Freshwater: The bait and switch laid out

I would argue that the *best* case would be for the Court to toss the case with scathing comments about frivolous suits, citations from USSC court cases in this area and incompetent or dishonest lawyering...and sanctions to go with for wasting judicial resources.

However, reality and the tendency of appeals courts to do the minimum necessary to "resolve" cases suggests that they may just toss it based on the Board's filing, simply as a way to get it off their plate with the least effort possible.

--W. H. Heydt

No predictions here. They took it even though (IMO) the arguments for doing so were lousy, so will they now turn it back based on good argument? Who knows. The cynic in me says that the decision to take it shows they have an axe to grind, so no, but I don't put any confidence in that assessment.

It does happen that courts will accept motions to reconsider/strike when the full facts are brought again to the argument. During one of my divorce hearings, I had filed a motion to dismiss (based on lack of personal jurisdiction over me), and while the court initially denied the motion, upon a (successful) motion to reconsider, the court dismissed the case.

We (my attorneys & I) are not sure why the initial motion to dismiss was denied.

Bravo!

Someday this too shall pass. Sort of like a kiddney stone.

Congrats Richard! It's nice to have your assessments confirmed. I think you are right about the best case scenario, but as W. H. Heydt notes, I sure wish the court could slap Freshwater's lawyers for attempting to pull such a despicable act.

Nice timing btw - I was doing a search earlier to see if anything new had popped up in this case just out of curiosity. Thanks for the excellent summary.

So Richard, you're arguing that similarity-- between your PT posts and the legal motion to dismiss-- is proof of common descent?

You do know, don't you, that similarity is NEVER evidence of common descent?

(Sorry... couldn't resist.)

diogeneslamp0 said: So Richard, you're arguing that similarity-- between your PT posts and the legal motion to dismiss-- is proof of common descent? You do know, don't you, that similarity is NEVER evidence of common descent? (Sorry... couldn't resist.)

The case should be immediately dismissed with extreme prejudice. The lawyers who wrote the Merit Brief should be fined for contempt of court and the defendant should be jailed for contempt of court. If the court lets them get away with this, the entire thing will devolve into a fiasco of biblical proportions. But then again, who would have predicted anything else?

DS, good luck on the extreme prejudice. I think the CIA does that, not the courts.

After the Kitzmiller vs Dover trial ended, Judge John Jones forwarded a recommendation of perjury charges against Dover Board members Bill Buckingham and Alan Bonsell for lying under oath. Unfortunately, nothing ever became of the recommendations. IANAL, but I understand it can be tough to get such charges to stick.

Can you move to strike an entire Merit Brief on the grounds that it is unresponsive? Of course, once it was thrown out, the people who wrote it would just deny that it ever existed and try to submit another one that might or might not address the issues described in the Memorandum.

If the court had bothered to find out what went on in the first three years of this process, they would have known that this is the kind of crap that they were in for.

The case should be immediately dismissed with extreme prejudice. The lawyers who wrote the Merit Brief should be fined for contempt of court and the defendant should be jailed for contempt of court. If the court lets them get away with this, the entire thing will devolve into a fiasco of biblical proportions. But then again, who would have predicted anything else?

I'm curious. Yahoo had an article yesterday with a picture of Obama with Bill Nye,the science guy. The subject was Nye's concern over creationism's threat to science. Why do we hear so little in pop culture about threats to science from the political left? The book ,Higher Superstition" written the 1990s ,subtitle,"The academic left & it's quarrels with science" is an important book that documents leftist challenges to the sanctity of science.
The authors, Paul Gross & Norman Levitt suggest the lack of courage on the part of science's defenders(mostly in academe) for leftist perversion of science.PC retribution seems to the potential defenders' concern. Why do we hear so much about creationism,so little about other threats to science ???

calhoun said: Why do we hear so much about creationism,so little about other threats to science ???

olorin618 said: DS, good luck on the extreme prejudice. I think the CIA does that, not the courts.

calhoun's a drive-by, and almost certainly won't bother with the answers he gets. There is a reason for responding, though.

The short answer is that the work he refers to, "Higher Superstition" by Gross and Levitt, is an attack essentially on the extension of postmodernist ideas to other fields than literature, where some effect can be seen in the social sciences, if you include anthropology, sociology, educational theory and history as sciences. The authors provide many examples of (typically obscure and unspecific) charges of cultural bias against various social science ideas, and show that their forwarders often substitute for them other culturally biased ideas that are no better. From this, it is true, some of the more eccentric pomos launch vague but often vitriolic attacks on science as a "way of knowing".

The effect of this on the harder sciences has been negligible, however. Postmodernist criticism of "science" - as in physics, chemistry, biology or paleontology - as a western cultural construct has been confined to a few of the more excitable feminists and cultural contrarians, and is rejected as nonsense by most humanities scholars, including those who are as far left politically as the extreme pomos themselves. Marxists, for example, reject the entire farrago. Saying that this is a leftist assault on science is a gratuitous misrepresentation.

More to the point, this is an academic controversy waged in literary academia by the usual means - arcane learned papers and waspish correspondence in obscure journals. There is nothing here to compare with the headlong assault on biology directed from thousands of popular pulpits every week, or the well-funded fundamentalist ginger groups and lobbyists that work for them. Nothing exists here that remotely resembles the DI, or AiG, or Liberty University, or Pat Robertson's organisation. There is nothing in it that comes remotely close to the continued, and sometimes successful, attempts by creationists, almost invariably from the far right of politics, to cripple or subvert education in evidential science.

When the man in the street can be heard to say something like, "Yeah, this science stuff, it's all just a cultural construct, y'know," rather than "I hear the jury's still out on evolution", then I'll start to worry about it.

calhoun said: Why do we hear so much about creationism,so little about other threats to science ???

And, just to add my usual corrective when this comes up, ‘left wing postmodernist’ is pretty close to a contradiction in terms in any case. Not that postmodernists are right wing either: they merely consider any grand ideological narrative to carry the seeds of its own incoherence – as a result of which Marxists, who are quite committed to one of these narratives as a driving force of history, tend to put them very much in the counterrevolutionary camp.

