(12-15-2016 10:55 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(12-15-2016 10:17 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(12-15-2016 08:52 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-15-2016 08:13 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Unfortunate to see and hear, but luckily this man was supported by his fellow academics and university. When did he work for the DOE or other federal departments? I read through the blog and couldn't find any information on that.
Also, I found it even more interesting that this researcher was just researching the effects of climate change on serious weather, and ran into such strong opposition. He wasn't even debating whether we had an impact on climate change, just that we haven't seen the severe weather episodes (e.g. Strong hurricanes) that we would expect, recently. This is an unfortunate example of people with influence not doing their homework, and unfairly critiscizing someone. Again, good thing he had the strong support of the academic community.

So it would appear that you would agree that this is one instance of suppression of dissent. Is that correct? Do you believe there are no others? The Grijalva letters were sent to employers of, IIRC, seven dissenters. Would you agree that such actions were intentional suppressions of dissent?

He probably hasn't worked for DOE. With his views, nobody in DOE would hire him. I suppose that's suppression of dissent, too. He did work on the space program, so maybe he worked for NASA, although probably 99% of the people working on the space program are civilian contractors (I used to go to church with a bunch of them, and I work on a project with some of them now), so there's a strong possibility that he has never received a pay check from the federal government.

For the record, I'm not a denier. I believe that global warming is probably taking place, been to too many retreating glaciers to believe otherwise, and I am quite certain that climate change of some sort is inevitable. Where the AGW crowd loses me is connecting the dots from the earth is warming to therefore, we can't build the XL pipeline. I think the motivation for a lot of it is simply anti-oil, and AGW is a shiny little play thing for them to use in their arguments, without bothering to establish a suitable causal link. It's sort of like being able to call anyone who disagrees with you a racist.

This is the same sort of suppression of dissent that you see on the right of people who do research of climate science, support evolution, etc.

This is different than a department not hiring employees or firing them for holding a belief.

Not so different. All just parts of the whole. Lots of ways to suppress dissent. Lack of funding for research, denial of tenure, and not hiring people of a particular ideological bent, or a particular professional reputation.

Well, it sounds like everyone is suppressing dissent everywhere if that's how you look at things. Because that means if any organization has a particular mission, say, feeding the homeless. They are suppressing the dissent of those who don't want to feed the homeless by not hiring them.

Suppression of dissent within an organization (which is what we were talking about) would be firing someone who produced a paper countering certain claims that fit the narrative of climate change (like the example you provided). Or forcing them to change the narrative. Not funding research that does not align with your values, research goals, etc. is not suppression of dissent, it is just a misalignment of views. I don't think say, the DEA, is suppressing dissent of those who want to legalize marijuana because they are staunchly against that and support research that investigates the dangers of pot. I just think that they have an obvious narrative that they value.

A government institution should be non-partisan, as in, it doesn't care if you are left, right, up, or down. It doesn't mean it should provide equal funding to all ideas out there just to seem fair.