Fake Science

Austin Ruse
Fake Science (2017)

Fake Science, com o subtítulo Exposing the Left's skewed statistics, fuzzy facts, and dodgy data, é um livro que demonstra como a ciência se tem colocado ao serviço de causas, através de processos como a manipulação estatística ou a ocultação de dados, quando não a apresentação de números absolutamente errados. Em consequência, qualquer tentativa de verificar ou contradizer estes novos dogmas é imediatamente descredibilizada e anatemizada em termos políticos ou invocando pretensos valores humanistas. Esta "ciência" falsa, que apresenta consensos em vez de procurar a verdade, constrói uma narrativa ao serviço da ideologia e, desta forma, corrói as bases da verdadeira ciência, por um descrédito generalizado.
Focando-se na realidade norte-americana, cada um dos capítulos desmonta os argumentos "científicos" que estão na base do enviesamento progressista sobre temas como a manipulação das sondagens, o transgénero, a homossexualidade, o aborto, a revolução sexual, a parentalidade gay, o divórcio, a agro-indústria, a indústria caritativa, o "fracking", o aquecimento global (entretanto reformulado como "alterações climáticas"), a sobrepopulação, o cientificismo, e desmascara a falta de rigor e os erros científicos de numerosos "estudos" que estão na base da argumentação teórica, alguns dos quais realizados há várias décadas e completamente ultrapassados.

Transgenderism is just one area where science has been brought into the service of ideology. It always works the same way: Dozens of dubious “scientific” studies are fed into the public, academic, media, and political debates. The studies’ methodology is highly questionable, and then even wilder claims are extrapolated from them. The authors of any studies that challenge the propaganda are attacked by the Left. Their jobs are threatened and sometimes—as in the case of Kenneth Zucker in Canada—lost. The same script, as we shall see throughout this book, plays out in all the issues related to human sexuality, marriage, and family—but also in other issues: the environment, energy, and practically every controversial area of political discourse.
On all these issues of real importance to the health, safety, and happiness of the human race, we have a choice: swallow the unscientific ideology masked in the garb of fake “science,” or put up a fight.
[...]
In any case, Regnerus reported startling results about same-sex parenting. While there is not a great deal of difference between children raised by lesbians and gays and those raised in single-parent, divorced, and stepparented families, he found significant differences when he compared them to children raised in homes with their own biological mothers and fathers.
Children raised by lesbians were almost four times more likely to be on public assistance and 3.5 times more likely to be unemployed. Children raised by lesbians had a higher propensity for criminal behavior, and the average criminality of children raised by gay men was even higher.
Children raised by gays were three times more likely to have been touched sexually by a parent or other adults—and those raised by lesbians were eleven times more likely to have experienced this kind of sexual abuse. Children raised by gay men reported being forced into sex against their will at three times the rate of children raised by their biological parents, and children raised by lesbians were four times as likely to have been forced into sex.
Children raised by gays were three times more likely to have a sexually transmitted disease; children raised by lesbians were 2.5 times more likely. Children raised by lesbians reported the lowest level of safety in the home, followed by children raised by gays.
The news was so bad for gay parenting that the only thing to do was to attack the messenger, and that is just what the gay-positive academic world proceeded to do. They pushed for the University of Texas to fire Regnerus, but the university declined to do so. They demanded the revocation of the paper, also to no avail. They pulled out all the stops to sully Regnerus’s reputation, which sadly they achieved. On the Left, in the pro-gay media, and to many in the academy, he is now “the discredited Mark Regnerus.”
And yet his work is the best actual science we have on the question of gay parenting. What’s more, Regnerus’s results have been replicated by Paul Sullins.
[...]
What about the dozens of other alarmist claims made by Al Gore and “climate scientists”? How are those polar bears doing? Well, fine, just fine. In fact, pretty much all the claims made by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth were false when he made them, and they have certainly not been borne out since, though the same claims keep getting made.
As I write this, the Huffington Post reports that Greenland’s ice shelf is even in worse shape than we thought. As Christopher Monckton explains, “Greenland... is one of the alarmists’ favorite poster-children for climate panic. Headlines talking of unprecedented warming and sudden collapse of the vast Greenland ice sheet are commonplace. Yet the burial-ground in the principal medieval Viking settlement, at Hvalsey in south-western Greenland, is under permafrost to this day. It was certainly not under permafrost when the Vikings buried their dead there during the Middle Ages.”
One of the enduring images from Al Gore’s movie is the image of polar bears clinging desperately to what appear to be the last ice floes they can find. Once they’re gone, those poor bears are dead. The image is deeply dishonest. One of the most dishonest images in a deeply dishonest movie. But highly effective. Google “polar bear decline,” and you get hundreds of thousands of hits. It’s widely believed that the polar bears are in decline, and they are all going to die. In fact, the global polar bear population stood at twenty to twentyfive thousand in 2013—unchanged from 2001. This according to the Polar Bear Specialist Group. In fact, go practically anywhere in the world where polar bears live and they are doing just fine. 