@Raven:

Not quite. Let's not lose sight of the (mostly) left-wing anti-vaxxers, pro-homeopath, hippy-dippy alternative medicine crowd. Overall, the "left" isn't anti-science, but they are still sometimes quite credulous. Not quite the full-scale attack we see from the creobots, but still...

Paul Burnett said:

calhoun said: Why do we hear so much about creationism,so little about other threats to science ???

Name a few. Do any of them rise to the level of the fundagelical / Rethuglican War on Science?

calhoun said: I'm curious. Yahoo had an article yesterday with a picture of Obama with Bill Nye,the science guy. The subject was Nye's concern over creationism's threat to science. Why do we hear so little in pop culture about threats to science from the political left? The book ,Higher Superstition" written the 1990s ,subtitle,"The academic left & it's quarrels with science" is an important book that documents leftist challenges to the sanctity of science. The authors, Paul Gross & Norman Levitt suggest the lack of courage on the part of science's defenders(mostly in academe) for leftist perversion of science.PC retribution seems to the potential defenders' concern. Why do we hear so much about creationism,so little about other threats to science ???

Matt Bright said: And, just to add my usual corrective when this comes up, ‘left wing postmodernist’ is pretty close to a contradiction in terms in any case. Not that postmodernists are right wing either: they merely consider any grand ideological narrative to carry the seeds of its own incoherence – as a result of which Marxists, who are quite committed to one of these narratives as a driving force of history, tend to put them very much in the counterrevolutionary camp.

I have. He makes the same mistake. He, and others like him, can get back to me when he has proof that the action of the academics he cites have, or have even attempted to have, the sort of impact on science education that Freshwater's handlers are currently trying to achieve. Until then, he and Levitt are merely pointing out that in academia, as everywhere in life, silly people have been known to say silly things.

This is as important for those in your camp, John, as it is in mine. The fact that all socially progressive ideas have been lazily labelled as 'left wing' and therefore placed on the tiresome US politics magical thinking continuum, established in the 50s, of liberalism-socialism-communism-stalin-HITLERBADWRONG!!!! is, I think, a major source of the current schizophrenic agonies of the US right in that it's what's making them feel forced to espouse the silly, mean-spirited positions that are currently drowning out the sensible (if, from my POV arguable) ones and scaring away undecided voters in droves.

I would add sex education to biological evolution and global warming.

"controversy waged in literary academia by the usual means - arcane learned papers and waspish correspondence in obscure journals" - that's some of my very favorite reading!

I don't have anything to offer beyond what has been said; I'm commenting here because I visit this blog daily and I get SO much out of it, and I want to thank the blogger and his commenters for the great information and (sometimes) witty repartee. It's one of the many enjoyable ways I try to keep up with what's going on in my beloved field of biology.

Not quite. Let’s not lose sight of the (mostly) left-wing anti-vaxxers, pro-homeopath, hippy-dippy alternative medicine crowd.

has faulted the Radical Left’s emphasis on deconstructionist philosophy, especially with regards to the inane claim that scientific truth is no better than other kinds of truth.

Is there a known date when the court will address the motion to strike?

Tangentially, does anyone know the outcome of the Coppedge / JPL case yet?

Dave Luckett said: The effect of this on the harder sciences has been negligible, however. Postmodernist criticism of "science" - as in physics, chemistry, biology or paleontology - as a western cultural construct has been confined to a few of the more excitable feminists and cultural contrarians, and is rejected as nonsense by most humanities scholars, including those who are as far left politically as the extreme pomos themselves. Marxists, for example, reject the entire farrago. Saying that this is a leftist assault on science is a gratuitous misrepresentation. More to the point, this is an academic controversy waged in literary academia by the usual means - arcane learned papers and waspish correspondence in obscure journals. There is nothing here to compare with the headlong assault on biology directed from thousands of popular pulpits every week, or the well-funded fundamentalist ginger groups and lobbyists that work for them. Nothing exists here that remotely resembles the DI, or AiG, or Liberty University, or Pat Robertson's organisation. There is nothing in it that comes remotely close to the continued, and sometimes successful, attempts by creationists, almost invariably from the far right of politics, to cripple or subvert education in evidential science. When the man in the street can be heard to say something like, "Yeah, this science stuff, it's all just a cultural construct, y'know," rather than "I hear the jury's still out on evolution", then I'll start to worry about it.

patrickmay.myopenid.com said: Is there a known date when the court will address the motion to strike?

Tangentially, does anyone know the outcome of the Coppedge / JPL case yet?

Richard B. Hoppe said:

patrickmay.myopenid.com said: Is there a known date when the court will address the motion to strike?

Nope, and people--attorneys--I've asked don't know, either.

Tangentially, does anyone know the outcome of the Coppedge / JPL case yet?

The Sensuous Curmudgeon has covered that case closely, and AFAIK it's still on-going. Added in edit: Here's SC's most recent post on it.

patrickmay.myopenid.com said: Thanks, I'll follow SC for the rest of the news.

SensuousCurmudgeon said:

patrickmay.myopenid.com said: Thanks, I'll follow SC for the rest of the news.

We're very specialized around here. Richard does Freshwater, and I do Coppedge. No one planned that, but it just worked out that way.

Matt Bright said: I have. He makes the same mistake. He, and others like him, can get back to me when he has proof that the action of the academics he cites have, or have even attempted to have, the sort of impact on science education that Freshwater's handlers are currently trying to achieve. Until then, he and Levitt are merely pointing out that in academia, as everywhere in life, silly people have been known to say silly things. This is as important for those in your camp, John, as it is in mine. The fact that all socially progressive ideas have been lazily labelled as 'left wing' and therefore placed on the tiresome US politics magical thinking continuum, established in the 50s, of liberalism-socialism-communism-stalin-HITLERBADWRONG!!!! is, I think, a major source of the current schizophrenic agonies of the US right in that it's what's making them feel forced to espouse the silly, mean-spirited positions that are currently drowning out the sensible (if, from my POV arguable) ones and scaring away undecided voters in droves.

