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As the smoke cleared, William Beaty <[email protected]> mounted the barricade and roared out: > On Sun, 26 Apr 2009, William Beaty wrote: >> If any CF supporter should ever be even slightly dishonest, it's the >> most disgusting thing imaginable, right? It damns the entire CF >> community! But if a CF skeptic pulls the sort of dishonest ploy that >> Garwin does ...it means that he's "only human." > > Also, in the last few months I've noted several instances of people > excusing dishonest tactics with phrases like "scientists are just human." > > Beware, since this is new example of a known dishonest tactic: spinning > of near-criminal acts by applying a label which subtly carries > forgiveness. It's very typical of verbal tricks used by the past > presidential administration too, no? To drive home the point, let me go > overboard and label the act of rape as: "boys will be boys." Or I could > perhaps change your opinion of a known murderer by saying "it's just his > way?" > > :) > > If you don't realize that it's happening, the spinning of lies and > coverups is seductive, since we ourselves might be tempted to excuse even > the most dishonest of anti-CF bigotry as "just people people being > human." > > Hey Steve K, you say in > http://www.newenergytimes.com/v2/reports/ColdFusionProblem.shtml that > "The cold fusion problem is not a science problem; it was, and still is, > a human problem." This phrase creeped me out when I read it weeks ago, > and only today I realized why. > > When scientists try to cover their mistakes with dishonest tricks and > spin tactics, it might be wise to avoid describing the situation as a > "human problem," since it carries the suggestion: "it's OK, since they're > only human." > > If the problem is with corrupt experts, with physicists being dishonest, > there must be some way to say just that. For the same reason, we'd never > describe a corrupt government by saying "it's not a government problem, > it's a human problem." It's a *politikal-ekonomik* problem -- because this is exactly the way the ruling-class operates. All ruling classes, for that matter. So indeed: the CF/etc. problem is actually far more a politikal one than a scientifik one. And this all-too-common pathology has even been playing out on this very eList, oddly enuff... ;P - -- grok. - -- Build the North America-wide General Strike. TODO el poder a los consejos y las comunas. TOUT le pouvoir aux conseils et communes. ALL power to the councils and communes. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkn09D0ACgkQXo3EtEYbt3E4XACfbbiegxz2cUopHLvZbyh7dr+B LNQAmgMa+2tyfPwjZ4dqdzPFZn46tZdb =vzuy -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
