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Comment by ilikehurdles | Hacker News Reader

Calling the march a part of the problem is a cop-out excusing the real problems - the political response to science that spurred the march, the political response to the march itself, and mass-media's role in the politicization of science. If we say that the march is the problem, then we're saying that we should be taking at face-value anything the lobbyist talking heads of Fox News and CNN say about whatever they're pointing their fingers at.

Climate Science denialist PR campaigns by Koch Industries are politicization, and it feels filthy wrong that we're overwhelmingly pointing fingers at the scientists and grassroots actors responding to these campaigns instead of the groups publishing and hosting the lies.

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I think we should be precise here.

Saying the march is part of the problem does not mean that the lobbyists are not also part of the problem. It also does not mean the march is a _root cause_ of the problem.

It just acknowledges that the march is a part of the politicization of science, which it is.

What action, with the objective of reducing the politicization of science, could be taken that could be construed as "non-political?"

One that does not serve the interests of any one political faction.

In that case it is impossible to do Climate Change, science, no? It serves the interest of the Democratic "agenda," as a side effect.

That can be construed as political but also as non-political.

There are many ways around global warming, of which current Democrat policy is just one. Republicans are being silly by not proposing alternative approaches to this problem, agreed, but they absolutely can.

More specifically, to the republican party, climate change does not exist. Therefore, any climate change research is politically anti-republican (why would you research something that doesn't even exist?)

In the words of the leader of the republican party: "Climate Change is a Chinese hoax."

This isn't the fault of scientists in any way, shape, or form. This is a direct result of society, for some reason, organizing its political parties along "pro-intellectualism" vs "anti-intellectualism" lines. How can scientists fight back against this without being political? Should they just "deal with it?"

Conducting scientific experiments and publishing their results absent government funding.

Science is inherently political because it is done by people.

And scientific knowledge has political implications because it tells us about the world around us, and politics is the process by which we decide how our laws will adapt to and affect that world.

None of that is inherently negative!

However, when political expedience and facts conflict, we should adapt the politics to the facts, and not the other way around.

That's what the "march for science" was about.

>it feels filthy wrong

Fortunately science is about facts, not feelings.

Spot on mate. Not only a sharp and valid point, but also made me laugh.

Text interpretation should also be valued, as well as the importance of "not completely twisting another person's comment to suit your own views". Your comment extrapolates wildly from the one you responded too, and thats AMAZINGLY POLITICAL AND ALSO DISHONEST.

*ps sorry for any English mistake, as it's not my first language.

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