John said:

Matt Bright said: I have. He makes the same mistake. He, and others like him, can get back to me when he has proof that the action of the academics he cites have, or have even attempted to have, the sort of impact on science education that Freshwater's handlers are currently trying to achieve. Until then, he and Levitt are merely pointing out that in academia, as everywhere in life, silly people have been known to say silly things. This is as important for those in your camp, John, as it is in mine. The fact that all socially progressive ideas have been lazily labelled as 'left wing' and therefore placed on the tiresome US politics magical thinking continuum, established in the 50s, of liberalism-socialism-communism-stalin-HITLERBADWRONG!!!! is, I think, a major source of the current schizophrenic agonies of the US right in that it's what's making them feel forced to espouse the silly, mean-spirited positions that are currently drowning out the sensible (if, from my POV arguable) ones and scaring away undecided voters in droves.

Well it isn't only Paul, who is, like yours truly, a conservative. I think Harold Bloom made an especially forceful case in his "The Closing of the American Mind", and one that Ken Miller found especially compelling and useful that he referenced in in his own "Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul". I wouldn't describe Bloom as a conservative if my memory is correct. Moreover, I think Shawn Otto, a co-founder of Science Debate - who isn't at all a conservative by any stretch of the imagination - was sufficiently convinced by Paul's reasoning to cite it extensively in his "Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America". I know you're not going to agree Matt, but I hope you do consider seriously what I have said here.

I’m curious. Yahoo had an article yesterday with a picture of Obama with Bill Nye,the science guy. The subject was Nye’s concern over creationism’s threat to science.

Why do we hear so little in pop culture about threats to science from the political left?

The book ,Higher Superstition” written the 1990s ,subtitle,”The academic left & it’s quarrels with science” is an important book that documents leftist challenges to the sanctity of science.

The authors, Paul Gross & Norman Levitt suggest the lack of courage on the part of science’s defenders(mostly in academe) for leftist perversion of science.PC retribution seems to the potential defenders’ concern. Why do we hear so much about creationism,so little about other threats to science ???

It's not only yours truly who views the anti-vaccination movement as a major example of Leftist bias against science. Shawn Otto - who is a liberal Democrat - makes a compelling case in his "Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America". That's not the only example he cites BTW.

@harold: I wouldn't say that "none" of that has to do with leftists.

For example, I've attended a small handful of environmental conferences. I think we can all agree that, if someone tells you she is an environmentalist, she is more likely to be a liberal. And, at these conferences, there tend to be other political agendas represented; for instance, at one in D.C., I saw a pro-union booth and John Perkins gave a speech. This was not a haven for right-wingers.

At the same convention, I estimate a full fifth of the booths were dedicated to alternative medicine, spiritual healing, and "natural" (read: false) remedies.

Likewise, if you go into a grocery store that caters more to the hippie crowd, you'll notice homeopathic medicines galore. It's hard to find real medicine in them.

The people tied up in the New Age movement are largely leftists. A good portion of the right wing in America rejects it as satanic. It's not a crowd where you'll normally find conservatives Christians. I'm sure you can find some mostly right-wing medical denialists, but you can also probably find some mostly left-wing pro lifers. We're talking about averages here, and on average, the homeopathic/new age/crystal healing/other woo movement is made up of people who consider themselves liberals.

Now, to answer Calhoun's question of why blogs always pick on the right when there are anti-science folk on the left:

It's because Republicans are worse, plain and simple. It is very easy to find a Republican congressman who thinks creationism should be taught in public schools and that global warming is a lie. It is relativey difficult to find a Democratic congressman who thinks that doctors should be forced to prescribe homeopathic pills. (In fact, I'd wager there aren't any, currently.) Though there is science denial on the left, it hasn't seemed to much threaten good public policy.

I'd be happy if you could prove me wrong, though the issue in question would need to have a clear-cut right answer, like the effectiveness of homeopathy does. This probably rules out a lot of criticism on stances in social sciences, where controlled experiments are harder. For what it's worth, I'm trained in economics, and I find politicians frequently saying outrageously incorrect things on that front. . . but I don't find this tendency confined to one party. And I think economics blogs do tend to criticize both parties, on average, so there doesn't seem to be a bias there.

Coming in late,...
The biggest difference between the (overwhelming) anti-science activity on the right and the (limited) anti-science activity on the left is that anti-science is enshrined in right wing ideology and even has a place in many Republican platforms, while it is to my knowledge entirely absent as a fundamental (if you'll pardon the pun) element of left wing ideology. Look to Rep and Dem leadership. How many supporters of anti-science (anti-evolution, anti-global warming) are there among Repub leadership? How many supporters of "left wing" anti-science (anti-vaxxers, homeopathy supporters) are present among Demo leadership?

I think that we fail as we assume that we have a single continuum from extreme right to extreme left. I think that the current political right wing do have a bag of common beliefs and boot out anybody who doesn't follow most of the beliefs. However, to call everybody who is not in this group "the left" is ridiculous. Where do Atheist Libertarians, New Agers, Communists fit on this continuum?

Neither party is literally pro-science nor anti-science. Politicians will either support or oppose science when it suits their political and economic agendae. The space program, for example, wasn't begun and nurtured because either party loved science. Rather, it was a matter of national defense, and those weird pocket-protector guys seemed to be able to deliver the goods, so both parties supported them -- for a while.

There's no need to recount the anti-science positions taken by the family-values type of Republican, although it should be remembered that there are creationists in the other party too. But even assuming that all Republicans are creationists (they're not), remember that those same people probably do support additional funding for military research. So their position isn't "no science, not ever!" It's more like "science when it suits my purposes."

