Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?

Long excerpt but the best arguments defy paraphrasing. Arguably, Science would benefit more from decentralization than global governance, because more science could get done instead of spending time on the zero sum politicking of working the governance systems. When you train people to in-effect litigate their research as a case for approval of committees, the falsification of everything is an unavoidable outcome. It becomes like a legal dispute, where there is no truth, just the prosecution of their case to make anything stick they think they can.

It's not just health research, it's a couple generations of graduates who were given a simple blunt instrument in a system incentivised to popularize the use of that dull tool. The tool reduces to, "there is no truth, only power, words are just tools to struggle for it, responsibility is what you have when you don't have power, and if you take care of this system, it will take care of you, but if you call it out it will come for you first." That's the One Big Thing the hedgehog knows. If you practice it, you can rise to the top of almost anything without knowing much about it. The way to beat it is to set a bar of competence and concreteness.

Scrutiny of experimental data goes a long way to setting that bar.

I am not saying what I said in a vacuum, this came out of conversations with actual climate science researchers and scientists that I had the opportunity to meet during the course of my work in aerospace. The context was a project were we were developing various systems and payloads for both the International Space Station and, eventually, the Artemis mission to the moon.

The message was quite clear: In a politically charged environment you have to be very careful not to ruffle feathers. Anything from your career to your funding could be at stake.

No, you are not going to find google-searchable interviews with such folks, again, that would be professional suicide.

You can find information that helps understand some of the forces at play. While not a full picture, it's enough to support the plausibility of my claim. You don't have to believer me, of course. It's your prerogative.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politicization_of_science

https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/19/14258474/trump-inaugurati...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/canadian-scien...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/17/britai...

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/358043-epa-blo...

https://www.vox.com/2015/5/15/8612113/truth-climate-change

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/battle-over-scien...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462961...

etc.

There exist lubricants for which non-fossil crude oil production sources are possible such as PAG and others. Likewise, there exist many plastics and synthetic rubber that are not petro based, however ethylene, which is a petrochemical byproduct, is still required for a lot of plastic uses. This doesn't matter much, it is totally possible to produce these things without vast ghg production.

The production of lubricants which are not burned do not contribute in large part to greenhouse gas emissions. It is fully possible to produce industrial petrochemicals such as plastics and lubricants that do not produce large ghg emissions from burning. Most lubricants are recycled, lots are done so by burning, these can instead become industrial stock for production of lubricants and plastics given research.

Diesel and fuels can also be produced from non-petro sources, this has been done in people's garages. Diesel engines can burn corn, peanut, canola, waste vegetable, some of them can run on Dexron III (this is petrol) and diesel created in a garage reactor from plant sources. Biofuels are not fossil fuels. Electrification of vehicles removes vast sums of ghg from vehicle emissions, the production source can be any other non-fossil source.

The thesis of your comment, I gather, is essentially:

>that case of not using fuels, such as gasoline, while still having a need for the massive number of heavier hydrocarbons that come out of the distillation process. Great, no gasoline. Now, where to you put that shit while you only, literally, use the bottom of the barrel? Ah, you destroy the planet. Got it.

The economics of gasoline and diesel as a byproduct of petrochemical production makes rather favorable economic rationale for fossil fuel uses, but it does not follow that the byproduct must therfore be burned or drank. CO2 reduction will be required to prevent greenhouse heating and climate destabilization. Once energy production has transitioned away from fossil sources, smaller amounts can be used without the full scale ghg emissions we are currently creating.

Not using gasoline does not mean you "you destroy the planet", you could for example, return it to the fossil fuel reservoir from which it came. Seems pretty stable.

Plus ça change...