…the right to kill children before they’re born…

A person who makes such a claim is hardly making an argument based on science.

not a single person with a Phd. in a scientific area.

nuff said.

“Whether or not abstinence or abortion is good for the society or morally good or not is a political question and every opinion about it a political opinion, not a scientific one. Thanks, Science, for giving this important idea a boost.”

I think you are being too general. It is very useful to analyze where precisely science enters politics. IMHO, politics often starts with something most people agree with like “we want to avoid unwanted pregnancies and the spread of STDs” or “we want the economy to grow” – it is simple to decide whether these are good or bad for society as a whole. Have you not noticed that a lot of the disagreement is about how these goals that most people agree with (except of course various extremists) should be reached? Science has a very big role to play here, because it can inform us what routes to take, what will work. Let’s put it this way: we don’t need political science – we need scientific politics.

I respect the Heritage Foundation as an important think tank, and if I needed some scientific info about a topic they study, I would probably prefer Heritage Foundation over Concerned Scientists. You don’t need to explain me that people on the far Left prefer Concerned Scientists over Heritage Foundation.

Dear Invcit, similar comments apply to you. Whether or not abstinence or abortion is good for the society or morally good or not is a political question and every opinion about it a political opinion, not a scientific one. Thanks, Science, for giving this important idea a boost.

Dear Cynthia,

all of us know that you are very efficient in producing various bizarre catastrophic scenarios and combining words so that they sound hysterical, but what you have failed to offer was a rational argument that the processes that are parts of the “carbon cycle” are threatened by increased CO2 concentrations. While you provided us with zero of evidence, you would need a rather strong set of arguments to support your extraordinary statement. Extraordinary statements require extraordinary evidence. If you call my position “Climate Change Denial”, then it would be a good idea for everyone who is not in Climate Change Denial to call her psychiatrist and ask for help.

Dear Alex,

Peter Woit is not a physicist, while climate science, if done properly, is a part of physics and is within my qualification. But formal qualification is not as important as the fact that while Peter Woit has no idea about the technical content of our field, I have a pretty good idea about climate science, although there are of course much better people in this particular field.

Dear Sean,

you may succeed to make people discuss about more interesting things than me once you succeed to create a posting that is more interesting which quite clearly was not the case of this file that you created.

All the best
Lubos

That is an open question.

My presonal bias is to err on the side of caution and reduce greenhouse emissions. The conclusion I have come to, means increased nuclear energy to meet world energy needs over the next 30-50 years with hopefully a better long term solution.

You start by saying that the majority disagree with Motl, then you finish your comment by saying science is not political!

Tony Smith has quoted Carl Sagan’s view in his book Cosmos, 1980: “The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no place in the endeavor of science.”

Sagan was constantly coming up with radical ideas. I think in 1983 he thought of “nuclear winter” (which eventually turned out to only have a chance of working if oil refineries are the primary targets). But if you don’t challenge orthodoxy, you’re not likely to achieve a radical advance. You learn more by trying things and making mistakes than by locking yourself into an orthodoxy.

It seems to me that what you mean by “hard science” is something that can be reduced to easily manageable, predictive numerical models.

This is hard for weather and climate, but the computer simulations are getting closer to the observed conditions and predicitions about climate change can be made with some degree of scientific accuracy, unlike the famous Time article about a new Ice Age in the mid 70′s.

“Climate change” is a superficial term that has been picked up by the news media, but I remember talking about the Green House effect in my Biology A Level class at school in the late 60′s. It’s certainly a valid term and certainly closely related to C02 levels. If anything the evidence about Ocean acidification levels indicates that there’s a danger that the oceans will soon become less effective at absorbing this C02.

Finally science is not political per se, but the uses to which science has been put have always been, particularly in the area of technology.
Edward Teller was an extreme right winger on whom the character of Dr Strangelove was modelled.
Einstein on the other hand was always a socialist and his political views are often ignored by those who write about him

‘It’s kind of entertaining – although admittedly the humor is black – that DailyKos, the most politicized web blog in the world whose atmosphere is dictated by hundreds of radical far left-wing lunatics, wants to pretend that they fight against politicization of science.’

If people want to disbelieve global warming or string theory, then they are hardly being heretics. Science is about constantly holding doubt and being prepared to re-examine foundations. Those who defend evolution like an orthodox religion are simpletons because evolution is not, or should not become, a religion.

You don’t need to religiously defend a fact, just to state the evidence. If the other side refuses to see the logic of 1 + 1 = 2, that’s life in a free world. I’d prefer to live in a free world where you get heretics, than one in which facts are turned into a religious ideology and ‘defended’ against inspection. Although evolution has plenty of evidence, other areas of science have less evidence, as Lubos often points out. Religious style orthodoxy is a danger in other sciences.

I think that it is pretty clear that the study that you cite about abstinence is itself rather politicized. Just read the completely one-sided description of sexual relationships before marriage under the heading “Emotional and Psychological Injury.” I could equally well write something about how sexual relationships before marriage are good, because it gives you a better idea about what to expect, how to choose your partner, and so on. Neither text would be science, of course. Or what about the sentence under the heading “The Silent Scandal: Promoting Teen Sex” claiming that viewing erotic photographs carries risks for youth, without giving an explanation or reference at all. Also, look at the topics and links at the main page of the foundation which apparently supported the research. IMHO, one should think twice before believing this research. I would say the same if it was published by an openly feminist organization and obviously politicized in the other direction. In any case, the conclusion that you cite, “Abstinence education programs for youth have been proven to be effective in reducing early sexual activity. Abstinence programs also can provide the foundation for personal responsibility and enduring marital commitment” is not really enough to recommend the policy – what needs to be done is of course to make a comparative study of contraceptives and abstinence and which reaches some figures about the rate of unwanted pregnancies, sexual abuse experienced by men and women, and many other issues. It is in principle possible to do this in a scientific way: science can answer what will lead to the most unwanted pregnancies without saying telling us if an unwanted pregnancy is good or bad. It is in precisely this way that science needs to inform policy, i. e. by getting the facts straight before moral/political decisions are made.