Also, we shouldn't overlook the fact that the other party, in its zeal for environmental purity, opposes not only energy from petroleum (which is understandable), but they also oppose any additional efforts toward increasing the production of nuclear energy. Where's the science there? And where's the pro-science attitude in reducing the funding and missions of NASA? Many trial lawyers and their legislative supporters are on the political left, and their personal injury cases often feature weird "science" theories about how injuries get caused.

Don't be misled by creationism alone. The parties are often flip-flopped on science issues. Why? Because it's not about science. It's always politics, and if science people unthinkingly support one party or the other, then we're just another voting block to be taken for granted.

SensuousCurmudgeon said: Neither party is literally pro-science nor anti-science. Politicians will either support or oppose science when it suits their political and economic agendae. The space program, for example, wasn't begun and nurtured because either party loved science. Rather, it was a matter of national defense, and those weird pocket-protector guys seemed to be able to deliver the goods, so both parties supported them -- for a while. There's no need to recount the anti-science positions taken by the family-values type of Republican, although it should be remembered that there are creationists in the other party too. But even assuming that all Republicans are creationists (they're not), remember that those same people probably do support additional funding for military research. So their position isn't "no science, not ever!" It's more like "science when it suits my purposes." Also, we shouldn't overlook the fact that the other party, in its zeal for environmental purity, opposes not only energy from petroleum (which is understandable), but they also oppose any additional efforts toward increasing the production of nuclear energy. Where's the science there? And where's the pro-science attitude in reducing the funding and missions of NASA? Many trial lawyers and their legislative supporters are on the political left, and their personal injury cases often feature weird "science" theories about how injuries get caused. Don't be misled by creationism alone. The parties are often flip-flopped on science issues. Why? Because it's not about science. It's always politics, and if science people unthinkingly support one party or the other, then we're just another voting block to be taken for granted.

I found it interesting reading a while back about the relative histories of your two political parties, and how they seem to have see-sawed between "liberal" and "conservative" views over the last couple of centuries.

fnxtr said: I found it interesting reading a while back about the relative histories of your two political parties, and how they seem to have see-sawed between "liberal" and "conservative" views over the last couple of centuries.

Vince said:

John said:

Matt Bright said: I have. He makes the same mistake. He, and others like him, can get back to me when he has proof that the action of the academics he cites have, or have even attempted to have, the sort of impact on science education that Freshwater's handlers are currently trying to achieve. Until then, he and Levitt are merely pointing out that in academia, as everywhere in life, silly people have been known to say silly things. This is as important for those in your camp, John, as it is in mine. The fact that all socially progressive ideas have been lazily labelled as 'left wing' and therefore placed on the tiresome US politics magical thinking continuum, established in the 50s, of liberalism-socialism-communism-stalin-HITLERBADWRONG!!!! is, I think, a major source of the current schizophrenic agonies of the US right in that it's what's making them feel forced to espouse the silly, mean-spirited positions that are currently drowning out the sensible (if, from my POV arguable) ones and scaring away undecided voters in droves.

Well it isn't only Paul, who is, like yours truly, a conservative. I think Harold Bloom made an especially forceful case in his "The Closing of the American Mind", and one that Ken Miller found especially compelling and useful that he referenced in in his own "Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul". I wouldn't describe Bloom as a conservative if my memory is correct. Moreover, I think Shawn Otto, a co-founder of Science Debate - who isn't at all a conservative by any stretch of the imagination - was sufficiently convinced by Paul's reasoning to cite it extensively in his "Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America". I know you're not going to agree Matt, but I hope you do consider seriously what I have said here.

Was it Bloom who wrote "The only thing that a democracy cannot tolerate is intolerance." ??? Vince

Matt, this is a postscript to my prior comments on Paul Gross. I would have replied earlier were it not for the juvenile antics of a certain notorious New Atheist advocate who is a frequent PT poster.

NYU physicist Alan Sokal - who is not by any stretch of the imagination a Libertarian or Conservative - has had his own substantial issues with the radicalism of the New Left with regards to its deconstructionist philosophy. He is best known for submiting to the journal Social Text a spoof of deconstructionist philosophy which became known as the "Sokal Affair". I haven't looked at all the revelant literature, but Sokal has it posted here at his NYU website:

http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/

He was condemned by many on the New Left for deliberating submitting what they viewed as "fraud".

I think I have heard of something similar occurring recently.

When my wife starts trying to get Taro card reading inserted in HS physics classes as a predictive method then I will grant equivalence between Left and Right on general anti-science grounds.
Until then, I'm sorry, it's false equivalence.

cwjolley said: When my wife starts trying to get Taro card reading inserted in HS physics classes as a predictive method then I will grant equivalence between Left and Right on general anti-science grounds. Until then, I'm sorry, it's false equivalence.

In other words, if I go through thousands of pages of obscure writings I can find vague examples of left wing anti-science writing and thought.
And if I poll any old cross section of Republican politicians at any level or several stand alone political activist groups (eg DI), right wing business groups, or candidates for school boards, school principals, and teachers I can come up with thousands of examples of direct anti-science activity from the right.
Well, man o man, that's equivalent.

cwjolley said: In other words, if I go through thousands of pages of obscure writings I can find vague examples of left wing anti-science writing and thought.

We seem to have wandered away from the Freshwater case, but the diversion is important. Y'all might be interested in this from Reason Magazine: Are Republicans or Democrats More Anti-Science?

Things like anti-nuke power and anti-animal testing vs anti evolution are exactly what makes it a false equivalence.
Anti-nuke power activists don't disagree with atomic theory and Anti-animal testing activists don't disagree with evolution. They argue with what you do with science, not what science is.

Even science should know the difference between being tripped over and being kicked.

SensuousCurmudgeon said: We seem to have wandered away from the Freshwater case, but the diversion is important. Y'all might be interested in this from Reason Magazine: Are Republicans or Democrats More Anti-Science?

Hi harold, I don't want to get into a flame war, but may I suggest you read Alan Sokal's work, as well as Shawn Otto's? I posted the links to Sokal earlier in this thread.

