Academic Bias Against Industry Is Toxic Hypocrisy

By Alex Berezow — November 5, 2019 @ American Council on Science and Health

There is a pervasive bias in academia against scientists who work in industry. It is often said that such individuals aren’t "real scientists." The less charitable describe them as having gone over to the "dark side." For at least two reasons, this is a shameful and hypocritical way to characterize industry.

First, academic-industry partnerships are often extremely productive. The former provides the basic discoveries and theoretical foundations that the latter can implement in the form of real-world technologies. Several universities now have technology transfer offices whose goal is to patent (and profit from!) academic research by identifying industry partners that can bring a product to market. The university collects royalties if a product is successful.

Second, industry provides nearly 2/3 of all research funding in the United States. According to R&D Magazine, in 2019, industry paid for $375.8 billion of the $581 billion spent on research and development in the United States. If industry research were to disappear, America's dominance in science and technology would evaporate along with it.

For these reasons, industry should be celebrated, not derided¹. But that's not what we get. Instead, industry is routinely pilloried -- sometimes fairly, oftentimes unfairly -- both by academics and the media.

Writing in Forbes, astrophysicist Dr. Paul Sutter argues that Big Data is trouble for science. Why? He says:

As science becomes more and more data heavy and leans more and more on Big Data techniques, the students who are naturally gifted or most talented or most passionate about Big Data aren't going to end up in science, they're going to end up in the industry. [Emphasis added]

That statement reveals that Dr. Sutter believes that (1) industry scientists aren't real scientists, and (2) it's bad if too many smart people are attracted to industry. Therefore, Big Data itself is bad. That's a curious line of reasoning, but such pretzel-twisting logic isn't uncommon.

Dr. David Gorski (a.k.a. "Orac"), who blogs for Respectful Insolence and Science-Based Medicine, is also perpetually vigilant for corporate stooges². While he agrees with us that vaccines are vital to public health, he claims that we only support vaccines because we're shills for Big Pharma, apparently notwithstanding the fact that our organization includes microbiologists, epidemiologists, and medical doctors, many of whom are academics.

This bizarre phenomenon of seeing shills everywhere one looks has also infected journalism. A team of journalists at NYU, led primarily by Charles Seife, routinely accuse others of malfeasance on behalf of industry. (One article written by Mr. Seife attacking plant geneticist Dr. Kevin Folta as an industry shill was so bad that it had to be retracted.) Yet, while Mr. Seife accuses all those around him of being industry shills, his employer NYU collected more than $1 billion in royalties for just a single drug that it patented and licensed to Big Pharma.

The fervor with which the "corporate shill" label is applied is akin to McCarthyist zeal. That's unfortunate. The truth is that if the science is accurate, then it doesn’t matter who paid for it — be it Monsanto, Vladimir Putin, or the Devil himself. Funding only matters if the science is inaccurate. That's when it's appropriate to ask, "Who funded this and why?"

Notes

(1) Yes, industry should be criticized when it behaves poorly.
(2) Dr. Gorski works for Wayne State University, which like many universities, has a technology transfer office. According to its website, "the University expects to receive a reasonable royalty" from industry if a technology it patents makes money. If Dr. Gorski's criteria apply equally to everyone, that would make his employer a corporate shill.

This is Truly a Trade War

May 17, 2019 By William R. Hawkins

The trade negotiations between the Trump administration and the People's Republic of China (PRC) are not rooted in commercial disputes. Though media discussions are dominated by issues about opening markets for U.S. exports limited by Chinese policy, the real issue is national security and the need to keep the balance of power tilted in America's favor.

Business is the means, not the end. Comparative national capabilities in industry and technology determine military potential, and financial strength supports economic development and diplomatic influence. China's rapid growth has moved the country from the seventh largest GDP in 1980 to the second largest today with the world's largest manufacturing capacity.

Beijing's rise threatens to overturn world politics in the same way Germany did when it overtook Great Britain at the end of the 19th century. It was only because the U.S. economy surpassed the industrial might of Germany that the world wars turned out as they did...........

The tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump are justified by the U.S. Trade Representative's (USTR) "findings of its exhaustive Section 301 investigation that found China’s acts, policies and practices related to technology transfer, intellectual property and innovation are unreasonable and discriminatory and burden U.S. commerce." Chinese regulations force joint ventures which give majority control to Chinese "partners" of American firms. PRC policy also mandates technology transfers, facilitate "the systematic investment in, and acquisition of, U.S. companies and assets to generate large-scale technology transfer... [and] support cyber intrusions into U.S. commercial computer networks." Beijing's claim it is "opening up" means feasting on the fruits of American innovation................Read more

Pretend conservatives for not so clean energy

Far-left ‘charitable’ foundations give millions to ‘conservative’ groups to drive climate agenda

Paul Driessen

More and more conservatives are proclaiming the virtues of clean energy. At least that’s what some groups want you to believe. In reality, far-left “charitable” foundations have given pretend conservatives millions of dollars to advance a climate chaos, renewable energy agenda – channeling the funds through intermediary groups, to OxiClean the transactions and limit transparency and accountability.

The huge Green Profiteers Network has to be at least somewhat bipartisan to ensure continued mandates, renewable portfolio standards, production and investment tax credits, regulatory exemptions and other subsidies that have made Climate Crisis, Inc. a $1.5-trillion international business. With global financial and insurance giants allying with that crowd and determined to procure some $93 trillion (!) by 2030 to create a “de-carbonized” and “sustainable” world economy, the effort has intensified.

But now it must contend with President Donald Trump. His growing list of executive orders  and regulatory reviews is rapidly reversing eight years of Obama “Clean Power Plan,” “social cost of carbon” and other regulatory decrees; laying the foundation for reversing EPA’s absurd finding that plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide “endangers” human health and welfare; and putting the United States in a position to lead the world back from the brink of Paris pact pandemonium and wealth redistribution.

Other countries will likely follow these energy and climate actions, says Cornwall Alliance  ethicist Calvin Beisner, thereby “sparing their citizens from the crushing costs of pointless policies to mitigate global warming, by raising energy costs and prohibiting the most reliable, affordable forms of energy.” These actions are vital, because “the greatest threat to the environment is not affluence. It’s poverty.”

Radical environmental groups are nevertheless preparing to battle every Trump action in our courts, legislatures, newsrooms … and streets. Preparing to join all the prominent big-name groups is a host of like-minded, tax-exempt, pseudo-free-enterprise outfits, many operating under the umbrella of the Conservative Energy Network. This 2016 creation includes Young Conservatives for Energy Reform, an environmentalist Christian Coalition of America, Citizens for Responsible Energy Reform – and Conservatives for Clean Energy (CCE), launched in 2014 as an “educational” and “charity” organization.

They all advocate the asserted need to “fundamentally transform” energy and economic systems, and switch from fossil fuels to “clean, renewable” energy, to save our civilization and planet from “dangerous manmade global warming, climate change and extreme weather.” The other thing they seem to have in common is funding sources that enable them to be so visible and active.

Prominent among those funding sources is The Energy Foundation. It launched CCE with a $350,000 grant in 2014, gave $535,000 to the Christian Coalition in 2013 and sent $925,000 to the North Carolina Solar Energy Alliance since 2008, the  the Civitas Institute notes, citing tax filings and other sources. 

Between 2007 and 2014, Civitas points out, TEF also gave $4,476,000 to the Southern Environmental Law Center, a litigation factory that uses questionable climate and ecological claims to drive lawsuits against energy and other development projects, raising energy costs, killing jobs, and hammering the budgets, health and wellbeing of poor, minority and working class families.

As a 2014 US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee report explained, a virtual who’s who of ultra-wealthy leftist foundations and their “Billionaires’ Club” of donors is the financial force behind The Energy Foundation. TEF serves as a “pass-through” hub that helps donors make it seem that grant recipients have a more diversified base of support than they actually do; shields them from transparency and accountability; and at times hides contributions from donors that could raise serious “red” flags.

One such donor is the secretive Sea Change Foundation. Set up by billionaires Nat Simons and his wife, Sea Change has been exposed by multiple investigators as a shell corporation that funnels huge sums to radical anti-fracking and anti-fossil fuel activists from Vladimir Putin pals, giant Russian oil companies and investment groups, and more reputable sources like the Gates and Walmart Foundations.

The Energy Foundation received nearly $65 million from Sea Change between 1997 and 2015 – plus tens of millions more from the Hewlett, Packard, McKnight, MacArthur, Rockefeller, Pew, Bloomberg, Tomkat (Tom Steyer) and other foundations. All together, over 120 fat-cat foundations gave a whopping $534 million to the Energy Foundation between 1997 and 2015. During the same period, The Energy Foundation gave over $1.2 billion to more than 12,000 activist and agitator groups, investigative journalist Ron Arnold discovered.

