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May 22, 2007
Reasons I Will Not Be Going to the Smithsonian Any Time Soon
The Smithsonian Institution toned down an exhibition on Arctic climate change, fearing that it would anger Congress and the Bush administration, a former museum administrator said. The official text of the exhibition was rewritten to minimize and add uncertainty about the relationship between global warming and people, said the former official, Robert Sullivan, who was associate director in charge of exhibitions at the National Museum of Natural History. Officials omitted scientists’ interpretations of some research and let visitors draw their own conclusions from the data, Mr. Sullivan said. In addition, graphs were altered “to show that global warming could go either way,” he said. Museum officials denied that political concerns had influenced the exhibition, saying the changes were made to increase objectivity.
Because that's what museums are supposed to do: Ignore the scientific consensus, offer only the raw data, and let visitors piece it all together. Maybe the dinosaur exhibits should just be piles of bones, and we museum-goers should have to assemble them ourselves -- all the better to liberate us from the terrible yoke of actual expertise and well-founded conclusions.
May 22, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
Well, who wants to look at 6,000-year-old dinosaur bones anyway? Yawn.
Posted by: jhupp | May 22, 2007 9:17:58 AM
Lessee.....
Public institution doesn't want to take sides in a controversial and unsettled issue. Sounds about right to me.
Posted by: Fred Jones | May 22, 2007 9:43:43 AM
It's only a controversial and unsettled issue because mouthbreathers on the right refuse to look at the science. Instead they run to people getting paid by oil companies or think global warming is some sort of harbinger to Jesus. It's the same people making evolution into a "controversial and unsettled issue", they refuse to objectively analyze and review 100+ years of the scientific method at work.
In other words, it's their problem, not ours, and we should not let those fools drag us down to their level of ignorance. But it's not like we haven't seen this before, I am reminded of that appointee at NASA who lied about his degree telling senior researchers to change his report to conform to the wingnut line. Built on sound science, indeed.
Posted by: N1L | May 22, 2007 9:52:07 AM
Fred,
It's not unsettled in the scientific community.
Keep spinning yourself a false version of the facts...
Posted by: Wisewon | May 22, 2007 9:57:46 AM
If it were so settled, Wiseass, everyone would be on board. It would be a no-brainer and there wouldn't be any opposition to speak of. All scientists would agree like they do about the existence of bacteria or the possibility of heavier-than-air flight.
I didn't take sides. I rightly pointed out that it was controversial.....and it is.
Posted by: Fred Jones | May 22, 2007 10:09:52 AM
Fred,
Actually you're 100% wrong.
Let me clue you in, since your ignorance of science is very apparent.
There are literally thousands of scientific theories/drugs/procedures/medical practices that have SIGNFICANTLY less actual consensus than global warming, but are treated as fact by the lay community.
Very few things that have 100% consensus in science.
So unless you want to start saying that most medical practice and scientific research is "controversial and unsettled"-- I'd suggest you pipe down, because the reality is the only people saying what you're saying are those who have no conception how science actually works as a discipline.
Posted by: Wisewon | May 22, 2007 10:18:12 AM
Fred doesn't seem to know that all the "scientists" that oppose global warming are on the payroll of oil companies, coal companies and other major polluters. The whole "controversy" is contrived. If I pay someone with an advanced degree to claim that gravity doesn't exist or that the world is only 6,000 years old, does that mean there is a controversy in the scientific community? I don't think so.
What the naysayers need to ask themselves is why they are unwilling to accept the overwhelming evidence for human caused global warming. What value do they place ahead of a habitable world for their children and grandchildren?
Posted by: Chuck | May 22, 2007 10:21:14 AM
"If it were so settled, Wiseass, everyone would be on board."
Just reading this again. Its amazing to see how ignorant people are about science (particularly those postign on Ezra's site). "Settled" science does not mean 100% consensus.
Posted by: Wisewon | May 22, 2007 10:23:49 AM
...all the "scientists" that oppose global warming are on the payroll of oil companies, coal companies and other major polluters. The whole "controversy" is contrived.
I call bullshit.
Your argument relies upon a conspiracy that you cannot provide evidence for. Of course, it's a convenient device to promote bullshit since conspiracy requires no evidence.
Let's see something....anything...that backs up your assertion that all oppposition to the role of humans as the major factor in global warming is the result of payola from oil and coal companies.
Posted by: Fred Jones | May 22, 2007 10:28:44 AM
Chuck's point is irrelevant.
