Scientists Fight Back In Canada 277
Trufagus writes "The current Canadian government is widely regarded as 'anti-science,' and this year they have stepped up their efforts to undermine scientists and control their contact with the media. But now the federal scientists are fighting back and have just launched their own website. Gary Corbett, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said, 'If science isn't supported then you're going to find that decisions are going to be made more at the political level,' on Monday as the union launched their website."
Reality's well-known biases (Score:5, Insightful)
"The union said in a release the recent decision to end the mandatory long-form census is the latest step in a worrying trend away from evidence-based policy making."
Well, see, there's your problem. You silly scientists, insisting that demonstrable facts are used to guide public policy. Don't you know that the truth is whatever the Party says it is?
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How many fingers, Winston?
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Depending on your region, businesses that absolutely hate any environmental, product safety, or occupational health regulations; Jesus freaks/ Allah enthusiasts/ Torah bashers with major hang-ups on biology, cosmology, and sex; or the occasional ultr
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If you've been following this issue, you know that The Party that I'm referring to is not a communist party or something, it's the Conservative Party of Canada, precisely because they're muzzling government scientists who they disagree with. Thankfully, these scientists aren't risking their lives, only their jobs.
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In Soviet Canada, ignorance is a dish best served cold.
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Actually, in Soviet Canada, cold dish serves you!
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Thing is, this is the least "soviet" government we've had in a LONG time.
The summary is pure hyperbole. There's nothing anti-science about the current government; people just stick that label on them because it's a conservative majority. The entire uproar is a manufactroversy - government funded scientists are still free to conduct their research and publish their findings free of interference, they're just limited in their contact with the media. Seeing as how pretty much every other arm of the governme
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"Least soviet" yes. Dissolving government twice, once to prevent a vote and the other to avoid discussing a controversial issue. Cutting a deal with Google to allow the Speech From the Throne to be publicly broadcast but NOT the opposition's response. The G20 debacle.
You stay open and fair Harper.
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No, I DISAGREE with conservatives. I don't like Harper. The difference is that the Conservatives use the system to pass measures I disagree with, Harper actively abuses the system to do things he should not be allowed to do.
I am assuming that by soviet we were referring to totalitarianism and suppression of information. If you're talking about distribution of wealth, then yes, this is less soviet than previous governments, however that would make you off topic so I assume you meant the first thing. Diss
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Cute. But people were detained without a reason given, for hours at a time without any charges brought against them and without being allowed to even know the rule they were being accused of breaking (which turned out not to exist).
For those of us living downtown, near the perimeter it was genuinely frightening. I would come out of the subway to see groups of 3 or 4 cops putting random people up against the wall and doing everything short of strip searching them. Some people would get arrested. T
Re:Reality's well-known biases (Score:5, Insightful)
Please provide some evidence to back up your insinuation that "Scientists" are... what? Bought by someone? Have some sort of political agenda? Please also cite evidence for the "growing philosophy of post-normal science", because, being a scientist, I have not encountered it in any of the fields that I work in.
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I am not the original poster and I'm not necessarily arguing against you but there are some points that you should consider.
First, not all Scientists work for a University. Many of them are employed by corporations, either public or private. You didn't "follow the money" in this case.
Second, Scientists working for a University can be directly influenced in ways besides grant money. You didn't "follow the money" for this case either.
Third, it is a fact that historically scientists have banded together to pus
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First, not all Scientists work for a University. Many of them are employed by corporations, either public or private. You didn't "follow the money" in this case.
I'm fairly certain those aren't the ones he's talking about.... I don't see those types pushing public policy, only sometimes you see lobbyists pushing for something that benefits their company because their scientists invented/discovered something, but I don't think that's the issue at hand.
Second, Scientists working for a University can be directl
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I think he may be mistaking scientists who work for a university with scientists that work for industry. All of us, scientists and non-scientists alike, do what we're told, or resign or get fired. I'm pretty sure that most scientists, if told to fudge the numbers, would find somewhere else to do his/her research.
