Kelly v Graham: Should scientists ‘stay out’ of politics?

Julie Kelly and Nat Graham | January 11, 2017 | Genetic Literacy Project

Politics is infecting scientists.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s election, a debate exploded in social media about whether, and to what degree, politics and ideology may be polluting scientific research and the public discussion about important policy issues, such as climate change and biotechnology.

The issue turned even more heated, and ugly, when a well known plant scientist, Dan Chitwood, posted an incendiary post on Twitter, that seemed to attack farmers who supported Trump. The next shot across the bow was fired by Julie Kelly, in an opinion piece in the National Review Online, who said the Chitwood tweet was part of a pattern: a steady stream of post-election Tweets disparaging the scientific literacy of Republicans. She argued that the science community is overwhelmingly leftist, and often unconsciously (and sometimes consciously and aggressively) conflates its political views with the science when engaging on controversial issues.

That brought forth a torrent of Tweets challenging and rebuking Kelly. Nat Graham, a graduate student studying maize genetics at University of Missouri, offered to write a reply for the Genetic Literacy in the hopes that we can create a dialogue on this prickly issue going forward. To further a constructive debate, we are posting both of their commentaries:.......To Read More....


My Take - Let's get this right once and for all.  Twelve months from now - provided the Trump administration does what it should do - this problem will cease to exist.  Why?  Because when the money goes away so to will these people's views ....and hopefully.... their jobs, and they'll no longer have a platform paid for by the American taxpayer. 

In the structural pest control industry we face a deluge of clabberous dialogue regarding something called IPM, meaning Integrated Pest Management, which means nothing.  It's an agricultural concept based on threshold limits.  A certain amount of pests causes a certain amount of damage and when the infestation reaches a certain level of destruction a pesticide application is justified.  Clearly that's a logical scientific foundation - in agriculture.  It's also clear threshold limits can't possibly be the logical foundation for IPM in structural pest control because the threshold limit for bed bugs, roaches, rats, mice, etc. in someone's home or business is zero.  IPM in structural pest control has no logical foundation, ergo, it doesn't exist.  Except the federal government demands we believe it exists and funds universities and 'scientists' to promote it. 

Let me say this in the most emphatic terms.  If the federal government started demanding, and funding, the idea there's no such thing as IPM in structural pest control these "scientists" and universities would do an about face so fast you would swear they're a color guard in a military parade.  Time and time again we find government grant money has now become the golden calf of science, not truth.  Time and time again we find the term scientific integrity is nothing more than an oxymoron.

End all this grant money wasted promoting nonsense such as Anthropogenic Climate Change and give these "researchers" an opportunity to go out and find a real job and do real research and come up with real solutions to real problems.  But they won't because they only capable of existing in these
"scientific" fields by feeding at the government's trough.  

In fact, end all grant money to universities for any reason and let them become self funding based on the value of what they teach and what real value their research brings out.   I would love to see what would come into being twelve months later.  I just hope they've got what it takes to do it and the fortitude to stand against the onslaught for twenty four months, because it will probably take that long for the furor to end and for these people to be gone.  But that's what's needed.  
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Even better - put me in charge of that and give me carte blanche to what's necessary and it "will" get fixed.