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Re: [Phys-L] March for Science



On 03/04/2017 06:47 PM, Lulai, Paul wrote:

We fought big tobacco. With evidence.

It's a lot more complicated than that. There was a lot of litigation
and PR and building of political alliances and even a certain amount
of skullduggery ... not just polite gathering of evidence in laboratories.
Read the book _Merchants of Doubt_. There's also a movie. It may give
a clearer idea of how the opposition works. And even then, beware that
the opposition is highly adaptive. They are clever, industrious, and
well funded.

Im afraid that they can tell future generations, for the next 100 years,
that this is proof that research is biased.

It is way, way too late to worry about that. They've been saying that
(and worse) for years. Are you suggesting they might stop, sometime in
the next 100 years, if there is no march?

Easy to say after a march.

Easy? Easier than what? They are already saying it! The threat that
if we march they might do X is meaningless, given that they are already
doing X, Y, Z, and everything else they can think of.

one piece
of evidence upon which they can hang EVERY argument

I get that you care about evidence, but don't project your attitudes
onto them. Look at the evidence. All the evidence we have says these
guys DO NOT CARE about evidence. Remember the climate-gate email evidence?
There was no evidence, they just said there was.

These are guys who think it is fun to make death threats against
scientists. If they thought evidence of a march would help their
cause, they would have already cooked up stories about a march.

Their contempt for evidence is a big part of the reason for the march.