Marxist Professors Are Gift to Climate Skeptics

[lostinblue 1,989]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...id=amjn_0feDpcM

Commentary by Kevin Hassett

Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The revelation that climate scientists at the University of East Anglia manipulated data and conspired to corrupt the peer-review process has been very bad news for those hoping to enact laws to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

A December poll by CBS News and the New York Times found that only 37 percent of Americans now think global warming is a very serious problem and should be one of the highest priorities for government leaders, a whopping 15 percentage point drop since 2007. While the poll report attributes the drop to the economic decline during the intervening two years, it’s safe to assume the scandal known as Climategate contributed to the change in public perception.

Such statistics surely are frustrating for climate scientists. The vast majority of them assert that the stolen e- mails did nothing to upend the balance of the literature, which still tilts heavily toward a consensus that warming is a big, man-made problem.

The public’s skepticism toward the scientists is part of a bigger problem, one that threatens the fabric of our culture. Academe has been so politicized, and so radically disconnected from the population, that ordinary citizens no longer trust anything that it produces -- even science.

The sad fact is that explicit or implicit political litmus tests are far more important than science at universities and so-called peer-reviewed journals. Universities may pay lip service to “diversity,” but diversity of thought is taboo.

Damning Survey

A 2007 survey of more than 1,400 professors by sociologists Neil Gross of Harvard University and Solon Simmons of George Mason University is as damning an indictment of an organization as you are ever likely to see.

The authors compiled the political affiliation and beliefs of the professors, who were asked to identify themselves along a spectrum from very liberal to very conservative. Across all fields, 44 percent identified themselves as liberal or very liberal, while 9.2 percent identified themselves as conservative or very conservative.

Strikingly, the data were even more tilted in the physical and biological sciences. There, 45.2 percent of professors identified themselves as liberal, while only 8 percent said they were conservative.

The authors dug deeper than many previous studies and established some startling findings.

In the social sciences, 24 percent of professors identified themselves as liberal “radicals” and 18 percent as Marxists. Only 4.9 percent of social scientists identified themselves as “conservative.”

Marxists Everywhere

So there are almost five times as many self-identified liberal radicals on our faculties, and more than three times as many Marxists as there are conservatives. Last I checked, Marxism has been utterly discredited. Yet there are still Marxists everywhere, poisoning the minds of our children. Conservatives, on the other hand, are a rarity.

While there isn’t enough data to address the question, it is safe to assume that no other profession is so tilted. In a society about evenly split between liberals and conservatives, achieving such a bias requires serious effort. It doesn’t happen by accident.

If you want to run conservatives out, you need to discourage dissertations that might reach conservative conclusions. You need to shun young students if their work questions liberal orthodoxy. You need to control the academic journals, rejecting papers submitted by identifiable conservatives.

Political Bias

You need to celebrate work that supports the political bias of Democrats. If your research shows that higher minimum wages are terrific, an endowed chair is yours for the taking. Question whether a higher minimum wage might cause higher unemployment, and find your place on the bread line.

For years, I have watched the economic community act this way. The hacked East Anglia e-mails confirm that exactly this type of conspiracy is in place. They show climate experts plotting how to keep the lid on research that didn’t support the prevailing view on global warming. In one e-mail, Michael Mann of Penn State University proposed boycotting an academic journal because it had published an article that provided evidence contrary to global warming canon.

Small wonder that our academic system can no longer claim the authority necessary to drive policy. The distrust that the academic community has rightly earned is devastating for society. We have lost the only institution that could deliver the widely acknowledged facts upon which rational policy could be based.

Fire Political Professors

If Americans can no longer trust anything, even science, then it is time for radical reform, starting with the elimination of tenure. When professors abandon science and take up politics, ask them to leave.

Second, universities and journals should engage in informal affirmative action for conservatives. While it is hard to say exactly how many conservatives it might take to ease concerns of bias, a safe place to start might be to make sure you have more conservatives than Marxists.

Finally, the spirit of open debate should be assiduously enforced, even on issues such as climate. Universities should teach students how to think, not what to believe. Debate is a necessary part of that process.

Such reforms are, of course, unlikely. So you can bet that policies will continue to fail if they rely on faith in science.

(Kevin Hassett, director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is a Bloomberg News columnist. He was an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona in the 2008 presidential election. The opinions expressed are his own.)

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

[Dan J 277]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...id=amjn_0feDpcM

Commentary by Kevin Hassett

Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The revelation that climate scientists at the University of East Anglia manipulated data and conspired to corrupt the peer-review process has been very bad news for those hoping to enact laws to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

A December poll by CBS News and the New York Times found that only 37 percent of Americans now think global warming is a very serious problem and should be one of the highest priorities for government leaders, a whopping 15 percentage point drop since 2007. While the poll report attributes the drop to the economic decline during the intervening two years, it’s safe to assume the scandal known as Climategate contributed to the change in public perception.

