Money: not everything 5

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1. 

   Kif Scheuer Posted 9:49 am
   27 Feb 2007

   true, butthese two examples are not really comparable. Being paid to deliver a speech is very different than drafting "scientific" reports on a topic. When a bigwig gets a hefy honorarium to say what you know they will say you're paying for them, their name, their content and their reputation. When a scientist reports on a topic, you are (in theory) getting an assessment of the topic that on the surface at least is intended to collect relevant facts and advance a testable conclusion.

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2. 

   jjwfmme Posted 11:29 am
   27 Feb 2007

   It's not really an equivalentIt's ridiculous to say that Robert Kennedy went into environmental advocacy for pecuniary reasons. On the other hand, the Nick Naylors of the world...
   You get the idea.

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3. 

   Janis Mara Posted 12:04 pm
   27 Feb 2007

   Hold greens to the same standard - but...
   
   I think it's cool that you brought this up, because green people should be held to the same standard as, er, non-green people. But it does seem significant that what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was saying is consistent with beliefs we already know he holds - as it says in the story you referenced, "the [Virginia Tech] crowd ... probably had an idea about what he thought of the Bush administration before he took the podium."
   It's my understanding that the scientists were offered $10,000 to criticize certain parts of the IPCC report. So the payment would have been in return for expressing a specific opinion. I believe Kennedy was just paid to speak.

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4. 

   David Roberts Posted 12:36 pm
   27 Feb 2007

   Not exactly, JanisThe $10,000 was offered to a pair of highly respected scientists, both of whom accept the findings of the IPCC. No reasonable person -- not even an employee of AEI -- would think that they would risk their integrity and reputations for $10,000. (Read the article linked in the post.) Anyway, the world is chockablock with liberal journals who pay people to analyze data and produce conclusions, and they choose people likely to come to ideologically sympathetic conclusions.
   Intellectuals need money too. Getting paid is not de facto evidence of malfeasance (though, jjwfmme points out, there is certainly malfeasance out there).
   
   www.grist.org

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5. 

   Janis Mara Posted 12:13 am
   28 Feb 2007

   Thanks, David, you're right....
   ...I should have read the article linked to the post.

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