I respect all scientists, but I have a lot more respect for someone researching in a university than I do for one who's trying to make Monsanto or BP richer.
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No, sorry, it is never "grey". If tradeoffs are known, it is a political decision to decide what ought to be done. However, trying to hide the fact that a tradeoff is taking place is pure dishonesty. And in many cases politicians want certain tradeoffs to remain hidden, because they make there life harder: going against the beliefs of your voters is a sure election loser.
"Grey", meaning "we don't know", or "we are not sure" is a cop-out: the maximum likelihood still lies somewhere, and ignoring it will not
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Canada [wikipedia.org]
"Post-secondary education in Canada is also the responsibility of the individual provinces and territories. Those governments provide the majority of funding to their public post-secondary institutions, with the remainder of funding coming from tuition fees, the federal government, and research grants."
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I'm sorry, but what do you mean by "follow the money"? How do you think scientists get paid? They get a salary from their university. There, I followed the money for you. Grants can only cover lab equipment, grad students (lab equipment), and experiments. You are not allowed to spend grant money on anything else.
Politicians get campaign contributions from interested parties. Even though they don't directly get that money to spend on hookers and blow, it does definitely influence politics. The same is true for scientists. Their grants aren't given to them to spend on themselves, but the grants are still their livelihood even at a university. No grants = you might have a job, but you're not doing much besides teaching, and that's if you're tenured. If you're not and you run out of grants, you are also out of a j
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If science has taught us anything is that we should question everything. Never trust a source to be 100% correct.
Re:Reality's well-known biases (Score:5, Insightful)
Good public policy should involve decisions based on fact, and that means a system where politicians, who make our decisions, are well informed by the scientific community, and the public understands through the media not only the facts but the reasons behind implementing them as policy. Of course this isn't really what we have today.
Re:Reality's well-known biases (Score:5, Insightful)
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Of course to be fair I think even many of those scientists do produce good research, with their results either buried or cherrypicked depending on whether or not it's favorable to their corporate sponsors. Granted you'd think that anyone who stays in such an environment has to be somewhat complicit, I'm just saying they're maybe not as corrupt as you might think.
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No, he's saying that it is absurd to think that every scientist in the employ of the Canadian government is systematically corrupt.
We're not talking about one or two scientists in isolation. We're talking about "Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada" ... so the union of Canadian Federal employees with professional designation. Like, Lawyers, Accountants, Scientists, and Engineers.
The current Harper government has basically told
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"The problem with your argument is that it assumes scientists are always right"
Bollocks. Even scientists don't say they are always right. With politicians however, more often than not it does not even seem to matter whether they are right or wrong.
"These days I see Scientists pretty much in the same was as I see politicians: I always want to follow the money."
Which explains why there are no scientists on the Fortune 500 list?
Btw, how do you see corporate leaders? Or do they just not factor into your worldvi
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In life one has to choose what to believe in, what to value most, what is it that is the true guide?
At some point, some people choose Science. The way our minds work, we don't have much room for more than one Absolute at a time... otherwise it isn't an Absolute if there's more then a few... Science... Art... Morals... Religion... Sex... whatever. Something gets placed at the top.
The funny thing is that people will spend about 10 or 20 years putting one thing as the absolute top and then later, through lif
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It's rather sweet that you hold all of science in so high a regard. I used to. These days I see Scientists pretty much in the same was as I see politicians: I always want to follow the money.
Even if that was true, I'd take scientists over politicians any day of the week. To be a scientist, you have to be, at the very least, above-average intelligent. But not to be a politician, being a lying, greedy pig is just enough.
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The article you linked to is a crock of shit. The guy just talks about DDT as it is harmless, citing the facts that are convenient to him and omitting everything else.