Try again, Fred. Better yet, pick up a science book and start reading-- then come back in a few years when you actually how understand how science works.
Posted by: Wisewon | May 22, 2007 10:41:17 AM
Ezra, The Smithsonian's cowardice is nothing new. You've forgotten the Enola Gay debacle.
Posted by: theophylact | May 22, 2007 10:46:16 AM
Well, I guess this just goes to show that "government doesn't work" when it comes to supporting science! Another Republican POV validated. Interesting, validated specifically under a Republican government.
Posted by: Tyro | May 22, 2007 10:54:41 AM
Actually it relies on following where people have worked. That's not a conspiracy.
Posted by: akaison | May 22, 2007 10:58:25 AM
By the way- the way to handle scientific controversy- if you want to call it that - is not to ignore it but to present the evidence for both sides and leave it the museum audience to decide.tone downing arguments are not a sign of active debate. it's a sign of censorship.
Posted by: akaison | May 22, 2007 11:04:27 AM
Silly Ezra, there's no such thing as dinosaurs. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to picket the Air and Space Museum for suggesting that the earth isn't the center of the universe. After all, if someone disagrees, then it's a controversial and unsettled issue.
Posted by: SDM | May 22, 2007 11:21:08 AM
"Maybe the dinosaur exhibits should just be piles of bones,"
Well, maybe there were no such things as dinosaurs! They could be the bones of the Nephilim, as told in Genesis.
We should teach the controversy, as Commander Guy says.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of the Great Satan | May 22, 2007 11:33:01 AM
Oh god. Just ignore Fred. No good ever comes from paying attention to him.
Posted by: Antid Oto | May 22, 2007 11:55:43 AM
I'm not saying that humans play absolutely no part. What I'm saying is there is controversy.....and there is.
Chuck's point is irrelevant.
Chuck got called out on his lying bullshit.
Posted by: Fred Jones | May 22, 2007 12:30:09 PM
antid is right.
Posted by: akaison | May 22, 2007 12:48:54 PM
I'm shocked - *shocked* - that an organization founded, funded, and administered by the federal government should act in accordance with political pressures.
Seriously, though, that's what the Smithsonian does. It's not a reflection of the professional consensus, it's a reflection of the political consensus. Go to the American History museum, and you'll be amused by what does and doesn't make it into The Official Story of America. The timelines of big, critical events are fluffy and vaguetastic, with the real focus devoted to "slice of life" sideshows that manage to assert nothing, while the historians only really show their stuff on subjects - containerization, the development of motorized interstate travel routes, bluegrass, Vietnam as "television war" - that have no political valence whatsoever.
Posted by: Senescent | May 22, 2007 1:27:33 PM
Your argument relies upon a conspiracy that you cannot provide evidence for. Of course, it's a convenient device to promote bullshit since conspiracy requires no evidence.
The evidence is easy to find, Fred. Go leaf through Sourcewatch, or Desmogblog's list of the sixty "prominent global warming skeptics" who wrote their letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper last year. Again and again, the majority of them belong to thinktanks and fellowships whose funding comes prominently or wholly from oil companies (usually Exxon Valdez).
Posted by: chdb | May 22, 2007 1:35:09 PM
It's a well known fact that facts are a conspiracy.
Posted by: akaison | May 22, 2007 1:54:54 PM
Lots of people have commented on the fact that lots of global warming skeptics are funded by Exxon, but let's not forget that there are just some crazy people out there. Money or no, there will always be people arguing positions that don't accord with the findings of people applying the scientific method. That's what the scientific method is for, weeding out crazy folks or folks whose work is tainted by other concerns. The vast scientific consensus validates the theory of global warming and and isn't controversial in the scientific community.
Posted by: Ben | May 22, 2007 2:21:12 PM
The hard-core anthropogenic global warming skeptics can be divided into three groups: those who are working for or are funded by energy companies; professional contrarians; religious fundamentalists. I have yet to see any scientist who is outspokenly skeptical about global warming in toto who does not belong to one of these categories.
This doesn't mean that there is no debate within the scientific community about the mechanisms and potential extent of global warming, just as there is significant debate about evolutionary mechanisms, even though evolution itself is accepted as fact.
Posted by: orogeny | May 22, 2007 2:42:04 PM
"It's a well known fact that facts are a conspiracy."
I don't know about a conspiracy, but it *is* well known that the facts have a liberal bias.
Posted by: Tim B | May 22, 2007 2:42:27 PM
