I don't doubt for a second that there is a human connection to the Bush administration. Only humans could screw things up as badly as dumbya and his band of boobs has done.
I would point out that simply "connecting doubting scientists to industry-funded research," if in fact that can be done, is nothing more than the ad hominem fallacy.
Simply connecting anything to any other thing would likely be fallacious, but in major areas of science and policy contention, it pays to follow the money.
The corporate and governmental corruption of science is deep and pervasive; pharmaceutical companies fund studies that are suppressed or selectively released and send prescribing MDs on junkets; tobacco companies bought scientists by the bale; scientists submit papers without divulging financial stakes in the research. Science is a major nexus of power and wealth, so of course corruption and self-interested bias occur within it, just like politics and relgion.
Moreover, it's also possible that they receive industry funding because they have come to conclusions that the industries like, but they come to the conclusions before they received any funding.
Yes, the money can find the researcher before the researcher finds the money.
On the government side, the Bush administration attempts to suppress gov't. funded science which undermines their policies while protesting that not enough "good science" has been done, attempting to gag NASA scientists and substituting political calculation for objective evaluation of everything from medications to anti-AIDS strategies.
They have squandered billions on their market-ideology obsessions, privatizing security and disaster relief with little to show for it; their market method of trading mercury polluting credits--mercury polluting credits!--would allow increased mercury emissions in some of the already most contaminated areas.
They're not just dumb. They're wrong.
When one sees a dwindling number of scientists supporting a position against which evidence is mounting high, it is not a fallacy to wonder who is paying for these persistently skeptical voices. I would lend more weight to research into, say, the biological effects of fumes from refining Product X if the grant didn't come from Product X, Inc. or its manufacturers organization--or from Senator Zippy who earmarked the funds because Product X, Inc., donated to his PAC.
It would be a fallacy to assume that any of the skeptics are stooges and hacks, but to suspect it is not.
However, it is apparent that many scientists on both sides of the issue act a great deal like people more motivated by ideology than by science.
I don't see it that way, of course
True, there is passion on all sides.
But I think many people believe our governments are failing to act on a real global threat due to head-in-the-sand ignorance, good old-fashioned greed, and an ideology of exploitation.
That belief, and a passionate involvement in trying to face that threat, might seem ideological to some, but it smells rational to me.
Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.
Edited by Omnivorous, : changed for which to against which: confused the antecedent!