Who Should We Punish for the Fake Science Poisoning our Children’s Futures?
The celebrities and media who lend any support or comfort to those who manipulate the young to commit crimes based on flawed science are worse than those who encouraged flagellation to cure the Black Death in medieval times.
Today, I am going to add a mother’s perspective on “climate crisis” pseudoscience” to address an issue I think is essential: Who, exactly, do we punish for fake science upon which poor policy choices are made?
But beyond that, how can we crack down on science fraud poisoning our children’s futures?
Last October, we reported two women in their early 20s were arrested in London for throwing soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting during a protest against fossil fuels.
They both are now looking at over two years of jail time.
Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, from the protest group Just Stop Oil were imprisoned for two years, and 20 months, respectively, according to PA Media.
These are the latest in a string of prison sentences handed to climate activists in the UK for engaging in disruptive protests against the use of fossil fuels. Two relatively new, controversial laws have boosted the powers of police and courts to crack down on protests that are disruptive, even when they are peaceful.
The sentences appeared to do little to deter Just Stop Oil: Hours after they were handed down, three more Just Stop Oil activists threw soup over two other Van Gogh paintings of sunflowers in the Poets and Lovers exhibition at the National Gallery, the same venue the 2022 protests was staged, according to the group.
Those years those girls are going to lose are essential. They are the years to complete an education or gain important work experience for a career. That is the time to make life-long connections and perhaps meet a future spouse. It is also the age at which many women are starting their families.
Because of climate hysteria driven by agenda-driven pseudoscience and pushed by a media that silences critics and ignores counter-evidence, progressive educators are enabled to push this dogma. Cult-like-leaders arise to encourage young people to ruin their futures to protect an Earth that is not in jeopardy from its carbon dioxide levels.
In his recent Substack, Glenn Reynolds asks a question I think should be pondered and answered: Should we criminalize scientific fraud?
As Reynolds notes, the issue is complex. Determining what real science fraud is versus typos and misinterpreting data can be difficult. However, as it relates to climatology, massaging data to produce temperature spikes and ignoring urban heat island effects to support the green energy agenda should have consequences. And, as we have seen with COVID-19, poor science used to promote disastrous rules and regulations isn’t confined to climate.
Reynolds reviewed a wide array of potential options to prevent science fraud. Based on his analysis, perhaps the best place to focus is “revising incentive structures.”
I like requiring researchers to specify ways of ensuring reproducibility in their applications, and evaluating researchers based on long-term reproducibility.
…Requiring data-sharing – and data “archiving,” as it’s surprising how often data for crucial studies turns out of have been lost in a move or a flood when requested later – would also help.
And – and this was suggested by a commenter to an earlier blog post – not relying on scientific research for public policy purposes until it has been successfully replicated by someone else is not a bad idea. That would slow down the connection between research and public policy, but would that really be such a bad thing?
This might be the best direction to head. Currently, it seems science that gets social media clicks, softball interview questions, academic rewards, and generous funding is the science that can occur. Research isn’t done for knowledge’s sake but for personal gain.
If punishing fake science is difficult, and completely removing incentives for fake science to be published is not practical. Preventing it from taking root by showing the data can be replicated before new rules are created would be the logical path forward.
Another option would be a return to the Renaissance approach to science, with those passionate about real research funding institutions specifically devoted to such study, as we clearly can no longer trust our elite universities and colleges to do so. For example, like the one SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has planned.
The charity, called The Foundation, plans to use a $100 million gift from Musk to create and launch a primary and secondary school in Austin focused on teaching science, technology, engineering and math. Once it is fully operational, the filing states, the school will focus on creating a university. The school intends to seek accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, a necessary first step to launch the school.
Finally, making pseudoscience cult leaders who brainwash young adults into committing crimes pariahs rather than making them celebrities would be helpful. Of course, the elite media (in this case, the BBC) attempts to make these villains into martyrs.
I give you its last report on Roger Hallam, founder of Job Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion.
When five activists who brought chaos to the M25 motorway were jailed last week, some thought the law had finally caught up with Just Stop Oil.
Celebrities spoke out in anger at the lengthy sentences – and a United Nations official described their treatment as “not acceptable in a democracy”.
With Roger Hallam, the architect of the modern environmental protest movement, and his co-conspirators now behind bars, this might have been “checkmate” in a five-year long game of legal chess between the state and a group of increasingly bold direct action environmental groups.
But at least for some Just Stop Oil activists, it doesn’t appear to have worked.
The celebrities and media who lend any support or comfort to those who manipulate the young to commit crimes based on flawed science are worse than those who encouraged flagellation to cure the Black Death in medieval times. At least the men and women in the Dark Ages hadn’t already learned germ theory and did not know how to apply the scientific method.
I must admit that I don’t have much compassion for eco-activists who commit crimes and disrupt other people’s lives. But, as a mother, I hate seeing young lives sacrificed on the altar of pseudoscience, and I would like to save others from similar fates.
After all, “it’s for the children” is supposed to be a reason respected by progressives.
