Climate change as a tool of tyranny

[Ebionite]

No, it's not

It is a straw man because GW is not the same as catastrophic AGW

 

[Dan From Smithville]

An employer who has a public policy that relates to the subject matter of the scientific work that they seek employees for will tend to attract scientists that agree with that policy rather than those who disagree with it. This leads to a bias in the interpretation of the result of the work in favour of the policies of the employer.

Is this just an opinion or do you have evidence and references to back it up?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

If you can't be bothered to read the link I've supplied, I am not going to copy it all out for you. I've had enough of your nonsense now. I repeat, the fossil fuel companies and the motor manufacturers have got the message - and so have almost all governments of the world. It is only cranks like you that have failed to do so.

I was in ag biotech for 20 years and those companies got the message too. There is heavy investment industry wide on research into crops that can tolerate arid conditions, climate, soil conservation and other areas related to climate change.

The conspiracy theories about it are interesting, but I see nothing but proselytizing and science denial as the basis.

 

[Ebionite]

Is this just an opinion or do you have evidence and references to back it up?

It's self-evident.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It is a straw man because GW is not the same as catastrophic AGW

Please compare and contrast what you mean by GW and AGW and explain the differences?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It's self-evident.

So nothing then. Thank you for saving me time.

 

[Ebionite]

So nothing then. Thank you for saving me time.

Facts and reason are not nothing.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Facts and reason are not nothing.

You haven't offered facts and reason. You made a claim. I asked for the evidence of your claims and got nothing. I don't need to belabor this further entertaining word games, conspiracies or the like.

 

[Ebionite]

You haven't offered facts and reason.

Do you deny that it is a fact that potential employees are more likely to apply for employment if they agree with the policies of their employer?

 

[Copernicus]

Do you deny that it is a fact that potential employees are more likely to apply for employment if they agree with the policies of their employer?

Most people are opportunistic. They apply for employment because they seek to earn a salary doing a job that they are willing and able to do. Putting food on the table and paying the rent can be much more compelling incentive than the politics of the employer.

 

[Ebionite]

Please compare and contrast what you mean by GW and AGW and explain the differences?

The A means anthropogenic. GW is from any cause.

 

[Ebionite]

Most people are opportunistic. They apply for employment because they seek to earn a salary doing a job that they are willing and able to do. Putting food on the table and paying the rent can be much more compelling incentive than the politics of the employer.

You didn't answer the question.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

The A means anthropogenic. GW is from any cause.

You are a wealth of nothing. I won't waste my time further.

 

[Copernicus]

You didn't answer the question.

That's because the question--whether people are "more likely" to apply for work with a politically sympatico employer--doesn't lead where you think it does. Scientists who apply to work for tobacco and oil companies will tend to be more likely to apply for other reasons than sympathy with the company's goals in preserving their business model. Whatever they do, the company ultimately controls what gets reported out as the results of their research. Some, but not all, will be motivated to skew results that they think will please their employer.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Most people are opportunistic. They apply for employment because they seek to earn a salary doing a job that they are willing and able to do. Putting food on the table and paying the rent can be much more compelling incentive than the politics of the employer.

That has been my experience. If there is evidence to the contrary, no one has seen fit to offer it.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

That's because the question--whether people are "more likely" to apply for work with a politically sympatico employer--doesn't lead where you think it does. Scientists who apply to work for tobacco and oil companies will tend to be more likely to apply for other reasons than sympathy with the company's goals in preserving their business model. Whatever they do, the company ultimately controls what gets reported out as the results of their research. Some, but not all, will be motivated to skew results that they think will please their employer.

I've not actually seen that sort of thing happen and I saw no policies intended to subvert science from within when I worked in biotech. Not to mention, scientists in both the public and private sector are often involved in the research or reviewing it. The scientific community exists within companies and extends beyond it. It is a very well-regulated industry.

 

[Copernicus]

I've not actually seen that sort of thing happen and I saw no policies intended to subvert science from within when I worked in biotech. Not to mention, scientists in both the public and private sector are often involved in the research or reviewing it. The scientific community exists within companies and extends beyond it. It is a very well-regulated industry.