So, DDT is effective in malaria control. Spraying cyanide would likely be, also. But it would kill more people than it would save. DDT kills many insects and other animals, accumulates in the environment and the body for a long time and it has proven toxic and carcinogenic effects. Also, it spreads to the rest of the world easily. Do you re
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Lame. The OP's implied statement appears to be that policy can't dictate reality (or at least generally so). Science is actually better suited to inform public policy than politicians appear to be. However that doesn't mean that scientists have to be always right or that they need to be involved at something other than the informational level.
Your point al
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>>>The problem with your argument is that it assumes scientists are always right and are always better able to conduct public policy than politicians
No.
The problem is that the Canadian Government wants to muzzle scientists' mouths. We may not agree with their views but that's no reason to silence them. Liberated speech is one of the most basic rights. The muzzling of speech is the purview of tyrants.
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It's rather sweet that you hold all of science in so high a regard. I used to. These days I see Scientists pretty much in the same was as I see politicians: I always want to follow the money.
Why is it that you only want to follow the money of the scientists. The last time we discussed this [slashdot.org], you completely disregarded the financial interests of industry as a motive for taking sides in this debate while coming up with complicated backstories to justify financial (and political) interest being a motive for the scientific community. Why don't hold you hold scientists, politicians and industry executives to the same standards?
Why do you consider scientists to be more political than politicians and m
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Your point also completely disregards the growing philosophy of post-normal science [wikipedia.org], where scientists can "produce" evidence to support a viewpoint they consider to be politically expedient, even if the evidence does not necessarily incontrovertibly entail the conclusions.
And, as we all know, scientists do this far more often than politicians. Furthermore, scientists are known for completely lacking skepticism in reguards to their peers, wheras politicians question themselves at every step. /s
You can find results that support your hypotheses, yes, but basing policy off of those new hypotheses is a bad idea even if there is no intent to distort the truth. When scientific consensus over something grows though, it is time to act. Specifically with global warming, yeah, it wo
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There's nothing wrong with my reading comprehension. The sarcasm in the OP is obviously directed towards the idea that politicians have no right to contract scientists in the area of public policy, where scientists produce evidence that supports a particular point of view (which, I might add, they are well able to do for any point of view). This is plainly absurd, for the reasons I have given.
Re:No, it doesn't assume that. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ya, that whole science thing is a waste of time. ...of some kind...
The "scientists" just make things up so that the "data" says whatever they want it to say.
And they have an agenda!
A scary agenda!
The very idea that it could be a good thing if policies at a national level were influenced by such nonsense as "evidence" or "data" or "reality" is absurd!
If the sceientists want to disrupt the orderly running of the country by publicly talking about how their "data" (made up of course) and "conclusions"(nefarious no doubt) contradict the decisons made by our good and godfearing leaders then they should be silenced!
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Your argument is really lacking in any intellectual rigour. It is also insufficiently nuanced.
Nobody is arguing that evidence shouldn't be used when making policy decisions. What I am arguing is that science isn't always black and white. There can be a range of opinion on any given issue, with supporting or contradictory evidence on both sides, p
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The issue is about 'federal scientists'. The government of Canada is within their rights to setup rules regarding how their employees are talking to the media. It is no different then any large organization. There are numerous reasons why a large organization would want to control their public image. Imagine if you were an employer and one of your employees thought they had the right to hold press conferences that disagree with how you are running things.
These 'federal scientists' are free to work e
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The rules we don't know about because the people who know about them are being cut off from the media?
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If a companies board of directors is making decisions which are actively harmful to their shareholders, employees of the company become aware of this and try to inform the shareholders but are silenced by the directors because they don't want anyone to disagree with how they are running things.
In general the shareholders wouldn't be to happy about the directors doing that.
If a government tries to do the same to it's citizens how is that any better?
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The EPA ban on DDT [epa.gov] only covered the United States. The EPA doesn't have the authority to make a worldwide ban. DDT is still in use in other parts of the world to combat malaria. The US gets around 1500 cases of malaria every year, but as far as I am aware there are no deaths.