John said: It's not only yours truly who views the anti-vaccination movement as a major example of Leftist bias against science. Shawn Otto - who is a liberal Democrat - makes a compelling case in his "Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America". That's not the only example he cites BTW.

"may I suggest you read Alan Sokal’s work"

You may, but I'm too busy to read all his works, or even all the links at the site you referred us to. Please link us to one good solid reference of 10 pages or less that encapsulates his major points. Or, alternatively, summarize the views of his that are relevant to this thread and serve to buttress the equivalency you've argued for here. Otherwise, your tired and repetitious assertions that we must read his work and that of Shawn Otto are unhelpful in advancing your case. Those of us who are trained and literate scientists understandably trust the evidence of our experience and reading, which teaches us that the equivalency you are attempting to draw between the anti-science of the right and the anti-science of the left is phony.

Joel said: "may I suggest you read Alan Sokal’s work" You may, but I'm too busy to read all his works, or even all the links at the site you referred us to. Please link us to one good solid reference of 10 pages or less that encapsulates his major points. Or, alternatively, summarize the views of his that are relevant to this thread and serve to buttress the equivalency you've argued for here. Otherwise, your tired and repetitious assertions that we must read his work and that of Shawn Otto are unhelpful in advancing your case. Those of us who are trained and literate scientists understandably trust the evidence of our experience and reading, which teaches us that the equivalency you are attempting to draw between the anti-science of the right and the anti-science of the left is phony.

Joel said: "may I suggest you read Alan Sokal’s work" You may, but I'm too busy to read all his works, or even all the links at the site you referred us to. Please link us to one good solid reference of 10 pages or less that encapsulates his major points. Or, alternatively, summarize the views of his that are relevant to this thread and serve to buttress the equivalency you've argued for here. Otherwise, your tired and repetitious assertions that we must read his work and that of Shawn Otto are unhelpful in advancing your case. Those of us who are trained and literate scientists understandably trust the evidence of our experience and reading, which teaches us that the equivalency you are attempting to draw between the anti-science of the right and the anti-science of the left is phony.

I risk getting BWed by Richard here, but I heard something about Democrats and Republicans that this wandering thread might find interesting.

On November 28, 2011, I attended a talk in Boulder, Colorado, USA by Susan Hassol titled, "Communicating Climate Change".

Point #1 was unsurprising:

63% of Americans believe the globe is warming; 50% believe the warming is caused by humans. There is a big political element and correlation. 1997 was the Kyoto Protocol; at that time Republicans and Democrats started to diverge. The Kyoto Protocol said that from now on you are not free to drive a big car, etc. And conservative Republicans never like being told what to do.

Point #2 made most of our jaws drop:

Among Democrats, more education correlates (positively) with more acceptance of anthropogenic global warming. The more degrees a Democrat has, the more she/he is likely to accept AGW.

Among Republicans, the opposite is true! Republicans with more education are more likely to be AGW deniers! Susan Hassol had plots to show the reverse correlation. And the science deniers are very confident that they are right!

There were some ideas about why this is so. Perhaps better-educated Republicans are better able to find denial sites on the Internet that reinforce their mistaken beliefs, or they are better at constructing (bogus) theories that support what they already think.

Isn't that weird? Chris Mooney concludes that AGW denial is no longer an education problem.

The most plausible explanation I heard in the discussion afterwards is one that harold has been stating in terms of Fox/Tea/Limbaugh loyalty: People conform to the beliefs of their social group. Right-wing Republicans are kind of a Deniers Club.

Carl Drews said: I risk getting BWed by Richard here ...

The Kyoto Protocol said that from now on you are not free to drive a big car, etc.

And conservative Republicans never like being told what to do.

Carl Drews said: The most plausible explanation I heard in the discussion afterwards is one that harold has been stating in terms of Fox/Tea/Limbaugh loyalty: People conform to the beliefs of their social group. Right-wing Republicans are kind of a Deniers Club.

Obviously, the attempt to have the government teach their dogma in schools is a big reason why right-wing (but to play that game, it's not all right-wing either) nonsense is opposed more than left-wing nonsense is.

However, no one should pretend that nonsense more supported by leftish types isn't actually turned into government policy. NCCAM was pushed through by Tom Harkin, and although I don't think it should be considered to be a total waste, it's clearly questionable to be spending money on CAM instead of upon actually promising medical treatments.

Of course it's not the same threat level, but it's a false dilemma to pretend that, because one side is worse, the other side's government-funded tripe isn't deserving of mention and criticism.

Glen Davidson

As far as vaccinations go, it really doesn't matter who makes the most noise about it, left, right or whatever. As a practical matter, the important vaccinations are the mandatory ones for school-age children. Forty eight states allow parents to withhold mandatory vaccines from their kids because of the parents' "sincerely held" religious beliefs. These are the children who are not getting vaccinated. Eighteen of those states also allow exemptions for "philosophical" beliefs, but these are a small fraction of the total. As long as American society places more importance on adults' mystical beliefs than on children's welfare the problem will never go away.

A coupla quick points that I hope don't distract too much from the Freshwater topic at hand:

1. Alan Sokal identifies as leftist. He wrote in his commentary on the Sokal Hoax that one of his motives for fooling Social/Text was that he wanted to reclaim science for the left.

2. There are anti-science people on both sides of the political divide (and along any other sociopolitical axis you might want to draw up). But the left poses no significant threat to scientific progress at the moment. The peak of leftist science denial was the postmodern/poststructural movement. That is now just about dead except as an art movement (which is where it can be a good thing), and even at its political peak it was really only powerful in the academic left, specifically the social sciences. So, yeah, quite a few professors of sociology, linguistics, and social anthropology had loopy ideas. It was worth fighting against, but it was never, even at its worst, remotely on par with the anti-evolution, anti-AGW, anti-environment, pro-"Bell Curve" lunatics that are running one of the two major US political parties.