It’s a bit daunting to have this kind of money and power allied with green, urban and government elites against Blue Collar America and the fossil fuels that still supply 81% of the USA’s energy.

This is the cabal of “consumer” and “environmental” groups that “Conservatives” for “Clean” Energy has in its corner. With offices in North Carolina and Virginia, CCE is heavily involved in fossil fuel and renewable energy political activism.

It is closely allied with the NC Solar Energy Alliance, to extend government mandates, tax credits and other government assistance to a marginal electricity source that brings higher prices, lower reliability, and reduced ability of families, hospitals, schools and businesses to meet tight budgets, says Civitas.

It has also partnered with the SELC and other groups pursuing new strategies to bankrupt and close coal-fired electricity generation plants, by generating misplaced fear about coal ash impoundments. Once public anxiety rose, activists demanded that the ash be dug up and moved “somewhere else,” regardless of the cost, which could be in the billions – and regardless of the fact that detected levels of chromium-6 (and other metals) do not pose health risks and come from natural rock formations, as well as from coal.

Keeping the ash where it is, and capping it with impermeable clay, is probably the best thing to do now.

But CCE then waded in with an opinion poll, which predictably found that North Carolinians want the ash moved but don’t want to pay for the removals, and support more wind and solar power. The groups are now poised to reprise the tactic in Virginia and other states with coal-fueled power generation.

TEF itself also weighed in, funding a study which predictably concluded that US renewable energy industries would “eventually” create 74,000 new jobs “from the ashes” of coal-related companies. Even if that were true, how many jobs would climate alarmism, chemical fear-mongering and costly renewable energy destroy in other sectors of our economy? Perhaps 740,000 or even 7,400,000?

President Obama’s Clean Power Plan alone could have imposed $1 trillion in lost output, 125,000 lost jobs and double-digit increases in electricity prices, the Wall Street Journal noted. The combined impact of all Obama Era climate and renewable energy programs would have cost the American economy  $3 trillion and 6.5 million industrial sector jobs by 2040, Senator John Barrasso stated, referring to a National Economic Research Associates study.

To top it off, “clean” energy is not clean, renewable or sustainable. It requires perpetual subsidies, taken from taxpayers and consumers, and given to politically connected crony corporatists. It needs vast land acreage – for wind turbines, solar panels, long transmission lines … and backup fossil fuel generating plants. And all those facilities require enormous amounts of concrete, steel, copper, rare earth metals, fiberglass, fossil fuels and other non-renewable raw materials dug out of the ground, often in faraway lands that have few environmental, health or child labor standards.

Just imagine the tremendous good all those billions of dollars from all those “progressive” billionaires could do if – instead of lining the coffers of radical anti-energy agitator groups – they were devoted to actually helping poor families in the United States, other industrialized nations, and especially the most impoverished, energy-deprived, disease-ridden, malnourished countries on Earth?

That would be real, long overdue social and environmental justice. If wishes were horses ….

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death and other books on the environment.

Observations From the Back Row: What's Wrong With Our Minds?

By Rich Kozlovich, Originally posted Friday, July 9, 2010 updated March 31, 2017

Some year back Burt Prelutsky wrote an article entitled “Those poor, poor perverts”. The basis of the article was a discussion as to how ridiculous are the arguments surrounding pedophiles and how they are to be treated by society.

He uses the old story of how “intellectuals” (he used the word “nuts”, but they were the intellectuals of the day…..nothing has changed!) would sit around for hours and discuss how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. See… television did cure one thing. The only problem is that so many of those who are in decision making positions apparently don’t waste their time on television, mores’ the pity, because they now sit around and decide how many feet away from a school a convicted pedophile may live who has been released from prison.

Prelutsky makes a point that should be obvious to the most casual observer - “For what reason would any sane society ever release such a person from jail? The notion that kids are safe if the creep lives 2,000 feet away from where they play is perfectly loony. What about the kids walking to and from those parks and playgrounds? “

He points out that it is like releasing all the bank robbers from the prisons and telling them they can’t live any closer that two blocks away from a bank and expecting this to be the solution to their wanting to rob banks.

He goes on to say, “judges and lawmakers seem happy to ignore the rates of recidivism among rapists and pedophiles. Is there anyone else, aside from defense attorneys, who would argue that a man who’s raped a six year old child deserves a second chance?”

We have ceded our own common sense to the “experts”!

Are they really all that credible - so credible we willingly abandon common sense, moral balance and traditional values instilled in society over the ages?

Where is our moral compass?

