Originally posted by dmlfarmer
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I am much more concerned with the democratization of science, than vice versa. And that is exactly what is happening, just read Chuck, or similar zealots posts, calling on the authority of consensus, or worse yet consensus of politicians. The uninformed electorate can and does vote for things that science clearly does not support, one needs look no further than the ongoing evolution vs. creationism in schools debate going on in many US states. That is scary. But giving bonafide scientists a veto over democracy would not concern me in the least compared to uninformed, unqualified, emotionally, and economically driven power hungry politicians or voters having a veto over science.
There is absolutely no criteria to be met, or minimum level of knowledge required to be a politician or a voter, and it shows at all levels, and all over the world, we have two very prime examples right here in North America right now. Whereas, at least in theory, professionals do have to meet certain standards of education and experience, they stand to lose their professional certification if they are dishonest or corrupt. We don't expect a specialist scientist to be a jack of all trades, one might spend their entire career studying liver diseases of the three toed sloth, but, inexplicably, we expect our politicians and by extension those who vote for them to be experts in every possible field at a moments notice.
And the second half of your post is exactly the problem that we are talking about. And just like in my response to Chuck above, they use meaningless (in this context) words such as feel, and believe. Or in the case of the last one, even I would respond as being extremely concerned about climate change, considering that my living depends on it, long term weather trends are my biggest concern, but those responses in no way imply anything about what those same mostly uninformed people believe is causing that change, or even in which direction they are concerned about it changing.
And the 60% who want the government to take more action, is almost as high as the percentage of Canadians who either don't work, or work in the public sector coincidentally enough, and are likely the same percent who see government money as someone else's money. Did they try asking those same people if they personally should take more action, and how much of their own money they were willing to sacrifice to the good cause, because real world observations indicate that no one is willing to sacrifice any of their own money, even though they are very generous with other peoples money.
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