[DrCaleb]

Quote:

Muzzling science and scientists is ultimately an exercise in futility, an effort that inevitably causes more trouble than the initial discomfort of confronting the reality of evidence. History has shown this repeatedly. The Church didn't like the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus and the reasoned celestial observations of Galileo so it silenced both scientists.

But 400 years later the same Church was forced to make a belated and humiliating apology. Indeed, the sun is the centre of our solar system and the planets do rotate around it as Galileo determined.

. . .

The same process of muzzling science and scientists is now occurring on BC's West Coast as the impact of salmon farms on wild salmon is being examined. The issue of disappearing wild salmon is complex. But the complexity is abetted - as evidence from the Cohen Commission on the disappearance of Fraser River sockeye salmon is revealing - by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' conflicting mandate to both advocate for salmon farming and to regulate it. A political ideology has decided that a farmed and wild fishery are compatible so evidence indicating otherwise is misconstrued, neglected or suppressed.

These contradictory objectives have created a condition in which some of the evidence given by DFO scientists at the Cohen Commission seems confused, even contradicting the findings of their own previous research. Meanwhile, the migration of employees between the supervised and the supervisor creates a porous relationship that compromises DFO's objectivity and credibility.

This politicization of science is stunningly exemplified in the government's treatment of Dr. Kristi Miller, a molecular geneticist with DFO investigating the gradual decline in Fraser River sockeye. She has been in charge of a $5.3 million research program in Nanaimo's Pacific Biological Station, and her work was significant enough to be published as an acclaimed article in the prestigious magazine, Science. The January 2011 article, Genomic Signatures Predict Migration and Spawning Failure in Wild Canadian Salmon, hypothesizes that "the genomic signal associated with elevated mortality is a response to a virus infecting fish before river entry and that persists to the spawning areas."

http://www.canada.com/Muzzling+Science+ ... story.html

[BartSimpson]

Of course the problem is farmed salmon and not streams fouled by erosion from clear-cutting, hydro dams placed on historic salmon breeding grounds, ammonia-charged effluent from municipal sewage runoff, toxic chemicals from storm drain runoff, the decline of historic river flows due to municipal water diversions, and etc.

Nope, all that stuff is just fine. It's the g*ddamn salmon farmers who're the problem!

[sandorski]

BartSimpson wrote:

Of course the problem is farmed salmon and not streams fouled by erosion from clear-cutting, hydro dams placed on historic salmon breeding grounds, ammonia-charged effluent from municipal sewage runoff, toxic chemicals from storm drain runoff, the decline of historic river flows due to municipal water diversions, and etc.

Nope, all that stuff is just fine. It's the g*ddamn salmon farmers who're the problem!

/facepalm

Predictable response. If the Issue were one of those other thing(as it has on occassions), you'd probably just shuffle the Issues around. The Scientists don't just pick an issue out of a hat.

[BartSimpson]

sandorski wrote:

BartSimpson wrote:

Of course the problem is farmed salmon and not streams fouled by erosion from clear-cutting, hydro dams placed on historic salmon breeding grounds, ammonia-charged effluent from municipal sewage runoff, toxic chemicals from storm drain runoff, the decline of historic river flows due to municipal water diversions, and etc.

Nope, all that stuff is just fine. It's the g*ddamn salmon farmers who're the problem!

/facepalm

Predictable response. If the Issue were one of those other thing(as it has on occassions), you'd probably just shuffle the Issues around. The Scientists don't just pick an issue out of a hat.

I won't say that farming salmon doesn't contribute to the problem, but this treats the salmon farmers as if they're environmental terrorists. Not so many years ago the eco-crowd was celebrating fish farming as an alternative to harvesting wild fish. You leftish folks sure are fickle, aren't you?

Like you guys used to push hard for solar power in the US deserts and now you people freak out about desert tortoises and say no one can build solar plants now because the deserts are 'sensitive habitat'.

[GreenTiger]

Science is science. It doesn't have anything to do with Liberal, Conservative, Dippers, Tea Baggers, Coffee Baggers ect.

The thing we have to watch out for is psedo science where people attempt to wrap science to fit their political agenda to BS their way to making their point.

The way to guard against this is to become scientifically literate so that you can separate what is is science from the horse shit that is presented as "Science".

[Themista]

What a disappointment for young people today dreaming big dreams of becoming scientists and innovators making a difference in the world someday...to find out that before they even graduate restrictions are already waiting for them and what they can share to the world. Of course there is check and balance to everything, but it's quite disheartening to learn this even before you go out there.

[Guy_Fawkes]

Themista wrote:

What a disappointment for young people today dreaming big dreams of becoming scientists and innovators making a difference in the world someday...to find out that before they even graduate restrictions are already waiting for them and what they can share to the world. Of course there is check and balance to everything, but it's quite disheartening to learn this even before you go out there.

You're quite right, I had great aspirations of becoming a scientist at the DFO, then I read this article. I contemplated suicide for weeks afterwards, during a week long alcohol bender I tried to choke myself to death by eating a whole salmon head first. I lost consciousness, hit my head on the supermarket shelf and when I came too I saw a halo of light around the paramedics. It was at that moment I realized that while my dreams may have died like so many wild fish, I could still live a full filling life. I went home, changed my soiled underwear and got a loan to build a house under the town bridge. I still practice science, but it is more of a hobby, my true calling now is trolling n00bs who necro old threads.

[ShepherdsDog]

Deniers will be persecuted! Repent!