is reported in media and "discussed" at the grassroots level.