> On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 12:07 AM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I didn't mean that [UCS's] science was outside the mainstream, I meant
> that
> > the group's activities were. Like you, I think their scientific
> positions
> > are pretty non-controversial
>
> I guess my sense of "mainstream" isn't the same thing as "most people
> do do it" -- that is, the majority may not be involved in UCS-ish
> activities, but it's not considered anything unusual. At least half
> of my grad school faculty openly discussed climate policy, and notable
> people at Rep-friendly MIT have taken public stands (perhaps kicking
> and screaming). But again, maybe my perspective is skewed by working
> in something that falls on one side of a hot policy topic. And
> nothing gets your attention like being a target.
>
My sense is that we've drifted a little far afield. Carroll's argument was that it takes social movements to overthrow "bad" science and, initially, I disagreed with his intimation that "good" scientific critics aren't involved in the process pretty much from the get go - but I, eventually, have come to want to a) continue to insist on the importance of the early/strong intrascientific critiques but b) acede that "good" science without associated social movements is insufficient to overthrow "bad" science that ideologically resonates with those in power.
In this kind of case, "good" scientists at just about all decent universities and reputable colleges can openly discuss climate science and policy all they want but, without a strong movement presence, those folks - and groups like UCS - have insufficient oomph to take on entrenched political economic interests drawing on crappy pseudo-science to defend their obstructionist positions - though, of course, as a raft of research from the realm of science studies has shown, the combination of the dominant approach to global climate research with the dominant international processes of science-based policies generate tendencies towards policies which exclude many of the people, actors, countries who are likely to be most disproportionately impacted and either generate political resistance the disables the implementation of dominant-style science-based policy or b) generates serious unintended consequences which undermine the effectiveness of the policies (if you believe they'd work in the first place).
>
> > I've sat in seminars and meetings with agbiotechnologists at a number of
> > research universities and a few professional meetings and
> watched/listened
> > to them sneer at opponents in just this way. The contradictory/sad
> thing -
> > and perhaps the thing that drove me most nuts - was that these very same
> > people were those likely to institute demands on graduate students in
> their
> > programs that they participate in regular seminars on the ethics of
> > agbiotech and who had heard a few hundred times from folks like me about
> > the limitations of the "agbiotech's going to save the peasantry and feed
> > the world" position.
>
> I've wondered at times about the link between character of subfields
> and the prospect of their profitability -- that what you describe is
> in some sense driven by the possibility that researchers could get a
> cut of the profits from their work, which seems like more of a
> possibility in biotech that what I'm familiar with. Do you sense some
> gradient in attitudes with immediate applicability of the researcher's
> work?
>
In these case, no. There are certainly "bought" (not literally by companies but effectively by patenting, technology transfer agreements, and professional dynamics) scientists out in the world but in the cases I've researched and engaged most are doing what they believe to be "basic" science or pro-peasant technological development from which they are unlikely to profit, beyond the reknown of succeeding.
Andy
>
>
Alan