Real Sceptic

What Is The Heartland Institute?

According to their about page their “mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.” And they’ve had their fair share of successes in politics and the media on these matters.

Recently they uploaded their 25 year anniversary video – called What Is The Heartland Institute? - to YouTube (they are now 29 years old) and in it they get congratulated for their excellent work:

However, anyone familiar with me will know I do not think they have done excellent work. Far from it, a lot of their work has actually harmed people.

For example in the 1990s they worked with the tobacco industry to cast doubt on the harmful health effects of secondhand smoking. What they did, and several other free market organisations, was to cast doubt on these findings in an attempt to delay/prevent regulations that would protect consumers. Their campaigns also confused consumers themselves which caused them to be misinformed on the risks.

They still have these materials in their “Smoker’s Lounge” section on their website. Where they to this day refer to research that show the health risks of smoking and secondhand smoke as “junk science.”

But this wasn’t what made me familiar with this organisation, it’s their statements on environmental issues. They consistently misrepresent valid scientific findings and do their utmost to cast doubt on real issues.

For example they still maintain the position that CFCs do not harm the ozone layer:

Yet in spite of the hardships caused by the hasty phaseout of CFCs and other suspected ozone-depleting halocarbons, the EPA has never questioned the adequacy of the science that forms the basis for its phaseout policy. The facts are that the scientific underpinnings are quite shaky: the data are suspect; the statistical analyses are faulty; and the theory has not been validated.

Doesn’t matter that the EPA has done these studies and that it has shown that the scientific underpinnings aren’t shaky.

But this does sound familiar, doesn’t it?

These are the same things they say about other environmental issues, for example anthropogenic global warming. Doesn’t matter how much evidence there is backing these scientific findings, if the consequence will be that we need to regulate, they will oppose it. No matter how much damage this might cause.

So no they have not done excellent work and in my opinion it reflects badly on the organisations that say they did. To me this indicates they also place their ideology above scientific findings, which is never a good sign.

Climate Changes, But Facts Don’t: Debunking Monckton

For the past 1.5 years there has been very little activity by me on my YouTube channel and on this website. This wasn’t because I had given up on creating content, far from it. During this time I was working, when I could, on a big project. Something I did hint towards a couple of times.

This big project was me going through the parts of a debate Monckton took part it. This debate took place on the 19th of July in 2011 and was held by National Press Club of Australia which had as subject climate change.

Read more

Equal Pay For Unequal Work

The past few months I haven’t been releasing any new content. This is due to me working on a big project, and a few other reasons. So I didn’t expect to see the following when I read “Equal Pay Should Be For Equal Work, Not Unequal Work” by Hans Bader on the Competitive Enterprise Institute blog:

Yesterday, I criticized the assumption that people should receive equal pay for unequal work, such as requiring the average woman to be paid exactly the same amount as the average man even though the average male employee works more hours than the average female employee. (I am talking here about averages, not generalizing about every individual case; there are obviously male part-time employees, just as there are women who work 80 hours a week.)

But apparently this point was too subtle for some people. Collin Maessen of Real Sceptic tweeted my blog post, with the preface, “apparently CEI is against regulations that allow women to earn the same wages for the same work as men do.” I didn’t write about such regulations at all. To me, it’s not “the same work” if it’s not the same number of hours. Why should a full-time employee be paid as little as a part-time employee? Why should an employee who works 60 hours per week be paid the same as an employee who works 40 hours per week?

Being mentioned on the CEI blog really surprised me. As I just tweeted my impression on the argument being presented without any context as to why I got that impression. Not strange considering a tweet can be a maximum of 140 characters long. Read more

Scientists And Public Discourse

As I’m a software developer I follow several big names of the trade, one of them being Robert Martin.

Yesterday one of his tweets caught my attention:

@badastronomer @absolutspacegrl @rationalists Snide political innuendo is unworthy of scientists. Honor your profession by speaking plainly

Which was a response to the following tweet by Phil Plait:

Via @absolutspacegrl: MT @rationalists: Santorum won 11 states. Remember that when you wonder why America ranks 27th in math and science.

Essentially a slap down of Santorum, his supporters, and the social/political environment it creates. I have no problem with a scientist commenting on politicians and issues that impact what they do. Which I tweeted to Robert Martin:

.@unclebobmartin Strange how scientists aren’t allowed a shot at a science denier. But Santorum is allowed to smear their professions/work.

This led to a small exchange of ideas on the subject between Martin and me. He even wrote an article which gives a good insight in his position and why he has a problem with scientists responding in such a way. Read more

Katharine Hayhoe: “..Much of This is Intended to Intimidate.”