The scientific Royal Society strives to stay relevant
Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 11:41 am
Any time there's a picture of a painting of Sir Isaac Newton in the daily newspaper, it MUST be a relevant article...(at least to those of us who do scientific research and development)...and it is...
Sept 4, 2012: NYTimes: A Redoubt of Learning Holds Firm
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Sept 4, 2012: NYTimes: A Redoubt of Learning Holds Firm
- Sir Paul Nurse is a Nobel-winning geneticist and currently the head of the Royal Society. The Royal Society is world's oldest continuous (since 1660) scientific society. Nurse laments that science has become too politicized:
- "Global warming denialists, those who oppose genetically modified crops and vaccinations, or the teaching of evolution: their trick is treat scientific argument as if it’s a political argument, and cherry-pick data.”
- Dr. Nurse is careful to emphasize that skepticism is the lifeblood of science; the verities of one age can become the superstitions of another. But he can’t hide his impatience with those who deny a strong human hand in global warming. You want to argue that the evidence points to only moderate warming? Brilliant; let’s examine the research. But to deny it altogether? The stakes are too high to play political games, he says.
“They say: ‘Well, no one believed Galileo.’ As if what? That’s an arrogant argument. Galileo prevailed very rapidly, as did Newton, as did Einstein,” he says. “The denialists have completely lost it.”
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