Your linked article is very misleading.
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This is irrelevant. Of course errors are made. Things can be outright wrong. The point is that as an elected official, you have to take decisions. These decisions are meant to improve the lot of the people you are responsible for. Therefore, you must use the best data available to optimise the outcome. And the best data/understanding is the current state of research. It might be wrong, but it is always your best bet.
But then, it is true that many things are disturbing to right-wing/conservative politicians.
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I was with you up to this point. So you see no conflict of interest between scientists receiving research grants and continued funding (or their institutions doing so) and the requirements of the people actually paying the bills (the Government)? Interestingly, you are aware of the conflict when it comes to private co
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In the case of the mandatory long form census, do I think it is worth threatening my fellow citizen with jail time and fines for not filling in a form on how many hours of unpaid housework they did?
Absolutely not. Yet apparently many 'scientists' think they should.
Apparently it is 'scientific' that government use force against its citizens to collect data for scientists to use. It would not be mandatory otherwise.
The fact that they see this whole process as 'scientific' and cannot be questioned is really quite absurd.
You know what's absurd? That you don't know what "scientific" means.
"Scientific inquiry is generally intended to be as objective as possible, to reduce biased interpretations of results. "
If everyone is threatened with jail time if they don't fill out the form, then you don't have a self-selecting group of people willing to fill out the form.
It really is like religion.
Oh FUCK no! Religion doesn't fly planes, religion didn't cure polio: There's your goddamn problem, you're too fucking stupid to understand the difference between realit
Re:Reality's well-known biases (Score:4, Insightful)
Science itself is valueless. It cannot be used to set policy.
Whoa, what? Are you seriously suggesting that humanity is worse off knowing how to form various iron compounds, or how to treat leukemia, or how freshwater mussels affect trout? As far as whether it can be used to set policy, are you suggesting that we set policy with no understanding whatsoever about what the probable effects of that policy are?
It really is like religion
... except that science produces testable, verifiable, repeatable results. Unlike religion, there's absolutely nothing science tells you to accept simply because an authority says so. If you don't think a scientific result is accurate, you can look through the data and methodology, you could set up a lab and try to repeat the result, you could look at what other scientists have to say about it, and so forth.
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I think the grandparent meant to say that science makes no value judgments, as opposed to saying that it has no value.
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"Apparently it is 'scientific' that government use force against its citizens to collect data for scientists to use. It would not be mandatory otherwise."
What you miss is the fact that the data isn't being collected for scientists, it is being collected by scientists who are tasked by the government to provide the information to make informed political decisions, rather than wild-assed guesses.
This is not some ivory-tower statistical exercise, it's providing the necessary ingredients to make a useful decisi
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"So when science says that fibrous asbestos causes cancer, we shouldn't do anything about it?"
Is there science in building a nuclear bomb that slaughters hundreds of thousands of people? Yes. Pretty good advanced science actually.
It there science in building a clean nuclear power reactor? Yes.
Science is valueless. Try reading up on the scientific method. You won't see anything in there about being good or the consequences. Science is largely a process by which you discover things. How you apply it is
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Couldn't have said it better myself.
I'm amazed what I said is so controversial...
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To further the quote: "When asked about those rumours, Mr. Goodyear said such conversations are not worth having."
Big business corruption and greed is anti-science (Score:5, Insightful)
The worst-case scenario is never knowing the truth about anything because businesses have completely obscured reality in order to continue their pursuit of massive profits.
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If you can prove that a business is ruining the environment and economy through sound scientific methods, OF COURSE big businesses will try to stifle research, innovation and facts in order to continue their relentless pursuit of money. Unabashed greed and facts do not mix well.
The worst-case scenario is never knowing the truth about anything because businesses have completely obscured reality in order to continue their pursuit of massive profits.
I've never heard of a business ruining the environment and economy through sound scientific methods.
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"The worst-case scenario is never knowing the truth about anything because businesses have completely obscured reality in order to continue their pursuit of massive profits."