Such statistics surely are frustrating for climate scientists. The vast majority of them assert that the stolen e- mails did nothing to upend the balance of the literature, which still tilts heavily toward a consensus that warming is a big, man-made problem.

The public’s skepticism toward the scientists is part of a bigger problem, one that threatens the fabric of our culture. Academe has been so politicized, and so radically disconnected from the population, that ordinary citizens no longer trust anything that it produces -- even science.

The sad fact is that explicit or implicit political litmus tests are far more important than science at universities and so-called peer-reviewed journals. Universities may pay lip service to “diversity,” but diversity of thought is taboo.

Damning Survey

A 2007 survey of more than 1,400 professors by sociologists Neil Gross of Harvard University and Solon Simmons of George Mason University is as damning an indictment of an organization as you are ever likely to see.

The authors compiled the political affiliation and beliefs of the professors, who were asked to identify themselves along a spectrum from very liberal to very conservative. Across all fields, 44 percent identified themselves as liberal or very liberal, while 9.2 percent identified themselves as conservative or very conservative.

Strikingly, the data were even more tilted in the physical and biological sciences. There, 45.2 percent of professors identified themselves as liberal, while only 8 percent said they were conservative.

The authors dug deeper than many previous studies and established some startling findings.

In the social sciences, 24 percent of professors identified themselves as liberal “radicals” and 18 percent as Marxists. Only 4.9 percent of social scientists identified themselves as “conservative.”

Marxists Everywhere

So there are almost five times as many self-identified liberal radicals on our faculties, and more than three times as many Marxists as there are conservatives. Last I checked, Marxism has been utterly discredited. Yet there are still Marxists everywhere, poisoning the minds of our children. Conservatives, on the other hand, are a rarity.

While there isn’t enough data to address the question, it is safe to assume that no other profession is so tilted. In a society about evenly split between liberals and conservatives, achieving such a bias requires serious effort. It doesn’t happen by accident.

If you want to run conservatives out, you need to discourage dissertations that might reach conservative conclusions. You need to shun young students if their work questions liberal orthodoxy. You need to control the academic journals, rejecting papers submitted by identifiable conservatives.

Political Bias

You need to celebrate work that supports the political bias of Democrats. If your research shows that higher minimum wages are terrific, an endowed chair is yours for the taking. Question whether a higher minimum wage might cause higher unemployment, and find your place on the bread line.

For years, I have watched the economic community act this way. The hacked East Anglia e-mails confirm that exactly this type of conspiracy is in place. They show climate experts plotting how to keep the lid on research that didn’t support the prevailing view on global warming. In one e-mail, Michael Mann of Penn State University proposed boycotting an academic journal because it had published an article that provided evidence contrary to global warming canon.

Small wonder that our academic system can no longer claim the authority necessary to drive policy. The distrust that the academic community has rightly earned is devastating for society. We have lost the only institution that could deliver the widely acknowledged facts upon which rational policy could be based.

Fire Political Professors

If Americans can no longer trust anything, even science, then it is time for radical reform, starting with the elimination of tenure. When professors abandon science and take up politics, ask them to leave.

Second, universities and journals should engage in informal affirmative action for conservatives. While it is hard to say exactly how many conservatives it might take to ease concerns of bias, a safe place to start might be to make sure you have more conservatives than Marxists.

Finally, the spirit of open debate should be assiduously enforced, even on issues such as climate. Universities should teach students how to think, not what to believe. Debate is a necessary part of that process.

Such reforms are, of course, unlikely. So you can bet that policies will continue to fail if they rely on faith in science.

(Kevin Hassett, director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is a Bloomberg News columnist. He was an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona in the 2008 presidential election. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Next up, Republicans claim there is no recession, claims that revised numbers on economic growth is proof to a conspiracy by Democracts to further a social-fascist-communist agenda.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Kevin Hassett...former economic advisor to Bush... is a political hack and an idiot.

Hassett and the Paradox of Thrift

I nominate Kevin Hassett for the worse argument yet against the Obama fiscal stimulus:

We are in the midst of a crisis caused by so many financial institutions borrowing too much money. Somehow, a critical mass of policy makers now believes that the correct response is for the U.S. government to borrow too much money.

Financial institutions lend money to those who wish to invest more than they save. Our current problem is not that there is too much private investment – rather it is that there is too little private investment. OK, financial institutions may have made certain loans that defaulted – to which they are now lending less. But that is not the same thing as "financial institutions borrowing too much money".