The Naked Sun

Isaac Asimov
The Naked Sun (1957)

O êxito de The Caves Of Steel, o livro de Asimov que melhor tinha vendido até à data, levou ao aparecimento de uma sequela, que começou a ser escrita nos finais de 1955 e foi serializada na Astounding cerca de um ano depois. Apesar de manter os protagonistas, Elijah Baley e R. Daneel Olivaw, The Naked Sun é como um reflexo inverso daquele livro: se esse era passado numa Terra sobrepovoada e com poucos robôs, a acção decorre agora em Solaria, um dos Mundos Exteriores, escassamente povoado mas enxameado de robôs. Devido à sua eficácia na resolução do caso descrito em The Caves Of Steel, os Spacers de Aurora solicitam a intervenção de Baley na investigação de um estranho assassínio ocorrido em Solaria. E é assim que Baley, com a sua fobia aos espaços abertos e naturais – como todos os Terrestres daquela época – desembarca num mundo onde os humanos tendem a viver isolados em imensas propriedades, rodeados por robôs, e com verdadeira aversão ao contacto directo com outras pessoas, o que torna ainda mais misteriosas as circunstâncias do crime, nesta história de tons policiais.

Leebig’s mouth widened slowly. Baley took it for a snarl at first and then, with considerable surprise, decided that it was the most unsuccessful attempt at a smile that he had ever seen.
Leebig said, “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because anything, however small, that encourages distrust of robots is harmful. Distrusting robots is a human disease!”
It was as though he were lecturing a small child. It was as though he were saying something gently that he wanted to yell. It was as though he were trying to persuade when what he really wanted was to enforce on penalty of death.
Leebig said, “Do you know the history of robotics?”
“A little.”
“On Earth, you should. Yes. Do you know robots started with a Frankenstein complex against them? They were suspect. Men distrusted and feared robots. Robotics was almost an undercover science as a result. The Three Laws were first built into robots in an effort to overcome distrust and even so, Earth would never allow a robotic society to develop. One of the reasons the first pioneers left Earth to colonize the rest of the Galaxy was so that they might establish societies in which robots would be allowed to free men of poverty and toil. Even then, there remained a latent suspicion not far below, ready to pop up at any excuse.”
“Have you yourself had to counter distrust of robots?” asked Baley.
“Many times,” said Leebig grimly.
“Is that why you and other roboticists are willing to distort the facts just a little in order to avoid suspicion as much as possible?”
“There is no distortion!”
“For instance, aren’t the Three Laws misquoted?”
“No!”
“I can demonstrate that they are, and unless you convince me otherwise, I will demonstrate it to the whole Galaxy, if I can.”
“You’re mad. Whatever argument you may think you have is fallacious, I assure you.”
“Shall we discuss it?”
“If it does not take too long.”

