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Permalink Reply by Steven Earl Salmony on February 7, 2012 at 9:38am

We have an IPCC consensus among Nobel Prize-winning scientists worldwide regarding human-induced global warming and climate change. Still, the obstructive opinions of deniers hold sway in public policy formulation and program implementation. Do we have a tiny minority of ideologically-driven, self-proclaimed masters of the universe and their intellectually dishonest minions, who control most of what is presented by mainstream media, to thank for this situation?

Can you imagine what might happen if scientists were given 'permission' to examine, report findings and discuss the deliberately ignored and consciously avoided science of human population dynamics/overpopulation the way the IPCC rigorously scrutinized the extant science of climate change? Clever ideologues and other sycophants of the super-rich and powerful would probably deploy the same deceitful strategies that have been employed by the deniers of human-driven global warming and climate change.

http://www.countercurrents.org/salmony200112.htm

http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/01/human-beings-with-feet-of-clay-an...

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Permalink Reply by Steven Earl Salmony on March 17, 2012 at 10:55am

If faith in the goodness of science --- a great gift to humankind from God --- is ever lost, then the future of children everywhere, life as we know it, and Earth as a fit place for habitation by coming generations, that we think we are preserving and protecting on our watch, will probably be ruined utterly. Somehow science must come to prevail over the pernicious silence of too many of 'the brightest and the best' on one hand and the specious, intellectually dishonest, willfully deceitful, cascading ideological chatter by clever 'talking heads', overly educated sycophants or other minions in the mainstream media who serve the selfish interests of the self-proclaimed masters of the universe among us on the other.

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Permalink Reply by Steven Earl Salmony on March 21, 2012 at 8:18am

Scientists like David Owens have good work to do that is best accomplished by being uncompromisingly honest in the reporting of their research as well as by being unambiguously objective and forthcoming in reporting their findings with regard to the research of others. When honesty and effectiveness are viewed in opposition to one another, honesty must prevail over effectiveness in science. Finding a balance between them is not sufficient. Sacrificing honesty in order to maintain professional effectiveness is inadequate.

With regard to the science of human population dynamics, intellectual honesty appears not to have prevailed over professional effectiveness. That convenient rationalizations in support of effectiveness have been deployed by too many experts who have refused to be fully honest and open about such a vital matter of concern, seem somehow not right. Science is not compatible either with less than the ‘whole truth’, according the lights and best available empirical data we possess, or with the collective avoidance by professionals of research regarding what could be real. Science is an expression of truth, is it not? There can be no room for compromise between honesty and effectiveness where science is concerned.

There is nothing ever insignificant to be gained from science and nothing trivial about truth. This is especially so with regard to science that indicates: human population numbers are a function of food availability (not, definitely not, the other way around) and human population dynamics is essentially similar to the population dynamics of other species. From my perspective, the science tells us something vital about ourselves, our distinctly human creatureliness and our ‘placement’ as the top ranking creature among the living beings on Earth. For all the miraculous and occasionally unique attributes of the human species, the research shows us that the human species is not, definitely not, most adequately or accurately placed “a little lower than angels” in the order of living things. Although such an attractively elevated and self-aggrandizing position for the human species sets human beings apart from other species, this view appears to be a widely shared, consensually validated and culturally-prescribed illusion. Rather human beings are assuredly situated within all that is living on Earth. Homo sapiens is an organism that is an integral part of the natural world, not apart from it. We see science once again ‘cutting’ from under us ‘the pedestal’ upon which we believe stand as we oversee, steward and dominate life on Earth.

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