07092011

CSIRO government funded and government policy directed??

CSIRO research, independent of government or not?

This is a really big question and an important one to answer, is it determines the validity of the research and publications by the CSIRO that are consumed by the general public and media at large. If the CSIRO is operated without undue government policy 'directing' then that research can be considered as balanced and fair in coverage. If on the other hand, the CSIRO has been constrained in its remit to fit in with current government policy, then the research, by its nature, is unbalanced and has in effect turned into a weapon of political spin - something that is a rather pale imitation of 'free minded' research.

First off, a rather interesting video from Dr Art Raiche, a retired CSIRO Chief Research Scientist.

 


So based on what Art has said it seems certainly likely that the policy of the current government has got into deciding what research gets done at CSIRO via a formalized management layer. This is not good for their independent point of view.

Next a video by Dr David Evans, who worked as a climate modeler at the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change).



Now rather than focus on his thoughts on climate change, think about what he says with respect to the interference of government in the research that is undertaken and how that disrupts the ability of that research to come to a balanced and well considered position on any given subject. Does it sound somewhat familiar to what Art said, especially with the rough date around which things started to go down hill, i.e. the 1980's??

Conclusion

Its seems that there is something going on here, namely government policy looks to be interfering with deciding what research gets perused and then published and presented. This means the research done by the CSIRO is likely to be politically skewed, as the research that should have been done to create a balanced perspective is missing - this is bad for decision making and bad for research in general; as everything done in this 'research environment' is essentially unsound and will have to be reworked over before proper science can proceed. This is of course assuming that we get a political change that is enlightened enough to undo the damage done, which is in no way guaranteed given the changes that have happened so far..

What can you do? I suggest you contact your MP and share this post as far and wide as possible.