Analytics wrote:Regardless of what should be done, what empirical evidence is there that backs Droopy’s claim? If the Left “thoroughly dominates American academia,” then this domination can be quantified. What percentage of college professors are Leftists? How is that measured? In what way to they dominate?
There are a number of books that written by scholars, historians and intellectuals who have immersed themselves in the history of the academy over the 25 - 30 years or so, some of which (among other writing) has both quantified and made philosophical and political qualitative analysis of the phenomenon. To answer one of your questions, a number of empirical studies place the ratio of leftists to conservatives at anywhere from 5-1 to 9-1 to 15 - 1 (University of Colarado at Boulder).
The only thing close to this that I’ve seen Droopy offer in these rants goes something like this:
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[*] Real science has debunked global warming
DAGW or CAGW was never a serious scientific theory in the first instance, and from an empirical scientific standpoint, never made it beyond the speculative hypothesis stage (From within the IPCC and among the environmental movement proper, it was never more than a Trojan Horse within which could be hidden most of the old utopian pieties).
[*] The vast majority of climatologists at universities pretend that it is true (or worse, are so stupid they believe it’s true)
Believe
what is true, "anthropogenic global warming," "dangerous/catastrophic anthropogenic global warming," or "climate change"?
Tens of thousands of earth scientists, physical scientists, natural scientists, mathematicians, statisticians, engineers, and climate scientists within a number of sub-specialties, including some of the most distinguished climatologists in the world, do not accept the claims of DAGW, and many never have.
Therefore the vast majority of climatologists at universities aren’t real scientists teaching about how to evaluate the evidence, what the evidence is, and what it implies. Rather, they are spewing discredited left-wing-propaganda etc.
What has kept the DAGW gravy train on its tracks over the last 20 years is not empirical science (as neither the IPCC nor anyone else has produced a single shred of empirically verifiable evidence for it, and literally each major claim derived from the GCM's has been either discredited by
actual empirical observation and data or rendered in serious doubt), but:
1. The tiny cabal of government research grant money inebriated scientists (Briffa, Jones, Mann et al) who sold out their intellectual integrity early for the endless flow of government money and the thrill of going down in history as "saving the planet."
2. The IPCC, a thoroughly agenda-driven (and corruption-riddled) political entity for whom DAGW was never anything other than an ideological project wrapped in the authoritative robes of science.
3. Numerous other government grant money-inebriated scientists who will not get research grants in "climate science" unless their research has potential policy implications and their "findings" support the DAGW hypothesis, explicitly or implicitly.
The Left and the environmental/green movement generally, for whom DAGW (and environmentalism per se) became, after the collapses of the socialist dream in the rubble of the Berlin Wall, the major place of refuge and regrouping for the continuance of the struggle against, to borrow a book title from Milton Friedman, capitalism and freedom.
There's so much: the GCM's have never been validated, they have been shown to be worthless for the predictive job they have been conscripted to do; model predictions do not agree with empirical observations in a number of major areas; there's been no warming for some 15 years and a clear cooling trend since around 2002; sea level rise is continuing and historically normal rates (10cm - about four inches per century); the "hot spot" models predicted would exist in the upper tropical atmosphere that would signal the presence of anthropogenic warming, does not exist; the Arctic, save for the Arctic Peninsula that represents about two percent of the continent, is cooling, and has been cooling slightly at least since I was in grade school; polar bears are thriving and expanding, not decreasing, and on and on and on.
Or maybe the problem is on my end? What is the empirical evidence that the left thoroughly dominates American academia?
There are numerous books, monographs, essays, and studies on this subject, going back quite a few years. Be my guest and avail yourself of the most salient and documented arguments. They're hardly inconspicuous and have been around for quite a while.
Or, as I suspect, you're just playing the classic leftist game of pretending to be a struggling, embattled minority when you know full well that the academy, like the mainstream media, the foundations, K-12, and the entertainment world, are yours, and your dominance is utterly overwhelming. Here's a good start from the leading historian of the Left in the country who has been on the front lines of this particular issue for several decades:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Professors-Da ... 1596985259http://www.amazon.com/One-Party-Classro ... 51-8544351http://www.amazon.com/Indoctrination-Le ... 51-8544351http://www.amazon.com/Reforming-Our-Uni ... 51-8544351