Scientists Asked to Scrub References to Climate Change in their Grants

[Wookie]

One word: newspeak.

I never understood if that was "New Speak" or "News Peak". It doesn't really matter though, does it?

 

[Storker]

It's new-speak. FWIW (probably not much).

 

[Wookie]

I'm not all "Fake News, Fake News", but the orange one does kinda have a point. The News hides behind the first amendment as permission to say about anything, making it News-peak. I don't like the New-Speak much either.

 

[doctormike]

If you haven't read it, George Orwell's appendix to his novel "1984" is well worth reading. The parallels to today's political situation are kinda scary.

We have always been at war with Eastasia!

 

[Storker]

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible.
[...]
The C vocabulary was supplementary to the others and consisted entirely of scientific and technical terms. These resembled the scientific terms in use today, and were constructed from the same roots, but the usual care was taken to define them rigidly and strip them of undesirable meanings. They followed the same grammatical rules as the words in the other two vocabularies. Very few of the C words had any currency either in everyday speech or in political speech. Any scientific worker or technician could find all the words he needed in the list devoted to his own speciality, but he seldom had more than a smattering of the words occurring in the other lists. Only a very few words were common to all lists, and there was no vocabulary expressing the function of Science as a habit of mind, or a method of thought, irrespective of its particular branches. There was, indeed, no word for ‘Science’, any meaning that it could possibly bear being already sufficiently covered by the word Ingsoc.

 

[Jerome O'Neil]

If you haven't read it, George Orwell's appendix to his novel "1984" is well worth reading. The parallels to today's political situation are kinda scary.

One word: newspeak.

Orwell got it wrong, though. Huxley got it right. Brave New World is a much more accurate metaphor for modern society. We have met the enemy, and he is us.

 

[Storker]

Brave New World is a much more accurate metaphor for modern society.

Before 45, I'd agree totally with you. Today... not quite.

 

[kelemvor]

The phrase "climate change" is controversial? Well, I guess in the same sense that the word "evolution" is controversial...

Yes, obviously it is. If it wasn't, then it would not have been banned. Also if it wasn't then the OP would not have bothered to post it. Denying that is is controversial does not do anyone any good. I'm sure you are fully aware that "evolution" is also controversial since you chose that as your comparison. I think the core ideas themselves aren't but both of those are words or phrases that are often misused for political purposes by people on both sides of the political spectrum.

The administration has an effort underway to try and get our runaway budget under control. Are you even the least bit surprised they are trying to curtail spending on a politically charged topic that they are convinced is merely a political tool of their rivals? I'm quite certain that the instruction to merely change the wording in papers is a way to try and avoid the spirit of the rule. The administration doesn't want to fund it. They didn't say they want to fund it but wanted to call it something that it's not.

That said, let's take a look at the example in the article: "Bowen's project will examine how environmental stressors, such as climate change, affect the ecology of saltwater marshes." Is there any reason to single out one possible stressor in the research title other than purely political? "Bowen's project will examine how environmental stressors affect the ecology of saltwater marshes" is much more appropriate. This title does not draw a conclusion before the research has even been done. With this level of bias built right into the grant request before the science is done it's no wonder at all that the topic has become controversial.

Bowen can do whatever research he likes, but I'm not in favor of our government handing out funding to research that clearly has a political edge to it like this.

Personally, I believe man made climate change is very real. I'm not confident anyone really understands the impact of it with any level of certainty. As I said before, all the politics being put into the science surrounding the topic has allowed lots of legitimate doubt on the topic. I think it's important to try and look at things objectively and it seems obvious to me that the project mentioned in the article does not even attempt to do that.

 

[Jerome O'Neil]

Before 45, I'd agree totally with you. Today... not quite.

My position is that 45 is a symptom of it, not the cause.

We, civilized men, can haggle the finer points of that over beer.

 

[Storker]

Brave New World is a much more accurate metaphor for modern society.

I agree that the mindset described in BNW is much more in tune with today's society. Only a decade or so ago, I'd totally agree that we're moving a lot more towards a BNW world than a 1984 world. However, the last one or two decades have seen a frightening upgrowth of - first - doublethink and lately newspeak by our politicians.

I don't so much fear Orwell's vision of Big Brother seeing me all the time. I'm pretty certain that NSA can do that already if they want to. But the effect of politicos' newspeak and doublethink on voters' choices scare me pretty much.

Maybe we're heading towards a brave new 1984?