No coincidence that the Religious Right in the US, who compose the vast majority of the Tea Party, are funded by oil billionaires among others.
It's the perfect storm of anti-science superstition and corporate greed.
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No coincidence that the Religious Right in the US, who compose the vast majority of the Tea Party, are funded by oil billionaires among others.
As opposed to the entire Left in the U.S., which is funded by the billionaires who played a significant role in the housing bubble and bust (the Sandlers) combined with a currency speculator billionaire (George Soros).
Well, anyone who says that one side is saints while the other side is demons clearly has their heads up their arses, but they don't always have the -exact same- sins.
In this case, the right being funded by oil and the left being funded by housing and currency speculators suggest we be more skeptical of the right when they talk about climate change, and we be more skeptical of the left when they talk about housing and currency.
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I don't think you understand what left-wing economic policies actually are, never mind that you're forgetting what people like Rockefeller did to get their fortune in the first place. even Buffett is only coming to this realization very, very late in his career, as is Gates.
I mean, Rockefeller? Mr. Standard Oil Monopoly?
Soros is about the only one who comes even close to left-wing economic policy.
You're operating from a very American perspective: th
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You're confusing science with engineering. Scientists discover principles, engineers put them to work in the real world,
Go figure (Score:5, Insightful)
that a conservative government is anti-science.
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Why is that a Troll? There are almost zero secular Conservatives, and not enough to make policy.
Religion and science are opposing views, and religionists have a history of stifling science and killing scientists they thought threatened belief in their imaginary celestial friend.
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Re:Why it's marked as a troll (Score:5, Informative)
First, you are introducing a false division between the prevailing philosophical beliefs of those times with the religious beliefs. What, are you going to argue that Thomas Aquinas' arguments were not religious because they were philosophical? Rubbish.
Second, you are ignoring the fact that the geocentrists used biblical passages to back up their beliefs and attack heliocentrism.
Third, you seem to imply that Luther and his reformation weren't as mired in anti-scientific attitudes as the Catholics he broke from. Some choice quotes from this odious man:
Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.
Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has.
Such ignorance plagued both sides of the reformation.
Ironically, this is why the New Testament frequently bashes philosophers and religious individuals who "value tradition over revelation." The New Testament has several scathing attacks on Greek philosophy and Talmudic legalism.
Ignoring for the moment that the NT supported tradition(and, in fact, is part of a larger tradition), I would point out that both tradition and revelation are incredibly stupid ways of attempting to understand the universe.
Re:Why it's marked as a troll (Score:5, Informative)
Bullshit.
Religion in the West tries to do this all the time. For example, Tennessee vs Scopes [wikipedia.org], and anybody who tries to get creationism taught in schools. Or preventing experiments no fetal stem cells. Or outlawing abortion because God told them so. Or gay marriage because some obscure passage in the bible says so. Any number of ways in which religion tries to control both science and society.
There's loads of examples, and it's getting worse -- the fundamentalists try very hard to push back anything which goes against their "view" of how the world works, and force the rest of us to toe the line.
I'm sorry, but those of us who don't believe in God are often appalled to listen to some of the shit that gets said. And for you to try to say that the West has never allowed religion to suppress science is utter crap.
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Why is that a Troll?
Conservatives don't want the truth to be heard, they'll gag scientists, mod down slashdotters, whatever; the important thing is to keep people in the dark so their scams can keep going unchallenged.
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Depends on your particular religion. American evangelicals and hardcore Islamists, sure, there's not much common ground.
You'll probably find that people who are more relaxed about their religious beliefs don't have a lot of problem with what science has to say.
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combining two things (Score:4, Insightful)
conservatives hate: scientists and unions. i imagine there will be some kind of counter-campaign to smear the Public Science members at some point. another CRU incident maybe?
of course what i just wrote is based on politics too. it's hard to see how rationality can trump ignorance when the ignorant have the bully pulpit to shout down the rationalists.
