11 thoughts on “The War On Science”

  1. Along with oil drilling moratorium, there was also the fishing ban held in place, even as FDA test after test showed no contamination. I still remember some lefty on this blog daring me to eat gulf seafood, which was funny, since I had just the previous day. The assault on the New Orleans economy was very evident, yet it was hardly of interest to liberals that were trying to “create” jobs.

  2. Leland, the administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina the oil spill proves that George Bush Barack Obama hates black white people.

  3. While I agree with the sentiment, I thought the article was pretty weak. York’s best points were against the ‘clean energy economy’, and the hi-speed rail bit effectively falls into that category. His arguments only made superficial scratches and missed the core of the Leftist hatred of true objectivity of science.

    Michael Crichton’s speech “Aliens Cause Global Warming” is a much better refutation of the Left’s supposed love of science, and he spanks Frank Drake and his ridiculous equation at the same time. Sadly, it looks like his website took down some of his more controversial speeches/essays – you’ll have to google it if you want to read it, which I highly recommend.

  4. I’ve always been proud of the “dismal science” moniker. It was given to economics because it insisted on treating the economic contribution of blacks and minorities as potentially equal to that of Europeans. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dismal_science) (That’s not exactly what the link says, but I seem to remember reading Carlyle’s full article once and that’s what I took remember)

    Of course, I’m sure I don’t need to tell this crowd that.

  5. High speed rail is junk behavioral science. (That is, junk economics.) The Brits tried “build it and they will come” rail in India. As someone who played lots of Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon 2 once upon a time, I think I know why. In the game, rail commerce can spur cities at Points A and B to grow. But the rail can’t generate commerce in the first place unless Points A and B aren’t already producing something that each other wants. Get the points producing, and THEN connect with rail (or other transportation networks).

  6. Alan, sometimes I wonder if a kid in front of a computer couldn’t run the country orders of magnitude better than the suits in D.C., a la Ender Wiggin.

  7. The French high speed rail network is a net benefit. It also decreases the amount of oil required in transportation in a country which has no national oil resources. Most electricity in France comes from nuclear power plants. The French are currently in a light rail construction binge. They are betting on high oil prices for the next decades. It remains to be seen if they will be correct or not.

  9. We could use more nuclear power plants, though. Build those and then we’ll talk about the other stuff.

    Probably very briefly and with a few Anglo-Saxonisms thrown in, but it will meet the dictionary definition of “talk.”

  11. “No Nukes!” Yep, a KGB cold war meme for US disarmament. It wasn’t successful with regards to warheads, but it did a number on our energy supply. Burnt-out hippies are still running that one.

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