3. NCCAM has proven to be a wasteful exercise, but it was never anti-science. It was not great science because the idea was that NCCAM would find all the evidence to support alt meds that was just waiting to be uncovered, i.e. they built a cart and expected a horse would appear, but the actual trials funded by NCCAM have generally been well conducted and honestly reported (which is why the results have been so disappointing to the alt med crowd).

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said: Obviously, the attempt to have the government teach their dogma in schools is a big reason why right-wing (but to play that game, it's not all right-wing either) nonsense is opposed more than left-wing nonsense is. However, no one should pretend that nonsense more supported by leftish types isn't actually turned into government policy. NCCAM was pushed through by Tom Harkin, and although I don't think it should be considered to be a total waste, it's clearly questionable to be spending money on CAM instead of upon actually promising medical treatments. Of course it's not the same threat level, but it's a false dilemma to pretend that, because one side is worse, the other side's government-funded tripe isn't deserving of mention and criticism. Glen Davidson

John said:

SensuousCurmudgeon said: Neither party is literally pro-science nor anti-science. Politicians will either support or oppose science when it suits their political and economic agendae. The space program, for example, wasn't begun and nurtured because either party loved science. Rather, it was a matter of national defense, and those weird pocket-protector guys seemed to be able to deliver the goods, so both parties supported them -- for a while. There's no need to recount the anti-science positions taken by the family-values type of Republican, although it should be remembered that there are creationists in the other party too. But even assuming that all Republicans are creationists (they're not), remember that those same people probably do support additional funding for military research. So their position isn't "no science, not ever!" It's more like "science when it suits my purposes." Also, we shouldn't overlook the fact that the other party, in its zeal for environmental purity, opposes not only energy from petroleum (which is understandable), but they also oppose any additional efforts toward increasing the production of nuclear energy. Where's the science there? And where's the pro-science attitude in reducing the funding and missions of NASA? Many trial lawyers and their legislative supporters are on the political left, and their personal injury cases often feature weird "science" theories about how injuries get caused. Don't be misled by creationism alone. The parties are often flip-flopped on science issues. Why? Because it's not about science. It's always politics, and if science people unthinkingly support one party or the other, then we're just another voting block to be taken for granted.

Am in full agreement with your observations here, SC. Moreover, I heard NASA climatologist James Hansen advocate the construction of new nuclear fission electrical generation plants as the best means of greating reducing our carbon footprint, noting that the safest, most advanced, reactors are now being built in France and Germany. I would suspect that even after last year's disaster in Fukushima, Japan, that he would still favor that view.

SLC said: As usual, right wing sockpuppet Mr. Kwok distorts the reality. As Dr. David Gorski has pointed out numerous times on his blog, ORAC, anti-vax crap is not confined to the left. Ever hear of Dan Burton, Congresscritter from Indiana, who is doing the country a great service by retiring this year? Hardly a left winger. Does Mr. Kwok have some evidence that, for instance, Andrew Wakefield is a left winger?

John said: It's not only yours truly who views the anti-vaccination movement as a major example of Leftist bias against science. Shawn Otto - who is a liberal Democrat - makes a compelling case in his "Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America". That's not the only example he cites BTW.

Chris Lawson said: A coupla quick points that I hope don't distract too much from the Freshwater topic at hand: 1. Alan Sokal identifies as leftist. He wrote in his commentary on the Sokal Hoax that one of his motives for fooling Social/Text was that he wanted to reclaim science for the left. 2. There are anti-science people on both sides of the political divide (and along any other sociopolitical axis you might want to draw up). But the left poses no significant threat to scientific progress at the moment. The peak of leftist science denial was the postmodern/poststructural movement. That is now just about dead except as an art movement (which is where it can be a good thing), and even at its political peak it was really only powerful in the academic left, specifically the social sciences. So, yeah, quite a few professors of sociology, linguistics, and social anthropology had loopy ideas. It was worth fighting against, but it was never, even at its worst, remotely on par with the anti-evolution, anti-AGW, anti-environment, pro-"Bell Curve" lunatics that are running one of the two major US political parties. 3. NCCAM has proven to be a wasteful exercise, but it was never anti-science. It was not great science because the idea was that NCCAM would find all the evidence to support alt meds that was just waiting to be uncovered, i.e. they built a cart and expected a horse would appear, but the actual trials funded by NCCAM have generally been well conducted and honestly reported (which is why the results have been so disappointing to the alt med crowd).

SLC said:

John said:

SensuousCurmudgeon said: Neither party is literally pro-science nor anti-science. Politicians will either support or oppose science when it suits their political and economic agendae. The space program, for example, wasn't begun and nurtured because either party loved science. Rather, it was a matter of national defense, and those weird pocket-protector guys seemed to be able to deliver the goods, so both parties supported them -- for a while. There's no need to recount the anti-science positions taken by the family-values type of Republican, although it should be remembered that there are creationists in the other party too. But even assuming that all Republicans are creationists (they're not), remember that those same people probably do support additional funding for military research. So their position isn't "no science, not ever!" It's more like "science when it suits my purposes." Also, we shouldn't overlook the fact that the other party, in its zeal for environmental purity, opposes not only energy from petroleum (which is understandable), but they also oppose any additional efforts toward increasing the production of nuclear energy. Where's the science there? And where's the pro-science attitude in reducing the funding and missions of NASA? Many trial lawyers and their legislative supporters are on the political left, and their personal injury cases often feature weird "science" theories about how injuries get caused. Don't be misled by creationism alone. The parties are often flip-flopped on science issues. Why? Because it's not about science. It's always politics, and if science people unthinkingly support one party or the other, then we're just another voting block to be taken for granted.

Am in full agreement with your observations here, SC. Moreover, I heard NASA climatologist James Hansen advocate the construction of new nuclear fission electrical generation plants as the best means of greating reducing our carbon footprint, noting that the safest, most advanced, reactors are now being built in France and Germany. I would suspect that even after last year's disaster in Fukushima, Japan, that he would still favor that view.