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of course what i just wrote is based on politics too. it's hard to see how rationality can trump ignorance when the ignorant have the bully pulpit to shout down the rationalists.
At least you realize something is wrong, if you can't understand what is wrong. I'll spell it out for you. If you want to be scientific, you have to walk the walk. That means among other things avoiding unfounded stereotypes like "conservatives hate science and unions".
Shockingly Unsurprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Fortunately, the conservatives in Canada are at least smart enough to know better than to screw with the health care system (at least too much).
Re:Shockingly Unsurprising (Score:5, Interesting)
Scientists ought to seek out other countries for funding. The brain drain can work in reverse.
If China were smart, it would buy up the scientific talent chased out of the West by religious oppression. China was once the most advanced country in the world. There is no reason that shouldn't happen again. The Communists knew what to do about religion, and did it in a manner no harsher than that which spread religion in the first place.
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Except that in China, unlike Canada, you can and probably will go to prison for saying something the government doesn't like.
Also, there's far less oversight of food and drug safety over there.
Re:Shockingly Unsurprising (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would they need to buy our surplus? They're capable of making plenty of good scientists on their own. They're even willing to give them jobs!
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Scientists ought to seek out other countries for funding. The brain drain can work in reverse.
Scientists, unlike some businesses, can't just change their roots as often as the political winds change. And scientists, like pretty much everyone, SHOULD stay and fight for what they believe rather than fleeing.
Re:Shockingly Unsurprising (Score:4, Insightful)
Screw with it? It's not like it's particularly good or anything.
The US system? Indeed it isn't particularly good at anything.
My daughter attended a Canadian university. For three years she (we) had to pay extra for the university health plan because she (obviously) wasn't on the provincial health plan. This was despite the fact that she was covered by my US-based health insurance -- my insurance that covers her anywhere in the world
The Canadian health care system is intelligent enough to realize that most likely your insurance plan that claims to "cover her anywhere in the world" would either refuse payment or jerk them around to the point of them giving up on trying to obtain payment. In other words, the Canadians didn't want your health insurance plan to treat them the same way your plan treats American health care providers.
(And if, by some chance there was something that couldn't/wouldn't be covered in Canada, she was only a few hours away by car and could be brought home for treatment.)
That sounds easy but if you are talking about a true emergency situation bringing someone across the US/Canada border is not trivial. And if you have a disease that you want treated down here, good luck talking US CBP into letting you cross back in to the US.
Why? Because my plan doesn't have unlimited mental health coverage. A college student? For three years? Needs unlimited mental heath? She'd never had a need for mental health treatment before that.
If you were to read the data on mental health situations, you would find that young adults are particularly susceptible to mental health issues and mental health crises. They are standing on solid ground insisting that all students have unlimited mental health coverage, regardless of their past. Just because your little Johnny or Sue had a spotless record as a teenager does not mean he or she will do so well as a young adult.
And any time she actually needed health care, getting to see a doctor was a three-plus hour ordeal. No appointments -- walk-in only.
It is not the fault of the system that your daughter did not know how to use it. Someone unfamiliar with the US system would face the same situation their first time through as well.
Oh, and the stories her friends told a general shortages of doctors because every Canadian that earns an MD leaves. I used to laugh at the billboards on the I81 leading to Canada advertising (begging) for MDs to come work in Canada.
I have driven various parts of I81 - including near the NY/Ontario border - a few times over the past several years and have not seen the billboards you refer to. Where abouts did you see these begging billboards?
It's always a tricky balance (Score:5, Insightful)
I was a public servant and research scientist in Canada for several years. I moved on to other things eventually, but I understand why there is friction between scientists and the government of the day. It's normal, and at some level it isn't peculiar to the current government.
Here's why: on one hand, the government wishes to set and completely control the agenda, and the public service is supposed to be setting its goals at the direction of the political level. That's the job of a public servant: to do the job you are directed to do by the government.
