It appears that a U.S. Gov’t scientist has been fired for putting information about Caribou usage of the ANWR up on the web:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2001/3/17/202127/270
Does the site (and cites) seem legit to you?
If so, talk about slippery slopes…
Any opinions?
Why are you asking us? Try e-mailing the guys former boos at Jay_Hestbeck@usgs.gov, and ask him!
Erm, 'cus I thought that some of you might be interested in reading the story and I know that all of you have an opinion and I thought some of you might be willing to share it.
In the immortal words of Bartles and James (and that really dates me, I know): thanks for your support.
I note from the article linked to in the OP that the terminated scientist, Ian Thomas, was:[LIST=A][li]A contractor, not a regular employee,[/li][li]Terminated with no reasons given for his termination at all, one way or the other, and[/li][li]Had all of his work removed from the USGS website, not just his one hot-button-topic page.[/LIST][/li]From this, we can’t really conclude anything. The USGS may have had some old long-standing decision to get out of the wildlife-tracking business, and simply didn’t get around to it until this month.
First off, contractors exist to be fired. I know, I’ve been one many times. When an economic downturn shows up, contractors fall like moths. Easily 80% of the contractors at my workplace have been terminated in the last two months, and it’s probably more like 99%; I know for sure that there aren’t any left in my entire division, and the cubicle farm outside my office has one person in the entire fifteen-cubicle array.
Second off, maybe the guy admitted that he’d falsified his data and results, just as Farley Mowat did in an interview a few years ago. A pity, as Mowat was one of my formative influences. Now, I view everything he and his ilk say with extreme skepticism – “Wooly mammoths extinct, you say? Nonsense, I’m sure I saw two of them blocking the road last week up near Mt. Baker. You bunny huggers will lie about anything to further your agenda.”
Sigh…