Germany? Mr. Kwok must be joking. Chancellor Merkel has proposed to phase out all the nuclear power plants in Germany. In my opinion, she should be ashamed of herself, being a PhD physicist who taught the subject in a German university for many years before going into politics. She should know better.

Of course it’s not the same threat level, but it’s a false dilemma to pretend that, because one side is worse, the other side’s government-funded tripe isn’t deserving of mention and criticism

harold said:

Of course it’s not the same threat level, but it’s a false dilemma to pretend that, because one side is worse, the other side’s government-funded tripe isn’t deserving of mention and criticism

1) No-one is doing this. 2) Your own example is of a bipartisan bill; so far every single proposed example of "leftist" science denial in this thread has been an example of some mild thing that cuts across the political spectrum. 3) Your own example illustrates the far worse quality of the Republican party at this time, because NCCAM advocates testing claims, which is at worst money wasted testing unlikely hypotheses. Meanwhile, some Republicans advocate weakening FDA labeling requirements for supplements and the like, which is an attack on public health and public understanding of science. I will condemn any Democratic party or left wing science denial as loudly as anyone. However, the lack of good examples here, combined with the constant efforts at false equivalence and assignment of mild, ubiquitous traits to "the left", in a desperate effort to come up with an example of contemporary "leftist science denial", has left me convinced that no-one can provide a decent, fair example for me to condemn.

John said:

SLC said: As usual, right wing sockpuppet Mr. Kwok distorts the reality. As Dr. David Gorski has pointed out numerous times on his blog, ORAC, anti-vax crap is not confined to the left. Ever hear of Dan Burton, Congresscritter from Indiana, who is doing the country a great service by retiring this year? Hardly a left winger. Does Mr. Kwok have some evidence that, for instance, Andrew Wakefield is a left winger?

John said: It's not only yours truly who views the anti-vaccination movement as a major example of Leftist bias against science. Shawn Otto - who is a liberal Democrat - makes a compelling case in his "Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America". That's not the only example he cites BTW.

If I am a "right wing sockpuppet" then I'm in distinguished company: Michael Shermer, Paul R. Gross, Timothy Sandefur (who once offered some of the best legal analyses as a PT contributor in years past but no longer, I wonder why). I would rather be one than be associated with a New Atheist advocate who allows people to post death threats on his website and treat them as "jokes". Go back and start lusting after girls. I hear Emma Watson might be available, moron. Ditto Lucy Liu.

John said:

SLC said: As usual, right wing sockpuppet Mr. Kwok distorts the reality. As Dr. David Gorski has pointed out numerous times on his blog, ORAC, anti-vax crap is not confined to the left. Ever hear of Dan Burton, Congresscritter from Indiana, who is doing the country a great service by retiring this year? Hardly a left winger. Does Mr. Kwok have some evidence that, for instance, Andrew Wakefield is a left winger?

John said: It's not only yours truly who views the anti-vaccination movement as a major example of Leftist bias against science. Shawn Otto - who is a liberal Democrat - makes a compelling case in his "Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America". That's not the only example he cites BTW.

If I am a "right wing sockpuppet" then I'm in distinguished company: Michael Shermer, Paul R. Gross, Timothy Sandefur (who once offered some of the best legal analyses as a PT contributor in years past but no longer, I wonder why). I would rather be one than be associated with a New Atheist advocate who allows people to post death threats on his website and treat them as "jokes". Go back and start lusting after girls. I hear Emma Watson might be available, moron. Ditto Lucy Liu.

John said:

SLC said:

John said:

SensuousCurmudgeon said: Neither party is literally pro-science nor anti-science. Politicians will either support or oppose science when it suits their political and economic agendae. The space program, for example, wasn't begun and nurtured because either party loved science. Rather, it was a matter of national defense, and those weird pocket-protector guys seemed to be able to deliver the goods, so both parties supported them -- for a while. There's no need to recount the anti-science positions taken by the family-values type of Republican, although it should be remembered that there are creationists in the other party too. But even assuming that all Republicans are creationists (they're not), remember that those same people probably do support additional funding for military research. So their position isn't "no science, not ever!" It's more like "science when it suits my purposes." Also, we shouldn't overlook the fact that the other party, in its zeal for environmental purity, opposes not only energy from petroleum (which is understandable), but they also oppose any additional efforts toward increasing the production of nuclear energy. Where's the science there? And where's the pro-science attitude in reducing the funding and missions of NASA? Many trial lawyers and their legislative supporters are on the political left, and their personal injury cases often feature weird "science" theories about how injuries get caused. Don't be misled by creationism alone. The parties are often flip-flopped on science issues. Why? Because it's not about science. It's always politics, and if science people unthinkingly support one party or the other, then we're just another voting block to be taken for granted.

Am in full agreement with your observations here, SC. Moreover, I heard NASA climatologist James Hansen advocate the construction of new nuclear fission electrical generation plants as the best means of greating reducing our carbon footprint, noting that the safest, most advanced, reactors are now being built in France and Germany. I would suspect that even after last year's disaster in Fukushima, Japan, that he would still favor that view.

Germany? Mr. Kwok must be joking. Chancellor Merkel has proposed to phase out all the nuclear power plants in Germany. In my opinion, she should be ashamed of herself, being a PhD physicist who taught the subject in a German university for many years before going into politics. She should know better.

Three years ago I attended a World Science Festival panel featuring NASA climatologist James Hansen and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute President Shirley Jackson, a highly regarded nuclear physicist who was once the chairman of the U. S. nuclear regulatory commission. It was she who reminded her fellow panelists that the Europeans - primarily the French and Germans - are building the safest nuclear power plants in the world and that we in the United States are technologically years behind them. You demand that creationists respect well established scientific data with regards to biological evolution, as do yours truly and many others here in the United States. May I suggest that you heed what experts like Drs. Hansen and Jackson have been saying? Like it or not, the only credible alternative to relying exclusively on coal and oil is nuclear power.