But on the other hand, public servants have a broader commitment to the public-at-large, and scientists especially have an ethical responsibility to pursue the science regardless of whether the specific results of a study will support what the government wishes or not. If a measurement has inconvenient implications for political policy, well, too bad. Deal with the data or admit you don't care about reality. An ethical scientist is not going to cover it up or alter the data to fit political policy. Policy can and should dictate to some degree what should be studied in the first place (i.e. policy determines what is important enough to study -- in which field or topic to invest limited money), but it should have no influence on the actual results or the need to communicate them to other scientists and the broader public. Putting a barrier between scientists and the public is counterproductive to scientists doing their job. It's also a waste of money, because what's the point of doing science on behalf of the public and for the sake of important public concerns like health, safety, resources, etc. if you can't in the end communicate with the public, or if doing so is dependent on whether the results align with the politics of the day? Scientists have to be able to talk about the "bad news" as well as "good news".
A government that fails to recognize this balance between political loyalty and the broader loyalty of federal government scientists to the public and to science is a government that is no friend to anyone -- the scientists or the public. Like I said, the friction has always been there and always will be, but it's true that the current government has gone significantly further than previous ones to try to control communication. In my opinion, they're a bunch of control freaks more interested in determining the message than having an informed political debate. I'm glad that scientists fed up with the situation are doing something about it, because what the government is doing is wrong.
In my experience federal government scientists are some of the most highly-dedicated public servants I've ever met, and they're usually working at about two-thirds to half the pay they could get if they moved to equivalent industry jobs. Where I worked, it was the scientists who were often there until 6pm or later, doing their job because they enjoyed it. The administrators and bureaucrats would be out of there 4pm sharp.
Union of Concerned Scientists (Score:4, Informative)
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You do know that the Union of Concerned Scientists has been around since 1969, not since Bush Jr., don't you? Did you read their history on their web site?
They (we, in this case) certainly have been more vocal during the most egregiously anti-scientific administrations, but Bush Jr. wasn't the first.
Everything is political (Score:3, Interesting)
Here in Sunny Queensland - political choices (Score:5, Interesting)
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But, the brochures were glossy! And loaded with full-color pictures!
It's like our climate-controlled server room here ... management thought that having a whole room, UPS, air-con unit, was a WASTE ... after all, it only kept those silly beige boxes coddled (the server farm that crunched their marketing and accounting data).
Then, we installed a new batch of routers and switches as part of a network upgrade. These were equipped with DAS BLINKENLIGHTS! Suddenly, the server room was terribly important, it h
Only in Canada eh? Pity! (Score:5, Funny)
Let me guess... (Score:2, Interesting)
Do not forget the political motivation (Score:2)
It all sounds good at first glance.
And then one notices the source:
Scientists? No.
A public employees labour Union.
And where do they spend their political funds?
Opposing the incumbent party.
It all boils down to the people with the political agenda having the loudest voices.
Let's just say it would all be much better to them if the government in power was the NDP.
At least they think so!
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It all sounds good at first glance.
And then one notices the source:
Scientists? No.
A public employees labour Union.
And where do they spend their political funds?
Opposing the incumbent party.
It all boils down to the people with the political agenda having the loudest voices.
So you're willing to ignore the Conservative anti-science movement because you're rabidly anti-union? Wow, you sure have a lot to teach us about politics!
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No, I state this as I deal with many Canadian scientists at several institutions, both government and private sector.
This is the concensus of what I hear from them.
And you have a great skill at insulting people!
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So you are saying that the current government did NOT try to prevent genverment scientists from public communications on their work?
Buncha goddam whiners (Score:2)
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> The current Canadian government is widely regarded as 'anti-science,'
Just saying ... This statement is total shit.
Do you have any evidence to back up that statement?
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The article backs him up. If Canadians were aware that their government was anti-science then it wouldn't be newsworthy that a science union put up a website raising awareness about the way the Canadian government is treating scientists.
