Opinion: In today’s pages: Global-warming science, marijuana regulation and gun-owner sentiments
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The Op-Ed page starts with a bang today, as two global-warming scholars -- Daniel Sarewitz of Arizona State University and Samuel Thernstrom of the American Enterprise Institute -- take a cudgel to the notion of scientific objectivity. Weighing in on the apparent manipulation of data by researchers associated with East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, Sarewitz and Thernstrom write:
Central to this disaster has been scientists’ insistence that they are unsullied providers of truth in an otherwise corrupt and indecipherable world. It was never so. Scholars continue to argue over whether such titans of science as Pasteur and Millikan lied, cheated and fabricated results or were simply exercising good scientific intuition....
Moreover, problems such as climate change are much more scientifically complex than determining the charge on an electron or even the structure of DNA. The research deals not with building blocks of nature but with dynamic systems that are inherently uncertain, unpredictable and complex.
It’s a great read. Also on the Op-Ed page, columnist Tim Rutten wades into the morass of medical marijuana regulation. And parent activist Ben Austin excoriates Assemblywoman Julia Brownley (D-Santa Monica) for gutting a proposal to let parents force the overhaul of failing schools.
On the other side of the opinion fold, the Times editorial board sides with the 1st Amendment over anti-discrimination legislation in a dispute between the Christian Legal Society and the UC Hastings College of Law. The board also notes the surprising support among gun owners for regulations that National Rifle Assn. leaders and lobbyists have fought fiercely to block. And although we’re no fans of loud television commercials, the editorial writers blast the House for passing a bill by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Menlo Park) to force broadcasters, cable operators and satellite TV services to end the volume surges:
[A]s dissenting Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee pointed out, ‘Americans’ televisions still have volume control, and remote controls still have ‘mute’ buttons. Consumers do not need the government to come into their homes and operate their remote controls for them.’
-- Jon Healey