SensuousCurmudgeon said: they also oppose any additional efforts toward increasing the production of nuclear energy. Where's the science there?

SLC said: Michael Shermer is a Libertarian. And it is Mr. Kwok who lusts after 15 year old girls on the New York subway.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/kYQj4.Y6hsNHh2hA4cxjQS4Dobc-#0cdad said:

SensuousCurmudgeon said: they also oppose any additional efforts toward increasing the production of nuclear energy. Where's the science there?

You are kidding, right? After Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and the Tsunami, what rational person wouldn't be skeptical about the safety of nuclear power plants? Comparing people who have legitimate concerns about the dangers of nuclear power and radioactive waste to creationists is absurd. This is not like anti-vaccers; there are legitimate, observable, empirical concerns.

John said:

https://me.yahoo.com/a/kYQj4.Y6hsNHh2hA4cxjQS4Dobc-#0cdad said:

SensuousCurmudgeon said: they also oppose any additional efforts toward increasing the production of nuclear energy. Where's the science there?

You are kidding, right? After Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and the Tsunami, what rational person wouldn't be skeptical about the safety of nuclear power plants? Comparing people who have legitimate concerns about the dangers of nuclear power and radioactive waste to creationists is absurd. This is not like anti-vaccers; there are legitimate, observable, empirical concerns.

You missed my comment regarding nuclear physicist Shirley Jackson, who believes that nuclear power plants can still be built safely here in the United States. She's just one of many "rational" people who still endorses this view.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/kYQj4.Y6hsNHh2hA4cxjQS4Dobc-#0cdad said: After Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and the Tsunami, what rational person wouldn't be skeptical about the safety of nuclear power plants?

harold said:

Of course it’s not the same threat level, but it’s a false dilemma to pretend that, because one side is worse, the other side’s government-funded tripe isn’t deserving of mention and criticism

1) No-one is doing this.

2) Your own example is of a bipartisan bill;

The OAM had been formed not because of any medical or scientific need, but because Iowa senator Tom Harkin and former Iowa representative Berkeley Bedell believed in implausible health claims as a result of their own experiences. Bedell thought that “Naessens Serum” had cured his prostate cancer and that cow colostrum had cured his Lyme disease (Jarvis 1996). He recommended “alternative medicine” to his friend Harkin, who subsequently came to believe that bee pollen had cured his hay fever (Marshall 1994).

NIH, Bedell said, should hire staffers to locate anyone who claims to have a successful therapy, search the files, and “just simply find out whether what he claims is correct.” [Subsequent to the hearing] Bedell brushed aside questions about how his field studies could be designed to avoid bias. This is a technical detail, Bedell said, and “I'm not a scientist.” But he insisted at the hearing—and still insists—that field studies can be done quickly and easily, without fancy statistics or double-blinded controls (Marshall 1994).

so far every single proposed example of "leftist" science denial in this thread has been an example of some mild thing that cuts across the political spectrum.

Since I was just griping about the false claim that the political left is as anti-scientific as the right, I will mention one exception where I think the argument has some merit: alternative medicine. I am not a fan of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), which had a 2005 budget of 123 million dollars—123 million dollars that was sucked away from legitimate science and placed in the hands of quacks. The latest issue of Science has two articles, pro and con, on NCCAM, and you might be able to guess where my sympathies lay.

3) Your own example illustrates the far worse quality of the Republican party at this time,

because NCCAM advocates testing claims, which is at worst money wasted testing unlikely hypotheses.

Theoretically, NIH, as a scientific arm of the federal government, should act as a referee. But practically since it established the Office of Alternative Medicine in 1992, it has come under fire from the medical establishment for funding what critics charge are shoddy experimental procedures. One problem is that from its outset, the office has been run by CAM boosters like Wayne Jonas, author of the 1996 book Healing with Homeopathy: The Natural Way to Promote Recovery and Restore Health. Even after 1998, when NIH made a great show of cleaning up its CAM program, things haven't much improved. Despite the mandate from Sens. Harkin and Hatch that alternative treatments undergo rigorous scientific testing, many researchers still consider NIH's program a joke. ""It's been about eight years now," complains Stephen Barrett, an M.D. who runs the website Quackwatch.com. "They've never said that anything didn't work." For example, the NIH doled out $1 million for a study of "magnet therapy," which traces its roots to an 18th-century belief that blood circulation can be improved by mounting magnets at various points on the human body. Though the medical community emphatically dismisses the notion, the North American Academy of Magnetic Therapy continues to claim that it's healed scores of patients. NIH has also funded expensive studies of "distance healing," homeopathy, and shark cartilage, the last of which may be the most egregious. NCCAM has awarded more than $1 million to Charles Loprinizi of the Community Clinical Oncology Program in Rochester, Minn., to study shark cartilage's ability to heal advanced colorectal or breast cancer---an idea even some of CAM's biggest boosters, such as Dr. Marc Micozzi of the College of Physicians in Philadelphia, admit is absolute nonsense (sharks themselves get cancer, including cancer of the cartilage). Such studies actually exacerbate the problem. A lot of NIH money has gone to study techniques that on their face are patently ridiculous---but rather than disprove them, "inconclusive" research actually props them up by making it seem as though some legitimate scientific issue were at stake.

Meanwhile, some Republicans advocate weakening FDA labeling requirements for supplements and the like, which is an attack on public health and public understanding of science.

I will condemn any Democratic party or left wing science denial as loudly as anyone.

However, the lack of good examples here,

combined with the constant efforts at false equivalence and assignment of mild, ubiquitous traits to "the left", in a desperate effort to come up with an example of contemporary "leftist science denial", has left me convinced that no-one can provide a decent, fair example for me to condemn.

Proponents of CAM are rarely right-wing types, and they are more the lobbying type, outside of the monied interests.

Leading proponents of CAM are rarely right-wing types, and they are more the lobbying type, outside of the monied interests.

OK, this thread is degenerating. Thanks for playing, folks.