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Jun032011
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Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill RS "townhall meeting" on openness
Jun 3, 2011 FOI Royal Society Tickets are now available (free) for the Royal Society's Townhall Meeting on openness in science featuring Paul Nurse and Geoffrey Boulton.
This will be at the Southbank Centre in London on 8 June at 2:30pm.
Reader Comments (20)
I'm old enough to remember the days when it would have just been a "meeting". Now it's a farking "workshop" or the latest bollocks "A Town Hall".
If it's on 'openness', can we expect an open question and answer session afterwards? Will anyone here be going?
Will 'Optimum Population' Nurse be openly explaining his unretracted CO2 falsehoods to the unwashed masses?
Will questions regarding UEA FOIA requests, be allowed in this new spirit of openess?
Does Paul Nurse know the background to this question?
What's the betting that the kind of openness they end up espousing will look a lot like closedness when it comes to finding out what they are doing with our money?
And if you ask a difficult question based on any specific case, they will deny knowledge of that particular case and fail to answer.
Damn, a bit busy on that date, otherwise I might have been tempted to pop down and ask some inconvenient questions about FOI and science.
Mind you, I could see myself just getting frustrated. That bunch talking about openness in science would be a bit like listening to Col Gaddafi talk about human rights at the UN.
What a crochety suspicious lot you are! Go in a spirit of openness. Just look at the trailer:
“Science thrives on the free and open exchange of ideas and data. BUT... Scientists face demands for improved access to scientific information ... They can no longer assume that the way that they work is uninteresting to scientists in other disciplines, bloggers or the general public. BUT...”
Anyone wanting to acquaint themselves with Sir Paul Nurse’s bedside manner could do worse than read the transcript of his recent interview with Alok Jha at:
https://sites.google.com/site/mytranscriptbox/home/20110530_gn
Perhaps it will be like the Cambridge meeting : "Don't mention Climategate or you'll be thrown out".
Q. Sir Paul, if it could be shown that recent claims by climate scientists that FOIA requests were a problem were exaggerated would you be prepared to modify your position regarding what changes are necessary?
Q.2 Didn't you notice the many rebuttals of your claims made by those who are aware of the whole story regarding climate scientists FOIA responses? Why do you claim not to be completely aware of the true state of affairs when you feel able to make the claims made in the Guardian interview? Don't you think you should have heard both sides, ie gathered all the data, before coming to a conclusion?
how's that?
"Tickets are now available (free) for the Royal Society's Townhall Meeting on openness in science featuring Paul Nurse and Geoffrey Boulton". Shortly afterwards Lord Mandelson will speak on openness and honesty in politics.
Appearances would seem to be important to these people. Never mind the substance, the squalid reality 'on the street'/ Reminds me a bit of the court of Louis 14. What chance of their admitting 'apres moi, le deluge'?
An interesting character, Paul Nurse
Already a nobel laureate in one discipline he has identified another which is going to remain a live debate for some time to come,
One can't help wondering when he will get his teeth into it for he is a wolf in sheeps clothing
I mean, really...have they no shame?
If you move in arty circles, it's called an 'atelier' these days.
After Nurse, Bolton and Mandelson, Sepp Blatter will give a talk on "Transparency in World Football Bodies", and Rajendra Pachauri will give a talk on 'Transparency in UN organisations"'
After dumbing down the science, I hardly see the problem with dumbing down the public face of the Royle socy...sosh...Klub.
Will try to be there and will report back.
Some morons are as big as an Ox?
I can understand why they would have a public lecture on "openness." They need to spin their FOIA problem. But why would they call it a Townhall Meeting? Doesn't that challenge the audience to prove that the meeting is actually open to critical questions when everyone knows that it is not?
@Rick Bradford
A typo?
Should read 'Septic Blatherer'
;-)
Convene a 'Committee of Wise Persons' and/or a 'Confederacy of Dunces'.
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