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Comments
These useful idiots are adults and must be held accountable as such….unless we also want to infantilize them in all aspects of their lives, either they are adults capable of making adult decisions or they ain’t. One way to deter thses actions is a reformulation of penalties. If a shoplifting conviction results in a sentencing range then what’s the per day amount? Apply that as the penalty for deliberate destruction of art, statutes, buildings, infrastructure and to the shut down of roads, airports and the like. IOW if $1,000 shoplifting conviction can get you 360 days then that’s one day in jail for every $2.78 so use that as the divisor of whatever the costs are for the destruction/shut down were to get the # of days of potential imprisonment. FWIW do the same for bribery and embezzlement other financial crimes.
To deal with the huckster/grifters supplying bogus studies the proposals in the body of the article seem appropriate. I would add that employment based on authoring such a study and/or the cachet public acclaim of a study should be withheld until it can be replicated. Those who refuse to release details of academic research data to allow replication ain’t academics and shouldn’t be offered academic employment much less tenure. Adjust the terms of academic employment to require sharing to become or maintain academic employment.
Something that needs to be added to this is that kids like those highlighted in this article grew up spoiled brats. That is the rule for many of these idiot protestors.
One way to deter this specific type of behavior would be to beat the living f*ck out of the vandals on sight. A good billy-clubbing and a few weeks recovery in the hospital and I bet these girlies wouldn’t disrespect the property of others ever again.
Ideally, we punish all the Progressive leaders.
Since that probably isn’t possible, we hold the morons responsible for every iota of inconvenience, wasted gas, damage, etc. And if they’re a minor, then we hold the parents responsible. Make them pay.
And hold any instigators responsible, too. Force colleges and corporations to divest themselves of these idiots (the instigators). Sue the media for fraud.
Oh, and the very first “punishment” should be not removing these people using painless methods. Rip their hands from the walls by brute force. Let the jail/prison medical staff deal with any resultant injuries.
that sounds like the beating of the war drums
what makes you think they are going to actually “lose time”?
the public is told one thing ( we are getting rid of dei..blah blah blah)
and the reality is something else
“ladies: make sure you make it back to your cells by 10pm”
Bring back public executions.
What I don’t like is extending the reach of the law. I don’t like it that a woman was convicted of manslaughter because she encouraged her boyfriend to commit suicide. Yes, she is a rotten horrible person. But her words did not pull the trigger. He and he alone is responsible for pulling the trigger.
I don’t like it that the parents of a guy who engaged in a mass shooting are being charged and tried because they gifted him a gun. If he’d been given an automobile and he deliberately chose to use it to mow down a bunch of people, would the parents be responsible? No. Speculating about what someone given an inherently dangerous object – a knife, gun, two ton mechanized vehicle, Draino, whatever – might do with it in the future is a fool’s errand.
We are gradually, but dangerously, expanding the reach of the law beyond individual responsibility to include a sort of collective responsibility. That is antithetical to the philosophical underpinnings of our justice system.
Those women – and they are women – not juvenile minors, proudly engaged in an act of civil disobedience that resulted in property destruction. They alone are responsible for their actions. Those who produced and promoted the fake pseudo-science did not throw the soup.
I am in total agreement. As the Torah says, a man by his transgressions will die. That is the person who has transgressed is the one solely responsible for his/her transgression, and not someone else.
If he’d been given an automobile and he deliberately chose to use it to mow down a bunch of people, would the parents be responsible? No.
If he was a minor, did not have a license, and had shown some psychopathy related to driving, then YES.
While I agree with individual responsibility, parents are responsible for their children. We do’t let them vote or sign contracts because we consider them not entirely responsible, yet.
It may also be that these two made a calculated decision that the gain – martyrs of the Glorious Revolution – outweigh the cost since it will give the street cred in Communist circles.
They needed to be treated as a cult because that is what they are; pure and simple. Cult behavior is hard to break because facts don’t work against fervent belief, a sense of a higher purpose, the social connections and fears of being abandoned by your new besties. Criminalizing the behavior and calling it out for what it is a Cult mentality that recruits vulnerable people will help. Young people are vulnerable in that they are naive, often lonely and without any sense of purpose. Today’s young people are hyper anxious, have poor social and communication skills and struggle with patience. A cult gives you all you need, and it’s way easier then being individually motivated, disciplined, lonely at times and playing the long game by sticking with far off goals like careers, certifications, marriages, children etc. I get why young people are attracted to these groups, and yes the media spin of martyrdom hero worship is a big part of it, because who doesn’t want to be famous?
A few child abuse charges wouldn’t go amiss either!
Go after the Acolytes of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard, and Jean Baudrillard. That’s who. Go after anyone professing postmodern philosophy. It’s insanity incarnate. Start there.
Perhaps the best way to deal with these protesters would be for the local gendarmes to take them out behind the woodshed and give them a little “tune up” before escorting them off to the hoosegow.
Short answer: YES. If the left wants to jail and silence “science deniers”, then “science fraud” should also be a crime and should be silenced for good measure. It’s the law of unintended consequences.
Who should we punish? LOL! As if anyone on the Left is ever punished.
Put them in a pit where the public can urinate on them.
Play vapid Kamala speechesw 24/7 at high volume.
Make them wear MAGA hats.
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