Bias in Reporting Science in the Mainstream Media
Three articles in the last few days have made the point - documented the fact - that science reporting is not objective, but significantly biased. Increasingly science reporting is dominated by political or environmental agendas and those that do not conform to these agendas are punished in a number of ways. If they are researchers they are denied funding. If they are scientists they can be shunned by their peers for challenging the orthodoxy.
The problem is that only dire, extremist news sells; so it is reported even if it is wrong. For example John Stossel reports:
If you’re a scientist working for private industry, it helps to invent something useful. But if you’re a scientist trying to get funding from the government, you’re better off telling the world how horrible things are.
Stossel goes on to give us several examples.
Chaos from Y2K. An epidemic of deaths from SARS or mad cow disease. Cancer from Three Mile Island. We quickly forget. We move on to the next warnings.
Too bad he forgot Alar.
Or this from Bob Carter at the OpinionJournal.com:
After all, who puts money into science–whether for AIDS, or space, or climate–where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today.
Carter also notes:
And then there are the peculiar standards in place in scientific journals for articles submitted by those who raise questions about accepted climate wisdom. At Science and Nature, such papers are commonly refused without review as being without interest.
Earlier this week there was an article by Bob Careter in the Opinion.Telegraph on global warming that probably started the ball rolling:
In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).
After deconstructing the false facts presented to support global warming he said:
The problem here is not that of climate change per se, but rather that of the sophisticated scientific brainwashing that has been inflicted on the public, bureaucrats and politicians alike. Governments generally choose not to receive policy advice on climate from independent scientists. Rather, they seek guidance from their own self-interested science bureaucracies and senior advisers, or from the IPCC itself.
These three articles should not be missed by anyone who wants to keep up on the global warming myth saga.