Governor Rick Perry, newly declared candidate for President of the United States, has trotted out an old, dependable, and predictable villain, one familiar to science fiction fans and Luddites alike: Scientists.
Scientists — and there’s a nice blanket term for you, by the way — are manipulating data related to climate change, and they’re doing it for the money.
Let me repeat: Scientists are manipulating climate change data. For the money.
The cynical among you might suspect that Perry, who is allied closely with the “energy extraction” industry — those folks who drill oil from the ground — may well have known that certain industries (::cough:: oil ::cough::) have been paying certain less-than-honorable scientists to manipulate climate change data so as to make it appear that no, fossil fuels do not alter the climate and yes, fossil fuels are good for you, the planet, and your puppy. And the cynical among you would be correct.
The media-types among you will no doubt assume that “if one side is doing it, the other must be as well,” leading you to believe that all scientists are being paid to manipulate data one way or another. And this may well be where Perry gets his notions. It is true, as 9 out of 10 psychiatrists will tell you, that we are most likely to accuse others of doing those things we do ourselves. So if Perry’s crowd is living high off the Exxon hog, fudging data right and left to keep them rolling in greenbacks, it would be perfectly reasonable for them to assume that the “other” side is doing the same.
This doesn’t leave much room for honorable, hard-working professionals who are merely doing research, looking for the truth, and going where the data takes them. If everyone is corrupt, no one is honest.
This, I suspect, is what Rick Perry is really telling us. In his world, there are no honest people; everyone is on the take from someone. What Mr. Perry is doing is nothing more than any of the rest of us did back on the fourth-grade playground, but in reverse. When he calls the scientists corrupt, what he’s really saying is “I know I am, but what are you?”
What are you indeed, Mr. Perry?
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