Li anteriormente:
The Caves of Steel (1954)
I, Robot (1950)
As Correntes do Espaço (1952)

The Caves of Steel

Isaac Asimov
The Caves of Steel (1954)

O tema do robô na FC é muito antigo, mas, antes de Isaac Asimov, poucas vezes havia sido tratado de uma forma benevolente; os robôs eram normalmente criações malévolas que ameaçavam destruir a humanidade. Uma das influências assumida por Asimov é Eando Binder, que publicou em 1939 um conto intitulado I, Robot. Por imposição do editor, na Gnome Press, a antologia de contos de Asimov, que deveria chamar-se Mind and Iron, recebeu o mesmo título.
No início desse mesmo ano, 1950, Asimov tinha publicado a primeira novela, Pebble in the Sky e, naturalmente, o escritor dedicou-se a outros temas. Foi por sugestão de Horace Gold, editor da Galaxy — uma nova revista na qual Asimov começara a publicar o seu trabalho —, que voltou ao tema do robô. O resultado foi The Caves of Steel (traduzido como As Cavernas de Aço em Portugal e Caça aos Robôs no Brasil), inicialmente serializado na Galaxy, nos finais de 1953, e publicado pela Doubleday, em 1954, como o 11.º livro do autor.
The Caves of Steel é passado numa Nova Iorque, milhares de anos no futuro, onde os robôs, amplamente utilizados nos Mundos Exteriores, são vistos com desconfiança pelos habitantes terrestres (como já sabíamos pela leitura de I, Robot, pois este livro insere-se no mesmo contexto "histórico"), que vivem em enormes cidades fechadas — as tais "cavernas de aço". Há um sentimento crescente de ânsia no regresso a uma vida mais natural, através de um movimento antitecnológico, designado "Medievalista", que os Spacers (os habitantes dos Mundos Exteriores) querem canalizar para um novo desejo de colonização espacial, por acreditarem que a estagnação vivida naquele tempo conduzirá a uma decadência generalizada. A partir do assassínio de um dos Spacers, desenvolve-se uma história de contornos policiais, um caso a ser desvendado por Baley, um agente de investigação terrestre, acompanhado de R. Daneel, um robô "spacer" tão sofisticado que passa facilmente por um humano...

“Look,” said Baley, “since we’re talking to one another so freely, let me ask a question in simple words. Why have you Spacers come to Earth anyway? Why don’t you leave us alone?”
Dr. Fastolfe said, with obvious surprise, “Are you satisfied with life on Earth?”
“We get along.”
“Yes, but for how long will that continue? Your population goes up continuously; the available calories meet the needs only as a result of greater and greater effort. Earth is in a blind alley, man.”
“We get along,” repeated Baley stubbornly.
“Barely. A City like New York must spend every ounce of effort getting water in and waste out. The nuclear power plants are kept going by uranium supplies that are constantly more difficult to obtain even from the other planets of the system, and the supply needed goes up steadily. The life of the City depends every moment on the arrival of wood pulp for the yeast vats and minerals for the hydroponic plants. Air must be circulated unceasingly. The balance is a very delicate one in a hundred directions, and growing more delicate each year. What would happen to New York if the tremendous flow of input and outgo were to be interrupted for even a single hour?”
“It never has been.”
“Which is no security for the future. In primitive times, individual population centers were virtually self-supporting, living on the produce of neighboring farms. Nothing but immediate disaster, a flood or a pestilence or crop failure, could harm them. As the centers grew and technology improved, localized disasters could be overcome by drawing on help from distant centers, but at the cost of making ever larger areas interdependent. In Medieval times, the open cities, even the largest, could subsist on food stores and on emergency supplies of all sorts for a week at least. When New York first became a City, it could have lived on itself for a day. Now it cannot do so for an hour. A disaster that would have been uncomfortable ten thousand years ago, merely serious a thousand years ago, and acute a hundred years ago would now be surely fatal.”
Baley moved restlessly in his chair. “I’ve heard all this before. The Medievalists want an end to Cities. They want us to get back to the soil and to natural agriculture. Well, they’re mad; we can’t. There are too many of us and you can’t go backward in history, only forward. Of course, if emigration to the Outer Worlds were not restricted—”
“You know why it must be restricted.”
“Then what is there to do? You’re tapping a dead power line.”
“What about emigration to new worlds? There are a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy. It is estimated that there are a hundred million planets that are inhabitable or can be made inhabitable.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Why?” asked Dr. Fastolfe, with vehemence. “Why is the suggestion ridiculous? Earthmen have colonized planets in the past. Over thirty of the fifty Outer Worlds, including my native Aurora, were directly colonized by Earthmen. Is colonization no longer possible?”
“Well . . . .”
“No answer? Let me suggest that if it is no longer possible, it is because of the development of City culture on Earth. Before the Cities, human life on Earth wasn’t so specialized that they couldn’t break loose and start all over on a raw world. They did it thirty times. But now, Earthmen are all so coddled, so enwombed in their imprisoning caves of steel, that they are caught forever. You, Mr. Baley, won’t even believe that a City dweller is capable of crossing country to get to Spacetown. Crossing space to get to a new world must represent impossibility squared to you. Civism is ruining Earth, sir.”

