Comments on: Against all my better judgement…

By: What are the odds? | Cosmic Variance

What are the odds? | Cosmic Variance — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 07:19:21 +0000

[...] The paper was the San Mateo County Times (I don’t subscribe, it is randomly tossed into my driveway) from July 9. And yep, it’s that article that Risa has mentioned. [...]

By: Meredith

Meredith — Sat, 23 Jul 2005 13:47:04 +0000

I’m rather excited about this new group venture by some ‘cool’physicists into blogging. (I’m an undergrad w/McKay who laments having read what I did last week about blogging and the workplace. Eeep!).

Anywhoo, just wanted to say hi and welcome to the world of blog.

By: Luisf

Luisf — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 19:02:33 +0000

Personally, I don’t wear hats. They give me aweful “hat-head”.
Most unfortunate.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 13:41:23 +0000

And as I told you Quantoken, I do not pay an inappropriate amount of attention to the hats people wear, but I do notice if the hat is made of tin foil.

By: Quantoken

Quantoken — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 13:35:42 +0000

Risa said:
“There is a difference between money being involved in what science gets done, which is perhaps disturbing but certainly inevitable, and politicians explicitly
misusing, distorting and suppressing science for political purposes, which should be disturbing no matter ones political perspective.”

Risa you are being wrong in suggesting that only the guys with a hat labeled “politician” would play politics, and that the guys with a hat called “scientist” on their head would strictly play in scientific ways.

Nothing could be more wrong than judging people based on the type of hats they wear, as I told Mark many times. Scientists are pretty good at playing politics and politicians are quite capable of playing science. There plenty of cases of scientists turned politicians, and physicists are the most likely ones to do so. Do you think stuffs like Global Warming Theory are really science, not crackpot, just because it is main stream? A super tzumani happened and some experts jumped out and cry “global warming”. It’s only because the idea was too obviously silly that it did not spread. However those were ideas suggested by people wearing a hat called “experts” in the field.

Now, money and politics are never separable. If you are trying to tell me that big science can try to use the money, without really having politics involved. It is like saying I can wash my hands without getting my hands wet.

Politics are ALWAYS involved in big money big science. But the influence may not always be negative. By chance some times it pushes it further away from scientific truth and some times it does push closer to scientific truth. In the case of global warmings theory, I think the recent congressional inquiry may actually force scientists to be a little bit more honest, which is good. BTW I am definitely no fan of any Republican of any type.

Quantoken

By: Mal Watlington

Mal Watlington — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 01:06:59 +0000

Glad to see you guys up and running. Preposterous Universe was one of the most thought-provoking reads in the b-sphere, so I have high hopes for your new venture.

By: Unscrewing The Inscrutable

Unscrewing The Inscrutable — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 18:22:33 +0000

Meet the Cosmologists

How did the universe get here and where is it going? Is string theory viable? And most importantly, how did the fundamentalist dopes get theology and politics in my science?
The answers to these questions and more …. are a mystery for now. But lo, the n

By: Daniel Conover

Daniel Conover — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 18:12:57 +0000

There are no unrelated topics, and this blog looks like a welcome addition to the conversation. Consider your feed bookmarked.

By: Linnaeus

Linnaeus — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 17:36:25 +0000

I am also disturbed by the political shenanigans arising around science in the present day. I will say, however, that “politicization” of science really isn’t all that new. Science is an intellectual activity, but it’s also a social activity. As I see it, that means politics and science are always linked in some way.

It might be more precise to say that you’ve noted an increase in the politicization of science of a particular, and insidious, kind.

By: n. carden grey

n. carden grey — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 17:35:19 +0000

Came here by the way of 3quarksdaily. As to hesitation over “the proclivities of physicists to say something about everything,” I do hope this doesn’t stop you. I’d much rather hear from the hesitant these days than from the aggressive, even if we all are trying to find our feet in the whirling pools of opinion. I’m excited about this site. And need to go back to work!