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My colleagues and I cannot perform our duties if research or testimony provided to us is influenced by undisclosed financial relationships [Stoat]
Or so says Representative Raúl M. Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat in the colonies. In which case, he’s an idiot1. He’s a politicain. He should be used to, he should expect, daily to be talked to, to be lobbied, by people with strong political motivations, some or many of which will be hidden from him. He should not be relying on the motives of those presenting information to him to be pure-as-the-driven-snow, he should be relying on his own ability to evaluate what’s said. Or if he’s too stupid to do that himself, get some staffers to do it for him. Or in the case of climate science, just read the IPCC report you bozo, its what its here for. Just how dumb are the congress critters?
So as well as chilling to academic freedom, and having distinct echoes of Republican dark deeds that all right-thinking people condemned, his quest is also deeply stupid. Presumably, its nothing but bandwagon-jumping: “hey look, Soon had “undisclosed funding”, I bet I could get some cheap PR by asking questions”. But in fact, whilst Soon indeed didn’t disclose his funding on the Monkers trash paper, his funding was by that point well know anyway.
Andrew Dessler, a mainstream climate researcher and a professor of atmospheric science at Texas A&M University, said that he had concerns about “fishing expeditions” by Congress into researchers’ work, especially drafts of testimony requested in the letters from Representative Grijalva.
“I like to apply the ‘what if it happened to me test,’ ” he said. And while asking hard questions about funding is worthwhile, “when you start asking for these other documents, it’s more difficult.”
Notes
1. Stronger language suppressed because some of my readership are apparently sensitive about words.
Source: http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2015/02/26/my-colleagues-and-i-cannot-perform-our-duties-if-research-or-testimony-provided-to-us-is-influenced-by-undisclosed-financial-relationships/
