I don’t know what Marx really says, but having myself studied History, I can guarantee you that cultural changes do exist…

JJ replies: None of this is based on Marx, nope, it’s good old Anglo empiricism in the tradition of Hume and Isaac Newton

[JJ - it's sarcasm ; ) ]

THE CHALLENGE is to show us how such utopianism is empirically practical (but then some people don’t do sarcasm).

If there wasn’t unbiased scientists then the computer you’re typing on wouldn’t work. Science is empirical. If something doesn’t comport with reality, then someone shoots it down (or the technology doesn’t work).

That’s how careers are made (or not, as the case may be) in the sciences.

And only ideologues don’t get this kind of common sense.

If we can agree on this, then the only issue to resolve is what religion these missionaries will preach.

Actually, what we need is a small army of unbiased scientists to validate or refute the global climate models. Are there any unbiased scientists out there?

None of this is based on Marx, nope, it’s good old Anglo empiricism in the tradition of Hume and Isaac Newton.

Now *your* thinking, on the other hand, (”intellectuals” addicted to “cultural change” blah blah blah) is heavily influenced by New York intellectuals like Kevin Phillips and Irving Kristol–who *were*, in fact, heavily influenced by Marx. Kristol was a recovering Trotskyist. And it showed ; – ).

Further, nowadays, this view about conspiracies of elite social changers is pushing 40 years old. We are a long ways from Nixon’s 60’s and 70’s. All the scientific organizations mentioned in this article are not “hippies” or “elite” Great Society social tinkerers. They’re scientists.

So get some new ideas. Empirically-based ones this time.

Didn’t Marx say that “cultural change is the opiate of the intellectual”? – or rather, isn’t this how neo-Marxists construe Marx?

Based on this utopianism, I see no cause for optimism – rather, the reverse: pessimism.

Instead, since US society is being revolutionized by IT, the proper issue is what actually constitutes knowledge. Thus the internet conserves knowledge and spreads its standards of information-attainment.

Properly harnessed to contemporary institutions of knowledge keeping, science standards ought to improve over time. This incremental improvement is what Karl Popper expects of the Open Society, but what institutionalized science keeps down – as seen above in Evans account of the boot-licking authoritarianism of the “consensus” on AGW.

Then perhaps you should not stereotype, yourself.