As unpleasant an issue as this is, I use it to show a peculiar nutty mindset that permeates society. Concern about pedophiles, bank robbers and other assorted villains of society is the common concern that we all must share.   But we also have the added concern of those who are destructive to society in a much larger and more insidious way. The green movement!

A group that industry must have the most concerns over, and they aren't only on the outside of industry, they've become ensconced within industry.  They are the fifth columnists we need to fear.  They share the culture moving among us openly, speaking the same language, but all the while rotting the very foundation of industry with their works. 

They promote junk and fraudulent science as fact and while they should be the ones at the fore front defending who and what we are - standing against this nonsense - they instead turn into cheerleaders - and everyone eats it up with an arrogant air of self-righteousness.

Society and industry willing accepts this nonsense because the media is on their side, keeping everyone misinformed or ill informed.  The EPA is clearly complicit as they continue spewing out a lava flow of scientifically dubious regulations. They support junk science through grant money - IPM and Green Pest Control being these kinds of endeavors.

The green movement even has legislators held hostage to huge amounts of their monetary support. Some years back a California congressman wanted to make changes to the Endangered Species Act…not repeal it as is really needed…..just add some sanity to it, and the Sierra Club spent a ton of money to defeat him - and they did. They stated “this was a lesson” to other legislators. This makes them more deadly to more people over a broader scope of humanity than bank robbers or even pedophiles.  

The history of the green movement - along with it's foundational parent philosophy socialism - has brought dystopia to humanity all over the world, and they would love to have America share in it.  The philosophy and programs, including the Precautionary Principle, are almost identical to those imposed by the world's first green government - Nazi Germany!

Does industry really believe all the nonsense they spew out? Do we really believe we can really come to some sort of mutually acceptable final agreement with them? No matter what many of the prominent people in our industry, or for that matter industry as a whole say publicly - when I talk to them personally and off the record they all acknowledge that it is all claptrap.

A lobbyist I have known for years makes the point that in any negotiations there must be some compromise, and I agree. The problem we seem to have is being able to understand the difference between compromise and capitulation. If during these discussions we give up something, I would like to know what the other side is giving up. I am not talking about just being quiet for a while either. Or being quiet while their brethren from other green groups attack us, which is what usually happens. There is no command and control system within the green movement. They will not only continue attacking industry they will attack their green brethren as sell outs for not being green enough.

If you give up 25% of something and they go away until next year -  they will be back the very next year demanding that you give up another 25% and so on and so on and so on until you no longer have anything to give up. When you dance with the Devil you don't call the tune, you can't name the dance, you don't lead, and you may not be able to leave the dance floor.

Why don't we get that?

If you think this is an extreme and unreasonable view - ask Kentucky Fried Chicken. They backed down on point after point and the animal rights people said that this was a “good start”. There will be no end to their demands because the Neville Chamberlain “Policy of Appeasement” philosophy will not work on people with an agenda?

They are the anointed!

They know best about all things. They truly believe their individual and collective intellect is far greater than all of the practical experience accumulated by mankind over the centuries. Their's is the “vision of the anointed” - and must not be ignored -  no matter the consequences. As a result of the policies they've promoted they clearly earned the right to b the 20th century’s greatest mass murders (even greater than all the murderous leftist dictators combined.  The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, conservatively claims they murdered 100 million innocent people.  Depending on who you read their unjustified ban on DDT along may have unnecessarily killed that many innocent people, and that number grows daily)  and are working just as hard in thd 21st century to maintain that status.

Ford Motor Company also found out the hard way. In a Fox News article Steve Milloy points out that “After Ford caved into pressure from left-wing activist investors and issued a report stating that it “views stabilization of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and energy security as critical and related business issues that warrant precautionary, prudent and early action,” the enviros thanked Ford in return by accusing his company of putting “more heat-trapping pollution into our skies each year than the entire country of Mexico" - continuing to “produce more global warming pollution on average than any other automaker” - continuing to make SUVs - and fighting a California law that would require a 30 percent reduction in automobile carbon dioxide emissions by 2016.”

Let’s not kid ourselves - what they really want is Ford, and the rest of the automobile industry, to be out of business. What do they want from pesticide users? Well, I am sure that if we would offer to kill ourselves that they would agree that this would be a nice start, and we've been working hard to accommodate them.

If you look at who has affected people’s health positively and negatively you will find that it's the pesticide application industries that's saved and extended lives and it is the environmental movement who has taken lives. So why do we listen to them? Why does anyone?