Li anteriormente:
I, Robot (1950)
As Correntes do Espaço (1952)
Poeira de Estrelas (1951)

I, Robot

Isaac Asimov
I, Robot (1950)

Do que já li de Isaac Asimov, ficou-me na memória sobretudo a trilogia inicial, clássica, de Fundação. A trilogia inicial de Robots, publicada na mesma época, também considerada entre as suas melhores obras, será seguramente merecedora de atenção.
Este livro integra nove contos publicados entre 1940 e 1950, por ordem cronológica, quase todos, à excepção do primeiro, publicados na Astounding Science Fiction. Mas, pela engenhosa adição da Introdução, e de alguns excertos de texto intercalados em alguns contos, sob a forma de uma entrevista à Dra. Susan Calvin, robopsicóloga, personagem que é uma das principais responsáveis pelo desenvolvimento dos cérebros positrónicos, bem como a repetição de outras personagens ao longo dos vários textos, Asimov consegue dar uma inesperada unidade à obra. O próprio alinhamento dos contos é, ao mesmo tempo, uma cronologia da evolução dos robôs, pois cada modelo apresentado é, de forma geral, mais poderoso e sofisticado que o do conto precedente, num quadro temporal que vai desde 1998 a 2052. O tema de todos os trechos é a interacção dos humanos com as mentes artificiais dos robôs, com os inesperados dilemas, paradoxos e problemas daí decorrentes.
O excerto escolhido pertence a Runaround, o segundo conto.
 
He had unscrewed the chest plate of the nearest as he spoke, inserted the two-inch sphere that contained the tiny spark of atomic energy that was a robot’s life. There was difficulty in fitting it, but he managed, and then screwed the plate back on again in laborious fashion. The radio controls of more modern models had not been heard of ten years earlier. And then to the other five.
Donovan said uneasily, “They haven’t moved.”
“No orders to do so,” replied Powell, succinctly. He went back to the first in the line and struck him on the chest. “You! Do you hear me?”
The monster’s head bent slowly and the eyes fixed themselves on Powell. Then, in a harsh, squawking voice — like that of a medieval phonograph, he grated, “Yes, Master!”
Powell grinned humorlessly at Donovan. “Did you get that? Those were the days of the first talking robots when it looked as if the use of robots on Earth would be banned. The makers were fighting that and they built good, healthy slave complexes into the damned machines.”
“It didn’t help them,” muttered Donovan.
“No, it didn’t, but they sure tried.” He turned once more to the robot. “Get up!”
The robot towered upward slowly and Donovan’s head craned and his puckered lips whistled.
Powell said: “Can you go out upon the surface? In the light?”
There was consideration while the robot’s slow brain worked. Then, “Yes, Master.”

Li anteriormente:
As Correntes do Espaço (1952)
Poeira de Estrelas (1951)
827 Era Galáctica (1950)