Saturday, July 30, 2011
Risk ratio
WUWT has been covering an investigation of federal wildlife biologist Charles Monnett. It appears that WUWT got a little premature on assuming the problem was bad science; though the feds are closemouthed, it sounds more like the problem was bad management.
I'm not especially interested in this story, but thinking about it made me see something bigger.
It's absolutely logical for the feds to worry more about bad management than bad science. For one thing, each segment of the gov't has at least one Accountability Office or Auditor, and many of them are serious. Mostly, anything that looks like waste is likely to become part of some congressmutant's campaign. Congressmutants just love to mock stupid projects and pork, during the few minutes they can spare from generating their own stupid projects and pork.
So there are 535 potential shouters for a wasteful project, along with the internal auditors.
How many potential complainers for bad science?
ONE.
Only the heroic James Inhofe will complain when you commit evil science.
A few of the new Repooflicans made some noise about bad science during the last campaign, but they've all gone dead silent. Not a peep since the election from these sissy-ass traitor-ass coward-ass fairies. They're only interested in ZERO TAX FOR GOLDMAN SACHS! ZERO TAX FOR GOLDMAN SACHS! ZERO TAX FOR GOLDMAN SACHS! ZERO TAX FOR GOLDMAN SACHS!
Inhofe stands alone, as always.
Given the risk ratio of 535 : 1 it's a no-brainer. Agencies are free to spend 100% of their budget on bad science, as long as the bad scientists look really busy.
On the other side, the risk of doing good honest science, heretical science, is huge but harder to quantify. Only a few congressmutants will bother to complain, and there aren't any specific Gaian Accountability Offices, so the internal threat is small. But all the media in the world and all the universities in the world and all the post-Christian "churches" in the world will burn you for heresy. ¶ 7:47 PM
I'm not especially interested in this story, but thinking about it made me see something bigger.
It's absolutely logical for the feds to worry more about bad management than bad science. For one thing, each segment of the gov't has at least one Accountability Office or Auditor, and many of them are serious. Mostly, anything that looks like waste is likely to become part of some congressmutant's campaign. Congressmutants just love to mock stupid projects and pork, during the few minutes they can spare from generating their own stupid projects and pork.
So there are 535 potential shouters for a wasteful project, along with the internal auditors.
How many potential complainers for bad science?
ONE.
Only the heroic James Inhofe will complain when you commit evil science.
A few of the new Repooflicans made some noise about bad science during the last campaign, but they've all gone dead silent. Not a peep since the election from these sissy-ass traitor-ass coward-ass fairies. They're only interested in ZERO TAX FOR GOLDMAN SACHS! ZERO TAX FOR GOLDMAN SACHS! ZERO TAX FOR GOLDMAN SACHS! ZERO TAX FOR GOLDMAN SACHS!
Inhofe stands alone, as always.
Given the risk ratio of 535 : 1 it's a no-brainer. Agencies are free to spend 100% of their budget on bad science, as long as the bad scientists look really busy.
On the other side, the risk of doing good honest science, heretical science, is huge but harder to quantify. Only a few congressmutants will bother to complain, and there aren't any specific Gaian Accountability Offices, so the internal threat is small. But all the media in the world and all the universities in the world and all the post-Christian "churches" in the world will burn you for heresy. ¶ 7:47 PM