I am the last one to decry their desire for a simple life without all the modern conveniences.  If that is what someone wants, then I say…enjoy! However, if all of these people think their ideas are so great, why are all these green activists and their supporters living in the developed world and not in the third world? 

If they really believe all of the stuff they spew out they need to take a personal stand and move there.  They could really make an impact on everyone’s mind by taking their children with them also. Certainly that must make sense to everyone! After all, why would a green activist want to expose themselves and their children to all of these terrible chemicals?

They need to move to one of the many areas of the world where there are no roads, few cars and no running water contaminated with any chlorine or fluoride. No electricity, no vaccinations, no genetically modified foods, no fungicides, no anti-bacterial cleaners, no air conditioning, and all organic food with no synthetic pesticides or fertilizers.

Will there be many takers? Few if any!

You can be sure green activists will be as close to the modern conveniences and the society they claim to despise as surely as bank robbers will rob banks and pedophiles will hang around children.

To paraphrase the earlier question asked by Burt Prelutsky - “For what reason would any sane society ever believe anything these people say? The notion that society would be safe if these creeps ideas and philosophies were followed is perfectly loony.”

Yes …we really have lost our minds!

Tech Industry Frets Over Possible Immigration Changes

By NICK WINGFIELD and MIKE ISAAC JAN. 27, 2017

American technology companies for years have relied on a steady stream of skilled engineers from overseas to help them create their products.  Now many of those companies and their workers are girding for expected changes to immigration policy under President Trump that the companies say could hurt their ability to tap the technical talent they need to stay competitive. Mr. Trump, who has signed a series of executive orders related to immigration, is expected to soon take similar action on visa programs for foreign workers.....To Read More....

My Take - This is just another red herring fallacy and scare mongering.  If the government hadn't let this get out of control in the first place this wouldn't have been necessary.  Furthermore, why are they having to rely of foreigners to do the work?  Are they telling Americans that Americans are too incompetent to create good software and anything else they need to run their businesses successfully?  Somehow I find that hard to believe.  More leftist clabber from intellectual morons.

Americans Misdirect Their Blame for Decline of Industry

By Hardy Green Oct 26, 2012

Coal miners lining up behind the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney; auto workers praising President Barack Obama for saving the U.S. car industry. You don’t have to look far to see signs of Americans’ deep anxiety over deindustrialization, and of a profound nostalgia for a more toilsome past.

Yet a closer look at bygone days shows that the decline of U.S. industry isn’t only the result of unfair Chinese trade practices or the low wages of Asian workers.

Consider the case of a classic U.S. manufacturer, the washing-machine maker Maytag Co., and the current condition of its former company town: Newton, Iowa.

Mostly a memory today, Maytag evolved from small-town origins to become a major international corporation. Frederick L. Maytag, a farm boy born near Elgin, Illinois, moved with his parents in the late 1800s to Newton, a village of 2,500 people, 35 miles east of Des Moines. In 1892, Frederick joined with the inventor and entrepreneur George Parsons to market a “band cutter and self-feeder,” a threshing-machine accessory. This proved only a modest success, and by 1907, the duo turned to another field: the manufacture of washing machines.  To Read More…..

My Take - Although I consider this an oversimplification to a much larger problem, I would like to point out recent events that do play into this.  The Ford Ranger was built for Okrin Pest Control, and most pest control companies started using the Ford Ranger to the point that it almost became the de facto service vehicle for the pest control industry nationwide.  Ford stopped making the Ranger.  My understanding is that Orkin is going to buy Toyotas.  I told this story to one of my customers who hates anyone who buys a foreign vehicle.  I asked him what Orkin was supposed to do....or for that matter.... all the other pest control companies too.  No American auto maker makes a Ranger or a Chevy S-10 type truck any longer as far as I can tell. 

I understand that GM is making a Colorado with a full sized bed, but no extended cab.  Why did Ford stop making the greatest small truck in the world?  They claim that small truck sales declined due to the recession, and the price of the F-150 isn’t that much higher, the mileage isn’t that much worse and it has a whole lot more in power and space.  That all sounds great….but for an exterminator they are hard to work out of.  I can stand beside my Ranger and open a side window on the cap and easily get what I want out of the truck.  I can’t do that with an F-150.  That means I would have to open the back and crawl into my truck to get what I need.  That doesn’t cut it for a 66 year old man with bad knees.  I have no idea why they would be so foolish as to let a temporary situation impact their decision making, but the customers still want a Ranger style truck and if Ford won't make one.....they will go to whoever will.