As someone so succintly put in in another thread. You make my case better than I could If you are going to cite the Heritage Foundation as scientific evidence, please spare us. You may as well get a scientific analysis on birth control from the Vatican.

Cheers,

Elliot

concerning the abortion-cancer link, I just don’t know whether you’re right or not. I’ve never measured it myself, and there are contradictory answers around. See e.g.

http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2001-02-28-abortion-link.htm

Why are you exactly so sure that this link does not exist? Left-wingers are normally inventing hundreds of hard-to-believe links between health and other things, but when a principle that they consider holy – namely the right to kill children before they’re born – is at stake, suddenly it is clear that there can’t be any health risks. I just don’t believe that the data is evaluated honestly.

In the UCS list you offer, I am unfamiliar with one half of the cases while I studied the other half and found the position of UCS undefendable (examples include global warming and “endangered” wolves). What do you think is my expectation about the first half? The other document is too long to read.

All the best
Lubos

Pretending that these political questions are scientific is a part of what I call politicization of science. Science itself cannot tell us whether abortion is better than abstinence. Science cannot tell us that we should be afraid of every potential microorganism or a new chemical compound that can occur in your food. Science cannot tell us that there are more important things for an energy company than its profit.

I certainly agree that science does not provide answers to such political questions. Scientists provide empirical facts, and it’s up to people to factor those facts in with political, moral, etc. considerations that science can’t address.

What can’t be tolerated is when the science is compromised – when political appointees are allowed to decide how research is done and what the conclusions will be. The Union of Concerned Scientists and the House Government Reform Committee have compiled lists of such incidents (I’ve linked to the lists).

There are valid reasons for being e.g. pro-life, but don’t tell me you’re pro-life because abortion causes cancer. That’s what I call politicization of science.

let me explain you what’s wrong with every sentence in your text except for the sentence “Regards, Elliot”.

You write: “As usual you completely miss the point.”

The reason why this sentence of yours is wrong is explained by the collective content of my response below.

You write: “Science was doing just fine until politics entered the fray.”

There has never been a period in which science existed and politics did not.

You write: “For example there was an overwhelming recommendation to approve the morning after pill by scientists.”

An “overwhelming recommendation by scientists” on a political issue is just a recommendation of some particular citizens. If there are political, moral, or religious reasons for the society to identify a particular act as immoral or illegal, the opinion of one particular profession is irrelevant. The nearly unified voice of this particular profession just reflects the fact that their political diversity is comparable to the political diversity of the Pyongyang Parliament.

You write: “The Bush adminstration, pandering to the religious right, overruled the scientists and imposed their own moral judgement in lieu of making a scientific decision.”

This is how such decisions are made in a democratic country. In a totalitarian country, things could work exactly along the lines you propose: an elite group would decide that a decision is the only decision supported by the scientific Marxist dialectic philosophy, and this group would impose this opinion on the rests of the society. Sorry to disappoint you but the U.S. don’t work along these lines. However, you may be happy to learn that the system that you advocate has been working in the Soviet Union. Among other things, it killed more people than Adolf Hitler.

You say: “Ditto for abstinence programs. The evidence is overwhelming that they do not work.”

What you’re saying contradicts available research papers. For example, look at this paper:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/BG1533.cfm

It says, among other things: “Abstinence education programs for youth have been proven to be effective in reducing early sexual activity. Abstinence programs also can provide the foundation for personal responsibility and enduring marital commitment.”

You write: “But rather than provide condoms and sex education, the Bush regime refused international aid for anything other than abstinence in 3rd world countries.”

This is again a political decision determined by moral values of every responsible person.

You write: “It seems that you tend to decide whether something is scientific or political on whether you agree or disagree with the position. It is completely disingenuous.”

Every question of the type “what should we or the government do” is a political question. It is not disingenuous; instead, it is a basic defining feature of science that you’re apparently unable to understand. Science can never determine the moral values, despite the fact that 99% of left-wing scientists apparently think that it can.

You write: “For example your “kyotometer” is just a plain political lie. Since the U.S. hasn’t signed Kyoto, it obviously costs us nothing ”

The counter is the global counter, and if you could turn on your brain for 20 seconds, you could reach this conclusion, too.

You write: “Regards, Elliot”

As I mentioned, this sentence of yours is OK.

Best wishes
Lubos

As usual you completely miss the point. Science was doing just fine until politics entered the fray. For example there was an overwhelming recommendation to approve the morning after pill by scientists. The Bush adminstration, pandering to the religious right, overruled the scientists and imposed their own moral judgement in lieu of making a scientific decision.

Ditto for abstinence programs. The evidence is overwhelming that they do not work. But rather than provide condoms and sex education, the Bush regime refused international aid for anything other than abstinence in 3rd world countries.

It seems that you tend to decide whether something is scientific or political on whether you agree or disagree with the position. It is completely disingenuous.

For example your “kyotometer” is just a plain political lie. Since the U. S. hasn’t signed Kyoto, it obviously costs us nothing

Regards,

Elliot