The man-made climate change hoax could be added to any discussion about scientific openness and transparency. Most lay-people know that climate change is real, and has been real from the year dot. Many lay-people, however, are still naïve enough to have the idea that scientists, unlike other people, don’t have the tendency to lie and cheat, make up stuff, fabricate evidence (e.g. hockey sticks) and fiddle the books to get more funding, prizes, or merely their names in the papers. Most scientists are probably not this way; (we have scientists who clearly state that man produced CO2 has little or no effect on climate change, which is a natural state of affairs). But it is always the minority of any group that causes the trouble.

Scientists used to be trusted in the same way as bank managers and doctors. The bank managers and doctors were knocked off their perches as the information age grew, and many people have seen the truth of the shenanigans of some in the scientific community since the IPCC was unleashed on the world, despite the censorship of the media in stifling dissenting voices.

As the global warming fraud has now made clear, there is just as much need for a separation of state and science, as there is for a separation of state and religion, for all the same reasons.

IPCC. How scientist who demand evidence must cringe.

Re climate change and global warming I quite like the new essay The Climate Change Scorecard by Dahr Jamal on Tomdispatch.

Scientific knowledge is the primary method of knowing in the modern world. The purpose of scientific knowledge is about gaining power and control over both the natural world and humankind too -even to the ultimate degree which is of course impossible.
Because scientific research requires mega-bucks to be done it is by its very nature neither democratic or transparent.
Why?
The scientific establishment has been organized in league with the highest levels of concentrated poltical, economic, and propagandistic power in the world today. Which is to say that the scientific, rationalist intellectual, and technological core-culture of our social order is the secret "esoteric" Church that defines and controls every aspect of what is acceptable "knowledge" in modern culture.
"Esoteric" because of its sophisticated language which is essentially based on complex mathematical equations.
Language which is incomprehensible to the ordinary citizen, even to generally well-informed citizens. And because it requires years of training to even to be qualified to begin to do fruitful scientific research.

Dear Juan,

I think you have the parameters right, those of science, capital, citizens and public health. In their pure or untainted form there would be no issue. But they are not untainted which is where the problems begin.

Each is tainted by politics.

Science is socialized because it is directed by “he who pays the piper”. Research is directed to socially desirable outcomes by the government, this is why researchers and universities direct their research to the governments desired outcomes, sometimes to the exclusion of other research.

Capital in the form of subsidies, tax relief, grants and even direct government investment are provided to those industries that can implement the solutions. This again distorts the market because it is no longer dependent upon “market ready” solutions that are sustainable. Rather they exist because of the financial assistance that makes an unprofitable proposition profitable. This distorts no only the capital markets but also the industries in which they invest.

Citizens can only participate meaningfully in “intersections between science and citizenship” if they are fully informed of both the content and “how they can engage” as determined by public policy. Both are determined by politicians.

Public Health may be pertinent to some of the cases you present but this is too narrow. Outside medical issues this should perhaps refer instead to “public interest”.

Posters so far on this thread have rightly pointed to the CAGW phenomenon because this is currently the best example of tainted everything. In their pure form the four entities you mention could never have enabled the CAGW anomaly.

It is only possible because each entity has been distorted by politics. Paying the piper might produce a short term melody but in the end, the cost of political populism will hit the brick wall of austerity.

At which point we all begin to realize that politicians didn’t pay the piper, we did