Science Is Used To Intimidate Climate And Health Policy Makers
WHAT is free speech? It’s the right to speak your mind and for others to call your views into open debate. Mark Steyn looks at how debate over climate science is being blocked. He quotes former Austrian PM John Howard’s talk in London:
An overriding feature of the debate is the constant attempt to intimidate policy makers, in some cases successfully, with the mantras of “follow the science” and “the science is truly settled”. The purpose is to create the impression that there is really no room for argument; this is not really a public policy issue; it is one on which the experts have spoken, and we would all be quite daft to do other than follow the prescriptions, it is asserted, which flow automatically from the scientific findings.
Writing recently in Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Dr Richard S. Lindzen, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said of those with political agendas who found it useful to employ science, “This immediately involves a distortion of science at a very basic level: namely science becomes a source of authority rather than a mode of inquiry. The real utility of science stems from the latter; the political utility stems from the former.”
Brendan O’Neill spoke in debate on science and how it’s shaping Government policy. It’s a reasoned debate until Robin Ince stars ranting and raving. Why debate when you can just scream your point of view in a sweary hissy fit and attempt to belittle anyone who holds a different one:
Posted: 9th, November 2013 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
