Protect the reputation of science and the UCS

Protect the reputation of science and the UCS

Above all else, the Union of Concerned Scientists promotes reasoned debate about important scientific issues and evidence, and the promotion of views founded in science and reasoned debate among the wider community.

The UCS group, one of care2’s ‘featured groups’ does the exact opposite. In doing so, it is harming the reputation of the UCS and science in general. It is controlled by a small clique of friends. The first response these people take to a disagreement is to hurl a constant stream of abuse at the person they disagree with. This has been known to go on for weeks. If this person does not cease expressing their views, the hosts ban discussion of the topic, even if it is relevant to the UCS. The hosts demand that the topic be taken elsewhere, but forbid links being posted to groups where the topics can be discussed. These rules are made up and enforced arbitrarily. If questioned about this, the host responds by openly lying about her actions, then by launching a personal attack and using threats and intimidation to prevent the person from responding to the personal criticism. Then they ban the person, and delete all the posts where the person was abused and allow people to continue saying whatever they want about the person in order to justify the ban. The group promotes the idea that scientific views should be promoted as dogma – no attempts to explain or justify, just personally attack anyone you disagree with. 

The host has openly joked about letting her friends bash people she doesn’t like. Her stated policy is to let her friends respond abusively to posts she doesn’t like, so that she can use it as an excuse to delete the post. In doing so she encourages abusive responses. Such behaviour brings shame upon the Union of Concerned Scientists and damages the reputation of science among care2 members.

I ask the care2 admin to either remove the group from the ‘featured groups’ list or remove any reference to the Union of Concerned Scientists from the group banner and home page. Specifically, the following statement is very misleading:

“This is a group for people who support the ideas, principles and goals of Union of Concerned Scientists.”

“We augment rigorous scientific analysis with innovative thinking”

The following statement is also misleading, as by encouraging personal attacks the actions of the hosts undermine rather than enforce the code of conduct:

“moderation of posts or action taken by the hosts is to maintain the Care2 Connect Code of Conduct”

http://www.care2.com/c2c/groups/disc.html?gpp=6387&pst=363834&archival=