::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 9:06 PM |donate | link
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Rights and Reason: Scientists for State Science
Even a group of scientists have jumped on the 527 bandwagon:
While Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews and other rock stars sing on a "Vote for Change" concert tour, another disgruntled group - this one of scientists - will crisscross the well-worn landscape of battleground states over the next month, giving lectures that will argue that the Bush administration has ignored and misused science.
The group, Scientists and Engineers for Change, another addition to the flood of so-called 527 advocacy groups that have filled this year's election discourse, announced its existence and plans yesterday in a telephone news conference. At least 25 scientists will give talks in 10 contested states: Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Among the headlining lecturers are 10 Nobel Prize winners, including Dr. Douglas D. Osheroff, a professor of physics at Stanford; Dr. Peter C. Agre, a professor of biological chemistry at Johns Hopkins; and Dr. Harold Varmus, former director of the National Institutes of Health.
[. . .]
The group has no direct ties to the campaign of Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, but 9 members were among 48 Nobel laureates who signed a June 21 letter endorsing Mr. Kerry. Several of the scientists have also signed a statement from the Union of Concerned Scientists that accuses the Bush administration of manipulating scientific findings to support its policies. The union opposes the administration on numerous issues, including the environment and energy.
At the news conference, Dr. Vinton G. Cerf, one of the architects of the Internet in the 1960's and 1970's and current chairman of Icann, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, said, "Science counts, and it has not counted sufficiently in this administration."
Dr. Cerf said he was a registered Republican, but that he joined the group "in the hope that we bring debate, science and technology, into the political debate so that the electorate understands the importance that it has in our society."
Dr. Cerf said the United States was "at risk of losing the edge" in technology because the Bush administration was cutting basic research budgets at the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. [New York Times]
Manipulating scientific findings to support its policies? How about scientists who manipulate scientific findings to secure government grants?
The Bush record on science is certainly appalling, not because it allegedly cuts funding (it doesn't) but because it interferes with the freedom necessary to conduct science. The Republican’s attempt to squelch cloning science with the seeming support of the administration is a disgrace. That said, it look like "Scientists and Engineers for Change" are hardly any improvement.
::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 8:51 PM |donate | link
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The War: Taking the Nihilism of Islamifascism Personally
::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 6:57 PM |donate | link
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Rights and Reason: God save us from the Christians
Don Watkins is calling it the way he sees it and I like the way he sees it.
::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 5:04 PM |donate | link
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Rights and Reason: Doctor-Assisted Price Fixing?
Ex-CACer Skip Oliva takes an intelligent look at the Bush administration's contradicting policies with respect to physicians?calling for medical malpractice reform on the one hand, while simultaneously prosecuting doctors in record numbers for alleged antitrust infractions at the von Mises Institute.
Update: Skip also has a worthwhile review of the US Supreme Court's antitrust cases from last term here. See page 10 for his review of the case in which CAC filed an amicus brief with the court.
::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 4:51 PM |donate | link
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Sunday, September 26, 2004::
The Culture: The Fake is Never Accurate
Note: Been pretty busy so not much time for blogging, but here's this week's column:
The feeling in the newsroom must have been exhilarating: in the face of blistering attacks questioning the heroism of John Kerry in Viet Nam made by supporters of President Bush, CBS News would offer damning evidence that would indict the president as a hypocrite. CBS’s report would reveal that George Bush avoided being drafted to fight in Viet Nam by landing a coveted National Guard spot through family influence, and then subsequently failed to live up to the terms of his enlistment.
The problem with this story is that the memos that CBS relied upon for its story are forgeries—and bad ones at that. Yet when confronted with evidence that it was duped, instead of admitting its error, CBS attacked its critics.
Jonathan Klein, a former executive at CBS News, assailed the Internet bloggers who brought attention to inconsistencies in the typesetting of the memos by claiming that, “You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of check and balances [at CBS news] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing.”
CBS News anchor Dan Rather was equally contemptuous, dismissing what he called a “counterattack” from “partisan political operatives.” Then, the New York Times encapsulated CBS’s position in a headline that will go down in linguistic infamy: the documents in question were “fake, but accurate.”
Inaccuracy in journalism is not a new story. Even experienced reporters can make mistakes; they can get names wrong, misquote subjects and commit a host of other errors.
Yet none of these errors are necessarily damming. Instead, what counts is one’s loyalty to the truth. Mistakes are embarrassing, but owning up to them does not hurt one’s credibility—it enhances it. Reporting facts out of context, or fishing for facts that support a desired conclusion in defiance of reality is not so easily forgiven.
A journalist’s mission is to present concrete, objective facts based on their experience in judging what is important to their audience. A journalist presents facts that anyone would see if they could stand in the journalist’s shoes themselves. If the facts being reported are controversial, journalists are expected to report as much.
Yet it is not the job of the journalist to support particular beliefs. Journalists serve as the eyes and ears of their audience, but not their mind. It is left to the reader to draw whatever conclusions are appropriate from the news—not to the reporter.
It is interesting then to note how many journalists believe that their ability to report facts objectively is impossible—an ideal that can be approached, but never reached. Every communications professor I have studied under at George Mason has argued that facts are not observable aspects of the world, but instead are consensually agreed upon statements about it. By this view, the mere perception of facts distorts them. Truth is not determined by hardnosed perception, but by committee. Instead of objectivity, we are left with pseudo-objectivity.
This explains why so many journalists can claim with a straight face that they are not biased even when it is so plain that they are. Most journalists do not actively think and select, they simply reflect the conventions that have long ago imprinted themselves upon their minds. These conventions are dominated by a left-of-center world view.
A typical example: Reuters’ tortured attempts to avoid identifying the acts of militant Islamists as terrorist acts on the grounds that, “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” The left holds that all cultures are equal: think of John Kerry arguing that the North Vietnamese communists were no different from the Americans in his 1972 Senate testimony. So an act of murder might not actually be an act of murder; after all, who are we to judge?
And if we did judge, we would not be objective. A journalist’s mind is a literal blank and he gives all claims credence, even those that are painfully false—and obviously dangerous to their audience.
Yet no one, not even a journalist or a communications professor can honestly defend dishonesty. The fake is never accurate. Objectivity demands an active mind that can identify facts, sort out extraneous noise, and present the truth in a useful way.
Yet if the last two weeks are any judge, CBS has failed in its responsibility to live up to this purpose.
::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 10:32 PM |donate | link
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