I'm a Canadian and I didn't know - now I do. I knew that the Conservative government is against public services in general, but I certainly didn't know they're regulating what public scientists are allowed to say.
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If Canadians were aware that their government was anti-science then it wouldn't be newsworthy that a science union put up a website raising awareness about the way the Canadian government is treating scientists.
I'm a Canadian and I didn't know - now I do.
I knew. I think it's newsworthy. Your ignorance doesn't mean something isn't widely known, it just means you're ignorant.
Re:statement (Score:5, Insightful)
It is long established that belief is more powerful than fact. Facts often interfere with our beliefs to the point that you have to get rid of one in favor of the other. The problem is simply that one's own identity is tied very closely to belief where facts are rarely, if ever, claimed as a part of one's identity. Political affiliations and sports teams are also often components of identity for some people to the point of being violently defensive of them.
It may seem nonsensical to ignore new information in order to maintain one's beliefs, but we see it all the time. We see it in diet, religion, relative mathematics, and pretty much every aspect of life. It is all part of how the brain works. We break down, simplify and symbolically represent things in our minds. It serves to help remember, categorize and index what we keep in there. To change our beliefs means to change our long-term neural pathways. This is no trivial matter. For example, I am atheist, but I was raised Christian and so various aspects of Christian thinking still runs through my brain with no sign of ever going away.
Beliefs are comforting. To challenge belief is to make someone uncomfortable.
Yawn, propaganda as usual (Score:2)
Shrug. What value is there in knowing that 20% of the population is composed of Jedi Knights and the ethnicity of 30% of the people "Tan" since they're a mix of two or more "officially recognized ethnicity"?
The log form census has many questions that are either ill defined or none of the of the government's business or can be more accurately gathered from other sources (e.g. several questions ask you about information that you would have filled out in your income tax or birth/citizenship certificate). If yo
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They made the toys with money provide by the government.
People need to remember who they work for and look for a new employer if they don't like the conditions.
Re:Coming soon--- (Score:5, Insightful)
Public sector scientists certainly do remember that. At least, I sure did when I was a government scientist, before I moved on to other opportunities. While I worked in that job I took my commitment to the public very seriously and treated any money I received for my research as if it was my own -- I pay taxes too, you know.
That's why public sector scientists get particularly frustrated when they are told by their government masters that they can't speak to the public who are paying the bills, and it's why the public should feel justifiably angry with any government that sets serious restrictions on scientific communication. You the public are our bosses, not merely the government-of-the-day who might not like the scientific results and decides to stifle open communication.
A government that prevents scientists from speaking to the public is denying the public the right to hear the scientific results they paid for, and for issues that everyone agrees are important to the public (e.g., things like public safety, health, resource development and preservation, etc.). Government scientists provide what is needed to have informed political discussion and decisions. It's grossly irresponsible on all sorts of levels to restrict their communication with the public, but it sure isn't the fault of the scientists trying to do their job.
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You must have missed his "/sarcasm off" tag, Sheldon. In other words...
WOOSH!
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Why is it that when ever a discussion about public employees comes up, someone invariably mentions something amounting to, "They are working for the public and should be flogged for misspending public money".
Funny thing about public employees, they happen to be people as well. People, as you may well know have self interests. They also like to have fun.
You show me someone who has never misspent company money and had fun on company time and I will show you a liar.
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The government isn't the scientist's boss, the public is.
The government are public servants, employed by the people, and should not forget that.
(And who pays for something is irrelevant anyhow, unless you subscribe to the conservative view that money equals rights. You don't buy employees and can't dictate their actions beyond what the employment contract states. We kind of frown on owning workers these days.)
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Look, just because the federal government funds it, doesn't mean they get to decide what the facts and conclusions are. Science is objective, the government isn't.
This government is basically trying to muzzle the scientists and make sure that any facts they have that contradict the wishful-thinking they use to justify policy aren't used. It's essen
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