As Keynes noted – when the private sector invests less than it saves, an insufficiency of aggregate demand may lead to a recession unless the public sector decides to engage in fiscal stimulus. Yet, Hassert is advocating fiscal restraint which would further increase the national savings schedule leading to the well known paradox of thrift. Herbert Hoover would be proud!

On top of this silliness, we get:

How could the deficit increase so much, so fast? Part of the story is the decline in revenue, which the CBO forecasts will be $166 billion less than it was in 2008, a 6.6 percent decline. But relative to 2000, revenue has actually increased from $2 trillion to a scheduled $2.4 trillion in 2009. The deficit has skyrocketed because spending has grown from $1.8 trillion in 2000 to a projected $3.5 trillion in 2009, fully 95 percent higher. Of course, all that happened mostly on a Republican watch.

Nominal revenues will have risen by 20%! Wow! Oh wait – the price-level will have risen by about 25% so real revenues will have declined even in absolute terms. Real revenues per capita or revenues as a percent of GDP – you know the drill! While it may be true that Federal spending relative to GDP increased during the Bush Administration – any suggestion that real Federal spending per capita doubled would be laughable in the extreme.

http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2009/01/has...-of-thrift.html

Edited December 27, 2009 by Galt's gallstones

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

[Pooky 3,806]

Kevin Hassett...former economic advisor to Bush... is a political hack and an idiot.

So, argue his content in the original post, don't try to discredit him by posting something else he wrote.

Oh wait, that would be doing as you say, not as you usually do yourself (this post included). Boy, THAT would be original!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

So, argue his content in the original post, don't try to discredit him by posting something else he wrote.

Oh wait, that would be doing as you say, not as you usually do yourself (this post included). Boy, THAT would be original!

No point in counter arguing a ridiculous argument. I showed that article, form an economist website, to demonstrate that Mr. Hassett has a knack for being ridiculous.

Marxists Everywhere

So there are almost five times as many self-identified liberal radicals on our faculties, and more than three times as many Marxists as there are conservatives. Last I checked, Marxism has been utterly discredited. Yet there are still Marxists everywhere, poisoning the minds of our children. Conservatives, on the other hand, are a rarity.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

No point in counter arguing a ridiculous argument. I showed that article, form an economist website, to demonstrate that Mr. Hassett has a knack for being ridiculous.

It has been noted, by a former head of TASS under Brezhnev, that the only true Marxists, come from the former East Germany, and campuses across the United States.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

It has been noted, by a former head of TASS under Brezhnev, that the only true Marxists, come from the former East Germany, and campuses across the United States.

Merry Christmas, Bill! Glad to see you back at the saddle again.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Merry Christmas, Bill! Glad to see you back at the saddle again.

Things are slow at other sites.

Merry Christmas to you brother, as well, and a prosperous New Year.

[Pooky 3,806]

No point in counter arguing a ridiculous argument. I showed that article, form an economist website, to demonstrate that Mr. Hassett has a knack for being ridiculous.

So, your argument is that if one of his arguments is ridiculous, they all must be. Try arguing his assertions in the OP with facts of your own, or quit trying to get others to do so. Your choice.

Live by your own standards, or don't ask others to do so.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

His argument is kinda stupid - he makes reference to some sort of poll about the self-described political affiliation of professors (sans context) to suggest that marxism is rampant in higher education institutions (he seems to equate liberalism with Marxism to boot - a complete fallacy) and that self-describing yourself either way equates to radicalism.

He also suggests that professors should be fired if they "take up politics" yet that steps should be taken to ensure that there is a greater conservative presence of opinion in higher education.

Its one big

[nowhereman 1]

If you ignore the left & right wing nut cases on this topic (or pretty much any topic) you will have a better grasp of the facts & thus the truth. I honestly don't care what "marxist professors" are saying or doing because their opinions are irrelevant IMO. Same goes with right wingers who think that by pointing out the antics of left wing nuts they are somehow validating their own skewed opinions.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

If you ignore the left & right wing nut cases on this topic (or pretty much any topic) you will have a better grasp of the facts & thus the truth. I honestly don't care what "marxist professors" are saying or doing because their opinions are irrelevant IMO. Same goes with right wingers who think that by pointing out the antics of left wing nuts they are somehow validating their own skewed opinions.

The author is echoing a long held belief (or conspiracy) among many on the Right, that our university and colleges are indoctrinating their students to wacky liberal (see Marxism) ideals. They can't seem to wrap their head around the idea that a college education is a liberal endeavor. It exposes the student to different viewpoints and challenges the student's own views. In their mind, they envision social science courses to provide their students with one right answer to every issue, even though the real world doesn't work that way.

Edited December 28, 2009 by Galt's gallstones