I also worked in that kind of environment, but let me clarify my remark. It is natural for people in a corporate environment to become advocates for their employer's products and services. So, when I said that people might tend to skew or bias their results to please their employer, I didn't mean to imply that they would tend to do so in a deliberate attempt to help their employer deceive the public. Quite often bias is manifested as a desire to please their first or second level manager, who doesn't want to bring bad news up the chain. Even when it isn't, the information that gets passed up the chain of command isn't always accurate.

Many years ago, when I started work for a large government contractor, my very first assignment was to serve on the "green team" to decide whether to bid on a government project. My role was to evaluate our ability to fulfill some requirements in the RFP that depended on the state of the art in machine translation at the time. It was obvious to me that we couldn't deliver on those requirements, so I vetoed continuing with the bid, as did other members of the green team (for other technical reasons). I assumed that this was the end of my participation in that project bid, but a week later I was notified that there was going to be a final assessment, and I was now a member of the "red team". I was told to find ways that we could overcome barriers to the requirements, some of which were pure science fiction. We vetoed the bid proposal again. So the company went ahead and submitted a bid on the project anyway, because they had been working on the planned bid for months already and devoted considerable company resources to it. Thankfully, the bid was rejected, and the competitors that ended up winning it spent a lot of government money on a boondoggle that ultimately ended in failure.

This was my first experience in working at a large corporation, but I came to understand that my role as an AI researcher wasn't necessarily going to turn out the way I wanted or expected it to.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I also worked in that kind of environment, but let me clarify my remark. It is natural for people in a corporate environment to become advocates for their employer's products and services. So, when I said that people might tend to skew or bias their results to please their employer, I didn't mean to imply that they would tend to do so in a deliberate attempt to help their employer deceive the public. Quite often bias is manifested as a desire to please their first or second level manager, who doesn't want to bring bad news up the chain. Even when it isn't, the information that gets passed up the chain of command isn't always accurate.

Many years ago, when I started work for a large government contractor, my very first assignment was to serve on the "green team" to decide whether to bid on a government project. My role was to evaluate our ability to fulfill some requirements in the RFP that depended on the state of the art in machine translation at the time. It was obvious to me that we couldn't deliver on those requirements, so I vetoed continuing with the bid, as did other members of the green team (for other technical reasons). I assumed that this was the end of my participation in that project bid, but a week later I was notified that there was going to be a final assessment, and I was now a member of the "red team". I was told to find ways that we could overcome barriers to the requirements, some of which were pure science fiction. We vetoed the bid proposal again. So the company went ahead and submitted a bid on the project anyway, because they had been working on the planned bid for months already and devoted considerable company resources to it. Thankfully, the bid was rejected, and the competitors that ended up winning it spent a lot of government money on a boondoggle that ultimately ended in failure.

This was my first experience in working at a large corporation, but I came to understand that my role as an AI researcher wasn't necessarily going to turn out the way I wanted or expected it to.

I was a natural history biologist that got into applied biology, because that is where the jobs and the money are. I wasn't fully concerned with which company hired me, it was the job and research I was interested in. Of course, that isn't completely true, I was enthusiastic about the technology and the benefits it could bring. But my company was not the only company involved in that work and still isn't.

I had some noteworthy experiences with corporate wisdom that made me appreciate the company I worked for more during my tenure. We had a discovery that was going to set the industry on end. Tremendous efficacy in the field. The target pest couldn't hold out against it. Extremely low toxicity to non-targets. Nothing was going to stop it. Except that it turns out to cross react with people that have peanut allergies and that couldn't be engineered out. That was a tough day, but the company wasn't going to go forward with something with more than dubious allergenicity no matter how many other hurdles it cleared like a champ.

 

[Ebionite]

That's because the question--whether people are "more likely" to apply for work with a politically sympatico employer--doesn't lead where you think it does.

It leads to bias in interpretation because that's the only place that it can go, logically.

 

[Ebionite]

You are a wealth of nothing. I won't waste my time further.

If you don't know what anthropogenic means then there are plenty of online dictionaries that can help you out with that.