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Before I would accept any study these days I would wish to know from whence came the funding for the "impartial" scientist.

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Although I understand and sympathize with your feelings, I am terribly distressed to hear you say it. This is an outcome of scientists allowing their biases to interfere with their objectivity. It is for this very reason that I counsel scientists to stay out of environmental advocacy.

By allowing advocacy to creep into science, we now have a situation where science is believed or dismissed based on the outcome. If someone doesn’t like the report, it is considered “cooked” and buried. If someone agrees with the report, it is paraded on the stage like a trained bear.

That’s not the way science should be. My reports are what they are, no matter how much out of favor it might make me. When I was a graduate student I had an eye-opening experience. I will never forget the night before my presentation at an important conference, when my major professor came to my hotel room and said, “you have to change the conclusions section of your paper. The wind is blowing the other way.” My paper was good science, and I did not change it. I did change major professors, and dropped that fellow like a hot potato.

Science should be published in peer-reviewed journals, and everyone who is qualified to judge should scrutinize the papers critically. Only then can we trust the results. And, scientists should stay out of politics. It tarnished our credibility, and NEVER does any good.

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Take care, Tom
NRA Life Member

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